Ep 114: Trials and Triumphs in Strategic Real Estate Investment

Welcome to the Think Generation of Wealth Podcast, and this is episode number 114. I am your host, amir Ashtimo. Thank you for tuning in to today's podcast episode. Also, I would like to say welcome everyone who's listening to this podcast to 2024. I know it has been a while since I recorded a podcast it looks like it's back in October or published a podcast back in October of 2023. So it's been about close to three months since you guys have heard from me and first of all, I sincerely like to apologize. I know it's um, you know, when you're doing a podcast episode, one of the things I know I've always been told is that you always want to stay consistent when it comes to your podcast, because the minute you stop recording for, let's say, you go in a long hiatus you lose that audience. So if there's anyone today that's listening to this podcast who's always enjoying my content and who look for you know where I drop this podcast episode and you're still around, I really do appreciate it. But again, I apologize again. Um, it was just a lot of things going on between mine. I don't know if you guys have shared this in recent podcasts. I have a land flipping business and also a. I just started an agency business, so basically looking for talent, placing them in the field of engineering. So that's, dad, and basically the holidays and just being burnt out from everything. Just needed a break, and also to from. I felt like I reached a point when it came to the podcast. I was almost running out of ideas or topics to discuss because for a while I've been thinking about the podcast episode basically going a I wouldn't say no direction, but adding a little bit more stuff to the podcast, because we all know this is the personal finance generally. I talk about personal finance to that nature. But I feel like I wanted to get into a niche of talking about land investing or starting your own business or something to that nature, and also share the struggles in the wind of being a business owner. So and obviously start bringing more guests onto the podcast. And for a while it was just. I had all these ideas in my head but I just couldn't execute. So that's why today's podcast episode is going to be about the year of consistency. So 2024 always have a theme. Last year's theme was. Last year's theme was growth. This year's theme for me is consistency, and the reason I chose this topic is because for me, when it comes to the podcast, is something I have struggled with when it comes to consistency and and that could be anything in life you do, and I wanted to actually talk about consistency but also talk about a case study. So always said, when I buy and flip my first property, I'm gonna come in the podcast and do a case study. Now I want to do a visualization of it and I'm probably gonna release that episode sometime next week. I have also focused on growing my own YouTube channel. So I'm probably, this year, simplified and consistent, meaning I'm not gonna focus on too many social media platforms, I'm just gonna focus on, just focus on few things YouTube, my content being on YouTube, maybe one other social media platform and in the podcast, but I'm not gonna do too much. We're gonna start promoting the podcast a little bit more, getting more guests involved to that nature. That's my goal. Okay, so here we go, so mine, I. So the theme of the podcast is consistency, but also want to share a case study of what consistency is and how in life. If you're not consistent, you don't see results, but if you are, for some odd reason, I don't know if it's just how the universe works or God or something to that nature you it always ends up working out, the more consistent you are okay. So if you look at some of these businesses, people who became wealthy is because of consistent, massive action, taking consistent, massive action every single day, or consistent action. So if you're consistent, you will see results. Now, just to show you, I bought a 7.5 acre property vacant land, property out in North Carolina, and these are one of the few places I generally buy properties in North Carolina, florida. I'm starting in Texas, arizona, but I bought my first property back in May of 2023. I actually had this property under contract for almost a year for actually a year and let me tell you, the reason I end up buying this property was because, for me, I want to be a man of my word, and that's why I'm talking about consistency, especially when it comes to the podcast, and I feel if I want to purchase something for somebody and I'm actually generally interested in purchasing it, then I should close. And this was a property. This property was. I can say it was a challenge, and the reason I said it was a challenge because it was 7.45 acres of property. Now, here's the thing when it comes to land, if you probably hear some guru or fear any type of land content will not tell you. If you buy a 7.45 acre property it's not always the case that it's 7.45, that is usable Meaning with this property it was steep. So where this property was located in North Carolina, this area, it's steep, so most of the properties there, meaning that there is a slope. So if you wanted to build on this property you would have to in a sense. In a sense you would have to pay, basically grind it out, level it out, and you have to even know if you can even build on that property. You got to make sure the property there's, it's not in wetlands, it's not landlocked, meaning that you can get access to property. Wetlands meaning that the property let's say there is, it's near