From Homeless to the 1%: How Blayne Rush Built Wealth Through Real Estate Investing

Blayne (00:00)
I want to be… I’m open to being…

to an extent, for being two or four people that I never had. I mean, I didn’t know where to turn. I didn’t have time. I’m sitting there trying to, in my mind, I’m trying to survive. I didn’t realize how much money I was making. Why? Because I just had my head down. I didn’t have a money goal. I didn’t have any of these goals. My goal was to maximize every moment.

that I was not sleeping.

Cody Crabb (01:36)
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Cody Crabb with Investor Fuel. And today I’m joined by Blayne Rush out of Dallas. Blayne is the owner of Rush Homes, among other things. But what really stuck out to me is Blayne’s story. We chatted a little bit before this and

He told me that ⁓ at one point he was homeless. He labeled as learning disabled. He was told he’s never gonna be able to do an awesome career. You’re gonna have to go get in the trades and stuff. And he went from that to building what he has today. And I’d love to talk more about that, how he’s done what he did, ⁓ and also where investors leave money on the table, especially with taxes and what it kind of looks like to do some of the transitions that he’s doing. Blayne, so glad to have you on today. Thanks so much for joining us.

Blayne (02:19)
Thank you, Cody. I appreciate you guys taking the time to chat today.

Cody Crabb (02:23)
Of course, yeah. So let’s, I love diving in with the intro with kind of your backstory. But in your case specifically, I’m curious, can you give us kind of a snapshot of Blayne in this kind of environment where before everything changed for you, what did your life look like? You said you were homeless at one point. I’d love to kind of just get a mental picture of what it was like before.

Blayne (02:41)
Yeah, so, yeah.

Yeah, so I grew up in Louisiana. My mom came to the States when she was 10. My dad was an orphan. didn’t finish. He hadn’t even finished the ninth grade and we grew up in a 40 foot trailer on a gravel road and we in grade school. I was labeled as a learning disabled kid, you know, interesting. So there’s a little story. I think a lot of people at least our age look back and say, hey, we have these 20

spelling words that we had to take, right? So you have these spelling tests and there’s 20 words. Well, they said, or the teacher, if I got 10 of them right, I got 100. So it was close to 50%. And, you know, so that’s what they thought of me back then. And so I went through that and, you know, we struggled and whatever, government cheese, free lunch, kid, all that type of stuff. And then

Cody Crabb (03:29)
Wow.

Gotcha, yeah.

Blayne (03:42)
I was high school football player and I was pretty good. And so I was able to go to college based off of a scholarship.

Cody Crabb (03:53)
⁓ okay. Yeah.

Blayne (03:54)
And then

so later on, I struggled to find where I belong. And I kept getting education. So I ended up with two master’s degrees at this point in time. And I was 30 years old and broke. I had nothing. I was $5 broke at 30 years old.

Cody Crabb (04:12)
So okay, so this is the, I feel like we’re about to hit a moment of change here. So I’m guessing this is the point where real estate entered the picture. Is that right?

Blayne (04:20)
Yeah, so what’s interesting is, so I’m looking at, I moved to Dallas because of Dallas, meaning the opportunity, young professionals and that type of stuff. And, you know, what’s the world? It’s closest thing to Louisiana or where I was in Lake Charles, Louisiana. And so I move over here. I’m in an operations role and I’m not an operator. And people that are in corporate and in those environments understand what that is.

I’m more aggressive and more rigid and all that type of stuff. And so that didn’t last. And I’m like, what the hell am I gonna do? So I finished my MBA here in Dallas and then my buddy is selling this meat door to door. And I’m talking to guy with the pickup truck knocking on doors. Here I am with two master’s degree. I gotta do something. So I’m looking.

and I had two job opportunities. One was in Richmond, Virginia. And you’re talking to a guy that grew up outside of a town that had less than 60,000 people.

Cody Crabb (06:11)
And that was the bustling hub there. You lived outside of that.

