Chapter IX: "Consistent, Persistent Action: The Formula For Success" with David Dodge
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David Dodge is one of the entrepreneurs featured in Jamie Bateman’s Book - From Adversity to Abundance: Inspiring stories of Mental, Physical, and Financial Transformation. This is a republished episode (originally released on July 12, 2022)Episode 16: David Dodge: From Drugs and Crime to a Second Chance and $20k per Month from Rental Properties
You can buy Jamie’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGTWJY1D?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
A veteran in the real estate industry, David Dodge, renowned as the founder of discountpropertyinvestor.com, brings over 18 years of expertise and a track record of nearly 1000 successful transactions. David's journey from initially venturing into rentals to mastering wholesaling, flipping, and ultimately adopting the burr method, reflects his resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity. Overcoming personal hardships, including the loss of both parents at a young age, David's story is a testament to transforming challenges into triumphs. With an impressive monthly income of $20,000 from real estate investments, David's insights and practical knowledge are invaluable for real estate enthusiasts seeking financial independence through discounted properties. His wealth of experience and success makes him a compelling guest, offering a wealth of wisdom and a distinct viewpoint on achieving financial freedom through real estate investment.
"My definition of success comes down to three words: consistent, persistent action." -David Dodge
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Discover David Dodge's inspiring real estate investing journey and learn from his experiences.
- Uncover the powerful benefits of the BRRRR method in real estate and how it can supercharge your investment portfolio.
- Learn how to overcome adversity through real estate and turn challenges into opportunities for growth.
- Explore the importance of buying properties at a discount and how it can significantly impact your investment returns.
- Navigate the transition from wholesaling to rental properties and gain insights into this strategic shift in real estate investing.
Connect with David Dodge
Website: https://www.discountpropertyinvestor.com/
https://www.discountpropertyinvestor.com/mastermind
https://www.wholesalinginc.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidalandodge/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidalandodge/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidAlanDodgeSTL
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Speaker 0
Are you ready to transform your financial future through mortgage note investing? Hi. I'm Jamie Bateman, host of the From Adversity to Abundance podcast. As a passionate entrepreneur myself and real estate investor myself, I've dedicated my career to empowering investors like you. Join my mentorship program tailored to meet your unique business objectives with a very small financial commitment to get started. Gain access to my personal experience, trusted consultants and vendors, and receive customized mentoring services. You'll get hands on guidance on everything from determining your buy box and reviewing your bidding processes to managing notes with third party servicers, handling collateral, and much more. Don't wait. Visit labrador lending dot com to start your journey to abundance today. Let's unlock your full potential together. Speaker 1
Check out this episode with David Dodge. This is a republishing of an earlier episode with David, which was entitled David Dodge, from drugs and crime to a second chance and twenty thousand dollars per month from rental properties. David is, man, this this is packed with energy. He's a wealth of knowledge. He's a real estate investor, a coach, and the host of the Discount Property Investor podcast. And David, joins us, and he he shares the real estate investing mistake that he made for ten years. Hopefully, if you can catch this, you don't make the same mistake. How he was he was able to wholesale seven hundred and fifty deals in seven years. How he avoided a seven year prison sentence back in his twenties, and, what enabled him to begin investing in real estate while he was in college. Another thing is where David is able to find ninety seven percent of the one hundred purchases he averages each year. Now that may have slowed down in the last couple years, but as as of the time of our initial recording, that was accurate. So, man, so much more in this one. David is one of the podcast guests who we were able to work with and feature in my book, From Adversity to Abundance, which you can grab off of Amazon. The subheader is inspiring stories of mental, physical, and financial transformation. The book is short but impactful, and we feature eleven different podcast guests from my podcast, and I I highly recommend you grab a copy. It's available in both paperback and ebook format. Grab a copy for yourself and a friend and buckle up for this episode with David Dodge. Speaker 2
Welcome to From Adversity to Abundance, the go to podcast for real estate entrepreneurs seeking not just to thrive, but to conquer with resilience and mental sharpness. Each week, join us as we dive into the compelling world of real estate through the lens of mental fitness, where challenges transform into opportunities. Get ready to transform your mindset and expand your understanding of what it takes to succeed in real estate. Let's explore these stories of triumph and resilience together. Speaker 1
Welcome everybody to another episode of the from adversity to abundance podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm very excited today to be joined by David, the discount property investor Dodge, if I said that correctly. David Dodge of Saint Louis, Missouri. David, how are you doing today? Speaker 3
Man, I'm doing fantastic, Jamie. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to, get this opportunity to share some value with your audience this morning. So I'm really, really grateful to be here. Speaker 1
Awesome. So I know your name is is out there already a good bit in the in the real estate space and and, you know, entrepreneurial world, if you will. But for those listeners who are not familiar with you, who are you, and and why should we listen to you? Speaker 3
Yeah. Great question, man. Why should you guys care? Right? So, my name is David Dodge. I'm I am the discount property investor. That's the name of my entity, discount property investor. I've been buying real estate for about eighteen years, done about a thousand transactions. But the the thing is is the first ten years, I did it wrong. And over the first ten years, I basically bought a house a year, and I bought rental properties. That was kinda what I wanted to do when I first started. Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
