De 900 $ à 4,5 M $, valeur nette de 34 $ | Investissement immobilier

Brandon Turner: Ceci est le spectacle 336 du podcast BiggerPockets. Il s'agit du spectacle 337 du podcast BiggerPockets. Il s'agit du spectacle 338 du podcast BiggerPockets. Il s'agit du spectacle 339 du podcast BiggerPockets.

Brandon Turner: Ceci est le spectacle 336 du podcast BiggerPockets. Il s'agit du spectacle 337 du podcast BiggerPockets. Il s'agit du spectacle 338 du podcast BiggerPockets. Il s'agit du spectacle 339 du podcast BiggerPockets.

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Qu'est-ce qui se passe, tout le monde? Voici Brandon, l'hôte du podcast BiggerPockets, accompagné de mon co-animateur, M. David Greene. Quoi de neuf copain?

David Greene: Pas grand chose, Brand. Je porte un de mes t-shirts que je viens d’acheter quand je traînais dehors.

Brandon Turner: Je vois ça.

David Greene:… à Hawaii en train de diriger le… Aloha, mon pote.

Brandon Turner: Aloha. Fantaisie, trucs de fantaisie. En parlant d’Aloha, aujourd’hui, nous faisons notre émission ici à Hawaii, en quelque sorte. Vous en apprendrez un peu plus sur le programme d’aujourd’hui. En gros, notre invité vit en studio avec nous. Il vient dans quelques minutes, un de mes copains du nom de Robert. Ce sera un spectacle génial. Je pense que vous allez l'aimer.

Brandon Turner: Mais David est toujours en Californie. Quoi de neuf en Californie, David?

David Greene: Oh, c’est magnifique ici. La saison d’achat de maisons est de plus en plus rapide, ce qui est amusant car nous avons aujourd’hui un invité qui est à la fois un agent immobilier et un très bon agent. Il ya une tonne d’informations sur ce qu’il faut rechercher chez un agent, sur la façon de le faire trouver, sur ce qu’il faut éviter, en plus de conseils étonnants sur la façon de créer de la richesse par le biais de l’immobilier, ce que cet homme a fait de très bon travail.

Brandon Turner: Voilà. Ouais. C'est vraiment cool. Donc, je suis pompé. Je pense que vous allez aimer cet épisode. En fait, aujourd’hui, dans la série, je sais qu’il semblerait qu’il arrive dans quelques secondes, mais en réalité, nous avons déjà enregistré cette chose. Mais nous parlons de toutes choses… Il explique comment il a mis en place des accords sans ou avec un faible niveau d’argent en utilisant une méthode appelée garantie mutuelle. Nous allons à travers cette profondeur, comment ça se fait. Il parle de la façon dont il a obtenu cette offre incroyable. Vous allez être époustouflé par cet accord, qui va vous expliquer à quel point cet accord était bon, mais à quel point cet accord était-il mauvais quand il l'a acheté pour la première fois.

Brandon Turner: En outre, voyons, son voyage dans les Caraïbes, il a passé trois mois à naviguer dans les Caraïbes ou dans les Caraïbes, selon la façon dont vous dites cela. Vraiment, histoire vraiment cool là-bas. Et puis, pourquoi ne pas vouloir devenir agent immobilier? Il est en fait un agent immobilier, mais il explique pourquoi vous pouvez et pourquoi vous ne pouvez pas. Je pense que ce ne sont que de bons points qu’il soulève aujourd’hui. Alors, accrochez-vous pour cela.

Brandon Turner: Avant d’y arriver, passons au conseil rapide d’aujourd’hui. D'accord, Dave. Tu veux le prendre?

David Greene: Oui. Conseil rapide d’aujourd’hui. Nous discutons avec Robert de l'importance de trouver votre pourquoi. Regardez, voici la réalité. Pendant longtemps, investir dans l’immobilier était une activité de niche dans laquelle peu de personnes pouvaient se lancer, car elles possédaient les connaissances que vous n’aviez pas. Eh bien, Internet a changé cela et BiggerPockets en particulier a encore plus changé cela. Désormais, il n’ya aucune excuse à la raison pour laquelle vous n’investissez pas dans l’immobilier ou n’accroissez votre patrimoine, car l’information est disponible et les connaissances disponibles. Ce qui retient la plupart des gens, c'est la bravoure.

David Greene: Maintenant, vous pouvez essayer de faire preuve de courage simplement en voulant le faire, mais cela ne fonctionnera pas pour la plupart des gens. Ce qui fonctionne pour les gens, c'est d'avoir un très grand pourquoi. Pas la lettre Y mais le mot W-H-Y. Qu'est-ce qui compte pour toi? Qu'est-ce qui te motive? Quels sont vos objectifs? Qu'est-ce qui vous propulse? Qu'est-ce qui vous motive? Ce sont tous des mots qui décrivent ce qui va vous pousser à surmonter vos peurs, vos excuses ou vos préoccupations.

David Greene: Donc, si vous vous trouvez ne pas prendre les mesures que vous savez, nous vous le disons, ne vous en faites pas. Asseyez-vous, faites une longue promenade dans les bois, à la manière de Cal Newport. Quoi que vous ayez à faire, et demandez-vous: «Pourquoi est-ce que je suis? Qu'est-ce qui me motive? Qu'est-ce qui me motive et vaut-il la peine de surmonter les excuses pour m'empêcher de prendre des mesures?

Brandon Turner: Oh, c’est profond. Bien joué. Bien joué.

Brandon Turner: Eh bien, avant d’entrer dans le spectacle profond d’aujourd’hui, écoutons ce que le sponsor du spectacle d'aujourd'hui nous dira.

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Un grand merci à notre sponsor pour toujours. Maintenant, je veux juste sauter dans le spectacle. C’est un spectacle fantastique, alors allons-y droit au but. Sans plus tarder, laissez-nous vous présenter Robert Jones. D'accord.

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Bienvenue sur le podcast BiggerPockets, Robert. Comment vas-tu?

Robert Jones: Je vais très bien. Et vous?

Brandon Turner: Je vais bien. C'est bizarre. Je ne pense pas avoir jamais fait de podcast directement en face de quelqu'un. Très étrange.

Robert Jones: Je me sens honoré.

Brandon Turner: Ouais. Bien. David est ici. Donc, pour ceux qui ne le savent pas, David est en réalité en Californie. Robert, notre invité d’aujourd’hui, et moi-même, nous sommes à Maui, assis face à face, nous nous crions dessus pendant que nous parlons.

David Greene: Oui. On dirait que vous êtes speed dating. C’est un peu effrayant.

Brandon Turner: Nous le sommes à peu près.

Robert Jones: C’est un bon choix, je peux vous le dire.

Brandon Turner: C'est ça. Il est. J'aime les longues promenades sur la plage et l'immobilier. Et vous?

Robert Jones: J'aime les grandes barbes touffues et je ne peux pas mentir.

Brandon Turner: D'accord.

Robert Jones: J'aime les grandes barbes. D'accord.

Brandon Turner: Voilà. Alors, Robert et moi nous connaissons, car je suis de bons amis avec sa sœur et son beau-frère. En fait, ils sont deux de mes personnes préférées dans le monde entier. Total des minimalistes numériques, ce qui est amusant parce que Cal Newport était activé. Ils sont comme des minimalistes numériques parfaits. Je les admire beaucoup.

Brandon Turner: Mais de toute façon, pendant des années, Catherine, votre soeur, a dit: «Tu dois parler à Robert. Vous devez apprendre à le connaître. Vous êtes la même personne. »Nous sommes donc à peu près la même personne, mais ma barbe est plus longue.

Robert Jones: Vous avez une barbe beaucoup plus impressionnante.

Brandon Turner: Merci. Je ne sais pas si c’est impressionnant ou sale, mais un des deux. D'accord. Nous allons donc parler de votre histoire aujourd’hui parce que, honnêtement, je ne sais pas trop ce qu’elle est si ce n’est que je sache que vous avez des activités immobilières et que vous êtes un peu comme moi, apparemment. Et David est ici devant la caméra, génial.

Brandon Turner: Alors, avec ça, comment allez-vous dans l’immobilier?

Robert Jones: Ouais. J'ai donc commencé en 2008, ce qui est un choix fortuit.

Brandon Turner: Oui. Très bon timing.

Robert Jones: Heureusement que nous n’avions pas commencé en 2005 et que j’étais dans le secteur de l’automobile au cours de ma carrière précédente, dans le secteur des services, nous avons atteint un plafond de verre très perceptible après plusieurs promotions.

Brandon Turner: Le secteur automobile, c'est comme vendre des voitures?

Robert Jones: Non. Du côté du service. Donc, si votre voiture était en panne, vous êtes entré et vous m'avez parlé dans le but de gérer et de posséder un concessionnaire à un moment donné.

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Oh c'est vrai. C’est là que vous avez rencontré votre femme.

Robert Jones: Ouais. J'ai rencontré ma femme chez le concessionnaire. Elle est arrivée avec une voiture en panne et le reste appartient à l'histoire, comme je l'ai dit.

Brandon Turner: Voilà. "Je ne peux pas réparer votre voiture mais je peux aussi votre coeur."

Robert Jones: Ouais. Parfois comme ça.

Robert Jones: Alors oui. Je frappe un vrai plafond visible. En grandissant, je vendais et achetais toujours des choses. Commencé avec les vélos, puis les remorques, puis les motos hors route, puis les voitures, puis les camions. Mon père m'a à peu près dit: «Hé, regarde quelque chose avec une plus grande marge bénéficiaire."

Brandon Turner: Cela a du sens.

Robert Jones: Vous êtes doué pour vendre des choses. Vous êtes doué pour faire des affaires. Vous devriez entrer dans l'immobilier.

Robert Jones: Et vraiment, juste pour le faire taire, je suis allé déjeuner avec la légende de l'immobilier, Larry Kendall, le fondateur du groupe Real Estate. Il est connu à l’échelle nationale pour sa formation en vente de biens immobiliers et tout cela, comme je l’ai dit, juste pour que mon père se taise. Si vous passez du temps avec cette personne, à la fin du déjeuner, je me suis dit: «Hé, je devrais vendre des biens immobiliers pour gagner ma vie."

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Alors tu es devenu agent en premier?

Robert Jones: Correct. Ouais. Je ne savais rien du tout sur l'investissement. Je ne savais même pas que c’était un chemin que je pouvais emprunter, alors j’ai décidé de commencer par la vente. Puis, rapidement après cela a été présenté et les yeux se sont ouverts un peu.

Brandon Turner: C’est cool. C'est super. D'accord. Au fait, étant donné que David est maladroitement aujourd’hui sur la caméra ou sur l’écran de son ordinateur, si vous voulez dire quelque chose, David, criez sur moi ou sautez à l’intérieur, sinon je continuerai de poser des questions.

