Short Stays, Big Dreams: A Travel & Vacation Rental Podcast
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Short Stays, Big Dreams: A Travel & Vacation Rental Podcast
Virtual Wholesaling: How to Flip Properties Without Leaving Home
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Speaker 2:Visit our website to book your dream vacation today and experience the PMI difference. Welcome back my beautiful people. Short stays, big dreams, the podcast where we talk about travel, short-term rentals and making money through real estate, all without losing our sanity, or at least that's what we try to do right now. I want you to picture the following that you're sitting on a beach sipping on a pina colada or, like me, sipping on my iced coffee, because I don't really like alcohol closing real estate deals without ever stepping foot inside any house. Now, if this sounds like a scam, well, maybe it's not, because today's guest, chris Chico, has been doing it for years, so he is an original OG virtual wholesaler, a true marketing genius, and he's here to spill the tea on how to find and flip properties from your laptop, and no two-belt required. Chris, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I appreciate you having me on the show. I can't see myself, so I'm not sure if you can see me. Okay, perfect. Well, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction and I appreciate getting the opportunity to talk to you and talk to your audience and spill the beans on this wonderful opportunity that we have available to us with regards to real estate.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome, awesome. My brother, listen, before we dive into that, give us a little bit of your background. How did you get started with real estate investing and wholesaling, et cetera?
Speaker 3:So a long time ago in the galaxy far away, I got a degree in accounting. So I did that for a relatively short period of time and I realized that, hey, I didn't want a corporate job, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So my start was as a real estate agent. So I started as a real estate agent although you don't need to be a real estate agent to do what we do and then I was selling properties for banks when they took the property over as a foreclosure. And then there was one investor that was buying a lot of deals from me as an agent, and one day he said hey, why don't you come work for me and I'll teach you the ropes of the real estate business? And so I went to work with him for a year and that's how I learned wholesaling.
Speaker 3:And wholesaling is not really buying properties. We're actually finding opportunities of property owners that are looking to sell their property at a discount, and then we're contracting those properties, putting them on the contract and then selling the contract, not the actual property. So I learned that from him and then from there I pioneered, doing a lot of things in our industry. Specifically, I'm considered the godfather of virtual wholesaling, which is how to do this business 100%, virtually, without ever setting foot inside of a property, without having to know anything about repairs or fixing up, without having to personally meet with buyers or sellers, and to be able to do deals all throughout the country with, really, your phone and a laptop, and that's really all that's required.
Speaker 3:And so that's a short story of it, and more than happy that we're going to dig in really deep into a lot of different things here, but that's where I am, and then I've been doing that and teaching wholesaling since 2008. So a very long time. And we have thousands of students and, you know, every day we help people, you know, get into this business to either create an additional stream of income or, you know, like me, they want out of their corporate job and they want a vehicle to be able to do that. And real estate the nice thing is, no matter what happens with technology, real estate is always going to be around.
Speaker 2:People always need a house to live in with technology, real estate is always going to be around. People always need a house to live in. Yeah, that's so true. And people. That's one of the reasons why I've been dying to talk to Chris for a while, because in this business, like he just mentioned, real estate is going to be around for a long time. Now I have a niche within the real estate market. Chris has a niche within the real estate market and you can have a different niche within the real estate market. But what we're going to talk about in this podcast, you're going to get some really gold nuggets and things like marketing, which is the key to any business, right? We're going to talk about marketing. We're going to talk how to find deals. We're going to talk about how to set up your own virtual empire Just like I have a virtual empire and the short-term rental game. Chris has it in finding deals and wholesaling. You can figure out how to do it for your specific niche. So, chris, let's dive into specifically what is wholesaling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wholesaling is where the stat that I always throw around is that there's about five and a half million properties that are sold every year in the US, right? A certain percentage of those properties are sold through real estate agents about 90%. Then there's about another 5% that are sold, or 7% that are sold for sold by owner, but there's another percentage, which is 3%, of properties that are sold off market. That means they're not sold through a real estate agent and they're never really officially on the market, and so these properties are typically not officially on the market because of the fact that they're problem properties, right. So they're properties that need repairs or fixing up. They might be a landlord that has tenants and they're not paying rent and they need to evict that tenant, but they can't get them out, and so then it's difficult to list that property.
Speaker 3:It could be that they're in a situation where they're pressed for time. Maybe they have a financial situation that dictates that they need to sell the property quickly and get out of it. And, you know, sometimes these properties are located in small towns all across the country. You know, like we all know the big metros, but there's a lot of there's over like 19,000 small towns all across the country. And so, you know, the bottom line is that these property owners are stuck. They need to sell the property and they can't do it with a conventional real estate agent.
Speaker 3:And so then that's where the opportunity for us comes in, because there's a lot of people out there, a lot of buyers, landlords, professional mom and pop flippers, hedge fund buyers, people that were looking to take their money out of the stock market, that are looking for these type of deals, but they don't have the resources to be able to find them.
Speaker 3:And so then that's where we come in, because, you know, we can go out and through our marketing on earth and find these property owners, get them to raise their hand and say, yes, I'm interested in selling my property at a discount, and then we can then have an arbitrage opportunity, where then we will then contract these properties and then offer it to these investors that are looking for these type of deals. And then we'll make a quote, unquote, a finder's fee, we'll make an assignment fee, and that assignment fee could be anywhere from a few thousand dollars. Our average assignment fee is 15,000, but I've made as much as $98,000 on a single deal just for finding a property owner that needs to sell the property quickly and then passing that deal along to another investor who actually wants to close on that property.
Speaker 2:Now, chris, let me ask you a legal question here. Um, you know, as what's the difference between doing a transaction like that with the, with the real estate agent, versus doing one with a wholesale, a wholesaler?
Speaker 3:well so. So the difference is that as a real estate agent, uh, you are selling a property on behalf of someone else, so that creates. You know, uh, that that's a. You know that that's what you're doing as a real estate agent. So we're not selling a property on behalf of someone else, so that creates, that's what you're doing as a real estate agent. So we're not selling a property on behalf of someone else. We're never selling the property, we're selling our contract.
