Ep # 3- Flipping Success: Coachella Valley Homebuyers Power Couple's Rise in Real Estate Mastery

Embark on an evocative journey through the highs and lows of property flipping with Coachella Valley's dynamic duo, Curtis and Cindy Squyres. From the pivotal moment Curtis traded his stockbroker suit for a hard hat, to Cindy's strategic mentorship, we unpack the transformative strategies that catapulted their family business from ground zero to real estate royalty. Discover the significance of niche mastery and direct mailers, and the resilience required to thrive in the mercurial world of home flipping.

Unveiling the less glamorous, yet crucially investigative side of the business, we share tales of hunting down next of kin in tangled inheritance cases and the surprise successes of rehabs in exclusive neighborhoods. Curtis and Cindy open up about the challenge of maintaining a family life while navigating the real estate boom of the early 2000s, providing a candid look into the soul of the industry that's often missed on TV. It's a narrative that proves real estate is as much about people and problem-solving as it is about properties.

As we close our conversation, the Squires' story serves not only as an inspiration but also as a practical guide through the current real estate landscape, marked by fluctuating interest rates and a puzzling inventory shortage. From the advent of their son Austin's thriving furniture consignment store to the Squires' impact on their desert community's economy, we celebrate the entrepreneurial vigor that defines the Coachella Valley. Tune in for a masterclass in market adaptation, niche specialization, and the enduring power of family in the face of change.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Welcome to CV Hustle, the podcast created to educate, inform and inspire entrepreneurship here in our Coachella Valley. Hello everyone, I'm Robert Mraz.

Speaker 2 0:20

And I'm Fina Mraz.

Speaker 1 0:22

And this is CV Hustle, the podcast dedicated to educating, informing and inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs here in our Coachella Valley. And you know it's all about special guests on this show, and we always try to get the best in the business at every industry. And today we've got a real treat, don't we?

Speaker 2 0:38

Oh, absolutely so today.

Speaker 1 0:41

I know a lot of you. If anybody's ever watched the home flipping episodes on HGTV, take note, because we have some real home flippers in the building today, somebody that actually can make money doing this, because it's not for everybody. But our illustrious guests today are Curtis and Cindy Squires of Coachella Valley Homebuyers. Thank you for coming in today.

Speaker 3 1:01

Thank you for having us.

Speaker 1 1:02

Yeah thank you very much. We're excited, we're excited. It's been a long time coming okay.

Speaker 2 1:09

So, cindy, you and I have known each other for a very long time. We met through a mutual friend and you were doing a flip at the time, so tell me a little bit about I guess let's start from the beginning. How did you guys start? Was this something? How did you get into this?

Speaker 4 1:25

well, go ahead so I was a stockbroker. You know a suit and tie and I'm in my 20s, late 20s, thinking I'm really cool and after a few years of, uh, wearing a suit and tie every day, I was like I in new york no, in texas, that's where I grew up in.

Speaker 4 1:42

Texas. So, but I noticed, you know, as a financial advisor, the guys that came in who had real wealth were not working like what I was doing. They owned real estate or a business pretty much that's where all the wealth came from. And they're coming in with t shirts, you know, and I'm seeing the older brokers and they're wearing a suit and tie every day and they're you in their 50s and 60s and I started realizing that's not the ticket, right. So I decided I was going to try it. I walked away from corporate world and I didn't know anything about real estate whatsoever and I ordered a course and this course tells you the basics and it says what you need to do is find someone who's already doing it. So I don't know if you remember the old penny savers.

Speaker 2 2:27

Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 2:29

I always joke. We met from a personal ad Because I looked up we Buy Houses little ad like this big. So I'm like I'm literally going to say, hey, I'll come work for free, Just teach me stuff, right. So I called the first one. I got a voicemail. Second one no one picked up. Third one was cindy and she was already flipping houses. Yeah, so it's hilarious because I show up over there and she has somebody working for her, this kind of tough lady looking, and cindy's in the corner like playing with the babies, and I like thinking this is the owner of the company and she's just interviewing me, right, and I don't know anything about it. And they're like sure, you know, come help us out. And that was it. That's how we met.

Speaker 1 3:15

Oh my gosh, so you guys were violating HR and dating on the job. Is that what was going on?

Speaker 4 3:21

Well, not yet right, no, is that what was going on? Not yet it didn't start that way.

Speaker 1 3:24

Eventually, though, what?

Speaker 2 3:24

did you think you were going to start doing for her? What was the position?

Speaker 3 3:29

Oh, we can't tell you.

Speaker 2 3:30

Trade secret.

Speaker 4 3:32

Basically get deals, Because that's really the bottom line in this whole business that we do Get deals. That's the hard part the fixing of the houses, all that kind of stuff. Really, this business is more of a lead generation business.

Speaker 3 3:46

And you came to me saying that you were good at marketing.

Speaker 4 3:48

Yeah, she knew the real estate stuff. I was good at marketing, so we had a great start.

Speaker 2 3:56

So where was the business In Texas? No, dana Point.

Speaker 3 4:00

California. So he got what do they call it when they take you from one state to another, extradited.

Speaker 4 4:10

Basically, when I was 18, I was like, or in my twenties I was like wait, I can, I can legally leave Texas. When it happened, I went on a sales trip being a stockbroker to gain a point and I was like, oh my God, this, this place is gorgeous because I was in corpus christi, texas. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's like a little fishing village with a million mosquitoes. So a year later I just left everything and came to california.

Speaker 3 4:37

And then and you were a stockbroker in california. I was yeah, I got yeah, exactly but not long.

Speaker 2 4:43

So do you remember, like, what one of your first projects was that you both started working on? Tell me a little bit about that.

Speaker 4 4:50

I remember it like clear as day.

Speaker 2 4:51

Really.

Speaker 4 4:52

Yeah, so together. So, cindy, you were buying foreclosure auctions.

Speaker 3 4:58

HUD homes, hud homes, back in the day.

Speaker 4 4:59

Yeah, and doing really well at it, oh my. And when I came on the scene, that method of getting properties was not working as great. And I'm good at mailers and all, because being a stockbroker you're just basically a glorified salesperson. You've got to get clients. So we took a foreclosure class. We found a house that was in foreclosure no idea what I'm doing. I walked up and door knocked it and it was his family and they had a for sale sign in the front and I like literally like said do you want to sell your house?

Speaker 2 5:34

And they said yeah.

Speaker 4 5:37

So you know, with her training, I didn't know what an escrow was Like, I didn't know anything, but I got in front of the guy, made an offer and then Cindy knew how to take it from there.

Speaker 2 5:49

Well, how did you know, how did you get into it?

Speaker 3 5:52

I was already doing it Well how?

Speaker 2 5:54

did you get into it? He's a little younger than me.

Speaker 3 5:55

Don't tell anyone. Okay, we won't.

Speaker 2 5:57

Yeah, nobody's going to listen, but how did you find yourself into?

Speaker 3 6:01

okay, so um, I don't know where to start because I'm really old. We'll start from the beginning.

Speaker 1 6:06

Where are you from? Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 6:08

So I was raised in la area and um after high school I went to fit them fashion institute of design and merchandising. I thought I was gonna be of course you did not.

Speaker 2 6:19

You didn't know that about me. You've always had that in you, yeah.

Real Estate Journey and Partnerships

Speaker 3 6:22

So I thought I was gonna be in the fashion industry. I just thought that would be fun. Um, then from there I met somebody and he was in the furniture business and kind of pulled me into the furniture business with him. He was my first husband, so we ran a furniture store by ourselves in early, early 20s. Running this store, no kids or anything like that Ran this store for eight or nine years and one day we had a fire. We had a fire, we were having an outdoor tent sale, all the furniture outside. Security guard calls us at three in the morning and says there's been a fire.

