Gavin Welch Tells us How to be Real Estate Agent Extraordinaire (CFFL 0165)
Gavin Welch Tells us How to be Real Estate Agent Extraordinaire
Jack Butala: Gavin Welch Tells us How to be Real Estate Agent Extraordinaire. Every Single month we give away a property for free. It’s super simple to qualify. Two simple steps. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and number two, get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don’t even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jill DeWit:
Jill DeWit here with the Jack and Jill Show. Today we have with us, Gavin Welch. Gavin Welch is a real estate investor and realtor that loves real estate. He spent 3 years studying real estate investing, and is primarily a buy and hold investor. However, he has flipped, wholesaled, and built spec homes. Gavin Welch is a native Floridian, and is passionate about real estate. He’s a member of the National Association of Realtors, and lives with his family in Lakeland, Florida. Welcome, Gavin.
Gavin Welch:
Thank you very much for having me.
Jack Butala:
Great to hear from you, Gavin. Hey I checked you out before the show, and you’ve got pretty impressive internet presence. You’re totally qualified to teach people how to be a real estate agent correctly.
Gavin Welch:
Well, that’s what I spend most of my time doing. I do a lot of YouTube video. The game of being a real estate agent has changed, and I’m just trying to teach new agents how to stay on top of it.
Jack Butala:
Let’s start right there. How has it changed? How do you think it’s changed, let’s say the last 5 years?
Gavin Welch:
Okay, well my grandmother was an agent. I remember sitting in her living room when I was a kid, and looking at these big MLS books. They were yellow.
Jack Butala:
Ours were blue. We’re maybe the same age. This is [inaudible 00:01:20]. 42.
Gavin Welch:
Anyway. I remember going through the black and white pages. Well, today everything’s online. We have the most powerful tool in real estate is in your pocket. It’s your phone. I shoot a ton of video with my phone. I have a wide angle lens clipped on my phone. I just pan from room to room. I deal with a lot of investors, and the YouTube is owned by Google. YouTube traffic gets more seniority on Google than if you pay for it, and it’s free.
Jill DeWit:
Got you.
Gavin Welch:
I can leverage the YouTube video, put them up on the YouTube and then I can put a link across the top of that video back to my website. “Hey, you like this home? You want to see more like it?” Boom. Everything drives traffic and goes back upon itself.
Jill DeWit:
Do you find that your online presence even leads you more credibility in your day-to-day business operation?
Gavin Welch:
Well, I think so, and it didn’t start out like that. It was an accident. My online presence was an accident.
Jill DeWit:
All right. Let’s hear. I want to know what happened. Was this like a …
Gavin Welch:
I love real estate investing, and it’s something I’ve done for a long time. It’s a family disorder. Everybody in my family does it. I started the podcast on a whim, just go “Hey, let me go 7 episodes, and see where I get.” Well, I’m 105 episodes into it. It’s built it’s own traction. I keep it real organic. I don’t edit. You’ll hear me cuss, and you’ll hear me hit my head against the microphone. That’s it. I’m a t-shirt and jeans guy. If you ask me a question, I’ll tell you the answer, but you better be ready for the answer.
Jill DeWit:
I love it. [crosstalk 00:03:10].
Gavin Welch:
The podcast is the same way.
Jill DeWit:
I have to say, it was so funny seeing that I was kind of spending a few minutes looking over some of your shows and your titles before we did this show. I noticed that most of your shows are rated, I guess G. I mean they’re clean, but there was one that was explicit, and I think it had your wife in it. I was like [crosstalk 00:03:32].
Gavin Welch:
She is a force to be reckoned with.
Jill DeWit:
I am dying now. I have not …
Gavin Welch:
Listen to last week’s.
Jill DeWit:
Gosh.
Gavin Welch:
I’m playing the [ontro 00:03:38] and she’s like, “Man, your music blows.”
I’m like, “Okay, the microphone is still on, hon.” You know what? I get the highest ratings when she’s on the show. She knows very little about real estate. She’s just my partner in crime. We banter back and forth.
Jack Butala:
I can tell who’s a natural. Jill and I interview tons of people on our show, and I can tell who’s a natural and who’s maybe got some work to do. I can just tell you were born to do this.
Gavin Welch:
Well, I really enjoy it. My wife and I enjoy sitting down talking. We’re talking about this house last week that I buy, couldn’t rent, and going “Well, if you’d listen to me, and not bought it like I told you, we wouldn’t be in this position, now would we?” That’s it. I don’t put on any airs. This is who I am. This is what I do, and this is it.
