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Show Summary
In this insightful interview, Sawand Belcher shares his expertise on real estate investing in North Carolina, focusing on market trends, off-market strategies, and niche marketing techniques. Discover how to leverage local opportunities, build relationships with community institutions, and commit to long-term marketing efforts to succeed in real estate.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
This Is Me Taking Action (00:00)
Figure out who you’re looking for. whenever you know who exactly you’re looking for, go to where those people go. Period. All the time. Okay, all the time. So example, if I want to niche down on ⁓ people that inherited property, first of all, my DBA is going to be based around, you know, inherited homes. But then also we’re going to go where people go that, you know, inherited property. We might visit some funeral homes and let them know about our referral program.Dylan Silver (02:01)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Sawand Belcher is a father, investor and team leader in the triad North Carolina. He’s focused on building community that makes money together. You can find him at thisismetakingaction.com or on his YouTube channel of the same name. Thanks for joining us today, SawandThis Is Me Taking Action (02:21)
Absolutely bro. Thanks for having me on man. I was looking forward to it.Dylan Silver (02:25)
Now, when we talk specifically about investing in the Carolinas, I’ve spoken now with a number of investors recently who’ve really highlighted to me the Carolinas, North Carolina, South Carolina, really any part of the Carolinas is very much ⁓ interested by a lot of investors across the country right now. It’s not just people who are living there. Are you seeing that momentum as well? know, folks from outside of the Carolinas really looking at investment opportunities over there.This Is Me Taking Action (02:54)
Yeah, man, as for for as long as I’ve been doing this, absolutely. So the thing is about North Carolina is ⁓ our average, you know, our average home price, especially here in Greensboro, North Carolina, right now is, you know, $310,000. Right. The average home. Yeah, the average home price when you go out to like Charlotte or Raleigh, you know, gets into like $475. So almost half a million dollars. So that so the price point here in Greensboro.Dylan Silver (03:12)
Right.This Is Me Taking Action (03:24)
really makes it attractive for a family. And that’s the average. So that means like you can typically buy a nice three bedroom, bath for 225. And so that really creates like a great place to raise a family, you know, like for the average, you know, for the average person, you can be like a postal worker, you know, work as a teacher and still be able to afford to buy a three bedroom, two bath house in a nice neighborhood, you know. And so people that attracts people, not just first time home buyers, youDylan Silver (03:38)
Right.This Is Me Taking Action (03:53)
But it also attracts investors because you know, that’s how the market goes. So when people are attracted, you know, to buying their house that they want to live here, investors are attracted because they want to sell those houses to those people. yeah.Dylan Silver (04:05)
Right, right. You know,I’ve seen as well that there’s a lot of momentum in ground up new construction in multiple markets throughout the country as well. Are you seeing new subdivisions populate throughout North Carolina?
This Is Me Taking Action (04:17)
Yeah.absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, the inventory, you know, has been constricted, you know, ever since ever since COVID, you know, ⁓ you know, the best thing that COVID did was, ⁓ you know, make it harder to find deals. And so whenever it’s hard to find deals, we have to create them, you know. So, you know, that’s creative financing with buying property already. Or that’s just literally buying land and building them. So, I mean, you’re seeing a bunch of yeah, you’re seeing a bunch of infrastructure, ⁓ you know. ⁓
all around Greensboro, whether that’s in the city, literally like MLK, which is typically like the hood, they’re building brand new houses on, but then you also have like the suburbs where it’s they’re building out a whole subdivisions five, six at a time.
Dylan Silver (05:50)
What I have noticed, I’m licensed agent in Texas, I have noticed that when you do have a lot of ground up construction, that sometimes has the ripple effect of making it just a little bit more challenging to be a flipper. In talking with flippers out there, have you noticed that flippers are really having to buy deals right, or themselves look into getting into ground up construction?This Is Me Taking Action (06:09)
Thanks.Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, a lot of flippers are definitely moving into new construction. So they might not be going full on, but they’re definitely hunting for land, you know, so whether you know, where it’s hard to find a great fixing flip on a buy price right now. They’re killing it in land, you know what mean? They’re buying land for new construction. So I’m definitely seeing that. Now on the sell side, okay. On the sell side for the flips, average days on market are longer, okay. And
You’re seeing like more price drops to get it under contract sold. So more than just buying it right. You also got to do the right renovations You know put it on the market at the right time actually stage or property which we haven’t had to do in years to be quite honest You know and just make sure it’s priced right make sure it’s aggressively So my rehabs I’m listing, you know aggressively but also putting in the agent notes You know for seller concessions towards down payment or whatever, you know suits the buyer
Dylan Silver (07:10)
Now, when we talk specifically about ⁓ acquisition strategy for folks who are looking into getting into investing in North Carolina, let’s take the triad specifically. ⁓ Is there ⁓ quite a bit of ⁓potential leads or potential ⁓ off-market acquisitions that people can find through whether it’s probate or foreclosure, really anything just other than the MLS. Or are people really having to have a really good marketing stream or some type of ⁓ mailer campaign in order to be generating off-market leads?
