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Show Summary
In this conversation, Trevor Hicks shares his unique journey from a physical therapy background to becoming a successful fix and flipper and lender in the real estate market. He discusses the importance of building relationships, the nuances of seller financing, and the current lending landscape in Florida. Trevor emphasizes the need for grit and tenacity in the real estate space and offers insights into his strategies for finding deals and working with investors.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Trevor Hicks (00:00)
well, Dylan, you’ve owned this property for 25 years. You know, you have no debt on it. When you bought it, it was worth a hundred thousand. Now it’s worth 500,000. That’s a big capital gains tax that you take in year one. If you sell it for 500 grand cash. Great.but you’re gonna take that capital gains hit. Yeah, maybe you roll it into another 1031, but if you are truly a tired landlord and you just wanna retire, you don’t wanna put it into more real estate, seller finance could be a solution for you.
Dylan Silver (01:57)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Trevor Hicks out of central Florida is a fix and flipper and lender. He also comes from a background managing physical therapy clinics. Trevor, thanks for taking the time today.Trevor Hicks (02:11)
Thanks Dylan, I appreciate you having me on man.Dylan Silver (02:14)
Now, when we talk about fix and flipping and lending, I’ve seen this transition for a lot of folks. I’ve seen people go from wholesaling to fix and flipping to short term, midterm rental, know, buy and hold, and then to lending. Was that the trajectory that you had? then also too, what’s been your experience like getting into lending?Trevor Hicks (02:38)
Yeah, good question. would say I kind of took a different route around. as, as you mentioned, I have a background, 12 year background in physical therapy. So I have my doctorate physical therapy here in Orlando, Florida. I worked for a large healthcare company for a number of years and honestly just kind of was trying to find other ways to invest and to create some passive income for myself. So I actually looked at lending, had a handful of friends that are real estate investors and, started to ask some advice and get found a mentor here.local Orlando investor started taking me to lunches and introducing me to people. And I thought, okay, the best way to stay passive, because I still enjoy my ⁓ W-2, was to get into lending. So I actually started with transactional funding, got in a couple of communities there, learned my way out around there.
and then honestly kind of fell into a fix and flip, my very first deal. I was actually pitching somebody on lending, see if they needed money, and they said, no, I actually need somebody to buy my mother-in-law’s house. She’s getting a divorce, long time married. They just want a cash offer, they want to move quick, and I was like, okay. So I just kind of started negotiating. I’m naturally pretty…
talkative and can pretty much talk to anybody and make friends. So I just kind of treated it as that. was like, wasn’t trying to sell them anything. I wasn’t trying to like low ball them. I just explained the whole process to them of how I would come in and actually purchase the home. And I was kind of at that point speaking out of no knowledge of truly the whole process of fix and flip.
But I had heard enough. had listened. I had gotten the education from YouTube, YouTube university and just kind of, yeah, just kind of fell into that first deal and negotiated a good deal. And then ultimately I thought I was going to wholesale it and I was just going to try and find somebody in my network to buy it. It was local to me. And that’s actually how I found my, my fix and flip partner. So he and I ended up, I pitched the deal to him. He said, I’m either your buyer or I’m your partner. said, what does that mean? I don’t know what that means. I’m, I’m a full-time W2 worker. Like I don’t have time to flip this house. He goes,
You don’t have to, I have a lender set up. You negotiated a great deal. I’ll handle all of the stuff. It was really just a cleanup and we replaced the AC. It was very easy rehab. and then we listed it and sold it. So from beginning to end, we sold it within 90 days, made a great profit. And then he said,
Dylan Silver (04:44)
Yeah.Trevor Hicks (04:46)
I really enjoyed doing this with you. I wanna do eight more, eight to 12 more next year. Do you wanna do this? And in the middle of all that, was actually, I lost my job, was let go from that job. That position was eliminated rather abruptly. So it was good timing. When I made good profit, I realized what was capable outside of a W-2 and I had never really been experienced to that. So that’s kinda how I fell into real estate.Dylan Silver (05:55)
Yeah. And when, these things happen, I mean, that’s typically, you know, what, what gets people going full time. It’s either, I’m going to make the jump or something’s going to make the jump for me. When you were going through that transition was a large portion of your day to day acquisitions and looking at these deals where these deals coming to you, where you’re doing a lot of outreach.Trevor Hicks (06:17)
Yeah, good question. I would sayAt first, no, the deals weren’t coming to me. There wasn’t a lot of inbound leads. I didn’t have a reputation. I wasn’t known in the local, any of the local creative real estate communities or local like Ria’s. So it was a lot of, it was a lot of me reaching out to agents. didn’t have a whole lot of money to do marketing. my partner loves to call agents. love to talk to sellers. So that was kind of the route that we took. He would call agents every day. I would look on Facebook marketplace. I would run, we call like digital bandit signs. I would go into local communities and just say, Hey, this is what we do.
