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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Gary Bailey, a seasoned real estate investor with over 20 years of experience. Gary shares his journey from a music educator to a successful real estate entrepreneur, discussing the lessons learned through various market cycles and the importance of resilience and adaptability. He introduces his new AI CRM, HomeFlip.ai, designed to assist investors in probate investing, emphasizing the need for human connection in real estate transactions. Gary also highlights the significance of building relationships in business and offers practical advice for aspiring investors.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Gary Bailey (00:00)
Yeah. So we started home flip that AI started developing it April of last year. We just launched it literally a couple of weeks ago, built the whole thing from the ground up. didn’t, you know, white label some other CRM. And again, I’m really passionate about probate investing because it’s been the consistent source for us over the years. I mean, last time I checked the death rates hovering right around a hundred percent. And there’s actually twice as many houses in probate as there are foreclosures in the United States, which is a wild statistic that I didn’t realize is true, but it absolutely is true.So we started building this because I wanted to build a tool. We’ve used all kinds of CRMs over the years. We’ve used Salesforce.com, TypeDrive, all these different ones. And we wanted to build a CRM that was really action-based. And I tried a lot of the new ones. And again, nothing against those CRMs. Those are fine. You know, the big ones that we all know about. But what we found is that they’re great for presenting the information, but it doesn’t really tell you like, well, what do I need to do with this information?
Quentin Edmonds (02:27)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am super excited to be here today. I have a guest here with me that for me is at like the explosion point. Exposure point of 20 years of experience, also tied with a new tool that he’s utilizing. And I just think is really just about to catapult his business and his brand. And so I am really excited for you all to get to know Mr.Gary Bailey. Mr. Gary, how you doing today,
Gary Bailey (02:59)
We’ll do a fantastic Clinton. How are you doing today?Quentin Edmonds (03:01)
Yeah, man, man, I’m doing good. Thank you so much for being here today. You could have honestly been anywhere in the world, but you chose to be here with us. And so I’m excited about that. Listen, I’ll be honest with you. I want to dive right in. I would love for you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. If you want to give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got to where you are now, like we love the hero’s journey. We love tracking the trajectory of where you are and where you’re going. And so you want to give us an origin story. We love that.And then also, you don’t mind telling us where you are in the world. People always seem to want to know that and that always seems to excite them, especially looking to connect with you. so hopefully I didn’t overload you with too many questions, like your main focus, your origin story and where you are. And so Mr. Gary, you have to answer.
Gary Bailey (03:38)
Sure. You’re fine.Yeah, sure man. So I got started in real estate in around 2005, 2006. I actually went to school for music and I was a junior high band director for like a minute. And then I read ⁓ Rich Dad Portat by Robert Kisaki for those of you who are my age. it’s a critical book. changed my life. I went out and I bought my first house for $7,000. It was literally the only thing holding it up. The termites were holding hands. And I fixed that thing up myself.
I went on and did like 10 more houses after that. And then I started a real estate brokerage that focused around investment properties, started a hard money lending company as well. All based here in Cincinnati. We shut all that down during COVID, went down to just a small team and focused just on our core wholesaling business, which I’m still active in. And then I’m launching this new AI CRM that is ⁓ based around probate investing for investors. Cause that’s been the one source for me.
Q for all the years, know, ups and downs. Probate has just been the consistent source day in and day out that we could count on, know, month in and month out for our whole sort of business.
Quentin Edmonds (04:50)
Yeah. Thank you, man. I love it. Thank you for taking us through the journey. ⁓ you talk about ⁓ back when I was in with the School for Music a couple moons ago, you you couldn’t tell me that I would not be in the music business. I used to really love lyrics. I wrote a couple of stage plays. You could not tell me that music was not going to be what I was doing. So I feel you on that. I love it, man. Like you said, you read Rich Dad, Poor Dad.So many people here can relate to that. I laughed and wrote down when you said the only thing holding the houses up with the termites holding that, that’s hilarious. That is hilarious.
