SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hustlers. On today's episode of the Talk to Hustle podcast, we're joined by one of Santa Claus's top real estate professionals. Over the course of his career, he has generated more than $400 million in real estate sales. But his entrepreneurial journey started long before that. As a teenager, he watched his father develop residential communities and learned the fundamentals of sales through a business his parents were involved in. Since then, he's built an incredible career touching learning every corner of the real estate industry, from traditional sales to investing, entrepreneurship, and countless side hustles along the way. This episode is packed with lessons on sales, persistence, opportunity, and what it takes to build long-term success. On today's episode, Martin Dirado. Welcome to the Charms the Hustle Podcast for real estate investors, entrepreneurs, to the stories, strategies, and mindset behind our hustle. I'm Mr. Hustle, Michael Giannis. To my right, Scotty Moon. Let's go. And today's special guest, Martin Dilado. Yes, sir. How you doing, man? Good, man. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here, man. Every time we start with this podcast, I always start with this: my hustle. My hustle's three things, man. Real estate wholesaling, flipping houses, and subject two by taking over payments. When someone thinks of Martin, what is Martin's hustle?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

I think a lot of it is more of a now, like if you would have asked me five years ago, it would have been completely different compared to where it's at now. But I think now what people think of me is uh real estate goat. So I put so many realtors on. And anybody you see on social media right now, I probably impacted their lives one way, and the other one is just luxury real estate developments. So I think that's what people think of me now.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I like that. The GOAT. Self-proclaimed goat. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Hey, no, they hey, they they gave me the title. They gave me the title.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

I used to be the Don, now I'm the goat. The Don and the GOAT. But I'm still not done.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Still not done.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

We'll get into it. So let's do this. Martin, before, I believe you're at almost what 40 million? Anyone say sales?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Uh so this year I'll be on track to do 40 million, yeah. This year alone? This year, yeah. Overall, what are we thinking from day one? Uh from day one, about over 400 million.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Okay, cool, man. So that's why they say goat.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Okay, so before the 400 million, I want to take it back, man. Who's Martin before that? How does Martin have the drive to have almost 400 million dollars in sales?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

You know what I was thinking about that? And wh while you asked me a little while ago, when I got started, I was still young. I was recently married, had a baby on the way. But even before that, my uh my dad, he used to build custom homes. So my mom used to run it, my dad used to build them. You know, they had a small family-owned business. Um, but there was also a um multi-level marketing that my dad was also a part of. And you know, it's funny, when I was 16 years old, I was trying to give presentations to teachers, janitors about that level multi-level marketing, and I also got some of the parents getting involved. So we would rent out the library, have this presentation of like a wellness company. And then I didn't know that, but those were like stepping blocks into what we ended up getting into later on as far as real estate. It's just different products. Was it Herbalife? No, it was called Melaluca. Okay. And we still use the products today. So it's a wellness company out of uh Ohio. Okay. And um, it's crazy because that guy, uh Vandersloot, he is probably the second richest man in the United States because of that one company.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, a kind of money. Okay. So your parents are real estate and other, man. Yeah. Your dad was a builder. Correct. Now we're talking about what? Five houses, ten houses a year, or we're talking more.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

About six houses. Six houses a year. Six houses he would build for people.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

How did he get into it?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Shoot, honestly, just by accident. He he got into it because uh one of our aunts, she wanted to build a house. So my parents built their house with another builder, and then my dad was like, I could do this. And then we ended up building my aunt's house, and then while we were building that house, people would come be like, hey, could you build us a house? And little by little they started doing that. And then where the hustle came in is we build one ranch down south, and there's all this vacant land with gates, right? So what we would do is in the uh tailbed of my dad's truck, my brother and I would literally run and put posts on each one of the landowners saying, Hey, we'll build for you. And you know, we'll do that maybe three or four times. So it was all the marketing that we did behind it. We ended up building quite a few big houses down there. And because they they had money, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

So on average, so these houses that your dad were building, I get what what year was this?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

This was uh 90 94, 95, 96. How old are you? I'm uh 34. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

So back then he was building houses. Yeah, average size house, three bed, two baths, 1,500 square feet.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

$60,000 houses. Man, that's a different line.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Huh? What city?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Here.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Okay, nice.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, here in San Antonio, so it was right by Woodlawn's first house that they ever built. And then uh the last house that we build was not too far from here, actually. And that was a 3,500 square foot house. He's still building? We build one, yeah. And then we're right now, me and my other business partner, we're gonna build another house in the Canyons. Um, and that's gonna be like 1.9 million.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Canyons. That's what we gotta get into, man. Let's go before I before I go into building, let's really bring it back. Born and raised San Antonio?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Born and raised here. What high school? Fox Tech.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Your parents, if if you had to kind of classify, I would assume because you was a builder, like middle income, high, mid-income.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

So so 2008 really crippled them, right? The crash? Yeah, the crash. Well, you know, there's a lot of variances, right? So um they they kind of survived all the crashes, but they were doing well, they're good middle class. Uh, and it it it's crazy because I I was really humbled by the crash. And I was just graduating from high school when that happened. Uh my parents were building six, seven houses every year consistently. The bank stopped lending out money. So my dad had to go back to being a waiter at a hotel. My mom had to go and work for a payday loan um company. So, you know, from making at the time, $100,000 was a lot of money to making somewhere around the lines of $40,000. So cut the income in half during that time. Um, like it really did humble me uh because we were so used to having it all. And then we're all, hey, now we're on a budget. It slowed things down quite a bit. So, so that ended up happening. So I I felt like we were we're always good. We always had food on the table, we always had a roof over the head. Um, had a lot of credit card debt, right? At that time, that was kind of like when, you know, the United States was putting more emphasis on hey, credit, credit, credit, credit, credit.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Um that crash time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, no, and it it was it was bad, but you know, that that's one thing I I always respect about my parents because no matter if we were doing well, they didn't show it. If we were doing bad, they didn't show it. So so yeah, no, I would say I would say like mm right underneath middle class, not poor. Right, right. Right. They they didn't they don't want to be poor, you know. And that's a different mindset.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

You know, it's it's it's surprising, like I don't know. I think people want to be poor. I think they're just comfortable. Yeah. Extremely, yeah. Depending on your situation, to each round. Yeah. All right. So your dad was a builder. Yep. Straight out of high school, it's like, hey, I'm gonna do what my dad did.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

My dad graduated. Oh, me? No, no, no, no. I went, so uh at the time, uh right after high school, I went to go work at the hotel that he was working at. There's really nothing going on, right? So I I did that at bartend. I I did tax returns. So I was a tax prep guy right out of high school, so I understood the tax, the tax part of it. I was a sneakerhead, so I would sell shoes. Um and then um what else? Yeah, I was just bartending, and then I got my real estate license, and then from there I started going into m harder into real estate. So that didn't take too long for me to really catch on.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

What made you go to real estate? You're dead?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yeah. We we actually they were having a meeting with a loan officer, they were gonna start building again. So four years have passed since the crash, and they're all like, hey, we can start doing it. One of the loan officers said, Hey, to get an edge on the competition, one of you guys should get your real estate license so that way you know what things are selling for, negotiate price. And I already had my tax prep uh license. I was like, fuck it, I'll go do it. So then I go do it, and then uh one of my mentors at the time, he showed me a check for like nine grand. And then I was all like, fuck, you made nine thousand? It takes me like four months to make nine thousand bartending and doing all this other shit. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna fucking buckle down. And then that's when I started like really pushing it. I hit rookie of the year, I sold more houses than some of the vested uh realtors at the time. What was your first brokerage? Berkshire Hathaway.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Why those guys?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

