How Robert Howard Lost $100K Flipping But Found Success in Wholesaling

Quentin Edmonds (01:31)
Hey everyone, welcome to the investor fuel podcast. I am your host Quentin Edmonds, but y’all know how we do better known as Q. And today I am joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with and I’m looking forward to, to you hearing from I am joined by my friend here, Robert Howard, who’s making serious moves when it comes to registered residential real estate and investment.

And I’m so happy and excited for y’all to hear his approach. I hear about his tenacity, hear about his consistency. So I am so proud to introduce y’all to Robert Howard. How are you doing today, man?

Robert Howard (02:10)
I’m doing good man. How you doing, Kee?

Quentin Edmonds (02:12)
man, I’m doing good. I’m doing even better that that that she looked out for me. They don’t have to know everything, but brother, you looked out for me and I I appreciate you, sir. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you because of me. This was about the boat and I have it, but I appreciate you coming through in the clutch, man. You are the man, brother. Listen, I think I will listen. Yeah.

Robert Howard (02:32)
You gotta have some flexibility.

Quentin Edmonds (02:35)
Listen, I’m learning, brother. I am learning, man. I am learning day by day. One day is never the same as the next. You try to wash, rinse, repeat, but man, there’s always something, man. So again, brother, I appreciate you. Now listen, I know our listeners are really going to take away from your approach, especially, like I said, when it comes to remaining consistent, your tenacity, just how…

You have said yourself, you’re your own competition, right? It’s enough business to go around for everybody. And so I really want to dive in and give you the floor so people can glean from you what you’re doing and how you’re being successful. And so, man, I just want the people to know, first of all, people may not be familiar with you and what you do. So give us a short version of what it is that you’re focused on these days. What’s your main focus right now?

Robert Howard (03:26)
Well, I can talk about me all day, But, you know, first off, I do want to thank you so much for having me on the show. You know, I followed your podcast for a while and I just want to acknowledge, you know, consistent. We talked about consistency, you know, here and consistently you deliver like the no fluff stuff is a very conversational style. You know, it really can get through to your audience and that’s kind of what what drew me to it. And that takes real dedication, man. And I respect it. You know, I’m genuinely honored to be here. So.

I do appreciate your time, So, if everybody that’s listening, if you’ve gotten even just one helpful thing from Q over the past or even recently, whenever it was, mean, go and leave them a review, I did. That really does help people. I love a pretty good review because I saw a couple of episodes and they helped me out too. So, if y’all want to do something, do that. That helps them. Now, as for me,

You know, a lot of people like they want to get started investing in real estate, but they’ll feel overwhelmed. They already got another job or something. Most of them, a lot of us, you know, we’re short on cash and sometimes just scared of making a mistake, man. So they’ve tried like the YouTube university, you know, they go into the seminars. I mean, they even started calling random sellers, but you know, nothing really gives them that clarity or the confidence to take action. Well,

What I do is I help brand new investors land their first deal and it was out the cold calling, you know, they don’t risk big money and they don’t feel lost. So I use my no risk revenue method. They can finally start building real wealth and we do it just one smart deal at a time. But that’s not where it all started for me, man. You know, with me, I kind of started had a lustrous

20 year career in auto sales.

I went into that at 18 years old, ripe age of 18. Couldn’t even get covered on insurance at the time. And to bag it up even further, didn’t even know if I’d be able to get that job. Cause I’m a little guy that started, you know, in the housing projects till I was 13 years old, you know, and all I saw around me was just poverty, people scraping, you know, to barely get by. But I don’t take nothing away from those moments.

Because a lot of that is what molded me and made me and it inspired me to keep going. And it gives me what I have now just that tenacity of that knowing that there’s always gonna be some kind of way to win. But you have to keep going. know, I spoke about games and when it comes to getting to the other side, the real key is never quitting. Because when you quit, like that’s game over.

But as long as you’ll stay in the game, there’s some kind of way that you can, you can outrun it. I mean, even through osmosis, if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you may as well expect that you’re going to lose sometimes it’s going to happen, but it’s what you do with that loss, how you get up. And I had a couple of losses, you know, even before, you know, going to that age of 18 and getting that job. Matter of fact, that was the job that almost didn’t happen. Cause I walked into the interview.

a guy straight from high school, went and got my own apartment, basically couldn’t afford it, had to forego college to try to pay for that. And then as cable lights, utilities started to get cut off, I was like, man, I got to do something different. So me as a young man had to work over school, over my education. So I went down, I went into local ad,

I would always see these guys dressed up, know, have certain talent. were, they were car salesmen. some of them, you know, some guys like they make some money. I want to be a car salesman. And I shoot on down to the, to the dealership for an interview. I get there, um, guy Chris, uh, still great friends to this day. He was the one that was responsible for getting me into it. Um, I sat across from him. He walked out to greet me and he was like, I’m not going to interview you. And I’m looking like, what did I do now?