Speaker 3:So what we have is equitable interest. So by then entering into a contract with that property owner, and we're transparent with them in terms of, hey, we're putting this property in the contract, but we have to make sure that it's approved by our investor partner in that particular area, which is our, the buyer that we're going to bring in. And so then now we, we have an equitable interest in that contract and that property through our contract. And then now, when we, when we present that opportunity to our investors, we're presenting them that, hey, we have a contract and we're looking to assign the contract. The underlying asset in that contract is the house. And so that's how it's different than being a real estate agent, because we're actually approaching this transaction from an ownership perspective, not a representation perspective. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:No, it makes total sense. I just wanted those people out there to really understand the difference. I mean, I I've been, um, you know, as a an investor. I I have bought properties in the past that were on the market. Uh, but I've done that only when the market was really good for investors.
Speaker 2:You know like today the market's not really, you know, finding a property and market that's going to be a viable investment for an investor. It's really difficult, if not almost impossible. So the way to do that is to team up with a wholesaler like Chris, and I have a team of wholesalers that are constantly sending me properties that are off the market and and they're being sold at a discount, and the numbers tend to work better when you do it that way, because you're not paying the true value of the house. Now, it doesn't mean that you're ripping anybody off, it just simply means that that person has a need, like Chris mentioned, to sell as quickly as possible without all the red tapes of an actual real estate deal through a real estate agent, and it benefits both the buyer and the seller. Now, chris, you've been doing this a long time.
Speaker 3:Well, I want to make a comment about that, just to further expand on what you say. Because number one is that sometimes people think, well, are we stealing these houses? And we're never. You know, we're never. What the what we're doing is that the owner is trading their equity for something else. They're trading their equity for convenience, for speed.
Speaker 3:The best example I can give is I had a truck that I needed to sell. I own that truck, free and clear. Now I could have taken that truck and put it on the market. I could have gone on Craigslist and advertise it, and then I would have to change the tires, I would have had to, you know, uh, fix some of the, some of the dings and the paint and all that other stuff. But I didn't want to do it. So I took that car to the dealer and they went ahead and bought it from me. Now I knew that they were going to go ahead and buy it. They couldn't offer me the same as if I went through the whole process with Craigslist, and I knew that they were going to go ahead and make money from it. But I was perfectly okay because I was willing to trade that equity for the convenience of them being able to do the transaction quickly, for me to just walk in, get my money and get out.
Speaker 3:So that's the same concept.
Speaker 3:Here they're trading their equity for something else and you're giving them the ability to transact in a way that they would not have otherwise been able to. And with some of these properties there's you know, there's other issues that are there that you know like, for example I'll give you an example where sometimes we contract with a property owner that needs to stay at the property after the closing. So you know, whereas with a conventional real estate transaction you know they would have to be out on the day of closing, but they maybe have been at the property for years and now they have a lot of stuff accumulated there, then we offer them the convenience of hey, we can arrange with the investor to close on the property and allow you to stay there for two weeks after so you can move your stuff out. For them that's a win and they're willing to also part with some of their equity for that convenience. So I wanted to just kind of further expand on that so that people understand the reason for these property owners willing to sell their property at a discount.
Speaker 2:Great point, great point, phenomenal example. Now, what we just talked about is, technically, the traditional wholesaling method. Now you are known as the godfather of the pioneer for virtual hosting. Tell us what are the differences and the nuances between what we were talking about to virtual hosting?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so I would think there's three layers of wholesaling, right? So if we categorize them, there's local wholesaling, there's virtual and then there's the model that I operate under, which is nationwide virtual. So traditional wholesaling is where you're in your own local area and now you're going to go out and try to find property owners that are interested in selling their property at a discount. However, you're at the mercy of your local market and, as you know, all the markets are different, like right now in Southwest Florida. There's a ton of inventory that means that maybe it might be harder to get deals in that market or find good deals. So the virtual aspect is where, instead of you being in a particular area, you decide you know what this market that I'm in it's going to be a tough market for me to find deals. I'm going to go to Ohio or Toledo, ohio, and I'm going to do deals there. So then now you're picking a market in Toledo, like for example, in this example, and now you're doing transactions there, and you're doing it virtually. So you're looking at the properties on Zillow and analyzing them on Zillow, you're getting photos, you know virtually, and the whole entire thing is done virtually.
Speaker 3:The next layer, which is what also I pioneered would be nationwide, where, rather than being on one market, then you're opening yourself up to doing deals all across the country. And again, in order for us to be able to do that, we have to change also how we market and we can get into that, which is now. We're using online marketing. We're doing online marketing, we're running advertisements all across the country country and we're getting people to raise their hands, and in locations that we maybe have never even done a deal in Like. For example, we recently did a deal in Enid Oklahoma. Until that lead came in, I had no idea where Enid Oklahoma was, but yet we were able to do a deal and we made you know 12 or $13,000 on that deal, completely virtual. So the way we do it is that not only is it virtual, but also it's nationwide, and then that allows us to really explore all kinds of opportunities all across the country that we would have never ever considered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great point Now there's. I mean, I work nationally and internationally, so I know how difficult just getting started. Once you get started, it's easy, but getting started because a lot of people have a limited mindset, meaning they look at something and they go, instead of looking at it from a step-by-step process, they look at the big picture and say, oh, that's almost difficult. So so you know, talk to me about that. Talk to me about some of the strategies that you use and do to to make the magnitude of dealing nationally easier.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's really like you mentioned. If we break it down into the small steps, then it really isn't that difficult, right? So what we do predominantly like step number one is we have to get people to raise their hands and say, yes, I'm interested in selling my property, and under the frame of that, they're coming to us because they know that we're real estate investors and that we're not looking to pay full retail value. And so the way we do that nationally is that we're running ads. We're running online advertisements Predominantly. We do mostly a lot of Facebook ads where people we're advertising, where people see our ad and it says, hey, are you a property owner that has problem tenants inherited the property needs to sell quickly? Then if that's you, then hey, go ahead and fill out this form and we'll reach out to you about an offer on your property. So the sellers will fill out a form and then that gets sent to us by email and then now we have a prospect. Now the interesting thing about this is, unlike other conventional wholesaling where you might be getting a list of property owners and then reaching out to them and then, because they didn't reach out to you, then it's a little bit of a difficult conversation in the beginning because they might ask you who are you, how'd you get my number and everything else. These are people that are warm leads. So they raise their hand and they said yes, I'm interested in speaking with you. So when you call them, it's also a pleasant conversation because it's just a hey, this is Chris.
