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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Michelle Kesil sits down with Anson Young, a seasoned real estate investor focused on wholesaling, fix-and-flips, and primarily the BRRRR method. Anson shares his journey from working in IT to building a real estate business rooted in off-market lead generation and long-term investing. He breaks down how providing value through networking helped him gain mentorship early on, how adapting to market shifts has been critical to his longevity, and why he views his company as a lead generation business that happens to operate in real estate. The conversation also dives into team building, scaling challenges, and strategies for staying resilient through changing market cycles.
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Anson Young (00:00)
Yeah, sure. ⁓ know, obstacles will always come down, of course. ⁓ One of my biggest obstacles was when, you know, probably around 2011, ⁓ when our main deal finding strategy was, you know, bank owned foreclosures that were listed on the MLS. ⁓ When like there was pretty a pretty sharp drop off in Colorado of, you know, we had a huge inventory of those. And then we had likenot very many. And so if that’s your main deal strategy, you got to learn to kind of shift and shift before the market shifts, but like be very like, just be very aware of what’s going on inside the market.
Michelle Kesil (02:15)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Anson Young, who is a real estate investor focusing on fix and flips, wholesale, and the BRRRR method. So excited to have you here today, Anson.Anson Young (02:34)
Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.Michelle Kesil (02:36)
Of course I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching marketing and lead gen and expanding. So lots to dive into.Anson Young (02:46)
Yeah, awesome, let’s do it.Michelle Kesil (02:49)
First off, for those not familiar with you and your workout, can you share what your main focus is?Anson Young (02:56)
Yeah, so right now my main focus is on BRRRR deals and those are mainly out of state. So that’s kind of my main focus. Try not to get chased away by shiny objects and just kind of keep my head down and focus on that.Michelle Kesil (03:10)
Awesome, and which markets do you operate in?Anson Young (03:12)
So Colorado is my main market, but those out-of-state markets are in Nebraska and Ohio.Michelle Kesil (03:18)
Cool, and so how did you start up as an investor? What did that journey look like for you?Anson Young (03:26)
Yeah, so I mean really long story short since this is forever ago, but I was an IT ⁓ Thought I was gonna go down the path of being an IT for my whole career got laid offat the same time or a little bit after that, my wife and I decided to move down to Arizona to be closer to my brother and his family. They were they just had their first ⁓ baby. So we were like, you know, hey, I’m unemployed and she can get a job down there. And so we decided to take that plunge. And at the same time, another friend of mine gave me Rich Dad Poor Dad, which is the most basic origin story of real estate investors. So I’m sorry, I don’t have a more exciting story, but ⁓ got handed that book and kind of
Changed my entire mindset on you know do I want to go back to do a corporate job or can I actually make? something else work and so
when we landed in Phoenix, it was kind of like new city, new opportunities, new way of thinking. Let’s see if we can make real estate work. And so kind of dove right in and started attending every meetup that I could and bothering every single person that I could who was in real estate to see if I could help them in exchange for knowledge or running comps or any of the skill sets that you need as an investor. And after about a year,
ended up doing my first deal. So that’s kind of a long story short on that.
Michelle Kesil (05:43)
Awesome. And how did you go from that place to where you are now? Like what did that look like? Did you get mentorship or education or just lots of trial and error?Anson Young (05:57)
Sure, you know at first it was a lot of mentorship through.you know, providing value to other investors and agents in return for that knowledge. So I would, you know, I had an agent that I’d go put up her signs for her listings. And in return, she taught me how to use MLS. You know, I had another investor who I’d go knock doors for and in return, he taught me, you know, contracts and sales and all that kind of stuff. And so I was kind of providing that value first before asking for anything. And of course they were like more than, you know, happy to help me out since I was doing
stuff for free for them, ⁓ which I don’t regret at all. I think it’s a great way to ⁓ to get in there. But, you know, when I moved back to Denver, which is about a year after my first deal, it did feel like starting over. I got a job with an agent. And so I consider that agent, you know, a mentor as well. But for probably for my first, I don’t know, 10 years, I probably didn’t have any kind of formal
coaching, ⁓ mentor, anything like that. ⁓ I’ve joined some masterminds over the years, you know off and on, built up a network of fellow investors who are, they’re doing amazing things and we’ll jump on a call every quarter or so, or monthly or quarterly, whatever, and just kind of trade information. I’ve gotten so much, ⁓ you know.
