How to Overcome the Struggles of Being a New Investor with Ruben Beraza

[00:00:00] Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the everything real estate investing show with Sean Pan. Today, we have Ruben Beraza. Ruben is a relatively new investor who’s been around for over one year and although he hasn’t acquired a deal yet, he’s doing a lot from his journey so far. I want to bring him on the show today to get a better understanding of what new investors are struggling with and what we can do to help. If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to podcast and leave a five star review. Enjoy!

Sean: [00:00:25] Alright man, I’m super excited to have you on the show today. You are a very unique situation because you’ve been in the real estate game for quite some time, but you haven’t had anything land. So what I wanted to do today was just kind of talk to you and kind of find out what you’ve been doing so far? What’s been working for you? What hasn’t working and kind of like, what do you wish you had? So go ahead and first introduce yourself and let us know who you are and how you got into real estate investing.

Ruben: [00:00:51] So, my name is Ruben. I’m a real estate investor here in the Peninsula Bay Area with the focus in San Mateo County and also Santa Clara County, just hustling to find my first deal. I got started in real estate investing because I honestly wanted to do something else with my life. I knew I was going to reach that point of landing a job and sell company or a tech job in Silicon Valley which is something I always wanted to do. From my standpoint, nobody in my family had ever graduated besides me and I felt like the ultimate achievement was to land a job in Tech. And so that’s what I wanted to do coming out of college, but I knew, I didn’t want to work a corporate job like all of my life, but didn’t want to be stuck in that rat race. I wanted to have freedom. I wanted to have like money and pretty much be in control of my own destiny.

I just went on the web and started looking at different vehicles to wealth and success, you know, and one of them was stuck but Stockton interest me just because it was too it’s too volatile. I also came across owning a business but what type of business would that be, right? And so came across real estate investing. Did some further research and saw that most of the wealthy people in America used real estate investing to get to where they are and so it only made sense for me to go down that path. I just wanted to essentially change my family’s trajectory and you know be able to show my family that there’s more than just the things that we know.

Sean: [00:02:30] So how long did it take for you until you decided I’m just browse the internet, I’m gonna take action, I’m gonna do something?

Ruben: [00:02:38] It took me about four to five months.

Sean: [00:02:41] Of you just browsing the web?

Ruben: [00:02:42] Of me browsing web looking at videos, BiggerPockets, podcast, reading a little bit of real estate. What’s crazy about this whole thing is the fact that I’ve had that Realtor app in my phone since maybe high school. I’d always look at these vague properties. You know I come from poverty but in right across a creek you essentially have multi-million dollar you know, the wealthiest neighborhood.

Sean: [00:03:10] Where do you live right now?

Ruben: [00:03:11] I live in East Palo Alto.

Sean: [00:03:13] So you are looking at Palo Alto right across like the creek, right?

Ruben: [00:03:17] Driving up University or just driving through Palo Alto would be like an everyday thing so growing up, I’d always see these big properties and I would always envisioned myself living in one of those homes.

Sean: [00:03:28] Yeah I can imagine that.

Ruben: [00:03:29] And also went to school with you know with wealthy kids.

Sean: [00:03:33] Did you go to Palo Alto High?

Ruben: [00:03:35] No. In elementary school, I went to court in Madera up in Portola Valley. So Portola Valley is right next to what side? It’s up in the hills. And so you know, you going to school with the kids up there, we have play dates at their huge house and I’m just like you know, and then after the day was over I had to go back to my apartment where we used to live where it’s like not the easiest living condition. So I always wanted what these other kids had and that was like a big home, huge house, they can just have friends and family over. It’s crazy. It’s like every time I would leave their house, I would have to drive through Palo Alto essentially see more big houses until I got home. And so in high school, it was still something that I wanted was like a big home wanting to live in an area that was very affluent.

Sean: [00:04:27] Since you decided real estate is the thing for me, what have you been doing?

Ruben: [00:04:32] There’s been a number of things that I’ve been doing. I’ve been attending real estate meetups, been sending Direct Mail, gone door knocking before, I’ve partnered with other experienced individuals. At one point, I partnered up with a Top Dog in the Bay Area. I’ve handwritten letters. And currently, something that I’m proud to this point since the beginning of the year, I’ve been cold calling. You know cold called Realtors but one thing that I’m proud of now is cold calling directly to homeowners, something that I’ve been consistent with. I feel like I’m good over the phone for some reason.

Sean: [00:05:12] I mean you have pretty nice like deep FM radio voice.

Ruben: [00:05:16] Thank you. But yeah, I’ve tried it all and like one of the things that I’ve noticed that has kind of plague me was the fact that I haven’t been consistent. I haven’t given myself to do one thing, stay consistent with it over a period of six months or over a period of a year.

Sean: [00:05:39] Tell us what are what are you doing? What’s your frequency look like right now?

Ruben: [00:05:42] Prior to this year starting, you know, I made it a goal for myself to be consistent like this whole year for me is just consistency and consistency to cold call people who never I got home from my day job. I would work from about 7:30 all the way to 3:30 or 4:00. Commute from 4:00 to 5:00. From 5:00 to 7:00 just cold call.

Sean: [00:06:08] You doing that every day?

