MI355: The Real Estate Deal Maker w/ Henry Washington

23:34So I was terrified, but excited. I was excited because I walked into the bank needing 115 ,000. I walked out needing 15. I'd found$100 ,000 in my mind. So I was like, I'm getting there. Now I got to figure out where to get 15 grand in 30 days. That number is drastically dropped in a matter of hours. That's when I went back to this network of investors. I was like, I was excited. I finally had a deal. They wanted to help me. And I was like, great, now you can help me. And so I went and I was like, how are y 'all doing this? How do I get 15 grand in 30 days to buy this house? and they sat down with me and just started brainstorming ideas.

24:12You could do this, you could do that, you could do it. I'm like, that won't work. Don't have that. That won't work. And then my buddy was like, you could borrow it from a 401k. And I was like, I don't want to cash out the 401k because you got to pay panels with fees and interest and yada, yada, yada, and taxes right off the top. And it was like, no, no, no, no, no. You can borrow against your 401k like a loan to yourself. It's your money. You borrow a percentage of it. And then your company will take the payments out of your paycheck automatically. But if you rent that property out and your tenant's paying you X, my Z rent, that cashflow you get actually covers that payment.

24:47So you're actually not paying it back. And I was like, let's do that. I just got to find a 401k now because I didn't have one, but my wife did. And so now I went to her and I said, hey, baby, you know how your voice gets higher when you need it? I said, hey, baby, you know, remember that time when I was like, we're going to be real estate investors. And you were like, yeah, well, we need to borrow 15 grand from your 401k so we can buy this house. And I explained to her everything. And she was like, yeah, let's do it. We had the money in like a week. We bought the house, raised the rents to market rent, cashflow the property.

25:26And then the bank called me after we closed and was like, Henry, this is a really great deal. We want you to bring us more deals like this. You should consider taking out a line of credit on the equity that you bought in this house. And I was like, what was that? And he explained to me what a line of credit was. And it was like, so the way it would work is you go find more deals like this. We'll fund the same thing, 85 % of the purchase, 100 % of the rental, and then use this line of credit from us to pay that 15 % down payment. So you're not actually coming out of your own pocket to buy the house.

25:57And then you'll fix the house up and you can either refinance it and you can pay off the line of credit or you can fix the house up and sell it and you can pay off the line of credit. And I was like, what? Yeah, let's do that. And so I had now found and learned the power of small local banks. He was teaching me so much just by explaining this process because essentially what he was saying to me was like, hey, if you bring me deals like this, I look like a rock star in loan committee because I'm going and I'm saying, we're going to lend this guy on this house that's worth$170 ,000. We're only loaning$116 ,000.

26:32If he forecloses and doesn't make his payments, we'll probably make more money just repossessing the house and then selling it on our own versus the interest he's paying for it. So I'm bringing them these safe investments that they want to fund because local community banks have to lend to local businesses to stay in business, they don't do what the big banks do, which is sell off their loans. They keep them all. And so they need to service safe loans. And so I was bringing him safe loans. So he was like, bro, you can be leveraged 100 % if you're going to bring us these good deals. And then you could buy these great deals.

27:04You could start making money. We're going to make money. And so I just learned a lot about the financing aspect of using small local banks. This guy was kind enough to talk me through some of that stuff. And so I started to go out in the community and build more relationships with these small local banks. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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28:59That's public.com slash T-I-V-P. Paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosures in podcast description. Just like everybody else, there was a time when I was a beginner investor, and I have to say, investing is particularly filled with jargon that can just make it so difficult for new investors to understand what is going on. But it's never too late to get smarter about stock investing from the ground up. At The Investors Podcast Network, we've made a habit of studying the world's best investors. And now I'm distilling those learnings into a simple course for you or for anyone in your life who you might want to share the gift of knowledge with.

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30:08And for a limited time, you can use code stocks15 for a 15 % discount at checkout. All right, back to the show. There's so many things I love about your story. The first thing is, is like you took on the identity, like a new identity of real estate investor. Like I think that is huge. The second thing that's super interesting is like the absolute commitment you made to it. to making real estate happen for you. And then the third thing is just surrounding yourself with other people, this network of going to all these meetups. I interviewed this guy, Scott Young, who came out with a book recently called Get Better at Anything.

