Real Estate Investor Lost $50K Flipping Houses Then Built a 30-Deal-a-Year Business

Eli Stoner (00:00)
I would say if you’re new and just getting into investing, I think that investing in yourself and investing in skills, if you’ve got a couple grand, ⁓ is probably your best way to go. If you’re just getting into it, ⁓ it’s going to be very hard to purchase a flip. It’s going to be very hard. You know, cause something goes wrong. I mean, that’s on me. Maybe you have just enough money to purchase it,

Q Edmonds (01:53)
Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I’m super excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest and y’all know like this is what gets me excited is when I meet new people and get to learn from their experience. Cause we literally could all be doing the same things, but still we all do it differently because we’re all different. We have our different makeups, different past and paths. And so I’m excited about my guest today.

Man, I’m excited for you to learn what he’s doing, how he’s grown, his mindset, the way he approached business. And so I’m going to let him, you know, give you all, know, spill it out, know, tell you X’s and O’s what it is that he do. But I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Eli Stoner. Mr. Eli, how you doing today,

Eli Stoner (02:43)
Great, how are you doing?

Q Edmonds (02:44)
man, doing great, doing great, man. Glad to be here. Glad that you’re here. Can’t do this episode without you. Like literally, so I’m glad that you’re here, man. Glad you gave us your time. And hey, listen, yeah, no, absolutely, man. And listen, I’m gonna tell you, I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give them a little origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in.

Eli Stoner (02:51)
You

Appreciate it.

Q Edmonds (03:11)
And then man, tell them what part of the world you’re in. People love to know where people are geographically. So what you’re up to, your origin story and where you are. Sir, you have the floor.

Eli Stoner (03:19)
Yeah.

So I’m from Columbus, Ohio, originally, came to Indiana ⁓ in 2018 for school, went to University of Indianapolis, played soccer. And I actually started out wholesaling in college, I was in my dorm room making calls, had a couple virtual assistants working for me, did a couple deals. And then I brought a handful of deals to one of my end buyers, he had just sold a business, it’s a little bit older, we partnered up. And I bought maybe four or five deals.

my first year with this business partner. did all the work, hired friends from college and just got it done. First sale I ever bought, ended up selling it about a year later, lost a good chunk of money, about 50 grand. But the rest of the deals that year were solid and they all sold before that one. So ended up making the money back to pay that off. And from then I’ve done about 60 or 70 deals.

Most of them are flips. I’ve done some wholesale deals, sprinkled it in as well. It’s not my main focus, but if it comes to me, it comes to me. And it’s where I’m at now. I started wholesaling again when I lost all that money and ended up meeting my current business partner and we’ve just grown since. It’s been about three or four years I’ve been in the business.

Q Edmonds (04:35)
Love it. Love it.

Yeah. Love it. Love it, man. Thank you, sir. Thank you for sharing your journey. How you got into it, kind of the origin story leading up to what you’re doing now. As you was talking, I was actively listening and writing some things down. And so, I’m going to say some things back to you, make a statement, ask a question. Because, you know, I really, I love when the pieces start to fall into place, right? And so,

You’re from Columbus, Ohio, went to University of Indianapolis, played soccer, started real estate in college, right? Hired some friends from college. I think you said you met one of your partners in college, lost 50K, but you got it back. And so now you’re wholesaling some flip, you your current partner. Was that a pretty good summarization of what you said? Yeah.

Eli Stoner (05:15)
Yep.

Yeah, yep,

Yep. Today we’re buying about 30 houses a year for flips and then I’m also a realtor.

Q Edmonds (06:24)
Yeah, love it, man. And so, Eli, I have a saying that I say most podcasts. Destiny has no wasted moments. I’m gonna say it one more time. Destiny has no wasted moments, right? So meaning just we’ve been learning along the journey and nothing’s wasted. Like.

It even reinforced our mindset, our work ethic. It even showed us what we should do, maybe what we shouldn’t do, what we’re good at, maybe what we’re not good at, right? ⁓ It’s just learning from lessons lost, learning from lessons learned, learning from the success, from the failure. And so I would love to know Eli, from college, been on the journey, lost some things, gained some things, what has the journey taught you about yourself?