When it’s on iTunes or I’m your agent, “Why isn’t my house selling?”
“Well, because you’re overpriced.” You know, not everybody wants a Jacuzzi tub in the middle of the living room. I don’t know how to be anybody else. That’s it.
Jack Butala:
Back to your grandmother for a second. I remember the exact moment that I saw that MLS book for the first time. I remember it like it was yesterday. It sounds like you do, too. Tell us … Back to the original question. What is so different about how you do it successfully, and how your grandmother did it.
Gavin Welch:
Well, the basics are the same, believe it or not. The way to start is [FSBOs 00:05:04], [expireds 00:05:05], open houses. Those 3 things are the same. I use a professional photographer on all my houses. I sell probably 98% of all the houses I list. I’ve got probably 10 on the board I can see right now. Some of them were on the market for over a year with another agent. One of them I sold at $700,000, which in our market, is way above the average. The average is around 2. I sold it in 15 days, because most of the people look to buy houses online.
Instead of sticking a sign out in front it and saying, “I hope somebody drives by it, or sees it on the MLS.” “Hey, let’s shoot a video,” or “Let’s take these beautiful pictures that my photographer took, let’s re-target them, or let’s put them in Facebook in front of people that make … can afford this house, and are likely to move, and are likely to move to Florida.”
Jill DeWit:
I just have to back up and say something here, because I think you’ll love this. I am so on the same page with you. Can I assume that in all your professional photos, that the toilet seat lid is down? Is it just me, Gavin, or have you seen those. I’m like, “What are these people thinking?”
Gavin Welch:
Yeah. I don’t know. My photographer does it, and he’s really, really good. He makes me look good.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah. I don’t know what he does, but it’s magic.
Jack Butala:
Is that the secret? The secret is just get it out there on the internet? Is that were [crosstalk 00:06:28].
Gavin Welch:
Pictures say a thousand words.
Jack Butala:
I hear so many disgruntled agents all the time saying “I just … It’s not like the good ol’ days. I can’t get it done.” I personally don’t understand that, because we do really, really well, buying and selling vacant land. We wholesale a ton of houses.
Gavin Welch:
I wholesale some. I don’t do a ton, because it’s not my primary focus, but I go, “Look, Mr. Homeowner, your front sidewalk hasn’t been pressure washed in 10 years. Your house hasn’t been pressure washed? I’m going to pressure wash it.”
Jack Butala:
It’s just common sense!
Gavin Welch:
I’m paying the guy. They’re like, “Why are you doing that?”
“Because I’m paying the photographer, and I want this house to sell. I want it to look good in pictures. You’re hiring me to sell your house. You’re not hiring me for my boyish good looks. You’re paying me to sell your house. I’m going to do whatever I can do to sell your house.”
I bought a drone. I’m now flying a drone because the first picture that’s elevated like 20 degrees gets 30% more views.
Jack Butala:
You bought a drone because you’re a guy, and it’s cool, and you like cool stuff.
Gavin Welch:
My wife’s like, “Hey, you’ve got this $10,000 pilot license. Why don’t you start using it for something you can actually make some money?”
Jill DeWit:
I love it.
Gavin Welch:
I am a guy, and I do like toys. Yes, I do.
Jack Butala:
We have this store out here. I don’t know if you guys have it in the East, called [Fry’s 00:07:44] Electronics. It’s like … guys our age, it’s like Toys R US, but full of electronics and stuff. I have a whole room full of electronics, of stuff I just haven’t even opened yet.
Gavin Welch:
I’m not quite that bad, but yeah. I’ve had 3 and 4 motorcycles in the garage. My wife’s, “Are you going to use this boat any time soon?” And, “Hey, what about this?”
I’m like, “Yes, I’m an overgrown child, and I understand that.”
Jack Butala:
The whole secret to selling real estate as an agent is just common sense.
Gavin Welch:
Just, yeah. Common sense. Do the uncommon. Don’t do what everybody else is doing. If you don’t do … If you do something uncommon, you get uncommon results.
Jack Butala:
We [crosstalk 00:08:27]
Gavin Welch:
Go ahead.
Jack Butala:
No, I’m sorry.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah, just be creative. If it doesn’t work, what do I lose? Absolutely nothing.
