Garret (00:03.0)

Trevor, welcome to my podcast.

Investwithtrev (00:04.755)

Appreciate it, Garrett. How you doing?

Garret (00:06.612)

I am doing well. know we were talking in the green room here in SoCal. We're in friendly Manitoba up here in our, I think it's been snowing, I said for like three days and tonight it's going down to like minus 25. I don't know what's going on, but yeah. Audience, yeah, I know I'm just like, now that I'm reliving it, audience Trevor was just asking me in the green room, like, do I like Winnipeg? And I was at an all day seminar. This is

Investwithtrev (00:22.739)

We might hit the 60s.

Garret (00:34.562)

totally in this side, not the way to start a pod. All these seminar with one of our local NHL franchise, I'm on the board there. And so we were all asked in a circle to say what we like about Winnipeg, right? There's 13 of us on the advisory board. And yeah, you know what? It's a great place to raise family. It's the real estate's very steady. It's always increasing. There's no crazy dips and valleys. So flipping isn't great, but long-term buy and hold is.

It's 800,000 people and everybody, there's always like less than one degree of separation. So if you have a good reputation and you value relationships, it's a wonderful place to do business. So that answers your question, I think.

Investwithtrev (01:19.345)

Yeah, that travels far. I mean, I love it. I know nothing about it, you know, and so much definitely a different vibe than SoCal though. I can already tell with just what you said right there. You know, that is crazy. I love it.

Garret (01:32.77)

Yeah, okay, so down to business. Why don't you tell the audience who you are, a little bit of background, not too much, because I want to kind of dig into some things there.

Investwithtrev (01:42.459)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my name is Trevor Ahing, based over in SoCal, an eight-year Marine myself. Transitioned directly into more of a creative real estate investor. My biggest niche is I partner with sellers nationwide. I renovate the home on behalf of them. Any appreciation we create through the renovation, we'll put it on market. I'll cover all the fees associated and we both walk away with a lot more money than trying to go all cash. And that's kind of been my bread and butter.

Garret (02:07.2)

Interesting. Well, thank you for your service first off. Yeah, what did you do before Marines?

Investwithtrev (02:10.259)

Appreciate it.

Investwithtrev (02:14.003)

I joined when I was 19. Before I joined the Marine Corps, true story, I was a professional parkour athlete. Have you ever heard of parkour?

Garret (02:17.078)

Okay.

Garret (02:25.944)

course. Yeah, but I don't know what a professional parkour, I mean, I've obviously

Investwithtrev (02:30.107)

like skateboarding, man. It's like, you know, I got paid to go to tournaments and record videos for like local music videos and stuff and flip off stuff. And when I wasn't doing that, I was just living at my mom's house twiddling my thumbs and then decided to, you know, do something with my life. And I met the transition into it was from a parkour meet. And we got done with a shoot. I was in a subway and a recruiter came up to me and said, I'll buy your subway sandwich if you talk to me for 10 minutes. And I was like, free subway all day.

And then I ended up going to bootcamp about six weeks later.

Garret (03:03.35)

Really? this recruiter, did he see you doing the parkour or was he just like, hey, I'm just going to approach this random dude in the subway and try to recruit him?

Investwithtrev (03:12.413)

Dude, I think you were just on a lunch break and you saw some 19 year old in sweatpants sweating. He was like, this guy, this guy needs some help.

Garret (03:21.806)

Because I was gonna ask, know, like with the strength that it takes to do parkour and everything, like the agility, certainly some of that would have at least translated into helping you through basic at least, or what do you think?

Investwithtrev (03:35.173)

It totally did. Absolutely. mean, a lot of the agility did transfer over a lot. I Marine Corps is extremely, you know, physically, you know, demanding. so coming into it through the boot camp and through Marine combat training and things of that nature, it helped substantially. And then, of course, we're very we pride ourselves on physical fitness. And so I did have a good illustrious career because I did, you know, I really did lean into the aesthetics of that. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of my transition into it, man.

Garret (04:03.918)

So you're in the Marines, you're transitioning out. When did real estate start coming into your consciousness?

Investwithtrev (04:12.029)

So I was gonna do 30 years in the Marine Corps. I left with a great taste in my mouth, but about when I was attached to Marine Security Guard forces in Africa, I came back stateside to San Diego in 2017. I got married. My wife, she always says, my biggest failure is your greatest success, which just means that she told me about real estate. I knew nothing, I didn't have.

any real estate background. Financial literacy was not a thing for me. My mom's retirement plan is me. You know what mean? So I didn't come from from much, but my wife was bored at home. And so she said, I'm going to become a real estate agent. I said, you should totally do that. You know, sell all our friends houses. I'm to do a career in real estate. I bought her a seminar, like a thing to go to in San Diego. And she chickened out. You know, she's a very introverted extrovert. I said, I'm not wasting my money. I went.

And I got bit by the bug, Garrett. It was really very much so that. I thought, I really thought real estate was pretty suit and tie. know, didn't, know, I bet a bunch of people there were just in board shorts and flip flops, drinking beer, talking about their portfolios. And I was like, what? This is crazy. And one person approached me. If I've used my VA loan, I said no. And they told me about it. And then I started house hacking. I got my first home.

to rent out the rooms to my buddies. And then it just kind of started snowballing from there.

Garret (05:37.39)

Wow, so was it like one of those two day seminars where they're just like, what were they teaching you?

Investwithtrev (05:43.965)

So this one was basically how to get your license, you know, and then it was, yeah, like as a realtor, but then it was an after, it was like an after thing at a bar you can go there if you wanted to network. And that was meeting a bunch of investors and stuff like that.

Garret (05:46.892)

it's like as a realtor. Okay.

Garret (05:58.478)

Cool. okay. So you, did you become a realtor or did you opt to go the other way?

