You have to cast out as many fishing lines as possible because the reality is most fish are not going to chomp on your line. So when you put out as much fishing line as possible, you will get one. And welcome back to the Art of Connecting podcast. This is your host here, Haydynn Fike, back with another episode for you. And this evening we have Mr. Welby Ackley with us. Did I say your name right? By the way, I really shouldn't ask that question. First name is right. First name is right. But it's Welby Accely. Okay. I'm so sorry about that. All right. Well, well, thank you so much for being here on such short notice. My good friend Yamu, who we had on the show a few episodes ago, I was asking her who I should have on the show. And she immediately introduced me to Welby. And so it's a pleasure to have you here today, man. And I'm excited to get into it. I I'm humbled by your invitation and you know, I'm sure we'll have a great conversation. Absolutely. To get started, just as every other podcast does, would you mind giving the audience a brief introduction if they don't already know you? Sure. Well, once again, my name is Welby Accely. And social media name is atmybest197. And people ask me, how did I come up with that name? So for transparency, I, I attempt to be at my best at Pretty much everything that I try to do and the one nine seven pays homage to where I grew up. At least the street, the street that I grew up in, which is Hollis Queens, New York, St. Auburn's New York on 197th street. And that, that street is made famous because my parents bought the home of the famous rap group in the eighties of the famous rap group Run DMC. And my parents bought the home from DMC from Run DMC. So that's my way of actually paying homage to where I grew up at. That's awesome man. So I kind of got to peep at your Instagram a little bit, and it looks like you do a lot of flips. You got flips and profits behind you here. So can you talk to me a little bit about what real estate looks like for you and, and what you ended up going into? Well I, I, I call my business or my movement flips to profits because I, I tell people that the entire business of investing in real estate is a flip. Regardless of what entry point that you choose to enter in. So, of course, there's three major entry points that most people talk about investing in real estate, but there's also a multitude of other areas to invest in real estate. But the three primary entry points that people talk about are wholesalers flippers like HGTV, and of course, buy in holders. And if you understand the fundamentals and the essence of biz, of the real estate business, everything about the business is a flip. So I just teach people the principles of that, that I believe in, and I think that most people when they hear that, it resonates with them. I love that. That's awesome. So, you mentioned like, having Yamu as your mentee in this mentorship program, and we'll dive into in the show, mentors and mentees and how important that is. Let me clarify about that. Yama wasn't in my mentorship program, but I say that I even consider her as a little sister of mine because when she came from her country she'll tell anybody that I'm, I'm one of the people that resonated with her and she paid attention to a lot of my core principles, applied it to what she's doing. And then you'll see that a lot of what she does. It mirrors a lot of what I do as well. She put, of course her, her sauce her salt and pepper on it. But a lot of the principles of what she follows is what I, I, I follow and preach as well. Awesome. Okay. So do you, do you have a mentorship program where you teach people? Okay. Awesome. Perfect. So my mentorship program that's extremely popular now is it's called real estate kickstart, but I also have. The flips to profits mastermind and I also have which I'll be releasing in the next two weeks the the the contractor training mentorship, and I also have a real estate. Rental mentorship as well. So I really touch a lot of the facets of real estate and it all comes from Not from a theoretical approach, it comes from a real life factual approach of what I apply within my business. So I'm big on providing real receipts. I'm big on providing real actionable steps that I've actually applied every single day up until today that has assisted me in building up the multi million dollar portfolio that I have today. And I just teach the people the exact steps that I've done that's applicable across the board throughout the entire country. I love it. Okay. So that's awesome. So you have multiple different facets of ways that people can get plugged in and learn about what you're doing. Oh, I guarantee you that I have something that's going to resonate with you. I don't care who you are. I don't care what part of the country you're in. It doesn't matter to me what it is that you want to do in real estate. Everything about real estate is a flip. If you would allow me, I could, I'd love to elaborate a little bit more. Yeah. Let's dive in. So as we said, again one, I got a serious passion about real estate, real estate's changed my life. I've grown up. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I'm a first generation Haitian American. I'm one of five boys that my, my, that my parents had, my parents were immigrants that came to this country over 50 plus years ago. They, they, they. They fought to give their Children the best opportunity to American dream that, that, that they could provide for us. And we did the best that we could. And I think that I made my parents proud. As far as real estate, when I say everything about real estate investing is a flip. Once again, there's three major entry points of investing in real estate. Of course, there's a bunch of others like subject tools, like buying foreclosures, like buying a myriad of different ways of new, new construction, et cetera, et cetera. But there's three major entry points of investing in real estate that the majority of the country understands. Number one is a wholesaler. What does a wholesaler do? A wholesaler gets a property under contract at the right price point to ultimately flip. That property to somebody like myself or you, would you agree or disagree? Yeah, I would definitely agree. Okay. The second one is a flipper like hgtv making a beautiful prop making a home beautiful, right? What does a flipper do a flipper gets a property on the contract at the right price point? Renovates that property to ultimately put that property back on the market to flip that property to an end buyer Typically retail you agree or you disagree with me? Yeah, absolutely Last but not least is a buying holder. What does a buying holder do? A buying holder gets a property under contract at the right price point, renovates that property, rents that property out to ultimately flip that current mortgage into a new long term mortgage for passive income. You agree or you disagree. Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. The entire business of investing in real estate is a flip. Once people understand that concept, it does not matter to me where you are in this country, what it is that you would like to attempt to do, because if you understand the common denominator to all three aspects of what I described is what? Buying the property at the right price point. So you make your money in real estate on the buy. So when you understand the art of property valuation and understanding that you make your money on the buy, I don't care who you are, where you are. It's applicable across the board. Exactly. You just got to know what you're looking at and get it at the right price. Amen. Amen. Yeah. So I want to like, I was writing down, I'm not looking at my phone here. I'm right. I'm writing down things as you're going. So I want to ask you, because we, we are talking about the art of connecting here. All of my listeners here, they're, they're interested and, and passionate about being the best connected people that they can. And buying at the right price point, especially now it's so freaking hard. It feels like people are just unrealistic. And I feel like the secret to it, in my opinion, is knowing the right people. What's your perspective on that? I think that the, the, the most important thing is you being the investor is being educated enough to identify and evaluate a deal. The root cause of my failure in this business. I've been in the business 22 years. The first 10, 11 years of the business was horrendous. I got wiped out multiple times, 2008, 2010, 2012. I got wiped out to zero. And when I looked at, when I look at my history, the root cause of it was my reliance and dependence on other people versus my reliance and dependence on myself. So because of that, I, I felt that I needed to, I wasn't intelligent enough and I needed someone else, or I needed a group of other people to hand me the baton for me to be able to go and do it. Not realizing that in this business, this business is full of sharks. This business is full of unscrupulous people with bad intentions that are looking at a way of being able to take advantage of you so that they can do a transaction so that they can make money off of you. I have to come to the realization that the most important person in the entire equation of investing in real estate is the qualified buyer and or the investor. Nobody in the industry can make money without us. That goes for the realtors that goes for the lenders that goes for the contractors that goes for the home inspectors that goes for the, that goes for the, the, the, the court or the gentleman that's at the court, what do you call it? The court referee, none of these people can make money without somebody that is qualified to acquire that property and or the investor. So I understood that it is important for me. To be educated, regardless of if it's through mentorship, regardless of if it's through self education, regardless of if it's through experience, I had to understand the fundamentals of the business. And by me understanding the fundamentals of the business, at least now, when I can have a conversation with somebody like yourself. There could be a, a, a even if you have more understanding than me, at least there's a, there's a, a level of understanding I can have to absorb what you're telling me. When I'm completely dependent on what somebody else is telling me and I'm completely blind, how am I verifying that what the person is telling me is legit before I actually go through it? So I, I encourage people to start betting on yourself. First before you start betting on mentors betting on on people that are supposedly in this business that are supposedly doing well Because the majority of the people that you will encounter are not doing as good as you'd like to believe that they are Ain't that the truth man? You look at a lot of these big instagram or the famous people And then you see all of a sudden that they're getting sued and they have no money. Or you realize that those same people were these big, these big figures. And all of a sudden, two, three years later, they're gone. Right. All of a sudden, two, three years later, you hear they're getting locked up. Or all of a sudden, two, three years later, what they were talking about that they were so passionate about, now they're going into something else. I live in breed real estate. I am real estate. When people ask me what, what it is that I do, I said that I, real estate is not what I do. Real estate is who I am. If you got me open, you're going to see hammers. You're going to see, you're going to see measuring tapes because real estate is who I am in real estate is a lifestyle. And I have a serious passion for it because like I said, again, real estate changed my life. So I want to, I want to kind of talk to you about some of those times where you, so you mentioned the first, you said 11 years were really tough. Is that, is that right? 10 to 11 years, somewhere in that area. I started investing late 2003. I got wiped out three times to zero, zero bankruptcies, foreclosures bank of America suing me, chase Bank suing me, capital One suing me for foreclosures. I, I believe I said as well, and that happened to me from 2003 into 2012, 13, things started changing for me again. I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, you go ahead. Yeah, things started changing for me and the uptick started changing for me positively. Sometime late 2013, 14, somewhere in that, in that, in that area. Yeah. I, I, I, something that you said earlier really resonated with me. And you said, it's all about your knowledge. It's not always about the people that you bring in, right? Because there's all these people out there. I just read an email today of someone who presented to them that they're amazing at what they do. And someone's willing to take 50 percent of what they do just to raise capital for them. I'm like, ah, no, that, that doesn't make sense. Right? Like you're doing all the work. Why would you give them 50%? And there are people