Standardized Pricing Sheets: A Must-Have for Real Estate Flippers!

Stephen Schmidt (00:04.775)
Welcome to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs Welcome back to the show if you’re joining us for a second third or hundredth time and welcome to it if you’re joining us for the first time It’s your house Stephen Schmidt and today I’m here with Mike Mannino and we’re gonna be talking about how information is king Mike has been a long-term entrepreneur in the business space of real estate started with getting his builders license in 1998 if I recall correctly from our

prior conversation to starting the show and started flipping houses back during the 08 crash and has been doing so ever since and has a personal mission of getting the word out and helping people get the information they need in order to make decisions and change their lives. So with that, we’re going to hop right into it. But before we do at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their businesses, which allows them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted.

to allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. That being said, Mike, welcome to the show today.

Mike Mannino (01:05.838)
Thank you so much. was so kind of an intro. I appreciate it. And it was 1998. It was 1988. Another… I think you said 98. We’ll see what the listeners say.

Stephen Schmidt (01:11.313)
Did I say 88 or did I say 98? I swear I said 88. man. We’ll see. Drop in the comments what you think I said in the intro and we’ll take a rolling tally. I love it. So Mike, give us a little bit of background. Just for my sake and our listeners’ sake, I know we had a great conversation prior to hopping on the recording, but can you just share a little bit about yourself and how you got here?

Mike Mannino (01:22.286)
They can hit rewind.

Mike Mannino (01:38.562)
God here, here is a very, very wild story. I started off working at Red Lobster in 1987 and I got fired. Got fired from Red Lobster. wanted me to work Valentine’s Day and my brother was getting married on Valentine’s Day and I was standing up at the wedding. I’m not gonna work that day. Well, you can’t work here anymore. Cool, great. So I got into construction.

My buddy said, you should go try carpentry because you can make good money. And I went to work for a guy that could barely speak English. And I was putting up trim, casing and base and doors. And I loved it. And at the end of the day, he goes, what do you think? I said, I love it. You’re going to pay me to do this? He goes, yeah, $4 an hour. And I said, all right, cool. At the end of two years, he offered me a present of the business to stay. And I declined because I wanted to go start my own business and started my own business and finish carpentry. I’ve had that for like 20 years.

And then I got into building, got into flipping, and now we’re into apartment complexes. So we buy and flip or buy and hold apartment complexes where true passive income is came. since I’ve, from that time, I’ve, from my start to finish, I got married. I married, just celebrated my 34th wedding anniversary. had two amazing kids, 34 Michael and 30 years old Alexandra.

I got into professional brick raking. I’m a fifth degree black belt and I’ve I’ve won the US Open 11 times in two ISK belts if you ever heard of a and you take

Stephen Schmidt (03:21.82)
Yeah.

Mike Mannino (03:22.956)
He’s a professional kickboxer and he has he has four ISK belts. I’ve got two of those I wasn’t breaking he was inspiring and I got one world record flew a fighter jet in 2020 and jumped out of a perfectly good airplane and In 2018 so besides that I do nothing

Stephen Schmidt (03:25.498)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (03:47.533)
That’s awesome. What a great, what a great synopsis of the last almost 35, 40 years. Tell me this, when you, when you transitioned from Red Lobster to working for this other gentleman, and then within a year, he’s offering you a percentage of the business to stick around, but you decided that you were going to go start your own gig. When, what

Was it in that year that made you decide I can do this better, faster and make more if I did it for myself?

Mike Mannino (04:19.79)
So gifted by God mechanically. if I see something physically, can touch it. Martial arts is a good transition. But if I do it one time, I can do it again. And then in Finnish carpentry, putting up a door, putting up a case, and putting up a vase, and building a staircase, building these mantles, I just wanted to get better. And I had this drive just to get better, just to get better, just to get better. How much more can I do? What else can I do? And when people would come up to me and say, hey, can you do this? And I go, is it made out of wood? They said, yeah. go, yeah.

you haven’t even what I said. like, you’re not understanding. I can do it. And they asked me to do radius suspended staircases. I won an award for Detroit Home magazines for a staircase I did pleasing all my customers because you do a great job. But I was just dedicated and I enjoyed going to work every day. I loved what I did. And then I ate half and I had a bunch of crews and I didn’t want to lose them, you know, because there was no new building in Michigan.

