Real Estate Investors Association of Greater Cincinnati

When I was 2 or 3 years old, my mother took me on trips to the library almost every week. While she checked out the latest mystery novels, I always went to the same shelf in the children’s section and pulled down the same worn, tea-colored book called “I Can’t, Said the Ant.” I must have made my mom check that book out 50 times. I had every word memorized, every illustration emblazoned on my brain, and every character befriended in my daydreams.

In case you missed out on this epic, the basic plot is that a teapot falls off the counter and breaks its spout, and if it isn’t put back up, it will die some horrible teapot death. All of the denizens of the kitchen—from the dinner bell to the pie to the pot—beg the (oddly, single) ant in the kitchen to get the teapot back to the counter and repair the broken spout.

Much rhyming ensues (“I can’t bear it, said the carrot” is one that still sticks with me), and ultimately, the ant, who initially, as you might guess from the title, doesn’t see how he can manage it, rounds up a work crew of insects and rescues the unlucky teapot from the floor.

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“You’re making too much money.”

That’s what echoed in Missouri native Ryan Haywood’s ears after his boss decided to slash his commissions—a “sales haircut,” as it’s bitterly known in the industry.

He didn’t realize it at the time, but this setback was about to unveil a path that would lead his family toward the future that Ryan and his wife Megan had dreamt about.

Ryan’s story is not just a testament to his determination to build his wealth on his own terms. This story is about his strategic, practical approach to building a truly successful real estate company in the face of uncertainty, full of solid insights that every investor should hear.

Ryan’s Journey From Sales to Real Estate

Ryan knew something had to change; he just hadn’t yet realized what that change would be. Shortly after receiving this news, Megan and Ryan had their third child. This meant Ryan was on paternity leave and suddenly had extra time on his hands. He wasn’t sure what his next steps would be—
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There’s a dark secret that many investors know but that no one seems to talk about much. It’s a secret that every full-time investor eventually discovers for himself or pays the consequences. 

To illustrate, let’s take 2 imaginary real estate entrepreneurs, Investor A and Investor B. For the sake of simplicity, let’s imagine that both investors start from the same place. Same income, same credit, same skill level. Then, both attend a real estate conference one weekend in hopes of finding a way to quit their jobs in short order and become full-time real estate entrepreneurs. 

The story of Investor A 
Investor A latches on to a landlording course. He’s attracted to the idea of building wealth and loves the tax-advantaged nature of rental properties. On Monday, he sets out to build a rental empire that will allow him to become financially independent in short order. 

“A” is very successful in finding under-priced rentals in his hometown. His typical deal looks like this: 

ARV:     
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When you’re doing your first few deals—or doing your first few deals in a strategy that you haven’t explored before—you need help.

Maybe it’s help evaluating the deal. Maybe it’s help with negotiation or contracts. Maybe it’s help understanding how to ‘price’ the rent or sale price. Maybe it’s help understanding how the financing will work. But you’ll find yourself needing advice from people who’ve ‘been there, done that, got the T-shirt’ over and over again throughout your real estate career.

This is no small matter; it’s easy to lose a deal (or worse yet, do a bad one!) because there’s ONE hangup. ONE question that needs to be answered or ONE problem that needs to be overcome

1-4:  EVERY Friday morning at our online Haves and Wants meeting. It’s very common for members to attend with the “Want” of “I need someone to walk me through how to do this subject to deal I found” or “Can someone help me with evaluating a property I’m trying to buy?” and to get assistance either then and there, or later
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Let me first tell you a little bit about my background. A few years ago, I was buying as many homes as I could with traditional financing. But when the banks started telling me that I couldn’t buy any more homes, I started buying homes creatively – thru “subject-to” and “sandwich lease options” methods. In the course of 18 months, I bought over 16 homes!

Yes, I owned 16 homes!!! I thought I had it made. I was making $100 - $200 net cash flow on each house. My passive income was growing, and I was steadily getting out of the rat race. I was a “Successful Real Estate Investor” now – or so I thought!

But guess what? I quickly discovered that while I might have been Equity Rich… I was seriously Cash Poor. I had lots of equity, but no cash to pay the bills!

(How many of you know - you can’t eat “equities”?)

