How Nick Luevano Made $90K on His First Wholesale Deal and Scaled to 1,000+ Transactions

Nick Luevano (00:00)

I think that a lot of newer wholesalers are getting caught up in things that stir them away from what I like to call MMA, right? And we have a saying at our office MMA stands for Money Making Activities, right? If I was brand new today, your number one focus is marketing and sales. Sales and marketing.

Marketing and sales. A lot of newer investors get caught up on the best CRM, the best follow-up process, building out a buyer’s list, hiring a TC, creating a pretty logo and a website and X, Y, and Z. And that’s all necessary. It’s all important things. but the main focus needs to be generating leads and converting those leads to contracts. If you can just focus on those two things.

you’re gonna have instant success right away.

Scott Bursey (01:21)

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. Glad you’re with us. Today we’re pleased to be joined by Nick Luevano, a self made serial entrepreneur and real estate investor who owns and operates a Los Angeles based investment firm that acquires and dispositions residential properties nationwide. Nick has completed over 1,000 real estate transactions.

And alongside the deals, he has coached hundreds of students on how this business actually works. He doesn’t run one company, he owns and operates five of them, and he is still expanding. Listeners, get ready for a wholesale operator who buys and sells across the whole map and teaches while he does it. Nick, welcome to the show.

Nick Luevano (02:07)

Scott, incredible to be here. Thank you for having me.

Scott Bursey (02:09)

It’s awesome having you here and to help our listeners get up to speed. Please give us the ninety second highlight reel, if you will, of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Nick Luevano (02:21)

Well, I came originally, and not too many people know this, from an entirely different industry. And it was the network marketing industry back in two thousand and thirteen when I graduated college. and I dove into that industry not knowing much about network marketing and I was actually selling health and nutrition products. And the best thing that happened was not only did I, get introduced to like personal development and learn sales skills and public speaking.

And learned, really just entrepreneurship and started reading books and listening to audios. I just got around really like-minded, successful, successfully driven individuals. And it was about 2017, 2018 that I was just looking and hoping and praying for a bigger vehicle. coming from that industry, believe it or not, like 3% of people actually, have real success. It’s just a proven fact in that particular industry.

And I was part of that three percent, and I was just looking for something a little bit bigger, a little bit more you could say sustainable and more long term. And I realized that everyone needs a place to live, whether it’s an apartment, a home, or whatever it may be. And I saw a video on YouTube, an ad, and it completely changed my life. And the individual was pitching a wholesaling seminar. I think it was at that time a webinar.

I hopped on the webinar and I just realized how much opportunity laid within not just this industry but the ability to like 10x your income with little to no risk and that was wholesaling. And so I got going back in 2018, started my company and now today have closed over a thousand plus real estate transactions.

I do own a company here in Los Angeles where we roughly on average about twenty-five to thirty deals each and every single month. and we are blessed and we are fortunate to be able to not just do the volume that we do, but I also have an incredible team behind me every single step of

Scott Bursey (04:02)

Wow, man, what a journey. Thank you for sharing that with us, Nick. You know what really caught my attention about you, Nick, was the scale of what you’re carrying. Because most operators can barely keep one company healthy. You’re running five companies and still finding time to coach hundreds of students. Taking that a step further, let me ask you this. What lead channel brings you the most consistent deals right now?

Nick Luevano (04:28)

So I’m one of those individuals and I learned this early on was I never depend on just one marketing channel. Early on, my number one profitable channel, the one number one most predictable channel was cold calling. And we mastered the art of cold calling and we built out a virtual call center overseas that employs employees between 15 and 20 telemarketers.

That are working between five and seven days each and every single week, five hours a day, The most scalable, most predictable, most profitable channel. And once we mastered that particular channel, we incorporated pay-per-click advertisement. we have incredible relationships with paper lead companies that we also utilize. past seven years, I built really great relationships and a brand.

that people recognize and want to do business with. So we do have a referral program as well where people can submit leads and our team can close them. We do the deal together. Or if you have a property in a contract and you need help selling your deal or troubleshooting, we can submit a contract. that’s a different company that we operate as well. That we do a lot of business just strictly from referrals, and that’s ready to assign dot com. and then lastly, our latest marketing channel that we implemented was our agent outreach.

channel which obviously we build incredible relationships with agents nationwide and do business that way as well.