Speaker 3 7:03

And there was one little electrical cord that was going from the tent to the morning and said there's been a fire. And there was one little electrical cord that was going from the tent to the inside and it back, whatever. Anyway, we went down there and the whole place was fine. It was. There was just a little fire, but everything was deemed smoke, damaged. So one thing led to another. The insurance company gave us a big fat check for all the merchandise I'm like well, are we going to put this back in furniture? Are we going to do something else? So that's when this is like 1996 or 5. And there was one old guru on late night TV named Carlton Sheets. Some people will know that name, and we bought his course. First we went to Hawaii for a month and then then we bought that guy's course and started, and we just started from one house and then started building it up more, and so the course actually worked.

Speaker 1 7:56

It was actually like good. It's a lot of those things you see on infomercials. You think they're scams.

Speaker 3 8:00

You know a lot of hard knocks too, because you know you lose money. You know that you know you lose money, you know that Sure. You pay for your education, doing it, making mistakes, oh yeah for sure.

Speaker 2 8:12

So you both went and started buying HUD homes I owned. My first home was a HUD home, oh really, and I bought that thing and it was in August. I was pregnant with my twins. It's hot as balls here in the desert.

Speaker 4 8:27

Right at that time I bought the house, it had no air conditioner oh, they let you buy it I bet, you got a great deal though or either that or it got stolen.

Speaker 2 8:35

Yeah, I did. But I mean, like talk about hard knots, you know so okay, so then you started doing that. And then he comes along, so they say, yes, we'll sell the house. So who bought it?

Speaker 4 8:51

Yeah, so Cindy had already had the buying machine right and the fixing up machine and the selling machine.

Speaker 3 8:59

I forgot to mention I had a mentor who was a real estate agent guy. He's sadly no longer with us. He didn't take good care of himself, but he was a cool guy and he knew a lot of stuff, and not just any realtor. Now a lot more people know what it's like to do investments, but back then it was the word flip was a four-letter word, it was the F word. Really, the people did not like that word. They thought you were doing something shady or like you're taking advantage of widows and orphans and it just really the tv

Speaker 4 9:31

shows changed everything, you know, yeah yeah, there's no hgtv for good and bad let's talk about that too but there's a lot of scams during that era as well, where they were inflating house prizes and cahoots with the appraiser. So that also gave flippers a bad name. So, yeah, it was like the tv shows like yeah, made it more mainstream yeah, yeah, yeah so.

Speaker 3 9:54

So my partnership ended. That's just part of the personal life, part um. But then I found myself. You know, I had three babies, twins and another, you know. And here comes this guy.

Speaker 1 10:11

And I'm still trying to keep the business going.

Speaker 4 10:12

I had no idea what was coming Walking right into that one.

Speaker 2 10:16

Three kids and a set of twins. Isn't that funny? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 10:20

Twin girls. Twin girls and a boy.

Speaker 4 10:24

I had no idea how much that phone call was going to change the course of everything your whole life.

Speaker 3 10:30

The whole trajectory.

Speaker 2 10:31

What was that?

Speaker 3 10:31

little saying. You used to say you not only got your first deal, but you got some kids too.

Speaker 2 10:38

Yeah, I got a family, absolutely.

Speaker 4 10:41

And then I was kind of a rehab.

Speaker 3 10:44

You kind of rehabbed me a little bit anyway, slowly but surely, we just started putting our strengths together because I was already good at um fixing them up and you know, knowing what's a deal and how to fix it up and how to sell it and and. But I couldn't get him anymore because the market changed. It was hard to get head homes, but he knew how to get them so and that's to this day, we still hold those same roles.

Speaker 3 11:08

Yeah, they work good, because he's the guy with the computer and talking to the sellers, and and then I'm the girl, I'm the contractor, I'm out there and I'm the designer and I'm the one saying take out this wall, let's change this and do that a lot of people starting out don't have that part of it, and that's a whole other aspect.

Speaker 4 11:26

It's not just the house, I mean the paperwork how the transaction works. You know there's some.

Speaker 3 11:33

There's so much more to it and the legalities of it all too okay.

Speaker 2 11:36

So let me ask you this so when you went to go work for cindy, you had to go get your real estate license at that time, or you did not have that, you no, you were just doing marketing.

Speaker 4 11:46

Yeah, because when you're buying a property for yourself, you don't need a license, so that's you know the license comes in. If you're selling for someone else, that's where you have to have a license. Okay, so I did end up getting a broker's license six years later something like that. Absolutely smart idea, right.

Speaker 2 12:08

Oh, yeah, absolutely Getting licensed.

Speaker 4 12:09

We got licensed recently Sure.

Speaker 2 12:11

I did.

Speaker 4 12:13

You know it helps in a lot of ways, but you don't need to have it, you know, just to buy the properties.

Speaker 2 12:18

Okay, so this first house that you guys got, did you go in and rehab it?

Speaker 3 12:24

I don't even remember it, do you you?

Speaker 4 12:26

do I don't remember what we did with it no, I, I, I remember so clearly walking up to the door, but it was a little condo a lot of houses. I think we're probably your legs, you know, right shaking we flipped it right away to the owner of county records research and that was oh, we wholesaled it then.

Speaker 3 12:44

Yeah, before wholesaling was a word.

Speaker 4 12:46

Yeah, we sold it to another investor real quick.

Speaker 2 12:48

So tell me a little bit about that. How does that? Because that's something that you do now, right?

Speaker 3 12:53

Yeah, well, because we have this whole machine, this whole deal-getting machine, you know this marketing and everything, and we get a lot of leads. People know us just from being in business for a long time and they'll say so-and-so needs to sell a house or whatever. Well, I don't want to fix them all up anymore. I'm picky now.

Speaker 2 13:13

I want the ones that are close to my house and I've got to go very far.

Speaker 3 13:15

Yeah, I just can't do them all. So we have a network of friends and other people who also do what we do and we'll just call them and go look, we got a good one here. We can't take it, you want it. And then maybe they'll pay us a couple bucks and we'll give them our contract and they'll take it over.

Speaker 4 13:33

That's called wholesaling. Anybody wanting to start this business and learn highly recommended to take that approach. You find someone like us who do fix up homes and help find them a home, and then it's almost like a finder's fee yeah yeah, you can see how they evaluate it and you can learn a lot.

Speaker 3 13:54

You can learn a lot.

Speaker 4 13:55

You can walk through the house with them, yeah, and that's kind of how what we did on a few of those okay, so you guys sold that.

Speaker 2 14:02

How did you end up in the desert? Because you were in dana point, right. Did you guys sold that? How did you end up in the desert? Because you were in Dana Point, right? Did you guys get married right away? Like what? Tell me about the journey.

Speaker 4 14:12

So this is early 2000s and the market was insane. It went nuts From like one, two, three, four. They're skyrocketing. So we're trying to flip houses for a living and, like the worst house in santa ana was five, six hundred thousand dollars at that time.

Speaker 3 14:35

Yeah, yeah, this 20 years ago.

Speaker 4 14:37

Yeah, yeah, and now you know that's how we're making. Our living is buying and flipping houses, but you want the worst houses, correct?

Speaker 3 14:43

yeah, but I mean, that's all the resources for one little shitty house that's two-bedroom, one-bath, that's falling apart. So I mean you can get funding.

Speaker 4 14:50

Yeah, but you can get funding for these houses, but it's still like $600,000. How many can you do?

Speaker 3 14:58

What's the real reason we're here in the desert, because your mom and I, we had too many kids, too many kids. Parents lived here. We thought, let's just go get near them.

Speaker 1 15:08

Yeah, let's get near the babysitters.

Speaker 3 15:10

Basically, yeah, family, you know it didn't work out that way because we found out that they travel. You're like where are you going? Wait a minute, Stay home.

Speaker 4 15:19

And it was always like every year, it was like we're going to go to San Diego next year and it's like 20 years later, yeah.

Speaker 3 15:25

Still here. Yeah, we're still here. We love it here. We put the kids all in soccer. We make friends.

Speaker 2 15:30

Yeah, you guys were big Soccer. It ended up being a great place to raise a family.