But let’s look at my situation a little deeper… All that equity I thought I had in those 16 homes… was a HYPOTHETICAL MYTH<
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Let me first tell you a little bit about my background. A few years ago, I was buying as many homes as I could with traditional financing. But when the banks started telling me that I couldn’t buy any more homes, I started buying homes creatively – thru “subject-to” and “sandwich lease options” methods. In the course of 18 months, I bought over 16 homes!

Yes, I owned 16 homes!!! I thought I had it made. I was making $100 - $200 net cash flow on each house. My passive income was growing, and I was steadily getting out of the rat race. I was a “Successful Real Estate Investor” now – or so I thought!

But guess what? I quickly discovered that while I might have been Equity Rich… I was seriously Cash Poor. I had lots of equity, but no cash to pay the bills!

(How many of you know - you can’t eat “equities”?)

But let’s look at my situation a little deeper… All that equity I thought I had in those 16 homes… was a HYPOTHETICAL MYTH<
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One of the critical questions that beginning  and intermediate-level real estate entrepreneurs struggle with is, “How do I know when it’s the right time to hire help?”

I’m not talking about VA-type help here; your lowest-level administrative work (sorting lists, looking up names in the public record, etc.) and your high-skill but non-real estate work (designing logos, creating websites) can be quickly, easily, and above all CHEAPLY farmed out to VAs practically as soon as you understand what that “work” is.

I’m talking about “inside team”—people who work with you on a day-to-day basis, who understand your business more deeply than an outside team member like a VA, who may, by necessity, be ACTUAL rather than VIRTUAL employees.

THIS decision—bringing actual “staff aboard” is always challenging. It seems as if the point at which your business grows to where it’s difficult (or impossible) for you to keep up with the day-to-day activities does NOT usually coincide with the availability of a ton of extra income to pay an employee.

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Do you ever get confused by how one self-proclaimed expert can swear up and down that the best, or even ONLY, way to do a certain strategy is to [fill in opinion here], while another guru, who seems just as successful and passionate, says that the truth is just the opposite?

I did, too, back when I was just getting started and thought that there must be an exact right way to do any given thing in real estate.

But as it turns out, with wisdom and experience comes the realization that they’re all right and all wrong.

Because the TRUTH is, we often become convinced that certain things work and don’t work because we already believed that it would or wouldn’t work, and that becomes a limiting thought that actually predicts the outcome.

In other words, the guy who swears up and down that his experience is that you MUST tell sellers that you can do ‘X,’ or they won’t accept your offer, is telling the absolute truth. HIS EXPERIENCE is that sellers won’t accept an offer without ‘X’ because he believes that they won’t, and thus they never do.

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There’s an old piece of advice generally given to husbands regarding arguing with their wives that goes, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?”.

And the longer I’m in the wholesaling business, the more I realize that nearly the same advice applies to negotiating with sellers—only it’s, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to get the deal?”

Don’t get me wrong: I have more than my fair share of gotta-be-right-ness. In my younger days, I often found myself debating with sellers about the “facts”—how much their house would sell for fixed up, how much their neighbor’s house sold for last week, what it would really cost to re-do the roof and gutters, and on and on.

Back in those days, I think I had some of the same psychology I see in you folks when you say to me, “I’m afraid to talk to sellers because I’m afraid they’ll be able to tell that I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’ll lose all credibility.”

This assumption that sellers sell to you because you’re intelligent, experienced, or a bigger expert than they are about houses in their neighborhood is just dead wrong.

Sellers sell to you (at the crazy prices and terms that you offer
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        …is in the 5” or so between your ears.

        For real, people, if you want to know the difference between the people around you who are “killing it” in wholesaling or retailing or notes or income properties or, heck, pig farming or app development or whatever and those who have the same access to the same education and the same resources but never make any money, it all lies there.

        After 30 years of hanging around real estate associations as a newbie, board member, experienced investor, and coach and educator, I’ve watched thousands of people come and go. Some meet every goal they set out to complete.

        Most don’t.

        And they don’t because they believe that if they learn what to do, then all they have to do is do those things, and riches/security/freedom will follow.

        That would be 100% correct if not for, you know…LIFE. Life has a way of getting in your way. Whether your goal is building wealth, losing 40
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