Flipping Junkie - Danny Johnson - For Those Addicted To Flipping Houses

Focus, focus, focus. That’s the key to success. You don’t want to be distracted by your first ideas. You need to stay focused when it comes to growing your business so that you’re on top of your game. The steps to staying focused isn’t that difficult. Here’s what we do to stay focused: Hunting leads can be difficult to find, we know. Searching on the MLS can be exhausting. The biggest mistake an investor can make is staying in their comfort zone. If you only ever do bandit signs, how are you going to generate consistent deals? That was just an example, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with bandit signs. But you need to focus in on at least one method - direct mail, bandit signs, PPC, SEO, online marketing, driving for dollars, etc. - and become an expert at that. Send out as much as you can, be active. The more you do, the more you’ll learn. Stay hyper focused, gather data, find a way to turn it into a system, become the master at it. Only then should you move on to the next thing. In no time, you’ll be an

Danny and Melissa share the secret to the massive growth in their flipping business over the last year. The story begins several years ago when they were wearing all of the hats in their business. They were killing themselves trying to do it all. Danny shares how he met Justin and learned how to scale his business without having to do everything. This episode shares the story and shows how you can do the same.

Jason and Pili have two beautiful children, two awesome bulldogs, one flipping and wholesaling business, a Multifamily Acquisition company, a Beer Company, and are the hosts of the REI Foundation Podcast.   Having met in New York, Jason and Pili got into real estate investing shortly after hurricane Sandy struck the east coast. Jason’s family construction business had to help homeowners lift their houses to meet the new FEMA requirements because of the massive amount of flooding. Before the hurricane, Jason’s family business would do maybe 12 lifts a year. After the hurricane, the numbers skyrocketed to nearly 400 in a single year to avoid future flooding.   Because of his background with houses and construction, Jason and Pili made the choice to move into real estate investing! When they were expecting their first child, Jason’s dad asked if he and Pili would be interested in becoming real estate agents to work in their investing business. When a lot of businesses were getting overwhelmed in the east coast,

Ted Thomas, best-selling author and publisher is best known as America’s Tax Lien Certificate and Tax Deed Authority. Thomas has sat for more than 200 radio and TV interviews, most recently on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and he has been recognized in Newsweek, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Ted Thomas is the go-to guy when people want to discover how to invest in secure government certificates that pay 16% and 18%. Ted’s best selling Home Study Course titled, Quick Start to Buying Government Tax Lien Certificates & Tax Deeds, is considered the benchmark standard for the Tax Lien Certificate and Tax Deed industry. Thomas also conducts live tours of Tax Lien Certificate and Tax Deed auctions. Houses with tax liens are a safe, secure investment because you won’t run the risk of losing large sums of money. Ted’s number one suggestions is this: Start out buying vacant residential land. Most mentors won’t suggest this, but Ted does for this reason. He wants to make sure his students are staying conservative i

Just a few years ago, Cody was selling insurance and didn’t know much about Real Estate. He heard about a little niche known as “Wholesaling” and got interested. He quickly decided to go “All in” on Wholesaling and generated over $500,000 in his first year and has since created a 7 figure Wholesaling business. After going to a seminar in Utah, Cody jumped in to wholesaling. He took on what advice he was given and found a mentor. In 2015, Cody started listening to every real estate investing podcast he could find and that was it. He found a mentor and got in to wholesaling as fast as he could! Wholesaling appealed to Cody because it was a great start. “I started with the end in mind,” he says. “You’ve got to build a cash buyers list. If you don’t have an end game in mind, it doesn’t matter because you can’t do anything with it.” Building cash buyers is simple. There are a few ways to find them: 1 - Go to REIA meetings in your local town. 2 - Get on the phone on Craigslist. Call land lords or people trying to s

Rob leads property acquisitions for Holdfolio, a real estate crowdfunding company headquartered in Indianapolis. Under the name Buy To Renew, Rob leads a team focused on purchasing properties and gentrifying neighborhoods. Since relocating to Indiana in 2015, Rob and his partners have purchased over 100 properties for crowdfunding and wholesale opportunities. For fun, Rob and his wife enjoy traveling, soccer, and recently took up competing in triathlons.   Books   Set For Life by Scott Trench Relentless by Tim Grover

Jason has been in construction over 25 years.  He started out of highschool working with his dad on misc projects and went on to own and operate a cabinet company for 12 years.  After closing the company he started lending to rehabbers for Gap funding and learning about this thing called flipping and started flipping in 2010.  Jason has been flipping ever since and joined up with Peter in 2014 and have flipped or wholesaled 50 + deals together. Jason is married with a split family of 4 kids. All who are very active in sports, Competitive Dance, Swimming, Gymnastics, and basketball and football.  They just moved into their new home they had built a couple weeks ago. Jason and his wife Megan who is a Vancouver school Principal enjoy traveling together, are very active in Crossfit at their local Box.    Share your backgrounds and how you started flipping houses and working together. Been in construction since 1993 owned a cabinet shop for 12 years build a few houses, Started in 2009 lending gap funding to a reha

