Most Common Real Estate Investing Questions Answered! – Max Kibler

Sean: [00:00:56] I’m super excited to have you on the show today because this is something very unique. I get a chance to talk to you and not to learn something from you per se directly but get to learn like what is your mindset right now. What are you thinking about? What are your main big questions? Because I kind of been in this industry for a while, three years. Not too long, but I’ve been in the game for a little bit and I know some of the people who listen to the show are like way, way older and they completely forgot what it’s like be to new. You can imagine like in college a professor is trying to teach you something super complex and explains it and they’re like “This is so obvious!”, and you’re sitting in class like “what the hell he’s talking about?”

Max: [00:01:36] Yeah. It makes me feel like they never were new or something like that. Like they never were in the situation. It’s very hard to relate and to feel like it’s even possible to start from where I’m starting, kind of.

Sean: [00:01:51] Absolutely, you feel like “Dude, they don’t get me. They’re talking about flipping a million-dollar deal and I’m just trying to get my first one. So before we start, go ahead and just introduce yourself and let everyone know a little bit more about who you are and why you got into real estate investing.

Max: [00:02:07] My name is Max and I grew up in Silicon Valley. I was born in Palo Alto. I did really poorly through school. Like I just didn’t really ever pay attention very much. I kind of was always interested in doing my own things, like kind of often in my own world in some ways, but I was always really social and had a lot of friends and kind of like too social. In class it was like I couldn’t really connect with what they’re trying to teach me most of the time. Still I had to go to school legally for most of my young life and then once I got to high school and it was like you’re kind of given the option whether you want to show up or not, and I sort of just stopped showing up. Actually because of the amount of absences that I had they kicked me out of my high school and I had to graduate in a continuation school and I did graduate there and got a degree and went on to a community college in the area. And once I got there, a lot of my friends went off to UCs and all this stuff and I would go visit them and for me it was always the social aspect was what I was thinking. I wanted to be around my friends. I wanted to have fun. I knew I was studying psychology when I first started and I was thinking like, “Oh I’m interested in how people’s minds work.” I’m interested in something like that. Maybe I could have a career in this but it wasn’t really anything very serious, but I was still trying through college and kind of really like applying myself more than I had before and I did that for about a year and a half. In the beginning I was like taking classes, I was interested in it and getting good grades and it was the first time I could like really choose my classes. So that was like a big thing for me, but once I had to start taking the classes and forced to take it again, I just kept falling back into the same cycle again of not wanting to show up and just not being very interested or dedicated in what I was doing. So I sort of segued off into some kind of weird Eastern spirituality type things. I read this old Indian book called The Mahabharata. I don’t know if I’m saying that right but it’s like this old Vedic scripture type stuff about yoga and all these things and I read that and I ended up kind of joining up with these group of like Indian Yogi’s that were in my town and kind of like stopping going to school and I actually moved off. I was in Quebec for a little while like about a month out in the middle of the woods in Canada doing yoga and just living with people who were like Yogi’s. That was kind of like the first thing I did that really separated me from what a lot of other people around me had been doing and what their goals were. I was in Canada and I went to New York to another one of their temples there. Then once I came back to the Bay Area from that it was kind of like I had felt like I’d already separated so far from the normal track of things that it was pretty hard to relate to a lot of stuff around me. I knew from about the time that I stopped going to community college that I didn’t want to be in the rat race. But I didn’t ever have the idea that the way you could get out of the rat race was with having your own business or investing or these different things. I didn’t really know that. In my family I didn’t grow up with a lot of money or anything and so pretty much what I was always told was just go to school and then get a good job and it’s like if you get a good job, that’s how you can get out or something. That’s sort of never really resonated with me very much. So the way I tried to escaped from it was kind of like through some sort of spiritual thing. And so when I came back from Tokyo and I sort of met up with a lot of different people in the area who are various like healers or like just people who are into Ayurveda or Qi Gong, I started doing some different kind of martial arts and people who are doing acupuncture and I met this one monk who was here teaching his Zen class and I’m kind of learning Japanese from one of his friends. And then I went to his meet up more. He just invited me to go and stay in his temple in Japan. So I ended up going there and actually ended up living there as a Buddhist monk for three years.

Sean: [00:06:53] Dang!

Max: [00:06:54] Yeah! I didn’t think I was ever going to come back to the Bay Area. Actually I thought I was going to be a monk or I don’t know. I thought maybe I would have some kind of a job in Japan or do something but you know, that whole situation was like they were paying for me to live there. They’re paying for all my expenses and they’re also giving me some money and the amount of work I had to do is pretty limited. I had to like cook for them and stuff and help clean and I was actually running a kind of like a small farm for a while and using the vegetables to cook for them and stuff, but it wasn’t anything, like it didn’t feel like a job exactly and I was able to do that for three years and I was actually able to travel a fair amount around Japan because they did like pilgrimages and stuff and kind of I had some free time and like they gave me some money to be able to travel and stuff. So having that experience for three years and just kind of thinking like I felt like I sort of did something that no one really thought would have been possible in some way. When I told people before that I wanted to be a monk they thought I was going to be like get the bag for money or something or “you’re going to be stuck in some kind of thing where you can’t really move around much”, but actually in that temple too they didn’t have a lot of the strict rules that you think of being a monk either. Like you didn’t have to be celibate or you didn’t have to not eat meat or not drink alcohol or any of those things either so. I left the temple because I kind of felt disconnected from my own culture a lot. I didn’t learn how to speak good amount of Japanese. I understood a lot of stuff about their culture, but they don’t ever going to fully accept you if you’re a foreigner exactly. I just felt too disconnected from my own root. So I decided to come back and the first thing I did when I came back was I worked on a farm that was up in NorCal in Sonoma County. And I was like off-grid and probably working there for about four months. Still I wanted to come back. I hadn’t been back to my own hometown in Mountain View for, at that point, it was like almost four years. Once I got back It was kind of, being with the monks and even with living with the Yogi’s and all the stuff, money was sort of there as this issue, but it wasn’t like in the forefront at all. These other things are really there. Once I came back here, and actually I’m living with my grandmother right now, so since I moved in here it’s like the presence of money is just in the forefront of so many people’s lives, you know in the Bay Area. Like I really just started thinking about it and I kind of realized that for my grandmother too it’s a big deal and then for my parents also who don’t live in the area anymore, but they were actually like Christ out so for them, it’s a big deal also, so I’m kind of thinking I could just go and do the traveling monk thing again or something. But also I feel like I kind of be leaving something behind while a lot of people are struggling with money and stuff. So I want to learn more about how the stuff actually works. So I was at the library and for the first time, I never done this like looked up like books for how to make money. And that’s when I came across like Rich Dad Poor Dad and 4-hour work week and some of these other books. And that was the first time I’d even really fully conceptualized or thought about like passive income or something like having a business system that’s going to give you money without you having to really be there, things like that. And so that was sort of appealing that it seemed like a kind of out-of-the-box way to escape the grind so to speak. I think some of the people who are successful in capitalism are kind of living in like an almost aesthetic way like, I don’t know. You know who Jack Dorsey is? I just heard some stories about him like he kind of only eating like one meal a day or like he takes some ice bath in the morning or just I’ve heard like other stories about people like that. And I think last night the person who introduced me to it, Arlen, I told him that I was a monk and I asked him for advice for like well what to do. He said “oh, you know, he said you should, you kind of have to live like a monk still” like, you know to be like being frugal or about trying to live below your means so I just felt like a connection there somehow so I just kind of wanted to pursue that if I could in this hyper capitalist competitive kind of materialist place before I try to just jump ship again, and you know go to wherever I go next like Iceland or whatever. I don’t know.

