How I Missed One of the Biggest Investment Opportunities of My Life

Today on the Massive Agent Podcast, host Dustin Brohm revisits his short journey from real estate investor to real estate agent. Being brand new to the industry several years ago, Dustin relied on inaccurate information provided by his agent which led to somewhat disappointing returns on his first investment property. Soon after that experience he became a licensed agent, received his first commission check and never looked back. Was that a mistake?

Dustin shares how he closed the door on real estate investing due to his limiting beliefs and all the reasons he thought he couldn’t do it. Hindsight reveals he definitely should have put more effort into investing. On this episode he shares a profound yet simple statement, “The quality of the questions you ask determines the quality of your life.” Rather spouting all the reasons why he couldn’t invest, he should have been asking how he could.

Dustin encourages us to ask better questions, like how we can achieve a goal or accomplish more. Using lack of information as an excuse is no longer valid. Today we can learn almost anything for free. As real estate professionals it’s time to stop waiting for opportunities to appear. If you want something, go get it. What are you waiting for?

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On this episode, I'm going to tell you the story of how I got into real estate through real estate investing and how I squandered possibly one of the biggest opportunities of my life. I like to buy houses. I like to sell houses. What is up, everybody? Welcome to episode 204 of the Massive Agent Podcast. I am your host, Dustin Brohm. Today is story time, guys. I'm going to tell you how I got into real estate to begin with. I'm going to be very vulnerable to vulnerable today. I've made a lot of mistakes and I'm going to share some of those with you because I know, because I work with so many of you guys, I know a lot of you are making the same mistakes, squandering opportunities, or at least not open to these opportunities as they come along. So that's what we're going to get into today. I want to thank everybody who came through our second season of the Massive Agents Social Boot Camp. We just wrapped that up this last week, and uh that was a success. I've already gotten some feedback that from two or three of the attendees, actually, that within just a few days, making a couple tweaks, they're now ranking number one or number two on Google in their local market. That's freaking amazing. So kudos to you guys for doing the work and for it, you know, making an investment in yourself to be there at the social boot camp. Um, so awesome. All right. So this week, guys, uh, I I've told my story in the past, and uh I I don't know if I've I've told it in you know, I don't think I've gone all the way back, uh, or or at least not in as much detail. And if I have, it's been a long ass time. So there we go. Um some of you guys may know I got into uh I've been a real estate agent for 10 years. Okay, I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah. I've I've been an agent for shit, 11 years. And uh I star I did not intend to be a real estate agent. Okay, I was gonna be an investor. I was gonna flip homes, I was going to make you know a million dollars a month because I saw people on TV that made, you know, 80 grand or 120 grand in 30 minutes on AE, you know, and on Flip This House and you know, shows like that. I knew that it took longer than 30 minutes, but it they made it look, they made it look easy. So the the best part was I had read Rich Dad Poor Dad and I knew real estate was the industry I wanted to go into, but I didn't know in what capacity until I started started learning more about real estate investment. So I jumped in without a license and uh and my parents and I partnered on buying a flip. We attended some rich dad education courses that I think we invested like 40 grand or something into this big package of of education on how to do wholesaling, how to do lease options, how to do um probate, how to do all this stuff. Well, we jump in to flip a house, and because none of us were licensed, we were relying on a local agent that came highly recommended to us by a family friend who actually is a fairly large, runs a very large brokerage within Salt Lake, and he hooked us up with one of his agents. So we're like, okay, cool, like this must be the A-team, right? Umeshadowing there. So we find this house, it's a short sale. This is back in 2020, 2010 or 2011. So the market had already taken its shit. Um, and there were short sales and REOs everywhere. And for you kids out there that aren't that haven't been in the business long enough to know what the hell an REO is, it's a bank-owned property. REO stands for real estate owned. It's a bank owned property, a foreclosure. It's basically a foreclosure that the bank owns. So there were those and short sales which are uh about to be foreclosed on, and they were trying to sell it short of what was owed on it uh to avoid a foreclosure. So that those were everywhere. It was a it was a buyer's market. I remember you could buy a single family home in Salt Lake City, in Salt Lake City for 70K. Now it was a shithole, but now that shithole had you fixed it up and done some stuff might be worth 400, you know, maybe more. Uh it's just wild how things can change in a decade. But we bought this flip house in uh in Taylorsville, Taylorsville, Utah, on South Ridge Drive. I'll never forget it. And um it was a it was a rambler, it was our