Cause you know, at that time when you’re young, you always go into this victim mindset until you can train yourself better. And I’m like, what is he trying to do to me now, man? And he said, take your earrings out and go put a tie on. And that was the last day I ever wore earring in my ear. I wore those earrings out. When he got a tie, I came back for the interview. He hired me on the spot. The rest was history. So.

Quentin Edmonds (08:22)
man, I love it. Man, thank you so much for the gift of your vulnerability, of you sharing your story, your journey. What continue to catch my will catch my attention is that when I keep hearing you talking about tenacity and consistency. And so I can tell that’s part of your journey, even what you just sharing that part of your story, that’s ingrained in you, right? Tenacity.

It’s starting to make more sense to me why you use that word because I can see that you had to be very tenacious with going after your dream and making sure that you don’t find yourself settling for where you are, but pushing forward to where you want to be. And so I thank you for sharing that story, man. I really do. I thank you for sharing part of you, brother. I appreciate that,

Robert Howard (09:05)
And so to build off of that, and I told you about the 20 year career in auto sales, maybe a third of the way into that career, you know, I had my first child, who’s 16 now that that forces you to grow up. So you got to grow up. You got to start doing some stuff fast at the time had no real savings, no real long term goals besides that.

I was just going to stay in this business. And as long as it paid me well, I was going to keep making that money. But of course you get older, kids get older. And for any individual, something else, sometimes a little fire getting here and something else becomes more important. And that’s what started my ship. know, as my daughter was entering middle school, that was a little tougher time that happened right during, uh, at the heels of COVID. So that started you having to

home school basically a little bit. So having to have her like maybe at the house

not as being as present as I wanted to be. The grades started to fluctuate and I was like, look like something’s going on here. You know, I gotta fix it and it’s my responsibility. So I talked to her about it. Told her was gonna try to be more present. And I said, what I will do, when I said more present, I was always in her life, but more present physically.

Quentin Edmonds (10:54)
Gosh.

Robert Howard (10:57)
Cause when you’re talking to car dealership, you’re talking, I’m maybe eight, eight, 30 in the morning to nine, 10 o’clock at night. And that’s pretty taxing on any family, know, regardless of what it is. So from that point, said, the time we get to high school, I’m try to retire from this business. So I started to take the steps then, I’m now to like, you know, what is it that can make the same kind of money?

as what I’m making out with no education. And that’s where real estate came in. Because to do what I’m doing, the wholesaling, it doesn’t require a real estate license. Although I do hold the license, think it gives more credibility, gives me a little more access. But it’s absolutely not necessary. And by that time, I’m thinking that this money is a never ending faucet that’s just going to keep running. So of course, I’m saving less because I’m thinking that

Look, this always be it’s always come. And as I get more more prepared now, what led me down the rabbit hole, I said, well, I started typing Google. What is it that I can do in real estate with no money? And then I started taking the courses and the end of that was that that ended up being wholesaling because wholesaling, I don’t know for people that aren’t familiar with it. I call it.

basically paper profits because you’re selling a contract. So you’re going to get a seller to sell you the home. You get a buyer to buy it and whatever that price is in between, that’s your take on. So that’s what you get. And the average deals right now in my market, you get about $10,000 on average. So toward the end of my 20 year career.

I started to figure out more and more systems like, okay, well, how much does it take to replace this income? How many deals do I need? I started doing that, you know, part-time basically, but it was essentially my side hustle. So I would get up at, you know, four or five in the morning, trying to get leads to call on my lunch break. I would go out to the car and call them. And then sometimes in the evening, I would make my calls if I had a little break.

And I would spend me and my daughter who helped me start the business. I think she was 14 at the time, 13, 14. We went on a Sunday and we were viewing 10, 12 houses like a one day because Sunday was literally my only off day. So that’s kind of my grit of getting started in the business and kind of what led me down that path.

Quentin Edmonds (13:19)
Man, so you, man, I love, I love what you’re doing. I love what you’re saying. You go from 20 years selling cars, right? I got the number, right? 20 years. You tell yourself, okay, we can’t stay here. What can I do differently that gives me…

Robert Howard (13:32)
20 years.