Sean: [00:11:37] That’s so interesting that you have such a really like super unique story. And I feel like you’ve already lived such a full life that most people will never have and it’s cool to see you come back and try to conquer this world now as you already conquered another type of challenge.

Max: [00:11:55] Yeah. I think in a lot of ways that this world was what I was really trying to escape to, you know a lot growing up. I felt like it was impossible. I was kind of told once, I saw that the price and everything was raising so much around here coz it’s the tech explosion. I was told by a lot of people like “oh, you’re not going to be able to live around here” and like a lot of my own friends and stuff half of them living in Santa Cruz are living in other places because they just can’t live here. So it’s even more impossible than ever than going to Japan or doing different things ,living in a place you’re from would like framed as a huge impossibility.

Sean: [00:12:34] So yeah, it’s actually a huge challenge for people, especially our age like 20s. Most people don’t have a house in their 20s, right?

Max: [00:12:43] Yeah. Like living with roommates or something, probably right?

Sean: [00:12:47] Exactly. That’s what I’m doing. I have my house but I house hack so I rent out my room to all my friends.

Max: [00:12:53] Okay, so you own the whole house, but then they’re paying you rent. So you’re paying off the mortgage or something or they’re covering your own rent.

Sean: [00:13:05] Exactly

Max: [00:13:06] Yeah, that’s what a lot of people say to do. And then my question is always like how do you even start with that? That’s also what Arlen said. He said extend your college years as much as possible and he meant by like having roommates and you know house hacking like that. For me It’s like how do you even buy a house in the first place, you know around here that’s expensive but super appealing.

Sean: [00:13:29] Are you working, right now?

Max: [00:13:31] I’m not yeah, I’m not working right now. I like was working in a factory basically I didn’t want to be there like I don’t mind like trading time for money. But as long as like I’m trading for something else to do besides just money. Like if it’s just flat-out like I’m doing something that I don’t really see much value in and then the only goal, like the only like reward I’m going to get is money, even I don’t really see a point. I’ve been offered some other jobs that look similar to that but I haven’t taken any of them because you know, I’d rather work for free doing something I liked rather than just do something I hate even for like a good amount of money really.

Sean: [00:14:10] So how are you like surviving right now? I mean, I guess you’re living with your grandma. So that’s taken care of your cost of living right off for like small expenditures. Do you have like a small allowance that you can spend with?

Max: [00:14:22] Yeah, I mean, you know my grandma she’s helping me out and then also my mom, she’s helping me out right now too so but my expenses are really low like I live, you know way below like I don’t spend money on anything that’s extravagant or anything like that. Like if they were telling me “Oh, you know, we want you to go out and work”, I would but it’s more like they, especially my mom she’s kind of like a hippie in a lot of ways like she live in Clear Lake right now and they’re actually rehabbing a house up there and she just really not, she always told me like “you don’t go work this work somewhere because you think you need to make money.” like I’ll help you and so that’s good in some ways, but that I also wonder if it’s like I don’t know, It makes my situation kind of unrelatable to a lot of people who maybe see me as lazy or something because they think I’m just not working or I’m just not putting in my time or like that. Someone told me the other day I need to pay my dues or something like that. They’re trying to get me to go and work for this construction company and I did actually apply to work for that company, but they wanted someone who was going to be there like forever like indefinitely. They want a huge commitment and I just couldn’t really make that commitment. So they didn’t want to hire me.

Sean: [00:15:46] You have a great mindset so that you say you’re not just going to work just for money’s sake. It has to have some other benefit as well. Like you’re learning as well or something you like. And also honestly, you’re like in the best position in the world because you can focus a 100% on whatever you want to do. So I think that’s like amazing. and talking about being a monk, I did have a Posner retreat. I didn’t tell you this before but it’s a good ten day silent meditation. So for 10 days I was living like a monk with like no access to anything luxurious. I sleep on some bed with five other dudes snoring like all night long and eating food that was free and I’m like dude This is good food and I could fill myself for like two bucks. You know, you don’t need money to be happy, right? The way I see it, this is like a game. Like we’re playing the game to get money not because you need money to be happy. But because it’s like a form of achievement. Kind of like a high score in a video game. So like, how you play the game better to get a higher score.

Max: [00:16:46] Exactly. I totally agree with that and I think that it was in Cashflow Quadrant, the Kiyosaki book, where he said that money is like an instrument of debt and that the way that you leverage power with money is like the more people you can get to be indebted to you. And I know I understand what you’re saying where like for people who are using it like to get like a high score, and that’s like, all their basic necessities are covered and they’re just doing it for some kind of gratification like in a way but then I guess it was saying that for some and it in the book, that for some people it’s like they really think it is like life or death. And because if you’re in a city and you don’t have any direct access to resources and everything has to be exchanged for money. It’s like you really do need money to survive at that.

Sean: [00:17:41] And yeah we always have that basic threshold, but like if you’re a billionaire, you don’t need 10 more billion dollars. Like there’s no way you can possibly like spend 10 billion on consumer goods, you know, they spend the billion on art or like something crazy like, you know businesses. But not on actual necessities like toothpaste and food.