out there that see someone that has potential and all of a sudden they'll, they'll offer you, Oh, well, why don't we go 50 50 and we can use my knowledge. So. Could you tell me about some of the ways that you can avoid that situation? Because if someone's getting into real estate or just a new business, there's all these people out there that are looking to take advantage of someone that's willing to put in the work. So how do you avoid that? Well, here's the thing that people need to understand. There's not an abundance of deals just flowing. There's no secret location because people think that there's this secret compartment that we're being gatekeepers to and withholding it from the world. So if you ever encounter somebody that has an abundance of properties that are willing to offer you to sell to you because they are a nice guy or a nice woman, you better run the other way. We work as investors. We work so hard to catch, to get the deals that we get. Why would I just simply give it up to you? Because I want to, I want to be a Mr. Nice guy. So that's a huge, huge red flag. In addition, in addition to that, I'm not against partnerships because partnerships are powerful, but you need to make sure you do your due diligence with who you choose to be, to do partnerships with. So now if you're going to do a partnership with somebody where the person is in a, in a sense, having you left with holding the entire bag. Like what happened to me? I was a store buyer. I don't know if people understand what a store buyer is. Right. I know what a straw buyer is. I'm in the lending business. Okay, so for the person that doesn't know what a straw buyer is, let's just say whoever you are, Miss Mr. John Doe or Miss Jane Doe, if you're watching me right now, you'll see somebody like me and you see the level of experience that I have, supposedly, that these people are presenting to you. And all of a sudden I say to you, Miss, Miss Jane Doe. I got an opportunity. Would you like to make money with me? How about what does your credit score look like? Oh, you're in the high sixes early 700s, maybe even 800s. Why don't we put this property in your name? We're gonna get you the mortgage. We're gonna get you. We're gonna get you the property We're gonna get you the mortgage. We're gonna get you the contractors. We're gonna get you the inspection That's a huge red flag. You never want to do business where you go to a one stop shop where everything is in one, one entity and they're providing you everything because what happens is there's not enough checks and balances in the process for you to confirm that they're not robbing you. So that's a huge red flag. Then it goes back to what we talk about. Again, when you understand you don't have to be a master contractor, you don't have to be a master realtor, but as an investor, you need to have an understanding enough to be able to direct lead the people that works for you. So who are the people that works for you? I call these people. You're starting five. These people are your lenders. Your realtors, your contractors, your attorneys, your accountants, everybody else is an extension of somebody in the industry. I can't watch you talk to me. So now when you understand the overview of how to lead direct these people who work for you. These are the people that are going to be doing the work for you. It lessens, it lessens the odds of you making major mistakes that can effectively cost you dearly. So what I'm hearing is this a real estate investor. You need to change your mindset. You're the leader. Of the charge. Cause a lot of times I see investors that they're just like, Oh, well, my contractor told me this, he's the expert, you know? Oh, well, the title company told me this. And it's like, no, that's not what you do. It's like, well, well, so like as the real estate investor, you've got to put on this identity, this helmet that I am the leader. Right. I am the quarterback that's called the play. Well, you said it perfectly. Yeah. You, you said it perfectly. And the thing is, the thing is, is that when, when people hear that, I know a lot of realtors. I love you guys and ladies, contractors, you guys all play a major role in this business. Every hard money lenders conventional lenders you all do but let's not forget the most important person The one that puts the glue together to make this all happen is the buyer So now buyer, regardless if you are a retail buyer, regardless if you are an investor, you do not think that you supposed to not, you don't believe that you're not supposed to understand what's about to happen here. How will you blindly walking into a situation? And then as you just said, well, my contractor told me, Oh, well, my realtor told me, here's the thing that people, I, it's a gut check for people. Hard money lenders are not investors. Realtors are not investors. Contractors are not investors. Your attorney is not an investor. That doesn't mean that they can't become an investor, but the mindset that an investor has in relations to the people I just described is totally different. So just because you have a realtor does not mean that that's that is the person you're supposed to be getting advice from From the decisions that you're going to be making with the property that you're about to acquire Yep, don't listen to realtors I mean sometimes you need to listen to realtors, but like a lot of times What I was asked what's the motivation, right? What are attorneys motivated for? They're motivated to get more freaking hours, right? What are realtors motivated for? They're motivated to sell a freaking house and get the most Biggest price that they can out of it because they get paid on a percentage. That's right What are people motivated by you have to ask yourself the question if I was motivated to sell a house How would I treat my customers? And some realtors, like I said, I love some realtors too. I mean, the house I'm renovating right now came from a great realtor and she gifted me 100, 000 in equity. It's all I could ever ask for. But at the same time, I had to ignore her on some stuff. I'd be like, nope. That's, that's not what needs to be done. That roof has a hole in it. Right? And that's going to cost me 1, 000 more than you think. I don't care what Guido told you it's going to cost. And could you imagine that to add on to what you just said, you know, how many realtors I've heard give a quote on the projected cost of a rehab and they all, they were completely off. So now imagine now the new