Strategies for Building Lasting Relationships

Mike Hambright (00:01.538)
Not a grandfather yet. You’re live. We’re good. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today I’m here with Donovan Ruffin, who’s a DFW local as well. He’s calling me names like Old Guy and stuff like that, so it’s going to be an interesting show. Old Head, big difference. Old Head, OK. That means I’m Yoda-esque, I guess. But anyway, we’re going to talk about, it’s been a challenging couple years here, and we’re going to talk about just challenges, how to navigate those challenging times. think everybody watching this has probably felt it. So we’re going to.

peel back the onion a little bit and talk about it. What’s up? What’s up, Glad to have you here. Yeah, I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, glad to have you. I love doing, by the way, I’ve been podcasting for 13 years. I’ve done probably almost 2,000 podcasts. And you’re probably number like five or six of in-person. Really? We just created the studio. I’ve always just done them online. Oh, cool. And so I love, honestly, for guys like you, when we cross paths, we always have a good conversation. But we don’t cross paths nearly enough. So I’m like, I’m going to find a way to get people to come to me. And here we are. So thanks for coming in.

like we’re both or you’re so like huge and like a big deal right like the view pass or like on stages or behind stages like on my stage or your stage so yeah more events i like go to a lot of times i was talking to somebody else i like i have a bunch of friends here that sometimes we never see each other here but we like go to orlando for an event and like see each other right why don’t we see each other we live like 15 minutes apart but right yeah

So dude, we’re going to talk a little bit about you’ve been in the business for, I think you said about 10 years now, right? But the last five or six years, you really probably put yourself on the map with working hard and building something special. Chasing clout. Yeah. Here I am chasing clout again. Do know what that means? Yeah.

I’m not that old, Oh, I just said you’re old. I just said you’re old-headed. OK. you’re like asking, like, do you know what that means? It’s almost like, uh. I mean, so the audience might not know. Yeah, OK. So what’s Jason Clout? What do you mean? Like marketing. Like, you know, out there, you know.

Mike Hambright (01:58.102)
and the public image. Yeah. Well, you do a lot of JV stuff. that’s like, know, sometimes people do social media for ego reasons. Sometimes they do it because they run ads and that they’re the face of their brand or whatever. And like one way, I mean, I’m the same way. Like I do part of the reason I do podcasts and I’ve been doing it for so long is I get to build relationships with people and see what’s going to, you know, it might just be, Hey, now we know each other. You know, it might be, it was great conversation or it might be like, Hey, let’s find some ways to collaborate or do something together, work together.

Whatever you know I mean I think karma is alive and well, and I think one of the problems with social media is That the relationships are kind of shallow like they don’t they don’t go very deep But that’s that’s one of the reasons I wanted to create the studio is I feel like I can have deeper conversations with people in person Even if we mean well online It’s just not the same is right because you and I hung out for half hour before this and we’ll talk after this Yeah, you know and so it’s it allows us to get to know each other a little bit more. guess yeah, absolutely Yeah, so who are you dude like what’s tell me I’m done man tell?

Tell everybody a little bit about your background. Yeah, so I’m Don. Moved here when I was just a small child, small boy. About 16, knucklehead, right?

middle child yes you’re like crowned black sheep of the family right so entrepreneur early on and you’re telling me little bit about your son it reminded me a little bit how i was when i was a teenager like buying and selling stuff all the time and i just kind of like realized i had like a skill set right like i learned how to sell right

I my big break actually because everything is about timing, right? So I was in the right place at the right time and me and my business partner at the time, we landed an AT &T contract in direct sales to go door to door and business to business.

Mike Hambright (03:46.414)
That’s kind of where I made my first big break. And we have like 10 different sales offices around the country. And just going and talking to every bar and restaurant we could possibly talk to. essentially upgrading people’s services and their establishments of new internet and new direct TV. And AT &T pays pretty well. being a young knucklehead, it’s just like $1 million in my account. like, what am I going to do? Because I’ve traveled all over the place and spent all this crazy money. But it was time to start investing. So it kind of led me to

the real estate game.

one of my buddies, actually sent me a check of what? Like $18,000. And you know, it like one of those kids where it’s just kind of lame, right? So was like not to like shun them or anything, but I was like, he showed you a check of how much he made. Yeah. It was like, if this fucking guy could do this, then I can probably do it way better. Right. So it was just like, that’s kind of what I needed to like really take it like serious and just like get started. Right. did a couple of wholesale deals early on, and then I started doing fixing flips really heavy and sure, you know, you know, fixing flips are,

take a certain amount of, not just emotional toll, but the revolving of It’s a roller coaster. Financial, emotional. Yeah, there’s just a lot of different moving pieces to it.

I mean, it worked at that time just because I had my marketing company and doing fix and flips and just kind of learning how to put the pieces together and operating both. But like anything else, it’s kind of like hard to chase too many rabbits. So I just made a decision to go out real estate about 10 years ago, actually, or not 10 years ago, in 2018. So I was doing it for like three years. And I just made a decision to just go full time. Yeah. Talk about that a little bit, because a lot of entrepreneurs have shiny object syndrome. I’m guilty of it too, right? I’ve got a lot of things going on.