Ruben: [00:06:09] Every day. There’s days like there will be a real estate meetup event or there will be an appointment. That kind of takes up most of my cold calling sessions for that day.

Sean: [00:06:23] So on average a week, how often are you cold calling?

Ruben: [00:06:27] About five days a week.

Sean: [00:06:28] Wow.

Ruben: [00:06:29] I include Saturdays in there as well.

Sean: [00:06:32] So pretty much two hours a day or five days a week?

Ruben: [00:06:36] Two hours a day. Now that we’re about to hit summer and it doesn’t get dark till later, I might ramp that up to three hours a day.

Sean: [00:06:43] Awesome.

Ruben: [00:06:44] I feel like people feel more comfortable picking up their phone when there’s light still outside.

Sean: [00:06:49] Are you getting people to actually respond to you and not cuss you out?

Ruben: [00:06:52] Yeah. You know through my experience with cold calling, calling into the South Bay, people aren’t so happy and that somebody’s calling about their property but in the peninsula, people are more friendlier. I’m not sure you know, if this is…

Sean: [00:07:08] Because they’re rich?

Ruben: [00:07:10] Yeah.

Sean: [00:07:12] Okay.

Ruben: [00:07:12] You know, they might have a different mindset.

Sean: [00:07:14] They are kind of like, oh, thanks for calling, no, thank you at this moment but you know, thanks for calling, kind of that.

Ruben: [00:07:19] Exactly and that’s what it is and quite honestly, I was a lot more scared to call people in the peninsula just because of old thoughts, of old mindsets ago. They’re probably gonna answer the phone, be snobby, and you know just not appreciate it so much when I’m calling during dinner hours but you know, they thanked me for calling. It’s like hey, thank you for calling, for checking but right now, I don’t have any plans to sell whereas in the South Bay, don’t call me about my house, I don’t appreciate this and they’ll just click, right? Or like oh, you’re the fifth person called me this week. Alright.

Sean: [00:07:58] It’s because also people are calling, people in the peninsula less because you know, it’s two million, three million dollar house, like who’s gonna buy that?

Ruben: [00:08:06] Yeah, you’re I think you’re right.

Sean: [00:08:08] I mean, it’s a possibility. I don’t know. So you think that if you were doing it more consistent, you get maybe more like are you getting any appointments at all from doing this cold call?

Ruben: [00:08:16] Yeah, I’m getting appointments but not as many appointments as I want.

Sean: [00:08:22] So how many do you think you’re getting if you just ballpark? One a month? Two a month?

Ruben: [00:08:29] No. Like three or four a month.

Sean: [00:08:32] You can actually go to a house and look three or four month by calling for two hours?

Ruben: [00:08:37] Okay, so like two appointments by physically showing up to the property and then maybe another two appointments who are interested in selling the property. But before I even go out to their property, I want to measure how serious they are about selling. So then I give them a ballpark range and if they’re not okay with that then I just don’t go.

Sean: [00:08:57] Got it. So you think cold calling works better? You tried other methods, right? And you think those don’t work as well?

Ruben: [00:09:04] So the other methods that I’ve tried was direct mail.

Sean: [00:09:08] Yeah.

Ruben: [00:09:08] And that obviously works like for me, the area that I was targeting, it worked pretty well but the thing is direct mail is expensive. Well, you know at the time when I was doing direct mail, I was just earning entry level income at a tech job. I was doing direct mail for a couple months and I get calls. I probably get like about three or four calls, right? Which is not a lot but out of those three or four calls, one person would be interested at least in selling.

Sean: [00:09:39] How many letters were you sending out at that time?

Ruben: [00:09:41] Anywhere from three to five hundred?

Sean: [00:09:43] That’s your handwriting or you got some staff to do it for you?

Ruben: [00:09:46] Using a service.

Sean: [00:09:47] Okay, cool.

Ruben: [00:09:48] But then when I was handwriting letters, I didn’t receive that many phone calls back.

Sean: [00:09:53] Yeah and it’s a lot of effort too.

Ruben: [00:09:55] So it’s a lot of effort.

Sean: [00:09:56] Just pay the 70 cents.

Ruben: [00:09:58] Yeah, exactly and you know, one of the reasons why I was writing letters and sending that small volume of letters through services because I was just trying to be resourceful as I could without having to have money leave my pockets.

Sean: [00:10:16] Yeah. Got it. I mean such when you’re just starting out you don’t have the money.

Sean: [00:10:19] Like 70,000 letters a month you know.

Ruben: [00:10:22] Exactly. So I mean you have time and effort.

Sean: [00:10:26] Use what you have the advantage for.

Ruben: [00:10:27] Exactly and so that’s what I was doing and the thing is with Direct Mail, I wasn’t doing it consistently and that’s what it was just because you know some months would be better than others and like as far as putting money into real estate and having other financial obligations, right? So going back to it, I mean that’s a goal of mine that eventually I want to do again is direct mail on a consistent basis, right? Do direct mail for a year.

Sean: [00:11:03] Imagine you had whatever budget you think you’re going to have? What do you think you would do? What’s your ideal mailing campaign right now? Like right I give you 10,000 bucks a month, what would you use it for?

Ruben: [00:11:13] 10,000 bucks a month?

Sean: [00:11:15] Yeah.

