Real Estate Game Changers Show
Real Estate Game Changers Show
Building a 7-Figure Wholesale Empire
Brandon Vezzoso immersed himself in the world of real estate and wholesaling just four years ago. With a keen eye for creative finance, Brandon rapidly ascended, establishing a 7-figure wholesale company and accumulating an impressive $30 million dollar portfolio within the span of three years.
My time, and guys on my team leveraging their time, whereas now that's evolved into us doing a lot more inbound marketing which means a lot higher costs per lead. The conversations are a little bit different but it's actually turned to an actual business. So starting out, it was just running and gunning, Hey, can I get proof of concept here that wholesaling is real, that I can, somebody like me could actually do this to now being able to build an actual business out of it is in a few very short years has been pretty awesome to experience.
Mike:Yeah, and have you guys totally transitioned away from outbound or you still do some, but the majority is now inbound.
Brandon:Yeah, I would say the majority of what we do is inbound now, we're still trying to hang on to them just because it is we've mastered it in a lot of ways and it's big, it's been our bread and butter over the last few years, but with all of the regulations all of the potential lawsuits I'm seeing for, I have a lot of friends who are going through a lot of, issues right now in terms of lawsuits. So it's something that we're slowly phasing out and we just. We just always want to be nimble as a business, right? I think when we started texting and from a year ago until now, we've probably changed texting providers four times, right? So we're always ahead of the curve. We're always able to be very nimble and for us, we want as many marketing strategies as possible so that we can constantly measure those and pour into those that are working really well, but also give us the ability to, If texting would have gone away two years ago, it would have completely ruined my whole business. Whereas now we were more diversified, if you will.
Mike:Yeah, what are the inbound channels that you guys are focusing on? Gotcha.
Brandon:So we do a lot of PPC, which is pay per click Google ads. We do Facebook ads. We use. Paper lead providers which are, doing a lot larger campaigns in terms of Google ads and purchasing those leads from them. And now we've started doing some direct mail as well. So can't speak to the direct mail as that's just going out this week. But those are a few of the inbound channels that we use. So Google ads, Facebook ads, YouTube ads, those types of things.
Mike:And you mentioned a little bit before that you actually some of your construction team in house, what made you decide to do that? Versus a lot of people maybe keep that as a, just subbed it out or external vendors to do that.
Brandon:Honestly a huge part of the reason I started having contractors in house came down to Once I got to probably 30 or 40 rental properties and needed a full time maintenance guy at that point. And so I happened to, we were doing we scaled back on the flips the last year and a half as the market corrected a bit. But we were still needing a lot of, working on rental properties and these creative deals that we were holding. Started out just it's bring one guy in, you could do everything. Nothing he was not amazing at anything, but he was pretty dang good at everything, if that makes sense. And he was great as a handyman, he was great at some of the more minor cosmetic type flips. And now that the market is coming back and we're starting to see, more buyers come out, we're starting to do more flips. So we've continued just to hire more guys as there's more demand there. And for me, it. It wasn't so much about the money to me. It was more about timelines, right? If you're high, I see a lot of people who may But a huge mistake I did was trying to cut corners and, in terms of cost and, all it takes is you're managing six subs and one of your guys can't make it that day. And he's, he gets set back two days. Then all of a sudden, That next guy who was supposed to come in after him can't go in, but his next availability might not be until three or four weeks out. And so we ran into a lot of those type of logistical or scheduling issues. And so we just decided, Hey, let's just bring this in house so that we can at least manage To the best of our ability, the timelines of some of these, because as time is money, right? So if you end up holding a property and you have hard money or private money costs on that for two or three extra months, it gets pretty expensive. So it was a huge benefit for us.
Mike:Yeah. And how many, how big is your in house construction team at this point?
Brandon:Right now it's we still sub a couple of things out. We've got three guys full time. One of those guys is mainly doing maintenance type stuff on rentals when he's not doing that, he's helping the other guys, on, on those flips. And so we've got a crew here in Southwestern Idaho in the Boise area that kind of services this area. And then we've got another crew of four guys in Eastern Idaho. And so anything outside of Idaho, we will obviously hire a GC or sub that out, but we're trying to go a little bit deeper in Idaho where we have these great relationships, great boots on the ground and take advantage of those things.
Mike:Gotcha. Okay. And then we were talking a little bit offline about how, sometimes as you're building the wholesale business, you can forget about coming in and what you came into it for, which is to build that passive income. And you had mentioned that you guys had gotten really deep into creative, which had allowed you to end up keeping a lot of properties. You want to just talk a little bit about your journey there.
