Stop Spamming Buyers: How AI Is Changing Real Estate Wholesaling & Off-Market Deals

Shawn Bargaineer (00:00)
Absolutely. So BullsEye is a platform that I’m working on. It is aiming to change the way that off-market real estate is done nationally. That’s exactly what BullsEye is. It’s infrastructure for off-market real estate. And it was built out of need, right? I mean, 17 years in the business, 10 years investing, eight or nine years on the wholesaling side. I’ve seen exactly how off-market transactions happen.

And right now it’s a fragmented industry and we’re aiming to change that.

Issa Hanna (02:02)
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Issa Hanna, and today I have Shawn Bargaineer with us to share his knowledge. Shawn, welcome to the show.

Shawn Bargaineer (02:10)
Hey, Issa, thank you for having me, brother. Listen, I appreciate taking the time and hopping on this interview with you. I look forward to some of your questions and let’s rock and roll.

Issa Hanna (02:22)
Let’s rock and roll. I’m super excited to have you. Seventeen years in the business, longtime investor. But right now the big news is BullsEye. Can you tell our viewers about BullsEye, please?

Shawn Bargaineer (02:33)
Absolutely. So BullsEye is a platform that I’m working on. It is aiming to change the way that off-market real estate is done nationally. That’s exactly what BullsEye is. It’s infrastructure for off-market real estate. And it was built out of need, right? I mean, 17 years in the business, 10 years investing, you know, eight or nine years on the wholesaling side. I’ve seen exactly how off-market transactions happen.

And right now it’s a fragmented industry and we’re—we’re aiming to change that. So—

Issa Hanna (03:07)
Definitely.

Shawn Bargaineer (03:08)
—yeah, if we were to go into it, it’s simply about operating with precision, right? Instead of this throw-it-at-the-wall-and-hope-it-sticks mentality that we’ve adapted in off-market real estate for so long. I mean, I don’t—I don’t know if this is the time to go deep into exactly what the platform does,

right? But if you guys want to check it out, www.bullseye.properties and get a little bit of a feel for it.

Issa Hanna (03:39)
Definitely. Guys, make sure to check it out because it is an investor platform, and it was made for the common man. It was made for people that—that could get into it. It was made affordable. Can you kind of relay why you designed it specifically for the common man to be able to—to—to download it, pay for it, do the whole thing?

Shawn Bargaineer (03:59)
Yeah, absolutely. So BullsEye started off as a disposition platform, right? It started off out of the idea of competition to InvestorLift. And if anybody is on the off-market side of the industry, you understand what InvestorLift is and what it does. Now, the problem with InvestorLift, though, is that they’ve gotten so big that they’ve also gotten too expensive for the guy that’s doing two or three deals per month to be able to afford it,

or even the newbies that need a tool in order to help them dispose of properties. So that was the initial idea behind BullsEye. But as we started building, we realized that there was a much larger opportunity and a much larger need for other tools aside from disposition. And so, not only are you going to be able to market your properties there, but you’ll also have Archer, which is our AI system,

analyze your deals. So this is going to help you become a better wholesaler just from using the platform. And what that means is, hey, you got a property under contract, you said it’s worth $150,000. Well, our system is going to make sure that $150,000 ARV is actually logical. If you’re saying, “Hey, it’s a $30,000 rehab,” and it’s 2,000 square feet, and then when you upload pictures, the complete place is gutted,

it’s gonna say, “Hey, think again. This is not a $30,000 rehab, right? So that $70,000 asking price that you have on this thing just doesn’t work.” On the flip side of that, it’ll say, “Hey, you got this rehab at 40k. This looks cosmetic. Maybe you can get this done at 25 or 30 fair market value, and that’s gonna give you a little bit of room to raise your asking price.” So

the deal analysis is right inside of the system. You’ll upload your photos, your video, and then as soon as you’re done with that, you’ll be able to order title right from the platform. And we have our preferred title partners that are built into the system. And those people are not there because they’re paid to be there; they’re there because they’re actually good at the job. They actually provide great customer service, right? And you guys will be giving us the feedback

to keep them there, right? They can’t say, “Yeah, I had a bad month, Shawn. Let me give you a thousand bucks not to take me off.”

