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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel Podcast, host Leo Wehdeking speaks with Donny Coram, a real estate wealth strategist, about his approach to helping investors build wealth through real estate, particularly in the foreclosure market. Donny shares insights on the requirements for investors, the process of flipping houses, and the importance of learning from failures. He emphasizes the need for proper client attraction and networking, as well as the integration of technology in real estate. The conversation concludes with Donny inviting listeners to connect with him for further guidance in foreclosure investing.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Donny Coram (00:00)
Yes,⁓ we flipped a house that we lost $100,000 on.
⁓ And what went wrong was everything but the real secret sauce was with a townhome and the townhome had a lot of restrictions on the construction side that we didn’t know about we were buying it and So just getting construction crews on site took much longer than we thought getting permitting from this HOA and all that stuff was a real issue But man you want to talk about a pucker factor when you’re about to take a six-figure loss But Leo I’ll tell you man. I’ve never my wife and I after that deal closed ⁓ We were celebrating at dinner that night because it just one of
where you breathe a sigh of relief when that kind of project gets off of your plate, right?
Leo Wehdeking (02:11)
Hello everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast. I am your host Leo Wehdeking and today I am joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Donny Coram, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate industry. Donny, glad to have you here man.Donny Coram (02:25)
How you doing?Hey, glad to be here, Leo. Thank you.
Leo Wehdeking (02:28)
Excellent, ⁓ Donny listen, I think our listeners are really going to take away something from how you’ve been dealing with your real estate business nowadays. So let’s dive in. All right. And for people who may not be familiar with your world, can you give us the short version on what’s your main focus these days?Donny Coram (02:47)
My main focus is helping investors to build wealth through real estate. call myself a real estate wealth strategist, which means there’s multiple ways you can build wealth in real estate. But I try to focus on a custom tailored approach to the clients that I work with to help them to build wealth. For me right now, the best place to be doing ⁓ opportunities is in the foreclosure market. So we are focusing on our foreclosure profit system where I help investors to find figure.fund fix and flip a foreclosure deal with a target profit of $25,000 or more.
Leo Wehdeking (03:20)
All right, all right, that’s cool. And what markets are you operating in? ⁓Donny Coram (03:25)
Right now we have hubs in the Colorado and Arizona markets. We are expanding to Nevada in the relatively near future, but our goal is to be national. There are going to be foreclosures in every market across the country. The key there is getting the construction systems dialed in in those markets prior to doing a full launch. So we are building construction teams in Arizona right now. We’ve got some very established construction teams in Colorado and we’re working on Nevada. But over time, we’re creating a framework where clients can build their own construction frame.work or teams around them so we can do foreclosure flips anywhere in the country.
Leo Wehdeking (03:59)
All right. All right. Love it, man. That’s actually pretty cool. Now, Donny, something that actually caught my attention, it’s the way that you’ve been able to help people ⁓ flipping houses. All right. And given them, ⁓ you know, a win of twenty five thousand dollars. Can you explain us how you’ve been able to integrate all of that into real estate?Donny Coram (05:10)
Yeah, you know, I started out as a real estate agent. was a licensed agent for 17 years. I realized that most agents are looking for the commission, so they want to sell people the most expensive house they can find, because that’s how they support their families. And I’m not knocking that.But the way I incorporate my structure looking at it the opposite way. We want to maximize our return on investment by buying the least expensive property that can provide a consistent $25,000 or more return. Now we’re targeting that return. I’ve got clients that have made 60 and up to $72,000 on a deal. So we’re not necessarily settling for 25K, but by doing the metrics upfront, which I think a lot of investors fail to do because they’re focused on the emotion. It’s very hard not to get emotional about a trade at this size.
You’re buying an ugly house for two to $300,000. You got to figure out the construction methodology. You got to do the interior design. And then after all that’s done, you got to expose yourself to an unpredictable market that might sell the house in a week and a half or the way it is right now. How’s are taking much longer to sell because interest rates are higher. So with all that emotion involved, investors tend to not do as good of a job. So what I’m doing is taking my real estate wealth strategy and helping people who are properly acclimated to find.
figure or analyze, fund, fix, and then flip that deal for the 25k profit that we can provide by doing the math upfront before we even start the project.