Max: [00:18:02] And so it’s very hard for me to imagine what someone in that position, what their life would look like, to have that amount of power shape their lifestyle and what kind of questions they would have. I kind of want to know what it’s like but it’s kind of murky because when you’re at the base level of like working on a farm or if you’re just kind of living like within your means or whatever you’re doing it’s sort of like there’s not many questions. You kind of know this is what I have to do. It’s pretty clear cut. But when you move more into this sort of life, really expansive capitalist kind of thing, and especially in the Bay Area where it’s like people are really pushing the boundaries and almost becoming like transhuman. and with technology and just really like the sky’s the limit on a lot of this stuff and you know, then the questions like so much beyond something as simple. It becomes really like a kind of philosophical thing. And I think trying to contemplate stuff like that is really also with keeping me from being able to like totally focus on one thing. Like I have been trying to focus for now in getting my real estate license being an agent because that seems kind of like clear-cut, and had kind of like a basic sort of idea behind it. But even then like as I’m moving through the courses, so many questions come up, you know, every once in a while. I just keep thinking like, What if I just go and just travel around with nothing and do something like that, but something keeps kind of bringing me back to stuff like your meetup or this podcast or just. I do want to figure out what the deeper meaning is.

Sean: [00:19:41] And the cool thing is you already know what’s like to be pretty much at zero and you know that you can survive at 0 so you don’t have that fear behind you like “Oh my God, I need a job”. You really have such a huge advantage right there and speaking of, like working on a farm is simple but the money you get is smaller and I have a philosophy about this I said, because thinking is harder than physical activity, like it’s very easy to just use your body to do something and then not think. But it is very hard for you to just think of ideas and be creative and that’s why people think and it gets them big bucks. I think that’s the whole premise of the book “Think and Grow Rich”, right?

Max: [00:20:14] And I think it’s Henry Ford who said that he hires all that people to do a lot of stuff for him so he has time to think. I think that’s close.

Sean: [00:20:28] So far you’ve been doing real estate for how many months now?

Max: [00:20:31] So I read that book by Kiyosaki about two months ago and then just kind of in the back of my mind, the first thing I tried to do was like I try to start an E-commerce business. I tried to start a clothing store with Shopify and it just, I don’t know, I mean I didn’t make any sales at all. and I didn’t try that hard in it. But it’s like my first idea that I got from reading that book. and after that, actually when I was just sort of out like at a bar, basically I met this woman who’s talking about she’s getting into real estate investing and she kind of just like invited me to go with her other friends and one of them, I guess sort of actually had some success investing and we drove around in Stockton and looked at some properties there that they were thinking about I guess rehabbing or flipping or something. I’m not sure. Just kind of her talking about it and she sort of motivated me to try to get the license to be an agent. And yeah that was about a little more than a month ago that I met her. And then from there and like going to this real estate class. So yeah overall. It’s been about a month. I think a little more than a month that I’ve been looking at it.

Sean: [00:21:47] Are you pretty active? Like I saw you first at the SGR in C1 with Kevin Roberts and you came to my meet up twice. Right? So in going to these meetups, I’m sure you have a bunch of questions and I kind of want to dig into your mind and honestly, I’m not an expert right? There’s no way I can claim that I know anything, but I can try. So what kind of questions did you have?

Max: [00:22:09] Okay. So the first question I had was like, how can you start in this arena with nothing, basically nothing, not even knowledge or money or connections or anything. Like what’s like some of the first things we can do?

Sean: [00:22:27] All right. First of all, that’s so funny because when I talk to like the top dog investors, I always ask that question because I feel like I’m in the position. I’m like, yeah, I have some experience. Yeah, I have some money but you know when I think about it, I’m basically starting back from 0 because of my recent downfall and and I kind of I know what does it take to get back up because some of these guys, they’ve gone through bankruptcy and foreclosure. They’ve had to start over 10 years ago. Yeah, the number one thing they always say is go to meetups. Meetups are pretty much free, 15 bucks, 20 bucks, that’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. Start showing your face and looking around. Find the investor that you want to be in five years. Because there’s so many different investing strategies. There’s wholesaling, there’s flipping, there’s multifamily, there’s raising money for multifamily, there’s new construction, private lending, etc. So find that person you want to be and then find ways to add value to that person. So this is the hardest part. Imagine you’re this top dog instead and this new guy is coming up to try to talk to you and says, “hey man, you want to come to get lunch with me?” you’re probably like “I don’t have time to have lunch with you.” Al Williamson said this “I have an unlimited amount of Sweat Equity for you” like because you don’t work right? You have all the time in the world to do all the tasks that they don’t want to do. So what does a multi-millionaire not want to do? They don’t want to make the phone calls. They don’t want to knock on the doors and they don’t want to talk to people, they want their life to be simple. So if you can offer to do that for them, then they will let you shadow them. You can get them a deal and just be like “hey, I have this deal. I don’t know what to do with it. Would you like to partner with me on this so that you know, I get a little cut but I also want to learn more” and they’ll probably say yeah if the deal is good.

Max: [00:24:15] Okay, you’re saying mainly it’s like talking to people, something like knocking on doors or trying to find deals or something that they might not have time to do or that they want to like source a wider amount of those opportunities than they personally can get. That kind of thing?

Sean: [00:24:30] Ultimately these people are busy and there’s a lot of these tasks that they don’t want to do themselves, but it needs to be done. For example, if you want to Airbnb Arbitrage, I’m not sure you heard that strategy before.

Max: [00:24:44] is that when he rents out or you buy a property to then rent out as Airbnb?

Sean: [00:24:50] Well, actually, you don’t even buy it. You just go to somebody and say “hey, let me like rent out your place for like 2,000 bucks.” And then you Airbnb for 4,000. So you keep that 2000 spread. So there are some pretty top guys who do that here in the Bay Area, but they’re busy or they’re like out of the area. They’re traveling all day. So imagine you said. Hey, man, let me work for you. You don’t even have to pay me. Just let me learn and I’ll take care of all your stuff here while you’re out traveling. They might say yes, okay, because you’re providing them value.

Max: [00:25:24] Yeah, are there any ways to immediately start adding value as a complete beginner? So you’re talking about like sweat equity and a lot of the things. You’re saying like it requires some technical knowledge to kind of know what something like a AirBnb Arbitrage even is in the first place but then at the other side of it, it’s like a lot of it seems like you just have to be kind of bold or courageous enough to want to do those things. And because that’s what I’m kind of wondering is how much technical knowledge you need for people to take you seriously versus like what else are people looking for besides technical knowledge, like what kind of personality traits? because technical knowledge takes a long time actually to get everything there. You know, it’s takes a long time to wear all these things.

Sean: [00:26:16] Yeah. Well, I think for any industry whether it be real estate or anything else like you need to know the basic lingo. Otherwise people just will not take you seriously. Do you know what ARV stands for? Do you know what LTV stands for? You know IRR? You don’t need to know exactly all about it. You just need to understand that these concepts exist and they’re part of the daily lingo so that when someone asked you like, oh, what’s ARV on a property? Like hey, I have a wholesale deal. What’s the ARV? I don’t know, then this is not a good deal. But the thing is this knowledge can be easily acquired because there’s so much information out there already. So for the most part, hey, this is my podcast. You’ll have like 50 plus episodes go through them. You’ll be an expert or you just ask me I can tell you the answer right away just like that. Biggerpockets and books. So honestly, I wouldn’t worry about the technical stuff too much because you can learn a lot of it in like one day, like specific knowledge. You usually get that from just working with somebody else and they’ll help you with all those like miscellaneous stuff that authors always forget to write about in their books.