And at the end of ten years, Jamie, I had twelve rentals. So I got lucky. Two of those ten years was I was able to buy two houses in a year versus one house in a year. Right. And, you know, the way I was going about doing it for the first ten years, again, very passively Yeah. Was I would locate an an agent first, and then the agent would help me find a a property. I was getting ready to say a deal, but they're not deals Speaker 1
nonetheless. Speaker 3
An armoire. Me locate a property, and then I would, you know, make an offer on that property and, you know, maybe get a thousand or two or three or five discount, but, like, that's nothing. You know? Like, basically paying full retail for these properties. And then I'd walk into a bank, and I'd get a bank loan. And the bank would say, hey, Dave. We're gonna give you eighty percent of what the purchase price is, assuming that the appraisal is at or above that number. But at the end of the day, it was eighty percent loan. That's it. Right? So the average house I was buying in the first ten years, is is still about the average house price that I'm buying today, which is about a hundred and fifty thousand here in the Midwest. Mhmm. Twenty percent of a hundred and fifty is thirty k. So I had to put down thirty k twelve times over the first ten years. That's three hundred and sixty thousand dollars that I either had to to save up to put down or Speaker 1
Right. Speaker 3
In the very, very beginning for the first two or three that I did, I borrowed the thirty grand and then got a bank loan. And then I paid the thirty grand back over the course of a year or two or three. Right? So the way I say it Speaker 1
Slow process. Speaker 3
Very slow. So the reason I say that it was the wrong way is because it's slow, like you said. Right. And it requires you to have thirty grand to put down on a hundred and fifty thousand dollar property. So if you're in a market where you can't find hundred and fifty thousand dollar properties and the properties are three hundred grand, you need sixty thousand to put down. That's very difficult. Yep. So about seven, eight years ago, I went full time in the business. I had twelve rentals already, and I decided that I just wanted to be a full time real estate investor. And I didn't wanna be an agent or a broker. I didn't really feel like doing that kinda job. So I just kinda, you know, started reading books and taking courses and hiring, excuse me, hiring coaches. Mhmm. And I essentially learned and taught myself, wholesaling. And for the next three to four years, Jamie, I did that exclusively. I just wholesaled, wholesaled, wholesale like crazy. And in the last seven years, I've done seven hundred and fifty wholesale deals. So I've done quite a few wholesale deals in just the last, you know, seven, eight years. Speaker 1
That's incredible, by the way. Speaker 3
It's pretty neat. Yeah. Yeah. But here's the thing, man. I started out with rentals passively for ten years, got twelve. And then I went full time. And for the next, let's say, three and a half to four years, all I did was wholesaling. I, like, lost sight. I lost track of the reason I got into real estate. I I got into real estate for for two or three reasons. Number one, I wanted to have passive income. Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
Right? Because I wanted financial freedom, and I knew that having passive income would would allow me to have both financial freedom, but also time freedom. Right? So I Speaker 1
wanted Stop trading your time for money. Speaker 3
Stop trading my time for money. Right. And then number two, I am terrible at saving money. Like, the worst. The worst. Right? So, you know, whenever I go buy a rental property and I put money into it or I borrow money to get to get it, and then I pay that money back, it's like a forced savings account. Sure. So I've I've always been terrible with money. I'm still not that great at saving it. Yeah. You know? But when I buy rentals, it, like, forces me to save it. Speaker 1
It's not very liquid. It's it's it's out of sight, out of mind. Speaker 3
It's liquid, but not very. Correct. Correct. Yes. Speaker 1
Right. Speaker 3
We're we're around the same time. Speaker 1
Like a not like a savings account. Like Speaker 3
Not like a savings account. Right. Right. So, you know, about oh, I don't know. I I guess, you know, another three, let's just say three and a half years. I did that full time. So then the, the following three and a half years, I, I like, you know, had the epiphany. I woke up and I'm like, man, I got into real estate to, like, be my own boss and to, like, save money and to, like, build wealth and to create passive income. And I'm not doing any of that. I'm just wholesaling. I'm making a good living, but, like, man. So I pivoted back into buying rentals, but this time, I decided to try to figure out and learn a way to do it that didn't require me to put down twenty percent or in my case, because I'm buying hundred and fifty thousand dollar properties, thirty grand. Speaker 1
Mhmm. Speaker 3
And I stumbled across the BRRR method. And I didn't create the method. I didn't invent it. I I have written a book on it. Okay. There's other books written on the topic. I'm not the only guy by any means. Speaker 1
Brandon Turner likes to take credit for the Speaker 3
And that's fine. Yeah. I'll I'll give Brandon the credit. I I know Brandon. I've met Brandon. Speaker 1
He's a Speaker 3
great guy. Love Brandon. Right. Speaker 1
No. I've never He didn't invent it either. No. He didn't invent it. No. But he he likes he coined it maybe that that term. But He was Speaker 3
the first guy to write a book on it probably. Right? Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
Yeah. So Speaker 1
But, no. I've I've done it as well. It's some version of it. That's, you know, I do I have rentals as well, and that's really the the primary method that we've my wife and I have used for for our rentals. It's super powerful. So, you know, there's no perfect strategy. There there can be if you if you don't know what you're doing, you could get in trouble. But so you kinda sounds like you, you know, now are at a point where you've blended, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you've blended multiple strategies that you've kinda had mastered over those really decades, actually. And now you're kind of, being more intentional about how you're approaching your own your own business and you're so you're able to hang on to a lot of these properties that you otherwise would have wholesaled before. And Speaker 3
Yeah. That's a great okay. So check this out. So the first ten years, I wanted to be a landlord, but I still had businesses and jobs and whatever it was. Let me turn this on focus mode here. And, you know, it was very passive. So then I I went full time, and I spent, you know, three and a half years roughly wholesaling, but I wasn't buying rentals. But I built a skill. I built a skill of marketing to sellers, negotiating, putting properties under contract Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