They paid for everything, so they paid for my business card. So like it was easy transition. I was broke. You know, I had probably like 30 bucks to my name, newborn, all this other stuff. So I didn't really have um a nest egg. And a lot of people, I I when I talk to people that are just getting started in real estate, I say, hey, have your nest egg put aside before you jump into it because you're gonna shoot yourself in the foot because you're gonna find yourself working a part-time drive just to survive, keep the lights on. But Berkshire Hathaway, they they kind of set a good platform at the time, um, just because it was something good to go and get the free business cards. You got um, they did the headshots for you, just like the simple stuff. It's nothing that costs very much or that's like now relatively available, but uh it was easy. But then once I started trying to advance, I started getting coached by one of my loan officers, and he's all like, Yeah, you gotta start a team, you gotta delegate and you gotta leverage. Um, I was like, all right, cool, I'm gonna do that. I was a sponge, I was like, whatever you tell me to do, I'll go do it. I'm hungry for it. So then I was like, hey, I'm gonna start a team. I need your guidance. You're you own a brokerage. One of my brokers say you have all the resources. Could you help me develop? And they're like, Yeah, we don't do that here. So then I was like, let me let me stop you there.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

So your first year as a realtor, how many files? I mean, uh closing did they get 17. 17. Second year, do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Second uh second year I did twenty-two, and I was still kind of stagnant. I was still at that other company. And then uh third year I did twenty seven. And these are all still baby deals, like 200, 300. Um, and then I I had my first hire in year four. And then we're he was just my transaction coordinator, and we did uh 42 transactions for like 12 million. Um and then after that I started building on my team and I I ran it all the way up to uh 138 million with like 204 transactions.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

So let's let's talk about this team team. Because I never now I'm a broker, I'm a realtor, but I've always just been myself, right? It's always been a unique um, I like to call it boutique brokerage, right? Like next door, right? Next door is the brokerage, it's just me and my guys, and man, we're trying to find deals, wholesales and flips. So I've never really been part of uh a remax, a Keller Williams, uh anything like that, right? Uh co-walt bankers. Why would someone join a team, right? You started the team, I would assume. There's benefits to be the team leader, but someone who's like, hey, why would I join your team? And I don't know how it works on a team method. I would assume all the deals go in your name.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah, uh well, I I'm one that I don't care about the recognition anymore. I already got all the awards, I just want the money. So I'm okay with my agents putting the deals under their name. It's not not a big deal for me anymore. I don't need that recognition. Um, but I think for newer agents, people that are just getting started, their big thing is okay, I want to join a team because I want less responsibilities and I still want to make money, right? Or I want to learn from somebody that's having the same type of business that that I'm literally looking to build. So like if you look at all the difficulties as far as being an agent or even just being in business, like take off all the $10 an hour work, right? And then how much more efficient could you be and how much more profitable could you be? So what we did is when we built our team, we took all that $10 an hour work away from them and just have them focus on higher dollar uh production. And that's all we did. And we made it so simple, our team kind of built itself up. And then we I got to the point where I built it so big, and I got to the point where I was like, all right, cool. I'm I'm good now. I'm I have my baby girl coming on the way. So I said my retired after that. But for the most part, like I still have people hitting me up all the time, be like, hey, I want you to coach me, I want you to train me. I'm all like, man, I really don't want to go through that again. But I want to go after people that I know that they they're maybe a four million dollar producer, I can get them to like at least 15 million. Those are the people I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

We have a lot of people that watch this podcast that are either investors or thinking about getting into some kind of real estate, whether it be investing or traditional real estate, for people who want to get their license and want to obviously join a team because it's hard to, like you said, figure it out on your own and there's a lot of benefits of being on a team. Yeah when they're doing that interview process, I guess, or going around searching for whose team they should be on, what's your number one advice when they're out looking for because there's a ton of people out there. You've seen them left and right on social media and ads, I'm sure, in different places, and everybody wants to recruit people because it's always cool to grow your team, have a big team. But for the individual that's looking to join a team, what's like the number one advice you could give them when looking or whenever, I guess, interviewing the people that they're gonna, the team they're gonna join?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Yeah, the the big the big thing is there's a lot of false gurus out here. Ask them for a 10 out of nine. So if an agent's just getting started and the agent that they're looking to uh interview is only making $200,000 a year, is their say they're building. Is their building big enough to for their vision too? Yeah. You know, on $200,000, if you're splitting $200,000, that means each one of us will make it $100,000. If I'm making a million dollars, you have room to grow on that. So it's like, all right, well, let me see your numbers before saying, oh yeah, I like you. You look successful, but can you show me the proof? The proof is commission. Right? Sells is for show, closings are for dough. So I want to see, all right, if you if you're gonna be my mentor, you're gonna be my financial planner, you're gonna be my CPA, I want to see what your finances look like. I want to know what your accounting looks like before I start giving you.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Is that pretty common? Because I feel like if somebody were to, I'm just gonna say a friend of mine. If somebody, our mutual friend, if somebody goes into Scott Malou's office, like hey I want to see how much you make, is he gonna write off the bat be like, oh yeah, sure, here's all the financials, or is he gonna be like, dude, who are you? If you're a newbie, right? Yeah, yeah. Or anybody, not just Scott in general.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah, so I you know, Scotty, he, you know, he he's uh he's a walking billboard, so it's very easy. Like you know he's legit, right? Right, right. But there's a lot of other teams that you know they can't necessarily show it. And and two, like it's it's usually the people that you don't really hear too much about. Yeah, right. And you're like, hey, I joined this team. Oh, why'd you join that team? Oh, well, it's because they give out leads or they they do this or whatever, right? I was like, well, did you see how much they were making before you joined them? Well, no. I was like, why why is that important? I said, well, you want to make sure that they'll be able to feed you. If they're saying that, hey, I got so much to go around, they got to make sure they're eating first. Yeah. And then they're gonna give out whatever's left over. Right? So, so yeah, as far as that, like if if like I'm comfortable, I'll show my my like I'll show you guys my 1099. I have no issues or I'll show you my tax returns. So if you're comfortable with that, then then at being asked that question shouldn't be too far-fetched. I I know if I ask Mike, I'd be like, hey bro, like, I know, I like I have a pretty good idea that you're making you know, way north of maybe two million every year, right? But then if I ask him, I was like, hey man, I want to get mentorship, like I want to put myself in a level where like I'm not your competition, but we could collaborate and we can you bring together, but we have equal mindsets, equal goals, equal income. All right, cool. That's a great conversation. That's a great way to start, you know?

SPEAKER_02 15:38

On the same note, if I were, and I'm gonna use the same example I've given before. I'm a uh I'm a bottle girl, not me, but I'm a bottle girl, this imaginary person. Yeah, and I went through, I got my my uh my license. Where do you even go to like look for teams? What would be the best place for somebody like that to go and look for a team?

SPEAKER_00 15:56

There's different, there's two different mindsets. There's the like the first agent that's coming in. Do you want to be fed or do you want to learn how to fish? You gotta answer that question first, right? That's good. What type of foundation do you want to build? Do you want to build a foundation off of relationships or you want to try to build a uh a foundation on maybe code leads? You know, because there's two there's so many variables in real estate.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Code leads.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah. Yeah, because like they're they're out there, right? You can call expireds if you really want to. You could do open houses, or you can go into like in-depth conversations with people that whenever like you you're you asked the question earlier on. Hey, when somebody thinks of Martin, what do they think? Well, it's easy for them to think of me because of these reasons, but you know, if you're just going after cold business the entire time, people are not really gonna put you towards that.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Go ahead. One more question.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Yeah, yeah. I'm genuinely curious. What is your opinion? Because I I don't know much about being an agent or a broker, obviously. I deal with a lot of them, but I don't really like study that business. And you know, like I said, he doesn't really do much of it other than just the boutique stuff. Yeah. But from somebody who's run a team and been on a team and knows agents and knows the business in and out, what is your opinion? And I don't know if this is like a standard, if you have to pick one, but I've seen that there's some people out there that are like, I will not sell anybody's house. I just want to be a buyer's agent because I just want to basically do the easy part, show the house and make the money. Is that something that turns you off or is that like no?

