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Show Summary
In this conversation, Russell Reekwald shares his extensive experience in the real estate industry, discussing his journey from a young age to becoming a successful real estate broker and investor. He emphasizes the importance of credit in real estate transactions and introduces his credit restoration company, Credit Launch 777. Russell also highlights the significance of building relationships with clients and helping them achieve their financial goals, all while maintaining integrity and a strong moral compass. The conversation concludes with spiritual insights and reflections on the importance of faith in business.
Resources and Links from this show:
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- Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
- Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
- Mike on Facebook
- Mike on Instagram
- Mike on LinkedIn
- Russell Reekwald’s Phone Number: (713) 213-3964
- Russell Reekwald’s Email: [email protected]
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Russell Reekwald (00:00)
Well, absolutely. I think one, the thing that my dad preached most on was honesty and integrity. He come into this world with nothing and you leave with your word. And your word is your legacy. so that has stuck with me. it’s being in the business, it’s hard. It’s hard. My dad did not have a problem. He would say what’s on his mind.whatever it meant, it meant losing a deal, but to stand firm on what you do and what you say. And that builds a foundation,
Quentin Edmonds (02:07)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. Do know what I’m gonna say? I’m excited. I’m excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest. Listen, someone that has 40 years of experience. And so that’s one of his strengths. Not only does he have 40 years of experience, his parents have experience that they passed on to him as well. And so I’m excited. He’s been, he’s attacked us from a lot of different angles.investor, expo closer, mortgage broker, like again, 40 years. So it’s not going to too much that we can’t talk about today. And so I am very excited for you all to meet Mr. Russell Reekwald. How did I do with that last name? Reekwald? Awesome. Awesome. Absolutely. So glad to have you here. So good to see you. Yeah. And Mr. Russell, listen, I’m going be honest. I want to dive right in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days.
Russell Reekwald (02:51)
Perfect.Quentin Edmonds (03:05)
Give them a little bit of an origin story of how you got into you know real estate. love the origin story, so I’m sure they would love to hear it. And then tell them what part of the world you’re in, what market you’re operating in. So Mr. Russell, you have the floor, Sir.Russell Reekwald (03:18)
Thank you, Quentin. I would say that the start of my career was at an early age. My parents were real estate brokers in a small town in Michigan. And my mom, who didn’t like to drive much, asked me on weekends if I’d be interested in earning some extra money. And that money would be to drive her around and her clients.And if she sold the house, she was paying me $50. This is 1972. So you know, weighed the options, paper route, $50 for driving my mom in a nice new car. And I took the route of the, of the real estate driver. And one particular weekend, my mom sold three houses and I earned $150. At age 16 and in the seventies, that was a lot of money.
And so I got caught in that aspect of it with real estate. And my dad went ahead and had me get licensed at 18 to become the youngest real estate agent in the state of Michigan. And on my 21st birthday, I became a real estate broker and being the youngest one to be a real estate broker in the state of Michigan.
And then he took it one step further and said, you need to get your builder’s license. And I said, I’m not sure which side of the hammer to use. I said, I don’t think I could do that. And long and behold, I studied hard enough and got my builder’s license. so that started the real estate career. And at that same time, at age 18, I purchased my first house with an inheritance when my grandfather passed away.
And so purchased a first house. it was $28,000 in a small town on an acre of land. We completely gutted it and sold it gutted for about a $12,000 profit. so that caught me into the investing side and bought a few other ones. Why went off to college on a hockey scholarship? And so after college, my dad said, OK, you’re ready to get
in the real estate business. said, no, dad, I think I’m going to play minor league hockey. And so I started that. within a few short months, he said, how’s that working out? I said, great. He said, you know what? People make more money on a paper route than you’re making. So and I said, yeah, but they don’t have the glory of driving that team bus.
and just the accolades that you get out of it. So I continued doing that for several years and then finally figured a time to hang it up and got full force into real estate and moved down to Houston, Texas and started off by working for a relocation company here in Houston for many years and then moved on to escrow officer and then gotten involved with a company that we created called Texas Real Estate Investments and purchased many houses throughout
the Houston area, we dealt with the home builders that were actually selling properties at that time that weren’t moving quickly enough. And we would take the last six or seven out of their community to close out and get incredible deals and then pass that on to investors out of California. And the investors in California, we would actually take 10, 15, 20 properties on a PowerPoint slide.
go to California, put them up there and people would buy them like they buy hamburgers. It was amazing and it was a great two or three years. And in fact, many of those same clients that purchased those homes in 2005, six and seven will reach out to me and when they’re ready to sell here, here it is 20 some years later and those properties have appreciated, I think they…
First, originally bought them for 150 to 175, and now they’re over 300,000. And so it just was a great investment for those individuals. And then we bought into quite a few of those too. But now, currently, after you know a career in the mortgage business, I saw a need for credit repair. And through that, we formulated a company called Credit Launch 777.
and started this restoring program and platform that has been created. it’s almost unbelievable how well it works. And I had to see it firsthand and delve myself into a particular deal to believe that this could take place. There’s so much erroneous information that the bureaus put on reports that we’re able to take a
program platform and sift through that thousands and thousands of responses and able to get those things at an 88 % clip of getting them removed. therefore, taking those particular clients to builders, to real estate agents, and also to mortgage companies.