And finding partners to sell them to. So, like, all of those skills that I earned were massively helpful. Right? Speaker 1
Yep. Yep. Speaker 3
So then, you know, after that three and a half years, let's just say three and a half, that's just a simple easy round number. The the the preceding three and a half years that that leads me to today Right. I I'm still wholesaling, but we've changed the mindset. And now it's we're gonna keep the best deals that we get from our marketing efforts, and we're gonna wholesale everything else. Yeah. So we literally have a saying, keep the best, best wholesale the rest. Speaker 1
So you can cherry pick. Yep. Speaker 3
And we cherry pick. So what we're doing now with the ones that we're that we're cherry picking and we're keeping is we're using the bur method. And for those that aren't familiar, BRRRR is an acronym. It's b with four r's. It stands for buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat. Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
Very, very simple strategy. If I was to define what the BRRR method is, my definition is simple. It's a strategy that we you that we, real estate investors, use to acquire assets with little to no money very rapidly. That's the way I define it. Speaker 1
Sure. Speaker 3
And the the the way that the bur method is so beneficial is because it doesn't require me to bring in twenty percent, like, in the past or thirty grand to buy a property. But we do a whole we we have to go through this whole process, to be able to do that. So I'm gonna shorten it, and we can, you know, elaborate a little later if we want. But Yeah. What we do now is we find a deal just like we would if we wholesale. We market, we find a deal, and then we offer to buy it just like we would if we wholesale. Right? We put it under contract. Speaker 1
Right. Speaker 3
But instead of marketing that deal to the cash buyers, now we market that deal to our private lenders. And we have a couple of them that we work with, seven, eight, nine of them. And we have some hard money lender friends that we work with as well, but a little bit more expensive using hard money than it is private money. So we market the deal to our private lenders, but not for sale. We market the investment opportunity to them. And they say, hey, Dave. You know, we'll lend on this one. We want twelve percent annual. No points, hopefully. And we're like, yeah. No problem. We're only gonna borrow the money for three or four or five months anyway. So twelve percent isn't the total amount. That's an annualized figure. So we'll buy the property with the private or hard money lender, and then we'll also borrow an additional twenty, thirty, forty grand, whatever we need to rehab it. So the first letter in the acronym of BRRRR is b buy, but you gotta buy it at a discount, folks. You gotta buy it at a discount. Let's say it a second time. It's so incredibly important. Right? Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
So then we rehab the property, and we and we use the same money that we got to purchase it a little bit more from that lender typically. Right? Occasionally, we'll have to bring a second lender in, but ninety five percent of the time, it's the same lender. Speaker 1
One lender. Got it. Speaker 3
One lender. Right. Okay. So then we'll rehab the property. Now rehabbing the property does a bunch of stuff. It increases the value. It allows you to rent it for more money. It allows you or helps you get it rented quicker. Sure. And it reduces a lot of the capital expenditures, CapEx, hopefully, for five, seven, maybe even ten years. So when we're buying these properties and we're doing these rehabs, we love the big ticket items. In fact, those are the first things we typically do. Roof, windows, siding if needed, HVACs, flooring, you know, and then we'll look at the kitchens and the bathrooms and the walls. But that's the last thing we look at. We wanna do the big items first because those are the items that cost a lot of money. And down the road, five, seven, ten years, we don't wanna have a seven thousand dollar turnover cost. We wanna keep it low. So the rehab, it does a lot for us. Right? Then we go we get it rented, and then we go to the bank. So I'm still going to the bank like I did in the beginning here, Jamie. Yeah. But now I'm not going to the bank. In the beginning, I was going to the bank asking for them to help me buy a home. Speaker 1
Buy the loan. Speaker 3
It was a new loan. Speaker 1
It's Speaker 3
a new loan. It's risky for the bank. There's a lot of underwriting that's required. Well, now we already own the property. We've already rehabbed it. We've already rented it. Right. So the bank's like And and, Speaker 1
yeah, and they will count that rental income as part of your They will. Income when you Speaker 3
file for the like, holy cow. Hell, yeah. We wanna we wanna do this refi. Yeah. We like this house. Yeah. It's been rehabbed, and it's already rented, so it's not a liability. It's actually an asset. Yes, Dave. We would love to to refi this. Well, they still do the same eighty percent, but here's the kicker, folks. I'm not going in buying a property that the purchase price is equal to the appraised value. That's how I did it in the beginning. There was very little little Yeah. Capture of equity. If anything, it'd be a couple grand. Right? Because, you know, the bank the the appraiser is gonna say, well, what what are you offering to buy it at? You're offering to buy it at one sixty? Well, you know, my job is to tell you what somebody else would pay you for it, and you're offering to pay one sixty. So it's probably worth one sixty. I mean, their job's very easy on the purchase side. It's very easy. That's literally what their job is is what is your opinion of value? Well, when you buy a property at a discount, you fix it up, you get it rented, and then you walk into the bank and you say, I wanna refi. They don't care about your purchase price anymore. That number is irrelevant. Sure. What matters now is what's the damn thing worth? Yeah. So let's send the appraisal out. So the goal with us now with the cherry picking, the Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
Keep the best and wholesale the rest is can we be all in with purchase and rehab, all in of what the appraisal comes back at, which is a guess. But can we be all in at eighty percent or less? And if we can, which we've done about two hundred times now, I think I'm at, like, a hundred and ninety seven burr deals. Speaker 1
Wow. Speaker 3
So call it two hundred. Speaker 1
Then you've got no money. Speaker 3
Be all in at or below eighty percent and the bank lends eighty percent, we can acquire the asset with no money. Speaker 1
No money. Speaker 3