David Greene: Bien sûr.

Brandon Turner: Décrivez-moi ce que je suis devenu agent immobilier à maintenant, j’ai acheté une propriété, votre première transaction.

Robert Jones: Ouais. Alors, bien, toute première maison achetée quand nous sommes de très jeunes parents. Il a dit: "Hé, les gens intelligents achèteront une maison." Alors, j'ai acheté ma première maison quand j'avais 20 ans avant de me lancer dans l'immobilier. C'était le temps où littéralement vous aviez le pouls, vous pouviez obtenir un prêt. En regardant l’accord, c’était plutôt illégal au regard des normes actuelles.

Robert Jones: Donc, je possédais une maison lorsque je me suis lancé dans l'immobilier. Après trois ou six mois d'activité, Kevin a commencé une tournée d'investissement avec l'un de nos partenaires. Il a organisé une tournée pour enseigner aux autres agents comment investir. C’est à ce moment-là que l’ampoule est allée vraiment. Lire Rich Dad Poor Dad et penser: «Hey. Je peux acheter des maisons. Quelqu'un d'autre va payer pour eux. "

Robert Jones: Il n’a pas cliqué. Vous pouvez m'appeler en plaisantant en apprenant lentement, mais j'ai demandé plusieurs fois au gars: «Attends. Laisse-moi bien comprendre. Je peux acheter cette maison. Quelqu'un d'autre va payer pour ça, et je vais garder la maison? »Il a dit:« Ouais. »J'étais comme:« Ok. »Reformulez la question d'une manière différente. Je me suis dit: «Laisse-moi réessayer. Je peux acheter une maison sans trop dépenser d’argent, quelqu'un d’autre va la payer et je pourrai la garder? »La troisième fois que j’ai reformulé la question, il m'a dit:« Ok. Écoute, mon pote. C'est comme ça que ça marche.

Robert Jones: C’est tout ce que j’avais besoin de savoir. Je ne dirais pas que je suis un gars difficile, mais le concept de base à ce moment-là, je suis rentré chez moi, a dit à Sarah: "Hé, nous devons sortir et acheter autant de maisons que nous pouvons."

Brandon Turner: C’est génial. Où était tout cela?

Robert Jones: Je suis donc à Fort Collins, au Colorado. Nous sommes donc à environ une heure au nord de Denver.

Brandon Turner: Nice. (diaphonie 00:08:44).

Robert Jones: Ainsi, ceux qui connaissent bien le marché savent que notre prix est légèrement différent de… Eh bien, sur une échelle de 1 à 10, un David Greene un 10, Detroit est comme un. Nous sommes probablement comme un dur six, dur sept.

Brandon Turner: Ouais. Qu'est-ce que c'est (diaphonie 00:08:57)?

Robert Jones: C’est un sept. Prix ​​moyen comme-

David Greene: C’est plus cool que nous ayons commencé à parler de speed dating.

Robert Jones: Ouais. Et maintenant, nous vous évaluons par des nombres.

Robert Jones: Ouais. Notre prix moyen par famille unique est d’environ 425 en ce moment.

Brandon Turner: Ouah! Ce qui est fou pour le Midwest. Ce n'est pas le Colorado, mais le genre de… Quand je pensais à l'origine, avant de connaître les prix à Denver, je pensais que Denver, Oklahoma City et Kansas City étaient identiques, mais Denver est tellement différent que plus de preuves pourquoi il est si important de connaître votre marché et de ne pas simplement compter sur des choses générales, mais pourquoi est-ce que Denver et la région métropolitaine environnante, pourquoi est-ce si fou (inaudible 00:09:36)? Parce que je ne sais pas.

Robert Jones: C’est quelque chose dont nous avons un peu parlé. La qualité de la vie et l’opportunité de vivre là-bas, ce qui est familier pour l’auditeur, fhfa.gov est un site Web sur lequel vous pouvez consulter, depuis 1991, les prix, l’appréciation trimestrielle, l’appréciation annuelle, l’appréciation quinquennale. . Le nord du Colorado est une machine imparable. Nous avons constaté une augmentation de 363% depuis 1991, ce qui nous place au deuxième rang des marchés de DC, ce qui nous place sur le marché le plus fort du pays.

Brandon Turner: Ouah!

Robert Jones: Donc, je pense que c’est une combinaison de qualité de vie et de désirabilité. Maintenant, nous ne voyons pas les hauts et les bas que voient certains marchés, nous ne voyons donc pas la météorite augmenter en une seule année, mais pour des performances soutenues, je veux dire, je sens que nous vivons dans le Saint Graal depuis immobilier.

Brandon Turner: Ouais. D'accord. Alors, parcourez-nous le tout premier immeuble de placement qui… Qu'est-ce que c'était?

Robert Jones: Ouais. Nous venons donc de moyens assez modestes, comme beaucoup de vos auditeurs et des personnes que vous avez interviewées. Ma femme a récemment consulté notre compte courant. Lorsque nous avons commencé dans l'immobilier en 2008, nous avions 900 $ dans notre compte courant. En tant qu'agent immobilier de première année arrivant en 2009, nous ne pouvions pas utiliser mes revenus. Donc, ma femme à l'époque travaillait à la banque et gagnait 23 000 dollars par an, à peu près.

Brandon Turner: Balling.

Robert Jones: Oh non. Nous étions juste hors de contrôle. On frappait les piments du Chili une fois par trimestre, on partageait un repas, on buvait de l’eau. Nous avons donc parlé de personnes qui n'arrêtent pas d'entendre: «Non». Nous n'aimons pas la réponse non. Nous avons donc parlé à un prêteur. J'ai parlé à un autre prêteur, non. Parlé à un autre prêteur, non. Nous avons trouvé quelqu'un qui, oui, aurait obtenu le prêt uniquement avec le revenu de Sarah, ce qui était très difficile à Fort Collins à la recherche d'une maison de moins de 150 000 dollars.

Robert Jones: Nous avons donc trouvé à l'époque la maison unifamiliale la plus abordable de la ville. Il a été inscrit à 149 900 $. Le plus drôle de cette préqualification est que le prêteur m’a appelé trois semaines plus tard pour lui dire: «Hé, vous devez payer la carte de crédit de Sarah. Elle ne qualifie pas les ratios. »Je me suis dit:« Ok. »J'ai dit:« Combien coûte-t-il? »« 186 $. »Je me suis dit:« Ok. Cool. ”Le paiement minimum est 186?” Il a dit: “Non. C’est la balance. Les paiements minimums sont de 7 $ par mois. »Nous étions à ce niveau avec nos ratios de qualification.

Brandon Turner: Vous étiez si près de ne pas vous qualifier. Ca c'est drôle.

Robert Jones: Nous avons donc acheté la maison. Déplacé dans elle. Donc, pour nous, vous ne savez pas ce que vous ne savez pas. Je ne connaissais donc rien de l’argent dur, des prêts de portefeuille ou de ces moyens plus créatifs d’obtenir de l’immobilier. Je savais juste que si je déménageais dans la maison, je pourrais faire un prêt en possession du propriétaire, je n’aurais pas besoin d’un acompte important, et nous pourrions le remodeler pendant que nous vivions là-bas.

Robert Jones: Nous avons donc contracté un emprunt auprès de la FHA, qui à l'époque était en baisse de 3% et non de trois ans et demi. Je suis un agent immobilier agréé. Nous avons donc pu utiliser ma commission de 3%, nous avons donc obtenu la maison gratuitement. Nous avons donc emménagé dans la maison et loué ma dernière maison. Cet argent de la maison a rapporté 30 $ par mois.

Brandon Turner: Whoa!

Robert Jones: Ce qui m'a attiré. Dans ma tête, je me suis dit: «Quelqu'un d'autre, hé, ils m'achètent une maison. Fantastique. »Ensuite, tout en vivant dans la nouvelle maison, nous avons procédé à un remodelage complet du sol au plafond tout en y vivant sur une superficie de 900 pieds carrés, notamment en remplaçant la plomberie de la maison. Nous n’avons donc pas eu de plomberie pendant environ deux semaines pleines. Douche à la gym, pissé dans un seau. Ces attributs de construction du caractère. Donc, c'était très amusant.

Brandon Turner: Je suis sûr que votre femme a adoré ce moment-là.

Robert Jones: Ouais. C'était super.

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Donc, vous avez fait ce que beaucoup de gens font. Je veux parler de cela une seconde parce que je pense que c’est l’un des meilleurs moyens, deux choses que vous avez faites. Deux des meilleures stratégies pour se lancer dans l'immobilier. Premièrement, la FHA déménage dans une maison, achète une maison, trois, trois et demi pour cent de moins, surtout… Maintenant, cela ne veut pas dire que ce sera une bonne affaire, non?

Robert Jones: D'accord.

Brandon Turner: Mais ce que vous avez fait, c'est que vous avez acheté un fixateur, ce qui devait être un remodelage total. Vous avez fait le travail vous-même?

Robert Jones: Oui.

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Donc, vous avez utilisé l'équité de sueur. Vous y êtes entré, mais la deuxième chose que vous avez faite est que vous avez transformé cette première propriété en une location. C’est probablement la façon la plus courante d’entendre les gens dans l’immobilier: «Ouais, je viens de transformer ma maison en un immeuble locatif».

Brandon Turner: Alors, conseillez-vous aux autres personnes d’aujourd’hui, lorsque vous parlez à des personnes, à vos clients ou à qui que ce soit, «Ouais, transformez votre ancienne propriété en location», je veux dire, car vous, en tant qu'agent, a… Vous préférez les faire vendre parce que vous êtes un agent. Vous obtenez de l'argent.

Robert Jones: Non, absolument. Il est. Ainsi, l'investissement immobilier est une grande partie de mon activité pour la construction de millionnaires, la construction d'investisseurs. Si la propriété a du sens, comme le font la plupart d’entre eux, en particulier les plus jeunes de mes clients, ils vivent dans des maisons qui auraient du bon sens en tant que logement locatif. C'est donc mon premier conseil. Et même en regardant les stratégies fiscales. Vous avez encore trois ans pour prendre une décision qui ne tient pas compte de vos règles principales en matière de gains en capital.

Robert Jones: Alors oui. Je conseille aux personnes de conserver leur maison existante si elles en ont la capacité. Les lois relatives à la qualification et au revenu, même pour les nouveaux propriétaires, ont été assouplies au cours des deux dernières années, ce qui facilite la transition du fait de la possibilité de bénéficier des deux hypothèques.

Brandon Turner: Ouais. Logique.

Robert Jones: Donc, il ya plus de clémence ici aussi, par rapport à il ya quelques années.

