Jonathan Greene - The messages out there are all wrong. Just like we are saying they are all wrong coming in looking for assistance as investors or mentorship. I have a lot of partners. I do not need any partners, but if someone came to me and they are like, I am looking to hustle, I will be like, Ooh! that sounds good. I like that. Let us see if it works. Does not always work. But I would rather take a flyer on that than just taking, half an hour to have a phone call, which I will never do.
Drew Breneman (00:00:24) - Listen everybody! We all know that real estate is the most proven way to build wealth, but why is not everyone wealthy from real estate then? It is hard to know where to start and most of the education out there is just complete trash and you end up investing your money on a series of courses, instead of in real estate. That is not how this podcast works. We give you the blueprint to successful real estate investing and bring on guests actually willing to share their secrets.
I started my real estate investing journey as a freshman in college when I bought my first duplex and have been in the trenches doing deals ever since. And, today, I now own hundreds of millions of dollars of investment property. On this podcast, you will learn what you actually need to know to be a successful, active or passive, real estate investor, and we will offer our takes on what is happening today so you can navigate this market and build wealth.
I am Drew Breneman and this is the Breneman Blueprint.
Drew Breneman (00:01:13) - Welcome to the Breneman Blueprint. Got a great episode for you today. I am joined by Jonathan Greene. He is a real estate investor for over 30 years, a broker. He is out there in New Jersey, doing really well. I had a chat with him about some things like around mindset and how he set up his companies and it was very interesting. So, instead of just diving deep on a phone call or something want to bring it to everybody on the podcast. So, here we are, welcome!
Jonathan Greene (00:01:45) - Yeah, thanks, Drew, for having me. It is exciting to be here. Glad that we got to talk on my podcast, but glad to be here on yours as well.
Drew Breneman (00:01:52) – Yeah. And, I think, your podcast is about real estate, but with the title, it is a lot around mindset. So, since you mention it, we could start with that off the top, if you want.
Jonathan Greene (00:02:03) - Yeah, for sure. My podcast is then in the art of real estate investing and it is about the mindful approach to real estate and I know that is going to be predominantly what we are talking about, but I think that, my approach to real estate investing grew out of historical experience because of my background. But then I coupled it with what I was doing in my life, which was a commitment to mindfulness and practicing my own mindset to just make sure… I was making the best decisions and I think that I really deep dove on, personal growth, probably only about five years ago, and I am 52 now. So, I did well over the years, but I think I was a little bit more quick to react to things, and having mindful approach to real estate and real estate investing as a whole, I think creates a perspective that makes it much easier to walk away from deals, which I find to be the biggest power in the entire business of real estate investing.
Drew Breneman (00:02:58) - How would you describe the word mindful then? Because I think may be your average person might not even be familiar with that. So, let us just start at the basics.
Jonathan Greene (00:03:06) - Yeah, sure. To me, it is like a hybrid of calmness and comfortability and confidence. I think that they all go together. I think by approaching everything and taking kind of a longer think on it, instead of reacting instinctively or being reactive, especially in real estate investing helps you evaluate fully.
I also think the confidence part of mindfulness is really important. It provides like a slowing down, but also I know I have taken the time to do the research or to make these decisions however I wanted to. So, then when I come to a decision, there is never any waiver. I have kind of always been like that. I can make a decision. If someone asks me a question, I will always have an answer, unless I absolutely have no idea. And I am okay, if I get that wrong. That is okay, but that is also part of being mindful.
I need to be strong enough to make the decision. And then, if someone can prove to me that that was the wrong decision, I am happy to turn courses and do what is best for everybody involved.
Calmness, comfortability, confidence really, I think, go together in mindfulness for me, slowing down.
Drew Breneman (00:04:14) - That is interesting. One thing that I have always thought I had as a personal advantage was sort of my mindset because and that is why I wanted to get into this, where oftentimes people ask how did you do that? Or what made you think you could do it? And sometimes usually the answer is as simple as like, while the other people are doing it too, I thought I could do it, like it was not too. So, it is interesting you bring up confidence because I think I never had like an irrational amount of confidence. My first property was not a hundred unit. It was a two unit, but I figured, a lot of people buy houses, buying a two unit seems like something you could do.
Maybe, we should talk about what you do in the real estate space too, I think, before we just keep going on mindsets, people know kind of what you do, just a thought guru.
Jonathan Greene (00:05:07) - I have been investing my whole life. I learned it from my dad. So, I was five years old. I was looking at foreclosures, climbing through the windows and learning everything I could from my dad even before I knew I was learning it.
Over the years, I stayed active in investing. My sister and I had a bunch of properties that were held by my dad and when he passed away, they passed us and we managed him for a number of years. We still have a few, but I have been active in flipping, investing in single family homes. Airbnb is well before Airbnb existed when we were doing them on Vrbo, short-term rentals.
So, I have pretty much done everything in the investing space. About 10 years ago, I got my license. Since then, I have built three different teams and I am on my third team now, which is again, in the on market world, as a more mindful approach to building a team, trying to coach agents to be the best in the business, which then relays to better service for buyer sellers and investors.
We do work with a ton of investors because of my background, but we are an on-market team through New Jersey and Pennsylvania that I run. I just love real estate. I love houses. I get an enormous amount of enjoyment of just looking at houses. It does not have to be anything special. I will find something that I like. And I think to be good at real estate, you have to like houses.
You can do well not loving them, but what we are going to talk about and part of like, the mindset of it is, I love this part. I think to be the best at anything, you have to love it or you can be good at it, but it will not expect that much enjoyment. I think I want to get enjoyment out of the things I spend the most time doing or why would I do them?
Drew Breneman (00:06:43) - Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It is going to be hard to work weekends or put in the extra time if you do not even like the activity. So, it is certainly a hindrance. So, yeah, that makes sense. Then when you were a kid, were you were looking at houses for fun, with or without your dad basically?
Jonathan Greene (00:07:02) - With most of the time.
Drew Breneman (00:07:02) - Okay, nice.
Jonathan Greene (00:07:04) - Because we spent our weekends going to yard sales. At every yard sale, my dad would make an offer on the house. He was well ahead of his time. This is before the internet. He knew everybody at the courthouses. So, we had all the foreclosure lists. We would go to the foreclosures, knock, and if they look vacant, if the door was not open, he would open a window, shove me through, I would go open the front door. We would look at the house, make an offer. He bought hundreds of properties like that and he was very, my term for 2023, is asset hunting. And I think my dad was always an asset hunter. He was never a spreadsheet warrior, even though he was previously worked for the IRS.