And oftentimes, I can pay the lender back a hundred percent with the interest, and I can use the loan to do it all to where I don't have to come out of pocket a dollar. So the average amount that we started with to or I started with to buy a rental was thirty grand. And over the last three and a half, four years, I brought that average down to twelve hundred dollars. So after, you know, four or five months of cash flows, you don't you don't have any money invested into the asset. Your returns are infinite. It's amazing. Speaker 1
That that is awesome. So okay, yeah, and I I definitely wanna dive into that more later. That I mean, that is super powerful. I mean, you've got no money in the deal or very little. And then the I think the key thing with the well, there's several key things, but the the last r is repeat. Speaker 3
Oh, it's the repeat. Speaker 1
And so it's like that's critical whereas your your previous your first ten years, you weren't repeating until twelve months later because you had to save up all that cash to be able to put down that down payment. With this BRRRR method, you can repeat immediately, and then you can go find it. As soon as you have a deal, good to go. So that is definitely very powerful. Of course, there are some things to be aware of and and potential, you know, pitfalls along the way, obviously, if you get, you know, if you can't get that bank loan, you might be, stuck holding holding the bag with the the hard money lender or whatever, but, I don't have to tell you that. But just for the for the listener out there, you know, you don't, you do need to get some coaching and know what you're doing before you, just go start doing this. But, one thing I want to dive into, David, if you don't mind, is more of your background. Speaker 3
Yeah. Absolutely. And then Speaker 1
we can bring it up bring it up to speed, you know, up to the present again, and then talk about more specifically what you have going on today. So Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1
Let's, you can take it wherever you want. I mean, you've you've done hundreds of shows. You have your own podcast. You you're very comfortable with this, which is awesome. Makes my job easy. And, but this show is, you know, from adversity to abundance, and it it can be either professional or personal, but some real, you know, some real, you know, pain or some adversity that you've faced as a human. I mean, we're trying to focus on the human element of real estate investing, the human element of running a business, the the human element of overcoming hardship, you know, overcoming struggle, and then getting to, adversity excuse me, abundance and, growth and, you get the concept. And and for the listener out there, we don't it's not like we just flip a switch and all of a sudden all of our problems go away, but a lot of it has to do with mindset and lessons learned through the adversity. So what comes to mind, David? What do you what do you wanna talk about? Speaker 3
Yeah, man. So I've had a lot of adversity in my in my life, and it's led me to abundance. So I can I can I'll be happy to talk about this? So, you know, some of the adversity that I faced, was really more so younger in my life than it has been recently. Speaker 1
Okay. Speaker 3
But it has molded me, and it has shaped me into the person that I am today. So, you know, I lost my I lost both my parents before I was eighteen. I lost my mother when I was nine, and I lost my father when I was eighteen. So my dad did a great job of raising me, you know, up until I was eighteen, which I was still a child at eighteen. You know, they say you're legally an adult at eighteen, but I was I was a kid still. And, you know, so Yeah. That's Growing up without a mother, you know, was was was difficult. It wasn't, you know, impossible by any means, but it it definitely brought some challenges. But then losing my dad at the age of eighteen was really tough because I didn't have any parental guidance. I have an older sister, you know, who's always kinda had my back and kept an eye on me, but she's not my mom. She's not my dad. She's my sister. Speaker 1
Sure. Speaker 3
And I've had other family, you know, aunts and uncles and grandparents that have obviously been there to help me and to help guide me. But at the same time, they're not your parents either. Right? Speaker 1
Right. Speaker 3
So at the age of eighteen, I was out on my own. And luckily, my grandparents, you know, were were really good savers. I'm not a good saver. They were. And they were like, hey. We we would love to have you go to college. You know? We're gonna pay for it. And I was like, holy cow. This is amazing. Like, amazing people, angels on my shoulder. So they they helped me, you know, go to college for four years and help cover some of those some of those costs. I paid for a little bit of it, but they paid for the majority of it. But because I didn't have any parental guidance, man, I got in a lot of trouble in college. I just was hanging out with the wrong crowd and, you know, was doing a lot of activities that we wouldn't refer to as being good activities. And, you know, a lot of these activities were were were very illegal activities. And, you know, I got myself into a lot of trouble. And, you know, at one point, I was, you know, standing in front of a judge facing seven years in prison Speaker 1
Oh, wow. Speaker 3
Or certain, you know, activities that that I was doing. And the judge took mercy on me and was like, you know, you don't have any parental guidance. I think I was, like, twenty four at the time. Mhmm. You know? And and, you know, and I was crying up on this up on you know, in court, and and, you know, I didn't wanna go to prison. You know? So the judge took mercy on me, though, and they and she said, you know, we're not gonna send you to jail because this is your first, you know, basically big offense here. Mhmm. But, you know, this is real. This is real life. And if you keep, you know, screwing up and and, you know, messing up, you're gonna go to jail, dude. And they ended she ended up giving me, house arrest for nine months, man. So I was on house arrest for nine months because of my activities. This was in in Speaker 1
college still, you said? Or Speaker 3
In college is when it started, but it rolled over into, you know, into my early twenties too. Right? Speaker 1
Got it. Yep. Speaker 3
And, but, you know, the thing was, though, Jamie, that that was one of the best things that ever happened to me, to be honest. I mean, it's kinda crazy to think about that or to even say that out loud. But Speaker 1
Yeah. No. And and just to quickly jump in, that is one of the things that, you know, we've I've it's been one of the themes with the shows we've had thus far is that and and, of course, this takes time in reflection. Right? You don't see this in the moment, typically. I would I would assume. Right? But looking back, it's a lot of people have said similar things with very painful, you know, traumatic experiences they've been through is that it is the best thing that ever happened to them. It's one Speaker 3
of the best things that's ever happened to me. Absolutely. Speaker 1
So why do you why do you say that in your in your case? Speaker 3