Blayne (06:14)
Yes. I lived outside of

that in the country, right? So I’m looking at the map. So I have this opportunity in Richmond, Virginia, some vice president’s job, some preventive medicine, because that was my background. And I had this opportunity in Iowa to be like a COO of some clinics, some primary care clinics in rural areas.

that type of stuff. And I’m looking at this map and I start crying. I’m like, I can’t do this. You know, that’s a long way. You know, I barely made it. I barely made it up I-35 to get to Dallas. I was scared as shit, man. I’ve never been on a road that big and that fast and whatever. So I’m like, I can’t do this. I’m not moving again. So I start selling this meat door to door. And so I’m doing that. I knock on this door. It’s an older lady. You know, I don’t know, 60.

whatever she, you know, she had some more arthritis with her wall funding. And I had already been reading a lot of real estate investing books, just soaking in like a sponge, keeping ⁓ amazon.com in business.

Cody Crabb (07:18)
just saw the opportunity

and we’re kind of like I should get some of this in here and yeah.

Blayne (07:21)
Yeah, because it’s

like the way I looked at it, it’s the way that a poor guy can become wealthy. Right. And so I beat knock on this lady’s door. She buys some meat and we’re talking. And she tells me that she’s a real estate investor. I’m like, I said, oh, really? So I perk up. And she had like three houses. Right. And and back then, these HUD houses repose.

They had a single key for all the house. They were all keyed the same. So she had some real estate agent had given her a key. And so she had a key to these houses. She said, Hey, you go find houses, whatnot, and you drive and I’ll go with you. Right. And so I go get on the computer research and, and whatever I find a couple of houses, I don’t remember, but I found this house. And so we go look at it and, it’s a nice house. said, you’re going to buy it.

And then, you know, it’s that psychology. You’re going to buy this. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, I ain’t buying this. I don’t know what, you know. And she said, then the reverse psychology said, you’re going to buy it or I’m going to buy it. I’m like, okay, I’m going to buy it. I’m selling meat door to door. I have a couple of master’s degrees, but what the hell do I have?

I’d been dating this lady, this gal, whatever, for a few months. She was the opposite of me, meaning very well grounded, had a great job. I come to find out at that time like 80,000 or 401k. I’d never seen 80,000. I didn’t know what the hell 80,000. I’m like, what the hell? That’s like rich. She ⁓ has a dot-com job. She’s making six figures back.

Cody Crabb (08:51)
Yeah

Yeah.

Blayne (09:00)
then like in 2001. ⁓ She had just bought a house. I’m talking to her and we’re three months in, two months in, something like that. I talked to her about this house, this and that. She agrees to buy it with me because I couldn’t buy it otherwise. I couldn’t qualify. We bought it at 10 % interest. 10%. Everybody crying about the interest rate? I bought that sum of a at 10%.

Cody Crabb (09:02)
That’s saying something, yeah.

Yeah, that may be one of the bigger ones I’ve ever heard, honestly. That’s why.

Blayne (09:31)
Right.

Well, because I was on it anyway, so we’re both on it and I buy it and I ended up moving in with her, we ended up getting married and all that stuff too later on. But so I move in and then I try to go get this job. I was a headhunter and it was was 100 % commission. And anyway, that house was cash for $400 a month. So my note was

principal interest tax and insurance was a thousand bucks, right? Easy round math. I don’t know. And I was getting like $1,450 a month. So it’s cash flowing. And so I’m at this commission only job. I’m working 80, 90 hours a week, getting paid in minimal wage, whatever that was, seven bucks back then for 40 hours. so that $450 a month saved me.

So there was a couple of years that I did not buy any house. I’m trying to get established because it took me nine months to, ⁓ to catch any ground. And here’s a point I’ll make for a side note is that I was packing my shit at that company. It wasn’t working for me. I’m sitting there saying, ⁓ my soul was broken because dude, I was working 80 hours a week, if not a hundred at that point in time. And

It just wasn’t catching, just wasn’t going. Well, this young kid walks by and he says, hey, you’re to be rich one day. And I’m like, what the fuck are you talking about? Literally, what the fuck are you talking about? And he said, dude, you do what no one else can do. You just grind. And I’m like, damn, I’m going do it one more time. So I put my shit back and I start pilling the phone again and it hits.