You know, I was looking at the time, January 2000, January or February of 2009, there was five houses being built in Michigan. So there was no new building. So I had to transition and a friend of mine said, hey, you want a house for $15,000? Like, yeah, sure. So I bought a house for 15,000. I put my guys in there. And all I wanted to do was fix it up, hold it for three years and then sell it. And I made.

three times the amount of money doing that. But what I didn’t realize is I should have kept them refinanced three years later, pull all my money out, and then keep those houses. That’s my biggest regret. All the houses that I did, I looked, I built and rehabbed over 100 houses and I kept absolutely none of them. My biggest regret.

Stephen Schmidt (06:07.055)
No, why is that? Is it because you could have cashed out with a cash out refi and got your money and kept the house or why is it that you would have preferred to have held on?

Mike Mannino (06:20.974)
Because I would have had houses now that I sold for $125,000 that are worth $300,000. Right? I would have cashed out at $125,000. I would have cashed out ReFi at $125,000 and I had $80,000, $90,000 into it. And then in 2009, another regret, you you have all kinds of regrets. I was looking for houses, looking for work for my guys and there was a tax sale. And I didn’t understand syndication at that time. There was a tax sale.

And there was block number 495. was lot number 102 to 204. There was 102 lots and they were going in 09 for opening bid $200,000.

Right, that was a look on my face. Going once, going twice, I’m looking around with my jaw down going. And you had to have the money that day, or if you didn’t have the money that day, you were never allowed at the tax sale again. And I didn’t have the money that day, I didn’t understand syndication, I called up a few people and said, hey, we’re gonna buy some lots. Because three years later, were sold for 30, we bought them for two, $2,000 a piece, and sold them for 30.

that have almost been a 15x.

Stephen Schmidt (07:37.948)
right.

Mike Mannino (07:39.468)
Yeah, and so, yeah, another regret of mine.

Stephen Schmidt (07:40.455)
Wow. And that was what year? 09, okay. Because that’s when you started getting your feet really wet in real estate was in that 2007 to 2009 process, 2008, 2009 process, which is when most people were getting out of it by default, right? What were, I’ve heard of so many people.

Mike Mannino (07:44.573)
no.

Mike Mannino (07:59.832)
Correct.

Stephen Schmidt (08:05.047)
not just in real estate, but in business that during an economic downturn in a certain market, that’s the best time to start businesses. And maybe that’s because you’re a fresh mind coming in without the limitations that you’ve built of being in the business. I’m not sure, but what do you what would you say is the reason that you started during that time? And why do you think that was an advantage to you if it was?

Mike Mannino (08:28.448)
It was an advantage and the true advantage was that there was deals and nobody was buying them. That’s the key. In hard times, know, Warren Buffett said best, get greedy when people are scared and scared when people are greedy. And for the last few years, I’ve been really scared. Now I’m starting to get greedy because in multifamily, the cap rate is determines the value of the property.

It’s a, the cap rates are around 3%. So if you’re gonna buy anything, one to $10 million property units, and the multiplier was 3%, you’re gonna make 3 % on that money. Right? Interest rates were 3%. Right? And some people took, back in 08, 8, 9, they had what they called arms for personal houses. Adjustable mortgage rates.

Right? And that was a three year, that was a three year period, three to five year period. And then it would adjust whatever the rates were then. And the rates went up huge. A lot of people lost their houses to arms. They did the same thing in multifamily. They’re buying properties at a three cap with a three year mortgage.

So what happens three years when interest rates went from three to seven, the value of the property went from 100 million to 50 million.

Stephen Schmidt (09:53.189)
Mmm.

Mike Mannino (09:54.446)
because it’s a multiplier, it’s a divider, not a timeser. And the last few years, I couldn’t talk to a broker. I couldn’t talk to a broker. I’d call them up, hey, you got this deal. They wouldn’t even call me back. Now I’m clicking on Crexie or clicking on LoopNet for multifamily. And they’re calling me, hey, I saw you looked at this property. I’m like, how did you know? Oh, you filled out a form because you wanted the OM, the offering memorandum. I’m like, wow, what a change.