Gary Bailey (05:27)
Yeah.Quentin Edmonds (06:19)
But I love it, man. started your own company and you’ve been through some transitions. so, Gary, I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning like whatever we go through in life, these moments kind of make us who we are today. Right? And so you’ve been through some transactions, came out on the other side. You’re launching this AICRM. Absolutely excited about that. But I would love to know before we talk more about that.What has these moments in your life, these moments that destiny has brought you to, what have they taught you about yourself? Have they taught you like, you yo, you already got an answer, please God,
Gary Bailey (06:52)
No, go ahead,you’re a great interviewer, Q. You make it easy. You make it easy.
Quentin Edmonds (06:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, because, you know, it might have taught you resilience, discipline, know, humbleness. Like, what has it taught you about yourself this journey?Gary Bailey (07:05)
Yeah, I mean, I think because it’s been so long, because it’s been 20 years, I’ve gone through several different seasons, several different market cycles. And, you know, when I, when I flipped my very first house in 2007, I’d literally put the, put the yard sign in the front yard and a car pulled in and I sold the house. And, um, you know, I thought I was a real estate god. I didn’t realize I was caught up in one of the hottest real estate markets in the world. And then a year later, you know, it all came crashing down. So, you know, I think it’s the resilience, it’s, it’s the, it’s the ups and the downs. It’s the,Quentin Edmonds (07:27)
Yeah, yeah.Gary Bailey (07:34)
that it’s, you know, starting off, I was only 27 years old now I’m 47 and just, you know, being just not very humble when I was young and growing my team and leading my team and then getting humbled by some, you some different events just with the market and everything else that happened. So it’s really about the resiliency and being able to constantly innovate to adapt to different markets. And I never wanted to be the type of investor that said, okay, I’m gonna, this is what I’m gonna do. This is a strategy I’m gonna work.Quentin Edmonds (07:55)
Yeah.Gary Bailey (08:01)
And then, you know, by gone it, you know, the 70 % your rule or the 1 % rule, I live and die by that rule. I’m not going to change. I’ve learned that you’ve got to adapt to different market market situations. You’ve got to adapt to different marketing conditions because it’s going to change. a deal that was a deal a year ago may not be a deal anymore or vice versa. So it’s about having that consistency. And then also important for me too is always just leading like ethically and, and honestly, know, particularly as a wholesaler.You know, a lot of times wholesalers can get bad names. So really big about, being upfront about what we’re charging for the houses. We rely on repeat business. know, 90 % of my business is repeat business. So it’s all long-term investors. again, it’s making those short-term sacrifices for a long-term gain instead of making a short-term decision just to try to get like a quick win that in the end is probably just going to end up biting you in the butt if it’s not the right thing.
Quentin Edmonds (08:51)
Gary, I literally just had to say that to myself probably last week. You have to sacrifice for the moment for what you want the most. I kind of reworded what you said, but the exact same thing is what I had to tell myself. You got to remind yourself, what do you want for the moment? And so I love it. And you even talked about being able to pivot. 20 years, you’re speaking from experience. There are some people that’s right in the middle of their first pivot. And to them, it feels a little weighty because they neverpivot before. And so I love that you talked about the pivot, know, pivoting through your life. And I’m not sure if you had another full pivot or it should just a transition, but tell me a little bit more about why AI CRM, like why this thing now? Matter of fact, you told me whole flip AI, why now? Why is this coming up now for you?
Gary Bailey (09:40)
Yeah. So we started home flip that AI started developing it April of last year. We just launched it literally a couple of weeks ago, built the whole thing from the ground up. didn’t, you know, white label some other CRM. And again, I’m really passionate about probate investing because it’s been the consistent source for us over the years. I mean, last time I checked the death rates hovering right around a hundred percent. And there’s actually twice as many houses in probate as there are foreclosures in the United States, which is a wild statistic that I didn’t realize is true, but it absolutely is true.So we started building this because I wanted to build a tool. We’ve used all kinds of CRMs over the years. We’ve used Salesforce.com, TypeDrive, all these different ones. And we wanted to build a CRM that was really action-based. And I tried a lot of the new ones. And again, nothing against those CRMs. Those are fine. You know, the big ones that we all know about. But what we found is that they’re great for presenting the information, but it doesn’t really tell you like, well, what do I need to do with this information?
