Learn this week’s Best Ever guest’s best ever books, real estate deals, ways to give back and biggest mistakes
Best Ever Book – Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
Best Ever Deal Quincy has Done – Turning Down a $2.5 Million Offer and Pursuit of a $10 Million Sale
“Well, I hope the best deal I’ve ever done is participated in a different real estate transaction, where we bought 196 acres on Maui for $900,000 cash from a bankruptcy estate, which we got a 2,5 million dollar offer before we closed on the property, and turned it down because we think we may be able to sell if for maybe 10 million or more. So that isn’t completed yet, but I believe it’s going be one of my biggest investments with the dollar return for effort hour.”
“[Our projected hold period is] Up to five years for that kind of property. We’re going to market it to the ultra-wealthy. There’s a lot of Chinese and other Asians that visit Hawaii, so that’s the target. There’s some movie stars and what not that have property in the same area, but it’s also a good property for eco-tourism. Just fantastic waterfalls and caves… Probably for the holding period we’ll do some eco-tourism to pay the costs of the property until we can find the correct ultra-wealthy buyer that can write a check between 10-20 million dollars. That’s the plan at this point.”
“[To find potential buyers], we’re at the end of this month or in the month of April sending a professional film crew out to document and film the property, because it’s kind of a rugged piece of property, you can imagine that of course. And then there are sites that are catering to the ultra-wealthy type properties, the trophy properties, if you will. So there’ll be a large internet marketing campaign specifically to target the ultra-wealthy individuals that might be able to afford such a property.”
Best Ever Way Quincy Likes to Give Back – Helping Others Decrease Their Taxes Owed
“What I do every day… Somebody asked me a question recently – if I was rich enough to retire, what would I do? I said I’d educate people about self-directed IRAs, of course, because I actually enjoy doing that and I think it’s important. I’ve just finished my estimated taxes before I’m going to Europe – tomorrow, actually – for three weeks… And I’ve finished my estimated taxes and looked at the dollar amount that I’m going to have to pay as an estimate, and I just got sick to my stomach and I thought “I need to do everything I can…” I’m all for paying your taxes that you owe, but no more than that. I don’t want people to be a tax donator, as I call them. When you do a deal that you could do tax-free, you’re a tax donator, and I just have a real problem with that, because I don’t think the government uses the money as wisely as I would if I had that money.”
“So again, I believe in paying my share of taxes, but not a single dollar more. I believe in that so much in fact, that teaching other people how to avoid paying taxes by using the government’s own rules that they laid out for us is almost like a mission to me. So that’s what I like to do to help people – teach them how to get out of paying taxes using the government’s own rules and following those rules.”
Biggest Mistake Quincy Has Made So Far In Real Estate – Failing to Perform Due Diligence on a Borrower
“Oh, that’s easy… I’ve made lots of mistakes. And yes, I’ve been very successful, but anybody that tells you that they’ve never made a mistake has either never done a deal or they’re lying. I would have to say, again, because I do a lot of note deals, my biggest mistake was doing a deal where I did plenty of due diligence on the property, but not enough due diligence on the person that was borrowing the money in that case. I always make the strong suggestion that anything you’re doing, you do due diligence on the deal itself, but most importantly you do due diligence on the people.”
“I failed to do that, frankly… So I had a great and perfectly valid hard money loan out of my account from the perspective of the property, and we ended up foreclosing on it and it’s been a great rental, and we’re getting ready to sell it after a couple of years of renting it. But four days after the buy borrowed my $200,000, he turned around and went to a different title company and borrowed another $215,000 on a property worth about 270k. Then he also sold it at a third title company ten days later for — I don’t remember the number, but he took a $45,000 down payment… And I found out later he had partners at the foreclosure sale where he bought the property for $100,000, so he took like half a million dollars from people on a property that he had a net of $100,000 in. Basically, after all of this broke and I ended up foreclosing on the property and did due diligence on the individual, I found pretty strong evidence that he’s a crook.”
“Had I known that, of course I would not have made the deal in the first place. I think that’s my biggest mistake and my biggest learn – you have to do due diligence both ways: people involved, as well as the property or the deal itself. And that’s true for real estate, it’s true for notes, it’s true for private types of investments like limited partnerships, stuff like that as well.”
Best Ever Book – Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Best Ever Deal Marina has Done – $60,000 profit on a Hoarder’s Home
Best Ever Way Marina Likes to Give Back – “Donate with every closing to animal shelters and breast cancer research.”
Biggest Mistake Marina Has Made So Far In Real Estate – Counting Eggs Before They Hatch
“Just thinking that it’s all done before you’re closed… Counting the money in your pocket when there’s none.”
“[My lesson learned is to] just kind of relax and breather and just let it go. It happens when it happens.”
Best Ever Book – Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
Best Ever Deal Jack has Done – Ten Homes for $4,000 to $5,000 Each
“A lot of them. Really, honestly, the last ten houses I’ve picked up for like 4k and 5k each, I would say they were pretty much the best deals I’ve ever got.”
Best Ever Way Jack Likes to Give Back – Educating and Mentoring Other Investors
“Teaching knowledge. I have so many people that I’ve mentored and I’ve provided my playbook, my handbook on how to do this, where it took me 15 years of mistakes to get to those points. My brother right now has done a second house, a total rehab in two months, and right on budget… I just love being able to mentor and provide those services to others, and be able to help people have a better lifestyle.”
Biggest Mistake Jack Has Made So Far In Real Estate – Saving Money to Lose Money
“Bending over to pick up nickels when dollars go over your head… Meaning trying to save money, but in the end you’re really hemorrhaging out more money than you’re saving by trying to do work yourself, by trying to bring in your own crew to do all the work at $10/hour labor versus getting professional tradesmen in. That’s a mistake. Hire the right people to do the job and get it done right, because in the long run it’s gonna cost you less money and you’ll have a better quality of like and experience. Pay for it when you need to.”
Best Ever Book – The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen
Best Ever Deal John has Done – Over $10 million Profit on Turnkey Parking Garage
“Downtown Cincinnati. We took an old mall, we converted into a parking garage. Purchased it for $14.5 million approximately, and when I said “we purchased it”, we helped that real estate group buy it. Now potentially worth $25-28 million, two years later.”
“It was already done. It was turnkey.”
Best Ever Way John Likes to Give Back – Educating Others on Parking Garage Investing
“I like to volunteer my expertise in parking. Like I said, it’s a difficult field to get into, but I will always take calls and give people advice. They’re free to call me on my cell phone and I’ll walk them through a process, I have no problem doing that.”
Biggest Mistake John Has Made So Far In Real Estate – “Partnering up with a developer where you contribute the land and they don’t contribute enough equity themselves. We will never do that again.”
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