SPEAKER_00 17:20

It's cool. Like honestly, right now, buyers' agents are making more money than listing agents. And for as long as I've been in real estate, it's always the other way around. Because you got to think about it, you have builders that are giving out $10,000 realtor bonuses on top of 3%. So you're telling me if I sell a $400,000 house, I make $12,000 plus another $10,000, I make $22,000. That's equivalent to selling an $800,000 house.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

And for the viewers watching that don't understand maybe what we're talking about, there's two different sides of a transaction, right? If you have a buyer's agent, you basically have your buyer, he's my buyer, and I'm just gonna go show him houses, and then whatever he buys, I'm making 3%. If I'm the seller's agent, I've got to go and help them prepare the house for sale, tell them what repairs they need to be made, here's what you can expect, here's a net sheet, do the showings, do open houses, negotiate the contracts, it falls back out of contract, relist it. You gotta go through all that stuff. So there's two different sides. There's a buyer side and the seller side. The buyer side is typically way less work unless you have a really picky buyer, right? Um, but for the most part, it's way less work. You can go camp out around a bunch of new builds and put a sign. That's honestly how I got started.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, it's it's a really easy way to make a bunch of money if you're good at sales. For the longest time, all I did was new construction. I still, all I mostly do is new construction. So much easier. Yeah. So much easier.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Let's go back to what you said in the beginning. Something about goat status. Yeah. And you said you have a lot of social impact on a lot of realtors. Yep. Let's talk about that. Deep deep dive into that. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

So uh a lot of times, so okay, when I had my team, right, I built up a lot of multi-six figure earners that just went through my camp. And I say my camp because just like anything, you know, you have to kind of go through boot camp in a sense. And they did my boot camp. And I knew when people were gonna be ready to leave the Nest Egg and kind of go and develop themselves. Um, so what I did is I just went through like just intense, like learning, building foundation, building rapport. And a lot of the agents that you see on social media that are super successful are usually people that either had great conversations with me, I put them on, um, and I helped them build their business and I showed them how to delegate, I showed them how to leverage, I showed them how to build a strong, solid foundation. So it's very easy for me to like kind of give myself to that title is because I know I paid it forward. And to me, that's the most important part of why we do this.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Very well said. Now, you guys, yeah, there's a hat on that says real.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Now, a lot of realtors out there, when they think of real, they think of EXP, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

They think of I I I think it's starting to switch a little bit, but what do you mean by switch? So people that were very strongly favored for EXP, they're at real now.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, yeah, I'm not tuning into it, but yeah, I can see. Yeah, EXP is definitely uh allows it's transitioned to real. But a lot of realtors that are outside EXP are real, oh they always say pyramid scheme, right? Pyramid scheme, multi-level marketing. Break down that myth or misconception, if any.

unknown 20:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, so um, so just like anything, we're a production company, right? So we want to make sure people and agents produce. So for us, you can't necessarily consider yourself a multi-level marketing if you're not producing, right? So just like the other companies that I had mentioned earlier today, if I'm not selling, I'm not recruiting, I'm not bringing people to it, I'm not buying the product, I'm not believing or pushing the product, I'm not necessarily gonna make any money. So we're still a a we're a tech company that's running a real estate company that's also paying it forward to our agents. So whenever you're a part of real, you get deep in with the culture, and this is not just here locally, but it's throughout the entire United States and Canada right now. Um, and then two, like there's also that misconception because we literally just acquired Remax. When I say we, I mean them, but that was a $440 million acquisition deal, right? Or $800 million, but they have $400 million in debt, so we're gonna pay that off. But you know what's crazy about how like in tune they are with their finances and their development and their agent is they're saying in two years we'll pay off that debt. So over $400 million worth of debt to have to pay it off. But it it goes back to is like, hey, we can't build this on false promises and dreams. Like we have to build this with work. And that's the difference between like when we like if one of our agents doesn't produce, they send their license back to whatever commission it is. And that's the biggest thing. You could be a part of all these other companies, not sell shit forever, have the license, go to all the social mixers and everything. But here, if you don't produce, you don't stick around.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

I don't know that. That's good. Yeah, I don't know that. Yeah, cool. Okay, so you became uh obviously a big agent in San Antonio, uh, doing a lot of deals, right? Got a team under you, and you joined Real. Uh how when did you join Real? 21. John Real, why don't you say, hey, I want to take this to my next phase in my career? Yeah. What's next for Martin after being a team agent, team leader?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah, so it's paying it forward throughout the entire nation, is really what we're focused on. So we coach and we train with agents all across the US and we have conferences that we go to. Um and you know it's crazy how similar but different we all are because I can go like here we have a lot of production. Like if you were to look at our numbers here, um we did over like two billion dollars in sales last year. So that's good for us. You go to Los Angeles and they're at like 15 billion. So and then we go to small little territories and they're like, all right, well, we did 50 million dollars. So it's it's just a big difference, but they still have the passion to build a legacy for both themselves, their family, and that's what we want. Like, and that's one of the big things too. So, like, let's say hypothetically, well, it's what's happening right now. Real, if you were to build up a revenue share, and let's say for me, I name my wife as my beneficiary, my kids my beneficiary. If I were to die and I built this entire company, like nobody could take it away. I could actually have my kids and my wife inherit it, and I know with peace of mind that they're making that residual every single month.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Hustlers, real estate investing doesn't have to be overwhelming and you don't have to do it alone. If you've been watching from the sidelines, scrolling past deals on Zillow, or binging YouTube videos, but still not taking action, this is for you. That's why we built Hustle Academy, a community designed for new and experienced real estate investors who want to learn, network, and grow. Inside Hustle Academy, you'll get weekly live calls, QA sessions, and step-by-step classes on fix and flip, wholesaling, creative finance, and my favorite subject to deals. Everything you need to know to build real skills and start closing real deals. You'll join a powerful group of like-minded hustlers who are sharing wins, breaking down deals, and all pushing towards the same goal, financial freedom through real estate. If you're ready to level up, no matter what stage you're starting at, join Hustle Academy today, tap the link in the description, or visit hustleacademy.com and let's trump the hustle together. So where you're at real, there's a lot of monthly incomes to be made, and that's called what, Repshare?