Jack Butala:
Here at Land Academy, we have a ton of members that were all kind of in a group on SuccessPlant.com. We buy and sell vacant land, and we’re starting to buy … I’ve done it for quite some time. Jill and I have done it for quite some time. We’re starting to wholesale houses together. I’ve said this a million times on our show, and to our group, and to whoever we speak in front of. There’s two reasons that property doesn’t sell. Number 1, it’s not priced properly, which tells me somebody bought it wrong. Number 2, it’s not getting in front of the right people. It’s that simple.
The vast majority of our membership posts the property as we suggest. They take … exactly what you’re saying, take great pictures, and get it out all over the internet. There’s some niche-y little places for rural vacant land that you have to post the property on. It sells like magic. Everybody’s like “Gosh, you’re a genius, Steve.” I couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just common sense.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah, you’re absolutely correct. I was taking a trailer over to … I borrowed my friend’s trailer. He goes, “Well, you got to pick it up from my friend’s house, who you haven’t met. But, here’s the address. Go pick up the trailer.” I’m driving around, I back up to this guy’s trailer, he’s in the front yard. In the street, there’s this tall grass.
I said, “What’s up with that lot?”
He goes, “Oh, behind all that grass is a burned house.”
I’m like, “Oh really?”
He goes, “Yeah. The couple got in a fight, knock-down drag-out and he ended up torching it in the middle of the fight.”
I’m like, “Well, can I go see it?”
He goes, “Yeah. Take some thick boots. Have fun.”I go in there, break down the front door. It’s been boarded up. It’s a pool, vinyl fence. It is trashed.
I’m like, “Well, where’s the owner?”
The guy’s like, “Oh, he’s in jail.”
“Great! Do you think he’d sell it?”
“I don’t know. Go ask him.”
I go down to the county jail, “Hey, you want to sell your house?”
“Sure. Make me an offer.”
“Great! Would you take 10 grand?”
“Yes.” I get him to sign. Go to his ex-wife, and they’re in bitter, bitter battle.
She’s like, “I’ll give it to you. I just don’t want anything to do with him.”
“Great! Would you sign here? Awesome.”
Turn around and sold it to my friend, who rehabbed it and made a fortune. Every house is a deal, whether you’re wholesaling, or going to flip, or whatever you’re doing. Every property is a deal. You just got to be on the look out for them.
Jack Butala:
That domestic dispute probably started because he brought a drone that he doesn’t use often enough.
Gavin Welch:
Most likely.
Jack Butala:
You just described our business model. We send out offers in direct mail.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah.
Jack Butala:
Tons. Thousands and thousands of them. We offer silly prices like that, and after the dust settles … and you upset a couple of people, which is no big deal at all. People sign them and send them back. They have comments written on them like that. Like, “Gosh, thank you. You know, I really wanted to get rid of this property and I just, I didn’t have time to call an agent.” Or, “I really just, thank you.” It’s amazing to me. Sometimes they have stories just like you described.
Gavin Welch:
I wholesale them myself. I work very close with the wholesalers. I got a good friend of mine, he goes “Hey, I got this great deal on a trailer. Can you buy it?”
I’m like, “Yeah. Give me the owner’s name.” I call them up.
The owner goes, “Give me 18 grand cash for it.”
I’m like, “Uh, okay.” Rent it $700 a month. I turn around and bought this place, put it on the MLS, 4 days later, I sold it to a guy in Alaska for twice my money. I call up my friend the wholesaler and says, “Look. I got this old lady. Hates agents.” Shocking, right? “I got a whole book, probably 50 properties she wants to sell. I’m sure you can find a wholesale deal here somewhere.”
He goes, “All right, great. Thanks.” Click. 3 days later calls me back and goes, “Yeah, I got 4 under contract from your little old lady.”
I’m like, “Awesome.” I’m network relational based. It’s not always about the money, especially when you’re dealing with regular friends and people in the industry. That’s what it is. It’s all about the network.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Well, you know I was loving your story about the trailer, too, because you know how this works. We know how this works. Steven has used this now for cars. He’s using it for boats. He’s using it for all kinds of things. It’s for our personal use, but it’s the strategy.
Jack Butala:
Here’s my trailer story. We’re sitting in Manhattan Beach, California, right now, technically on vacation. Jill goes out on VRBO, you know the vacation site?
Gavin Welch:
Yeah.
Jack Butala:
She picks out 10 places that she like … pie in the sky places, right on the ocean, that $10,000 a nice places. She sends an email out to 10 or 12 of these owners that says … and you know the rest of the story. “We’re going to offer you $1200 for the week, because I can see right here on this calendar that your place isn’t rented. Here’s a link to our website. We’re really good people. We’re not going to rip the place up, and we’ll have it professionally cleaned when we’re done.” Somebody sends us a link to check out, and we’ve been here for like a month.