Scott Bursey (05:45)

I appreciate you being open about that. Let’s switch gears here a little bit, Nick.

where do you run into difficulties between the contract and the closing?

Nick Luevano (05:53)

I’d say during the acquisition process, 100%. I tell even my students and anyone that I talk to, this is the best day and age, best time to get going in real estate. Because when I got going back in 2018, there wasn’t the systems and the tools and the resources and, maybe the investor fuel and all the other there was nothing like this available, right? Wholesaling was almost like a hidden secret, right? I remember when

you first started skip tracing bulk lists for cold calling. It was like a drug deal to say, where are you getting your skip tracing from? I’m gonna get here. How much are you paying? and now there’s so many skip tracing websites or so many, different tools that you can utilize to run comps and CRMs and automations and things like that. And so I tell everybody, you can have a business credit card and swipe it and start generating leads because there’s so many tools out there. But

if you can’t close, if you can’t convert, if you can’t build rapport, if you can’t understand where your salary is, if you can’t paint a picture on how you can benefit them and really go above and beyond, you’re gonna get stuck. And so I think the majority of investors have a bottleneck when it comes to sales and acquisitions because they don’t understand that you have to have not only just be a hard worker, but you have to know how to communicate, you have to know how to problem solve, you have to know how to build rapport.

And most importantly, you have to connect with your client so they feel comfortable and ready to move forward. So I’d say one hundred percent of the sales and acquisitions.

Scott Bursey (07:10)

So important. Appreciate the clarity right there. Let’s stay here for a moment. Let’s stay on this path. Where is the opening in wholesaling that newer operators still miss in your view, Nick?

Nick Luevano (07:22)

I think that a lot of newer wholesalers are getting caught up in things that stir them away from what I like to call MMA, right? And we have a saying at our office MMA stands for Money Making Activities, right? If I was brand new today, your number one focus is marketing and sales. Sales and marketing.

Marketing and sales. A lot of newer investors get caught up on the best CRM, the best follow-up process, building out a buyer’s list, hiring a TC, creating a pretty logo and a website and X, Y, and Z. And that’s all necessary. It’s all important things. but the main focus needs to be generating leads and converting those leads to contracts. If you can just focus on those two things.

you’re gonna have instant success right away. And I think the amount of time that it takes to get a property under contract, This is not a microwave business. And yes, you can generate it, lock up a contract today and get paid in less than twenty or thirty days, hundred percent. And you can make five grand or a hundred grand. Totally possible, totally doable, but for the majority of individuals, it’s probably gonna take longer.

than thirty days to get that first deal under contract and get paid. So you gotta have that long-term vision. Understand it’s not a microwave business and sales and marketing. Marketing and sales. Zone in on those two things and you can have a lot of success early on.

Scott Bursey (08:42)

Sales and marketing. Got it. How are you set up to take advantage of the sales and marketing?

Nick Luevano (09:25)

Well, I had talked about earlier our five different marketing channels and those are happening simultaneously. our goal as a company is we have a threshold on the amount of leads that we want to generate each and every single day, right? Because we have a ratio from like leads to contracts. So every marketing channel has, hey, if we generate X amount of leads, then we’re gonna generate X amount of contracts. But on top of those five marketing channels happening simultaneously, I have a group of sales ninjas.

Right, that are ready to rock and roll, that work, sometimes six, seven, eight, nine hours a day, six days a week, and that are hungry, they’re motivated, they’re trained to be able to negotiate, to follow up. not only do they put in the time, the energy, the effort, but their skills are also up to a certain level that I believe just make them elite.

Scott Bursey (10:13)

Appreciate you explaining that for us. Nick, wondering, what rule change or market shift worries wholesale operators most right now in this market?