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Yeah, Repshare. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

So how does how does that work specifically? Like if an agent wants to join real, because I never am again, I'm more boutique. So why would how do I get that? I just have to have a team under me and I get a percentage of all their deals?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Correct. You get 5% off every closing that they have until they cap at 12K. So like hypothetically, let's say you come, you produce, you write deals, I'll make a max of four grand off of your production.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

That's it. One time and then that's it ever. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

That's it for the year, and then you reset the following year and I make another four. So that's how the residual continues.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

So I don't know if you can answer this question, man. An average agent, no superstar, right? Just an average agent. What would their rev share be monthly if you could kind of guess to make?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

So I have most of my agents are doing about two grand that they're making perhaps. Just cash flow. It pays for their cars, their insurance, small stuff like that. So it's two grand, two grands, two grand. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Two grands, two grand. Okay. Now what about this mortgage thing I hear about? How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

So so direct rate. So you have to get your license, right? Or something like that as a loan officer? As a loan officer, right? You put it under an umbrella, which in this case, um, we decided to partner up with direct rate, and they're here locally, and they have what's considered a level program where uh agent, broker could be uh dual license. And because of that, they have a system where off of every transaction you end up closing with them, you make 1%. So if a $400,000 loan amount comes in, you can make $4,000 off every deal. Now, the cool thing, especially for us as 10 out of 9 employees, we don't have any benefits. So healthcare, none of that stuff exists on our book. Well, with them, you're also able to opt in for that. So you get health care and all that, you're W-2'd, you take out taxes, you kind of run that umbrella. But the cool thing about it, just like our revenue share, they have a revenue share concept too. So, like hypothetically, you you go in, you're doing your deals with uh level program, and then you bring you bring me on. Hey Martin, I gotta show you this. Off of all my production, you're gonna make 20 basis points on that $400,000 house that I close, you'll make $800. So every time I close a $400,000 house, you're making $800. And it's limitless. That's the best part of it.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

For someone who's maybe a superstar agent and they're hearing this for the first time, how would they take those first steps to make this happen?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Well, one, they could reach out to you or I, right? We can have a simple conversation over the phone, and then we'll get them with one of their onboarding specialists. And for a brand new agent or agent that's in production, what they can do is they can start taking their uh LO license and they pass it, and then they just have a conversation with us. We'll get them set up for success, and then we'll show them exactly how to refer the business, manage the business, get paid for the business.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

That's pretty cool. Yeah, really deep dive, man.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Yeah. So you got the agents, you got the mortgage. Now I hear there's one for title companies.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah, there's title companies.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

What is that called?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

It's called JV partnerships with title. So that's another way to make revenue. So a lot of agents, they feel that they just sell a house and that's all the money they make. But there's so many different ways to make money in real estate legally, right? No, no backdoor deal. No, hey, if you if you throw me these deals, I'll throw you a couple of gift cards. No, it's like legitimate deals. So you could do a JV partnership with the title company, any profits from that, whatever's agreed upon, you and that other entity is what they're paying you out. So, so right now we're actually in the process of partnering up with one of our good friends. Uh, he's out of Miami, based out of Miami, and uh he's looking to open up a satellite office here in Texas, and we're gonna partner up. I'm gonna run it for him. You know, he's gonna put all the backdoor stuff, the the the smart people, right? I I'll help build it. I'll help like make sure it's a successful business and we're gonna make sure it makes a ton of money. But as far as the operations, the logistics, the contracts, the escrow officers, escrow assistants, the buildings, the operations, I want him to handle all that. I just want to come and just build it up.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

That's crazy, that's a crazy uh concept, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Yeah, it's a lot of like you said, referral business, but done ethically on the up and up the right way versus just, I guess, the old school wild west back in the day when it was, like you said, gift cards and under the table.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Under the table stuff.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Well, think about it, like how much money had like and this is a serious question. How much money do you feel got that you guys left off the table just because it was either not given you as an option? So from title, any closings that you have, if you would have got a portion.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

What do you think the average portion is when you say so?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Let's say if you make $400 for each closing. Okay. How many deals, how much money do you think you left on the table off of that? Off of all the closings you or any of your agents were have done. Yeah, that's a lot. It's a lot. That's a quick same thing for mortgages. Yeah. Yeah. The other one I haven't dived into is insurance. I don't know if I want to get in the weeds on that.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

That's definitely a lot, man. It's definitely a lot going on for one transaction. Crazy how you can make so much. Now, Martin being an agent, doing his thing, getting uh a little piece of the insurance, not insurance, piece of the mortgage, piece of this, piece of that. What how does he come into building? Because I think now you're going more into commercial. Is that something you always want to do? You kind of fell into it.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

No, I fell into it 100%. I I always wanted to be a residential agent. I really didn't care to be too much of commercial, but I have my clients that they think differently. They think bigger. They're like, hey, I need this, I need that, I need you to go and negotiate this deal. I literally had clients call me and say, hey, this uh other agent's a fucking asshole. He's a dick, he's not responding to me or whatever. I need you to go handle it for me. So then I'll go, I'll handle it for him. I'd be like, hey, you know what you wanted? I got you even better here. And then I'll bring it back to my clients. So that's the reason why they refer me. And they refer me heavy. So, like, usually I like taking vacations, but I know I get busy though through those vacations, so I know I'm gonna work a little bit. But I I know that the money's flowing, so I'm not gonna complain about it either.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Go back to that phone call that that was it, a buyer or a seller that said this agent was trash? Who was that?

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah, so one of my clients he called me up and he's buyer or seller? He's a buyer. Okay. He's a buyer, and um, he was looking at a commercial lot, and the lot was like two million dollars. And um he he was reaching out to this guy, and because he has an a has an accent, the guy thought he was fucking bullshitting, right? He's like, hey, I'm interested. And he just he didn't sound like you know, just traditional, right? Just speak English or whatever. So the other guy was a white dude on the other side, and he was all like, Well, no, you you're gonna have to make an appointment with my assistant and my assistant, and this is the number, and just full runaround the whole time. So then my client calls me, he's like, Hey, I'm trying to buy this property, and and he's cash, easy deal, right? I'm like, No, I got you. He's all like, I'm willing to pay their price. I'm all like, no, fuck that. They're gonna pay, like, I'm gonna make sure. So I went up getting it for 1.8. It was a cash deal, closed two weeks and easy.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

They get those type of buyers.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Bro, you know what's crazy? I've sold that client probably seven million dollars worth of real estate. Everything has been over a million. And um, I remember one time we sold it. Oh commercial? No, residential too. I wanted one time I sold, I uh saved him like $400,000 on one property.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Yeah, how do we do a JV on a JV on the money and safety?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

And you know it's crazy, and he would have uh he would have paid the 1.5 mil. And I was like, nah, fuck that. I'm gonna negotiate. That's why like I tell I tell people all the time, I was like, man, I would not want to negotiate against me. Like Brutal out here. No, I'm I'm bad. Like the last okay, so in the canyons, right? I love that neighborhood, it's my thing. So I sold one of my clients a house, I got him $100,000 off, and then I got him all the furniture that's in the house for a dollar.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

What the heck?

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Yeah, it was $1.4, I got it for $1.295. $1.1 for all the furniture in the entire house.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Let's talk about the uh the canyons, man, because I know you do a lot of business in the city. Oh, yeah, we're gonna be building in there. Yeah, when I when I wanted to buy the canyons, I reach out to you, right? I think I reach out to you because I told you about that house. Yeah, which is that one, yeah. Yeah. There's a few listings, and you were telling me that I don't know, let's break it down, man, since we're talking about the canyons. So if you guys are not local, the canyons, how would you describe the canyons?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Top neighborhoods in the city. Hill country luxury. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Oh, that's a good word. That's a good word to put it. Yeah. Hill country luxury. So the canyons is a hill country luxury. When I went to move into the canyons uh not too long ago, I saw a lot of your listings there. And I think you reached out to me and we talked, and you said something along the lines that you were called in builders and you're making creative offers.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Set our finance deals, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah, so we'll break that down. What were you doing? That's a lot different than uh your traditional realtor.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah, so uh, and I'm glad you brought this up because it's another good win for one of my clients. And um, he uh so I have this this one house, it's crazy. So we go to an open house, and you know, it's very easy to be great. I don't know if you guys are easy to be great. Like it's hard, right? At the beginning, but if you know what you're doing, it's very easy to be great in any industry, no matter what we do. There's a lot of standout people that are you know very oh man, that person does great. When we went to one of this house, and this is a two million dollar house in the canyon, beautiful house, was on the market for two years. Well, you gotta find out, okay, well, what's the reason behind it? What's what so what's the issues? And we go in, they're having a broker's open, open house. It was semi uh furnished, right? So they had one couch and it had box springs in the master bedroom, but no bed, no mattress on top, right? There's shit on the back patio of just like birds building a nest and taking shits, and then the house was just dirty. And there's a guy with over like sized clothes, it just wasn't presentable, wasn't prepared for the house. They just put anybody in there, right? I turned to my client, I'd be like, I'm gonna negotiate the fuck out of this house if you want it, right? So I ended up getting them, I ended up getting in. So it was a two million dollar house. I got it for 1.75. I got $250,000 as a down payment, and I got a 3.5% interest rate on a paid-off house.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

See, a lot of people don't think about that, right? It has a new build, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:25

That was a brand new build.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah, so a lot of people don't think that you can make a seller financing deal to a new build because they probably just want all their money. They're not gonna want to sit on it and hold on it. So you presented to the listen agent or was it straight to the builder?