Right? No, we don’t operate that way. The next thing that’s inside of the system is EMD funding and transactional funding. So for off-market deals, especially when you’re dealing with bank-owned property, those contracts are non-assignable. So what does that mean? You have to double close them, right? Well, then

that means you typically have to go off and go online and try to find somebody to give you a double close. Well, no. In BullsEye, you click “Get Funding.” It’s going to automatically quote it based on the purchase price of the A-to-B, and you’ll have your funding quote right there, along with your title quote as well. That’s something that I missed. If you’re a buyer and you need funding for that deal, right on the deal card, you can click “Get Funding.” And based on your buyer profile, your—

your credit, your experience, all of these things that we’re gonna ask you, your liquidity, we’re gonna be able to package and give to the lender a full loan profile. So all they have to do is essentially order the appraisal and get you funded. So everything about BullsEye, hence the name, right, is about operating with precision, executing with precision. We don’t have any wasted motion.

Everything is built to save not only the wholesaler’s time, but the title company’s time, the lender’s time. And you can even get insurance—homeowners insurance or builder’s risk insurance—right inside of the platform. So once you bring a deal here, there’s no reason to take your work anywhere else, because not only do you have all of that, but the whole system is based on buyer matching and precisely matching to the buyers.

No buyer receives a property from BullsEye unless it matches their buyer DNA—which is a proprietary technology piece that we have inside of the app—at least 90%, right? And that’s the other thing on the other side of the business, right? The wholesalers have these problems. Well, we as investors have a set of problems, too. One set of problems is

these guys calling my phone saying, “Hey, Shawn, I got a property in Flint. You want it?” No, I don’t want it. I don’t. You haven’t heard of me buying anything in Flint in years, right? Or, “Hey, Shawn, I got—I got this place up in Muskegon. It’s four bedrooms, two bathrooms.” If you actually knew what I bought, then you wouldn’t be calling my phone, right? So those calls have become spam. And BullsEye aims to erase the way that those properties are moved.

So you won’t get a message, a phone call, or email from BullsEye unless it fits 90% of your criteria or more. And it’s not about what you say you buy; we learn what you actually buy. So the more you use the system, the more you search the marketplace, it creates the algorithm and the fingerprint for you, Issa, that says, “Hey,

I know Issa says he’d buy in 48224, but we sent him five in 48224. One was 1,800 square feet, the other 2,000, 2,100, 2,200, and 2,300. He didn’t like them. Hey, why didn’t you like any of these? Can you tell me a couple of properties that you actually have bought?” And then you say, “Hey, I bought 123 Main Street and it was 1,000 square feet, and I bought 345 Johnny Street and it was 1,200 square feet.”

What we just learned is that you don’t like the bigger properties, right? So if it’s over 1,500 square feet, you won’t get it. And so the more you use that system, the smarter it gets. And that’s one of the things that I’m really, really excited about is just buyer matching in itself, because that’s going to take away a lot of that buyer fatigue that we have in the market. And it’s just getting worse and worse. So I got a phone call about a property right before I got on this

podcast with you. So yeah.

Issa Hanna (11:25)
Definitely. I mean, what a well-thought-out technology you built. And you could tell this was built by somebody who’s in the game. Like we were talking about earlier, you said it: We are born in fire. When you invest in properties, you don’t get to your level of knowledge—to our level of knowledge—unless you’ve been through some stuff. You get to be an expert at spotting fires, putting out fires. So this is all designed

in the image of you. So, unbelievable, because all your mistakes, all your knowledge, everything, you’ve—you’ve thought it out to the T, to the point is you’ve got everything under one umbrella. I mean, it’s just truly remarkable. I mean, you’re making it easier for the wholesalers to get in touch with—instead of them wasting their time giving calls to people who—who are not going to buy these properties, they could go to BullsEye and they can be like, “Okay,

this is this buyer’s DNA. I got some properties for him doing that.” So, and—and on the flip side, the buyer DNA, I mean, how remarkable is that, that it’ll just pop up things that are—are in your buy box? You don’t have to waste your time looking. And then for our new investors, the numbers, the things to be wary about are already there. I mean, things that—that they might not see, you’re already seeing for them. So,

just such a well, well, well-thought-out app. Truly remarkable. I was talking to you earlier about it and I said, “Man, as an investor, I’m—I’m super excited. I’m about to go check this out after the show.”