Speaker 3:With National Property Buyer, you filled out a form requesting an offer on your property. Does that ring a bell? They say yes, okay, great Love to get more information about the property, see if it might be a property that we could purchase from you. And then now you're just simply asking a series of questions. And the main there's a couple of nuances with this model. And the main there's a couple of nuances with this model.
Speaker 3:I'm a fan of, you know of, of, of making a couple of principles. Number one is we want to be in the sifting and sorting business, not the selling business. By selling. By that I mean that we want to have and with these ads we can generate leads at $12, $15 a lead, which is relatively inexpensive. And we these are property owners that have raised their hands and said, yes, I'm interested in selling my property at a discount, but because we're able to generate so many leads, we also don't have to do hard sell. It's really just of a process of hey, we got X number of leads coming in on a daily basis. We're going to talk to those property owners, have a pleasant conversation it just has to be a warm and friendly customer service conversation, right? Nothing hard. And we're just looking for the people that are reasonable with their prices, that have the motivation and that we could do a transaction with.
Speaker 3:And so if somebody is a pain in the butt, if somebody is asking too much, then we say the magic four-letter word, not the other four-letter word, we say the best four-letter word, which is next. We just tell the owners hey, we can help you, and then another lead will come in and you talk to that person. So it's more of a sifting and sorting game versus a convincing game. And then what we do is that when the lead comes in, then we will then analyze the deal and we actually just use Zillow. Through Zillow we can go into any market of the country and within 10 minutes, know everything about that market, how it's moving, if it's moving slow or fast, and we can make a decision about the property. And decide if, hey, is this a good opportunity or not, and we have databases that we can tap into where we can see if there's actual investors buying in that area and what they're buying for.
Speaker 3:And so then at that scenario, the next step would be to put that property in the contract. And so the way we do that is we send a contract to the property owner completely through our digital platform like DocuSign or whatever, and we send them an agreement, the agreement. There's no money out of pocket for us because on the agreement we have that the deposit is due after the inspection period. So we have a 15 day inspection period on the property and then we put the property in the contract. Once we have to get the agreement back from the property owner, then we can tap into databases. We can actually get a list of real estate investors that recently purchased a property in that area and it will tell us exactly how much they paid for those properties.
Speaker 3:So that way we know we make sure that we put that property in the contract below those prices, and then we just simply call those property owners, those buyers, and we just tell them hey, I noticed you recently bought a property one, two, three main street, are you still interested in finding, you know, getting more deals? And they'll say, yes, of course, I'm always looking for deals because that's their main business. And we say, well, look, I'm a real estate investor and a wholesaler and I have a property a few blocks away and I'm interested in selling. I have a contract on it. I'm looking to assign my contract, would you be interested? You send them the details and at that point then they'll say yes or no, we'll get them into the property. So we'll make an arrangement with the property owner to get that investor inside the property. We've already pre-framed the owner and told them that, hey, we're able to buy properties all throughout the country because we have investor partners all throughout the country. And then, once we get the contract back from you, we'll have one of them inspected just to make sure that everything is as you said over the phone. That inspector will look at the property. So we never had to estimate repairs or any of that, because the investor is the one that's going to go take a look at it. They look at it and then we sign a document called assignment, called an assignment of contract, which then allows us to take our contract and assign it to the end buyer for a fee. And that fee, could you know, it just depends on what you negotiate Could be a couple thousand dollars, but again, our average is fifteen thousand.
Speaker 3:So we make it worth our while to do those type of deals. And then we ask the buyer, hey, what title company do you use? And they say, well, I use Marriott, whatever title. And we say, great, we use your title company. And because they're experienced investor, then we know that it's going to be an investor friendly title company. So we send that title company all the paperwork and then two or three weeks later the investor ends up closing on a deal. And in the example, let's say that we have a contract for 90,000 with the owner. The investor agreed to 100,000, they'll bring $100,000 to the closing table, 10,000 for us, that gets wired, 90,000 for the owner. And that's in essence how we do the entire transaction. And again, we never personally met with the buyer or the seller personally inspected the property, you know. And now we're able to do these type of deals all across the country. We could do multiple of these deals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I love the model. I've actually, as I mentioned, I built my portfolio through wholesalers wholesalers If you are an investor and have the ability to purchase these properties, oftentimes you're going to have to need to have some cash you can get private money or hard money.
Speaker 2:Thank you, either private money or hard money, but at the end of the day, you're going to get a deal if you're dealing with the right wholesalers. Obviously, I'm going to highly, highly recommend Chris. For those of you that are listening and want to start purchasing properties, or wholesale properties, chris is the guy you know, but I'm a big fan of that. So now, chris, before we move on into marketing, I want to ask you one more question, actually, two questions. The first question is from the beginning to now how has your strategies evolved over the years?
Speaker 3:Well, the two main strategies would be the marketing. In the very beginning, when we got started, we were using a lot of direct mail, and so that was back in the days, you know, when I started, if you could imagine this, there was no Google Street View. There was none of that stuff that we have. So there's a lot of tools available right now direct mail and it was around 2016 that I began to use Facebook ads. So I was one of the pioneers in our, the first person really to teach real estate investors how to use Facebook ads in order to find motivated sellers. So that's one main transition.
