20 Deals in a Year as a Professional Basketball Player

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie episode 153.

Terry:
It was a point I had to open up an extra credit card, increase the credit lines, just to get that project done. But I just knew I was like, it’s going to work out. I’m hearing everyone’s success stories in the BiggerPocket Podcast. I’m reading the book. I’m like, if they can do it, why not me?

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr. And I am here with my co-host Tony Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, where we share all of the inspiration, information, education, motivation, anything else that ends with a “Tion” related to real estate investing you’ll get it here because our goal is to help you become a bigger, better, happier real estate investor.

Ashley:
My business partner, he always tells his son like for any sport or anything, even like his band concert the other day. He always says, who is the best snowboarder? And his son will say whoever. And he is like, it’s the one having the most fun. So who is the best real estate investor? So one having the most fun.

Tony:
Having the most fun. I love that. You got to have fun. You got to have fun. But I think that’s part of what makes being an entrepreneur enjoyable is that you get to pick and choose. And if you’re doing something that doesn’t bring you joy, you can stop doing it. Ash, it’s so crazy I was having a conversation the other day with a group of other investors, and we were talking about what financial freedom means.
And it’s funny because everyone kind of has a different definition of what that is. And for some people it was a net worth figure. And for someone else it was like passive cashflow. For other people it was like, I need this much money in the bank. My definition, and it’s evolved over time. But I think the one that I’ve leaned on a little bit more now, and it’s a little harder to define, but it makes sense for me, is having the freedom to choose what I do on a daily basis, without worrying about the financial repercussions of doing so.
And that last part is super important. Because technically anybody can choose what they do on a daily basis. Someone who has a job today, they can choose to not go to work, but if you do that enough, something’s going to happen with your job, when you can’t provide for yourself. So I think in my mind, the definition I’ve landed on is having the freedom to do what I want without worrying about the money aspect of it.

Ashley:
Tony, I love that. That is great. Just not having any repercussions. And it kind of leads into mine, like being spontaneous where you can do whatever you want every day. And my business partner and I like joke about this, where we’ll say something like, do you want to go do this or that or whatever. And then we look at each other and we smile and say, “We can do whatever we want.” And it’s like, but even further taking that, let’s just like us deciding what we’re going to work on that day or things like that.
But taking it a step farther and just being able to enjoy and be spontaneous without those repercussions. So I think that’s great. I love that you just shared that with me because that’s a great way to tie it in as to how you can be spontaneous. Because you’re right anybody could jump on a plane today and go to Florida, but does that mean they’re putting it on a credit card? Does that mean they’re going to lose their job because they didn’t show up to work? So I love that. Thank you for sharing.

Tony:
Yeah, absolutely. We’re not even into the interview yet and we’re already dropping some knowledge.

Ashley:
This interview today is awesome. As you can see, because we spent a long time recording because as you’re looking at me now, it’s pretty dark, lots of shadows. And that is because you know me, I only use natural light. And the sun has started to set because we went log on this recording. And so when we actually switch to the interview, if you’re watching this on YouTube, it will be bright and nice. And you’ll watch the sun go down.

Tony:
The sun starts to set on Madison’s face, but it gives you a nice real dramatic look.

Ashley:
And I still have my bum knee. So I couldn’t even run to flip a light switch on very quickly, efficiently, it would’ve taken a while.

Tony:
Well, today’s guest, his name’s Terry Harris. And he’s got a really interesting backstory. He’s a professional basketball player in the minor leagues for the NBA. And just kind of shares the story of how he became, I guess, infected with the real estate bug. And Tarry and I actually met on Instagram. I can’t remember how, but we were chatting on Instagram and he kind shared a story with me. I thought it’d be really cool to get him on the podcast.
But one of the things that he shared, Ashley, that really stuck out with me that I want the listeners to kind of pay attention to. And he does this throughout the entire episode. So it’s not one moment, but just look for the moment where Terry just like turns the hustle to 100, because you’ll see that happen a few times throughout the episode. And he’s also going to give like a really, really good masterclass on how to wholesale land. Listen to the end, because that part gets really cool. But throughout the entire episode, he sprinkles in a lot about how he just hustled his way to make these things happen. So overall, fantastic episode, I feel like we could have gone forever with Terry today.

Ashley:
Yeah. It definitely was a great conversation and we both were able to learn a lot and you guys will take a lot of value. Make sure you listen through to the end too, because the end is where he does that really deep dive into land deals. And it’s not just looking at a parcel and saying, oh, a house could go there, let me sell it to developer. What are the things that are of actual will value to somebody who is looking to develop land and where to find that information out.

Tony:
Yeah. He actually gives four specific things to look for when you’re looking to wholesale land. So keep an ear out for those.

Ashley:
Okay. Well, let’s get on with the show. Terry, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Do want to start off with just telling everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got started in real estate?

Terry:
Yeah. Well I appreciate you and Tony for having me on the show today. This is something that I’ve always been, getting into real estate or always listened to the BiggerPockets podcast. So finally being on the show is like, it’s the dream come true. It’s a little bit surreal too. But my journey comes from starting to play in the NBA G League and a typical season in the NBA G league is five and a half months. And while I was playing in the G league, I never knew what was going to happen when my season ended. I didn’t know if I was going to get a call up to the NBA. I didn’t know if I was going to play in a different country and I didn’t know if I was going to get paid after those six months. So I mean that whole time in the G league, I was really just indulging in as much resources about real estate as I could.
And I just stumbled at Barnes and Noble one day, and saw that blue book, the book on rental property investing by Brandon Turner. And me reading that triggered my mindset and just gave me the ability to know how I can really start to get into real estate. And that’s how the journey started. And fast forward to today, about two and a half, almost three years later, I now have five properties under my belt, one short term rental, one long term rental, a couple parcels of land. And actively wholesaling as well. And in the year of 2021, my company we’ve done a little bit over 20 wholesale deals this year.