Quentin Edmonds (13:39)
more money, the same money, more money, but it’s gonna allow me more time with my family. So you make it to this pivot, to this real estate. And so that’s where we are now that you’re helping investors get their first deal. If I recall, did I hear that right? You say that. And so, man, I know that that’s not easy in this climate. And…

You got yourself up and running. You then made the pivot. You here now. So what is it about you that keeps everything running smoothly? Like what keeps the machine running smoothly, the process running smoothly? I kind of know what you may say, but I want to hear you say it for yourself. What keep things running smoothly, man?

Robert Howard (14:18)
Well, I’ll tell you one that you probably wouldn’t expect again. That’s my wife. you got to have a… That’s a cheat code, I’ll call it, in life. And I found that later on in life as well. I’m later than I should have. But that’s a cheat code. She keeps it going. And I talk about all these systems and all this stuff. lot of that she’s helped develop.

And all of it came came with the sacrifice. So you can’t think of you can get one thing without, know, having to give up the other is the whole saying like you can’t serve two gods, you know, so to speak. So you have to sacrifice some things to get to the next level. But we we have processes in place and we’re very consistent in our approach to the way that we do business. So that’s that’s pretty much what keeps it running. But it’s always consistently do the same thing every single day.

You know what they say, man, if you tap a brick wall in the same place with a spoon

some point, it’s going to come crumbling. But you.

Quentin Edmonds (15:55)
Absolutely. Absolutely. No, brother, I’m with you. got one of them cheat codes over here, brother. I know about the cheat codes. So trust me, I feel you, man, for sure. For sure. mean, the reason, man, listen, this ain’t about me, this about you, but one of reasons why I’m here is because of my cheat codes. I know what you’re talking about, Now you’ve already pivoted one time in your life. You talked about that. But of course, you know, there’s moments within business, like when things get real, deals go sideways.

So is there a time within where you are currently, what you’re doing now? Is there a time when you had to fast or, you know, make some changes on the fly? Like, can you talk about any of those moments?

Robert Howard (16:31)
Yeah, man, I got more of those moments than we even have time for. But I’ll talk about me getting a little bit ahead of myself. And this is the reason why I want to be able to give back and teach people the very entry level of it. Because real estate at its very core and the very beginning, I think everyone and I’m have some experts that will disagree with me.

But I think it should start at wholesaling. A lot of people don’t like wholesaling just because you don’t need a license for it. They feel like you’re going to compete with other agents as well as it’s not legal in every state. and they’ve put some more regulations here to try to tighten up to make sure it’s not just the wild, wild west. But for me, I started in wholesaling.

And the idea was I always wanted to do like fix and flips. Cause you see people that have that old nasty house and you see it look pretty and it looked like they made a ton of money on it. It looks sexy, know, flipping looks real sexy. So I use the host telling money, which everyone should do build up that capital. Now they say there’s an easier route. People say, you know, go straight to credit and all that, but let’s be real everybody.

the greatest credit or perfect credit to be able to start like that. But one thing that’s always not replaced was cash. Cash is key. If you got cash, you can still do stuff that you can’t do, you know, with credit. So if you don’t have credit, the next thing is cash. So I built up that capital and decided that I wanted to start flipping houses. So now we’re talking to me, taking my investment, my hard-earned money, putting it into flips, even though was getting loaned.

hard money loans, which is expensive money, but it’s a way, you know, not to make an excuse to get you to the next level. But I ended up going through contractors, two and three contractors on jobs multiple times in the beginning and lost a couple hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. Easy. And that was not hard to stop. I mean, that was not easy to stomach. You’re talking about it feel like somebody just kicked you in the stomach. It was a real, good punch.

So, and a lot of that was, I was doing it on my own. I started just basically just out of the blue trying to flip and it wasn’t even my arena. I didn’t have somebody mention me from that side. Luckily on the wholesaling side, I did run into a young lady that kind of led me on the way to get to my first deal, which took my first deal I’ll tell you to, it took me about nine months.

Quentin Edmonds (18:55)
Got you.

Robert Howard (18:55)
Nine

months, because I was doing like everybody else did. I was calling myself, I was getting smart. So I was watching the videos, consuming everything. I even paid for probably three, four courses, probably spent $40,000, $50,000 on education and still did nothing. But it wasn’t until I got with a mentor that said, look, this is how you should do it. And if I had that long ago, that would have fast forwarded me. So the loss I took in the flipping game,

was substantial and it was because I was out of alignment, I say, I should have been doing something else different at the time. So now I’m back to my roots. And true enough, you do build wealth by holding the properties, getting paid for collecting your rent, cashflow, and that’s the long game. But again, what we’re trying to do is help beginners get into it and tell them how to do it. So we do have a couple apartments and stuff now, couple of single families.

we’ve been able to acquire. But again, I’m telling people that that very beginning at the very core, it doesn’t take a lot of money and it doesn’t take education at all. Matter of fact, I end up buying most of my education, sadly, but I’ll help everybody else avoid those pitfalls.

