THE FUTURE OF REAL ESTATE BELONGS TO INNOVATORS || RUDY GOMEZ || EPISODE 050

So the way I got introduced to the whole world of like business and entrepreneurship, it wasn't real estate in the beginning, it was just business. And I was actually selling shoe store called Journeys. I don't know if you guys heard Journeys, but I was selling shoes and I was pretty good at it, right? Like you come in for one pair of shoes, you leave with like two socks and a shoe cleaner, right? And this guy came in, he's like, Hey, I really like your style. Like I want to mentor you. And I was like, this is kind of weird. I was like 16 at the time. I wasn't even 17 meeting him. He gave me this book called Rich Dad Poor Dad, right? And there was a four quadrants. It was like the investor, the business owner, the employee. And what really stood out to me was the investor, right? Cause I was like, wait, can make your money work for you. And I started learning more about investing. And then I learned about real estate, right? So it was like, what better tangible asset? Like what else, you know, I like real estate, seem cool, like houses and buildings. I was like, why not get into that? And they say 90% of millionaires were made from real estate. How did that transition end up happening when you were from like realtor to wholesaling? Yeah. So good question. So I went to a meetup in Torrance and it was a small meetup. There was maybe like three or four people there. And they started talking about wholesaling and I was still an agent at Berkshire Hathaway at the time. Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett. Yeah. Yeah. So I started off at the KW and Cerritos and then I transferred to the Berkshire Hathaway and Gardena. Okay. Right. So I was working for Berkshire Hathaway and learned about wholesaling at this meetup and it was more of like submitting offers, getting properties under contract. And then I joined a corporate wholesale company and that's where I really learned a lot of the ropes. I had really great leaders in the company, I will say, so I learned a lot from them. And then that's where I met my. The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Again, we are in the Golden State, the city of angels. It's amazing to be able to be here. If you are curious and interested in learning a lot about wholesaling, real estate, flipping, buying, you know, investing, finding good deals. This is the episode for you. I'm going to give you a brief introduction of our guest today in the episode. He's a CEO and also the co-founder of acquired, comma, with the D. The entire purpose of acquired is literally helping qualified investors find quality deals, seven figure wholesaler and helping, like I said, if you're in wholesaling, this is the episode for you on also if you're looking for good deals. Our amazing guest today, he goes by the name of Rudy Gomez. Welcome to the studio, Rudy. How are you doing, boss? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for having me. This is a beautiful studio, by the way. The views amazing. This is the best. You know, I was telling them earlier on, I've done like probably seven or eight studios across the country. This is like the best one because I, I'm very specific at what I look at because it's not necessarily about like location. Location, of course, is important, but like the feel, you know, like when I'm in here, like it's just, there's like a good feel about it. So shout out to the team for an amazing studio. Yeah. Yeah. When you sent me the address, I looked it up and I was like, oh, this is a nice area. Like I'm curious how it's going to look and, you know, sure enough, it's beautiful view. When they say this opposite crypto arena, I was sold on that. I was like, yeah, nothing else. If I, I can just LeBron down there. The practicing. Awesome stuff. So I know you and I spoke briefly as well. Born and raised in LA. How'd you like LA? I love it, man. Like I told you, like I always thought I was going to move. Like I looked at Texas. I even looked at Florida. Florida was, I was very close to moving to Florida. But as I started to do more traveling, I just realized there's really no place like LA for me personally, right? It's funny because I go out and some people are like, oh, you live in LA. Like how's that? And I'm like, it's amazing. It's like paradise, sunshine, beaches. There's pros and cons for sure. But yeah, born and raised in LA, different parts of LA, but like we were talking about earlier, LA is so big. So depending on what you want, they're all here. You know, it's crazy when you said Florida, because I've done, I've literally traveled in 41 different states. There's two specific cities where I feel extremely young entrepreneurs are thriving. And maybe it's because of the people I've been connecting with, but one of the two cities, one of them is Miami, Florida. Like I went there for a week and I was just blown, like, you know, by just the amount of young entrepreneurs down there. And then Scottsdale, Arizona. I don't know if you've ever been like to Scottsdale before, but like there, those are the two hubs of young, like super young people, just like making a killing. Whether it's thought ups, you know, solo or entrepreneurs, just people that are out there just making LA is always going to have that because of just like the diversity and the industry as well. And it's just like thriving, but like those two stood off for me. But in terms of like LA is LA LA has always been LA and LA will always be LA. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, awesome stuff. I'm, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? I'm 25. Okay. You're looking way younger than 25. Oh, thank you. I thank you. I appreciate you. I used to get carted a lot, but like when I don't get carted, I'm like, are they going to ask? Like, do I look older now? But thank you. Awesome. I know that you started your journey. Um, and obviously I did my research as well. Um, you started your journey when you were 17 years old. Can you just run us through like when you started like in your early years? How did that teach you about credibility? How so just talk about your journey at age 17. Yeah. Well, so the way I got introduced to the whole world of like business and entrepreneurship. It wasn't real estate in the beginning. It was just business. And, uh, I was actually selling shoes at a shoe store called journeys. I don't know if you guys heard journeys. Um, but I was selling shoes and I was pretty good at it. Right. Like you'd come in for one pair of shoes. You'd leave with like two socks and a shoe cleaner. Right. And, um, this guy came in, he's like, Hey, I really like your style. Like I want to mentor you. And I was like, this is kind of weird. I was like 16 at the time. I wasn't even 17. I was maybe even younger. I was like, maybe like 15, 16. And he was like, meet me at his Starbucks in Long Beach and like, we'll talk more there. And like, he didn't really give me too much information. And at the time, I don't know if you, have you ever heard of this company called Amway? So it's like, I'm way, AMW, AY, yeah, yeah. Right. And white kind of thing. Was it, I think so. It's been years, but they're like an MLM multi-level or multi-level marketing company. Oh yeah. One of those companies, right? Um, I didn't end up getting into it, but meeting him, he gave me this book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. Right. And there was a four quadrants. It was like the investor, the business owner, the employee. And what really stood out to me was the investor, right? Cause I was like, wait, you can make your money work for you. And I started learning more about investing. And then I learned about real estate. Right. So it was like, what better tangible asset? Like what else, you know, I