2 Secrets for Finding More Deals

Intro: 0:01
You're listening to the flip houses like a girl podcast where we educate, empower and celebrate everyday women who are facing their fears, juggling family and business, embracing their awesomeness and wholeheartedly chasing their dream of flipping houses. Each episode delivers honest to goodness tools, tips and strategies you can implement today to get closer to your first or next successful house flip. Here's your spiky haired breakfast taco loving host house flipping Coach Debbie DeBerry.

Debbie DeBerry: 00:39
Hey, what's up, you guys? All right. I know I sound weird. Still,

Debbie DeBerry: 00:44
I am still recovering from whatever virus tried to take me down for good. So I apologize that my voice sounds a little gruff, if you will. But I'm here. All right, and we're going to do this thing called the podcast. We are going to explore this notion that I hear often. There just aren't any deals, Debbie. So we're going to explore that some more. Okay. And I want to quickly do a little shout out. I love reading ELS reviews. So if you haven't done so, please leave a rating and review for this little podcast of ours. Because remember, it helps me reach more like minded people. And ultimately, the little ones who are watching, because there's always a kid watching what we're up to. So if I can inspire another woman out there to totally go after her house flipping dreams, and a kid sees her do that thing. That's what this is about you guys. So again, thank you so much for taking the time to leave me feedback on the podcast. So I want to share one with you. This is from Caitlin Watson. And she has she leaves such an awesome review here. She says I have always had an interest in flipping houses. I'm still in the research phase. But this podcast has been so informative, and has helped paint a clear picture of exactly how and where to get started hoping to start on my first project around the first of the year, fingers crossed. And then she goes on to share how she also lost her mom, two years ago, and how disorienting that was and how just crappy it is, you know. And she talks about how she and her mom had an HGTV addiction. And that just hits home. So Caitlin, thank you so much for taking the time to leave this review and sharing a little bit about your story with me, it really means so much to me, you have no idea. So thank you very much. I'm grateful. All right. So if you would please leave a rating and a review. Especially if you listen on iTunes. Apparently that's the easiest place to do so and other platforms don't offer ratings or reviews. And maybe I'll be giving you a shout out soon. Alright, let's get into this. So one of the biggest things I hear people say that's holding them back from doing their first flip is this notion of there aren't any deals, Debbie, or there are a lack of deals or there's just my market saturated and there aren't any deals available. There are plenty of deals available. For example, I've got a partner who's flipped 40 houses already and one of the hottest markets in the country right here in Austin, Texas. I've got a brother in another super hot market in the country, Denver, Colorado. He's also at around 40 houses already this year. So that's not true. It's not true that deals aren't available. All right. They're doing things the right way, though, and we'll get to that shortly. So when I hear the response, I can't find deals or deals aren't available, whatever. I can usually guess a few things. Okay. I can usually guess that that person isn't doing any targeted marketing on a consistent basis. Okay, whether it's paid or free, whether they're driving for dollars, whether they're paying for marketing, they're not doing any of it. I also can guess that that person is relying solely on the MLS, or potentially wholesalers, and maybe even auction sites to find deals. Okay. I can also guess that that person has unrealistic expectations, and maybe they just haven't been told any differently.

Debbie DeBerry: 05:21
So can you find deals on the MLS? Oh yeah, for sure you can, I found lots of my deals on MLS, you're going to have to be two things, you're going to have to be patient. And you're also going to have to act fast. So if you're only waiting for an MLS deal, you're one of like a bazillion other buyers who are also waiting for MLS deals. And you're gonna have to be willing to wait for a while for a deal to work out in your favor. And you're also going to have to be super confident in your ability to make decisions quickly enough to jump on those deals quickly, okay? And then wholesalers, can you find deals through wholesalers? Absolutely, you can, again, I found lots of mine through wholesalers