Tony:
I mean, Terry that’s awesome, man. And your story reminds me a lot. We had Lili Thompson on the podcast and she was another athlete. She was playing professionally with the Harlem Globetrotters actually. She was a like going all over the place. But a very similar story to where she knew that basketball wasn’t going to be her only source of income. And she wanted to kind of use some of that extra time that she had to phone something else.
So anyway, if you guys want to hear that it’s episode 91 of the Real Estate Rookie podcast. Now, Terry, I guess here’s a question about, because I would assume that it’s a pretty busy, hectic schedule being a professional basketball player, trying to build that out simultaneously with a real estate business couldn’t have been easy. And obviously not everyone that’s listening is going to be a professional basketball player, but they may not be juggling real estate and professional sports. But maybe they’re juggling real estate and a spouse or real estate and children or real estate and a day job or real estate in X, Y, Z. So how did you kind of find the time or make the time to be able to balance those two things?

Terry:
Yeah, I mean, I just had it programmed in my mind when I was playing with the Delaware Bluecoats that I’m going to buy a house this year and I was going to buy the right home. So when we were on the road, traveling on the flights, traveling the games, I would bring my books with me. And anytime we were back in Delaware, I was calling realtors to go and view houses. And every day I was trying to get better in some way or just increase my knowledge on real estate in some way. And I just always was like, I’m going to figure the time out and manage the time so I can go and invest in real estate and do it at a high level. So I guess that time management really set me apart to do that.

Ashley:
Terry, before we move any further, can you just give a brief overview of what you started out with and what those deals looked like and what your portfolio looks like today?

Terry:
The house that I did buy in Delaware, I purchased it for $180,000. I did a 3% down FHA loan and on that house, I actually got $10,000 of seller credits. So I didn’t have too much money at the time. So I went to close with a check about, I think, $6,000 and I was able to receive $10,000 in seller credits back. So I actually made money and got the keys to the house.

Ashley:
Terry, can you just explain what a seller credit is for somebody that doesn’t know and how do you get that when you’re doing a deal?

Terry:
For sure. So a seller credit is basically a credit from the sellers. And when we did the inspection for the home, we had an inspection contingency, which allows us either to back out or renegotiate the purchase price due to the inspection and the wear and tear to the home. So the house did have some safety damages and some things that we wanted to get fixed. So me and my realtor, we asked the seller like, “Hey, either you can fix these, we’ve gotten quotes from various contractors or you can just credit us $10,000.” Well, actually, we first said $15,000 and he countered back at $6,000 and then you say, can we meet in the middle at $10,000? And then they agreed to credit us $10,000. So that was a big plus. And when doing my first real estate project, I thought I could have renovated this whole property with $10,000.
And you know first projects, they’re never as expected with the renovations. And then I think about eight months ago, I refinanced that home and I put about $20,000 into that property and the bank appraised it at $320,000. And that was my first property.

Tony:
Holy crap.

Terry:
So that was a solid one. I’ll never regret. I was just so happy to be… And it was so stressful at the time, dealing with contractors, not having the funds. And it was a point I had to open up an extra credit card, increase the credit lines just to get that project done. But I just knew, I was like, it’s going to work out. I’m hearing everyone’s success stories in the BiggerPockets podcast. I’m reading the books. I’m like, if they can do it, why not me. So that was my story.

Tony:
I just want to pause really quick. Because that’s amazing. You bought this property for essentially no money out of pocket once you factor in this credit and you put money into the rehab, but then it appraises for almost double the price. Double the price. And this is the power of real estate investing. Is you can take a relatively small sum of money. I feel firmly that most Americans today can bring $6,000. They can save up $6,000 just from hustle. You could hustle your way to six grand and you took that into a property that’s worth $320,000. $6,000 to $320,000. That’s amazing, man. So I just wanted to pause on that because I didn’t want you to roll along without really reveling in the success you had there, man.

Ashley:
And Terry, I loved your energy as you told us that like, that’s why I love this show is I love one guests come on and they’re still pumped up and motivated and you’ve done so many deals since then that you’re still so excited about that first deal that got you started. And everyone listening I know is going to be inspired by you.

Terry:
I appreciate that. That first deal, there’s nothing better than that. When I got that tenant in and to just look at the photos from before and after and just like, “Oh, I did that.” But I mean, I did have a little bit of self doubt, but when you hear stuff, when you ask about… And you ask people who are not in real estate and they say, “Are you sure you can get that rent or are you sure it’s going to be worth?” I mean, I just kind of stayed to myself and like, I just say I knew this property is going to do well in some type of way.

Tony:
So can we pause on that? Because I think what you just said is another really important piece to highlight is that for people that are just getting started, that feeling of the lack of community is very common. Because you’re the person that was in Barnes and Noble that day and found the book. You’re the person that’s bringing all this reading material along with you when you’re traveling. Not your friends, not your family. So you’re going down this rabbit hole of understanding the power that real estate investing has. But all the people around you aren’t.
So as your mind and your ideas start to transform and progress towards this idea of financial freedom, everyone else isn’t. And it can get lonely and you can start to second guess yourself. So I always try and plug building the right community. And luckily BiggerPockets. You got how many millions of people on the forums now. You got the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group that’s got like 40,000 plus members strong. So there is a community for you. So if you’re listening to this podcast and you feel like how Terry felt when he was getting started, that you don’t have the community around you, get active on BiggerPockets, get active from the forums, get active from the Facebook groups and you will find your tribe.

