Intro:   Welcome to the Flip 2 Freedom Podcast, I am your host Sean Terry.

Sean:    Hello again, this is Sean Terry from the Flip 2 Freedom Podcast and we are on episode no. 131 and holy cow, yes again, I got an awesome interview with Raul Bolufe, out of Miami, Florida who is crushing it on the MLS. He’s done, here’s the deal. He’s 23 years old, he’s done $15 million with the real estate since he got his first deal when he was 21 years old and he is crushing it. Last year he made over $350,000 taking the information from the podcast, learning it and applying it and going it and getting ridiculous results.

So, in this interview we go in detail on exactly how he is making offers on the MLS, what criteria, what formula he does to pull them, how he makes his offers, exactly how he structures his offers, how he builds relationships with the brokers, what type of follow-up he does to make sure he gets them, if there is a multiple offer situation how he is enabled to basically get those deals and on and on. He talks about a ton, a ton of great information such a phenomenal story at the age of 23, just doing incredible things. He has a team that he works with and he is crushing it. So if you are brand-new and you’ve never listened to this podcast before, welcome, this entire show is about flipping house, wholesaling house.

And what we do, is we target distressed sellers, in this case he is finding properties of the MLS, I do direct mail, internet marketing or I find distressed sellers looking to sell their home and we can get these properties under contract, right? Let’s say I have $1,000 house, we can get a property on the contract for say $50,000. Then we have the ability to market that property to a buyer, right? A cash buyer that is going to purchase the property for say $60,000 and you can make the different in between. Now what happens is that the buyer is going to wire in $60,000 of which $50,000 goes to the seller and the different of $10,000 goes to you.

Now, in Raul’s case, he’s done this in over and over and over again. He’s averaging about $30,000 a month in revenue, his best month was $78,000, doing this exact thing and he shows how he is able to find these distressed sellers of the MLS and flip them to his buyers and make incredible amount of money doing it. So, if you want more from me, if you want to know the entire process, how the system works, what we do, how we find distressed sellers, the process of getting paid, the funding strategy that we use, go to Flip2Freedom.com, if you go there you can see a book on the front cover.

Click on that link and you can put your name and email address and I’ll send you a copy of my book. It’s 129-page book, I’ve got people tell me they spent well over $1,000 for the same information that I give away for free. And also too, there would be a page where you can register, for a live webinar we have coming up where I go through 3 strategies, 3 specific funding strategies, that will show you exactly how to do in structuring the deals. I share case studies, of recent deals that we’ve done, I talk about the specific funding strategies that we use to get deals done. You don’t need any cash, any credit, any experience what so ever and you can go out and be able to find these sellers and be able to do deals.

I’ll show you my top lists, my hottest lists for sellers that are ready, they basically give you their houses, sellers that have owned their house for 25 years, sellers that are in foreclosure and about to lose their house and they haven’t paid their property taxes. These sellers are so hot and so motivated that you come along, you can basically get these properties on the contract for pennies on the dollar and turn around and flip them, make a fortune. We just got a contract, on houses, $250,000 house for $35,000.

So this is of this type of lists, doing this type of business. So, on this live webinar, I’ll show you exactly specifically how to do that, how to find buyers, how to find sellers, different example deals and whole game. So go to Flip2Freedom.com, download the book, get started there, register for the live webinar, and you’ll absolutely love it. All right, so let’s get into this killer interview with Raul Bolufe out of Miami, Florida. And he did an awesome, awesome job. So I’ll see you in the interview. All right, Sean Terry here and I am with Raul Bolufe. Is that it?

Raul:   Yeah, that’s how it is.

Sean:   A 23-year-old ninja out of Miami, Florida that’s absolutely crushing it right now. Has done over 200 deals, 15 million dollars’ worth of real estate and he is going to tell us exactly how he was able to scale to that, using, he got deals of the MLS, raised capital, all sorts of stuff. So, how is it going?

Raul:   How’s everything man? Everything good down here in Miami.

Sean:   Yup, we are rocking, rocking. All right, so for the listeners, there is a lot of stuff for such a young age, 23 years old, I mean I can’t imagine where you are going to be when you are in your 40s on the world.

Raul:   Oh gosh, it’s a lot to think about that.

Sean:   Yeah, which is killer. Okay, so tell us how you get started in real estate, how old were you and stuff like that. So your story to beginning.

Raul:   So yeah, it was about like 3 years ago, I had saved up a lot of money, not a lot of money but I’ve saved up some money from my previous job which I worked at, actually it was my father’s car dealership.

Sean:   Right.

Raul:   And I was doing sale there, and then finance, I have saved up some money and then my mom, my mom was kind of getting into buying some houses, some rental properties and stuff. So she told me, hey listen I am buying this apartment here and I said; okay, you know, I want to get one. So with the money I have saved up, I was 21 years old, I bought my first apartment, I paid $62,000, it was rented for $850 a month and when I first collected, when I collected the first rent check, I knew that was it, that was what I wanted to do. Then that’s what I got up to starting reading books, then I got into iTunes and came across your podcast and the rest is history. This is how I started man.

