Fix and Flip Secrets: How Smart Investors Buy Right, Price Right, and Sell Fast

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (00:00)
So we’re like, well, maybe we could sell it for more. But then like, no, we got to stay under this mark right here. And boom, we have offer within days. If we would have priced it too high, we would have sat on the market and lost momentum. And then our carrying costs start going up and all that. A good lesson, when you’re carrying costs are four or five, six grand a month, a lot of people don’t know. They just look at their mortgage payment.

Micah Johnson (01:53)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Drew and Andrew, who make some serious moves in real estate investing now for combined over 50 years. Drew, Andrew, welcome in guys, glad to have you.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (02:06)
Thank you. I’m Drew. I’m Andrew. Thanks for having us.

Micah Johnson (02:09)
Absolutely.

I’m excited for our show today. You guys have been doing real estate a long time. I value people that have seen the real estate cycles. I think there’s tremendous wisdom in that learning from that. and you’ve been wearing out some deals here in Arizona. So I’m pumped to dig in here. Let’s kick it off for folks who aren’t familiar with you yet. Tell us a little more about yourselves and what y’all’s main focus is right now.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (02:30)
Why you go first, Andrew? I’ve got a 30-year background in real estate myself, a finance degree. I’m a trained certified residential appraiser. I’ve done it all in real estate over the decades. And Drew and I joined up about almost a decade ago to focus on the fix and flip in the wholesale market here in the Phoenix metro area.

Yeah, same. I’ve got a business and finance degree and got into real estate here in Arizona in about 96. And I teamed up with some guys that were doing condominium ⁓ conversions. So we would buy old apartment complexes.

and convert them to condominiums. And that was an entire process. And through that process, we needed to property manage for the existing tenants in the units before we got to the renovation stage. And that’s when I met Andrew. So I hired him to help with the property management side. So we literally have known each other 25 years, even though we’ve only partnered up in this venture nine years ago.

But I came to him one day and said, we were at a little get together. And I said, hey, how you been? How’s appraisals? And he told me, he said, what are you doing? I said, think tomorrow I’m going to go launch my fix and flip business because I had been traveling the country as a hired gun in weekend seminars teaching people how to invest in real estate. And I realized I loved it so much, but I didn’t have time to do it myself because I was always on the road traveling. So I said, you know what? I’m going to hang that up.

Micah Johnson (03:33)
Okay.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (04:01)
I’m actually gonna go do what I teach instead of you know teach what I can’t do so I we we joined for he goes I want to I want to do that So we teamed up mark 2017 and we’ve been going ever since

Micah Johnson (04:06)
Right.

Thank you.

Heck yeah, well then, mean, that’s the thing about partnerships, the way they come about and how they stick together is important. We were digging in a little bit on that pre-recording and I enjoy hearing and talking to people who’ve had successful ones because each, partnerships all have the same ingredients, but not the same recipe, right? Like it really, each one is a unique thing because you have different strengths, different weaknesses, your ability to offset each other.

your ability to help each other grow, accountability, all the things, there’s all those little factors. And when I meet folks who do it well, what y’all described, and I’d love to dig into it, that y’all share strengths and you offset weaknesses. And that makes for a really, really good synergy to get stuff done.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (05:42)
Well, communication is key and we’ve gotten really good at telling each other what we need, what we want, what our goals are. We have regular planning sessions, but.

When we have a project, this last one, we bought it mid-January, renovated it, sold it, and closed it two days ago. So before the end of March, we already had one fully renovated, marketed, and sold. And that was a good one. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We wish we had more like that. They don’t all go that well, but I mean that fast. this last product.

Micah Johnson (06:10)
Yeah.

Well, take us to the breakdown. How did

y’all get it to move like that? I mean, you’ve been doing it for nine years as you got a Greece system. What allowed y’all to go that, you know, to move at that speed?

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (06:25)
Started with a website lead. Yeah. Yeah, it was a was a carrot lead that we got from our website ⁓ And it was a it was a cosmetic flip. So we knew it wasn’t going to need a ton of work because it was a newer home

We negotiated that price the guy just wanted out of the house and me. Yeah, we immediately we’ve learned when you get a lead like that I tried to go see it that day. Yeah, we ended up to see it the next morning. Yeah, we went and saw it right away the property and Fascinating because I asked him why he chose us in our market here in the Phoenix Scottsdale area There’s a lot of real estate investors and cash buyers and all of that and I said, why’d you pick us? And he said, you know, I I talked to all the other guys he goes

I like meeting you guys and you weren’t, you know, your offer wasn’t as high as some of the other offers that we received, but I thought yours was the most genuine and the most real and I wasn’t going to get surprises at the closing table. And he didn’t. We paid exactly the price we said we would pay and absorbed all the costs and he was very happy. So that was important, but we put it under contract pretty quickly.