Brandon:Started learning about creative finance. I was doing some wholesale, started doing some flipping. But I'm like, this is amazing. If I could actually get a seller to go for something like this, that would be unreal, right? A zero down or 0 percent interest. And then all, that was back when homes were selling for 50 grand over asking same day, no sign in the yard and no inspections, no contingency, those type of things. And so it was. It was a lot harder to get a deal then there or get a deal back then, but a lot easier to find a buyer, right? Whereas right now, it's a lot easier to get a deal, but maybe a little bit harder to find a buyer. And so once that mark, the market, we knew it was just a matter of time, but once it started to shift, that brought along a lot of creative deals which we're probably buying at minimum five creative deals per month right now. Creative meaning, seller finance subject to, I wouldn't include innovations in there because I think we do probably at least five to 10 innovations a month as well. But in terms of holding a property, learning creative ways to do that. And it was great. It's been great holding all of those properties, those entry fees add up, if you've got, say you get a 500, 000 home for 10, 20 grand, that's great. That's less than 5 percent down, but obviously you've got. Closing costs, you've got any minor rehab that might go into the property. You've got vacancy for a short period of time that you need to account for those types of things. And so for us, it went from very, doing very much a lot of cash deals to almost all creative deals, which was great in terms of building up cashflow. In terms of immediate revenue, it's been a, it's been a little bit harder. For me, I think what started that conversation between you and I was. Me just having a reality check a few months ago thinking Hey, when you got into this, you were after time freedom, right? Like you your goal was more time. You were working whatever, 50, 60 hours a week in your job. You quit that job and now you're working 80 to a hundred hours a week as a business owner, right? And so I think for me that's been a big focal point for us is to. To build the passive income through the rental properties to take advantage, not only of the passive income, but the tax code as well, that's there for us. But I do think keeping that monthly revenue coming in that's ultimately the heart of a business, right? Is that repeatable. Income every month. There's pros and cons to each market cycle to purchasing cash versus creative there's, I could talk about it for, all day long, but but it's something that we've realized, we were like, Hey, we wish it was like this in 2021 now we're saying, Hey, we wish it was a little bit more like 20, 21. So it's cyclical.
Mike:Yeah, did you were you marketing to a specific group of people that was more likely to accept a creative finance deal when you started picking up the majority of that or like how did that occur?
Brandon:I think that. For us, it was just realizing, for me, creative is whether it's subject to or owner finance or, whatever it is, those are really just tools in our tool belt, right? And so what it allowed us to do was. If you're just wholesaling, I look at it as, like a bucket catching weeds and there's some that are overflowing that we're not a good fit for, on a fast cat, fast close cash offer type thing that we were just missing out on. And so once we added subject to. And we were able to catch some more leads in that bucket. Then once we offered seller finance, we were able to catch some more leads. And then same thing with the realtor, right? We added a realtor to be able to refer those people who may not be a good fit for either cash or creative to be able to capitalize on those as well. And so that, that's been the evolution of us doing creative. I would say that there, there's more pain in today's market than there was in 2021. In 2021, almost everyone in the country had enough equity that you didn't see a lot of foreclosures, right? Because it's silly. You could just go sell your home because you just created a hundred grand in equity in the last year or two, at least in our market. And so I think there's just more problems for us to solve in this market creatively. And I also think that there's just people in in situations with their homes that we didn't see in 2021. If you bought in Boise, for example, if you bought your home, say a year and a half, two years ago, you don't have any equity. In fact, you might have your equity. My, you might have negative equity at this time. And so for someone like that to want to go sell their home, say they bought it a year and a half ago and they have to sell their home because they get transferred for work, they would have to write a check to sell their home. So then the difference between them writing a 50, 000 check to sell their home or me giving them 10, 000 down to take over their mortgage is a 60, 000 difference to them. And now I get to go control an asset for 10, 000 down that's worth half a million dollars. Hopefully that kind of answers your questions. I just think it's the market shifted quite a bit and there's just more problems for us to solve with those tools.
Mike:Yeah. Is that your typical profile of like a subject to seller in your market is someone who like wants to sell, but they're just, they just have no equity to sell.