Eli Stoner (06:49)
yeah.

Q Edmonds (07:09)
Has it taught you discipline, resilience? Like what is the journey kind of highlighted to you? And you learned this from yourself.

Eli Stoner (07:17)
Yeah, I think I’ve grown a ton since college. I always say that people grow a ton from like 22 to 25, 26 when they get out of college. I think it’s, I’ve grown a ton. mindset’s a lot better than it was in college. My habits are a lot better. I’m a lot more disciplined. mean, everything. ⁓ and I’m very competitive, so I love being at the top and that’s, mean, that’s what I’m aiming for. So, ⁓

Q Edmonds (07:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Stoner (07:45)
That’s, it’s really just pushed me to grow as a person. Um, I was, my family lives in Ohio, so I really had no safety net when I got out of school as far as, I can just move in with them. I was living with two or three buddies or paying like four or $500 a month and we’re living in the hood. So for, so this is a lot of character building between when I left school and now, um, and like I had mentioned to you, I lost it. I mean, even after that initial loss, um, business was going pretty well.

Q Edmonds (07:53)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Stoner (08:14)
everything was picking up. And then last year I ended up losing a good amount of money, more than 50 for sure. And I mean, that just, that was tough because I thought everything was going well and then to get hit with that again, it just taught me a lot of lessons to slow down to speed up almost.

Q Edmonds (08:35)
Man, listen, look, I’m still writing. I’m running out of places to write. That was a bar you just said. Let me put that up top. You said, slow down to speed up. Did I hear that right? Slow down to speed up. Man, think that is, I think that’s such good evaluation of yourself. And that’s kind of why I asked that question.

Eli Stoner (08:39)
Hahaha

Yes, sir.

Q Edmonds (09:02)
Because no matter what happens in business, the one constant thing is that you are at the center of your business. You’re at the center. So you’re the one that got to figure out, figure it out. And sometimes the quote, somebody that just says something so brilliant, the quote this person, sometimes you got to slow down, just speed up, right? Like sometimes you just have to sometimes evaluate, how did I get here? What’s my wow? What has been reinforced in me? Like,

Eli Stoner (09:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, yes.

Q Edmonds (09:31)
One of my mentors says, when you know who you are, you know what to do. So it’s like, who am I? Why am I doing this? And once you understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and sometimes peek back, slow down to look back, then you can say, OK, I need to wrap this up in this area. Because now I have clarity. I have focus on what I need to do now. I’ve learned from the losses. And OK, in this loss, I’ll learn from this. But this is how I know to pivot. And so again, man.

Thank you for answering that question with such a reflective answer. I appreciate that. ⁓ I know people, whatever journey you’re on in real estate, that’s something that people can learn from. ⁓ So after this, you back rolling, you figure some things out. So what are some strategies or systems that you have in place now and that you feel like is really helpful?

Eli Stoner (10:10)
Absolutely.

Yeah, so we’ve taken a view. I’ve leveraged virtual assistants pretty much my whole career, but we’ve got a couple admin and a bookkeeper right now. And that helps a ton with like getting utilities on doing a lot of the backend organizations.

And like when you’ve got 10 projects or 15 projects rolling out at a time, like it’s hard to keep all the accounting straight. So making sure you know your numbers, which is part of my issue when I telling you I lost some money last year.

was we were just running and gunning. We didn’t have our accounting figured out. So money was flying out on projects and just didn’t know, didn’t understand where it was going. So that’s really helped ground and center us and just make more decisions based off of numbers. ⁓ So having those assistants to take away some time and then help us keep organized has been really awesome for us. ⁓ So that’s been really good. And then just…

Q Edmonds (11:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Stoner (11:49)
making smarter decisions and being more calculated and having a system and process in place for the deals we find and then running our numbers based on that. mean, the numbers are, mean, numbers are the numbers and not really deviating from that has really helped us.