This Is Me Taking Action (07:48)
⁓ So I mean, so off market lease is done through marketing. So you absolutely got to have some form of marketing. But the barrier to entry in marketing is doing more than other people. So, ⁓ you know, and that and that’s just the bottom line. So it doesn’t necessarily matter what your marketing stream is. You know, you just have to be willing to do more than other people. Example. OK, so you mentioned a bunch of stuff that everybody knows from YouTube. You might have to go outside of that.you know, in order to, you know, in order to dominate your market so you can get some leads to get property off market. Can you get them right now? Absolutely. You know, ⁓ but will you have to do a strategic marketing channel consistently more than other people? Absolutely. Just to give you an example, ⁓ one campaign that I did ⁓ a couple of years ago, and I’ve done it years before that. But like when we go to church, you know how that’s like the church fans.
Dylan Silver (08:43)
Yeah.This Is Me Taking Action (08:44)
You know, and like on the back of the church fan is like, so on the front, it says like scripture. And then on the back, it’s typically like marketing for somebody’s company. Well, like, why haven’t you, you know, created 10,000 church fans and donated them for free, wrote it off on your taxes, you know, become an authority at that particular church as if you can talk about finances and collect leads from those church fans and be able to talk finances at that church at night, you know, literally.Dylan Silver (08:51)
Right.This Is Me Taking Action (09:12)
No joke, on the 18th, I have to speak at a church on personal finance. And guess what your boy is doing? know, so ⁓ I don’t necessarily think it’s like hard. I just think you have to just focus on whatever that marketing channel is and be willing to like dive, you know, deep dive it. Not necessarily do a lot of channels, but just like, you can just pick one and do a lot of it. Yeah, do a lot of it.Dylan Silver (09:32)
Commit.Now, when we talk about, you know, selecting a marketing channel and our line and how long this takes, what I what I’ve noticed is investors sometimes tend to do something maybe for a month or two and then not see, you know, immediate results or and then say, well, well, this isn’t working. In your mind, if you’re trying a new marketing channel, you know, whether that’s, you know, direct mail or you mentioned a very niche strategy that you’re employing, do you think that there’s like a set time period where people need to say, hey,
I’ve got to commit to it for at least, you know, three months or six months, etc.
This Is Me Taking Action (10:09)
Yeah. Well, I mean,I always relate this kind of stuff to relationship. You know, I mean, think about it like how many how many women are okay with you, you know, grabbing their butt after seven days? Not very many. So you might have to do, you know, a marketing channel longer than seven days in order to get that kind of relationship that you want in order to get the result that you want. I mean, how many women are okay with you, you know, actually taking them out after just two weeks? You know, so you’re to have to I always compare this to relationships.
So if you think you can have a successful relationship in six months and actually be ready to date somebody in that amount of time, that’s probably what you need to be willing to commit to marketing. So that way you’ll know if you have a good marketing stream or not. And so just keep it basic. First of all, this is not easy, but it is possible. The same way a relationship is not necessarily easy, but it is possible. So you actually…
Dylan Silver (11:27)
Yeah.This Is Me Taking Action (11:38)
In my opinion, 90 days is a great amount of time to actually do it enough or you have to do it enough, you know? So, yeah, yeah.Dylan Silver (11:45)
you start to see some traction, right? I mean, you’ll havesome data points, hey, is this working? Do I need to do more? Do I need to adjust? You know, what I see talking to folks across the country is, you know, they might do something like for, you know.
two months and then not get anything. But if they had just stuck on a little bit longer, they might’ve had ⁓ a lead that could change everything. And it really is just one deal, right? It’s just one deal that gives you that aha moment and makes you realize, okay, well.
This Is Me Taking Action (12:12)
Night, yeah.Dylan Silver (12:18)
This is how I’m going to use, know, like direct mail is a big one. This is how I’m gonna use direct mail. It might not be the only thing that I’m doing, but I’m gonna bank on this, you know, every, you know, three months, four months. This is what the ROI that I can expect from that.This Is Me Taking Action (12:33)
Yeah, 90 days minimum. Yeah, don’t go into anything 90 days, you know, less than 90 days. And then always have the number, you know, 5000 or more, you know, so whatever, whatever it is, whatever metric you’re looking at, if you ain’t spend $5,000, or if you ain’t send 5000 millers, or if you didn’t send 5000 RVM, so if you if you didn’t make 5000 calls, you just didn’t do it.Dylan Silver (12:57)
If pivoting a bit here, Sawand, if you had to start over again, it’s 2026, March 2026, you had to start over again, getting into real estate investing. Is there one strategy that you would advise for folks who are just starting out?This Is Me Taking Action (13:16)
⁓ I’ve been doing it for 10 years, by the way. So starting over is like crazy. ⁓ like, ⁓ but if I had to start over, I would, I would definitely niche down. I would definitely niche down. Like, when I say niche, mean, ⁓ forget your LLC, but how you market yourself. Like right now we market ourselves and we always have been marketing ourselves as buy triad homes. And that’s specific becauseDylan Silver (13:22)
Yeah.This Is Me Taking Action (13:43)
the buy tried homes as a company, people know exactly what we do. You don’t have to guess. We buy, we buy houses in the triad and homes. It’s easy. So specifically come up with a DBA that you can market that gets the message across because nobody cares about Belcher. Nobody’s searching Sawand Belcher to find me when it comes to me buying houses. So that’s number one. Whatever that niche is, start with your DBA. And thenFigure out who you’re looking for. whenever you know who exactly you’re looking for, go to where those people go. Period. All the time. Okay, all the time. So example, if I want to niche down on ⁓ people that inherited property, first of all, my DBA is going to be based around, you know, inherited homes. But then also we’re going to go where people go that, you know, inherited property. We might visit some funeral homes and let them know about our referral program.