And I just keep going. It hits. It hits. It hits. So I go from nothing, making nothing, 15 grand, if that, on that minimum wage, to making $25,000 commission check, 17,000. Made 250 in six months, the last six months of that year. And I just start putting it in real estate. Then I hit 300, 350, 400, 500.

In that space, I went all the way up to a million and a half, but I act like I was broke. Everybody around me, because I was driving this car, so I’m making, at that point in time, it was about a half million dollars. I’m driving a van. No, that time I was driving the same car that I had showed up in. I had a make-o paint job, literally, 199 make-o paint job.

on it, no air conditioner. And I’m making a half million dollars more, the tops of even that firm, and that firm is well regarded nationally, et cetera, et cetera. And one guy said, hey, when are you going to buy a new car? I’m looking at that shit. I said, dude, you know why I drive this car? Because I can’t. So I broke and just piled it in real estate, and I was buying one house at a time. OK.

and I was buying them all on the HUD repo and I figured out the formula and I’ll go, let me take a step back because this is important, is that after that first house that I bought, that agent had done nothing other than fill out the agreement, didn’t show the house, do anything and she got paid five grand. And to me, I’m like, gosh, damn, five grand. That’s like a ton of money, right?

Cody Crabb (13:29)
and you’re grinding how many hours of this job like and you’re like I could just

Blayne (13:32)
Well, that’s just before this is when I was beaten

selling the meat door to door. this is the.

Cody Crabb (13:36)
I know, I’m just saying

like, this is like, yeah, that mindset of like, that’s not even anything. Like, you know what I mean? You did so much less work for this.

Blayne (13:43)
She

didn’t do anything. And so I’m like, I’m not paying these damn people again. So I go get a real estate agent’s license. And so now I can submit at one o’clock in these offers, one o’clock in the morning in my underwear. And one tidbit, they make you put an earnest money check and send it in. Well, I had Xerox copy that I use the same damn money orders.

that I used for five years because I’d send them in. And the way I did that is that, I would look online, because I’m working at this job, right? And I’m working my ass off at that job. So fast forward, but I’m online. So I’m looking at these, and I have multiple monitors up. I’m looking at these houses. And then I go look at everything that I can find online and on paper, right? Then I’d submit the bid.

And I would only compete against me, meaning I had worked it down to a science where I knew the exact minimum dollar that they would accept because I’d worked that bid over and over because I have an agent’s license, right? So I have direct access to it. So I kept on trying to work that bid and get it all the way down, all the way down where they would reject it. No, houses that no one else bought. So they didn’t sale, but my bid got rejected. So I found it.

Cody Crabb (15:30)
Hmm.

Blayne (15:47)
I found the minimum. And so my mindset was four bedroom, uh, 2000 square foot, a hundred thousand give or take. Right. So I bought some higher, bought some lower, but that was the target. And so, you know, a lot of these books at that time, because I’d read, I had no mentors. had no one, right? It was just me, some books and against the world, conceptually. Right. And so I’m sitting there looking at, and most of these books say, Hey, go

see a hundred properties, offer 10 by one, right? Some formula like that, all bullshit. And what I did is I would make offers before I ever saw the house. I would have to secure the house because I don’t have time, right? I’m working my ass off over here, so I don’t have time. So I’m doing all the research and once I got it under control, meaning I won the bid, right? It’s in my control.

Cody Crabb (16:28)
Yeah.

Blayne (16:39)
I’d go look at the house then. if I, so what they would do is you send, they’d give you like 72 hours to get the contract to them. Right? So had the fact back then you had to fax it to them. And so you’d fax it to them with the money order and that type of stuff and send it to them. Well, I see you using the same damn monitor. I just pull a copy out and Xerox. So, uh, so I’d go look at the house and if I like it, I would

send it in. If I didn’t like it, I just wouldn’t send it in.