Sean:   That’s awesome. Okay, so your first deal. Let’s talk about your first deal and then taking from there and then skilling it. So, tell us about your first deal.

Raul:   So my first deal actually was using a technique that I learned from another guy, Joe McCall, if you’ve seen him and interviewed him before.

Sean:   I love Joe McCall. We are close friends.

Raul:   So yeah, he has like, I used some technique he teaches about like texting people from like, either the Section 8 websites or Zillow and so, it’s crazy, I have hired a VA before I even did my first deal, that’s how confident I was that I was going to get going.

Sean:   Wow.

Raul:   So yeah, I hired a VA to send text messages for me to Section 8 website.

Sean:   Right.

Raul:   And like that I got my first deal, I got to tell you, I was sending people text messages saying: Hey, I want to see if you are interested in selling your home that you have for rent. And you know, it took me to like 2 or 3 weeks before I finally had a good lead and I actually got 2 under contract and I sold one of them.

Sean:   Okay. What would it be? Go ahead.

Raul:   No, like I said, I made about $6,500 on those assignment fees.

Sean:   So you made $6,500 of the assignment fee. So Section 8 website, so is there a particular website in Florida or was it like a national website you go? I know in Phoenix they have, you know, it’s the Section 8 website here.

Raul:   I think down here the one I GoSection8.com.

Sean:   Yeah, you know, I think that’s what it is in Phoenix too, GoSection8.com and I think they have listed all across the country.

Raul:   Yeah.

Sean:   So that’s cool. So for guys listening, if you don’t understand what Section 8 is, Section 8 is where, is government subsidy where they basically they will subsidize someone’s rent and an owner has a property that will have to go through specific criteria on the property. It has to pass Section 8 inspections, if it does that, then a person will get a voucher from the state, basically subsidizing their rent and the money comes in every single month from the state. So, it’s, Section 8 rentals are great above a lot of, you know, just like anything, any type of landlord, you know, might want to get rid of the property so that’s how you were able to find those deals. That’s pretty good.

Raul:   Right. And those are pretty well for the buyers, think about it, anybody who is listing there or a landlords or probably managers that are renting their own.

Sean:   Right. So how old were you when you got that first $6,500 deal?

Raul:   I was 20, 20 years old. 3 years ago.

Sean:   So 20 years old and you got that first deal? Wow, that’s awesome.

Raul:   Yeah.

Sean:   Okay, and then what happened after that? So you’ve been doing this essentially for 3 years since you got your first check, right?

Raul:  Right, but it wasn’t full time until about maybe like 2 years ago.

Sean:   Okay, so like about 2 years.

Raul:   I was like, I was kind of, yeah, I was part time-ish for like a year maybe, a year or so.

Sean:   Okay, and in what part-time, so you were working with your dad’s auto dealership and then you were doing deals or what?

Raul:   Correct. I was working there, part like 20 or 40 hours, and doing deals on the side.

Sean:   Okay, cool.

Raul:   Yeah.

Sean:   And so what made you decide you go full-time?

Raul:   Man, I just knew the potential, I saw when I did the 2 deals and I saw how many people were coming to me, asking me for deals like, man, I can really turn this into something big and I just, kind of always had that vision to do something, you know, to create something on my own and, so I just ran with it. You know, I just ran with it.

Sean:   Okay.

Raul:   So I threw my own concept and then I just, i did it.

Sean:   Okay, so now when you, so you are 22, I take it, when you essentially went to full-time, do you remember exactly when you went full-time?

Raul:   Yeah, I remember going full-time when I rented my first office space, at that time my partner was my step-dad because he started buying houses too.

Sean:   Okay.

Raul:   So we share an office space now and that was 2 years ago in October. I am sorry, a year and so, going in October, this is when I went full-time, we leased the office and started from there, man.

Sean:   Okay, and so what did you make that first year full-time, which is to say, I guess?

Raul:   I made $162,000. Sorry, $166,000.

Sean:   So $166,000 in your first full-time year and that was at the age of 22, Jesus!

Raul:   Yeah.

Sean:   That is insane. There are people right now in the 40’s gone. There’s people listening right now then in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s gone, I just don’t know how to do my first deal and get started and then they are thinking about and I have to get my LLC set up and I got to get this set-up and I have to do this and you just went out and did it. You know, you wanted to get your first deal, went out and just applied it and went out and had success and for people listening right now, that are, you know, you want to get all your ducks and roll and well, I would say go shoot the ducks and just go to work, right?

Raul:   Yeah, well actually it took me about like 3 months to complete my first deal. So I mean, think about how many people would give up after the first few weeks or the first 2 months.

Sean:   Right.

Raul:   You know, it took me 3 months of putting money into mailers and putting money into VAs. You know, no one, you know, not everyone’s thoughts are the same, like you don’t have to be putting in money like I did, but you know, just think about like how easy was for me to quit, you know, and it took me about 3 months, 3,5 months to complete my first deal. And then after that, I just knew, you know, all of it is from there.