Max: [00:27:21] So, could you explain any what ARV is? Is it “after rehab value”? I can’t even remember now.

Sean: [00:27:31] Yep, after repair value. Basically when the properties’ done, how much does it cost or how much is it going to be worth.

Max: [00:27:43] Okay, I know that this is probably like a pretty complex question or there’s probably a lot in this but it just says what is a good deal and how do you find one? Like I know there’s probably many different parameters that make something a good deal. But if you’re someone like me who I’m spending a lot of time studying about this stuff or talking to people about it, but I’m not actually like driving around so much in the neighborhood like looking at real houses or anything like that, you know it still feel like theoretical but I just kind of want to know like can you tell me the first basic thing look out for that would signal when something is a good deal or like a good chance to make money today?

Sean: [00:28:21] That’s an amazing question. And actually I asked a lot of my guests the same question. I say what is your buying criteria? Because every person has a different buying criteria. Some are more conservative and some are not. So for example, one of the biggest real estate education programs out there, it’s called Fortune Builders. There’s a lot of people who are Fortune builders in our community. The typical one is about 65% of ARV minus your rehab costs. So the property will sell for a million. They want to buy it for 650 Grand – your rehab costs which maybe like 50 to 75 grand. So that means you’re left with 575K for a million dollar property. Now, does that sound pretty ridiculous? Like who would sell you a million-dollar home for 575? It’s not going to happen here, right? This formula works really well In other parts of the country like where houses are maybe $200,000 then all right, that makes sense. You can probably buy a $200,000 house for 100 grand and then fix it up. So like there’s that one. another big one that’s here right now is 10% of ARV is their profit. So for a million dollar property they want 10% of that to be profit. So a hundred grand. You need to buy it for under 900K. Then you have closing costs. So when you sell a house, you have to pay both realtors. So that’s 5% right there. And then you have to pay around 2% for just like some miscellaneous closing costs and total your closing costs to 7%. So if you calculate that backwards, like a million dollars, 7% that is 70 grand and you also have your hundred grand profit. So now you’re at 830K and then it might cost you another 75 to repair it. So it’s 830K minus 75K and then you might have holding costs because you purchased the property with hard money maybe. So that’s four months worth of payments plus whatever origination fees there are. So grand total let’s say you need to buy for $700K or less. Okay, I think I’m over your head.

Max: [00:30:28] Well, yeah, I got to get better at being able to understand numbers. You know, that’s the thing like reading numbers.

Sean: [00:30:34] When I explain this all to you what part of that did not make sense to you that you weren’t able to catch on just like this.

Max: [00:30:41] So you mentioned like these different expenses that go into it like the one thing you said about something where you have to pay a certain percentage to the hard money lender. Like I didn’t even know about that at all. That’s one of the biggest mystery for me is like how you would be using someone else’s money to make these transactions and how that works is like a big gray area for me.

Sean: [00:31:08] Okay, so you understood the closing cost per se but you don’t understand like the hard money stuff.

Max: [00:31:14] Not totally. If you could explain that.

Sean: [00:31:17] Yeah. Absolutely. This podcast is all about just asking these granular questions because hey, you don’t know it. I know it but many people out there they probably don’t know either, so it’s cool. Just ask. So 7% usually goes because when you sell a home here in the Bay Area, typical realtor commission is 5% of the closing costs. So 2.5% goes to the listing agent and 2.5% goes to the buyer’s agent. so 5% total. The seller pays for it. And then there’s another 2% kind of like a miscellaneous and all other fees like transfer taxes, title fees, escrow fees, notary fees, everything. About 2% of the purchase price or sell price. That’s why we budget 7% total for closing fees. And that’s when you sell. Now when you buy the property, I mean unless you have a lot of money, most of us are not that rich like I personally can’t just bust out $700,000 to buy a home. What I do is I get a hard money loan. Because in this industry hard money allows you to buy a property without looking at your own personal records. It looks at the value of the asset, which is the home you’re going to buy.

Max: [00:32:34] When you say your own personal records, you mean like your history of what kind of deals you’ve made or your credit or like what exactly does that mean?

Sean: [00:32:42] Look at your credit score for sure. They want to make sure you are not like some shady dude that’s gonna just take their money and run away. But when it comes to like your income, if you were to buy a house regularly, they have something called “debt to income ratio” or DTI and your DTI can’t be above like 43%. So like you take all your debt, your car loans, student loans, and other mortgage payments you have, how much do you pay in that monthly and divide that by how much are you getting every month from your job or from your other rental properties. And that ratio has to be below 43% after getting this new property. So, you know, if you have larger flips going on, there’s no way you can get a traditional loan. And plus, traditional loans like going to like Chase Bank or Wells Fargo, they take forever at 30 days plus. With hard money they can close in 5 days, 10 days depends on how good your hard money lenders.

Max: [00:33:34] Okay. So what what exactly is a hard money lender? Like how does that person make a profit or like how do you find the people or who are they exactly like?

Sean: [00:33:45] So hard money lenders are not like institutionalized banks. They’re usually either private firms or they’re hedge funds that loan out money. Basically these guys loan out money at a higher than usual interest rate. So let’s say if you bought a 30-year fixed loan for a home. You can probably get a little under 4% right now a year, but for hard money that number goes all the way up to like 10% and it’s interest only usually and the loan terms are usually very short, like one year. And then to get the loan you also pay something called points. Points stand for like the origination fees where the points are a percentage of the loan amount. So, let’s say you’re buying a property for 700K, they’ll give it to you maybe let’s say 90% LTV. So do you know what LTV stands for?

Max: [00:34:39] No, help me out.

Sean: [00:34:42] LTV stands for a “loan to value ratio”. So No one’s gonna give you all $700,000. They’re going to make sure you have some of your own skin in the game. They’re going to make sure you have 10% but they’ll loan the other 90%. That’s why it’s called 90% LTV. So for $700,000 you put in 70K, they’ll put in 630K.

Max: [00:35:02] Okay. Got it. So you at least need to be able to cover that difference. They’re not going to lend you the whole amount that you would need to buy a property.

Sean: [00:35:10] That’s right. That’s right.

Max: [00:35:12] And then what was it? What is the reason why they wouldn’t want to lend the whole amount?