Cody Crabb (17:11)
Yes,

that’s, mean, you’re basically doing the same thing. You’re switching the order around, but you’re saving yourself so much time because you’re just essentially just seeing properties that you already have a pretty good chance at.

Blayne (17:21)
No, I already controlled it. Right. Yeah. There’s not a pretty good chance that’s me. Right. Yeah, exactly. So there’s some that I let go one, you know, at cat piss and stuff like that, you know, all the sheetrock that I’m like, this is on no way. And the houses were 18 months or less old. And that’s a key point for early newer investors. I never bought old houses because remember, I don’t have time. Right.

Cody Crabb (17:23)
Well, that’s what I mean there. You basically are gonna get it if you, yeah, yeah, you’re gonna get it if you like it, yeah.

Blayne (17:49)
I had money, but no time. money coming in. All right. And so I bought all these houses on my W-2. That’s how I did it. All those houses at that time on my W-2. because I had no debt to income, I had no debt because I was living like I was broke. Right. And my first house that I bought was an investment property. You know, I’ve been living with roommates, but anyway,

So I’m buying all these houses and I have no time. And so I got to just figure out how to handle that. And the newer houses, they have less maintenance. So I’d go in those houses. I got a picture somewhere. I did all the turnaround. I’d go in those houses. And for a house that was a year old, whatever, because a lot of the houses I bought was these interest only loans that they couldn’t pay when the shit shift.

And I’d go in there and paint them myself, clean them up, do all that stuff. at the time, Star, my wife at the time, we’re still like best friends and she’s still involved in all that stuff. so anyway, she would do some of the cleaning. She only did that for like three houses. That’s to be, you know, I I think we had a kid and all that stuff. So I said, hey, you know, anyway, so I’d go and paint it. But what I would use

Cody Crabb (18:59)
Sure, yeah, sure.

Blayne (19:02)
is a nine volt. So they had nine volt batteries and this pump roller. I’d turn it all the way up and put it in and I’d hang it and I would just roll, just roll, just fucking go. So I was turning that house around in 24 hours, paint the whole damn thing because I would just sleep there if I had to clean it up, do whatever need because they’re not that they didn’t need a lot. They just needed some ⁓

Cody Crabb (19:21)
Wow. Yeah.

Blayne (19:27)
really cosmetic. know people stretch these wholesalers and whatever stretch with cosmetic. No, it was just some paint and clean the carpet. Sometimes I clean the carpets way back then. But then I started buying two at a time. know, closing two at the same closing table. And I’d have to turn both of those sumbitches around. So I’m working five days, get off at, I’d leave at five just because I had to go, I’d go close at five, go straight to those houses. I was

Back then I had this Ford Thunderbird. It was packed full of shit other than the seat I was driving in. It was packed. I had a lawnmower that I had unfolded, you know, it was in the trunk, all this in a Ford Thunderbird with a make-o paint job and no air conditioner. And I’m going out there, getting them turned around. You know, I could have probably hired people, but I’m looking at, because where I came from, I’m looking at

Well, at that time they wanted $25 an hour, know, the handyman or whatever. I’m like, shit, I’m just going to do it. So I did it. I did most of it. And I just kept doing it and doing it doing it. And you just go and go and go. And at one point I’m like, man, when are they going to start? When are they going to tell me no? Right. They just kept giving me fucking how to just keep approving the mortgages. I’m like, man, this is too much.

I’m going to take on too much. In hindsight, it should have bought more, right? Because I was buying these things for $100,000, and now they’re knocking on $400,000.

Cody Crabb (20:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and also doing everything yourself. mean, there’s also a lesson in there of like, you’d have been able to expand a little more, know, get some help in there and that could have been huge if you’d been able to do that at the time.