Shawn Bargaineer (12:54)
So I—I’ll tell you one other really cool thing. And I can talk about this thing forever, right? Because I’ve been working on it and pouring all of my years of experience into it for the past year, right? Year straight, 10, 12 hours a day, building, building, building, figuring out, “Wait, there’s an opportunity to do this. We can make this easier. We can bring this part in,” right? But one of the biggest things about any type of new technology and the adoption of it or adaptation of it is removing the hurdles, right?

And what’s the biggest hurdle when looking at bringing in new tech? Affordability, right? And that was the concept that this thing was built off, but it’s even expanded to now I’ve built something called BXP, or BullsEye Experience Points. Okay. And what BXP does is simply reward the user for using the system. So long story short:

If you upload three qualifying properties into BullsEye, that BXP that you’ll earn from that will pay for our lowest tier subscription. So now you’re looking at a system that you’re not paying for. We’re actually paying you to use it. And the entire time you’re using it, it’s making you a better professional, right? It’s making you more organized. We’re giving you data.

We’re giving you analytics. We’re telling you, “Hey, this property is hot. This property is not. This is why this property is not,” right? “Hey, this property matched 37 buyers very closely. But maybe if you make this tweak here or there, maybe lower the price $5,000, it would match 65 buyers, and you got a better shot at moving it.” So a lot of thought gone into it,

lot of experience going into it. And yeah, I—I’m super excited about it. I can’t wait to give it to the public. We’re—we’re building some things in the infrastructure because, hey, we can’t be infrastructure unless all of the pieces of the ecosystem are there and they’re running like a well-oiled machine, right? So we’re done building our title partners in the Detroit Metro market. But what I’m working on now is partnering with national lenders so that that lender DNA

is also very, very precise. And so when a buyer needs a loan, we don’t have to wonder if they’re going to go to Kiavi and get approved or not, because Kiavi already told them that they meet what Kiavi is looking for by 92%, right? So why wouldn’t you go? Why would you go—why would you go anywhere else?

Issa Hanna (15:41)
Love it, man. And as—as a former loan officer and real estate agent, it takes these two worlds to collide for that deal to go through. So to have it under one umbrella, the way you’re making it so easy, the way you’re—you’re almost bringing like a real estate-type business relationship, like, “Hey, you get this XP points, you’re gonna get our service for free because you’re gonna help us, we’re gonna help you.” That’s just like our—our—our real estate game goes.

You’re bringing that into tech. It—it’s true tech inspired by a true professional in the real estate game. Unbelievable. And—and I wanted to shift a little bit. I want to get a little history on you, right? I—I mentioned earlier you’ve been in the game for seventeen years, multiple different facets of real estate. Now you’re in the tech world with the real estate app. How did you get into real estate? We all have a pretty cool story of how we kind of stumbled into it. What’s your cool story?

Shawn Bargaineer (16:32)
Love the question, because this is part of the story that we tell all of the students. My partner Byron and I, we own a company called Top Tier Solutions. And we’ve actually taught and trained dozens of—of real estate professionals and wholesalers that are still very active in the business and have gone from zero dollars per year in—in real estate to over six figures. So just to say that, how did I get into real estate? I’ll—I’ll—I’ll keep this story as short and sweet as possible, but

it was born out of

almost defeat or frustration, to be honest. So

anybody who knows me knows that I’m really big on Christmas and the Christmas season and those holidays, right? So I’ve always taken pride in being able to provide my family with the best Christmas and the best holiday season as I possibly could. And so, like I said, I’ve been in the business for 17 years. I’m only 40. All right. So at this time, I’m 22, 23 years old, and I’m working for a glass factory.