30:43And it's all about how to learn. It could be anything. But the best learners get themselves around the people that are top in their field of doing what they want to learn. So in your case, you want to learn real estate, you surrounded yourself with people and it's like you just get it by osmosis in many ways. I love your analogy of the puzzle pieces. It's like a little, you get a piece here and your piece here, you put it in your pocket. The lender also sounds like he was a great resource, obviously, not only from a funding standpoint, but just as a teaching a ton. I like telling that story because the lessons in it are very basic and very easy to do.

31:23And if you just say the lessons, like if I'd have just said, oh, just go find some people who are doing it and surround yourself with them and you'll learn what to do. Oh, and just don't take no for an answer and you'll get a deal done, right? The lessons in there are, yes, I surrounded myself with somebody, but I think that one of the biggest lessons is I didn't know how and I didn't make decisions for other people about my wealth. I didn't let what people would consider common sense stop me from pursuing. The only thing that was going to stop me from pursuing was somebody who was a barrier to entry actually telling me I can't and here's why.

31:57What most people do, like in this situation, if you put another person in the same exact situation, when their buddy would have called them and said, I need to sell my house in 30 days, and they were in my financial situation, the first thing they would have said was, man, I'd love to buy it, but I don't have the down payment. I can't make the down payment. Well, how do you know? You haven't even shopped for a loan yet. You don't even know if you need the down payment. You have no clue what kind of loan you're going to get, right? Or they would have said, man, I want to, but my credit's not in a good place.

32:27Nobody's going to give me a loan. How do you know? You haven't applied for a loan. You haven't talked to a lender. You haven't pulled your credit to see what you can do to fix it. You've taken none of the steps to actually learn if that's actually true. But we make decisions for other people all the time. Most people would make that decision for a bank they haven't talked to yet. The bank I don't even know that I would talked to you that's not going to give me a loan. That sounds crazy. I didn't make decisions for other people about my wealth. I was going to go down this path until somebody who held the key for me to get through that door was telling me it was locked and there's no way I was going to get through it.

33:01Yeah. That absolute commitment is amazing. I wanted to talk about the lady that gave you the box of books or showed up with the box of books. Kanisha Robnett. Yeah. Kanisha, did you do further book studies with her? And did you continue to read books? And was she a mentor of sorts, pushing you along? Yeah. She was my first unofficial mentor into real estate. I don't even know if she knows that. But yeah, her excitement about it when I told her that's what I wanted to do made me feel good. Yeah. She absolutely put that book in our hands. And she sat next to me at work. And so I was just able to chat with her and talk to her about what we were doing along the way.

33:44Yeah. From there, we read. So we read, I say we, because my wife and I read them at the same time. We both just, I did the audio book and she actually read through it. And so from there, we read that. The next thing we read was Richest Man in Babylon. And then I read Gary Keller's The Millionaire Real Estate Investor. And all of these things just started to, again, And the books were giving me the context and I was getting the pieces from people doing it. And so that's what really helped me kind of put the puzzle together and learn what everything really meant. But yeah, she was instrumental. I don't even know she knows how instrumental she was.

34:21No, it's awesome. I wanted to talk a little bit about just the role of faith in your own life, how that has impacted you and affected your business life, if your real estate career, like you said, a lot of people would have hit that first door. They would have said, I don't have$115 ,000. I have no way to get it. You definitely had this faith that you could figure things out and make things work out. So talk to me about that. Just how your own faith has affected you along your path. Bro, you're trying to get me crying on this show. I think the best way I could paint it is right after we closed that deal I told you about, that first deal, and the bank called and talked to me about the line of credit.

35:01And then I got approved for the line of credit. I remember sitting there looking at this$25 ,000 to$30 ,000 that I had access to on a line of credit and just sitting here thinking like 90 days ago, you had a panic attack because you didn't know how you're going to take care of your family financially. And now 90 days later, you own a house, you use very little of your own money to buy it. That house is paying for itself and paying you cash every month. And now you're staring at$30 ,000 in the face. And I just became overwhelmed with a sense of responsibility. I was happy. Don't get me wrong. I knew I had found the thing that was going to take care of my family financially for the rest of my life.

35:52I was happy. But the main feeling I felt was this weight of responsibility. And when I thought about why, all I could think of was like, when I had that peace of mind of knowing real estate was the path I should go down, I was like, that was God telling me this is the path I should go down. And sitting here now, 90 days later, I'm not sitting here because I'm some financial genius. I am only sitting here in this situation because he showed me the door and I walked through it and he kept opening the doors for me to walk through. And so, I just kept thinking, well, why me? Why did he do that for me?