investor or the new qualified buyer walking into the situation and then because they're talking to a quote unquote licensed person and that licensed person gave them advice. In in situations, they have no business giving advice for who's the person getting hurt now. So mine is always the investor. That's just the one that gets hurt. So you understand where my passion comes from. You can see when we first was talking a few moments ago, I was really calm collective subdued, but when it comes to this business, I have such a passion for it. Yeah. And I tell people that you don't have to suffer the way I've suffered. You don't have to, there's, there's so much available to you today, brothers like yourself, forget about me. There's good people like yourself. There's so much. Things available to you for you to avoid going through the pain that I had to have gone through or you have had to have gone through to get to the point that you are today. So let's, let's try to do better. Yeah. How do you, so where, where do you identify in your coaching clients between the Delta of being cautious and wanting to know everything and taking action? Because as someone who coaches people myself, like. There's this Delta of you can be too cautious and not take action and just sit there and plug in spreadsheets all day long and never go anywhere. Or you can be a little reckless and jump into a deal and lose 100, 000 and I've watched it happen. Where do you find that balance and how do you, how do you do that? Are you saying prior to meeting me or after meeting me? Well, I'm just saying like for you, like, like how you view, like if you were talking to a coaching, someone you were coaching. Or this in your program, where's the line between cautious? Have knowledge, know what you're talking about and take action. I'm going to say that the majority of the people that I speak to, even if they've owned real estate, don't know what the hell they talking. The majority of people that I speak to that even owns a portfolio, their portfolio doesn't perform well, even though they thought it did until you break it down to them. And then they even admitted themselves that I knew that there was something wrong, but they couldn't put their finger on it. So I would say honestly, out of every 10 people, I'm gonna say 90 percent of people plus. Are in a bad state in a bad state in terms of then educating the people and then for them to take action I'm going to say the majority of them will but taking action is on different levels Taking action can be because you are in a financial position that you can literally take action Taking action can be that you are realizing that your credit is not as well as you thought it was, and now the next step that you should be doing is getting your credit repaired. Taking action can be to realize that what you thought you wanted to do, maybe you wanted to build up a real estate empire and get into syndications, and now you're realizing, you know what, I just really want to start buying properties, flip them to make money so I can send my daughter to college and I'm satisfied. It's not a one fit for all for everybody. So, but for the, I would say most of the people that I encounter that I, that, I mentor. They, they will take steps in the positive direction, most of them. Yeah. So I would just be curious, like for that person that's out there, he listens to this and he's like, Oh shit. Like I need to know everything before I get started. Right. Cause I've seen it. I've watched it, especially engineers. I don't know how many engineers you have in your program, but Oh my gosh, they're tough enough to crack. My roommate might be over here listening to me. He's an engineer, but they want to be risk averse. Yes, most people want all the t's crossed all the dot that the eyes dotted before they proceed And then what what I what I what I do tell people is that it's never everything is never gonna line up Perfectly to get started even now with all of the deals that i'm doing all the t's aren't crossed all the eyes are not dotted What's most important? Is that you understand how to evaluate so that you can make an informed decision and a calculated decision There's a big difference between gambling and investing So when you able to, so now when I'm doing a deal, maybe I, on average, I want to make 60, 000 on a flip net. Let's just say that that's what it is, but maybe because of this new deal that I got, and I know I could do a quick turnaround and based off of me, knowing how to evaluate, I can make 45, 000 instead is a big difference between gambling and investing. So based off of me taking the information and making an informed decision. Maybe I will say I'll do it for the 45, 000 because it's only going to take me a week to put this property back on the market and sell it versus my average turnaround time of six to eight weeks and then putting on the market. You're making an informed and calculated decision. Well, and then the more work there is to do, the more potential there is for it to go south. That's right. If you're doing a full gut and you're opening up walls. Once you open that wall, you're liable. That's right. Like once, once. If you don't open the wall and you don't know that there's a problem like it, how could I ever know if I don't, if I don't open the wall, it's not on me. You know? And so I love cosmetic flips. I would take 20,$30,000 cosmetic flips all day. Because listen, I had a co, I did a flip. It was probably the largest profit I made. I sold it just about a month ago. I made$300,000 net. I bought the property, I bought the property, closed on the property, five days later I put the property back on the market, and the property got under contract less than a week and a half later. I got I listed it for 750, and I got 775 for the property. And I netted just about 300, 000 and I did nothing to it. I didn't even sweep the floor. I didn't even sweep the floor. So how did that house come to you? Let's talk about the connections aspect of it, because there has to be people involved in this. What people led to that deal? A deal like that, being a person of integrity is huge because you never know how and when an opportunity comes. 