Speaker 3 15:36

We have four kids, seven and under. That's a handful.

Speaker 4 15:39

Well, you did that. It's like one thing leads to the next. Don't remind me though.

Speaker 2 15:43

I tell people it's all a blur.

Speaker 3 15:46

It's a blur.

Speaker 1 15:48

The Coachella Valley is a good place to raise kids. Yeah, it's a good place to raise kids, especially compared to like LA or the bigger cities, I think.

Speaker 3 15:54

Yeah, you can still know your neighbors here.

Speaker 1 15:56

You're not just a number at the school. Well, it's starting to change now?

Speaker 3 15:59

Well, expensive right and that's the other big cost of living and that was what he was going at with the. With the five hundred thousand dollars santa ana house at that time we could buy three houses out here.

Speaker 2 16:10

No for that money. Yeah, oh yeah, we could like in good neighbors, good neighborhoods, or city and you know the market was, so it was right before the crash, and I remember there's another whole thing.

Speaker 4 16:24

There's an indio house. Um thomas just telling me, so this little condo in indio and I can, it's not a good area. Um it was selling for 200 000 in 2005 and we were buying them for 30. It was crazy, were we buying those? Yeah you could get really great deals yeah how did you do that?

Speaker 2 16:46

well, that's, that's what we did secret I have to kill you.

Speaker 4 16:51

You see the tv shows and people think that the nature of this business is being able to fix up a house. It's not. It's being able to buy. We're more than fixing up homes. You have to be problem solvers. If there is no problems, we would be out of business because 98 of the people are going to call realtor and sell their house.

Speaker 4 17:13

They're not going to sell to curtis and cindy, you know, for 70, 80 because, they have a problem, right, and the problem is either with the owner or with the property. But there has to be a problem because either they need money, I mean the, the four d's lead to all our deals. It's what? Drugs, disease, divorce and death wow because you know somebody passes and uh, there's a bunch of siblings. No one there's. No, will you know? It's a big legal mess, but doesn't it go into probate it? See a bunch of siblings there's no will.

Speaker 2 17:45

It's a big legal mess, but doesn't it go into probate?

Speaker 4 17:47

See a lot of times if there's no will and they don't know what to do, and now the bank's going to take it, that's where we come in and knowing how to help them, like we will actually pay for the probate attorney if they don't have any money go through this six six month long process under the condition we get to buy it and it's a win-win. So are we going to pay full retail?

Speaker 3 18:08

no, of course not that or the house has, like structural problems, or, you know, problems with the house, problems with the title, problems with the family means any kind of problem.

Speaker 2 18:20

So you guys are problem solvers we're problem solvers and we get paid for that. That's right. That's the business.

Speaker 3 18:26

That's our niche.

Speaker 2 18:27

Okay, so let's go back to the house where I first met you. That was in a nice god damn neighborhood in Indian Wells.

Speaker 4 18:36

Which house was it Stardust? Oh, that's my favorite rehab that you ever did.

Speaker 2 18:41

Mine too, because I made a lot of money on the tile. But no, how did that? How did that work out?

Speaker 3 18:50

How did you get in that neighborhood? You know what I mean. People die there, yep, and in fact I think that was like a same type of thing.

Speaker 4 18:53

You know the, the, especially this area. You have an older demographic especially in. Indian Wells, you know, and you've got a kid who lives in, you know, oklahoma and it could be, and it could be a single lady with kids and it's like what. There's a house. Really, I got to fly out there and fix it up and talk to pushy realtors.

Speaker 2 19:16

Yeah, it's just like too much work. It's too much. Let me just cash in here.

Speaker 4 19:21

So we would skip. Trace the next of kin it's almost like PI work a lot of. Kin it's a lot of. It's almost like PI work a lot of times. Find out who. Oh, we've tracked down some crazy, crazy stories, wow oh yeah we find people what about the mummy story you should tell? The mummy story. Oh yeah, we had a mummy, that sounds good. Mummy story, we've had several.

Speaker 3 19:39

We've had we've had murder houses. We had a murder house last summer Chinese birthing houses.

Speaker 4 19:45

And LaQuinta. She murdered and tortured her mom in the house.

Speaker 1 19:49

What.

Speaker 4 19:50

Wasn't that recent yeah?

Speaker 1 19:51

What yeah?

Speaker 4 19:53

And so Melanie in our office sends a letter to her in jail Are you interested in selling? She calls immediately. Collect from county.

Speaker 3 20:02

From jail Right away.

Speaker 4 20:03

Sold the house to an inmate, bought collect from county, from jail right away, sold the house to an inmate, bought a house off an inmate. We were down at the jail getting the paperwork signed. Wow, no, we closed on it a month later the other one.

Speaker 2 20:12

Uh, fortuna, oh yeah hold on this is interesting crime properties, death, murder properties so if you're in jail, she just has a bank account like what?

Speaker 4 20:22

what is she gonna do? Spend her money on?

Speaker 2 20:24

freaking cup of noodles in jail like where I don't understand like she doesn't have that house.

Speaker 3 20:30

Like they just came in and took her away. I mean, she never went back to that house, yeah, so there is blood on the blood in the living room you have.

Speaker 2 20:40

You had to come in and rehab that, oh yeah, what do you do with?

Speaker 3 20:43

all the stuff, uh, donated a lot of well. We were in communication with her too we were like okay, here's pictures of everything. Do you want this stuff? And she's like here are the things that I want, like we we made friends with her.

Speaker 4 20:56

She's like can you um dry clean the? Why, she killed the blood off the rug before you. I mean it was.

Speaker 3 21:05

Yeah, I mean yeah, but she I mean she's still there.

Speaker 4 21:07

She's in prison. We bought it, we renovated it and sold it. Wow, I think that's our fourth murder house actually wow, there was one in palm springs. We showed up and there was a like a right in the middle of the living room there's a big square of cut cut out missing and then it's all brown on the concrete.

Speaker 2 21:27

I love it.

Speaker 3 21:31

And then we found out later that there was an underground relationship going on, that the partner wasn't happy and he stabbed him with a screwdriver.

Speaker 1 21:41

Oh my gosh, you guys should write a book of all the rehab.

Speaker 4 21:46

So we had a really good one.

Speaker 1 21:47

And on and on about these.

Speaker 4 21:49

So this lady comes in, she wants to sell at this crazy low price and after you've been talking to these people for you know years and years, you have, like this, built in radar. I'm like nobody does that.

Speaker 2 22:00

Oh, she wants to sell it to you. It's a red flag.

Speaker 4 22:01

Yeah, a red flag, it's like a.

Speaker 3 22:03

VIN sales.

Speaker 2 22:03

I'm like oh hell, no, go to Florinda Cor honey.

Speaker 4 22:07

Yeah, so she's a younger lady and the owner is missing and she has this paperwork that he gave her. The house right.

Speaker 3 22:22

So turns out he's got a house in LA Laguna Beach.

Speaker 4 22:24

Somewhere else, yeah, so we dig a little and this guy is literally missing.

Speaker 2 22:33

So you know when it goes through tidal yeah, he's in the ocean, he's swimming, he's swimming with the fishies.

Speaker 4 22:38

No, we know where he is now. So the cops literally are like we. We called him and they went to all these houses. So they go in his LA house and neighbors hadn't seen him. They come in to his house. I break in and there is a mummy on the couch. He's come.

Speaker 3 22:54

That was him.

Speaker 4 22:56

And so here's the question how did she know? She said he was dead. How would she know he's dead?

Speaker 1 23:03

Wow, this is like a. This is like a Dateline episode right here.

Speaker 4 23:07

It's a cliffhanger, so we had to go talk to the DA.

Speaker 3 23:10

But legally we really could have bought the houses from her.

Speaker 4 23:14

No, we would have if we could have. The title is like nope.

Speaker 2 23:18

There's no death certificate.

Speaker 4 23:19

We don't know. He's dead.