36:35And I couldn't come up with anything other than I think I'm supposed to let other people know that this is a reality for them too. There has to be other people who are in worse financial positions than I was in, who have no idea that they could be 90 days away from changing their financial future forever. And I think I'm just supposed to share this with people. And so that's what I'll do. And that's when I started my Instagram. I didn't start it because I thought I was going to get 100 ,000 followers and make a bunch of money. I started it because I had no idea how to share this with anybody and people are on the internet.

37:17And so, I'll just put it on the internet and hopefully it helps somebody. And since I did that, life has changed in terms of like, I just think that that's the path I was supposed to go down was to show people and help people. And the more I do that, it seems the more things continue to work out. Like I just think, and what I've learned since that is that, yeah, I'm supposed to share it, but that's what everyone's supposed to do. Maybe not in the sense of everybody needs to start a social media account and start sharing on the internet, but that's what life is about. That's what wealth is about.

37:56We are on this planet, not for what we want and get, but for what we get to do for other people. Like wealth isn't about us. Wealth isn't about what I can accumulate so that I can take care of my family. Wealth is about expanding your capacity to give and help. And it's something we're supposed to give away. We get to leverage it, utilize it while we have it. We get to enjoy it while we have it, but it's not for us. It's for us to do for other people. And so, I've just tried to continue to do that. It kind of reminds me like the parable of the talents. You know, a lot of people just bury their talents.

38:41Like you took your talents and you've multiplied them. And it's like God says, well done, good and faithful servant. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Pretty cool story. And all the things that happened along the way, you look back and it is like a God thing. It's like I couldn't have written this story on my own. No way, right? Right. Right. And that's the other thing too, is people are so scared to start because they don't know how, right? They go, I want to invest in real estate, but I have no idea what to do. And I don't have all my ducks in a row, right? And we forget that the whole point is that you don't have all your ducks in a row.

39:15You're not supposed to know what the ducks in the row are. If this would have depended on me and my plan, do you think I'd be in the position where I get to do things like work for BiggerPockets and talk to you on this podcast, this wasn't in my plan. My plan wasn't to be speaking on stages and sharing this with thousands and hundreds of thousands of people. That wasn't in my ducks in a row. You don't want your plan. Your plan's not good. You don't need to know how. You just have to decide and let him tell you what the steps are. I want to take a step back. You're at Walmart. You're working in the IT department, it sounds like.

39:54You've got this first deal. You've got the bank telling you, dude, come on, bring us more deals like this. Tell me more about how you were generating the deals. You've got the book that's coming out. So we're going to get into the dealmaker book. But I want to just hear about those next steps you were taking along the way to build out your portfolio. Yeah, that's a perfect transition because the book is about... It's called Real deals, right? Half of the book is about how to find good deals. Half of the book is about how to find the financing for the deals, right? And the reason I wrote about that specific topic was because those are the two problems.

40:32Like when I was going to these meetups and I was networking, this is what I was hearing. And this doesn't matter the market cycle you're in, everybody says these two problems, no matter what's happening, right? Like back then, this was seven years ago. It was so easy to find deals then. But everybody I talked to was like, I can't find anything to buy. There's no good deals out there. And the other half of people were like, oh man, I just, I don't have the money. I can't find the money. So I was like, all right, my corporate life, what they taught us, like at Walmart, we weren't allowed to say problems.

41:01If there was a problem, you had to say, we have an opportunity. Like they drilled that in our heads. So they did that because they want you to see your problems as like, not a problem, but like, what are you doing to fix it? Right? How are you fixing it? What's the opportunity that we're seeing here? And so I was like, all right, the opportunities I see are people can't find deals and people can't find money. So if I can get really good at one of those, then I know I'm going to be able to make some money because I have a whole bunch of people who have a need now that I'm able to service, right?

41:27That's business 101, find a problem, figure out a way to solve it. So I was like, okay, now that I have this small local bank, what I've solved is the money. Now I know I have the money. And so the other problem I need to solve is to find the deals, right? Because I got the money, I got to go find the deals. So I focused my entire business on figuring out how to get really good at finding deals. And so I started to study the people who are good at finding deals in real estate. And the people that every research I did, all the signs pointed to wholesalers were the people who got really good at finding deals.