Terry:
Definitely. And I could attest to that because when I was in that situation being around my team, they would joke around laugh at me when I used to be on the bus, reading the books and things like that. But my thing was like my circle, my team, really for real estate was the BiggerPockets fan. Listening to podcasts every day, driving to basketball games to practice, even just listening and indulging in information like that was my team.
So we’re hearing you guys, your success stories was just like, look, those are my friends, they’re doing, we talk every day. But like that was my success. It’s so funny now today some of my teammates be like, “Yo, we were really making fun of you.” And they’ll really just say, it’s like, now you want to really work with you. It’s just the funniest thing.

Ashley:
I saw this video. It was an Instagram reel that some motivational speaker put out where it was a video of him when he was in college, I think it was. And his friends videotaped him like leaving the bar and him just like I have to go. And it was him basically going home to work on whatever he was working on while all his friends were staying out at the bar and they made fun of him. And now he’s super successful.
He put in the grind, he learned what he wanted to. And that kind of reminds me of your situation there. It just shows like don’t let other people influence you or try to give you that negative talk. And even though they’re probably not trying to be mean by not being supportive, they just want you to hang out with them or do what they’re doing. But you got to get out of that mindset of trying to please everybody and just focus on what’s going to be best for you and your family.

Tony:
And Ash, can I have one more comment to that before we roll? Because it was so funny. I was just talking with my son about this the other day. He’s 14 now, he’s in eighth grade. He’s at that stage where everyone else’s opinions are like super important to him. He’s changing five times before he goes to school. And he’s worried about this, that and the other.
And I was talking to him. I was like, “Hey, dude as part of becoming an adult, you have to be able to learn how to filter out advice depending on the situation, depending on who you’re talking to.” I told him, I was like, “Look, I’m your dad. And I feel like I’ve given you a lot valuable life lessons.” But I asked him, I was like, “If you wanted to learn how to become a brain surgeon, would you come to me?”
And he laughed. And he was like, “No, I wouldn’t.” I was like, “If you wanted to learn how to fly a helicopter, would you come to me?” And he was like, “No, I wouldn’t.” I was like, “But if you wanted advice about real estate, would you come to me?” He said, “Yeah.” And I told him, I was like, this is the lesson. Whatever it is that you’re looking to achieve, whatever it is that you’re looking to get better at, you have to filter feedback on that thing from people who have done it.
And if the people who are giving you advice on how to be a real estate investor have never invested in real estate, then that’s like you going to your dad, asking him how to be a brain surgeon. It’s just doesn’t make sense. So for all the rookies that are listening, don’t be afraid… Accept it, whatever, your friends, your family want to tell you things like, let them say it. But just know, okay, let me file that away as my dad, trying to give me advice on how to be a brain surgeon. So I just wanted to add that in there. It was a conversation I just had that the kind of floated to my mind.

Ashley:
Tony, I love when you give your dad advice. You give your son such like intellectual little pieces of tidbits. I love it.

Tony:
All right. Well Terry, we’re not here to talk about me not being a brand surgeon. Let’s get back to the real estate piece, man. So you get this first deal in Delaware and obviously it goes amazingly well. But you’ve made some transitions in your business. So what happens after this first deal? Where do you go from there?

Terry:
So after the first deal, then COVID happens when COVID happened, that ended my season and it allowed me to spend some time at the house doing a lot of DIY projects and doing stuff and helping out. But we finish it. I get a tenant in there. He pays a year up front in advance, which is amazing. And then I’m like, I’m working out. I moved to Los Angeles because that’s where I do a lot of my workouts for basketball and month after month. And I’m asking my agent “What’s going to go… What’s happened?” He’s like, “Hey, COVID, everything is just shut down. Just keep working out.” I’m like, “Well I need some money. I need to get paid.” So I stumbled on wholesaling, and I started hearing a lot of people like Fetch, Wholesale a Million, Brent Daniels.
And I was just like, wow, people are making 25, 30, 40, $100,000 off one wholesale deal. I was like I’m already kind of in real estate with my one rental property. Let me kind of get into this market as well, get into this game too. And I started doing a lot of research. I started indulging in as much wholesaling information as I can and I just start driving for dollars. And that’s basically looking for opportunity. And for those who don’t know wholesaling, it’s basically the art of finding opportunity and getting opportunity, getting houses locked up under contract and assigning your contract to an investor and may making an assignment fee that’s like 10, 15, $20,000 or even more. So I’m new. I’m driving around looking for homes and I’m just completely brand new and just trying to get 20 houses a day.
And that was my goal. After every workout, I was going to drive for an hour, put a podcast on about wholesaling and find 20 vacant distressed properties. Two, about two and a half weeks goes by and I get a list of about 200 people. And I’m doing all this completely not the traditional way, but I’m like taking the numbers from… I just screenshot it on my maps on my phone and then I’m going and uploading them. Finding the owners and calling them through white pages.
And I’m just like, “Hi, this is Terry. I’m a local investor in area. Wanted to see if you were willing to consider an offer.” And I stumbled upon somebody who’s like, “Hey, I inherited the property from my sister. She passed away and we are looking to sell, why don’t you come by and check it out.” So I was like, “Well, great. Let’s do tomorrow at 12:00.” After my workout, I go and I checked it out.

Ashley:
Terry, I was just going to ask how many phone calls did you do before you got that person that said come and check out the property.

Terry:
I would say around 250, 200. I would say around 200. It was about 200.