Brandon:Yeah, I would say seller finance is usually gain. It's usually for gain. It's usually, they're wanting a high price. They don't really need the money now. Subject to is more pain, right? Like I need to sell. I don't know. I don't know if I could even put money in my pocket if I sold. I might be three months. There's one we just I think we put it in our contract today. I don't want to misspeak, but we're basically talking to a seller who's five months behind on their mortgage going through a divorce, they just refinanced in 21 or 22. So not a ton of equity there and they were just going to let it go to the bank. And for us, we came in and said five months behind is 10, 000, right? On a almost 300, 000 home. What if we just caught those mortgage payments up for you? And that way, not only do you not have a foreclosure on your record, but now you're going to have a positive reflection in terms of your credit score, you reporting every single month. So I think, yes, those usually people who, when there's some type of. When they have to sell and they don't have a lot of equity and they have a decent mortgage rate. So if you're going to pull a list, say to take over someone's mortgage, I would say pull a list of homes that are doesn't really matter if their owner occupied or not. I, but I would. I would pull the dates from 2020 to 2021, right? Because we know mortgage rates. 90 percent of mortgages are between 2. 5 percent rates, right? So those are the mortgages we really like or anything under 4 percent for obvious reasons.
Mike:and then I know sometimes a challenge with, having multiple strategies, right? And now you guys mentioned, the wholesale side, obviously, the creative side, you do quite a bit of innovations to it's. How do you train your sales team to know not move on from like the cash option too early or not try to just sell creative to someone just because they can offer more doing it that way. I see a lot of people like make that mistake. They just try to shove a creative offer down because it can pay more, but it makes no sense for the seller. So how are you handling that challenge of training your sales team to prescribe the right thing in the right situation?
Brandon:Yeah, that's a really good question. And something that I didn't, I, I didn't do really well or teach really well to my team initially. I tried to teach them everything, right? I'm like, Hey, look at, I learned all of this. stuff here. You can do this and you can do this. And naturally it's really hard to get to somebody's real motivation, right? If a seller has a problem that we can help solve, it's really hard to get to their pain or motivation. If we hit them with a cash offer, they say no, they're still holding their cards or their motivation close to their chest. And then we go in and just offer them a creative. Offer that wouldn't even solve their problem because we couldn't get to the root of the problem or the motivation. So one thing that we've really started doing is keeping those separate, right? Like we want to completely disqualify that as a cash offer before we ever even throw out any creative terms. Before we utilize any creative finances, we want to disqualify it as a cash offer first, make sure that we're asking the right questions, that we're actively listening. A lot of people make it about price and they think when they call someone that oh, they want Zillow. It's not a deal. I can tell you I've made six figures or multiple six figures off of people who told me that they wanted Zillow or above, in the initial conversation. So I think that's one thing that we've started to really focus on is dividing those two, making sure that we're really You know, for me it's not really hard to do what we do now. Before when I could just offer one solution and I had one tool at my disposal, I was going around and hitting everything with a hammer, right? Wholesale, take my cash offer. Now for us, it's we're trying to just solve the seller's problem. We know that we can likely capitalize regardless of what is best for them. So for us, it's disqualify at cash. Have we pushed them toward a realtor, right? Most of the homes that we buy cash, there's. It's because we've gotten a reason out of them on why they don't want to sell it with the realtor. Whereas, when I first started, it was, I don't want to tell them, Hey, have you thought about listening with the realtor? What if they say, what if they say, yeah, that's a good idea. The reality is everyone knows a realtor, right? Everyone, you could close your eyes and throw a rock and probably hit a realtor. So I think for us, it's that's how we're able to get to a lot of The truth of the real pain that's going on with some of these people saying, Hey why don't you make it a rental? Seems like it'd be a really good rental. Why don't you, why don't you list it with the realtor? And I think that kind of helps sellers get, it gets their guard down a little bit, right? And allows us to have a real conversation at that point, because we're not trying to fit a square peg into a round hole because we're actually trying to make sure that we understand the seller, that we're empathetic, that we have an idea of What they're going through, how they got here, where they're trying to go so that we can help build the bridge to get there. So to answer your initial question, we keep it all separate. We want to disqualify the heck out of it on cash. We will, and then we'll go back and revisit it at that point. After we have a better understanding of which, which of these creative tools even work best for them. Now we can go bring out that tool and go help solve that problem.
Mike:And how are you telling your salespeople to like when, if they ask you a when I know that that the cash offers, I should just not go that way. When do I know I've disqualified it?