Micah Johnson (07:29)
Man, I’m so glad you said that because, you know, I get competition in a market, but the reality in real estate and the guy who taught me real estate said, Mike, there’s no such thing as competition. If you show up and do your job each day, you will get your deals. No one, the only people that can work harder than you, the if you don’t show up. So if you do that, keep going. So I love the fact that y’all are in a hotly contested market, but you’re getting your deals. And I,

Everybody ain’t your customer. I’ve met plenty of people. couldn’t buy their house simply because we were not going to get along, right? I’m not the guy for you at all, but there’s somebody, there’s somebody and I’m glad they’re out there because your problems still need solved, right? You still needed to get out of that house. You still needed that thing. And I love the fact that y’all are doing that because that’s, there’s your customer, the customer that’s meant for you. And if you’re doing your work, they’re not going anywhere. You’re, they’re going to stick with you because I love this quote, your vibe attracts your tribe.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (08:02)
Yeah.

Micah Johnson (08:24)
and you’re not out there, you’re going out there for real. And when, I love for people to know this, if you can get construction understanding and appraisal understandings like y’all have, you’re like ninjas at what you do. Your ability to go in and make an offer, the reason you’re confident is you’ve done the work, you know how much it costs. If you know how much it costs, then you can make confident offers. It’s like…

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (08:37)
⁓ you

Micah Johnson (08:48)
people would pay a lot of money just to get that knowledge, but it’s earned. You only earn that kind of knowledge. And then the appraiser, when you’re on the other side, cause that’s what we were talking about before, how y’all split. ⁓ Andrew, you’re on the side that lists the property. You’re on the side that’s determining values. So there’s a lot of speed that goes over there. And I know this much. If you are in a trained appraiser, dude, that’s like showing up with a machine gun or like a fist fight, okay? Right? Like.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (09:10)
Yeah, so many mistakes. I’m a game changer for sure. I’ve been working with him forever. I miss stuff all the time.

I go, what about this one? It should be valued here. He goes, eh, eh. No, Buying the thing right is so damn important. And then knowing where you’re to be able to sell it.

Micah Johnson (09:25)
You make your money on

the buy.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (09:26)
And then money’s made on the buy. ⁓ When we close on a project, we have a ritual. We show up the next day and our work flows and our demo gear and the dumpster is dropped that morning and we do demo together. It’s kind of fun. We get there sledgehammers and knocking out on our top. So that’s our thing. And then Andrew heads back to the office and then I start putting it back together. So all the plumbing and electrical cabinets, we’ve got some great subs and vendors that we’ve been working with.

Micah Johnson (09:30)
Yeah.

Wobba!

that

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (09:56)
years. We’ve got our pricing down. I think I put a budget together on this last house and I was I was a little over budget on a few items a little under budget on the end on some others and but at the end it came right at pretty close to the number I thought it would be and our time frame was about five weeks on it so we renovated that sucker pretty bad.

Micah Johnson (10:14)
man,

well old machines and it’s, what’s fun about real estate is how intentional you get to be with it, right? Where like the experience y’all just described, does this industry make great money? Absolutely. But it pays this emotional paycheck in a way when you just kind of find your place in it you’re doing something you’re doing where like you just described that tradition of showing up there and doing that, that’s just as important as making the money.

Because we’re live for every day. How often do we get a closing check? It’s not every day. It’s less than a month out of days in the year. Okay. Like if you’re only going to be happy and enjoy life for 30 days a year, you’re missing out, man. Like there’s a whole lot more to this. I love that you all tapped into that because it’s what real estate also offers. It’s a very human rewarding experience when you get into it.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (11:15)
it’s Android.

Right.

Yeah, right.

We’ve got the, yeah, and the house is already closed and we’re looking for the next one, but we’re very disciplined. We buy right, we just won’t overpay for a house. It’s the quickest way to ⁓ end a business relationship. Well, and then pricing it on the backend too. There was some additional costs we didn’t anticipate like a new roof.

Micah Johnson (11:55)
Right.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (12:02)
So we’re like, well, maybe we could sell it for more. But then like, no, we got to stay under this mark right here. And boom, we have offer within days. If we would have priced it too high, we would have sat on the market and lost momentum. And then our carrying costs start going up and all that. A good lesson, when you’re carrying costs are four or five, six grand a month, a lot of people don’t know. They just look at their mortgage payment.