Blayne (21:04)
That’s

an Achilles heel that I steal and I don’t know if that’s my growing up and fuck them, I’ll do it myself. So that’s been an Achilles heel probably when I look back on what I’ve done. No one’s gonna feel sorry for me because I’m doing well now. But yeah, if I look back and say,

Cody Crabb (21:14)
Yeah.

Blayne (21:26)
what’s your, where was Achille Hill? It’s probably there.

Cody Crabb (21:28)
Gotcha. Okay, so you’re in the thick of it. Now, I wanna transition to the modern day, To today. What does it look like now? Now in your business? What sort of portfolio are you looking at in plain numbers? I’m curious, how many single family homes do you still own?

Blayne (21:45)
Yeah, I 26 single family homes. I have about 80 parcels of land. I started. So about five years ago, I said, hey, something’s got to change or I’m going to kill myself. And I’m not talking about, you know, often myself on a live and I’m saying just drive yourself where you’re freaking crazy and breaking. And so I stopped doing the investment banking and I was a CEO. So I’d go into these turnarounds when these health care groups

Cody Crabb (22:02)
Yeah, into the ground, yeah.

Blayne (22:13)
They were going bankruptcy or hyper growth. And I come in as a CEO and turned them around. And that’s a grueling process, especially when they have no money, because I take on the CFO’s role, the CEO’s role, the chief legal officer, the COO’s role, the whole thing. I’d sleep in the freaking offices. And so I just like, I can’t do this more. And I wanted more, more out of life. I’m like, is this it?

So I’ve been grinding, working 100, 120 hours for close to 20 years. And before that, I’d been struggling and going to school and just trying to find out where I belong in this world. And I’m like, man, this can’t be all of it. And then I have kids and I was absent. Their mother raised them. I was home.

I went to all their sporting events and that type of stuff, but some of the light bulbs go off and say, my daughter said, hey, I don’t know him. And I’m like, mom said that, that daughter said that. And I’m like, ⁓ shit. Yeah, that was an eye opener. And then my son’s gone from a boy to a man and I’m in Austin, Texas, sleeping on the floor working, saving other people’s kids.

Cody Crabb (23:22)
Gut punch, yeah.

Blayne (23:30)
is what hit me. I’m over here, I’m making good money, making a shitload of money, you know, and I’m like, man, you’ve done enough, right? So now it’s time to switch. So I switch and I come back and take a little time off to mental health time, if you will, right? Then my buddy, and he’s the one that always came. So this guy, Chad Barham in Houston, we played football together.

Cody Crabb (23:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Blayne (23:55)
And he’s the one that came all these executions. He came up with the ideas. His problem is he can’t execute and stay on task. Right. So he’d come up. He even came up with the real estate stuff. was, uh, he brought that up and I kept studying and studying it. And I actually put it into practice, right? Because there’s the three most important things in all of this is execution, execution, execution, right? You can have a million ideas, but they’re dime a dozen. And, um, so anyway,

Cody Crabb (24:20)
Hmm. Yeah.

Blayne (24:24)
He was buying these land for, buying land for, ⁓ these smaller builders, right? That would go and infill lots and that type of stuff. So he’s sitting there, you know, going 90 to nothing, it’s going to do that. And why had cash, you know, sitting there and, and he was, he would take them, get them on the contract and then assign them to the, ⁓ to the builder, right. And the builder closed and he’d get a chunk five grand.