He just looked for things that would appreciate and value and that is what I learned. He was a flipper. We flipped all the homes that we lived in, and I would not say he did it the same way I would do it. I like it, everything perfect. And he would more like put gum in a hole, but that is how it was back then. And I think he used relationships to get a lot of deals and then maintain them and not all of them panned out. But I think that was his calculated risk. And I think for me it is been the same way.
I have won on most of my deals in my life. But sure, in 2008, I got slammed on a couple and that is just part of being an investor.
Drew Breneman (00:08:23) - So you are not someone who is just going to quit after a couple deals go bad, 2008.
Jonathan Greene (00:08:32) - It is funny though. After 2008, I was more worried about my money just in general. I was going through a divorce at the time and my properties were just sinking and I had already relocated. So, properties just weren't selling at what they normally would have.
My mistake that I made in 2008 was not really real estate related. It was just that I took all my money out of investments and just left it in cash because I thought I was going to like lose all my money. So I just kind of did not earn income on the money that I had for a number of years. I just wanted it to sit there, not thinking of like future banking crisis and things like that at the time. but I think, I have always steadily been investing, but I have never been a high-volume investor.
I do not know how many doors at a time because I do not care about doors, but we just carry properties that are good assets and then when we feel that they are at their highest, like they were during the pandemic, we sold off a bunch of our oldest properties, took the capital gains just because, the market looked good. We did not really want to manage them anymore. So when the opportunity presents itself for me as an investor, I sell. I have no emotional attachment to real estate of any kind.
If the market looks good and I can get out and then take that money and turn it into two properties or get a better property that will earn me more or make me more on a flip, I will do it at any time without even thinking twice.
Drew Breneman (00:09:57) - In the properties you own, they are all single family houses that you rent out or you have multi-family too?
Jonathan Greene (00:10:03) - Over the years, almost every property we have had, but for some commercial options and an industrial complex that we still own part of as LPs, has all been single family homes.
We did have a few different kind of like mini malls and shopping centers. but myself personally, I do not even buy multifamily. I like mixed use. I like hybrid, commercial, those things. But my predominant investments my whole life have been single family. And I would say beyond flipping and doing Airbnb and long-term rentals, the most money I have ever made just on transaction by transaction is always on houses that I have lived in. Because I know how to buy in an area, I know how long to stay and then, I know when to do the renovations.
And I think that is kind of been a thing that in traditional investing worlds, nobody talks about that. People are trying to acquire assets and still renting, which is fine. I think that is actually a smart strategy also. But I like living in nice houses, so I was really good at buying in areas that maybe had not hit the cycle. But I knew where they were going and in Florida, I doubled my money multiple times, and not a very long amount of time, 3-4 years just by being smart about where you buy, but you know, in 2008, I got crushed in Florida just like a lot of us did. But the houses were great. Market was not great.
Drew Breneman (00:11:32) - Yeah, that is interesting. I can see that. I mean especially, for a lot of people I know their strategy as well. I am going to focus on my investment properties first, a lot of times buying in other markets and then they just keep renting, keep their costs low. But that is a good thought especially if you are in a growing area. You know what to buy and then, you can actually enjoy your house too. It makes a good return on that.
Jonathan Greene (00:11:57) - I think that differential is a mindset thing because that is what we are talking about. People think investments and then personal residents. And I think anything that I am paying money for that has a chance to appreciate is an investment, which is not usually cars because cars usually go down.
But if I am smart, like, I bought a car that had 10,000 miles on it instead of brand new and it is a nice car, but I got it for whatever, $50,000-$60,000 less than it would cost new because I am smart and I did not get it because I need a nice car. It is like, I just wanted that. And I think with houses, people's problem is they devalue the fact that your personal residence is probably the biggest investment you will ever make if that is your first purchase. So, why would not you also do, like you said, I like the personal enjoyment.
The reason why my sister and I started doing short-term rentals like 15, 20 years ago before they were popular is because we like to have houses in areas that we could go use. So, we had multiple properties, and we would just go to Florida, and then, it is like, “well, what are we going to do? We are not going to be there all the time.” It was not popular. It was more like timeshares and long-term rentals. For some, we did long-term rentals, but before it was popular, we started to see VRBO and HomeAway and we were like, “I think, we can make more money and we did great.” We had two HomeAway, VERBOs in the Hamptons that we did phenomenal on for years because in vacation markets like that, you clean up during the summer and then, you just would long-term, long-term meaning 6-8 months in the winter, and you are getting the best of all worlds and then you can go use it whenever you want.
Drew Breneman (00:13:28) - In most of those years with those Hamptons rentals then, how many months a year do you think you had it rented?
Jonathan Greene (00:13:37) - The Hamptons ones we would rent hard short term in the three months of the summer and then at some point, it started to scale, then it would be more like May, June, July, August, and September would be good. And then, we would rent it for six months off-season because the Hampton does have a lot of off-season traffic. At the time, it was after 9/11, there was more people moving to the Hamptons from the city. So, there was options for those six months rentals. But honestly, we well outdid what we were spending by just the summer. So everything else was really like gravy at the time. And it was a hot market. We grew up out there for the summers our whole life. Again, there is lots of places that I have been put and investing where I have been very fortunate.
My dad worked very hard. He was an attorney, I was an attorney. He did not make any money as an attorney. He made all of his money in real estate. He provided a background for me. So, I definitely had it easier than a lot of investors. But that does not make my advice tainted in terms of like what you can do to create it. I think that I always treated it like that. I was appreciative and not like that and I wanted to grow it. I think some people can take a box of money or properties and just lose it or gamble it and I learned from him not to do that. That is why having the real estate to me is so cool because you can be fully diversified and just own real estate. Financial advisors will tell you no do not buy real estate. But you can have Airbnbs. You can have commercial. You can have some mixed use hybrid. You can get some multi-families. You can get some single families. Now, that is what I am looking for. I am looking to buy into some syndications and diversify my money, but all through real estate.
Drew Breneman (00:15:23) - You could even invest in different markets too on top of that. That makes a lot of sense. So then for someone maybe just starting out, I mean, what you would recommend. You are starting out as a real estate investor, how, if you could, would you just, like here is what you should think, if you could put that in their ear, what would you say?
Jonathan Greene (00:15:45) - I think that learning is the most important thing in life. I learn everything. I have taken like 40 master classes, that website. I have taken like 40 and everyone's like, “why, the hell do you do them?” I am like, I just, I like to learn stuff. But I learn lots of stuff about business from things that people do not think are going to be like a business class. So I think learning, listening to podcasts, like this, like mine, like bigger pockets is a great way to figure out, “hey, what everybody else is doing.”
But I think the hardest part when you are a new investor, whether you have a lot of money or you do not have a lot of money is there is just a lot of fake stuff out there. And your job is to wade through and talk to people who can tell you like, no, these people are not going to try to sell you anything.