Investwithtrev (06:04.677)

It wasn't right away. I was overwhelmed a little bit. I just said, what's the easiest way to dip my toe in the water? I'm working, Marine Corps, you're working a lot. I didn't think I would have the time to market myself. I went to just do more of the passive way and house hack. I got the property to see if it was even as attainable as people say it is if you do it like that. It was. I rented out the rooms, got in front of doing that.

got a little carried away. I'll be honest, I ended up putting bunk beds in my bedrooms for my friends and in the living room. It was like a military barracks in my house. I told my wife, I'm like, we're rich. Look at all the money we're making. She was just cleaning up 24-7. I felt so bad for her. It was basically a dorm room. She was cool with it for a while because it was temporary sacrifice for permanent success.

Garret (06:51.662)

It's basically a dorm room.

Investwithtrev (07:00.467)

I did that again. got a secondary house and then I had a personal death in the family. My father-in-law had passed suddenly before my last deployment. he did last time he saw him, he was at one of my houses and I was like, look, and he was like, this is really cool. And he was like, but my daughter deserves a lot more. know, I mean, she's over here cleaning up after you and all your 20 year old buddies. Like this is cool. Save some money, get your own house and see what else you can do in real estate. And so I took it to heart. I was on deployment to the Middle East. came back.

And that's when I decided to more so, you know, look at getting my license and maybe elaborating into other aspects of real estate. So I went that route.

Garret (07:38.84)

Okay, and when did you get into the flipping game?

Investwithtrev (07:42.469)

I got into the flipping game about, I'd say a year into me doing wholesale real estate and listings. My whole campaign after work was I would do a bunch of SMX texts, get in front of it, try to build rapport, and then I would go cash. They hated my cash offer, or they didn't. I did a lot of great wholesale deals. And then if they didn't like it, I would just list it. I was doing local campaigns and so.

I just realized though, I had all these listings and I was just listing, you know, distressed homes. Nobody wanted to buy them. And so my first flip was through the Novation program that I ended up hearing through our network. And I just talked to the seller. said, look, I can put it on market in its condition or I can renovate it for you. You you're leaving, it's going to be vacant. You got to go. were an Air Force couple going to Colorado.

And I said, I got some money. Let me just go in here, renovate it for you. Any appreciation I create through the renovation, I know what number you want, whatever it sells for. I'll cover all the realtor fees and closing costs. Whatever's leftover will be a return on my investment. They loved it. I flew my buddy in from Arizona who I served with. We renovated it and I, on that property, it sold for $5,000 more than what I listed it for. And we made as much money as my entire year as a staff sergeant in one deal. And I was off to the races.

Garret (09:03.534)

So what was the benefit to the seller? Just having it sold or did you split any profits with them?

Investwithtrev (09:09.927)

Yeah, that's a really good question. You know, we were, we've refined it. This one, my cash offer, it was worth about 400,000, you know, it needed about 20, 25,000. So really nothing crazy. But as I went to walk it, he started to do the work himself as more of a handyman. He was in the air force and he got orders, so he had leave. So half the floors were done. The, you know, the, landscape outside hasn't been touched since like Vietnam, you know, the wife was in the middle of a kitchen restoration and

it was not in a good place and they didn't have any time. it was distressed, and they tried to paint, it didn't look too good. And so I went to go cash, it was like 270 I was gonna offer. They owed like 285, so they would be underwater. And I was gonna list it at like 340, well below market, just to get somebody to buy it so that way they can get their eligibility to go buy somewhere else. So that was a big selling point. I just said, look.

You know, if I did sell it for 330, after all fees, you'd be getting like 305. Let me give you 315 guaranteed. So you'll be making $10,000 more. I'll come in take on the risk, but also the reward. And that way I can have the time to come in, renovate it. I'll even cover your mortgage until it sells. That'll be applicable to the price. And so they were gung ho. They're like, okay, so I'm getting more money to, you know, that's advantageous to have you do the work. And when we listed it we sold it for 405 and, and yeah, the rest was history.

Garret (10:32.152)

You know, I know a lot of wholesalers and I think what you said there really resonates with me, Trevor, because any wholesaler, I mean, if you're a wholesaler listening to this, I mean, you can take offense, but honestly, I think it's a lesson. The most successful wholesalers take the seller into consideration and try to make it a win-win and get value for them too, right? Because you don't want to rip somebody off and just say, I, you know, walk away, you know, drive the car, you know, we got, got this huge deal.

Investwithtrev (10:51.571)

Mm-hmm.

Huge.

Yeah.

Investwithtrev (11:01.811)

It's so true.

Garret (11:01.816)

you know, sign the papers, like who's going to sleep at night after that, right? You're getting them out of a bad situation and both are benefiting. think that's awesome.

Investwithtrev (11:10.715)

I appreciate that. know, people think that I, cause this is basically my whole model now, right? A lot of my deals stem from two things. I don't do direct to seller campaigning. My deals come from dead wholesale deals, right? They funnel into our company that go, Hey, this seller wants $20,000 more. It doesn't make sense. All cash. They're open to collaboration for the renovation piece. I mean, it's really just, I don't step on anybody's toes and it's allowing the education to show seller wholesalers.

You don't got to corner your homeowners. You should have a couple opportunities for them. If they want to, if they're in a distress situation, you have to bridge the gap between that and quick cash. That's your cash offer. That's, hey, I can't do innovation in 21 days. We need a couple months together. But once you get in front of the optimism of saying, hey, if you give me more patience, I'll give you more profit. Sellers nine out of the 10 times love that. And then the other angle is agents.

You know, all these agents have stagnant listings. They've been sitting for 90 days because every conventional buyer is like, I hate the way the kitchen is or it's dated. Seller doesn't have the money because it's all wrapped up in their equity. I just partner with them and renovate it. I have the same agent list it and everybody makes a lot more money.

Garret (12:21.048)

Yeah, and the seller is not sitting on an asset that they can't move. Like, because they're kind of in a rock, between a rock and a hard place, right? It's like, I need to borrow money or I need to come up with money. Then I got to put a bunch of time to renovate this place to hope that it sells. And here's a guy who's going to take on all the risk. I'm going to be able to get out of it and get my price or whatever other benefits there are there that you're working into the deal.