a project we just finished in your area. Anybody has a home they don’t want to have to sell with a realtor and they’re looking for a quick cash offer that needs an investor. ⁓
we’d be happy to do it. And that’s actually how I got probably our most profitable deal in terms of ROI for the year. We did innovation on the house. We found our now agent who’s investor friendly in Palm coast and Orlando that way. So we really haven’t spent a ton on marketing, ⁓ but we just kind of kept talking about what we were doing, kept putting it on social media. He and I both just posting, talking to friends, talking to family, because then it not only tells them what we’re doing so people can bring us deals, but what I’ve found is letting people know what you’re doing. Then they have passive money that they
want to invest and as soon as I started talking about what we’re doing I didn’t really ever solicit and say hey I need your money it was more of like hey if I gave you some money what could you do with it and then I just would talk them through the process of how I got into it how we use private lenders on our deals how we use hard money lenders on our deals and yeah so now it’s it’s much more of I would have what I would call an inbound flow we have a
agents that’ll bring us deals, have wholesalers that know that we’re, you know, we operate well and if we say we can close, we’ll close. And so yeah, that’s been the transition of that.
Dylan Silver (07:59)
Now, for folks who are getting into the space, I mean, there’s so many different ways to get a lead funnel and find these deals. You you’ve got probates, foreclosures, you know, could knock distressed properties, right? You can skip trades, so on and so forth. It sounds like, correct me if I’m wrong, it sounds like you were seeing a lot of traction through kind of a warm sphere of getting out there, of talking with brokers. And then you also were trying to do outreach to sellers. But a lot of this was through cultivating a sphere.Trevor Hicks (08:28)
You’re exactly right. What they say your net worth is your network. Your network is your net worth.I’ve always been about building relationships. I never was into wholesale much because I don’t want to just cold call people all day and try and go that. That’s not the route. I have a lot of experience in hospitality and like getting to know people, whether it’s through physical therapy or serving or bartending back in the day. so I was always about the relationship first. And if I can make a relationship with you, especially as an agent and you come across, you know, even one, two, three deals a year. And I have five or 10 agents that are doing that. I have more deals than I can keep up with and flip on my
own. So then the bigger problem becomes, okay, what are our other ways and what are our other, exit strategies? Can we now, now that we’ve built this relationship with a lot of people and buyers and other people that are doing flips in the area, I don’t see those people as competition. I see those as if I can’t take on this flip, at least maybe I can make a wholesale fee and send it over to them if it’s a good deal. So that’s, that’s yeah, that warm sphere, you’re a hundred percent right. That, that’s how I operate. don’t like to just.
Dylan Silver (09:22)
Right, right.Trevor Hicks (09:30)
know, reach out, cold, cold outreach is not my thing. Not a fan.Dylan Silver (09:33)
Now,I want to ask you specifically about the type of offers without giving away all the gold here, Trevor. But there’s a lot of people right now specifically, and I think this is due to a number of factors, property sitting on market longer, but also, you know, there’s more people getting into this space on all fronts. Right. So and it’s probably just going to keep increasing. Are you seeing there?
being opportunities in central Florida for investors to make seller finance offers? I get a lot of questions about this from all segments of real estate and all across the country. Or, are there enough cash buyers close enough to market value for where sellers are not gonna, single family homeowners are not gonna entertain a seller finance offer?