What do need to do with this? So we basically took…
what we’ve done for the last 20 years and what we still do today and built it into our own CRM from the ground up. So it’s, does the research on the houses. It presents the right action steps for the investor to take and know it’s not, you know, a push button, send an offer, follow. It’s not that because again, maybe I’m old school, but if I’m going to buy a house, I’m not buying a house from a robot. I’m buying a house from an individual, right? So they’re not.
they don’t, if you’ve ever sold a house and you put it on the market, you’ll get these automated offers. It’s like, come on, man, who do you think I’m in? I’m a person, you’re a person, let’s have a conversation. Because at the end of the day, Q, it doesn’t matter, like, you if you can have the fanciest software, you can have the best letters in the world. But if you can’t get on the phone with a person who’s actually going to decide, hey, am I going to sell my house or not? Then none of that stuff matters. None of that matters. High equity, know, non-interocupant properties, none of that matters at all. If you can’t connect with the seller,
on a human level, on a personal level, because for them, for us, buying and selling houses, it’s like a weekly thing, but for a lot of sellers, they may sell one house or two houses in their entire life. It’s probably the biggest financial decision that they’re gonna make in their life, or one of them, and it’s probably the biggest thing that’s going on in their life right then. We’ve got 10, 20 houses going at a time, but for them, this is a really big deal, and the sellers need to feel like, this is as important to us as it is to you.
And we’re basically like your partner in this. And to me, that’s really what I worry gets lost with a lot of technology and even the AI stuff. say that as a guy that’s developed an AI app. But again, it allows the human element to take the right actions at the right times and also provides all the coaching and everything already included baked into it so that even if you’re a new investor, they know, okay, this is what I need to say. This is who I need to call. And again, we decided to base everything around probate.
It’ll work with a bunch of different sources, just the probate, just provides for investors of any experience level, it’s just the most consistent source. But the challenge is getting the data, getting the information, and then knowing what to do with that information once you have
Quentin Edmonds (13:19)
man, so eloquently said, man, especially about the human connection point, like, we cannot lose this human connection. So I did a study on communication, and communication has a 55-38-7 rule. 55 % of communication is actually your body language, right? 38 % is your tone.Gary Bailey (13:35)
What’s that?Quentin Edmonds (13:43)
And then 7 % is actually what you actually said. And so I, right? And so I love, cause you know, we know when we talk about handshake deals, right? And like in that mindset, handshake deal mean that you’re actually in person and that mean you’re actually reading body language, you’re reading tone and then you’re listening to the words that said. So I love how you talk about not losing the human element. And I know a lot of stuff we do, we do over line, know, we’re known asonline, over the web. But I think it’s so important to the communication skills for us to try to do as much as that interpersonal communication as possible. Because it’s so heavy to be weighted on transmitting what you’re actually, what you mean. And like you talked about leading with authenticity, integrity, you feel all of that when you actually have that human interaction. And we know people, they may not remember what you said, but they remember how you made them feel.
And so as much as we can, right, we need to have that human interaction, man. And so I think you said it so eloquently, Let ⁓ me ask you, what is the next real goal for HomeFlip.ai?
Gary Bailey (14:39)
Yes, yes.So the next goal is keeping up with demand and scaling this out across the country. Because we’ve got to arrange licensing agreements with a lot of these counties and these jurisdictions to get this data. So it’s just, we’ve got a backlog of people that are interested in opening this up in their market. So it’s really just keeping up with that demand and scaling across the United States into the different areas that we want to be in. I mean, there’s 3,000 counties in the whole country. That’s a lot of counties.
So we want to be in as many of those areas as we possibly can to help investors take advantage of honestly what’s with the baby boomers and what’s going on right now. I think that probate again, I feel like I’m beating a dead horse here, but I’m just so passionate about it because it genuinely is a unique opportunity that we’re positioned right now. They call it the silver tsunami, which I’d never heard that before. That’s what it is. There’s this huge shift of wealth where all these baby boomers are going be selling their properties.
