Wholesaling, Flipping, & Systems to Create Ultimate Freedom of Time w/ Gary Crawford Pt 1

This is walkabout episode 12 My name is John Mendez and I am your host. Welcome to walk 12 Where I motivate and inspire people new to the world of personal finance by letting you all in behind the scenes of someone who's still on his way. Welcome, guys to the walk to wealth podcast today, we have a super amazing guest or throughout this two part interview, we're gonna be going over, you know, your freedom and getting your time back, we're gonna talk about, you know, identifying what you're really looking to get out of real estate, you know, sacrificing, creating your own schedule, know, finding the value and systems and teams, if flipping homes, wholesaling all that jazz. So without further ado, let's get right into it. Welcome, everyone, to today's episode of the walk to wealth Podcast. Today, we have a special guest here we have a good friend of mine, Gary, Gary, for anyone that may not know you tell us a little bit about yourself, what's your elevator pitch?

How's it going, man, thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it. So basically, long story short, I'm from Madison, Connecticut, small town up on the coast. After college, I moved to Las Vegas, I saw that properties are really cheap out there. So I went out there and bought my first property. And I just kind of fell in love with real estate after that I was like this is this is probably the quickest way to get to wealth get to where, you know, really where I wanted to be. And, you know, I just realized your nine to five job, you know, your typical job at a corporate job everyone does when they get out of college, you know, just isn't gonna, I'm gonna cut it, it's not going to cut it. So I, you know, I kind of did what I wanted to do and kind of took the leap of faith. And so now yeah, I'm back here, doing some flips. Mainly Connecticut, little New York, coaching some guys, one in New Mexico, one in Florida. Another one in Vegas. So kind of doing a little bit of that. But mainly, flipping is my my full time job. You can say,

Yeah, that's amazing, too. Because for me when I was in college, my my whole mentality in the back. And you know, I didn't speak about it too much. But I knew it wasn't in there for a corporate job. I was in there to network and to, you know, learn as much about myself as I could, I can kind of dive right where I wanted to go with the rest of my life because I knew I could end up seeing myself in a corporate job. So I'm definitely with you on that one. And so you kind of touched about it briefly but like go a little bit more in depth. You tell us about your walk to wealth, you know how you got to where you are? Exactly. I know you mentioned you know, you've after college, you left that Las Vegas Property to cheaper, like a little bit more in depth about your walk and how that all happened to process your mindset while you were in it and stuff. Yeah,

sure. So I mean, I guess it started, I was in college, and my buddies and I, we rented a house. There are like six bedrooms, you know, we each paid like $600 apiece to live in this house. Yeah. You know, the house is what $200,000 And we're like, hold on. So if this lady's mortgage is $1,200, and she's getting $3,600 This lady is making like, you know, 2400 bucks over two grand a month just by just a scholarship, because living there and I was like, this lady is on to something. So I kept that in the back of my head. And after graduating, you know, that's kind of when I was like, I was kind of lost, honestly, I sold some, like, I worked for a solar company doing some sales sales for them. And yeah, I just didn't really know, like, what I what I really wanted to do. I just know, I wanted to get into real estate somehow. And so I moved, you know, so I was like, You know what, I saw this houses out in Vegas, they were cheap. And so I moved out there I had like $1,200 in my bank account.

Yeah. So how Hi, interrupt a little bit. How was that? You know, making that leap of faith and taking that flight, you know, did that $1,200 include the flight

so I packed up all my stuff put it fit it in one car like my little Volkswagen Jetta and I moved. I moved across so I remember I flew out there and like July, I was out there for like four days and I interviewed with like one company or whatever, just like have a you know, like a job starting out. Yeah. And I was out there for four days. It was you know what? Screw it. Like, let's let's go so I got back like a month later. Even less. I was like, Hey, Mom, Dad, I'm going out to Vegas. They're like, Oh, no, can't No one can live in Vegas. You know? Because I mean if you think about it, right? Since city, right? Everyone knows Vegas has like this place. Everyone goes to parties, Gamble's stuff but for me, I was like locked in. I was like, I'm going out there to like, you know, like, I start my career. Like, this is where I'm, this is how I'm gonna get to where I want to be. So yeah, so I packed up all my stuff, packed up my car, drove out there and rented a room for like the gives $350 a month plus like $50 for utilities. So I was paying like $400 a month to, like live in this place. You know, having this like job I was doing like sales. And eventually I built up my money. I got to like, I had like 10k in savings. I put it in, you know, acorns. Yeah. So I put it in an acorn. So like, forgot it was in my bank account, you know. And after that, I saved up the money. And I realized you could buy a house conventional with no, basically no money down, right. 10k. I mean, you know, everyone can kind of save 10k After a little bit. Yeah, put their mind to it. So I, so I put 10k down on my first house, bought it for 175. Fix it up, put some of the rehab on credit cards, you know, I was using my money from my job to like, do some of the fixes. I had a couple my buddies move in, like as the work was being done, like, props to them for like, you know, joining me while the house was being fully demoed. Right, they're sleeping on the ground.