Mike Hambright (05:30.912)
Probably too many things, it used to be it’s a little more methodical now. I it used to just be like There’s a squirrel over there. I’m gonna go chase it. You know yeah, so talk about like because you that I’m sure that was a struggle right I mean if you’re a sale if you have a sales skill if you have sales skills You got the skills to pay the bills and all that stuff right, but it’s easy It’s like well. I could do a lot of things just talk about that like

how to get, share some tips for how to get focused, because a lot of people are all over the place. And I think the last couple years when it’s been tough, it’s even worse, because people are like, this got hard, maybe this is easier. Maybe it is right now, but it won’t be next year. It’s going to get hard too. So just talk about that a little bit. Yeah, I kind of know myself as a person, right? And I just kind of realize I’m like, have my real, God-given skill sets, right? Not even, or develop skill sets, right? So I learned how to sell early on, and then I learned how to build sales teams.

kind of like understanding those two dynamics. I learned marketing too, so that’s kind of why it made sense for me to fall into like the wholesaling industry just because that’s all it is is sales and marketing, And then on top of that, I how to build sales teams, so it just made sense.

Yeah, I like I know really good salespeople and obviously there’s a lot of products that you can sell out there And it just makes the most sense to sell the biggest asset people own. Yeah You know, I’ve said that before like I’ve in many ways fallen out of love with real estate like I like what it’s done for me I like what it does for me and I’m like if this is kind of a little joke at this point I’m like if I could make this much money selling tacos. I’d rather sell tacos. But yeah, I Can’t you know, mean who doesn’t love a taco like it’s like falling out of the real estate. It’s just like

Because I mean I’ve walked so like I’ve done so many fixing flips and walk so many properties and just like the disgust and like being in the field it was just like in traffic and I remember like getting to a point in my business where it’s like I never want to walk a house ever again Yeah, and then I get tired of my own house You know it’s like I remember like vividly like walk it through a property one time and I almost like fell through the floor It wasn’t even slap wholesale a lot of titles like a slap foundation. I was like it’s not a fucking slap because I almost fell through the floor it’s like

Mike Hambright (07:42.464)
Pure and Beam. And I was just like, yeah, I probably shouldn’t have to come to the field anymore, you know? So was just…

And then on top of that, know amount of time it takes to like walk properties. It’s just it’s not AG TV stuff man It’s just no dealing with people with like real emotions and yeah Really tough situations and it’s just like it kind of take a toll on you emotionally. Yeah, if you let it yeah Yeah, it’s just a vehicle. I mean not everybody’s different, but I used to love the transformation That’s why I did so many fix and flips because I love the transformation I loved much money I was making too, but it just turns out that I just love what real estate can do for you and not necessarily

real estate anymore. It’s just at the end of the day it’s just is a widget. I mean my favorite part about you know being in the industry now is like the relationships right it’s just like you know the community and

being around people and building actual connections to genuinely help people and serve each other’s lives. So I think that’s really powerful. Yeah. So it’s been an interesting couple of years, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, I, this was your idea, by the way, to talk about kind of challenges. It’s funny because I had a, I did a podcast earlier today and similar thing. The person said, like, I just want to, let’s just talk about like, you know,

issues I’ve been going through, because I just want to be real. That’s cool. mean, not everybody wants to do that. Well, what I’ve learned, too, especially being back in the limelight chasing clout, I’m kidding.

Mike Hambright (09:06.922)
is like you can’t be naive to the reality of people going through things. So a lot of people get on podcasts and they only talk about the good, good, good and the shiny, shiny, shiny and sell this, buy this type deal and it’s kind of cringy. Especially when you know people personally, it’s just like man, that’s crazy to have it on a podcast. It’s not talking about any challenges at all. I think it’s kind of boring. So I don’t think it serves people to not talk about

Sugarcoat it. mean, that’s that’s unfortunate. That’s how social media largely is. Right. yeah. Except for TikTok. TikTok is pretty story oriented. Right. People going through issues all the time. There’s a lot of story time on there. Like I was watching a TikTok like this guy, this guy is a real estate guy. Right. And

I don’t even know if I should tell the story, but it was public, right? And so he was like walking through this property and there was like a dead body inside of the property. I’m like, maybe you should probably call the police before you get on TikTok alive. You know what I mean? So it’s kind of crazy how the reach of social media these days. yeah, Good, bad, or good, bad, or indifferent. Right.

So let’s talk about some of the challenges, because I think a lot of people are going to feel these things. So we kind of came up with a bunch of basically the areas of your business where you maybe have made some pivots, some lessons learned, some things to not do, whatever that might be. So let’s kind of jump into you. mean, you’ve had a pretty good sized team for a while. You talked about building sales teams, by the way is a great skill, because there’s a lot of people in this business that are really good at sales, but not sales leadership. And unfortunately, a lot of those people get stuck in a high paying job.

if they want to go on vacation or they want to take time off if they get sick or whatever, like business kind of stops. But what are some kind of things that have happened over the past couple years, like lessons learned from a team building standpoint, leadership standpoint?

Mike Hambright (11:00.878)
nice big office. I don’t know what all’s changed, but what are some lessons learned over the past couple years? Yeah, think it was October of 2023. I was kind looking at my business and my income and what was assigned and what was pending. And I was like, holy crap. If we don’t make a decision to change something right now, like today, we’re going to go bankrupt in less than 60 days. Oh, wow.

