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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, Dwan Bent-Twyford shares her inspiring journey from personal hardship to becoming a successful real estate investor with over 2000 deals. She discusses her early experiences, the importance of public records in finding leads, and her current project of rehabilitating a town in Iowa. Dwan emphasizes the significance of understanding risk in real estate and the value of helping others in distress, showcasing her unique approach to investing.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Dwan Bent-Twyford (00:00)
Well, you know, it’s funny because I think most of people that probably listen to a podcast are thinking, hey, I would like to become a real estate investor.and I never even crossed my mind my whole life. I was married, I was 30 years old, an eight month old baby. My husband and I split up like really unexpectedly and I lost my house in foreclosure, my car was repossessed, like he took all the money. I had like $75 in my purse and an eight month old baby. And I was just like, what the heck am I going to do right now?
Kristen (02:06)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Dwan Bent-Twyford. In a world dominated by men, Dwan has changed the game with over 2000 deals under her belt and 35 years of investing. Dwan will tell all of her secrets. I’m excited to get into it. Thanks for being here, Dwan.Dwan Bent-Twyford (02:24)
Thanks for having me, honey. I’m super excited to be here, too.Kristen (02:27)
Well, you have built such an impressive portfolio around you. How did you get into real estate to begin with?Dwan Bent-Twyford (02:34)
Well, you know, it’s funny because I think most of people that probably listen to a podcast are thinking, hey, I would like to become a real estate investor.and I never even crossed my mind my whole life. I was married, I was 30 years old, an eight month old baby. My husband and I split up like really unexpectedly and I lost my house in foreclosure, my car was repossessed, like he took all the money. I had like $75 in my purse and an eight month old baby. And I was just like, what the heck am I going to do right now?
And in my twenties, you know, for those of you that are old enough, it was the eighties.
I didn’t know anything about the 80s. It was really wild, a lot of partying, just a lot of job skills I could not use going forward. So I just sat down and, you know, kind of licked my wounds. I was like, well, what am going to do? I need to get a job. I don’t really have any real job skills. I mean, one of my last jobs, I was fired from Denny’s. So like, where do you go from there? And I just made the decision that I wanted to, I already planned to be like the Girl Scout mom, the homeroom mom, the field trip mom.
I
had disco ball in my house, like the fun mom. And I thought, well, if I go get a job, I’m not gonna be able to do any of those things. And I waited until I was 30 on purpose to be able to do all that. And so then I was looking at a crossroads, like, well, do I work for myself? Do I get a job? What can I do? Where am I good at? I don’t know. And as fate would have it, I met a couple guys and they said, yeah, we buy houses and we fix them up and we sell them. And I was like, okay, they buy a house, they fix it up, they sell it. How hard could that be?
that and they told me to go to Palm Beach County, Florida, courthouse, write down all the foreclosures, use that map book, go knock on doors, took my baby hanging on my hip, knocking on doors, telling people I could help them out of their foreclosure and I finally met a woman. She’s like, I’ll work with you. So she moved out. I moved in. I rehabbed the first house. I made 22,000 bucks on my first deal. And like back in 1990, that was like an entire year salary for people that had good jobs.
Kristen (04:38)
Wow.Dwan Bent-Twyford (04:43)
I was like, ⁓ I’m rich, I’m rich, I’m rich, I’m rich, I’m to do this again. And so for five years, I would find a rehab, live in it, fix it, sell it, and keep moving with Ayla until she started kindergarten. And I knew nothing about rehabbing. really genuinely, from the depths of my soul, thought fixing up meant decorating. So I thought I was going to decorate. So I put in the carpet, the mob, the custom made blinds. I was like, this house needs so much work. So I became a Home Depot junkie. I took every class.offered live classes. I was at every live class taking notes and I’d take a tile class and buy the stuff and go tile the kitchen and I just fixed this house up basically by myself over like a six month period.
Made a bunch of money and I thought, oh, this is really great. I work for myself. Adel was with me every day and you know, he was mad and angry. like tearing down cabinets and ripping things up and destroying things is really good, like therapy for me. So if you ever go through a nasty divorce, don’t go to counseling. Rehab a house by yourself when you’re done. You’ll have all your crap worked out. You’ll be like, I feel like a million bucks and I got 22 grand in my pocket.
Kristen (06:39)
ThankDwan Bent-Twyford (06:39)
And wasit. And I just never stopped doing it. And that was 35 years ago.
