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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel podcast, host Skyler Byrd interviews Ray Butler, a young real estate investor and educator. Ray shares his journey from starting with no money at 19 to owning 14 rental units. He discusses his investment strategies, the importance of location, and how he helps others through his company, Vault Group, which provides education and funding for aspiring investors. Ray emphasizes the significance of due diligence and offers valuable advice for new investors, including common pitfalls to avoid.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Ray Butler (00:00)
Basically, I was a welder right I worked with my hands in Mobile, Alabama I was working at a shipyard called all stole and it was like military ships And I was just welding every single day working 70 hours a week Making no money at all and every once in a while, know You’d sneak off to the bathroom and watch YouTube or whatever and I would see people like Robert Kiyosaki Grant Cardone like these big guys talking about investing in real estate and creating passive income And I always thought it was like the dreamYou know you start looking into it and you start doing your own research and you realize that there actually is a way to do it You just need to know how to do it
Skyler (02:08)
Welcome everyone to the Investor Fuel podcast. I am your host today, Skyler Byrd. And today I am joined by Ray Butler. Ray, I’m excited to talk to you. You’re a young guy making your way in real estate, both on the investing side and the real estate education side, man. So thanks for joining.Ray Butler (02:24)
Absolutely man, I appreciate the time today brotherSkyler (02:26)
Yeah,no, absolutely. And, ⁓ Ray, tell everybody, what are you doing on the investing side and obviously what’s going on for you on the education side as well.
Ray Butler (02:35)
Absolutely, so yeah, I’ve been a real estate investor here since I was 19 years old today. I’m 26 and ⁓ I have 14 units right now that I own as buy and hold and I’ve purchased flipped, you know buying hold multiple properties I’ve been doing it like I said since I was 19 and Yeah, I started with zero money. I had absolutely no money. No experience. No one to hold my hand. No mentors none of that and through trial and error and figuring it out and hittingthe wall over and over again, I figured out a way to actually continue to get in there. Now I have a business, I help people get funding, like 0 % funding to get into their first deal and help them do stuff that way.
Skyler (03:15)
right man so. As a as a young guy nineteen man how did you get into some real estate how’d you actually come to find it.Ray Butler (03:21)
Yeah, so.Basically, I was a welder right I worked with my hands in Mobile, Alabama I was working at a shipyard called all stole and it was like military ships And I was just welding every single day working 70 hours a week Making no money at all and every once in a while, know You’d sneak off to the bathroom and watch YouTube or whatever and I would see people like Robert Kiyosaki Grant Cardone like these big guys talking about investing in real estate and creating passive income And I always thought it was like the dream
you know, you hear about it and so yeah
Yeah,
whatever they’re trying to sell me a course but then
You know you start looking into it and you start doing your own research and you realize that there actually is a way to do it You just need to know how to do it
then just do it so Yeah, basically I just I had to make the decision like I’m either gonna work with my hands for the rest of my life and end up like these 40 50 year old guys that can’t even walk and their backs are broken and their arms are burnt up from welding all these years or I have to make a severe change so I bought my first property and
19 years old, I had zero money at all. I barely could come up with enough money for the down payment with an FHA loan. I lived in it for a little while. I fixed it up and then left it, rented it out and today it costs me $700 a month and it brings me $17.25 a month. So, yes sir.
Skyler (04:39)
Man, so you had a goal in mind, you didn’t have anybody to help you, just decided I’m gonna make a change and you got into it, man. I respect it. That’s a scary thing, I love it. absolutely, man. So today you’ve got how many doors, what, 14? Is that what you said, 14 units? That’s excellent, Yeah, and I think it’s a solid mix, right? You’ve got single family, multi-family.Ray Butler (04:48)
Yes, sir.should.
Yeah, yes sir 14 right now under management.
Skyler (05:51)
Commercial multifamily right doing a little bit everythingRay Butler (05:53)
Yes, sir, I havea 10 unit apartment complex, a duplex and two single family homes.