Well, because if I hadn't gotten caught doing what what I was doing, I would've I would've still I would've kept doing it. Yeah. You know? So, but, yeah, long story short, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I straightened my life out. I quit messing around with the crowd that I was messing around with. I quit messing around with the substances that landed me in that courtroom. And, you know, I realized at that point in time that, you know, I had been I had been kind of veering down the wrong path since the age of about eighteen. So that was, you know, about seven years that I was, like, kind of up to no good. You know? And Speaker 1
a long Speaker 3
time ago. And you it's Speaker 1
it's, like, you know, almost a third of your life. It sounds like at that point, a third or quarter of your life. Speaker 3
Yeah. Speaker 1
So my point is you're Speaker 3
Long time. Speaker 1
You're building and you're very you're you're building habits and patterns and things. So it's it's not like you wake up one day and you're you just, you know, oh, that's over. I imagine that was quite a process. Speaker 3
Yeah. It was, man. It was. It was quite the process, but it led me to going into real estate full time. So, again, it was a it was a godsend. It was a blessing. Right? The fact that I was able to avoid a harsh sentence, you know, was was was amazing. I still got punished. I had, nine months house arrest from from my actions. Mhmm. And, I had an additional four years behind behind that of supervised probation. So what's the question? Drug tested, and I couldn't, you know, I couldn't leave town without, you know, having a a probation officer breathing down my neck. I had to check-in with them, you know, once or twice a week, random drug test, all that stuff. Right? So it wasn't just nine months house arrest. It was four years of supervised probation. Speaker 1
Oh, wow. Speaker 3
That was the punishment. So the punishment was, you know, it was it was tough. It wasn't easy. Yeah. Speaker 1
You know what Speaker 3
I mean? It wasn't prison, but it was still punishment. Yeah. Speaker 1
That's that doesn't sound Speaker 3
like Here's the thing, man. When I was on house arrest for nine months, I read, like, a hundred books. Couldn't leave my house, man. So I just was like, alright. And I'm not a big reader either. Trust me. It takes me a whole day to read a hundred page book. But I was just like, I'm just gonna learn real estate investing. I've already got some rentals. I already know how to do it the wrong way. Let's learn how to do it the right way. And during that time, I I probably spent fifty grand on books, courses, and even a couple coaches along the way too. And I was buying courses online, you know, weekly. You know, if anything and everything on rental property, fix and flip, landlording, wholesale, lease option, creative finance, sub two. You name it. I was learning about all this stuff. Speaker 1
And just to you you were working at the at this time? Or Speaker 3
at the time so right before I got in trouble, I had bought a house to rehab. So luckily for me, I was a full time real estate investor even though I wasn't doing a ton of transaction. I just had one house that I was fixing up. Speaker 1
Got it. Speaker 3
So I was able to leave my house, at, like, eight AM, but I had to be home at, like, six PM. Mhmm. And that was only five days a week. So the weekends, I couldn't leave I basically had a really early curfew, and I wasn't allowed to leave very early. So I had a I had a gap. I had a time that I was allowed to go work a job, essentially. Speaker 1
Right. Speaker 3
But instead of going to a job, I would go to this house Speaker 1
Got it. Speaker 3
And I would fix all of it. And that ended up taking me, like, seven months. So almost the entire time I was on house arrest. But it was such a great opportunity to learn how to do plumbing, how to do roofing, how to install windows, how to do flooring, how to put in cabinets. Like, I had friends that would come help me that I'd pay, but I didn't hire anybody ever. Like, hey. I need you to do my kitchen. It was always like, I wanna learn how to do the kitchen. You know how. So I'm gonna hire you, but I'm gonna be your assistant like it or not. Right. You know? And they were like, okay. You're still gonna pay me? And I'm like, yep. I'm still gonna pay you, but I wanna be there every second of the way to see how you're doing this and learn the process. Sure. So I I did kinda have a job. It was a self employed job at the time. Understood. But for the most part, yeah, that that opportunity led me into education of learning, you know, what not to do, which I had been doing for ten years Mhmm. And how to market direct to seller. I did my first wholesale deal, you know, while I was, you know, dealing with that. Mhmm. And, once that I was, you know, able to leave my home again, you know, freely, I I went and got an office and partnered up with a couple of my buddies, and we just started marketing like crazy. Direct mail, cold call, cold text, bandit signs. I got some radio ads running. We've had billboards in the past, a lot of networking, AdWords, SEO, all these different things that we can do to get direct to the seller. Right? Yeah. And then once I was able to get direct to the seller, I was able to then learn how to negotiate and how to lock up properties and how to wholesale those properties. So, again, it was such a great opportunity. Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
You know? But it all led from a bunch of bad decisions Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
Hanging out with the wrong crowd and and then ending myself in court facing jail time. I mean, it was Speaker 1
wanted to to dive into a little bit is is, and I and I appreciate that you said you you you made bad decisions. Right? And and I that's you know, and I'm not trying to this show is not No. No. No. Hundred percent. I didn't. I made bad decisions. But, you know, I I I love that you took ownership of it, and you ended up seeing this as an opportunity versus only a problem. Right? But the other thing you've mentioned a couple times was hanging out with the wrong crowd. Right? And so how did that go as far as just kind of, like, because I your environment is so critical for, you know, for all of us. Right? So I understand that you had forced you know, certain things were forced upon you from the the court system, but how did you tactically kind of did you have to say, like, hey hey, man. I'm not I'm not gonna be friends with you any longer? Like, how did you Yeah. Speaker 3
I had I had basically done that prior to Speaker 1
K. Speaker 3
You know, the the the feces hitting the fan, using cuss words here. Right? So, yeah, I had basically done that prior. We, you know, we all kinda knew that that we were we were gonna get in trouble for the most part. So I just kinda separated myself from these individuals, and I just told them, hey. This isn't personal, but, like, I don't wanna go to jail. So but I wish you the best of luck. And if you're ever in a a really, you know, bad situation and you need a you need a helping hand, you can call me. By all means, I'm not telling you that I don't wanna ever talk to you again, but we we can't hang out anymore. And I just separated myself from these individuals. Speaker 1