So people are scared now. If you can make a deal work now, it’s just like 2008. It’s just like 2008. So when times are bad is when the best deals come out and there’s no competition. That’s the answer to your question.

Stephen Schmidt (10:39.407)
Hmm. What do you think has shifted in the last few years to make it such an opportune time for investors? Is it because of the rates going up, property values coming down, and people getting scared all over again? Yeah.

Mike Mannino (10:50.84)
Fear, fear, fear is my friend. Fear is my friend. When I competed at the US Open, there’s something, know, God, I hope my friends don’t hear this. But when I competed at the US Open, there’s adult black belt elbow arm brick. Like 20 people come together, you know? And I’m always the happy idiot with a smile on my face and these guys are all like.

You know, I’m at the US Open and there’s all this competition. And I’m like, hey man, what’s up guys? How you doing? What’s going on? And they’re like, you’re too happy and excited about this. Like, yeah, this is the US Open. They all shut down. It’s fear, you know? And I’ve always played the head game. I always played the head game. So if you tied with somebody, you had a break off where if you put up, could, if I put up the first person goes first, if I went first, and I usually wanted to go last.

I could put up 10. The other person couldn’t get another 10 again. He had to put 11 or 9. He had to put a different number up so he couldn’t tie again on the break off. And every break off they go, how many are going to break? I go, one more than you. So it’s really the head game. And I just, I love fear because I don’t even have to install it. They all install it on themselves. Right? And if you don’t think you can do it, you’re right. I used to be a coach and tell people, you can do this, you can do this.

and they say, you know, I don’t think I can do this. I’m like, you’re right. What has to change in this equation for you to do it? I gotta think I can do it. I go, bingo. Let’s go that route.

Stephen Schmidt (12:30.737)
It’s always incredible too to see how offended people get when you, I do the same thing by the way, and how offended people get like, what do mean I can’t do it? And I’m like, okay good. The flip of that coin is, okay good, you’re offended by that. Now the question is, are you gonna do something about that and change how you think, or are you actually not going to do it? Right?

Mike Mannino (12:49.934)
It’s completely their choice. It’s a hundred percent their choice. You get to do it or don’t do it. It’s up to you. Completely up to you. You know what that’s like when you see somebody with that no in their head. When I teach martial arts, I love teaching. If I can pull can’t out of my students’ heads, I’ve already won. Just don’t think of can’t. Just do what I say.

Stephen Schmidt (12:57.925)
When did you?

Mike Mannino (13:14.316)
and then they do, can’t do it, do it again, I can’t do it, do it again, can’t do it, can’t do it, I can’t do it, maybe I can do it, maybe I can do it, maybe I can do it. Now I can do it. It’s a process, you watch.

Stephen Schmidt (13:24.935)
One of the things we’re teaching our kids right now is we don’t say can’t in our household. We say I don’t want to or I need help. There is no can’t.

Mike Mannino (13:32.622)
Mm-hmm.

Right, that’s a great one. That is a great one. That is a great one. You just pulled Kant out of their head. They don’t understand anything other than that. They’re going to be very successful. Awesome.

Stephen Schmidt (13:45.287)
Exactly. Well, they still say it and then we have to reiterate. We don’t say can’t. Maybe we’ll get it. But it’s just like it’s like training, right? It’s like it’s like martial art. You do it enough and you do it the right way eventually becomes a habit and a skill set. Right. So maybe by the time they hit 20, then it’ll be no, I can do whatever. So I either don’t want too bad enough or I need help. Right.

Mike Mannino (13:57.473)
It is training.

Mike Mannino (14:04.33)
Exactly.

Mike Mannino (14:11.502)
When you hear, I’ll never forget my daughter, kept telling my daughter something, it’s like, know how kids are like, ah, dad. And one day, right, I’m sure you’ve heard that a couple hundred times, and my daughter was, the thing I was telling her and I forgot what it was, she told it to one of her friends when she was about 16, 17, and I looked at her and I go, she was listening.