85 to 90 percent of the deals that I've ever done ever in my career has come directly off of the MLS. 85 to 90 percent of my deals. But this particular deal, what happened is I have a sizable following on social media and I had an attorney reach out to me from social media and told me how she's been observing me for the last few years and that she loves what I've been doing. And she wanted to see if there wasn't, if I was interested in an opportunity, of course, she sent me the address. It only took me. Three minutes to know it was a deal, but they only wanted cash on the property. So short enough, it took me, like I said, less than three minutes to understand that I wanted the deal. I was able to make the agreement sight unseen. I, I, and they sent me the contract. I put a the earnest money deposit on the property. I purchased the property for 460, 000 cash. And I closed on that property a handful of weeks later and that was it. I bought the property cash. I was a man of my word. I didn't waste their time. I told them I would do the deal. Several weeks later, I was able to close on the property. After I closed on the property the end result was what it was. As far as team wise, The plan originally was for me to then fully renovate the property. When I was going to fully renovate the property, the cost of renovate, it was going to cost me somewhere around 150, 000. And I was going to be able to list the property somewhere in the high eight hundreds, low nine hundreds. But then to, to, to go see these things hand in hand how do. The cost of doing it can be, can be can be a little bit more than the price of a house. Not always, not all of the other options, but some people like the idea. Yeah. I, I, I like, I like the idea of doing it. Same thing I used that as, So you can see I'm a team player. I said, it's not going to hurt. I was, I'm already shot. That's right. I'm already prepared to do the job, the renovations, but if I don't have to, let's do it. So that's what I did. I relisted the property a handful of days later and I got me 25, 000 above asking. And the property sold and, and I did extremely well. That's incredible. So that opens up a whole nother can of worms. I hope you're ready to go down and that's social media, which I'm dedicating. I just dedicated two hours from my day to day to coaching and education on social media. Talk to me about how you grow a brand, man, because a brand is, I think it's the best way to connect in mass, you know, to put your name out there and be connected with hundreds of thousands of people, potentially. Just talking to your phone. How, how did you build it and how important has that been for you? Well, first off, I was fearful of getting on social media. I got on, on somewhere around 2016, no later than 2017. And one of the things that I did is I do all of the hell that I've been through in the business. I prayed on it and I said, I asked God and I said, listen, God, if I'm going to get on here, I'm going to have to be authentic. I have to be myself and I own, and I have to share my truth. I don't wanna be one of these lifestyle marketers. I don't want to be someone that's going to gaslight people or say things to entice people all in the name of me trying to get followers or make money. I needed to be myself. So that's what I did. And during the journey of me doing it, I'm not gonna, I I, I'd be lying to you if I would tell you that I was. Questioning myself and saying that maybe I should do it. A lot of the other people that I was seeing doing, because it was not growing fast enough, or I wasn't getting the traction or the recognition that I desired, especially given the fact that I made my money, I've made my wealth in real estate, not social media. I made my money. I made my wealth in real estate Social media just happens to be a vessel that allows me to share my story, right? Right and because of that it's allowed me to then create another source of income in addition, but my foundation is real estate One day I had a issue with a tenant, a handful of years ago, I had an issue with a tenant that during the pandemic did not pay me rent for two years. My, my portfolio does well in terms of net cashflow. I only talk net. I don't talk gross. I talk net. So in net, in terms of net, my properties do extremely well. So despite the fact that this tenant didn't pay me rent for two years, when it was time to finally evict this person, I found compassion in my heart. To instead of just putting her out in the street. I was I put her in a hotel for a month I also gave her money to sustain herself for that for that for that period of time and You know, I stayed in contact with her and that video went viral when that video went viral it put a light on me because the narrative was Who who does that who who who has a tenant that did what they did and then you turn around And do what I did and it it went crazy But I didn't know how to capitalize on it because I don't know so I don't know social media. I don't know marketing I don't know any of those things. So to be honest with you during the During my process of growing my page Everything came organic. Everything has happened organic. Like even our conversation that we happened having today, I promise you, we're going to get a bunch of viral moments in these clips that we're going to do. And I just, I just said, let me be my authentic self. Let me make sure that my story is the truth. I don't have to rehearse. So even when you and I had a conversation, we didn't have to rehearse. We didn't have to prep. We just put on the camera and let's have a conversation about real estate and let me be myself And that's what I've done and I've stuck through with that and by the grace of God I've been able to turn this humble Social media platform into a multimillion dollar business as well. And I've done that with being authentic. I've done that with integrity. I've done that with intentions. I've done that with my goal is to feed the people. My goal is for the people that are observing me on this platform and on my platform is to assist you in becoming independent of me. I don't want you under my wing forever. I want you at the table with me eating with me, because guess what happened? You know how much opportunities and business I've had just because. Of being a man of my word, just because not leading with money, not leading with how much I could extract from you, but by doing right by you, you know how much money that's come back to me because of that. I don't have to watch my back. I don't have to worry about if the feds or the FBI or the police are going to knock on my door because I've done things illegal. So I just stayed true to myself. And here I am, and I think I'm just getting started. I'll be honest with you. I think I'm just getting started. I think, I