Kristen (06:44)
Wow, I mean that’ll definitely get you into the business having those early ones.Dwan Bent-Twyford (06:48)
BLEH!And I really
knew nothing. mean, the guys that talked to me, they gave me a sales contract with like all the little X’s where to get people to sign. Like I didn’t know anything. And there was nobody teaching back at that time. Nobody’s touring and traveling. There was no Google. Like none of that stuff existed. And I don’t know, by the time I made it outside kindergarten, I’d done quite a few houses, like had a little money to hire a couple guys. I could do like two houses at once. And then I discovered wholesaling and I was like, shoot, I can like find the homeowner, sell it to a rehabber, and I have to fix it.
up anymore. And I started wholesaling like 75 deals every year. I was just killing it. And making gobs of money without having to live in the ratty rehab. So the last one I lived in, stayed in because it, the backyard had been built by a pool contractor and it had the most magnificent backyard and pool and the house was big and I’d already rehabbed or something like I’m just gonna live here for a while. It was in Boca Raton, Florida.
Kristen (07:25)
Wow, and then I’m.And in the beginning there, you you were having so many early wins. Did you have pitfalls in the beginning that kind of knocked you down and you had to learn from?
Dwan Bent-Twyford (07:56)
You know, in the first five years, because Adela wasn’t in school, and I was really happy because I didn’t want her to go daycare. I had all these things I didn’t want. I’m proud to say I have spent a day in daycare. For y’all that use it, I totally get it. It’s so helpful and useful, I just wanted to be, I don’t know, I just wanted to be super ultra hands-on. So in the beginning, I didn’t know anything, so I’d look at a house and just go, yeah, this house looks fine. So I remember one of the houses, maybe my fifth house in, there was all theselike
bugs flying around, thought, oh, I have to get this house tended. Well, they were termites.
and didn’t know anything about termites. So I had the house tinted and then when I started working on it, all the wood cabinets, everything was just like powder, like in the whole house. And I was like, ⁓ my God, what am I going to do? So I had some construction guys I knew say, you come and look and they’re like, the, all the trusses in the roof are eaten up by termites. I had a sister stud everything and so much work on that house because I just didn’t know about termites, like something so basic and especially in Florida. So there was a lot of things like that.
Kristen (08:35)
down.Dwan Bent-Twyford (09:03)
that where I just for lack of knowledge I would buy some houses that had some fire damage and I didn’t know that the fire damage is not the bad part it’s the water damageKristen (09:15)
Hmm.Dwan Bent-Twyford (09:22)
So I had a few hard learning curves, but I still made money on every single deal. I got them all done. And then I just learned to like be more careful about inspecting or to bring someone with me. So I really, really knew what I was doing. So yeah.Kristen (09:36)
Well that’sawesome. Yeah, I mean it seems like you were able to really be agile and have the persistence to keep going. And then today, know that you tell us all about kind of your strategy. I know that you’ve seen the market go up and down. Kind of what’s been your strategy to have longevity in this business?
Dwan Bent-Twyford (10:30)
So you know, Kristen, that is such a good question. And I tell everyone this, say it’s honestly, it’s so simple that people just don’t do it. So since the day I started, I’ve been working with the public records at the county courthouse. So in every county in the United States, they have the foreclosures, the people that have been served foreclosure papers by the bank actively in foreclosure. They have the divorces, they have, you know, two incomes, one is leaving.About 80 % the it leads to a foreclosure. The probate, so foreclosure, divorce, probates, bankruptcy.
75 % of the people that file bankruptcy file within three days of their house going to the sheriff sale to stop the sale and nobody knows that and People that haven’t paid real estate taxes and landlords that just completed evictions. So Since I started I guess at the courthouse people like you should try this service and that service and MLS and dadada dadada I’m like, know what? No, I’m gonna I’m gonna stick to that because if the market is this great There’s still people getting sick
going into full closure, getting divorced, that doesn’t change. This part of the world is the same.
And if the market’s down here in the trash, this part of the market’s still the same. So I tell people, stop buying all the shiny objects and the thing that’s gonna find you all these leads and some magic thing because it doesn’t actually exist. Just work your area, go right to the public records where it’s totally free, and work with the people that need help because I was one of the people that lost my house. Nobody came knocking on my door to try to help me. And I would have loved if I had somebody done that because I would have worked with them.
So I tell people all the time, stop making it so complicated. Just stick to the main, like, six things on a public record.