Jonathan Greene (00:16:28) - I do not want to be sold ever on anything. I want to look at something, make a decision myself. And I think it is hard now with the proliferation of social media. It looks like everybody's like crushing it as an investor. Let us be honest, it is not true. If you say you have a thousand doors, you do not have a thousand doors, you do not own them a hundred percent for the most part. So, those are not a full door. And I think that is the problem that has been turned into this glorified thing. But real estate investing is hard. If you want to make money and be good at, like, being a landlord of just one multifamily is very hard. I do not know what people are thinking in terms of passive income, but that is not it. It is like the least passive investment you can ever make is to be a landlord. Because if you are not taking care of property, the calls are never going to stop which means it is not passive.
Drew Breneman (00:17:14) - You end up being everybody's punching bag too. That makes sense. But then at what point is there a point where, I guess, you would recommend do not think about stopping learning, obviously if you are watching 40 Masterclass, but then when, when would you make the…?
Jonathan Greene (00:17:32) - I have a problem though.
Drew Breneman (00:17:33) - When would you say, how long would someone maybe educate themselves before doing their first deal? Or how would you advise that? So, keep learning forever, but at some point you got to jump in, how would you think about that?
Jonathan Greene (00:17:48) - Yeah. We work with 500 investors on my on-market team and a lot of that is us coaching them exactly the question you are asking. People are ready at all different times. People could have done the research and be ready and have money to deploy and they will create a trust relationship with me where they know I have their best interest at mine. So, I really think it is about comfortability. You will always hear the words analysis, paralysis in real estate investing. It is not a real thing. It is a procrastination method for someone who has not gotten the confidence to get to that level. That is why they are looking at spreadsheets all day because they know it is not going to work. So, the more they just, “oh sorry, you know, I did 15,” it does not work even though all the terms and numbers are wrong.
So, I think it is really developing confidence and the hybrid to learning is always in-person meetups and masterminds that is how you grow. We have talked about it on my podcast. You want to be in a group where there is different levels of investors because you are not going to learn anything from all, what I call baby investors. No offense to new investors. That is just what I call them because you have to grow out of that, but you also have to be able to provide value to the group above you so that they kind of let you into the club.
I think building relationships with an actual true mindset to like, “Hey, let me get to know some flippers in the area.” Let me get to know some people who have done syndications, see if I can help them and be a good person to them. And too many people come to mentorship or building relationships with an ask and nothing to give. And I think if you do that more and you meet the right people, your scale to what you are asking, you will be investing earlier because you will have more confidence and less analysis, paralysis because there will be other to people to tell you that deal sucks. Stop trying to make it good. It is not a good deal. You are looking at the wrong things.
Drew Breneman (00:19:38) - You can build those relationships more with like a giving mindset is the takeaway.
Jonathan Greene (00:19:43) - Yeah, a hundred percent. I think if you look across the board for a lot of us who have done coaching or mentorship, there is a lot of people who want help and they do not realize that they have something to give because you always have time or you have some special set of skills or you are good at data or are you willing to go drive for dollars for someone. There is always a way to connect to investors, as opposed to just saying like, “Hey, let us meet up for coffee.” I do not drink coffee. And I do not like to go out of the house that much unless I am doing showing. So, you have to match people's personality and I really think that the people that investors who are on the higher end, who you are looking to get mentorship from, what they want is somebody who is interested in them and their business.
Everybody likes to talk about themselves. So if you are really, truly interested and you say, “Hey, can I just ask you a set of questions for a couple of minutes.” I am good at this. I was talking about it with Jay Scott on my podcast and he was saying like, “Hey, if someone can redo my website, I will give them like a couple of hours.” That is a huge thing and people devalue what their own piece of personal resources. Like if you are an HVAC technician or a contractor, you have something to add to an investor's business. You have to use that and that is where the win-win comes in. Where that is the more mindful approach is like, “Hey, can we both benefit from this relationship instead of just one person on a hard ask and the other person on a deliverable.”
Drew Breneman (00:21:05) - That is great advice because I have noticed that with a lot of people where it is like they think they offer to buy you lunch. They think that is a good. Thing in return is like, I can buy my own lunches at this point, where that is not as interesting. But yeah, to your point, if you, especially these days I like your HVAC idea. If you are at all in the construction or property management game, I am all yours if you want to help us out.
Jonathan Greene (00:21:35) - I mean, to your point, to somebody like me we are talking about this on a pre-call, but I am an introvert, so asking to buy me lunch is like, you might as well just ask me to punch me in the face over-and-over because I do not like small talk. That is the same as someone calling me or having a call. I do not answer my phone and people find it unusual that I can be successful running a big team. I have 33 agents and growing. We are up to 50 agents and multiple states and I am running other things. But I do not talk on the phone. My phone message says I am not going to answer, send me a text. Everyone who sends me a text, will get an answer pretty much right away.
But that is the way I communicate because my schedule is booked all day. We had this book for a time. I am on my timeframe and then when my timeframe's done, I have something else booked because I book into my schedule insane stuff. And this goes to mindset. I have showering on my schedule and my team always laughs at me. They are like, what are you going to forget to shower? It is not about that I am going to forget to shower. It is that I want to know what time I need to shower, so I can get to the next thing. Because some days I do not want to shower right away because I am not in the business where I am going to an office. I can really customize my day. So, I think people find these things are odd about other people, but like you are saying, not everyone wants to go lunch or wants to get a coffee or just wants to freely give information.
There is got to be something there to make it worthwhile. Sometimes, it is just in the presentation, “Hey I was trying to figure out how to flip a house. I went to these resources, I am down to X and Y. I just want to take five minutes of your time. I just need to decide on these too. Can you help?” That is like a great ask because you have just set it up on a silver platter. This is what I need from you. It will only take this much. Then you can say, I have also something to give you. But, if you just haven't asked, tightening it up to like a really solid question, we will definitely get somebody to answer.
Drew Breneman (00:23:27) - I get messages where people ask, can I ask you a question? And now it is like, there is too many things to answer, now, I have to say yeah, you could have just fired away.
Jonathan Greene (00:23:37) - Just ask the question. That is like every DM on Instagram. I literally was just reading that, 4 DMs yesterday were, “Hey, Jonathan, is this the best place to ask you a question?” And the first thing I thought, just like you, in my head is why did not you just ask the question? If I see it and I want to answer, I will answer it. Why are you asking me?
Drew Breneman (00:23:55) - You are adding to double the steps now or maybe triple depend you might have another question.