Quentin Edmonds (20:07)
Hmm. Hmm. See, Mr. Robert, that’s why I love you, man. that’s, that’s the not, that’s, that’s the kind of stuff people are not talking about enough and your vulnerability, your willing, your willingness to educate. mean, honestly, that’s what separates folks from that people that just like dabble and from people that’s kind of in it long-term and people that’s doing it the right way that stick to it to this, that, that

You know, like, yeah, like, like, honestly, man, you’re doing what a lot of people is not doing. And I’m so glad that you’re doing it the way you’re doing it with integrity is really so helpful for people, man. So I’m just, I’m so grateful for you, man. So listen, let me ask you this brother. What are you looking to solve right now? Like what’s the next move? What’s your next goal? Are you looking to scale things up? Like what’s next for you brother?

Robert Howard (20:56)
I haven’t got to level where I’m comfortable, but I’m going to stretch myself this next year. Because there is room for growth. There’s several opportunities out there. We’re going to be staffing, going to be moving more towards AI and other things that allows our business to be scalable. But before I get to

All of that stuff, it’s working in tandem in the background and evolving always be a constant thing. But my real focus now is helping others. Like I said, my youngest child, she’s nine months now. So even that from having my first child who’s 16, that perspective, it gives me whole different outlook and outcome that man, there are other people out there.

that are just like this, started where you started with basically nothing. A lot of people that ain’t in this corporate race that make pretty good income, probably already make six figures, but they just want their time. So I wanna help people tap into this new currency, which is time. Time is definitely a new currency, so.

And then they can have that time to do whatever it is that that’s their way or whatever it is that they see that’s most important to them. But I can say definitively for me, that came to point where I was no longer satisfied with building someone else’s empire on my back.

Quentin Edmonds (22:16)
So I hate you man, and that’s big, especially when you start talking about time. That’s one of the greatest resources that we have is time. And we have to leverage our time correctly. And honestly, people figure out ways to actually get their time back. like smart people figure out ways to, hey, if I can pay a little money for this to be able to free me up with time over here, they will realize that that currency, like you said, the real currency is time, brother.

Robert Howard (22:44)
Yes.

Quentin Edmonds (22:44)
currency

of time. And so me and my wife, my chico, we got this saying where we say, your, your presence is a present. Presence is a present. So I think, yeah, you know, that gives that gives towards time and like having time for what’s what matters is everything, bro. Everything, everything. So I know, so you are not a person that that stands still. You got your systems in place.

Robert Howard (22:54)
I mean, it’s.

Quentin Edmonds (23:09)
but you’re always looking for what’s next, especially with the health people. I know you mentioned leaning into AI. And so you notice, and I’m sure like the next move that we make, it could either compound things or it can cause chaos. That’s depending on how we play it, right? And so you have a lot of people that are listening, they’re gleaning from your journey. They may be early in their journey and they’re looking to level up or make moves. And I think it would benefit them from hearing this.

So I need you to tell people when it comes to building relationships, when it comes to like building like your network, your team, I know you talk about your wife being your ace in the hole, but what’s the biggest difference that, what made the biggest difference for you when it came to building relationships?

Robert Howard (23:53)
When it came to building relationships, I spoke there briefly about the young lady that took the time to mentor me to teach me how to do things the right way. She also invited me into these local real estate groups and all that to tell people, if it’s what you want to do, you got to start to be in a community that fosters that. So get into

a good group that has an ecosystem. And that’s going to be, you know, they’ll have contractors, their lenders, investors, sellers, buyers, all of that stuff. And you can find it. I mean, you can find it locally just by a simple search on Facebook, you know, just to start there. But you’ve got to get around like minded individuals. Are you going to run into people that say, man, you crazy for knowing that? What you want to do that for? Absolutely. Absolutely.

But you’re around those like-minded individuals, they’re gonna ask you, why are you not doing it? And that’s the difference. Get around those same people that can foster that fire inside of you, that desire to just get you to the next level. So get around some good people. And if you can, if you meet the right one, you’ll know it. But get you a good coach and mentor.

Somebody that’s already made the mistakes.