And so I got my pen and paper and I was like, okay, this is what the business needs, this is what the business doesn’t need, this is what the industry needs, this is what the industry doesn’t need, this is what I need, this is what I don’t need, right? And I was kind of looking at things, was like, I’m very stubborn, I don’t wanna give up anything, right? And I don’t like change, I’m very stubborn, if something’s working, then I just keep to it, even if it doesn’t work, maybe I just work harder. And working my ass off, teams working their ass off, and I was like, this isn’t fair to anybody if we don’t change anything.

Looking at our business model, we changed two key things in our company that helped dramatically for us to be profitable through the storm, per se. For one is we changed our comp plan to all commission. And our hitters in the office were begging, please just put me on all commission. It’s kind of hard to justify just doing it for one person versus everybody because everybody’s on salary, all the sales guys.

And so we made that decision, put everybody on all commission. And then the second thing is, it was just like a clear focus to just focus on the business to business and JVs. Because we were experiencing kind of like, like we were contracting properties like crazy.

all these deals made sense. And I was like, why is nobody buying this deal? And where’s all the buyers at? And what we were experiencing in the market essentially is just we’re selling deals to fix and flippers and people that normally bought properties from us consistently, they’re just flat out of cash. Yeah. They buy a property and then it decreased in value by 30, $40,000. Their net profit margins on purchasing it was that. Right. You know what I mean? Not, I mean, the whole cost and stuff like that. So essentially we just saw like a huge shift of just

Mike Hambright (13:07.17)
cash leaving the market as far as money was harder to get. Money was harder to get. So I was like, man, we got to do something. We have to find people to buy these properties, right?

And I was kind looking at our model. It’s like we needed to hire like 10 people in like a 30 day span to stay alive. And I was like, how can we justify that if we have to pay everybody in salary? And so when we all commission is just like, OK, now we can open the gates. Let’s bring more people on so we can serve our clients and people that are bringing us business and finding people to actually buy these properties. And that’s what we did. Yeah. So do you feel like when you went to all commission, like you did it obviously to.

mitigate some risk, right? You’re like, if they don’t perform, you’re not paying non-performers. mean, that’s a big part of it, Yeah, because I mean, you think about the cycle of the money coming into our business, right? It was like getting spaced out between a lot of people that weren’t performing. Right.

people that were performing, obviously the top 10%, 20 % of the company, they’re looking at the underperformers like, why do you even work here? You know what I mean? So those guys and gals, I guess, do you say gals at your age? Yeah. OK, girls. Old head terminology. You ever catch myself saying, I’m 50, by the way. I’m not like, I’m not really in your 40s. Huh? Yeah. You used to. Round it up. I used to be in my 40s, yeah.

Mark human you still do do not say that because I mean that drop in the comments is this mark? Looks like Rachel Maddow. So I don’t even know that is yeah, you don’t even want to know She’s like a CNN reporter. I don’t want yes. No who does but anyway I’m not telling that’s a lie. So you look like Mark Cuban

Mike Hambright (14:52.526)
Anyway, let’s change the subject. So, you know this is going to be a comedy show. So, I didn’t even know what we were just saying.

I was trying to talk. We were talking about your performers stepped up. Oh, yeah. And the people that didn’t perform went away, I guess, right? Ultimately? No, I mean, obviously, like any sales company is going to have turnover, right? But I mean, we didn’t really see a fact where we had like a bunch of people quit overnight, right? Right. You know, it was a challenging time just because it was different, like because I had go into a meeting and.

Essentially just like change everybody’s pay in one setting and it was like there’s a lot of different emotions going around the office and you know politics and in the company it was just managing that was something I’ve never experienced before right and Learning how to get through that and pivotal to that make everybody feel comfortable and see the positives of you know being able to Be all commission. It actually serves them to I mean in the beneficial, right? And that’s exactly what happened, you know people are obviously nervous when it first happened and then eventually

once they started seeing the commission checks, because they’re obviously a lot bigger, it started to make more sense for them. And they started to get more comfortable and more confident. And they started performing better. We started selling more properties. That’s what Do you feel like there’s always this shift? You were right at the bend, right? you guys contracted to buy properties using yesterday’s numbers, probably, in some instances, right? Where it’s like, that’s not worth that anymore. We’re not going to find somebody to buy that anymore. Maybe the ARV is too high, and people aren’t buying like,

$600,000 houses in Dallas with a median price point like 300 or 350 or whatever it is, right? Some of that, right? Do you feel like your compensation change of being more salaried versus commission got people to take more risks with your money? No, it wasn’t necessarily that. We just needed to find more buyers. We had three people in dispositions in October of 23. Now we have like 25. Oh, wow.

Mike Hambright (16:49.006)
And so, you know, the… So they were just used to selling to the same people in that same relationships. Well, I mean, they can only do so much in a day too, you know? Right. Right. And so, I mean, that’s what changed for us. Yeah. But two years ago, or three years ago before, you…

If you could put it, as soon you put a deal, it was gone. Exactly. Yeah. So I mean, our business was almost opposite, right? We’d have 20 acquisitions and one dispositions. Right. Because it was so hard to find a deal. Knowledge has hit our office like, please buy this, or please take this off my Please help me find a buyer. And we’re here for that. I mean, that’s where we found our angle and our lane to serve the industry. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe talk a little about kind of mindset, just like you as a leader.

and your leadership team, what’s changed over the past couple years? Because a lot of folks probably in your office and this industry haven’t been through a down cycle before, so they only knew up, right? so you got to take a, there’s a little bit of, there’s a lesson there of learning to go through Yeah, I mean, here’s the reality, man. It’s just like, even right now, like I’m…