Sean:   So, how did you scale it? Were you just like one-man show? I mean, did you or you just did it all on yourself, doing your own deals, talking to the sellers, talking to the buyers, what was your main?

Raul:   Correct. I was a one-man show for about a year, or yeah, about a year I was a one man show, doing all that, making the offers myself, well me and my VA. my VA was helping me, you know, draw up the contracts, and do the text messages and send some emails etc., but pretty much was, yeah, was me a one man show talking to all the sellers, buyers, Realtors, brokers, networking, lenders. Yeah, it was pretty much doing it all, man, so you can get it all out.

Sean:   Okay, so that was the, that was 163 to your first year, so from that point to now, what do you think you made your 2nd year?

Raul:   My second year actually finished all the numbers recently, I made about $355,000.

Sean:   So $300, so you doubled what you made before.

Raul:   I doubled.

Sean:   So doubled, $355,000. And out of that $355,000, what is your team look like?

Raul:   Okay, so I have 2 guys that are both like my right hand man, one of them is actually my cousin that he is a realtor.

Sean:   Okay.

Raul:   So he is always scavenging for deals, now he is the one who talks with the realtors, with the brokers. He deals with a lot of the MLS site. Then I have Brandon that he is… He kind of helps with all the paper work, he goes to see the houses for us. He’s always looking for deals. You know, he is doing like the home path, the online auctions, all that stuff, he handles that.

Sean:   So you got one guy hitting the MLS and another guy hitting like, you know, different sites, like home path, hubs zone and auction sites and stuff like that.

Raul:   Yeah. Home Search, Auction.com, like all those online auctions.

Sean:   Okay.

Raul:   He’d be able to deal with all that. And then I got a secretary, that she is awesome, she answers the phone calls for me, now she is doing all the yellow letter phone calls, she does all my follow-ups, she does my accounting, she manages my properties. So she pretty handles like the day to day stuff, and then I have a runner, that he now is the one that goes and takes all the pictures of the houses. I mean houses we don’t own yet or make offers on yet, because I like to make educated offers on every single house I do, you know. I don’t like to send a lot of blind offers, because this is how you ruin relationships. So he goes to take pictures on all these houses and he deals with all that, you know, going out in the city, finding out the leads, violation, etc.

Sean:   Right.

Raul:   And then I have my VA, is the same VA that I have for 3, 5 years.

Sean:   Forever.

Raul:   Yeah.

Sean:   And now, is this VA, you got her from the Philippines or where is she at?

Raul:   Philippines, yeah.

Sean:   Yeah, it’s okay. Cool, cool, cool. Okay, cool, all right. So you got a team, so who handles these positions, selling the properties?

Raul:   Selling, I am still doing a lot of that, me and my cousin, we handle it.

Sean:   Okay, perfect. Okay, so let’s talk about because I haven’t had anybody on that does a lot on the MLS stuff. So tell us about your MLS strategy and how, what you guys are doing there. What specifically is like the search you look for in the MLS, type of properties you are looking for, the kind of offers and stuff, so give us an idea about your MLS strategy?

Raul:   Yeah. So basically, like about 3 times a week we do like a hot sheet of exactly what we know our buyers look for.

Sean:   Okay.

Raul:   You know, the properties of specific city here in Miami, you know, beds and bath, 3-2, 4-2, and we do a hot sheet and whenever pretty much for instance to our formula and criteria that we made up, we basically send an offer. And obviously you know, our offers have a continuance and an inspection period on what not, but you know, majority of our offers, if they get accepted we do go through us. if we don’t go through us, it has to be something weird like it has leans or violations, or something like that, but like I said, so we basically have little formula of what we know our buyers buy and what’s a good deals for them, because at the end we want our buyer to be able to make money or they could rent it or flip it. And yeah, whatever fits that criteria we go for it. We go for it and we have a follow-up system now.

Sean:   So okay, let’s say someone is Columbus Ohio or some other city across the country and stuff and they want to do this and their buyer says, okay I am looking for, you know, so I assume they are giving you a criteria on specific locations they want to be in, and specific price points they want and specific, do you look at age year of built? Like age of the house or stuff like that? If they are like 1980 and below, I’ll take that, in these zip codes, at this price points, I am a buyer, right?

Raul:   Correct. Yeah, roughly like that. You know, like CBS, they are like 3-2 or 4-2, in this specific area, with this specific price, square foot etc.

Sean:   Okay, and then your buyers buy and hold of the fix and flip?

Raul:   Both, little bit of both.

Sean:   Okay.

Raul:   So yeah we have like different criteria for different areas, I mean some areas we know that these areas are at specific lead, buy and hold areas, like there is not much flipping going on but a lot of the investors here hold them. And in this area we know fix and flip, so we know which area to use and which formula for.

Sean:   Right. Okay, so let’s say, let’s go back to the guy in Columbus. So he has a criteria of buyers, in certain area. So he would go in the MLS and you are saying, 3 times a week, or twice a week. So you would go in the MLS, you do a search, and let’s say there’s, you know, like in Phoenix, I mean we have probably 23,000 properties on the market right now. So we are going to do a search for houses that are 1980 and below, 3 beds, 2 baths, in certain areas. We have hundreds, right? Hundreds of properties.