river or let's say there's a, there's some type of flooding activity that's constantly going in that area. If it floods your property, sometimes it's hard to build on it and not to say you can't sell it or you can't build, it's just going to be expensive. So you want to always keep that in mind when you're buying properties. So, excuse me, when it came to this property I would say because of the steepness, the slope. It was really it would have been. Really it was really difficult to be able to sell this property. And then the other issue that was with the property was and I don't know if that was really an issue, but majority of the people in the beginning kind of made it an issue and in front of the property there was a creek, so you couldn't directly access. Now, granted, the property did have frontage access, meaning it was accessible through a road, but because of the creek, you would have had to build a small bridge over it to get to the property, to access it. So that was one of the downfalls of the property the steep, the creek, excuse me, that was one of the downfalls of the property. So I got this property under contract in May of 2022. So I marketed and marketed a few things. I would say I did wrong at the beginning and I had. A problem was you can actually, when you buy a property, you can list it on an MLS and you don't actually have to go through a realtor and you can use a real that now a company like broker list that will actually list the property for you. Okay, so you don't have to pay a realtor or get out and then they will post the property on the MLS. For you. The beginning I was getting a lot of drawbacks from this property. First of all, I had list the property for, so I list the property in the beginning I think it was either 51 or 49, something to this nature. When I tell you I bought this property for, I bought it for 19 to, so 19 to okay, and now I bought the property for that price and that was a year later. But for me was because I had the property on the contract so long and I had a feeling that if I can find the right buyer, I can sell this property. But through kind of not being consistent marketing put it on broker list, getting calls, etc. I Was not getting. I was getting feedback which led me to believe, say, okay, well, the property can sell. But the issue is, maybe the feedback that I'm getting is what? So what I did was I Hire the aerial company, went out into pictures of the property, posted it but, like again, I was never consistent. So, fast forward, may of 2023 comes, I still haven't found a buyer. Generally, with land flipping, there's several ways. You have to know your exit strategy. You can. You can do what they call Owner financing, so you can actually buy the property yourself in financing to an buyer and they just pay you a monthly. They just pay you a monthly payment every single month. Now to draw back behind. That is Now to draw back behind. That is, if the person you miss a payment for a month or two, now you have to basically foreclose on the property, you can foreclose, take your property back and that's the job act. So you have to have your. Your system has to be robust enough to where you can even trust the end buyer. So if you know the end buyer knows hey, every single month I got a pay and you can negotiate the terms and all that stuff. That's the next strategy. The next is assignment of contract, meaning you can assign the contract to an end buyer who come in your place and they will be the one Actually closing. So you're just assigning them the contract that you have, the purchase agreement that you have With the seller, so you may charge them, say, hey, five thousand dollars here, you can step in my place and then they're the ones who would actually close on the property. The other option is what they call double close, or you take the property down in the land business we say we use this terminology called take the property down, meaning you close the property with your own funds and you sell it to an end buyer. So with the double closes I don't want to confuse people too much but just to be to keep it kind of simple, basically you would buy the property from the seller and then basically the same day you would sell the property to the end buyer. So all this happens Simultaneously, all in one day. You buy the property from the seller, then you close the property with the end buyer. So it's a to be, b to c, if that makes sense. So those are Kind of these three exit strategies. I'm pretty sure there's more. I don't know too many other ones if there is, but that's my experience. So With that, when I bought the property a year later, I Said you know what I wanted to? Basically build a brand and I wanted to be a company where if we say we're gonna do something, we do it Because, folks, you don't want to get these properties under contract and then all suddenly, or agreement, and then all suddenly you're not closing. You don't want to be known in the industry Someone who buys properties and can't close or gets the properties list them, etc. So I listed the property. When I bought the property, I listed it for 51. I got no buyers. I listed it, I think, 48 Nothing, I would get little. I'll get people hitting me up here and there Nothing. And then, as again I had to, as time went on, I had to decrease the the price and I ended up getting a All-cash offer for the property for 31,000 dollars. So I end up profiting from this property about 10 11 of us. A 10 because you got to include the closing costs that you already paid when you bought the property and Some of the closing costs I had to pay because I