first flip. So, you know, we realized pretty quickly you've got to find some great contractors. And we had a pretty decent contractor, but there were some there were some issues and you know, some going over budget on this or that where it was avoidable, um, and some communication issues. So, you know, we realized pretty quick that finding a solid contractor that's reliable, that um has some vision and and understands communication is worth its weight in gold. So we fixed this house up, but but the problem was we were relying on the after-repaired value, the ARV that our realtor gave us. I had no idea. Like at the time, I at the time I thought that to value a house, you'd go to the county assessor's website. That's how I thought you valued a house. Like I didn't understand that that's just what it's assessed for taxes. Um, and I don't even know if Zillow's estimates were well, they weren't on my radar back then. I think Zillow's been around for for that long, but I don't think Zillow was on my radar yet. So that was interesting. So I didn't even look at that, at their zestim, which would have been probably more accurate than the than the tax assessed value. So we were we were totally relying on our agent who said that that after we fixed it up, it would be worth this. And once we fixed it up, we put it on the market and we realize, okay, it's not worth that. It's not gonna sell for that. And so we were about 15 to 20 grand off of what it would actually sell for after all the repairs, and what he said it would. So our profit margin was gone. It was not, I think we bought the house for like 100K, maybe, maybe 98 or something. It wasn't a big thing. So, like, you know, $10,000 or $15,000 made a huge difference in this in this project. And because he was so off, and he's just like, Well, I'm sorry. Like, what are you gonna do? Right? Like, am I gonna sue him because you know, no. Um, we were way off, and we we realized we cannot flip this house. We need to actually hold on to it and turn it into a rental. Now, that in hindsight turned out to be a silver lining, like a blessing in disguise, because we ended up renting it for about $600 a month in cash flow, like in positive net cash flow, $600 a month, which is amazing for one door. That was awesome. But it also was a blessing in disguise because it taught me that not having control over your own ability to uh to value a property, not not having the know-how and not having the access to data was a huge um was a huge hindrance. You know, like it was like trying to trying to be a successful agent, or sorry, trying to be a successful investor with one hand tied behind your back. It's just not not so awesome. So I realized I need to get my license. At this time, I had been going to a local real estate investor association in Salt Lake, and the president happened to be a real estate broker, but he's all he'd also flipped four or five hundred homes, something like that. And so I just asked him, I was like, hey, I really want to get into investing, but we just got burned by this agent, didn't know what the hell he was he was talking about with with what the home was worth. You know, what do you suggest? And he's like, Well, if you're gonna be successful as a as an investor, you need to get your license for the same reasons that you just told me, like you need access to data on the MLS, and you want to be able to represent yourself and you know, there's some commission involved there if if you can buy your own projects and all that. So I was like, okay, cool, I'm gonna get my license. Fully intending to just be a flipper and make a million dollars a month. Well, once I get into it, um, we start realizing that I was not nearly as persistent and consistent with doing the things I knew I needed to do to be a successful investor. At the time, I was not the person that I am today. You know, really last month I wasn't the person that I am today, thank God. And and guys, a little side note. Hopefully, if you guys look back, it's maybe something you wrote or a video you did, or or even some goals that you had set three months ago, six months ago, if they're the same, you guys are doing it wrong. Okay, you hopefully you look back and you kind of cringe and you're like, wow, I can't believe I was being so small. I can't believe I was living so small, I can't believe I was thinking so small. I can't believe I actually thought that, or that I was that lazy, or that I I can't believe I I didn't take care of my body. I can't believe that I uh I didn't care about my nutrition or health. I can't believe I did this. And and if you don't see progress over the last three or six months, you're not growing fast enough. You're just not growing fast enough. Okay. So back to the story. Um, I'm gonna be an investor, but I got my real estate license now. And I was not doing the things I needed to do to be a successful investor uh for whatever reason. Like I had some limiting beliefs, I had some mindset blockages, or uh, or I was just a dope, you know, but and it's probably a mix of all of the above. Well, I forget how it happened, but someone in my broker's office referred a client to me. I think it was because in hindsight, they didn't want it was a buyer who wanted to buy a short sale condo for around 100K. And after the short sale, I think they were only offering two or maybe one and a half percent buyer's agent commission. I was like, I'll do it, I'll work with them because I saw an actual paycheck. And so far in my real estate career, up to that point, I had not received an actual paycheck. Now we