Quentin Edmonds (15:37)
Ooh, I’ve never heard that either.Gary Bailey (15:44)
and downsizing, moving, and then of course passing away.Quentin Edmonds (16:28)
⁓ Wow, Silver Tsunami. I’ve never heard that before. So thank you. I’m having to more research on that too, because it makes sense when you say it and explain it, but I never heard of it. So that’s amazing, man. So I want to talk about the word relationships a little bit, because for you, school music background, I think a junior band instructor, you’ve got dealing with.kids and younger adults, that kind of help you optimize your human kind of interaction in itself. And just being a teacher, having to give information, and then just 20 years of experience, it just sounds like to me that you are a relationship guy. And some of the things that you said just highlights that word. so Gary, I would love to know what is your perspective on building relationships in business? Are they important? Have they served you well?
How do you go about doing it? I would just love to hear your perspective on relationship building.
Gary Bailey (17:28)
Yeah, particularly with business and I’ll talk from a business owner to customer standpoint. And I think it’s really about aligning yourself with your customers interests. Because at the end of the day, like if they go out of business, you’re going to go out of business, right? It’s like that you see those signs on the restaurants, the funny signs that say, you know, come in and eat or we’ll both starve, right? It’s like, and it’s particularly with your deal with real estate and with wholesaling in particular, if you’re sourcing your own deals, whether you’re flipping or wholesaling or whatever it is, if you’re getting your own deals,Quentin Edmonds (17:46)
Yeah, yeah.Gary Bailey (17:57)
You have to align yourself with the seller’s interest. And you have to understand what are their challenges, what’s preventing them from selling their property, and then how can you be a resource to them? So that’s on the seller side. On the buyer side, whether you’re flipping a house or you’re renting a house to a tenant or you’re wholesaling a house to another investor, what are their goals? What are their challenges? And how can you fit your what you’re doing into what they’re doing so you can actually deliver value?So it may mean you might not make as much as you want to make on one deal, but that person’s going to come back again and again and again, because you know, okay, this guy’s got a goal of doing 10 houses this year. I want to be part of two of those, you know? And I know what his numbers are. I’m not going to force them into a deal that they want to be in. So it’s really, it’s like we all win together and we all thrive together. And I think that as long as people can stay aligned like that from both the sellers and their buyers.
Quentin Edmonds (18:37)
Yeah.Gary Bailey (18:50)
then I really think you can’t go wrong with that as long as you put that as the priority.Quentin Edmonds (18:54)
so well said and I love how you talked about just adding value. think if we lead sometime adding value, not even sometimes, just adding value to other people, it already just sows the seed of just genuine, real connection. And so I absolutely love that, man. I love that approach. I love that mindset. Thank you for speaking on that.So is there a topic that I have not brought up that you want to talk about? And is there any final words of education, motivation you want to leave?
Gary Bailey (19:20)
I think the final piece that I’d say this is that this is even, you this is kind of counterintuitive for me to say as a wholesaler. But I just think that there’s so many opportunities for investors if they can just learn how to source their own properties. Again, and the investors that I sell to, don’t want to source their own properties. They’re happy to buy houses from me, which is fine. But I talk to investors all across the country and it’s like everything that they learn, they take different classes and stuff and…the getting the house part seems to always get skipped over. Like it’s just a given, but it’s like that’s where you make your money. And if you can get properties, particularly off market, but if you can get them directly from sellers and source them yourself, it will completely change your business. I mean, it’s really the one thing that you can do. You can rely on appreciating markets and things like that, but getting that property directly from the seller is gonna absolutely transform your business. So some practical advice for that is I think that investors need to have…
three sources that they’re working. again, no offense to these big CRMs, that’s not a source, that’s a tool, right? So it’s going to help you organize the data and research the properties and those are fine, but you need to consider having like, you know, have your, your searches set up for your MLS, whether you’re the Zillow or Redfront or whatever, that’s a, that’s a good source. I think probate’s another good source. And then you need to find one other source. Maybe that is wholesalers. Maybe that’s agents. Maybe that’s letters or driver dollars, but you have those three sources that you’re working and then