Brandon:I think by. Asking the right questions by pulling away right by having one foot out the door and okay, are a line we use a lot is, Hey, should I just close the file on this one? Like that, that in itself, somebody who's motivated, who doesn't want you to walk out the door. It's probably going to show their hand a little bit more, right? So for us, if we feel like we're just way off in terms of numbers or we can't get the right information or ask the right questions because we don't have the right information to go off of, then we're always going to pivot toward pulling away is what we call it, right? Hey, it sounds like you've got it all figured out. Should I should probably just close the file on this one. That a lot of times will get you the motivation that you're looking for. Okay. But I think, for us, it's We understand that most people are not going to tell you their problems on the first call. I wouldn't, right? If somebody, I was selling my car today and somebody came up and asked me what my motivation was, I probably wouldn't tell them in my driveway as I'm selling, selling that car. But for us, once we figured out and we saw the KPI that our average deal is 10 follow ups or more, Then we started just leaning into those patterns and started nurturing those leads and realizing that, wow, we were chasing a lot of low hanging fruit. And I think a lot of people do that. They think that they're going to call someone and they're just going to be in the word. Yeah, please save me from this position, right? Whereas for us, I think it's walking them through Hey, making sure that they feel understood, making sure that they understand, Hey, here's where we're trying to get to and doing it with them. As opposed to, Hey, this is going to solve your problem. Let's go solve this problem. How are we going to do this? And I think a lot of that is we're taking ourselves out of the ring as a buyer, a lot of deals that we're buying, we're saying, Hey, probably not the best fit for you on this. Here to help get you to your goal, right? So you're taking off that seller hat and you're putting on that advisor hat. And I think once you can build that kind of relationship, now you can not only ask the questions that we need to ask to uncover what we need to uncover. But once somebody feels heard and they feel understood, it's amazing where. Where things can go because now you're actually working as a team and we'll even tell people like, Hey, just so you know, we're working toward the same goal here, right? Like you want to sell your home. I want to buy your home, right? Or if my acquisition person is talking to them, like I don't get paid unless we buy your home, right? Like once there's an understanding of Hey, we're not sitting across from each other. We're, we should be sitting on the same side of the table. Then I think, again, it all comes down to getting the truth and motivation, and that's really hard to uncover with a lot of people. So it's getting really good at asking questions. In order to ask the right questions, you got to get really good at active listening. And so for me, that's something I struggled with initially was I always wanted to know the right line to say to this, the right line to overcome this objection, what's going to get them to do seller finance, what's going, and I learned over the course of time and tens of thousands of conversations that it's not about my agenda. There's nothing that I'm going to say to get them to do this. It's about making them feel heard, making them feel understood. And instead of me thinking about what am I going to say next, actually listening to what are they saying? mirroring them, getting them to elaborate on certain things, getting them to open up more is to me, that's the recipe for a deal right there.
Mike:Yeah, a hundred percent. Are you guys always making the cash offer first, like numbers wise, or are sometimes not? I know people to do this differently.
Brandon:Yeah, for us, it's we're in the process of changing a lot of processes trying to simplify, a lot of ourselves process. But for us, I think we would, verbally anchor The seller, it looks like I'm seeing other cash buyers paying this, in the area, and if they give a really strong push back to it that they may go one way. But a lot of times, if you just ask the right things, they might say, They're asking for 200. You got them down to 180. Got it. Okay. It looks like most cash buyers are in that 140 range. I can bring this back to the team. If the, sounds like if the underwriters want to be a under 180, I should probably just tell them to kick rocks. That's a great line, right? Because they're going to. Say one of three things. They're going to say, yeah, tell them to kick rocks, which means, okay, now we they're firm. We'll have another follow up conversation, probably pivot to terms at that point, since they're pretty firm at that number, or they're going to say, yeah, call me back, right? Or they'll say no, just say, yeah, just call me back. Or they'll say yeah, just let me know what they say, which 95 percent of the time means that they're open to taking less than one 80. So I think those are some really good questions to ask. Because again, and we can't expect people just to come out and give us, their motivation. So those are, those have been very helpful to me over the course of time.
Mike:and are you guys doing everything on the phone or you're running some stuff
Brandon:Everything on the phone. Even stuff here in Boise we're running pretty much completely virtually. I might have my contractors go do a walkthrough, but in terms of going under contract all of those things are all done via DocuSign and virtual.
Mike:Gotcha. And then when are you guys deciding to go the novation route versus referring it to the realtor that you work with or wholesaling it?