Brandon Turner: Et si les gens se demandent ce que cela signifie pour les gains en capital, je vais expliquer cela très rapidement. Corrigez-moi si je me trompe ici. En gros, le gouvernement dit: «Hé, si vous vivez dans une propriété deux des cinq dernières années, vous n’avez pas à payer de gains en capital lorsque vous vendez. Encore une fois, nous ne sommes pas des CPA mais l’essentiel est que vous ne payez pas de gains de plafond si vous vivez à la maison deux des cinq dernières années.

Robert Jones: Correct.

Brandon Turner: Cela ne signifie pas les deux années précédentes. Cela signifie seulement deux des cinq derniers.

Robert Jones: Correct.

Brandon Turner: J'ai donc fait la même chose. Récemment, j'ai vécu dans une maison pendant plusieurs années, je l'ai vendue. J'ai fait, je pense que c'était 85 000 $ de profit. Eh bien, je ne devrais pas dire… Je l’ai vendue, mais il y avait deux ans entre le moment où j’avais cessé de vivre là-bas et celle où elle était vendue et gagnait 85 000 $. On me dit toujours que c'est deux ans parce que j'y ai habité deux des cinq derniers. Ce n’était tout simplement pas l’immédiat deux récents.

Robert Jones: Correct.

Brandon Turner: Alors oui. C’est pourquoi vous avez quelques années de retard.

Brandon Turner: Beaucoup de gens me posent cette question. «Devrais-je louer ma maison ou devrais-je la vendre?» J'aime dire: «Ouais. Vous devriez simplement le louer parce que cela vous rentre dans l’immobilier », mais si vous allez le louer et perdre 100 000 taxes parce que peut-être vous auriez alors dû le vendre et le jeter-

Robert Jones: D'accord.

Brandon Turner:… ou autre chose. Alors, que dites-vous habituellement aux gens quand ils disent: «Devrais-je le louer ou le vendre?

Robert Jones: Ouais. 95% de la réponse est de le garder en location. S'ils ont le courage et le type de personnalité, cela fonctionnera bien. Encore une fois, c’est une maison qui a du sens, et sur notre marché, la plupart des maisons loueront votre hypothèque surtout si vous l’avez contractée il ya quelques années et même si elle est maigre, si vous ne devez qu’une, deux, trois propriétés , vous pouvez accepter des contrats un peu plus serrés, par exemple, en posséder 10, 20 ou 30. Donc, je pense que vous pourriez être un peu plus tolérant au risque au début pour des contrats qui pourraient être un peu plus serrés.

Brandon Turner: C'est logique.

Brandon Turner: David, tu veux faire quelque chose?

David Greene: J'ai quelques questions à poser, si cela vous convient.

Brandon Turner: Bien sûr.

Robert Jones: Bien sûr.

David Greene: D'accord. L’une des choses que vous avez dites est donc que vous vouliez acheter autant de maisons que vous le pouviez une fois que vous vous êtes rendu compte de ce que l’on qualifiait en quelque sorte de piratage de maisons.

Robert Jones: Oui.

David Greene: Nous pouvons obtenir un faible acompte et louer une partie de la maison. Vous aussi, je veux m'assurer de couvrir la stratégie. Vous avez parlé d’être un agent et d’utiliser votre commission comme acompte, car peu de gens parlent de cela, mais c’est une stratégie incroyablement bonne, en particulier pour les agents.

David Greene: Mais je voulais vous demander comment vous évitiez le surendettement ou les personnes qui veulent poser la question suivante: «Eh bien, si vous achetez une maison chaque année pour le restant de vos jours, que se passera-t-il aussi? beaucoup d'entre eux? Qu'allez-vous faire si le marché tourne? »Des choses comme ça.

Robert Jones: Bien sûr. Donc, je peux dire que, au fil des ans, notre tolérance au risque personnellement et quand je dis notre ou nous, c’est ma femme Sarah et moi qui possédons toutes les propriétés. Nous n’avons pas de partenaires en dehors de notre mariage. Ouais. Bien joué. Ainsi, dans l'immobilier ou autrement, notre tolérance au risque a considérablement changé.

Robert Jones: Donc, quand nous avons commencé, comme je l'ai dit, nous avions 900 $ dans notre compte courant. J’ai fait des recherches sur les implications pour la forclusion ou la faillite et pour savoir si vous saisissiez une ou plusieurs maisons, c’est la même peine. Donc, au tout début, nous avons pris un risque assez important. Nous étions assez endettés. Je dirais que pour les cinq premières propriétés, nous étions encombrés à 95%. Nous avons donc pris un risque assez important au début.

Robert Jones: Au fur et à mesure que nous avançions, comme l'a mentionné Brendon, grâce à la sueur des actions, au temps passé sur le marché, à l'appréciation et à l'amélioration des propriétés, notre position en actions a commencé à croître de manière significative. Une fois que nous avons commencé à avoir une valeur nette sur notre revenu, tout a commencé à augmenter. Ma tolérance au risque a changé en faisant ces choses, mais encore une fois, en achetant au début, en concluant votre transaction lorsque vous l'achetez. Nous ne faisions rien de vraiment créatif parce que je ne savais pas ce que je ne savais pas à ce moment-là.

Robert Jones: Nous achetions donc des propriétés hors de la MLS, des trucs pour lesquels d’autres personnes ne voyaient pas la valeur, mais nous essayions, le jour de la fermeture, nous voulions avoir des capitaux propres. Ensuite, créez assez rapidement l’équité nécessaire lors des rénovations et du nettoyage de l’endroit.

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Ouais. Ça a du sens. Alors, pouvez-vous nous expliquer le reste, je veux dire, pas le reste de votre voyage peut-être, mais les quelques années à venir?

Robert Jones: Bien sûr.

Brandon Turner: Vous avez dit que vous achetiez une propriété. Alors, à quoi ça ressemblait? Quel type de propriété achetiez-vous? Étaient-ils tous dans le Colorado? Comment les financez-vous? Comment les trouvez-vous? Juste un peu nous guider à travers les prochaines années.

Robert Jones: Ouais. Nous avons donc acheté le premier. Ça fonctionnait. Comme je l'ai dit, nous disposions d'environ 30 dollars par mois de flux de trésorerie. Comme, «Hey, c'est gentil. Nous avons maintenant un peu plus d’argent. »Mais, encore une fois, je n’étais pas au courant pour BiggerPockets. Je n’étais pas au courant de ces ressources, alors ma mathématique perceptuelle de ce qui était possible dans l’immobilier était encore assez limitée.

Robert Jones: Il est donc devenu très au courant des prêts classiques et de ce qui était disponible sur ce marché. Alors, au départ, nous avons décidé «Hé, nous pouvons déménager une fois par an», ce que je ne donne pas de conseils en rapport avec les lois sur les prêts en vigueur chez le propriétaire et tout le reste. Demandez votre propre conseil à ce sujet, mais nous avons été informés que si nous vivions dans une propriété pendant une année complète, le terrain était sûr. Nous avions l'intention et nous avons fait. Nous vivions absolument dans les propriétés, nous faisions tout dans les règles.

Robert Jones: Donc, notre objectif initial était une fois par an, 12 mois et un jour, nous cherchons la maison suivante. Nous allons y entrer. En 2009, nous avons donc acheté notre premier bien locatif, le numéro deux. Un an plus tard, nous avons commencé à chercher. Nous approfondirons celle-ci un peu plus tard, mais nous avons eu un endroit unique où nous avons conclu un accord de financement avec le propriétaire. C'était ma première expérience là-bas. Donc, deux mois plus tard, nous sommes passés à celui-là. Nous avons acheté un triplex et nous y sommes restés quelques mois pour le remodeler. Encore une fois, je ne connaissais pas les règles. Nous ne savions pas ce que nous ne savions pas. Ensuite, l'ampoule. Quelqu'un m'a dit: «Hé, mec. Vous n'êtes pas obligé de rester ici. Ce n’est pas un prêt contracté au titre de la convention. "Donc, littéralement, deux ou trois mois plus tard, nous avons trouvé une autre bonne affaire comme:" Hé, nous n’avons pas… "

Brandon Turner: Oh, c’est cool.

Robert Jones: Il n'y avait aucune règle nous disant que nous devions rester pour un prêt occupé par le propriétaire. Nous avons donc acheté une autre maison unifamiliale, y avons vécu 12 mois et un jour et commencé à en chercher une autre. Je suis sorti et j'ai acheté une autre maison. Ensuite, nous avons essayé d’occuper un triplex pour notre cinquième propriété. C’est en 2011, lorsque les directives ont été modifiées et qu’elles ont ajouté un pouvoir discrétionnaire aux souscripteurs en attente.

Brandon Turner: Intéressant. Qu'est-ce que cela signifie?

Robert Jones: À toutes les directives conventionnelles. Ils ont juste ajouté ce nuage. Donc, même si vous vous teniez dans la boîte, il était écrit: «En attente du pouvoir discrétionnaire des souscripteurs».

Robert Jones: Donc, si cela leur semblait bizarre, nous avons été refusés pour la première fois après un certain temps parce que nous étions bien dans la boîte. Comme je le disais, nous avions un prêteur très compétent qui savait comment s'y retrouver. Nous avons été refusés, mais c’était une affaire de tueur pour laquelle nous étions sous contrat. Nous ne voulions pas perdre l’accord. Nous devions faire appel à un prêt aux investisseurs, nous avions donc besoin de 90 000 $ en trois jours, car le vendeur avait une offre plus élevée. Il voulait sortir de la transaction, donc il n’a pas ajusté les dates pour nous ni ne nous a fait aucune faveur.

Robert Jones: C’était donc notre première… Je dirais que nous avions conclu notre contrat d’argent dur, mais nous avons commencé à envisager des solutions plus créatives et un financement créatif, ce qui nous a permis d’obtenir, à mon avis, un premier prêt privé. Je vais lancer un gros mot ici. Nous avons noué des garanties croisées avec un portefeuille antérieur du portefeuille car, pour un immeuble de placement, vous ne pouvez pas faire de premier et de second but, mais vous pouvez simultanément faire en même temps un second contre un bien précédent. Ensuite, montrez que vous disposez de fonds pour l'achat en cours et l'acquisition en cours.

Brandon Turner: D'accord. Répondez-nous à travers cela parce que c’est vraiment, vraiment très bon et très profond. Donc, je veux m'assurer que les gens comprennent cette stratégie.

Robert Jones: Ouais.

Brandon Turner: L'ensemble des garanties croisées.

Robert Jones: Après quelques années, nous avons créé d'autres propriétés grâce à nos propres efforts et grâce à l'appréciation du marché, nous avons commencé à avoir des capitaux propres. Nous devions donc en proposer 90 000. Ce n’était pas avec des moyens conventionnels. J'ai tendu la main à… Et ceci, laissez-moi revenir ici. La conversation sur l'argent dur que je connais est une foutaise, vous savez?

Brandon Turner: Ouais.

Robert Jones: C’est effrayant, non?