Speaker 3 23:20

Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 23:21

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 23:23

Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 23:24

Red flag, you guys should write a book man.

Speaker 1 23:27

All the crazy stories you've seen in your life there's many more. I'm sure you have a backlog of them that can keep coming out.

Speaker 4 23:33

We should really. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 23:35

So Coachella Valley Homebuyers, that entitles that. Probably you guys started that business when you came down here Was that part of the plan coming down here, or was that something? That no, yeah, because you said you were working for like a machine before right, but you were the owner of that machine.

Speaker 4 23:49

Yeah, so you were the owner. Yeah, that was my machine.

Speaker 1 23:52

So how old were you when you started your business?

Speaker 3 23:54

Or how old were you when you became a business owner? Business owner.

Speaker 1 23:59

Well, business owner 21. 21?. Oh my God Wow.

Speaker 2 24:05

I come from a family of business owners.

Speaker 3 24:07

My dad always owned companies and my grandfather companies. My mom was a realtor and the jobs that I even had. I worked at a store like a clothing store in the mall. I worked at Nordstrom when I was really young and I would get promoted fast. Store in the mall. I worked at nordstrom when I was really young and I would get promoted fast like I'm always gonna be a manager fast because I have the ability to be able to look around, see what needs to be done and just do it like just, either you think that way or you don't think that way. Oh my god, ain't that the truth?

Speaker 3 24:37

yeah so then, so that, and then um, and then furniture business, and then.

Speaker 2 24:43

So how was the furniture business? It was fun Because you've kind of We'll go back into it. We're back into that, I know, so I'd like to hear about that. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 24:53

So I found out that I was. You know, I was in fashion, so I was good at putting things together and making things look good, and then I found that the furniture business was fun in the same way. Yeah, putting together vignettes designing homes. Oh, here, use this rug and this couch, and and it was exactly the same to me, just different product and um, on a bigger scale on a bigger scale yeah, so it was really fun, and that was before kids, so it was easy.

Speaker 2 25:22

so when you had your, your furniture store back once upon a time ago, I'm sure that that also helped. When you were rehabbing these places yeah, because you were staging these homes, correct? I know how to yep, yep, and then I would stage the homes.

Speaker 3 25:37

So I had all my wholesale accounts still for furniture and I could buy furniture wholesale. After all these years when she renovates a house, my jaw still drops all my wholesale accounts still for furniture and I could buy furniture wholesale.

Speaker 4 25:43

After all these years, when she renovates a house, my jaw still drops oh yeah, I love. She's a genius at it, she's great, she's got a great, she'll take a house, and it's not just the decor of it, like she'll know, move this wall. And it's so funny because anytime we meet a contractor or somebody, they look at me and start telling me like I don't know shit about houses.

Speaker 3 26:06

And I still don't. You're just a sales guy. You're just the money stuff yeah negotiating.

Speaker 2 26:11

Talk to the boss lady over here.

Speaker 1 26:13

She's got something so like us, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 26:15

He doesn't know the difference between a drill and a hammer, and I don't know how to print a document.

Speaker 4 26:23

Yeah, and I don't know how to print a document. Yeah, it's for good. Together We'll be standing there with a contractor and they're talking back and forth and I'll throw an idea. They'll both just look at me and then just keep talking. It's like, okay, I'm just going to go stand in the corner and look important.

Speaker 3 26:35

There you go. You're good at some stuff too. I know what you do.

Speaker 4 26:42

I picked up some stuff over the years just through osmosis, yeah, but I just have no desire to like you have a passion, yeah, for figuring out the space and stuff and it's the same thing, you know it's.

Speaker 3 26:54

It's, it's having a vision. You, you know how to do that, you see something that's a blank and you know how to turn it into something beautiful, and and it's just the same thing.

Speaker 2 27:02

Okay, now I have another question about when you guys get these homes. I'm going back to cause. I want to know more about this business. Right, and I, and, and that's what we're here for. When you get a house, you're looking at what, like the end profit. Are you looking at other comps to go, oh shit, we can get a hundred grand for this? Yeah, it's the formula. And it's also like how fast we can turn this sucker. What is, what is the?

Speaker 4 27:26

it's all three numbers uh, you gotta have the three numbers and it always starts with what is it going to sell for when it's fixed up? And and that's tricky it can be really tough sometimes because no two houses are exactly the same. So you have this comp by comp, meaning a property that's sold had a pool. This one didn't. It has a better view, so it takes a lot of like a gut feel. But you've got to start with what can you sell it for? And then you have what is it going to cost to get it there?

Speaker 3 27:59

So that's my number, and then they call me.

Speaker 3 28:01

So they'll get a house under contract in the, in the office, and then they'll do all the numbers. They'll think it fit, the numbers fit together. And then they'll call me and then I'll go to the property and I'll say, okay, it's going to take 90 grand to fix up this house. It'll it'll take 90. So then he plugs it in okay, we can sell it. For this it's going to take 90. Um, we think we can sell it in four months. Here's how much our money is going to cost, here's how much our holding costs.

Speaker 3 28:27

And boom, it spits out a buy price yeah, so and then that's our buy price and that's like ai then, huh, you already have it all built in the system.

Speaker 4 28:36

Yeah, he's a genius. That's the part. That's the part I do. Yeah, he's a genius, so you're the numbers guy. I'm the numbers guy guy and you see those TV shows and it's hilarious because they're like oh, we bought it for $200.

Speaker 1 28:48

Such BS right when you look at it there's so much more cost. So HGTV has had to change your guys' industry. Totally right, Because everybody and their mom thinks that they can do this and they it made it much harder. They made it harder for us because they get in there with higher buy prices than we're willing to pay.

Speaker 3 29:03

But then they lose money on the deal and then they call us and say we're out, we're so done with this house, come buy it from me.

Speaker 4 29:10

Wow, it's full circle. We've bought from a lot of investors.

Speaker 2 29:13

A ton of competition, okay tell me, because you guys did have a TV show at one point, right?

Speaker 3 29:23

Or something, or something like that. Somebody didn't want it.

Speaker 2 29:24

We got offered one, but somebody didn't want it. We got offered one and we did it. How did that come? Who offered it? When did that happen?

Speaker 1 29:28

I forgot the name of the Reality Stars over here. Is it Bravo?

Speaker 4 29:31

Yeah, they brought the whole camera people out there, we did it.

Speaker 3 29:34

Yeah, they had that whole thing.

Speaker 2 29:36

We shot Somebody from like HGTV or who?

Speaker 3 29:39

Well, I think they saw us on because we got a spot on Inside Edition. They did a spot on us. Oh, how in the hell did that come?

Speaker 1 29:44

up. Is that when you guys were in LA or when you were down in the Valley? Really we were this whole big media.

Speaker 3 29:50

We were on the front page of the LA Times.

Speaker 4 29:52

Oh, wow, what spot. Yeah, we had our 15 minutes for sure.

Speaker 2 30:09

How did that come?

Speaker 4 30:09

you're badass, or what I started writing, somebody that knew somebody. No, we didn't know anybody. Actually it's kind of interesting because when the market crashed, and it I mean it in what year? And it was like, oh, 708, yeah, oh god, I remember that time we we had 12 houses and literally every month they're dropping in value and it's our entire net worth and we're still making the payments on every house because we're like we've been doing this a long time, that it's california you know it's gonna sell.

Speaker 3 30:29

Eventually it's gonna come back up, yeah, so we're, you know, keeping our good reputation, making those payments yeah, and I mean we were wiped out just like a bunch of people.

Speaker 4 30:37

I mean it just we. I remember we would sell the house. Finally, we're like, oh God, thank God.

Speaker 2 30:43

Thank God At least one.

Speaker 4 30:45

I'll never forget escrow calling me, saying the mortgage lender, it's like a nationwide, you know, like Franklin.

Speaker 3 30:52

Loan.

Speaker 4 30:52

Center, Wells Fargo, you know Bank of America. They're bankrupt.