I’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of education from just networking and becoming friends with other agents and investors. And so I highly value those relationships. And I think that that’s ⁓ one huge thing that’s kind of propelled my career forward.
Michelle Kesil (07:47)
Absolutely, networking and relationships are everything in this space.Anson Young (07:51)
Absolutely.Michelle Kesil (07:51)
Yeah, so you mentioned when we chatted earlier that lead generation is a strength of yours. Can you expand on that?Anson Young (07:59)
Yeah.Yeah. So, you know, like, like a lot of people, you know, I got my license and I’ve started investing before kind of the great crash of 2008 or so. And, you know, deal, deal acquisition was just much different back then. And when things changed all the way through about 2015, ⁓ you know, MLS was where we got all of our deals and
when things really changed and we decided we needed to really go off market, that’s where I feel like I started that journey of direct to seller marketing, taking inbound leads, nurturing those leads, building rapport, helping people out. That’s kind of been our entire method since about 2015. And so it started out of necessity and I was kind of skeptical at first, like, I can…
Send out mail and expect X amount of deals ⁓ That doesn’t sound like it’s legit and so until I consistently kept doing it and now have been doing it for for 10 years or so, but ⁓ That is where our strength lies is basically going out reaching out and getting deals before they come to market and consistently bringing those in for our acquisitions and wholesale deals that we don’t want to keep
and get to help people out and get to keep the business going. So it’s a win-win, I think.
Michelle Kesil (09:28)
Yeah, absolutely, that’s important. And when you’re finding these deals, what does your process look like in determining which ones are the best opportunities for you?Anson Young (10:13)
Yeah, of course. mean, it all starts off with that, you know, for us, it all starts off with an inbound call from our marketing and just kind of like really feeling out what that what that homeowner needs or that investor needs out of their property or the situation. How can we best craft a, you know, win win scenario to help them out of what they need and obviously get what we need since, you know, we’re a business as well. So the best deals come from.really listening to what the homeowner wants, the owner wants, and crafting a deal that makes it so that everybody wins in that transaction. And then having multiple tools in your toolbox to be able to deal with different scenarios, different types of sellers. A seller might call in with 10 properties, they’re just a tired landlord and just wants to get rid of all of them, or they might call in and they might want retail for their house. We have a…
Disposition strategy for each one of those and able to help both of those people ⁓ and so You know it basically to answer your question. It’s like Through that process of feeling them out seeing what they need obviously getting some numbers together ⁓ Then we can really analyze, you know how we can craft a deal that makes the most sense for everybody ⁓ Obviously they’re gonna have to you know, let us know what kind of price they’re looking at or if they want us to shoot off a price first work
have to go look at it and see ⁓ what we can actually pay for it. And sometimes it’s not price. Sometimes the most important thing is the amount of stuff that’s left in the house. or you know can we close and then have three months before we move out? Because we need the money now in order to move. It’s just crafting those things. And so sometimes it’s not about price. And you just have to really just be a normal person. Talk to people normally.
and really like care about, you know, what their situation is and, you know, having a way to help them out.
Michelle Kesil (12:14)
Yeah, absolutely. Sounds like it’s people first for you.Anson Young (12:17)
Absolutely, it has to be. mean…Michelle Kesil (12:19)
Yeah,definitely. So what are you most focused now on solving or scaling to the next thing in your business?
Anson Young (12:30)
Yeah, you know, solving, usually it comes down to people is what we’re trying to solve. Whether it’s, you know, our boots on the ground in the field, agents that we’re working with, ⁓ contractors is a big one. It’s always a big gripe with investors is dealing with contractors. ⁓ It is definitely a people business and ⁓ keeping those relationships and keeping everyone happy, keeping people trained. ⁓And then just knowing that you’re also just gonna have to let go. Like there are just people who are with you for a phase in their life, know, an acquisitions person who wants to go try their sales skills, you know, in the car industry, or they want to go out on their own in the real estate industry, or they want to get their license and become an agent. Like you just have to know inside your business that there are gonna be these things and you’re just gonna have to deal with them because everybody has their own life going on. And you know, it can’t all revolve around me.