had rented this property, we were getting some cash flow, but that was going back into the company, you know, to reinvest. And you know, we're we were trying to find more homes to flip and and all of that. So I wasn't getting paid. So I saw this chance to work with a buyer to help them find a condo that I now could, because I had my license, I saw that as an opportunity to actually have a paycheck. Well, that process, if you've ever tried to buy a short sale, it's a cluster. It's an absolute clusterfuck. But I learned so much. And through that clusterfuck, like I've I've learned I have such a intimate knowledge now of the short sale process of bank owned properties, of you know, how all that works, the time frames, you know, tips and tricks, all this stuff. So that if I ever need to help somebody again to do that, I can, or if I need to do it for myself, I can uh to buy one, not to actually go through short sale because I'm not planning on that. Anyhow, um, it was it just became obvious though, after helping this client buy this condo, that okay, like maybe there's something here because I actually got a paycheck. It was only, I want to say it was eleven hundred dollars, maybe twelve hundred bucks. Uh after you know, I had the referral fee for the person that gave it to me, all the you know, all the stuff. It wasn't very big, but to me at the time it was huge because I don't even think up to that point I'd ever gotten a paycheck for a job that I was working that was over a thousand bucks. You know, I was I was in my mid to late twenties when I was well, I got into real estate in my late 20s, but um you know, before that I was just working jobs and I don't think I ever had a paycheck over a thousand. So to me it was huge. And so I thought, okay, maybe I should focus on helping buyers and sellers. And so I did. I dove in on that. Now here's where here's where my big mistake came, and here's where a lot of you guys are screwing up as well. Uh when I made the switch from investor to being a realtor and representing buyers and sellers, I closed the door behind me to thinking about investment opportunities. And so even up to today, like 10 years later, 11 years later, I I'm yet to I'm yet to flip a house, I'm yet to buy another rental property, I'm yet to, you know, really take advantage of this knowledge and expertise I have of the real estate market and all these deals that I know how to find, uh, or you know, the referral network I have, all of that. And I've squandered that. And I look at some of my friends now that are multi-multimillionaires, and most of them have done it through, they've done it through either business or real estate or both. And they have big portfolios of properties, they're cash flowing like like crazy. And the only difference between them and me is they just kept doing it on a regular basis, while I, I'm gonna focus on being a realtor, completely didn't even look. Now, I wholesaled some deals along the way, but in hindsight, what if I, instead of wholesaling that and instead, you know, instead of making six thousand bucks to wholesale, why didn't I just buy that property, figure it out, and then make sixty K? You know? Um, I just didn't. Now, I do think there's a lot of power in wholesaling, as opposed to flipping. It depends on the numbers, of course. Sometimes wholesaling is makes much more sense if it takes you a little bit of time and you get this return versus a whole lot of time and a smaller return. It just depends on the deal. Uh, but I I had found some wholesales along the way, and then I just referred them off to my investors, through my broker and and his partner who'd become mentors of mine. And and I loved that. I loved that arrangement. I knew that I had some great, trustworthy, honest, decent people in my back pocket who at any time, if the seller needed it, they could get an offer from them, and if the situation was right, they'd buy it. And that's what happened a few times. But I never thought of putting myself in that position. A lot of it was, and if you guys follow me, follow me on Facebook or um Instagram, and you read the the post uh that I did recently about my wife and I getting our Tesla Model Y, and you know, just some of the shit we we've gone through with you know me making some poor financial decisions that hurt my credit, paying some things late that I didn't need to, that I just did because of you know some weird mental shit. Um I had told myself the story this whole time that I can't afford to to qualify to buy my own place. I can't get into real estate, I can't buy my own properties, I can't flip, I can't do whatever because I won't qualify, I don't have the income, whatever. Well, those were just limiting beliefs and a story that I was telling myself. Because if you've been in real estate long enough and if you have networked with enough people, you know investors that literally never use any of their own money. And a lot of them don't even use their own credit. Their credit doesn't even come into play. So all the the stuff that I the stories I was telling myself of reasons why I couldn't, there's investors out there that are like, okay, well, just don't use that stuff then. And like I have a friend, Michael, that just bought a place in um in Denver with hard money, didn't use any of his credit, didn't use any of his own money, and he now owns this property that he controls, and he's doing a real estate deal. And there's countless stories. I'm sure some of you guys listening who haven't squandered this real estate investment opportunity that we all have, um, that