like real estate. Uh, it seemed cool, like houses and buildings. I was like, why not get into that? And they say 90% of millionaires were made from real estate. Right. So one day I was walking home. I had been studying like real estate. I was like, you know what? I'm going to get my license by the time I turn 18. Um, I'm going to get my license and start off as a realtor and then eventually work on to be an investor. And, uh, I was walking home, saw an open house and talk to the realtor. And I was like, Hey, like I want to get into real estate. I'm going to graduate high school. Like what can I do? And she was like, come to this office Monday morning and it was on a Saturday. And, uh, she was like, it was a killer Williams and serritos, right? Go there, meet people like the broker and the team lead and everybody there. And I started off as an intern. It's funny the way I started because I was talking to the broker and I was like, Hey, is there anything I can do? Like hang out here? Like what can I do just to be more present? And this guy happens to be walking by and he's like, Hey, Armando, he's like, are you looking for an assistant? And he's like, no, he's like, well, you have one, right? So I ended up being his assistant for about almost a year, eight months to like a year doing open houses with him, cold calling. I was 17 at the time. Um, he worked a lot with the Hispanic community. So I would do a lot of like Spanish cold calling Spanish meeting. So my Spanish got a lot better during that time. And, um, as soon as I got turned 18, got my real estate license joined another team and then got introduced to the wholesale side. But I actually sucked as a realtor because I was very young, right? And, you know, a lot of people, their biggest purchase is going to be their home, right? For most people, right? For majority of the population, unless they're buying like a yacht or a jet or something, right? Which is not most people, right? So it's a big emotional decision. There's a lot of emotion involved. And to trust an 18 year old wasn't the easiest. Like I did get listings, right? People did were more open to working with me on the investor side, because investors don't care how old you are. They just care how much value you bring, right? So it was a lot of a different type of relationship with these investors. And a lot of them, they actually liked the fact that I was young and they were more open to teaching me. And then how did that transition end up happening when you were from like realtor to wholesaling? Yeah. So, uh, good question. So I went to a meetup in Torrance and it was a small meetup. There was maybe like three or four people there and they started talking about wholesaling and I was still an agent at Berkshire Hathaway at the time. Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett. Yeah. Yeah. So I started off at the KW in Cerritos and then I transferred to the Berkshire Hathaway and Gardena. Okay. Right. So I was working for Berkshire Hathaway and learned about wholesaling at this meetup and it was more of like submitting offers, getting properties under contract. And then I joined a corporate wholesale company and that's where I really learned a lot of the ropes. I had really great leaders in the company, I will say. So I learned a lot from them. And then that's where I met my business partner, Miguel. And we were like, Hey, like, why not just do our own thing? Because we worked really well together at that company. And there were other things that we wanted to do like our, our own way, right? Cause like I said, it was more of a corporate company, which they're doing great. They're obviously doing what they're doing for a reason, right? They've built a system that works. Um, but we felt that we can do things a little bit differently and kind of our way and get a little bit more creative with it. So we decided to do our own thing. Okay. You know, what's interesting about wholesaling is that, um, in the real estate market, uh, this is a few names that I've, that I've met. Um, matter of fact, in, in AZ, um, you probably might know him, Carlos Reyes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I met him like 2022, 2023 as well. Oh, what, or one of Brad's meetings. But the reason I'm bringing this up is the market has changed since 2020. Oh yeah. COVID time, right? Oh yeah. And like looking back, pre COVID and off the COVID, what has been the biggest differences? Yeah. So it's, it's so crazy. Cause I remember in like 2021, 2022, like it didn't even make sense. Like properties were selling 3, 400 K above the ask. Like money was so cheap, like interest rates were at 3%. People were getting bid out on the open market. Like I remember like most people want the off market deals, right? Exactly. But there were deals that were listed on the MLS. A wholesaler would bid it up, get it on their contract, and then put it out to their network of investors. And then those investors would still bid it up, right? And end up picking it up, right? So it was, it honestly, like it was insane. It just didn't make sense at the time. Like houses were selling left and right, but the jump from three to 6%, I saw a lot of people, like a lot of commercial brokers leave the industry, a lot of mortgage brokers leave the industry. I even know of a guy that he worked, he came to join our team and the team that he was previously on his, like one of the owners committed suicide, right? Because he was over leveraged. So when that jumped from three to 6%, it was like 20 plus million dollars. And he just couldn't take the, all the stress, right? Now, you know, I feel like it was very interesting to see like how it was in December, January, February, I feel like a lot of investors, they like got a very excited, right? A lot of them, what they were waiting on was like the elections are like, I'm not touching anything until the elections. Like I'm going to hold off. Elections came, a bunch of them bought a lot. And what we're seeing right now is that a lot of them are their properties are kind of sitting on the market, right? Properties are sitting a little bit longer than general or than usual than it was in January, December. It was very interesting to see because the slowest quarter in real estate is usually the fourth quarter, right? Because, you know, you have the holidays, people don't want to move during new years and all those holidays, right? Interestingly enough, we had more units sold in the fourth quarter than we did in the summer months. Whoa. Yeah. Last year, and I'm not the only one, right? There's other companies that can say the same thing too. But now, like I'm saying, we're seeing a lot of investors, like they bought a couple of properties and they're stuck. They're like, Hey, I'm not buying anything right now. Not a lot of them, but like bigger players, they're just like, Hey, like we kind of overleveraged ourselves. We're waiting to hold these off and then buy more. Like right now I'm doing a flip to where we originally thought we're going to list it for, what did we say? 599 and we ended up listening it for 575. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. No, the reason I'm asking that, um, because I always in the Utah and Idaho area and the market, real estate market has completely went like ridiculous. Uh, my friend, cause we like, we did a lot of sales and solar and all that kind of stuff and he bought like, I think two, three homes in Idaho, literally right next to the university campus, BYU Idaho at that time for like 200,000, which is now going for like 600. That's insane. And so like Boise was the fastest growing city in the United States because many people were leaving California going down there. And like people were buying homes for like just literally three, four, five bedrooms for like about like two, three, $400, $400,000. And then like you and I spoke about the Bay Area, you just get like a one bedroom, two bedroom in the Bay Area. You click Zillow before you know it. It says like 3 million. I'm like, better be 3 million pesos. Exactly. What the hell is this? So the market has gone bonkers. So I had to ask you, how has everything been going regarding that? And has it been are people buying more homes right now in California? Like how has it been like California? Cause I, I, you know, I always say it's California. Like we're saying like California is always going to be people moving, moving in and out. I mean, we're still, I will say we're in like 19 non-contingent S girls. We have another 20 under contract. So investors are still buying. What we are seeing though is that the bigger price point, and that's in general, right, especially with the investor side of things and bigger price points, because there's a little bit of more of an uncertainty, right? It's more difficult to tie up the more capital into one project. Right. So what I am seeing on the investor side of things is like really good deals. Like they will have bigger spread, but bigger price points. Investors are a little bit more skeptical to, to touch it. There's still buyers out there, right? It just comes down to the risk tolerance, but we're also seeing like deals in the cheaper price points, like two, 300, 400,000, but with less margin selling quicker. Right. So they're willing to take less margin for a safer return than a little bit of more margin on a bigger project where they have to tie up more capital. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we're seeing right now. Like we just sold a deal in Stockton that was honestly like, I mean, there was money to be made, but it wasn't like a homerun deal. Maybe it was a single, right? Or a double and it sold from the moment that we got it signed from the seller. This was like two weeks ago, a week and a half moment from, we got it signed from the seller to having the wire and escrow an hour and 26 minutes. Bro, when you say Stockton, you bring good memories because that was one of my favorite areas in solar. Um, one of the people, obviously not only were they more receptive, it's the fact that there were just such big systems when I was doing solar down there because it's so hot and stocked them. The two or nine area. Cause I lived by Tracy and, um, Stockton, only problem is that many people were failing credit when we're down there. But like in term of my, my first deal was like a straight $15,000 when I was self-gening for solar. So like Stockton is like, man, it's, it's, it's home for me in terms of like sales and solar. And I'm glad you can, you know, you touched on that and California is also going to be California. Um, for all of you is out there that can't really like fathom what wholesaling in real estate is. How could you like best explain that? Yeah. And, and you honestly, like in the introduction, you did a great job. You're connecting quality deals with qualified investors. Right. I look at wholesaling as matchmaking. It's like arbitrage, right? Like I was saying, um, I was telling someone earlier, it's like Airbnb. They're one of the biggest, uh, you know, rental companies out there, but they're middle manning it, right? They're connecting homeowners that are putting their homes on the market with guests. Same with Uber. Uber doesn't own any cars, but they're connecting cars, drivers. They're the, one of the biggest transportation companies with people who need rights, right? It's arbitration. Um, so you're matchmaking yours in essentially the middle man because you're connecting motivated sellers with qualified investors. And a lot of the times that the sellers are in a distress situation or the house is distressed, right? Because investors, they don't necessarily buy turnkey, nice looking homes. They want to buy properties that they can come in, add value to the homes and then put it back on the market for a profit. Right. So whether there was maybe there was a death in the family, maybe there was a divorce, like I had one guy that wanted to sell before the end of the year for tax purposes, right? There's just different reasons why people may need to sell quick, right? So they work with someone like us that have a network of investors and then investors work with us because we kind of do a lot of the pre-negotiations, the heavy lifting, and then put it in front of the investor on a silver platter. Because to negotiate a deal that can take time, right? Like, like just today, we, yeah, we got these three properties on their contract in Torrance that one of my acquisition guys, we were talking about it, it took them two months to finally get them under contract, two months of negotiating with the seller, two months of figuring out the tenant situation. That's a lot of back and forth. Not only is it time, but it's money too. So we do all of that for the investors and then put it on a silver platter for them, for them to be able to say, Hey, I want this house. It's like Amazon and buying houses. If you want to open escrow today, as long as it's before 2pm, the wire cut off time, we can open escrow the same day. You see a house, you like it, we can buy it the same day. You go on ref and Zillow, you can't do that. Right. You go on ref and Zillow, that may take some time. There's counter offers, seller counter offers. They may say, Hey, we're doing an open house, but we're reviewing offers next week. We're doing all that up front. So by the time it gets to an investor, it's like, Hey, do you want it? Yes or no? Yes. Okay. Send the wire to escrow. We immediately open it and close it in two weeks. Powerful. That's powerful. On people sometimes usually super skeptical with wholesalers thinking, Oh, no, they're going to give me something that's going to be a little bit more expensive because I want to try and get that. But how do you just explain it right now? It's just like everything is done on their behalf. And as a qualified investor, you just end up just buying the property while everything is taken care of behind the scenes. What are some of the myths that you want to try and debunk about wholesaling? So a lot of the times, and honestly, like I don't blame investors when they say that because wholesalers will give out numbers that don't even make sense. Like I'm saying, and I'm a wholesaler myself, like wholesalers will out here at all the time, like, Oh, these wholesalers won't flake the ARVs and they'll tell me the rehab is only this, but it ends up being that. And I was like, well, that's perfect because there's two numbers I will not give is the ARV and the rehab. I let the investors decide what that is. And I always say, like I tell my team, it's like, let's differ, differentiate the difference between the facts and the opinions. Right. When we get a deal in their contract, an opinion is like, this is going to cost us 30 K. Well, I just flipped the condo. I got four quotes. The cheapest being 40 and the most expensive being 120 K and everything in between. So rehab is relative. Right. Like if I have a really good contractor, it's going to be cheaper than if I have a contractor that I've never used. Right. Same with ARV. I can say, you know, ARV is going to be 700,000. Right. Or I can say, well, there's a comp here. That's a three bed, two baths, slightly smaller than us, but it has a better view that one sold for 750. There's another comp here. That's a two bed, one bath, smaller house. You know, the lot is not usable. That one sold for 675. What do you think ARV is going to be? So like I'm naming the facts. That's what the comparables are. And then I'm not, I'm staying away from the opinions by saying, Hey, I think it's 700 same with the rehab. I'm not telling an