Jonathan Greene (00:24:02) - But it comes from old sales training and old sales training was get as many yeses as possible. But I am not a salesperson, no matter what I am doing, even though I am in sales. I have no interest. I want to build a relationship. So why would I ask someone if I can ask them a question? It is nice to ask someone, do you have the time for something? But I would want to know like full out like, “Hey, this is what is coming my way.” So if I ever do set a phone call, it is on my calendar, it is set for a time and I tell them the hard stop and I am off at the hard stop, but I do predominantly Zooms. If it is worth a phone call, it is worth a Zoom to me and 99% of phone call requests are not worth a phone call to me because I can answer it via text in five seconds.
Drew Breneman (00:24:44) - Mark Cuban has the same strategy. I do not know if you've ever heard him talk about that, but it is basically the same thing. Email him, otherwise, he is not responding and then he will email back complete strangers, in 10 minutes. Someone will send their company to him and he be like, “nah, I am not into it.” And they are like, holy crap. He responded.
Jonathan Greene (00:25:03) - Tim Ferriss is the same way. He said it multiple times. He is like, if you send me a stupid email, someone's going to get in the middle and not read it. If you send me a well thought out email that has like a really tightened up question, he is probably going to look at it himself.
I think that people have been coached the wrong way and social media and all of these things, they are turning people into all the same people with the same ass and that we buy houses for cash.
I just want to build relationships. Everyone would be better served and make more money and be happier by trying to build good relationships. But some people want, a quick fix and that is why they get into these cycles of asking the same thing. It is the same thing. Can I buy you coffee? Well, I do not drink coffee?
Drew Breneman (00:25:45) - Or maybe you do not care about selling it for cash. Maybe you got lots of time and want at the highest price? Or wait. I need you to wait. I do not care about a quick closing.
Jonathan Greene (00:25:56) - I mean every bandit sign just says quick for cash. 90% of home sellers do not care if it is a cash buy. They have, like you said, another thing, they do not even know where they are going. What do they care about the cash? They have owned the house for 50 years. They are going to make plenty of money. The house is in old people's shape, which means mechanicals are good, it just has not been renovated. So, they do not need cash. It is not attractive to 90% of the things. So the messages out there are all wrong. Just like we are saying they are all wrong coming in looking for assistance as investors or mentorship. I have a lot of partners. I do not need any partners, but if someone came to me and they are like, I am looking to hustle, I will be like, Ooh, that sounds good. I like that. Like, let us see if it works. Does not always work. But I would rather take a flyer on that than just taking half an hour to have a phone call, which I will never do.
Drew Breneman (00:26:43) - Makes sense. And also like a showering tip. Definitely during COVID, I was tried to shower around lunchtime, like a break. Because I just rolled out bed, started working and then I ate when I got hungry and I showered almost as like a break. And then, I actually got a lot more work done, no commute and then you do not waste time prepping. Use the getting ready for the day as a break of sorts, so I kind of like that.
Jonathan Greene (00:27:12) - I do not think people take their schedule seriously. My calendar is booked morning to night. I do not want to ever have to tell somebody I can't do something that I agreed to do and I say no to almost everything. So, if it is on my schedule, it is happening, barring something crazy and using Google, I can just slide things that time-wise need to be moved to later. So, there is availability to move stuff in, but it is just not going to be… You just take phone calls in general, it is just very silly for someone to just call my phone. Why would not I be working? My phone rings from morning to night, why would not I be working when my phone rang? And agents say that, I do not understand how do you do real estate without calling? I am like, just text me any question you have, I can answer it.
I am on Zoom four or five hours a day sometimes. I will answer the text. No problem. This is part of multitasking. I am not taking away a lot of the Zooms. I have to be there. I am not a full participant all the time, but I do not want to talk on the phone.
One more thing about the phone though because we were talking about this, in real estate, there is a ton of conversations that go undocumented and I am not comfortable with that. Whenever someone says to me, “Hey, can we talk on the phone about this negotiation?” It is not going to be documented. No one's going to know what was said. Everyone's going to say something else was said. And I do not like that. I can't tell you how many times in any form of a real estate deal, somebody said that I said something or did something or did not do something or say something and then I just pulled the email receipt or the text receipt, sent it over, never heard another word.
So, I document everything I do. So if I have to take a phone call that they will not allow me to record, I immediately follow up with an email that says, “Hey, Bob, just one of those great talking to you. Here is the contents of our conversation.” And if they do not respond to that, then it all is true and you can use that later. Again, it is my legal…
Drew Breneman (00:29:05) – Attorney coming out.
Jonathan Greene (00:29:06) - Look, real estate deals on the larger end on one issue, a deal could rise and fall, you could save yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars by documenting something that someone wanted to talk to you on the phone about because they know it was not going to be recorded. That is why people, “Hey, can I talk to you about this offer before I make it?” I already know that the offer sucks because you are trying to explain something to me in advance. Just send me the offer. If it is good, I will be like, Ooh, nice offer. Other than that, I do not really need the story. It is a business, you know?
Drew Breneman (00:29:35) - Yeah, no, that makes sense. Or they are trying to feel you out for information too, and it is almost better to not give it to them. I am like, no man, just email me.
Jonathan Greene (00:29:43) - Oh, I mean I am a vault. I know they are not going to get it. It is a time spent thing for me. I do not want somebody ask. They can ask me in a text or an email. And that is the mode that I prefer to communicate on. As a coach, I am always saying like, you want to communicate it as a salesperson on whatever that other person is most comfortable with. But even my people who, clients who like the phone, I train them to like the text more because I am more available by text. I will get them all the answers they need in a quicker time and they can look at it whenever they want instead of waiting and they say, “can we have a call?” And I am like, next call slots, Thursday at three and they are like, okay, I will text you. Yeah. That is what I do. And it works every time.
Drew Breneman (00:30:26) - You are training them.
Jonathan Greene (00:30:27) - For my own good though and that is a mindset and a mindfulness practice that I have boundaries and my boundaries are my schedule and the way that I use my time and if I want to take a one hour aimless walk, because that is what works for me, I do not want to be bothered when I am on the walk.
Drew Breneman (00:30:42) - I think you had mentioned you have 500 investor clients, so on the brokerage side, how did you build that up? I mean that is a huge number and well, I guess how did it start? How to get to 500?
Jonathan Greene (00:30:58) - Great question. I think it is good for people who run on-market businesses and for people who run investors groups to know. It really started just on bigger pockets. I have been investing my whole life, but I have found bigger pockets, maybe like 10 years ago when I had got my license kind of at the same time and I was just reading the forums and I was like, I know a lot of these answers. So, I just started answering people's questions. So for probably six consecutive years, every day I would have on my schedule, bigger pockets time, I would go on there and I would just answer questions. I would look in newbie flippers, real estate investing and I would just answer, I would make sure that I was on for 15 minutes and that I made five replies every day.