Brandon Turner: Ouais.

Robert Jones: Les gens ne veulent pas aller demander. Ils ne veulent pas demander de l'argent à leurs amis. Ils ne veulent pas demander de l’argent à leur famille, mais c’était notre première occasion de creuser. Les appels téléphoniques étaient effrayants au début. Je dirais que les trois premiers étaient. Ensuite, ils se sont sentis vraiment bien parce que les personnes avec lesquelles j'ai commencé à appeler, toutes les personnes à qui je pensais, avaient toute ma base de données. Encore une fois, je ne savais pas qu’il y avait des gens en ligne qui faisaient cela pour une entreprise ou il y avait des endroits où trouver de l’argent, alors j’ai appelé tout le monde que je savais que je pensais avoir de l’argent. Ce que j’ai vécu à travers cela, c’est que les personnes qui, à mon avis, avaient de l’argent qui n’avait pas cet argent se sentaient vraiment bien. Ils étaient fiers de pouvoir compter sur l'argent. "Oh, Robert pense que je suis un grand gars", non?

Brandon Turner: Ouais.

Robert Jones: Alors, certains gars ont eu l'argent. Certains n’étaient pas intéressés mais, encore une fois, reconnaissants de l’appel, vraiment très gentils à ce sujet. En un jour et demi, trois personnes étaient prêtes à me prêter 90 000 $ en deuxième position par rapport à des propriétés antérieures de notre portefeuille. Alors, on leur a dit. Ce serait une note formelle. Ce sera une note enregistrée contre cette propriété. Cela ne dépasserait pas le seuil fixé pour le confort de l'effet de levier total sur la propriété. Ainsi, l’investisseur avec lequel nous avons fini par travailler avait un seuil d’effet de levier combiné de 80%. Nous n’avions donc pas assez d’équité dans une propriété. Donc, nous le mettons contre deux propriétés-

Brandon Turner: gentil!

Robert Jones:… sur celui-là. Nous en avons divisé 40 000, 40 000 là-bas, nous avons enregistré les notes ou 45, de sorte que nous avions nos 90 000. Nous avons acheté ce triplex et, une autre révélation pour nous, nous avions l’intention de nous y installer. Nous avons commencé à emballer des boîtes. Ensuite, j'en ai eu un autre. Je suis un élève lent. Nous avons continué à avoir ces moments aha. J'ai pensé: «Eh bien, merde. Nous n’avons pas besoin de passer à cela. Ce n’est pas un prêt occupé par le propriétaire. »Donc, littéralement, nous emballons des cartons pour emménager dans la maison et nous nous sommes rendu compte que nous n’avions pas besoin de nous installer dans le triplex.

Brandon Turner: Et quelque chose (diaphonie 00:23:53).

Robert Jones: Il s'agit d'un prêt d'investissement légitime. Deux semaines plus tard, nous avons trouvé une maison unifamiliale de quatre chambres à coucher. Celui-ci avait plus de sens pour le souscripteur car il s’agissait d’une maison unifamiliale. Il y avait un plus grand nombre de chambres. Il y avait une cour plus grande pour notre chien. Nous pourrions l'expliquer dans une lettre au souscripteur. Donc, je pense que deux mois plus tard, nous sommes allés acheter une autre maison unifamiliale. Ensuite, nous avons acheté un autre quadruplex, pourchassant notre queue avec une seconde privée contre de l’immobilier antérieur. Voyons voir. Ouais. Nous avons acheté un autre quadruplex, puis un peu plus tard.

Robert Jones: Nous entrions maintenant dans le voyage où nous avons effectué deux ou trois occupations supplémentaires par le propriétaire. Alors que nos revenus augmentaient, nous avons commencé à nous installer dans des maisons un peu plus agréables. Celles-ci étaient faciles à expliquer et notre ceinture d'outils, nous avions plus d'outils pour des solutions de financement créatives grâce auxquelles nous avons commencé à acheter davantage d'immeubles de placement intentionnels. Malgré tout cela, nous avons quand même effectué neuf déménagements en huit ans, ce qui me déplaçait beaucoup, ce qui me plaît. Ce n’était pas ça… Les gens pensent: «Oh, mon Dieu. C’est terrible. »C’était amusant.

Brandon Turner: Ouais. Et si cela vous amène là où vous en êtes, pourquoi ne pas le faire?

Robert Jones: Exactement. Ma femme et moi plaisantons toujours. Les gens nous rencontrent et ils sont: «Oh, mon Dieu. Votre femme est un saint pour elle qui supporte toutes ces ordures. »C’est comme:« Eh bien, notre mode de vie n’est plus nul, maintenant. »Les choses ont donc changé.

Brandon Turner: Et je vous laisserai, David, vous en parler une seconde aussi, mais pourriez-vous nous dire où est-ce que vivre dans le bateau pendant trois mois est entré dans l’histoire? I’m just curious of where that was at and you can explain what that was.

Robert Jones: Sure. Ouais. So, we … Gosh, what was this? Almost five years into my sales business. Things were getting a little intense as far as hours worked, stress level, buying the rentals and all that. And we had set, my wife and I liked to travel a lot. We want to travel a whole lot more than we do. And we started looking at properties to buy out of country. We looked at Mexico and all their laws down there. We considered Belize, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic. We started looking at, as a foreigner, buying property down there and started digging into that. Almost every resource we dug into, there’s even one book my brother-in-law read that said, “If you’re not okay losing 100% of your money, close the book and don’t even finish reading it.” And from a risk-tolerant standpoint, I’m like, “Holy crap. I’m not okay with that.”

Robert Jones: So, the risk-tolerant standpoint was part of it. I thought, “Well, man. If we buy a property out of the country, we’re going to get really sick of going there pretty quick.” But my wife and I, we like moving around quite a bit and we like exploring different areas. We didn’t want to have just one place. Then, online, I found some family that was living on a boat that, when YouTube was just starting to gain traction, I thought, “Wow! Man, that’s pretty cool.”

Robert Jones: So, we set a goal like, “Hey, it’d be pretty awesome to live on a boat someday.” Before we really cemented that goal, we thought we should take it for a test drive. So, in 2012, like I said, five years into the business, we were at, I think, five or six properties at that point. We decided take a little sabbatical which started out, “Hey, we’re going to take a week off,” which that’s going to be vacation. It won’t feel like a life. It won’t be real. “Yeah. Let’s do two weeks.”

Robert Jones: Then, we talked to the guy we’re talking to. “How about a month?” We ended up leaving for three months. We flew into Trinidad just off Venezuela and sailed all the way through the Caribbean, BVIs, US VIs, Spanish, Culebra, all that and ended in San Juan. It doesn’t suck. As far as a test drive for our travel goal, with our family because we have children now. It cemented in our minds this is our goal that we want to achieve.

Brandon Turner: So, how did you do that? How do you take three months off because you told me earlier, you just turn your cell phone off. How do you do that and own rental property and own a real estate business, because there’s a lot of people listening right now going, “Oh, man. I would love to live in a boat,” or, “I would love to go travel Europe for a few months,” or, “I would love to just go and sit on the beach for a few months,” or whatever. People want that sabbatical, that break but they could not even imagine, “What are they do when the tenant calls and has a broken pipe.” What do you do? So, how’d you survive that?

Robert Jones: Yeah. So, three months, it was short enough we could still ask for favors. It was prior to where we have a lot of professional help. On the real estate side of things with my business, that was challenging. Not challenging to manage but challenging from a momentum perspective. David, you’re an agent. You know, if you’re not beating the street and hustling and keeping up those contacts, the momentum, it was an expensive trip from that capacity. For the rentals, my mother Stacy was a saint. She was our go-to.

Brandon Turner: That’s cool.

Robert Jones: Our voicemails, both mine and Sarah’s said, “Don’t even leave a message. We’re not going to call you back.” Now, we did communicate via email but our financial prudence pulls as far as frugality and just making sure things are handled appropriately. I can credit a lot of that to my parents. My mom helped us when we were gone for that first trip.

Robert Jones: Now, if you ask her, she will say she would never, ever do it again. It was not her favorite three months of the year but again, we only owned six properties at that point, five or six properties amounting to probably 10 doors. So, it was before it got a little more time-intensive at least but it happened. It was easy. Any big problems, we got an email. Any emergency, whether you’re handling or someone else, if there’s a fire or flood, it has to be handled.

Robert Jones: So, whether I take the call or mom takes the call or a property manager takes the call, it has to be handled. Other issues that came up, anybody can call a plumber, anybody can call a handyman. Now, did we pay a few more bucks for some of those things? Maybe and I didn’t fix them personally but the reward of the trip far outweighed any of those challenges.

David Greene: That’s so cool. D'accord. So, in order to be doing all this traveling which is this goal we all have is we want real estate to fund our life, not our life to be all about real estate. You have to put systems into place. A lot of people struggle with this because they’re playing at kind of a small scale but once you get into some bigger numbers, more properties, more projects, systems become vitally important. Can you share some of the steps you took to systemize things so that you could be traveling and it didn’t all fall apart?

Robert Jones: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel we’re definitely still on this journey. It’s something we’re still getting more skilled at but we do have a professional property manager now that manages most of our units. Even through that transition, training the manager on what our expectations are, what our budgetary limits are for certain problems that arise, where I don’t want the phone call.

Robert Jones: So, we are still in process of working on that but helping facilitate that, where, hey, if it’s A, B, or C, handle it this way. Shoot me an email just so I see it but you don’t need to call me. We can authorize these events. So, on the management side, that helps significantly. On the real estate side of things, it’s a function of two things. One, places where we do have communication. I don’t mind taking the random phone call. Being in this business, if it allows us to travel more, I manage a lot of my business remotely if we are traveling for a week, 10 days. If it’s something that needs boots on the ground, we’re at the group, our company in Fort Collins, the collaboration between partners is almost unheard of in a real estate world. It’s unique that we’re all broker-owners so having the sense of camaraderie and people willing to help out. I’ve got partners that’ll just step in. They’ll bust out a showing for me and be the boots on the ground, if an offer needs to be written I’m unavailable, they’ll write the offer for me.

Robert Jones: But again, remotely, if we have internet and cell phone, I manage a lot of that. I want you to know it stresses some people out. They want to be on vacation but it gives us the ability to do more and travel more, that works for the shorter vacations.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s an interesting point. I mean, obviously you don’t want to take a vacation, have to work the whole time, right?

Robert Jones: Right.

Brandon Turner: The company’s goal but then some people just won’t take a vacation because they can’t dedicate 100% of their time to vacationing. I mean, I don’t think I’ve taken a vacation in four years that I didn’t do a BiggerPockets webinar during the middle of it, every single week because it’s such a valuable thing both in terms of helping people and something I like doing and it helps BiggerPockets grow as well.