Raul:   Yeah.

Sean:   So we knew that, and it’s not feasible to make that, obviously hundreds of properties, or it is? I don’t know. So you tell me. You know, what is your typical, how many offers do you typically place a week out of these hot sheets that come up?

Raul:   It depends, but I want to say an average, let’s call this like 20, 20 to 30.

Sean:   So your hot sheets weekly produce roughly 20 to 30 deals or not, offers 20 to 30 potentials, right?

Raul:   Yeah, because when i do hot sheets I do recent properties that have come up. So I do let’s say, today is Tuesday, right? So tomorrow I’ll do a hot sheet for the stuff that came out from Monday through Wednesday, that’s it.

Sean:   Right.

Raul:   For what is my criteria, 3-2, etc., etc. So it doesn’t produce that much, so maybe it will give me 50 properties, or 40. And out of all 50, you know, 30 of them don’t work, or you know, they are over-price or whatever.

Sean:   Okay.

Raul:   And then on the other one is going to make offer for them.

Sean:   So are you looking for anything that it’s on the market during that, or do you, because I know people that look for brand-new listings, I know people that look for listings over 90 days, or when you pull that hot sheets say from Monday to Wednesday, is it everything?

Raul:   No, brand new, new listings, this is what I focus on.

Sean:   Okay, so these are brand new listings who have just hit the market and are you finding yourselves in a multiple-offer situation? So you pull your money to Wednesday, you submit your offer, are you finding multiple offers or you are the only guy making the offer?

Raul:   No, no, I find multiple offers situations. If I only, I want to say like 7 out of 10, but that’s when your team comes in. You team, you know, now we put on, we have like a system that it goes in, so if it’s multiple offers it goes in X and then we get together and say okay, we should make this offer. You know, we should increase and we should stay, and then boom, we’ve submit the multiple offer form right away.

Sean:   Right. Okay, now tell me about your actual offer. So is it, so let’s say the house theoretically is, you know is in your targeted area, is the right, you know, square footage, the right zip code area, the right around the right price, but you looked at it and there’s, you know, say $150,000 listed for. Maybe it’s worth $170 retail, right? You know, and I am just pulling numbers, but what would be a, you know, give us an example offer that you made this week, something that you made this week that would work. Here’s what I am trying to find out, are you listed, are you putting an offer for full price or are you putting an offer for 20% below, 30% below or what?

Raul:   It depends, because you know, like this Fannie Mae homes and all these, they rarely reduce their price right away, you know, it takes some time. You know, they’ll maybe reduce like 2% on the purchase price in the first 10 days and then after, you know, like they will reduce a little bit more. So yeah, the majority of time I am very close to full price, and then if it’s like a private sale, I know I have to leave a little bit more room, because you know, it’s pretty much like a privately owned house. so there’s no like bank guidelines or no one on the other side of the desk, deciding you know, okay the bank is allowing me draw back so now. So we use it for like the bank-owned deals, I am very closed to asked. I won’t even offer, I don’t want to waste my time offering unless I know that I can make it work out like give or take, plus or minus 5% of asking price. You know, then when it comes to private sale, let’s say the house is worth 200 and it’s listed for 170 and it needs some rehab, you know, I’ll probably start like on 120, and then work my way to a number that could work.

Sean:   Okay, so the bank-owned ones, you are pretty much offering you know asking price. And if it’s just a private seller, then you might have the ability to negotiate now for less, right?

Raul:   Yeah, correct.

Sean:   Okay, and then you offer the amount that obviously makes sense to make a deal work based upon the numbers.

Raul:   Yeah, yeah.

Sean:   Okay, cool. Now is your offer, is it a 7 day close, all cash, high earnest money, or what?

Raul:   Yeah, usually do like very low inspection, like I can go like half of my contracts, like 3 days inspection or something like that, close in 2 weeks and a pretty high escrow.

Sean:   So pretty high escrow, so you would do like a, because a lot of agents say they believe, even though there is a constancy period that if you put a $3,000 or $5,000 earnest money down then you are more serious than somebody else.

Raul:   Yeah, my average earnest money is 3k and then for like the Fannie Mae you’ve got to do 10%. So if I get one of those, you know, because you are pretty hot.

Sean:   Okay, cool. So out of those 20, right? So you know, theoretically you do 20 week, per say, how many are actually getting accepted and going into the contract?

Raul:   Out of 20 you could probably expect about 2 to get accepted.

Sean:   Okay, so that’s good. So now you are getting 2 a week, you know, and you are not spending any money on marketing, you basically have a guy, that’s one of your guys, that’s coming on the MLS, pulling these hot sheets, making the offers, you are going back and forth. So you get 2 accepted so that’s, I mean that’s 6 contracts or 8 contracts a month, you know that you are potentially doing and that’s making offers for, you know buyers that you know were going to be able to buy this property. So I know you talked about when you raised capital and you take some of them down yourself and then you turn around on wholesale amount.

Raul:   Right.

Sean:   Is that, if they are bank owned or is it primarily if they just motivate sellers on the MLS?