Everybody else has their own family and their bills and their situations. so, dealing and navigating people in those relationships is usually what stops people from scaling massively ⁓ quickly. So, that’s kind of what we’re dealing with as well.
Michelle Kesil (13:48)
Yeah, that makes sense. And you mentioned that you’re kind of gearing out of wholesaling and focusing more on like the flips and the burrs, is that correct?Anson Young (13:59)
Kind of, ⁓ I like to think of our business as a lead generation business that just happens to deal in real estate. So if we have multiple ways to kind of ⁓ dispose of properties or ⁓ deal with each lead. So mainly, I would say that we don’t do that many flips, but I mean a BRRRR is just a flip that you keep ⁓ as my friend Tarle would say, but, so wholesaling and I think BRRRR is what we’re mainly focused on.And wholesaling is just a necessity of having a lead generation business. It’s like if we have 10 ⁓ really good leads cut down and we could buy all 10, but we don’t want all 10, we could buy the best two and wholesale the rest. And then the wholesale covers marketing costs, ⁓ payroll costs, and all of that stuff.
Michelle Kesil (15:32)
Right, awesome. So what is some advice you would give to someone that’s maybe just starting out or looking to get into investing?Anson Young (15:41)
Yeah, I mean, I’m an agent too and I deal with, know, investors on that side as well. ⁓ And honestly, you know, it depends on, depends on a lot of things. Every agent’s of course gonna be in a different place with their budget, their time, everything else. But I mean, I always say like, look, if you can house hack first, like do it, you know, do that and that’ll help you springboard to the next thing so much quicker. You know, I have clients who are on their like fourth, fifth,sixth house hack and they’re light years ahead of their, you know, people that in their same age, they might be 35 own like five properties. And it’s all just because every, you know, one or two years they’re house hacking into the next, you know, into the next property. If, if you’re, you know, older like me, like my, my wife and teenager and dogs, you know, we’re not going to go house hack probably, ⁓ you know, somebody starting off who’s a little bit older, you know, really look at
What matches your budget? What matches your style? Is it being a landlord? it flipping houses? You really like the transformation process? Is it building properties? Is it ground up construction? I know guys who have done zero deals and their first deal was a ground up construction project. And yeah, they learned. They learned a lot. But they also made a lot of money when it went to go sell, because they did everything right. So get yourself educated. Really analyze honestly your
your strengths, your weaknesses, your budget, your time, all of that stuff, your risk tolerance, and then you can make a more informed decision. for the younger folks out there, I always recommend house hacking, but if you’re past that phase, then really analyze what’s next for you, because there’s 30 ways to make money in this business, and you just gotta find the right one for you.
Michelle Kesil (17:37)
Yeah, absolutely, that’s important. What are some obstacles that you’ve had to face and maybe pivot out of that now looking back in hindsight, you can see how you overcame it in the lesson?Anson Young (17:53)
Yeah, sure. ⁓ know, obstacles will always come down, of course. ⁓ One of my biggest obstacles was when, you know, probably around 2011, ⁓ when our main deal finding strategy was, you know, bank owned foreclosures that were listed on the MLS. ⁓ When like there was pretty a pretty sharp drop off in Colorado of, you know, we had a huge inventory of those. And then we had likenot very many. And so if that’s your main deal strategy, you got to learn to kind of shift and shift before the market shifts, but like be very like, just be very aware of what’s going on inside the market.
And it’s funny because right around then, Gary Keller came out with a book called Shift and it like really like kind of blew my mind and, and it set me up for that next phase to where, oh, this isn’t going to last forever.