And that never gets better or worse. It’s just the same 24 hours a day. You know, people get married every day, dying every day, divorced every day, every day. Nothing changes. So the market, I feel like that the market doesn’t have anything to do with investing. It’s where you’re getting your leads. And I’m helping the people that are in actual trouble. Even the buildings that we bought in Iowa, all of them were distressed, every single one.
Kristen (12:38)
Mmm.Dwan Bent-Twyford (12:50)
I’ve never bought a property out of the MLS. I’ve always just used that for 35 years. And it’s like, I’ve done 2,000 deals.Kristen (12:57)
Yeah, I think that’s a great resource to tell people about. I mean, just as you said, people usually source from MLS. People don’t even know where to source. So think that’s really good insight. Yeah.Dwan Bent-Twyford (13:08)
I don’t know.And there’s really
almost every county in the United States is online now, so you can get on any county anywhere. It’s free. You don’t have to pay a service. Now we actually live in Bailey, Colorado. So we live at like 8,000 feet in the mountains, like kind of in the boondocks on a dirt road. So my county courthouse is a double-wide trailer. So they are, they are not online. So we want to look at what’s happening right here in Park County. We have to actually go
there in person because you know it’s not online but there’s hardly any place and it’s free so you don’t need a service that goes through the foreclosures for you just learn how to do it pick up a count and go through look at all the people and the public record if they’re in foreclosure it has their sale date posted and it has their foreclosure amount posted it’s all there you don’t have to research for anything it’s just right there
Kristen (13:51)
Yeah.you
Yeah, no, I think that’s…
Dwan Bent-Twyford (14:06)
And it’s so simple,I think we’re like, it sounds too easy. I’m going to go through some memos. I’m going to buy some parrots. I’m going to buy this or that. It’s like, the love of God, stop doing that.
Kristen (14:14)
Sometimes the easiest answer is the right answer.Dwan Bent-Twyford (14:18)
It is. And I started that way and I tried all the things, all the freedom solves and prop streams and analysis and all the things that have been for sale for last 20 years. And I’m like, I always end up back with the people at the courthouse. Those are the people that are actively right now on this very day. They need help.and I’m more of a like a helping person than just trying to find a deal with cause a of people don’t like to contact with the homeowners or talk to the people that are in distress, but I was like, yeah, but I was that person and I know how it feels and I would have loved if someone would have come and help me out. So I’m not uncomfortable talking to them cause I’m like, hey, I get you. I was right there in those shoes.
Kristen (15:39)
Yeah, I mean, when you come at it from an angle of wanting to help people, I think, I agree with you, I think you can have longevity with it, because I think some people get kind of predatory about it, but you’re right, it really is a win-win situation.Dwan Bent-Twyford (15:39)
So.Kristen (15:58)
And then so as you’re niching down, that’s what I think is really interesting about this is that you’re going deep instead of wide. I think a lot of people try a bunch of things and kind of spread out their focus, but you really believe that going deep is the way to do it.Dwan Bent-Twyford (16:16)
It’s down the way. I mean, like I said, I’ve tried all the things. I’ve, I’vedone all the stuff, bus benches, billboards, TV commercials, like all of the things. And I’m like, I just get the best response from going straight into the people that are directly actively in trouble right now, because those are the people that don’t have any idea what to do. They’re just regular folks. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know they have options. They don’t know. Have them just sit there and lose their house because they don’t know.
and then they get 10,000 postcards from all these people. I buy houses cash, I’m an attorney, let me sell blah blah blah blah blah. They get so many postcards and none of them make any sense to these people so they just throw them away. So it’s like, just call them, contact them, go knock on their door. They’re like so, like oh my God, you’re an angel, was praying this morning and you knocked on my door. I wanna work with you. Like, people want to be helped.
Kristen (16:48)
Right.Right, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love all.
Dwan Bent-Twyford (17:12)
And everyone’s afraid totalk to people. in society today, everybody’s so into texting and stuff, people either are afraid or don’t know how to talk to people anymore. And that is unfortunate.