Speaker 3:And then the second transition, the second main thing that we did that's different is just a nationwide model. So those two combined the online lead generation along with nationwide, and then you know the layering of all the different tools that we have available right now. I mean, you know it's very common now for you to call your telephone company and you're talking to somebody overseas and you think nothing of it. You know, back then it was difficult for somebody to sell their property to us 100% virtual. Now it's commonplace for people to do transactions without ever meeting the other person, so it's actually a lot easier now to do these type of deals than there were before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny because, although we're in separate businesses, our path is almost identical. You know, I started my company in 2016. I started the old fashioned way. We didn't have the tools and the technology, the systems that are available today. For example, I used to keep track of my properties using the Excel spreadsheet. So my cleanings, my you know, scheduling, all my cleanings were done through an Excel spreadsheet. Right, you know, fast forward. Today it's all automated, it's all you know.
Speaker 2:I have virtual assistants, like you just mentioned, and you know, the whole world has completely shifted, changed, in my opinion, for the good. Now you obviously need to adapt, and that's one of the things that a lot of people fail to do is they fail to adapt and adapt quickly. But and you've done a phenomenal job adapting, that's why you're the pioneer on a lot of these things. So let's switch focus a little bit more towards marketing, cause I think marketing is the most important component to any business and, as you already kind of mentioned and touched on it with Facebook, I know you are a Facebook ad wizard, so tell us what's the best way to find these hidden deals, or how do you use Facebook ads? Or dive deeper, because I know you kind of already touched on it deeper into using Facebook ads to find your buyers, how your sellers, I'm sorry yeah.
Speaker 3:So the couple things is that? Um? Number one, as with all these platforms, uh, facebook works better if you give it a wider audience. So if you were wanting to use facebook ads and only wanting to target, let's say, in our, in our neck of the woods, broward County, and you only want the properties there, then it struggles and you pay a lot more money per lead, certainly a lot more than what we're paying. So number one is by expanding your geography, then you expand your opportunities, you decrease your cost per lead and you just have more opportunities to work with. Number one is going wide.
Speaker 3:Number two is that, you know, with a lot of these platforms now they become more sophisticated internally, which means that then the front-facing interface and the way you deal with them from you know the person doing the, you know advertising and trying to get customers it becomes easier for you. And so by that meaning that you know, in terms of finding the right prospect, it's just using the right image or the right video that calls out to that audience. So, in other words, it's not necessarily about going into Facebook and putting and finding out oh, what's the specific thing that I could tell Facebook that I'm looking for this type of client, maybe because you know they're looking for home refinancing or anything like that. It's just doing we do ads. They just call out to that target audience. Are you a property owner, that is, that has a house that has repairs, you're fixing up and you want to sell it, but you're not wanting to list it with a real estate agent and you're wondering what's the best way to get that done? Do you have a property that is vacant and it's been sitting there and now you want to sell it, but it needs repairs, and so maybe you could sell it to us and we could buy it directly from you? So we do that, so we call out to the audience. So we begin with targeting as wide as we can. Number two is we have ads, images and videos and ad copy that calls out to that specific target audience. That's the other thing, and then you know. So that's primarily like the two main drivers of it. It's just that's the two main things I would say Focus on a wider area to give you more opportunities, and then just be mindful of who it is you're targeting and just speak directly to them and say, hey, are you this person? If you are, maybe we can help. You know, those are the two main things that we focus on.
Speaker 3:Everything else is more mechanical. You know, the interesting thing about Facebook is like it's a simple business, right? The wholesaling is a simple business. Running ads on Facebook is a simple business. But just like a car, you get in your car in the morning, you turn the key, you know. You turn the key, you put it on, drive and you go. You go wherever you're going and you're like, oh my God, this was so simple. But then you lift underneath the hood and there's a lot of other things going on that allow that to be successful. Similar to your business that face.
Speaker 3:Somebody might say, oh, oh, it's easy, he's just managing properties. But they don't know all the inner workings of all the systems that you have in place. So you know, that's what we specialize in. We help in people setting that up and getting all that infrastructure set up and operating. But you know, at the end, and then the final step which makes all of this, you know you can't do all of this, you cannot even remotely do, if you can't talk to people, and they don't have to be a salesperson, but you have to sound. You know, sound good over the phone and so that's something that potentially could hold people back is that you know you just got to get practice on you know having it. You don't have to be a salesperson, but just sounding with energy. Sometimes I talk to people and I tell them look, you're going to have to have like four cups of coffee. You know, before you talk to sellers, because you sound like you're half asleep and you aren't going to make any money sounding like that.
Speaker 2:That is so true. That is so true. Now, for those of you that follow this channel and have watched my podcast before, does anything that he just mentioned sound familiar? Because it should, right, you know, we always talk about first identifying who your avatar is, who's your ideal customer right, and then targeting that ideal customer. Now, like you, chris, we do and we get the majority of our leads in business through social media YouTube, facebook, tiktok right, and although we don't spend a lot of time on Facebook ads as much as we really should. But the reason why we don't do that is because currently, we're getting most of our leads all come through our email marketing and just social media in general, right. But for those of you that are short-term rental operators you've heard me say this a million times you need to really understand how to market your property through social media. Period Forget. You know. This is 2025, people.
Speaker 2:If you're still sending out mailers which is fine, but it's not the ideal you can invest your money and your time and your effort on social media because you're going to have a broader reach. It's not going to be as expensive. The people that you're, the leads you're going to get, are going to be what we refer to as warm leads. Right, chris talked about it, that one thing they're raising their hand to talk to you, unlike sending out a mailer. They're not asking for that mailer. People get that mailer and, although it used to work really well in years past, but it's been overplayed Whatever comes in, 90% of the mail is junk mail anyways. They simply throw it in the trash. They don't even look at it. Mail anyways, they simply throw it in the trash and even look at it. But when you're constantly showing up on their Facebook feed, on the Instagram feed, on their TikTok, people are going to know, they're going to recognize you and they're going to reach out to you. So, chris, besides Facebook ads, what other social media marketing do you guys?