Leo Wehdeking (06:33)
Hey, that’s cool. That’s cool. And let me ask you something, Donny. What does an investor need, you know, to work with you?Donny Coram (06:40)
So there are three requirements right now to be in the foreclosure profit system. Number one, you must be willing to buy in our current target markets, which are currently encompassing Colorado and Arizona. Nevada should be on by fourth quarter of 25. ⁓ So you must be willing to buy in my state, of states, regardless of where you’re located. And that’s where some people get disconnected because like, don’t I need to go to the house? Ideally, no. Okay, we really want you to work from your mark, wherever you happen to be. We’re running the construction and all the systems so you can do this from anywhere in the country or world.Number two is you must be liquid. Whereas we used to say liquidity was about $50,000 because we are now buying a more expensive home because the higher end homes are moving at a better clip than the entry level homes. Current liquidity requirements are closer to $75,000 to $100,000 to get into a deal. You can use your IRA to flip a property. You can use cash. You can use equity in your home to get the money you need to do a deal, but you have to have $75,000 to $100,000 in liquidity today to do a deal. And then the most important thing, Leo, to me,
Leo Wehdeking (07:19)
youDonny Coram (07:40)
as far as what my clients need to have is coachability. And what I mean by coachability is after 400 deals of experience and 20 years of experience in doing this, I really want to direct people on the right path to get there. But you’d be shocked at how many people pay for professional consulting or coaching only to argue.with the culture consultant that’s offering the advice. So for me, if you’re going to sign up for my program, I have one ask, and it is that you do what my team asks you to do, because it makes our lives so much easier when you do that.
Leo Wehdeking (08:02)
I’mDefinitely, definitely. And that’s actually not easy, know, making a person, well, coaching a person and not having that person, you know, like bringing up, yeah, listen to you and bringing up questions, you know, sometimes they think they know.
Donny Coram (08:23)
Listen to you.Right, and I don’t mind the questions.
Leo Wehdeking (08:29)
Yeah, no, no,Donny Coram (08:29)
Yeah.Leo Wehdeking (08:29)
I don’t. But sometimes when I I when I say about questions is that sometimes, you know, they they’re the ones who wants to ask the questions and at the same time answer them, you know, like they they think they know everything. But what they don’t know is that you hired a professional to do it for you. OK, so let the professional advise you. So I’m telling you that’s.Donny Coram (08:37)
Right. That’s right. That’s right.Absolutely.
And some people are wired that way, right? And some people are just not. And I think that’s a big challenge whether you’re a financial advisor, a wealth strategist like myself, is all the advice in the world is not valuable if the people don’t take the advice, you know?
Leo Wehdeking (09:02)
Allright, all right. And ⁓ Donny, let me ask you something. What’s been the recipe or what’s the key, you know, for keeping your business running smoothly?
Donny Coram (09:46)
I think it’s following my process. The first step is we’ve got to find a deal. And people take for granted right now because there are deals all over. But not all deals are suited to all people. So the goal is to find a deal that really follows where your current knowledge level is. So we find the right deals for our clients, not just any deal. Then the figure stage or the analysis. We spend a good three to four hours per property. That’s just on the computer work, not counting our construction estimates, labor estimates, material estimates.We spent a lot of money to do proper analysis on the property to make sure we found the right deal and it’s a good deal for the client. Then the funding, you know, we’ve been struggling with doing hard money loans and hard money is great as long as you sell the property fast, you know, but because the market’s going slower right now, ⁓ we have to budget for more time in the hard money. So people have to get, you know, to fund the deal correctly. If you can go conventional finance, now’s a good time to consider going conventional.
Leo Wehdeking (10:32)
Exactly.Donny Coram (10:46)
because the rates are much cheaper and you can own the property for longer. The fixed stage we already talked about, there’s all these moving parts, Leo, when you’re trying to get a construction flip done, right? So we assist with that. And finally, the actual flip, we partnered with agents where we can get it listed and sold for a listing commission as low as $2,500 because our partner agents know that we can bring them a bunch of value, which is something that most individual investors can’t do. So the secret success in my business has really been following this process over years.Leo Wehdeking (10:56)
YouDonny Coram (11:16)
to find, figure, fund, fix and flip with a very predictable result at the end.Leo Wehdeking (11:21)
all right all right man that’s cool that’s cool now Donny i know that every operator that i know all right has a moment where things got real maybe a deal that went sideways or a time that you know that they had to pivot real fast do you mind sharing one of those momentsDonny Coram (11:40)
Yes,⁓ we flipped a house that we lost $100,000 on.
⁓ And what went wrong was everything but the real secret sauce was with a townhome and the townhome had a lot of restrictions on the construction side that we didn’t know about we were buying it and So just getting construction crews on site took much longer than we thought getting permitting from this HOA and all that stuff was a real issue But man you want to talk about a pucker factor when you’re about to take a six-figure loss But Leo I’ll tell you man. I’ve never my wife and I after that deal closed ⁓ We were celebrating at dinner that night because it just one of
where you breathe a sigh of relief when that kind of project gets off of your plate, right?
And suddenly you’re free, right? So it was painful to get through it, but the ending was totally worth it. We learned so much from that situation. And now I can pass that knowledge onto my clientele so they don’t have to make the same mistakes that I made in building their flipping operation. We can skip all the dumb stuff and get to the part where you’re making money much sooner.