It sounds doubtful, or it sounds negative when I say this, but it’s just like we’re in a market where you have to work harder, you have to work longer hours, and to make less money. Right? And it was hard for me to get a grasp of that, because it’s just like, why would I even convince myself of that? But I mean, the reality of it is, it was so easy for everybody for a long time. I mean, it was just…

spoiled, you know, and we’re kind of chatting earlier. It’s just like, mean, even in today’s market, it’s still a lot easier than when I first started. Right. So it was just very humbling, you know, to go through a season like this, to kind of realize it’s not always going to be stars and rainbows. It’s not always going to be super easy. But I mean, at end of the day, when the storm is gone, the grass is going to be greener, completely wiped out. Yeah. You know what I mean? It makes you stronger. Yeah. You’ll go through when you go through these lessons, like you’re not afraid of the down. You’re not afraid of the downside.

Mike Hambright (18:50.544)
Because honestly, most people in real estate make money in a down market. Right. Yeah. Honestly, most of the wealth, not necessarily the transactional stuff, but the wealth is typically made during a down market. mean, you kind of it spot on. It’s just kind of like, if everybody’s going this way, there’s obviously going to be opportunity this way. You just got to find what angle it is in a down market. So it’s just like, do you capitalize on a down market?

And just finding what you’re good at, matching it with something, you might not enjoy it, but it’s profitable. It has all your bills. It employees happy. If you think about people that invest in the stock market, there’s nobody that can sit on the sidelines. They can shift to different strategies, stocks to bonds, or whatever. But most real estate investors just know transaction to transaction to transaction. But when you get around people that have been around for a long time,

I mean, a lot of wholesalers can never stop. Because they’re as good as their last transaction. So you’ve got to go through some lessons to learn, like, OK, here’s how we pivot. Here’s how we pivot. Here’s how we shift. When this happens, we do that. you’re just a better business person, ultimately. So I won’t say I’ll have all the answers. But you kind of know.

As long as there’s people and there’s people with people problems in houses, there’s opportunity for us. It’s just a matter of what tool you’re pulling out of the tool belt. Exactly. How can you make somebody’s life better? When people have problems, it’s kind easy to do that if you really think about it from that philosophy. Yeah. This is what I think is going on. mean, this is what most of us are feeling is. I’ve always said, in the real estate market, probably half of the houses that I’ve bought over the years, half of them are

death, divorce, inheritance, the real problems that we know that creates this opportunity. And then roughly half of them are people that just want the convenience. They’re just like, I don’t need all the money. I’ve owned it for a long time. I got all my money out of it. People have all these reasons, but they use us for convenience. But they’re usually moving up. They’re usually moving into another house. And so that seller that’s not getting rid of a house they inherited or a house they don’t need anymore because they already have another house, the convenience people are the ones that the most

Mike Hambright (21:02.83)
come to a screeching halt on because they can’t afford the next house. Because of interest rates or they’re just like well I’m just gonna move in with family or whatever right so I think that that market is what needs to loosen up and that’ll start to create more opportunities for you know guys like us. I mean it’s just it’s an interesting time.

in today’s market, but I think now it’s a little bit more stable. I mean, the drop happened, right? But I feel like learning, getting through it and learning how to adapt in a market like this, it just becomes more consistent. I think it’s just gonna continue to go. It is a timing issue, yeah. So what are you doing, definitely from an acquisition standpoint? You just said you’ve had 20 acquisition people at one point.

I mean, it can’t help but force you to be a little more conservative, maybe, or maybe not. don’t know. What do you and your team do differently from an acquisition standpoint in this market? We do PPL, for direct to seller marketing. But 90 % of our business is like JVs and B2B. I mean, we have a fairly good brand, I would think. It was kind of our mission. It’s just like, if you enter into the space of real estate, you should hear about our company.

And I mean, I kind of like the…

be a little bit confident when I say I’ve probably been doing a pretty good job about getting our brand out there specifically for that purpose, right? Because it was never our mission to just continue to spend $100,000 a month on marketing. We have to kind of diversify at a certain point, right? So if Nike just shuts off all their ads tomorrow, are they still going to make money? Probably. People would just buy based off the brand, right? But obviously, there’s Nike commercials. I mean, do see a phone number at the bottom of a Nike commercial? No. Or an address to a store? What about a website?

Mike Hambright (22:46.264)
Well, it’s kind of intuitive. know what the website is. You see the brand, right? Right. And it’s just kind of like brand awareness. So I started studying a lot of these big brands. And I was like, OK, it kind of makes sense where it’s just like, I started with, like, we buy house designs with a phone number and a name, right? It’s like direct marketing.

And now the marketing that we invest a lot into is a little bit more like brand awareness and where we focus our energy is getting our brand out there so people can come to us to do repeat business. And they trust us because the brand’s there. Yeah. What is the, and then these are generally people that are just, they just value the relationships that you have. Like you obviously are push button, like easy button for Dispo. what are, how would you describe the?

benefits that people have by bringing deals to you and working through you guys? Well, I mean, it’s just kind of, it’s really hard to like be able to sell a deal to you by selling it by yourself as a one person operator or two, two, three person operator. Right. For just like a staff of 30.