42:00And so I studied how to be a wholesaler. Not because I wanted to wholesale. I don't wholesale. I've never been a wholesaler. I've assigned some deals, but maybe be 10 ever, right? Of the hundreds of deals I've done. I didn't study wholesalers to become a wholesaler. I studied wholesalers to figure out how they do their lead flow. And then I just said, if I can do that and I get good leads, then I can cherry pick the ones I like the most. And I'll sell the rest to all these people around me who said they can't find deals, right? Or pass on the leads and monetize them that way, right? And so that's what I did.

42:31I started to figure out what wholesalers were doing to find deals. And I started to figure out which of those methods made sense for me. And I just went really hard into direct mail at the time. I was going to ask, so what were those methods that work really well? It was direct mail? Yeah. So for me, and it's still direct mail for me, what I learned was there's a bunch of different ways to find deals. And also what I learned was real estate's cool in the sense that we don't have to guess if it works because it's been working for decades. It's worked before we were born, it'll work after we're gone.

43:06How we do it is the same. Little nuances of it change with technology, but the root is find someone with equity and motivation and then make offers. That's what you do. And so I was like, okay, I just need to trust that this works. So what method makes sense for me? And so as I started to analyze the methods for finding off-market deals, I was like, I don't want to do door knocking because that ain't me. I'm not that guy. I don't want to lie to myself. The big motivational speakers would tell you, suck it up and do it. Just knock doors until you die. But I'm like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to lie to myself about who I am.

43:47And I'm like, all right, so that doesn't fit me. And so, I would just go through each method and think, is this something that I can do for a long enough period of time for it to produce results? Because part of the research I was doing was like, what do all these methods take to work? They got to take some, like, how long do they take to work? I want to do it right. And so, through my research, I realized direct mail works in terms of my personality because I don't mind talking to people if they're calling me. I don't want to cold call anybody. Again, not in my personality, but if they're calling me, I'm cool with it.

44:18Even if they're calling me to curse me out, I'm cool with it. You picked up the phone because you wanted to talk to me, so let's talk. And what could I afford? What I started to learn was that finding deals no matter what method you choose, whether that method is free to do or not, it still costs you something. It's either going to cost you time or it's going to cost you money. There are absolutely free ways to get deals, but if you want it to be any sort of sustainable deal flow for you, you have to put enough time into it for it to be sustainable for you. And where people fail is they don't fund their strategy appropriately with enough of the resource that it takes.

44:58So people, they go, I'll try some mail and they might send a few hundred mailers for a couple of months. That's throwing money in the toilet. You didn't fund it with enough resources. You didn't give it enough time to work. And so I was like, what do I have in terms of a budget of time and money? Right. And so I take stock of that. And then I go, what method fits the budget and the personality that I have? for me, that was direct mail. And I said, okay, I'll just hit this relentlessly, consistently until it works. Because it works. It's not just going to stop working for me because I tried it.

45:32All these other people are doing it. It's working. So it's going to work for me. I just have to trust it. And so that's what I did. And I did get a couple of deals out of my first campaign, but we still continue to do it. So you studied the best techniques of the wholesalers that were doing really well. Were you sending out postcards or what was your direct mail strategy? Direct mail strategy at the time, I was trying to find... So what I would do was, I was thinking... So as I was researching, because I would listen to podcasts of anybody doing direct mail marketing. And I would literally go seeking them out.

46:09If you were a guest on a podcast talking about direct mail marketing, I probably listened to it back then. I was trying to figure out who are these people reaching out to? What are the lists that they're using? And so, I would literally listen to these podcasts and I would write down the lists that they were mailing to. And so, I just had this list of criteria that people were mailing to. And then I looked for the common denominators, right? And I would see, all right, it seems like 80 % of the people are doing absentee owners, right? That was the absentee owner and absentee owners. And I was like, okay, cool.

46:42That's what I'm not going to do. So I figured out what everybody was doing. And then I figured out what are the ones that people are doing that they say are working that I see the least on this list because I have to compete with seasoned people. And so I don't want to mail the same list that the big guys are mailing because they've got more time and time in mail. They got more expertise in knowing what kinds of mail. They've got more expertise in talking to sellers. I'm not trying to compete with them. So who can I send mail to where I'm either going to be their very first piece of mail or their last piece of mail?