Raul:   Usually I am doing it for the bank-owned ones, so to not, you know, ruin the relationship with a good broker because you know, the words are going fast and you know, in any market. So I mean, had that last month, you know, the deal, I thought it was a pretty decent deal, but I couldn’t really sell, it had a bunch being interested and no one get really a buyer in it, but I am like, hey you know what, I’ve got a bunch of deals from this broker, so I called my lender up and I closed on it, and actually I put on the contract to sell last week. So it worked out, it took a little bit longer, but you know, sometimes not everything works so as planned always, you know.

Sean: Right, so, and I think that’s really important, I think it’s really, really smart that you are doing that, that you are, you know, because the word does get out. So if people are listening right now, you are just going to shotgun a bunch of offers our, 20-30 offers a week and you intend to close them. And people do that to HUD too. You know, they are going to HUD, they make all these offers on HUD, they turn around, they put it, they can’t sell them, and then they kind of ruin that relationship with that broker. Now, some properties you are not going to be able to sell.

But I typically say, Listen, don’t make an offer, you know, unless you are confident. That’s why I am using, I teach people, you know, typically dealing with motivated sellers because you know, a motivate seller is a one-off deal. Because, you know, you are dealing with the brokers, these are professionals in the market place, you don’t want to get a bad rep for doing this. So I think you are doing right, you did what you say you are going to do, you followed through which then, you know, gives you more credibility with that broker. So if a deal comes up again and there is a multiple offer situation, they know you close then you are going to get the deal versus someone else if you have similar offers.

Raul:   Yeah, actually my biggest deal I ever got was because I closed 5 specific deals with a specific broker and he gave me an off-market deal in a great area here in Miami. He gave me an off market deal, he said, hey look I am going to do a first look on this one and I am like, well, let’s get it, let’s do it. And I gain a full price, you know, he made a 6%, I ended up flipping and I made like $68,000 of that house. And it was all because of the connections with my previous deals, you know. If you are good to people, I believe that people are good to you, you know, At least these are my business perspective, it works out pretty well.

Sean:    I know it is true. I mean, you know, this is a business, just like your dad and the car business, right? I mean, he had to build relationships with the people, he had, and you know, people referred to people and stuff like that, and you built a business relationship. This isn’t just something where, okay, I am going to get in. I am going to get a bunch of offers I can see if I can get rich. This is, you are building a business, a relationship with people. There are brokers, there are agents on the other side, that are saying, okay I’ll take your offer but then if you kind of, you become, no one can contact you now, they can’t get a hold to you, and you kind of screwed out of the deal, and this thing and the other.

That’s not good business practice, and I see some people that they are just trying to get rich. They are just, I am just going to get in so I can see if I can make a bunch of offers and make some money, when actually, you know, especially now that we are doing lending. I got people who call up and I’ve always, I mean, these people are crazy, you know, they exist, you know, they submit these deals, they go out and want to do it, and you hear from me to track them down. This is a business man, run up like a business, it’s crazy.

Raul:   Yeah, that’s why I love what you teach because I learned that a lot from you, like you teach. Even if you don’t make a lot of money, you know, from a deal, do it at least, you know, you have your word, you had your contract, you know, get it done. Get the deal done, and it’s get the benefit on the long. At least anyone who is getting into this business should be in for a long time, because it’s a good business, as you could see. We both make good livings, and you are killing it in your market. It’s a long business as long as you have the right mentality for the long hall, you know, it will work.

Sean:   Right, so you completed 200 deals. Now, out of these 200 deals, since you first obviously, since you first when you were 21, so out of these 200 deals, how much would you say you had come from the MLS?

Raul:   Good question. I want to say at least 150.

Sean:   Wow, so you have got the MLS dialed in, I mean dialed in on the MLS. So is there any other advice you would give someone that is, you know, looking to do deals but wants to increase their revenue by hitting properties on the MLS. Any other killer test, because I know we talked about your offers, what you are looking for, for your criteria and stuff, is there anything else that you would like to?

Raul:   So I think a big part of it is speed, right? Like, now in this market it’s so crazy, it’s so hectic, it’s probably the same in Phoenix. Like there is so much competition right now. I mean a good property comes on a market and there are 10 offers in the first day. You know, it’s crazy and it’s just is what it is. And like if you are the fastest and the most consistent and you know, you truly are a professional, you performed and you do what you say you are going to do, I think that’s the biggest key. You know, getting your offer in first, it’s big, it’s huge but there are plenty of times that people get the offers in before me but they don’t call the realtor to follow-up, or they don’t, you know, go visit the property and take pictures and send pictures to the realtor. I do that a lot.

So a lot of realtors, which I agree with, a lot of realtors are doing the same thing like, okay, you send me this blind offer but go see the property and then we can probably get the deal done. So I send my guy, my runner, he will take pictures then I’ll send the pictures to the realtor and I am like: okay, look I really want, we got the pictures that we took and you know, we are ready to go. And so it gets the realtor the confidence, okay, this guy is, he means what he says, he wants the property, he took pictures, you know, he means business. Because there’s a ton of people who are just sending blind offers everywhere, you know, and so realtors didn’t even distinguish that.