But your cost to own a property is all the insurance and taxes and utilities and HOA fees.

all that stuff that you have plus the mortgage payment and it adds up pretty quick and if you think 90 days on the market is another 15 or 20 grand when maybe you should have priced it that right there at the beginning and and we did we were under contract in two days and that was because of him

Micah Johnson (12:48)
It’s how powerful that is. got into the business as a realtor. worked on a foreclosure team and got to move volume and really get to dig into that world. And one of the things I would go tell sellers before I switched, when I worked with them still in the retail side, I had a little, actually I was keeping, it taught me to, keep a legal pad everywhere. That was like my thing, taking it to a house. But I’d tell them like, okay, we’re going to list today. And when the moment we list, we’re going to set off.

thousands and thousands of saved searches. This is our best chance to make a big splash. If we miss, now we’re waiting on people to come into the market. And if you do that by 10 grand, you know, we’re missing thousands of people just because of that. And it really helped it click. Because that’s the reality is that think about it of how people are searching for it. They put a price point and they list it there and everything gets kicked out.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (13:29)
⁓ yeah.

Micah Johnson (13:41)
You want 6099? Okay. You just threw away 500,000 people that saved 600 and under. Like don’t like it’s, it’s this whole thing of like thinking about how people view it and how they search it. And then it’s your best chance of creating that multiple offer, right? You didn’t just need COVID to get multiple offers y’all. If you’ve been in this business long enough, you used to be able to induce them if you did it right. And then you could push it.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (14:06)
There are price points, threshold.

Yeah. Yep. That’s exactly right. Well, and the biggest thing I wanted to go a little higher, the house was nice. But Andrew said, honestly, in this neighborhood, there are matching floor plans, ours is going to be the most expensive one in that floor plan. So we got to be careful. So we listed it at $599. Yeah, it’s funny because we were talking about $609, $619. Yeah, we were like, no, we got to be at $599. And that’s what did it.

Micah Johnson (14:11)
I get pumped about it y’all, sorry.

Thank you.

Right. And it does. It’s just these little mental things that if you understand how people buy, it is emotional at 599 feeling to a six nine feeling. That is a big difference. As weird as it is, our brains don’t, our bodies don’t handle it well. So they do those things. All right. I’m glad it still works. That’s good. It’s good to know. Cause it is. love, I love for people to hear that because it’s not always something

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (14:45)
Yep.

Micah Johnson (14:59)
Yes, you need good pictures. Yes, you need all the things, but think about that price in a way that it’s a tool. It’s a way you’re, it’s doing something on purpose. It’s not just a random number. Think about it. So anyways, I’ll get off that horse. Now it’s pretty much ran the trail.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (15:13)
Good stuff, good stuff. Nah, it’s

good.

Micah Johnson (15:15)
So what are y’all excited about this year? You’ve been cruise long for nine years. You’ve got this put together, carrots running. What are you hoping for? Cause y’all have added in wholesaling too, right? You got flips going, you do some wholesale deals. Take us into that. How are y’all deciding between what to do?

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (16:11)
hey, if we’ve got an existing one we’re working on, then we’ll probably wholesale it if it comes along. Unless it’s too good of a deal. But typically, we want to focus on one house at a time in the renovation space.

Micah Johnson (16:18)
you

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (16:24)
And if another lead and a good deal comes in, we’ll usually contract it and wholesale it. Unless we can spread out the closing in such a way that we’ve had four or five houses going at one time before and the market changes just a little bit, that can take you down. it, we learned a good lesson.

Micah Johnson (16:30)
also.

Thank you.

Well, it goes to real estate’s the long game and you always need to be thinking that it’s about hitting singles and doubles, whatever those are to you. But if you hit those, you will hit home runs and not just trying to hit those home runs. Cause kind of going back into the pricing part and you know, trying to get a number, the more things that have to go right to win, you’re exponentially increasing your chances to lose. Now how much can go wrong? So it’s how simple can you get it? If

Little needs to go right to win. Great. That’s what we want. If I need like to stand on one leg, hold my mouth a certain way and hope for weather, walk away because that’s what people lose on. And that’s that. I get it, man. It’s where investing turns into gambling right there is that that. All right. a I’ll tell you what, hope ain’t a strategy.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (17:17)
Yeah, good luck.

And that’s paying too much.

Like Andrew said, the money, we’ve all said it, the money’s in the buy. You have to buy it right. And then even though the market can fluctuate a little bit, you should be able to get out of it and at least make a little bit of money. And I’d rather make a little bit than lose a little bit.

Micah Johnson (17:48)
Right. Right. And I love what y’all are doing there. Cause a lot of people get into real estate and just want to build this huge thing, which is fine. Build a huge thing. If you want to be the ginormous operator, but you’re showing that that’s not for everybody. That’s and it’s not how you, there’s more than one way to be successful in this business. So if you’re listening and watching in, realize that you may have came here seeing it content about, you know, thousand units and all this and all that where, okay.