Stephen Schmidt (14:23.482)
yeah. yeah.

Mike Mannino (14:37.486)
Your kids will tell people there’s no such thing as can. It’s either I don’t want to or I need help.

Stephen Schmidt (14:42.522)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (14:47.771)
When did you, I appreciate that. When did you start your journey in martial arts? Was this something as a child or was this something that you built a level of freedom with your time to be able to then pursue the passions and hobbies that you had as an adult?

Mike Mannino (14:47.896)
That’s successful appearance.

Mike Mannino (15:03.822)
It was, you know, I do whatever I want now. You know, I only go on podcasts like yours that I want to. I don’t have to do anything anymore. I’m in a great spot. you know, at the time I was still in a good spot. But my son comes home with a flyer and says, I want to join martial arts. And I go, I did martial arts when I was about 18, 19. I got my nose broken and got out of it.

He goes, I want to get in. I all right, let’s try it out. So he tries it out, he tries it out. And then he got the yellow belt. And go, you like it? He goes, yeah. I all right. And then at yellow belt, my wife goes, oh, I got the picture. My wife goes, you got to take them. I’m like, oh, I can’t take them. I got things to do. I’m going my mom’s, got to take them. I’m like, all right. I went and sat in the bleachers for 15 minutes.

And I watched father, sons, mothers, daughters, mothers, sons, all practicing martial arts, because with martial arts is the only thing you and your kids can do together and get ranked equally. You’d be a coach on a soccer team, coach on a baseball team, but you can’t do anything that I know of that you can do with your kids other than martial arts. And so he was a yellow belt and I sat in the bleachers for 15 minutes. And then I got up and I went over to the guy running the place and I said,

Stephen Schmidt (16:10.471)
Mmm.

Mike Mannino (16:29.23)
I go, I can’t watch this anymore. And he thought I was going to pull my kid out of the class. I go, I got to join. I can’t sit and watch you guys have all this fun and me sit down all time. And I got fitted for a uniform and then I went out there and I don’t know why I have this in front of me right now. But this is me and my son with my white belt and his yellow belt.

And then seven years later, I was running the place. And I went to the US Open and I went to the Arlington Sports and Agri Sports Festival. And it’s been an amazing career, amazing career.

Stephen Schmidt (17:07.025)
What sparked the drive, not just for you to obviously get involved with your son, but when did it become this is bigger than me just doing something with my son and something to become a place of achievement?

Mike Mannino (17:20.046)
So the achievement was a sidebar, but me and my son have a great relationship. And I lived in Florida and Hurricane Helene took out my house and I moved to South Carolina five minutes away from my son right now. So we’re on the same lake and we’re literally five minutes. can go to his house on my boat.

We were, we had to go to karate every day for three hours, every Wednesday, Monday for three hours. And then they had a Wednesday class, Monday and Wednesday. But what I saw in that was my, my kid, what’s great about martial arts, they don’t care about your age. They don’t care about your gender. They don’t care about anything. They care about your belt. I got kicked up a belt so that me and him were at the same belt and we got our black belts the same day, which is the fourth best day of my life. Getting married, having two kids, and then getting a black belt with my son.

My daughter got her black belt, my wife’s a second degree black belt. And this is something, this is parenting lesson. I always try and throw this in there. This is a bonus question. How do you raise kids? And in March, let me give you an example. You’re gonna want something. They’re gonna want something. Make that work. Right? So my daughter came to me in karate class with her purple belt and said, she was like 12. When can I date?

I’m Italian, never. Right? Just get married and we’ll go on from there. And I saw her, I saw her purple belt. It was a five year program. She’s a year into it. I’m like, show me your black belt. Because if anybody’s touching her then she’s letting them. And I want my daughter to have a happy sex life. I just don’t want to know about it. And I just want her to be, I want her to be safe. Right? So that was my goal. And then she goes, okay, fine.

Stephen Schmidt (18:56.871)
Mm.

Stephen Schmidt (19:00.871)
For sure.