SPEAKER_00 34:37

No, to the listen agent, he was like, done. What did you first say? Huh? When you first offered when I first offered, they're like, they're not gonna go for this shit, right? I'm like, present the offer. It's a legitimate offer, right? Here's proof of funds. We're serious about making this offer. We went back and forth for a little bit and thought, oh like because what I did is I put a payment breakdown, like uh, like uh just a payment calculation. I said, all right, you guys are gonna be making somewhere around $7,800. Most of its interest. Look, yeah. It's better than you just sitting on the house, have somebody that's not gonna put up any capital, that's uh that's gonna give you one month's rent, right? You can't rent it out for $15,000 a month. So I I did that, and that's when I knew there is a huge niche, a big there, there's a there's a big void right now between the eight hundred thousand dollars and then like the one two, and then everything above that, it's untapped. There's not a lot of people selling those higher end houses, and there are so many people that have them. Like, shit, I had one client called me up, I represented him, it was a $3.7 million house. And I did a video on that house that I sold, talked about how I structured the deal. He called me up just because of that video. So there's a void, there's there's something missing there where if agents really wanted to go and play in that, it's very easy, and there's very little people playing in that. Everybody's selling the $300,000 houses, which is not bad.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

That's just that's just an average day-to-day normal kind of house. But yeah. Let's go back to the Canyons. Canyons, it's a secluded neighborhood, right? It's gated. It's really nice. What do you I heard you're working on some big project there?

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yeah, so we have uh we have a 4,300 square foot build um that we're gonna build in there. Uh it's gonna be a modern with a side loading garage. It's gonna have a walk-in fridge, pool, views, it's gonna have a sauna inside, huge patio, um, three-car garage. It's it's gonna be super decked out. You're not you're like there's nothing in there that's like that. And that one, I have a feeling by the time we're done, it's probably gonna go for about two million. What do you think all in cost is? One four. Oh, that's good. With lot and engineering, architecture, holding costs, all that.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

And you're the GC, you're doing it?

SPEAKER_00 36:45

So I partnered up with my buddy on that one. Okay. So I'm one, I like to delegate. So I was like, hey, I I don't need to be the guy, but I'm okay with being a part of it. So we're splitting it. You're the connector. Yeah.

unknown 36:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

So I'm the connector. I bought the land, put up the money, did a seller finance on it. You did? Did a seller finance. 0% interest for a year, and we'll have it paid off this year.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

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SPEAKER_00 38:06

And then it had views. It's a flat, semi-flat lot, has like small little, but a great views. They're building two epic houses right next to it. So when they see our house, it's gonna be like the centerpiece. I promise you, bro. That house is sick. That's cool. That's cool. It's gonna be like in my opinion, it's probably gonna be top ten best houses in there.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Where do you think you got your for lack of a better word, willing and dealing from? Like where do you think you got all that?

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Sneakers? Sneakers. Sneakers, yeah. 100%. Because you you gotta understand cost. You gotta understand cost and what people are willing to pay. And if people are willing to pay a certain price, you know what to buy for. So I think it all began with sneakers.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Break down an example.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Alright, so you buy a pair of shoes for $200 when you know they go for $300. You know you can get them for $200 because you get it for $180,000. Now you just made an extra 20% just because you got it for cheaper. So same thing for real estate. If you can get a better deal, why not try to get a better deal? So if you can get it down, like I bought this one property for $280,000, it's worth $450,000. It was a good deal. I could have got it for the $300, but I wanted to get a little extra. But I've yeah, you know what? I I really only feel comfortable paying the $280,000 because I got to do this, you know how it goes. So honestly, I feel like people don't make money when they sell, they make money when they buy it.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah, that's a strong statement.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

It's funny you say that because I feel like I've ruined. I've been in a million different businesses from a kid to selling lemonades, then mowing lawns, whatever. And then I was in the wireless industry for like 12 years, and you know, learning about what things cost and what the markups are, and marketing expenses, and acquisition costs, customer acquisition, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And especially now today that I deal with a lot of contractors, like you said, I would not want to negotiate again, negotiate against me. I just uh I don't want to say I lowball everybody. No. But you understand what things actually cost, and if somebody's got a huge margin, like in HEB, you can't go in there and be like, oh, I'm gonna pay you $3 instead of $4. Their margin is nothing. Their margin is 3%. You don't have any margin to negotiate. It is what it is. Like, cool, fine. But in a lot of these businesses where their margin is a thousand percent, it's like, bruv, that plastic piece of plumbing costs four dollars, and you're charging me six hundred dollars to install it, like it's not gonna happen. I'll pay you 50 bucks, let's go. And you know, it's fun, it's fun for me. I like negotiating.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

So, and and this is kind of where so you could also do it on that. So I have a roofer that works for me too. So um I have my margins in every deal that he does. Yeah, and it's it's so easy because I know what he's willing to do the job for and I know what I could sell it for. So, yeah, there's so many different things. But sells, dude.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Talking about sales, man, in the canyons, right outside the canyons, man. What's up with that Harry Potter house?

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Oh, my uh my train house?

SPEAKER_01 40:53

The train house, yeah. Break it down. What exactly is a train house?

SPEAKER_00 40:56

So I hope y'all could put it up because it's actually very interesting. It's still for sale. One of my builders, he actually is um, he we're gonna meet today at five, and um we're gonna, he's a custom home builder. And when that that so there's trains on the house, right? And he has a concept where the train looks like it's going through the house, kind of like in Harry Potter. And he back in '86, two brothers, they moved from Ohio, they dropped the train there in Helotas. So he was always driving by. He builds a lot of houses in there. He's like, man, there's gonna be a crazy dude that's gonna end up buying this property and building something here, right? Well, fast forward, uh, I think this was like in 2018, 2019, he was that crazy guy that bought the land. And when he got it under contract, he ended up drawing out what he would want to build here, and that was his home, right? So he lived there while he was there, he turned it into an office. But um, but now he's already moved on to bigger and better things, and he's like, Oh, I don't need a I don't need uh own this property, but it's honestly it's probably one of the most bachelor pad kind of houses that are out there, but it sits on two acres, fully gated.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

So what's in the train station on the train itself?