So then you were focused on coaches and reading and absorbing all this knowledge and and growing your positive influences. Right? And then Speaker 3
Yeah. So I mentioned earlier I'm not the best at reading, but here's the crazy part. I love I love learning new things, man. Like, I've always been a good student. I've always enjoyed school. When my grandparents were like, hey. We want you to go to college. I was ecstatic. I'm like, I get to go learn for four more years. Like, this is amazing. So whenever I was in my, you know, in that time frame of my life where I was in trouble and things were not looking great Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
You know, it was another opportunity for me to learn. So, you know, hiring coaches and taking courses and, of course, reading books, and I didn't even mention, listen to hundreds, thousands of hours of podcast just like this one. Right. And learn from other individuals who were already wholesale and already had hundreds of rental properties Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
And just picking up little gold nuggets along the way. I love to learn. I'd love to learn then. I love to learn now. Speaker 1
Yeah. I'm Speaker 3
the same way. I mean Yeah. It was it was one of these things where it was like, holy cow. I dodged a bullet, and then now I get to I get to learn. Like, this is I mean, it was like it was a lot of bad things that happened all at once, but then there was, like, a lot of good things that came from it. And that's really where the abundance came from, and and and I have a lot of abundance in my life now. You know, I've done a thousand transactions. I got about ninety rental properties. Speaker 1
That's that's Speaker 3
impressive. Bring in about twenty grand a month in passive income from our our rental portfolio. Speaker 1
Just to be clear, when you say we and and it you know, we don't have to get into specifics if you don't want to, but is is that who who's we? Who is we? Speaker 3
My partner, Mike, and I. Speaker 1
Okay. That's that's that's amazing. That's awesome. That's really impressive. I just you you're, like, you clearly are not afraid of hard work. Clearly, like, learning and growing and the abundance mindset, it just it sounds like you just had to get yourself on the right track and get you know, make sure you were exposed to positive influences, and and, it's this this is a really good turnaround story. So it's it's it's Yeah. It's impressive, man. Speaker 3
Thank you. Thank you, man. Thank you. You know, it's just one of these things where, like, I always wanted to do real estate, and I dabbled. And then, and then I jumped in, but I jumped in and I was blinded by a shiny object, which is wholesaling. And I'm glad. Even though I don't have any regrets. Speaker 1
Right. Speaker 3
But I'm glad that over the last, you know, three and a half, call it four years, that I brought my focus back. Speaker 1
Sure. Yep. Speaker 3
You know, I I bought my first house when I was twenty years old. A house hacked. I was at I was in school. I was house hacking. I borrowed that thirty grand. I gotta Speaker 1
You know what? House hacking is the one that Brandon takes credit for. The the Speaker 3
term Okay. Okay. Anyway Well, either way, I I'm a fan of Brandon. Yeah. No. No. Love it. Love it. But and I know it's working. Speaker 1
Is super powerful. Speaker 3
It is. And I did that three times while I was in school. So I was actively investing and buying rentals and doing this. You know? But, again, I lost sight of it when I started wholesaling, but I brought it back. And, you know, at this point, our goal is is to acquire rental properties that are assets that we can use the BRRRR method, and we can use the BRRRR method to get into these with very little to no money. Speaker 1
Yeah. And Speaker 3
then the last r that I I skipped over, but thank thank you for reminding me was to repeat. And now it's so scalable. So now, you know, we can go pick up five, six, seven houses in a month where I was doing one, maybe two in a year, you know, in the beginning. Speaker 1
So question, and then we'll get we'll we'll do some rapid fire questions Speaker 3
Sure. Speaker 1
Before we wrap up. But, as far as your business right now, are you adjusting anything based on market conditions, or, where do you Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, we're we're always adjusting stuff. I mean, really, the the interest rates are going up. That's that's a given. So we're we gotta find better deals. You know? Inventory is low. Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
And, yeah, inventory is low, so it's hard to find good deals. I mean, we used to stumble across two, three, four deals a month. Yeah. Just stumble across them. Right? And now, you know, we're lucky to get a property under contract weekly. You know? It's just Speaker 1
Are you buying in just in you must be, you know, have a pretty good footprint. Speaker 3
We have about a hundred mile radius around where we live and work. Okay. My office is eight minutes from my house, and I'm I'm happy to to to buy something and flip it or rent it out if it's within, you know, an hour, hour and a half. I would say ninety percent of our portfolio is within twenty five minutes away from from our office. So it's it's we're we're hyperlocal, I guess you could say. So You know, I don't I'm in Saint Louis, Missouri Yeah. And I don't own any property outside of Missouri. Everything I got is in the state. Speaker 1
You are the expert in that area. Speaker 3
I mean Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been in the game for quite a minute and, you know, seven hundred fifty wholesales, two hundred burr deals, roughly a thousand transactions. Speaker 1
So Yeah. Geographically, you're the expert, and then also you it's like you have so many tools in your tool belt. No matter if a deal goes sideways, you still have an option. You still know what to do. So Yeah. Speaker 3
We everything we do is is buying at a discount. Hence, hence, the name of my show and, you know, my my nickname, David, the property investor. Speaker 1
And I use that as a I'm sorry. Go ahead. Speaker 3
Oh, no. No. I was just gonna say, here's the thing, guys. If you buy a property retail Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