Speaker 3 30:56

Like, the lender would go out of business.

Speaker 4 30:58

Nationwide lender. We had a willing buyer. Finally, it was so bad. It was bad, it was horrible doing that, so then?

Speaker 3 31:05

so then, that's a big topic in the news, right, how houses are losing value, and so they just started looking um for experts in the field, and they found him from a blog or something yep, well, but there's a little interesting break because we're like we're out, we can't keep doing this we're gonna do yeah, we're, we're just like gonna go sell some furniture, yeah, leave real estate island.

Speaker 4 31:29

So it's like, what do we do like these four little kids? They're under 12, you gotta feed them and you gotta feed them and they keep wanting no matter how many times you every day yeah yeah, right, and I mean it's like what, what, literally? What do we do? Because everything's gone?

Real Estate Wholesaling Success Story

Speaker 4 31:45

and even the lenders are out of business and the whole thing is just a complete meltdown. So I was going to go do internet marketing and um learn that. So we spent, like I remember like we were down to like 5 000 bucks and we went to a seminar on internet marketing In.

Speaker 3 32:05

Atlanta. In Atlanta, we used all our money to go there.

Speaker 4 32:08

Yes, it's like just a desperate Hail Mary pass. I'm a tech guy, I'm good at marketing, I can learn this. And it was really amazing. It was great content and they basically said you need to get a blog, you need to write, you have to use Google keywords. You know this is 2008. And that's what we did. I wrote about real estate and it went crazy. And all of a sudden LA Times is calling Is it okay if we use this from your blog? And I said, sure, great.

Speaker 3 32:46

And then Investors Business Daily.

Speaker 4 32:48

Yeah, they called, and so I'm having coffee one morning. I'm getting into my email and it's Hotmail and there's an article on real estate and I read it and there's a quote by me Wow.

Speaker 3 32:58

And I was like no way.

Speaker 4 32:59

What Pretty surreal moment.

Speaker 1 33:01

Yeah, wow, I was like no way, what Pretty surreal moment.

Speaker 4 33:02

And then so LA Times came back out. They did a three-hour interview and I thought it was going to be maybe in the back of the business page and it was smack on the front page of the LA Times.

Speaker 4 33:15

And then the news called us and then we were there like special, like real estate foreclosure experts, in the news and so we were on little spots, business like three times edition came to our house and they filmed us for hours, yeah hours and what was cool was they would put our website and it just exploded like we had 500 interested people. So what we did, what we talked about in the beginning of the show, was like we're out of money, every investor is out of business, like I mean, literally people are committing suicide.

Speaker 3 33:48

It was so bad, oh my god I know somebody who did a good friend of ours friend and he was our age with our kids, and he did because of the oh my god you know, um, but we, you basically said, well, what are we good at?

Speaker 4 34:04

we're really good at finding deals. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't leave real estate island yet. And we started writing offers on these foreclosures because there's like everybody was upside down or they lost their house. Like one out of three like lost their house. You know, two of our 12 we got. We managed to get rid of all of ours except two, I think, but uh, we gave them back. We started writing offers on all these foreclosures that the banks owned and I'll never forget back then rios, yeah real estate owned so nobody owned house.

Speaker 4 34:37

Really with equity, the banks owned all the houses. Yeah, right, yeah, they owned the whole lot, thank you. So we'd write these back as fax. Everything was fax Fax machine. We'd send them these and that's when I got my license because I'm like, wow, all the deals are on the market and they're all bank owned. So we're writing these low offers.

Speaker 3 35:01

And I'll never forget, someone wrote real big ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha and our low offer. And then they texted back to us. Yeah, they were laughing at us.

Speaker 4 35:07

It was remember it was august, oh seven, I think, or oh eight maybe, and those same agents that were laughing at us were sort of calling us going. Hey, uh, is that offer still good? And so we would by the how, and it's like we figured this out at a. It wasn't even called wholesaling back then we just figured it out, invented it?

Speaker 3 35:30

yeah, I do, I think we invented it we discovered it yeah but we were.

Speaker 4 35:35

We just had to figure something out and we would get the house really low price and because of all that news exposure, we had 400 investors. So, we would say, hey, we had an email list.

Speaker 2 35:49

Because I was just going to say where in the hell did you get the money from?

Speaker 4 35:52

No, we don't need it. We didn't need any money.

Speaker 3 35:54

If you have a deal in our business, if you find the deal, the money will come to it.

Speaker 4 35:58

But you see, with wholesaling you don't need any money. We just write the offer, get it accepted, and then we send it to our investors.

Speaker 2 36:05

They close it okay, okay, okay, I'm, I'm dense I need. No, it's tricky to break it down, so like, for instance, you found a house that was on foreclosure for how much so?

Speaker 4 36:15

let's say it's. It's listed for 300 000. We would be ridiculous. We'd offer like $200,000. Okay, and they'd say okay and they would say okay, because they're more and more, Because they have too much inventory at that point. Right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 36:30

And then they sign the contract, okay, they send us the contract back, and now we have something valuable.

Speaker 1 36:35

Yeah.

Speaker 3 36:35

Now we have a house that well, we have a contract for a house that we're buying for $200,000.

Speaker 4 36:40

Maybe it only needs $50,000 or $60,000.

Speaker 3 36:43

Maybe it's worth $400,000, $450,000.

Speaker 4 36:46

So you call your investor right.

Speaker 2 36:47

But wait, you have okay, so say it's so. Now you owe $200,000. Do you have to?

Speaker 3 36:51

pay that? No, we don't know it. No, we don't know it.

Speaker 4 36:53

It's just under contract, like there's an agreement, that yes, that's it.

Speaker 1 36:59

Bingo, that's it. Contract is what they're selling because they have a contract under value with the houses Right, so the contract has our name on it.

Speaker 3 37:06

We give it to our friend with the money and we call and we say, oh, my partner's going to buy it instead. Can you please put his name on it instead?

Speaker 4 37:14

Yeah, we change buyers.

Speaker 3 37:15

He gives us a couple bucks.

Speaker 1 37:17

Is that something you guys invented, or is that something you knew about with your background? Or is that just something you invented? No, it's called desperation and that's a great, great tool of ingenuity, right there it's what saved us sink or swim.

Speaker 2 37:30

Sink or swim.

Speaker 4 37:31

Yeah, sink or swim so we did that, for it took us another year or two and we finally started buying our own houses again okay, so then it paid the bills you would say to me hey, fina, do you want to buy this house for 215 000.

Speaker 3 37:45

That's it, and I go hell yeah you go here.

Speaker 4 37:48

Here's the contract.

Speaker 3 37:49

Now give us 15, you don't care about giving us 15, because there's a lot of meat left on the yeah, because I'm gonna get 300 000 right, I'm gonna make you got it.

Speaker 4 37:57

That's it, that's, that's it, that's it, so that's a great way. Now it's really common, it's very common now, so that's a great way. Now it's really common, it's very common now, but it's a great way to start if you want to learn doing this Like bring us a deal, we'll buy it, you'll make money. Yeah, you know, we'll teach you. You know how we did our numbers and stuff. Yeah, in fact, we bought our last one through a wholesaler.

Speaker 2 38:28

There's a lot of people who do wholesaling and they don't have to use their money. There's, it's free, yeah, so you don't need any of your own money to do this and you know it's a thing all right, so you'll get something that comes on, because tell me about the house that you recently did and they were like hoarders.

Speaker 3 38:37

You should have seen like were there I'm sure there's many, but I just some of them. Our guys have to wear hazmat suits.

Speaker 2 38:45

They're so bad yeah, we had one, but isn't that what you kind of want?

Speaker 4 38:50

I mean yeah to a point, because nobody else does well see, that's the thing that's made our business so much harder is. Years ago a fixer was a problem. Now a fixer upper is a commodity because everybody wants it, so everyone's like just lights up when they see fixer upper houses everybody's an investor everybody's everybody and their brother, yeah so

Speaker 1 39:14

it makes it tougher it used to be.

