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Show Summary
In this conversation, Mike Burge discusses his journey in the real estate industry, focusing on wholesaling and the unique advantages of his business model that combines wholesaling with a real estate brokerage. He shares insights on lead generation, market expansion, and the importance of building relationships with investors. The discussion also touches on the challenges faced in the competitive real estate market and the strategies for overcoming them, including the significance of networking and community involvement.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Mike Burge (00:00)
Well, I’m certainly hoping for it to be chaotic because chaotic means we’rewhen it gets chaos, then it gives us new problems to solve and problems are always a good thing.
want to find more problems to solve
because that means we’re growing and we’re doing
that just means we’re growing our business.
Quentin Edmonds (01:47)
Hello everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. Super excited today, super excited about my guests, super excited to have them on. This guy has a unique lens, know, his business is uniquely placed where they can add value on two separate ends of the stick. They do a little something that other people can’t do. And you know, I’m just trying to tease a little bit. I’m gonna let him it for himself.but I am super excited to have today, Mr. Mike Burge. How are you doing today, ⁓ man, man, I’m doing good, man. I’m excited. Thank you for being with me through my technical difficulties. You have been gracious and I appreciate it,
Mike Burge (02:21)
I’m well, how are you?Absolutely, absolutely. I’m excited to be here.
Quentin Edmonds (02:34)
Me too man, excited to have you. So listen man, I know our listeners are really gonna take a great ⁓ take away from your approach when it comes to wholesaling and it comes to real estate. I’m excited man. So I don’t wanna tell your story for you. want you to tell it for us. And so I wanna dive in man, take us into your world. Take us to what you’re familiar with, what’s your main focus and also what markets are you operating?Mike Burge (03:01)
So our main focus really is wholesaling. That is our number one focus. It’s kind of shifted for me because I started out in the real estate world as a real estate agent. And my wife and I owned a real estate brokerage in Southern Florida. We’ve done about $750 million in real estate transactions. Coming up on that billion dollar mark. ⁓ But I’ve really started to transition the business over to wholesaling.About 75 to 80 % of all the business I do now is wholesaling, working with investors and helping investors find their next property. But that being said, it’s also great that I can go into a seller’s home and be able to help them in multiple different ways. Whether the home needs renovation and rehab and we know it’s gonna be an investor purchase, I can wholesale, but I can also go in and…
if it’s retail ready, be able to put it on the market and get them retail value for it. So we’re working in both directions and we find that people normally wholesale or they are a real estate agent, but very few cross between the two. So that’s kind of our unique perspective on it.
Quentin Edmonds (04:18)
Yeah, man, I absolutely love that being a wholesaler, but also being able to come in on the real estate side as well. So listen, we’ll fix it up. But also if you ready to sell it, we got you on that too. Like so. I absolutely love it. Now, I know it’s not always especially easy in this climate that we’re in. So what’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?Mike Burge (04:29)
Exactly.⁓ It is tough and luckily with the wholesaling a lot of our investors are hard money or cash buyers. So the interest rates haven’t affected them as very much except on the resale side. ⁓ that’s probably been the struggle is they’re taking less wholesales because they’re having a hard time moving on the backside. But things have loosened up over the last three or four months and I think that it’s
starting to move along a little more. So I think that’s been one of the the tough things going on in the market right now.
Quentin Edmonds (06:06)
Absolutely. Now listen, every operator I know they have a moment when things get real, right? But maybe a day will go sideways or a time when you had to pivot fast. You know, I’m not trying to bring up no traumatic moments, Mr. Mike. I would love if you could share one of those moments for our audience if you’re okay with sharing.Mike Burge (06:26)
Yeah. And I would say that that happened just maybe even a year ago when real estate market really was struggling and I was struggling as a realtor. And that’s when we really made a transition to move toward the wholesaling and, and, know, things were pretty tight, you know, during that time. And now that we’ve shifted over to with and doing a lot more wholesaling, it’s, it’s really helped fill that. when people are not selling their home,on the market and things are going like that, a lot of times investors are picking them up. they work, you know, when one is down, the other is up. And when the other is up, the other one’s down, you know, so it helps balance our business a little bit.
Quentin Edmonds (07:10)
Yeah, no, absolutely. Now, I appreciate that. Again, your unique lens, it lets me know that you are in this thing for the long haul, right? You’re different from people that just dabble. You’re one of those ones that stand in the game for the long term, right? Because of your unique lens. Yeah.Mike Burge (07:28)
Yeah,we’ve been in business a long time, you know, and I know all the realtors always say, I’ve in the business so long, but we’ve been in the business a long time and seen a lot of things happen. We sold about, like I said, we’ve sold about $750 million in real estate. there we’ve seen a lot of things. So. ⁓
Quentin Edmonds (07:44)
Absolutely.Yeah, you don’t get to that number if you ain’t in it for the long haul, if you don’t know what you’re doing. know? So, they’ll ask me. And you said you’re closing in on that billion bucks. So that’s amazing. So I guess, Mr. Mike, let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? Like, what’s the next real goal for you,
Mike Burge (08:05)
So ⁓ we’re looking to scale. We do a lot of work here in our local area. I’m in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We do a lot of work right here in this area, but we’re starting to really scale outside of this area, reaching all the way down into the South, ⁓ doing Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, a little bit of Alabama. And we haven’t quite broken into Mississippi, but.That’s one of the areas that we’re working and trying to really focus on the Southeast area of the United States and get out of our local area and really work further into that. ⁓ I hold broker’s licenses in several states. So just trying to expand this business and get out and help more people is generally the goal.