And I never once, and still to this day, have ever made an ask of anybody there and that kind of mushroomed into me doing more speaking or creating these two podcasts that I have. And then when I had the on market team, just a lot of investors come to me because they know we understand small scale multi, large scale multi, commercial just investment ideas. But it is not for everybody. And I think the reason why I was able to get so many contexts and build that group is because I will say “no.” And I will tell people that is a stupid deal or do not do that. Someone's trying to fleece you. They called me the deal killer in my early days because the people would send me the deals and I would look at it in two seconds and be like, it is garbage. They are like, but the spreadsheet looks good. I am like, I just pulled it up on Google Maps. You are like next to a train track. Have you even looked at Google Maps? Oh no, I did not look at Google Maps. Well, out-of-state investing will kill you if you are not looking at Google Maps.
Drew Breneman (00:32:30) - Yeah, no kidding. That has happened to me where if I look at the spreadsheet first I am like, this looks pretty good. Then you pull it up on the map, you are like, oh Jesus. So, we are by the dumpsters behind the shopping center next to a firehouse.
Jonathan Greene (00:32:42) - That is a huge fail. And I think new investors, they are getting sold on this Midwest investments because the deals are good and the numbers do look good, but you need to do your due diligence. I mean, that is just practice. I do not even use spreadsheets. I mean, I use spreadsheets for every part of my life, but I do not use them for deals. I just use them for flips and it is not to calculate my win in the beginning. It is just to keep track of what I am doing. I know what I am buying, I am buying assets. If the asset is good, I would not really, too worried about it. And again, though I have been fortunate I do not have to focus on cash flow. I like cash flow, but I like appreciation more because it is like a surprise.
Jonathan Greene (00:33:21) - I did well as an investor, two years later I get $200,000. Like that sounds good to me. I can wait.
Drew Breneman (00:33:26) - And then for these deals, you are buying them with your own money solely?
Jonathan Greene - Yep.
Drew Breneman - That is a luxury. That makes a lot of sense. Where it is your own money. So, there is not anyone to send it to look at like how this will go. You are buying really sort of, you know, what a single family duplex would sell for in that area where the market is. It is a good relative buy and then your thought is, I do not need a spreadsheet from here. It is a good price.
Jonathan Greene (00:33:54) - Exactly. Yeah. And again, that is another thing, I mean, I appreciate, that I was fortunate enough. I was a cash investor for first 30 some odd years of my life. After I got divorced, I still had an idea of what I could do with money. Most of the deals I have ever bought are just cash deals. And then I have an asset based line of credit, which I do not need collateral for it based on other holdings and I can just deploy that. The rates are just too high now. Now, with the way that my team runs, I can get regular mortgages for properties as well and just put 20%-30% down, reduce the rate. but I do not even own that many properties right now because I sold a bunch during the pandemic and now, it is kind of like, now is the time where I am looking at the landscape and waiting to decide really how I want to deploy. And I think at this age, 52, it is more attractive to me to put some amount into a bunch of different syndications and then also do some one-offs. But I do not like being a landlord, so that is done. It is not interesting to me. I do not need to hire property manage. I teach all of my multi-family investors how to self-manage so they save 10%, on that.
Drew Breneman (00:35:04) - Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. I think for your strategy, if you are looking at syndications, a lot of them, they are so short term in nature or I am not sure like a lot of the rentals that you've bought, how long have you hold them? On average you had to guess.
Jonathan Greene (00:35:20) - There are properties we sold during the pandemic that we owned as a family for 30 years and they were solid assets. The industrial park that we own in Bridgehampton, my sister and I both own 10%, but it is a very big high priced asset. It is too good of a property to ever let go of. We had a deal for someone to acquire it during the pandemic and it fell apart, but the payout was going to be great. That was something that my dad bought with a bunch of partners, that was just like a like weird part of Bridgehampton and now it is like right next to the town. I mean, the value on, it is crazy. And I think I learned that from him as patients, even when I am flipping, flipping is a short term mechanism for income acquisition, but things go wrong all the time.
And people who are not savvy will rush to get to the finish, make bad decisions, put out a crappy product. I had a flip that took 22 months because of fights I have with the town. Did I make a lot of money? No, I barely made any. But I love the property. So, my commitment is to the property and to turning out something that is a good asset, which again goes back to a mindful approach to this. Again, I mean I like money. I like earning money because it can provide for my kids, but it is not always the end game. I am in it to make income. But if you have done it long enough, the difference between 50,000 and 60,000 on one deal is not that big of a deal. In the short term it is, but not over the long term.
Drew Breneman (00:36:52) - But that is pretty profound though too, that statement where oftentimes people ask about like how stressed I am and it surprises them that I am not. I am usually not stressed, and which would surprise people because I talked to let us say my dad and he was a shop teacher, and so he asked a lot of like maintenance-related questions where like, I will buy like a hundred unit deal and he will be like, how many toilets are there? Like, that is like a lot of problems, right?
Jonathan Greene - That is a good question though.
Drew Breneman - Well, you know what? I do not fix the toilets though. He is in that mindset. He knows how to do all that and he would end up doing it himself and he would have bought one rental and then would have done everything for it and kind of been like, oh, this is like enough work. I think I am good. Whereas, I never got into that. He taught me how to do most of that stuff. I have built decks with him and hung door. I have done a lot of that, but I know that I will make more money not being the toilet repair guy, even though, yeah, I repair my own toilet when it breaks, it is faster than calling somebody. So that is like profound though, because why I would say around the stressed or not thing is like the way I have described it is I zoom out. I see the bigger picture where yeah, if that toilet us leaking, I do not freak out about it. We have repairs and maintenance in the budget. There is going to be things that go wrong or we have owned some deals for, they were like 10 years old when we bought them, then we have had them for 10 years and now the air conditioners and furnaces are breaking. They are wearing out and so is the roof. Well, guess what, those things last, furnaces normally and air conditioners, those last like around 10 years, so somehow we got 20 years out of it. And then roofs are, 20-30 years. And so it is like, that is just how it is, so when I get a call that our roof is leaking and we need to repair it or it is probably smarter to replace it, I am not freaking out about it. I go, yeah, that is how it works.
Jonathan Greene (00:38:45) - Cost of doing business. I mean another good example for that, I love what you said is that, if, say, you put 20% into a real estate deal, whatever it is, you get a mortgage, you are doing a flip or however you want to do it and then it turns out like you are going to lose money on the deal. People start going to this like conniption mode. They made bad decisions. They over renovated or they miscalculated the RV or the market shifted. The first thing that I always say is how are you looking at things? And to be honest, I am not a glass half-full person. I have just become a mindful person. The way that I look at it is, but you are going to get the deposit back.