Q Edmonds (12:04)
Gotcha, gotcha. Nah, man, I love it, man. Again, thank you for talking about the numbers, talking about the data points. Like again, you know, once you can do a triage of the business or really figure out, hey, you know, what’s working, what’s not, it brings so much clarity or whatever. And so like you said, 10 projects going on, different things going on to have a good system in place changes everything. And so I appreciate that, man. ⁓ What’s next for you, man? What’s next for the business?

What are you looking to solve at scale next?

Eli Stoner (12:35)
So I told you earlier, like I recently got my real estate license. ⁓ And it’s helped make me not feel like I need to buy 10 deals a month or seven deals a month. can pick and choose better deals. And I still if I have extra time or whatever, I’ve still got cash flow coming in from the realtor side. So I’m both investors ⁓ offering, hey, I’ll go out. I don’t manage projects, but I’ll help you with your scope of work, help you with the with the walkthrough, make sure everything’s good on the initial walkthrough.

And then obviously listed for you on the backend. And I’ve already got experience. I’ve got connections in that world. So leaning on that’s been really, really great for me. Um, and then picking and choosing just better deals, slowing down and choosing better deals on the, on the, uh, investor side has, uh, has been great. Um, and, uh, hopefully looking to hire out some stuff, um, would love to get a project manager on board sometime soon. I had one, um, about a year and a half ago, he ended up leaving our company and.

Q Edmonds (13:18)
Yeah.

Eli Stoner (13:31)
end up going in the Navy. ⁓

Q Edmonds (13:34)
Oh

man, forget him going to choose it now. I’m joking. I’m joking. I’m I’m joking,

Eli Stoner (13:36)
⁓

So that’s been, I love to rehire that position because it just, it’s very hire hireable and it takes a lot off our plate. ⁓ And then I’d mentioned to you too, we raise private money for all of our deals. So just expanding that ⁓ connection and network of investors.

has been it’s been great for us, knowing that I’ve got money sitting aside and it helps us with our deals too. So we go to offer with these wholesalers or realtors, knowing that I’ve got backing and we can close in a week, or as soon as title is ready. I mean, that strengthens our offer. So we’re never really the highest payers, but we’re always great buyers easy to work with. We say what we’re going to do and we execute minimal inspections close quick.

So that’s really helped us out as well. Just finding good money partners and also finding good wholesalers. Don’t normally shop at the big ones. We always work with the smaller wholesalers ⁓ that just want to get the deal done, know we’re going to get it done and execute. So that’s been great.

Q Edmonds (14:48)
I love it. I love it, man. think you’re doing something so great and so something so strategic. And so I love, you know, money, looking to hire people. So I want to get your perspective on this word when I say it. love to get everybody’s perspective because everybody’s perspective is unique. So when you hear the word relationship, what comes to mind to you when you hear that word, Eli?

Eli Stoner (15:14)
I mean, I think of ⁓ like the relationships and people that I’ve ⁓ connected with that have helped me in some way, help provide value. it’s an equal exchange of value. So hopefully I’m providing value to them as well. ⁓ And we’re both benefiting from it. ⁓ Whether that’s in a business sense, whether it’s an emotional sense, it’s, you know, there’s some exchange of value.

Q Edmonds (16:22)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I love it. And I love you so about the exchange. know, one of the words I use when it comes to relationship is also the word community. And when you build a healthy community, there is an exchange. Actually, there’s an exchange of goods and services in community. And I tell people, go walk around your block, walk around your neighborhood. Most of the time, there’s grocery stores, there’s gas stations, know, little convenience stores where you can just stop in real quick.

Eli Stoner (16:45)
Mm-hmm.

Q Edmonds (16:49)
The community provides an exchange, a place where we can exchange services and goods, but make sure that we keep the ecosystem safe and advantageous for everybody. And so I love how you talk about relationship as far as exchange, because that’s what a good, healthy community does. They support each other doing different things, but we support each other and we can have an exchange, healthy exchange of services and goods. so, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it, Eli, listen, sir.

Eli Stoner (17:14)
Absolutely.