we're all like one step away from. Like we're we're there in the real estate market with buyers and sellers every single day. Finding investment opportunities is like one step away or even less. It's like right next to us. We just have to grab it. Um hopefully you know people like that, because if they can do it, why the hell can't you? Now, I was, you know, I was not the same person that I was even a few months ago that I am today, but it just like recently I'm like, okay, even if I can't qualify to for another mortgage, even if I can't do this or that, there's other ways to take down these real estate deals. You just have to have the desire to do it, and you have to ask the right questions. Okay. The quality of the questions you ask will determine the quality of your life and the quality of your career. What I mean by that is if you're constantly thinking, how can I make more money? How can I work more hours to make more money, you're gonna get that. You're gonna figure out how to work more to make more. Well, what if instead you asked a different question? And this is, you know, to my credit, um, I'm very proud of this. I was bold enough to ask the right question a few years ago when I said, How can I make more money by working less? How can I work how can I sell more homes without selling more homes personally? So I I asked great questions, which led to great answers, and then I just had to move. Then I just had to to take it down and do it. So the quality of the questions you ask determines the quality of your life. If you're asking shitty questions, you're not gonna grow much. Okay, so if you ask, how can I buy an apartment building without without using my own credit? Well, there's a way. There's people that do it. You know, how can you how can you uh flip a home without using your own money? There's people that do it. You just have to learn how. But you have to start by asking the right question instead of oh, I can't. Making up your mind that you can't do it. Because that's shitty. I've lived that way for a long time, and I realize what a huge opportunity. There's so many opportunities that I've squandered because I was closed off to it, because I had I was closed off because I told myself I can't do these things. Credit, income, uh, whatever. The lack of knowledge or expertise. Well, in hindsight, when I think back when I think back on thinking those things, it's pathetic. It's 2021 for God's sakes, almost 2022. The guys, using the lack of information as an excuse for anything is ridiculous. It's it's not a valid excuse anymore, almost ever. Unless you're like inventing some new scientific concept, right? Like quantum, like time travel. Um you know, you can't just YouTube time travel, but you can YouTube pretty much everything else, right? But you have to ask the right questions first and then be bold enough to move in the direction that your answers lead you to. So, guys, if you're a busy real estate agent or a not so busy real estate agent, and you want to also flip houses or wholesale properties that come along so that you don't have to spend all the time flipping, which I think is a great option. I think wholesaling's amazing. If your brokerage allows it, if your state or city allows it, you gotta check on all the regulations. Insert disclaimer here. Now there's a right way to do it. You can figure it out. There are ways to do it. You figure that out so that it's legal, ethical, and moral. Um, but there are ways to do that while being a busy real estate agent. You just have to decide you can do it and then ask the question: how can I do both of these things? How can I continue crushing it and growing and selling more homes while also picking up some rental properties for myself? How can I do that? Oh, you don't have any money for a down payment? How can you buy it anyways? If you ask the right questions, you'll get the right answers that will lead to growth instead of more of the same bullshit. Huge. It's such a huge thing, guys. It all comes down to just making the decision that you can do it. And look, there's other people out there doing it, so what are they doing? If somebody here's what I wish somebody would have told me when I was a kid. Uh, because I loved fancy cars when I was a kid. Like whenever I saw a fancy car like a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, I thought Porsches were super fancy. I thought, what else did I think was fancy? Uh I thought Corvettes were fancy, which is which is funny to me. Um, although Corvettes now sometimes confuse me. I'm like, is that a Ferrari or a Corvette? Like, wild. Anyways. But I thought those were just for other other types of people. Other types of people. And so I I whenever I saw one, I was like, wow, wouldn't that be nice? What would that be like? You know, oh, if only I could do something like that. If only I could ever own a car like that. Well, I wish somebody had told me that I could. You know, and that they had shown me the path. The person that owned the car showed me that it was possible to do. They had done it, so I should actually have been feeling empowered and encouraged rather than envious. You know, so anyone else who's doing something that you aspire to, flip your mindset a little bit. Don't be envious. Don't be frustrated that you're not doing it. Be excited. Like if somebody drives by in your dream car, be like, hell yes, thank you for showing me that it's possible. And then do it. They've shown you it's possible, do it. There's there's agents out there that are crushing it and growing big rental portfolios and growing