How Mike Larson Built a Real Estate Business From Scratch | Fix & Flip + New Construction Insights

Mike (00:00)
Almost on every single private money deal, I pay them a little bit more. I’ve literally had guys go, Mike, man, you overpaid me on this. I’m like, no, you’re good. Because I want those guys coming back to me anytime. And it’s got to the point now with like my private money guys, I get a project, I shoot them a text, hey, I need 50K for this project. We don’t even draft up paperwork. Hey man, I’ll drop off the cash or I’ll write you a check because I’ve, you know, I’ve just stuck to my word.

I think the basic business principles, know, just do what you say you’re going to do and provide that value. And for them, the value is they don’t have to spend any of their time. Right. So imagine sitting around, you drop, know, cause what’s the money going to do in the bank? You’ve got $5,000 in the bank next month, that $5,000 is really losing value due to inflation. Right. So if you could take that money and put it into a project that’s backed by real estate.

Quentin (00:28)
Yeah.

Mike (00:58)
and increase that value by 15%, it’s almost a no brainer. You know, so I’ve got really good, I’ve got probably 10, 12 guys now that lend me money on all my projects. I use hard money on the more expensive deals for the majority of the costs, but then I’ll gap fund it and, you know, take care of it that way. But it’s been fun, man. It’s been really fun. You know, this is a very exciting business and you can completely change your life within a couple of years.

Quentin (03:00)
Everyone. Welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And can you say it with me? I’m excited. I’m really excited to be here today. I’m really excited about the person that I have on there. We just have great conversations with great people and today is not going to be any different. And so, man, I have somebody who’s making ⁓ big moves in the construction and renovation space. ⁓ Man, this guy.

man, just talking to him. Man, this guy’s the real deal. He has created something out of nothing. And hopefully I’m not talking out of turn, but this guy has really created something. And I’m just excited for him to talk to you about what he do so you can see things from his lens, from his perspective. Maybe he’ll give us a little bit about his background and his story, but I’m just excited to have with us today, Mr. Mike Larson. How are you feeling today, sir?

Mike (03:58)
Man, that was the best introduction ever. Thank you. That was money, That was money. You saved it.

Quentin (04:00)
Come on, bro, listen, I, I appreciate,

okay, good, good. Cause I was like, man, hopefully I ain’t speaking out of turn, you know what I’m saying? But man, I just, I love your story, man. I just love everything you stand for, brother. And so, man, I’m just excited to have you here,

Mike (04:07)
you

Beautiful.

Thank you, truly appreciate it.

Quentin (04:20)
Absolutely.

Absolutely, man. And so, you know, I don’t, I don’t want to limit where you are. I say construction, renovation. I know we talked about that, but man, I just, I know you have, you’re a man rich with experience and overcoming things. And so I know our listeners are going to love your approach to things and the way you think. And so, I just want to, I want to dive in and I just want to ask you, man, of course.

People, they don’t know you, they’re getting familiar with you and what your world is and what you do. So if you don’t mind, man, tell the people what’s your main focus these days. And if you don’t mind, tell them what markets you’re operating in as well.

Mike (05:49)
Yes, sir. So I’m the owner of Cash Offer Carolinas. I reside in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, but primarily Fix and Flip in North Carolina. So we’re in several different markets, including Brunswick County, Pender County, New Hanover, Wake, Wayne, and Johnson. So I grew up in Johnson County in North Carolina, East O’Raleigh. So those areas, I just knew better. know, kind of knew, haven’t been in the game long, but I just understood that area, right?

We primarily fix and flip. We do wholesale some properties. We talked a little bit about it, but I’ve niched down exactly what I’m buying. But when I got into the market, I thought, you can just take down whatever your builds. And I’ve kind of niched down the specific houses I want to fix and flip. So I stay within that 1990 or newer, typically three twos. And I do a lot of my stuff in the sub 300k.

I try and look at a market and go after, I’ll look at the median value of whatever that county is and I want to stay below it. Because I want to go after the houses that are more suited for like first time homeowners, right? So you’ve just got a larger buyer pool, therefore you know you’re going to be able to sell it a lot quicker. Over the past few months, we have got into new construction also and we’re kind of going to opposite end of that. We’re going more luxury style on the new construction.

Quentin (06:56)
Yeah.

Mike (07:15)
and around these coastal towns. We’ve got them in Southport, primarily at Lake Lawn on Brunswick County.

Quentin (07:27)
I love it, man. I love it, man. I mean, I was talking to you, and world on the street, man, is that you just bring value to everybody in the game, man. Like, when they get with you, they keep coming back because you know how to add value to everyone around you. You don’t, you didn’t strike me like a selfish guy, but when I hear that type of stuff, you just want to make sure everybody around you win. Do I have that correct, man?