Debbie DeBerry: 06:14
But you're just gonna have to be patient, again, you're gonna have to be patient. And you're going to have to act fast, because you've got a ton of competing hungry investors who are on their on those wholesalers, buyers lists, and they're ready to pounce on a deal. So words of wisdom here. Now, if you are working with wholesalers, you've got to be sure you're working with wholesalers who are actually spending, like 10s of thousands of dollars marketing for deals. Otherwise, if you're working with mom and pop wholesalers, I'm sorry, but they are not generating enough deals, there just aren't. They've got to either be trading a lot of time or money to be generating enough deals for all the investor buyers on their list. Okay. But just make sure that they're actually out there investing, I mean, marketing and getting deals, all right. Also, you better know your areas like the back of your hand, or you better have a realtor on your team who does. And you've got to take a contractor with you on the walkthroughs on the property showings. Why? Because I can almost guarantee you that the ARV or the after repair value that the wholesaler tells you is going to be inflated, and the repair estimate that they tell you is going to be short. All right.

Debbie DeBerry: 07:36
So you need a contractor there to verify the repairs. And you're going to need if you don't know first hand knowledge of the area, you're going to need a super smart realtor who can give you that information. Because here's the thing, you're gonna have to decide right then and there at that property showing whether or not you're going to go you're jumping on the deal. Okay?

Debbie DeBerry: 07:59
So wholesalers and MLS. Now generally speaking, those are the slowest ways to find a deal. They just are. And if that's okay with you, then great. I have zero judgment around it. Like whatever works for you works for you. I don't care how fast you find your first or next deal.

As long as you're happy with the speed.
hatever pace feels right for you do it. Okay. Now, if you do choose the slower routes, though, you're really not in a position to complain about not finding deals, because you're not proactively looking for deals. It's just not fair. Like it makes no sense. Here's the thing you want to know a secret, I tell you the secret.

You know who ends up finding the most deals each year. It's the person who gets in front of the most owners, the most highly targeted owners. That's it. That's the secret. You want more deals. Get in front of more owners. It's really that simple. Want to shorten your timeframe for finding your next deal or your first deal? Get in front of the right owners without a middleman, bet whether it's the MLS or a wholesaler, without the middleman, get in front of the most owners do it consistently and do it regularly. All right. Now here's the beauty when you are generating those deals and those leads yourself, you like there's this money magic that happens because you're controlling the property. So when you control the property when you have the contract on it, the beauty is you can make money on it several different ways. So you can sign the deal to someone else you can wholesale the deal. You can do a prehab or a whole tale on the property. You can do a full rehab, you know, go all in Go all out, you can buy it as a rental. So you have the most control and the most flexibility on how you make money on the deal when you have it under contract. So it's really smart. I talked about this a lot, it's really smart to have multiple streams of income. So you want to be generating those leads yourself so that you can make money on them in multiple ways.

Debbie DeBerry: 10:27
It also prevents this that we've talked about before, that rollercoaster income, it makes it so much smoother.

Debbie DeBerry: 10:36
So I'm sure that you've heard the business adage, the riches are in the niches right? For example, like let's say, let's say you've got an MLM product, right? Those multi level marketing, maybe a little scheme things. Like my mom, for example, my mom got into several different MLM things. It was it was always something Amway, some weird air purifier, thingies. It was always something anyway.

Debbie DeBerry: 11:13
In order, though,to sell her products, she had to have a niche, right, everyone has to have a niche. So her niche was her sphere, right? You hear it your sphere of influence. So her friends, her family, her hairdresser, like her sphere of influence, that's who she sold all these Amway, things to and all her other gadgets. As a real estate agent, you've got your sphere of influence that you target. And you may even farm an area, right, where you pick a neighborhood and you become that neighborhood expert, maybe you pick a couple of them, you become the expert of those areas, that's niching down. You also do it. Like when your kid comes home with fundraiser activity. You niche down, you sell that to friends and family, you send them around to the neighbors, right? Everything you niche down, even when it comes to this can be a stretch for some of you. But even when it comes to finding a significant other, you have to niche down. Here's what I mean by that.