Gavin Welch:
Nice.
Jack Butala:
The worst they can say is “No,” but don’t be afraid to ask.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly! It was so funny. It was like this offer, Gavin, too, was so darn crazy that I’m like, “This is going to be good. Let’s see what comes back.”
I actually did, I get a little bit of a hate mail like, “I’m not discounting my property X%.”
I’m like, “All right, fine. Next.”
Then, but then sure enough, that night, one came through. Like, “Heck yeah, Jill! Let’s do this.” We’ve actually made friends with her, and it’s fantastic. Steven’s right. We’re still here, and we haven’t left. It’s great.
Gavin Welch:
That’s awesome. It doesn’t hurt to ask. It costs you nothing to ask.
Jack Butala:
Right.
Gavin Welch:
All you had to do was send some emails.
Jack Butala:
How do you find off market deals? I noticed that one of your shows was called ‘5 Ways to Find Off Market Deals.’
Gavin Welch:
I drive around. I get addresses. Here in Florida, there’s a lot of retirees, so if I find a house that I think I can wholesale, or a lot that I think would be interesting, I can make some money on. I try to find the nicest house next door, or you know the nicest yard, and that’s usually the retired guy who knows exactly what’s going on across the street.
Jack Butala:
That’s great. I didn’t think about that.
Gavin Welch:
Landlords, hired landlords, are great. Evictions, filed evictions, any way I can. A mailman. The mailmen are the people that always knows what’s going on. One of my favorite tricks is go to hair salon with a box of donuts, “Hello, ladies. How are you?”
I’m bald as a cucumber, so it doesn’t help me very much. “How you doing?”
“I’m looking to buy some houses. Do you know anybody looking to buy or sell? I can pay cash, blah, blah, blah. Here’s a box of donuts,” or bagels, or whatever. “Here’s my card. If you think of somebody who wants to buy and sell, could you have them give me a call please? Thanks.”
Jack Butala:
We do the same thing, the donut thing, with people at the county. The county recorder, and title agencies.
Gavin Welch:
Yup.
Jack Butala:
Works like a dream.
Gavin Welch:
You just ask. All you do is ask. Everybody you come across, ask them.
Jill DeWit:
What’s your percentage? I’m not a huge fan, I have to admit, of driving for dollars, because especially for what we do, it’s so much faster … If I spend 8 hours driving around, the number of things, letters I could have delivered in that 8 hours, I could do 10,000 blasts to a whole big area, versus driving around and hopefully get 3. What’s your percentage, and the return, and how does it still work?
Gavin Welch:
I agree with you, Jill, very much, that driving for dollars is not the optimal time and money spend.
Jill DeWit:
Thanks.
Gavin Welch:
When I’m driving for dollars, I’m driving for other reasons.
Jill DeWit:
Got it.
Gavin Welch:
I just happen to be on alert for overgrown yards, or this, or that, or whatever. Mailers are good. The problem is people mail once, and they go, “Well, I only got 3 phone calls and no deals.”
Jill DeWit:
Got it.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah, good thinking, but you’ve got to keep mailing them 5, 6 times.
Jack Butala:
I couldn’t agree more.
Gavin Welch:
You got to keep doing it. You can’t just do it one time. Wholesaling, everybody thinks wholesaling is easy, and it’s quick money. “Look at this check I got on Facebook.” Well that’s awesome, I’m glad you got a check. It may be your first deal, but the reality is it takes 3 or 4 months to get the snowball going, the marketing dollars to kick in.
Jill DeWit:
Bingo.
Gavin Welch:
And the people respond.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you, Gavin. That is why you’re successful. Maybe that’s it, because I talk to some people that are just … They’re not at your level, and they don’t understand what you’re saying. “Gavin, I sent it out. Nothing happened.” Or, what they send out is a generic postcard that looks like it’s a pizza company, too, sometimes.
I kind go, “I wouldn’t call back on that, either!” You know, let’s think about this, everybody. It’s a big difference when you’re sending out us that we do, we send out real offers. It’s not a generic thing, too, and I think that’s why we get the response that we get. It’s made out to you, with your property. Everything’s correct on it. There’s a legitimate offer in there.
People go, “Oh, okay. They’re serious.”
Gavin Welch:
One of the first things that I ask our members to do long before they’re even members, in our free e-book, is to go out on craigslist and post a posting that says, “Hey, we’re really interested in buying your land. We pay cash, and we can close quickly. We don’t pay market price. If you just want to get rid of it, quote unquote, give us a call.”