Quentin Edmonds (25:06)
Absolutely, man. Maybe somebody that paid for some education that you don’t got to pay for, right? That wasn’t a shot, man. mean.

Robert Howard (25:11)
That’s.

Quentin Edmonds (25:13)
But I said that because I want to highlight the fact that you have a servant’s heart, right? You want to see people succeed and you want to make sure people don’t do the same pitfalls or at least fall in some of the problems that you fell into. They can avoid that. You want them to help them out. And so really I say that to highlight you because you have a servant’s heart, And so I appreciate what you’re doing, man. I appreciate your approach to it. I really, really do. And no good D.

goes unrewarded, right? You plant the seed, you’re gonna reap a return on the seed that you plant. So if you plant the seed, I’ll serve it to you and help.

You know it bro. And so that’s, know, we can’t fake relationship. We can’t fake relationship building, nurturing good relationships. All of that is paramount in this space. And so, you know, I’m glad that you have positioned yourself to help people, you know? And so in return, you you’re going to succeed, man. And you already succeed and you’re doing great things, man. And I appreciate you, brother.

Robert Howard (26:10)
Yes, sir.

Quentin Edmonds (26:10)
So listen, before we write, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you or connect with you, or maybe even collaborate with you, or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?

Robert Howard (26:20)
I’m working on this social media thing, I’m in the early 40s. I know I should be better than I am, but I don’t have a good Instagram presence. I think my name on there may be the real Robert Howard or something like that. But I don’t check in there. But I do have a Facebook page. On Facebook is my name is Robert Howard. That’s R-O-B-E-R-T. Last name Howard, H-O-W-A-R-D. And if you’re looking for the picture of me, it’s going to be…

Me in a light pink suit and a white collared shirt, you know, so don’t don’t rag me too much about that, but you can find me there.

Quentin Edmonds (26:50)
Nah man, that joint sound like that’s Kristen Sharp, Listen, anybody wanna rag on that, they don’t know, they don’t know.

Robert Howard (26:57)
And I do have a website too. my website is www.epicho selling.com. That’s E P I C that’s Edward Paul, Igloo Charlie, ho selling w H O L E S A L I N G.com. There you can send me, you know, if you have any interest with us, working together, you know, do shoot me a message there. I’ll get it immediately. And on Facebook, I check all my, my DMS, but I tell you,

what I want to do and presence is, you know, something for, for your members, of this podcast. If y’all can find me on Facebook, go and send me a message with the word jump. You know, just send me a message to work jump. I say everybody always gets all the word jump. Cause everybody gets to the end.

Quentin Edmonds (27:39)
J-U-M-P, correct?

Robert Howard (27:44)
but then you’re scared to take that next step. you hit the ledge, just go ahead, jump to the next level and I’ll be here to catch you. So you type that, I’m gonna send you all my script that I use personally for calling on these owners. I’ll also send you a couple of videos. That’ll be the intro to wholesaling. I’m of just wanting you to know what wholesaling is and when you’re trying to get these deals from realtors that don’t cost you money.

I’ll tell you exactly how to talk to them and what to say to. So I’ll do that just for your listeners. Because again, I’ll tell you, I do want to get back. That would be an awesome way.

Quentin Edmonds (28:21)
Man, see, y’all see why we had this guy on? Do you see it? This man is willing to position himself to help. And so, man, y’all heard it here. Put that word jump. If you jump, he’s going to catch you. You don’t need to be scared. That’s right. Man, I love it. I appreciate you, sir. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your story. We definitely need more people like you in this space that’s doing it the right way, man.

And so I thank you again, Mr. Robert Howard for being here, sir. Any last words you want to say, before we sign off?

Robert Howard (28:49)
No last word because I’m always going keep going. in closing, I will tell you if you’re on offense about something or if you’re having a little bit of tough time, I would just encourage you to keep going. Storms don’t always last. It’s the people that outlast them that end up being the best. So don’t be a victim of your circumstance. Don’t be a victim of your environment. Just continue to keep going and there’s always light on the other side.

Quentin Edmonds (29:14)
Absolutely. Mr. Robert Howard, everyone. Listen, I appreciate you being here again. I appreciate you, your audience, the audience, you’re listening. I appreciate you for being here. Thank you for tuning in. And listen, I know you found value in this, so just go ahead and subscribe now. If you’re not subscribed, my man, he shouted us out earlier. He told you at the beginning, we’re telling you now at the end. Please subscribe because we will have more conversations coming up, just like the one we had with Mr. Robert Howard. Listen, I thank y’all so much for tuning in.

and we will see you on the next episode. Thank you so much.