Brandon Turner: So, I do it every week no matter where in the world I am. It’s okay. If I said, “No, I’m not going to do a vacation unless I could do 100% focus,” well, then, I’m just not doing a vacation, most like.

Brandon Turner: I’m working more and more towards the trying to unplug completely like you did on the boat trip occasionally. That’s why David Greene here is going to take over doing some webinars. Jake, the new guy at BiggerPockets, is going to be doing some webinars. So, we’re working there. But anyway, I just encourage people who are listening to the show right now, don’t get stuck in that, “I can’t take a trip because I’d have to maybe do a little bit of work.”

David Greene: The reason that I can take over webinars and Jake can take over webinars is because you systemize what you do. You broke it into chunks. You said, “Here’s how it works. Here’s a formula.” Now, we can practice within that formula and so we’re good.” Then, you’re like, okay. We’ve got it down. You can go do your thing. So, systems create freedom, right?

Brandon Turner: Right. Ouais.

David Greene: Because you hear discipline creates freedom where we’ve all heard Jocko say that. Well, discipline creates systems and systems create freedom. Now, you’re in the position where you can travel the world and enjoy real estate or you can create this thing that now you bring opportunity for me to get in because you’re leveraging me and it’s a good chance for me.

David Greene: So, that’s just why I’m a big fan of systems in general is they open up doors for many people where only one person stood at one point.

Robert Jones: Yeah. And just the efficiency of having a team. I don’t know the team in the conventional sense of these large realtor teams where showing assistants, buying assistants, all that. I don’t have that but I do have a full-time assistant with our company. I’ve got an entire escrow department, a marketing team and all these other functions. I mean, the week we’re recording, I have two closings on Friday where we’re going to make $21,000 while sitting in Hawaii.

Brandon Turner: It’s not too bad. Ouais.

Robert Jones: Again, it doesn’t suck. It’s great. So, having my team members and they way they’re trained, we can facilitate this. It’s fantastic. I couldn’t imagine a better career. I mean, we love it.

Brandon Turner: On that note, let me ask that question, then. I mean, I’m assuming I know the answer but let me go a little deeper. Do you think new investors who are getting started, they have a job. Should they become a real estate agent? I know the answer’s probably yeah, they should consider it, but then I’ll even go deeper. What kind of person should consider doing it and what person should not consider becoming an agent?

Robert Jones: Sure. So, if it’s becoming a realtor solely to save the 3%, my answer’s a hard no. If you’re not full-time in it, you’re going to lose more than 3% on something you missed. You just don’t have the depth of knowledge and your finger on the pulse of the market. I’d even argue the agents are selling five, six homes a year. You’re not doing enough business to keep your finger on the pulse of the market. If they want a career change and they want to do it as a career or a full-time investor where they’re really actively analyzing those markets on a regular basis. I think it’s a very rewarding career and I think it’s fantastic but if it’s, “Oh, I’m going to get my license on top of my nine-to-five, just because I don’t want to pay that guy 3%, I guarantee you’ll lose more money. For that sake, those investors are looking for a realtor. It shouldn’t be the guy that has a good smile and you like. It should be someone that’s eats, sleeping, and breathing what you do.

Brandon Turner: Amen.

Robert Jones: The David Greenes of the world that are investors and know investments and do a really high volume of business in that market to have your finger on the pulse because a lot of these markets, especially right now we’re on the cusp on, we’ll say, some changes at least, it’s important to have the right guy in your corner or gal but someone that gets it.

Brandon Turner: So, I’m wondering, like David, I’m going to turn to you and ask you the same question. Anything you want to add to that, anything that you feel differently or the same, like who should become an agent, who shouldn’t, of our listeners?

David Greene: That’s a really good question. You should become an agent if you want to learn the business of selling real estate and earn money from selling real estate. If all you want to be is an investor and passive income is all you care about, getting your license will not help you. It might even hurt you in some ways because now you have to disclose to people that you’re buying the house from extra things because they may be taking your advice on the fact you’re a licensed professional, saying, “Well, I’ll buy your house for 100K.”

David Greene: If it’s worth 300K, you don’t want to get sued because they come back and said, “Well, when he said he’d buy it for 100, I assumed that’s what it was worth because he’s an agent and he’s representing me.”

David Greene: But if you love real estate, you might like selling it more than your current job. If you ask me, there is a huge, huge, huge gap in the number of agents that know what hell they’re doing. I mean, I don’t know a nicer way to say it. I became an agent because I was so frustrated with knowing more about real estate-

Robert Jones: That’s a pretty nice way to say it.

David Greene: Yeah. We see this all the time. They’re just not good at their job and they don’t care to be good at their job. You hit it on the head when you said, “They’re just a friendly guy with a nice smile,” and nice cologne or a girl with a pretty headshot doesn’t mean they’d understand money or finances or what goes into a deal or how to protect your wealth or how to represent your interest. I routinely destroy agents on the other side negotiating because they don’t even know what’s in the contract. I meant half asleep and I’m beating them just because I know a few things that they never bothered to learn because instead, they’re out there working on their Facebook and making smiley videos, right?

Robert Jones: Right. Ouais.

David Greene: If you love real estate, there’s a need for agent who love real estate. That’s kind of why I’m growing my team is because I’ve all these people that come to me and they say, “Hey, David. J'adore l'immobilier. I want to sell houses and I want to learn it.” I’m like, “Great. We have clients who needs someone who understands how to save them money.” That’s what our job is. We’re like a lawyer in court trying to get them out of trouble or trying to help their case or get them money, not just a smiley person.

David Greene: So that is the person who should become an agent. You love real estate. You’re passionate about it. You want to take what you’ve learned for your own self and you want to ply it to your clients. If you do that, man, the top is really nice. 80% of the business goes from the top 20% of the agents. You can make really good money. If it’s just a thing you’re ho-hum about, stay far away from it because 80% of the agents have to split 20% of the business. That bottom 80%, they don’t do hardly anything and it’s really hard.

David Greene: So, thank you, Brendon, for asking that because I think a lot of people think, “Well, I want to get my license to save money on commissions when I have to sell a house.” You’re assuming that you know how to sell a house, that you’ll actually do it better than someone who’s good at it and that you’re not taking effect all the fees you’re going to be paying to hold that license for the entire time. You got to pay your broker and all the other stuff. So that’s a really good point.

Robert Jones: A real estate agent, all they do is push a button they just put on the MLS. That’s all you have to do as an agent.

David Greene: Oh, yeah. And open a couple of doors and write up a contract. That’s all it is.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Peu importe. C'est facile. Ouais.

Robert Jones: It’s the Office Depot Easy Button. You just click it.

David Greene: Yeah. You just click the one button. C'est facile.

Robert Jones: Chip and Joanna Gaines rock so I want to sell real estate.

David Greene: Exactly.

Robert Jones: Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. The granite and stainless makes me feel warm and fuzzy. While there is a desire for that from some clients that they want someone just to hold their hands, the finding someone that has a passion to drill down and have an education for what we’re doing, like I said, That is 20% worth less of the market. I mean, I know-

Brandon Turner: I just had a conversation with a client who didn’t want to pay a million dollars for a house that was listed at a million because she felt like it didn’t have the finishes that a million dollar house should have. When I broke it down by asking questions, it turned out it didn’t have granite countertops, it didn’t have stainless steel appliances, what you just said. The houses that did were 1.2, 1.2 million, and I was able to-

Robert Jones: Appliances and counters, yeah.

Brandon Turner: … explain. Yeah, we’re talking about $5,000 for counters and maybe another six or seven for cabinets and appliances. This is $12,000. You’d rather go spend 200,000 and pay it back over the next 30 years with interest. Her eyes just opened up like, “Oh, my god. I never thought of it that way.”

Robert Jones: Hey. Calling three people and scheduling one contractor. That’s hard.

Brandon Turner: That is. Ouais.

Robert Jones: That’s at least three or four phone calls.

Brandon Turner: So, yeah. That type of thing is where people just don’t understand the value that an agent can bring if they’re good but there’s so many bad agents out there. We’ve created this problem for ourselves.

Robert Jones: Yeah. Sure.

David Greene: So, Robert walk us through where you at today, then. What’s your portfolio look like in size-wise? You can go in as much or as little as you want about what kind of cash flow do you see today, where you see yourself headed in terms of your portfolio?

Robert Jones: Yeah. So, we at the immediate moment, we’ve got 16 properties, 26 doors which in our market, our price point. I mean, we’re just shy of $8 million market value.

Brandon Turner: Wow!

Robert Jones: And about four and a half million in equity now, which, you guys talked a few months ago about I definitely will … Yeah, we got lucky in the timing of the market. That didn’t hurt. We’re not all real estate gods by any means. The market helped. Granted, a lot of sweat equity and all that stuff.

Robert Jones: Our cash flow, I still question whether we made the right decision. We refied about seven of them onto 15-year notes in efforts to try to achieve some of these goals to retire or long sabbatical, quite young. So, our cash flow, we’re about just over $10,000 a month right now net.

Brandon Turner: Awesome.

Robert Jones: Depending on our maintenance month, about 10,000 a month, which that we don’t use any of the real estate money personally at all. It’s a completely separate machine.

Brandon Turner: Yup. What do you do with it? Just recycle it into more properties?

Robert Jones: Yeah. I jokingly say depending on my financial mid-life crisis, we go from debt paydown to we’re done buying properties and then we go buy a few more and then we’re done buying properties. In the last five months, we bought three more. So, here we are-

Brandon Turner: I did the same thing.

Robert Jones: … and now we’re at 26 doors which, like I said, most of that’s professionally managed, so it’s running pretty smooth. It’s good.

Brandon Turner: Let me ask you this, then. I mean, one thing cool about an expensive market is that you were able to … I mean not expensive and, again, not New York, San Francisco necessarily but the higher tier. You were at this level. Then, it, as the market goes up …

Brandon Turner: I mean, okay. Here’s a way of explaining it. If you would have bought only $35,000 properties and the market went up 50%, you’ve just gained $15,000 on each of those properties, but you have a $200,000 property and it goes up 50%, you’ve now gained $100,000 in equity.

Brandon Turner: Now, the same thing works the opposite way. If the market drops, you can be severely under. I want to talk a little bit about the expensive market thing. How do you invest in an expensive market? Are you still finding deals today and what do you got to be careful of when you’re in that market?

Robert Jones: Sure. The numbers are definitely skinnier and significantly compared to some of the guys I hear in your podcast. “Oh, yeah. I paid 80,000 for a place and it rents for 1,200 a month.” I think, “Holy crap!” They’re talking about 1.5% lever on rents or one and a half times, which you don’t see.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. You don’t think (inaudible 00:42:32)?

