How Mark Made $4,000 WHOLESALING in Arizona!

Hey, everyone. It's Peter Soros here with realestateskills.com. Today we're going to be talking with Mark Rodriguez. He's the owner of Joint Venture Properties in Phoenix, Arizona. He's been a member of our community for a little over 90 days, and he closed his first wholesale deal within those 90 days. I can't wait to share the story with you, so let's dive right into it. How are you doing today, Mark? I'm doing amazing. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing really good. I'm excited to hear the details about this deal. Cool. I was honestly very impressed with what you did to make this deal work. Not too many people new to this would even think or go that far with what you did to get this deal across the line, so I'm really looking forward to dive into that. But before we do, it kind of makes me wonder, did you have any kind of experience or background in real estate, or what were you coming from before doing this? Zero background in real estate. My main business or working that I would do would be consulting for restaurants, bars, nightclubs for about 13 years. It was basically fixing places that were dwindling, you know, you're ready to go under, and the owners needed help, so I would go in and revamp, remodel, re-merchandise, re-do everything for them, basically. Take it over, and then move on to the next project. Got it. Okay. So nothing real estate related, but you had a good idea of how to go and solve problems. Yeah. Being in the restaurant and service hospitality industry, that's all you're doing all day, pretty much. One of the things we always like to ask, you probably saw on the program, we really focus on mindset going into it. What was your mindset about going into real estate before joining the program? Well, I mean, me and my wife have always wanted better things in life. We have really good friends of ours, like our kids' godparents that are multi-millionaires, and they've done a lot of different businesses, but also do a lot of real estate. So the mindset for me was, let's build something for our family, let's build something for our children, and let's really just get after something that we can have as our own, just because corporate America can go one of two ways, and a lot of times it doesn't go the right way for a lot of people when they look back at some of their lives sometimes, and sometimes it goes great. But my wife was laid off three times in a matter of five years, and once right after she gave birth, and the next time, right after our second child was born. So she kind of was looking to me for some answers, just kind of like, what are we going to do? And I researched real estate, and that's what I figured that we would put our focus on. Was there anything that was holding you back from getting real estate training before, or sooner than when you actually did? Nothing really. I worked for a friend of mine's company, and it was more of getting out of the restaurant business when my kids were born, just because that's a long, that's a 10-hour, 50-hour, 60-hour week, big, running restaurant. So it was more just to get myself out of that situation, work from home, be more present. And then nothing was really holding me back, it was just looking for opportunity. And after watching my friend, who I've known for 20 years, he was my best man at my wedding five, six years ago, watching him become very, very wealthy, partly through real estate, was a huge indicator, and just a way that you've got to do something different to find something else out there. What things could you pinpoint are specific things that we did to help you get past what was holding you back when it came to taking that dive into real estate? Well, I'll be honest with you, I looked at a couple of different programs. In Arizona, everyone says it's the guru state of real estate, everyone's out here, Pace is out here, and Robert Kiyosaki, and all sorts of people are out here. I looked at a couple of different ones, and I talked and spoke with people that sell you the programs, and the person I spoke with with real estate skills was very open and very honest, very transparent, and it was just more of a better vibe. My wife and I both sat with him, my wife and I both sat with these other companies, and the overall consensus was, you guys are trustworthy, you guys put it all out there, there was a system put in place, which made huge, huge strides for just like, here's a bunch of videos, go try and figure it out. It was very, very detailed, and I think that's what got me was how organized it was down to everything, which I think is needed, especially if you're great in business or if you're not great in business, you kind of need that to stay successful. Was there anything specific about the program that meant more to you? Was it the training side of it, the fundamentals, or was it the support side of things, those two that kind of come together? Was there anything that really stood out about the program itself once you got into it and the support? Yeah, I think the mentality of it, getting the mindset first, you know, a lot of people that probably start with programs, here it's easy, or here it's, you know, somebody else saw it, they saw it on YouTube, and now they can do it, but the mindset really is the big part of it, and really like going through the action steps of the training and not skipping through it, not fast-forwarding through it. So I think getting that mindset, even though I've always had a mindset for business and things like that, you know, going along with it, my wife even, she doesn't do wholesaling, but she wants to be a part of it. She even went through the training just because you don't need to be on the same page if we're going to be, you know, spending money and, you know, finding ways to make money and investing in ourselves and things like that. So I think just the organization and the mindset training was great, and then the contracts were awesome, very well put