Brandon:For us we want to novate almost everything that we can, right? If you can wholesale it, why not novate it? And so we do a lot of innovations, which is great in those markets that we have relationships with those realtors. But. In terms of deciding whether to novate it or refer it, I think we, if they're wanting retail or even within 5 percent of retail, then it's going to be a referral to a realtor, right? If we can account for realtor fees, because in a novation, we're paying the realtor fees, right? Or it's coming out of the total spread. So after we account for realtor fees, closing costs Any repairs or any staging or, pictures or anything like that then we'll deduct 20 to 30, 000 from there. And if it's in that range, then we'll do a novation. If it doesn't fit that range, then we would just refer it to a realtor at that point. So that's our formula is Hey, and a big thing with novations is we're not using ARV. At that, when we're evaluating innovations, we're using his value. Here's a home in as is value. We're taking that we're taking about 10 percent off for, all the fees and commissions, eight to 10 percent off, and then our spread. If it ends within there, then we'll go ahead and innovate it. If not push it to the realtor and kind of move on.
Mike:Yeah, and you guys said you were doing it. I think you said 10 of those a month or 8 or 10 a month
Brandon:Yeah, we're doing, January and February are pretty crazy. We had 30 and 32 homes in escrow in each of those months. And I think at least half of those renovations this month, since we've been changing up some things working, like I think I've mentioned to you, we're taking a couple of steps back in the business right now. And Not going through as many leads, but trying to get more quality leads in a shorter cash conversion cycle. But it's been, the innovations have been a game changer for us just because it's a really a white glove service that we can offer someone. And a lot of people I think have a hard time understanding why the heck would somebody do that when they could just list it themselves? And you'd be surprised that the amount of people who just want a hands off experience who don't want to deal with it. Showings who don't want to deal with realtors or cleaning the place up or doing any of those types of things. So it's been a game changer for us and a great tool to have in our tool belt,
Mike:yeah. Are you guys doing any work to those properties or are you just doing. Just some pictures and maybe cleaning the place and.
Brandon:On innovation we want we don't want to. Do any work to those properties? I've seen a lot of people who do innovations that way. I've also seen some people get burned by doing innovations that way. For us, if we're going to do any work on it, we would probably pivot to more of like a short term installment sale, either a short term subject to, or a short term installment sale where we'll just say, Hey, we'll give you 10 grand down, we'll give you the rest within six months. Type of thing. And because then that gives us title indeed to the property and just gives us a lot more protection in that point. So we've got a couple that we're doing that way right now where we may give them a down payment. We may not, depending on if they need to move somewhere else while we do the rehab and do some of those things. But typically a short term installment sell short term innovation. If we are doing any rehab and again, that just protects us a little bit more with innovation. The seller might decide, Hey this all looks great. I think I'll stay.
Mike:too good a job.
Brandon:Exactly.
Mike:For the people who don't know, because it's not a commonly talked about thing, can you just explain what a short term installment sale is?
Brandon:It's You're giving some time, a down payment and monthly payments over the course of time and you may have a balloon, you may have 30 years to pay it off, a lot of times you may have a balloon in one year, two years, five years for us we'll usually keep it around six to 12 months on something that we're going to flip that gives us time to go. Okay. Obviously go through closing, go in rehab the property, list the property, and then go through the closing process. And typically we can give the high the seller a higher number by doing that than if we were to go purchase it cash and go use private money or hard money to go fund the project, have points and interest only fees that we're paying. I would much rather pay a seller a much lower interest amount or take over an underlying mortgage. That's going to be, it's going to save a ton on, on holding costs in general.
Mike:Yeah, gotcha. Makes sense. And then we've alluded to it a little bit throughout this and when we were talking offline, but you're talking about this is a year of taking some steps back to take 10 steps forward. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?
Brandon:Yeah. I mean, I think I briefly touched on it, you know, just when I first discovered real estate and I thought, man this could be the vehicle to actually have the freedom that I'd like to not have to work out of town for months out of time to be able to see my family, um, It was okay. Time freedom. That was the goal. And so it's Taking a lot of work, like I said, 80, a hundred hour weeks for a couple of few years now and we've been able to build up, in terms of revenue, it's great. But for me, I didn't get into this to have a high paying job, right? I got into this to the time for the time freedom. And I think over the last few months, I was really just thinking hard about what I want my life to look like, what I want my business to look like and definitely grateful for everything that we've accomplished over the last few years. But for me, it was really just look, taking a step back and looking at it saying, it doesn't matter how many millions you do a year. If you're worried, if you're spending that, that time working it doesn't matter how many millions a year you can make if you're not able to go play with your daughter in the backyard, or go do those types of things. So we've really made it a focus and started making a lot of huge changes in our business in terms of finding, identifying top talent, SOPs processes and systems in place making the right hires that lead to a little bit more time freedom for me. I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I don't think I'll ever just be sipping margaritas on the beach. And so I'll probably always work, 20, 30, 40 hours a week by choice. But that's the goal is to work 20, 30, 40 hours a week by choice rather than 80 to a hundred out of necessity. So that's created a lot of changes as of recent.