47:16That's where I want to be. At that time, I was picking mostly all single family homes owned in people's personal names that they had owned for a long period of time that they were still occupying. So I only did owner occupies. And I wanted the sellers to be at least 50 years of age or older. All of those filters were because you assume the longer they're in the home, the more equity that they have, right? And maybe the more distress they may have and lack of time, resources, or patience to actually fix the distress. That was what I did. On 1 ,000 postcards, what would be the metrics, would you say, on average?

47:56Like early on, what kind of metrics were you getting out of 1 ,000 or 10 ,000? I don't know what your numbers were. of it? My very first campaign, I said 1 ,000 pieces of mail. I got about 50 phone calls. I saw 20-ish houses and got two deals from it, my very first campaign. Not bad. You've got this bank though that's funding you. You're finding these great deals. Were they still willing to work with you? Yeah, they were. They were. And then as I started to increase the deal flow. I would bring in a different bank. And then I started to learn even more. I found a bank... Essentially, what would happen is, you're doing these good deals, they want your business.

48:38And so, I would find other banks and they would give me similar terms. And then one time I got a deal on a multifamily and an eight-unit building. And the bank I had been using, the bank I had been using wanted a 15 % down payment, but it was for the deal, I needed 50 grand. And I was like, I don't want to put 50 grand down right now. And so, I ended up finding another bank who would let me do the same terms except put 10 % down. And so, I went with them. And then the bank I was originally using got wind of that and called me and they were like, hey, man, I heard you bought this 123 Main Street and you used such and such bank.

49:18And I was like, yeah. And they were like, why didn't you come to us? And I was like, I did, but you wanted 15 % down. These guys gave me 10 % down. And they said, what do we need to do so that you bring us your deals first going forward? And I was like, okay, let's talk. And I said, if you can figure out a way where I don't have to put anything down or very little down, I'll bring you every deal first. And she said, okay. And she went back and she worked out with her bank. And so what they came back with was we will lend to you at 75 % of ARV, of the after repair value. And so, as long as you're buying, as long as what you need to purchase and renovate falls under 75 % of the after repair value, you don't have to bring anything.

50:00And so, what I heard was, all right, if I bring you a house that's worth 100 and I'm buying it for 50 and I need 20, then I don't have to put any money down because that's$70 ,000. That's less than 75%. I'm in. Done. And so, that's what I would go do. I would go find deals that are under 75 % ARV and they would fund 100%. And I grew my business a lot with that bank. So had you been renovating all your rentals? The first couple, did you renovate all of them and do a value add when you purchased them? Yeah, we do mostly value add. If you're going to get deals at that deep of a discount, you're going to end up with value add.

50:34That's interesting. So you're at Walmart. How are you doing all this? You've got a full-time job. You've got a family. People's questions are got to be like, well, how did he do all this? What was your time management like? And what was a day looking like for you? Bro, man, you make time for what's important to you, period, point blank. And so what it looked like for me may not be what it looks like for somebody else. You got to figure out, you just got to do it. And so for me, the way I managed it was, luckily, I had a job where if I needed to take a seller call during the day, as long as I wasn't in a meeting, I could do that.

51:06Nobody was looking at me like, oh, you're on your phone, right? So I could take seller calls at work. and then I would schedule showings to look at houses and make offers on my lunch break and after work. That's just what I'd do. If I needed to go see a house at lunch, that's what I did for lunch that day. If I needed to go see a house after work, that's what I did right after work that day. And then that's when I'd go see houses and make offers. And then after work, I'd hang out with my family. So you knew eventually you were going to leave Walmart. At what point did you have a number, a monthly income number that you thought, once I hit that, I'm gone?

51:36Or how How did that unfold where you left your W-2 income? I fortunately enough enjoyed what I did enough to not be in a rush to leave. And so I didn't leave until it cost me money to have my job. That's when I left. I wanted to keep it as long as possible because having the job makes you more bankable. I was using banks. No matter how much I could make a million dollars in real estate, they were more comfortable with the$100 ,000 I made on my W-2 than they were with the million dollars I was making in real estate. So having the job helped me stay bankable. And so it made it easier for me to grow and scale.

52:17Plus, I liked what I did. Plus benefits because healthcare is expensive when you don't have a job that's paying for it out of your plan. And so I didn't necessarily want to leave until I couldn't stay anymore. And so what happened was everybody knew what I was doing. I didn't hide what I was doing from anybody. Obviously, I told everybody what I was doing. And so it got to a point where my company called me and they were like, hey, we need you to put some more focus on this job. We think you're spending too much time doing some other things and we want you to put that time into here. And so we need you to put some more hours in.