Kristen (17:26)
Yeah, absolutely. Having that personal touch goes a really long way. And I know right now you’re actually in the middle of rehabbing a whole town. Can you tell us about that?Dwan Bent-Twyford (17:33)
Thank⁓ my god, so my husband is from Clinton, Iowa. So we’re coming up this year be our 24th wedding anniversary
So his high school is really good. Every single year, they have every five years, they have a big, like 200 people, a big giant reunion. And I was like, man, my high school is so lame, I have one like every 10 or 15 years. But we started going to these and so he’s from Clinton, Iowa. So the first one that we went to, everyone met at some little bar type thing in the downtown. So the downtown is like, it’s on the Mississippi River. So it’s a riverfront town and it’s three blocks wide and three blocks deep. So it’s this much is downtown.
And downtown is its own, ⁓ if you own a building, your taxes get paid into the downtown fund. And then there’s like the rest of Clinton.
So the downtown is its own like separate little entity. So the first time we went there, he showed me like, this used to be the pennies, this was the Sears, this was that, this is that. Everything was just sitting vacant. And we went to this little bar thing downtown. said, Kat, this downtown is so dumpy. Like what’s up with the downtown? But the rest of the city is flourishing. Like out there, they built the casino and the Walmart and the hotels and all the chain restaurants. And downtown is just like sitting there. So I think maybe the second or third time we went back,
I said, you know, downtown hasn’t changed the whole time we’ve been coming. And I have been a part of some of these rejuvenation projects in Florida for the downtown areas. So why don’t we just ask someone if they have some kind of a fund or a partnership or something. Then we find out they have a whole downtown partnership alliance and they’re trying to get people to buy buildings, fix them up, get them rented and turn it into like, you know when you go to like a little downtown, it’s got shopping and antiques and breweries.
and
they’re busily. They’re trying to do that. So we were like, oh, okay, that’d be fun. We’ll be a part of it. We’ll buy a building. So we bought the first building for $35,000 for 20,000 square feet. And it’s right on the main corner. So it’s one of the biggest buildings. It used to be JCPenney’s. I was like, wow, this is a big building. And we fixed it out. We put it in an antique mall, like to bring people downtown. And then this woman called and said, hey, I heard you bought so and so’s building. I have three buildings. Would you buy mine?
And we’re like, oh, well, we can’t buy them. You’d have to own a finance them 100%. So she did. She said, if I move to Florida, I just let you mail me a check. And then a couple weeks later, someone else said, hey, I heard you bought Carol’s buildings. I’ve got buildings. And these are all women in their 70s. Their husbands have been dead. They’re just sitting with these big old buildings that are sitting empty.
And then I was like, ⁓ Bill, please stop buying buildings. And then the bank called and said, hey, we have two buildings. We’ll give you 100 % finance and no money down if you’ll just buy them. So then we ended up with like six more parcels. And I was like, seriously, stop it. So anyway, over the course of the last five years, we have 28 parcels of land in this little tiny area.
Kristen (20:17)
youWow.
Dwan Bent-Twyford (20:37)
And but the and it’s super fun because it’s something we’ve never done. Neither of us has ever like done. I mean, I’ve had a couple tiny light commercial buildings, nothing like full on four story buildings like, you know, elevators and boilers. And so we.vote on doing things. so now it’s kind of, we’re trying to turn it a little hallmark town. So they have like in the summer there’s live music every Thursday and they block off the streets. And the first couple of years, a few hundred people come now like 2000 people come down like, look at the downtown, look what’s happening. And we have some kind of a festival, fall fest, wine walk with every single like two weeks there’s something downtown and ⁓ it’s growing and other people are coming in and all the buildings are getting rented and getting fixed up.
And it’s amazing to see the turnaround. And there’s two buildings, a six-foot story building. They just put $17 million in it to make lofts. And there’s another building a block away that was an old hotel. They’re going to put like $22 million in that one to make that one lofts. So it’s like, now that someone started, everyone else is coming in.
Kristen (21:47)
That’s so exciting.Dwan Bent-Twyford (21:47)
So we have.Once we ate part, I’m like,
Bill, please, I’m begging you, don’t buy any more buildings. Let’s get the ones we have finished. But he’s like always haggling with people and like, yeah, I got another building. It was such a good deal. They just gave it to me. It’s like, I know, but stop it. So it’s been super fun. You know, we learned, we’ve learned a lot. Like I didn’t know a lot of things about commercial, like old boilers and how much elevators cost to fix. It’s like shocking. And so we’ve learned a lot, but I don’t know.
Kristen (22:04)
So.Dwan Bent-Twyford (22:18)
and the town’s turning around and I said I need to rename this district like the Twyford district down there and they just had like a tree-lining ceremony and all these people are coming down and lighting candles I was like oh look how cute the little town is coming so it’s coming alongKristen (22:25)
Yeah.That’s really exciting.