Can you make money on it? Well, the answer is yes. It's just so slow. Right? Yeah. And you're gonna typically need money to put down to buy it too. Right? Right. But if you buy a property at a discount, all of the exit strategy doors, they're wide open. If you wanna wholesale it, you can make a profit without even buying the home. If you wanna add it to your rental portfolio, you can use strategies like subject to or BRRRR, and you can get into these properties for little to no money. If you wanna fix and flip that property, you've mitigated your risk a ton. Can you buy a property and increase value from rehab alone? Yeah. But it's not gonna be a huge increase typically. But if you combine that forced appreciation from fixing it up with the discount or the Yeah. Or the captured equity on the on the get go Yeah. You've doubled your spread. Speaker 1
No. It's a very good point. Speaker 3
What I teach people is regardless if they wanna wholesale, regardless if they wanna fix and flip, regardless if they wanna be a landlord and, you know, two point o landlord, a burr method landlord like me and you, regardless of what they wanna do, they need to learn first and foremost how to buy properties at a discount. Yeah. I truly believe that that is the first step that anybody should take. You don't have to be a wholesaler if you don't wanna be a wholesaler, but you need to learn how to find discounts. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm gonna just say one more thing and before we wrap up here, Jamie, we can do a fire round, of course, too. But, when it comes to buying properties, you gotta get a discount on those properties. Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
When I first started out, I was looking at properties that I would buy to fix and flip or add to the portfolio, you know, as how much profit can I make? And I don't look at it that way anymore. Now I look at it. Am I buying it at a big enough of a discount where I can screw up two, three, maybe even four times Mhmm. And still make a couple dollars or even break even. Right? So at this point, I've pivoted my mindset to Sure. Is the discount deep enough to where my bookkeeper could manage the rehab and screw it up, and I'd still make money on the deal. Speaker 1
That's pretty good. Speaker 3
So you gotta learn how to buy at a discount. Oh, here's the point that I was trying to make. Yeah. The, well, I no. We're good. Speaker 1
It's all good. Speaker 3
We're good. Speaker 1
But the same thing applies in in so we we're mostly focused on mortgage notes. I mean, rentals are an important part of my own personal portfolio, but, same exact thing applies. And you can get into the argument of so the way I look at both of our businesses really is it's three three parts. One is raising capital, and you talked about that with hard money and private money and then then the bank. The other is finding the deals, and the third part is managing the assets. Right? And so but if you can't if you don't buy a mortgage note at a good enough discount, you just put a ton of stress on yourself to make some make something out of nothing. And, you know, it's it's the same philosophy and concept is true in notes. If if you don't buy at a discount, you you're you're probably you're there's a good chance you're screwed. I mean or you're just not there's not there's nothing there. So why not set yourself up for success? I mean, I think Warren Buffett has the same philosophy. It's all about the buy. Right? Speaker 3
Yeah. Value value investing. Value. Exactly. Buy it at a discount, and then Right. Yeah. You can make money. So oh, here's the point I was trying to make, and I I literally slipped my mind twice, but it came back to me. You know, we've averaged about a hundred purchases a year. Last year, we did a hundred and sixty, which is a little crazy, but we've averaged about a hundred hundred purchases a year. And the point that I wanna make is, you know, two or three out of a hundred come from the market, like the MLS Yeah. On market. Speaker 1
Wow. The Speaker 3
other ninety seven, ninety six, ninety eight, whatever that number might be. Speaker 1
Yep. You know, Speaker 3
let's just say ninety seven percent. That's probably a good number to to use. Come from direct to seller marketing. The eight there's no agents involved. Sometimes there may be, but they're not on the market. They're direct to the seller, and what we do as investors is very simple. My way of defining it to a newbie is this. We exchange convenience for discounts. That's it. That's the simplest of definition of what real estate investors do. If you wanna go buy a property retail and fix it up and try to make a profit, go for it. You're not gonna make that much money, typically. Speaker 1
Right. No. Speaker 3
Right? But if you buy it at a discount, you might not even need to fix it up to make money on it. Right? Speaker 1
Sure. Speaker 3
But the best way to buy discounted properties is go direct to the seller, find sellers that have problems. Right? Find people that are distressed or they have a distressed home, or the holy grail would be to find a distressed person that has a distressed property. And you offer them you offer them convenience. You help them. I mean, at the Speaker 1
end of Speaker 3
the day, we're helping people. Right? Speaker 1
We're solving someone else's problem. Speaker 3
Yeah. We're saying, hey. We'll take this off your hands. We'll pay you for it too. Now we're not gonna pay you full retail because this is a business. And by definition, business means the act of making money. So, of course, we're doing this to make money. Right? But we're offering convenience to people in exchange for discounts. That's it. It's so simple. So if you are brand new and you're listening, understand that. Yeah. Understand that this is a marketing business before it's an investing business. And then number three is is you make your money when you buy. You get paid when you sell. Speaker 1
It's really, really good. Alright. We're gonna fly through a few questions and wrap it up. What's something that people misunderstand about you? Speaker 3
Oh, man. I'm a clown. I like to laugh and have jokes and, you know, I like to love love, you know, love life. So I think sometimes people, they think I'm a I'm a jokester out the gate, and it's just like, I just wanna make people laugh. Speaker 1
Right. Speaker 3
You know? I love it. Speaker 1
That's good. Alright. If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who would it be? Speaker 3
Meaning that they've already passed away? Speaker 1
They they could be alive. Anybody. Speaker 3
I'd say Elon. Elon's the best we got on the planet. He's the best. So I I would love to be able to meet him. That would be cool. Speaker 1
I just saw he do you see his, ending the work from home thing the other day? Speaker 3
Yeah. I think it's amazing. Speaker 1
Yeah. He's like, if you don't come here if you're not here physically, we'll just assume you're not working. Speaker 3
We'll just assume you're not working. Yeah. I love it. I think he awarded it perfectly. Speaker 1
He he is incredible. It's amazing. Alright. If you were given, let's say, twenty million dollars tomorrow, what would you do with it? Speaker 3
Oh, I'd park it because I'm terrible at saving. I'll tell you that. So here's the thing. I would much rather have, income coming in monthly or quarterly than a big nest egg because the nest egg you can spend. You can blow it. Speaker 1