Quentin Edmonds (08:51)
No, I think that’s that’s big, especially, you know, you’re already dominating question areas that you are. But you like, listen, now we’re about to take over. We’re about to go into the car. Yeah, I love it. And I know you know this like the next move to either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. All right. And so this next move, how has it been for you? Has it been smooth or has it been chaotic? If you could be honest with me.Mike Burge (09:19)
Well, I’m certainly hoping for it to be chaotic because chaotic means we’reYou know,
when it gets chaos, then it gives us new problems to solve and problems are always a good thing.
We want to,
want to find more problems to solve
because that means we’re growing and we’re doing
So we’re always looking for new problems. ⁓ so that’s, that’s kind of the, where we’re looking to go is, is just create chaos and make more problems.
that just means we’re growing our business.
Quentin Edmonds (09:48)
I love it, Mike. So, Mr. Mike, it sound like you’re not scared to lean in. It sound like you ain’t scared to lean in at all,Mike Burge (09:54)
No, not at all. Not at all. So yeah, I have a real estate partner that does a great job with acquisitions and he is on the same page with me. We’re just looking to really expand and blow out the whole Southeast and maybe go nationwide eventually.Quentin Edmonds (10:11)
Yeah, yeah, I love him, man. And I love how you mentioned, you know, partner. I love that. So I do I want to talk about relationships for a little bit, because, of course, you know, there’s people that’s listening, they’re early in their journey, they’re looking to level up. And I think it would benefit hearing this when it comes to building relationships and growing your network. What’s made the biggest difference for you, Mr. Mike?Mike Burge (11:10)
That, you know, I think you hit it right on the head here because relationships is the key to this entire business, especially on the, well, actually on both sides, but the wholesale business is, lot of people tend to not dig into those relationships as much. And for me, my clients are those investors and those people that are looking to buy multiple properties with me. And it’s my job to really take care of them. And crossing over from the real estate business into the wholesaling,When you’re in real estate, you kind of smooths all those clients. And we want to use that in our wholesale business and really take care of our investors and make sure that we’re providing them with good investments. Because if they don’t get good investments and they don’t make money, they’re not coming back to buy with us again. So it’s my job to really take care of them, make sure that the investments are solid, they know what they’re getting into with the properties, and really
build that relationship so that they trust me. And then they’ll come back and buy more properties with me and everybody wins, which is just a fantastic thing.
Quentin Edmonds (12:18)
No, I absolutely love it, man. I absolutely loved your perspective. I love what you guys are doing. so I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Mike, this wasn’t necessarily a question that I kind of had in mind, but I do when I’m talking to people like you who want to build trust with people, who has the servant’s heart, that’s looking at the customers and want to be right by them. I kind of want to pose this question. Is there any kind of encouragement maybe you want to give to our listeners?any kind of encouragement, education, wisdom that you want to offer, anything you’ve been thinking about. Like when I talk to somebody like you that I know is out here to serve the people, I always like to get that perspective of what they can share with the people that maybe can educate them, motivate them. And so I know it’s kind of putting you on the spot, but also I know you can handle that question as well. Is there anything you want to kind of give to the audience?
Mike Burge (13:11)
Absolutely. the thing about real estate is there’s a lot of ups and downs. There’s, I mean, you get months where you make a lot of money and you got months where you don’t make hardly anything. And to be able to push through those months where you don’t make anything, it is super, super hard. So I really encourage you to stay with it. And I promise those things will come around. You know, it’s, it gets very, very difficult. And I’ve been through those stages where it was very, very difficult. AndYou just push through it and all of sudden the floodgates will open and you’ll be back in the swing of things. I probably, I hadn’t mentioned this before, but I do like to see real estate agents get over and work on the wholesale side and expand their business that way. I even went out and wrote a book, The Underground Real Estate Agent, it’s on Amazon, but it just helps real estate agents learn what wholesaling is so that they’re not scared by it. And maybe they can.
expand further.
Quentin Edmonds (14:51)
I want to make sure that people can reach out to you, collaborate with you, get in contact with you. So if you could, man, let them know how they can get in contact with you.Mike Burge (15:01)
So if you wanted to get in contact with me, feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to talk to anyone. ⁓ you can reach me, email is mike @ southern home offers with an S dot com. You can always email me. ⁓ Again, I’ve got my book out for real estate agents to help them become more fluent with wholesaling and understand a little bit more about wholesaling. It’s called the underground real estate agent. You can find it on Amazon. It was best seller for real estate books for a little while.And it just helps real estate agents convert over and understand the wholesaling business so it isn’t quite so scary and how to work with a wholesaler. yeah, and I’m always willing to help anyone when it comes to getting into the business and expanding their business.
Quentin Edmonds (15:48)
Absolutely, absolutely. I love it, Mr. Mike. Sir, I thank you, man. I thank you so much for your perspective. I thank you so much for your story. I thank you so much for your time. I thank you for your patience. Absolutely. I thank you overall today, sir. It has been a privilege. It has been a great pleasure. And so just thank you for being with us today. Thank you for doing things the right way. I appreciate you so much.Mike Burge (16:12)
Anytime, anytime.Quentin Edmonds (16:14)
Absolutely. And so for everyone else, you’re tuning in. Listen, I know you found value out of this. Make sure you are subscribed. You do not want to miss these amazing conversations that we’re having, just like we’re having with Mr. Mike here. So again, thank you, sir. And for everyone else, we will see you on the next