didn't actually use my. I didn't use my title company, which I learned in the future, if it's my property, if it's something I Directly bought, it will be, the transaction will happen at my title company. So, in regards from May of 2023, I would say it's about November Constantly marketing the property. I posted this property on Craigslist, facebook marketplace, constantly renewing my listing, listed it on the MLS by using the flat, free flat, the boat broker, and Just constantly marketing. I told myself I gave it because I didn't actually I bought it in May but I didn't actually started remarketing the property in July. Now you say I'm here. Why'd you do that? Well, the reason I did that was because you have to remember, I already listed this property before and I didn't. I got traction but I didn't get any buyers. So what I wanted to do was I wanted to give the property a Basically a break and From the eyes. So when I did repost the property with a new price, there's a fresh set of eyes on this property. So that was my thought process behind it. So, I would say, from July of 2023 up until I end up finding a buyer at the end of November, this was a four month process, but it was a year in process from May 22 to November. Now, is this always the case? No, with land, this is not always the case. Again, you have to keep in mind when your property has issues. Now, all land sells. I hear that all the time. I'm now a firm believer of that. But you have to understand that when your property doesn't have, let's say, it's not really desirable meaning if you would, let's say, your property has access, it's beautiful, it's cleared, it's going to kind of take a while and, depending where you bought the property it's going to take a while to sell. Now, if you bought in a hot market, your property may sell a month or two, a couple of weeks. If you have a strong buyer's list, that you work with people who's constantly buying from you, your property may even sell even faster. But in this case, where I bought the property, there wasn't much transactions at that moment but I felt like you know what, I can hold this property for a few months, worst case scenario I can get. I can make 100% return. So I got it down to 40 nothing, 41, nothing, 40, nothing. I end up selling the property, like I said, for $31,000. So I made a close to $11,000 profit on the property. And the reason I say that is because when I realized those two things consisted action in my vision. And the reason I say vision is because I had actually drew a check and I posted this check on my desk and I wrote a $30,000 in there to my company, etc. Did you know when that check? When they sent that check to me, I looked at it and I said, man, even though it was you know, it was not quite 30,000, but it made me realize when you visualize something and you put action towards it, it will come true. Many people gives up and I could have gave up between the money and time I spent and I would say, if I was to say how much hours I put into this property, it probably. And one thing I want to realize any money you make, whether slam, flipping or whatever real estate, you want to look at the amount of time it took you, how much time you put, because when you go work a nine to five, let's say, you get paid hourly, you get paid $14 an hour. So for every time let's say you work on, you work on this hour, two hours, three hours, 14 hours an hour and I would say, was the time worth it? I would say yes, because I was able to experience a transaction. Now that was, I only did two real estate transactions last year, but from buying and selling. So you know what this I didn't. I was not a firm believer of it, but now I am because of the fact that, I would say because of the fact that I was able to experience something from start to finish. But the action and division was the key. The constant action marketing, talking to buyers, talking to talking to realtors, constantly, constantly. It was every single day, every single day, and then I knew I was getting close. How close, I don't know If you ever read the book three feet from gold. This was a book. Napoleon Hill, I think Sharon Lector wrote it or she was part of the whole she's part of the Napoleon Hills Foundation and one thing it says is in the book most people get to three feet, they get close to the gold and they quit. And one thing about me is I never looked at myself as a quitter. Some say you know I would quit long time ago. But to me I wanted to go through. First of all, I wanted to go through the process, because how can you share any type of knowledge with someone if you even go through the process? And when you get that close, why quit? Well, can I get expensive? Yes, between the marketing, selling millers, etc. Yes, it can get expensive. But what you want to keep in mind is, instead of just quitting, maybe try some other techniques. Maybe say you know, instead of selling millers, maybe what I can do is just hey, maybe a situation where you may have to hand, write letters and send it off, anything to keep this alive, because the reason is the reward. This will show your effort, and that was my mindset. So after this happened and again I visualized it I told myself vision and consistency are two things that work hand in hand. When you have a vision and you put massive action behind it, it will come, it will work, it will always work. So, for 2023, folks consistent. Whatever you decide, don't go set a goal, for example, when people when a new year happened and people wants to set, they set these, they set these health goals going to the gym. If you are not doing that, 2221 