Okay. And this was a period of time where I’m young and dumb. So I’m getting a lot of money. I’m making my check every week. But this—we had one of those jobs where we get laid off and then go back to work, and then laid off and go back to work, right? And so most of the guys at the job just kept the unemployment case rolling throughout, because we were never working consistently. So this is a period where I’m making all of this money, and then I’m getting

the unemployment money on top of that. So I’m just blowing money here, blowing money there. I would give a homeless man a stack of—a stack of ones, right, and throw money out of the sunroof. And I say all that to say this: We got into Christmas season, and I believe it was like December eleventh or twelfth. And one day, a buddy of mine and I had hung out who worked with me. And we used to have to be at work at about six o’clock in the morning.

And we sped—I’m speeding, and I pulled right up at the door and it was about 5:58. So we had to hurry up and run in and clock in and start the morn—the morning meeting, right? So at about 6:05, the meeting’s over. I go out to my car, and I—I go to park it in the regular parking spot, and I lay my head back like this for two seconds, and I get a knock on the window. Boom, boom, boom. “Tom, what the hell are you doing?” And I’m like, “Man, I came to get my—” and I’m flustered because I may have—

I dozed off a little bit, right? And so I went back in. I worked till about noon that day. They came in, or they say, “Shawn, I need to see you.” Long story short, I got fired, right? Now, this was two weeks before Christmas. I blew my last check, expecting to have all of this money to provide that Christmas that I’m used to providing,

based off of my next check. Maybe we got paid on the 21st or 22nd or something, right?

That check didn’t come, right? And so now I woke up that Christmas morning defeated, frustrated. Man, I couldn’t provide what I’m used to providing. And at that point, I kind of made the decision not to let anyone else be in control of my financial vehicle anymore, right? Because when you’re—when you’re working a job and

the higher-ups can see the wall on the way, it’s like you’re asleep in the passenger seat, right? And when you crash into that wall, you’ve crashed. But if you’re in control, you understand the hurdles that you’re getting ready to run into. And so there was a—growing up, there was a Century 21 office on the end of my block, and I used to walk past it every day. And I would see the nice cars there, the guys in the suits, the gals in nice, nice dresses or whatever, and it always intrigued me, right?

And so after I made that decision, I said, “You know what? I’m going into real estate,” right? And so I went and got licensed. And by the grace of God, I haven’t punched another clock in 17 years, right? It didn’t—it wasn’t pretty in the beginning, right? I—I made $20,000, $30,000 a year. But those hard years helped me learn the business. And I ended up meeting in one of those deals a gentleman by the name of Jack LaRue,

who owned Condo.com and Houses.com. And he says, “Hey, Shawn, I like you, man. I want you to come and run the—the regional—I want you to come and be my regional sales and leasing manager,” right? Just a fancy term for leasing agent, right? But when I went, well, I said, “Hey, Jack, show me the money.” And he showed me the money, and it was good. And that’s when I really learned the business, right? That’s the guy that taught me,

you know, the difference between a good deal and a bad deal, or how to not waste time with buyers, cause as an agent, you’ll have a buyer run you around to 35 different houses and never buy one, and then go and buy the one from their cousin, right? So the—once again, a business that’s baptism by fire. You don’t learn that in the school, and you don’t learn that in the book, right? You learn that by being in the field and experiencing the different things that happen in this business.

So yeah, like I say, that’s how I got into the business, just based off of the desire not to have anyone in control of my finances anymore.