Debbie DeBerry: 12:28
Let's say, you know, I have a friend. And she's like, gosh, you know, I'm just, I really just want to meet, I just want to meet a guy, I want a boyfriend. Okay? So she goes through like, a series of really crappy guys, and it never really works out. That's because she's just looking for a boyfriend. All right, you have to niche down. How about saying, I'm looking for a nice guy who has a steady job with stable income, who owns a house, who like it has some sort of responsibilities out in the world, like you have to niche down. If you don't know what you're looking for, you are not going to find it. Plain and simple. Okay, and this is totally true 100% applicable to flipping houses. So remember earlier I said that one of the things I can guess is that the person isn't doing any targeted marketing, if they say that they aren't, aren't able to find deals. So this is what I mean by that most new flippers fail to niche down. So instead of strategically targeting areas, they're open to deals basically anywhere in their city or county or metro area. This is 100% wrong. This will only lead to overwhelm, analysis, paralysis. All of that just leads to no deals, okay? You cannot possibly be an expert and know all of the nuances of every single little nook and cranny of your city. If you're in a large metro area, even if you're in a rural area, you cannot you cannot you have to niche down and people fight this. People feel as though if they niche down meaning they decide to target just a few neighborhoods and beat super expert on those areas. Then they might miss out on a deal somewhere else. And I can guarantee you that if you don't niche down you are going to miss out on deals everywhere because you don't know What the heck you're looking for, you don't know, every single area is going to have different property types that are appealing to people. So this neighborhood may be like that people want two story houses, this neighborhood, it may be single storey less than 1700 square feet. And you won't know that for every single area, you have got to niche down. And I promise you that niching down, it's going to feel like you're cutting off the like you're restricting the flow potential flow of deals. And I promise you, you're not, you are just getting targeted on what you want and what you're looking for. And that it's the way to be successful in this business, I hands down the way. 

Now, look, I've got I'm here in Austin, there are over 400,000 housing use units in Austin, and 270 square miles, think there's no possible way that I could know all of the areas of Austin, I don't even attempt to I target certain areas, certain neighborhoods, certain pockets. And even if you're in a rural area with far fewer housing units, you still have to niche down in terms of the areas that you're going to look at in the areas you're going to target the property types, you're going to target, the owner types, you're going to target, meaning, you know, are they are they elderly? Are they are the properties non owner occupied, all of that comes into play when you're targeting. And by not targeting and not niching down in your specific areas. You're many of you are really just over complicating things, and you're overwhelming yourself.

Debbie DeBerry: 17:00
And you have unrealistic expectations. So, you know, how do you get in front of as many targeted owners as possible. You either have to trade time or money.

Debbie DeBerry: 17:19
And if you're relying on passive ways to find deals, whether it's the MLS or wholesalers again, I urge you to stop saying, I can't find deals.

Debbie DeBerry: 17:30
Because guess what, if you say you can't find deals, you are going to keep finding evidence that supports you can't find deals. And it's not true, because you're not looking, you're not being proactive and looking for the deals if you're just sitting back and waiting, which is fine. But you have to have realistic expectations that it's going to take you longer. That's fine, have realistic expectations that it's going to take you longer, okay. So you really can find deals, successful investors in markets across the country, they are not saying they can't find deals, right? So there's that they aren't saying it, who's saying it, people who aren't actually finding deals and actually trying to find deals. Alright, so that's it for today. The moral of the story is not being able to find deals is more of a mindset issue than anything else. All right, and a reluctance to niche down for fear of missing out on a deal somewhere. But that's not the case. Flipping Houses, just like any business venture, just like anything worth doing, actually, is at least 90% mindset. And you've got to work on that daily. right mindset work is a daily practice. And then niching down is what the greatest businesses of all time have done. You've got to niche down. Alright, a quick plug for my current video series called follow that flip. Are you guys following along on the flip? I'm doing here with a couple of local women in my coaching program and tribe? Are you following along? It's fun. If you haven't registered yet, to follow us on this journey of flipping this one house together, go to follow that flip.com Okay, you guys hopefully next time My voice will be back to normal. And I will be fully back to normal. I don't know how normal I am but you know, it's all relative. Go out there, flip houses like a girl and make it a great day.

Debbie DeBerry: 20:15
Bye, y'all.