SPEAKER_00 42:06

So it's right now it's not finished, but as far as inside, um it's in a sense, lack of words, deteriorating from inside. So it needs some love on. But we already have a bid on what it will cost in order to bring it back to life. It's about $250,000. Um, so it's actually a dining cart. So the huge, the big blue one, it's a huge dining cart. Um, and then the other two were gonna be two caboots that were gonna be turned into bedrooms. So he was gonna do like an Airbnb style living, winery, dining. So it was kind of a pretty cool concept. But after he built that, he won Builder of the Year. He started building these massive properties, started getting into developments, and then right now he has one house that's like 17,000 square foot that he's building uh for a client of his. And um we're about to build a very epic house with him as well. Um and that one's probably close to 36,000 square foot of not just living space, but just terrace space and everything. So he he kind of like took that opportunity to all right, hey, this is what I could do with my personal house. Let me show you what I could do with your house. So he kind of like, all right, well, this passion project, we're kind of putting it on the side for now. But he's like, All right, just sell it, Martin. If you can get a buyer, just sell it. So we've we've been on the market for about two months.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

That train house, can you go inside the train into the house or you gotta actually get out?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

You have to go outside. That'd be cool if we can. That'd be cool. Yeah, it would it would have been cool, but then yeah, you have to put AC in it, and just it was just gonna be a little too much. But it's a cool, it's a cool place. Honestly, I've had people that have pizza businesses if they wanted to have like an outdoor indoor concept because it has a huge patio on the back, and then you could also add a pool. It could turn into something real cool.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Oh, it's that exit right. I think like Wurzbach area. Yeah. They used to have a bus where you could you order inside and you'd walk out and like eat on the bus. I forgot you know what I'm talking about? It's something like across the street from Matter Time Machine. I can't remember the name of it. But it was pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

So my office is right up the street from there. But it was like a it was either blue or red building. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was pretty cool. They I think right now they have it as uh Kabachi. Something like that. Something like that. Yeah. Magic school was a good one. Yeah. But there's there's a lot of imagination could go into a lot of the stuff we do.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

For some reason, man, I feel like you got a lot of stories.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Dude. A lot.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

I feel like you got a lot of stories. We'll be all day talking about all the stories you got with real estate. But what's next, man? Like, do you doing this commercial stuff? You're building, you're doing, you had your team, you're with real. Yeah. What do you think is like the next level? That next step. Like, if I wanted to start doing that, what's that next big thing for you?

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Um, for me, I feel like it's gonna be the mortgage. I feel passively, longevity-wise, if you built that ride, you eat forever. You build a super solid foundation, they have a great team out there, they have people that truly care about the success of their business. People want to make money, they want to succeed, they want to win a super high level. Um, and I feel like because you have those type of partners, you can't lose. Right? So that's why I feel like we built that up, then that's gonna be passively the the best thing for at least my business, because I you you know, you're the cash flow king, right? I I learned a lot from from Mike. And I feel that the the mortgage part of it, it's uncapped, and because it's uncapped, we can ride that train forever.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Talk about cash flow, man. Right up my discussion, I want to talk to you about sub twos. You got sub twos, don't you? Yeah. Yeah, we talked about that before.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Not as many as you, but I got I got a couple.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

A lot going on, man. I focus on sub twos, you focus on what you're doing, so it's cool. But as a realtor, a lot of realtors they don't like sub twos, man. All right, they uh it's a scam. They're not educated. It's a scam, you're screwing over the seller. You as a prominent realtor here in San Antonio, and you have sub twos. Yeah, how did you hear about sub twos? What was your first thought about sub twos and you know, what are we looking at in your sub tos?

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Yeah, honestly, I was watching one of your videos. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah, this was probably like uh 2018. 2018. And that's when we had met. Y'all came to my happy hour. I was like, man, I gotta check out what what Mike's doing, right? So you started doing the sub twos. I I went to one of your classes, I learned, I was all like, okay. And um, and I bought my first one, just a family, veteran family, just in a bad situation. They were moving, they couldn't rent their house out, it wasn't gonna carry the cover the mortgage. So I ended up buying it for like eight grand, you know. And it's funny enough because that's where my buddy lived, right? Yeah. So then I bought that one and we ended up buying 15 others. So right now we we have we have uh right now we have 22 doors, but uh we did sub twos. So it's funny. I wish I would have fucking bought that Lambo or traded that damn Lambo for that uh Fordplex.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

I'm glad you brought that up, dude. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Because he was involved.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Yeah, I remember, yeah, yeah. So I remember you remember. Remember, let's break this down. Refresh my memory. Well, one, I appreciate the sub twos. It's crazy to see the full circle and watching videos and people actually taking action using these videos and say, hey, this video's in 2018. That's what, eight years ago. Yep. And now here we are 22 plus doors, uh 20 plus doors using that sub two method. And as a realtor, man, that that's it shows a lot because I think you said the word perfectly not educated, not educated, and not in a bad sense, it's just not knowing what you don't know. And a lot of people they kind of fear what they don't know, so like, oh, I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

They're like, what if the mortgage company's gonna find out? Am I client still responsible? I was all like, well, you just let them know. Hey, this is the worst case scenario. What could happen?

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Those 20 plus houses you have sub to, what is the exit strategy? Rentals, raps?

SPEAKER_00 47:29

They're all rentals right now.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

All rentals.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

I uh one of them's a rap, but um, most of them are rentals.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Did I forget you have a property management company?

SPEAKER_00 47:36

We do. We have 150 doors that we manage right now. 150.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Yeah, we have 150 because like we started seeing is like being the investor is great. And then, you know, everybody kind of got killed like these last two years. But service companies are what really needs, you know, that's where you make the profit. So uh for us, we uh I'm I'm a silent partner in Casa Cantera. Um and the reason I'm a silent partner is because I don't want to be the face of it. I just want people to feed it with my reputation and just build it up. Um, but also I don't want to have any type of liability or connections to uh to, you know, uh with our company, they prohibit us from doing property management. So I'm a silent partner, I get a vendor's check um from them, but that's pretty much what I keep it at. But uh I told I told my partners, I said, hey, we gotta get to a thousand doors. We gotta get to two thousand doors. I met these people that they had five thousand doors, four thousand doors, and they were fucking rich. And I was all like, we gotta do that.

SPEAKER_02 48:34

Did they have any hair?

SPEAKER_00 48:36

No, they were both bald. They're both bald, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

But let's go back into this Lambo story. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotta refresh my memory here, man. So you had your Lambo. Yeah. And you wanted to get rid of it, and you had a Quadplex. Fourplex, yeah. Fourplex, yeah, forplex. Now you're trying to sell seller financing, or you were open to me doing a sub two because you know my uh I guess credibility. But for the most part, you're asking for a sub two or uh because I wanted a hundred K down.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

You're like, hey, would you uh would you uh take trade? I'm all like, yeah, what do you got? He's oh well I got that Lambo. But that you said you wanted like extra on top, I think.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

You don't remember?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

How much was it? Like 70,000, 70, 80,000. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Uh you were trying to get that quadplex, so that I was like, I was just trying to be the middleman. If I can get this sub two deal down with the Lambo, that would be really good content. Yeah, you wanted to sell the Lambo, you wanted to sell the Quadplex and you want to cash for your Lambo, you hit me up. It's like that's when I bought my Lambo. Hey man, what did you buy for? Yada yada. I'm taking my own Lambo. I was like, man, if I can make this happen, does this be one of the things?