I don’t know what it was. And so I started buying land, but with my cash. And here’s interesting. And I obviously know how to research. I have two masters, almost a third. And I’ve been in research business, all that, meaning everything I had to do, understanding contracts, as an investment banker, et cetera, et cetera. And so I’m researching all this. And I find a couple of subdivisions that, and these are resorts.

type developments. they have high, so there’s a lot of empty lots out there. And the same developer had them, they had the same CCNRs, the decorations, right? And so I’m reading through this, I’m looking at all this stuff, and I start buying these lots for a dollar and $5. Here was the key. What I found was that

once you get to five lots or more, it’s only a dollar for the POA fees. So everybody else is paying $1,500. I’m just rounding these numbers. I don’t know the exact numbers, right? So I’ll go out and start buying these lots because people had owned them for 30, 40 years. People had paid $50,000 for some lots in a resort that has golf, has two golf courses, tennis.

restaurants, condos, hotels, all this type of stuff. Well, I’m getting these damn lots for essentially free. I’m doing all the closing myself. I do all the paperwork. I close boom, boom, boom. And I’m like, shit. So I just, so I probably got 60 of those. And then I’ve started buying, you know, bigger piece of land, fine. And I’m just gonna say it. I’m a

real estate agent, realtor, whatever, but the bar is low for that profession, for the profession, the bar is low, right? And so I’d go negotiate, people would have agents that I bought some land, they have a listed for 300, I get it for 100. You know, and then I started buying other land that wasn’t for sale. I’d go direct to them, but I’d buy it myself. Most of the people that do this stuff, they want to turn around and flip it. No.

Cody Crabb (26:55)
you

Blayne (26:58)
or they want to wholesale it, get it under contract and then go sell it. No, I buy it myself cash. So I started going looking and started just targeting and bombarding areas and buying the land myself and just holding on to it and get it for a substantial discount. Some people didn’t even know where the land was because they had inherited it. And I bought some land in Little Lamb, Texas.

Probably 15 years ago. And I paid four grand for one lot and I paid five grand for the lot next to it. Well, I sold those lots here about two years ago for a hundred grand.

you know, land appreciates much more aggressively than single-family homes. But the challenge is that it eats money, right? If you rent out in income-producing houses, it pays you. And the worst-case scenario, you have to supplement it $100 to $200 a month, right? Well, land, it’s typically not income-producing, but you still have taxes. Sometimes you have HOA fees, that type of stuff. So it eats money.

Cody Crabb (27:44)
Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah.

Blayne (28:06)
So you got to get it. You got to have money to be able to play that game. Right. And so I’m in the position now where I can play that game.

Cody Crabb (28:10)
Gotcha.

Gotcha, okay, so this is really great. We’re winding down a little bit. I just have a couple more questions for you. ⁓ One of them is, have you gotten any better at, you said this is your Achilles heel. Have you gotten any better at outsourcing and bringing in help and things like that? Because you said you’re very hands-on, which makes me think you maybe haven’t.

Blayne (28:31)
I have not. And

I wish, cause that’s how I’m going to get out. so right now I am updating all these properties. You know, I them with linoleum flooring, I them with FAMICA countertops and that’s not entry level housing to people now. You know, today’s society, you know, they want hard floors and granite countertops, stainless steel, whatever. I’ve…

improved a lot of that type of stuff one time. And some of it was there was a big hail storm that bombarded, I’m talking softball size, and it went through the roof into the house. Well, I GC’d all that, got all that insurance money, and I went from linoleum floors to actual hand-scraped custom wood floors, granite countertops, all that type of stuff, because I put all that money, all the overhead.

back into the property and it was all insurance money, right? And so I’ve done that, but that’s what I’m doing now, preparing to sell, hopefully, depending on what happens in DC, that investors can still buy, you know, because I’d rather sell it as a portfolio, the single family homes.

Cody Crabb (29:23)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

you’d rather sell it as a portfolio, yeah. Okay, so, you know, one thing that you brought up earlier was you said that a lot of buy and hold investors kind of leave money on the table when it comes to taxes. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on that. Where are they getting it wrong?