It’s really tough. understanding that is just because we have a lot of relationships. Our sales team, do a hell of a job. And full time, all day, they’re looking and hunting for new relationships for people to pay cash for properties. And so the industry sees that and understands that. And that’s why it’s just like, hey, it just makes sense to sell a deal through every cash offer. Yeah, there’s a lot of value in knowing who the mom and pops are that might pay more.

institutional buyers might be and if you have a few friends that

Mike Hambright (24:21.774)
are telling me that some of the hedge funds and institutional buyers are starting to come back, especially in select markets, markets like Texas and stuff like that that are a little more robust. Yeah. I mean, even when they were here, I was still, like with our internal team, it’s just like we probably sold maybe like 2 % to institutional buyers. I mean, there’s a lot of different reasons why. And the biggest one is because I kind of saw ahead of that, OK? It’s like if you guys are just selling to these guys and that’s all you know, what happens when they stop buying? And that’s exactly what

a lot of our competitors, quote unquote, completely got one out of business. Because that was their main clientele. And so because I didn’t allow our team to only focus on that, obviously we still sold to them occasionally, but really building a true skill set to go out there and hunt for somebody that’s wanted to buy a property in no cap. It’s funny as a real estate investor, there’s things that happen, like institutional buyers, you’re like, how do they afford to pay for that? How does that make sense? It really didn’t make sense. I think they just tricked the market. It’s like they came in and bought

like 30 % of the inventory or something. things that happen sometimes and another one is

Mike Hambright (25:30.318)
Shoot, I lost my train of thought. When the government subsidizes, when I started in 08, there were government subsidies for, you could pay for the sellers closing costs and all this stuff. The government was kicking in 3%.

It’s like, oh, I’m kind of an anti-government guy. We won’t get into politics now. But my point is that this is not a political statement. But Kamala Harris is like, well, we’re going to get the cost of housing down. And we’re going to give everybody $25,000 to buy a house. I was like, that is the exact opposite of what’s going to happen. Even if you pay somebody $25,000, the prices are going to go up. That’s how inflation works. You just printed that money out of thin air to do that, right? But it’s like, I hate it politically. But from a real estate perspective, it’s good for me. Somebody told me a story.

actually in New York there was this neighborhood and in this neighborhood I don’t know there’s probably like 10 houses on this block so one by one this family would buy these properties one by one they would I mean didn’t they didn’t matter how like what was whatever they wanted to sell for it they were buying it

They own the entire street. And all of a sudden, when they wanted to sell, there was no comps. So when one sold, when somebody else came in and they sold it at a higher price, all of sudden, now there’s a comp. And so basically what happened is the entire area right there was just completely different. It was transformed. And if you really think about what happened to the market in the past couple years, 30 % of entities bought properties.

and they didn’t sell or resell, they were holding on to them. And then all of sudden the market starts bleeding out.

Mike Hambright (27:15.47)
now they’re coming back. So I don’t know, I guess I have my theories, but I really feel like there’s a…

Yeah. Well, were definitely manipulating, I mean, I would say… They manipulated the market. Illegal, but manipulating the market into like setting high comps and driving up prices in certain areas. Yeah. Like there was no inventory because they were buying it all, which, you know, people were just selling their houses for more. You see what saying? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think the, obviously the correction was definitely needed just because it was really crazy. mean, was, I mean, hood shack houses in Dallas are selling for like 150,000. I’m like, who the hoods got 100,000?

It’s crazy when I see some of the stuff.

Mike Hambright (28:04.302)
When I see some of this stuff, areas that we used to buy houses for 15 grand, 20 grand, those are like.

Yeah, I it’s good if you, especially if you’re holding on to stuff, right? But yeah, just hold on to something here and there and then watch what happens.

Yeah, so let’s talk about your your on a disco side. Like what are you doing? We talked about it a little bit already, but just building deeper relationships with people. Yeah, I mean it will get a property obviously will scout the area to figure out what entities own it but I think most importantly is like we’re seeing like a really really good philosophy that we have where it’s just like we’re looking for people that want to enter into the space to You know just because obviously the inventory that what we’ve learned and as far as past couple years a lot of people have entities that were in the business before

for no longer. So our main business model and disposition was just look for energies and that’s it. But now it’s like, especially with our brand, a lot of people are coming back to the market and want to get into it because they understand the market’s low, so they want come in and buy stuff while it’s low and we’re attracting those customers. Yeah, it’s crazy to say the market’s low, but…

It might be like, I don’t know. I mean, think we’re kind of like talent. Yeah. I mean, we’re probably going to see some probably like another year before we start actually physically seeing statistics before it goes up because, you know, Trump’s back in office and obviously we’ve changed. I don’t expect it to go up immediately. But in due time, I believe 2026, the summertime is going to be crazy in terms of increasing, increasing prices. Yeah, it’s crazy because I think back, if I could go back to 2008 when I started in 2008 to

Mike Hambright (29:40.928)
2012, there were, I don’t know the answer to this, but there were a lot of houses on the market for, you could buy, basically I could go back to that era and buy everything on the MLS at full price under 150,000 and I would look like a genius right now.

Right? But it’s just like, who would pay 150? I just bought a house over there for 40, you know? But it’s like, well, you got to put 40 or 50 into it to get it up to that level. mean, you know, but they’re also, but those houses that were 150 back then are 300, 400 now, right? And so the question is, will we look back 15 years from now and say, man, back in 2025, if we bought everything we could under 400,000.