Robert Jones: But like you said, the leverage and I never sell on appreciation. We want the numbers to make sense without appreciation in the spreadsheet. That’s what I tell all my clients. If it doesn’t make sense without this icing on the cake, we probably shouldn’t buy it, but having that icing on the cake, the icing’s really thick. I mean, we bought a lot of properties when Sarah and I were considering in our more risk-tolerant days. I told her, I said, “I just want more expensive real estate.”

Robert Jones: To a degree, when I felt like I saw the writing on the wall, we didn’t have a crystal ball but I felt like the market was going up and it was going to be marching up for a while. That was my strong belief. I just started buying more expensive properties, just so we had a more expensive real estate appreciating.

Robert Jones: So, there’s a few plays we made on 1031 exchanges where tax-deferred exchange into another rental property where the cash flow didn’t change at all but for an easy example sake, we went from a $200,000 house that rented for 1,500 a month to a $400,000 house that rented for $3,000 a month. It was the same cash flow but gross rents, I was increasing our portfolio and increasing our gross rents because, for us, it’s a long-term hold for sure. We’re never going to sell any of these without replacing them in some form ever is our goal right now.

Robert Jones: So, I figured, if we can increase our gross rents, regardless of cash flow at the time because we don’t need the money. We use my real estate business, my agent business to pay our bills so we don’t need the money. So, I wanted to increase dollars of real estate as well as our gross rents, which right now, they’re 39,000-ish, 39,000 and change a month, the gross rents, which once a property’s free and clear,-

Brandon Turner: Yeah. That’s awesome.

Robert Jones: … I think we probably can figure it out.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. And that’s interesting thing, too, about these higher-end properties is and I don’t know if you’ve found this but I definitely found it. There’s some irony in here as well. The more expensive a property is, the easier that property typically is for me to manage. My most irritating tenants are the ones that are in my $30,000 houses. My best tenants are the ones that are in my $1.7 million houses, like property, and like Ryan.

Brandon Turner: So, for whatever reason, I just get higher quality people who have less drama in their life. Now, they may be able to demand a little bit more and they want a little bit nicer stuff and that’s fine because then, the property stays nice. So, I would personally, this is again where I’m at in my … Earlier on, I want a cash flow above everything because I needed to get out of my job. That was number one so I bought the worst properties. Didn’t matter what they were as long as they cash flowed well.

Brandon Turner: Today, I would rather get significantly less cash flow but buy in a market where I can spend way more, like have a way more expensive property and have a way more chance for appreciation.

Brandon Turner: Again, I don’t think any of us is saying, “Buy a bad deal, loses money,” like that loses money every month. I don’t want to lose money every month, no matter what. But I would almost take a break-even property in Maui over a property that made $500 a month in Grace Harbor, Washington where I was at before because that one property, it’s not going to be worth anything later on but I’d rather, if I get truly net actually breakeven on a property here, means after maintenance, repairs, property management, all that, that I at least know the mortgage is getting paid down. The mortgage is a million dollar mortgage getting paid down significant chunks every single month and appreciation, even at 3% of a million dollar house or a half a million dollar house. That’s climbing quite a bit. Over time, I should always win. That’s just definitely a shift that I’ve had in the last few years.

Robert Jones: Well, and that for use, the value of gray matter, I call it. Even David, as good a systems as we all build, as the portfolio start to increase and we’re debating whether we’re go to go to the next step and really exponentially grow here in the future but there’s only so much space between my ears for headaches and, like you said, just garbage.

Robert Jones: So, we’ve got tenants, the whole spectrum in our market. We’ve got the most affordable rentals you can have, kind of our multi-family properties that rent for 900, a thousand a door up to single family that rents for 3,500 a month which, in our market, that’s a very high rent. And, like you said, typically, less headaches and the applications on the 3,500 a month are just bonkers. And it’s 810, 815 credit scores, a five-pound dog, no kids. Oh, yeah. “$5,000 deposit for the damage?”

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Aucun problème.

Robert Jones: “No problem.” All that. They make three, four, five, six, 700,000 a year where at your entry level, your Section 8 and all that, it’s just different. We do own the whole spectrum but I can say is we’ve progressed in our investing. Like you said, I’ve noticed myself shift towards, I don’t know if convenience is the right word or safety, because the depth of the luxury market, in our market, it’s not that deep.

Robert Jones: So, if we flood the market with too many high-end rentals, we’re going to bring everything down but there is value. I know investors listening will cringe when I say that I’ve bought five or six new construction homes, brand new from the builder to turn into rentals. Now, we get very aggressive offers and we knew when their fiscal year ended specifically-

Brandon Turner: Nice!

Robert Jones: … through a national builder and we knew when they had to get units out the door and got two for $75,000 off, two days before the end of their fiscal year and they had to post numbers so having that extra depth of knowledge but still, they were brand new homes. They had a warranty. We had the tenants call the warranty line instead of even calling us. So, some of that, there’s value in that.

Brandon Turner: Yeah.

David Greene: That’s why you want a good agent, not just a smiley, friendly one.

Robert Jones: Yeah. If people actually run true, true accurate maintenance allocations, and not have their property just turn into a raging pile of crap over the years, if they run real numbers on maintenance, I think they’d be surprised at the gap between newer, not new but newer properties compared to the 60s-built piles of junk, the gap’s not as big as you’d think in some markets.

Brandon Turner: Summarize for us.

David Greene: Yeah. When we (crosstalk 00:48:43)some older investors that have invested in real estate and you ask them, “What advice do you have for me starting off?” Everyone I’ve ever talked to has said, “Location, location, location.” All this other stuff we talk about just goes right out the window from someone that’s done it for 50 years and they say, “Buy in the right area with the best schools. The appreciation you get will trump any bit of cash flow that you thought was important and you won’t have the headaches.”

David Greene: There’s something to be said for understanding. I think Brandon and I had a conversation about this when we were both trying to work our way through it that you could literally go buy a $10 million mansion in Beverly Hills and lose a couple thousand dollars a month because the rent wouldn’t cover your mortgage, but if you looked at your tax savings and your principal reduction and your increasing rent and the overall value of that mansion going from 10 million to 20 million over 10 years or 20 years or something, you would make insanely more money than if you bought a handful of (cashel 00:49:36)in places somewhere in the Midwest that just crept up.

David Greene: When you get into that cash flow is all that matters mindset, you miss the big picture of what you’re describing, which is you’ve built your net worth with a handful of properties so much more than the people we interviewed that say, “Oh, I’ve got 110 doors out there,” somewhere where they don’t get much appreciation and they have a ton of headaches because not all money is good money. Some of it is just blood money, man, like you’ve bought yourself a job. You did not buy an investment.

Brandon Turner: It’s also where we talk about the different phases of your investment right in the beginning. Like I said, in the beginning, cash flow’s all that matter. I like to say cash flow gives you freedom but appreciation gives you wealth.

Brandon Turner: So, the cash flow, again, I don’t regret buying the $30,000 junk crap house that rented for $700 a month. I don’t regret that because it helped me get out of my job. Those properties got me out, which gave me the ability to start building more wealth. As my investment in yours … I can see yours is kind of the same way, it starts shifting, you can start playing a little more appreciation.

Brandon Turner: So, just because we’re talking this conversation now doesn’t mean everyone listening is like, “Oh, screw it. I’m going to go and lose money on a Beverly Hill mansion.” That’s probably a terrible idea but …

Robert Jones: Call David Greene for $10 million (crosstalk 00:50:45).

Brandon Turner: Exactly. Call David Greene. He’ll represent you on that. He’ll tell you it’s a great deal.

Brandon Turner: But there is something to say. In fact, just another day, I was talking to a buddy of mine who said he just hung out on a boat with this billionaire real estate investor. He got invited to some special mass client thing.

David Greene: With a B.

Brandon Turner: With a B, yeah. Billionaire. And the guy’s advice, basically, what he said was starting in the 70s and 80s, I just read a book that said, “Location, location, location.” I read one book and I was like, “All right. So, I’m just going to buy in good location.” He’s like, “I just kept buying properties in the best locations around the country I could find.” I don’t remember what he did. He had some actually job that made him really good money. He’s like, “Every property I bought lost money. Every single one. I would buy property that lost money. It didn’t matter.” He just lost money but I know that one book told me to buy location, so I just did it. Today, all those properties are worth over a billion dollars.

David Greene: There you go. That’s probably how it worked for everyone else, too. You gave such a-

Brandon Turner: A billion dollars.

David Greene: … good example. Those first cash flow properties that we’re all buying, the get us out of the rat race. They get out of my nose is in the grindstone. All I can see is my boss and small thinking. They’re this little box that you step on that you can peek over the fence.

David Greene: As you peek over that fence, you’re like, “Oh, my God. There are people that are making a lot more money than me that are not nearly as smart as I am. Look at that guy. He sits in front of his pool all day long. He doesn’t even try. What is he doing?” When you get that perspective, that’s when you can start taking advantage of these other opportunities but you do need to get those first few deals which do need the cash flow. That’s why we always talk about it.

David Greene: Brandon has a perfect strategy for anyone who wants to do this. He calls is the stack. Brandon, can you tell us how the stack works to do what we’re saying?

Brandon Turner: I guess. Sure. So, for those who have not heard the stack, basically what it is is your idea, when you’re first getting started, you buy a house, like a single family house maybe or maybe a duplex, whatever. Then, a whole year later, you go from a house to a duplex.

Brandon Turner: Now, if you’ve already bought the house, that was really hard to buy the house when you’re getting started. So, then you buy the duplex but that was hard but probably equally as hard as buying the single family. You got some experience and knowledge and money coming in. Then, the next year, a whole year later, you buy a fourplex or maybe two duplexes, whatever. Everyone, don’t get caught up in the actual specifics here but then an eightplex the year after, 16, 32, 64. Maybe it looks more like one, five, 10, 50, 1,000. I thought you were going to go from 50 unit to 1,000 unit but whatever. The idea being exponential growth.

Brandon Turner: The reason that’s so powerful is because it forces you continually outside of your comfort zone to scale exponentially versus what’s comfortable is, “I’m going to buy a house and then another house and another house.” It might take you 20, 30 years to get enough property to be able to make anything of it but when you scale exponentially, it constantly pushes you outside of that comfort zone. So, anyway, talk about it.

Robert Jones: Yeah. We felt maybe it wasn’t size of units but it ended up being to a degree but our goal was to buy one house a year. And that, wow. Well, that’s getting real easy. Maybe we should be two this year. Then, the year we did two. Then, the year we did three. Then, we added a couple months where we did three. Yeah, it just got easier and easier.

Brandon Turner: It could even be, the stack doesn’t even necessarily mean, I mean (inaudible 00:53:45). Could be, “Hey, I bought 100,000 a property. This year, I bought $200,000 of properties next year and 400,000 the year after, then 800.” There’s a lot of ways you could look at it. The key is growth. Are you growing? Are you stepping outside your comfort zone? You guys definitely have been.

