Transcript:
Hey guys, it’s Casey Denman here from Tax Sale Academy.com
First off, thanks so much for joining me on today’s livestream here on Youtube. As always, at the conclusion of this livestream, if you’re looking to learn more about investing in tax defaulted real estate head to taxsaleacademy.com, that’s taxsaleacademy.com.
So I’ve got a bit of a confession to make. Beyond the hundreds of YouTube videos, the podcast, everything else I do only, and really outside of The Tax Sale Academy, I’m actually a fairly reserved guy. I’m not the overly outgoing type who’s able to walk into any room and just start a conversation. And I’m ok with that.
But, what I can also tell you is the real estate, like it or not, can be a relationship based business. If you force yourself to be outgoing and build these relationships I’m here to tell you that having someone on your side can go a long way. You can sit behind a computer screen and invest all you want. But at some point, you’ll need to talk to other people in order to grow your business. Now, when I say the term relationship, I’m not implying that you must eat lunch with these folks once a week. In fact, you might not even ever actually see these people in person. And the relationship might be one where you only need to utilize it once a year or something.
But taking the time to build relationships, regardless of how important that person might be right now, is extremely important. And it really doesn’t even require that much effort – just be friendly, help them and let them help you. A couple a months ago I ran into a Realtor who I had worked with 15 years prior and haven’t seen since that time, that was the early 2000s. We had a friendly relationship at the time, and when we ran into each other a couple months ago, we have a short chat and he’s now in the process of selling one of my properties for me – all because we had a good relationship. That’s just one of countless examples.
Let’s go over a few of the relationships you should strive to build.
– Realtors. Last summer, one of my students had some reservations about an area she is investing in. I suggested she call a local Realtor and start establishing a relationship. She did just that, learned much more than she ever could have on her own, and the relationship blossomed into a partnership where the Realtor provides BPOs prior to purchase at tax sale, in exchange for listings from my student.
Realtors are a wealth of information, and are usually more than ready to help whenever they can. It’s important you reward their efforts with listings or the potential to earn commissions at some point, but they can help so much.
– Other Investors. As a new investor, the intimidation factor is huge. I get it. But, take the time to talk to other investors. Get involved in conversations at auctions or wherever else you might meet them. Learn what is working for them, learn about their mistakes, learn who they are and what they do. Then see what you can do for them – perhaps you have a skill or can offer a piece of advice using your background. And it doesn’t matter if they are more or less experienced than you are, since everyone has their own unique way of doing things you can learn from everyone. Obviously, you must go on your own path, but learning and talking to other investors can be such a huge asset to you. You really never know where it might take you.
– Another important relationship to build is going to be with a real estate attorney. This could be one you use to close the transactions, to clear the titles or for just general real estate related issues. And since we all know attorneys charge by the hour, this isn’t a relationship that you want to nurture too much. Spending time and building the relationship is great, but not at $250 an hour, right? You just basically want to build it up to the point where you’ll get a returned phone call when you need it. And it’ll take time. Maybe you just start with a few closings, or quiet title suits, then grow it from there. You want them to be able to recognize your name when you need it most. When you get a letter from someone else’s attorney saying they’re going to sue you that’s probably not the best time to start looking for an attorney of your own. Like many professionals, you should always have an attorney in your back pocket.
– Buyers. That’s right. Buyers made my list of relationships to build. We’ve talked about buyer’s list briefly on this channel before, and we go into great detail inside the academy, but like a buyer’s list is designed to do, you need to build and grow your relationship with your buyers. Many of the buyers I sell to buy most, if not all, of their investment real estate from me. And they do this because of the relationships we’ve built with each other. They know I’ll be honest and will provide them with great values, then they’ll be able to resell or rent the properties and make money on their own. And that’s a pretty cool arrangement if you ask me. But, it didn’t come after a day, a week or ever a year. It took time. Start building relationships with buyers NOW.
– And the last suggestion for relationship building is with a mentor or multiple mentors. And this is something I’ve discussed before, but there is nothing that can be as helpful as having a mentor to turn to. I get emails from students all the time with one or two specific questions that I provide my suggestions for. This gives them someone to turn to quickly, they get a response from someone much more experienced and then they can apply this and see a quick resolution to their issue or question. And you might not be able to find a local tax sale mentor, so perhaps you find what I refer to as micromentors who can provide you with pieces to the puzzle – like an appraiser for valuations, a builder for remodeling estimates, that kind of stuff. Obviously, though, guys, if you’re looking for a mentor, I’d be more than happy to help in any way possible and you can visit taxsaleacademy.com to get started.
That’s going to be it for today’s video. Go out there, get out of your comfort zone and build relationships. While it’s extremely helpful to do this in person, you can still work on building many of these relationships online for the time being. And as a side note, it doesn’t hurt one single bit, in fact it actually helps, if you start building these relationships even before you start investing.
If you’d like to see the step by step process I’ve used for 16 years and you’d like to have me as your mentor checkout at TaxSaleAcademy.com. Again, that’s TaxSaleAcademy.com.
Before I sign off, if you enjoy these livestreams, be sure to hit that thumbs up button just so we know you’re finding out trainings useful so we’ll be able to produce more videos for you in the future.
Have a great afternoon! Take care, bye bye.