Oh, you are going to lose $10,000, great. Well, you are going to have your deposit money back to deploy on another asset. So, why do not you just do it quicker? You know, get the money done. Sometimes you just have to take a loss, take it, take the money that you have in it. Are they all going to be, money back losses? They should be if you are doing it the right way and you have enough down, that is why putting little down or over-leveraging with hard money is what is going to get you into a problem. I like the principles of Rich Dad Poor Dad in terms of leverage and what people say, but I have never been high on leverage because I am scared. In 2008, everyone got killed on their leverage and I am not someone who wants to look into that.
I like the principle of it, but to me, the worst thing would be to be someone who claims that they have a hundred doors and all 100 doors are operating at like a hundred dollars a month cash flow to someone say like that is a lot of money. Like they are making a lot of money. Uhhuh, well, when one furnace breaks at one property and it is 8,500 bucks, you just lost cash flow on 10 properties. So, now what are you looking at and how much do you own of the doors to make it worth it? That is just not enough of a profit because those hundred dollars cash flow properties that are being offered in the Midwest, they are fully renovated but there is no appreciation there on a lot of those because they are now the most expensive one in the town and you paid up for it, which I am all for. I like buying renovated properties. I do not always want to do the fix, but like you have to know whether it is going to appreciate or not. Because if you are just steady cash flow at a hundred dollars, that is never going to be worth my money unless there is big appreciation on the backend.
Drew Breneman (00:40:56) - Especially if you are coaching people to, teaching them to also manage the property so they can learn and save money. You got to think about your hassle factor too somewhat. Especially if it is, on this where a lot of the deals we bought part of it, you know, they were partnerships with two families that I had met. And so we were also the ones doing the work and we felt like it is treated like it is just our money. They said they will invest this. So, we factored in the hassle factor too, where it is like we could go buy two nice deals, maybe each one makes a little bit less than like something we have to renovate, but we could just buy two bigger, nicer deals.
The percentage returns might be a little smaller, but it is probably going to end up making the same amount of money because we went into like a little bigger deal that was nicer and there was a lot less work. I have a really good friend who does only renovation apartment deals and every time I see him, he is like, Drew, you are so smart, the stuff you buy. Like I need to figure out how to do that. And, I did not really know what he meant. And then, we are renovating a 96 unit right now in Phoenix and every time I go there to look at the renovation, I kind of laugh to myself. I am like, I see why he said that because you are going back and forth and then, contractor at a contractor, a lot of little issues.
Jonathan Greene (00:42:11) - Yeah, your scale on the rent side is, like, oh, you go from 700 to 750, which over the 96 units is great, but like if you just look at flipping, flipping is exactly what you are talking about. At least in my area, we used to flip in like a 300K buy-in and you would put in 60 in renovation and you would make 60, you would sell for around 420. But then conversely, if you start to buy in like high fives, you are going to put in maybe like 80, but now you are going to start to make like 140. And if you go higher, which we have been experiment with the last one, we bought for 565 or something like that. We put in like almost 200, but it is sold for 930. So your scale and flipping is like, if you can buy in higher, you are going to make more. You are going to spend more, but you are going to make more. And that is where it is, someone is seeing long term, what can you have access to? And then it is a question of partners, how well do you know the partners? Is it going to work? And you know that from your history. It is tough. I have never been big on partners. Something usually goes wrong, so I am just more comfortable.
I think that no two partners have the same risk tolerance ever, exactly. So for me, my risk tolerance, I just want to be responsible for myself. If I mess up, I can handle it on myself, but I do not want to mess up for someone else. And that is why being an agent is so important to me. For investors, I do not want to mess up their future. So, we will not write offers on a lot of properties.
People, they want to do an FHA, house tech, a multi-family and we know it is not going to pass FHA inspection. We are like, we cannot write it. If they want it is sold as is you cannot do that with an FHA and they do not understand why. And for a time, they will be like, “oh, well, we are not going to work with you if you just will not write any offer.” And we are like, man, I mean, no problem because the offer is never going to get accepted. So, why would I write it? It does not help us. It does not help you. We have to look for properties that match what your funding cycle looks like and what is going to be a good buy for you. If you are buying with FHA purposefully and you only want to put that much money down, you know, 3.5%, you do not want to spend a ton in repairs right away.
If not, then get a 203K loan. That is different than you factor the renovation in. But you know, that is it. There is so much investing advice out there. It is very hard to find the actual truth when you go to see properties. And it is hard for new investors to find a realtor to take a chance on them. We talked about that on my podcast. You are 19, you are like, Hey, how do I present this? And you had a full presentation and the realtor was like, okay, this kid knows what he is talking about. And that is what we are talking about with mentorship. You need to come to the table with a reason to do business together and if it is good enough, you will you will make those relationships.
Drew Breneman (00:44:53) - Well, what is crazy with that, when you asked me that question, like, how did you get a realtor to take you seriously when you were 19? I never thought about that and I do not know if anyone's ever asked me before. You are from that side of the table. So you thought, oh, wow. Yeah, I do not know if I take this guy seriously. But he probably would have just picked up the vibe that like, I was serious because it never crossed my mind like, I would need to prove anything here. This is what they do. I am a buyer. They are a broker. It never crossed my mind.
Jonathan Greene (00:45:25) - You are different though. You had it prepared. You were presentable. You knew exactly what you wanted. You knew the dialogues. What happens there is a million quasi investors out there and they will come to us and say like, well, I want to write 10 offers a week and just all low balls. I said, I mean, why would I do that? That is a horrendous use of my time. You want me to take my time, which is unaccounted for, because we only get paid at closing and write a hundred offers for you to win one. I am just not going to do that. And that is not what agents who are in the business do. They just want people who are ready to grow. You are a perfect example though. If I see someone who is young and I have lots of young investors and now we are at 2, 3, 4 properties, 8 doors. I know in my first conversation, whether they are take it serious. Are they prepared for the conversation? You were prepared for the conversation with the realtor. Realtor's probably like, okay.
Smart realtors have investors as clients because they can do multiple deals a year. Home buyers do one deal every 10 years. Investors are way better clients for real estate investors, but they also know a hundred agents. So, unless you can provide something better and investor's always going to be looking for a better deal or better cut on their flip.
Drew Breneman (00:46:43) - Yeah, but I swear I would never thought of that in all those years until you asked me and I was like, I do not know. I must have just kind of felt it. Like, they knew I was serious, I never. In terms of where my mindset was at the time, I definitely was not overconfident, like, oh yeah, I just couldn't buy anything. I will crush it. But I was not like, I guess insecure about it. Like, oh, hey, I am a teenager still and this or that. It was just like, I have the money. I want to buy a place, let us do it. You know, not overthinking it.