Robert Jones: Yeah. We’re at a cusp again where we’ve been comfortable for far too long.

Brandon Turner: Yup. (crosstalk 00:54:04).

Robert Jones: So, we got to figure out what the next step is.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. And maybe next is just relax and go sail around the world in a boat or-

Robert Jones: Yeah. We taper down or I could see us going one of two directions but they’re vastly different. Slowing down, paying off, or really wrapping things up if beardy Brandon needs a partner in a mobile home complex.

Brandon Turner: Yes!

Robert Jones: So, but David, I want to backtrack. You mentioned location. We were adamant on that. Every single property we own except one is in Fort Collins. I firmly believe in our city and looking historically, not just warm and fuzzies but looking at actually data of the performance we’ve seen, because we have considered out of state and we’ve looked at other markets and I have some partners in my company that have invested out of state. For all the reasons we just discussed, I believe I’ve made the right decision. We’ll see if that continues to hold true.

Robert Jones: And, on the stack, the first one, you just need to buy a house.

Brandon Turner: Yeah, yeah. Exactement.

Robert Jones: I don’t even care if it makes money. I know it’s contradictory to BiggerPockets philosophy but-

Brandon Turner: No, but I agree with it. Just get something.

Robert Jones: … as far as getting your feet wet, you just need to buy a house. It doesn’t even matter what it is. Just to overcome that initial fear and start your perceptual map.

Brandon Turner: Totally agree.

Robert Jones: You just need to buy a house. My brother, older than me. He owned a condo in Windsor that for a season, like five years, it lost $200 a month. It’s a turd. I mean, it is, by any metrics of looking at a rental, you think, “Man. This thing sucks.” It still is positive if you look at all the benefits of owning real estate with taxes and appreciation and all that. Now, just this year, he’s a millionaire.

Brandon Turner: Wow!

Robert Jones: So, even writing through a dog that went through pretty cyclical market but that was one of his first rentals of getting his feet wet. Now, he owns a good number of doors in Arizona and is kicking butt on owning what most people would consider a loser and take their chips and go home. “Oh, real estate sucks. I don’t want to do this anymore because it didn’t work out.” Even though it didn’t didn’t work out. It’s still a winner, even though it feels like a loser. So that’d be my advice to anybody. Just buy a house.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. J'aime cela. D'accord. So, that’s awesome.

Brandon Turner: So, let’s shift a little bit. I want to get deeper into one of your properties, get people an idea what that looks like, so why don’t we go to the deal deep dive?

Brandon Turner: All right. Deal deep drive. This is the part of the show where we dive deep into one of your particular deals, so you got a deal in mind?

Robert Jones: I do.

Brandon Turner: All right. We’re going to drill you on seven questions. I don’t actually have my questions on front of you because I don’t have my computer in front of me today so I’m going to hopefully not screw this up. Number one, what kind of deal was this and where was it at?

Robert Jones: Yeah. So, in Fort Collins. It is a triplex, a conforming legal triplex. For people that know Fort Collins, it’s on Mountain Avenue. It’s on not the most expensive street in the city of Fort Collins.

Brandon Turner: All right. David, do you remember (crosstalk 00:56:55)-

David Greene: Yeah. How did you find this deal?

Robert Jones: Yeah. I jokingly say that someone had to punch me in the face, get the light bulb to turn on. It was through my real estate business. It was one of my sellers who asked me to list this triplex. I was just getting everything ready, getting ready to list it. Going though, I’d sold another property for her. At the time, we only owned two properties. My perceptual map wasn’t very big. You don’t know what you don’t know. Back then, there was a lot I didn’t know.

Robert Jones: Throughout the course of getting ready to list it, she had told me a few times, “Yeah, and if people don’t qualify, I could help with the loan.” With my very limited knowledge at that time, I thought, “Oh, well. We don’t want those buyers. If they don’t qualify, we don’t want them to buy the house because that’ll be a pain and the deal probably won’t close.”

Robert Jones: So, by about the third or fourth time she said that and one of my partners said, “Hey, man. That’s a pretty cool property. Can I buy it?” I went home thinking, “Well, I should try to buy it. Well, I can’t buy it.” I don’t know if I thought about it or Sarah has slapped me in the face and said, “Hey, dummy. She said she’ll help with the loan.”

Brandon Turner: She said she’ll help, yeah.

Robert Jones: “Call her and ask her if she’ll help with the loan.” So, we called the seller. Said, “Hey, you know, you mentioned you’re interested in price of the property.” We said, “It’s probably worth,” at the time, I think we said, “It’s worth 310, 315.” I said, “What if I give you 325 for it.” Again, respecting boundaries of an agent and not letting the property go to market and all that. “But would you be interested in doing the loan?” She said, “Yeah, sure.” We had a good relationship. She said, “Well, how much money do you have down?” I said, “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t really have any money. Would you be interested in financing the whole property?” She said, “Great.” I said, “Okay.”

Robert Jones: Then, she said, “You know, what interest rate?” I said, “Well.” I pulled up on the internet and showed the banks and said, “The banks will lend me the money about X if I went out and got an owner-occupied loan, which at that time we could have in that stage of the journey. So, we did a 30-year fixed, 100% financed triplex at 4.75.

Brandon Turner: Wow! That’s awesome.

Robert Jones: So, at closing, we actually got paid.

Brandon Turner: Because the …

Robert Jones: Tenant security deposits,-

Brandon Turner: Oh, okay. I see.

Robert Jones: … prorated rents and all of that. We got paid at closing to own a triplex on one of the most desirable streets in the entire city. As far as framing perception of a win/win deal, the property when she owned it was grossly under-rented. She was only getting, combined, about 1,500 a month in rents.

Robert Jones: Once we moved in, we did some immediate renovations, just personally. I was doing all that. The first cycle we turned it over, we doubled the rents but our fixed payment to her was 1,700 a month, so she was making more money with no maintenance liability, so she was thrilled with the deal. It truly was win/win for her. We were stoked because we got into a cool property on one of the most desirable streets in Fort Collins.

Robert Jones: Now, it is built in 1885, which for us is quite old so there’s some different maintenance liabilities but that property that we paid 325 for is now worth somewhere in the 900 range.

Brandon Turner: Oh, my gosh! Hou la la!

Robert Jones: And we are getting 4,600 a month in gross rents.

Brandon Turner: Wow!

Robert Jones: So, it’s …

Brandon Turner: You ever talk to her and just she kick herself for selling it?

Robert Jones: We don’t.

Brandon Turner: “I want to talk about that.”

Robert Jones: But it’s … No. She’s an older gal selling off part of the portfolio. It’s more of a headache but it was one of those things, again, the light bulb didn’t come on. I just didn’t know hard money was a thing or private loans were a thing or, God forbid, opening the doors in my brain to think, “Hey! I need to be aware of these things.”

David Greene: You know what’s crazy about this?

Brandon Turner: What’s that?

David Greene: There are people that would not have bought that deal because you said, “I offered 325 and she wanted 315.”

Robert Jones: Yeah.

David Greene: That number would have just … “No. I’m not overpaying for a property.”

Brandon Turner: “I’m not overpaying for property.”

David Greene: No. Screw that.

Robert Jones: I agree, David. It’s one thing we have been skilled about in some of that area, seeing the forest through the trees. What I tell all my investors, if any deal we’re looking at. I don’t care if you’re underpaying for it, overpaying for it, whatever. If any deal doesn’t work over a number of 10 to $15,000, you shouldn’t be investing in real estate. I mean, you don’t want to blow 10 Gs on a $30,000 house. Je comprends ça.

Robert Jones: But if you buy a house, for example, in Fort Collins markets, Northern Colorado market and God forbid the day after closing, septic systems goes out and you have to pay 10, 15 Gs to fix it. If you’re so pissed off that you never want to invest in real estate to start with, you probably shouldn’t be investing in real estate. I think you need to go in with your big boy pants on or big girl pants a little bit and know that there are unforeseen challenges. Speaking of unforeseen challenges, we’ll sidebar really quick. We’ve got a property which was our first experience with methamphetamine.

Brandon Turner: Oh! Oh, that’s right. You mentioned that the other day. I wanted to dig in on that a little bit.

Robert Jones: Yeah. It was after we owned it for a while. We had owned it for a number of years. We got notified of a police report of some bad stuff going on. In the moment, it was a very unpleasant experience. Insurance doesn’t touch it. Out of pocket, we spent $32,000 fixing the problem, which is a newer investor, that’s a problem. That’s unpleasant. We paid for it all. I had a number of investor friends and client … Then, my friends that don’t invest. “Oh, my God! How much do you regret buying that, idiot?” We got a lot of that. “Oh, you’re a sucker, dude.” So, we paid $305,000 for the property. Today, it’s probably worth 675.

Brandon Turner: Wow! Do you regret that (crosstalk 01:02:39)?

Robert Jones: I don’t really care about $32,000. Not to sound flippant but a large amount of money but, again, seeing the forest through the trees, it’s all good. In over ways, the headaches and the challenges.

Robert Jones: But anyway, back to the deal deep dive. What else? Is there anything else?

David Greene: You literally answered every single question.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Pretty much.

David Greene: I pulled it up and I was going down. The only thing left is what did you learn from the deal. You might have answered that when you said, “I learned to see the forest, not the trees.”

Robert Jones: Yeah, and it was really in that moment and to really try to expand your perceptual math, I mean, once you start … I mean, they talk about your reticular activator like if you’re talking about a Greene jeep, all you’re going to see is Greene jeeps, right?

Brandon Turner: Yeah.

Robert Jones: So, I didn’t know anything about hard money but then once I knew about hard money, it’s like, “Oh, crap. There’s a whole different ballgame here I’m not aware of.” And even to this day, as we’ve done reasonably well. I know there’s so much more that … Mobile home parks or apartments or syndications or all this other stuff that …

Robert Jones: I don’t know. My biggest encouragement for the listeners would be there’s so much good information available on BiggerPockets and other resources. If you’re not taking advantage of it, you’re an idiot and you really shouldn’t be investing because it’s free. There’s so many resources now that if they were around when I started, I’m an idiot. I was the idiot. I just didn’t know there was this other avenue. I mean wealth of information.

Robert Jones: So, you don’t need to go into it blindly anymore and just trip through it. You can have a depth of knowledge starting.

David Greene: Isn’t there a meme going around where he whispers, “It’s free real estate?”

Brandon Turner: I have no idea.

David Greene: Yeah. I’ve seen it. Go, “It’s free real estate.” That’s BiggerPockets for you right there. Ouais. You’re exactly right.