Q Edmonds (17:18)
Is there any topic that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Is there any other words of inspiration, education, motivation? Because like, maybe you came in with a message in your mind and you hear like, Hey, I want to make sure I get this point across or this message across. If that’s the case, I kind of want to open up the floor for you to deliver that message.

Eli Stoner (17:39)
Yeah. ⁓ I don’t know that I have a specific message.

⁓ I would say if you’re new and just getting into investing, I think that investing in yourself and investing in skills, if you’ve got a couple grand, ⁓ is probably your best way to go. If you’re just getting into it, ⁓ it’s going to be very hard to purchase a flip. It’s going to be very hard. You know, cause something goes wrong. I mean, that’s on me. Maybe you have just enough money to purchase it,

but

You’ve got interest payments, you’ve got overages, you’ve got inspection repairs. So if you’re just getting into it, investing in some education so that you can start to build a little bit of money and build skills that produce you money ⁓ is definitely what I’d recommend. Probably if you have under 10 grand, under five grand, that’s definitely the path that I would choose. ⁓ Whether that’s a ⁓ course, whether that’s from a reputable person, of course. ⁓

whether that’s going in your ⁓ going to set up a mastermind or you’re just getting around other people and trying to provide them value. If someone’s in the position that you want to be in, you’re going out, maybe you’re working for free for them, but you’re learning along the way you’re spending your time to help them out, whether that’s going to walk properties for them, going to help them in their office. I’m bringing an intern this summer. That’s, mean, paying them pretty low amount, but

He’s getting the experience of working for someone that’s doing the business and that’s in the business. It’s been in it for a while. So seeing those opportunities to provide value. ⁓ know that when I was starting out, I’ve leveraged partnerships a ton. ⁓ So finding out, hey, you know, maybe this person’s got some money and you’ve got extra time or maybe it’s vice versa. And you’ve got a lot of money, but not much free time. Finding out what you can leverage. ⁓

from other people and seeing those opportunities, because I think a lot of people pass those up or they just go over their head because they’re not thinking of those as actual opportunities or leads or whatever, whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t have to be a partnership, but, um, again, it’s a relationship. You’re exchanging value. You’re exchanging your time. He’s exchanging his money and you guys are working together on some deals. So looking for those opportunities, um, when you’re first getting started, I mean, that helped propel me forward quickly. Um, so.

That’s starting out, that’s 100 % what I’d recommend.

Q Edmonds (20:05)
Man, good wisdom, sir. Good wisdom, Eli. Listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,

Eli Stoner (20:18)
⁓ my, Instagram would love a follow. You can DM me whatever Eli underscore stoner. I post some of my social media stuff on there. ⁓ as far as real estate, ⁓ and that’s one of our goals for that, for the intern this summer is to help, ⁓ boost that up a little bit. Cause I’m not the best at posts and I never do, ⁓ but it’s something I need to do. So having someone there to help bring ideas and film and stuff, hopefully it’ll be pumping some more content here in the next month or two.

Q Edmonds (20:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, listen, my friend, I want to say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time, right? Because you could be doing anything in the world, you’re here with us. I always say time is our most precious commodity. So how we choose to use our time, that’s what we’re valuing. And so I thank you for giving us some of your time, know, seeing fit to be here with us. Secondly, thank you for your story, man. Thank you for your narrative. Thank you for… ⁓

the way just the nuggets that you share. Like I believe stories and I believe when we talk about what we do, that’s our story, that’s our narrative. And it plants seeds in people and we may never see the growth, but the seed is still there. So that’s that thing can grow two years from now, five years from now, literally something that you said could just spark an idea in somebody. he’d be like, man, like that makes so much sense. So man, thank you for your story. Thank you for coming and sharing that. Lastly, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform.

I greatly appreciate you being here today,

Eli Stoner (21:46)
Thank you so much for having me.

Q Edmonds (21:48)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Eli looking to the show notes, his information is in the show notes, connect with him, but definitely make sure you’re subscribed here, because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring on amazing people just like Mr. Eli. So sir, say thank you again. And everyone else, listen, you’ll have a fantastic day.