Speaker 3:do. Well, I mean, we do them all. I mean we do Facebook ads, we also do TikTok ads as well to find motivated sellers, and we also do Google, and by Google, there's a lot of different nuances with Google, such as search, different campaign types, youtube, demand, gen, performance, max. Generally speaking, however, most of our clients start with Facebook because it is the easiest platform to learn and understand and also is the most forgiving with regards to a budget. You know, a lot of times with our, with our customers, you know they can easily, they can start with as little as $20 a day in order to generate leads, you know, for their wholesaling business. Uh, whereas the other platforms will require a bit more of a budget, if you're starting out with TikTok ads, then you might need a budget is more like $1,000 to $1,500. If you're with Google, then you're looking at more of $2,000, minimum $2,500. So our recommendation for people is to begin with one platform, ie Facebook, get deals under your belt and then you can always expand on the other platforms, although for most people here and this is what I tell people that are looking to get into this business and I have another kind of suggestion for you and your audience but generally we tell people is get your first deal done. Right, if you're doing, if you're looking to get started with wholesaling, get your first deal done, because the first deal proves that oh, this is real, like I see all these people making money, but now I've done it, so now it's real to you. Then you want to get your third deal done, and the third deal done meaning that once you get the three deals done, then you've taught, you've talked to enough sellers, you've done enough things in the business and now you have a better understanding of the business in general.
Speaker 3:And then the next thing would be is how to do three deals a month, because if you do three deals a month, our average assignments would be 15 K. So if you do three deals a month, that's 45 grand less advertising costs. You're making somewhere in the you know, 35 to 36, $37,000 per month range. I mean, that's a significant amount of money for most people and one that would allow them to quit their job. And you can do all that still with Facebook ads, like you don't need to go anywhere else, and I'm a big fan of instead of spreading yourself. You know, if you have a budget of, say, 500 bucks, you're better off spending. You know you have a budget of, say, a thousand bucks a month and you said, hey, I'm going to sprinkle that budget 300 on Facebook, 300 on TikTok, 300 on Google. I would not recommend that because you're going to spread yourself out too thin, you're not going to get any results. So you're better off working with one platform, and Facebook can give you all the leads that you could ever want for your business.
Speaker 3:Now the thing I thought about for you guys, for the audience, because if they're in a short-term rental business, right, I'm sure that you have certain markets that you would love to get more short-term rentals in. Right, maybe in Tennessee, north Carolina, I don't know that market, but I would venture to say you have like probably 10 markets that you say, hey, these are great markets for short-term rentals, right. And so in this scenario, somebody who's interested in the short-term rental business they could use Facebook ads to find. Because in a short-term rental business, if you acquire the property at a really good price, that's going to automatically increase your margins because your cost basis is going to be less, your mortgage is going to be less and you're just going to make more money. And if you buy it off market, then you're going to have a chance of putting a deal together that may not be available to the general public.
Speaker 3:Now you could do let's say you ran campaigns across 10 states Tennessee, north Carolina, et cetera because you're looking for short-term rentals but not every lead that comes in is going to be a short-term rental opportunity. But what you could do is say you get 10 leads, one might be a short-term rental, but what about these other nine that are not? Well, chances are there could be one of those leads that could end up being a really good deal and opportunity. It may not be for you, but now you can take that property, put on the contract, pass it along to somebody else. So simultaneously you could be looking for deals for your short-term rental business. But at the same time you might have opportunities where you find deals that, hey, maybe I might make an extra 10 or 15K just on that deal. So you can kind of use a strategy to fuel both the wholesaling business but also the short-term rental business as well both the wholesaling business but also the short-term rental business as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's gold information there and we do it as well. Like I mentioned, I have a list of wholesalers that send me properties. I don't buy every property they send me, but if it's a property that's a good investment, although it doesn't fit my criteria. I do exactly what Chris just said I pass that on to someone else that wants to do like long-term or wants to do a buy and flip, right. So the opportunities are there Now for us in the short term. The reason I said identify your avatar is really important, because what Chris just said is very important, right, and I agree with him that you should focus and master one platform before you move on to other platforms. And Facebook is definitely the easiest Now for us because we're more in the travel side and right now our main goal is to you know, we have enough properties, but I need to fill those properties with guests, right, With people booking those properties. So we focus a lot on acquiring guests, which eventually those guests can turn into investors and they can turn into buyers.
Speaker 2:Um, but for us, where we put a lot of energy is more on the platforms that are more travel friendly, like TikTok and Facebook and Instagram. Um, although we do do Facebook a lot, but I mentioned in the beginning, I don't do a lot of ads on Facebook or use Facebook ads. Um, but we do do a lot of marketing. Now, we don't do a lot of paid marketing on Instagram and TikTok because, fortunately for me, I do have a decent following and I can just do a regular video. Put that up. We do a lot of collaborations like. This is a collaboration with travel influencers that connects me to their audience and that, in and of itself, is an ad right. So I get what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:But for those of you out there, if you're looking to get into wholesaling and looking to buy properties, then 100% what Chris just said is correct Focus on Facebook, focus on Facebook ads. Put all your money there Now. If you have a huge budget, then okay, spread that out, but really master a particular platform first. You know, I tell new short-term rental operators that are getting into the game when they hire me to consult and help them run their business. I tell them the exact same thing, right?
Speaker 2:Don't start advertising on multiple OTAs until you master a specific OTA, and today the number one OTA is Airbnb. You should really know the ins and outs of that particular platform before you move on to the next, because if you don't do that, uh, you're you're going to make mistakes, and mistakes cost money in this business. So let me ask, let's move on. And let me ask you another quick question in terms of actual marketing, um, what areas? Or let's talk about actual deals themselves, you know where do you see the current real estate market? You know where do you see it and where do you think it's going to be in the next year or two?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think and this is not a political comment, but in general I mean I think that whenever you have an election and then there's a bit of sentiment in the market with regards to how they feel the economy is going to move, and that in itself creates confidence. So what I see here is what we've been seeing is that people are very bullish and you know, generally people, you know the benefit that we have is that we're in the real estate industry. So the real estate industry is always a big driver of the economy and people are always bullish on real estate and is always a big driver of the economy, and people are always bullish on real estate and the opportunity that provides. So I believe that you know, over these next couple of years, I think that the market is going to be very robust. I think that you know, as with everything you know real estate globe, there's two layers to it. There's the general big picture, but then every market is individual, right. So, like, for example, you might have a market, like in Southwest Florida, where there's a ton of inventory, and so therefore, in that market, you know, if you have a lot of inventory, a lot of Airbnbs potentially, then you have to be mindful of. Like there's a lot of competition but at the same time there are other markets throughout the country.