Trevor Hicks (10:54)
That’s a good question. And I’m going to answer your question, but I’m also going to go back to one other thing you said that I want to touch on that there’s all, there’s a lot of people coming into this space, but I would argue there’s not a lot of people staying in this space because don’t get me wrong. I’ve thought of in the last year and a half very easily of just running back to a W two and just making it so much easier on my family, on myself, but the time freedom I have young kids, I really, you know, I traded an eight hour a day job for a 24 hour day job, but I’m able to cultivate.when I do and what I do. I’m not told, you have a patient at eight, you have a patient at nine, all the way till five, and you got this meeting. If we’re going on vacation, I turn it off. So I would say, that’s the only thing I’ll say on that is there’s definitely lots of people coming in, but you gotta have a little bit of grit and tenacity to kind of hang with it and fight through it, especially as a newer person. Like nothing comes easy, you gotta learn a new skill. This was all foreign to me, so.
But to answer your question as far as seller finance versus cash buyers, the market in Florida has definitely been slower. So to get into fix and flip this year, I’d say it’s probably been a harder year than most. I’m hoping again and anticipating market turning around a little bit. Insurance costs are high, property tax are high in Florida. So buying a true rental that cash flows is rather tough. You buy it on a DSCR loan. So if you’re talking about cash buyers, yeah, you could buy it cash. You could turn it into a rental.
but more seller finance, a lot of the times if I hear a tired landlord or somebody that’s owned it for a long time and they have no debt on the property, they own it outright. That’s where I start thinking immediately seller finance. And the way I kind of pitch that is, okay,
well, Dylan, you’ve owned this property for 25 years. You know, you have no debt on it. When you bought it, it was worth a hundred thousand. Now it’s worth 500,000. That’s a big capital gains tax that you take in year one. If you sell it for 500 grand cash. Great.
but you’re gonna take that capital gains hit. Yeah, maybe you roll it into another 1031, but if you are truly a tired landlord and you just wanna retire, you don’t wanna put it into more real estate, seller finance could be a solution for you.
And they ask why? Well, okay, I give you a down payment. You’re still gonna have money to walk away with, but now you are the bank on that property. You hold the note on that property and the mortgage. So if I default, you get the asset back and you keep all the money that I pay you as a down payment. It’s a win-win. And you’re collecting interest as we go.
So you’re not just collecting 500 grand, maybe over a five or 10 year span, you’re collecting 500, but you’re also collecting, you know, three, four, 5 % interest, depending on whatever we structure. And you can actually defer those tax gains over that five to 10 year span. So it’s, it is still able to create a win-win. and then you eliminate all of those origination points and fees and all those things where banks and lenders make money, which is fine. I’m a lender as well. That’s how I make money on a lot of my deals too. So I’m not obsolete to that.
And I, I also, when I first got into it, I listened to pace Morbius a lot. And that’s where I was like, everything creative finance use none of my own money. That is a strategy, but it’s not the only strategy just to have another tool in the toolbox. And it’s a powerful one in certain situations.
Dylan Silver (13:52)
That might be the best explanation of through a seller of why they should consider seller finance that I’ve heard really like, look, what’s the worst case scenario? I’m giving you 20 % of what you’re looking for. If I walk away from this deal, you just got 20 % and you get the property back. You can go sell it again. The market could be different then you might get full asset. If the market is slower now, I’m giving you.this plus monthly payments, you’re eliminating the massive tax burden you’re gonna have right now, what’s to lose, right? Versus what some other people are doing, are like, hey, you’re really tired, you wanna sell, I can’t give you the full amount, but here’s a certain amount upfront, that’s not pitching it in a way that makes sense to me as a seller.