investor, Hey, it's going to cost you 50 K. I'm saying, well, here's the pictures. Looks like the roof is good. Definitely needs new flooring, new kitchen, new bathroom. Looks like you can probably keep the windows. What do you think is going to cost to fix? Right. Versus saying it's going to cost 50 K to fix. Cause if I tell an investor is going to cost 50 K to fix and then they buy it based on that, and then they spend 50 and they're not even done. What are they going to say? They're not going to want to buy from me again. Exactly. Right. So that's what I tell my team is like, Hey, let's provide them with the facts. What are the comparables? Right. What's selling in the area and then put it on them to tell you what their ARV. Cause the last thing you don't want is like, let's say, same with the ARV. Let's say I tell you, Hey, if you buy this house, it's going to sell for 700. And then you buy it based on that and you put it on the market for 700 and it's crickets. Like, are you going to buy from me again? Or are you going to be happy with me? Like probably no. Right. Versus if I say, Hey, these are the comparables. And I kind of let you decide what you think the ARV is. Right. It's not necessarily, I'm telling you the facts. These are the facts. Right. I'm not telling you what my opinion is. That's smart. It's the reason I was just thinking right now. That's how my, when I was growing up, my parents, my dad did that a lot like, Oh, you, you know, what's, what's, what's a good punishment for? Like, I don't know. Just ground me. And actually once happened the one time. So it's a good way because if they decide it makes such a big difference psychologically as well for sales in terms of closing a deal, I find it very fascinating. I like that so much. And you don't necessarily, has there been a scenario where you guys have actually bought the home yourselves and like found out there's a good deal to invest in yourself or is it just like between like the buyer and the investor? Yeah. So, so the way we wholesale is actually a little bit different. We actually do what's called a concurrent closing. So on every wholesale deal, we're actually closing on the property. So we're actually buying it, closing it, taking title, but we only, we're only on title for about 24 to 48 hours. And then we concurrently and sell it off market. So we're actually on title on these properties and we only own them for a bit. What about that? This, I thought there was one way you can buy something and it's only valid for like 30 days. Is that something completely different where if it doesn't close in within 30 days, it goes back to like the owner. Yeah. That could be like an option agreement, like an option to buy, or it could be like, let's say you have a property under contract with a 30 day inspection window where if you don't find a buyer, if you don't close on it within those 30 days, you can tell the seller like, Hey, like I'm within my inspection window. Like I don't want the deal. I'm out. There's that, there's that way to do it too. Um, but to answer your question, like, yeah, the really good deals, like right just today, I came, you know, well, I don't know if you know, it's the city of Paris. It's kind of deep in the inland empire. Not familiar with it. So it's, I think it's Riverside or San Bernardino County. It's about an hour and a half from LA. Okay. Um, so it's not the closest, but it's not the farthest either. Um, but that's a project that we're probably thinking about picking up ourselves. Um, I'm doing a flip right now in Culver city. That's not too far away. Just bought another one in Barstow. Those, those we keep as rentals, Culver city, we're flipping this one in Paris. We're probably going to flip it, but this one is going to be special because what we're trying to implement is crowdfund and syndicate within the team to promote investing within the company. That's so smart. Yeah. Two, not only does it, you know, promote investing because I work with a lot of young guys, right? So you don't want them to necessarily like blow it off. Right. Go out. You know, we'd like to have fun. So, but, you know, if you can invest it, right, put it into a project, keep reinvesting, not only does it promote, you know, building wealth, but it also helps with the retention, right? Like it's the biggest thing with retention because people want to work with a company that they make money, but they're also building wealth at the same time and reinvesting it within the company. So once we build that track record of like, Hey, we do a couple of projects within, we want to open it up for all the other investors and then have a fun where investors cannot just buy from us, but also invest with us because like we're talking about California is very expensive. And to invest in California, you need like six figures, like liquid on top of, you know, and if with a hundred K, you can maybe flip a five to eight hundred thousand dollar house, right? Which a lot of houses are more than that in California. So for someone that may have 20, 30, 40 K that they want to invest, they can put it in our fund. Maybe they want to get their feet wet or someone that's looking for something more passive, they don't want to deal with the hassle of flipping the house. They can put it into this fund because the really good deals will keep for ourselves and take on the projects ourselves and then the rest will wholesale. Oh, dude, that's that's money right there. That's that's absolutely amazing. And I'm so curious, when did you guys start acquired? Yeah, I like the acquired, you know, because it's with naming and how things going like right, it's very unique. They had like the apostrophe D. So I actually liked it a lot. I had to like, let you know, like, when did you guys start acquired? We just started actually, February 5th of last year. Okay. Yeah, February 5th of last year. Not big as your team. We have like 26 people. We have two locations. We have one in Beverly Hills and one in Costa Mesa. And between you and your co-founder, you guys are in different areas. Or is it like, how does that work? So we both work out of the Beverly Hills office because he lives in Hollywood Hills out of Beverly Hills. So we're both out of there. Um, but our team is split into sales and we have acquisitions. Okay. Yeah. So he, he focuses a lot more with the acquisitions team and I focus a lot more with the sales team. Okay. So acquisitions, they're focused on going out there hunting for the deal, uh, getting them under contract and then sharing it with our sales team. And then our sales team, what they're focused on is just going out there, building relationships with investors, networking with these buyers, and then adding them to our list so that when the acquisitions team gets a property under contract, each sales agent has their own individual network of investors to send it to. Wow. And speaking of that, I know that with, you know, with acquired, you guys really do focus a lot on like off the market deals. Um, what are some of those advantages that are in those off the market deals that are different compared to the traditional listing? Yeah. I mean, honestly, I'd say the biggest thing is like just working with a seller. It's just way easier to manage expectations with a seller than it is than working with a seller and then an agent, right? Cause there's an agent that you have to manage the expectation with. And then there's a seller. Sometimes the agents are cool, right? I've done a lot of deals with agents and they make a lot of money when we make our piece of change and it works out, right? But when it's just, you're just cutting out a middleman, another middleman, cause that's essentially what we're doing, right? So if we're direct to the seller, managing expectations is a lot