That may not be it. Be open to the fact that you can make an incredible living, live an incredible life, doing the things you enjoy. You’re talking about six flips a year, 10 wholesales a year that sells goldish coming up. That’s not unrealistic. That is not, I don’t want to say it’s not hard. It’s simple to do. It has its things. You got to do it, but it’s not like it’s this extravagant thing. So.

If you want to grow to a thousand, you got to do one first, but don’t feel like you’ve got to create something you don’t want to live the life you want. That will not work. Ask me how I know.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (18:47)
That’s what I was going to say. Andrew and I

enjoy our weekends off. He’s an overlander, off-roader. I like to go up into the mountains and camp and go to the beach and boat. We enjoy a lot of time off because we haven’t pushed ourselves to a place where we have a bunch of employees to manage.

Micah Johnson (19:04)
Right.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (19:10)
Our phone isn’t ringing and we get to enjoy our kids and… High quality of life. High quality of life. We’ve set out, that was one of our goals is let’s not work ourselves to death and let’s enjoy what we do. we do.

Micah Johnson (19:24)
I’m glad to hear on the clarity upfront right there. Cause if you’re listening and watching into this, build that into the early conversations. What kind of life do you actually want? The thing about high performing people, we can always do more, but that’s typically our problem. It’s not getting as closer to anything and making sure you focus on those actions, getting you closer to what you want, not just doing stuff. That’s where life.

I don’t care where you’re at in it. You’ll start to feel like you’re enjoying it. You’ll start to feel, I’m for me, feels like I get to discover it each day. You truly feel like, all right, what’s going to happen today? You’re just living from this space and there’s opportunity. don’t know. It changes the way you see life. And it’s, I’m seeing a lot more people in that space, which I’m excited about. Cause for, I mean, you guys are, I’m not, you’re older than me. And, but I know my, my parents came from the work hard, do it for a long time, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind. And

I know our generation got a lot for, just turned 40 for like not working hard, but I’d beg to differ in some ways that it just looks different. I saw what you did. I don’t want that. I don’t want to live like that. That’s not the life I want. Now I may do it in a way that may look weird to you, but guess what? I’m 40 years old and I got a smile on my face. My back still works. I can walk around. Like I’m really, I enjoy myself. I enjoy my kids. I like all those things. I’m just.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (20:26)
Yeah.

Bye.

Yeah.

Micah Johnson (20:44)
I love meeting folks and revealing that to people like, yes, do we work hard? Yes. Do things get annoying? Sure. But choose your annoying. Everything does. It’s it’s do you enjoy it? Does it like that fire in you? And real estate does that. There’s so many ways in it. You can do it.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (20:56)
Absolutely.

Andrew and I are in a place where, you know, we don’t have a retirement goal. I want to retire at 60 or 65. I literally can do this till I’m dead and cold in the ground because we’ve got it set up in such a way. It’s not difficult. We have great people when we buy a house and the wholesaling side of it that doesn’t hurt your back at all. And we enjoy it.

Micah Johnson (21:20)
Right.

call that vertical integration. ⁓

But no, it’s beautiful, man. I appreciate y’all’s time today, your story, your perspective, because it’s, I think it’s powerful for folks. We always hear about, know, go big, do all these different things, but y’all tried it. You’ve created the life you want. And I want other people to see that too. So thanks for sharing that story with us. For our listeners and viewers out there that possibly have a property in Arizona, want to learn more about what’s going on there. What’s the best way for them to find you?

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (21:48)
The best way is to go to a2binvest.com is our website, but there’s my phone number too. They can do that. Andrew’s email is [email protected] and Drew’s is [email protected] and our website is a2binvest.com if I didn’t say that enough time.

Micah Johnson (21:56)
Screenshot, screenshot.

No,

you got it, man. You you’re nailing the marketing. Toma, baby. Top of mind aware.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (22:14)
Laughter ⁓

Micah Johnson (22:17)
Well,

thank you for sharing that. For your listeners and viewers, check our show notes. We’re going to have their information there. Like I say all the time at this show, reach out to professionals, talk to people who are actually doing the business. You got a deal there you think you could move, work with people who can actually move it. You got one to sell, talk to people who could buy it. This is how you become successful in this game. Build good relationships with high quality people. So thank you everybody for joining us out there. Thanks again, you guys, Drew and Andrew really appreciated it.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (22:44)
Thanks Micah, I appreciate you very

much. Thank you. All right everybody. Appreciate it.

Micah Johnson (22:47)
Thank you.

If y’all got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else you think you get value out of it. And if you’re not a subscriber yet, you know what to do. Click that button, follow along. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators just like Drew and Andrew, folks out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks for being with us. We’ll see y’all in the next episode.

Andrew And Drew A2B Invest LLC (23:08)
All right, thank you.