Investwithtrev (12:26.406)

Exactly.

Totally. Yeah.

Investwithtrev (12:45.363)

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I have in cases when you talked about, it's a long way to the answer for you, I guess, but you talked about splitting the equity. Because I can offer them so much more, I basically work them in their equity and then I arbitrage what's above for my return on investment, you know, so it's going to be higher no matter what. And then I do have sellers all the time. They go, hey, you you're saying it's going to sell for five. I think it'll go for 540, you know, with the work that you're going to do.

I'm only here to make a certain amount. So I just say, great, anything above 500, if we do get aggressive offers, we'll just split the upside. And so I can work them into that equity as well, making sure that we can both work on the optimism of the market.

Garret (13:24.258)

Yeah. Did I hear you say at the beginning in your intro that you're now doing this out of state?

Investwithtrev (13:32.603)

I am. Yeah. So I do California mainly for my first three years. Now, keep in mind, you know, it's not just me. You know, I have I have staff now. We have certain areas that I focus on prime myself in our community. It's a bigger community. And we work with great agents or great, great project managers that are local to the area that want to partner. And so we will be able to pass over opportunities that we get and we'll joint venture on those deals. And they'll basically put the pulse on the properties there.

But we're not everywhere. We will go everywhere if we're putting 5,000 or less just to spruce it up. I call it the current condition retail value just to make sure that we can get some more benefit for the homeowners. But if they're looking for an extensive renovation, we're really mainly in Florida, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and California. If we're outside of that, it's gotta be a home run and we gotta have someone we trust that's gonna be local.

Garret (14:28.94)

Okay, and why those states in particular?

Investwithtrev (14:31.677)

You know, congested living, you know, lot of people that are going there, you know, you always have very advantageous market for where we do it, you know, a lot more inner city areas. so identifying that population, we can have a lot more marketing volume. So that way we have great agents that focus on the Dallas is in the Orlando's and the LA's and things of that nature. And so when we do that, we know that we have a lot, we work with lenders and a lot of the times when we're doing this and we can go into a congested area like that, we'll just.

look at other properties that are great comparables in the area and we'll speak to those listing agents or those lenders will say, if you're getting approved or you have multiple offers, if you bring someone over to our property, we'll customize it for that buyer. So in most cases, we just get a buyer come in full asking because it's a property just like the one they wanted to buy. And I already have a rental budget to customize it to whatever they want. And everybody walks away a lot happier, you know, so we never even hit the market.

Garret (15:27.938)

know, speak to me about systems and processes, because I mean, I've done some flips here and I can't imagine trying to expand out in the way you have. Maybe speak to me about the early days. Were there any challenges before you got your team together?

Investwithtrev (15:44.293)

Yeah, I flew too close to the sun a couple of times, Garrett. I definitely got my wings burned a bit. It's just, you know, in this collaboration piece, it is, there is a lot of trust that's involved to build a foundation. And you could probably name it already. We have been burned a couple of times with contractors, you know, people that are local that we have to trust. And my eyes, you I can only look over my own fence, you know? And that was tough.

And now that we have a good system, we have people that are there, we have the means to be able to travel if necessary, but that's why we are astringent on where we do these deals. So identifying great contractors, even when they came as referrals, I think, and not all cases, right? We work with great contractors, but there's a lot of ways to take advantage of somebody who's doing an out-of-state flip, especially in situations like this. And so we dealt with that time and time again. so I...

Garret (16:33.326)

100%.

Investwithtrev (16:38.951)

You know, I amputated, I just, cut it. You know, we were nationwide to an extent and I said, no, you know, if you want to learn this model, learn how I protect my investments, get in front of everything, then we can partner up and I can create a program to do that. But until then, I'm only doing it where I'm confident in doing it. And it's been a lot better doing it.

Garret (16:58.936)

So what are your top five tips for managing a remote contract?

Investwithtrev (17:03.923)

that's a great question. mean, yeah, I honestly, you know, you know, there, there is a position of making sure you're the contract you have in place is, crucial. You know, always have, you know, favoring in your terms. I mean, you're going to be doing out of state opportunities, you know, so allowing paperwork to be present, I think is, big. And it's funny that when I say that I have some flippers that are making great money.

Garret (17:06.392)

You don't have to name five, just give me some.

Investwithtrev (17:28.418)

And it's just a relationship based game. And I totally get that, but put things in writing, right? P-I-F-W, put it in freaking writing. Secondary, I think, is I do random, we'll do random audits. So I'll talk to other local listing agents. I have an agent that's present that I attach to the property and they'll always do walkthroughs. So having a PM present, even if it's just the agent to come in unexpectedly, I think is going to be great. You know, and then of course a big thing with contractors as well is I incentivize them.

heavily. I can work contractors into the equity if they're doing a great job at material. Let's get more of an upside because I want to a residual business with them, a long-term growth. And so I'll take some of that profit and I'll give them NFL tickets or something of that nature. And then that's when they see that, hey, I'm not going to bite the hand that feeds me. And it's been great for them to even go to jobs where people need renovations.

to sell, they just pitch my service and I pay for it and then we partner up. And so it's a great lead generation as well.

Garret (18:27.704)

Okay, what exactly is Bayer Beter University?

Investwithtrev (18:32.573)

Well, buyer beater university is, it's a way where I want to funnel something where real estate feels attainable and approachable, right? So it's, created solutions for sellers and any selling situation to make you beat out any other buyer that's trying to acquire that property on behalf of you, right? So the buyer beater piece is just to where we're going to teach you the novation piece, which is going to 10X your business, right? We do cash offers, how to flip subject to seller finance, things that you're passionate about to learn on the creative edge.

And that way, if seller does want to sell, you know, and they raise their hand, you got a great solution for them in any situation. And so that's our position. And we do teach, you know, investors and flippers and wholesalers and honestly, mainly agents now like more of our innovation model.