Sean:   I like that. Okay, so with the offer you would send the actual contract, you may be send some pictures which I think it’s a great idea and then you probably a proof of funds or some sort of earnest check I assume and then you do a follow-up call to the realtor or you send it and then?

Raul:   Yeah, so basically I have, when I send the offers, I always pick a few that I really, really want and so then, my acquisitions guy, he’ll personally call the realtor a few times until he answers and kind of engage with them, you know, do a little report, kind of like he’s the seller, you know. Realtors, they have some interest in selling the property too. They want to make the commission.

Sean:   Right.

Raul:   You know, build a little report with the realtor, introduce our company, etc. So those are on some specific one because since we send a lot, you know, to be calling, you know, 20-30-40 realtors a week is just going to take way too much. So I make take the few that I really like, then he’ll do that and then I’ll have one like my VA, all offers go into an email and my VA goes into that email the next day and follows up each and every one, you know, with a basic follow-up template like: hey, you sent this offer, I just want to follow up. Please give us a call if you have any questions.

Sean:   Okay, so you follow-up email, you get a phone call on the ones that are great and it’s a people business so you are building a relationship with this agent. Now if they get 10 offers and they got an email from you, they got pictures from you, they got a follow-up call from you and then they got 9 other offers in their inbox that are, they don’t get any connection with what so ever, there’s a good chance that you could potentially get that deal. And now, because there’s multiple offers, they send a multiple offer form and then that’s when you guys kind of regroup and you figure out your highest and best you can offer. Is that what typically happens?

Raul:   Yeah. And a lot of time I will stand on my original offer because usually I when I do that I am, you know, pretty accrued with my number, but i mean if it’s like one or two that I really like then I will go back in there and think to adjust a bit. And you know, we’ll call the realtor, deliver the report and see where we are at. And we will just our best to try to get the offers high and the best as possible for you know, we always have to have the ending line. So I will always have to have my buyer’s, you know, profit in my head because I need them to make money so I could keep coming back and buy a lot from me.

Sean:   Right, which is again smart business practice.

Raul:   Yeah.

Sean:   Yeah, if they go out and make a killing, if they are doing great on the deal, then they’ll come back and you are going to be the first person they are going to call to basically get through the deals, which is cool.

Raul:   I don’t think people would understand too, my spreads are very large on these.

Sean:   Yeah, I was going to ask on this. What is your average deal size?

Raul:   My average deal size from the MLS is about 4,500. So it’s not huge but it’s also not back, I mean, if you do, you know, 4 or 5 of these a month, you can make a very good living. SO yeah they are not huge, but what i do, it’s like not on purpose, I do like that’s always by back on these money and also I did this because, I yellow letters and signs on all that, cost a lot of letters to send out. I saw MLS is very cheap, you know, to get going. And so, it let me build some capital somehow, get some buyers somehow, and I just… that it worked and I got pretty good at it, and I just kept going and going.

Sean:   You know I think MLS is I believe is more of advanced strategy, someone starting out brand new I probably wouldn’t suggest getting into it, because you are dealing with brokers and realtors and proof of funds and earnest money checks and stuff like that. But you know, for someone that has been doing deals, like there’s people listening right now, they are doing you know, 2 or 3 deals a month, with motivated sellers and they want to scale it, this would be a great opportunity for someone to add this to their mix and be able to add 2, 3, 4, 5 deals a month, off the MLS and not having to, you know, not having paid for marketing expense, that’s tight. You know, the interesting thing, you know, we do about 25,000 houses a year and we don’t do any from the MLS.

Raul:   Wow.

Sean:   None. I mean, none, it’s all direct seller. You know, average deal size is about $17,000 per deal, you know, so the difficult, but it also there is a cost involved to acquire that deal, to basically market to get that deal. So, you know, and I do, I mean, I like MLS fields and it’s something that we talked about to add into our business, but its’ definitely refreshing to hear someone like you that’s in the competitive market, that’s going out and getting deals and it’s crushing it. I mean, because think about it, if you get 2 a week, and you get 8 a month, you know, and that’s a pretty good income, you know, what I mean? That’s over $30 grand a month revenue that you are generating you know of potential deals that it cost no marketing whatsoever which is great.

Raul:   Yeah, correct. I mean, to do, you know, to scale it and be, you know, to the level that I got to, it would take a bit of money, like a VA or a partner who does acquisition and stuff, but however, I was a one man show for a while and I am still doing 3 or 4 deals a month, you know.

Sean:   Right absolutely. So here’s my next question. You are 23 years old, how did you get so smart? Meaning, you have the right, you have the good head on your shoulders, you are entrepreneurial, you have a team of people that you are managing so you have some business skilled to be managing these guys. Is it through reading books, is it through your dad just being, you know, an entrepreneur himself, where did it come from?