Jonathan Greene (00:47:19) - You built a business as a teenager by selling things. So, you kind of had the right mindset to go in and I think like every conversation or relationship build is always, again, it is based on their relationship. And I have studied NLP. I know as a coach what to look for and I can interpret what people are saying without them having to say all the words. So, exactly like you are saying, you probably presented as somebody who had their crap together, and I think that everybody wants that and I like people who are open to coaching. But yeah, at some point you want everyone to be able to pull the trigger, but on the agent side, you have to help them and be an advisor to help them to get pull the trigger, not just show them any property so they buy it. That is not going to help them long term. You do not want them buying bad investments and you are not going to have return clients. The best thing about investors is they could be your client for 20 years if you do them right every time.
Drew Breneman (00:48:11) - Yeah. And keep buying deals.
The big takeaways I have in terms of how you built your on-market client base is actually really, it was showing up on bigger pockets every day, doing the same thing, being consistent with that. And then in-person events, those were the two.
Jonathan Greene (00:48:31) - Yeah, I mean we do in-person events now the first Wednesday of every month and branded the same name as the podcast and there is no pitching, no lenders are involved. It is all investors connecting, talking about properties. There is no presentation. I do not speak or anything. We just like have a good time. I have a lot of partners who will sponsor those events and then, I think more than that it was just giving away information for free, which is what podcasts are about. Webinars and all those things. One day down the road, may I create like a weekend event or something? Sure. But it was never going to be like cost exclusive. I just think that I like being on podcasts like this. I like having my two podcasts because I can freely give out information that people can go listen to in the car or at the gym or walking down the streets.
I have listened to so many podcasts and got so many information from them that I think it is such a great resource for people to learn. But they are all together and I think if you are building relationships the right way, you are going to have much more success much quicker than you thought. If you are always focused on how you can help other people, where you can fit in where you can be and asking people really smart questions about themselves that maybe not everybody asks. How did you get all your money? Nobody wants to answer that. That is too long of a thing to ask me about something specific. And I really, I like to answer that.
Drew Breneman (00:49:51) - Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
If someone was starting out today, if someone wanted to do just exactly what you are doing, would you say you could do the same playbook or have things evolved where instead of doing bigger pockets forum do something else or something online versus in-person, what would you say if you were going to do it all over again right now?
Jonathan Greene (00:50:15) - Yeah, it is a hybrid of what we have talked about. The answer is, yes, you can do it, but you have to be very diligent in being able to figure out who is true and who is not because you can go on bigger pockets forums and ask questions, but everyone is not going to answer for the right reasons. The cool thing about bigger pockets is you can see how many up votes somebody has as a person. So, I was always looking for more up votes on somebody. You know, they are adding value to the community because they have a lot of up votes more than their posts. That is like a differential. Then in terms of meetups, I would only go to real estate meetups where they do not allow lenders or ancillary personnel. I do not want to get pitched on a meetup. I really want to learn and I would not go to ones where there is presentation because why are you giving a presentation?
You have something to sell. I am an agent. I have a giant team. I am never asking anyone if they want to do business with us. They know where I am, and they know that I am an expert in the field. So, they will come and ask if they want. I have worked with plenty of clients as friends who had other agents and they would say like, Hey, can you come look at this property? But like, I have an agent and I would go, I would give them my opinion. And when I did that out of just being, you know, nice, they were my friends, they eventually would come over and work with me. Not every time, but because I was telling the truth and the other agent was blowing smoke to get them to buy the deal. So, you can recreate my playbook, start on bigger pockets, be careful, focus on local, and then find local events and make sure that the local events have no pitches.
If you go to one event and you just meet one person who is an investor who you get along with and you can get them in your phone that is like a great use of an hour or two hours. Like wow, you just met someone. And I think that is how we have built our events. They are just there for people to meet each other, and through the groups, we started them during the pandemic. They were all on Zoom. We did about a hundred deals just during the pandemic through our New Jersey and Philadelphia group. Just because people got more comfortable saying like, Hey, you were saying it before in the pre-call. Like everyone's an investor. They do not have any type of look or thing, everybody. So you see like, oh wait, that, that kid's doing deals now. And then you are like, I can do this. And you are only going to know that if you get off from behind the computer, go meet some people in-person and say like, wow, these people are all really doing these deals.
Drew Breneman (00:52:28) - Yeah. And then they will just look like regular people too. You will notice that where they are just like, oh, I thought they'd be wearing like a suit and tie or something. And it is like, no. One of the brokers that here in Chicago, he used to work at the Lamborghini dealer and him and his buddy, they are always so surprised how the guy showed up to buy the Lambos and they are like
Jonathan Greene (00:52:49) - T-shirt every time.
Drew Breneman (00:52:50) - They wearing like a white t-shirt and like some puma track pants and it is like, yeah, right.
Jonathan Greene (00:52:55) - That was my dad. People would come meet my dad and they would be like, who is this guy? I am like, what are you talking about? That is my dad. We look just like each other. He is like, but he is just wearing tennis shorts and like a tank top. I am like, yeah, that is what he wears. What are you talking about? Like, I thought he would be in a suit because he is like an attorney and a real estate investor. I am like, my dad barely ever gets in a suit. He is probably because he has to go like handle like a traffic ticket for a friend. Other than that, like he just wants to be comfortable and I think that is what is important to know. There is no, look, the coolest thing about real estate investing is anybody can learn to do it.
Capital is the important part, that is why you should not leave your W2 job, earn as much money as you can so that you have enough to deploy instead of coming in hot with no money, trying to figure out how to do deals with no money down that just going to get you in a hole. Does it work for some people? Uh, I am not even convinced that it really does from the beginning. You have to have something or a partner to help you through. You are not going to go do 10 deals having never had any income. That is just not realistic.
Drew Breneman (00:53:58) - I think you can do those high leverage deals but always, the caveat is you would need to have a lot of reserves because some of them will be negative cash flow . And, then also, you need to be really careful on like what is the interest rate when you are talking. Because you were talking about hard money loans and things kind of a while back, that is a totally different animal than that 3.5% down FHA program where you are just getting a normal first mortgage rate. There is a lot of nuance there, but sure if somebody could use the FHA program and have their neighbor lend them the 3.5%. You could make that work, if you have other reserves. Odds are this thing's not going to cash flow at all for a while.
Jonathan Greene (00:54:42) - You can't with the PMI, that is what is so hard about FHA. But if you look at sub 2, creative finance, seller finance, even wholesaling in general, these are all hybridized portions of how you can do stuff, but you still need to be capitalized.
The people who are buying the most sub 2 and seller finance and creative financing deals all have a lot of money because they have the leverage to get it done. Sometimes people can get started. I love the idea of sub 2. I love it. I haven't done it because I do not really want to take over people's mortgages.