Dwan Bent-Twyford (22:36)
It’s a big project,just like a 10 year project, you know, to get it all done everything the way we want it. But it’s really doing good and people downtown and more investors have come about other buildings. And now there’s like two breweries and there’s a place that serves like ssss
whiskey or scotch flights or something and there’s a cupcake shop and a cake shop and two or three antique malls and boutiques and it’s just like it’s completely different than it was just five years ago.
Kristen (23:06)
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, that’s a really exciting project. I’m sure it’s a big project as well. I mean, this 20 minutes is going by very quickly, but I would love to quickly ask you kind of your relationship with risk. I think that to do these kinds of investments on this scale, you have to have a high tolerance for risk. What does that look like for you?Dwan Bent-Twyford (23:30)
Well, that is so, you know, I tell everyone that says, I want to work with you, they want to work with me and become an investor. I’m like, listen, I want you to really think about what is your risk factor? Because people that are like out of one to 10, 10 is high, they’re like a three. They just want to make sure 100%, they need a guarantee. It’s like, honestly, I don’t think you’re going to enjoy real estate investing because you know, it changes, things change all the time.And it’s like, you know, when we bought that first building, well, the first winter, the boiler went out. And I’m like, what’s a boiler? a big old machine in the basement that runs the heat for the entire building. Do know how much those stupid things cost? 60 grand. I was like, what? So now a lot of people would have like melted down and sold the building. And I was like, yeah, we’ll just fix it. You know, now we know about boilers. So like, so I, my, my risk factor is high. Like we’re, Bill and I are both like a 10.
Sometimes we do stuff and then we think about it later.
and so for any big project you need a really high risk factor. you just want to like wholesale and rehab and just do the regular things that everyone does, you know, if you have a risk factor of four, five, six, you know, you’re going to be okay. You’re going to fix up a house, sell for a little profit, wholesale something, make 20, 30 grand on it. You’ll do great. But if you want to get into big things, you just need to be willing to take the risk. And I am one of these people that I never ever consider
I I started a podcast with no experience. I started investing with no experience. I bought commercial bones with no experience. I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna do it. If I do it, it’ll be fine.
Kristen (25:13)
Yeah, it’s probably knowing that you’ll be okay if it doesn’t work out.Dwan Bent-Twyford (25:18)
Yes. And that is going back to my first deal. thought, well, if I try to work for myself and I fail, I can get a job. But if I get a job, I’ll probably keep it till AIDL is 18 and then I’ll be 50 and I will never have worked for myself.Kristen (25:28)
Yeah.Yeah.
Dwan Bent-Twyford (25:37)
SoI think for me it’s always been like, I’m going to try this and if it fails, I can go back to something that people would consider stable. I mean, look at the jobs now. Everyone gets laid off and fired. People only get jobs two or three or four years. There’s now like my parents that like worked for the man for 40 years and retired on these crazy pensions. Like that doesn’t exist anymore. So yeah, I think that’s part of it is when I did my first deal, it’s like, well, if I fail and get a job, but if I get a job, I won’t be able to invest. I’m going to invest and I’m going to take a crack at it.
I kind of look at everything like that, like, let me try. And if it doesn’t work, I can do something else. But if I don’t try, I will never know.
Kristen (26:15)
Absolutely. Well, I mean, this has been really insightful. It’s so fun to hear what you’re up to and building this town is so exciting. So tell everyone where to find you.Dwan Bent-Twyford (26:25)
so easy. So I took my first name, Dwan, and the word wonderful, and combined it to Dwanderful.Kristen (26:33)
youDwan Bent-Twyford (26:33)
It says D-W-A-N-D-E-R-F-U-L, Dwanderful. So you’re in the Dwanderful universe. So dwanderful.com. And on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram, like all the places, just put in Dwanderful and you’ll find me everywhere. If you go to my website, I have a really fun little short riddle state quiz that’ll kind of tell you like what you know and what you don’t know if you take this little quiz and then you’ll get a couple ebooks for free.super fun.
Kristen (27:05)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here, DwanDwan Bent-Twyford (27:09)
Thank you guys, God bless.Kristen (27:11)
And thank you everybody for listening. I hope you learned a lot, some inspiration for your own business. Definitely look up Dwan. She also has a podcast that you should check out. And then we will see you back next time. Bye.