I mean, to be honest, think my favorite part about real estate, I mean, obviously, just the entire structure of it is it’s worth something right now, right? So if you buy it at the right price at the right time, and you hold onto it in 10 years, you’re not going to lose. Yeah. You know what I mean? That’s the beautiful part. The key is you got to get it to cash flow or at least break even. And I think it wasn’t always this way. When I first started in DFW, I had a mentor that owned a ton of rental properties.

And he was like, you’re never going to get appreciation here in Texas. He’s like, it’s all about cash flow. Now the reality is they’ve never really cash flowed that well. But the appreciation’s been crazy. It’s not really what I expected. And I think the mindset now is things have to make business sense. But there’s a ton of investors out there that just kind of land bank or house bank. I’m just going to ride the appreciation wave. And I need it to break even now. And I’m OK with

just barely breaking even, which sounds crazy, because I’m recovering finance guy. It sounds crazy to me. But the people that do it, they’ve done well. It’s a great long-term strategy. Just park your money in real estate and let it depreciate over time. I am glad that Trump’s in office. I keep saying we’re not going to get political here. But.

Mike Hambright (31:35.0)
think inflation’s not stopping. There’s no way. The dollar’s being destroyed. My cousin taught me this. He said it because I was like, aren’t you worried about inflation? Everything’s so expensive. He’s like, that should be a good thing for your pockets if you know how to work the market. If you hold assets. Anybody that holds assets, could be houses, could be gold. So inflation just means appreciation. Easy math. Everybody’s like, can’t afford it. was like, you got to figure it out.

Cool, man. So you’ve been through some challenges here. So where do you go from here with your business? You made a couple shifts here that we talked about. Where do you see things going over the next couple years? Yeah, mean, obviously we saw some red months in 23. And it was my mission to see only green months, and we did. And we’re not making nowhere close to the net profit as what we used to yet. But we’re profitable. Everybody’s happy, employed. All our bills are paid. And we’re still making profit, right? So now that we have the new foundation at Equity Cash Offer, we’re an expand.

So we opened an office in San Antonio, a physical office, a physical location. Then we’re going to be opening in Houston, Tampa, and Atlanta here in the next few months. obviously we kind of have a working model that’s working for us. So we’re just essentially going to duplicate the same process in different markets. Also, yeah, we found our lane of opportunity and what we’re good at and how we can serve the industry. And we’re just going to run with it.

It always makes, know, and on the JV front, mean, think of Dallas, like eight million people here, right? And I see people, I hate going into the Facebook groups, but I do it sometimes. Like all these real estate groups where it’s often the blind leading the blind. But sometimes you hear people, they’re like, hey, I got my fifth deal for the month or whatever. Like, I’ve never even heard of you. Like, I have no idea who you are. And so there’s a lot, basically there’s a lot of opportunity out there. Sometimes we feel like we know everybody.

Well, I there’s a lot of new blood into the market now, or into our space, actually, because I’ve been doing this for 10 years. And typically, you just see the same faces, constant events and stuff like that. Where do the events go? Do you still do events? All my masterminds in them. Events are tough. Are you still doing your We’re starting back up. We’re doing workshops. are good events. You do that to build relationships, right? Yeah. And brand awareness, to put people on. But yeah, mean, our last class, our last workshop,

Mike Hambright (33:54.112)
I didn’t know anybody in there. Everybody was young too, or not everybody, but I mean there’s kids in there like 18, 20 years old. I’m like, holy crap, you’re like 10 years old when I got into this space. You’re looking at me like I’m an old head. Yeah. It’s like, well, I guess I got gray hair now. How old are you now? I’m 30.

30. You’re a little ways away from gray hair probably. No, I have gray hair. Oh, you do? Yeah. Okay. That’s not as prominent as mine. Yeah, when you’re solving problems, well, you’ve solved a lot more problems than that’s what it means. Yeah. You got a lot of wisdom. more arrow wounds in my back than Yeah. Well, you got to give it up. You got to give it up for folks that’s been in the space a while. lot of people don’t make it. Yeah.

I mean, people can be really good in our space. like I’ve seen it so many times, where people just completely nuke their entire existence because it’s a relationship business. And they just destroy their brand just by being greedy or something. Or obviously, it gets too challenging. They’ve got to feed their family, go into different space, and just lose interest, lose love.

You know, it’s interesting to see like the real players, because I made a commitment to be in this industry forever. So was just trying to find our lane and continue to adapt and stuff like that. Markets like this make you stronger to be able to ride the ups and downs. And the downs suck, but you can’t have the ups unless you have the downs. That’s right.

But it’s like, you know, it’s like, I mean, I’m a believer, right? So I was like, why is this happening? God, like, you know, like, please give me some like direction or answers. And then I finally like woke up one day and he’s like, hey son, you know, I’m challenging you right now because I’m testing you for more.

Mike Hambright (35:32.386)
like he’s trusting me with more opportunity. And it’s not like it’s a God given test or testimony, but it’s like, know, if you’re experiencing a tough time right now, you gotta kind of look at obviously all the positives behind it, but the strength that you’re gonna endure through this is the strength that you’re gonna need to conquer even when you have more. Yeah. Right. And that’s the beautiful thing about challenges, especially down markets, because everybody has issues. But I mean, you’ll get to a point where I reached a point too,

just like, man, I don’t have anybody to call to help me solve this. That’s why you should be an investor fuel, dude. Yeah, right? And it’s just like, the connections, like, I don’t know who could help me with this issue. And then you start solving it and trying to figure it out. And then you figure it out, and it clicks. And then now every time somebody else has an issue, who do they go to?