Nick Luevano (10:23)

it’s an interesting question. I know that rules do change, right? We’ve had to make adjustments to a couple of our different contracts. I know in some states, wholesaling isn’t legal. You have to double close. we had an issue, I think, in the state of Washington when it came to ovations because they’re not supposed to really exist. And for us we’re just incredibly good at problem solving. we had a property in Washington, and it was a novation deal and innovations don’t exist.

necessarily in that state. And so our team, was able to find probably one of the only agents that could really perform what we needed to perform. and we found so many ways to be able to perform for the seller, right, and the buyer and we got the deal done. And on paper, it wasn’t an ovation, by the way. we technically got paid as like a finder’s fee, quote unquote. Because ovations don’t exist.

There are ways to navigate certain issues and you have to be really, really good at thinking outside of the box. Pretend sometimes that there is no box. Because when there’s a will, there’s a way. And we do this also when it comes to sales, right? a lot of people have different follow-up processes, they have maybe some drip campaigns, they call, they text, they email, we oftentimes do the same thing, but we door knock. I tell the story all the time. there was a seller and we had to

sign and they weren’t picking up and it was just a big situation and it was a different state and we couldn’t get anybody there. So we called an Uber. We call the Uber to their house. And the Uber pulls up and we say, Hey, this is a little bit unorthodox, but we’ll give you a tip if you could just go knock on the door. if someone picks up the phone. Put it on speakerphone. And it turns out that the seller wasn’t picking up because they lost their charger. Their phone was dead

they were in the dark. And that Uber driver was able to charge the phone in his car and give it back to the seller and we were to schedule what we needed to schedule, things like that. thinking outside of the box. Who would think then we called an Uber, right? And have him, go and help him out. And we tip the Uber, our seller got to charge their phone. We actually got him a brand new charger. So, we already closed that deal. Thinking outside of the box.

Scott Bursey (12:19)

And that is incredible. That’s awesome, Nick. Let me put this one on you. What breaks first when a wholesale operation tries to scale too fast?

Nick Luevano (12:30)

chaos. And I believe in structured chaos, but chaotic chaos is unfortunately a way that a lot of wholesale operations shut down. Because there’s a difference in scaling rapidly and then systematic scaling, right? And the way that I was able to scale my business was first and foremost, I held each and every single position within the business during my first year.

I, was the one that set up the marketing, managed the marketing, managed the KPIs, and made sure that we were generating X amount of leads and marketing channels. I was in sales and acquisitions, locking up, three to five deals each and every single week. I was in dispositioning, right? Building out our VIP buyers and figuring out what’s the most profitable way to put disposition the deal and come up with an offer price and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then I held the transactional side of it, right? I was the TC. And

I held each and every single position and I held myself to the highest standard. And that allowed me the ability to not just hire, to not just train, but to be able to help my team when they have these issues and these challenges. Because I can never ask my team to do something I’ve never done. Right? People don’t do what you say, they do what you do. And my philosophy

Is that I’m not gonna ask my team to lock up deals if I’ve never locked up deals. I’m not gonna ask my team to manage the marketing and manage the KPIs and keep track of our numbers if I’ve never done it. I’m not gonna ask my team to go co-call buyers or post on investor lift or post on investor base or whatever it is we’re doing if I haven’t done it. And lastly, I’m not gonna have them troubleshoot TC issues where we have a lean, we have a judgment, we have a missing seller, we have all these

child support lien from 1997, we have to go and call or a credit card. I’m not gonna ask them to problem solve that if I’ve never done it myself. And I think a lot of owners and operators are asking their team to do something they haven’t done, or they’re asking their team to do something that they haven’t done at the highest level. And sometimes you can get away with it by finding, a super talented sales guy or sales girl or super rock star TC, and they have services out there that can kind of like speed it up. But for me, I not only have great

satisfaction knowing that I’ve done it. But when these issues come up within the business, I’m able to troubleshoot and maneuver my team because I’ve been there and I’ve done it before.

Scott Bursey (14:45)

And that’s a winning recipe. Nick, you’ve been extremely successful. When it comes to relationships and networking, what has made the biggest difference for you?