and 20, what's going to be a difference in 24? The difference has to be in your habits. It has to be in your action, because if you want to lose weight and you're constantly eating chips or eating out late, spending a lot of money, etc. It's going to be the same thing as the previous year. So, for me, I always look at this in a sense of consistent action. Consistent action that's where I want to do with the podcast, instead of me taking these long hiatus. Consistent action Maybe I need to make some adjustments Instead of missing. I had a plan. I had a plan with the podcast. I said I'm going to record two, three episodes ahead of time and I didn't do it. So, guess what, when it came time to record a podcast, I don't worry about it, and you know I love podcasting, I do, so I just wanted to share this with you guys. And May 2024, consistent, don't you know? Don't be starting something and not finishing. Be consistent Year around. Be consistent, massive, daily action. Take action, write down your goals. Where can you be consistent? Make it tangible. Don't say I don't make a million dollars this year and you never made 100. So yours, you're that far removed from a million dollars. Maybe, if you made 700,000 last year and you can you can be closer to a million, but if you never made that, how can you even go make a million dollars? That's not feasible, that's not attainable. Your goals have to be realistic and it has to be attainable. That's why this year should be the year of consistency, because, as we look at next year, we are in now, in 2025. We are now halfway, half decade in. Who would have ever thought that, folks, I lost a, I'm gonna say lost, but it was about, and I'll end on this note. And most recently, I connected with a previous college, someone I knew in college. We were not friends, we were not. We were cool, we hung out, but we knew each other, we knew of each other. Great guy. He ended up starting his own leadership academy called the Albert Gibbs Leadership Academy. He started back home, went back home to Fort Lauderdale, made some, was a pillar in the community. I most recently last couple of days, two couple of days ago, I found out he passed away and the funny thing was me and him hasn't talked since college. But what happened was I used to post my land that I was selling, that I'm selling. I have a couple of other lands right now I'm still trying to sell and he actually saw one of my listings and he said hey, amir, are you, is this your property? And I said and then we exchanged numbers. We actually ended up talking 30 minutes, making plans, talking about he's, talking about how he's gonna. You know he travels in the city I live pretty often. But he said hey, amir, the next time I see you, you know, next time I come in the city, I'm gonna call you and come and hang out, meet your family, etc. And I was like, cool, it's awesome man. And that was probably about October, november, beginning November, summer around there. And then I found out literally before the years over. He passed away young guy about my age range and it really Resonated with me and it made me realize how short life is here today, gone tomorrow. You can never get used to death and and you can never say you have enough time because you don't. Tomorrow's not promised folks. So if you have any dreams you like to accomplish, go for it, don't wait. And To me, to see that he passed away such a young age and he left a legacy behind, this is what it's about Generational wealth legacy. This show is about legacy. So that really, I would say, bothered me for last few days, because I just talked to him, like I said, a couple of months before that, and we were making plans. You know, to the point he was like, hey, just anytime you're getting properties, I'm trying to buy property for my dad. You know, shoot it to me, we can do business together and we didn't get to be that we didn't have that opportunity. Y'all just makes you realize how close you are to death and, if you are, how close you, how you need to achieve your dreams, because you don't know when that time comes and you don't know how it will happen. But don't let your dreams stop Just because of fear, just because of what people are saying and I share this. I share this with you, this case study with you, because I always told you guys anything is possible. So for me it was possible to buy and flip my own property. I knew I could do it. It just would have took time. Right now, launching an agency business, it's not gonna be easy, it's gonna take time, it's competitive. There's a lot of people who's doing it, but that's fine. A pie can be, unless I don't know, not everybody. But if I bake a pie and I put it out and I put it for everyone, I Myself can't eat a pie by myself. I know for me I can't. But if everyone takes a piece of the pie, then that means we all can eat and that's what it is. Just cuz you have a lot of competition, don't mean you can't eat, don't mean somebody's gonna give you a chance. And I Kept telling myself oh, I just need is a chance and I've had a chance. I kept telling myself I just need to find the right buyer. And I ended up having the right buyer. Don't quit, keep going consistency. And I'll leave you with that. I appreciate you for listening to this podcast episode, cuz I know you could be doing anything in this world, but the fact that you're listening to this podcast episode is much appreciated. Appreciate you guys and Be on a lookout. The podcast will resume again Every Wednesday, 3 pm Central Standard Time. Every Wednesday, 3 pm, central Standard Time. Appreciate you guys. To the next week, much love.