Issa Hanna (22:09)
100%, 100%. And a lot of us get into it with a similar—a similar story. We—we’re just tired of working for somebody, we’re tired of having our futures limited. And real estate, you guys, and I say this on multiple episodes of mine, real estate is one of the only fields you could get into where you could start from nothing and make life-changing wealth, and you could buy back the one thing that people can’t buy, and that’s time,

right? So guys like me and Shawn, we’ll sit around and talk on a podcast. That’s because we have investments, we have the knowledge, to where our money is turning for us. We don’t have to punch that clock in and go to work. But like Shawn says, it’s baptism through fire, it’s a long, hard road. You heard his story, truly inspirational. As somebody who’s a Christmas guy myself, I mean, if you see all the—

the Christmas stuff that I have—my collection, if you would say—it’s like—it’s probably a fifteen-year-long collection. I—I like to be there and—and make that magic happen for the family. So I can definitely relate to what you’re saying, yeah. I truly respect that, truly respect how—from where you came and—and—and how—how far you’ve come to the point where now you’re teaching people the game, you’ve designed an app. I mean, you’ve—you’ve ascended to—to the master level of the game, so I—I love that.

I wanna talk a little future, though, right? I—I looked you up before the show a little bit, kinda seeing that you were in Michigan and—and—and a little bit about your history and whatnot. I wanna know where Shawn’s gonna be in five years. I wanna know where BullsEye’s gonna be in five years.

Shawn Bargaineer (23:44)
Man, in five years, my gosh. If you’ve seen our rev projections for BullsEye, in five years we’re talking—I won’t say Elon Musk-type money, right, but we’re talking major Fortune 500 company, right? We may have even exited already or we’ve gone public, because there’s so many different revenue streams

that are built inside of the app, right? But at the same time, every single—and—and this is what I just want to say this. When I build something, it’s about creating opportunity for everybody. I never do anything in business out of selfishness, right? I’m not the guy that hires and pays $5 an hour; I’m the guy that pays $15 an hour when the market rate’s 12, right?

And so when I say, “Hey, we get to capitalize on all of these different revenue streams,” it’s not on the backs of anybody. It’s because I helped make this business better, that business better, this business better, and these relationships easier to network and—and maneuver, right? And so because of that, we’ve able—we’ve been able to capitalize on all of these deals throughout the entire country.

Like I said before about BullsEye, we built BXP so you don’t gotta pay, right? I don’t want you to pay, because the wholesalers are the lifeblood of the entire platform. They are the lifeblood of the ecosystem, right? If I can get you to bring more and more deals, that means there’s more opportunities for our title partners, more opportunities for our funding partners, more opportunities for our insurance partners,

and more opportunities for our investors, who is the other end of the spectrum that close this thing and brings it all together, right? So as we continue to expand across the country, you’re talking about five years, man. Two years is crazy. It’s absolutely—it’s absolutely—

Issa Hanna (25:58)
I totally believe a hundred percent in BullsEye. I believe in you as the founder and the designer of it and just the passion that you’re talking about it. Like I said, I’m going to look this up ASAP. Right as soon as we log off of our pod, we wrap up, I’m gonna go look at BullsEye. I don’t doubt you have huge things in the future. And you touched on something that was actually gonna be my next question, right? So I got a lot of people that come on my show, they watch the show,

they’re new guys. Either they—they’re new agents, they’re new LOs, they’re new investors, whatever it is, they’re new, they just started. The biggest thing in our business is those relationships, is scratching somebody’s back, they’ll scratch yours, more opportunities, more money, growing that network. So if you had to give somebody one piece of advice that was just starting off on how to grow this network, what advice would that be?

Shawn Bargaineer (26:52)
Care about people. Take yourself away from being the most important thing that’s going on in the transaction. Actually listen and care about the person that’s on the other side of the table. If you’re able to identify their pain points, then you’re able to identify solutions. If you can solve problems for people, naturally humans are indebted to the people that get them out of—right?

And so I—I would say that’s the first thing. But also just know how to have a conversation, man. Just have a conversation. It doesn’t always have to be about business, right? I think Issa and I, you know, that—we haven’t known each other very long, but we would probably talk for two hours straight, right? Just knowing the type of guys that we are, right? We talked about shawarmas and pairs and all those things. So, and that—that’s how you build relationships. But the way that we teach

relationship building—because that’s actually a part of the course—we—we titled it “That’s My Dog for Show,” right? Just to bring it up.