Mike (07:51)
100%. I think that is probably the strongest quality we have. Be it you need help with raising private money, you need help finding deals, you know, it depends on where you are in this business, right? And I just find a way to bring that value to that person. You know, a lot of people coming into the game, like when I got in, man, I had no money whatsoever. I had no clue what I was doing, but I was a hustler and I figured it out and just.

realized like, man, if you, the more people you can make money for, the more money you’re gonna make, right? So I just started reaching out, let’s just say for raising private money, right? A lot of the guys I went to the gym with, I’d go find a deal and say, hey, look, I know most people are paying 10, 12 % interest on money. I’ll pay you 15 or 20%. And I just made sure that they got paid back. They made their money. And typically, you know, I’ve,

almost on every single private money deal, I pay them a little bit more. I’ve literally had guys go, Mike, man, you overpaid me on this. I’m like, no, you’re good. Because I want those guys coming back to me anytime. And it’s got to the point now with like my private money guys, I get a project, I shoot them a text, hey, I need 50K for this project. We don’t even draft up paperwork. Hey man, I’ll drop off the cash or I’ll write you a check because I’ve, you know, I’ve just stuck to my word.

I think the basic business principles, know, just do what you say you’re going to do and provide that value. And for them, the value is they don’t have to spend any of their time. Right. So imagine sitting around, you drop, know, cause what’s the money going to do in the bank? You’ve got $5,000 in the bank next month, that $5,000 is really losing value due to inflation. Right. So if you could take that money and put it into a project that’s backed by real estate.

Quentin (09:16)
Yeah.

Mike (09:46)
and increase that value by 15%, it’s almost a no brainer. You know, so I’ve got really good, I’ve got probably 10, 12 guys now that lend me money on all my projects. I use hard money on the more expensive deals for the majority of the costs, but then I’ll gap fund it and, you know, take care of it that way. But it’s been fun, man. It’s been really fun. You know, this is a very exciting business and you can completely change your life within a couple of years.

if you’re hustling, you know?

Quentin (10:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, Mike, what I love about you and talking to you is just how focused you are, Now, I’ve been listening to you intently, man. And one of the things that you said, man, you was like, listen, keep it small, keep it all. You talked about niche-ing down. You know? And so, of course, you know, it’s not always easy in this climate, you know? So what’s been the key to you keeping things, that machine that you’re running, running smoothly? What’s been the key to that?

Mike (11:20)
Yeah, not getting shiny object syndrome. That was an issue I had in 2024. In this business, there’s so many different avenues that you can make money. You you’ve got rentals, you got multifamily, you’ve got creative deals, you’ve got so many different avenues. So you’ll see things and go, ⁓ I want to try that. Because it’s hard, man. This business is hard. It’s hard to find deals. It’s hard to raise money. It’s hard to do all these things. So it can get discouraging at some points. But what you have to realize is that hard is

what separates you from becoming successful, right? You just kind of, you got to stick to it. And just over the past two years, I figured out what my niche was and just focused on that. Like I’m not trying to go out and flip million dollar homes. I want to stay in that sub 300. That’s my niche, right? Now building, that’s a different story. I like building those houses, but I think staying focused on that one goal.

and like the keep it small, keep it all. A lot of these, you know, big gurus, you got your Eric Kline, your Tiffany Highs, all these big time guys in the business that have large operations. I realized real fast that’s not what I wanted. You know, I wanted to do, like I said, a keep it small, keep it all time. It’s just me and then I’ve got a partner that he’s in Poland that takes care of all of my back end operations, ⁓ the outbound marketing, basically everything else besides what I’m doing to generate revenue.

⁓ You know, I focus on networking. focus on finding the deals, raising capital for the deals, and he takes care of everything else. So I can focus on those tasks, the revenue generating tasks. And my ultimate vision is to have, you know, maybe four people total. So I have a project manager. I’ll have Ryan handle the backend and probably get him on some acquisitions and stuff like that. Then I’ll have an acquisitions manager that takes care of all the inbound leads. He closes them. I go raise the money.

And that model just makes more sense to me. I’ve got a friend out of Wilmington, Jason Vealey. He was hosted on the BiggerPockets podcast. And once I met him, started seeing his operations, I was like, okay, that’s exactly what want to mimic. Like it just made sense to me. And so that’s been my whole focus for 2025. And it’s paid off very well.

Quentin (13:44)
Man, I love all of this, man. I love your journey. I love you talking about and being honest about, hey, it can get hard sometimes. know, every operator I know, there’s a moment when things get real, right? When maybe a deal goes sideways or at time you have to pivot fast. You have any stories like that you want to share with us, Mike, that you can share with us when you had to pivot fast, brother?