other businesses with inside real estate. So why can't you? If they're doing it, it's possible. So it's not that it's impossible for you, it's you just have to figure out how they've done it. And then ask them. Ask them how they've done it. Maybe they'll tell you, maybe they'll say you need to hire this coach or take this course. Or go to this training, then do that. But don't expect that shit's just gonna fall into your lap. Okay. Now I during this whole time that I was I was the realtor, but not the investor, I wanted to, I w I I thought that'd be nice if an investment came across my path, but uh subconsciously I'd closed off any effort or open-mindedness towards it for some reason. Like I I thought I had to stay focused, so I had to ignore this other thing, which is dumb. Um but I was thinking, well, if it comes across, you know, of course. Well, it doesn't just happen that way. And the problem was I was thinking that it would just fall into my lap. When really it things were falling into my lap, but they weren't falling into falling into my lap the way that I thought. See how many how many opportunities are falling in your lap that you don't even know have fallen in your lap because you're closed off to it or you you're you're lacking the perspective, it maybe it came to you in a way other than what you thought it would, or other than how you thought it would. But it's still there. The opportunity is still there. A lot hopefully a lot of perspective changes today for you guys. Um guys, success leaves clues. So if there's an investor out there who's an agent who's an investor that's doing well, follow what they're doing. All right. Um, you know, to to that end, there are agents out there that are using certain tools to grow their business, to scale, to bring on new team members and distribute leads and and manage all their transactions. And they seem to all be using follow-up boss. I mean, to talk to any super big producer or team leader or even indie brokerage owner, and so many of them are using follow-up boss. That's why I'm so proud that we've partnered with follow-up boss here on this podcast. They are they've done something super cool. Okay, if they're so confident in follow-up boss, their CRM, their transaction management, and their business, their agent business scaling platform. That's really what it is. Calling follow-up boss a CRM is uh it's kind of a cop out. Like it's it's so much more than that. It's a it's an agent business scaling platform. And and follow up boss, if you didn't think of that before, you can take that. I'll let you have it. That's that's a good one because it's true. But they're so confident in it that they want you to try it for for free and they're not even asked for your credit card. If you don't like it, if you okay, but try it out. You go to MassiveAgent Podcast.com slash follow up boss, massive agentpodcast.com slash follow up boss, and get a 30-day free trial. If you were to go to their website or anywhere else, that you can get a 14-day free trial. So use the link I gave you for Massive Agent Listeners only. You get a 30-day free trial, no credit card required, and then use it. Dive in, use it, and even if you're a solo agent who's struggling, there's gonna be tools in there that if you use them, they will help you grow and get more business and fill in some of those missing pieces, or you know, you're gonna close the cracks so stuff isn't falling through the cracks in your business. Follow up boss, amazing partner, amazing uh resource for our industry and for agents. So I'm proud that we are partnered with them. So go check them out. Guys, I I just want to thank you for listening to this episode and for um, you know, everyone who's left a five star review on Apple, thank you so much. Please do that if you haven't yet. It takes like three seconds uh to make it easy. Just go to Massive Agent Podcast.com slash review, massive agentpodcast.com slash review, and it takes you right to the review page in Apple. Um, and then do that. So please, five star review if you believe it is warranted. If you don't think it's warranted, if you don't think it, then um that's not the link to use. Um but thank you guys because that helps us to grow the show. It also really helps whenever you recommend us in a Facebook group. If somebody's asking about, you know, which podcast do you listen to, recommend the Massive Agent Podcast, tag our Facebook page, um, you know, share a screenshot of you listening to the show in your um in your Instagram story and tag at Massive Agent and then I'll reshare it. All that stuff helps us to grow our audience, and that's really all we ask. Okay, this is a free show, but we ask that if you found value, if you enjoyed this episode or any other, please pay the fee so that other agents can discover it and grow as well. Thank you guys again so much for listening. We'll be back next week. Um, I believe we have an interview next week. We're gonna start up the interviews again, and uh, and they're gonna be some really frickin' good ones with some really, really big names, doing some really, really big shit, and I'm excited for that. Thank you guys. Go sell some homes, go close some loans, have a great weekend. Go uh read a good book. How about that? There's a tip. Maybe I'll just end the show with a tip every day or every every episode. Go read a good book. If you guys need a good book, Agent Rise by Neil Mathweg, his new book. Incredible. Incredible. Even if you're an experienced agent, this is a great book. Go check it out. Appreciate you guys. See you next week.