think what your result is, is staying true to yourself multiplied by years, because a lot of what I see in several of my friends are the gurus, you know, right there, the people that you see all over the social media and everything, and they start to get a little bit high on their own supply of, I guess, I don't know the best way to put that, but like. They get on their high horse and like, you know, oh, I can post, I can post and my event will fill up in a day, you know, or, and it's like, content of your event and it's like, well, it doesn't matter. I can post and it'll fill up in a day. And it's like, here's the thing that I discovered. Here's the thing I discovered. The majority of these people that claims that I have, they call me and I have these conversations and then through the conversations, I'm like, yeah, but that's not what you're saying on social media, because the way that you portray it, the way that you, you make it appear is that you're inundated with business. You're inundated with money. And then when you and I having a conversation and I get to see your backend, that's not what's happening. So I don't focus on quantity. I focus on quality that goes for my real estate as well. I don't focus on quantity of acquisitions. I focus on the quality of the acquisitions that I get. I don't focus on the quantity of people I can get into my mentorships or my classes. I focus on the quality of the people that I, that I do, because here's the truth. The majority of the people that you will encounter will do nothing, no matter what you give them. Yep. So I focus on quality, not quantity. I love that. And you got to charge more, you know, the Alex Ramosy, like when, when you do things the way that we do. I find myself too often undervaluing myself. Like I, I still provide coaching for 50 for 30 minutes, which is and here's the thing. People don't respect free, right? People don't respect free. And I tell either even other influences that are my friends, you will see how many people will show up to your events because it's free. They will love you. They will sing your praise until you put a cost or value on it. Majority of those people are, will, will do nothing. They will post on social media that they're in the room with you. They'll post on social media that they met you because they liked the attention. But they won't put in the work when you show them that you have sewers backing up. I had one property that the sewer backed up, filling up into the apartment. And all you see is feces and urine blowing up to the ceiling. I can see it. I can smell it too. The people don't want no part of that. They want the end result of what you have. They want the Ferraris that I own. They want the home that I live in. They want the monies that I generate, but they don't want the work that comes with it. Yeah, man. That's just so true and also I think being yourself can be It's, it's scary. You'll be vulnerable, right? And posting that stuff too, like, showing how it's hard sometimes, right? I've made some very vulnerable posts and by no means am I viral yet, you know. But I've made some incredibly vulnerable posts and people come up to me like, Haydynn, thank you for posting that and keeping it real. Because everyone only posts what's going right. I'll post what's going wrong all day long. No, no, what separates me from the people out here, and I get it all the time, I get it from your favorite favorites, I get it from people with much larger followings than me or whatever, and I'm not afraid to tell the people I made a mistake. I'm not afraid to tell the people that I've had, I had to evict X amount of tenants. I'm not afraid to tell the people that I did this deal and I lost, but then at the same time too, I'm not afraid to show the people my wins as well. And what did I have to do to make that happen? And I'm one of a very few people that will speak the truth about the business. I'm one of the very few people that will give you the good, the bad, the ugly about this business. I'm much, and here's the thing. We're all adults. We're all grown enough. We're all grown enough to get the truth and then let the adults make an informed decision. Versus you telling them fluff, but then for them to get into it and say, nobody told me this, because that's what happened to me. Nobody told me this. So that's why when I got into the business, I said that real estate is, is BS. Real estate is a lie. Nobody making money in real estate because nobody told me. That you make your money on the bar. Nobody told me that you have to understand how to manage. Nobody told me that. In fact, there was no such thing as passive in real estate. Nobody told me that, but those that are afraid to get into the business, here's what the remedy of that is. Make more money if you don't like your rental if you don't like your rental It's because it's not making enough money because if I give you a comparison and I tell you right now You got a three family property. You're indebted 700, 000 you bought the property for six hundred and ninety five thousand dollars There's no equity in the property and then you are netting two to five hundred dollars a month How do you like that? Most people say I like it Most people don't realize you don't realize you got a problem, usually until the end of the second property, the beginning, the beginning of the purchase of the third property. So now, when people start to say they don't like it, what's the problem? When you ask them and you get to the essence of it, it's because they're not making enough net profit for the headache and the debt that came with the property. Now you flip it and ask a different question. You got a property that's worth 700, 000, you bought it for 400, 000, you invested 100, 000, you got 200, 000 in equity, and the same property is netting you 3, 000 a month. How do you like that? I like that a lot more. Yeah. And people like, I know a guy that'll buy a rental if it'll do a hundred a month cash flow. You're crazy. You're crazy. I, you could, you could have a pipe bus and half of your profit for the year is gone. You know, it's crazy. And I tell people real estate is not if, but when. Yup. That pipe is gonna go. Yes, your pipes are gonna go your ac is gonna blow out Is not gonna pay you rent your your your taxes are gonna increase your insurance is gonna increase so it's not if it's when So does that property, is that property performing well enough to maintain, sustain, and then reward you? Most people can't say that