From Retail Agent to Investor: Building a Cash Offer Machine That Scales

Matthew Kane (00:00)

So I kind of actually grew up in real estate as a cold caller. Before I was even a licensed broker, I was a cold caller. I was making five to 600 phone calls a day looking for people who were interested in buying and selling real estate. So that’s kind of the, my background. And I think a big piece of what made me successful as well, but it’s also something that I continue to kind of, not that I call five or 600 people a day anymore, but I kind of have that in

back of my head whenever I’m hiring people and the people that I hire I make sure they’re willing to do the same ⁓ but I spend multiple we all spend three four hours a day specifically on lead conversion in the office all we’re doing is outbound efforts we don’t even respond to calls until after all of our outbound efforts are made

Michelle Kesil (02:20)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Matthew Kane, who is a real estate investor and broker based in North Carolina. So excited to have you here today, Matthew.

Matthew Kane (02:38)

I’m happy to be here. I appreciate you guys inviting me on.

Michelle Kesil (02:41)

Absolutely, I think our listeners are really going to take something away from your experience with investing and the brokerage side of real estate. So let’s dive in. First off, for those not yet familiar with you and your work, can you share what your main focus is?

Matthew Kane (02:59)

Yeah, so we started this business nine and a half years ago.

And I started primarily in retail real estate. So I started as an individual agent, kind of built my individual business where I got to the point near my first year, sold 40 houses, then 80, then 100 and 120 and kind of kept compounding and compounding and compounding until I hit that wall where I needed to build a team to support all these opportunities that I had coming in.

So I did, I ended up building that real estate team not necessarily out of wanting to have a team, but needing to have a team. And eventually that’s been ongoing for about five years now. We started with just one buyer’s agent. We’re now up to about 20 agents in our group. ⁓

And just being in the position we are, we naturally fell into a lot of investment opportunities. Right. So it really was two, three years ago where I actually just started getting involved in those opportunities and stepping out of my lane and stepping into that. So in our first year, we are I’m sorry, two years ago, we really built that that investment wing. We really started focusing on that guaranteed cash offer program for our real estate team. And in that first year, we did a

about 40 investment deals and we are on track to outpace that here for our second full year as well. So we’re hoping to hit 60.

Michelle Kesil (04:29)

Awesome. Yeah, how did you like kind of pivot into the investing? Is there kind of a way that you decided that that’s the route you’re going to take? And how did that journey look like to get more into the investing side?

Matthew Kane (05:30)

Yeah, so for me it was, so it was kind of organic. It wasn’t like a decision I made. It was, ⁓ we’re naturally marketing everywhere for retail real estate. So I was.

getting calls from people that were more along the lines of, do you know an investor who will just buy this house from me? And it was probably three years ago when I got this one call and it was, hey, I don’t care really what I get for an offer. It just, I need someone to buy this house. I need to sell it quick or, you know, worse things will happen. And it was the first time where I’ve really stepped out of my lane and said, you know what? I’ve got to find a way to make this happen. I was getting a little burnt out on real

estate sales and running around and chasing clients. I was looking for something a little bit less work the weekends and the nights. So I jumped on that opportunity and we had a huge profit margin ⁓ and it kind of just opened my eyes to the possibilities and we started marketing and shifting towards that.

Michelle Kesil (06:33)

Awesome. And what do you feel are some of the main keys that made the biggest difference in allowing your business to be able to grow and run smoothly?

Matthew Kane (06:44)

I was really fortunate enough to have ⁓ some really good support here in our group when we took off. I had a few other business partners that were… ⁓

very interested in this as well and they also work leads just as hard as I do and I think that’s really the foundation and that’s what led us to be successful is because we go direct to seller. We are very accustomed to working leads. ⁓

And I don’t think a lot of groups hit them as hard as we do. We put them through 10 days of pain. We do everything because we’re so used to doing that for retail sales where we are actually converting our cash offer leads at a much higher level than most groups around. So I think that was a big component of it and something that’s kind of helped us continue to thrive.

Michelle Kesil (07:36)

Definitely. How do you like process hiring like the right people? Is there a certain protocol or type of person that you’re looking for?

Matthew Kane (07:45)

⁓ So our hiring process, we have everybody go through the same process. We always are hiring the right people. So we always have job applications open on every different medium you could imagine. ⁓ We do have a little bit more of tiresome.

application process where they have to do the personality assessments, they have to send us video, they meet with my operations guy twice, they do a virtual call with him, then they meet him in person, then they’ll meet me, and then if I give them the thumbs up, I’ll introduce them to the team and see what the team thinks. So it just kind of prevents future issues with them. But I normally will know pretty quickly whether or not they have that personality

that

I’m looking for and I’m just really looking for those hungry yet humble folks ⁓ that mesh well with the team and that are driven and competitive.