So did they come? Are these your buddies from college that came with you or buddies that you met out there? Well, I

just met out there. Yeah. Actually, two of them were in that house, the original house that I moved into, right, when I got out there for 350 A month or whatever. They actually two of them came over and moved in with me. So yeah, my mortgage on that was so that was like 996 a month was my mortgage. Really? How much were you netting after everything? 3200 on your first property that you bought, yeah. And then I was in then the best thing too, is I was in the master. So I was living in the mat side, the master bed master bath, and I wasn't paying any money for that. Plus, I was making 3200. And I'm like, Hold on a sec. I'm like, my job making whatever $600 A week plus commission, you know, whatever is almost equal to that amount. Why am I doing this job? Yeah. And that's why eventually I was like, Alright, all my living expenses are covered. If I just moved out here with $1,200. Like I could easily I could, I could easily survive. And so I quit the job. And I was at kind of one of the meetups like how we met. Yeah, I was at one of those. And, you know, I learned about wholesaling, and how, you know, people were finding these deals off market, they're making money off that without having their license, any real estate, real experience and stuff like that. And I joined like a little kind of like a mastermind group. And me and like two other guys, we got together, we started marketing, and kind of hit the ground running from there.

Yeah. And you mentioned you talked about wholesaling for anyone that may not know, can you go a little bit in depth into what wholesaling is?

Yeah. So basically, it's like, let's say, your, your home's out, right? You have your, you know, your you want to sell your house. Yeah. Or like, let's say you're, you're, you're going through divorce, okay. And so basically wholesalers, the biggest thing is they're finding off market properties. So they're not on the market, you know, they're off market. And so normally, we contact homeowners directly. So we're doing calls, texts, you know, send them voicemails direct mail, all these different marketing channels to find people that want to sell their house. So basically, you get the property under contract. So it's like, Hey, John, I'll buy your house for $100,000 cash, no closing costs, any you know, any of that. So it's like a smooth, quick transaction and close in 30 days, right, for example. So I get it for 100. And then I go to, like a flipper, like an investor, you know, cash buyer, and then I'm like, Hey, I have this deal. For you know, $125,000. You know, it's worth 250. It needs whatever 50,000 and renovation, go check it out. And then he says, Alright, hey, it looks good. I'll buy it for 125. Right. So then he comes in. So there's like an A to B contract, which is between you and I, yeah. And there's a BDC contract, which is like your, the assignment contract. And that's what the, that's what the end buyer, the the flipper is going to is going to have and basically they just take over the, they take over the purchase, and then that closing seller gets their 100 you get your 25 and then you're out of the deal. That's it. Right? And that 30 days, you get paid to, you know, like I've had, I mean, over over six figure just like single single wholesales really, you know, yeah. 100 and 118 was the biggest one.

She's just one wholesale deal.

Yeah. Change your life. Like, it's pretty. It's pretty wild. I think. We'll talk about a little bit more in a sec, but I've had some pretty some pretty cool stories with a couple guys I like taught and they I mean, pretty much changed their their life, you know, just by getting one or two wholesale deals.

Yeah. And definitely, it's like, for me, anyone who had listened to podcasts already kind of knows, like, what actually got me into real estate is wholesaling. So it was background in December of 2020. This is around a time where like, I decided to becoming like more aware of personal finance stuff and like a mindset shifted in me I started becoming a little more entrepreneurial, and I signed up for a wholesaling class, and I took the class and everything Was it? It was, uh, you know, Max Maxwell

went to his his first like, conference

really? Yeah. So that's his. He's the class that I that I took and it was super informational stuff, I was super ready to get it going, I got my LLC filed, I got my EIN, my logo, my domain name, everything I was ready to get going. And I spoke to an attorney. And attorney was pretty much saying that, hey, you can't do that in the state of Connecticut to legal to get paid on a real estate transaction if you're not a licensed agent. So can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Not an attorney.

Quick disclosure, yeah. You're not licensed attorney flees to your attorneys that are for any legal or tax advice. Not that we got that out of the way.