it does. I want to ask you a question around realtors. And because you mentioned like 90 percent of your properties come from the MLS. Yes, so how and and realtor all people and so this goes to the theme of our connecting, right? How do you let's exclude social media for a second? How do you create relationships with realtors and get realtors to bring you good deals his here's the thing? I found I found that the best realtors for me to work with initially or realtors with zero experience Just got their broker's license. So, because what happened is, is that a realtor is not an investor. So even the realtors that claim to be investor friendly realtors, don't know what the hell they're talking about. So now when you talk about how do you build relationships with a realtor, what I would do with a realtor, especially a new realtor is to explain to them my expectations, which goes back to the importance of you as an investor or a qualified buyer, having an understanding of the business. So what happens? I'm gonna speak with the realtor and I'm gonna lay out my criteria. Hey, Mr. Or Mrs. Mr. Or Ms. Realtor. Here's my criteria. I'm qualified to be able to spend this amount of money. I have to be able to buy the property at this percentage. I do not care about the list price. I only care about my price. I need you to understand that the majority of offers that we're going to make will not be accepted because the majority of people in the public, including other realtors, do not understand the concept. I need you to also understand, Mr. or Ms. Realtor, when we do eventually get a deal on the contract, because we will. I guarantee you that upon me completing this purchase, renovating this property, you will get the property on the back end to resell that property. So you will make money with me coming and going. Most realtors will not buy into it because they don't understand it. But when you do get that one realtor, regardless if they are experienced or not, I ask them to send me in my, here's my criteria. The number one question that every investor, every qualified buyer, must lead and ask with. The number one question is everybody, and I don't care what you doing in the business. What is the ARV? I don't care how, how much experience you got. And even if you have a limited experience, it's very easy for a realtor with limited or a lot of experience to be able to determine what the ARV of a property is because the ARV is based off of recent sales. The realtor will have to present those to me so that I don't just take what they tell me at face value. I will then be able to verify what they claim. After that, the realtor is going to have to give me two more things. Photos of the property, which is very easy to get if it's off the MLS, and I also need the square footage of the property Why do I need the square footage of the property? Because i'm gonna need to use utilize the square footage because when I show you how to determine cost of rehab You utilize the square footage to determine the average cost of what it would be to rehab that property when you understand that you could Then tell your realtor within everybody if you're paying attention to me I'm going to show you how to do this when you join my mentorship I'm going to show you how to do this thing within seconds to give your realtor your maximum offer You give your real to your maximum offer and just tell the real to submit my offer. That's all you got to do. Submit my offer and we move on to the next one. You have to cast out as many fishing lines as possible because the reality is most fish are not going to chomp on your line. So when you put out as much fishing line as possible, you will get one. So then now I tell everybody the average person in America. On a return on a flip is averaging around 50, 000 net. So I asked everybody who's going to watch this, this, this podcast, as much work as you have to put in making a 50, 000 net return, won't be worth it. You're not going to do it going to work. Let's be honest, you're not going to do it working overtime. You're not going to make an additional 50, 000. So you're telling me that it's not going to be worth it to put in that effort to make an additional 50 Once you get a taste of it the one time guess what brother you're gonna want to do it again I I say flipping is like a toxic relationship You get in and it's all exciting at first and it's really cool and you go on all these dates It's like you're ripping the cabinets out. You're like, oh look at this. It's so cool. I flip real estate And then the toxic like red flag started popping like oh, oh, this is like twenty thousand dollars of a budget over here Like that's wait, we just opened that wall and there's like rotten wood behind there. And like this, I'm talking about the new, and then, and then you get through it and you cry a lot and you bleed a little bit and then you get done. You're like, all right, let's go do it again. And you know what I love about this conversation? What most people don't realize there's a brotherhood in this business. Yeah, you and I just standing Yeah, you and I met today and me and you brothers. Yeah, there's a sisterhood in this business And when you dealing with people that truly do this business Me and you will talk enough and you're gonna start saying finishing my sentences for me and vice versa because there's a Fundamental understanding and process when it comes to investing in real estate. Hmm. Yeah, it's all basic It's it's simple, but it's not easy That's what it is. Well, we'll be, and time has flown by. Anytime I started talking about real estate, I know it's the same for you. It just flies. It's like, it's like a fun little roller coaster ride on, but I want to ask you my last question here. And that is what is a connection to a person or a group of people that changed the trajectory of your life or business? That's a really good question. Changing my life. Okay. I never had a mentor. I started getting mentors indirectly. The last. Three to five years of my life indirectly after after building up a successful business through just the hard knocks of life. And then because of that, I met people and then like, I met you or even let's say YAMU and because of that relationship, I don't know everything. You don't know everything. And then indirectly you're mentoring. Right, so i'll be the first to tell you i'm not i don't know everything but i know what i know and i know Extremely well, but the influence that influenced me heavy in my life Was