Mike (14:09)
Oh, 100%. I got my teeth kicked in last year. So I bought a property and initially, I bought it for 292 and I hired a GC. Well, he ended up not being a licensed GC. He pretended he was. So we got into the project. He quoted me $70,000. I thought the property was going to sell like 500 plus, right? Cause there was comps literally not even a quarter mile away.

Quentin (14:13)
Hahaha

Mike (14:38)
almost an identical house sold for $545,000. But what I didn’t realize is that area is very street by street. And that’s why you gotta get very familiar with your markets, right? If you’re doing it in counties you’re not familiar with, you need to get a hold of agents or somebody else that’s flipping in that area. Cause if I would have called Jason, I would have never bought the house. But that street I was on was like not a good street.

Quentin (14:50)
Yeah.

Mike (15:46)
the street behind it was a great street. So you’re looking online, you’re like, oh, there’s a house right here that sold for this price. This is a beautiful car. I know I can get this number. Well, anyways, we get into the project. I fired him two weeks in. built like, he me an $18,000 bill and he sent me pictures where he had done a little bit, but only in the areas where the pictures were taken. And I go there and the rest of it’s not done. So I fired him. I had a problem to getting contractors in there.

And long story short, the $70,000 rehab turned into $120,000 rehab. And it took me eight months to finish it, which this should have been a three month turnaround easily. Then I listed on the market, crickets. I’m talking, we didn’t get one showing, And I’m freaking out because I got a hard money loan on it for $315,000. I’ve got $70,000.

private money, I’ve got my money tied up in it. And so finally I, the dude, this is crazy. So I go and get it appraised. It had to appraise it $490,000 in order to get the hard money loan out. It appraises it 425. I’m shitting a brick, man. I’m like, oh my God, what am I going to do? I got to come out of pocket another 45 grand. And I didn’t have, you know, I had money in all these different projects. So I’m like,

Quentin (17:13)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike (17:15)
What do I do? ⁓ so I look at that appraisal. I look at every other comp and I was like, this appraisal is wrong. I called up and I called up the lender. said, look, I want to get a second appraisal done. I’ll pay for the second appraisal. I know this appraisal is low. Get another appraiser in there. It appraises at 490. I do a refinance and then, ⁓ I find a lease tenant buyer.

Okay, to put $10,000 down and then they’re paying me monthly payments on the house. still own the house, but they’re paying me monthly payments and they’re going to buy it in two years because it wouldn’t sell. I dropped the price down to like 440 and it’s still just crickets and I had, you know, I had 480 tied up in it. So luckily I’m going to be able to sell that house after two years and they’re paying the mortgage on it right now. So I was able to get out and just.

wash my hands clean of it. Because I got the hard money out and then I paid back the private money lenders through another project. I made a good profit on that. So I was just like, whoop, paid them. They had no idea, no clue, anything. They got their interest. They were happy. I was sweating bullets and I was like, you know what, whatever, I’m done with it. Lesson learned. And that’s when I determined I’m never going to flip a 1955 house again.

Quentin (18:41)
I hear you man.

That’s what I’m talking about, Man, thank you, man. Thanks, Mike. Thank you for sharing that story, man. Thank you for your gift and your vulnerability, man. Like, for me, I love hearing stories like that. I love hearing people like you tell those type of stories because it lets me know you’re not just somebody that’s dabbling, right? You’re somebody that’s in this thing for the long term. And you know, and I love it. I love your focused approach. I love your overcoming mentality. And so thank you for sharing, man. I think, again, that’s a testament to like who you are, man, at your core. And so I appreciate you, brother.

⁓ Let me ask you this, man. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? What’s the next real goal for you,

Mike (19:23)
So the new construction side, my goal is to get to where we’re doing between 30 and 40 flips a year, probably by the end of the next year. But I also want to get into the new construction and go into luxury, small luxury. So we’re talking 13, 1400 square feet, but they’re selling, you know, 325 to 350 range. I kind of stole that idea. I’ve got a coach. Obviously I always get coaches first in the new construction game.