Garret (19:20.63)

Okay, so when you say you had flippers with bad contractors and all those types of things, those are kind of your community, your students that you're referring to?

Investwithtrev (19:29.117)

Well, those are situations I've personally dealt with, right? So we'll take on the blunt of that, but we'll teach the situations and be able to teach you how to scale that or send us opportunities. And so for agents and wholesalers, like if they go, I'm an agent, I have multiple listings. I feel like I would love to have this as what we call our creative department. We work for our community. In the Bayer B. University,

The biggest thing is when you're enrolling into it, you're enrolling into our creative department. So when you're walking a property and you're pitching out, whether it's a listing or a wholesale deal and the seller shuts it down, you go, I got another option for you. And that's the creative option of saying, what if I can have my creative department come on in here? Let's just prepare this thing on behalf of you. And they pitch that service and saying the great news is when we go to list it, they'll cover all my fees and all your closing costs. And so they open the door.

If the seller's interested, they submit that lead over to us. I have closers that are on staff and they'll get in front of it. They'll close the deal on behalf of them and attach them to the profit of that opportunity.

Garret (20:33.678)

Okay, so when you say novation, where did that word come from?

Investwithtrev (20:39.121)

Well, Novations I heard from Pace Morby. You know, Pace Morby? Yeah, he's a big, he's like the godfather of creative right now. And so he didn't coin the terms, but it basically just means a replacement of one's position on a contract. So it's a fancy way of really saying an on-market wholesale, except there's just ways that you can navigate that to make everybody win a lot more. You know, the wholesale piece, keeping it off-market, kind of gatekeeping it.

Garret (20:43.512)

heard the name.

Investwithtrev (21:06.373)

and trying to assign it to an investor so that way everybody can kind of get their lick. This is being as upfront with your seller as possible and putting the property in a position to take over what we call the three things, right? Marketing, maintenance, and management. So allowing your homeowner to know, I can close now. It's not going to be at this best price. You live in the home, honey. There's only a couple things we got to do. I can end up painting the fascia. I can clean up the landscaping. I can end up taking care of this hoarder room for you. I can redo your carpet.

We can really get it on market to test the exposure to get you the price that you deserve through our equity protection program. so innovation is just testing the optimism of the market and arbitraging your profit as a service instead of as a buyer.

Garret (21:50.318)

So how do you protect yourself? Like, so from what I understand, sir, it interrupted the title is still in the, the vendor's name, right?

Investwithtrev (21:53.106)

Okay.

Investwithtrev (21:59.089)

Yes, title is gonna be in their name and there are ways that we do it. Pinky promises, no, I'm just kidding. A couple things, we do open escrow with the intent to buy and renovate. So on the deals that we do end up renovating and we put more money into the properties and we collaborate with that seller, we of course have a notice to perform to be necessary. We are in the intent to buy. So no matter what, if we can't assign it, we close on the home, right?

per usual as promised due to the fact that we're in escrow during this. And as we renovate the property, we've created force appreciation. So whatever it appraises for, know, good news is I can either sub to myself on title and initiate a refinance and wipe out the A to B and make it exactly what they want. Or I can just close on it with our own money, either relist the property or then end up initiating a DSCR refinance and then renting it. we've had to keep.

seven or eight of them, you know, and through that we just have assets, which we've, you know, now we got all our money back. So it's like a burr without any of the upfront costs, which is pretty cool. So that's why we only do markets that we would buy in. And, you know, we have our attorney in facts, you know, it's not a power of attorney. It's way that we get to choose and operate with our own listing agents that, you know, their fiduciary gets tied to us. So they bring us the opportunities. We've had cases with attorney backed endorsements. We've done

Garret (23:00.504)

Hehe.

Investwithtrev (23:19.237)

limited power of attorneys, depending on if they're out of state and all of these scary words and things it when you when you can approach a seller with the situation of what you can do for the collaboration and you trust them to stay on title, just like they trust you to get them to the finish line and you over communicate. It is a great way for you guys to both, you know, make a lot of money together. And so we do.

vet our sellers just as much as we vet our numbers. If the seller doesn't have the right tonality towards us and they're on board but not that on board, we're going to be in a deal for four months. We're just going to say no unless we can have certain protections as well. But for the most case on the base level, those are things that we do put in place to make sure we're good.

Garret (24:07.874)

Yeah, no, I love the transparency of it. Our management company has a similar program where being transparent, buy a property, I call it a turnkey program, buy a property for one of our current small single-family home investors who maybe are just ready to graduate, so to speak, from, you know, maybe their first starter home to actually becoming a real estate investor, but don't really want to go and play the market, buy a distressed property before and afters.

Investwithtrev (24:26.397)

Yeah.

Investwithtrev (24:32.21)

Yeah.

Garret (24:37.398)

work with them to know exactly what needs to be done, then we'll renovate it, put a tenant in place, and then they can buy it. But if you're transparent with what you're making, more project management fees and things like that, I think people understand rather than this sort of hidden implication that you're just gonna walk off with tens of thousands of dollars of what they could have had, right?

Investwithtrev (25:00.915)

Yeah, you, I mean, I couldn't have said it better. The best things that we've seen, we make a lot of money doing this because we've done in markets that are pretty sizable, right? So Cal, things of that nature. You could put in 150 and make 200 quite easily, giving the seller even more. But what you just said is crucial. A big thing of our core values is over communication just due to the fact that we make them a part of the process.

Every seller wants to feel like they're a part of an HGTV show. So when I get to be able to get in front of this, do private walkthroughs, I'll even have backsplash in a kitchen and I'll call up Brenda, the seller and we'll go, hey, do you want eggshell or Swiss coffee? You what do you think would look good right here? And they get to be a part of the picking. They get to feel like, you know, they're going to walk to the solution with you. When you make good money, they are, they're stoked.

You because they got exactly what they want and residential real estate is extremely emotional. So when you can lean into the emotions of that and make sure they don't get taken advantage of. I get Christmas cards still from some of our sellers, you know, and so you also get residual, you get referrals, you know, they go, I got an uncle in New Mexico moving to Arizona. Can you fix their roof and sell it? You know, it's such a different way to go about real estate service and solution oriented rather than seller oriented, you know.

Garret (26:14.606)

I love it. I I don't know how many real estate companies in our space have published core values, right? Not to say that they don't, but you don't hear it in the wholesale. Like wholesaling has this connotation about it that's kind of taking advantage of people. It's dirty. You kind of get down into the trenches. And I would say, again, I don't want to insult anybody, but you know, like the signs you see on telephone poles, we buy houses for cash, right?

Investwithtrev (26:43.411)

And it signs, yeah.

Garret (26:45.238)

Well, I mean, and then so think of the, the emotions, you said it Trevor, of somebody who's gonna go realize that that's their only option. They make the phone call, they sell the property, whether they got a good deal or not, they walk away feeling like they gave up something and they're ashamed. Whereas your process, you're involving them in it almost like they're an investor partner with you. And then they get out what they want. And that's why you're getting referrals.

Investwithtrev (27:03.368)

Yeah.

Investwithtrev (27:13.073)

Yeah. And I appreciate that, Garrett. Another really cool thing, three of our, you know, and, you know, now pretty sizable investors is you have a lot of people who have, you know, good portfolio, maybe even just three, four, five homes is sizable, you know? And so when you do one, you can start doing them all, or you do one, you speak to an investor about the program who's older and they want their money to work for them, you know? And so identifying that, you know, they can invest into flips that we're doing. And now we've just been able to position them from a seller.

to an investor because they love our model so much that they believe in us doing it. And that's been really cool to see. I'll tell you what, I never had that wholesaling. You know what I mean? So, and now we've transitioned into doing flips and now we own a lot of midterms. But I would say the baseline of anybody getting into real estate, I wouldn't say it's a cheat code. It's just a great way for you to feel good about getting started because it's just all about helping. And even if you're on the university side when you join,

Finding your first deal is just calling listings that have been sitting for 60 to 90 days and saying, hey, I got money to renovate this and everybody in my community I set aside funding for, if you find the deal, I'll pay for everything and I'll just work you into the equity. yeah, it's been a really cool baseline to get going and amplify.

Garret (28:31.31)

When you're in a different city, it seems like a good realtor is sort of that starts that relationship off, maybe even not to put words into your mouth, but that at least that's what I do when I'm in a different city to even get referrals to good contractors. How do you seek these realtors out?

Investwithtrev (28:51.387)

Yeah, realtors make or break you. You know, it's a really good topic to go into. A lot of people I see, because it's starting to become like the cool thing, right? Innovations getting in front of it seems to be creative finance in general. But then they go to flat fee listing services. And it's just detrimental to what you can absolutely do just by trying to save a buck or two. So I lean into great agents. You know, I want subject matter experts who are local, you know, qualify them.

I have an agent outreach coordinator that we partnered with. name is Corey Boldroff. He is here locally as well. He's been in the mastermind for about 15 years with, I believe he started with Tom Ferry's realtors and kind of grew there, but he'll vet great realtors that we have in the area. Look at their transactions, kind of teach them our model. And then once we get deals, we can refer them over. And if they're too out of state, they'll give a referral fee to another great agent who's there. So it's kind of like a chain of events on that side, but.

You know, I, some of the best advice I ever got was fire myself and he knows agents like the back of his hand and he's got a great track record. So any deal that we get, we allow him to position somebody, you know, on the opportunity. And now we've got a great database of just really good realtors who see the model and they're already going to listing appointments. So all we're able to do now is they get to capitalize on their own commissions and tell a seller, we can probably get you more by putting the property in a better condition. And then they get more as well. So in turn.

A lot of our referrals are coming from agents that we found to just list one of our homes and now we're doing five, six with them a year.

Garret (30:23.842)

Yeah, so you've got, how many states did you say? Was it four or five?

Investwithtrev (30:28.723)

Well, we've done deals in like a little over 20, but five main states. Yeah. Yeah. Five main states regularly. That's with 30,000 plus of Renault. But if you need, if you need a couple thousand bucks, you got a great property in Clarksville, Tennessee. We'll totally do that. You know, as long, as long as the numbers make sense, my risk tolerance is, is where I will, I'll personally invest 5,000 if there's enough spread and we have a whole calculator and all this stuff.

Garret (30:32.972)

Regularly, yeah, regularly.

Garret (30:54.318)

So with a $5,000, I guess, spread risk investment, whatever, and it's in a city that you're not familiar with, what about your soft costs, your travel? Like, you going and getting eyeballs on these? Are you trusting a realtor in that area? Like, how are you getting that done?

Investwithtrev (31:12.723)

Yeah, great question. We're trusting a realtor in the area. What we're going to do is, the same demographic is for wholesale or cash is the same situation. We call it the four Ds, Death, distress, divorce, and debt. so identifying that, if you have a deal that's in Tennessee and let's just say it's worth 500,000 fully renovated and it needs $50,000 worth of work, wholesalers trying to get

20 grand, you're offering 260, 280 for that deal. Seller goes kick rocks, that makes no sense. And we just go, well, what do you want? And they say, I need to make at least $375,000. That's a hundred grand more than a wholesale. That's a perfect novation. I mean, I get on the phone, our team locks them in at 375 and that $5,000 because we know what properties could appraise for and we know it can take a month or so to find the right person to buy. But

We'll just say, we'll fix what's needed, right? Whatever lending is gonna require, whether it's a hot water heater or windows or things of that nature to get a lender to establish lending on it and spruce up the property. And I'm okay. I'm okay. We did three last year that didn't sell and I was out five grand on each one of those homes. But you make that back 10 fold when it sells. Cause if you put 5,000 into it to make it suitable for lending and marketing.

You're not going to sell it for five, but you put it on market for 429. You get a buyer there, 70,000 below market value for a first time homeowner that's like, know what? The carpet's stinky, but babe, it's right by our mom. We can do our own work to it. After all the fees associated, I'm still making like 25, $30,000. And the seller got exactly what they want with the marketing we provided. that's kind of that little baseline of how we end up targeting those deals.

Garret (32:58.734)

Mm-hmm.

Garret (33:03.81)

Yeah, just digging into it a little bit more, is there a profile of a property that's ideal for innovation? Like are we talking duplexes, triplexes are just singles, three bedroom versus two bedroom.

Investwithtrev (33:17.979)

The most we've actually done is a triplex. I would say, VA residential, you have four units or less. I would do multifamily, but we don't go wide, we go deep. And so my partner actually might get mad at me saying that. He'll be like, we do this, because we're good at this. And so single family and duplexes are an ideal innovation. It's what people want. It's what people are looking at and positioning that we're good to go.

Garret (33:20.812)

Okay.

Garret (33:46.446)

So your ideal buyer doesn't have to be like a first time home buyer without that emotion. You can market these to investors as well because that's what you're doing when you're talking multifam.

Investwithtrev (33:57.075)

Yes. I mean, to an extent, yes. Garrett, do you mind if I pause you real quick? I have to send somebody a link. Is that totally fine? Okay. Give me one. I'm so sorry.

Garret (34:05.878)

Yeah, that's all good.

Yeah, I will just make a note.

Investwithtrev (34:11.003)

Yes, yes. Thank you so much.

Investwithtrev (34:15.984)

second.

Garret (34:19.352)

Let's see advantage of a...

doing things like this so you can edit it out.

Investwithtrev (34:24.581)

I know, I really appreciate it, yeah, they don't bother me for these things.

Investwithtrev (34:31.251)

Can you hear me still? Okay.

Investwithtrev (34:39.827)

All right, let me transition this over.

Investwithtrev (34:50.265)

One second, one second.

Garret (34:52.365)

All good.

Investwithtrev (35:07.965)

Casey just popped in.

Investwithtrev (35:12.253)

We're hosting our, have a 130 community Zoom call and I was the one who has the login for it. The person who had it today is unfortunately sick. So we don't have it right now. There we go. Okay. We are good to go.

Garret (35:26.008)

That's all good, man, all good.

Garret (35:31.884)

Okay, so Zach's my video editor. Zach, when you're hearing this, if you could just cut out around 34 minutes to 30, 35 and a half, 36, that'd be great. And then we'll continue.

Investwithtrev (35:44.509)

Perfect, thank you. All right, can you ask me that last question about the multifamily gear?

Garret (35:49.262)

Okay. Yeah. So when we're talking about multifamily, I mean, I was assuming that we were talking about maybe just the single family home buyer, first time homeowner, but when you're talking duplexes, triplexes, multifamily, you're also marketing to investors.

Investwithtrev (36:06.791)

We are indeed. Yeah. We'll get it to a standard, you know, well, I'll peel that back. A lot of the times that we've done duplex and triplex is because we have a service member, you know, the VA home loan. And so they'll come into an area where they want to do that so they can get involved. And it's a great segue actually to talk about, I do something called, you know, our veteran home advantage program. So service members that come on, they work with buyers agents and this is happening everywhere.

And they'll have a buyer's agent. put a bunch of offers out, but unfortunately some sellers don't find the VA home loan as qualified as the others because they can't go, they can't waive contingencies. They can't go 10 % above asking things of that nature. They can't be as aggressive as certain conventional buyers on beautiful homes. And, you know, they're having to make on average eight to 10 offers to find the home. So we'll just kind of reverse engineer a novation and we'll find out what their buy box is. And then we will target.

homeowners that have distressed assets that are looking like those homes. And when we call them, we go, Hey, I got great news. I have a hero who wants to buy your house. Unfortunately, in the condition it's in, it's not going to get loaned on by the VA. That's where I come in. They've been approved for our program, we can renovate the home on behalf of you. We give them a certain price, and then we were able to to novate it over to them. And so if they ever let us know they want a duplex or a triplex, we just pull lists for multifamilies in the area. And we'll talk to the investors that way. And anybody who usually has a duplex or triplex

They're like always gung-ho to help out a vet or a service member if they're looking at selling, which is awesome. And we're taking a home off their plate where sometimes the tenants haven't been paying in California for like a year. They have no way to get rid of them. So we'll do cash for keys, work that into the situation, and you're just really solving headaches at that time.

Garret (37:55.086)

So the VA loan, there issues with that with the single family or is it just mainly when they're trying to do multifam?

Investwithtrev (38:05.167)

no issues at all. I will say the VA lenders, we've done a lot of them through VA, they're meticulous. It's like an old dog's new trick sometimes. They've never seen it. So instead of getting paid out, like an assignment fee basically, we call it our marketing maintenance and management fee. If they don't want that as a line item, what we'll do is we'll lean against the home through the service we provided. And as we release our lien, we just do a payoff for the release and then they cover it that way.

just like a nuanced way to take care of it, but now using the same lenders, we're kind of being worked around in areas that we're pretty predominant in. We don't really have issues right now.

Garret (38:44.354)

Yeah, no, I just, guess to clarify my question, is there a difference in what the lender's like to see regarding the VA piece between single family and multifamily or do they don't really care?

Investwithtrev (38:57.555)

I don't think so, yeah. haven't seen anything. I mean, we'll go and get a good CMA done by our agents. We'll identify what we feel like it's gonna appraise for. And no, I haven't had anything come up. I mean, we've done one triplex and we've done about three duplexes and all have been fairly simple.

Garret (39:16.13)

You know, I love that program Trevor, because again, I'm really big into win-win and just knowing that you have this program where people can actually target, you know, you said LeadGen in terms of looking at expired listings, in terms of the program itself, maybe expand on that in terms of what the vet wants and what they're looking for, how much does that play into it?

Investwithtrev (39:44.261)

Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. So if they get approved, they just got stationed in Southern California, right? And so they're looking in my area. We're going to reverse engineer. They go, hey, I got approved for $850,000. I'm looking for a four bed, three bath, two stories, in an HOA community or something of that nature, right? We do have a deal submission form. We also have a property submission form of

what their dream home is, right? We know that they're still avidly looking, but now we have a pool of a buyer, know, or buyers that fit this criteria. And I actually take this and the easiest way to go about it is I'll send this to my community, right? We have a little over 600 and we say, hey, we have this service member just got here looking to buy within the next 45 days. He's already made a couple offers. Unfortunately, he's getting beat out. This is what he's looking for.

A lot of our deals right now, it's as simple as going on market and looking at things that have been sitting for quite a while and then providing the opportunity to say, I'm not an agent, but I did get reached out to by a buddy. He's in the service. I have some money. I work directly with a creative department where they're looking at getting a home just like this, but they're going to want some updates to be done. And I'm sure your seller wouldn't mind because they're trying to get this thing sold. It's been a couple of months. Why don't I get you in touch with the buyer's agent?

we'll just end up working our program where we renovate the home on behalf of the seller. And whatever the difference is, we'll take as our fee. But both you guys as agents, you get paid it with the property appraises for. So you listing agent, when it appraises for more, I mean, that's what you'll get at a full commission and same with our buyer's agent. And so when you get them worked on, in the same playing field as you, they go back to the seller and they're like, you won't believe this. You know what I mean? Like this is great. Yeah.

Garret (41:30.846)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you're helping out like all three, basically. No, amazing. Any other programs that you have going on? I mean, there's just so many little different turns and nuances that you have going on. love it.

Investwithtrev (41:45.413)

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, Corey, actually, we have our equity protection program. That's our main one, right? That's where they're occupied. We end up renovating the home on behalf of the seller, the VHA program. And then we have one that is the dream home program, which is really the same situation, except we instead of renovating the property on the front end, you know, with the homeowner, we know it's in a good area.

We'll just market the property out to conventional buyers or buyers in the area. And we'll say that we have a certain amount set aside for the renovations when they come in here and whatever it appreciates for, they'll buy it. And so I don't front load the renovations like I normally do. I'll just end up putting them on the backend so the buyer can end up picking the choices. But that's more of a nuanced opportunity.

Garret (42:35.64)

That's still pretty neat, but in terms of filling your funnel with leads like that, mean, how do you find people who want you to renovate their dream home because you happen to have the product?

Investwithtrev (42:48.037)

Exactly. So that's where the agents come in, right? It's where agents, know, when we market it out, that one's very agent specific. So we get in front of it, we market the home and we'll do, you know, a broker open house. So we'll market out to the agents that are local and we have a great outreach for them. And we say, Hey, do have any buyers who are just not finding what they want? Well, you know, with this home, we have a blank canvas, right? So we'll get it, whatever they want. This is our confines of what the property is going to appreciate for. We just need an offer at this amount.

And then as long as we do the renovations to fit their, you know, their narrative, then we're good to go. And so that's why agents can kind of go back as the hero and go, Hey, I got something. It's going to take a couple of weeks to get it there, but you know, those green countertops you want to, there are things of that nature. We can do that for this home and they'll even cover it. And so that's been a, that's been a cool way to be a lot more agent friendly.

Garret (43:33.4)

Yeah, no, absolutely. For those who are just wanting to think about novation deals or maybe they're a wholesaler that just tired of knocking on doors like that. I mean, I think I saw something in your bio where you can like almost get somebody to their first deal within 90 days. Any tips or tricks for a newbie?

Investwithtrev (43:54.607)

Absolutely, right. The whole premise of what we do is, buyer beater university, yeah, it's all walks of life on the real estate side. We really focus on two people. our wholesalers who are struggling with finding consistent deal flow. The biggest thing about wholesale is it's good, it can be, but you're on a hamster wheel all the time. It's fine, it's churning and burning all the time. So capturing those dead leads, working them into the optimism of creative opportunities.

you're gonna get your first deal a lot quicker doing that or with agents on the listing side. So what you discussed, what would I recommend for them? It's as simple as what I've talked about a couple times and it's gonna be so crazy, because this is how I get most of my business, right? I'll do these awesome podcasts and people are like, it's not that easy, but go on Redfin. You know what I mean? Go change your filter, totally free, free 99.

Change the filters to 90 days or more in a market that you like that you know buyers are in, right? So let's go Phoenix or Dallas or Orlando and find properties that have been sitting on market through an agent that look vacant or look, you know, little distressed by clicking that little fixer upper button at the bottom of the redfin tabs. So it's, just click single family house, 90 days or more in market, right? And you can keep the bedroom baths the same. You just click fixer upper, call about 10 of those agents.

and say, hey, I got a couple of things for you. I'm not a cash guy, I'm a creative guy. I don't wanna come in low, but the thing is, where you're priced, I can't get lending for that. I am an investor myself, so I do have funds set aside. I don't wanna low-ball you on this, but if we just took this thing off the market real quick, why don't I just renovate it? I don't wanna go get a loan and pay 10 % to a bank and pay interest-only points.

Let's take it off market. Let's swing some hammers, make this thing look good. We'll give the seller 10,000 more. And when you list the property on market, you'll get double your commission. I'll make the difference, right? Make a very informal pitch like that. Watch on your fourth or fifth. go, yeah, you know, like, okay, well, what numbers you think and how do we want to do this? And you go, crap. And then you contact me and Garrett, and then we identify what you need. I give you the money. I give you my crew and we do a deal. And then if it's going to be spent 100 to make 100.

Investwithtrev (46:13.585)

I work everybody who gives me a deal into 25 % of the equity. So if I make a hundred grand, you're making $25,000 by just finding an opportunity of helping the homeowner out.

Garret (46:24.76)

Yeah, that's awesome. People who listen to this, hopefully it's going to be very good for your university. How can people get in touch with you?