Sean: [00:35:15] They want you to have skin in the game. They want to make sure that you’re not just gonna… like if you defaulted it’s like “I don’t care. I have no money in the game.” If you foreclose on them, they want to make sure they have some some safety net, some cushion.

Max: [00:35:28] Okay, so you need to at least have that amount and it’s usually 10%?

Sean: [00:35:33] Yeah, usually there are some places that do give a 100% LTV. So they’ll loan you everything but they charge a lot of money like really a lot of money. But some people have no option, so basically for 90% of the 700k they’re going to loan you 630K and they’ll charge you like 10% a year on that money interest only. So if you hold on to that property for a whole year, you’re basically going to be paying $63,000 and your monthly payment is $63,000 divided by 12. So far so good?

Max: [00:36:09] Yeah, could you just repeat that last thing one more time?

Sean: [00:36:13] 10% interest for a $630K loan. Your total yearly payment is going to be $63,000, 10% of 630, right? And your monthly payment is going to be you know, 63K divided by 12 and you have to pay something called points which are the origination fees and you know for a new investor it’s probably going to be about 2%.So the loan amount is $630K, you’re gonna be paying 2% on that. So that’s like $12.6K.

Max: [00:36:51] Okay. Got it. That percentage, the LTV thing, that’d be like a debt that would bar people from being able to use a hard money lender because you said people will offer like a 100% loan. They charge a lot of money in interest rate.

Sean: [00:37:10] I’ve heard of it and what they do is they charge 12% interest and 4 points. 4 points just to do the loan. But yeah, it’s a 100%. Yeah. So let me ask you, what do you do if you find a deal like this and you don’t have $70,000?

Max: [00:37:28] I don’t know. What would you do,I’m wondering.

Sean: [00:37:30] Let’s be creative. What would you do? You just say “I forget about it. This deal sucks. Move on. I can’t do any deals. I’m done.”?

Max: [00:37:41] Yeah, how would you come up with $70K like that would come from your job or something or money you have saved up?

Sean: [00:37:51] So if you can do the deal yourself and yeah, you just use your own money, but let’s say we’re in someone else’s position where they don’t have that kind of funds. There’s two things you can do. One thing is they can sell the deal to somebody else like, “hey, this deal has good numbers. I think that if you do this deal you can make $100,000 profit.” So that’s something called wholesaling where they sell you the contract. There’s some law that, apparently, if you sign a document you have something called “equitable right”. So then you have the right to sell this document to somebody else and so they can buy it at that price and then you get whatever you charge for the right to sell the document. So in the Bay Area that number goes high as 25K to 100K. The second thing you can do, it’s something that I recommend you do actually instead of wholesaling. If you find someone that you like and trust and you say “hey I have this deal but I can’t close on it and I need your help”. And that’s where the whole like mentorship thing comes into play. Because you’re offering them a deal and you just want a small commission, you know, you don’t have your own money, but you said “look I can help you manage the project, I found the deal for you. Let me get a cut but also learn your system” and you know, if you’re giving them a deal for the most part they might say yes.

Max: [00:39:13] Okay. So like you have to have a deal that they might be interested in and they think is like worth it.

Sean: [00:39:16] Yeah, of course.

Max: [00:39:16] And so then like what are the chances you’re going to find a deal that no one else has found or like no one else already knows about? Like how competitive is the whole market in the area?

Sean: [00:39:35] It’s super super competitive here. If you do the traditional method of just sending out direct mail, which is the ones that a lot of people like a lot, the average is $18,000 per good deal. Like you’re sending out $18,000 worth of mail to people. With calls, getting cussed out, just to get one good deal. Like you might get 10 actual deals, but one of them will be good.

Max: [00:40:00] So that’s an actual piece of mail that would go to their house in their mailbox? And then how would you use that to get a deal? What are you asking?What does it say?

Sean: [00:40:17] I’m not expert in mail, but basically just saying “hey, I want to buy your house. Are you interested? Give me a call. So then they say “yeah, I’m interested. Come through.” Come through and you take a look and make sure you can get a ballpark of how much is going to cost. You just talk to them, build rapport, you sign a contract, and I guess you negotiate some terms. You say I’ll buy your house in this time for this much money. I don’t have the experience for it.

Max: [00:40:45] Okay, so you don’t use that method of direct mail at all.

Sean: [00:40:49] I’ve done it before and I’ve gone to some appointments, but I haven’t got a deal from it personally. But I don’t do enough volume.

Max: [00:40:56] But do you think, do people think that’s like a good method to use?

Sean: [00:41:02] They love it

Max: [00:41:03] Okay,but it’s expensive.

Sean: [00:41:04] That’s right. It’s expensive. For a new person like you I don’t know if I would recommend it because you don’t have 18 grand to blow, right? And that’s a statistical average. You know, it could only be one dollar for your first house or it could be a hundred thousand. Who knows?

Max: [00:41:23] I remember listening to your other podcasts where you sort of teamed up with someone from the meetup group. So you go in on a deal together, and kind of a became your mentor and. Like how did you find that deal? Like I think that you probably talked about it, but I can’t totally remember. You’re not using direct mail so how did you find the deal?

Sean: [00:41:44] I mean I did direct mail, I did go to meetings with the sellers but nothing ever panned out and then after you know a year or so of just trying it, I honestly got super lucky. You know, I just kept showing my face. I kept going to meetups. I kept volunteering and just so happened that my friend Eliza happen to have a deal that she couldn’t handle because she had too much of other commitments. So even if you’re rich there can be times when you just don’t have the cash to do deals. So then what do you do? So then she said “hey Sean. I know you were looking for some deals. Are you interested in this one?” And I was like, “yeah, I’m done.” So then we partnered. And that deal’s like the best deal I had.

Max: [00:42:24] Is she kind of showed you the deal like for free?

Sean: [00:42:27] Exactly, because you know, she gets her deals by calling agents. That’s another free way that people are doing. They’re just calling agents and trying to become buddy-buddy with them and then they say “hey if you have any off-market leads let me know. I’ll take a look at them. And if it’s good I’ll let you be my seller as well.” So OK they’re motivated by working with those people.

Max: [00:42:46] And then the agent they’ll know because they’re representing someone? They just know a lot from the MLS or something?

Sean: [00:42:53] Well, the agents are usually farming these areas for years and years and years. They’re just like, okay, we’re constantly sending out mail once a month, the same people, and so they know this neighborhood very very well.

Max: [00:43:04] Yeah, because that’s a thing for me like a mental block right now is like how do you even find something beyond like sending out mail to people and asking everyone if they want to sell their own house? Is that what you do when you go and knock on people’s doors and you ask them, “Do you want to sell your house?” Is that sort of like the idea?