So there's, there's attorney states, and there's title states. So first off, like me, we don't need to go too in depth with that. But there's some states, for example, like Vegas, or Nevada, it's a title state. So you don't actually need attorneys involved for closings. So you know, like when we like, right, you go to sell your house, like your attorney has to review the contract, you got to sign with your attorney. And then I got assigned with mine out there, there's no, there's no attorneys. It's go through a Title Company, which was like, you know, goes through escrow and all that. And that's how you, that's how you have a go through the transaction. So it's a little different here. But a lot of attorneys don't they don't understand that side of things. Yeah, they don't understand that. Because really, when these sellers are signing a contract, and you can see in one of the line items, it says that you know, it's normally and or assigned, yeah, you know, assignee, or it says this contract is fully assignable. And what that means is, you know, me as the wholesaler, I'm assigning that contract to another buyer. So just a lot of you know, it's like a lot of old school attorneys, because wholesaling isn't the most, you know, like traditional, obviously, real estate method. So a lot of some of these people are only dealing with attorneys are only dealing with Trent, you know, traditional transactions on the market and all that right, like, massive question, how many realtors are in your office?

Will leave. So in just my Stanford office alone, I believe about 500 or so?

And how many know how many of them know about wholesaling?

I'm afraid to say I honestly don't know. But maybe if I had to put a number on me. I'll be surprised if more than more than at least more than 40 know about wholesaling at least know how actually hosting like works and understand it. I'll be surprised more than 30 or 40 No, I actually understand

it's not a bad thing. Yeah. I mean, it's not like not at all it's just it's a different different side of the business. Yeah, it's more on the investor side. Like it's funny I just bought besides my house that I that I bought in Vegas. The only other house I bought on the market was was literally a month ago. sides that over, you know, hope between wholesaling, flipping and regular transactions. But I don't like I don't like over 150 of them. Two of them have been on the market. Yeah. So I mean, that's just, it's, I don't know, it's just like my way of, of doing business. And that's more on the investor side. Yeah.

And definitely. And I feel like another thing too, that me coming in with a brand new perspective and like a fresh set of eyes like, Yeah, well, me coming in. It's like, as I said, I was initially drawn to real estate because of the investing side of things. And so me coming in with that investor oriented mindset. Now that I'm actually an agent. It's like, it's surprising how like few agents actually know about the investing side of things. I think the world are definitely like two completely, like different worlds. And they might have like parts where they like, intertwine a tad bit besides that, it's like, they're completely separated on. And it's funny that about a week and a half ago, Mark King, which is the president of Keller Williams, you have done one of the masterminds and I'm on every morning, and he was talking about only about 9% of Realtors actually want to rental property. And that right there. It doesn't shock my mind at all. Because there's a statistic, it's only like, 10% of people in any given career ever do anything. Right? Yeah, it's like it's right around that you know that number 9%. But it's like the amount of people that say investor friendly, don't know anything at all as to like besides like surface level stuff as to what the investing side of things actually is and what what you know, what's in stores, and how to work really with actual investors that are doing this big time?

Absolutely. It's, uh, it's pretty wild. Yeah. And

then so tell me a little bit about back to your story a little bit. What were you looking to get out of real estate? I know you said that that landlord, you know, she was making a lot of money and that kind of got your, your mindset on kind of doing a short stay stuff, but what were you looking to get out of it?

Honestly, man, like, I remember when I would write down goals, like in college, you know, whatever you like. Right? It's the classic question. Where do you want to be a year where do you want to be in three years? Where do you want to be in five years? And you're doing all that and Honestly, like, at first my goal was okay, I want to make $10,000 a month passively. For example, right. So at that point, I was trying to buy, trying to, you know, I was trying to passively make income, getting doing wholesales and then using that money to buy rentals, okay. And then I started buying a bunch of rentals, for example. So I started in in Vegas, right, and then I was virtually wholesaling, and marketing in Columbus, Ohio. So I was buying a bunch of properties there. And then I think my, the most I had at one time was like, 27 doors. So I was up to 27 doors in Ohio. And I was making like, seven, eight grand a month. And then that's when I was like, You know what? I was like, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to wholesale. I'm not going to flip. I'm just going to live off the rental income. And, you know, and I'm just going to like travel. Right? So I was like, I just want freedom i want to travel. Because freedom is really ultimately like, what Van Gogh would be the end goal. Yeah. So I did that. And I traveled, I went, I went around Europe for like, a month. I was traveling around like, the US, like just taking like road trips around the country. Like I did, like three road trips around. And I probably did, like, you know, three months of just kind of like, just like living, you know, and then honestly, even after that, it kind of got like, boring. Yeah. Right. It's like, it's like being retired. Yeah, exactly. The only golf you could only golf so many times, and, you know, in a week and just kind of, you know, chill out. And so I kind of got bored of it. And then I started having issues with tenants. tenants that weren't paying, you know, evictions. And then COVID happened, you know, happened with with all that? Yeah, people not paying so and then I realized like, yeah, like, it's the the monthly the doors, yeah, wherever and talks about bigger pockets, and all these places by having all these doors. It's, it's not really about like a number that's out of for me, like I realized, like, wow, that's like, I self reflected. And I was like, that was more like an ego thing. Right? Yeah. 25 doors, I'm gonna get to 100 doors. And then it's like, well, that doesn't really matter. Because you could have 100 doors and be miserable and have like, the biggest headaches going on in your life? Yeah. And is that really what you want? Do you really want the 100 doors? Or is it more of the, you got to go back to the freedom thing or the time thing and all that. So that's when I really realized that it was more about the freedom and the interest having like, the flexibility of time, because that's really what, that's really what we're going for, or me at least