Michelle Kesil (08:41)

Definitely, that’s important.

So when we chatted earlier, you mentioned lead generation is a strength of yours. Can you expand on what that looks like for you?

Matthew Kane (08:49)

Yeah, so I grew up in real estate. came to a market where I wasn’t aware of anybody. I did not have friends. I did not have a sphere of influence, had no local presence.

So I kind of actually grew up in real estate as a cold caller. Before I was even a licensed broker, I was a cold caller. I was making five to 600 phone calls a day looking for people who were interested in buying and selling real estate. So that’s kind of the, my background. And I think a big piece of what made me successful as well, but it’s also something that I continue to kind of, not that I call five or 600 people a day anymore, but I kind of have that in

back of my head whenever I’m hiring people and the people that I hire I make sure they’re willing to do the same ⁓ but I spend multiple we all spend three four hours a day specifically on lead conversion in the office all we’re doing is outbound efforts we don’t even respond to calls until after all of our outbound efforts are made

but right now we’re doing direct mail we do have ⁓

a cold calling team, we have the acquisition specialist, we do PPC, we do PPL, we’re doing it all. And we’re looking to just kind of continue to grow those efforts and continue to partner with people that are willing to put in that same level of work that I did.

Michelle Kesil (10:14)

Yeah, absolutely, that’s important. What are you most focused on solving or scaling to next in your business?

Matthew Kane (10:56)

⁓ So right now I currently do a lot of the acquisitions myself and I sell still as well because I’m kind of in what I would call the mud where I am not really fully out of production. I’m still kind of working on getting there and building.

out the team so I don’t need to be in the day to day. ⁓ So that’s really my next focus is figuring, okay, do I have enough people to take all these appointments? Do I trust the people? Have I trained them well enough? Is everything in order where these guys can kind of step into this role and is our model and our package strong enough to where they’re incentivized to grow with us instead of looking for other opportunities? So just really honing in, building that

⁓ 2026 I’m also planning to hire a full-time number two so I’m excited about that ⁓ because I’ve done most of this at this point it’s been pretty much a solo effort with myself and an executive assistant but we are looking to to put in that operations role full-time and hopefully that kind of sparks a fire and helps us continue our growth.

Michelle Kesil (12:07)

Awesome. As far as investing, are there any sort of opportunities or asset classes that you’re hoping to invest in adding your portfolio?

Matthew Kane (12:21)

Yeah, this is the year I’m looking specifically for commercial. ⁓ We know all those commercial notes have or are coming due here in the future. ⁓ So we’re looking to kind of push our marketing towards commercial properties, ⁓ landlords.

multifamilies things along those lines and kind of for me personally as far as properties that I’m holding I’m holding plenty of residential single families and townhomes and things like that but really just sort of shifting over ⁓ going a little bit bigger and ⁓ yeah, put in the work to get there I guess.

Michelle Kesil (12:58)

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned that you’ve done a lot of flips this year. What has been like one of the challenges that you’ve experienced and lessons that you’ve learned?

Matthew Kane (13:08)

⁓

think one of the lessons lesson learned, we’ve been fortunate enough, we’ve been really successful and we do do a lot of homework on all of our properties and we underwrite it multiple times from multiple different people to prevent ⁓ any kind of issues with ARVs and things along those lines. And we have two people look at the property to get two opinions before we actually close on the transaction. ⁓ But just one trend I think that I have picked up on that does scare me a little bit.

is if we do a lot of times we’ll send out that first acquisitions guy or girl and the ARV comes out drastically incorrect ⁓

And it almost seems because they are paid based on closings, basically securing the deal for us, we do pay upfront for that and then we take them from that where they’re giving us projections that are just way out of line with what reality is. So we’ve been seeing a lot of that lately ⁓ and really just kind of focusing in on slowing things down to make sure all those numbers are right before we enter any kind of deal.

Michelle Kesil (14:16)

Yeah, definitely that’s important. Do you have any advice for those that are just starting out and investing?

Matthew Kane (14:21)

I would say it’s kind of a two-fold thing for me because it did. very much… ⁓

I was probably stuck in analysis paralysis for a couple years where I just wasn’t actually pulling the trigger and doing it. So I want to say to trust your gut and if you do come up on one of those opportunities and you think it might be a gateway for you, don’t hesitate to jump on it. you know, that double, that double sword, I’d say have a mentor, know somebody that is in the business that’s been doing this for a while. ⁓ Have somebody to run your numbers against and just double check everything, but don’t

those opportunities slip by.

Michelle Kesil (14:57)

Yeah, definitely that’s important. What are your goals for this coming year?