Investwithtrev (46:32.307)

I'd say the easiest way is either through the website, buyerbeateruniversity.com. You can set up a Calendly with me or the team. If you want to talk to me directly, my Instagram, it's the best way. can do it at investwithtrev and you could find me. My name is right there at the bottom or YouTube, at investwithtrev as well. And I have a lot of my buyer beater breakdowns there and some past Novation deals. But yeah, I'm just excited about getting going.

Garret (47:00.814)

So you mentioned the Novations seems to be the hot thing right now. What do you see in the future in the next couple of years as, and I'll preface that by saying, like everybody knows there's some kind of real estate. I don't want to call it a crisis, but I mean, there's going to be an adjustment coming. There's going to be opportunity for people who are positioned to do so. How do you, like what, do you index that against Novations and what you see in the next few years?

Investwithtrev (47:16.487)

Yeah. Yeah.

Investwithtrev (47:28.723)

It's a really good question. So when you look at Novations, right, you gotta treat it more like it's like a seller finance, it's just a seller flip, collaborative flip, you And so you have to hedge the market with that. Creative real estate can be very seasonal. So if you are looking at a downturn, the best news is probably to switch the strategy on that side. When it comes down to the Novation play, the reason why I like it so much is because if you buy a flip,

You know, you get in front of it, you are putting 10 to 20 % down. You are paying broker points on the front end. You have a pro rated interest only payment that you're going to be paying no matter what. You know, when it comes down to a novation play, because it's so collaborative, you know, if you're putting 50 to make 50, right, you put it on market and the market starts going down, right, you're able to have that extra $50,000 of cushion before you even dip directly into your pocket. So if I'm trying to sell for 500 market takes a five, 6 % correction, things are going horrible.

then I can either offload this property for $30,000 less and still make almost a 50 % return on my money and give the seller what they want as well. And so that's why I talk about going in areas that are congested that have been proven and not trying to catch the trends and upticks in random areas that are fads right now. And so I just want to be in proven markets. And another great thing is what I'm doing with these properties or another strategy.

you know, that I am leaning into to, guess, give a secondary answer is congested living. I mean, the idea of what I'm keeping these properties for, I am doing a lot of midterm rentals. We have 30 doors in Texas. Now I want to get to 100. And I use a company called PadSplit. So anybody who goes, well, I don't want active income, right? I want to get involved with holding. You know, this seems too active. Get in front of a great midterm rental. You know, you get these properties at a three bed, two bath. You can

know, burb this home into a DSCR, you know, loan. I throw up some drywall, I make a three bed, bath into a six bed, and I operate at 100 % occupancy. It's just people that are average age 30 to 35, Starbucks baristas, low income teachers, people that are trying to save. And it's like the new age hostel. And, you know, it's very limited on the furnishing. You don't need a license. It's 30 days or more. We have people that have stayed for a year. And I think going there, whether the market goes good or not,

Investwithtrev (49:51.699)

Nobody, unfortunately, the next generation, what I've seen is they don't want the responsibility of home ownership. So they're kind of leaning into, well, you fix it, you do it. And so identifying that, have a baseline of a couple of these homes where you can do that, aggressively amortize those notes. And now you're going to cashflow between $10,000 and $14,000 in a couple of years by just renting out a single family to people who want it because they're afraid of the market. And that's kind of what we're doing as well.

Garret (50:19.65)

Yeah, it seems like a lot safer future proof, you will, volatility proof, just because of the way you're doing that and the absence of excess cash or the traditional way, which I'm used to, which is getting a capital cash investor. And now you've got these interest payments and the market's turning down. You've got all this, you're like in a pressure cooker, right?

Investwithtrev (50:41.895)

Kind of are, yeah. so, mean, you know, coming into it, our lowest room for rent. I mean, they're in like crazy areas. never, we have like Leander, New Braunfels, areas I've never been in, you know, but same thing, you know, I'm the, just, I don't recreate the wheel. Like I'm not the smartest guy in the room, never have been, but I just see what people are doing. And I talked with Pat Split and I go, where do you have a lot of people applying for these homes? And they'll tell you, cause they need more. They go, we have 50 applicants in Leander, Texas. So I just.

call on market homes and I say, hey, I'm not here to buy it and flip it, I'm here to buy and hold, which means I need to refinance my money. So I'm as transparent with agents as possible and I go, and I'm unrepresented. So if you have a buyer, because it's an intermediary state, if you have an agent friend that wants to represent me, you guys make your money, but I just need it right here, which is as most as I can give your seller, because I have to put some drywall and renovate the home. And they love it. And then they go up to bat for me as well. And yeah, it's the same exact situation.

Garret (51:38.222)

Yeah, no, it's a win-win. All right, I am going to cap it off here, but you get the last word as my listeners know, because I like to ask one question. So I'm going to preface that audience by just saying in the green room, and I knew this from last week because Trevor and I had to reschedule, but he's got a new addition in his family.

Not to say that that's going to be, you know, what you're going to answer for this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So this is the investing to win podcast. How do you define success and what does winning look like for you?

Investwithtrev (52:13.319)

my goodness, that's a great question. That's a question that evolves as you evolve. Honestly, I will say some of the most rewarding time that I've had in my entire life is when my daughter was born and my son was born and I got to tell my team, I'm gonna take a month off. To have the ability to reclaim my time and to have them come in my office and my daughter bang on my glass whenever she wants, because I've provided the opportunity for that.

I think winning is involving your family as much as possible in your day to day. And so that is a big, big thing for me.

Garret (52:47.553)

Yeah, no, I know when I emailed you, got you out of office. So I do appreciate you taking the time to do this. Yeah, it's been great. Loved spending this last hour with you. And I learned a lot too. I I hadn't even heard of Novations and I love the win-win concepts. So I'll be spreading the word for you too. Yeah, no, absolutely. We'll do some for sure. So thanks for coming on the pod.

Investwithtrev (52:52.902)

Of course, of course.

Investwithtrev (53:03.217)

nice. This be some business.

Investwithtrev (53:10.417)

I appreciate it so much, Garrett. No, thank you so much, man.

Garret (53:13.71)

All right, take care.

right, just give me a second here.