Nick Luevano (14:55)

relationships and networking, I think, is really putting yourself out there, because everybody essentially is after most likely something similar to you. If they showed up to the event, they showed up to the podcast, they showed up to your coaching call, they show up and they watch this video. We all have some type of similarity. And that’s probably something having to do with success. number one,

It’s understanding that we’re all very similar because we’re all part of the same community, the same industry. And number two, is turn your brain off a little bit. some people have a fear of meeting new people. Am I gonna get judged? I haven’t closed as many deals. Maybe I’m a little bit afraid, I’m little bit new. And that’s okay because we were all there. Right? There was a point in time where I had zero deals to my bell and I was the newest guy trying to figure it out. But I will say that the relationships that I’ve been able to cultivate over the past seven, eight years have generated me millions and millions of dollars.

And it’s not just because we JVd a deal you made X amount and I made X amount, but it’s the masterminding that we did, the troubleshooting that we did. And I tell people all the time, if you’re gonna listen to a podcast, you’re gonna listen to a seminar, you’re gonna do a seminar, you’re gonna meet an investor, you’re probably not gonna able to absorb everything, Right, you can get it down and review your notes, but the goal is to take maybe one or maybe two things, three things from the seminar, from the event, from

the podcast from the YouTube channel from whatever it may be and bring those to the business. And I think that I was able to really understand that early on. I paid, hundreds and thousands of dollars to be around super successful people back in 20 18, 19 and 20. And I was able to take maybe one or two things, bring them to my business and millions of dollars later. Cause I didn’t try and bring it all to the business. Just, hey, we’re struggling here. Let’s focus in on

this department and then boom and an explosion.

Scott Bursey (16:35)

Thank you for taking us down that road, Nick. Nick, let’s dive deep. If a listener wants their first wholesale deal in let’s say the next 90 days, what’s the first move you would tell them to make?

Nick Luevano (17:25)

Well, in my opinion, a little portion of this answer has to do with resources, unfortunately. and if you’re out there, don’t be discouraged because the resources are super, super tight. Well, there’s still an outlay in a way. have some savings, you have a business credit card, you have something that where you can kind of invest.

And there’s still outlets and there’s still ways and either of them don’t guarantee success. I’ve known people that have, invested thousands and thousands of dollars, unfortunately, and didn’t have a lot of success. And some people that literally, went on Facebook and found a buyer and did a J V deal and had a lot of success and then took that money and poured it back into the business. So a portion of it has to do with where you’re at, understand where you’re at. And then number two, once you understand where you’re at, you can understand,

Okay, well maybe my resources are tight. So I’m probably gonna have to go on Facebook, right? And I’m probably gonna have to build some relationships. I’m probably gonna have to JV a deal, right? Or I’m probably gonna have to, pull a right, of absentee owners and plug it into a dialer, and I’m gonna be on the dialer for, three, four, five, six hours a day, right? And that’s a lot of grunt work, but that’s just where you’re at. if maybe you’re on the other side of it where it’s like, okay, well, number one.

This is where I’m at. I’m probably gonna wanna hire a professional, right? It’s gonna literally the elevator to success. It’s gonna cut the learning curve. But number two, listen to what that professional says, but at the same time, you gotta understand that it’s gonna come down to your individual efforts, unfortunately. Whether you’re gonna, PPL, PPC, you’re gonna co-call. again, marketing and sales and sales and marketing. So to answer the question, number one.

understand where you’re at and then number two once you understand where you’re at you can navigate a little bit easier but understand that you’re not guaranteed success in either one of those avenues it’s gonna take time energy and effort and do not have the mindset of that this is a microwave business social media sometimes can definitely kind of paint a picture that it could be and it very much could be my first deal I closed in 30 days and it was a ninety thousand dollar profit

Is that gonna happen for everybody, Scott? No, it is not. I tell people it was timing and it was God that happened. and you understand time, energy, effort, where this is where I’m at. this isn’t a microwave business, I believe you can have success, right?