52:51and I was like, all right, well, let me figure out what that cost me. And so that's when I went and did the math to figure out, all right, if I give you more hours, am I losing money? And when I did the math to figure out what I'm making outside of real estate with those hours versus what I would be making by giving them those hours, because they weren't increasing my pay to give me those hours. There was just more hours I was going to have to give them. I was like, man, I make way more outside of here. The opportunity costs I'd be losing by giving you more hours doesn't make any sense. I was like, so if that's really what you need from me, then I'm probably going to have to put in my notice.

53:23So when was that? How long ago? 2021. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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56:52All right, back to the show. I want to keep talking about the book. Tell me what it was like writing it and then who it's geared towards and then what your hopes are for it? Yeah, man. Writing a book is hard. Probably one of the hardest things I've done in business. Maybe because my expectation was that it was going to be easy because it's on finding and funding deals. I do that in my sleep. You just think you're just going to just sit down, knock it out, write it out, boom, bang, all done. Man, writing, teaching something in book form was just a challenge and it's time consuming. It was hard.

57:25It was hard, but rewarding. BiggerPockets does such a great job with the whole process. It seems like they put out really high quality books. Yeah. They make it easy. They make it easy. Easier than if - But still, you got to do the writing. It's hard. Yeah. But now forever, my kids will be able to walk into a bookstore and see a book that daddy wrote and that's worth it. But yeah, no. So it's called Real Estate Dealmaker. The whole premise of the book is it teaches you what are all the ways you could potentially find deals. And then how do you pick one of those ways or two of those ways and then implement them successfully so that you can get really good at finding deals.

58:01And then the second half of the book is on funding the deal. So, how do you find the funding for the deals? The whole premise of the funding is you don't just want to know one or two ways to fund deals. I think that's what's happening a lot right now because of the interest rates. People are like, oh, I need to get really good at creative finance or seller financing or sub two. And then they get their seller finance or sub two hammer and creative finance hammer. And then they got their conventional loan hammer and they're just hammering every deal they find with one of these two types of funding, right?

58:27And the way funding should actually work is you need to be a fundamentally sound investor. So you need to know what are all of the ways that I could potentially underwrite this deal. And then let me use the financing that makes the most sense for that deal and my financial situation. Where those two things intersect, that's the best funding for that deal because seller financing sounds great. You can get a low interest rate. That's awesome. until you're buying a house that needs$100 ,000 renovation. So I ain't going to finance$100 ,000 renovation. Now you got to go find$100 ,000 that's not secured by real estate.

58:59That's a hard thing to do if you're a brand new investor, right? Like I'm not saying it can't be done, but that's probably a more seasoned investor who has to go do that. That may not be the best financing solution for you and your deal, right? And so you need to understand what are all of the ways I could do it. I could have, like as an example, I bought two duplexes very close together, very similar in price. I used two completely different types of financing to take down each one of those duplexes. Why did I do that? Because each deal was a little bit different. The situation was different.

59:33One deal was a lead that came to me that was also sent to several other people. And it was a good deal. If a good deal is sent to you and a bunch of other people, what do you immediately have? You've got competition. And so I said, how do I get this deal and not my competition. And so the way that I thought I could get that deal was to use speed. And so I contacted the seller and I said, hey, I see your... And I knew I needed it a little cheaper even though it was a good deal. And so I said, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, what if I could buy this house$7 ,000 less than you're asking, but you could have your money in seven days?

1:00:09I'm not going to inspect it. I'm not even going to go see it. We can put it in our contract today and you can have your money in seven days. Everybody else might give them a full price offer, but they're going to do a 30-day close. They're going to go out there. Their contractor is going to go out there. It's going to get appraisal. And there's all these barriers. And so I said, you can go that route, but I can use your money in seven days. So they took my offer. And so I closed that deal. And the way I did it was I used a private money loan, two different private money loans to take that down because I knew I could get access to that money, close it in seven days.

1:00:42The other duplex, similar priced. I just used a normal construction loan with that one. That one, 30-day close, 15 % down. That was better for me because then I don't need the timeframe. I don't have the competition on this deal. I can take this deal down with longer term financing off the top. It's a little cheaper for me in the long run. Takes a little longer to close. This other deal, more costly for me because now I got to go turn around and refinance this deal later. But at least I got to refinance a good deal that I have instead of a deal I didn't get because I was going to use the only other financing I knew.