together, all the different attachments and ways we could use the documents that you guys provided were amazing. How has real estate skills kind of given you more confidence to take action now? Just gaining the experience, I think, through going through the motions, finding out all the different, you know, ways you can not have a deal closed or the ways you can have a deal closed. I think just basically getting the actual physical, you know, boots on the ground type mentality of where you're getting thrown different ways that people, you know, obstacles and overcoming them and finding ways to figure it out. Nice. All right. Well, let's just start diving into the actual deal itself. So tell us a little bit about this. Where was this located? I know I already mentioned Phoenix, but tell us a little bit about like the area and then we'll dive into the more, you know, details of it. Yeah, for sure. So this was a on market deal and from there it was in Central, North Central Phoenix. So kind of close to Scottsdale, kind of, you know, above downtown, south of the north, you know, Paradise Valley area. So very centrally located and the area there was probably, I don't know, on that one street where that house was, there was probably seven renovated houses on that one street. And then there was the old houses like that one from the 1950s, I believe, 54 built. But yeah, it's a, it's an up and coming area. So that's a lot of good area right there. So let's jump into the deal numbers. What was the purchase price? What was your ARV? What was your rehab estimate? If you can kind of, I know maybe I don't have it in front of you, but just kind of ballpark it. So it was listed for $489 on the MLS and we, I got it to down to $420 and it wound up being, I got under contract at $412.5, I believe. And the numbers for the restoration was probably, mine were around $100,000 to redo the house. And the ARV was around, I believe it was about $620. And when you brought it to, you know, the cash buyers, they were, they instantly said there's a deal here. They saw you were pretty close with your repair estimates and all that, or they said, oh, you're actually kind of high or you're kind of low. What was their, what was your, their feedback? So I have, I have about eight to 10 cash buyers and some of them only do, you know, under 500,000. Some of them do over 500,000. So the seasoned investors that I sent it to kind of more for a little bit of guidance to make sure my numbers were correct of what they thought, they thought the numbers were great. They thought that the, my rehab budget was pretty much on point, but for them to take this deal, it was not worth it for them. They want to make a hundred plus thousand on every deal they do kind of thing. And so some of my other cash buyers that only go under 500,000 were, were interested in it as well. And they, I think they're going to go below my rehab budget, to be honest with you. But they, they kept in contact with me the whole time. I didn't blast it out to a bunch of people. I kept it to a few people and just wanted to make sure it was something that was worth it for the cash buyer. So here's the, one of the interesting questions I really want to dive into. How much money did you have to put into the deal? Now I know you actually did put some money into the deal to help it get across the finish line, but you did get that money back. So tell us from the beginning, you had the earnest money deposit, but then you also had a cash buyer who was telling me that he was out of town and couldn't make it to view the property. Yeah. Well, well, to even get this deal under contract, I sent the purchase agreement to the real estate agent who was part owner of the house. And he sent me an addendum back to sign that said, this is not assignable. And I believe I, I can't even spoke to you on either the phone or by email and just said, how do I get over this obstacle? And you kind of just told me a straightforward answer. And that was what I told him exactly how many almost verbatim. And I just told him to give me, you know, he's chopping me off at the knees if I can't get this out to the more people. And if he's really trying to not pay more money and holding costs because he was going to flip it, then let me use my connections to try to get this deal done. And so I had to have them literally redo the contract to make it assignable and then move forward from there. But from there, my cash buyer was out of town and still is out of town. And it was just, you know, they were there for, you know, work and business in Northern California. And, you know, they it was the earnest money was deposited 4000, I paid 4000 out of my own pocket, because some of the stipulations of the contract made it be, you know, wanted it to be after 48 hours. And so I did that just to get on that, you know, playing field with them. And it was only a five day inspection because they wanted less days. And so and then doing all this from, you know, out of town cash investors, they really wanted to have one of their GCs walk it or they wanted to have a appraisal of some sort go through. And so kind of coming down to the last 48 hours of the deal. I said, Hey, I know you're, you know, cash investor, I said, Hey, I know you're out of town. What if I just pay for an appraiser to go see the house? I'll meet the appraiser there, I'll walk it with them or get the, you know, the notes on it. And then I'll send it to you. On Sunday morning, first of all, trying to find an appraiser on Sunday morning was not easy. Probably paid a little bit more than normal, I think it was 600 bucks. After that, you know, I sent that, you know, appraisal to my cash buyer, and he looked it over and said that he was going to go for it ready to go. And then upon, you know, post-Vesco, we just had to have some things put into place where I got the earnest money back. And then he deposited his earnest money to replace mine. And he also paid me back for the appraisal. Beautiful. Yeah, when I