easier, right? Like letting them know, Hey, we're going to have our team come in here. We're going to have a couple investors come check out the house. Um, and like I said, it's just less exposure. Investors just prefer off market. It's like they see two houses, same color, same bed and bath, um, same price. The one that's off market is always going to sell before the one that's off market, even though the numbers are the same, just because it's off market. It's going to sell faster. You know, the reason I loved, um, I've come across and spoken to a few wholesalers and people just like, there's this conflict between wholesalers and, and real estate agents. It's the funniest thing ever. It's just like, and then you know what's crazy about the wholesalers that most of them that I know are just like such cool dudes, like they wouldn't have a problem with any other thing, which in my assumption is just assuming that the real estate agent just up thinking the wholesalers are trying to take their deal and, and so forth and so on. What's this conflict happening there? I don't, so it's funny because I came from the traditional background, like working at Berkshire Hathaway and Keller Williams and you're right. They like, I didn't really know what wholesaling was at the time. So I didn't really like pay attention to it, but I didn't hear any positive things about it from, from some realtors, right? Not all of them, but I will say it's honestly, you hear more from like old school realtors, cause wholesaling is kind of more of an, it's not a new thing, but it just became more popular with social media. It's been going on for, for a while, right? But because of social media, it's became popular. I think agents, they see it as like, what, this guy who's, we always make a joke. Like wholesalers are in their, their, their parents' basement. Like, man, this kid in their parents' basement is like, cause they don't have to get a license, you know, you don't have to go through any special schooling, not that getting a license is very hard. It's literally like, you can get in like a month in California. It's funny cause you need to spend more hours in barber school than you do to get your real estate license. Crazy, right? So, um, I think that's what it is. And then you see a lot of new wholesalers getting into the game, which I personally think could be a double-edged sword, right? Because if it's so easy to get into, it's so oversaturated. And that's why, like, I will be honest, I've heard like this negative stigma around amongst wholesalers, right? And I totally get it because there's a lot of people coming into the market and kind of ruining it for people because they don't know exactly what they're doing. And if you're dealing with sellers, like, that's a pretty big deal, right? Like, you don't want to make sure, like, these are life-changing decisions, right? So you got to know what you're doing. And because it's so easy to get into just anybody can do it. I think it could be a double-edged sword. Um, but I think if you're around the right guidance and you're, you know, have right mentors around you or just a right team, I think you should be good. And then, which leads to my next question, I couldn't agree more. Like everyone doesn't matter. Like even, um, you don't follow much sports, but even in the field of business, every successful person has had like a mentor, someone they looked up to, someone they mimic, because the beauty about success is that it's cut, copy, paste, you know, and sometimes if you cut copy, paste, it helps you take a short cut to try and prevent them as six that they may, you know, that may have done as well. Did you have a mentor that taught you the ways as well? Yeah. Um, so I'm huge on like personal development, like huge, like little thing. Like I just finished a eight week Dale Carnegie course on communication. Wow. Um, speaking of Florida, I went to Patrick Beddavid sales leadership summit. I'm our logo. Freaking like you dude. Yeah. That's my guy right there. He's a beast. PPD is a beast. He's a beast. Um, I went to the vault like four or five years ago and then ever since every, I've been going every year since then. Last year I took the whole team. Um, this year we're going to take top producers last year was a little too much. Uh, it was like 20 people that we took. Um, so like, you don't do 10 X, you don't like 10 X. I haven't done 10 X. I haven't done 10 X. I just finished the last one. It was in Vegas. Yeah. Uh, thing. Yeah. And it was decent. Yeah. But it was the last and final one. But like the vault, I've heard nothing but great stuff. That's amazing. I haven't done the vault. I've done multiple 10 Xs, but so yeah. No, no, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Continue. Sorry. Um, no, him is, he's a really big, uh, I also am in an inner group. This guy named Albert Presciato just learned a lot from him. Um, and he's super local too. His office is down the street. Um, but we also have a business coach based out in Canada. Shout out to Steve. Um, it's very interesting because what he does is he helps, uh, startups get to like a million to 2 million and then like leaves. Like that's his thing. Right. Like past that, like he tells me like you need someone else to get you past that. Right. But he's never like really done wholesale deals, but he knows business. Right. So he helped us put a lot of our processes and systems in place. Like he didn't come to teachers about wholesaling. He came to teachers about business, like onboarding process, uh, systems, like little things like our website domains. I didn't even know what a domain was until we started the company. Right. To set up the emails, it took me like half a day. Right. Uh, but luckily like we have someone like, see, he's based out in Canada, but he helped us a lot in terms of like the business side of things. And he comes like his first business, I think was an, uh, electrical contractor business. And then he bought franchises, plumbing franchises, electrical companies. He would buy and resell businesses. Um, so he was helping us on the back end on in terms of like the systems and the processes. So he was a pretty big help too. He's still like, we still talk to him to this day. He still helps us out. You know what, what people don't understand is how, how important like, you know, networking is and, and just like building, um, personal growth and maintaining those relationships. Well, I spoke to you earlier on about Brad, because it's how I ended up like seeing you on the, on dropping bombs. Congrats on that, by the way. Um, not, not such a nice view in dropping bombs, but you know what? Take our wins. It's a very nice view. Yeah. But like with that, what Brad did, cause one of the first guys I had on my podcast was Andy Elliott. Nice. And so that was also complimentary for Brad. So like with Brad, like I think even like Keaton Hoskins, the muscle, one of the big, big entrepeneurs down in Utah, what I'm trying to say is that like people sometimes are very hesitant to try and like make that payment. Like thinking, you know what? I can get this thing myself, but like those examples just mentioned, like Albert, I know Albert, like I haven't met him in person, but all his stuff on social media. And I know like, you know, I saw that he followed you, Ryan, Pineda followed. So you already made, you know, made your name in the real estate market or the industry, but it also took a lot of time and going out there and like taking initiative, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I get DMs each time. Hey, KG, how do you connect with those person? Are you like the blueprint is right there. Just go out and have to have the desire. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I'm glad you kind of broke that down because mentorship is of utmost importance. You have to continue going out there, knocking the doors and like, you know, finding yourself in the right rooms because you'd be, you'd be impressed. People are willing to help you. Just take initiative. Yeah. Take action as well. Can you add one last thing on that? Yeah. No, just to give you like a very, very direct example, I paid like, like, I don't know, like 30 K or something like that for the inner circle group for with like Albert and, um, I met a CPA that saved me six figures. Like we were ready to pay. Like we had a CPA already in place. He had done my taxes for the last two, three years. Right. And we were already going to set up on a payment plan because it was pretty big tax bill and it was our first year in business. So like we didn't know what to expect. Right. Our first year, like actually starting acquired, right. And going to this event, I went to one of his inner circle events. It wasn't even a big event. There was maybe like 20 people in the room, max. And one of the speakers happened to be a CPA and I asked a question and I was like, I told him my situation. I was like, cause we do concurrent closings, right? So because we buy and resell, we're subject to short-term capital gains tax, right? Because we're actually buying the property and we're reselling it. Right. So there's pros and cons to doing the concurrent closing, but he was like, Hey, talk to me after this. And then I go up to him and he's like, dude, let's set up a zoom call. This was on a Saturday, the following Monday we had a zoom call. Like, like I said, I felt like I made a hundred thousand dollars because I went to that event and yeah, I paid 30 K. But if I'd never paid that, I would have been paying a hundred K to the IRS. Exactly. So that's a very like direct example of like why networking and why going out and talking to people is so important. No, no, I couldn't agree more. No, I love that, man. I appreciate that. And speaking of that as well, people really right now struggle a lot with deal flow, especially with how saturated the market can be sometimes. What strategies have you guys implemented to try and keep it consistent? And then the pipeline just ready to go. Yeah. I would say our biggest source right now, and it obviously did not happen overnight is relationships. Like agent relationships right now has been key. Like we've been doing, we do a lot. Like we do a lot of like we've been doing direct to seller. There's PPC, there's PPL, there's mailers that we've sent out. There's a little bit of everything that we do, but our biggest source is like networking with these realtors because these agents, I look at it as like an assembly line, right? Because just because you're working with an agent doesn't mean it has to be on market, right? In fact, most deals that we've done with agents have been more off market than on market because the way they look at it is like, if I'm an agent, right? And I have a distress property and like, I don't necessarily have to put it on the MLS, hire a photographer, tell the seller to make their house look pretty and nice and then coordinate open houses, do showings. If I can work with someone that like a wholesaler that they work with networks of investors that a lot of times they could either buy it side unseen, they can buy it based off of photos. I'm just going to save myself time, money too, because I don't have to spend it on marketing. And on top of that, because I'm already representing the seller, I don't have to put it on the market and risk another agent coming in and taking the buyer's agent commission because I could just double-ended represent, because in California, dual agencies allowed where you can represent the buyer and the seller. I'm already representing the seller. I can add my other two and a half, two percent representing this whole seller who's going to sell it to one of their investors. So now I'm getting paid double. Yeah. No, it's just I've been very fascinated about wholesaling because I see it's crazy. I've never been in this industry. If anything I've done, obviously pest control, but like solar was like big for me and insurance. Well, nothing has popped up more in my feed than wholesaling. Like I think there's one Vietnamese guy, Kang, you know, like just people are just popping up and stuff. But the thing is everyone that I've been following on, people are actually making money, like a lot of money of that because people are just, you know, really using an arbitrage that you kind of explain and trying to help people get deals. But also it's like a win-win scenario because seller, buyer, and also like, like the wholesaler as well. And I think it's a very rare occurrence where you actually get to see three entities completely winning. And that's all I've been seeing a lot. And it's, it's not a coincidence that it's like everyone's doing well because if a market like a ship rises with a tide, you know what I'm saying? So the more people do well together, it gives the industry a better name. But sometimes in like industries, you can get, oh my gosh, my industry was so cut throat, like you get people that were selling to dead people and doing social security. It was just crazy, bro. So that's what I'm trying. I've noticed wholesaling is just a booming market as well. I was like, I gotta get Rudy here. Rudy, what time works for you? You know, so I'm grateful. Yeah, man. I'm grateful. I'm grateful. Thanks for having me. Thanks for reaching out. And I wanted to figure out what does like your ideal investor look like and how do you build long-term trust with them versus traditional transaction? I think it's a, it was, I had to read that word for it. It's such a unique and important question, you know? Yeah. So biggest thing right now that I emphasize with the team is relationships. Right. Biggest thing that you see a lot of wholesalers do is like, Hey, you're an investor. Okay, cool. Send me your email. I'll add you to my list. And then I add you to my list. And then there's that. And then, you know, I send you emails, you probably delete them. I spam your inbox with emails and you maybe just read them, but not open them. That happens a lot. Right. In order to get on our list, it's free. Right. But you have to take the time to come to one of our offices, allow someone on my team, go to one of your projects, or we can do a zoom or Google meets call where I can see you face to face. I'm cool with FaceTime, even if it's FaceTime. Right. And then we sign an acknowledgement, two page acknowledgement, and then they can get our number list. And the reason why is because I want to emphasize the relationship part because yeah, I've built relationships with people over the phone, but there's nothing like face to face. There's nothing like I'm seeing you as a real person. So I want to get away from just being like a wholesaler to being more of a real estate investment advisor, a real estate investment consultant, right? As opposed to just some wholesaler that just inboxing people with deals. So biggest thing is like relationships and figuring out exactly what the buyer is looking for and what they need and figuring out like why they're even looking to work with us in the first place, just like anything. Like you want to have that doctor approach, like figuring out exactly what you're looking for, what your issues are and how we can help you. Right. Like I can't, like as a doctor, I can't give you a medication if I don't know what your diagnosis is. Right. So that's what a lot of wholesalers are doing. Oh, you're an investor. Cool. What's your number? What's your email? Let me add you to my list. Boom. I just start sending you deals and then we maybe talk every three or four months. Right. Versus. Hey, like, like it sounds like you're at a project right