Speaker 3 39:15

People would say what do you do for a living? And I flip houses really I've always wanted to flip houses, tell me more, and now it's like oh yeah, my, I do, I do that, my brother does it, my dad does it.

Speaker 4 39:24

It's become commoditized. For sure, there's bidding wars on every fixer-upper.

Speaker 3 39:29

What happens is a lot of these people. They don't know what they're doing until they get through the process of it, and then they find out oh, there's a lot more involved.

Speaker 4 39:44

And then a lot of them, like the one on terrace that we bought, yeah, cathedral city.

Speaker 3 39:46

They got halfway done and they got half of. They were having emotional breakdowns.

Speaker 4 39:48

They were like oh, my god, I can't I can't.

Speaker 2 39:50

I can't even talk about it anymore. And yeah, remodeling is super stressful.

Speaker 3 39:54

Everything there they had all the windows there, you know, and all the flooring was there. It was really easy for us to do.

Speaker 4 40:01

They just couldn't do it, yeah we're coming off of like at least six years of upward movement in prices. So if you buy badly, you get bailed out. When that hat, when that stops, there's going to be, you know, the, the ones who know how to do this correctly, are going to be separated because they buy on margins where we would never buy, but the you know COVID, and these prices keep going up. So what happens is they? They look like geniuses, right.

Speaker 3 40:35

You pay too much, and then the market, yeah, and they go. This is easy.

Speaker 4 40:37

And then they start quitting their jobs and doing it full time. And then word gets out and their friends start doing it. But as soon as we get a softening in the market it starts to turn into more of a buyer's market. That's when you can get in trouble real fast.

Speaker 2 40:51

Because then you're like wait, I wasn't used to this.

Speaker 3 40:57

What do you mean?

Speaker 4 40:57

it's worth less than what I thought it was worth. Your rehab doesn't have to be high quality. There's no inventory, so you can just put lipstick. Clean it up, not just quality, but high end. Like you don't have to use all high end finishes yeah.

Speaker 3 41:13

We always try to turn out quality.

Speaker 4 41:15

Yeah.

Speaker 1 41:17

Right, right. So softer market just dictates lesser competition for you guys right.

Speaker 4 41:20

You better believe it.

Speaker 1 41:21

So you guys are like chomping at the bit for it to slow down a little bit.

Real Estate Market Trends and Challenges

Speaker 3 41:25

Yeah, separate us please, Because you guys have the formula and all these.

Speaker 4 41:28

Johnny-come-latelys, they just think they can do it because they see it on the TV and it's not that easy, and real estate agents too, like especially the younger ones they haven't seen like a house doesn't sell in a week and they're freaking out. It's like that's not normal, like you don't sell your house in a week, like it normally takes a month or two.

Speaker 2 41:50

So we now are in a time where we have higher interest rates, correct? So like is that hurting? Not historically.

Speaker 1 41:59

Not historically, that's true, Not compared to the 90s, I think, if you just compare lately though right we're just coming off of a zero interest yeah, well, we have like everybody's money is free, exactly if you go back to that. But if you go back to the 80s, I mean they had like double digit yeah when my mom was a realtor back in the 80s and yeah, I can't.

Speaker 2 42:18

That shouldn't even be legal. No, but that was credit card rates for a, but that was the normal.

Speaker 1 42:21

Credit card rates for a mortgage.

Speaker 3 42:22

Yeah, so historically, if we're only at like six or seven right now, it's still great.

Speaker 2 42:26

It's still great, okay, but I mean, isn't that affecting the market, right? Because a lot of people are waiting, waiting, waiting, right to buy that.

Speaker 4 42:35

It's weird because I don't know. I feel like this is a strange market. Everyone goes oh, it's interest rates, but inventory dried up before the interest rates spiked up. There's something at play. And, as a student of the market, it's always the older people I talk to and they're like I don't get it either. It's the younger ones that are like oh, it's because of this, but something's strange. The younger ones that are like oh, it's because this, but it something's strange. Every this happened, like before covid. Uh, inventory started really shrinking. I don't really know why there's not as many people selling their house and I think interest rates exasperated it. But there's a strange thing with supply and demand and I I'm not sure exactly what it is, but there's well, it's also an election year.

Speaker 4 43:24

Yeah so.

Speaker 2 43:25

I? I mean, I'm just being in sales. I know that every election year everything just gets freaking weird yeah, right? And then, as soon as there's somebody elected, boom.

Speaker 4 43:35

So you know it's kind of like one of those waiting games, but everybody's kind of like you know, you get equal people saying everything's going to crash soon and I, I don't know, I don't. I feel like it's going to kind of bump along sideways for a while because there's just so little inventory compared to historic and why?

Speaker 1 43:59

why do you think that there is such, I mean, in the capitalist society, don't we? Don't we address the needs of you know, like? Wouldn't there be home builders out there saying, hey, there's historically low levels? Why don't we build, build, build?

Speaker 4 44:11

it's kind of weird that we don't do that right. You got an inflation when you have all this demand.

Speaker 1 44:16

A capitalist society will meet that demand usually it's kind of they should be building but the building starts are down material.

Speaker 4 44:22

It's a material cost oh yeah, oh so that kind of offsets the demand true our renovation costs have skyrocketed.

Speaker 3 44:33

Right, I mean, that's your department, yeah yeah, I'm always fighting with the people in my office who are trying to get the deals under contract and they're like well, this house should only cost 150 to fix up. I'm like that's 250 now. Oh, that's different now. And then all the laborers you know when the gas went up? Oh my, all the laborers want a gas surcharge. Give me an extra 100 bucks for gas. And like wait a minute, this is not you know.

Speaker 4 44:58

Oh, my goodness so there's no real easy fix to the inventory problem, it's just no multiple layered probably yeah, a play that I'm getting more interested in is the adus we need to build an adu in bahama. I'm telling you because like the city of india. Right, it's just like giving out permits, like they're candy, right Because?

Speaker 2 45:22

they need housing. I think it's the state of California Is it.

Speaker 4 45:25

Yeah Well, they've made it where. You know with this homeless epidemic that it supersedes a lot of the local laws, where before, oh, you can't build there because you have to have a certain amount of offset, and now the state's going sorry, all right, we don't care build it.

Speaker 2 45:47

Yeah, do people know what an adu is?

Speaker 3 45:49

tell us, I know what it is but it's an additional dwelling unit and it's when you can take the land that you have and build another, like a little casita or something, yeah, these little casitas and stuff it used to be hard to get a right for that, and now it's easy, easy.

Speaker 4 46:03

And there's another law that I really want to investigate further. But you can build it and sell it Separately.

Speaker 3 46:13

You can build it separately from the house. I don't know how it works, yet you have to subdivide Sell the casita and they own the casita.

Speaker 1 46:18

Oh, that would be fun.

Speaker 3 46:18

Oh yes, have somebody behind you that owned the casino yeah they're all in your house and they have to pay for the land. Oh my gosh, that's like Indian land.

Speaker 1 46:26

That's crazy, though you better like those people that you sell to.

Speaker 4 46:30

I know Desert Hot Springs has some programs where they make it a lot easier because you know you still have to get plans approved and stuff. So I had just learned this a few weeks ago that Desert Hot Springs has pre-made plans. So it saves months because you can go pick this plan for this ADU.

Speaker 2 46:54

I think I did so.

Speaker 4 46:55

You have a big plot of land, especially like a little house right, and you have all this space so you can go to the city. I think it's really brilliant.

Speaker 1 47:08

And just pick it, and it's just pick it, and it's already approved yeah you're kind of like bypassing.

Speaker 3 47:10

Yeah, it's pretty good.

Speaker 2 47:11

Yeah, bureaucracy right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think roger told me about that. So my my friend, roger is like now I think he's the mayor pro term of dhs or something like that. Yeah, he, I think he told me about that. Maybe he's behind the whole thing. He's pretty good.