Yeah, definitely. I want to touch a little bit upon that, too, because I don't really get too philosophical on this podcast. But, you know, Phyllis, philosophy always kind of, you know, intrigued me a little bit, and I'm not doing the most philosophical person on earth, but it definitely gets, you know, gets me going. And, you know, they talk about, like, happiness and life, and that you should never chase happiness. And so I kind of came to the idea that, you know, chasing happiness is like, happiness, just like any other emotion that comes and goes, Yeah, so it's kind of as if chasing a ghost, you know, you're constantly chasing something that you're never able to be truly able to achieve and sustain, right? It's like, what people say is that you should strive to achieve something that's, you know, that's sustaining. Like, it has some substance in life that fulfills you. And if happiness comes along the way, excellent, that's the cherry on top. But happiness shouldn't be the thing that you're actually chasing. It should be something that fulfills you that you're chasing, and whatever comes with it comes with it. But you having that fulfillment, is going to be way more satiating than you having that cherry on top which is that happiness that people tend to you know, run after Yeah, and I liked that you mentioned like that ego thing with doors and having this many doors XYZ doors. And like, I felt like once you get to a certain point in people listen to my my first interview with Margaret is like syndications, like things like that angel investing. I feel like that's where in reality, that's like, really the end goal because that's like, even more passive, so you can get even more of your time back. And then now it's, that's, that's like, when you you don't have to have any headaches at all. It doesn't matter how many doors you have, you have a couple businesses that you have money in, that you're invested in, that you don't have to do anything besides like, show up maybe once a month. It's like, you know, that's, that's, you know, ideal because that's even more flexibility. And I read The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Yep. That was genuinely thinking about it. It's like, you know, only working four hours a week. It's like, how much like, purposeful things can you do with your life because as you said, after a point in time, it's like, you just kind of like, over it. Because you're not chasing anything anymore. When you're not people fail to realize that it's the journey that makes no sense. Like if you there's no end journey, because you already hit your end goal, whether that's, you know, having a certain amount of monthly income coming in a certain amount of dollars coming in or anything like that, you know, or even as tiny amount of like dividend stock income that's coming in every quarter of the year, monthly when you do the distributions and It's like after a while, if you're not chasing something, if you're not striving to, you know, achieve something, you just kind of get bored. It has nothing to do with your life. It's like, why am I here? At this point anymore? Yeah, and traveling only gets so much. It's like so fun, ya