Trevor Hicks (14:32)
Exactly. You got to make it make sense to them. It’s got to be a win for them too. You can’t be the only one winning, especially it’s a seller finance offer. You’re going to have a relationship with these people for the next five to 10 years. So do you want to a mislead them right off the bat? So that way, when they do get into the deal, then they create nothing but headaches and problems for you. No thanks. Like that’s not why I’m getting into this. I want to make relationships. I want to be a man of my word and have more people than come to us. We’ve done that for a couple of realtors. Our last one.I was trying to go direct to seller and the seller had a friend who was an agent. had just locked in the deal with him. And so he’s like, no, I’m sorry. You got to go through my agent. I’m like, okay, no problem. So we met, talked with the agent and he’s like, I’m to be honest with you guys. I don’t really like investors. haven’t had the best relationships with them. I haven’t had the best experience. said, well, we’re to turn that around. We told him we could close in two weeks. We closed in two weeks in a day. Exactly. On the day we said we were going to close, we came through and we were actually going to relist that house with him. And then he came back to us and he said, you guys were
you know, a pleasure to work with. Can I bring you more houses? And we were both like, wait, I thought you didn’t like working with investors. He’s like, I liked working with you guys and I to bring you more. So he just brought us another one this past week and we’re underwriting and looking at making an offer. So
Dylan Silver (16:21)
That’s how it happens, right? You get one deal done and then you start to get basically inbound leads from that source and then they start to expand their network and then it becomes like a network of networks. And just from one deal, it could be tremendous source of leads, acquisitions, and potential partnerships, right? I do wanna pivot a bit here though and ask you about the lending space. Right now it seems again, more than ever, there’s a lot of…different ways that people can be active in lending. I’ve heard about business loans for people starting businesses. I’ve heard about people getting into small single family one to four, but then also even larger, multi-family. And it’s running the gamut from folks who seem to be just getting into this space to folks who are more established and maybe doing direct lending themselves.
You’re a lender in this space. What’s your feedback on the current landscape if we were to just take Florida, for example?
Trevor Hicks (17:23)
I’d say Florida, there’s a lot of lenders and I’m speaking, we use private money and hard money for all of our flips. Our goal is not to use our own capital, even if it means making less profit.But what I would say is, is if you buy it at the right price, you always make the money on the buy, you don’t make it on the sell, right? If I overpay when I buy the property, there’s no way of fixing that. I can’t get a refund after I’ve already paid them. So we always underwrite it with a cushion and whether, know, and that offer doesn’t work for everybody and that’s okay. But for a lender’s perspective, you always have to factor in some cushion. So when I’m looking at a deal,
Specifically for fix and flip is what I tend to lend on, whether it be in first or second position. Normally for a first position loan, I’m underwriting it based off of the ARV and 70 % of that. And then I’ll hold the rehab costs back in escrow until the work is done. So I will loan up to 70 % of ARV or like 90 % loan to cost on it, which is basically the entire cost of the whole project. So the.
person who’s buying it still has to come with some money out of pocket. They’ve got to have some skin in the game. They’ve got to have some liquidity. They need to have had ideally some experience or they’re partnering with somebody that has some experience, not against the first time. You know, a person, if I know them and I can kind of help along the process with that, it’s kind of why I got more into the lending space too is now that I’ve actually done some fix and flips, I understand the process a little more. I kind of know if somebody’s, you know, blowing smoke when they’re pitching a deal to me.
or if it really makes sense. know how to underwrite. I’m more of the numbers guy and the lender and the investor relations in my my partner’s business. He’s much more of the design and the boots on the ground, the management, the contractors, but I have some experience in that too. that’s what I’d say about Florida. There’s still deals to be had. There’s still a market. It’s still Florida, what I can say. You and I talked about this when we got on. I’m blessed to live here. I’ve lived here my whole life. I know the market for central Florida pretty well.
So if it’s a certain area, I know the area, I know it’s going to continue to grow. There’s definitely deals that I would still invest in.
Dylan Silver (19:27)
We are coming up on time here, Trevor. Any new projects that you’re working on and then also too, what’s the best way for folks to get in contact with you?Trevor Hicks (19:36)
Yeah, we’re always looking for new projects. We’re looking for our next deal as we speak.to lend on as well as also to flip and or partner with people. We love to teach, we love to educate, we wanna get more people that are getting into the space, you know, acclimated, because everybody wants to do a fix and clip, right? You watch HGTV, everybody wants to do that. Well, we make that possible for everybody. You can leverage our experience. If you’ve got a deal, whether you’ve got a property you wanna sell or you know somebody, you’re an agent and you need help selling a property that’s listed, or you’ve got capital that you wanna put into the next deal and partner with us, you can actually go to www.trevorandrobert.com
and that’s that’s our our landing page you can see some examples of some of our work you can see places to submit deals you can see our buy box on there or I’m also very active on social media try to be on both fate Facebook which is Trevor Hicks as well as Instagram which is trevor_ryan7 reach out to me I’m yeah waiting for you to to message me and interact
Dylan Silver (20:35)
Trevor, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for coming on the show.Trevor Hicks (20:39)
Thanks for having me, Dylan. It was a pleasure.