David Greene: I think I love about your story the most that you just said is you made so much equity on each of these deals, even though you did what some people would say, what an amateur would look at as overpaying. Instead of having to do this over 10 deals, you did it over one deal. You probably have very little headaches on a property that’s $900,000 property there. The tenants are top-notch, you don’t have to deal with them very often. You can totally afford to upgrade that house with really nice stuff so you get really good tenants. They probably don’t call you very often when things break, so they don’t want to bug you. They fix it themselves. You just end up with the perfect investment as opposed to the job of now managing 15 properties to get the same result where it’s a constant headache from the tenants that are asking you for everything every month.

Robert Jones: Yeah. If you’re an engineer and you could design a Canon laser printer that just shoots out $100 bills, it’s that property. I mean, even being a hundred and, what is it, now? 135 years old. Like I said, there’s some different maintenance issues. It prints money. We make net probably 2,500 a month off of one property,-

David Greene: That’s crazy.

Robert Jones: … which, like you said, for the basic investor or the first-time investor, when we bought it, it lost two to $300 a month.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Crazy.

Robert Jones: Just rents compared to mortgage. Not even factoring in the maintenance. They would have ran it through your whole calculator like, “Oh, my god. This thing leases a thousand dollars a month.” So, it didn’t pan out just looking at just by the numbers in a calculator at all but seeing the bigger picture, it’s our favorite property. It’s our baby.

Brandon Turner: That’s cool. That’s cool. I like that story a lot. It’s neat. I also have a property that was, I think it was 1888 or 1890. That’s one of my, if not my favorite, one of my favorite property that I really like it a lot. Ouais. There’s a little bit more different maintenance. I don’t have bad maintenance concerns there but a little bit. When they do happen, they’re a little more expensive to deal with.

Robert Jones: Yeah. $10,000 boiler and …

Brandon Turner: Yeah, yeah. It’s like a little bit annoying stuff but overall, man, that property just prints money for me, too. So, anyway, very cool.

Brandon Turner: All right. We are going to move on. Rush, you’re going to skip the fire round because I don’t have any fire round questions because I don’t have a computer in front of me today and those are the ones from the forum, so we’re just going to bypass that completely and jump right into the famous four.

Brandon Turner: All right. The famous four. These are the same four questions we ask every guest every week and we’re going to throw them at you right now. Number one, Robert?

Robert Jones: Yes.

Brandon Turner: Favorite real estate investing book.

Robert Jones: I don’t know if I’d say favorite but most impactful, Rich Dad Poor I have to defer to everybody.

Brandon Turner: Nice.

Robert Jones: That’s what got just the candle lit of, “Hey!” And, for me, I didn’t have … My parents are amazing. They taught us all sorts of great things but as far as a depth of financial education, short of, “Hey, don’t go into a bunch of debt. Buy a house when you’re young.” Beyond that, I don’t know that I knew the term asset and liability and some of those base foundation blocks. So, it was instrumental in changing our thought process on that.

Brandon Turner: Cool. Ouais. Number two.

David Greene: Next question, what is your favorite business book?

Robert Jones: Business? I got to cheat and say a few. Brandon and I were talking that I love Audible and that you can crank it up to 2X speed so I can just cram so much more in. Pieces of a lot of books. Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss recently. There was some gold nuggets there that were just exceptional. Brandon’s delightful wife Heather Turner and The Book on Managing Rental Properties by BiggerPockets. That for my business, I’m ashamed to say that until more recently this year but it will change my business in the way I manage my real estate business in that the hours it’s going to save me of explaining this to every single young investor I work with because I do. My business, I built a lot of young investors. We’ve got a lot of young guys that are … I’ve got a buddy that owns 11 doors, another one with six, another one with eight. My little brother, Ben, 24 years old, is working on his fourth unit right now.

Brandon Turner: Oh, no way. That’s awesome.

Robert Jones: He’s got a legal duplex, finishing a basement, kicking butt.

Brandon Turner: That’s awesome.

Robert Jones: For those young investors, again, David talks about ramping up a high-volume real estate business, I don’t have the time to go through some of that. So that book, I’m excited.

Brandon Turner: You can hand these out.

Robert Jones: Oh, I’m going to go buy 15 copies to keep in my office and just every closing, “Hey, read through this.”

Brandon Turner: That’s funny.

Robert Jones: “If it doesn’t handle the topic, give me a holler. We’ll spitball through it.” So that’s exceptional.

Robert Jones: What else? There’s an older book, Smart Talk by Lou Tice.

Brandon Turner: I don’t know that one.

Robert Jones: For Mindset is very good. The 4-Hour Workweek, parts of it. If I could take 25% of each of these books and just jam them together, it’d be the unicorn of business books.

Brandon Turner: Was that a coconut just fell? The sky is falling.

David Greene: Right. You got to go get that, Ryan. We got to show these people what this is.

Brandon Turner: That’s hilarious. Ouais. It’s like everyone’s all sitting in my office here. All of a sudden, I hear thunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, splash. I think a coconut falls off a tree, bounces down.

Robert Jones: Into the pool?

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Into the pool. This time, it did fall in the pool, this one.

David Greene: It sounded like it might have put a (crosstalk 01:09:24).

Robert Jones: Yeah.

Brandon Turner: There we go. Look at this thing.

David Greene: Maui fresh.

Brandon Turner: Maui fresh coconut. We’re going to have to cut this thing open later. Isn’t that cool? Here. Want to catch? It’s heavy. Nice catch.

Brandon Turner: All right. Anyway. Funny. D'accord. Where were we? We were talking business books.

Robert Jones: Business books. Ouais.

Brandon Turner: So, next, David.

David Greene: Next up, what are some of your hobbies?

Robert Jones: Hobbies? I like working on houses.

Brandon Turner: Nice.

Robert Jones: We like traveling like we talked about, venturing into sailing. We’re not big sailors but we will be. Lot of old man sports, softball, volleyball, mountain biking, off road and all that stuff. We stay pretty active.

Brandon Turner: Cool. Ouais.

Brandon Turner: All right. Last question from me. What do you think separates successful real estate investor from those who give up, fail, or never get started?

Robert Jones: Probably grit. I mean, it boils down to … Or I’ve heard it defined as do you have a big enough why? Your why doesn’t even need to be real estate. Why do you want to invest because if you don’t have a passion or … I mean, everybody’s … “Yeah. I want to make some money. Ouais. I want to be rich,” but no one’s willing to do what it takes to do it. If your why’s big enough, I think you’ll find out how. Ouais. And some bravery, taking that first step, just getting after it because there’s no excuse any more for education. There’s no excuse anymore for ability. In the land of the free in the USA and the knowledge that’s available, those are not excuses anymore. You just got to want it bad enough to get after it.

Brandon Turner: I don’t think we’ve talked about … I don’t know if anyone’s ever used that word bravery before here on the show for that, answer that question. Can you think that ever been given, David? I can’t.

David Greene: Nothing even close to that.

Brandon Turner: Bravery! But I love that. And some level, you have to be willing to just go, “You know what? I’m scared. I’m going to do it anyway. I’m nervous. I’m going to do it anyway.”

Robert Jones: Yeah. Well, if you’re that guy like us, the first rentals, join the real estate and a company, mind you, that the desk fee’s … Well, with an office, 37,000 a year desk fee. We had $900 in our checking account, or if you’re in that market. If you’re in Detroit or Kansas, whatever else and you’ve got $50, there’s ways to buy houses. You just got to get through enough nos to find the guy that says, “Yes,” which … But if you’re in that situation, who cares if your credit score gets screwed up. You know, like get after it. That’s the time to take on the risk.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Do it, anyway. Ouais.

Robert Jones: Be brave. Être audacieux.

David Greene: Well, you gave a good example on your deep dive about how you did that very same thing. Didn’t have any money. Made it work for the other person. All the pieces were in place because it was a great deal. You could add value to the rent. It was a really good location. You just went all out and said, “Whatever I got to do to get this property, I’m going to do it.” and it wasn’t even that hard. It was like, “Oh, yeah. D'accord. I can do that.”

Robert Jones: Yeah. Your self-talk is telling you, “Oh, this is a little bit scary,” but like you said, “Everybody was stoked and smiling and laughing at closing.” Be bold. Be brave. Get after it. Or find a why. If you don’t have a why, find a why.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Très très bien. Très bien. So, David, I’ll let you take the last question and then we’ll wrap this thing up.

David Greene: I like that. I like that find a why. We should write a blog post on that and put the cover of alphabet soup, like some got to get a spoon in there looking for the Y in the alphabet soup. Find a why.

Brandon Turner: Well I was thinking we should get a t-shirt that says, “Find your why,” and you can do the alphabet soup. Find your why. Ouais.

David Greene: That’s even better. That’s why you’re the marketer. (crosstalk 01:12:46).

Brandon Turner: I’m the marketer because then we can sell it for $20 and make $5 a t-shirt.

David Greene: A lot of good …

Robert Jones: Like you said, if you want to sit around watching Dancing with the Stars, you don’t need rentals, right.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. Who needs it? Just sit around watching Dancing with the Stars all day.

David Greene: In your T-shirt.

Brandon Turner: All right. Last question. Robert, this has been fantastic. I’ve really loved you as a guest. I also think I should point out that you sound a lot like I think Brian the Dog from Family Guy.

Robert Jones: Fantastic.

David Greene: And we did interview Mark Hentemann, one of the producers of Family Guy so if ever need a job and he needs a backup for Brian, I think we can probably connect you with that.

Brandon Turner: We can (crosstalk 01:13:16).

Robert Jones: Yeah. If we need some additional voice for … I can get some additional streams of income so go abundant style here.

Brandon Turner: There you go. Ouais.

Robert Jones: I can do voiceover Brian. That’d be great.

David Greene: God. You’re like the perfect guest.

David Greene: Okay. For those who want to buy a house in Colorado, sell a house or just simply learn more about their fascinating brain, how can they find out more about you?

Robert Jones: Yes. I’m not on a lot of platforms but my website is easy. It’s robertforrealestate, Robert F-O-R-

Brandon Turner: Oh, F-O-R.

Robert Jones: … real estate. So, really easy. Robertforrealestate. You can’t forget it. It’s stuck on my truck. It’s on my scooter, my bicycles. My wife says I should tattoo it on my forehead.

Brandon Turner: You probably should, backwards so you remember it (crosstalk 01:13:50).

Robert Jones: Yeah. That way if you’re-

Brandon Turner: Yeah. In the mirror.

Robert Jones: … looking at a mirror and you can see it and … But yeah, that’s easy. That’s where I’m at.

Brandon Turner: robertforrealestate.com.

Robert Jones: That’s it.

Brandon Turner: Cool. D'accord. This has been a fantastic show. Thank you very much for joining me in the sea shed. Not the she shed. The sea shed today and …

Robert Jones: The she said by the sea shed.

Brandon Turner: Yeah. The she shed by the sea shed. And I don’t know. I’ll let David, you take it out today.

David Greene: All right. Thank you very much, Robert. This is David Greene for Brandon speed dating real estate bachelor Turner, signing off.