Mike Mannino (19:07.374)
I didn’t have to hear about anything from 12 to 16 years old. We made an agreement. And then when she got her black belt, you know, she brought a dude over and she goes, I’m going on a date. my, my line of black belts were 12 or 14. And I put them, a patch on the shoulder. And I said, you know, if you piss her off, you got these guys to deal with. go, good luck. It was just one of the greatest kids she ever dated. So I didn’t have to worry about anything. And she actually got on MTV for being a martial artist.

Stephen Schmidt (19:37.191)
I’m kidding. Wow. So you talked about something that I think is elusive to most people in not just real estate but in business. And this is something I pulled out from before we got on to that conversation. But you mentioned that you do whatever you want whenever you want. I think that’s the lifestyle that most people eventually have. What sacrifice did it take for you to get to be there?

Mike Mannino (20:02.798)
That’s a great question. That’s a great question. That is an amazing question. I’m willing to do what the 99 % aren’t willing to do, to be the 1%. That’s really the key. Work your ass off. Right? Here’s the key. It’s really simple. Work your ass off and save money. If you can do those two things, know, Dave Ramsey said it best, live like nobody else so you can live like nobody else.

Stephen Schmidt (20:12.199)
And what is that?

Mike Mannino (20:34.066)
There’s a lot of people that make way more money than me, but they don’t have anything. There’s a lot of those people. They just spend whatever they get. So it’s work your ass off for a period of time, save your money, and invest. That’s really the key.

Stephen Schmidt (20:50.535)
I’m going to play devil’s advocate a little bit with that because I know there’s I know there’s a single mom out there right now who has four kids who works three jobs and makes 65,000 bucks a year and she’s going to do that until she’s 60 years old. Do you think it just comes down to working hard or does it does the vehicle matter and does mindset matter?

Mike Mannino (20:52.6)
Shoot!

Mike Mannino (21:10.584)
Mindset matters more than anything. Mindset matters more than anything. If…

the girl you’re talking about.

Mike Mannino (21:22.35)
Do you, here’s the question, do you know people that have few kids that are single moms that are millionaires?

Stephen Schmidt (21:29.031)
100%.

Mike Mannino (21:30.318)
Okay, that’s my point. So is it impossible to get out of that? Absolutely not. What I would tell that mother is find a coach of someone that is doing what you want to do and have them coach you to be where she’s at. Because that’s completely possible. Harder, way harder, the situation she’s in, but not impossible.

Stephen Schmidt (21:59.815)
What are some of the pitfalls you see people making on their journey to success that keep them from it?

Mike Mannino (22:08.172)
That’s a question. Yeah, really good questions. The pitfalls are not investing.

Stephen Schmidt (22:10.951)
Thank you.

Mike Mannino (22:20.302)
That’s really key. So what you’re supposed to do is this one employee of mine at the time said one of the greatest things in the world. know, some, you know, was hourly so when times are slow he didn’t make a lot of money. And he said, even when times are slow, oh eight, no nine, you know, I had a hard time getting them work but he stuck it through with me and then, you know, when times are good, you got more money. He goes, even, he goes, it doesn’t matter what you make, it matters what you say.

Even when he was making a hundred bucks or 75 or 150 or 200, you know, only worked half a day of that week when times are hard. He saved some of that. That discipline, it gives him the ability to take money and invest. The objective is to work your ass off, save money, put it in investment. And then your investment is like little green soldiers that run out making you little green soldiers.

That make sense? The rules, the laws of money. And you know, the biggest pitfall, a lot of the biggest pitfalls, nobody’s taught how to invest. I talked to people, friend of mine’s got, went to engineering school in Canada. In Canada, you go for 13 years, not 12 years. And then he went for eight years after that to be a master in engineering. And I go, hey, listen, you did more school than anybody I know. And there’s doctors I talked about this. They go, hey, what did they teach you about investing in

Stephen Schmidt (23:13.926)
rules of money.

Stephen Schmidt (23:22.439)
Hmm.

Mike Mannino (23:43.17)
And I said, do you think it’s an accident?

or do you think that the system wants you to be for it?