Blayne (29:52)
Yeah. So ad valorem tax, so property taxes. So in Texas, we have no income tax, right? And so we have higher, not as high as some states, but higher property taxes. And I spend a lot of time fighting those ⁓ CADs. So I know the case law and I’m a valuation expert, meaning as a investment banker. So I don’t have this

the state real estate appraisal, right? I do it from an investment banker standpoint where we know the in-depths of the financial models and all that type of stuff anyway. we have to go by the same standards. So I know it very well. And I know all the arguments and how the equilibrium and the definitions and all that. So I get very deep in arguing.

in one year. So it’s an interesting story. in one county, I’ll say it didn’t county, I had like 14 or 15 of my properties there and my house, so the Homestead house was there. And so we go in and we’d go in and do a informal negotiation across the table.

And so we’re sitting there negotiating and we have this paperwork. So I go and in the law in Texas is that that once the parties agree, it’s not a contract, an agreement. A contract has to be in writing and sign agreement, two meetings of the mind. So it’s not performance. You know, there’s different legal definitions. So once they agree. And so we had this paper and

⁓ We go negotiate everything. And so I leave and I put the paper on my desk and just leave it there. And then I look at, start moving around, look at it and I’m like, shit. they had, what they had done was put the ID number of the homesteaded house in the dollar amount.

So they took the ID of the property and they put that in the dollar amount and we executed it. So it’s in writing, we both signed it. And I’m like, shit, I caught that and I look and I go online and they have another value. And I said, hey, I think y’all made a mistake and I’m slow playing it. It’s in writing. I already read the case laws and all that. So I already was way ahead of them.

And they fought that shit and fought it all the way to attorney general. They had their lawyers. You know, it got so funny where I pulled the freedom of information act. I pulled the contract with the lawyer. That guy was getting like seventy five that their firm. So he’s he’s a lawyer within the firm and the firm’s getting seventy five dollars an hour. So he’s sitting there trying to school me on the law. And I already knew this backwards and forwards. I’d been doing this for a while and I’d looked at all of it.

Then I said, and he was trying to insult me. They think they know everything. I said to him, said, man, how does your wife feel that you’re getting less than $50 an hour and you’re a damn lawyer? Then I asked him, because this is how contentious it got, because it was they were battling back and forth trying to say I was lying, wanted to put me under oath, all this type of stuff, but I didn’t have to go under oath.

the agreement signed, they want to put me before the ARB. The ARB has no, once the agreement, once the two parties come to an agreement, the ARB has no play in the process, no say. They’ll say, I’m not showing up. You can have all the hearings you want. That stuff doesn’t matter. You’re wasting those people’s time. Anyway, so that’s in its homestead. So in Texas, it can’t rise more than 10 % per year. So that house,

I bought it for $310,000. It’s probably worth a million. It’s probably taxed at a half million.

you know, and the stores like that. So I probably save probably 30 grand a year on fighting them. And there’s, I just learned how to go about organizing and finding the comps and comparables and how they’ve, so all the people that argued the lowest price points, I go get those numbers. And then I argued the appraisal standards and then the

supply versus the demand because that’s not equilibrium and people have the compulsion to buy. If there’s no houses, they’re forced to buy that house. That’s a compulsion. And so you have to adjust for compulsions.

and in the House, this last year one that they had sent out the appraisal for like 890,000. Well, I argued a pretty in-depth argument. I’m glad they could stay with me because I ended up with a $600,000 award, meaning I went before the board, ended up with 600,000. So think about that. That’s seven

price seven grand on one house. So that’s seven grand that I saved on one house or one property. it takes a long ass time. Now, it’s a beating when you have hundred land and houses. It’s a beating.

Cody Crabb (34:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and not to mention, mean, you compound that over how much you’re doing. I mean, that starts to really add up, so yeah.

Blayne (35:10)
year over year. Because the rule says

that they… So the burden of proof shifts and gets harder if you beat them the year before. So they have to have, I don’t know, remember off the top of my head, the actual, burden of proof, but they have to have much more

argument, much more evidence to prove that that value. And they can’t get in your house. can’t. How is the house going to increase 100 grand from the year before? What’s happened when this house over here only increased 20? But yeah, so I argued the one that I got from 800,000 to 886,000 to 600,000, what I argued was the original price that we paid in that year. Well, that house

That’s an interesting story. they, a wholesaler had brought that house to me, right? And he wanted 50,000 for it because he had gotten it. You know, that had been mortgage fraud and bank on all this stuff. So it went through a lot of stuff and he wanted a 50,000. I said, I’m not doing that. I’ll just, said, you’re not going to be able to close. So I will just wait until your contract expires.