Speaker 4 47:24

It's just a great idea, shout out to Roger. Because what you said is that it's a problem.

Speaker 1 47:33

Yeah, I mean it doesn't seem to be getting any better. At some point somebody's got to do something. The government's got to change their approach. It's just a massive problem. Here in California, these big hedge funds are buying like crazy too.

Speaker 4 47:41

it's going to change your approach, or yeah, it's just a massive problem here in california these big hedge funds are buying like crazy too, and there's a lot of people worried that like home ownership is going to become obsolete out of reach. Yeah, for only the rich right it's going to be corporate owned and that means they'll have a monopoly on that side, because a lot of the middle class.

Speaker 1 47:57

Wealth is in their homes, if you look at people that have worked 30, 40 years and own their home. That's where they pull money to to do things you know outside of the, the realm of their w-2 wages. It's like that's where all family wealth is. So we always preach home ownership. We're trying to get our kids buy something. Buy something because definitely, if you do it, long term it's gonna it's gonna pay off in the long term.

Speaker 2 48:20

So speaking of kids, so you have twins and they are now real estate agents correct.

Speaker 3 48:27

Yeah, all our kids are entrepreneurs too.

Speaker 1 48:29

So it's just a family of thing, huh yeah except for the one that's in college.

Speaker 3 48:33

The other three, yeah, we have a set of twin girls. They're 24, allie and Haley Squires, and they are realtors, and they have been realtors since they were 18 years old going on six years of family business right yeah

Speaker 2 48:47

in the family business so they work inside of your business, oh no, they don't anymore, not anymore, okay, well they do well they do but not after we renovate a property.

Business Expansion and Niche Specialization

Speaker 4 48:57

Well, they'll list it for us and sell it good yeah, we can. So they're still with us. They're not. They were with my brokerage. But there's another uh, you know, shout out to exp, because there's a group and they're in their 20s and I'm like, these poor guys, like our poor twins, are in in there with me and exp me it's just a brokerage they had a really young, dynamic team and it's like go, you know they go do social stuff.

Speaker 3 49:25

Honestly as a realty, like we can't really offer the twins very much because we do something else.

Speaker 4 49:30

Yeah, we're not traditional agents.

Speaker 3 49:32

They need to learn how to be really good agents.

Speaker 4 49:35

And so they still work with us because they still sell our houses.

Speaker 2 49:39

Well, that's nice of you guys to do that. Yeah Well, do you nice of you guys to do that? Yeah well, Do you get a?

Speaker 1 49:45

deal no Full commission, no family discount.

Speaker 4 49:48

Yeah, no, we discount them. Sorry. Sorry, twins, this is handed to you on a silver platter. I'm not paying you full commission, no way, yeah.

Speaker 3 49:57

And then we have a son who owns a furniture consignment store. That's Austin. You already know him Absolutely.

Speaker 1 50:03

Yeah, what's the name of the store?

Speaker 3 50:05

It's called the Warehouse. It's in Palm Desert on Country Club and that works out really well for us too because when I'm done fixing up the house and I just go to Austin and say give me some furniture.

Speaker 1 50:21

Yeah, nice staging. Let me rephrase that May I please buy some furniture? Yeah, right, yeah, nothing for free, mom, yeah.

Speaker 2 50:25

But he grew up watching you and going on, you know, going to places with you and doing all of this right. So he kind of got a little bit of a.

Speaker 3 50:31

I used to make him come and stage houses with me, sure, and so that's how he learned how to put stuff together, and then I would try to just get rid of my stuff. After, like, if a buyer doesn't buy my furniture with the house, then I would tell Austin you know, sell all this stuff, and I'll just I'll split it with you. And so that's how he just started.

Speaker 1 50:52

That's how he started huh Posting on.

Speaker 3 50:53

Facebook Marketplace or whatever.

Speaker 4 50:55

And then finally, we got him it worked out really good because we had upgraded our office space to a bigger space and then, right before COVID hit, so it's just sat there and I'm like, oh my.

Speaker 3 51:06

God yeah, we had an extra retail store Duck and an extra lease and now COVID, everything's stopping.

Speaker 4 51:11

This is really bad. So you know it happens to space when it sits there, stuff finds its way in there. So you know all of our extra staging materials are getting thrown in there. You know it's supposed to be an office and it's just like freaking Storage. Yeah, ottomans and stuff, yeah. And then that was when you guys had the idea what if we had a sale?

Speaker 3 51:31

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 51:32

And they did really well. And then he I remember it was like a month later I'm like hey, do you think are you getting into a position you can?

Speaker 3 51:45

pay rent, like half rent. He's like oh no, I paid it, we're good, he like he took over the rent and his store was born.

Speaker 4 51:48

It was during yeah, I keep just right off the bat, okay.

Speaker 2 51:50

And then he has, uh, he has a friend out in the la area right that has these model homes and then he gets to buy or he does, he, he buys a whole entire model homes at one time he buys them, and then he's like all mine baby he sends a truck.

Speaker 3 52:04

The truck comes back with all the furniture from the model from Newport Beach usually, oh my gosh and dumps it into his store. And he takes stuff on consignment too.

Speaker 2 52:12

Oh, he does.

Speaker 3 52:13

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 52:14

You bought stuff from him. Oh yeah, We've got a ton of his stuff.

Speaker 4 52:17

Cindy gets furniture store flashbacks and just goes into the store and starts rearranging it and he's like Mom, this is not your store.

Speaker 3 52:25

I'm like oh.

Speaker 1 52:27

It's funny how that comes full circle right. You started in a furniture store and now you guys have another furniture store.

Speaker 3 52:32

But it's all his. It's not like Mom and Dad helped him, it's his store.

Speaker 2 52:37

And what's cool is that I know Bobby started doing his payroll too, so that was kind of cool.

Speaker 1 52:42

cool is that I know bobby was doing it, started doing his payroll too, so that was kind of really yeah all circles around, yeah, it all circles around. He's a pretty impressive hustler, just like awesome to him too you've referred so many designers to him.

Speaker 3 52:51

Oh yeah, designers have become very loyal buyers. Oh good, thank you yeah, we just.

Speaker 2 52:55

I just had something at my office the other night and two designers moved down here from manhattan beach a and daughter and I told them you've got to go to Austin.

Speaker 4 53:04

That gave them a huge boost business-wise and also morale-wise. You were a huge help to him.

Speaker 2 53:11

Yeah, oh thank you, that was very cool.

Speaker 3 53:13

I hope so, just like this podcast, you know, and you're promoting all the businesses in the area. Yeah, Absolutely. Helping people, helping promoting all the businesses in the area and helping people helping small business owners.

Speaker 1 53:25

That's what it's all about.

Speaker 4 53:25

Of all the people I know I'm like. Fina and Bobby need a podcast. They're the ones.

Speaker 2 53:32

And here we are.

Speaker 1 53:33

Here we are. Took a lot of planning, but we're happy we're here. So, coachella Valley Homebuyers, where do we see that in the next couple years? What do you? What do you see the mark going? You see, for your guys's business? Do you think it's gonna, you know, is it gonna soften up and you guys are gonna expand? Or what do you foresee in the future?

Speaker 4 53:49

that is a great question. Um, well, we did expand, you know when, right after covid with the low inventory, it took a hit because, like we were talking about earlier, there's not as many people selling their homes. So Coachella Valley became like not enough for us deals to sustain us. So we added just this last year, so we kind of changed it to CV homebuyers and now we're hitting LA Orange County. We just bought a house in San Clemente and San Bernardino County. So we were also kind of specializing more towards a niche, because you know it's like man, your old school stuff we use your postcards and pay-per-click advertising has really become less and less effective. So another piece of advice I might give someone is niche meaning, like you know, adus, specialize and learn what ADU buyers want and learn the rules and what makes a good one Specialize.

Speaker 2 55:01

Or apartment building, or again you've got to evolve the business Because times change and your business will change with it.