Speaker 3:Like I gave you an example, there's a market that we looked at recently markets throughout the country. I gave you an example. There's a market that we looked at recently. We were looking at some deals in Toledo Ohio. I mean, I've never been to Toledo Ohio, I don't plan on being on the Ohio nothing against people that live there but when I looked at that market I was surprised and shocked at how robust that market was, how many properties were pending on the market relative to the active inventory.
Speaker 3:So I think, in general real estate, I'm very bullish on real estate, with the asterisk that everyone does have to look at individually what's happening in that market. So then that way they make the right decision in that micro decision Because at the end of the day, if you're going to have an Airbnb in one area versus another, then you want to make sure that, hey, there's demand and you're going to be able to rent it appropriately, you're going to get a good amount of money for it, and that there's not a glut of inventory there. So I think that there's a macro very bullish on the macro, of always being mindful of the micro, and every market has to be analyzed independently of each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I can't agree more with that statement For us on the short-term rental side. You know, for us on the short-term rental side, one of the things that we have noticed in the last year, maybe a little bit longer, is specifically what you just mentioned. Right, we don't, like today, I'm not investing in major metro markets, I'm not investing in Miami, I'm not investing in Fort Lauderdale, I'm not, you know, I'm not investing in, let's say, nashville, tennessee, gatlinburg, right, because of the oversaturation in the short term rental space and it's a good deal. Of course I'm going to go ahead and take that deal and buy it, but it has to be a phenomenal deal for me to do that. But where we are heavily investing is on secondary markets. Like Chris just mentioned, toledo, ohio, right, we are heavily investing in secondary market and more on the development side. Right, if you follow the channel, you know that we recently purchased a vineyard in South Georgia. We're redoing that vineyard to create a phenomenal guest experience through using tiny homes. You know that type of luxury, higher end properties, but on a small scale, right, I'm not looking to purchase a 10 bedroom mansion because that's not where the market trends are shifting to. They're shifting more towards the secondary markets.
Speaker 2:I'm not the only one doing it. Most of us in the industry that are knowledgeable and are in this space are also doing the same. That's why you're seeing all these glamping sites popping up, because that's where people are shifting to when they're looking to travel, for example. I talked about this a lot recently, you know. Let's just take Europe, Spain, for example. Right, there's a big battle going on right now with over tourism as Spain's season. Right, they're not. They're really becoming anti-tourist or tourism. Right, they're increasing the vet tax for tourists, they're restricting short-term rentals and we're seeing those restrictions throughout Europe and throughout the US. So regulation plays a big role in my business and although for us, because we're such a large company, it doesn't hurt us, as it will someone starting out today.
Speaker 2:But if you go to the secondary markets, like, for example, my property in Georgia, the funny part is I'll tell you a quick story. I went to the county and said hey, I'm going to be building these small cottages at my vineyard. Can you direct me to the permitting process? Uh, they won't let me like okay, let me get your address. I give them my address and they're like oh, honey, you're, you're in the county. As long as you're not building anything over 2 000 square feet, you don't need a permit oh, wow, that's.
Speaker 3:That's not gonna happen down here south floor.
Speaker 2:I'm like, I'm like what, and yeah you don't need a permit.
Speaker 2:The only thing you need if you're going to build. And the reason why they use that 2,000 square feet marker is because of the septic tank Over there. Everything's on septic. Very few places have sewer when you're in unincorporated areas, so she goes no, it's just if it's 2,000 square feet or more, or three bedrooms or more, you're going to need a larger septic and that you need to get a permit. The health department needs to go out there and make sure you do that correctly. So I left the county building like flabbergasted. I'm like there's no way I mean to put up a fence. You have to get a permit here in South Florida.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100% yeah.
Speaker 2:So for developers and that's what we're going towards too. A lot, man, these secondary markets are home run. You're building stuff. Pennies on the dollar. Your ROI is huge. The average daily rate for a cottage, uh, on a glamping site it's about 350 dollars. I think 350 for a big house here in south florida. So your roi is huge. So great point that you just made there. Um, let me ask you, in terms of advice for a beginner wholesaler, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 3:You know, the best advice I can give them is. Number one is if you're starting in wholesaling and this is the advice that I myself helped me when I was first starting out is to pick one thing. There's a lot of different strategies, right, I use Facebook ads. Some people out there do cold calling and I've never been a fan of cold calling just because I like inbound leads. But one of the things is figure out a strategy that fits the way you like to work. I'm not a sales guy I'm speaking with you here but generally speaking, I prefer warm incoming leads. I want to be able to do things virtually. So you pick a model that you feel best fits in the way that you want to work. You know, especially if you have a full time job, you know you incoming leads are really great for you Number one. So so that's number one.
Speaker 3:Number two is is also a time for a timeline perspective, meaning that you know that if you come into this business saying, well, I'm going to make a deal in 30 days or less, but if I don't make a deal in 30 days, then I'm just going to move on to something else, then you might as well not even start right, because this is a business that you can do for decades, and why not give yourself a little bit of time in order to make sure that it works? Because when you put yourself in a very tight timeline, you tend to make irrational and not really good decisions, versus saying to yourself, hey, if I start this business and I do it right and I give myself the time, and if it takes me six months to get a deal, but that one deal starts the journey of me doing more deals after that and next thing you know you have a business, then it's worth the time, energy and effort. But, but certainly I would say, the timeline is a big issue for people. So those are like the two biggest pieces of advice. And then the last one is find someone that you know, you feel that you can resonate with, to help you.