I was still young enough in real estate, like four or five years in, to where I go, wait, this golden goose is gonna stop laying its eggs. And if that’s my only strategy, I’m gonna be stuck and I’m gonna be scrambling. And so we shifted into short sales. And when I noticed that short sale listings were dropping pretty significantly, and at the same time, obviously, people were getting more equity, so they were kind of.
getting out of short, you know, the need for a short sale, I was able to shift kind of before the market shifted into off-market properties. And so that obstacle could have been, you know, smacking face first into the wall. But if you can see it a little bit ahead of time and kind of work your way around it, that’s obviously gonna be, you know, way better for you. But when that first REO dropped, I had to like have a like a little…
life crisis because I was like this is all we do what are we going to do and thankfully ⁓ you know hit that wall learned so that when the next shift came I could you know juke around it and and ⁓ you know do my best there so
Michelle Kesil (20:01)
Yeah, absolutely. It’s important to see the long-term vision when those inevitable things happen.Anson Young (20:03)
Okay.yeah, absolutely.
Michelle Kesil (20:11)
So what are you most looking forward to in this year when it comes to your business and any opportunities that you are looking forward to?Anson Young (20:21)
Yeah, so I mean, this year should look somewhat similar to last year. should be ⁓ retail markets getting soft, but the investment side is still chugging along. We’re still solving problems. We’re still helping out homeowners, and I think there’s gonna be probably a little bit more of that as the economy is just kind of in flux. Who knows what’s gonna go on, but you know I’m really looking forward to… ⁓you know, just having some more systems of stability inside of maybe the back end of our business of just making sure that things are shored up so that ⁓ if there is any kind of major pivot or change that we’re kind of ready for it. Because right now it just feels like, you know, things are just chugging along just fine. And I don’t ever want to get complacent. So now’s a good time to really analyze, you know, systems, KPIs.
and really figure out if there’s any holes that we can patch up now while things are chugging along and we don’t have like a gap in our personnel, you if you’re like trying to train new people and look at all of your gaps, you know, that’s when you burn out because you’re just too ⁓ stretched in multiple directions. But so I’m looking forward to, you know, more of the same ⁓ and taking that time to really make sure that everything on our back end is really strong so that we can.
If we have to pivot, we could do it faster than we could before, that kind of stuff.
Michelle Kesil (21:51)
Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned WE. What does that look like? Are there other people on your team that you’re being supported by?Anson Young (21:59)
Yeah, of course. So myself and my wife does all of our bookkeeping and design and that kind of stuff. She has her own bookkeeping business. she’s busy most of the time with that, but she’s able to do a lot of our back end and make sure the numbers are good and all that good stuff. And then two acquisitions folks, because we do lead generation business. It’s all pretty much phone calls coming in the door, texts and stuff like that. So they’ll take those in.and deal with those. And then we have a part-time project manager who kind of handles the, you know, from closing until we’re ready to hand it off to property management. They handle everything in between there. So construction, making sure that the properties are secure and, you know, making sure that there’s checks on them weekly and all that good stuff until, you know, it’s boom in the property manager’s hands. And so it’s, it’s pretty lean, but I, I get really
nervous and sweaty when it’s like people who are like, yeah, we have like 20 people on our team. And I go, man, I don’t know how you sleep at night. Because the stress of just having like two and a half people is pretty rough. I’m not built for that, I guess. I’m built for this.
Michelle Kesil (23:15)
Yeah, amazing. Well, you know what supports you, that’s what’s important.Anson Young (23:20)
That’s right.Michelle Kesil (23:22)
So before we wrap up here, somebody wants to reach out, connect, learn more. Where can people find you and connect with you?Anson Young (23:29)
Of course, ⁓ probably kind of like the three main channels would be Instagram at Young Anson. I have a long standing BiggerPockets account, so if you want to reach out to me on BiggerPockets, that’s fine too. ⁓ Or PropertySquadHQ.com is kind of where a lot of my stuff just lives. And so if you want to reach out to me, feel free to. If you have any questions or need anything, I’m a…Pretty open book, so reach out, let’s connect.
Michelle Kesil (24:02)
Perfect. I appreciate your time and your story. Thanks for being here.Anson Young (24:07)
Yeah, thank you for having me. This is great. Thank you.Michelle Kesil (24:10)
Of course. And for the listeners tuning in, if you got value, make sure that you have subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Anson who are building real businesses and we’ll see you on the next episode.