What are some of the things you do before putting the finished product on the market? Re-run comps Final walk through Staging - where get staging stuff from   How to work with our Realtor Laura to get the property on the market? Docusign docs Take pics and upload - what kind of camera and lens? Agent sets up showing and feedback notifications   With the real estate market still going strong here, how fast have the houses been selling? The fastest closing was up on the market on Thursday night, by Sunday it had 42 showings and 13 offers. Not every property is like this. The sweet spot is between $140 - $165 for San Antonio properties that fly off the market.   How do you handle when we get multiple offers? Use spreadsheets with all of the details of the properties, locations, contracts, and people offering. Separate each thing that’s a negotiation point for when you come to the contract phase.   I know we’ve accepted offers before in the past only to find out the buyers couldn’t qualify.  How do we now

Melissa Johnson has been flipping houses for 14 years, and man have they come a long way. From brown (and one time green) carpet to sleek new tile, Melissa has been transforming the way she rehabs properties. But before you can make the houses look nicer, you have to have your team together. Start with a contractor you can trust. Melissa has been working with her contractor for a long time now, to the point where they have an amazing working relationship. One of the key point of making sure you and your contractor are on the same page is to set the ground rules from the beginning. Making sure you and your contractor have the same payment schedule agreed on will keep everyone involved happy. Melissa talks about going through the property with the contractors before hand and looking at every single detail of the house. That way, everyone is on the same page for what needs to be fixed. There’s much more to your team than just you and the contractor, though. Melissa has been working with a realtor she trusts, and

This vlog, Danny talks about how important it is for you to do what needs to be done for your business even if you’re afraid. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie Making big steps is scary for just about everyone. When Danny was working on getting his pilot’s license, he would stop in the parking lot and think about two things: how exciting flying is, but also how dangerous it is. Even though learning was a lot of fun, there was still that risk involved. The same is true for running your own real estate investing business. Especially when you’re getting started. When Danny and Melissa first started buying and selling houses and the first call came in he was so nervous to talk to the motivated seller that he threw the phone at Melissa so she would talk to them! And while that was scary, the reward to going through with the lead was bigger than any nerves they had. So that’s the takeaway from this vlog. Knowin

Geremy Heath is the owner and founder of Texas All Cash Home Buyers.     Geremy was on the podcast during the early days for episode 3 where we talked about The Mindset That Guarantees Flipping Houses Success - Click Here To Listen   We talk about his Miracle Morning routine…which is incredible.  If you want to find out more check out my interview with the author, Hal Elrod: Click Here To Listen to My Interview with Hal ElrodThere’s a lot that goes on in between contracting and closing on a house. Especially when it comes to the numbers. You have to make detailed estimates of the labor costs, material costs, and other specific skew costs. If you’re not precise in your estimates, then you’ll run into some funding roadblocks. Geremy makes the suggestion of not going through with a property if the exact estimate is higher than 10% more than the original estimate. When Melissa and I were doing it before we got our team, we would know if something was off when we got to the rehab (which wasn’t too fun).   This wo

This vlog, Danny talks expands on what it means to be a Flip Pilot, and what it takes to make measurable progress with your real estate investing business. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie What does it really mean to have a 30,000 foot view of your business? You have to really take a deep look at it and where your business is going, but you also really need to take a look at yourself. Staying in place without anything driving you personally will affect how your business expands. You need to take a closer look at why you get up in the mornings, what keeps you motivated, and how you’re growing as an entrepreneur. The biggest concern is making sure you’re not overloading yourself with too many goals that aren’t realistic, or that are too distracting. “Shiny Objects” can get in the way of you developing what you need to for your business to continue to be a success. That’s something that we struggle with. St

This vlog, Danny talks about the beginnings of his house flipping business, and the learning curves it took to get the hang of it. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie Learning what to do to run your business the right way takes time, but mostly trial and error. There is a huge difference between running your business and working in your business, and what it takes to be the pilot instead of the crew. So here’s a story. When Danny first started rehabbing houses, he showed up to his first demo site the day before to get it prepped. He went and personally started taking nails out of the walls so that the sheetrock could be laid properly, thinking he was doing a great job and showing that he has what it takes to be an investor. And then his mentor showed up, mad. He started telling Danny that it’s not his job to be taking nails out of the wall. Not because he was somehow better, but because he was supposed to b