Ashley:
How did you keep going without getting discouraged? I mean, that’s a lot of phone calls. I hope you have an unlimited plan.

Tony:
Only on nights and weekends. Only on nights after 7:00 PM and on weekends.

Terry:
I mean, when I hear success stories of other people, that’s why I love podcasts and hearing other stories. It’s just like, oh now let me try to do this. And it’s like, I know I can do it. And I was hearing other people’s… And I heard like, I think Brent Daniel said, if you just make 100 calls that’s not enough. We’re making thousands of calls and getting the like you got. And so my thing was, I got to at least make 1,000 to get my first deal. So I wasn’t going to stop till I made 1,000 calls. That was my thing.

Tony:
So you get this phone call. They’re like, come through, check it out, I guess, before we lead into this conversation, Terry. This is your first time getting face to face with the seller?

Terry:
First time, yep.

Tony:
Were you nervous? Did you feel calm, cool, collected going in? Like how did you mentally prepare for that conversation?

Terry:
So I’m a fake it till you make it type of guy. So I put a collard shirt on, came with a little notebook and like not really knowing what’s going to go on, but I’m like, all right. Let’s just… And like I find like a wholesale contract online. I was just like, it is all really, really soon. But I was like, let me just see what’s happening. Let’s just go for the ride. So I go there, I walk around the house, he shows me everything. And I just didn’t really know my market too well. And so my thing was… And going into this, I’m like, all right, I got to offer low four hundreds. And that’s the way I can find somebody at maybe 420, 430 and I can make probably $5,000, $10,000 about spread off this. So I go, I was like, “Okay what do you think your bottom line?”
He goes, “My bottom line is $500,000. I have a realtor kind of contacting me about listing it. But if you were to give me $500,000, I’d sign off on it with you today.” And I was like, “Ah, that’s too high. Would you do low 400s.” And he was like, “Nah, 500.” And I was like, all right, I just left. I was like cool. But thank you. I’ll think about it. So I go back and I was just like, all right, well, let me keep calling, let me keep doing my thing. I was like, that’s probably not a deal. So I contact a wholesaler who’s in the same market. And I was just like connecting with him. And I was like telling him a couple deals. I’m like, “Hey, I did have a seller for this property. He wanted to sell for 500,000.”
He’s like, “Oh, what’s the address?” So I give him the address and he is like, “Wait, he said $500,000.” I said, “Yeah. I was like, that’s a little too high.” He goes, “No, no, no, no, no. $500,000.” I was like, “Yeah.” He goes, “Bro, go lock that thing up for $500,000. Get off the phone with me right now and go lock it.” “Oh, okay. Cool, cool, cool.” And this is about, I would say a week and a half, two weeks after. And so I get on the phone with the seller. I call him right back. I was like, “Hey, Mr. Seller this is Terry. I came by your house two weeks ago $500,000, I can do $500,000.” And first thing he says, he just laughs, “Just sold it on the market with a realtor. Sold for $620,000. Thank God I waited,” hangs up.
And at that moment, I sat on my couch and I was just like… I sat on my couch and I was just like, wow. I was just like, I could have had he made a $50,000 assignment fee. Or even more to an investor who would’ve purchased that same property. So I was like, look, I told myself two things. I was like, I can one forget about wholesaling and never try to wholesale again.
Or I can, two, go even harder than I was before. And try to rep this and do this four or five, 10 more times. Because if I stumbled on it that time, I could probably do it again if I even indulge even more into it. So I was spending about three hours a day wholesaling. I was like, look now, after this day, I’m going to spend at five, six at least hours a day, wholesaling. I’m going to be driving for dollars, cold calling, listening to more podcasts, listen as much information. And then within a year, this was about, I would say October of 2020. Fast forward to 2021 now with the year we’ve closed 20 wholesale deals.

Ashley:
Congratulations. That’s awesome. What a starting story, losing out on a deal, but it was also such a great learning experience as to how we make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Tony:
And Ash, can I add one thing. Something that you mentioned Terry, that I thought was really interesting. There’s this, I don’t know, this personal development theory out there. It’s called habit stacking. But basically you take a well established habit that you already have and you add on top of that, a new habit or routine that you’re trying to implement. And what I thought was really interesting was that you said you had this goal of wanting to spend X number of hours, driving for dollars see X number of houses. And you said every time I would leave practice or training, I would just go drive for dollars. And it’s really subtle, but that’s a really powerful strategy to implement new routines into your life. You already have this really well established routine of training. As an athlete, you have to do that.
So you said before I go home, let me just have just enough willpower to make this left down this other road. So I can go explore this new neighborhood and hopefully get a few houses that way. So for all the rookies that are listening, if you’re trying to analyze more deals, if you’re trying to reach out to more agents, if you’re trying to find wholesalers, find a part of your day that’s already really structured. A part of your day that’s already really habitual and see if you can add it on top of that. So if it’s every morning when I get out of bed, I’m going to brush my teeth with my laptop right there. So as soon as I put my toothbrush down, I’m going to analyze five deals. Whatever it is, but just find that part of your routine that’s already really habitual. Then add on that new part that’s going to help your real estate business. I like that. Cool. So just dropping knowledge there.

Ashley:
So Terry, after you get into wholesaling, what’s kind of the next piece of it. How long are you wholesaling for? And then what’s the next thing you take on?

Terry:
So when I first got my first wholesale deal, it was like the best feeling in the world. I was just like, wow, I just figured another source of income. Another way I can make money that’s not the traditional job, the 9:00 to 5:00 way.

Tony:
Terry really quickly, sorry. How long after that failed deal, did you actually get your first wholesale deal?