And he just goes, I think the system wants us to be poor. So my mission is to show people how to invest and make money for doing nothing. Passive income, true passive income.

Stephen Schmidt (24:03.195)
How does somebody do that when they’re stuck? I’ll let you take that for however you wanna interpret it. with somebody that’s stuck, I think we hear a lot of different people, the Dave Ramseys, the Grant Cardones, each different extreme. Some people say if you don’t have 100 grand to invest, there’s no point in it, so save 100 grand first. For somebody that’s just stuck with all of the information, whether it’s good or bad information that we have access to today.

I think we’re kind of in a season where we used to be called, what was called in the information age. And I think now we’re in the age of information overload and we don’t know what to trust. So for somebody that’s stuck with all the input and just doesn’t know what to do with their output, what advice would you give to them?

Mike Mannino (24:37.048)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Mannino (24:45.77)
That’s another great question. You got some amazing questions. This is one of the best podcasts I’ve ever been on. So you’re stuck. You’re only stuck if your mind says you’re stuck.

Stephen Schmidt (24:52.199)
Thank you.

Mike Mannino (25:00.206)
Now if you think you’re stuck, you’re 100 % right, you’re stuck.

Find out what you want to do. My suggestion is learn how to invest, right? And then save money, right? You got to save a portion of whatever you make. Whatever that portion is, 10%, 20%, 30%, whatever you make, save a portion of it. And then it’ll build, right? Once it builds into a nest egg, you got to have an emergency fund like Dave Ramsey said, 12 to 1500 bucks. And then when you get to the point where you’re three to six months of expenses, of your expenses, then you invest.

Learn how to invest. What’s the best investment for you? And you know what most people get stuck on? Most people get stuck on fear. The fear of losing what you got because you worked so hard for it. That’s really the biggest mindset shift I have to help people overcome. Because fear will keep you stuck. That is what keeps you stuck. Right? You know what is the difference between fear and danger?

Mike Mannino (26:06.424)
So I teach, I do public speaking, and I said the difference between fear and dangers, if I’m at the of a cliff, the danger of me falling off and dying is real in this world, right? Fear of that event does not help for me in any way, shape,

What is fear? And a lot of people say false analogies appearing real and some other adjectives. But fear truly is a figment of your imagination. It doesn’t exist in the physical world. The shelves behind you have no fear. Your hat has no fear. This table has no fear. Fear only exists in the eight inches between your ears. And here’s the kicker of the whole thing. You have to create it. You are a fear generator.

All you have to do is not create it.

So what counteracts fear is knowledge? Anything you know how to do. What are you good at?

Stephen Schmidt (27:06.949)
Me personally, asking really great podcast questions.

Mike Mannino (27:11.094)
I agree 100%. I agree with that 100%. So are you afraid of it? Because you know it. You know it in and out, right? That’s the key. Whatever you know how to do. I know how to do a jump versus spin kick. I know how to do a hurricane kick. I know how to do, I know how to break bricks. Break bricks are fun, right? Most people are terrified of breaking bricks. I don’t want to hurt myself, right? So if you know how to do it,

Stephen Schmidt (27:13.191)
you

Mike Mannino (27:39.756)
And show people how to break a piece of wood. And then I show them how to break a brick. Find somebody that does what you want to do. Follow them, have them coach you, and you’ll be surprised where it takes you. I’ve spent hundreds of thousand dollars on coaching and learning over my career, and I’ve made more money. Here’s something for you, for the real estate guys. There’s two things I want to talk about.

I got a coaching company, Seven Figure Flipping, great company, Bill Allen’s an amazing individual. We hired them for a year, we paid a lot of money to get in. And my son didn’t want to do it, he was my partner at the time. He goes, I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to do it. I’m like, why? He goes, it’s a lot of money. I’m like, if I could learn flipping, everything I need to know about flipping, what I could learn in building for last 30 years, it’s a deal. And we did it.

And we went to one of the seminars and one of the girls, Becca Shay said something that kind of, they kind of baked my noodle the whole time. She goes, we appraise every property we sell. Which most people don’t. Right? And I said, we’re going to, my son goes, let’s do that on this one. And we were going to sell it for 125. We had an appraiser come out and appraise it for 145. So the coaching company that we paid for that year was taking care of in that one deal.