when I was a child growing up, my godfather, or he just passed away a handful of months ago, but my godfather was the first person that I met that was in real estate. I grew up in the projects in Brooklyn. My godfather was in real estate. He owned a brokerage and he had two or three rental properties at the time. So how he influenced me is that growing up in the projects, he lived in the suburbs and by him living in the suburbs. He used to, my family used to go visit him and going back a little bit for back again, living in the projects. My parents was extremely protective of their, of their five boys. Cause obviously it was a rough neighborhood. So one of the things that I always remembered is that my parents would only allow us to ride our bicycles in the cul de sac of the, of the projects. Because they were afraid of us riding the neighborhoods while other kids were riding neighborhoods. We can only ride our bikes in a circle. So when my godfather used to come and visit us, I always remembered how he always had a nice car and he was always nicely dressed with a nice suit on. And he would come and visit us. In addition to that, he would, we would also go visit him or he would pick me and my siblings up on me by myself to go and visit him in the suburbs. So I got to see two sides of the track, if I could say. One of the things that, that, that influenced me, which sounds so silly, was that when I would go visit him, he would tell me and my brothers, get the hell out of the house and get out of here. Do not come back until the sun to the light comes on, the street light comes on. And he would, we would all have bikes. And what blew my mind is that I was able to ride a bicycle in the middle of the street. Hmm. How small and small simple that is that that influenced me that I could not believe because I was going from riding a bike in the cul de sac to now I'm riding the bike in the middle of the street riding the entire neighborhood. I felt so independent. My my godfather owned real estate. He never really talked to me about it, but I remembered it I didn't realize how much of an influence that he planted that seed in my mind until 15 years or so 18 years later When I'm in school, graduated high school, I went to school to be a lawyer at John Jay college realized I didn't want to be in that field. Stopped going to school, became a security guard, worked as a security guard, worked there for a number of years, had an opportunity to go to school, get an employment, sent me to school to be a welder, got a gainful, got a job. That was, I was gainfully employed for real estate. Always kept coming somewhere somehow. And then I start reminiscing back about that seven year old kid. I didn't realize how much my godfather influenced age at 22, 23 is when real estate started becoming a passion of me, wanting to get involved in real estate and try. And then of course, what our story of me trying, I was cutting corners. I was making a ton of mistakes. I got wiped out. And then it took me. From 2003 to 2012, 13 of being wiped out three times. It's all documented for it to light bulb. Hit me. I'll be you betting on all these people in this industry. You save up your 10, 000, 50, 000, you save up your credit, and then I'm getting this Joe Schmo coming to me because he looked fancy and says, Give me your 50, 000, I'm going to show you, be a strong man to this deal, and I'm going to show you how to become a millionaire like me. Only to find out that person was never a millionaire. Only to find out that person was never truly good in real estate. He never made his money in real estate. For me to go. Made it all people who wanted to go into real estate. Yes, and then to go for that for over a decade getting wiped out losing hundreds losing millions of dollars To then realize when it came full circle you was always well Well, you was always prepared to bet on other people But you never truly bet on you on the last deal that I lost I said, you know what, I lost 60, 000 on this deal, but I was cut a check of 90, 000. I said to myself, well be over that over 10 years, you've been getting wiped out. You've been getting taken advantage of, you've been giving up your hard earned money. You're going to take this 90, 000 and if anybody's going to mess this 90, 000 up, well be it's going to be you. I took that 90, 000 and I turned it into an eight figure real estate portfolio. That generates me tens of thousands of dollars in net income per month. I have thousands of mentees throughout the country and I teach and I show them exactly what I did. Why is it that they resonate with me? Why is it that you and I. My newfound brother resonate with me because my story is your story. Your hell, your drama, your experiences, your doubts to yourself is my story. God gave me the ability to speak it and amplify it so that when you hear me, you say, that's what happened to me. Now, let me show you what you can do. When you truly apply and bet on yourself, because if I could do it, that's what I tell everybody. If I could do it, you could do it too. That's my story. That's it, man. Woo. I want to like give you a round of applause here, man. This is freaking great. I really want to tell you, thank you so much if I may. I don't take it lightly. I sincerely appreciate your consideration of even wanting to share your platform with me. I don't play with people's time. I sincerely appreciate you, your team, and thank you. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Wellby. Well, man, thank you so much for coming on the show. Guys, if, if you wanna follow, you should follow Wellby. There shouldn't be. If you want to go follow Wellby, it's at, at my best 1, 9, 7. Is that everywhere? Instagram, Facebook, all places everywhere. Everywhere. Yes, sir. Go give him a follow and follow along the journey with WellBe and man, it was just such a pleasure to get to have you. Guys, if you're still listening to the Art of Connecting here, I just want to tell you a big thank you for being a member of the audience and making this a reality. The podcast is nothing without its listeners, so thank you. And if you could leave a five star review on the podcast, it means a ton. Share this show with someone if you got value out of it. And if you didn't get value out of it, I don't know what you're doing because you just wasted an hour of your life and there was so much value. So you need to go relisten to it. So share with your friends. Let's grow this show. And I'll see you guys on the next episode.