Leo Wehdeking (12:20)
Exactly.All right. All right. Yeah. And you know what? And this is my personal opinion. I honestly think, you know, that what you did ⁓ is what separates people, you know, who just dabble from the one who actually stay in the game long term. OK, you need to know you need to know how to get up once you fail or once you’re failing. All right. So, yeah, you you saw, you know, you saw an opportunity over there, you know, you learn a lot from a lot from it, you know, so that’s actually very
Donny Coram (12:53)
Yes.Leo Wehdeking (13:09)
good. Now let me ask you something Adoni. Now what are you most focused on solving or scaling next?Donny Coram (13:17)
You know, the client attraction system, quite honestly, Leo, I mean, think our system and frameworks pretty dialed in, but where we struggle is bringing in the right client for the system. As you know, flipping is not for everybody, you know, and people come into this from watching the flipping shows and they get excited because they saw A &E flip this house and it got done in 30 minutes. They got this beautiful house. That is a reality TV show, but it is not reality.Right? And so people don’t get that when they come to me. So we’re really working on filing the right client avatar to maximize the success of the clients we do bring into the system because people who are not well suited to foreclosure flipping simply shouldn’t. And there are other real estate well strategies that might be more acclimated. And that’s why my firm can handle any other strategy, including buying Airbnb’s or rental property, et cetera. But we’re really focused on the foreclosure flipping opportunity right now because there are so many great properties coming to market.
Leo Wehdeking (13:41)
Exactly.Donny Coram (14:10)
making that a good place to focus our investment on today.Leo Wehdeking (14:55)
Okay, man, that’s actually pretty big, pretty big. Now, Donny, I know that a lot of people that are listening, you know, they’re either early in their journey or they’re just looking to level up, all right? And I think they will benefit, you know, from hearing this. When it comes about building relationships and growing up your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?Donny Coram (15:16)
I think being open to new ideas, I think you have to be networking constantly. And a lot of people, you we all hit a certain age, right? And suddenly the idea flow is not as strong as it was. You start getting resistant to what the future, real estate is changing before our eyes right now. The construction model, right? We’re having conversations where AI is putting scope of works together for us, right? So the world is changing drastically. So the key to networking is networking for me with people who are ahead of where I am.Technologically, right? They’re looking at what the future of real estate is going to be, not what it was in the past. I’m buying into a home inspection company, and here you have a guy who’s been doing home inspections.
Leo Wehdeking (15:48)
Exactly.Donny Coram (15:57)
for 30 years kind of the same way. He’s got his little check pad, he’s going through it, right? He’s not gonna change, right? I’m not saying it’s not important to gain from the wisdom of the past, but it’s so important, especially in real estate, to constantly be learning from what the future of the model is going to be, because that’s what keeps you forward thinking and able for me to serve my clients better, because we are always looking at what the next thing in real estate is going to be to try to anticipate it and start incorporating that technology before it’s available.Leo Wehdeking (16:25)
Yeah, and you know…Now that you mentioned that a lot of people are implementing AI into their businesses, not only in real estate, okay, because the thing is that it automates everything. Okay. And it, makes your job easier, you know? Yeah. So that’s actually that we’re going to be seen, you know, for a long, long, long time nowadays, people integrating technology into their businesses. Hey, all right, man. And listen, before we wrap up, if someone
Donny Coram (16:35)
Yes.100%.
Yeah.
Yes.
Leo Wehdeking (16:55)
wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, or maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing. What’s the best way for them to reach out to you?Donny Coram (17:03)
best wayis to check out my website, foreclosureprofitsystem.com. Again, that’s foreclosureprofitsystem.com. Head on out there, schedule a no obligation call. I like to really get to know my clientele before we decide if we’re work together or not, because I’ve had some bad experiences, right? So schedule a no obligation free call with me on that website. Let’s see if this is the right fit for you, and if it is, I would love to help.
all of your listeners to get started in foreclosure investing, but it’s got to be the right timing. It’s got to be the right financial move for you. And you got to have the confidence. You can take the guidance of being provided by my team with over a hundred years of experience, 400 personal flips for myself and a thousand flips amongst my team. You can’t go wrong bringing in the group of people that I’ve assembled to do this, but you got to be ready to take on the stuff that flipping is going to throw at you. And it always throws something.
Leo Wehdeking (17:53)
Okay, okay, all right, perfect. ⁓ Well, listen, Donny, I really appreciate your story, your time, and also your perspective, all right? We need actually more people like you in this space doing it the right way, all right? And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, just make sure you’re subscribed, all right? We got more conversations coming with operators just like Donny, all right, who are out there building real businesses. Until then, see you on the next episode, guys.Donny Coram (18:05)
Thank you. I really appreciate it.