Quentin Edmonds (08:58)
Yeah, I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Russell. I you’ve given us like you literally given us the origin story walk us up to where you are now. Very well done. Thank you for what I call the story. Right. Thank you for telling us your story, which is so impactful and so encouraging. And as I listen to you talk our youngest wrote first, so in 1972, right, this is when kind of like all this kind of kind of started to unfold.And then you said the youngest real estate agent in Michigan. Did I hear you say that? Was that correct?
Russell Reekwald (10:05)
Yes, I’ll tell you a quick story. Natalie was 18, very young. I looked 15. My dad would put me on floor duty. They had floor duty back then. It was a different type of business. And a gentleman walked in, older gentleman. I say older, he was probably 50. And he said, I got up, as my dad told me, greet him, shake the hand. And I was in my nice leisure suit.And I said, can I help you? said, yes, I’d like to speak to a real estate agent. And I said, yes, sir. Shook his hand again. No, no, you’re missing my point. I need to talk to a real estate agent. I said, yes, sir. The third time, he said, I need to speak to an agent. I said, I am an agent, Sir Yeah. He kind of gave me a little snicker and said, ⁓ I’ll come back when there’s someone a little older. Wow. Boy.
It didn’t get under my skin much, but it sure got under my dad’s skin. so that was part of that lesson learning of real estate at firsthand at a young age, because people look at you and don’t think you have the knowledge and experience, which I didn’t at the time. But having grown up in the family of real estate, sitting at the breakfast table, the dinner table,
and listening to my mom and dad talk real estate, I soaked up a lot of information and learned a lot. My mom and dad were amazing real estate agents and even developed land. And in fact, he sold Pulte homes, their first track of land in the early seventies, a 25 acre track, and they Pulte developed it. so, and of course they’re
the second largest builder in the country.
Quentin Edmonds (11:40)
Wow, I mean so not only was your parents great just for real estate They just sound like they were just great parents in general because I know your mother your mother I guess in a sense giving you to your first job like hey you can do the paper roll or you can drop You know for $50. I mean it just sound like your parents put just some foundational Tools in you that you were able to just build on and so I have a saying why I say destiny has no wasted momentLike meaning like no matter what we go through in life, there’s nothing wasting. There’s no scraps. We can put everything to use. And so I would love to know if have you identified some core like values or strategies that you know has really helped you and continue to help you as you continue to be successful in life.
Russell Reekwald (12:32)
Well, absolutely. I think one, the thing that my dad preached most on was honesty and integrity. He come into this world with nothing and you leave with your word. And your word is your legacy. so that has stuck with me. it’s being in the business, it’s hard. It’s hard. My dad did not have a problem. He would say what’s on his mind.whatever it meant, it meant losing a deal, but to stand firm on what you do and what you say. And that builds a foundation,
being a Christian, that’s uh you know everything that’s meant to be, to walk as close to and like Jesus as possible and so again, it’s not easy. It’s not easy, but ⁓ there’s a lot of life lessons in that.
alone.
Quentin Edmonds (13:24)
Absolutely.What’s the, uh, what it say? Take up your cross and follow me. Like you, listen, if you, if you’re not willing to do that, what did we talk about here? Right? So no, absolutely. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I’m so glad to hear your anchor come out. Just, you know, it makes things even start to connect even more. The dots start to connect even more with me, with your, with your parents and how they raised you, knowing that you were a believer.
Knowing that you know, just you know you being a Christian it just it gives you it Let me know where your anchor is and I can just clearly see your anchor Your parents have passed the anchor on into you throughout your life and I and I see it coming through and so on So yeah, man, I am loving your story. I’m loving talking to you. let me ask you What’s the next real goal? And make sure I get the name right for credit launch 777. What’s the next real goal with that?
Russell Reekwald (14:59)
we’re not only in Texas, we’re nationwide. I think our goal, I mean always start and work my way back. I look at where do I want to be in a certain amount of time? And then I build a organization of timelines of how to get to that goal. I’ve always started at what?I want to achieve first and then figure out what is it going to take to get there. And what we want to achieve is we want to achieve the ability to assist people that are not in the position today to purchase a home and to guide them, direct them and empower them in a timeframe and usually in a quick timeframe to get to where they want to be so that their next journey in life.
will be created from a sense of financial responsibility and financial endeavors that can carry them on to not just to buy their own personal house, but to do other business opportunities. Because credit, it is anchored to you in any type of business that you want to get in, get involved in, or in your own personal facts. I mean, it ties into your interest rate of being able to purchase a home and to even get in an apartment, you know.
rental unit, your insurance, your homeowner insurance, your life insurance. Every company looks at the credit and maybe that’s not the fair way, but it is the way because when you look at credit, the individuals that have things and I’m just prefacing this on a lot of maybe people that got caught in you know a divorce.
or lost their job, you know, tragedy in life, things of that nature, not the individual that’s just totally irresponsible and not, you know, taking care of his business or her business. You know, yes, we want to help those people to guide them and direct them and empower them, but they have to get on board. They need to get on board. You know, one of the things that we do is say, go on, you know, get, get, take a Dave Ramsey course,
Christian, guy and just a great guy. I had the pleasure of going and watching him live one time. I felt like I was in a comedy workshop. The guy was so engaging, so incredibly knowledgeable about everything and hearing his story was incredible in itself. We want to help those people that want to help themselves to get to where they need to be in any type of endeavor.