heard this, I was like, man, good job, Mark, like, those are things that I started doing when I was doing more deals, more intermediate things made it very complex. But going above and beyond with it for that, I was very, very happy to hear that you did that to make it happen. A lot of people would have given up already, so I'm glad you didn't. So thanks. I appreciate that. How many offers did you have to put in until you got this first deal accepted and all the way through? Um, probably, you know, it's it wasn't a ton. I mean, I've probably put in 10 offers, maybe. I've only, I, this, I signed the contract for this to go through 90 days exactly from where I finished the real estate school's classes. And so that was, you know, that's a good thing I thought in myself, just because part time I work full time, you know, as well. So it was, um, it was, you know, doing both of them simultaneously through the day and weekends, but not a ton of offers went out just because of time restraints and having two kids under two and all sorts of crazy stuff going on at home. But maybe like 10 to 10, 10 to 15 offers maybe in three months. So was it easier than expected or was it harder than expected or about the same? Um, I came in a little, uh, maybe a little confident is what my wife would say. Um, maybe she doesn't know where I get my confidence from, but I mean, she may have another word for it, but we won't say that right here. Um, but no, I, I honestly thought like, you know, just seeing other people going through the program and just hearing things in the community, watching YouTube videos from other people that do wholesaling, seeing young, young, you know, 19 year olds, 20 year olds, you know, those deals, like there was a gentleman you interviewed last month that from Florida that, you know, got 12 grand and he was a younger guy. And so I just figured with the skillset I've accumulated over, you know, the 20, 30 years of being in business, I just was like, I can do this. And so my confidence level was very high. I thought I could have done it honestly in 30 days, to be honest, uh, at least my first deal. But then when I really started getting into going to as real meetings, going to meetup groups, um, having, you know, those, those coffee dates with investors and networking, it took about 60 to 90 days to build a network of people that knew what I was doing, trusted what I was saying and putting me in the right relationships with people that I could feel comfortable putting this, you know, these deals out. Oh, that's great. That network, a lot of the things I'm constantly talking to students about is you're going into an industry where people are spending a lot of money. We're talking about people's homes that they've raised their families and you're talking about investors putting up lots of money towards things that if they get the wrong deal, it could end their business. They want to be working with people who take their money seriously. So a lot of it is how we approach, uh, cash buyers, how we just go through the deals with the agents, with the sellers, just all of it comes together. People are trusting you to bring a deal together and not try to hurt anybody, you know, doing anything. So a lot of it is that mindset and it's the approach, the networking, the professionalism. So, um, I, your, your experience, definitely in your business experience is definitely making a big difference. Uh, totally. Well, you just reminded me of something else that stood out from the program in what you just said. And probably the number one thing comment I got back from cash buyers that I've built is me taking the extra time to get on the phone with them or meet them for coffee, um, or just ask them exactly what their buy box is because they give it, they give you one, but then I would go into like what you gave us on the script to ask them and I'm asking them for 10, 15 minutes on a call, filling all this out and they're like, wow, you're really detailed. And I was like, well, I don't, last thing I want to do is waste your time or my time because that's valuable. But regardless, it was, that was the number one thing my cash buyer said to me was like, you took a lot of notes and you got my, my buying criteria down to a T and we've even done like mock, you know, trials of a house and just on email, gone back and forth. Give me your numbers, give me my numbers and see if they match. That's awesome. Whenever you come across a cash buyer who appreciates that you appreciate their time and value their time and then is willing to go back and forth, that's, that is one of those relationships that you might have for the rest of your life and will could lead to many, many, many lucrative deals down the line. So that is what it's all about, a hundred percent. So that was actually kind of answered my question when I was going to ask you is how did the training help you get this deal across the finish line? And a lot of that was just that professionalism, which you probably already have quite a bit from your experience in business, but those specific things of how to talk to cash buyers and what to ask them. So yeah, professionalism was a huge thing that came out of this. From what I've heard from just, I mean, I went to my like two Adria meetings and some, I met a wholesaler that, you know, two wholesalers, their brothers are in real estate skills and they were talking to me like how you're supposed to talk to each other. I asked them if they're taking any courses or classes and they said, yeah, real estate skills. And I'm like, oh yeah, I've done that too. And they're like, how far, how long have you been, how many years you've been doing it? And I'm like, uh, three weeks. And they were just like, well, can we get your number? Can we talk to you outside of here? And you know, all that kind of good stuff. So they were just, they were a little younger, but yeah, the professionalism definitely stood out. I think that people were, you know, you can remember and study it