Ruben: [00:11:16] I would use it to mail to certain section, to certain area, so East Palo Alto, that’s where I’m originally from. That’s where I originally started marketing. It’s a small area but the only thing is, there’s not enough overturn. There are not enough people selling their homes. Even if I wanted to sell to this area or like market to East Palo Alto, it would take a couple months or longer than any other area to find a profitable deal.

Sean: [00:11:45] Wait, so let’s go back. If I give you 10,000 bucks your ideal place to market is East Palo Alto right now?

Ruben: [00:11:50] Probably the South Bay.

Sean: [00:11:52] Do you have like a city that you’re like sweet harding about that you love?

Ruben: [00:11:57] No, none exactly.

Sean: [00:11:59] So where would you market? You know, I’ll give you 10,000 bucks, you’re gonna waste it? You have no idea where you going to market to? I mean the point I’m getting it is not to grill you, it’s to have like a thought of conversation because again, like I said the pole point of me interviewing you isn’t because you’re a top dog guru because you’ve been in the business long enough to have the challenges like, you know, what works, you know, what kind doesn’t work?

Ruben: [00:12:23] Yeah.

Sean: [00:12:23] So if I gave you the resources that you probably don’t have, right? Like what are the challenges that you’re dealing with right now that are preventing you from being a top dog.

Ruben: [00:12:33] You know the challenges is not having the resources or not having that information I need to make me feel confident. There are still some areas of lack of knowledge like in San Jose. There’s different, you know different cities but which one’s the hottest? What would be the best market to send direct mail to? You know, one way I would approach is finding a neighborhood or finding a zip code with the most transactions.

Sean: [00:13:03] So basically because there’s more transactions you think it’s more liquid, right? Like it’s a lot of sales going on that neighborhood.

Ruben: [00:13:09] Yeah, there’s a lot there’s a lot more sales happening, a lot more transactions going on. And so I would market to that area and try to do it four year straight.

Sean: [00:13:21] You will just pour all 10,000 in that one neighborhood? Boom!

Ruben: [00:13:25] Yeah.

Sean: [00:13:25] Cool.

Ruben: [00:13:26] I would but obviously you know, I’d have to divvy up the budget to make sure that I’m able to hit that zip code or that neighborhood, you know for 12 months straight.

Sean: [00:13:38] Sure. This is all theoretical anyways.

Ruben: [00:13:39] Yeah.

Sean: [00:13:40] Honestly, the reason why I’m asking this is because like imagine that there was this like team, right? Right now, we’re all working so hard like individually.

Ruben: [00:13:50] Yeah.

Sean: [00:13:50] And because of that, we’re kind of failing all over the place because we’re all just one piece, but imagine if we all came together and we all just like thought and we talked to each other. You have good ideas. I have good ideas. Someone has good ideas too. All combined together, now we can do something important. But what I don’t know is I don’t know what are your challenges because your challenge is different with my challenges.

Ruben: [00:14:10] Yeah.

Sean: [00:14:11] Yeah, so right now you said that you’re lacking resources, right?

Ruben: [00:14:14] Yeah. I Lack of resources also the knowledge as well. I feel like you know, there’s areas where I’m knowledgeable, but my knowledge isn’t as strong as it could be.

Sean: [00:14:27] Yeah, I got that too. There’s always things you don’t know what you don’t know, right?

Ruben: [00:14:31] Yeah, exactly. Don’t know what you don’t know and I think that challenge comes from you know, not networking enough like for example over the weekend. That was like a prime example of the environment that I see myself or I would like to be in on a daily basis.

Sean: [00:14:49] You want to explain what it was?

Ruben: [00:14:51] You know over the weekend, Tom and Ken had a lunch and learn they covered topics on how to reach out and cold call real estate agents and also, you know, they also covered some of their current deals that they have going on. Few people came by and after the event, a few people stuck by and you know, we just had casual conversations about different real estate investing strategies. And I honestly wasn’t pressured to go home and it was just an environment that I would like to be in a lot more often, made me feel comfortable like I belong like this is where I should be spending my time, you know with these group of people.

Sean: [00:15:32] If you hang out with normal people, what do they do on Saturdays? Like they’re out, they’re drinking, whatever. I mean nothing wrong with that. But this time, we were out with other investors.

Ruben: [00:15:43] Yeah.

Sean: [00:15:44] We’re all hanging out. We’re having a good time and they’re cold calling agents. We’re learning how to analyze deals together. It was fun.

Ruben: [00:15:51] Exactly and I feel like that type of environment obviously inspires me to take a lot more action, but also keep continuing to surround myself with the other investors. And because right now is that you know, as a new person kind of not sure what direction it take, you know, you go to meetups, you meet people which become acquaintances, but then there’s a deeper level of networking where then is seeing those individuals you meet at meetups outside of meetups.

Sean: [00:16:27] Right. Exactly.

Ruben: [00:16:27] And getting to know them as just you know, regular individuals. And so that’s something that I’ve always lacked for some reason. Maybe just because of my shyness [00:16:39] or I’m somewhat introvert. Something that I’ve learned shouldn’t get in the way but sometimes it does.