Cody Crabb (36:13)
Wow.

Blayne (36:24)
I have a Reuters license, so I’ve been monitored on MLS. It was Memorial Day or Labor Day the Friday before, and it went on. It came back on. So I run over there and look at the house. I’m like, shit, I’m buying this. so I look at the house, and it’s Labor Day, right? So they’re not going to see my offer until the next Tuesday, because Monday is a holiday.

And I’m like, damn, people are going to be looking at this this whole time. Right. So I said, but if I’m the only offer and it’s a repo. And I said, these agents, their discount agent to get those listings right back then is from the banks. So they get them in bulk. He ain’t getting out. So he gives me a call. He said, hey, you went and saw that house last.

Do you know where the key is? I said, I don’t know where the key is. you know, I was just go put a new key in there and the key box, right? So the key was missing. And so they, he ain’t getting out. So here comes Tuesday. They take my, they take my offer, right? And I paid 273 for that house. It’s probably worth, I think Zillow or one of them rough ends. I know what it is, but

in case the CAD is listening. They had it listed at like $950,000 value today and I paid $273,000 in 2007.

Cody Crabb (37:43)
Wow, wow, wow. See, okay, so I think this has been a really good episode. the thing I wanna emphasize is I think what got you here is a combination of the hard work part and working hard at the right things. it sounds like you were grinding away at stuff that was maybe not the most fruitful for a while.

And then you realize, hey, me really put my effort where it belongs. So I think, like you said, grinding is a good thing if you’re really making the most of it. So thank you so much for sharing all these stories with us. I think our audience is really gonna appreciate it. For people that wanna connect with you, what would be the best place to do that?

Blayne (38:13)
Thank you.

I have LinkedIn profile and it’s pretty robust and it’s Blayne Rush. So B-L-A-Y-N-E-R-U-S-H. And they can message me through there. if they want to ask questions or whatnot. Because I’m at a point in my life that… So I learned all this through books like I had mentioned earlier and through trial and error, et cetera, et cetera. So I’m at a point in my life that I said,

Cody Crabb (38:38)
Yeah. Yeah.

Blayne (38:44)
I want to be… I’m open to being…

to an extent, for being two or four people that I never had. I mean, I didn’t know where to turn. I didn’t have time. I’m sitting there trying to, in my mind, I’m trying to survive. I didn’t realize how much money I was making. Why? Because I just had my head down. I didn’t have a money goal. I didn’t have any of these goals. My goal was to maximize every moment.

that I was not sleeping.

So I’d get up two o’clock in the morning and I’d go until my head hit the fucking table. And then I’d go home, get something to eat and get in bed. And I just did it over and over again. I’m not saying that’s for everybody. There’s some prices that I paid for that, right? And I’m still paying for those. if you wanna go from homeless, broke,

Cody Crabb (39:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Blayne (39:35)
to the 1%, that’s what it takes. That’s what it takes. If you look at all those guys that have done it, they say the same thing. And lucky I had a great, great wife and my kids have an amazing mother because she put up with some shit that, you know, because think about how intense that guy has to be whenever it’s all stress is making thousand, thousand decisions all the time. So she’s like a saint, you know?

⁓ Yeah, she’s a saint.

Cody Crabb (40:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s some really good advice. Probably the best advice you’ve given on this whole thing, actually. ⁓ But thanks so much for sharing all that. Like I said, ⁓ go follow them on LinkedIn. And for our listeners, thanks so much for listening today. If you liked what you heard, go ahead and hit subscribe, like the video, and we’ll see you next time on Real Estate Pros. Thanks again.

Blayne (40:09)
Thank you.