Skyler (05:58)
Awesome. Nice man. So let me ask you to stay on the investing side of things for just a second. when you’re looking at properties, what are you looking for right now? Are you looking for a property that’s mostly kind of ready to go, just needs maybe some small improvements? Do you like to go in there and put a lot of ⁓ time and money into it and really improve it? What does it look like for you?Ray Butler (06:03)
Yeah, of course.You know, that’s a great question. I’ve done both ways, right? I’ve bought the ugly house in the great neighborhood and dropped $200,000 in the rehab. And then…
I’ve done the turnkey, like feel like I overpaid for a little bit, but then turnkey, it’s ready to go. There’s a tenant in the property within seven days or a tenant already in the property. So, you know, for me, it’s just like, it’s just what is the deal, right? I just look at the deal itself. Like one, do I love it? That’s the most important thing. Like, do I love the deal? Do I love the location? Do I see moms pushing the baby shoulders down the road? Do I see the whole foods and the targets and the Starbucks like right there? Like,
If it’s a place I would live in, that’s what I’m looking to buy.
Do I want to work on the property or force equity into it or just buy a turnkey? That for me, it totally depends on the deal and the situation. And I have no like, I only do it this way. I only buy luxury properties, meaning like by the time I’m done with it, it will be higher than every other property in the neighborhood. And it will cost more, the rent will be higher, but it will be the nicest house or apartment complex in the area. Because I’m just, I want it to be excellent. Like if it’s not something that I wouldn’t feel proud driving into, I would not buy it.
Yes, sir.
Skyler (07:29)
interesting. Yeah, no,especially coming from coming from where you did, right? I mean, the fact that you can get into that market, that’s impressive. I love it. And, and, you know, tell everybody a little bit about Vault Group and what you’re doing on the education side, how you’re able to help investors with with financing and working deals.
Ray Butler (07:34)
Yeah.Yes sir, I appreciate you asking that. So Vault Group, basically what we did is we took my situation, right, our perfect client is somebody who either one has a job.
Or two, they have properties but they want to scale or someone that has a job and they want to get into freedom. They want to create passive income and they want to break out of, have to go to work every single day for the rest of my life. Hate my boss, hate my paychecks. So what we do is we equip you first of all with the education side which is every Wednesday we have a group call and we underwrite deals. We teach you how to find deals, how to underwrite, how to never lose money on a piece of real estate, to have confidence going into any market. You can buy a good deal.
in
any market. There’s this big conception where it’s like all the markets down don’t buy real estate. Dude you can find a good deal in any market. So that being said we also help you with the money side. So the biggest objection people have when it comes to buying their first deal or their next deal is I don’t have any money. Like how am gonna go buy put 20, 30, 40, 100,000 dollars down.
into a property if I don’t have any money. So we help people access what’s called zero percent interest business funding so we can get people up to a quarter million dollars in zero percent interest funding with their LLC. We help them, you know, set up their legal structures, their trust, their holding companies, set everything up the legal right way to where number one, they protect themselves, they save money in taxes, and they can get funding for their first big deal. Yes, sir.
Skyler (09:11)
Nice. Okay,so you help everybody basically from the ground up, right? That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So are you mainly focusing on helping people that are just starting out from that ground level? Do you have anybody kind of coming to you that, you know, maybe like you said, kind of had, you know, three, four deals in there, but are trying to learn to do things in a more efficient way? What does that mix look like?
Ray Butler (09:16)
100%.Yeah, so we deal with everybody. my favorite clients are honestly, it just depends the situation of but my favorite clients tend to be people who are very coachable. So that generally falls in the terms of newer investors. But I will tell you like we run into guys that have five, 10, 15 units and they’re like, man, I want to buy this next deal. I don’t really have the funds. I need to come up with an extra 50 or 100,000 and they’ll use our funding service. We’ll get them funded. They can liquidate the business credit and then go put it down on something or
You know the brand new guy that has no idea what he’s talking about, but he has you know The urge and the want to do something great with his life So I mean we deal with like fix and flip guys like I helped a development guy man He’s he’s paying hard money right now, and he needed to come with $45,000 in seven days And he you know he does ground-up development like over and over and over again And as you know with I’m sure you’re very aware You know you seem like you’re very experienced in this the development guys that it’s either the tide is in or the tide is out with the money and sometimes
you need to get past the next 30, 60, 180 days. So, yeah.