1:01:14So you got to know all the ways you can finance deals and then use the right financing for the job. Yeah. It sounds like a really good book. I mean, you're writing about the two biggest problems, like you said, finding deals and then funding them. I wanted to talk more about the podcast that you're up to on the market. How did that get going? How did you end up becoming a host? And then I wanted to hear just some about your biggest takeaways from some of your favorite guests, what you've learned from them that you've implemented in your own life. That's good. That's good stuff. Here's how I just kind of operate in general as a person.

1:01:48So you're going to meet a lot of people along this path, right? It's networking, right? Your goal in networking should never be what you get. Your goal in networking should be about what you can give. If you consider every relationship that you come across as how can I be of service to this person and then actually do the things, be of service without asking for anything in return and do it quickly. Like a lot of the times, I don't know if you've read the book, Good to Great, but a lot of what it says is it doesn't take that much effort for somebody to see an encounter with you as a great encounter versus a good encounter.

1:02:25Typically, like if somebody says, if I hear something that somebody needs, I'm not even going to ask them if I can help. I'll just help. Whether they take me up on the help or not, it's up to them. But the fact that I did it resonates with people. And then human nature kicks in because I go, this dude, I didn't even know, I tried to help me with X, Y, and Z problem. And so they naturally will want to help you or will be willing to help you if and when you need help. And so I think that's kind of how it happened with BiggerPockets is I met the producing team and the hosts at a conference and then ended up on the podcast and just always try to figure out a way to be of service.

1:03:06And so I knew that there were some investors within the ethosphere of BiggerPockets who were interested in doing deals in my market. And I was like, well, I can help by connecting them with people in my network who can help them with their goals. And so I just made lots of connections for people. And I think that that helped me stay on top of mind and showed them that I wasn't asking for anything. I was just helping. And so when it came time for them, when they needed help in terms of new hosts and things, they thought of me. So I think that's just part of it. Networking is about what you give.

1:03:37I mean, I still do it to this day. I just this morning connected somebody to another resource. I heard a guy speak, what a good speaker on a really cool niche of real estate investing. And I was like, man, that's super cool. That's some stuff I'd like to learn. And so after he spoke, he's surrounded by people who are like, talk to me more about this thing, people wanting to take. And I was like, all right, well, what am I going to do? So, I go up to him, I introduce myself and I say, hey man, that was really powerful what you just talked about. I think you just helped a whole lot of people. I appreciate you.

1:04:07That was it. And then as I was around this person through the conference, I heard him say, hey, he was talking to somebody else. He wasn't even talking to me. I just heard him say, after this, I'm headed back to Dallas. And I was like, oh, I'm going to Dallas after this. I'm going to a real estate. I'm speaking at a mastermind. So this was a higher level mastermind I was speaking at with other high level investors. And I was like, hey, bud, heard you say you live in Dallas. I'm actually headed there after this. I'm speaking at this mastermind with these high level investors that are in your market.

1:04:37I'd love to just pay for you to have a ticket to go to this mastermind so that you could network with these people. And he was like, man, that's amazing. So I did that. And so I paid for him to go. And now he's making these other connections with these other investors. And it's good for him. I haven't asked him for a thing. I haven't asked him for a thing. But do you think if I did, he would help me? He's going to say yes. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. So that's how I think it all happened with BiggerPockets. I wanted to tell you mentioned masterminds. There's a lot of people that are maybe skeptical of masterminds, but I want to hear how they have impacted your life and really accelerated your career.

1:05:14Yeah, man. They're super powerful. Don't join them if you're not ready to do something with the information. Because I I think sometimes people think of spending money on education the same way they think of spending money on something at the store, right? Like I spent the money and now I have the thing. That's not how it works with masterminds is you spend the money and what you're paying for is the relationships and the information. And then you have to go act on the relationships and the information. So if you're not in a position where you're in a place to be able to act on any of that, then don't spend the money on masterminds or education.