And we do that every time. Now I coach people and this one guy, this one coat, the student of mine getting ready to sell a house and he goes, I think it’s going to be around 445 when it’s done. I like, ah, beautiful, beautiful. Sell it for that. And then the realtor comes up and says, it’s worth 400. Drop it to 400 and you’ll sell it. And I go, and I’m talking to him and I go, okay, so, you know, you know what you’re supposed to do? go, what’d they appraiser come in at? And he puts his head down and goes, I didn’t get one. I go then don’t fucking talk to me again.

period until you get that appraisal. He calls me up three weeks later. go, what is it? And he goes, 465. I go, done. Now you can tell your realtor to shut up. then anybody that says it’s not worth that, here’s the independent appraiser. Not my appraisal, not your appraisal, an independent appraiser. So when you go to the bank, you know this is going to work. They have to get their own appraisal anyways. That $400 piece of paper has saved us up to a million dollars so far. Every time we do it. Every time. That’s the last thing we do.

Mike Mannino (30:03.906)
That is the last thing we do. We flip the house, we stage the house, we get pictures, we get appraisal.

So that’s get appraisals and everything you sell, everything. Even if you want to sell a boat, get an appraisal.

then you can justify how much it’s worth.

Stephen Schmidt (30:23.591)
This is going to end up being a little bit of a longer show because we’re already past our time, but I’m enjoying the conversation so much. No, that’s not on you. That’s on me for letting it run. I know. know. know. So one of the things we talked about, one of the things we talked about Mike pre-show was pricing sheets and that being such a pivotal thing to your business. And I want to touch on that because I think there’s a lot of value there that our listeners will get whether they agree with you or not.

Mike Mannino (30:28.385)
Oops, sorry.

Mike Mannino (30:33.154)
You ask too many good questions for God’s sakes. You don’t give me the five minute answer.

Mike Mannino (30:44.949)
yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (30:53.329)
but I wanna touch on pricing sheets, what they are, and then how they’re useful within your business as someone that’s doing real estate.

Mike Mannino (31:01.99)
Our company our seven-figure flipping company showed us this and it’s it’s a state We call it a standardized pricing sheet and what that is is how much we pay for paint and Then we have it’s an Excel. It’s a it’s a huge Excel spreadsheet And what it does is how much we pay for pain we pay to that $2 labor for inside and we pay 65 cents for material inside and then primer primers 10 cents and 65 cents to install or 75 cents install. It’s like a buck foot

And then how much the garage is to paint exterior, how much the outside of house to paint exterior, how much in Michigan we have a lot of basements, how much to paint the basement floor, how much to paint the basement walls. And then we plug in the square footage of that particular item. And then the material comes up and then the labor comes up. So we know how much it’s going to cost to paint that house. And then we hand it to our contractor and we have the lights and we have the coach lights. have the recessed lightings. have the.

eyeball catches, locks, have our kitchen sinks. Our house, if you want to see one of our houses we’re selling, look at the last 10 and that’s the house. Same color flooring, same color walls, same sink, same granite countertop, same cabinet, same everything. We’re the pulty of flipping. But what that does is the contractor doesn’t have to look for work.

The contractor doesn’t have to bid it out. And then on top of that, the next sheet in that spreadsheet is every item we’ve asked about.

Q number from Home Depot.

Mike Mannino (32:46.606)
I need one sink, need seven cabinets, I two eyeball lights, I need seven door locks, I need two exterior door locks, I need this, this, and this. And then you hit a button on it and it collapses, and it has the SKU number, the item number, and the amount with a sheet. They hand it over to the Home Depot desk, they pay for it out of their account, and they get the discount.

So, you know, ours are on, let’s say, average of $10,000, $11,000 for a flip for the material. They put it into the bid room and they save a couple grand, either $1,500 or $1,000. They get that discount. We pay 10 % more than what it shows on the Home Depot website. So they get their taxes paid for and a little bit of money for their effort to do this, which their effort is handed over to them, pay for it, and they deliver it. So they get to the job site knowing exactly what they got to do.