Sure. Speaker 3
But the income, if it comes in routinely, like, for instance, our rental portfolio pays us about twenty grand. My partner, Mike and I, we can go blow every nickel of that. And then on the first of the month, the next month, we got twenty grand more coming in. So Speaker 1
Awesome. Speaker 3
What I would do with that money is I would buy real estate, I'd park it, and I would try to get my passive income up to, you know, eight hundred grand, a million, million five, whatever it would would would equate to because then it's impossible to go broke. Every month, you get more money coming in. So to me, it's never the big the big number. Yeah. Which is most people's goal. Speaker 1
You you would turn that return that into into cash flow. Speaker 3
It turned it into cash flow. Yeah. Having a big a big number in one spot scares the hell out of me. You know, it's gonna be gone. So Speaker 1
What is, what's a challenge that you're facing in your in your business right now? Speaker 3
Finding good deals, man. Inventory is light. Speaker 1
Yeah. Got it. In your opinion you've already covered some of this, but in your opinion, what's one of the most important personality traits for someone who's someone to be successful in in your industry? Okay. So any industry. My definition Your oh, you're saying it Speaker 3
Yeah. So I'm I'm actually gonna build on that. Speaker 1
Got it. Speaker 3
Any industry. Speaker 1
Got it. Speaker 3
Alright? My definition of success comes down to three words, consistent, persistent action. I I literally interviewed a seventeen year old last night. He's one of my coaching students, and he just got his first wholesale deal. He made eleven grand. And I said, what was the main thing that you took away from my coaching? And he said, you gotta be a persistent SOB if you wanna do deals. And I said, yep. And I asked him. I said, how many times did you touch that seller with a phone call, a text message, you know, an email, just a touch? And he said, oh, at least forty. Speaker 1
Wow. Speaker 3
And I go, you know what a newbie would do? Two or three and then stop. Speaker 1
Sure. Speaker 3
That persistence allowed you to do a deal. So in real estate, to answer your question, persistence. Speaker 1
Yeah. Speaker 3
In in anything in life Speaker 1
Yeah. Sure. Speaker 3
It's persistence, guys. You can't be Speaker 1
That's great. Speaker 3
Weak. You gotta be persistent. Speaker 1
And consistent, like you said. And and and an action taker. Speaker 3
So All the above. Yeah. Consistent, persistent action is the equation that equals success, guys. It is. No matter what you wanna do, you can't quit. You gotta be consistent. You gotta be persistent about it. Speaker 1
Yeah. And it doesn't mean you never pivot. You talked about several pivots you made with your strategy. Speaker 3
We pivot all the time. Yep. Especially with marketing. If marketing's not working, then we stop and we find another thing to do all the time. Speaker 1
Alright. What's a movie that you'd recommend? You ever watch movies? Speaker 3
Yeah. I love movies, man. I would say, I just saw the new Top Gun. It was amazing. Love it. Yeah. Check that Speaker 1
out. What other podcasts do you like? You have your own. Right? Speaker 3
So I I host the the the discount property investor show, and I also host Wholesaling Inc's podcast one day a week. Speaker 1
Okay. Speaker 3
So I love both of those. I'd recommend those. Speaker 1
So that's how I met you is is through Brent who interviewed me on that on that show last Yeah. It's not out Speaker 3
Great team of people over there. Great team. So I I would say those two would be my two faves just because I spend a lot of time working on both of them. Speaker 1
Perfect. Two more. How do you like to serve others? Speaker 3
I like to serve others by showing them that they have more value than they think they have or they know that they have, and I like to make them laugh because it just brings joy to their life. Speaker 1
Love it. Alright. Last one. And you've touched on this, but where can our listeners find you online? Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. So discount property investor dot com is my main website that hosts my podcast. If you guys are looking to learn more about the Burr method, that's really my passion at this point. I do have a program that you can learn more about it, and that you can find that at wholesaling inc dot com forward slash rentals. Again, that's wholesaling inc dot com forward slash rentals. You can learn more about me. You can learn more about the Burr method. And if you're curious, book a call with my team, and we can, you know, kind of put together some of your goals and wants and, put together a plan to help you achieve them. Speaker 1
Awesome. Cool. This has been really good, David. You have a ton of energy, and and, you just you you bring it. Speaker 3
Hey. Thank you so much for having me, Jamie. Like I said in the beginning, I'm honored to be here. I'm grateful for this opportunity to, you know, serve and provide value to your audience. So I I couldn't be happier this morning. So, again, thank you so much much for for including me. Speaker 1
Appreciate that. And to the listeners out there, we appreciate you spending your most valuable resource with us, and that is your time. Thanks, everyone. Take care. Speaker 2
Thank you for joining us on from adversity to abundance. We hope today's episode has equipped you with valuable insights and practical advice to elevate your real estate journey. For more inspiring stories and resources, visit us at w w w dot adversity to abundance dot com. If this episode has inspired you, please share it with a friend who could also benefit from our conversation. Together, let's turn adversity into abundance. Until next time, keep building your mental fitness and your real estate empire. Speaker 1
Hey, everyone. This is Jamie Bateman. Real quickly, I wanted to share with you something, that's been pivotal in the growth and success of my businesses, and that is my partnership with Haven Financial Services. I've been working with Haven for over a year now. Christine Valdez was on episode seventy of this podcast. So go check that out if you wanna hear her story. It was a fantastic personal story for sure. But Haven has been awesome. They provide me with monthly reports that are super clear and discernible, and it that provides me with clarity and focus so that I can do what I do best, which is running my businesses, not preparing financial reports. Again, if you're in the market for a top notch financial service company, or if you just wanna check one out, go to w w w dot jamie bateman slash haven and check out Haven Financial Services. Again, that's jamie bateman slash haven. Can't recommend them enough. Christine and her team have been fantastic. So I definitely recommend you check out Haven Financial Services at w w w dot jamie bateman forward slash haven. Let's get back to the show. 