Quentin Edmonds (17:34)
Yeah. Mr. Russell, I love everything you’re saying. And when I asked you that question, you said you want to assist people that’s not in position to purchase their first home, right? To purchase their home. So it lets me know you’re coming from a place of servitude. And I tell people all the time, if you want to have any sustainable business, the foundation be serving somebody. And so when I hear what you’re saying, absolutely servitude is coming shining through. And you know me and my wife, also believe in Dave Ramsey.financial piece. we got a this this year I told her the 2026, you know, you because we try to do a lot of things we try to, serve our community, be connected to community. But I told I said we got to work we got to focus on our finances like so 2026. We already have a date on January 17 prosperity partners out of this church at first back to church in Glenard here where I am in Maryland. And so
I just, everything you saying, just, it resonates with me. Like when you say it, like just light bulbs go off, like, like, yes, what he’s saying is absolutely 100 % true and definitely connecting with me. And I believe it’s going to connect with a lot of people that’s listening at the same time.
Russell Reekwald (18:42)
Yeah, well, God tells us to be good stewards, you know, with with with everything and those that do for the least of those, you know, so I’ve always felt the way I always enjoyed taking it like on the mortgage side of it, of doing a deal for an individual that I knew really wanted that first home and they they worked hard. They you know, and I had more appreciation and love for that than if it was a$6 million deal that, you know, that just was another notch on someone’s investment belt. So there’s goodness helping people that really need that direction, that guidance.
Quentin Edmonds (19:21)
Yeah. No, you, you’re there. There you go like you’re literally living in the ancient proverb, like proverbs 11, 25 says, when you refresh others, you in return will be refreshed. And so it’s like you refreshing others. So you get refreshed, they get refreshed and they go refresh somebody else. And then it’s just, it’s the cycle that just keeps on giving. And so, I hear you loud and clear. So while we’re right here, I want to put a bow on this because we’ve beenRussell Reekwald (19:23)
and bless others.Quentin Edmonds (19:49)
kind of talking about around relationships, but I want to directly talk about relationships. So is relationship building important to you? It sounds like it is, but I want to call it out like point blank. How do you view relationship building? Is it important to you?Russell Reekwald (20:04)
It’s in my business and in most businesses, it’s the number one focus is to building relationship, long lasting relationship. Every client is as important as the next, no matter where they are financially, take care of them, do what’s right by them. and uh you know those relationships last a lifetime. As I said, we’ve had people calling us back, you know20 years later telling us thank you for for guiding us helping us 20 years ago. and I’ve, believe me, I’ve been helped, and I have those people that have, carried me on their shoulders when I was younger to get to where we are today. So the relationship is about everything.
Quentin Edmonds (20:50)
Yeah, this has been so good, Mr. Russell. This has been great for me and I know it’s been great for those that’s listening. Mr. Russell, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,Russell Reekwald (21:05)
Well, with CreditLaunch777, they can call 713-213-3964, or they can check an email at [email protected].Quentin Edmonds (21:24)
Mr. Russell Sir, Mr. Reekwald, one, want to thank you for your time, because of course time is very, very precious, very, very valuable commodity. So thank you for your time. Definitely thank you for your story. Thank you for your perspective. You know Jesus taught in parables, so we know stories is powerful. So I just feel like what we do here is kind of like the modern day parable, right? For us, and especially for people like you and I, we talk business, but also there’s a deeper meaning to what we’re talking to at the same time.So thank you for your story and thank you for your perspective. Thank you for the way you think and you for bringing that mindset to this platform. I know people was encouraged by it and maybe even challenged by it. And so I appreciate you being here today.
Russell Reekwald (22:08)
Well, thank you and your team. It’s an honor. I have followed you guys around on the different platforms. And you know, I just said to myself one day, I just had an urging through the Lord, just said, email them, you know, get yourself an opportunity to share some things and meet some new people.Quentin Edmonds (22:28)
Yeah. Well, definitely you took the initiative. Like we make our plans. He determines the outcome and this is part of the outcome. Right. So I appreciate you, sir. ⁓ Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Russell, you can’t tell me you did not get some nuggets from this conversation. He just gave you 40 years of experience in 20 minutes. So definitely reach out to Mr. Russell, reach out to credit notch seven, seven, seven. You probably can look in our show notes and get theRussell Reekwald (22:38)
Absolutely.Quentin Edmonds (22:58)
the information on how to get connected. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here. I promise you we’re gonna continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Russell. So sir, thank you again and to everyone else. Absolutely sir. And everyone else, we’ll see you on the next time. -