and really get involved in it and engulf yourself in it. It comes through once you, once you put it out there. Absolutely. So now we've kind of went through the first deal, um, did we even say how much you made on it? What did you actually make on the deal? So it was started out at 7,500 was going to be the original assignment fee and to get it all done with everything going on, the moving parts, I went down to four, uh, 4,000 just to make it all work. My cash buyer didn't want to go any higher than a certain amount. And my seller didn't want to go any lower than a certain amount. So the only other option was to just decrease a little bit and then make it up on the next one and just get the deal done. That's what it takes sometimes, like even, even Aaron, who you were mentioning in Florida, he was supposed to get a 17 K wholesale fee last day, the seller kind of pulled something. I don't have the money. So he took that off his end and nobody else, cause nobody else wanted to, but that's what you got to do. Sometimes you still, it's still better than nothing. So yeah. Take the good with the bad. Um, so kind of what's, what's life like now since the first deal, how is anything changing now with how you're moving forward with the business or what's next on, on the horizon? Um, obviously, um, the confidence you get from closing your first deal, it's one of his, is it to just prove to yourself that you can do it? Um, the second thing is, you know, proven to your family that you can do it. Um, having the support of my wife and we haven't even told the rest of my immediate family what I'm doing in real estate, they know I'm doing something, um, but they don't know exactly. Cause I wanted to prove first and then explain later what was going on just to make it that way. Um, but right now, honestly, um, my company has laid off, you know, I've, I've withhand, I've withheld or withstood about three layoffs this past year, and I'm still working with my company and my friend who's been my friend for 20 years, who's a multimillionaire who owns part of this company, you know, owns it and I'm still here not because of him, but it's just one of those things where, um, I got a call from my vice president last week and I thought I was going to be let go on the day I was signing with title to get the money transferred to me. And I thought this is just going to be ironic if I lose a job on one hand, but make 4,000 on this hand, I can definitely do this full time and just be going with it and good and bad. He gave me a promotion. And so I said yes for now, but my wife and I are really looking forward to the next six months doing at least a deal per month. Um, we want to just stack up some reserve money, make sure, you know, everything is good on the horizon, but eventually quit the full time job as soon as possible. And then within the year, hopefully have her working with me on board, um, doing more, a little more behind the scenes or maybe transaction coordinator type stuff, uh, and then branching out into expanding the business to monetize it and really scale it more. So what's like the ultimate longterm goal with this? Is it to get into fixing the flipping buy and holds? Is that, you know, kind of the evolution you're, you're kind of going on on the path? Yeah. That's definitely it. I've had offers to go in with some JV deals with other investors on certain deals. So if I come across any that I think that are good deals, I will definitely jump to that fix and flip, you know, section, but I would only do it with somebody that is an experienced flipper. Um, just cause I don't have necessarily the time to be there and watch it work. So I am open to doing fix and flips and then eventually the buy and holds and just figuring out ways for sellers to use me as a funnel to go towards anything they need with their home. And if I make money off it, great. If I don't, and I can send them to somebody that does sub two or somebody that does buy and holds and perfectly fine. You just, you just want to be a versatile investor. And that's one of the things we always say. You want to be a versatile investor. There are, there are buy and hold investors. There are fix and flip investors who don't even know how to wholesale, believe it or not. And they've been leaving money on the table. So this is why we start there. It's the lowest risk way of getting started in, in, in real estate investing and then building from there. So you're definitely on that path and that's great to see. Um, so, and I think you can kind of see like how this would compare to your current career of how much time, more time you'd have available with the family and all that. Are you starting to see how that might be able to change actually your lifestyle as well in the time that you spend with your family now? Yeah, because honestly the first deal took about, I mean it took 90 days to get, but the actual work was probably about seven hours of, of driving to the property and phone calls and things like that. Um, and just thinking about numbers and redoing numbers. So I mean if you put that into, you know, hours per, you know, time for money and hours per dollars and it's a decent amount of money. So if you could just do that every day and every week, you can definitely make it a good living. Do that for sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, and it's, it's, it's a transformation you're going to start to see once you start seeing it's possible, you start thinking, well, what else can I do? How can I get there faster? Which I'm, I'm sure is something you and your wife are looking into now, as you're saying, because you know, those, those careers that you, you, you have are time consuming. They are probably still profitable, something probably still worth sticking into for a little bit until you get this really great foundation for longterm. But there's so many options, which is, which is the beauty of it. And we still have students who are full-time doctors and still doing this and they