Drew Breneman (00:55:15) - Sub 2 is you are shorthanding is that subject too and then mortgages. You are assuming alone. In commercial real estate, you are allowed to do that. That is like out in the open. Like I could buy that industrial deal potentially and assume you are loan, but with the regular houses, it is like on the down low, for lack of a better term.
Jonathan Greene (00:55:36) - It is murky, but so is wholesaling. I mean, I think like real estate…, I have always tried to be transparent in everything that I do and I think that is what helps me get deals and also blows up a lot of deals because I want to know the information. Like just tell me if you have an oil tank, just like tell me. I just found it like we found it. You are going to pretend like it is not there. Well, somebody's got to dig it out. It is going to be you. It is the quick buck thing. And that is why some people who try to get in with no money down are going to get themselves behind the eight ball instead of like earning money, learning, finding partners.
Just be a tiny participant in a deal and learn something. I think that is more attractive to me than being brand new and calling to try on a hundred sub 2’s a day hoping that you can take over a mortgage when again, oh, okay, well, now, you are in control of the property and now, the furnace broke. Who is paying? You assume the mortgage. They are not paying for the new furnace. So, people forget that things inside houses are expensive. Furnaces, roofs, all these things, heating systems, everything. One water leak when you are not paying attention that could cost you $20,000. So, what do you do then? Those are the ones that all come up on wholesale because somebody got messed up
Drew Breneman (00:56:49) - I had an episode on how to do your first deal and that was like, step one is you need to get some money. This is called real estate money investing. You need money to invest.
Jonathan Greene - Exactly.
Drew Breneman - And then you will hear…
Jonathan Greene (00:56:59) – Look up the definition of investing. It is because you have capital to invest. Can you invest your time? Sure. But not a lot of people are going to give you an asset for your time.
Drew Breneman (00:57:07) - Yeah. And then wholesaling, I mean, that is cool, but that is essentially like a job. You find it and then you get a fee, that is not exactly investing either. Cool. Well, yeah, let us leave it there. How do people get in touch with you? Where do they go? How does that work?
Jonathan Greene (00:57:22) - Well, given what I have said, I am very hard to get in touch with. The best way to get in touch with me. I always look in my DMs on Instagram, which is Trust Greene with an “e” at the end. And I wade through them. I even looked through the ones that get siphoned off to just see if someone was making like a real ask in there and then if they want to email me, they can email my team success manager Crystal at info@streamlined.properties with a “d” dot properties and then, she wades through my email again. This is what we are talking about is mindful practice. I think some people want direct access. Some people give out their phone numbers. I am never going to answer the phone, and I get 10,000 texts a day like spam and everything.
I am easy to reach I think just by thoughtful communication. I will respond. And DMs is a great way. I contact a lot of people via DMs, other investors, real estate personnel. And I think like that is kind of the modern way. But yeah, if you are looking for me, you can find me on Instagram at Trust Greene. The podcast is Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing and the new one is The Art of Agency - A Launchpad for Realtors. I am pretty easy to find on social, TikTok. I have big YouTube channel as well with a bunch of videos that are there for real estate investors and real estate personnel to help. But thanks for having me on, Drew. I really appreciate it.
Drew Breneman (00:58:38) - Yeah, this is a good one. And I mean, most people, they are not talking so much about mindset. I think I said that at the outset, but it is more about like just the exact tactics or a lot of just like pump up stuff. Like you should do it, it is great. You will make a lot of money, cash flow and there is like a lot of buzzwords, appreciation, tax breaks, 1031, but you are not really, how do you think about that? How do you do it? And, so this was a good one to think about because you were saying a lot of the same things that I have said where you want to Zoom out, think long term, understand what is important to you, and what works for you, what does not and then it is okay walking away from a deal if it does not meet that, for example.
Jonathan Greene (00:59:21) - That is your power in real estate. Your power is not all the money that you have because other people have the same amount of money or more all the time. Your power is the ability to walk away and say, you know what? I am good. You want to go up a thousand dollars, I am going down a thousand dollars. That is how I negotiate. When we have a deal and then they want to go up, I go down the same amount and I am not playing around. I will lose the deal. I just do not care. There is houses everywhere. Sure, there are a lot that are not…, the market is not full right now. We wish we had more properties for our buyers, but like there is literally houses everywhere. In most places that we live, maybe more spread out in the Midwest, but I live in the densest state in America, New Jersey.
There are other things to buy. It is not the only house that needs a structural renovation. Like, I am good. I will find something else. I think it is important. But if you are trying to help people create this blueprint for real estate investing, mindset is a really important part of it. You are always going to be second guessing your deals and worried the whole time and people like you and I, I am never worried not because I have no emotions, although I do not have that money, it is because I am confident. I have done the research. I review everything and then when I go to make a deal and when I put the money down, I know that is the deal that I want and if they try to mess around with it, I am also happy to give it up. No problem.
Drew Breneman (01:00:42) - Yeah, I mean, any negotiation, it is like whoever wants it the least is the winner.
Jonathan Greene (01:00:47) - Yeah. Last thing, I mean, I learned that as a prosecutor, as a prosecutor for six years in Florida and negotiation, if you just listen to Chris Voss - Never Split The Difference. Negotiation is tactics and like you said, the less you want it, the more someone else is going to want it. So, it is just about trying to figure out where the pain points are. But if you can create the ability in yourself to walk away from deals, you are much more powerful.
They will always go to another offer. It will always fail and then they will come back to you. Maybe not always, but that happens to me all the time. I tell them what is going to happen, you are going to try to sell this to a baby investor or a regular home buyer. They are going to realize it needs a structural renovation. You are going to come back to me. I am just going to tell you right now, when you come back to me, my offer is going to be 10,000 less and I do not want to hear anything else about it. And then they come back and they say they want the high offers. I am not doing it. Go try to get another offer.
I think that standing by your principles is…, maybe some people think it is jerky, I am running a business. I am running a business. They may be emotional about it, but like, I am running a business, I am an investor and my job is to try to make the most money, turn out the best product. So, it is all part of it. But I think, again, going back to the thing, it is just a mindset of how you want to handle your own business as a person. And it will take you far to adjust your mindset rather than keep adjusting the numbers on a spreadsheet.
Drew Breneman (01:02:12) - Makes a lot of sense. A lot of the difference is what is between your ears.
Jonathan Greene (01:02:17) - I agree.
Drew Breneman (01:02:18) – Awesome! Well, yeah, thanks for, for being on. Appreciate it.
Jonathan Greene - Yeah, man. Appreciate it. Thanks, Drew.
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The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of Drew Breneman and guests as of the date of recording, and do not purport to reflect the views or opinions of Breneman capital LLC and its subsidiaries. Views and opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon or deemed disinvestment or tax advice or an offer to buy or sell securities. The speaker cannot be held responsible for any direct or incidental loss incurred by applying any of the information offered.