know? Exactly. And I think also as well as, like tangible items, right? Yeah, for example, like, you know, I, you want the car, right? It's like, I just want you know, I want the sick, I want the newest quarter bed, or I want the, you know, the Lamborghini or all that, right? And then you're like, Alright, I want my own house, right? Because you're renting, you're like, Alright, I want my own house, then I want to buy. I want to buy a condo in Florida. So I have a place in Florida, I could go when it's cold out, you know, and then it's like, start getting these places and stuff, you start getting these things. And then it's always what now? Yeah, what's next? Right? And it's like, you could just drive you're crazy. You could just drive yourself crazy, like thinking like that. And yeah, same thing. Like, ultimately, that's not, it's not going to fulfill you, you know, you're always going to still have that like that emptiness. Inside. And that's why I think like, I see, I see my, well, I won't want to talk bad about him. But like, my roommate, for example, okay, he's a good good friend from home. I love him. He's, he is a an engineer. He's a civil engineer, okay. And he, he works on, like water mains, they're doing like all the water lines that are all around Connecticut. Okay, so he has to wake up, sometimes he'll wake up at 5am, he'll go to a site, he'll get back at six or 7pm. Right? Then he has to wait, you know, go through the same thing, wake up at 5am. And then sometimes it's like, alright, we have to do this job in Greenwich, we could only do it overnight. He's going in at 11 o'clock at night work until 8am. And he's, he's kind of miserable, to be honest doing that. And that's when I really realized the value of time. You know, I see these people that have these these structured, scheduled jobs that they have to go to, when you know, people like ourselves, we have the opportunity to, you're already seeing him, I'm sure he's like you have the opportunity have the flexibility to do whatever you want when you want. Right. Alright, like it was nice out on Friday of 60 degrees. I was like, You know what? I'm gonna go golf 18 holes, like, Let's go Yeah, you know, I can I can do whatever I have to whatever I have to do later, you know, it's like, Alright, get done. Your couple of things, your your three main tasks, you got to get done, get them done the morning and then go enjoy yourself where it's like, Alright, you got to bed late. It's 12 o'clock, like, I'll be honest, I will sleep eight hours no matter what, yeah, whatever time I go to bed, I will wake up like eight hours later. It's just, that's what my body needs with, you know, rest in the gym and all that just for mental, just mental ability. That's what I need. So I, I really appreciate that, that flexibility to do that. And that's why I really, like really after looking at it, and kind of being in the business and just like, experiencing it, I think that the time is by far the most valuable five, by far the most valuable asset. And, you know, that's, that's really what I just drive for now. And on a regular basis

hit one of those. But yeah, I think one of the big things that, um, that I've, you know, found early on is that people who, you know, trade their time for money are always going to be in a losing trade. And the reason I always thought that because, you know, time is something that you can never ever get back no matter how long you know, no matter how much you try, you just can't enter like, Well, money and so you blow 100,000 Today, you get one wholesale deal, you get another 115 That's rare. But you know, all that time that it took to get there. It's like, you know, that money that you blow you can blow in a second you can also get it right back in a second when the time it's like oh, never come back. So it's like kind of as if you're trading gold for silver. And because you know, people give you a lot of silver. They may think that it out values ago but it's like once the gold is gone it gold is gone. Yeah. And so. And then money can always be printed Erica or there will always be more of just like you're trading something that's replaceable for something that isn't. And it's like a lot of people get too caught up because they start getting more money. They buy more shiny thing. And it's kind of like, I feel like a toy use kind of distract and distract you away from the actual reality of what it is that's happening. And it's like you're losing everything, trading for this monetary, you know, money and materialistic things and stuff. And I also wanted to ask you to because as you said, you know, time has always been the most important thing for you. And you have gone on road trips and stuff like that. So how are you able to do all of that, while not having everything fall and crumble?

Well, my phone's over there. I would just I would take my phone out. I don't need it now. It's all good. I have a couple of missed calls, but honestly did The phone in the computer do you have a hotspot, you have Wi Fi and you got your phone, I mean, the business that we're in, like so real quick how my business is structured right now like my flipping business for example. I find all the deals so I do all the off market like, you know, hunting of deals, I mainly now just connected with wholesalers. So instead of me actively wholesaling, I'll pay the wholesalers their fee in order to, you know, really, honestly, give myself more time to not have to market full time to these to these people. So I so so I, that's what I do. So I just find these houses and then mainly I just sell them afterwards like saw my license, I'll sell our own properties after they're done. And that's, that's my main job in my partner he does more of the project management who will manage he's in the trenches. Brian, I love you for listening. He manages all the contractors all the headaches, stuff like that. So really all I need is a laptop to you know run comps to put stuff up and then you know my phone to talk to different people and and then you just hire out what you want to hire out right like as an agent, you know, I don't want to go take pictures myself or you know, you go hire a photographer, I don't want to go put the lockbox on the house. So you pay 50 bucks to go have someone put the lockbox on now. So you start outsourcing different stuff like that, and it frees up your time more. So that's kind of in the name of like a virtual assistant that like she writes up all my contracts and stuff because I don't I hate paperwork. You know, so you start doing stuff like that. And then you could spend more time doing what you want. So I like to travel at least like what besides like, you know, pass whatever, year ago, I couldn't really do it as much because of COVID but at least somewhere once a month, travel around and then you know if more great.

Yeah, that is it for part one of the interview. Make sure to tune back in next episode to hear the rest of what Gary had to say. Thank you guys for tuning into today's episode. Again. I'm your host, John Mendez. You can find me at John Mendez underscore realtor and at walk to wealth on Instagram. Please make sure to subscribe and leave a review if you're loving the podcast so far. New episodes are released every Sunday. I look forward to seeing you guys in the next episode. Take care