Skyler (11:10)
Yeah,you need that bridge financing to get you over the hump, that’s for sure. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely understand. All right, so are you helping people kind of all over the country? Like, doesn’t matter what market they’re in, are you only kind of focused on the Alabama side? What does that look like?
Ray Butler (11:15)
Yes, sir.the entire US. So right now I’m stationed in Miami, Florida. I’m probably gonna move to San Diego for a little while, just because my wife and I, like, we don’t really like staying in one spot for too long, because we wanna make a big impact all over the US, really help a lot of people. But as of today, I’m in Miami, Florida. But we do it everywhere though, like, most of our clients are all over the US, we do everything from Zoom, and we walk people through their stuff.
Skyler (11:53)
Okay, awesomeman, nice, love it. And so what about on the only investment side? Do you buy properties kind of across the US too? Is that what you’re looking for? Do you have them concentrated just to one part of the country? What’s that look like?
Ray Butler (11:55)
Yes, sir.So I was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama. So for now, I’m probably just gonna go all in at Mobile just for a little while, just cause I know that market. Like I know every street, every road, like I spent 16 years there. But then I would say…
I’m probably gonna hit Jacksonville next or maybe some like, yeah, just maybe some different areas, but I like Florida. South Florida I think is not like yet unless I’m gonna build or buy just massive buildings. just not like, like a duplex down here is like a million two. Like get out of here man, like that ain’t gonna work. So yeah, yeah, so for me it’s mobile for now. I’m gonna just soak it up and then I’ll probably move to Jacksonville. Not move, but like start a
that St. Jacksonville.
Skyler (12:50)
at it. Now on the again on the investment side when you’re when you’re looking at properties whether that’s you know immobile maybe Jacksonville I mean are you somebody that do you need to have your boots on the ground go and really like walk through a property yourself to do that or are you able to you know have somebody go do that for you you know somebody that you trust what is that?Ray Butler (13:09)
Great question man, so because I know Mobile so well, I don’t actually have to go there. Like I was in Arizona in Scottsdale running a sales team and I was like seven days a week, right? I took that sales team to $27 million. That was before I started my company.I got a call from a broker and he was like, I have this 10-year apartment building. Here’s the address. So I looked it up on my phone real quick. Like I stopped the sales team or stopped managing the sales team. And I looked at my phone and I saw the area and I clicked. was like, oh, I know the light bulb went off. I know exactly where that’s at. He’s like, it’s $600,000. It’s not occupied. It’s distressed. It’s going to need a lot of work. So I looked at it, looked at the pictures. I was like, yep, let’s run it. So we put on a contract. We closed in eight days. And then I never looked at the property ever. And then I immediately called a
I was able it from there. brought it to the bank and we got everything appraised. We even filled it up to 100 % occupancy instantly because it was like an Airbnb guy or whatever that owned it. It was running to the ground and we were able to get it a re or not refinance, but appraised for $780,000 off rip.
Which I just wanted to make sure that we weren’t gonna be upside down on the deal. So basically, yeah, to answer your question in that story, yeah, I’ve had to make, you know, half million dollar decisions over the phone. Like, okay, let’s do it. So as long as I know the area, of course I’m gonna make fast decisions. If I’m gonna go in a new area, I’m gonna walk the property. I’m gonna look around, I’m gonna feel it out. I’m looking for like, is this safe? What’s the vibes here? Do I love it? Is this weird?
Skyler (15:23)
Yeah,no, I like how you go about that, by the way. Like if this isn’t a place you would want to be like, why would you want to own property there? Right? Yeah, no, I, I agree with that. I have seen people do it the other way around where they’re just taking a look at the property and it’s just like, okay, what’s the, you know, just how does it pencil on on paper there? But if you don’t really, you know, if you don’t feel safe in the area or something’s just off, it’s like, hey, man, it’s going to be that way for, you know,
Ray Butler (15:28)
Yeah.100%.
Skyler (15:50)
A lot of other people too and I’m sure your landlord, you know, it’s all about who you can get in for tenants, right? Yeah, there you go.Ray Butler (15:56)
Absolutely. AndI’m looking for people that have pride in what they own. not looking to like, I don’t want to own a shack that’s beat down or run down. Like it’s embarrassing. Like, wow, that’s mine. Like, no, I want it to be like, yeah, that’s mine. Like that right there, I built that. I created that. And then I want the tenant to be like, wow, I live here. Yeah, that’s my spot. I live here.