Sean: [00:16:45] I mean, honestly, I have the same problem. Like for the first two years, I would always go to meetups and stand in the corner. After the lectures over, I bounce. But slowly and slowly, you make that group of friends and kicking with them.

Ruben: [00:16:59] Yeah.

Sean: [00:16:59] And that’s kind of like what you need to do.

Ruben: [00:17:01] Yeah. Exactly.

Sean: [00:17:02] You create like a family situation. Like you don’t have to do deals with these people, but why not like find deals or do like those tasks together, right?

Ruben: [00:17:12] Exactly.

Sean: [00:17:12] Cold calling agent, you could do that together. Why not?

Ruben: [00:17:14] Exactly. Exactly and you know, that’s something that really, you know just being in that environment just made me feel good like this is where I belong, this is where I should be, you know, when I’m not at work or when I’m not making cold calls at home, you know, I should be surrounding myself with these group, these individuals. And in real estate investing, it can be kind of tough just because once you enter; you see a lot of experienced people who are playing at a higher level. You see people who are older than you.

Sean: [00:17:47] Yeah. More money than you.

Ruben: [00:17:48] More money than you and which can sometimes intimidate you just because like this guy might not have the time and day for me or you know, I naturally don’t gravitate to that individual, right? So just finding those individuals you naturally gravitate to has somewhat been a challenge to me until not too long ago. There are always those individuals they can naturally gravitate to at meetups, but how about naturally gravitate to them outside of meetups, right? And that’s where it really matters like how well do you gravitate towards those people outside of meetups? Because that’s where you can spend quality time learning doing things together and essentially, you know feels like you’re hanging out and not working, right?

Sean: [00:18:30] Yeah and you’re the average of the five people you hang out with the most.

Ruben: [00:18:33] Exactly.

Sean: [00:18:33] So hang out with more real estate investors, you’ll be one for sure.

Ruben: [00:18:36] Exactly and that’s something I’ve always had like a problem with. So it’s like if I’m not hanging out with five individuals who are better than me or you know five investors who aren’t playing at the level that I want to play with, it’s like well, I’m just gonna hang out by myself than hanging out with bad company, right?

Sean: [00:18:57] Exactly. So have you been reaching out to anybody for help like a mentor type person?

Ruben: [00:19:04] I’ve reached out to individuals when I come across a deal and I just want to confirm that my numbers are correctly and just to reaffirm myself.

Sean: [00:19:16] What about for like guidance like you know hmm, this thing is not working, am I doing this right? Do you reach out to anybody for guidance?

Ruben: [00:19:23] No. But when I did the guidance I was receiving wasn’t really guidance. It was just like more of you know…

Sean: [00:19:32] Generic fru fru BS.

Ruben: [00:19:33] Generic and that’s you know after that experience, it’s like man, it kind of didn’t defeat me but it didn’t encourage me to reach out to people just because at the end of day, I feel like people are just you know, just looking out for themselves.

Sean: [00:19:51] Yeah, and also like when you think about it, what could they really tell you that’s different from what you already know?

Ruben: [00:19:55] Yeah, right? And so like for me, you know, what would be great is having a mentor who allows you to be boots on the ground, right? Rather than having conversations. Oh, yeah, you should do this, you should do this and then, you know two weeks after you report back to and this is what I’ve been doing. You know, what have I been doing wrong without them actually being there to really analyze what the things that you’re doing? And like coach you and to make you better. This whole time it’s kind of been, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna try this technique, I’ma keep trying it until it works without really receiving that feedback needed to improve.

Sean: [00:20:35] Now, if you had to start over, I mean you haven’t been doing very long but you’ve learned some stuff you know, you’ve been doing this for a while now. If you had to start over what would you do differently?

Ruben: [00:20:44] If I were to start all over, I would definitely volunteer at the network events. You know, get exposed, putting myself out there more. I mean, it’s never too late to start. People tend to measure themselves of when they started and where they’re at now and how you know how far they’ve kind of come from the point that they start is like, oh, you know, I’ve been doing this for way too long, it’s too late for me to start doing it.

Sean: [00:21:12] Alright.

Ruben: [00:21:12] Like I’ve been in this business for way too long for me to start doing  it or whatever the case is but honestly, if I could I’d volunteer at real estate meetups at the sighing door. You’ll meet people, shake their hands, and formally introduce yourself to them, because you never know who you’re going to meet, right? You never know when that next friendship is going to come together.

Sean: [00:21:34] I mean that’s absolutely true. That’s why I did.

Ruben: [00:21:35] Yeah.

Sean: [00:21:36] And if you want to volunteer an opportunity, right here buddy, I got one for you.

Ruben: [00:21:41] Alright man, I’ll take it.

Sean: [00:21:43] Come through.

Ruben: [00:21:44] I’ll take it. I’ll take it. Yeah, you know doing that, also being consistent in your outreach, in your marketing outreach, whatever outreach or whatever channel you decide to pursue and from a marketing standpoint, whether it’s cold calling agents or knocking on doors, cold calling homeowners, direct mail, just being consistent, going six months a year, day in day out, sticking to that strategy.

Sean: [00:22:15] All right, let’s talk about you specifically.

Ruben: [00:22:17] Yeah.

Sean: [00:22:18] What are you going to do different?

Ruben: [00:22:20] What I’m doing differently from what I’ve done before is, you know, being consistent, cold-calling individuals, but also putting myself out there a bit more.

Sean: [00:22:30] So specifically, what would you do differently is you would go to the meetup groups. You would volunteer as a check-in guy. You would go out there and like shake more people’s hands, not be a shy?

Ruben: [00:22:41] Yeah, not be a shy.

Sean: [00:22:43] Do you use your cold calling as your main strategy?

Ruben: [00:22:45] Cold calling is my main strategy, yeah.

Sean: [00:22:47] Always, all day?

Ruben: [00:22:48] All day. That’s like my only strategy.

Sean: [00:22:51] Do you think what you’re doing now is consistent enough or do you think you should be doing it like even more than what you’re doing?

Ruben: [00:22:57] I think there’s room for improvement, like a longer hours. Like I know, you know going into the summer, I’ll probably push myself to do three hours. It’s all about timing for me, you know, coming home from work, coming home for my day job, eating dinner and then calling three hours straight but also balancing the girlfriend.

Sean: [00:23:17] It’s a grind bro.

Ruben: [00:23:18] It’s a grind, yeah exactly. That’s how the first six months have been is essentially day job, commute, dinner, cold call.

Sean: [00:23:27] Jeez.

Ruben: [00:23:28] And it’s, you know, starts all over again.

Sean: [00:23:30] Will you ever consider hiring that out?

Ruben: [00:23:33] Eventually, you know once I have the capital to do so, but like, you know, I’m very appreciative of these times. Because It’s you know, molding my character, it’s teaching me patience. And now in the day of social media, you know, everyone sees things happening so instantly, right?

Sean: [00:23:52] Yeah, yeah.

Ruben: [00:23:53] And I keep thinking back of why aren’t things happening so instantly for me, right? Just because it’s you know, its perspective that you receive from social media, like things don’t happen overnight or you know, six months. I mean they could, but not for everyone, right? And so, I’m always referring back to like when people started their empire, it’s their business, their big business. Dude, they were like putting 15-hour days into their business for like three, four years until something eventually came out of it, right?

Sean: [00:24:28] Yeah.

Ruben: [00:24:29] So that’s what I keep thinking of, like dude, you know, just keep doing what you’re doing, eventually you know, things are going to change right before our eyes.

Sean: [00:24:38] Resilience is key man and plus honestly with your like numbers that you’re working with, honestly, it’s just one. All it takes is one.

Ruben: [00:24:45] Yeah, exactly.

Sean: [00:24:47] And you’ll be just in a different league.

Ruben: [00:24:49] Yeah, exactly.

Sean: [00:24:50] Wait, how old are you right now?

Ruben: [00:24:51] I’m 26.

Sean: [00:24:53] Okay, so you’re still young, relative to like a lot of people.

Ruben: [00:24:56] I’m still pretty young, but I have trouble telling that to myself. So like whenever I’m thinking, dude, I’m like so old, right? Even though I’m not it’s because of that instant gratification. We’re so used to wanting things now at this age while we’re still young, but I have to really, you know,  pull myself back to Earth and tell myself, dude, you’re only 26, you still have your whole life ahead of you, like you’re still in the beginning phase of your real estate investing career. Like this is only the beginning. You know, I’ve seen myself doing this for the next, you know…

Sean: [00:25:27] 40 years, right?

Ruben: [00:25:28] Exactly. And this is more of a long term play for me.

Sean: [00:25:32] If you’re 26 now and you’ve already been doing this for two years, you already have some experience, but I say 4 years go by and like nothing changes then you’re 30.

Ruben: [00:25:41] Yeah.

Sean: [00:25:42] By the time you’re 30, you’re like, you’re going to have a lot of experience, a lot of connections and networks.

Ruben: [00:25:45] Yeah.

Sean: [00:25:47] Like think about those top dogs right now. They were nowhere near your position when they were your age.  There may be like 40, mid 40s when they got their big break and then became like these multi-millionaires. So you can be doing this kind of stuff at 30, dude, like you’re killing it.

Ruben: [00:26:03] Thank you. I really appreciate those words of encouragement man.

Sean: [00:26:06] No for sure. I mean I talk to myself too, all right? I’m way couple years older than you, but I feel the same way. It’s like, yeah, times are kind of tough. Things happen or they don’t happen, right? Things happen or don’t happen.

Ruben: [00:26:17] Yeah.

Sean: [00:26:18] But relatively, over like a ten-year span, were good.

Ruben: [00:26:21] Yeah.

Sean: [00:26:22] There’s like nothing to worry about.

Ruben: [00:26:23] Exactly.

Sean: [00:26:24] As long as you keep that resilience and like you said hang around with people who are doing what you want to do.

Ruben: [00:26:31] Yeah, I definitely agree and you know, I want to be able to breathe, like live and breathe real estate, right? And I feel like I haven’t gotten to that point because obviously I still have a day job, right? That has nothing to do with real estate, but it’s teaching me how to build a business, you know how to build a company.

Sean: [00:26:52] Will your day job teach you how to build a company?

Ruben: [00:26:53] Well, it’s in the early stages so I’m the first person in my role.

Sean: [00:26:59] Oh cool.

Ruben: [00:27:00] So essentially, I’m building up my role with the company’s money. So I have all the resources to be successful. I have the guidance. I have you know, these tools and people around me constantly who know what they’re doing and can advise me because they are at one point in my role, like they were in my situation. Like these guys have been in tech for many years, right? Some people in cells, they started doing what I was doing until they switched over to another position. I received the support from individuals I work with, tools to be successful from the company I work at. And so as a start-up, you kind of would have to wear many different hats in order to make things work at first. And you kind of have to get creative in order to be successful in the role. It’s teaching me in real estate that at first, you’re going to have to wear many different hats. Do many different things by yourself until that first deal comes, until you can start outsourcing you know, different job tasks.

Sean: [00:28:11] I mean, let’s say if you even get a first deal, do you know how to handle it? What would you do with it?

Ruben: [00:28:17] I’d want to link up with another individual who knows what they’re doing.

Sean: [00:28:22] Got it.

Ruben: [00:28:22] Right?

Sean: [00:28:23] So a partner?

Ruben: [00:28:23] And what must be the process? Because I’m essentially putting the responsibility, some of the responsibility on a different individual who’s you know, well experience, knows what they’re doing rather than me trying to hop through all these different hoops and obstacles to get it right and potentially mess up the deal, right?

Sean: [00:28:44] Yeah, no, I mean, it’s good because you get a partner with somebody who’s more experienced than you and you get a shot at them while you’re learning.

Ruben: [00:28:50] Exactly.

Sean: [00:28:51] That’s worth it, win-win.

Ruben: [00:28:52] And essentially it’s a win-win. And for me, you know, I want to get to that point where I’m flipping houses on the daily and being hands-on, that’s where people tend to learn the most, that’s where I tend to learn the most; it should be a hands-on, right? And you know transferring those experience and skills that I learned or that knowledge that I learned from that you know, from that experience on to the next project.

Sean: [00:29:17] Is there anyone that you look up to, that you like want to be?

Ruben: [00:29:19] Dude I want to be like all the top dogs.

Sean: [00:29:23] Anyone particular?

Ruben: [00:29:24] Well, I would say Raul Luna because that guy, that guy’s just, he’s just a beast from outside looking in or just from, you know, hearing him speak. From his mindset standpoint, he has it down. I feel like he has it down which has enabled him to get to where he’s at. You know, he has a team to support him as well. And every time I, you know, hear about Raul and from other people, it’s nothing but positive things.

Sean: [00:29:52] Yeah.

Ruben: [00:29:53] Right?

Sean: [00:29:53] Mindset is very key. And he definitely has a good system going on. I had him on the show, right? And he just told me everything and I was like dude, it’s like, it’s legit.

Ruben: [00:30:00] Yeah, and you know when he breaks it down everything seems so simple. Like it seems very simple, but it’s just, you know, putting it into action.

Sean: [00:30:10] If you were to put yourself in his shoes, what do you think he would tell you for advice?

Ruben: [00:30:18] Yeah that’s a good question. I think he would tell me to master the mindset and continue what you’re doing and don’t give up. You’ll eventually get a deal.

Sean: [00:30:31] Were you at his meet up last month?

Ruben: [00:30:33] No, I wasn’t.

Sean: [00:30:34] Oh man, you missed it. He like brought up these like three people who went to his mastermind group and they’re like, this guy got a deal, this person got a deal, this person was a baker making $50,000 a year, sold his first deal, made $130,000 or some crap, first deal and everyone was like…

Ruben: [00:30:49] Dude, that’s so cool.

Sean: [00:30:50] It’s crazy.

Ruben: [00:30:51] Dude I hope I can get in the shadow like that.

Sean: [00:30:54] That’s very possible man, just keep going.

Ruben: [00:30:56] And I think it really is and I think it’s very possible for me to get a deal this year. And the reason being is because I think of getting a deal this year a lot more than not getting a deal. So last year as I was doing real estate, I wasn’t consistent but I was also telling myself what if this doesn’t work out, what if I’m putting in all this effort and I don’t get a deal this year and I don’t hit my goal. Like that thought was more frequent than I’m going to get a deal this year. Like this year is going to be the year that I’m going to get a deal, right?

Sean: [00:31:36] So that thought manifested itself into reality?

Ruben: [00:31:38] Exactly.

Sean: [00:31:39] Dang.

Ruben: [00:31:40] Exactly.

Sean: [00:31:40] Alright.

Ruben: [00:31:41] And there’s been several times where my thoughts have manifested themselves, like just throughout my life and I keep pinpointing to those moments where they’ve manifested, where my thoughts have been infested to themselves.

Sean: [00:31:54] Yeah.

Ruben: [00:31:54] And it keeps me in check.  Like those moments keep me in check now. Like just because if I could do it back then, there’s no reason why I can’t do it now, right?

Sean: [00:32:07] Dude I have the same thing but on opposite, like I was doing really well and then I thought, now my life is going too well right now. I need some drama in my life and then all this stuff happened and I’m like, damn it, i asked it on myself.

Ruben: [00:32:22] Yeah, man, it’s crazy. It’s like, you know after my first attempt to do real estate full-time, after that didn’t work out, the reason why I didn’t work out just because again, I was telling myself, you know, what if I don’t have a job, I’m doing this full time and what if it doesn’t work out. And the next thing you know, it just didn’t work out. So after that, it kind of set me back a little bit just because I thought because I face some temporary failure. I knew I wasn’t going to quit just because you know, I wasn’t going to allow myself to quit but I did pause real estate for a while when I went back to going to a job. And so there’s a moment where I didn’t take any action other than going to meetups just to continue my learning, right? And then you know the beginning of the year, it’s like, you know, I gave myself enough time to [00:33:18] save money, you know read some books, go to some meetups and just really gathered myself. Like just gather myself in, start all over again, right? But this time with a little bit more knowledge, with a little bit more determination and hunger, knowing that I filled once and there’s no way I’m going to let that happen again. I know it will be this year. So regardless of what the condition of the market is, you know, there’s still be a way to find a profitable deal.

Sean: [00:33:55] Awesome man. So how can people get in contact with you?

Ruben: [00:33:58] You can get in contact with me by emailing me at rubenperazzo@hotmail.com, or by shooting me a text or calling me, 650-248-0848.

Sean: [00:34:18] Awesome, bro. Well it was a pleasure having you on and it was very interesting getting to see like your thoughts and hearing what your challenges are because I’m sure a lot of people are going to the exact same thing that you are too. I mean, let’s just break it down one more time, essentially the challenges you have is you don’t have the resources and you don’t have the knowledge like specific knowledge because you don’t know what you don’t know.

Ruben: [00:34:38] Yeah.

Sean: [00:34:39] So the cure to that is to be just more consistent with what you’re doing and to maybe hang out with people who are kind of like at your same level.

Ruben: [00:34:47] Yeah.

Sean: [00:34:47] And meet consistently and not just like a, oh hey, good seeing you again the meet up once a month but hey, let’s get dinner.

Ruben: [00:34:53] Yeah.

Sean: [00:34:54] Whatever, we could all buy real estate or not but let’s just be homies.

Ruben: [00:34:57] Yeah.

Sean: [00:34:58] Was everything else that I missed?

Ruben: [00:35:00] And mindset.

Sean: [00:35:01] Don’t quit.

Ruben: [00:35:02] Yeah, don’t quit. Exactly.

Sean: [00:35:03] Think positive thoughts not negative thoughts because that’s what will happen.

Ruben: [00:35:07] Exactly ,exactly. Yeah that’s right.

Sean: [00:35:11] Alright man well, thank you so much for being on the show today. I hope to see you again really soon, take care.

After we finished the episode Ruben and I had a quick discussion about how to properly allocate time. So that were able to do everything we need to as investors.

Ruben: [00:35:24] So it’s like since I’ve been in real estate, it’s you know, I first started out learning about real estate but not spending a day in day out on real estate, right? So like, you know, I spend maybe Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday on real estate throughout the week and as time passes by maybe Monday through Friday, not Saturday, right? But now I’m to a point where it’s like Monday through Saturday. Whenever I’m not at work, it’s real estate and then Sunday just like all right, time to hang out with family. For you, I see you at these events. Like I see you everywhere pretty much because I follow you on Instagram and you know, you’re at every real estate event. You’re doing podcast. You’re doing deals. You know when you’re not at work, I’m not sure if you quit yet, but essentially, you know, is it just know, work, real estate, girlfriend, that’s it? Like sometimes I have trouble like operating like how should I be like going about this? I’m not sure if I should be spending whenever I’m not, you know at work or whenever I’m not with the girlfriend, it should be real estate. And for me like I’m at that point now just because I realized I’m like, dude, I should be breathing and living real estate investing if I want to completely do this, but I’m not quite sure how other people approach it, which has hindered my growth I feel like, just because you know, it’s obviously something that I wasn’t doing every day.

Sean: [00:36:52] Yeah, is it that what Tony Robbins says that, right? Like full immersion. You got to be fully immersed in whatever you want to do and it’s like, it comes with like a change of your identity to like…

Ruben: [00:37:02] Yeah.

Sean: [00:37:02] How do you identify yourself? Because like for the longest time, I still say like hey, I’m an engineer. But in reality, I don’t really want to be an engineer. You know, I want to be real estate investor, but how can I say I’m a real estate investor from not actually investing in stuff.

Ruben: [00:37:14] Yeah.

Sean: [00:37:15] But like I got over it, you know, like if I post this podcast with your big face on it, are you going to be sure to share it on your social media? Because you’re afraid your co-workers will see it, because dude, like I got on Bloomberg, right? My coworkers are like, yo Sean, I saw you on Bloomberg and I was like fuck, but it ended up being okay, like my boss texting me, hey congrats to the Bloomberg article. I’m like, oh okay; I didn’t realize there were so many nerds out there reading Bloomberg.

Ruben: [00:37:43] I check Bloomberg every morning just like, on like the markets and then deals section but like, I didn’t see your post to like till the end of the day. It was like most read article, like trending article.

Sean: [00:37:57] Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh dang. I was on MSN like, friends from long, long time ago hit me up because they saw it and I was like.

Ruben: [00:38:06] Yeah.

Sean: [00:38:06] Okay, I guess it’s cool, you know like as if I paid for publicity.