Sean: [00:43:44] Yeah, pretty much. Well it’s scary dude, and you’ll get door-slammed on your face sometimes. Yeah it happens.

Max: [00:43:49] Yeah, because they probably take it as a kind of a threat right?

Sean: [00:43:56] Totally. Even when sending out mail you get cussed out sometimes.

Max: [00:44:02] Okay. So besides sending out mail, what’s like the second most commonly used method? Door knocking?

Sean: [00:44:10] No. It’s actually cold calling. This one is even more like intrusive. You’re actually calling their cell phones and like “hello. Would you like to sell your home?” and they’re like “what the hell?”

Max: [00:44:24] You just like flat out ask?

Sean: [00:44:27] Yeah. I mean my friends they do it. They have a power dialer. So they call three people at the same time. It just go through a giant list all day.

Max: [00:44:38] Wow, so that’s like that. I thought somehow that you would like go walk around the neighborhood and when I see houses that look like abandoned or something. But I guess if it’s abandoned, there’s probably someone who’s doing something with it or knows about it like you.

Sean: [00:44:57] Or not. It may not be. That’s called “driving for dollars”. Have you heard that term before?

Max: [00:45:04] No, I have not heard that.

Sean: [00:45:06] You just drive around and you look for like really crappy looking homes with weeds up to here. Then you write down the address and you start tracing them and you can find all the information. It’s all public information.

Max: [00:45:18] Okay, I want to go back to the cold calling and to going to people’s houses and sending the mail and stuff, like obviously a lot of people may feel threatened or you know, they’re going to get a bad reaction but there’s probably going to be like one guy who they really want to sell their house or they really need to sell their house or something. You have the opportunity to actually help someone but you have to just get through this huge wave. And when you’re saying people are just sending out these mailings to as many people as possible, is there any other way that you can kind of be more specific about choosing who you would try to interact with or like signals you could look for?

Sean: [00:46:01] Of course, yeah, you didn’t when you’re mailing out this giant batch there’s always information that you can filter people out with. So like for me I filter out location obviously. I filter out when was the last time this property was sold. So if they just bought their home, there’s no way they’re going to sign a discount. No way. But if they bought it for 30 years ago, then there’s a chance.

Max: [00:46:26] Wow. Yeah, this is like an aspect that I didn’t even understand before talking to you. Right now that’s what you’re getting calling people and talking to agents. You’re just trying to find people who has interest.

Sean: [00:46:41] I mean, it’s prospecting, you know, it’s prospecting for gold. You have to go through a lot. You get it, but in this area, all you need is one really good deal. And then you’re done for the year. Basically you can work at a high-tech job and make 100-150K. You can do one sweet deal and make 200. It’s rare for sure. But I’ve seen so many people do it and heck I even did it myself so I know “Okay they’re out there. It’s possible.”

Max: [00:47:08] So yeah, you compared it to prospecting for gold. That’s interesting too.

Sean: [00:47:13] I see on the other hand though I made some more realizations on my own and I don’t think prospecting is the way to go. In the gold rush you want to be the guy selling the pickaxes and not the guy mining for the gold. Because like there are a lot of gold miners out there but there is only one big pickaxe company. So like Sean O’Toole he made this thing called Property Radar and almost every real estate investor uses it. Great tool, 50 bucks a month, subscription based. He used to be a flipper himself. But then he realized it was too draining on his time and energy and he realized if you just create this platform instead he can make way more money and help way more people and it’s true. It came true. But that’s a story for a different time. That’s philosophy. I’m not sending out the letters or cold calling people because I want to focus my energy on building something else. But in the meantime, I do know this information and I’m happy to share it with everybody.

Max: [00:48:11] Yeah, really interesting. So you’re thinking of looking more into the idea of like creating tools that will help out people rather than just be another person’s like prospecting all the time like we’re saying.

Sean: [00:48:23] Something similar to that. I’m not sure exactly what it is, which is why I’m still kind of like sitting on my hands right now.

Max: [00:48:29] Got it. Yeah. Wow, so, I mean I know in the gold rush like tons of people were unsuccessful. A lot of people who kind of attempt to be successful in this and then just nothing ever happens or you know, you kind of just never see them again.

Sean: [00:48:51] In this business and the same as anything else in life, the only people who are really unsuccessful other ones who just leave themselves. Everyone else from my generation who stuck through it, I mean, we’ve only been here for three years, but within this three years, I think every single person I know has done at least one deal. Well they’re not all killing it for sure. But they are more respected and they understand what to do. Personally, I’ve taken huge losses, but I’m still in the game. You know, I can’t really say that people have have failed. You just have disappeared.

Max: [00:49:29] They quit. So you’re saying like that the main thing that could probably prevent you from succeeding would be just like giving up.

Sean: [00:49:39] Exactly, it’s just your own desire to do this is gone and you decide to do something else. That’s the only way you can truly fail.

Max: [00:49:49] Yeah, that’s really interesting. You you seem very focused on this. Do you get distracted by like something else that you think you’d rather do or like takes your attention away?

Sean: [00:50:02] Dude shiny object syndrome is always there for sure. Okay. The thing is with real estate investing there’s already so many different topics. There’s so many different ways to real estate investing. I have not been distracted with other types of like businesses per se but I have been distracted with in the world of real estate. Like I want to do flipping, I want to do AirBnB, I want to do new construction. You know, I do get distracted there. It’s not good. Like if you want to be successful just focus on one thing. Like take a good week to figure out what you want to do. What resonates the most with you? And then just focus on that one thing give it time, you know, don’t just jump because you see something else that’s more lucrative. I was at this party on Friday and someone told me what to do if you want be successful. Like how do you get to oil? You have to dig past the water, the bedrock, you dig all the way down. But what happens if you try to dig in too many places at once? You’ll never hit the oil. Good point!

Max: [00:51:04] Yeah, so you kind of figured out that this was a path you want to take and you said you’ve been kind of doing this for like three years now?

Sean: [00:51:16] I’ve been in the community for around three years. Yeah three years doing the same thing as you man. Like for my first year I didn’t do anything. I just kept going to meet ups and also it kind of sucked but by being around all these people… because if you just go for one year with no deal it sucks. Everyone new can appreciate that. Yeah So eventually just hang out to with these people and you learn so much and then you said “all right. Well, what am I waiting for?” and you jump in and you realize “oh, it’s not that scary. Yeah, you get better at it.”

Max: [00:51:45] I wanted to ask you like what your opinion is on like taking risks, like how important you think it is? Because I know a lot of people say like you have to take risks and it’s more dangerous to like not take risks. But what would be something that was just way too risky? Do you have like a scale you can use to like appropriate risk, or I’m not playing at the right way?