So there’s a lot of leadership that’s developed in struggles and pain and down markets. And so you got to kind of see that as a long-term perspective of gaining real skill sets to prepare you for what’s to come. Yeah, no doubt. mean, a lot of people don’t do things. They never dive into something because they’re afraid to fail. But once you get over, like, I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail a whole bunch. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be a failure. It’s not final. Am I going to get knocked down a bunch? Yeah. If I were to go get in

I’m do something that I’ve never done before like Jiu Jitsu. I’m gonna fail every day. Like I’m gonna get beat up, I’m gonna be sore for years if I stick with it. then eventually, mean months, I don’t know. And then eventually I’m gonna be like, man I can’t believe how strong I am or I can’t believe how I overcame that or.

Or I could beat everybody’s ass now. Yeah. But that’s how the business world is too. You gotta get beat up a little bit. You gotta get punched in the mouth. Yeah. Like you don’t appreciate the good time. mean, whenever you… it’s like I always… on the coaching side, whenever I people that like got a really good profitable deal early on, I’m like, nah, that’s a bad thing. Like I’m happy for them.

Mike Hambright (37:30.222)
But they think it’s easy. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like, agree with you. You you got to go through some pain. Right. Because you don’t appreciate the good stuff. And that’s what I’m realizing right now. It’s like the people entering into our space right now, they don’t realize how, if we look at challenges, right, this is going to be the hardest season in the business.

And so getting started in the business right now and being able to see success, imagine when the market’s better. Yeah. You know? It’d be unstoppable. Versus like, hey, you started when the market was so easy. They’re gone. Right. You know what I mean? Kind of reminds me of that baseball philosophy. I don’t know if you watch baseball, but sometimes you’ll watch them before they go up to bat and they have like two bats in their hand or like weights at the end of the bat. So by the time they get to the plate, it’s easier to swing. They start hitting home runs. That’s how it was in 2008. So everybody was running away and I was running in.

I had no idea what I was doing and in hindsight now people know that was the best time to get in but at the time I promise you like Everybody thought we were idiots like they just thought what are you doing? I didn’t know I mean, didn’t know what it’s like I mean you like everybody like the buzzword real estate right the buzzword real estate

It was like sexy. It’s not like sexy right now. Like all you’re in real estate, it’s like, you doing? You doing OK? How you doing, buddy? But most people think, the media said it’s a bad time. So therefore, most people have no idea. And by the way, a lot people that don’t, what’s that? I people do. I mean, for example, case study. If you’re watching this, you know two people personally that has called you for a loan, that is going through some really tough financial situations right now.

And that didn’t happen previously. At least two three people. But there’ll be people that have been thinking about getting started. yeah. And they’re going to wait until it’s really good again, right before the next downturn. Yeah. Good luck. So like you said, this is the time to get started. if you can make it now and you can build your skills up now, like when

Mike Hambright (39:30.478)
Like summer of 2020, like starting now, building your skillset, figuring it out and building momentum and getting your business in motion. I mean, by summer of 2026, like you can’t just start like before the summer. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, there’s just a lot of opportunities. mean, even looking at deals, I’m like, wow. Like, it’s so it’s crazy. Like, mean, like yesterday we picked up, I don’t know.

six or seven properties. And I was looking at inventory. I’m like, these are, these houses are brand new, like 2024. Wow. With like $150,000 in equity. Wow. Are they like builder closeout type stuff or who knows? Somebody just needs, can’t afford the payments anymore. They want to leave, you know, and it’s yeah. mean, newer build communities are, it’s hard to sell. Well, 24, they might not have a great industry that might, but like the problem is, like taxes are going through the roof. Insurance is going through the

that can afford their principal payment but they can’t afford the interest in taxes are like going out of control right now. Yeah my taxes like $40,000 a year I’m like what the heck. So now I’m gonna get a ranch like you.

So there’s one for sale right across the street. Come out. We don’t want to be neighbors with you, Mike. We don’t want to be neighbors. We’re far enough apart we don’t see each other that often. So there’s this philosophy that somebody’s told me it’s like you’re not a man until you own some land. OK. And they aren’t making it anymore. That’s what I Yeah. So God said he’s not making any more land, right? So why aren’t we buying land? You can. It’s out there.

I just interviewed Brent Bowers. He’s a land shark. He’s a land shark. There’s a lot of opportunities. You see vacant land, it’s like, no building, no structure. I I traveled a lot too. I’ve seen different ways of life and different cultures. And I remember specifically going to China. And I’ll probably never go back to China. But the way of life there, man, it’s just like, wow.

Mike Hambright (41:35.854)
communist country, everything is packed, buildings everywhere. Obviously it’s not the cleanest place either, but you come back and you’re just blessed to be an American. I’ve traveled to even New York. Have you been to New York? Yeah, of course. There’s no grass there. It’s like all cement and…

No sunlight either. There’s like buildings everywhere. I’m like, how depressing. This feels like Gotham City. And I’m like moving back text. I’m like, so blessed to be a Texan. You know what I mean? And sometimes it’s what it takes. You just got to experience different seasons and experience different ways of life to appreciate what you have or understand what you’re capable of doing. So yeah. Yeah, I was talking to somebody recently. It’s like everything you do, you were meant for something bigger.