And he’s doing that business model out in Charlotte and having a ton of success. So I want to bring that to the Myrtle Beach, Brunswick County area. ⁓ And then eventually I want to get into the ⁓ like oceanfront properties and stuff like that. But it’s probably two years down the road. And of course, scale the flipping operation and get to a point where I can just kind of step back, have my project manager run the jobs. And I focus solely on like the networking.

getting more people involved and then we’re actually starting an education space too. So I partnered with a good friend of mine out of Arizona. He’s a flipper there. ⁓ He built a seven figure net worth in his first three years flipping. And he and I headed off back in 2023 and over the past three, four months we’ve been working on putting together this project. yeah, cause we see a lot of, ⁓ you know, we’ve been a ⁓ part of.

of a lot of these coaching communities and they don’t really focus on the ins and outs of ⁓ actually flipping, right? And, but we’re trying to market more towards like not so much you quit your job and go into fixing flipping full-time. It’s more like, hey, I’ve got a decent job making decent money, but I’d like to make an extra 50, 100K a year. And teaching those people like you can do that and flipping very easily, you know? Or maybe people that just don’t have a ton of money.

We can teach them how to raise the money. We can teach them how to run the project. We teach them A to Z, everything you need to do and kind of be like us, you know, we both, once we discovered this business, we quit our jobs and went full force. But some people may not want to, or they may have, you know, I’m not married. I don’t have kids. I don’t have the responsibility or, you know, the fear of like messing up and my kids not having something. Like I can go.

all the way because it’s just me. I have a very high risk tolerance because I can live in a box if I had to. I have no fear whatsoever. I know that I could be successful in this business and I just wanna teach people the right way how to do it, how to not get that shiny object syndrome, don’t buy into a lot of the internet fluff because I’m a very relatable person.

Quentin (21:46)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Mike (22:14)
big time guru, I’m not this, you know, Andy Elliott to the world or whatever. I’m just a dude, man. I’m just a guy from Myrtle beach. And I think I’m hoping people will relate to that and just see like, he’s a good old boy, but he knows how to make a little bit of money, you know, in this business.

Quentin (22:21)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. Like, there’s no doubt in my mind they relate to you, brother, because I relate to you, man. Just, I mean, five minutes into the conversation, I was like, yeah, this is my brother just from another mother, man. So I know they relate to you, brother. ⁓ And I love it, man. I love the moves you’re making, thinking about new construction, bringing it to Myrtle Beach and Brunswick, man. Like, I absolutely love it. I’m sure you know this, the next move, it could either compound things or create total chaos, depending on how you play it, right? But,

Mike (23:01)
Yes,

Quentin (23:02)
But I love it. You’re making the moves. You said you’re fearless. And I know you’re fearless, brother. I can feel it. I can sense it. And I love how you talked about relationships and making connections. And so, you know, people that’s listening to this, they’re either, you know, early in their journey or they’re looking to level up. And I really think it would benefit them hearing this from you. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Mike (23:31)
Networking has made me the most money out of anything in this business. Literally going and meeting people and shaking hands. That’s the game changer. You know, you’re literally one connection away from making that million dollar deal, that hundred thousand dollar deal. You know, because in this business, you’ve got wholesalers that can send you deals. You got realtors that can send you deals. And what’s a deal to me might not be a deal to you or vice versa. You know, I went to a meetup in Wilmington, North Carolina last night.

And we were talking about that too. Those guys buy certain properties that I don’t buy so I can wholesale to them, they can make money. This business is a collaboration business. There shouldn’t be any competition. I don’t look at any of these guys as competition. We can all collaborate and make way more money together. ⁓ The reason I’ve been able to scale this year more is I found another flipper and I go out and find the deals.

He funds them all. So I literally don’t have to worry about money. You know, I just go out there and get the deal. All right, cool. I got it taken care of. Cause he understands the numbers. And that’s something I want to continue to work off. know, the reason I wanted to come out here and meet you and, you know, meet more people that you influence and just do more deals together. There’s so much business to be done. And the more people you know, and the better you treat these people, the more money you’re going

Quentin (24:58)
Yeah. No brainer. Man, I love it, man. I love it. You’re absolutely right. Right relationships are everything in this space. You value them. I value them. so, man, I just want to thank you again, Mike, for just being with us. And listen, before we wrap, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?

Mike (24:59)
It’s a note writer.

definitely on Instagram at Larson Buys Houses. So that’s my last name, Buys Houses.

Quentin (25:33)
I love it. love it. Well, listen, Mike, man, brother, just thank you, man. Listen, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your perspective and your story. We definitely need more people in this space that’s doing it like you’re doing it, man. And so thank you so much, man, for joining us today, just being transparent, authentic, and just sharing your perspective, man. I really appreciate you,

Mike (25:54)
I appreciate you. Thank you, sir. Truly.

Quentin (25:55)
Absolutely.

And listen, for those you tuning in, listen, if you got value from this conversation, you’ve got to make sure you are subscribed. Man, we have great people coming up just like my man, Mr. Mike Larson here. So you do not want to miss out on these conversations. So Mike, I thank you again. And for those that’s tuning in, we’ll see you on the next time.