Scott Bursey (19:25)

Thanks for covering that ground with us, Nick. And Nick, we have covered a lot of ground here today. But is there any additional words of wisdom or some advice that you’d like to leave with our listeners?

Nick Luevano (19:36)

yeah, I think that for everybody who’s watching, understand that it doesn’t matter whether you’ve closed, one, five, ten or fifty deals, or you’re scaling your company, you want to go from one million to two million, or two million to three million. understand that there’s going to be levels to this business. and for anybody who’s brand new who may be discouraged, I’m afraid about the market, I’m not doing the volume that I should be doing.

Everyone was there once before. number one, understand that you’ve got to have leads pouring into your business. Every single day that you don’t have leads pouring into your business, you’re not generating leads. essentially you’re on the pathway to not be in business anymore. Number two, once you have a lead generation system that’s producing non-stop leads, then the second focus is gonna be the sales and acquisitions.

Position, you need to not only dedicate time, energy, and effort, but you got to ask yourself a question on a scale from one to ten, where am I skill-wise? Right? And in the beginning, you can make up in numbers which you lack in skill, right? More time, more calls. But in order to be an elite salesperson in the acquisition position, you have to dedicate the time, energy, and effort, but you got to dedicate time.

To grow in your skill set. And I tell people, I tell my team, I tell my students, what you do or don’t do in the dark will always show up in the light. And if you’re not, if your skills aren’t where they need to be, then you got to put the time, the energy, the effort at home, after hours, early in the morning to get your skills right. And then lastly, MMA is

The activity that I’m doing right now, am I in MMA mode? Money-making activity mode. I think a lot of investors, a lot of owners, a lot of operators, a lot of entrepreneurs, real estate specifically, engage in activities that aren’t income producing. Ask yourself that question. Am I engaging in an activity that is income producing? And that’s generating leads and closing leads, right?

if you can make sure that you’re in it that you are generating leads and closing those leads, you’re gonna be in a really, really good place.

Scott Bursey (21:42)

Gold. Pure gold right there. Nick, for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane, collaborate with you on future deals, perhaps. What’s the best way for them to plug into your pipeline and reach you directly?

Nick Luevano (21:57)

Think the number one way is gonna be social media, right? my Instagram is at Flipking, F-L-I-P-K-I-N-G, at Flipking on Instagram, YouTube, Nick Luevano, TikTok, Nick Luevano, all the social Facebook Nicholas Luevano. I think that’s probably gonna be the best way. And then number two, if you need help in your business, or either it may be

Growing your business, or it may be you have a lead or have a contract that I need help, and you want to do deals together. I do have a business. It’s ready to assign dot com, www.readytoassign.com. It’s a website that we built where any investor across the country can submit leads. They could submit contracts, they could submit deals where they have issues, problems, challenges. My team will reach out to you, they’ll keep you

In the loop, every single step of the way, whether we contacted the seller, they didn’t answer, they got a property under contract, they made an offer, what’s happening with the deal, and we can do deals together. I think it’s the best way, especially in the beginning, to generate income a lot quicker, a lot faster, a lot sooner, because a lot of operators, especially the ones at the beginning, you got to understand that you need the revenue not just to survive and eat and thrive, but to reinvest into your business.

talk to any owner, any operator, any business owner, any industry, right? We’re always reinvesting into our business, systems, processes, marketing, CRMs, masterminds. You got to reinvest into your business, you got to reinvest into yourself, and you gotta close deals. and a lot of times investors, they get caught up in trying to do everything by themselves, and time starts to tick, and time starts to tick, and time starts to tick, and then you end up sometimes nowhere. So ready to assign dot com is a tool that we

created to get deals done a lot quicker, a lot faster, a lot sooner and put more income in your pocket.

Scott Bursey (23:35)

Nick, thank you for joining us today on the Real Estate Pros podcast.

Nick Luevano (23:39)

Scott, thank you so much for having me. It was incredible getting to know you. looking forward to the future and connecting.

Scott Bursey (23:45)

This has been an absolute masterclass. And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be fueling your tanks with a lineup of elite guests, just like Nick Luevano, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.