Raul:   Sean, you know what? I am not really smart than anybody else, I mean, you got term because of that, but I don’t like to think of myself as smart like anyone else, I am just, I am a doer, you know, right? Like you talk about them a lot, you just do it, you know, you have to get them up in a roll. So I was kind of like a sponge, you know, I would hang out with my dad for a while in the business, I would kind of get like the good ideas and the good, you know, the good things he was doing in his business and then I would listen to you and get your ideas and then you know, reading books.

And I kind of started to putting everything together you know, and I feel like that’s how it is, you know, read books, listen to podcast, you know, surrounding myself with good people, successful people, and you know, it’s not that hard. I mean, it takes work, but it’s not difficult. And I think you said that a lot in your podcast and stuff, I mean, anyone could do it. I mean, you just got to put your mind to it and just go for it. I think the biggest thing that helped me is that I started of just doing stuff now. So, actually the first thing i ever did in wholesaling was I listened to your 5k formula. It was like a long time ago. This was like 3 years ago.

Sean:   Right.

Raul:   The 5k formula video you had and as you were doing it, I got my laptop and I started doing it too. I bought the letters. I bought the list right there and crap, what is that I just do? I’m just scared like I forgot how much money now it was. But whatever I just did it, I figured out later, you know.

Sean:   Right.

Raul:   I think that’s what helped me you know and along the way, you know, you have to force yourself to grow as a person, you just do. I have to get on the phone more, get out of my comfort zone, you know, if you want to succeed that bad, then you got to do stuff that you never done before. And that just helped me. That just helped me along the way.

Sean:   Yeah, I think that’s a great call, because I mean, you know, people expect, you know, to get a different result. So they want to go, instead of, you were telling me earlier before we got on the, before we started recording that your best month was $78,000 for the month. Well, $78,000 at 23 years old, $78,000 for the month. There’s people listening right now, that don’t even make $78,000 in a year and you made $78,000 in a month and flipped, you know, $15 million with the real estate, at the age of 23. So the thing is that to be able to comprehend what it takes to make $78,000 a month versus $78,000 a year, it takes a doing different things.

You know what I mean. And taking mass of action, stepping outside of your comfort zone and building those relationships and talking with people like it is, it’s not rocket science what we do. It’s just, it takes energy and effort focus and it took us 3 months, to really start knocking out of park, and most people would quit. Most people would get up on their dream, if they don’t have instant gratification and their expectations, are you know, I am going to make x amount in certain amount of time, if they don’t get it, they quit. Oh, it just didn’t work, right? And they blame real estate. It’s like, how can you blame real estate it’s not going to work? All right, so…

Raul:   And what people understand is that you are going to fail a lot, and especially in this business, like in this business we fail substantially more than we succeed. Like, I mean how many letters do you have to send, yellow letter business, to get one accepted, you know what I am saying? Like for me, when I just did the recent campaign, I had 30 leads and then I got 2 accepted. So I had to fail 28 times so then to succeed twice. So, you know, now I am just numb to failure, you know, I fail and it’s not a big deal. It’s like; it’s a more motivation to succeed. So people got to understand, yeah, you got to fail. But it’s you know, for people who keep getting back up and for people who keep trying to succeed.

Sean:   Right. I never thought about it like that, because you know, essentially making an offer and not getting an offer accepted, essentially is a failure but I’ve always looked at it for me as a test. You know, what can I do on the next offer to get better? Maybe I said something different and it became more of a self-examination to become a better closer or a better communicate or a better reader of people or a better relationship builder. So if I got myself better, then potentially my closing range could go up and obviously I am talking about the motivated sellers. And when it comes to making offers on the MLS it’s really dialing in and understanding what your buyers want to be able to tee up the perfect property that you can turn on sales.

Raul:   Right.

Sean:   Which is killer.

Raul:   Awesome. So yeah, I mean each failure, if you look at it positively, you know, you’ve making it you know, into a future success, you know, like you said. Okay, I didn’t get that deal, what then I can do right to get it? Okay, so maybe I didn’t’ close the right way, maybe I didn’t give the contract quick enough, or maybe it could be a million reasons, but you got to step back, accept the fact that you didn’t get the deal and then think about how you can get it the next time, you know.

Sean:   Right. And the thing about real estate is, there’s always the next deal, you know. Even if you lose, I lost deals before, but then guess what, tomorrow, there’s another deal. There’s never, the well never dries up of great real estate deals, there would be always deal in the future. Continue to grow.

Raul:   That is true.

Sean:   Okay, so for people listening right now, you are 23 years old, you are killing it, what, you know, and we will rap on this, what is like, a word advice that you could give them? So I know, you’ve listened a lot of podcast, a lot of things and put yourself in the shoes that you know, you’ve listened to these things at a point in time when it really hasn’t’ click for you yet, but you are close, what would you tell that person, you know, now that you’ve done what you’ve done or what would you tell that person to inspire and to keep going?

Raul:   Man, the thing that I’ll just say, I know it sounds really cliché, but just do it. Then just jump in and do it, forget all your fears, you know, forget everything that you think that will go wrong and just do it. You know, there’s so many scenarios that people put in their heads and think that could happen wrong and that’s just completely made up. You know, I could have thought of a million things that could have go wrong when I first sent my letters, you know, but I didn’t, I just did it. You know, let the bad things happen, you know, just let it happen and then out of that, good things will come out.