Speaker 3:If you're going to get somebody to help you, I mean, some of you might be listening to me here and say, oh, my God, that guy, chico, that you had. Every time I hear his voice I want to stick pencils in my ears because it's so horrible. I'm not one to work with, right, maybe, but find somebody that you enjoy working with that you feel like, yeah, I like this person. I think you know I can listen to them and have them coach me, and then you know, figure out how to. You know I'm a big fan of and I invest in myself all the time in shortcutting. Similar to people come to you for help. They come to you for help because of your expertise and your ability to shortcut and eliminate mistakes and the pain and suffering that comes with a lot of trial and error. So I would say you know, be open within your budget of what help you can get, so that way you can make sure that you can get success without a lot of the pain and suffering that you would normally have on your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people, I want to repeat what he just said because I think it's, so far, one of the most important things that he said in this entire podcast, right, when he talked about timeline. I say this all the time. A lot of you guys listening are part of what I refer to, the microwave world, or mentality. Right, you want stuff instant In business. It doesn't work that way. I always tell the story.
Speaker 2:In my case, I worked for two years nonstop, no days off, from 6 in the morning to 10, 11 pm at night, seven days a week, for two years for free, and the first year I lost a lot of money, right, just for some people. Oh, let me take it back. For most people, it's going to take time to get established. All you need to do is be consistent, right, be consistent and eventually you're going to get that deal, and then, once you get that first deal, it makes it easier to get the second deal, which makes it easier to get the third deal, but you've got to have patience. The second thing he said, which I am a big fan of because I think it would have helped me move quicker because I didn't do it In hindsight being 2020, I wish I did was finding a mentor right. Finding a mentor, finding a coach, even if you have to pay for people. The ROI on that is tremendous right, and today there's no excuse because there's so many out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot to choose from so highly highly, I mean those. If you want to be successful, that's where you need to go. Now, chris, let's shift focus. We only have a few more minutes left and I really want to talk about mindset, right. So tell me what habits that you have that you think contributed to your success.
Speaker 3:Habits. I think. I think it's more of I look at it as. Let me think about this for a second. Well, you know, when it comes to, there's a layering Right. I always say that there's a level of achievement, the three levels of achievement.
Speaker 3:So most people go down the rabbit hole of the do have be model. The do means that, hey, if I do all these things, then I'll have all these other things and finally I'll become that person that I've always wanted to be. In other words, hey, if I do all this work to make real estate deals and then I end up having all this money, then I'll finally feel good about myself and I'll finally become that person. So it's kind of backwards, because what you have to look at is that the right model of achievement is the be do have model and the be do model and the be do have model means that you become that person today which allow you to do everything you want to do or need to do in order for you to be successful, and you'll have everything you want. But the being become. The being is the one that is first. So the thing to be clear about is that the most important thing is the position that you start from meaning that you have to kind of step into the role and become that person today that's going to enable you to be successful in the future. And then the layering of that is a combination of things, because we all think about business as being difficult. Right, potentially like there's a lot of things you have to overcome and everything else in order to be, to be great at business. But I think that the most formidable task is changing yourself, because that's always infinitely more difficult than business. Right, because you have to change who you are, your, and so the layering of that is a combination of things. Right, there is your habits. Right, because some people say discipline, but you know habits is.
Speaker 3:I think discipline is that initial focus on doing something that you don't want to do, but you're going to do it anyway. But eventually you can't. You can't sustain discipline for too long and and the the ideal scenario to do that with with you know to to overcome that is is through is through habits. When you do something every day, you wake up in the morning and, by habit, you brush your teeth. You don't need to have discipline, you're just used to getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth shaving and all that other stuff, right, that we do. You know the women have something else that they do, but you know. But in essence you know that's number one.
Speaker 3:And then the trick to that is a lot of us don't understand what's required because we don't have context. Right, if you've never done anything before or you've never had any success in business, then what's your frame of reference? And I think that that's where either mentors or being around other people, that will shed light on you, on what needs to happen. Because a lot of times, like, we may go out and attempt a business and we may not have success and we feel that we're like we're pushing, I'm working my butt off and I'm doing the best I can, and your friends and family will tell you, yeah, you're doing good, you're doing the best you can, but sometimes doing the best you can is not good enough because you're not doing what's required for success. But if you don't know that, then you have no context.
Speaker 3:So how do you get context on that? And you get context through being around other people that hold you to a higher level and a higher standard, right? Because if you've got, if you've got, you know, say, if you've got a hundred thousand dollars in your bank account and you think, oh, this is great, right, because your friends have 20 or 30 grand. And you're like, oh man, I'm doing better than them. But now, if you start hanging around people that have $5 million in their bank account just to do whatever the hell they want to do, then all of a sudden that changes your perspective because you're like, oh man, I got to up my game. And it's not about the money, right, necessarily, but it's also about, like, exposing yourself to another way of operating, another way of moving about the world. That then will allow you to then move forward and become that person today that then will allow you to do all the things you want to do in the future, and then you'll have all the money you want.
Speaker 3:But the being becomes first and that's always a difficult thing because we're blinded to uh, we're blinded always to our own situation Like it takes somebody else from the outside looking in and telling you like, look, you're not doing enough. Uh, we had a, um, uh, uh, there's a. There's one of our coaching clients right In the program that we have. Um, he's like's. Like. You know, we had a conversation because at the end of the day, he's like oh, I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And I said to him well, what do you think your level of, like, the amount of effort you're putting in, on the scale from one to 10, 10 being, you're putting all the effort. Where are you? He's like hey, I think I'm about an eight. And I said to him you are a two, you're thinking that you're putting an eight effort, you're putting a two effort. Why? Because I know what it takes in order to get the success. So a lot of times there's a gap of knowledge that people have around what's required, but they're blinded to it. So it's not a.
Speaker 3:You know, I think that the, the, maybe the, the the right word to use is is, is, is, is is causing awareness, like you need to see, like, oh, this is what's going to be required. You know, like you said you, you, uh, you were in your initial startup phase on your business. You were working a tremendous amount of hours, right, and you did that because you were lucky in the sense that you yourself realized that that's what needed to get done. But on the flip side, you could have been somebody that said, hey, I want to create my business and be successful, and I'm going to do it at three hours a day.
Speaker 3:And then you're trudging along for like 10 years thinking, oh, I'm making an effort, until somebody comes in like Fernando says I don't know what you're doing, but you're like, you think you're a 10, but you're like a what? So I think it's a combination of things. Hopefully that wasn't all over the place, but I'm just trying to like. It's never one thing that makes the difference right. There's never one discipline habit, there's never one of anything. It's always a combination of things that all come together to create success.