And the materials there. We can’t make it any easier if we tried. So the contractor just wants to go in there and do the work. And then if there’s a part missing, like we missed something like, you know, shark bites. Oh, we four shark bites. Add four shark bites and it’s $20 to install and it’s up $15 for the material. And they just, so their pricing sheet’s all set. They get the house done. We got it down to, we can flip a house. We flip the house in five days.

We flip the house in five days. It wasn’t a big flip and then we go up to two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. So our crews can flip a house in four weeks. So our longest time is selling it. Selling it and closing. Once we sold it, it takes 45 days to close. So we’ll buy the house, flip it in a month and then wait for closing.

Stephen Schmidt (34:25.98)
Mm.

Stephen Schmidt (34:33.541)
And are you still playing around with single family houses or are doing mostly apartments now?

Mike Mannino (34:38.784)
I’m concentrating on the apartments because we got the systems and process of flipping houses. We got someone out there, we sold half our company to our partner and he runs everything. And I’m on a call twice a week for 10 minutes. Here’s the house, here’s what we need to do. And all right, this is done, this is done, this is All right, see y’all later. So we got that systemized, systematized down. Now we’re in the multifamily and that’s just true passive income. That is just, that is just.

You know, I saved my money to do this and I absolutely love it because with apartment complex, you got to, know, anything over 12, 14, you got to have a property manager. They do all the work. They handle all the toilets, the tenants and all the problems. And then, you know, I’m on a meeting with those five, 10 minutes a day, each one a week. I got another one tomorrow morning, you probably last 20, 30 minutes. We just purchased a hundred and fifty, 168 units in Summerville, South Carolina.

Stephen Schmidt (35:42.129)
Last question before we wrap this thing up. If you had to go back to the beginning, it’s gonna be a good one. If you had to go back to the beginning, not starting over right now, but if you had to go back to the beginning, but you could take all of the knowledge that you’ve gained over the last 30 years, what would you do different and what would you do the same?

Mike Mannino (35:46.007)
Make it a good one.

Mike Mannino (36:01.292)
I just, I… Yeah, woof.

I do the same martial arts because it really showed me a lot. In martial arts, it shows you the systems and process, how to build businesses basically. I just picked my perfect, my same wife, the perfect girl for me. I picked the same kids. I think I would have more kids. But in business, I think I would have concentrated on the multi-family a little bit early on. Because if I would have, if I would have, I would have got those, I would have got those lots. I would have, I would have.

bought more apartment complexes in 9, 10, 11. Because they were going for really good deals, but they were good deals then. And time in apartment complexes is money. Time is money. Right? If a house appreciates 20 % and it’s $100,000 house, in three years and appreciates 20%, you’re $120,000. If an apartment complex is $10 million,

Now it’s at 12 million. You made $2 million in three years.

Economy of scale.

Mike Mannino (37:15.662)
Does that make sense?

Stephen Schmidt (37:17.159)
Absolutely. Well Mike, thanks for being here today. Everyone, I hope you enjoyed today’s show. If people want to learn more about you, Mike, what you’re working on, where should they go for that?

Mike Mannino (37:26.542)
Sure, Arch Investment Ventures, AI Ventures, LLC.com, or you can hit me up at Mike at AI Ventures, LLC.com, or my phone number is 248-202-7357. Give me a shout out if you have any questions, I love helping people. And if they have a hard time with deals, I love solving big problems. The bigger the problems, the more I like it.

Stephen Schmidt (37:51.419)
There you go folks, you heard it. Now all six million of you go send him a text, just kidding. There’s not that many of them. But always anybody that ever drops their phone number, I always try to make them sweat a little bit. So that’s great. Yeah, that’s true. Be responsible. That’s all we ask. And if you do reach out and you’re not a you’re not a jerk about it, just let them know you heard it here first. So we appreciate you coming on again, Mike and everyone again. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. We’ll see you in the next.

Mike Mannino (38:04.046)
I know how to block people. Right? There you go.

Mike Mannino (38:21.528)
Thanks for having me. It was a great time.