So step up, Right. I mean, I mean, like even like operators, like, like a lot of people who like come to me and they want to just like model exactly what we do and, and, or what I do or whatever. And it’s just not built for everybody. Yeah, for sure. It’s really not.

And I say that in the kindest heart, it’s just like, I mean, it’s built for some people, but like, I mean, the reality of it is like, for example, like people within our organization, at our company, it’s just like, man, like for example, like, you know, one of our acquisition guys made like $30,000 last month.

I’m like, that is so cool to see. And I remember, I’m not gonna throw him under the bus, I’m not gonna say his name, but I was like, approached him one time and I was like, hey man, you think you’re ready for more responsibilities? You wanna manage people or what more do you want? He’s like, I’m running right now and I wanna stay focused.

Mike Hambright (43:21.678)
And he kind of denied that promotion just because he just wanted to stick to that and that’s what made him happy. He lives a great life. Kids are going off to school and just crushing it.

And so I say this is just like, find your lane and keep running that lane. Find your tribe and stick with that tribe and stick with them by any means necessary. But I think most importantly, it’s just like have long term perspective and goals of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and the long term benefits towards it. Yeah. Real estate, time and time.

the vantage point of time. mean, you build wealth over time, right? And the truth is, is I just said this to you.

I think I was talking to my son yesterday, who’s, again, 17, is like, the best businesses are boring businesses. You don’t want drama in your business. You don’t want HGTV where your contractor’s throwing a hammer through a window. You just want boring stuff. so build a boring business. Yeah. mean, here’s the reality. It’s just like, there’s no way to wealth when you’re broke.

Mike Hambright (44:35.968)
Well, have to, I mean, you have to have, this is what I believe, you have to have active income to build passive income. That’s right. Like a lot of people want to just, I just want to a bunch of rentals. It’s like, well, how are you going to pay for them? Exactly. How are going to pay for marketing to find them, acquisitions? Like you’ve got to find those things. I that’s why I wish I had more rentals, I didn’t, know, hindsight, I wish I had kept more. But at the time I just, my rentals were a byproduct of my active business. was fixing, flipping, wholesaling, doing all that stuff.

needed to do that to find the rentals. And I had to pay for an office. I had to pay for marketing. I had to pay for those things. Unless you’re independently wealthy, or you’ve got some other business that throws off a lot of cash. I don’t know how you build. You can’t build wealth. We’re off on all sorts of tangents here. that is why the rich get richer. It’s because they have assets. They can weather storms. so by the way, even the philosopher said, I can just use somebody else’s money.

So how are going to pay him back? But get a bunch of bank loans like that. I can’t stand the term financial literacy. I cannot. It’s so cringy. Like, why can’t we just encourage people to just get money? Financial literacy. Can we just change that? How about you go get your bread up, you know? Yeah. If we can change it to the Gulf of America, we can change that. We can do anything. Right. That’s right. Yeah.

Cool, man. Hey, if folks want to learn more about you, if they want to JV with you on deals or more about your company, where do they go? Yeah, mean, equitycashover.com, something there. I mean, obviously you can find us on social media too. Equity Cash TikTok, apparently, right? Yeah, actually I told our media guy, was like, bro, I haven’t seen a TikTok in some months. And he was like, we’re getting a post on there. I’m like, wow. I’m missing the wave. But it’s crazy. TikTok is insane. I actually did a speaking event. was a.

was at a Harley Davidson in Fort Worth a few months ago and I was walking in and I was like, what? Where am I? I’ve never been to a Harley Davidson before, right? And I see these two skinhead white dudes looking at me. was like, holy shit, I’m about to get new, I’m about to get hung, you know? And I walk in and I do the speaking event upstairs and he’s like, I’m like, how’d you like it? He’s like, hey, I saw you on TikTok. And I’m like, what do mean TikTok?

Mike Hambright (46:58.862)
Yeah, like my friend showed me like a video we weren’t on tick-tock and it’s like crazy like, you know I did like a speaking event years ago and it like resurfaced on tick-tock and it’s just like the reach of that is crazy. Yeah Well, for joining me today for sure. Good to see you Wish you all the best definitely gotta Stay in touch. gotta talk more often. Absolutely, man. However, I can help you So how I mean how can folks get a hold of you? They just watch this podcast

InvestorFuel.com, you can go to InvestorFuel.com. I like the studio, it’s nice.

Yeah. Everybody, Donovan’s a great guy. He’s been around for long enough to weather some storms. And if you’re looking for somebody to work with and help display your deals, you should definitely check him out. So appreciate you guys joining us today. I think one of the lessons from today, besides this turning into a brief comedy show here and there, is that there’s ups and downs in this business. At the end of the day, you have to make sure that you don’t quit if you fail. If you fall down, you got to get up. I that is what makes an entrepreneur. So I appreciate you guys for joining us today.

Have a great, I am not Mark Cuban, I am Mike Wait, I got one last joke. you don’t got money right now, you gotta be funny. Say that again? You don’t have money, you can be funny. Okay. Right? So if you’re broke, all you gotta do is tell jokes. And people will put money in your sack or what? No, it’s just… You gotta bring something to the table. That’s true. One last lesson is if you don’t have money, you gotta be funny. So, appreciate you guys. We’ll see you on the next show.