Mike:Yeah, what are some of those key hires that you're trying to put in place to give you Some of your time back.
Brandon:Um, the first hire that really changed things was, um, My partner in COO, uh, Nick Anderson has been, he's kind of a spearheading a lot of these changes that we're making right now. Um, systems and processes and spreadsheets are not my thing, right? Like I'm very much a visionary. I'm very much just like, Oh, let's go chase this new thing and this new thing. And so to have, to have Nick there to kind of. Pull the reins back and say, Hey, yeah, those are all great things. Those are, those are all super things, but let's figure this out first. And to really dive deep and put those systems and processes in place has been pretty awesome. And now we're just taking it to the next level. So COO was the first hire. That was amazing. We'll be hiring an operations manager here shortly. Which will be really awesome as well. And for me, because we do a little bit of everything, we have some more challenges that are hard, harder to scale. I've wholesale companies. I've seen scale really quickly, really efficiently fix and flip retail. Those are all a lot easier to scale than like anything that entails creative finance. Creative finance is great for leverage. It's great to get that ball rolling, but I can tell you that, I have. 100, 150 notes that need to be serviced every single month, right? And so I, I decided to do all that in house and now I need somebody almost full time just to service those notes. So just trying to identify, bring in the right people. We've got, again, having rentals, you got to have a maintenance guy. Once you have 50, 100 rentals, you've got to have somebody full time there. You've got to look at bringing property management in house like we've done. And so Nick was the first key piece in doing all of that. And now we're just trying to put not only the right people, but The right processes in place and with those processes, really simplifying them so that they're teachable. So I'm really just encouraging and weaning into people on my team who are leaders and allowing them to lead and to teach some of these things. I've heard a lot of business owners say nobody can do it better than you. And that's true. In most instances, I wouldn't say in all. But that doesn't mean that you should be doing everything right. And so that's something that I've had a hard time letting go of. is this is my baby that I've built. But in order to take it to the next level and get where I need to go, finding the right people, identifying that talent creating the culture that we want to see longterm and putting those systems and processes in place are absolutely crucial. So that's the year of 2024 and what we're focusing on,
Mike:Yeah, and what? What's some of the strategies that you've been using to find that top talent?
Brandon:It's. People ask me they asked me that question a lot and they asked me, how do you find private lenders a lot? And they're like, I know you've got private lenders that are funding all these. How do you find them for me? It's just posting what you're doing. I'm not a huge fan of social media. Personally, I hadn't probably the best year or two of my life when I deleted social media. And then I've had some mentors the last couple of years that have really leaned in and said, Hey, You're doing some cool things you might want to share. You might want to share with people not only to inspire them, but to create natural relationships, and build that trust and credibility just by showing people what you do and what your life looks like. And so I think that pretty much everyone on my team has found me on social media. And just posting, certain deals that we do talking about some of the pros and cons of real estate, talking about creative finance, which I think, sub two creative finance, those are pretty buzzy things right now. And so that's been pretty much the number one way for us to find people is. Them finding us, right? Just like private lenders. I don't really go search or really ask people for private money that often. It's usually they see what we're doing. They want to be involved in some capacity and they go and try to provide value to me, which is crazy because that's how my whole journey started, right? When I first went and started work, figuring out, trying to figure it out, I went and found somebody like myself. I saw in bigger pockets. He had done a flip in Boise. Yeah. And I went and tried to just overwhelm him with value. And so it's pretty cool how how everything has worked, the circle of life, if you will.
Mike:Sure. Yeah. What are and I know we're only about just into the second quarter, but, of all the things you've done to step back and call this year, what do you think the one thing is that's brought the biggest impact to you?
Brandon:Could you repeat that?
Mike:Yeah. So of all, like the things that you've put in place, like whether, the systems and processes, hiring people, if you could pick one thing, maybe this year that has made the biggest impact, which one do you think it would be?