This vlog, Danny talks about the difficulties that running a real estate investing business can cause, like attorneys talking sellers out of deals. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie You know what really grinds my gears? Attorneys. And thieves (but we’ll talk about that second). Do you ever run into issues with attorneys? For the most part, they’re not too much of an issue, but when they start making sellers or buyers question the deal it gets a little frustrating. For example, the attorney mentioned in the vlog wrote the buyer’s contract in such a way that it, basically, made the contract null. Just a little frustration. Ok, those thieves. Long story short, our entire website got copied and pasted. Word for word, code for code. Understandably, Danny wasn’t happy. But, after taking a step back and looking at how poorly this is being taken care of, these thieves aren’t as intimidating as they think they are

This this vlog, Danny talks about the idea of being the pilot of your flipping business instead of someone working on the ground. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie Are you working in your business or on your business? That might sound like a small difference, but it’s more important than you’d think. If you started your business from the ground up (like most real estate investors have) then you’re the boss. And being the boss means you can’t be spending your time running around within your business. You need to be taking care of things from above - working on your business. That’s where the idea of being a Flip Pilot comes in. You need to be able to see your business from 30,000 feet up to be able to take it to the places you want to go. So focusing on managing your business means that you’re going to have to give up some of the hands on work to take on the bigger issues. Let’s break it down. If you’re wo

This this vlog, Danny talks about the similarities between PPC marketing and direct mail marketing tactics, and why sticking with PPC is so important for constant deal flow. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie Doing direct mail marketing is great for growing your reach to motivated sellers, but can often be discouraging (as we found out) when getting a 0.1% response is a good response… Investing only about $500 to direct mail just wasn’t working for a few reasons: there wasn’t a targeted enough audience, and there wasn’t enough funding behind it. The same rule applies to PPC marketing. If you’re only allotting $500 a month for pay per click, how can you expect to get the best ROI? You can’t. True, PPC is much more targeted, so your ads are getting in front of your exact audience, but as Danny points out this is a pay-to-play strategy. And it WORKS. The other thing to consider when budgeting for PPC is how m

This this vlog, Danny talks the crazy storms in San Antonio, and his upcoming Masterminds Meeting with Justin Williams and Andy McFarland. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie Aside from the insane storms in San Antonio (right near the office too! Yikes), Melissa and Danny are heading to Justin Williams’ and Andy McFarland’s 7 Figure Flipping Masterminds Meeting! Not only is this an important networking opportunity, but it’s a great place to learn. Expanding your understanding of what you’re doing will keep you improving and make you a more worth while real estate investor. There’s a saying that goes something like: “10 years of experience is only 10 years if you’re learning. If you’re not, it’s just 1 year repeated 9 times.” Don’t be someone who’s just repeating one year of experience for the rest of your real estate investing business’s career. You want to be learning and expanding all of the time so that

This this vlog, Danny talks about why you should be using a vision board to keep you on track both professionally and personally, and the steps needed to achieve those vision. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie Are you using a vision board? They’re great for keeping you on track, and motivated to reach those goals. Danny had a lake house and a plane on his vision board, as things that he never thought he would actually achieve. It wasn’t until this past weekend at Danny’s lake house that he realized he had achieved both of those things. Melissa turned to him and said, “Hey this looks like the one on our vision board!” (Talking about their lake house). And she was right! Danny had reached the lake house goal, and (for personal reasons) he had gotten his pilot’s license! All from keeping himself motivated with his vision board. Having a vision board will keep you organized and motivated. So, are you using a

This this vlog, Danny takes a drive up to his lake house where the family is spending the weekend, and talks about the importance of stepping away from the computer. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie Aside from just spending time with his family, it’s important for Danny to get away from the office and clear his head so that he can return to work on Monday ready to tackle the week. It’s important for everyone to do that! Danny spent his weekend with his family at his lake house, but how are you spending yours?Stepping away from your computer is something Danny found valuable when he was on BiggerPocket’s show talking with them. This is something that’s just stuck with Danny, and has helped keep him grounded and focused on what needs to be done. Getting out there and talking to people in person, and driving around your city, are great ways to expand your knowledge of your target area. So don’t just sit in

In the third vlog episode, Danny talks about his morning routine with his wife, Melissa, in the car with him on their way to the office. Don’t forget, all of the vlog episodes (and more) are available on the FlippingJunkie YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/FlippingJunkie   Danny’s morning routine got started when he found Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning. Basically, the start of anyone’s day should be used to set up the rest of the day for success. So Danny talks about how he used his mornings for self reflection, exercise, and breakfast (or course).   Is your morning routine like Danny’s? Are you setting up your day for success from the moment you get out of bed, or are you pushing through everything instead of taking your time? Your morning should be a time to make sure your day will be a success, use it wisely!   Stay tuned and be sure to subscribe to the FlippingJunkie Youtube channel: http://youtube.com/flippingjunkie