Speaker 1 55:08

It has to change, it has to change, Otherwise it's going to die. It does You're like, oh shit, okay, I guess I'm doing this now.

Speaker 2 55:14

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 55:15

Yeah, that's exactly how it felt. And it happened quick and so we're primarily like homes that are going to foreclosure auction, reaching out to them, and we like we help a lot of people when we never buy their house because they don't know the rules and people will lose their house. So we have like a backup plan. Look, you can do this, this, this, like there, with the problem solving. If none of that works, we will pay cash and buy it prior to the foreclosure auction and that's become kind of our new specialty.

Speaker 3 55:53

Sweet spot yeah.

Speaker 4 55:57

Another thing I'd recommend too. Where a lot of our deals are coming from is we used to be a lot more transactional. Where it's postcards's like I need to sell this right now, we buy it and a lot of inventory. I would recommend somebody's looking for a project is reaching out to agents real estate agents and getting the word out to them. Sure you know that at the feet on the ground, yeah, exactly, boots on the ground boots on the ground because theyots on the ground. Boots on the ground.

Speaker 4 56:24

Cause they're on the front lines, yeah, and it's like look, if you come across a fixer they need to sell now instead of listing it, just bring it straight to us. Especially, you know, it's not, obviously not going to be for a really pretty home. They're not in a hurry to sell. But you know if, if an's sitting down and it's a hoarder house or it's an inheritance, the agent can say I've got somebody that can do a cash offer right now and that's becoming another source of deals too. Very plus, there's no marketing cost there you go.

Speaker 2 56:55

Yeah, because a lot of money goes into getting a house ready to sell, oh god, school networking right it's school networking. He's coming back coming, you know.

Speaker 1 57:06

So we got. We're kind of up against time here, but we always like to ask our entrepreneurs what's some of the best business advice you guys got throughout the years that you can share with the audience stay lean, stay lean, you.

Speaker 4 57:22

and before the COVID years, you know it was like. You know you mail postcards, you get all these calls. Everything was great. You have a full team and you know, honestly, like we could have cut overhead back but I didn't. I'm like. You know, here's some services that we don't need. I'll get around to it and you know, because when it's coming in, it's doing good. The market will change at some point Of course it will.

Speaker 2 57:49

It's always changing right.

Speaker 3 57:50

You've got to be ready and you don't give up. You work hard, you work harder than anybody. You work harder than all your employees. Yeah, you are persistent.

Speaker 2 58:03

What are?

Speaker 3 58:03

some of the other things You've got to have grit.

Speaker 4 58:07

I think the questions you ask are really important. You've got to have grit. You've got to have grit. When we were wholesaling those REOs, they said you can't assign an REO.

Speaker 3 58:18

You can't flip houses in this market.

Speaker 4 58:20

We hear that every year.

Speaker 3 58:21

You can't flip houses in this market.

Speaker 4 58:22

We hear that every year you can't flip houses in this market when our marketing started becoming not effective and we have all this overhead and it's harder to get deals. It's like what can we do? It's not working. What was working for 13 years is not working.

Speaker 1 58:39

You've got to pivot. You've got to pivot.

Speaker 4 58:42

What can we do to change our business where it can still be, you know, profitable and yeah, um, you know we started marketing to the auctions and, um, you know, it took a little bit and starting to work. So that's the advice. That's the advice be ready to change.

Speaker 1 58:58

Be ready to change, ready to ask how ready to pivot yeah, I mean that's, I think all of us had to do that in COVID right. We all every business that's still alive today had to pivot. If you're still here, you pivoted yeah. I do payroll HR like some of the safest work you can do, because everybody's always going to need that.

Speaker 3 59:14

Right.

Speaker 1 59:14

But there were times where we had to pivot what we did every so that's I think everybody kind of went through that. What's the worst advice you've gotten for being an entrepreneur over the years?

Speaker 4 59:27

I'm sure you've gotten some.

Speaker 1 59:28

I'm sure you've gotten some. What's the?

Speaker 4 59:31

worst advice flipping houses don't flip houses, don't do it best piece of advice for someone considering it don't do it, no. No, it's been an adventure. It's definitely been more interesting than probably some things, worst advice though Come on, somebody's got to give it to you.

Speaker 1 59:56

Well, no, I think that was it, don't flip homes.

Speaker 2 59:59

I mean because you listen to the critics.

Speaker 3 1:00:01

You gotta, you just gotta shut them out it really is true that we hear every single year you can't flip homes in this market and you do it every year. A year it's either harder to buy them or it's harder to sell them, but you can do it in any market.

Speaker 4 1:00:16

I'll give something that I would say not to do in this market pertaining to real estate ownership is don't get very highly leveraged and get a bunch of homes because we don't know what the market's going to do and I've seen so many people wiped out. We're just gunshot, For example, the Airbnb. They would buy one and they would pull the money out, buy another Airbnb and then keep doing that.

Speaker 1 1:00:42

That could be a disaster. Laquinta came and said no more Airbnbs, yeah, as soon as the city council says you can't do that anymore your business is over, game over, then pivot, then pivot, real quick.

Speaker 3 1:00:52

All that money.

Speaker 4 1:00:53

All the renovations and the Airbnb costs just gone. So you want to stay conservative, because a time will come it's a cycle, the market we're going to be reminded of what can happen. So I've just seen too many people like we're like freaky paranoid when we buy, you know, after going through the crash. So just that's what I would say is be conservative when you buy yeah, you know, don't get way over leveraged in any business.

Speaker 3 1:01:24

Yeah, yeah, that's true. You gotta watch that overhead because it'll swamp you.

Speaker 1 1:01:29

You know especially the ebb and flows of business. You guys know how it goes. There's those ups and downs.

Speaker 4 1:01:34

Yeah, your overhead is way too safe, those acorns.

Speaker 1 1:01:37

Yeah, if you're overhead you're doing really well, but you have high overhead. You know when you don't do as well, that's when it's going to start eating into your profit, absolutely.

Speaker 3 1:01:45

That kills the business.

Speaker 1 1:01:47

A lot of good nuggets in this episode. You guys are some rock stars in the real estate game.

Speaker 3 1:01:53

We have tenacity, that's for sure. We have learned so much about you both, and your business.

Speaker 2 1:01:59

It's no wonder that it is definitely thriving and we're so excited for you and your future and very inspired by you guys.

Speaker 1 1:02:08

Thanks for coming on. Where can our audience find you guys, if they wanted to get in touch or talk to the gurus of house flipping?

Speaker 4 1:02:16

Yeah, CoachellaValleyHomeBuyerscom. And then a more interesting page is our Facebook page. We're on Instagram too, cbhomebuyerscom. Okay, and then a more interesting page is our Facebook page.

Speaker 3 1:02:24

We're on Instagram too. Cbhomebuyers on Instagram.

Speaker 2 1:02:27

Yeah, we are.

Speaker 3 1:02:28

CBHomeBuyers. Yeah, kind of, we're the marketing guys, we're busy working, we've got to get better at internet marketing, but. Coachellavalleyhomebuyerscom.

Entrepreneurship Boosting Desert Community

Speaker 1 1:02:37

So check them out. Everybody that gained any information from today, I think it would be a good follow. Yeah, you know. Thank you guys for coming in. It was a pleasure.

Speaker 4 1:02:45

Thanks for having us, you guys, you guys are awesome.

Speaker 1 1:02:47

I'm in awe. Every time I talk to you guys, I'm like I didn't learn something every time.

Speaker 4 1:02:50

So the desert needs more pumping up of entrepreneurship. What you guys?

Speaker 2 1:02:55

are doing and it's like it's so proud of you guys. It's you know every.

Speaker 1 1:03:00

Every business has its own story, every entrepreneur and they're pretty. They're cool stories if you sit down and talk to them so that's what we're trying to do and, uh, you know we appreciate you guys we're honored to be here, thanks enjoy that like subscribe and follow, and we'll talk to you guys next time.