SPEAKER_00 49:37

I should have done it.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Should have done it.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

I should have done it. Why do you say that? So uh so I I like the fourplex, but it's good. The only thing is that the property is also inside the city limit, so the taxes are high. Yeah. So right now I'm paying like $17,000 in taxes. On the insurance, um, it's a premium because it's a four-plex. Even though it has sprinkler systems in the house, they're still charging me five grand. So just off of stuff that doesn't go towards anything, right? I'm I'm paying $22,000. So you started looking at it, it's like, man, I could go in and I so my mortgage on is like $5,500. So it like one time, and this is where my mistake was. So when y'all were when you're hitting me up, I had a uh not assistant living, but group homes, they're looking to buy it, but they had to have them all empty. So like a dumbass is my mistake, right? First time, right, trying to deal with this type of business, because they're like, Whoa, like if we get it approved, they have to go and they inspect it, make sure it's suitable for the kids. Right? Which is cool, right? But what ended up happening, they're all like, we will pay you like $3,000 for each room. So I'm like, all right, cool, quick come up, $12,000 a month. Right now I'm making about $6,400. So my money would have been, you know, way better, right? And I don't have to worry about it because it's all done through the government. So they're all like, hey, can't get it approved. We can't, we can't move forward. The LOI ended up expiring. So I had lost out like over 40 grand keeping it empty with the mortgages and keep and everything. Yeah, you know, I lost that, so then I was like, all right, fuck it. I was like I gave them deadline, hey, March 31st, if y'all can't commit to it, I'm going with the next person. And literally I got that rented out within two weeks. So it's not a bad area, it's just it's very costly in order to carry it. But now I'm all into cars, so now like I like that. So um I was looking at a Lambo at the time. It was like a 2016 hurricane, and I fucking loved it. So that was like I ended up settling for a Corvette, which I love my Corvette too, take it on a track and all that. But I I started seeing that there's more to money, more to life than money. So I was like, you gotta enjoy the little things, the stuff that gets other people excited, not just you. So like whenever I take my car, like today I was driving around in my my Corvette with the top-down with my daughter. You know, like she's excited. She doesn't care about my truck, that costs way more. My wife's escalated, that costs way more. She's like, Oh, I want to go in the sports car, right? But for me, I felt like I kind of missed out on some of those experiences. But now I'm also a part of a lot of those experiences too, which is always fun, right? And I think having the Lambo would have put, you know, a little bit more emphasis into it. But yeah, probably one of the things I wish I would have taken back. You still got the Lambo, I'll still do the trade.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Mike A, you got your Lambo. The values went up now in the hurricans with this whole market that we're in. So yeah, it's crazy how the market goes up and down just like uh real estate when it comes to cars, the right type of cars. Let me ask you something. You ever thought about investing in real estate but assumed they need a perfect credit, a huge savings account, or a bank willing to say yes? That's exactly why we're excited to partner with our guy Mike Leva at Conventus. Conventus is a real estate lender built specifically for investors and not homeowners. They help people fund deals like fix and flips, buy and hold rentals, and even ground up construction. And here's the part most beginners don't realize Conventus doesn't lend based on your W-2 income or your personal credit score. They focus on the deal itself, the value of the property, and the numbers behind it. That means investors can often access higher loan amounts and more flexible terms than a traditional bank, sometimes with rates that are more competitive than people expect. So instead of asking, do I qualify? The better question becomes, is this a good deal? If you're serious about getting to real estate investing and want a funding partner that truly understands investors, reach out to our go-to guy at Conventist, Mike Leva, today using the link in the show notes and see how real estate investors are actually getting deals funded.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

You know what's crazy? One thing I told myself I didn't want to bring it up because I thought I was gonna be corny, but one thing I started investing in, funny enough. Love the story Pokemon. I already know trading cards. Trading cards, bro. Uh by the end of this year, I'll have over a million dollars. In Pokemon. Hold on. It's gonna be weird.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

You're telling me that you have a million dollars of value. Not right now.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

Not right now. Oh, you think it's gonna go up? No, based off of everything, I've been buying, selling, trading, and all that stuff. Yeah, I'll have like shoot, I started off maybe about four months ago. I'm just confused. Hold on. What do you mean one million dollars? Yeah, like a million bucks worth of merchandise products, labs, all that stuff. So I ended up getting into one piece. I ended up getting into other TCGs. Uh my brother, he's the one that put me on game. He started showing me how to track everything, how to monetize it. So right now we're doing shows, and off of each show, we'll probably make somewhere around 20,000, 30,000 per show per weekend. Um but there's so many people making stupid money right now. So some of my closest friends, they have shops and they started off with like sixty thousand dollars last year. And though they right now they have over like at least one point four. And that's because they turned it into business full time.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

I feel like I don't know anything about anything, especially when it comes to trading cards, but I feel like this is the next NFT thing, and uh the last person holding the bag is gonna get screwed. I mean, I don't know, top of the bag.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

It's been around for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

Yeah, but they haven't been worth a million dollars for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Yeah, so so we have a lot of sealed stuff, and seal like from the beginning of the year has a hundred percent return.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

So let's break this down. All right, so let's just I went to Boomtown this past weekend. Okay. You know Boomtown? So I went to Boomtown this past weekend. I got the tops uh NBA, the one with the Cooper Flag and Harper. Yeah. I got Harper, so that was pretty cool. Oh hell yeah. So but how does it how does it work, right? You I don't know much about Pokemon at all, whatsoever. You buy cards, you scan it. Why is it like it's like real estate? I guess you buy low, sell high?

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Correct. Correct. So like so you think about it. We were talking about like saving that 20%, right? So when we go to shows and we vend, we buy merchandise at 80% from they'll come and they'll drop off. Correct. So like we'll buy what we like, right? So if we buy seals, we buy where we tr we trade seals. People might want stuff that we have, but they'll trade up, right? They'll be like, all right, cool. I have four thousand dollars worth of stuff I want to trade you, right? Or five thousand dollars worth of stuff for your four thousand dollar value of card or whatever it may be. So off of that, I'll make a grand off of one transaction. And then people will come to my table and that we'll vend, and then we'll sell it for a hundred percent of what the price is. So my son, crazy enough, my son's 11. He has maybe over $30,000 worth of trading cards right now that he personally collected and he personally saved and he traded and all that stuff. He's 11 years old. So easy to understand that. Because there's apps that you can also see what the values are, and then if you get them graded, they're worth more. If you they do PSA 10s, they grade more. So that's what I'm saying. Is like from what you can kind of control, because it like this is what I do. Like, we're all hustlers here, right? First and the 15th. Uh-huh. Payday. Payday, right? Uh-huh. Two different ways to look at it. People either got to pay rent, right? First, or you know, they're ready to spend some money because they gotta pay. So, so those are the times that I either buy a lot or I sell a lot. So you start re-upping, re-upping, re-upping, re-upping. And if you make 20% off of every transaction and you do a hundred transactions, you do the math. That's like what a thousand percent that you can make. So you could tend extra money?

SPEAKER_01 57:30

Pokemon.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

Crazy. Pokemon One Piece, One Piece is huge right now. What's One Piece? It's uh another anime that is big in India, so a lot of the big territories. So there's these boxes, they're called blue bottoms. Um and um in a sense, they were going for like 800 bucks at the beginning of the year. Right now they go for 6,000. So I got a couple of those. You know. So I didn't even hear of one. So though those are gonna be like the first edition version. Pokemon in the future. I like Pokemon, but in the future, right? So like in five years, it's gonna be worth maybe twenty thousand. You know, you buy them for three grand, you do the math, just sitting. So it's better than you know, SP right now is better than that.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

Better than Bitcoin at that point.

SPEAKER_00 58:13

Yeah. I was just gonna say the Pokemon cards. My brother. My brother, he was he was like, hey, they got this set coming out, it's like the original. I'm like, oh yeah, that's cool. We were ripping so fucking much. So much. We I spent I remember one year, one month, I spent like 40 grand just ripping fucking cards to get like nothing. If I would have kept all that shit sealed, that 50,000 right now would have been worth 10x. So it would have been $500,000. If I didn't open uh anything, it would have been worth $500,000. Sorry, flipping cards. Dude, it's crazy out there. Facebook marketplace is crazy right now on it. Facebook marketplace is always crazy. The PSA is how do you how do you do that? You could submit them. So we we end up submitting bulk. Like we just got this PSA order that just came in. Uh my brother had sent it in, and uh the total value of all the cards came out to like $7,800.