Ruben: [00:38:10] Exactly. So I mean, you know, for some time I’ve kind of like wondered how to operate like I wasn’t sure whether to do this Monday through Wednesday or every like three times out of the week or every day of the week, right?

Sean: [00:38:26] Bro, honestly, everyone has their own journey. Like I, for two weeks okay, two weeks, I cut out every form of entertainment. I even wrote a post about like how weird challenges make you like a more effective person or whatever. And the point of it was, dude, my girlfriend was out in Europe, so for two weeks I said no more YouTube, no more Netflix so all I could do was read books at home. And that’s so boring, like I don’t want to be in my room reading books. So I forced myself to go to meet up groups, like I drove all the way to San Francisco in traffic.

Ruben: [00:38:57] Yeah.

Sean: [00:38:57] Just to go to a meetup in SF, because I was so bored at home.

Ruben: [00:39:00] What about like friendships, like friends.

Sean: [00:39:04] I mean I kick it with my friends. Yeah, like my homie homies, like i kick with them on the weekends usually. Weekdays, everyone’s busy anyways, like you have work, gym, meet up.

Ruben: [00:39:15] Yeah.

Sean: [00:39:16] I mean it’s similar.

Ruben: [00:39:17] Because it’s like I mean, I guess it’s a conversation for like next time, I just, I don’t know, I guess I’m going through this like, you know, just change in my life, right? Where my life has become a lot more boring rather than hanging out just chillin like dude, just chilling is not going to get you to where you want to go, right? And this is like I’m learning all this because I’m reading mindset books. I’m reading personal development books growth, watching videos. And you know this year for me, it’s like it’s to have a goal of reading 20 books, right? But you can only read so many personal development and real estate books until you run out of books to read that are somewhat popular, right? But then I saw that you’re reading Gandhi like, you know on a Saturday night.

Sean: [00:40:10] On a Saturday night.

Ruben: [00:40:11] You see my girlfriend will be like, come on let’s do something, let’s watch Netflix, but you know.

Sean: [00:40:17] Normally yes. When my girlfriend’s here, we are pieces of poop.

Ruben: [00:40:20] Yeah.

Sean: [00:40:21] We do just chill and like sometimes watch TV and play games. Don’t get me wrong, that happens. Okay. I’m not perfect in any mean. And also like Saturday, right? We went to a Saturday event with Tom and Ken. I would have never have gone with that if my girlfriend was here, but because I had nothing else to do at home.

Ruben: [00:40:39] Yeah.

Sean: [00:40:39] I said why not.

Ruben: [00:40:41] See even on Saturday? I feel like now, like the way I’m starting to reprogram myself. It’s more of like, dude hell yeah, on a Saturday, it’s like, most people are just like not doing anything just hanging out like, hanging out and not I guess talking ideas, right? Watching TV.

Sean: [00:41:00] Yeah, just watching TV, watching movies and stuff.

Ruben: [00:41:01] Well like for me it felt like, I was excited to like attend to it just because it’s Saturday, like I don’t know it was different for me. Whenever I have the opportunity, I definitely like to surround myself with those who are in real estate and are doing deals and then I can become the next one, right? But like how do I , you know, I guess making that transition or fully getting from A to B is where like I’m, I mean, I’m moving more towards B but slower. Like I slowly…

Sean: [00:41:31] Everyone has their own journey bro. I mean, imagine how fast you would have been if you started with 10 million dollars.

Ruben: [00:41:38] Yeah.

Sean: [00:41:38] See, then you can’t compare you know.

Ruben: [00:41:40] So true.

Sean: [00:41:42] And there’s someone who started way worse conditions than you, but because they really don’t have a job, they have more free time and then they get up faster than you.

Ruben: [00:41:50] Yeah.

Sean: [00:41:50] See everyone’s condition is different, don’t compare. Comparison is the thief of joy. Just realize that what you’re doing is right and that if you keep on this track, you’d be good and that’s it. And honestly, there’s time block, like there’s no way you can be a perfect man and spend all your weekends doing real estate stuff and not hang out with your family and girlfriend, right? But like Saturday night, why not hang with your girlfriend; why not watch a movie with her?

Ruben: [00:42:15] Monday through Saturday evening, it’s like pretty much all real estate, right? Well, it’s like work, real estate at night and then Saturdays, like all real estate till evening, that’s when I make the most calls and then Saturday evening to like Sunday is pretty much a girlfriend-family, whatever. Yeah.

Sean: [00:42:34] Yeah, exactly. See? Time, that’s all you need to do. As long as everyone around you is cool and understand what you’re doing and they believe in you then it should not be a problem.

Ruben: [00:42:41] Exactly, exactly. I feel you, I feel you man.

Ruben has been in the game for a while now, but hasn’t gotten any deals. He’s thankful for the experience because it’s building his character. If he were to do it again, he would volunteer at networking events; surround himself with a group of friends who are also interested in real estate investing. I would master his mindset so he’ll never give up. He’s ideal mentor is someone that can let him shadow him on his projects instead of just giving them verbal advice. He feels like he lacks resources and specific knowledge of the markets and he also believes that consistency is key. Do consistent outreach and you will be successful. I hope this episode resonates with you, feel free to reach out to Ruben or me for any reason. The show notes and full transcript can be found on everythingrei.com/podcast. Thanks and have a great day.