It’s amazing to see super new people in real estate just light up, because people do call. They don’t necessarily do deals right out of that craigslist exercise, but what it does is … It either pushes them in the direction of “Hey, I really want to try this and do this for a living,” or it turns them off. One way or the other, they find out if they’re made for it or not. There’s people out there that want to sell their … they want to give their property away, right now.
Jack Butala:
Yes, you’re absolutely correct.
Gavin Welch:
They’re sitting around the coffee table talking to each other, saying “You know what? We got to get rid of this house right now, because Uncle Jesse’s got to go to the hospital again,” or whatever.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. When you’re absolutely correct, you just have to find them. You have to get in front of them, and just … I tell them to deal, even as a agent. “Look Mr. Homeowner, you want to sell this house today for cash and be done with it? Or, do you want to get top dollar for it? I can help you either way.”
Jill DeWit:
Hey, you know that’s a good point that we talked about, too. Do you buy them outright yourself sometimes?
Gavin Welch:
Yeah. IRA. Use other people’s money. We’ll do a land … what people call a land contract, or seller finance. Whatever I can do to put a deal together, sure.
Jill DeWit:
Brilliant. Why are most … Why are you so special, Gavin? You get it. Steve and I talked about this all the time, and you are …
Gavin Welch:
I came from investor first.
Jack Butala:
I think you are just born with it like I was. It sounds like your grandmother … You’re bouncing off your grandmother’s knee while she was reading the MLS book when everybody else was reading angry caterpillar or whatever it’s called.
Jill DeWit:
Hungry Caterpillar.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah. I got a picture of me, probably like 4 or 5 years old, standing on a bulldozer that’s moving, pushing down trees, because my dad bought a piece of property and built a road, and then sold it. Which, I’m hanging on to a chainsaw in the picture, too, which is violating every child labor law. I remember moving houses with him.
He goes, “Oh, we didn’t buy the land. We just bought the house. We’re going to put the house over here, and then rehab it and make money.”
I remember rehabbing a house we were living in when I was a kid. To flush the toilet, you had to turn on the sprinkler system, because there was a pipe coming in the window to the toilet. It’s a family disorder, yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Love it.
Jack Butala:
I’m going to start calling it a disorder. It is a disorder.
Gavin Welch:
Well I know. My wife’s like, “Hey, would you calm down a little bit, until we can get focused about …” If it was up to me, I’d be turning properties all the time.
Jill DeWit:
Does she help you in the business at all? Is she part of it?
Gavin Welch:
She does. She is a mental health therapist, by training.
Jill DeWit:
Well, there you go.
Gavin Welch:
Our tenants get a screening for tenant, plus a psychiatric evaluation, which helps. She’s very personable. She’s excellent on the phone. Her dialing numbers, like if she’s talking to sellers, is probably 4 times what mine is, because she knows how to get to people’s story, and to make them talk, and to open them up, and do all this stuff because that’s what she got paid for for so long.
Jack Butala:
Man that’s just … [crosstalk 00:20:47]
Gavin Welch:
I’m like, “Oh, you don’t want to sell it? Okay, great. Thanks.” Click.
She’s like, “What are you doing?”
Jack Butala:
That’s what I’m like! Your division of responsibility in your household is the same as ours. I have very little patience for … I just want to find out if you want a buy it or not, or sell it or not. Jill will make friends until they do what she tells them to do.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Jill DeWit:
That’s so true. I love it. I want to ask you, too, on a side thing, tell me about this non-profit. What are other projects do you have going on here?
Gavin Welch:
I worked for a very lucrative company called Enron.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Gavin Welch:
This was back in the day. My friend was a judge, and he brought this little Honduran girl, he calls me and says, “Hey, can you enclose my garage by the time I get home in a week?”
I’m like, “Yeah, I can do that.”
He goes, “Good, my credit card’s on my dresser. Handle it.”
“Okay.” I’m like, “What are you doing?”
He goes, “Well, you’ll see. Just enclose my garage. Make it a bedroom. Handle it. Don’t worry about the costs.”
He brought this little Honduran girl up. She was blue. Basically he’s a judge. Went to this little village in Honduras, and they’re like, “This girl’s going to die. Next.”
He goes, “No, I don’t think so.” His mom … He’s got some very strong political connections in the Orlando area. Arnold Palmer agreed to do the surgery for free, with the surgeon who was Honduran, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and yadda, yadda, yadda. Everything fell into place, and we fell in love with this little girl.
My wife’s like, “You know, let’s go back.” We bought her a house, because they have 8 kids living in a 10 by 10 room, concrete block house.
I said, “Let’s buy her a house, fix it up, get her family going. Let’s change the trajectory of this family.”
My wife’s like, “Well, what does that look like?”
“I have no clue.” Basically, we start our own non-profit having no idea what we were doing. We went, and we actually … I was working at Enron, I quit, and we went to Honduras and lived there for 3 years.
Jill DeWit:
Wow.
Gavin Welch:
Then, we started got involved in gangs. We weren’t in a gang. We were getting kids out of gangs. Which, the gang’s like, they kidnapped a president of the country’s son, and sent him his ear and said “Pay, or he’s going to die.”
The president’s like, “Great. Kill the gang members.”
We’re in the middle of the gang war, and meanwhile … We bought this 200 acre farm in the middle of the country, and we’re mixing with all the gang members. Which we’re the only people in the country that did, because they’d kill each other. Everything we did was dumb luck, but it worked. Basically, we actually shut it down 3 years ago. It was called Servant’s Heart. We just went to help people do what they’re going to do naturally. I’m not going to … go down there and throw a million dollars at some great American project, because it’s going to fail. The Honduran countryside is littered with great ideas that failed, because it’s American mentality in a foreign country.
We’re like, “Look, what is working here. How can we help the locals do what they’re going to do?” That was it. The kids that we started sponsoring 20 years ago.
We’ve got one in med school, that I said, “I’ll pay for as much school as you want.”
“Great.” He called 5 years ago and said, “Great, I got accepted to med school.”
“Awesome!” Now I got to figure out a way to pay for that. We’ve had … We put a whole probably 40 kids through college, including the one that’s finishing med school next year, from 20 years ago. We built probably 80 houses down there. We built a feeding center. We built a drug rehab program, and gang rehabilitation center. We’re still in and out. We’ve got some very good friends down there, and we’re still in and out.
Jack Butala:
That’s fantastic, man. How’s your pension doing with Enron?
Gavin Welch:
Well, everything moved. I took my pension. I took my 401k. I cashed everything out.
Jack Butala:
That’s awesome.
Gavin Welch:
My dad’s … He’s an attorney, by trade.
Jack Butala:
You’re the only guy.
Gavin Welch:
He’s like, “Son, you quit a Fortune 500 company to go live overseas, where you have no idea how you’re going to make money, and support your family, and you don’t even speak the language or know anybody in this country you’re going to!”
I’m like, “Yup. That about sums it up.”
He’s like, “Have you hit your damn head?”
I’m like, “Uh, no?” Seems like a good idea.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah, so that’s the non-profit story.
Jack Butala:
I try not to explain anything to my dad, because it’s the same reaction, just like you said.
Gavin Welch:
Well, now I think everybody kind of understands that I’m going to do what I’m going to do, so you just better smile and nod.
Jill DeWit:
That’s hilarious. I love it. Okay, so what advice do you have for somebody who wants to be like you. What can you give someone starting out?
Gavin Welch:
Just do what you want to do. Do what makes you happy. Do what you want to do. Find a way to make money at it. Don’t be afraid of failure, or taking risks. Just talk to people, because whether you’re trying to buy a piece of property, and if you establish a relationship with a seller.
“Look, Mr. Seller, I’d like to buy your property for $15,000. I don’t have 15,000 cash. What I can do is I can give you $500 with the option to buy it in 6 weeks. Would you take that? Would that work for you, do you think?”
“Okay, that wouldn’t work.”
“Well, what would work for you? Let’s see what we can put together here.” Just be honest with people and be like, “Look, this is what I’ve got. This is what I can do.” People really respond to honesty, and integrity. “Look, Mr. Seller. I don’t know what I’m doing. Okay? I don’t know how I’m going to sell your property. I don’t know if I’m going buy it myself. Does it matter who shows up to buy a property? No, you don’t care, as long as somebody shows up to buy it, right? Okay, good. Well, I can do that. I can bring you a buyer. I just need a little bit of time.”
Jack Butala:
My theory is that people basically have the will to … They want to make themselves better, just like your family from Honduras story.
Gavin Welch:
Yeah.
Jack Butala:
What stops them, in my opinion, all over the world and here, is lack of resources. That’s why we founded Land Academy. It’s to try to provide those resources, to provide a database full of assessors, to get good data. Then, the printing resources to get offers in front of people. It’s amazing with just pushing people in the right direction, or making them aware of the resources that are available, it’s amazing how successful they can be and how quickly.
Gavin Welch:
Everything’s available. You just got to put the pieces together. As far as like, money? Money’s the most abundant resource there is.
Jack Butala:
Absolutely.
Gavin Welch:
If you’ve got a good deal, money will fall from the tree.
Jack Butala:
There’s way more money than talent, that’s what I say.
Gavin Welch:
Somebody told me a long time ago, when we were … we started this non-profit, and we left in like months. We had no plan.
“What’s your marketing plan?”
“I don’t know.”
“How are you going to raise money?”
“I don’t know that either. I’ll figure it out as I go.”
“Well, what are you doing?”
“I’m not really sure about that, either.”
Somebody goes, “So some guy wrote me a check for $20,000.”
I was like, “Wow. That’s a lot of money.” I said, “What do you want me to do with it?”
He goes, “I don’t care what you do with it. I know you. Do with it what you feel you need to do with it.”
Jack Butala:
That’s great.
Gavin Welch:
He’s like, “I don’t support your programs. I’m supporting you in what you do, and I know you pretty well.”
People will respond to you. It’s relationships. You’re not in real estate. You’re in the relationship business.
Jack Butala:
Exactly.
Gavin Welch:
The best thing you can do is build a relationship with these people, because you might not be able to get a deal from them, but they know a lot of people.
Jack Butala:
That’s great advice. Hey, Gavin. Where can we find you on the internet?
Gavin Welch:
You can find me at The Real Estate Loop is my website for the podcasts. You can email me at Gavin@TheRELoop.com. I’ll just tell you my podcast, I’ve been slacking. I haven’t done show notes in about 40 episodes, just because I’ve not had time.
Jack Butala:
We use this site called Rev.com, R-E-V. They, for a dollar a minute, they do a transcription, and so we cheat that way.
Gavin Welch:
I may have to do that, because I just don’t edit anymore. I don’t do show notes. You want show notes? Please listen to everything you hear, because I don’t have time.
Jack Butala:
If you want to get even more lazy, you know on YouTube they have that translation service. It doesn’t work as well as it should, but you can get away with it.
Gavin Welch:
I used to use that for my phone, and I sent some pretty explicit texts to people inadvertently. I don’t use those translation services anymore.
Jack Butala:
Gavin Welsh, it was great to speak with you. TheRealEstateLoop.com, right?
Gavin Welch:
Yup.
Jack Butala:
Awesome. We are for sure going to have you on the show again, if that’s all right?
Gavin Welch:
Any time.
Jack Butala:
All right, so nice to talk to you. Thank you.
Gavin Welch:
Nice talking to you.
Jill DeWit:
Thanks Gavin.
Gavin Welch:
Any time!
Jack Butala:
Bye. What a great guy.
Jill DeWit:
That was fun. That was really fun.
Jack Butala:
I really meant that. Some people have it, and some people don’t, about on the air.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, right. I can see why you made that comment to me that he’s really good on the air. He’s calm. He explains things well. He has a lot of good information to share.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. I really do remember the first time somebody showed me the MLS link. I was probably 13 or 14 years old, and my parents were looking at a house.
Jill DeWit:
You mean a book? It was a book?
Jack Butala:
Yeah. I’m sorry, did I say link?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Jack Butala:
That’s what you get when you’re reading something while you’re talking.
Jill DeWit:
Who can’t multi-task now?
Jack Butala:
I’ve never even tried to do that, multi-task. Anyway, we were at an open house in Southeast Michigan, in one of the suburbs of Detroit. They’re buying a house, and the listing agent had a book on the table. I started looking at it, and I just … my jaw dropped. I didn’t know that all the real estate was listed in one place.
Jill DeWit:
Was it by county, or by state? Back then, do you remember?
Jack Butala:
It was by town.
Jill DeWit:
Town, okay.
Jack Butala:
You would look at-
Jill DeWit:
I don’t even know.
Jack Butala:
Even then, it wasn’t very well organized.
Jill DeWit:
Got it.
Jack Butala:
It was black and white, so you really couldn’t see the picture of the house. One of the agents in town hired a sketch person, and you could always tell which listing was theirs. Kind of like the old Wall Street Journal, it was really like a technical drawing.
Jill DeWit:
That’s funny.
Jack Butala:
That agent did really well.
Jill DeWit:
That’s cool.
Jack Butala:
They set themselves apart with that.
Jill DeWit:
You know, it’s funny, I should ask my mom. My mom sold real estate here in Southern California, in Laguna Hills area, back in the … Gosh, it was in the 80s. I want to say it was like, ’84, ’85, ’86, ’87. I should pick her brain and to find out what it was like back that.
Jack Butala:
What do you think it was?
Jill DeWit:
I’m real curious. I remember there was … Someone had to man the phones. It was like a switchboard operation. Calls would come in, and people … You would beg to basically man the phones, because you wanted to get those leads as they came in back then. They would divide up the … Every agent had X amount of hours each week that they would sit and answer the phones. Then, I remember we didn’t see her a whole lot.
That’s why my dad finally said “This has got to stop,” because it was so much driving around, and open houses, and all that stuff. It probably just wasn’t as efficient as it is now.
Jack Butala:
There’s a guy I met in Scottsdale a couple years ago at an REI meeting, I think it was, or something like that. I was asking him that question. “What was it like?”
He said, “The whole thing started …” This all started, because he said “You know, when I …” He was an agent, and he said “When I went and got my real estate license, I just went downtown and filled out a piece of paper, and they handed me my license.”
I said, “Man, what was it like?”
He said, “We were all agents back then, because somebody would build a plant somewhere and they’d have to get a bunch of people, like skilled workers from other places, so what would happen is these people would have to move. They would call us and say ‘Hey, I need a house.'” There weren’t even any signs in the ground. They just knew everybody in town. That’s what they got paid for.
Jill DeWit:
That’s interesting.
Jack Butala:
They got paid for their relationships with everybody.
Jill DeWit:
Got it.
Jack Butala:
They would say, “Hey, Jack. You want to sell your house?” “You want to sell your house?” Until they found one so this family could move into it.
Jill DeWit:
Got it.
Jack Butala:
He said price was never the driving … There was no money issues.
Jill DeWit:
This is the only way to do it.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
There was no other choice.
Jack Butala:
You need a place to live.
Jill DeWit:
That’s funny. Do you remember back then, who was it? Was it Century 21, whoever, that wore the gold jackets?
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Do they still do that? I don’t even know. I don’t think anybody has any kind of a uniform thing anymore. I just remember that. My mom had a version of a blazer, or something I think, with hers. I want to say it was blue.
Jack Butala:
I read an article a long time ago that that gold jacket, from a corporate standpoint, what they set out to do, to brand themselves with that jacket, really worked.
Jill DeWit:
It did!
Jack Butala:
Where it fell apart is that the agents were mostly women, absolutely refused to wear a jacket like that.
Jill DeWit:
Well, it did not make … You know what? For many of them and their skin tones, that did not bring out their … They should have picked a different color!
Jack Butala:
They should have picked like a … I don’t know, like a tie.
Jill DeWit:
Maybe we should do something like that.
Jack Butala:
Or like a scarf, like a nice scarf that you could wear with anything, instead of a whole outfit.
Jill DeWit:
We should brand ourselves with something like that, Steven. What could it be?
Jack Butala:
A tiara.
Jill DeWit:
A tiara!
Jack Butala:
A man’s tiara.
Jill DeWit:
I think it should be a backwards baseball hat, or like a gang bandana. Just kidding!
Jack Butala:
Maybe you could wear your shorts around your knees.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, that’s it. We’re going to wear those baggy pants.
Jack Butala:
Maybe like a man purse, a euro purse. I think we should start this. A man tiara.
Jill DeWit:
This is great.
Jack Butala:
I think men secretly want to wear a manly tiara, like a crown.
Jill DeWit:
I [inaudible 00:34:26]. If you could see the look on my face right now, I’m a little afraid over here.
Jack Butala:
My second job is to embarrass Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh, you’re doing a really good job. That’s actually doing better than your first job, right now.
Jack Butala:
That’s not hard to do.
Jill DeWit:
Right. I love talking to Gavin though. Talk about a good guy, and good stories. I really appreciate his agreeing with the overall driving for dollars is not what you should be doing.
Jack Butala:
He just skyped us while we were … That’s why I was reading at the same time. He just skyped us, and he’s going to have us on.
Jill DeWit:
Awesome.
Jack Butala:
On his show.
Jill DeWit:
I’d love to do that. That would be really, really fun. Good stuff.
Jack Butala:
Good advice from him. Good stories, and advice. I love the burned down house thing. It really shows what’s possible.
Jill DeWit:
Yup.
Jack Butala:
Now let’s go buy some property.
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