consistently working those sources, not for a week, not for two weeks, but 90 days, six months, and you’re sticking with that consistently because what you’ll find is, particularly let’s say you do a direct mail campaign, okay, quitting. I thought I do a direct mail campaign and people are gonna call me back and then I’m gonna get a house and then I’m gonna buy a house. That will happen, but over time people will respond to your letters, even if it’s the same mailer. So I think the misconception that people have is that like,
They talk about motivated sellers, which is fine, but they have this misconception of like, I’m going to find out about this house and I’m going to buy this house. isn’t how it works. If I only relied on the people that were ready to go right now, which is the most competitive people, because they’re probably talking to a lot of other people, then I wouldn’t be out of business. So we do about 50 deals a year here in Cincinnati for our wholesale business. And I’d say a third of those are people that
Quentin Edmonds (21:19)
Yeah.Gary Bailey (21:37)
have had our letters or that we’ve following up with for six months or 12 months, some of them are ones that are recent, like ready to go. And then you got a lot that are in the middle. So if you take out and you’re only working one segment of that, then you’re not gonna be able to generate enough revenue for you, generate enough leads for your houses. And then the final piece of that, how that actually boils down to like a practical thing is this. This is kind of the formula. This is like our North Star metric, if you will. ⁓Quentin Edmonds (22:03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.Gary Bailey (22:04)
We say, look, the number of houses that you want to do a month is the number of houses you need to be seeing a week. So if my goal is to buy four houses a month, which is where I try to stick four to six houses a month, I need to make sure that I’m seeing at least four houses a week that I have at least greater than a 50 % chance of getting. Right? So that means I’m looking at four houses this week. I put my offers in the houses that we bought this week, which we bought three.Those were offers that we put in last week, right? And they were people that we’ve been following up with for months and months and months and months. Nobody that we bought houses from this week were ready to go right then. They were all people that we’ve nurtured along over months and months from probate and variety of other sources. So that’s just some practical stuff, just from a guy that’s, know, just been around the corner a time or two and that is still consistently in the game. I’ve got two houses to look at this afternoon.
So I’m actively in the game. I’m not just some like talking head, you know, real secure.
Quentin Edmonds (22:58)
Yeah. Man, I love it. I love it, man. Again, thank you, man, so much. ⁓ Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, Gary, how can I get in contact with you,Gary Bailey (23:13)
The easiest way I’ve got a free school community, all my coaching, I’ve got a bunch of courses, they’re completely free. It’s all free. So if they want to get access to the CRM, it’s 95 bucks a month. I mean, it’s super, super inexpensive, but school.com slash property magnet is my free school community. can get on there. do live calls every week. I do one every Friday morning. I’ve got like, I used to do monthly workshops, live workshops before COVID for my customers here in Cincinnati.I’ve got like 30 hours of those live workshops on my YouTube channel. I’m always uploading new videos there. So I’m pretty easy to find. And then of course, if somebody is interested in the probate stuff, they can go to homeflip.ai and they can learn all about it, click claim their county, and then they can connect with me that way. So I’m easy to find.
Quentin Edmonds (23:56)
Man, Gary, so let me say three things to you, So first, first, let me thank you for your time, right? You could’ve been anywhere in the world. I said that before, but you chose to be here. And I think you both, both you and I know time is precious. It’s our most precious commodity. So thank you for your time. Secondly, man, thank you for your story. Thank you for leading with what I call the gift of your transparency, the gift of your vulnerability. Leading with integrity, I greatly appreciate it. I put a premium on stories.People have, when we share our stories, it plants seeds in other people that we don’t know when it’s going to grow, when it’s going to blossom, but it just plants a seed sometimes for people. And literally, it can change the trajectory of their life. And I’m not trying to put that much weight on us, but I’ve seen it happen so many times in time again. So thank you for your story. And lastly, man, thank you for your mindset, for your perspective, and bringing that mindset to this platform. I really appreciate you, sir.
Gary Bailey (24:49)
Hey, appreciate it. You make this easy. You’re a great interviewer. really appreciate This has been a lot of fun. I really, really appreciate this.Quentin Edmonds (24:55)
I appreciate that, sir. I really, did. ⁓ So listen, y’all heard Mr. Gary. Y’all got the nuggets. You got the value. Check the show notes. Get in contact with him. We got a whole school to connect you, to get you where you need to go. So please connect with him. And definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Gary. So sir, thank you again. And everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.