can, they've been able to convert to buy and hold and doing fix and flips and having and JVing with people. I ended up JVing on my first deal instead of doing a small deal, ended up being a big deal because I did JV with someone. I would never have been able to do that on my own. So that's one of the great things with, you can team up with people in the network. And there's, there's even other students as you met at ARIA. So you never know what can come of those networks that you build. So it's so awesome to see it happening so fast for you because you were so dedicated to it. So it's always great to see the results happen faster, but it is really, you know, because of you and your commitment to it. That's, that's one of the things like we give you the foundations and all that, but you got to do it. And that's something I talk to students probably every day. You've probably heard me on the calls and on the, on the school community. But those are things that those is what really moves the needle forward. We give you all the guidance, but you got to put in that work and be committed because nothing can replace that in the end. Was there kind of a big transformation for you that you kind of went through to get from here to there? Or was it just kind of like the transformation was like, Oh, I can actually do this. And this is something I can see myself doing. And I guess my whole family doing, you know, doing, you know, moving forward at this point. Yeah. I think it just gave me the roadmap of getting into real estate and figuring out where I want to go. And that was the kind of the biggest thing I've always invested in myself for, you know, motivational speakers and Tony Robbins things. I've gone on a week long, you know, uh, training courses like that where I, you know, paid my own airfare and, you know, pay for a hotel and gone for a week to like a Tony Robbins type special thing, you know, and I've always believed in, you know, for doing your education, paying for it, um, but getting to do it, you know, with my wife and having our support and just making sure that this is, she, she just said, you know, is this something you really want to do? And I'm like, well, I, I can't sleep at night because all I think about is it did my numbers correct from the, you know, the deal or the call I got to make tomorrow morning. So it's keeping me up at night, but regardless, it's something that I really, really like to connect, you know, fix problems, connect those dots. And it, uh, it followed, it fell in line with what my previous, you know, career took me with which was fixing problems, which is finding a way to get things done and just seeing what you've built at the end of it was one of the best things I had when I was consulting. And this has given me that back, that kind of that passion to where I can build something and literally see what I've built from the work going forward. And I know it's only one deal and I get that, but it's the foundation of what I think. Propels you to the next level. So you got to start somewhere. I say it all the time. You got to start crawling before you walk and then you can run. You can't do that out of order because things don't work that way. And, uh, so yeah, that's, that's always great to hear. Um, any advice you would give to someone who's thinking about getting into real estate investing and even thinking about, you know, joining the pro wholesaler community? Um, yeah, it's figure out what, where you want to go, what you want to do, take some time, you know, I'm sure you've heard this scenario, but more people take more time picking up the holidays, more people take more time picking out a Christmas gift for a loved one than they do about their financial future. And that's the sad part about reality for a lot of people. And, you know, if you could just pause a little bit and think about where you're at in life and if you're not happy with it, change it. And that's the biggest thing I think that as you get older, it comes a little bit easier. Um, as you have kids, it comes a little bit easier and you get, you know, that way, you know, and you know, I've had cancer, you know, two years ago I was with chemo and I had, uh, I had all that stuff going on. So it's, it takes your temperature a little bit and you realize what this life is worth and why not go for, you know, shoot for the moon and go for it. So definitely, it definitely sets priorities and straight when, uh, when we're faced with, with real life situations, you know? So commend you for that and glad you're here with us still. Well, that's pretty much it, Mark. Um, I want to thank you for your time. We appreciate you taking the time. We're so happy to have you here sharing this, uh, inspiring story. Uh, it's always glad to see that, you know, what I'm putting in, you know, people are taking it, everything that Alex, Ryan and Tony have put into the program, people are using it to change their lives. Like it did mine. I was a student many years ago and it changed my life too. Um, so it's kind of like, I see just the, this is just the beginning for you. Um, you know, we're, we're, you know, happy to be here to continue supporting you along your journey. So any, any last words for students, the world out there is going to see this video. Uh, just, just believe in yourself, keep going, whatever you're afraid of, just go through it and do it. You'll see. It's not that scary on the other side. Well, thanks again so much for joining us, Mark. And we'll see you soon. Okay. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you, man. And there you have it. As you can see from Mark's story, he didn't have a real estate background, but he knew he needed to have the right education. He knew he needed to invest in himself first. He got the education he needed. He got the support he needed. And he ended up closing his first wholesale deal within the first 90 days of joining the program. If you're interested in learning more, go to realestateskills.com and find out more.