Terry:
To close it took around 60 days.

Tony:
All right. Not even that much longer. That’s awesome, man.

Terry:
So it was definitely a great feeling, but I told myself I want every deal I do I try to invest back into the business. And then as I’m starting to wholesale and I’m wholesaling in the desert, I’m starting to see the numbers and the numbers that investors are making. I wholesale the property to an investor in a desert. It was early on, it was part of my fourth deal. And always to check up on the investors that I wholesale my property. So I’m like, “Hey how’s that property doing?” And the property at the time was a $300,000 property. And she says, “It’s doing amazing. We just made $7,000 and grossed it in a month.” And I was just like, “Wait, $7,000.” I’m like, “You made $7,000. I just bought a property in Delaware that’s worth 300,000. And it makes $2,000 in rent every month.”
I’m like, so now one, I’m wholesaling to you and I’m seeing the numbers you’re creating. And it’s just like, oh wow, okay, I might have made $5,000 off an assignment fee to you, but you’re making more than that every single month. And I was just like, okay, wholesaling now to me is really just a means to an end. It’s a way to build capital now. But that capital is not just for me. That capital is going to be to invest into real estate and invest and do what these investors are doing. So my next thing was the next deal I got, when I was financially ready with enough capital from wholesaling was to take down a property for myself. So I happened to get a deal that was for $230,000 under contract in the desert for a great short term rental destination. And at first it was like, okay, I can go wholesale.
It’s like, I think I could do $15,000, $20,000 on an assignment fee. And then when I went and toured it and viewed it myself, I was just… I just had that feeling. I was like, I got to hold onto this one myself. I got to take this one down myself. And I think I’m at that point, I’m ready to do that. So the wholesaling was great. It taught me, really, how to invest the proper way by just following what investors were doing. And when the time came, when I had enough capital, I bought the property, renovated it. And now today I’m looking to either one, sell it on the market for around $500,000, which is a huge spread or two it’s a short term rental in December, we’ll see around $8,500 in gross rent from Airbnb.

Ashley:
That’s so cool, Terry. So when you decided to purchase this and to keep it for yourself, well, first of all, it reminded me of Ryan Dossey. He has a slogan, something about like, keep the best, wholesale the rest or something like that. Where as a wholesaler, you can keep the best properties for yourself. And then the ones that are still good wholesale those ones. But with your first property that you bought for your short term rental, how did you finance that? Had you saved enough cash from your wholesaling business to purchase this property?

Terry:
So it was about… I would say that was my fourth or fifth wholesale deal and I did save enough cash. And then when I close on it I knew I had two more wholesale deals coming in that same month. So I was like, I have more than enough cash to really start to renovate this. And that was about a year later after my Delaware property. So I was able to do another 3% down payment as a primary residence. And I took about three months to really renovate it, get the right contractors in there, and it was a really solid project.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. I want to ask kind of like a lifestyle change here. So you’re making this quick cash from wholesaling. How did you not go out and splurge and how did you make the decision to save that money? Because I think when you have such a rapid income growth in a short amount of time, what would be your advice to someone who experiences that and not just blow it all on a sports car and to continue to invest the money?

Terry:
I always knew, because wholesaling to me, it is a lot, a lot of work. And I kind of wanted to be able to take that wholesaling money and put it into cash flowing assets that produce passive income. the money that I really don’t have to work for. And I keep like a little sheet on my computer and it kind of shows me all my cash flowing assets and all my passive income. And for me, it’s like, I want to be financially free within the next three, four years. So I only have one asset that’s really given me financial freedom and it was my house in Delaware. And with all expenses in the house in Delaware, it really was netting me about $500. So even though I have a lot of money coming in from wholesaling, it was just that all right I’m not close to being financially free.
I want that $500 to turn into $10,000, $20,000. So I was like, all right, the best thing to do to make that happen would be to invest back into real estate and invest into short term rentals and start creating passive income. So it was just like, even though I’m working and making a good bit of checks each and every month from wholesaling. It was just, this is not the lifestyle I want to be working, getting on the computer for six, seven hours a day. I want that money to be in real estate. So I just didn’t look at it like, okay, life’s great. I’ve made a six figure business. I can keep doing this year over year. I was kind of like, no, this is just a little bit of cash that’s liquid. Now let’s take this money and let’s turn it into repeatedly cash flowing assets of money.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. One thing that I’m super curious about that I saw in the show notes that you do is you do land deals, and you’re wholesaling land deals. I would love for you to kind of break down what one of those land deals are.

Terry:
So I started off mainly doing wholesaling homes and houses, and sometimes houses and properties can be really, really, in my opinion, really, really tough. And houses do in my opinion, also get the highest assignment fees. But land on the other end, it’s a lot easier for me. Because one, everything I need to see about a lot or a parcel of land is really on a satellite image. And I don’t have to show up in person. I don’t have to be there. I don’t have to inspect it. I can do land deals almost anywhere around the earth.
So a lot of land deals really for me, are just finding out the condition of the land. Just like how you’re wholesaling a property. You need to know the condition of a property. Is the roof good? Is the HVAC system up and running? But for land deals, the only condition that you need to know for the land is the utilities.
And those utilities, water, does it have electricity? Is it accessible? And all those information you can find out from the city or through the parcel maps. And when I started just doing that land over and over, it was just like, wow, I don’t have to show up, investors pretty much know what parcels of land they want to buy. And the sellers didn’t really have that same emotional attachment to the parcels of land as they do with properties. So it kind of helped me go from one deal a month to now doing land, do two to three deals a month.

Ashley:
Can you give us a breakdown of the numbers on one of those land deals and kind of what it looked like, how you found the land deal, what was the purchase price, how you negotiated it with the seller?

Terry:
Recently I had a land deal. We locked it up for $30,000 called the owner, and the owner happened to have inherited the property. She said she was paying taxes and just didn’t want the parcel of land at all. And really was just looking for a quick closing. So I was saying, “Hey we’re able to offer you that.” And in my opinion, I think $30,000 we’ll be able to close very quickly. So I spoke to a couple investors who I know who are purchasing land at a high level out in the desert. And I said, “Hey I have a parcel of land.” And I kind of thought this was a… I like to start off high. And haven’t worked me. And I said, “Hey, I have a parcel land for $50,000.” And one of the investors said, “I’ll take that parcel land. I like that area.”
So I had this land deal already locked up under contract for $30,000 in escrow. So I sent him the assignment contract and the assignment contract basically states that he’s to purchase the parcel of land for $30,000 and pay my corporation, an assignment fee of $20,000. And in total, he’s to pay $50,000 in all to purchase the property. So that happened. And after the seller was really happy to just get the land off their hand. And he was, hey, keep giving me more land. And I was able to collect $20,000 assignment fee. So that was my best land deal.

Ashley:
Yeah. I would say once you get that $20,000, you’re going to get a little hooked on land deals after that. So Terry, how did you find like an end buyer for the land deals?

Terry:
Finding my sellers and my buyers. I use PropStream for all of this. And so PropStream allows you one to find motivated by specifies any type of criteria that you’re looking for on PropStream. So you can do high equity, vacant, vacant land, tax delinquent, any type of property, prop stream’s going to show you every homeowner with that specific criteria to the property. And then on top of that, when I find my cash buyers, I use sometimes word of mouth, going on Facebook groups. And then sometimes I pull a cash buyer list of everyone who’s bought property with cash in the area within the last year, in that same area that I lock up a property in. And I usually go and send out texts or call them and ask them if you’re interested in this property.

Tony:
So Terry let’s pull on this spread a little more. So when you’re cold reaching out to someone who’s purchased land previously, what does that dialogue look like? What are you saying? What are you telling them?

Terry:
I’ll usually blast out the land, “Hi buyer. I have a off market land deal available, wanted to see if you were interested in it.” And then I’ll give them some details on the land and put my name at the end. If that’s the first like introduction. A lot of times they’ll say “Who’s this.” And ask a lot of questions and I’ll just say, “Hey, name’s Terry. Local investor in the area, found a parcel of land. Wanted to see if you were interested in it. If not, I can take you off of listen never text you again.” And a lot of times these land buyers who are frequent land buyers. They’re like, “No, no, no, keep them coming.” And of course, you’ll get some land buyers who are like, “Please don’t text me again.” Which is fine. People who probably just buy one land for themselves and not really an investor. But yeah, that’s typically how the conversations go.
And then always after, when I build a relationship with them, I’m always looking to kind of ask them, “Hey, are you looking to do with this parcel of land?” Or, “Hey, how do you look on developing this?” Or “What are you looking to do with this property?” And the reason I do that is because I want to kind of… I see what price they’re buying the land at. I kind of want to know how you’re developing, what you’re about to spend to develop. Because in the end of the day that like, that’s what I want to get to. And that’s the type of level I want to get to. So I value those connections and relationships with investors.

Tony:
Terry, you seem like a hustler man. I love the fact that you’re grinding out on the phones to get that first deal. You’re cold calling up people who are buying land, building your cash buyers list. You’re not just waiting for these things to fall into your lap. You’re going out there and you’re making it happen. And I think that’s such an important point for all of our Rookie listeners to understand is that if you want to find success, you got to grind it out.
You got to take the action. You can only watch so many videos on YouTube or listen to so many podcasts or read so many books. At some point, the rubber has to meet the road. And I feel like what’s partially attributed to part of your success is the fact that you’re not afraid to go out there and make that happen, man. You got to do it. You got to do it. So going back to one of the point that you mentioned when you’re actually looking for the land. You said that one of the things that you’re really looking for is utilities and that you don’t even have to in person to kind of figure those things out. So kind of walk us through that process. I know we’re looking for water, power, maybe gas, but what exactly are you looking for? How are you finding those things? What’s a good sign? What’s a bad sign? How do you make your decisions?

Terry:
Yeah, so I like said, land is just… It’s honestly, I wholesale over 10 parcel of land and I’ve never been to any of them physically. And when I see the satellite image and land, you can have 2.5 acres in one location. You can have 2.5 acres in another location. One to me can be worthless. And one to me can be worth over $100,000 dollars. And both of them are the same size, but really what depicts that is the utilities. And for one, the first thing I look is it one accessible by road. A lot of times there’s a lot of what I call or a lot of investors call landlocked properties. And landlocked properties are kind of lots that makes it so you can’t access to it. And most of the time when they are landlocked, that means there’s no water going to it.
And if there’s no water going through it, the price to bring water to a property that’s landlocked and bring a natural road to it will cost an investor over… Could cost them over $200,000 and which completely makes it not a deal. Another thing I look for on the satellite image is to see if the land has any washes going through it. So a wash is it’s a natural drainage that goes through lots of parcels. And usually, well in the city I’m in, but in most cities you’re not allowed to obstruct a wash. So if a wash is going through a parcels of land it’s going to make it completely un-buildable for an investor to come and build upon. That’s another thing that I look out for. And then of course, electricity, I look for electric poles and if a property has a water meter, has electricals and it’s accessible, I look at it as gold.
That’s a property that an investor can go on and build upon quickly and easily. I think what’s been separate, what’s taking me to the next level in wholesaling is starting to really think like an investor. Now I don’t go into these properties like all right, I got to offer this because I think an investor will go into it. I go into it as like, hey, I’m an investor. I want to build. It’s accessible. It has water, ti has electricity, at $20,000, I can build on that and it can be a good deal. And I think that connection with your buyers or your investors and seeing what they want, why they want that specific criteria for their land, home or whatever, it’s only going to help you with wholesaling and investing in general.

Tony:
So Terry, I want to, I want to drill down a little bit on how you’re identifying some of these things. So some of the things you mentioned are access roads, washes not running through the property, water connections, and then electrical poles. So I just want to kind of run through each of those separately. So in terms of the access road, how can I determine if a property is accessible or not just by looking at an image. Should I be looking for some kind of marker on app or am I calling the county? How do I identify if there’s access to a specific parcel?

Terry:
Access, it’s pretty easy to find. Any type of map, Google maps, your iPhone maps, you’ll see the road name and then you’ll be able to see the parcel right next to it. But if the parcel is, if you see like the road name and then there’s the parcel, and then there’s another parcel two parcels behind it. It’s most likely not accessible. But like say Main Street and it’s right along Main Street, then that’s how it’s accessible to that property. And then if an investor comes in and wants to make a driveway from Main Street to their property, it’s super simple for them to do that.

Tony:
Gotcha. So that handles the accessibility. Now what about the water connection?

Terry:
So the water connection is a little tricky depending on the city that you’re in. I usually call the city up or sometimes they have an online website where you just put the parcel number in. And when you put the parcel number in, it’ll tell you, okay, there’s either a water meter or not a water meter. Or they’ll tell you if water’s running on the main line. And sometimes they’ll even tell you the price to extend the water line on the street. And I’ll get all that information online. And if to be honest, if it costs more than $60,000 to extend that main line, I kind of is like, ah, it’s not that good of a parcel of land.

Tony:
Okay. So it was really easy to get that information online. Is it similar for the electric connection as well? Are you following the same process or it’s something different there?

Terry:
For the electric I go onto the satellite image and I’ll zoom in and like, you’ll see like that little pole kind of sticking up and like you’ll kind of even see like the little electric lines going. And if that’s right along the street, perfect. That means you got electricity there. Sometimes electricity is further away or really far away. So when I see that, that kind of indicates to me as like, all right, electricity’s not in this area.
One, the investor’s either going to have to extend the electric poles or do solar panels. So it’s not a deal breaker if the electric’s not in the area, but I just have to inform the investors that the nearest electric pole is probably 1,000 feet away. And then another thing I do look at is are there houses nearby. Now, if there’s houses nearby, that kind of shows me, okay, there must be water on the street. There must be electricity. Now if there’s this parcel of land with no houses near it whatsoever. You got to think like, okay, no, one’s developing here. And that’s probably a reason, no one’s developing here.

Ashley:
Terry, that was so much great information. Almost like a real deep dive into what you need to know about land. Because I think a lot of times you just think like, oh, land, it’s just a personal land. I don’t need to do any due diligence, nothing. I just maybe make sure the survey lines are correct. And then I could sell it to somebody else, but you’re right there’s so many little things that can change the value of the property. That if you’re going to wholesale or to develop, you need to look into before you actually purchase the property. Thank you so much for sharing that all with us.

Terry:
Of course.

Ashley:
I’m going to take us to our rookie request line. You guys can give us a call at 1-888-5ROOKIE, and when you leave a voicemail, it’s actually emailed directly to Tony and I. And we get to listen to them. And we love when you guys share with us your questions so we can play them on here for a guest.

Speaker 4:
Hi, my partner and I, Vanessa and Ariana, we’re both wholesalers and we’re new at this. And we are wondering how do people find the accurate equity on a homeowner? So we did the drive for dollars, and we just need some information on what websites or how to find accurate information on a homeowner and their property. Thank you.

Terry:
This is so great, because this is like the information that I didn’t know in the beginning when I was driving for dollars either. So great question and I use PropStream. Now PropStream does give you a seven day trial, it’s about $100 a month, but those properties that you do find driving for dollars. If you input the street address, state 123 Main Street into PropStream, it’s going to show you everything about the property owner. Even the little bit of too much information, they’ll even tell you the mortgage amount, how much they owe on a property, who they have the mortgage with, who the owner is. If they have another owner. Almost everything you need a new, you can run comps through PropStream as well. They’ll even give you a little evaluation of what they think the property’s worth.
And I think it’s a great, great tool and you can even skip choice through PropStream as well. So say if that person wants to call them, they can get their number and email address to reach out to them. It’s been a great tool, it’s been a tool that I’ve used to close almost every one of my deals. So PropStream will definitely [inaudible 00:45:15] that information out. And it also does… It has a driving for dollars system on it as well. So when I was driving for dollars in the beginning, I was like, “Hey, I was on this street already.”
So what PropStream does it tracks every street that you’re on. And when you go back to your map and you just like go into the driving for dollar system okay I already was on Main Street. I already found some properties there. So that’s just a good thing that it does. And that could definitely answer that person’s question.

Ashley:
There’s a couple other apps too, that I’ve used as a Land Glide and even onX Hunt where you can like drop a pin on the location. And onX Hunt, it’s actually four hunters to track yourself as you’re hunting or to track where you have a food plot or your tree stand or things like that. And to look at you shoot a deer and it runs onto somebody else’s property, whose property that is to see if it’s okay to go there, call them whatever.
But I was looking at 1,200 acres recently and we took a side by side out there and we used the tracker to track where we were going on the property. And we spent like three hours out there and we hadn’t even covered like a third of that 1,200 acres, but it was just so cool to like see the visual of it and just, technology and apps that are free or such a low cost that a lot of these tools can help you provide so much value to you and help you run your business more efficiently too. You said how you had already been on that street and now you can track that to see where you’ve already been.