So really just jump in, get your feet wet, and do things now, because you know, I might be listening to you today, to do the letters or to take action, but then tomorrow something will come in the way, you know. If I wait until tomorrow, something comes away or it could be anything, a family member, you know, a work event, you know, or whatever, it will come in the way. So you should just do it ASAP, do it now. That’s the main thing that I would give to people, that helped me, you know, really take my business and thrown my business to the next level, you know, just do it.

Sean:   Do it now, do it right now. Now, do you ever doubt yourself?

Raul:   Yes and no, you know. I always doubt myself and I know that I make some mistakes here and there and I don’t, you know, everyone makes mistakes so I did that myself to a certain extent but I know that, you know, I am going to learn from it, so I just, you know, I kind of just go into life without fear, like I will just do whatever I feel I need to do and you know, whatever the outcome is, I am prepared for it.

Sean:   Right. You know, it’s interesting, you know, doubt is one of the biggest killers of you know, someone’s dream, right? So someone has a dream of becoming an entrepreneur like you, flipping 200 houses, crushing it, making $78,000 in a month, and doing all these things you’ve done at such a young age, and a lot of people, what happens, they have this doubt that picks in the back of their mind. so I picture a little guy that’s on, you know, sitting on your shoulder and that little guy is talking to them in the ear basically saying, you can’t do this, it’s not going to work for you.

You cannot make $78,000 a month, you know, you are going to send out these letters, no one is going to call, you are not going to make any money doing this thing, you are going to put some offers on sellers, and you know, realtors, they are not going to get back to you and you are not going to be able to sell it. You are going to get in trouble and you have this little voice and I picture this little guy sitting on their shoulder and everybody has it. I have it. And you know, probably you have it and everybody handles that voice in a different way, you know, and it’s almost like I visualize me taking this little person and I am with this little guy and I grab them by the feet. He is the voice, the doubt and I picture smashing his head against the brick wall and his brain smothering all over the place and that’s what i do to my doubt voice. And it gives me a visual to just be like enough of the doubt.

So you know, but everybody has doubt and if we give that doubt power and we listen to that doubt voice then we will not accomplish anything. What I like about you and your story and what you’ve done and created, is that, everybody has a doubt voice, but you ignore the voice, you muted the voice and you took action anyway. And that action creates momentum and when you have momentum it creates excitement and then what happens is that it mutes that voice. A lot of people sit around it go, they would listen to that doubt voice which inhibits them from taking action and they never get started in the first place.

Raul:   Yeah man, it’s crazy. All it took me was one of your podcast to take action. And not even the whole thing. The first 5 minutes, i was already getting my laptop and I was writing the letters.

Sean:   Okay, yeah, and that’s why you are at where you are at and you are doing what you’ve done, which is incredible. So hey Raul, you did a phenomenal job, great interview. Thank you for sharing so much with everybody about the MLS stuff, I could say I didn’t have anybody on it. Really, it’s done with the MLS. So I am super excited for you and your success and I appreciate your time for doing that and taking action and being such an incredible example.

Raul:   Thank you, man. I appreciate you having me.

Sean:   Okay, so if someone wants to get on your buyer’s list and they want to buy stuff in Miami, how would just someone get on hold with you?

Raul:   We have a Facebook and we have a website. You can go on CapitalRiseInvestments.com or you can on Facebook, you can search capital rise investment. And it will have all my information or emails, the website you can subscribe to a buyers’ list. And I personally get all those emails, so if you want to write a comment there or a phone number or whatever, I will give you a call back myself and so we will go from there.

Sean:   All right, so that’s Capital Rise Investments, with an s?

Raul:   Yeah.

Sean:   Okay, so CapitalRiseInvestments.com, you can check that on Facebook. We’ll have links on the show notes for you so you can connect with Raul and potentially do some deals down in Miami and again, Raul thank you so much for your time. You did a phenomenal job. You rocked the house. And I am so excited to have you guys, congrats man, take care.

Raul:   All right, brother, thank you for everything.

Sean:   Thank you. All right, congratulations Raul. That was an amazing interview. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your energy with us, I greatly appreciate it. Now people listening, if you want to get more, if you want to learn how to do this, you want to learn how to go out and generate quick cash on real estate, using no cashing credit, like Raul, just go to Flip2Freedom.com, download my book for free. It’s a 129-page book, I spent over, basically I have people telling me they spent thousands of for the same book, go there for the book, register for the live webinar. That’s on the thank you page there or on the front page, you can register for it.

Register for the live webinar and I am going to break down and show you specific deals that we’ve been working on right now in this market, case studies. I’ll show you a $55,000 case study, where we got the deal, where we found the buyer, how we funded the deal, how we structured the deal using no cash, no credit and be able to make $55,000. That case study right there will sum up this entire business on exactly how to do it. So go on Flip2Freedom.com right now, check it now and I will see on live webinar coming again. Raul, great job, thank you so much. Take care guys and God bless.

 

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