Brandon:I think it would be? um, just belief, belief in my team, belief, you know, um, that it's just putting more, more responsibility on them. Right. Um, and it's been cool just to watch everyone thrive with that added responsibility. I think again, for me, I really wanted to baby this thing and coddle it and make sure that nothing happened to it. And now just watching other people thrive and watch, be watching people that didn't know what real estate was two years ago. Now talking these, this language and able to, create These terms creatively that most people don't know how to do. So I think for me, that's the one thing that's been pretty impactful for me is to step back to let other people step in and do what they do and thrive has been pretty cool to watch.
Mike:Yeah. Very cool. And back to one thing you were talking about earlier, you guys said you were doing quite a significant amount of innovations. What kind of challenges did you run into when scaling that up that might be different from someone who's scaling up a wholesale operation?
Brandon:Really for us issues that we ran into were first off going wider and going into different states that we were not familiar with. We weren't, there's different regulations, there's different rules like a novation, for example, the certain brokerage or in a certain city or town or municipality may be They might require a notarized attorney in fact, or power of attorney, for example, to list a novation. So that, that was a challenge. I think for me, everything is all about boots on the ground and solid, solid working relationships. And so for us, it was a lot of new conversations with a lot of realtors telling us that what we were doing was illegal, just like subject to, or, you trying to create those relationships going down the road of using flat fee brokerages and the negative things that can come along with that. For an example of that is we had a deal, I can't remember if it was in North Carolina or what state it was, but we knew we had a deal on our hands. We ended up having to cancel the deal because we couldn't get it sold after 30 to 60 days. Even though we knew we had a ton of interest there. And so it, that was really hard for us because we don't like canceling deals. So we canceled the deal. A day later, they went and listed it with the realtor at the same price went under contract in 24 hours. And we had heard from other realtors that said, Hey, are you guys have that house, right? And we said no it's under contract with the realtor now. And they said, yeah, we had three or four buyers interested in it. I know another realtor who did as well, but they won't work with any flat fee brokerages or with that particular flat fee brokerage. So it's just little nuances like that make you realize you think you're saving a penny. Or having to educate a realtor by going to flat fee brokerage route and then to learn that, Hey, most realtors won't even use this because other investors across the country are using that same flat fee brokerage and the experience was not great for them. So just a lot of nuances like that, that you don't really have to deal with in the wholesale world.
Mike:Yeah, so are you guys always using local agents now when you're doing your innovations? Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon:want to use a local agent. Interesting to see, the recent changes that have been made in terms of buyers, agents, and, to see how that'll impact things. I'm still trying to sort some of that out and figure out how we're going to adapt or how we, we may or may not have to adapt but yeah, anytime that we can use a local realtor who knows the market, really we're looking for somebody who It's not just a realtor and who might, list for a low rate for us. We're looking for somebody who's active, who has a similar home sold in a similar area in a very short period of time. It went under contract and we're able to use them as a resource, right? We're able to, we're able to have those conversations of Hey, if we had to sell this home within 30 days, where do you feel confident we would list that ad? And being able to just leverage their experience, leverage their expertise and their knowledge of that market has been huge for us. And I can tell you that it's led to a lot less confusing confusing phone calls. We've had a lot of realtors who may want to show a property. And if my disposition manager is handling, That basically handling that listing because we're using a flat fee provider. They're getting calls at 10, 11 o'clock at night. They're getting, multiple, Hey, this lock box won't work. Hey, what can you, Hey, can you call it? What's the zoning on this? So it's a lot more work on our end. So I think that's a mistake. A lot of people try to do at first, and I was guilty of it as well as they'll try to save a penny by going the flat fee route, but you better be ready to spend a lot more time there as well. If you choose to do that, I'll say that.
Mike:yeah. And how are you setting expectations, with the seller? We've done our handful of innovations and we're always very up front that they're going to see it, marketed on the MLS and on Zillow and all that. But I'm always curious how different people pitch. Novations to their sellers.
Brandon:We have a couple of different ways of pitching it, but I can tell you that most of the time it's usually disqualifying that cash price first, right? Making sure that's disqualified. Pulling our hat out of the ring as a buyer and becoming that advisor and just saying, hey, it doesn't look like a cash buyer would be a fit for you. I do feel pretty confident based off of the comps that I'm looking at, that we could find a buyer for you in this range where you would net this amount. And then from there, just the, the conversation is just around, okay how would you find that buyer? We want to, we want everyone to see it, right? We want cash buyers, we want flippers to see it. We want landlords to see it. We want hedge funds to see it. We want on market people on the MLS that are looking to move into a home. We want them to see it. So MLS is one of the marketing channels that we'd use. We'd also use this, and this. And so the goal is to, for everyone to see it. Whereas if you chose any of those options, everyone might not see it. So it's, just showing them that and then usually from there, they'll have questions. I don't want a lot of showings. Mr. Seller, we're going to strongly vet these buyers, which we do, right? If we have 20 people interested, we're going to vet them, make sure they're pre qualified, make sure that all showings are happening during a, a particular time. But it's pretty simple pitch.