Skyler (16:18)
Yeah,awesome. No, I love it, man. Again, I think it’s an excellent mentality. And the fact that you’ve done that from such a young age, again, it’s incredibly impressive. So tell me, man, what does the future look like for you? What are we trying to get to? Is it more investing? Is it scaling the business? Tell me about that.
Ray Butler (16:28)
Thank you brother.you
Yeah, so the target for me is I have to have $100 million, $100 million with the real estate under management for sure in the next like five, seven years. I have to. And then the company, I’m going to build it up, I’m going to scale it and I’m going to exit it. I would love to exit the company one day. So the target is just to create massive wealth, go full time and investing one day, just go into bigger investments, like big multifamily properties, like 100 units plus.
like institution sized investments and then yeah just keep growing man like I love what you’re doing here man like meet people like you like I want to go full-time and like meet people like you and and find like people that are actually hungry and doing the next right thing versus just living life like what’s the point of just living you got it you got to make something out of this
Skyler (17:25)
Andyou get to find and surround yourself with doers, right? There’s a lot of people out there that just talk. You got to find the people that are actually taking action that can help you out along the way. And again, man, it’s another reason why I’m impressed with you because you did this for young age. You didn’t have anybody helping you. You just kind of dove in and tried to figure it out. And I know that is not easy. So that’s awesome. I loved hearing it. All right. So let me ask you, if…
Ray Butler (17:29)
That’s right.Yes, sir.
Yessir
Skyler (17:50)
you know there’s anybody out there listening and they’re interested in in your education company want to come in and learn from you if they’re interested you know with part possibly part on with the on a deal or something you know how can they get in touch with you what what’s thatRay Butler (18:01)
Yeah.Absolutely, so my Instagram is Ray Butler r-a-y-b-u-t-l-e-r dot c So Ray Butler dot c you can message me on there. Tiktok is the same thing YouTube is the same thing. So I’m all over there and then yeah I’m here if anyone ever wants to reach out my company is called vault group So my my link is in my bio there at vault group and we’re here to help everybody man So if there’s anything anyone needs feel free to reach out to me at any time
Skyler (18:32)
Awesome,man. And one last thing, before we kind of get going here, I’m interested to know if you’re talking to somebody that is interested in getting into real estate, let’s just say, let’s give you something more specific. Just on the residential side, maybe single family, what’s one big pitfall you’d really advise somebody to watch out for?
Ray Butler (18:36)
Yes, sir.like avoid, that’s a great question. There’s a lot, there’s a lot of those experiences, we’ll teach you all of them.
I would say do your due diligence on insurance like flood zones. Don’t go into contract and let’s just say, I’m gonna buy this deal. The numbers are penciling out perfect. Yeah, insurance will probably be around this. You didn’t realize it’s a flood insurance policy that’s required and now you just lost everything. And the negatives, HOAs, I’d watch out for those. I would also watch out for foundations. So foundations are super important. no one really cares about that because it’s not like an aesthetic thing.
Skyler (19:18)
There you go.Ray Butler (19:23)
If you’re first of all, I like to only buy properties with foundations I don’t really like the crawlspace stuff I will if it’s just a great deal and it’s been redone and it’s perfect and it’s really looked good looked at really well But if your foundation is cracked messed up if it’s unstable if there’s a sinkhole or something You need to really make sure that you have a really good property inspector that you trust a hundred percent Go look at everything and even maybe call out like a foundation like like an engineer or something just to take a peek at if somethinglooks a little odd. So I’d like maybe stuff like that.
Skyler (19:54)
There you go.Stuff that you wouldn’t think of immediately. No, I love that answer. It’s not where I thought you were going to go with it, so you surprised me again, man. That was great. All right. So as we come up on time here, everybody, our audience out there, if you’ve got something of value from this conversation, please hit that Subscribe button. We have got more interviews coming to you every day here. And we’ll see you all on the next episode.
Ray Butler (20:03)
Yessir.