now. Like where's your next project? Maybe I can stop by and meet you there or, Hey, come by one of our offices or where's your office? I want to come and meet you. See the whole operation. Maybe you can walk me through your buying process. Right. Like really building the relationship with them. I'm all more about quality over quantity. You can add a hundred investors on your list in a month. But how many of them are really going to buy if you don't have that relationship with them? And a lot of our business is repeat business. Right. Because a lot of investors, they feel comfortable with us. In fact, I've had investors say, Hey, there's this house I want to buy. Can you try and get it for me? And then I pay you guys your fee. Like I wanted at this price. So they can, they could have easily just called the seller themselves or called the agent themselves, but they're like, no, I know you guys can deliver. This is the house I want. Like I'll pay you guys to negotiate it for me. Oh, dude, that's absolute money. And I couldn't agree more. Um, I'm the same way, man. I'd rather come all the way to California and like meet the guests in person and engage in conversation, shake their hands, build relationship, build trust, future business partners or like, you know, and give us whatever we end up doing. Like I try to just jump on this. Like I had a friend, I have a Zoom conference that I had this morning and I have one again on Friday. I, I, I can't stand those, man. Like, and now if I were to do an interview on that, like it takes away from the excitement of actually meeting the person and fight for, you know, figuring out this story. Of course it does work in some cases and scenarios, but like, this is a different field, man. You know what I'm saying? Like being in person, like understanding there's a feel. There's a, there's a level of like connection. There's a level of atmosphere that's been invited. And it's the same thing. I couldn't agree more, especially with building rapport with clients and relationship of people. Dude, you are killing it right now. Congrats, man. Thank you. Thank you. And I always say too, like California is an expensive place, right? So like for deposit, deposits are like 20 to 60,000. So it's like, if you expect your investors to trust you, like wouldn't you think they'd want to know who you are? If they're sending 20 to $60,000 to escrow. A lot of times blindly, because they don't, sometimes they don't even see the house. Like I'm pretty sure they'd want to know who you are. Right. If they're sending that much money. So it's just important to just meet people in person. And, and that's one thing that I've been trying to do more that if I, like looking back and like being like a sales agent at the previous company, I always say, like if there's anything I can do differently is like more face to face interactions with people, right? Then just over the phone. Powerful quality of a quantity. That's a very, very important phrase. He said, um, quality over quantity. What have you been looking at right now when you've been hiring, um, people attribute wise and like, and quality, like, you know, things that can add to your team. Yeah. Uh, good question. So I would say, honestly, as long as you're licensed and you can commute and come into the office, I don't care if you're brand new and you don't know a thing about real estate, like I'd rather have someone that's brand new, doesn't know anything about real estate, but is willing to hustle, willing to learn, not scared to hop on the phone, then someone that knows everything there is to know about real estate laws, zoning, building, whatever. But there they, maybe they just don't want to come into the office. Maybe they just, you know, either lazier or they're scared to hop on the phone. Right. Cause it's a lot easier to teach real estate than it is to teach the soft skills, right? The personal, the personality, the personable skills, which you can, and that gets better over time. Some people are natural, but I think that's a skill that you get better at. Um, but honestly, just anyone that's like willing to learn, that's licensed and willing to come into the office and like ask questions, really. Um, most people that are joining me, I will say they're young. Like I have a kid. He's from the Bay area and he's 19. He's already done like 22 deals with us. He's going to make like 40 K this month as a 19 year old. All right. Um, pretty insane. Shout out to Yanni. Um, but yeah, it, a lot of the them of the team, you know, we had to go through a lot of people higher in fire. I had to fire one of my family members, unfortunately, like an NFU that I grew up with, um, just didn't work out. Good luck for Thanksgiving. Yeah. Exactly. Right. But it was, it was a lot of trial and error, a lot of trial and error in the beginning, cause we, me and my friend, like we're young, right? So we're just like, Hey, let's, let's hire all our buddies, right? Which some of them are awesome. Like we have some friends I have some friends I grew up with, like seven, eight years old that are crushing it right now on the team. But there's other people that like we just hired them cause we thought they were cool. Like, like, Hey, you're cool. Come join us. Like join our team. Um, and we had no onboarding process either. It was just like the wild, wild West. Um, but now with more systems in place, like it's become a lot of a smoother operation for sure. Now trial and error, you have to learn sometimes, you know what I'm saying? And everything goes perfectly well. It's, that's the worst thing ever because your greatest blessing can be your greatest curse. Yeah. So no, I love that man. Like that's how it is. Sometimes friends work out. Sometimes it doesn't. Yeah. Before you know it's like unfollow like what's going on? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of trial and error, but that's, that's the beauty of like entrepreneurship. You learn as you go. Um, and what you were saying earlier, like if you have the right mentors and the right teacher, it shortcuts a lot of time and time is more valuable than money. Like I'd rather spend 10 to 20 K to save two to three years. Like you can make a lot more than 20 K in two to three years. Right. So if you invest that in order to, and you're trading off two to three years worth of knowledge and you can skip those two to three years, that's, that's really big ROI. Powerful, powerful. Can you walk us through like, um, just our viewers right now, a very complex whole sailing deal that you went through. Yeah. What were the high stakes and like, how did you end up like getting across the finish line? So the one that comes to mind, there's a, there's a pretty much high stakes deal, but this one was the most interesting. It was three side by side. Originally we thought there were condos, but originally the technically the land uses apartments. So there's three side by side condos in Palm Springs. Uh, still remember that it was like three, one, four East Stevens road, right? Three, three side by side condos. And it was a triple close. Right. Meaning it was an A to B, B to C, C to D S girl. Right. So triple close on three condos. That's nine total S girls going on at the same time. Right. All for like one transaction, but nine separate S girls. So it was a wholesaler that had to close on the property. They couldn't reassigning it. And then we closed on the property and then we sold it to someone else. Right. So the original fees, the reason why they couldn't close on it was because they were making a lot on it and we were making a lot on it at first. So it went from 180,000 that they were making and we were making 90,000. And we had sold it to an investor. We had sold it like two or three times over and we had sold it to an investor. Still cheap price point. I think we had sold each of them for like 150 K. They got it really cheap, like each condo, like really, really cheap. And it turns out like the square footage was off and like, we don't want to force the buyer to close on it. Right. Because we're like, well, we didn't know the square footage was off and he bought it based on the idea that it was X amount of square footage. We don't want to force him, you know, to close on it. That's not right. Right. Cause then that would be like false advertisement. Right. So we gave him his EMD back and then we put it back on the market. We sell it to someone else and then it turns out they're not legally condos. They're legally apartments. Right. So they, you couldn't get a loan on it. So you had to buy a cash. They were called a, it's a, a unwarrantable, an unwarrantable condo, right? Where you can't get a loan on it. So even if you bought it and you wanted to resell it, someone couldn't get a loan on it. Like they'd have to buy a cash. No lender would, would close on it. Right. So we didn't know that either. Right. We didn't know that until we got into the second escrow. And then we don't want to force him to buy it. Right. Because we're like, we don't want that. Like that's a liability. Like if we force him to buy it, he can come back and say, you guys forced me, which is not right either. Right. So we put it back on the market. Right. And the fee, like I said, we were originally at, they were at like 160, 180, and then we were at 90. Went down to them making 30. And then we made 10. Right. So technically for each deal, there was one deal. We did 6,000. And in the other two condos, we made a 2000 each. So it was a total of 10,000. Right. But it was on a triple close, nine total escrows. It was like a three month process. We finally found the buyer to take it on. I think they bought it to put it on Airbnb, but we had sold it three times over and our fee shrunk by so much. And it was like I said, the biggest thing was managing nine escrows at the same time on top of managing all your other files. Right. But we finally got it to the finish line. And honestly, like I tried staying away from Palm Springs for a while after that. Cause this is just too much of a nightmare deal. We were actually trying to put a deal together right now in Palm Springs. Um, but yeah, that's definitely one of the ones that stood out for me. No, man. I just can't believe how fast time has flown by with all the wonderful insights that you've given as well. Um, if, if you were to give somebody advice right now, this is obviously a big business channel on tropical year olds. Well, somebody trying to start right now, what's the first thing that they should do if you were to give them advice for that? Start and wholesaling. Start and wholesaling. So something very like that you guys can literally start doing today, like today. And I always tell people this, like if you took away, you deleted all my contacts on my phone and you know, I had no money, no contacts, but I knew what I knew. I would go on redfin and Zillow and start calling agents and call closed fixers. Right. Like fixtures in whatever area you're in, whether you're in California, Texas, Florida, go on Zillow redfin, look up closed where it says close and look for the properties that look like fixer uppers. Right. And then what you do is you call the agent and you're like, Hey, Mrs. agent or Mr. agent, I saw you just closed on this property. I went to through main street. This actually looks like something we would have picked up ourselves. Do you have anything else like it coming up? A lot of times they're like, you know what? Not right now, but text me your information. You know, I'll send you something when it comes up. What you're doing is you're planting seeds, but occasionally you'll get, oh, yes, you called me at the right time. I'm actually have this property. Call me next week or actually, yes, I have one. I'm going to put it on the MLS next Monday or yes, I have one. I just put it on the MLS like here. Let me send you the address. Right. You start doing that over time. Like I promise you, if you do that every day for 30 days, you do it. Maybe five to eight hours a day. There's no reason why you can get one or two deals. It's like, I've seen it where like my partner will go inside a room and he's like, dude, I need a deal, go inside a room, lock himself up for like six hours, come back out and come with like three to four addresses, right? That are potential deals, right? You're planting seeds, you're building relationships. And like I said earlier, just because you're working with an agent, doesn't mean it's on market. Some of the best off market deals I've done in the past where we've done like six figure fees have been through agents, right? So there's potential there. Man, consistency is the key there. It's absolutely consistent. You have to have the heart for it and you have to just be diligent in what you're doing because sales can be very discouraging. But if you're not consistent, you don't have the vision and you don't have like a purpose, just one, one rejection. You start looking at an in and out meal and like Chipotle. Exactly. What can I go eat? Yeah. I'm eating it out after you by the way. Nice. You got it. Why are you here? The code to winning is, it's known for insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. I always ask each entrepreneur and guest what the term winning means for them. Cause winning is such a broad term and it has a different meaning for different people. What does winning mean for Rudy? Yeah. And like you said, I think winning has everyone's own meaning, right? Like I asked the team, like especially when they're new, I asked them what their motivator is, like, like what's their definition of winning too? Like it's very similar or what gets them going. And I would see mine is just being in a position and just where I can teach and influence people where they can do literally like what I'm doing. Right. Like I teach a lot. I don't sell any courses, but I teach the team and like it to me, it's empowering for me. Like I get way more excited seeing someone else do their first deal than me doing a bigger deal. Right. Like teaching someone and then seeing them like develop and grow over time. To me, that's winning. Right. Because the more they win, the more I win, like there's a quote, I think, uh, I think Rockefeller says it, right? He's like, I'd rather have 1% effort of a hundred people than a hundred percent effort of my own. Right. Which is true. Right. Like there's only so much you can accomplish by yourself. Right. And if it's just you, like a solopreneur, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, a lot of people in my industry are solopreneurs. That's why they get into real estate because they don't want to boss. They don't want anyone to tell them what to do. Right. Um, but to me, winning is like having like a team where you see them winning and in a way you worked through other people, right? You leverage people, but in a good way where they build an empire within your own empire. Powerful. Love that so much. If you could let our guests know in this camera over here, whether you could get a hold of you, if they want to just connect, learn a bit more, maybe even join your team. We'll leave all the everything like the comment section at the bottom there. Can you let our guests know where they can get a hold of you and connect as well? Yeah. If you guys want to connect with me, you can follow me and send me a message on Instagram, Rudy dot C Gomez. And then we also have the business account that's acquired TM on Instagram and then Facebook, Rudy Gomez and acquired homes. The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Rudy Gomez. Thank you so much. My man. Thank you.