Speaker 2:Guys. I mean he said a lot, a lot of very important information. You're going to have to rewind that a couple of times and listen to that, because that is a 18-carat gold nugget people, what he just talked about, because it's so true and again, I'm not going to recap everything, but I highly recommend you rewind that a couple of times and listen to it, because that information he just gave you is extremely valuable if you're going to get into any business, but specifically if you're going to get into the short-term rental or the wholesaling business. Now, Chris, last question is what's next for you? What do you have on the horizon?
Speaker 3:I look at it as, and I think we're kind of the same age. I don't know, I'm 53, so I don't know how old you are.
Speaker 2:I'm a bit older like a bit but. But we're in the 50s.
Speaker 3:OK, we're in the 50s, but if you think about it, I'm interested in and figuring out my next adventure, and how is it that I could become the person you know that's capable of of achieving whatever that next adventure is? And so by that I mean like, if you think about our timeline, zero to 20, at least for me, zero to 20, it's like nothing. You know, you went to school, you did nothing. For me, even 20 to 30 was like nothing. You know, going to party, trying to get you know and doing a variety of different things. It was really only I say, you know, it was only about 31 to 32 that I get my head out of my butt before I realized, okay, we got to do something.
Speaker 3:So, if you think about it like, you know, you know my wife, I've been married, you know, for 20 something years. I have two daughters. A lot has happened in the last 20 years. But yet if I think about the timeline now in my 50s and I think about, like that, 20 years, that's a whole lifetime, the stuff that I don't even remember. But now there's another 20, right ahead of us.
Speaker 3:And so then, if you look at it from that perspective, as you think about. Okay, what is that next adventure that you want to go on? But the problem with that question is that that question in and of itself is impacted by your own internal beliefs right now about what you can do, what you can't do, et cetera. So you might have a vision of what that future looks like, but that's somewhat impacted by your current reality and how you think. And so the reason I say all that because my next adventure is in figuring out me, like figuring out like what is what is, and I'm in, I'm doing a deep dive into, like NLP and neuro-linguistic programming because, like, the most important thing that everybody has to figure out is how your brain works, why you do the things you do and why you react to the world in the way you do and all your belief systems around that and your identity there.
Speaker 3:Now you can then start to that opens up the door for other possibilities, because you might be sitting here today thinking that, oh, I want to make X amount of money in the next five years, but that's impacted by how you think. But all of a sudden, if that changes, and all of a sudden that also changes as well. So I would say, going back to. I feel like I'm giving you these very long-winded answers.
Speaker 2:Oh, they're great, they're great.
Speaker 3:I love them. I love them. My next thing is I want to figure out how to best get out of my own way. I mean, that's really what it comes down to, because we're all standing in our own way of our best success possible and I'm guilty of that as well, and that's the thing that I'm focused on is how do I get out of my own way, how do I change how I see myself in the world so then that way I could be that better person of myself, but also, most importantly, for others.
Speaker 3:Because if you think about it like, you have a business and you have people that depend on you. You have your client, you have your employees. You have your clients that depend on you to be the, to show up every day, to be the best person for you. So part of that is, if you become the best person for you, you also, in a way, you increase the opportunity for others. Right, because now you're expanding not only your universe, but you're expanding there. Because if, all of a sudden, you start doing amazingly well, then your employees and everybody around you says, oh wow, look what you know. Obviously you have the naysayers, the people that try to bring you down. You ignore those, but there's people that will say, hey, wow, look at Fernando, look what he's doing, and you know what I'm inspired. Now I'm going to take my life to the next level, so I think that's what I'm focused on right now.
Speaker 2:No, that's awesome. And it's funny because I just a quick back story. I just recently found out that I'm going to be a grandfather and when my son told me, you know, hey, we're having a baby, like I have to do what you just did, I sat down and my whole world, I completely changed the way I was thinking. Yeah, so I'm, I'm, I, my, my thought process completely shifted and more towards okay, you know, how is this grandbaby going to change my life? How can I be better, uh, more efficient? Uh, not as, because, you know, I had my son when he was very, when I was very young.
Speaker 2:So, so, you know, I was in, I was in my early thirties, when my son's already an adult, you know. So I've had a long time, you know, good 20 something years of pretty much not having to deal with, you know, depending like or depending on me, you know, et cetera. But now we're going to have a grandkid and I want to be able to be there and do more and and and explore different things. So, so, yeah, I fully relate to what you just talked about how to be better at uh, uh, you know, just, the mindset completely shifted from where I was literally a month ago to where I am today. It's crazy.
Speaker 3:But now, with that mindset shift, now you look at everything else ahead of you, you look at different with a different filter.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, exactly, pretty awesome. All right, chris. Where can people find you?
Speaker 3:Well, there's two places. You can look up my name, chris Chico, and then Google. It's Chris Chico, without an H, so C-R-I-S-C-H-I-C-O. You go to my website, or you can look for me on YouTube If you want to find out more. I've got a YouTube channel. You can look for it under my name, and we have a ton of content and videos on exactly what we do with wholesaling. So that might be a good point, a good starting point for everyone here, if you're interested in wholesaling, and that way you'll get a chance to learn more about it. And then there's always a link in the description that if you wanted our help and you wanted to explore us working together, then that possibility is also open for you.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah, guys, again highly highly recommend Chris. If you're not even looking, let's say, for example, you don't really want to do wholesaling but you want to become an investor reach out to Chris. He's got tons of properties that come up. He can direct you with maybe other wholesalers in his chain because he coaches a lot of people to do this. But the opportunities are there and now is the time. There's going to be a lot of opportunities, like he mentioned, not to get political, but there's a lot of optimism coming back into the real estate world. So if you're interested, I'm gonna have all his information below. Reach out to him. I wanna thank you guys for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. Hit the like button. Share this podcast. Rewind at least the last 20 minutes of this, because the most vote came in the last 20 minutes. I love you guys. See you in the next one. Chris, hold on one second.