Tony:
Can we pull that thread a little more, actually, what other… So you talked a lot about PropStream Terry. What other, maybe, software tools are you using in your, either your wholesale business or you’re a short term rental business to kind of help things stay automated and fresh?

Terry:
I use Mojo Dialer. Now, Mojo Dialer allows me and my virtual assistants to contact everyone on the list that we pull at a higher rate. And it kind of keeps things a lot organized as well. So what Mojo does is a three to one dialer. And it’ll ring three people at once, and it’s going to put you on the phone with the first person who answers. And then drop voice messages to people who don’t answer. So in the beginning, when I was cold calling by myself, I just printed out a list and I had three highlighters and I would call everybody one by one by one, after the workouts for like three hours a day. And it took me about four hours to really contact around 80 people. Each day my virtual assistants contact around 400 people with the Mojo Dialer. So it makes things way faster and more efficient and way more organized too.
So that’s one thing that we use. And another thing we use is Roor R-O-O-R, and that’s a texting system. So like I said, in the beginning, it took me four hours to reach about 80 people. So with Roor, it allows me to do a text blast and say, if Tony and Ashley are both on my list of homeowners that I’m targeting, it’ll send a custom text message like saying, “Hey, Tony, or, hey, Ashley, was contacting you about your property at both of your guys’s address, wanted to see if you guys are willing to consider an offer.” So it’ll send that text. And when I do a text campaign, I’ll probably reach out to 2,000 people within two hours and it’ll be custom text and Roor also has phone numbers too. So your phone number’s not going out to everybody as well. And those are kind of the main tools I use. Really the main softwares I use is Roor, PropStream and Mojo Dialer.

Tony:
Awesome, man. So I appreciate you sharing the software stack. Love to kind of hear what’s running in other people’s business, man, because I know I got my software that I love. But I love hearing what other people would use, man. So Terry, you’ve man, given so much value and I feel like we could bring you back, man, just to kind of dive into how you built out your systems and processes as well. Because you just dropped a little nugget at the end there that you’ve got VAs kind of making a lot of your phone calls now. So we could do a whole episode on that.
But before we wrap up, I want to give a quick shout out to week’s Rookie rockstar. And again, if you want to be highlighted on the podcast, get active in the real estate, Rookie Facebook group, we’re on the BiggerPockets forums. Maybe tag, Ash and I on something on Instagram. We’ll pull from there as well. But today’s Ricky rockstar is Manny. And Manny closed on investment property number one. Manny said “Lots of hard work and sacrifice for us here and we couldn’t be more prouder. We did a two or three K loan on this two family residents and with full determination, we got it done in under 60 days with my wife being in her 39th week of pregnancy.” Cutting it really close there. “So we’re happy to start out as real estate investors and all the information and learning, reading, and constant research related payoff.” So Manny, congratulations to you and your wife on the real estate investment and even more so on the new baby that’s coming into the world.

Ashley:
Terry, thank you so much for joining us. Can you let everyone know where they can reach out to you and find out some more information.

Terry:
Thank you guys for having me again. And if anyone wants to reach out, Instagram me, feel free to message me, I try to reach out to everybody. And if you have any questions about wholesale and real estate short term rentals, feel free to just DM me. My Instagram is TerryHarris15, and I just started a YouTube channel this year. So I’m trying to kind of create some traction on that and speak about wholesaling, real estate and investing in general. So the YouTube channel’s name is TCash, T-C-A-S-H.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. I’m excited to check out your YouTube channel.

Terry:
Appreciate it.

Ashley:
Thank you so much for joining us. I loved your motivation and inspiration and I love guests like you because it gets me so pumped up to like go after another deal or to do something big and to keep going. So yeah. Thank you so much, Terry.

Tony:
Ashley can I add one last thing before we go. Because Terry, I feel like we should… I just want to give some context to the guests. I think when a lot of people hear professional athlete that maybe they assume that you’re like LeBron James and you’re making multimillions of dollars a year. I’m not asking you to share how much you’re making, but was that true starting point? Were you Kobe Bryant salary?

Terry:
I’m going to share with you guys. So the NBA G… And a lot of people do think that, so an NBA G league is actually, it’s a $35,000 salary. So with that, and I try to tell people it matter to me, what your salary is. You can make it happen with real estate. So that’s what I made in those six months, given granted that they accommodated living for us. But it still was tough to get that first property up and running.

Ashley:
This was when you were living in LA.

Terry:
Oh no, this is when I was in Delaware.

Ashley:
In Delaware. I was going to say in the cost of living in-

Terry:
I don’t know if that would happen.

Tony:
Yeah. Well, thank you for being transparent here. I wanted to make sure that we shared that with delicious because people might hear professional athlete and automatically assume that you’re like some multi-millionaire already. So you’re on your way there. But there’s a journey for all of us.

Ashley:
Yeah. And also even if he was a professional athlete that has made a lot of money over the years, kudos to those that are, that have succeeded that way and that are taking advantage of that opportunity and spending it on real estate investing and growing their wealth instead of splurging on other things and not having anything for retirement. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I am asked at Wealth From Rentals and he’s Tony at Tony J Robinson. And we will see you guys on Saturday for a Rookie reply, but lastly, before you go, let’s check out what’s new at biggerpockets.com to provide you guys the most value.