Dylan Silver (14:41)
Yeah.This Is Me Taking Action (14:41)
You know, hey, well, if you have a family that comes in and they inherited property and they need help liquidating so they can pay for the funeral services, we want to be a service for you. Okay. Help, you know, is there any way we can get in your intake pro, you know, into your intake process where we offer, you know, actually, matter of fact, here’s just a deck page to put in with every, you know, with every folder that you give out to every family, you know, you and you and you literally you go to probate attorneys and you pitch probate attorneys all day, every day.Dylan Silver (14:55)
Yeah, that’s a great idea.This Is Me Taking Action (15:11)
You know, and you teach online about the probate process and helping people do that. You go to the county and let them know that you have a service to help people walk through and they don’t have to pay for an expensive attorney. They can get free advice and you, and you, and you work that and you niche down into it and you literally stay there. Forget anything else. Forget NODs, forget whatever, you know, recent arrest or whatever. You just stay straight with probate and you help.people in that area who want to liquidate that just inherited and just inherited a house and not even focus on making offers, but also just providing value as well. You know? Yeah.
Dylan Silver (15:51)
That’s a huge thing. Yeah, I mean, you guys.You
mentioned two strategies that I think are brilliant, right? The churches and then funeral homes, right? And you think of, especially when it comes to distressed real estate assets, like how are people typically being reached out to? It’s typically like at the 11th hour, right? But you ideally want to get them at the point where it’s before then so that you’re developing and nurturing that relationship when it may be the 11th hour or the 10th hour, right? So I hadn’t heard that idea before of reaching out to the funeral homes, but of course,
This Is Me Taking Action (16:17)
Thanks.Dylan Silver (16:24)
If I am an investor looking to purchase properties that may be going through some type of probate process and I’m looking at it like in the public record, I can potentially get it before then or right around the same time before anyone else knows about it if I’m nurturing that relationship from the point where they’re taking care of the funeral services. That’s a great point that I think gets missed, which is real estate is a contact sport. if you’re trying to do this 100 % onThis Is Me Taking Action (16:43)
Absolutely.Dylan Silver (16:54)
especially to start, can be rather challenging.This Is Me Taking Action (17:38)
For sure. yeah. No, start local. I tell everybody start local. It is way better to be a mom and pop shop in your local backyard than to be one of 10 billion online. know, ⁓ it’s way easier for me to, like I said, get hired at a church and go speak on personal finance and pitch my company there than it is to, you know, go viral on Instagram. And people actually do what I want them to do, which is click on my website so they can submit a form.Dylan Silver (18:03)
Yeah.This Is Me Taking Action (18:07)
soccer brother house, you know, so.Dylan Silver (18:08)
that that local sphere isreally gonna drive, think most people would say this too, when you have that local sphere, can sustain your business, it can start your business. And then of course, you know when things are maybe expanding or speculative in markets outside of your backyard, you really wanna have your backyard be functioning well, right? Because you can depend on that local brand, because that’s where you are.
This Is Me Taking Action (18:35)
Facts.Dylan Silver (18:38)
We are coming up on time here though, Sawand. Any new projects that you’re working on and then as well, what’s the best way for folks to reach out to you?This Is Me Taking Action (18:45)
I’m same old, same old man. I’m a put the ball on the tee kind of guy and keep hitting the ball right off the tee. I don’t do nothing different. I keep doing the same thing. That’s how I’ve been able to stay safe in business. in the last five years, since I’m doing this so consistently, literally, I think for this month, we have four deals on the board. So I do like to invite people over to…to do deals with us. So if you want to do a deal with me, you can just reach out to thismetakenaction.com and we can figure out how you might need help or how you can start. I’ll jump on a free 15 minute call with anyone. And ⁓ more importantly, if you take any advice from me, I want to do deals with you because that’s what it’s all about.
Dylan Silver (19:34)
So Sawand, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for joining us.This Is Me Taking Action (19:37)
Amen. Thank you brother. appreciateyou.