Mike:Yeah. Gotcha. We're getting close to the end here and there's always two questions. I like to ask at the end of the show. And the first one is what is the craziest or most uncomfortable situation that you have ever experienced in a real estate deal?
Brandon:Man, this is, I had a few that I was trying to narrow down. We've had a couple of crazy, a couple of crazy cat houses. But there's one that, that takes the cake. I showed up to, this is when I was still going, I was going in person, to transactions showed up to this house. The lady had mentioned that she had a couple of cats and I pulled up in the driveway and immediately after getting out of my car, it just hit me. Just almost knocked me off my feet. I've smelled cats before. I always tell my guys, Hey, the cat pee smell equals money. This all of the things. But it hit me hard. So we walked around to the back of the house. And there was a shed there. And she said that's my cat shed. You can take a look in there. Probably not savable. And I looked in there and no joke in the backyard and in the back shed, there was probably four feet above dirt level. Where it was just pure cat litter across the whole yard, the whole, dirty cat litter, right? So I'm still trying to piece together what's going on. How many cats does this lady even have? And, she said, all right let's go inside. A lot of people have some, have problems breathing in there. It doesn't really bother me anymore. And I'm like, oh I've seen it all. Yeah, I'll be fine. So we walked in and it was bad. I couldn't breathe. I had to immediately go outside. My eyes were watering. Just a rancid smell, that, that ammonia type smell. Long story short, this lady told me she had a few cats. She ended up getting arrested for having over 200 cats and then living in humanely. So we've had a few crazy cat houses, but that one was I, what's funny is I told my mom about it because it was, Just a very odd experience. You walk in and there was five inches of cat poop across the entertainment center, right? Just cat everywhere. And she, and so I told my mom about it because it was near her house and she, a few weeks later, she sent me from the news outlet here locally, lady arrested for whatever, 200 and something cats living in humanely They ended up, I didn't end up buying that house. Somebody else ended up buying it and flipping it. But I can only imagine that even going down to the studs it was horrible. Let me tell you that, Mike, that was the worst experience I've ever had. And I've seen other houses with, dead cats and feces. And I thought I had seen it all, but 200 cats in a home is something I hope I never see again.
Mike:200's a number. So the final question I always ask is if you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice when you were looking for your first deal, knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself?
Brandon:From talking to homeowners to when I first started, it was just fear of what other people would think, right? Whether it was asking the person who might have the answer to the question because he might think I'm stupid or talking to this seller, the seller is going to know that I don't own any real estate and I'm quite, that those type of things I feel like I've gotten to where I am in a short period of time because I've, I always joke and tell people like, I'm just, I'm dumb enough to just go take action on it. I learned what subject two was and I didn't need to know every nuance. I didn't need to know every little thing about it. I just needed to know Oh, Hey, there's one or two leads in my system. I think that might be a good fit for, and having that conversation. Hey, I think I can take over your mortgage and just figuring it out along the way. So I think. For me, like the latter half of my life, the first half of my life was always like this fear to take action or this fear of failure. Whereas now it's something that I chase and that I look for on a consistent basis is, Hey, how can I fail? How can I fail forward and how can I do it as fast as possible? So that, that would be the advice I'd give to my younger self.
Mike:Yeah, great piece of advice. If people want to reach out to you after the show, I know you're expanding your team or, maybe they want to work with you in some other way. How can they go about reaching out to you?
Brandon:Yeah. So my my Instagram, Facebook is the same. It's my first and last name. That's Brandon Vizzoso. You probably have to look for the spelling on that one. But yeah, Facebook, Brandon Brandon Vizzoso Instagram is at Brandon Vizzoso. We will be launching a. A YouTube channel here soon and doing a podcast where we're still trying to figure out a name, but stay tuned to some of the social media for that over the next few weeks, we should be launching that soon. So we're excited.
Mike:Cool. Awesome, man. Thanks for being on the show.
Brandon:Thanks, Mike.