1:05:48But if you are, then boy, it can help accelerate you. Because look at every successful business person, no matter real estate or not, if they're successful, I guarantee you, you've heard them say at some point, when I was talking to my coach, right? Like they've all got coaches. They all have somebody in their life who's been where they are and who can help them with the challenges that they're going to face. And so investing in education is super, super smart, but there are a lot of people out here who don't do what they teach or who just aren't good teachers, right? And so, I tell everybody, if you're going to look at a coaching program or a mastermind, A, make sure that they're actively doing the thing that you're trying to do in this current market because the market's changing pretty fast, you know, month to month right now.

1:06:39And so, if they haven't done a deal in two years, the environment's different. They may not be able to help you right now. And the second thing is like, when you're having a conversation with this person or this person's team. If you are not on fire about the opportunity or the possibility to work with them, that's not for you. And it's not necessarily that they may be bad. It's just like, there's somebody for everybody. Go find the coach that sets you on fire. That's like, yes, what you are saying and how you are doing it, that's what I need. But if you're not super hype and ready to go, if you're not feeling it with that coach, then that just may be not the coach for you.

1:07:12It doesn't mean real estate's not for you. Just go find the one who lights you on fire. That's where you need to be. You mentioned something in your interview with Brandon Turner that I liked that you said you hired hearts. What did you mean by that, hiring hearts? Yeah. And this may not be the best business practice, guys. But I want to hire good people and I can teach them a lot of the hard skills. Now, this doesn't work for every position. Like your COO probably needs to know a little bit about your business or your industry, your niche, right? But like, so like my acquisitions manager, I didn't hire her because she's some hard nose closer.

1:07:53It's going to go out there and land every deal. I hired her because she's got a good heart. She's going to care about the people she's talking to. She will be an accurate representation of me and how I would do things. I can teach her how to have conversations with sellers. I can teach her how to close deals. Can't teach you how to be a good person. Can't teach you how to care about other people. And so I hired her because of her heart. And I'll teach her the heart skills. My project manager is a friend of mine. He's been a friend of mine for a long time. And he's just loyal to a fault almost.

1:08:30But I'll never have to question, is he working hard? Is he going to take care of my money? Is he going to take care of my business? Is he going to make decisions based on what he thinks is in best interest of the company and not himself? I never have to question that. His heart is in the right place. I can teach him how to manage a project. I can't teach him those other things. Yeah, I love that. I want to hear, before we wrap up, just how you think about your why or your legacy. What are you trying to do when you look back on things? What's this all about for you, aside from the financial rewards?

1:09:01Yeah, no. Real estate. I am fortunate enough that I'm passionate about real estate and I'm passionate about teaching people about real estate. But I don't think that real estate needs to be your passion for it to be something you do and can get good at. What I love about real estate and why I do this as my daughter walks by is I want them to be able to be the people they're called to be and not do the thing and be the people they have to be to make money. So if who God wants them to be requires them to do something that doesn't produce a lot of income, I don't want them to not be able to go do or be that person.

1:09:48I want to build a portfolio that produces income so that if they need to go do something that isn't going to make them a bunch of money, but that's what God's calling them to do, then they can do it. That's great. Henry, this has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate your time. Was there anything you wanted to touch on that we didn't get a chance to discuss? No, man. I think this was great, man. You can order the book at biggerpockets.com slash dealsbook, T-E-A-L-S-B-O-O-K. And it's Real Estate Dealmaker, correct? Real Estate Dealmaker, yep. On pre-sale now, maybe by the time this comes out, it'll be available on...

1:10:28What would you recommend? BiggerPockets, order it? Yeah, yeah. Go to biggerpockets.com slash dealsbook. That's the best place. I know people say go to Amazon so you can make the Amazon bestsellers list. I don't care about any of that. I just want people to get the book. And then your socials, how can people get in touch with you? yeah the henry washington on instagram and then um if you want to learn more about how we teach people how to do this you can go to see you at the closing table.com just all spelled out s-e-e-y-o-u-a-t the closing table.com see you at the closing table.com and are you a little active on twitter i think i've been seeing you posting there a bit lately very very little active on twitter i'm more I'm more an Instagram guy, Instagram.

1:11:11Seems like the bigger pockets people are mostly Instagram people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never really got into Twitter. I tried. I wanted to. It just wasn't my thing. Well, cool. Henry, thanks so much and best of luck with the book. I really have had fun talking with you here today. Thank you for everything, man. This has been great. I appreciate you. Okay, folks, that's all I had for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed the show and I'll see you back here real soon. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to follow Millennial Investing on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on our episodes.

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