Learn this week’s Best Ever guest’s best ever books, real estate deals, ways to give back and biggest mistakes
Best Ever Book – The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Best Ever Deal Todd has Done – $800 Tax Lien
“Tax lien deal. I got a perfectly rentable house – it’s not a great value; it was probably worth 60-80k, and I think I was into it for about $800 in back taxes. That was obviously the best deal ever.”
Best Ever Way Todd Likes to Give Back – Educating Other Investors
“Through education, the business I’m doing. I love sharing my knowledge and sharing it at cost-efficient price points so people get more value than they pay for. I love the difference it makes in people’s lives. There’s not a week that goes by that somebody doesn’t write an e-mail telling me how I changed their lives.”
Biggest Mistake Todd Has Made So Far In Real Estate – Out-of-town investing
“Buying out of town, hands down. I did 9 things out of 10 right, and I did that one wrong (i.e. going through 5 property managers in 4 years). I was warned, I’d read it, but I just thought that there’s got to be a way to find an honest property manager. Luckily, I did find one [soon] enough to turn it around and sell it, but basically buying out of town is just so inefficient… It’s really hard.”
Best Ever Book – Shoemaker of Dreams: the Autobiography of Salvatore Ferragamo
Best Ever Deal Whitney has Done – $9,000 profit on a $3,000 house
“I had a house… It was a three-bedroom, two-bath, and the backside of it had caught on fire a number of years ago, and I had it under contract for a lease option for $6,000 with $100 and $200/month paid off whenever it was I paid off $6,000, so 5-6 years at $200/month.”
“I sold it on a lease option for $12,000, with $5,000 down and $300/month. So I bought it for $6,000, I sold it for $12,000. This morning I was talking to my seller and he was like, ‘Well, what if we didn’t do the lease option? How much would you give me just to cash it out?’ and I said, ‘I could give you 3k,’ and he said ‘Okay, fine.’ So now I bought the house, people gave me 5k, I’m giving it to my seller, and I get to keep 2k, and now I’m cash-flowing $300/month on a $7,000 balance.”
Best Ever Way Whitney Likes to Give Back – Tithing and sponsorship
“I tithe to my church and I sponsor the youth groups trips – mission trips, fun trips, whatever.”
Biggest Mistake Whitney Has Made So Far In Real Estate – Winging it on her first investment
“I paid $20,000 for one of my first houses with cash, my life savings, and we get to the closing table, the seller shook my hand and he said ‘Thank goodness you bought this, because no other investor in town offered me this much money.’”
“That’s how new I was when I started and how clueless I was — I didn’t realize it didn’t have a central heating air unit; it didn’t have heat and air when I bought it. It also had old wiring – we had to redo that, and it was on a hill, and a part of the hill had given way, and the foundation was screwed up and we couldn’t do anything to it until we put three sides of the foundation back on, to the tune of about $10,000, and my brother’s sweat equity.”
Lesson Learned: “Don’t wing it… For crying out loud, when you’re putting offers in on houses, have a formula. I like to use ARV x 70% – Repairs… That’s the most cash I can give you. And probably on that house – I was probably in that formula, but I hadn’t planned on putting $50,000 of my own money into the house just to be able to rent it. Get a plan, find somebody to help you, [and] don’t just wing it. And those watch those TV shows, oh my gosh…!”
Click to read Whitney’s Best Ever Advice: How the Millennial Millionaire Next Door Finds Endless Streams of Deals
Best Ever Book – Delivering Happiness by Toni Hsieh
Best Ever Deal Mauricio has Done – Selling the Playboy Mansion!
“I have two favorite deals. Number one was selling the Playboy Mansion – absolutely fantastic, the first deal to hit one hundred million dollars in Los Angeles. Number two is an investment I made in Malibu on a property that I just sold for 70 million dollars.”
“I received the listing of the Playboy Mansion by coming up with an amazing listing presentation and a full marketing plan, and all of my ads already done when I went in for the presentations. So I didn’t leave anything to chance. I already had the whole marketing campaign laid out as if I already had the listing.”
Best Ever Way Mauricio Likes to Give Back – Mistakes lead to opportunities
“I make mistakes all day long. I think that it’s not a question of what mistakes you make, it’s a question about mistakes lead to different opportunities and how you resolve mistakes.”
Biggest Mistake Mauricio Has Made So Far In Real Estate – Charity and homes for the needy
“We give back two different ways. On a personal note, I give back really to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. I spent the first six years of my life in the Children’s Hospital, and thanks to them I got cured. And the second thing that we do as a company is we have a hundred percent participation in give-back homes. We build homes for the needy, and we love it.”
Click here to watch Mauricio’s full interview
Best Ever Book – Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Best Ever Deal Bruce has Done – Understanding when do something, along with how to
“I don’t know how to develop building lots. I don’t know how to look at a hill and say, ‘Gosh, we could carve that up,’ but there’s a project that I bought in 2002, close to Lancaster, somebody had paid three million dollars to create the lots; I paid $270,000 at 90% discount. They knew how to create the lots; I knew when to buy them. I would rather know when to, than how to, any day.”
“We built [on the lots]. We waited until 2004 to start the 93-house track. We were in kind of a remote area called Rosemont. At the end of our project, our land cost was 1% of our sale price. We sold them for $280,000.”
Best Ever Way Bruce Likes to Give Back
“I like our charity event, where we give back every year to the Children’s Hospital and Make-a-Wish.”
Biggest Mistake Bruce Has Made So Far In Real Estate
“In 1989 I bought seven custom home lots, because everything I touched at that time was working really well, and I still own those homes about two and a half years later, at a cost of $2,100/month. I made the payments, got myself out of it, but it taught me to understand that the ‘When to…’ part of it was really important.”
“The last house I closed in that cycle was I wrote a personal check for 62k to close the last one.”
“I was very happy to see that go. Here’s the good news about that – a lot of people had downturns in the last cycle… I stuck with it; I had a partner who left the country, so I had to finish the houses out of pocket. A lot of the partners couldn’t come up with any money at all, so I paid it all, even though the loans were in their name. What was great about that experience is that I had a $21,000/month extra overhead literally hit me in a 30-day period and went on for a long time… But because I decided to solve it, I had to learn to make 21k extra a month. In our industry you can do that. But after everybody was paid off, I still had the skill level to earn the money. That was actually the biggest reward.”
Click here to listen to Bruce’s full interview
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