Sean: [00:52:18] I get it. Yeah, and to be honest, I think I’m personally still too new to properly assess risk because I got into a deal that I thought was a no-brainer. I thought I was going to win for sure. Ended up losing like a ton of money like so much and I didn’t account for that. I thought there was no way that was going to happen. No way and then it happened and I thought holy crap like this is real life. So I guess for you is like what’s the worst that can happen to you and can you stomach that? Because you’ve really lived three years as a monk. I’m pretty sure even if you went like bankrupt, that’s the worse can happen to you in this industry. You’re not gonna get murdered over real estate, right? You’re not gonna lose your life over real estate. The worst thing that can happen to you is that you lose money. And then like, how would you feel if you lost all your money? It probably won’t be that bad. You know what it’s like to have no money.

Max: [00:53:13] Yeah, exactly. I know. I guess for me I’m not too worried about losing money. It’s more like going crazy or something.

Sean: [00:53:22] Like do you have the mental fortitude, the intestinal fortitude to deal with it?

Max: [00:53:26] Yeah, or like an embarrassment or something where it’s like losing your status because when you fail, it’s like you’re in school. You’re kind of trained not to ever fail, like you can’t fail in school or if you actually just fail and I always wonder like I just feel like I learned a lot when I do fail, but it’s kind of this weird feeling where you kind of forced to rethink your whole sense of self and stuff like that. I wonder you said you lost a lot of money on this one deal. Do you feel like that was like somehow like you learned something from that as well? Like it was like coming out to your advantage too?

Sean: [00:54:12] Absolutely. Yeah, Every curse is a blessing in disguise, right? It’s built a lot of character and everything you just said is exactly the kind of what I was going through. I had a lot of pride. I thought I’m some hotshot because you know my first year I made a bunch of money. I thought I was killing it. I was going to my co-workers and I was saying like “man you guys are foolish for like working so hard.” but I lost all my money and I’m like damn I feel like a fool for talking so much especially talk to my family. I was like, ”oh man you guys still working your so like you shouldn’t be working in mortgages do this instead anyway, right? So now it’s like damn I’m embarrassed but it’s okay.I’m still alive to live another day. And in fact, I didn’t want to feel shameful. So what I did was I wrote my story and I shared it publicly to everybody.

Max: [00:55:05] Yeah. That’s a great idea.

Sean: [00:55:06] Yeah, and then now no one can hold that against me. No one could be like, “oh,there’s Sean. The guy that that effed up pretty bad.” instead It’s like “dude he’s the one that confessed”

Max: [00:55:17] your really public about it. Like you were really public about your loss.

Sean: [00:55:20] I’m always deliberately public about it. Even though it does not feel good, but I’m literally public about it. So that failure would no longer own me. I own it and then I can move on with my life.

Max: [00:55:31] That’s really interesting you mentioned you kind of have like an ego or like your pride repair and then sort of you had to reconcile with losing. And with your ego kind of something happening, but you think coming out of that like you’re more I don’t know how to explain it exactly but…

Sean: [00:55:49] Yeah, I mean, I definitely became like a thousand percent more humble for sure. Yeah. I went to UCLA and I thought I was smart dude. And I go to real estate meetups and you know, no offense but a lot of people go into real estate meetups don’t have the same background as I do. So I thought man these guys are foolish. They’re doing their numbers wrong blah blah blah their models are incorrect. I thought “Man, how can people lose money in the crash? These guys are just over-leveraged stupid and dumb” and they happened to me. I thought “oh I see this is how it happens.” And I realized maybe these guys aren’t so foolish after all. And you get to see like the better qualities of people like maybe you don’t have the educational background but they have more guts, more desire, more willpower to do things that I am not doing. They’re hustling harder than me and began to respect people more and you know, from up here to way down here looking up at everybody. Now I look up to everybody and a cool thing is now because I’m no longer like this egotistical dude people have actually been very very kind. Very nice to me and I truly truly appreciate that, you know, even getting guests on my show. Before I don’t know if they would be willing to do it. But now I guess because they’ve seen how open I am and how I guess like how genuine like to share my feelings, now they’re more open to talk to me as well. The share information with everyone else who listen to the podcast so it’s like a win-win for everybody.

Max: [00:57:14] Right. So like what do you think about the idea of like losing on purpose but sort of going into something maybe knowing you would fail or like with the possibility that you’re going to fail being very high but doing it like because you know that even if you do fail if you have like an overall good outcome. Like it’s kind of making a fool of yourself on purpose or something like that.

Sean: [00:57:39] I wouldn’t do anything like that on purpose per se. But anything you do, especially when you’re new at least you learn and then you just say it’s tuition. Right? And I mean just remember that at least for money it is a stressful point, but at least you can always make it back. So, you know, I lost a lot of money, but the worst thing is I lost some of my friends money because he was with me on this. And I’m like dedicated to making sure that he gets paid whole again. Otherwise this relationships going to be frayed and that number is very high relative to if I were to work at a job and save that money, it would take me years to pay him back. But I think you know, what if I do these other things, then money is no longer a function of time. Money is now a function of value. So I just have to change my thinking and make more value. I make the money back and I can pay my friend back. We’ll be good.

Max: [00:58:30] It’s a lot of things. Processing everything you’re talking about like so many different things going on in my head right now, but I don’t know. I guess I’m trying to think of also like what kind of mentality is necessary to be successful in something this because I know that I got interested in it for some reason, but I somehow feel like I’m pretty different from people who are really good with numbers or have this sort of business mindset. Like my background is pretty different kind of more introspective or something like that. And so I’m kind of trying to think like trying to figure out like why I was interested in this kind of thing in the first place and if I would actually be a good match for like that, you know, like where could I really provide value? I don’t know if I’m the most competitive person there is. I mean, I took that risk testing and that thing said I was pretty competitive but I don’t know. Something just feels like the kind of like disconnect there for me, you know.

Sean: [00:59:40] Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. So this is actually what I love the most about real estate investing. This community is probably the most generous and helpful community that I know of at all. Like I’ve been to other meetups, like for example, I used to go to product management meetups. And then these people they are not super friendly. They’re all very egotistical. They’re all very you know “smart”. Whereas in real estate investing. Everyone is super helpful and friendly, Like people who are multi millionaires will talk to you and give you the time of day because they want to help you. But also I realized man if you help someone as new and they happen to bring you a deal that’s probably going to be about 10 to 50 thousand dollars in profit for both you guys, right? So like is a potential ten to fifty thousand dollars worth of lunch with some newbie? Yeah, I think so. So it’s always it’s always in your interest to help people in the real estate community. So the mindset that you need is an abundance mindset, that is probably the only thing you need and do you know what that is?Abundance mindset?