Issa Hanna (27:58)
I love that.

Shawn Bargaineer (27:59)
Yeah, but when you’re—when you’re just talking to people, there’s an acronym called FORD, right? Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Dreams.

Whatever it is, it’s an acronym that helps us drive a conversation or have small talk, right? So maybe you guys look that up; I’m sure you can find it on the internet. But simply having a listening ear and being able to care about somebody else when you’re focused on the money, right? Because that’s what everybody’s in real estate for, especially the professionals, the Realtors, the wholesalers,

the lenders, right? All of—we’re all in it for the money. Nothing happens if we don’t get paid for it, right? But while we’re focused on the money, there’s going to be an opportunity to create long-lasting friendships and relationships with not only clients, but the guys that you work with or work for, right? And if you keep those relationships in a positive light, they’ll pay you way more

than that one time on that transaction that you’re focused on closing.

Issa Hanna (29:15)
100%. Guys, my longtime viewers, the people that watch the show all the time, all our big-time operators, our successful guys, they come on and tell you basically exactly the same thing in a nutshell: Don’t chase that check. Hold yourself to integrity, because you will close that deal, right? Close it in the best interest of your client, of—of your people. It’s like you just planted a seed. That one seed will bring you

a check tree instead of just that one check. So, man, golden advice, golden advice. And—and truly remarkable app that you’ve designed. Now I kind of want to give you the floor. If people wanted to reach you, get a hold of you, your mentorship program, BullsEye, I’m not sure if you’re still an—an active agent in Michigan now, if they wanted to get the best service—

Shawn Bargaineer (30:06)
I am.

Issa Hanna (30:07)
Well, there you go. If they wanted to get the best services in Michigan, where could they reach you?

Shawn Bargaineer (30:52)
Well, you can reach me at [email protected]. That’s very easy: S-H-A-W-N. Bargaineer may not be so easy, but it’s the word “bargain,” two Es, and an “r”. All right. [email protected]. Shawn Bargaineer on Facebook. You can reach me on Instagram @mr_dunn d-u-n-n_deal. (mrdunn_deal)

For BullsEye-related inquiries, you can always reach out via that email or at [email protected], not bullseye.com, bullseye.properties. And that is also the domain for the site. So yeah, guys, go on, check it out, poke around, send me a message, shoot me an email, send me a text. My phone number is 313-590-2849.

Once again, that’s 313-590-2849. And you can reach me anytime, day or night. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna answer, but I’ll see it in the morning and I’ll give you a call back. So yeah, I look forward to hearing from anyone in—in the Investor Fuel community. You know, you—you guys are a part of something fantastic here with what Issa has going on. And yeah, I look forward to working with you, sir, in the very near future.

And if you need anything in Michigan, you can always reach out and let me know.

Issa Hanna (32:19)
I—I definitely plan to now that—that we’re—we’re good friends. I’m gonna ask you for a favor here in a little bit. I—I got some things cooking up in Michigan. I also wanna ask you for one more favor. I wanna ask you to come back on the show in about a year just so we can—we can touch base and—and—and see where—where BullsEye’s at and see where you’re at.

Shawn Bargaineer (32:40)
I

would absolutely love to. I might have on a purple mink when I come back.

Issa Hanna (32:44)
Hey, whatever it is, and I’ll be your biggest—I’ll say, “You know what? I know that guy,” with on your—on your meteoric rise. So Shawn, man, I’d like to thank you so much for coming on the show. You brought so much knowledge, so much expertise, and—and I’m super excited about BullsEye. So thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it.

Shawn Bargaineer (33:03)
Thank

you for having me. Thank you for having me. And I will talk to you soon. You enjoy the rest of your evening.

Issa Hanna (33:12)
Definitely. And to our viewers at home, if you enjoyed my conversation with Shawn and want to see more like it, make sure to hit like and subscribe. I talk to people every day that can bring us different knowledge on every aspect of the real estate industry. Until next time, the Real Estate Pros are out.