SPEAKER_01 59:10

They give you a value to it.

SPEAKER_00 59:10

Yeah, they give you they'll buy them from you too, right? But they of course they do the same thing I do, then whatever at a discount. Um, but our total going in cost was like two grand. So from two grand to $7,800, we made $5,800 off of that. And we now just gotta sell them. We sell it, we recoup, we send a couple more. So it's it's all a business. It's all like buying, buying, trading, grading, all that jazz. That that that like when we talk about net worth and longevity-wise, like those are stuff that I kind of look forward to, like planning money instead of just spending it on stupid stuff. Yeah, I spend a lot of money on a lot of stupid stuff.

SPEAKER_01 59:47

Well, as long as it holds its value, man.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

Glad you brought that up, man. I would never thought you'd be having Pokemon cards.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Dude, crazy. We got dedicated uh dedicated room for it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

Talk more about that offline. Yeah, that's cool though. That's definitely got a lot going on. Like I said, I feel like got a lot of stories they can share from a lot of different clients from traditional real estate to commercial to just, hey man, let me just submit this offer and see what happens with the seller financing or this building. Um, I think it comes down to to Pokemon. Now you said sneakers where you kind of all started off with, right? Yeah. What's the holy grail for you?

unknown 1:00:19

Shoot.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Let's go with the holy grail, and then let's go with what like uh these are the favorites.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

Yeah, my uh holy grail for me. I always liked the Dornbeckham uh Dornbeckham 4s, the Superman one. Um that you know they were they were out back in 2006, I think. Those are my favorite pair that I ever saw. I like the Dornbecker uh threes too, they're all red ones. And then my uh my dailies or my go-to was the the Black Cement IIIs. Those shit, I had like 10, 12 pairs of. And it's funny, so I I've always had shoes and just storage or whatever. So it finally got to the point where my son got to my size. So I was like, all right, yeah, I'm gonna give them all to you, right? This is me passing it on. Well, this is where I knew like trading cards was better than shoes, unfortunately. And I I want Michael Jordan to reimburse me. But I had brand new fucking shoes, still in box, wrapped, everything. My son took it to school. He went outside, fucking shoe fell apart. Oh dang. Fell apart. And then I was uh I was embarrassed. I was like, man, let me go get you some some uh Adidas from the house and just take you. But yeah, it was bad. I was all like, God dang, I didn't know they were gonna just fall apart like that. The holy girl for me would be the Nike mags. The mags? Yeah, that would be like the holy girl. So my brother, he had them and he sold them. How much? Fuck at the time. He would I wish we would have we I wish we would have kept so many of those shoes, but kind of looking back, probably depreciate. So we we had all the Yeezys, like the Nike runs. Um he had the mags, he had the Tokyo 5s, he had he had a lot of the high-end stuff. And um, those mags shit, we had gotten them for like stupid cheap. It was like 200 bucks or something like that. No, no, 2000. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, 2000 at the time. And then uh we sold them for like 10 grand.

unknown 1:02:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

And in the day-to-day, like the I kind of for me a day-to-day would probably be the Concord 11s. Concorde 11s?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

Yeah, I gave my brother, I mean my son three pairs of those. What size are you? I'll probably bring you a pair.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

Skyler? Holy grail.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

I'm not a sneaker guy at all. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

So that's cool, man. Your your love started from the sneakers, and obviously that hustling mindset from sneakers to Pokemon cars to residential to commercial to land, just really applied it to your everyday life. And I think, and now Scott and I had this conversation multiple times, man. I think when it comes to hustle, you know, I don't think you're you can't teach it. I think you just have to be born with it. I don't know if it's a lifestyle thing growing up. I don't think it's maybe it's just a drive, maybe it's certain DNAs. I know we talked about that multiple times. Oh wow. Like you just didn't either have it, or you have it, or you don't, you don't. So I definitely see you, man. You're a certified hustler. Now, one of the last questions I have, man, it's gonna tie it all in together. Dude, knowing who you are now from Sneakerhead to multi-million dollar uh commercial projects, what is Martin's favorite movie?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

Um Favorite, favorite, without a doubt, Big Daddy. Big Daddy. Yeah, you know, it's crazy because it it gives a lot of it gives a lot of sense of having it and and getting it taken away and not really asking for it. So like the premise of it was a bachelor lost his girl, and ended up finding out that somebody, you know, that just he had no idea. He ended up having this huge connection with, right? And a lot of times we have the ability to get into huge connections with just individuals that we just meet randomly. And um, what he did is like, even though he never wanted it, he felt that he lost the most important thing in his entire life when they tried taking it away from him. So for me, I was all like, I want to be in a position where I cannot just, you know, be who I want to be longevity-wise, but then also be that person where I can't have nobody take anything from me.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

That's a movie answer, dude. That's a movie answer. A lot of people that, oh yeah, it's a funny movie. That's uh that's a movie answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:11

That that and uh the pursuit of happiness. That's a good one. And then of course for Wall Street. So that that one was uh yeah, that was funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:19

All good. So this is the Trump the Hustle podcast, man. Trump the hustle for me, it's not a motto, it's not a slogan, it truly is a way of life. What does Trump the Hustle mean to learn?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Shit. For me, it's outworking everybody. For me, it's like all right, well, outsmart in everybody, I'll just put it in the work um and then put it in the smart work too. So like most of the laziest people are the richest people, I feel like most of the laziest people are the richest people. Yeah. I know so many people that they're just so dialed in they'll put three hours worth of work where everybody else would take forty just because they're so dialed in. And like I I forgot who was the one that says I want to hire the laziest person that's more efficient. Right. And then I was all like, man, I want to be that guy. I want to just do things, hey, alright, I'm in four hours, all right. I did what most people you know take all day to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

I remember that line. You remember that line? Something uh they wanted to hire the lazy guy because the lazy guy will figure out the easiest, fastest, quickest way. And the overthinker or someone elum was like, Yeah, overthinker.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

Yeah, I'm I'm the I like I went to college on probation. Like I I I went to college, I didn't do well, but um but I was super driven. I and I I remember one time uh I had to take one of my last classes and one of the professors I asked him, I said, it was a business course, and I was like, hey, uh what kind of business are you in? And uh he's like, Well, no, I teach it. I'm like, can't teach it if you're not in it. So I dropped out like the very next week. Told my parents, hey, I'm not going back to college because of that one professor.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:01

I never went to college. Well, we really appreciate you taking the time out. This has been a very fun episode. I think we should definitely run it back again in the future because I'm sure a million more stories we get out of you, but really appreciate the time, and I hope the audience finds a lot of value out of this. If there's one thing you want to say to the audience before we go, any last parting words you want to either encouragement or ways they can find you, what would be the last thing that you'd want to give out?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:23

No, don't quit because it always gets better.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:25

And if somebody wants to do a transaction with you, wants to do commercial with you, wants to trade some Pokemon cards, that's the best way to get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

You could hit me up on Instagram, Brill underscore Martin Tirado, or you just find me on uh Facebook. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

Well, guys, we appreciate it. It's been another great, great episode of the Turn Up the Hustle Podcast. As always, we try to provide lots of value to you guys every single week. If you are getting value, we ask that you like, comment, and subscribe, hit the bell icon. And as always, as always, turn up the hustle, and we will see you guys on the next one.