Max: [01:00:46] Beyond just kind of thinking about what it might mean. I’m not totally sure.

Sean: [01:00:51] Okay. It’s like a mentality that people talk about where you don’t think “oh my God, there’s only one deal left in the world. I’ve got to keep this for myself”, instead you think, “dude, there’s so many deals in the world! if I get a deal I’m gonna share it”. So you get more deals together. You think there’s more than there actually is.

Max: [01:01:07] Being like open-handed sort of.

Sean: [01:01:10] Be like super generous, share everything, and you’ll be rewarded very generously for that.

Max: [01:01:16] Alright cool. So you said it’s like very generous community of people. Is there anything that you would warn people about as far as like networking? Like any kind of red flags that might pop up? Like I went to a few meetings recently, I actually got like some job interviews and stuff. I guess they found my resume but it didn’t have anything to do with real estate exactly but something with business or it ended up being like a pyramid scheme kind of things. And I’ve noticed around here there’s a lot of stuff like that it’s kind of obvious. But even last night when you introduce me to your friend, he said to me like a lot of guys who’ll talk to you they’re going to try to just like punk you out or they’re going to try to just get you to do something for them or something like that. So I guess that that aspect exist too but did you have any experiences with that kind of things?

Sean: [01:02:11] Like, I don’t know. I’ve been doing like other kind thinking. But I think no one truly thinks they’re a villain in their own eyes. Like no one thinks they’re evil. So to them what they’re doing doesn’t seem evil. They’re providing you a service like some educational programs. They cost a lot of money. But to them they’re like look, we’re helping people achieve financial freedom. So for you, it’s up to you decide. Okay, do I want this service or don’t want the service. And you don’t need to blanket them as an evil person or a shady guy. They’re doing whatever they’re doing for a reason. That might not align with your values and goals, but that’s it. Then you just don’t have to work with them. It’s up to you to see do I like this person or not? Do I vibe with them or not? Is that a good answer.

Max: [01:03:00] Yeah. Yeah.

Sean: [01:03:02] So I mean from everything I talked to you so far have there been any big takeaways that you can use?

Max: [01:03:10] Yeah, like one of the big things is where you said about people who are trying to sort of live life like a video game to get a high score sort of like that. You know that was like pretty interesting to me because when we started the conversation like I wonder about what’s the real value, like what’s the true value people are looking for in life? Like what are they actually trying to get out of life and I’m noticing a lot of ways like maybe money is like standing in the place of something that’s valuable but that maybe people are doing things to get it. They’re not really enjoying like they they get to the point where no one likes their job but they have to work to make money. So, I’m just kind of rethinking like what my own goals are and why I would want to get into something like this or how I want to benefit from it or help people or something like that

Sean: [01:04:13] Money is just a tool to get more things.

Max: [01:04:15] Maybe I feel in some way like the motivation for that is missing. it’s hard to be so motivated by just wanting to like acquire things.

Sean: [01:04:26] It’s not about the money. It’s about doing cool stuff. I think it’s pretty cool to do these business transactions and like take a house that looks really gross and make it really nice. Like that’s cool and then getting rewarded for it with money. That’s a nice bonus. Right now I didn’t lose money, I’m just doing charity. Like I’m giving away homes at a very cheap price.

Max: [01:04:53] I see definitely like for me too I think being able to kind of like come out of my comfort zone more, like be able to talk to different people or just sort of like doing something that seemed like it would be kind of impossible or not really achievable in like my normal mind set. I feel just like pushing myself to try something new like what motivated me to get into this but I just want to like stick with something more and figure this out but still just like a lot of confusion.

Sean: [01:05:28] Absolutely, you know, take some time and like just think about what you want to do. No one has the answer what they want to do with your life. But at least you have some sort of guidance. So I wonder what are you going to do next?

Max: [01:05:43] I mean lately I’ve just been kind of like grinding to this real estate course, but it’s a good question. Really what I’m going to do next I mean, I don’t know like I spend a lot of time recently to sort of trying to distract myself with YouTube or like stuff like that and I talked to someone last night if they do that and they said like no they never do anything like that. Finding yourself sort of using something as a distractions wastes time or something like that.

Sean: [01:06:17] Yeah, of course. I mean I used to watch Netflix all day. I watch YouTube sometimes too. I used to watch YouTube for video games of games I don’t play. I do some challenges once in a while to like restrict myself. Like I cannot do these things and that’s when I end up reading Gandhi’s Autobiography on a Saturday night because I’ve nothing else to do.

Max: [01:06:38] Yeah, and then you feel like that’s good.

Sean: [01:06:43] But it’s not sustainable because you’ll go crazy.

Max: [01:06:47] I feel like that too.

Sean: [01:06:48] But you know once in awhile, you realize “okay. I may have watched too many videos. Let’s stop and get back to work.”

Max: [01:06:56] Yeah, I guess that’s like getting my license to be an agent is kind of appealing because it’s some way to get a credential or like to have a job. I mean, I think it’s the idea that you get to like talk to a lot of people and like meet a lot of people. It was appealing to me.

Sean: [01:07:14] It can be very financially lucrative to yep.

Max: [01:07:18] So probably I’ll just keep going with that. The thing about trying to find deals to invest in stuff, it’s still a little like intangible kind of like foreign to me. I can’t quite grasp like how to really get started with that, but I think if I keep going to meet ups and keep working through the course and get my license and maybe start working as an agent so it can solidify more to have more experiences and be more comfortable around people because coming out of the situation that I was in, I’m kind of introspective and off in the woods like being in places for so long. I don’t know. I’m sure it sounds pretty weird.

Sean: [01:08:07] No man. I’m sure you’re going to do great. So I’m looking forward to seeing your progression over the next few months. And if you have any other follow-up questions, feel free to reach out anytime. I’ll do my best to help or if I can’t help personally I’ll direct you to someone who can.

Max: [01:08:20] awesome. Yeah, that really means a lot. Thanks!

Sean: [01:08:23] No problem, man.

Max: [01:08:24] Thanks for taking time talking to me.

Sean: [01:08:25] Yeah, no problem and thanks for coming on the show.

Speaking with Max was incredibly fun. We talked about how to start with no money, connections or knowledge and how to evaluate a deal. We also talked about how to fund the deals and how to be successful in this business. And finally we talked about how to deal with failure and how you need an abundance mindset to succeed. I hope you all learned a lot. There’s a lot of fun going through and answering all these questions. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at seanpanrealty@gmail.com and check out the show notes at everythingrei.com.