Matthew Kane (15:43)

⁓

Goals for 2026. think I mentioned earlier, we are going to hire that operations member. That’s a big one for us and that’s going to take a while to find that right person. ⁓ My second goal is to be fully out of acquisitions and fully out of sales. So that is a, it’ll be big for myself and my family. So I think my wife will super appreciate that. ⁓ So those are, those are the two big ones. And then as far as

I guess transactions deal count, things like that. We’re trying to hit 60 investment deals this year and we should break about 400 sales. So super active. That would be a very, very achievable thing. That would be about a 20 % increase on sales, 25 % increase on investment properties.

Michelle Kesil (16:34)

Awesome. And yeah, as far as like the brokerage side of your business, like are you also selling to investors?

Matthew Kane (16:36)

Yep.

I am, yep, we do, we keep our cash buyer list. We do wholesale deals. We do bring opportunities to investors. It all just kind of depends on what the deal looks like, where it is.

how booked out our contractors are, things like that. We’re not afraid to take a small win instead of a big win just to keep things moving and continue to have a positive ROI on our lead sources. And it’s also good just building relationships with other local investors. ⁓ Those good opportunities that you hand off, it comes back to you tenfold. So not afraid to do that at all. But ⁓ yeah, we do it, we do it for sure. And then we also have

⁓ You know, a lot of times we will have these deals that would make sense as investment properties, but we just don’t have the capacity to take something on and I don’t have another immediate buyer for it. ⁓ We do have that nice fallback ⁓ because we are a real estate sales team where we can also just go ahead and list the property.

One of the things that was really unique looking at my numbers last year was our number one source of business for our investment company actually came from our retail sales team. And then our number one retail listing source actually came from our investment company. So was kind of neat to see how that all came together.

Michelle Kesil (18:04)

Yeah, that’s awesome. So do you have like different kind of like groups and teams? What does that look like?

Matthew Kane (18:12)

We, ⁓ so we do have a, it’s kind of, it’s kind of hodgepodge a little bit. It’s our business, our client facing business is that real estate company. We do have a couple folks that do acquisitions behind the scenes that are not licensed real estate agents. They are going solely exclusively to buy that property. But then we also do have a few.

experienced listing agents that understand the value of investing in real estate where they will actually, we do trust them to go hold an acquisitions appointment to go meet with the seller and basically they’re going to give the seller different options and whichever option is most appropriate for that seller, we’re able to execute on it.

Michelle Kesil (18:59)

Awesome. As far as networking, are there any specific strategies that you use or ways that networking has made the biggest difference for your business? ⁓

Matthew Kane (19:13)

Yeah, so,

We are a part of a few large investment masterminds that we do go to. And it’s really cool to see what other people are doing across the country. ⁓ I’ve been a part of a few different ones for a few different years now. So we do that so we can see what’s going on nationally, see what other practices people are using. And it’s just wild to go to these events and you hear this one little thing and it just kind of clicks with you as a missed opportunity or why

the heck am I not doing that kind of situation? ⁓ Or maybe it’s a tool that somebody’s using that can help you grow your business.

incredibly. ⁓ So we’re doing that at a national level. We do the local real estate investment meetings. ⁓ And then we also do all of our realtor events and ⁓ marketing to realtors and letting realtors know that if their clients do need to cash offer that we are here for them. And we can pay those realtors their commission and get them taken care of as well. ⁓ We do end up getting quite a few transactions through that medium.

Michelle Kesil (20:21)

Awesome. And for investors that are looking to maybe buy property in the North Carolina area, is there anything that people need to know about your market?

Matthew Kane (20:26)

and

Most important, so I’m on the coast. I’m kind of by the beach. ⁓ There’s been a lot of storms.

Matthew Kane (00:00)

Yeah, so I’d say the biggest risk ⁓ looking at real estate here in my market where I’m in coastal North Carolina, ⁓ obviously hurricane damage mold, there’s high humidity. So definitely checking those flood zones, making sure there’s no previous history. And what’s really cool and something that we kind of picked up on too, is you can actually look at old NOAA maps to see where previous flood water landed.

So that’s something that we kind of built into our process as well. And really just the crawl spaces here in coastal North Carolina are always high risk. ⁓ Just damaged wood, mold, termites, things like that. Just some things to keep an eye out for here in our market.

Michelle Kesil (00:43)

Yeah, absolutely, makes sense. Awesome. So before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more, where can people find you and connect with you?

Matthew Kane (00:52)

Yeah, they can find me directly on Facebook at Matthew Kane, Coastal Carolina’s favorite agent, or they can reach out to us on Facebook or Instagram at Tidal Realty Partners.

Michelle Kesil (01:04)

Awesome. Appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Matthew Kane (01:08)

appreciate you having me.

Michelle Kesil (01:09)

Of course, and for the listeners tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Matthew who are building real businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode.