Transform Your Life: Guide to Thriving in Real Estate

Dylan Silver (00:00.576)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host Dylan Silver and I’m very excited for my next guest. I have Mike Stone in beautiful Arizona. Mike, we were mentioning before that you’re in between two areas, but you’re really more Scottsdale. So Scottsdale is where you’re based out of.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (00:19.206)
Yes, myself and my business are primarily the Phoenix Scottsdale Valley, which, so Phoenix and Scottsdale are next to each other and then Paradise Valley is right between them. And only at some point does Phoenix and Scottsdale actually touch because Paradise Valley is in the middle, which is really high end luxury area. And so that’s the main Phoenix Valley. And then if you shoot up to Northern Arizona, I also do business in Sedona, Flagstaff and Williams. Williams is relatively irrelevant. I doubt many people know who Williams is, but you have to pass through it to get to the Grand Canyon.

which is what makes that city important.

Dylan Silver (00:49.57)
Okay, so there you go. Yeah, there’s not, I can’t imagine there’s too many places in the world that are like that. I’ve been to the Grand Canyon, I’ve been to Sedona, which we were talking about before we hopped on here. And it’s just, for folks who haven’t been to the Grand Canyon, the scale of the Grand Canyon is nuts. Is.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (01:10.484)
I remember going thinking like it’s just gonna be like I’ve seen in the pictures Why am I even going I was going with three friends and we were hiking and hanging out for the day and you get there And it’s really just incomprehensible. It’s incredible It’s so nice to see

Dylan Silver (01:20.928)
It’s incomprehensible. It is crazy. It’s like as far as the eye can see is this cliff. Whoa, as far as the eye can see there’s this cliff. And you’re looking at to everything you’re like, this is so much bigger than I thought would be possible. And that was my, I also thought it was crazy that I don’t know how it is now, but you could just walk up right and like dangle your legs off. I’m like, how, how is this, how is this happening?

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (01:27.08)
Yeah.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (01:36.873)
Yeah.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (01:43.826)
Yeah. There are some brave people at the Grand Canyon. Yeah, dangling their legs, looking over the edge. don’t need to see it from that angle. I’m good. I’ll say five feet back sounds plenty. It’s still beautiful to me.

Dylan Silver (01:56.45)
You know what happens, Mike, is you get to these things and you start to get this like weird feeling like you want to look over the edge, but you don’t. Do know what I’m talking about? It’s like you don’t want to. Yes. And so. Right. My mother, she did this. She looked over the edge, like dangled her feet. And my dad was like, this is crazy. And she’s not a risk taking person, but she did that. That is crazy to me.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (02:04.72)
Right. Completely. Like you’re curious. Like it’s right there. But let’s leave it right there. I’m good. I like my life.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (02:17.757)
Yeah

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (02:22.26)
No, I could never. There’s a few hikes in Sedona too that are more accessible, say, than the Grand Canyon. One’s called Devil’s Bridge, where you walk out on an arch, and it’s gorgeous, but you walk all the way on an arch that’s maybe three, four feet thin, and you take it like a bridge, and then you’re out in the middle of space all around you, except for a tiny, tiny bridge pathway back to…

Dylan Silver (02:41.016)
Dude, I’ve been there. Yes.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (02:42.226)
You have? It’s nuts. I’ve seen someone doing a handstand on that Devil’s Bridge and I just… Whoever was laughing or taking photos are impressed. I was like, to what end that you need to make them laugh? You could literally slip… One slip, one fall, like you’re… it’s all over.

Dylan Silver (02:55.384)
That’s the one where it’s connected to a rock face and then there’s one in the middle and there’s a small little… It’s like literally only a hand… It’s not that wide. Like you could easily… Yeah.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (03:04.884)
It looks like it’s out of a video game and like you wouldn’t want your character to go there because that’s when you lose your life but at least you have two more but as a human I’m good I’m just not doing it

Dylan Silver (03:14.582)
Okay, let’s, before we hopped on here, I said this is gonna be a great show, it’s gonna be a great show. Talk us through getting into the real estate space. Was it in your blood? Were you doing something else? Before we hopped on, you mentioned that you were in another field. How’d you get into real estate?

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (03:24.916)
Sure.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (03:31.103)
Sure. So yeah, we were starting up this call we were talking about back in the day, you and I were both in the restaurant business. So I started from that ground up. From there, I became an attorney and actually hated every minute of my job. I loved law school. It was great. Great friends, great grades, great internships. And the theory of law was fantastic. I was good at it. Then I worked for a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals and quickly lost all my passion for law as a matter of practice.

like anything about it and then went into actual practice at a big law firm in downtown Phoenix doing commercial litigation. It was just not for me. And again, I was good at it, but it’s just such a negative environment when you’re constantly just doing litigation and paperwork. And that’s really the whole day, not to mention you’re billing every six minutes, but working 10, 12 hours a day and no weekends. And so I was quickly obsessed with financial freedom. How do I figure out financial freedom? So I wanted to leave the practice of law literally six weeks after I

Started my…

my no nose not six weeks it was eight months after I started my big law job I saw some information about Airbnb and how to get into real estate at that point I put in my two weeks six weeks after that I put in my two weeks notice those eight weeks and I was out and I just started my real estate business I was all in I had done a little bit of thank you thank I had done a little bit of investing in stocks before that I was playing with Tesla when it was doing really well which made me do really well which is fun so some of that capital helped me start my business I

I literally bet every dollar I’ve starting the company and was all in. Because once I saw that Airbnb ad, it was a coaching ad, and…

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (05:12.314)
It was on all fours of everything I had learned about real estate, but way more accessible, way lower cost of entry, and I could literally start that quick. So I think I had like 40K saved up somewhere, and I borrowed another 40K, something like that, to get it started with furniture for my first few leases, and I started with the rental arbitrage model, which is not a model I recommend at all, but I did it, and…

Dylan Silver (05:33.484)
So rental arbitrage for folks that you take someone who has a home for rent, you rent it out from them, and then they agree to allow you to put it on Airbnb.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (05:45.799)
Exactly, exactly. So they got their guaranteed flat rate every month and that made them feel good and they trusted me and then I would go make the margin and so

Dylan Silver (05:53.76)
I wanna do that, why is it not good?

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (05:56.381)
you ready for this? Let’s go. Let’s ride. Okay. So my first deal goes fantastic. I’ll give you the what should happen and what you’re probably expecting. My first deal was a fourplex. I called the owner just a series of cold calls. I remember it was actually 36 cold calls. And I just, that number always stuck with me because that’s all it took to get my freedom from my W2. So I called the owner as a fourplex, two two bedrooms, a one bedroom in a studio. B class is generous. They were pretty awful. And still I knew that one deal would get me out of my W2 because I had learned from Robert Kiyosaki

in his book rich dad poor dad that all I needed to escape my w-2 is more income than my expenses and this one deal would create more income than my expenses based on my projections I said let’s do it let’s sign there was actually those four and there was a satellite fifth when I said 80-20 rule let me put all my effort into the fourplex forget the fifth let’s go so I guaranteed him fifty one hundred dollars fifty one thirty five ninety six a month he knew it was coming in I would also pay for his maintenance which is not usually part of the arbitrage model but he paid all my utilities so it was a cool enough arrangement and we were very cool with each

I didn’t want to go back and forth over what was the guest fault for breaking stuff and maintenance versus what was his ownership responsibility So I said let me just handle all that you cover utilities were cool. It was great that deal went fantastic I would make 16 grand of revenue. I would be the cleaner myself at first I literally went from a lawyer to cleaning my own toilets and I kept all that income myself and 16 grand would come in 51 35 96 would go out and I would keep that entire margin of the 11,000 minus my supplies and clean

So immediately that 9k in replaced my salary as a lawyer So I was now off to the races at some point you get sick of it You hire the cleaner and you know, whatever I hire the maintenance guy and so you scale the business eventually There’s VA’s or I’ve done locals as well to help me and grow my business I’ll get into all that but at that point I was the guy I was free I was the one with the plumbers fixing the p-trap under the bathtub with my elbows in the mud under the building like I was learning and it felt better than lawyer job, so

So that’s how that rolls. Here’s why arbitrage is a horrible model. The second deal was also a fourplex. Two months later, I’m doing so well, I’m making 11 grand, and then nine grand next month in profit. I call this guy, said, look, I don’t even have the inventory in my four units to meet the demand of guests that I have. And I’m shuffling between doors. I know how to run a fourplex. So I call it a luxury fourplex. I said, this is where I’m at. Can I use yours for the same thing? This is my second deal. I’m naive. I don’t know what I’m doing. And I agree to a pay.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (08:25.75)
rent price that honestly should never have agreed to and I what was worse they took it to my mentor at the time and I said this is the deal I want to get into this deal this property is gorgeous do you think it’s a good deal he was like it’s a little tight I don’t know I don’t think I would do that like if you hit all your projections it could go well but like if you don’t I don’t know it’s a little close and I was like I was so cocky

Dylan Silver (08:48.503)
Ha

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (08:49.108)
And so I did the deal I guaranteed that guy twelve thousand six hundred dollars a month Three thousand for each of the bottom two and then on the top floor was thirty three hundred each I also paid for maintenance because I was used to that and I didn’t expect it to be bad and I also paid utilities because that was the deal that they negotiated and I just agreed because I wanted the deal which was a bad decision on my part So a lot of this could have been avoided

It gets worse once we start rolling I’m now making because of my not amazing projections and my agreement to pay the maintenance and utilities instead of just one I’m thin I’m running thin I’m not really making money to furnish the place I financed zero percent interest all the furniture 75k furniture So I got it all set up, but now I’m not making enough money, and I still have to make my furniture payments Then I actually had an even bigger issue this wouldn’t relate to the next guy most likely, but I lost my Airbnb account I had my account deleted

because the crappy properties caused issues and Airbnb they suspended me and so I ended up having no income for a couple months while I got restarted and still paying $12,600 a month. I was getting some direct bookings because I’m good at it but like it was it was not good and so money was just pouring out of my account faster than it was coming in and I was guaranteed on that lease to do arbitrage. Now here’s the spin here’s how to solve for that forever and here’s what I did I spoke to one of my best friends who is from law school he’s a commercial real estate

Dylan Silver (09:45.002)
Ugh, wow.

Dylan Silver (09:57.922)
Holy smokes. Yeah.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (10:11.562)
guy, Deca millionaire, he builds for Starbucks and Dutch Bros and things like that. He goes, Mike, look at your P &L. What’s the largest expense on your P &L? I said, furniture. He goes, get rid of it. I said, what do mean? He goes, gone. That’s now zero. Figure out how to make that zero. I don’t care what you have to do. And it was interesting timing because he didn’t know better. He doesn’t understand short-term rentals. But I was switching to the co-host model at that time, which means no furniture, no capital outlay, no risk. Same exact effort, zero, zero, zero risk. So sometimes I might

make more on the profits of a good arbitrage deal like my first four units. Sometimes maybe not on the other, but no matter what, I’m making $12,600 first, paying it all to somebody else, and then I can start to make money. If I even hit that, every month that I was negative, then paying maintenance, then paying utilities, and even more negative, then paying my teams and running around paying gas, more negative. So just awful to be in that position. I learned the hard way. Now I think I’ll be a much better steward of other people’s money, having learned that mistake. And now I’ve done 35 co-host deals since.

zero dollars out of my pocket and the money has pounded in. That’s the right model. That’s the same exact play but instead of guaranteeing someone else their money you just say hey I’ll make a percentage of the total income

That margin your 75 % will make you more money than you’d make as a long-term rental more money than if I was arbitrage or from you or at least close or whatever is important to them right but This way it’s your house. It’s your Airbnb. It’s your risk You could fire me at any time, but I don’t have to stick around for a year So that’s that was the entry into real estate the crash course of I was a lawyer I thought I was that was a good idea Then I thought starting my own business was it was a good idea which it was but not the way I did it and then I had to rework the whole thing

Dylan Silver (11:52.558)
I gotta say, you know, most people, 95 % of people, would have just been unhappy and been a lawyer. They would have been like, I’ve made it this far, I made it through high school, college, law school, passed the bar exam. I’m gonna go be a lawyer. This isn’t fun, I don’t like it. I don’t like all the paperwork, I don’t like the people that, the vibe of the office, everyone’s working, you know, not a whole lot of maybe the community that I would like, but I’m just gonna tough this out indefinitely.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (12:05.491)
Yep.

Dylan Silver (12:20.91)
like until I’m 55, right? And just and just not look up. And so I feel like for me, what got me out of the car, I didn’t go to law school, right? So I didn’t have I didn’t have degrees. I’m from a different background. But what got me out of the car business was I made the money in my head that I wanted to make. I had the number in my I was like, okay, I’m doing that. I had the luxury car. I had the luxury apartment. And I was just always at work. And not only that, I hate to say this, I was at work around people.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (12:21.19)
Absolutely absolutely

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (12:30.398)
Tell me.

Dylan Silver (12:50.382)
who were not also the best examples for me. Even though they had sometimes families and money and homes and things that I aspired to have, when I looked at them, their literal well-being state was not something that I wanted to replicate. Like you could just buy the eye test, know? It was like something was not 100 % what I wanted to resonate with. I got out of…

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (12:54.001)
Understood.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (13:07.972)
Smart to notice.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (13:15.579)
Exactly.

Dylan Silver (13:18.102)
I got out of the car business not knowing anything about real estate. I ended up getting a W-2 job working for a wholesale company, national wholesale company. That’s how I ended up getting introduced to wholesale. And then from there, I started to do some deals. I ended up completely running out of money twice and had to go back working for W-2 jobs, just odd jobs. I worked for Amazon. I worked for Toyota. And I was just like, I know, I was just like, whatever I have to do.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (13:28.432)
Okay.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (13:32.18)
That’s cool.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (13:40.857)
Damn, dude.

Dylan Silver (13:48.174)
And then, you know, finally found a mentor really who, and some of the chronology here I’m getting wrong, but I finally found a mentor here who was able to partner with me on some of these deals, told me, hey, you should go get a real estate license, helped me JV on some of these wholesale deals, and then even got me connected to this podcast, which is how I’m sitting here. It’s like the power of networking. I say this to people all the time. You can probably resonate with this. It’s truly like…

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (13:57.108)
Okay.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (14:01.832)
Nice.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (14:10.718)
Love it. Love it.

Dylan Silver (14:17.336)
or as much as you should put into knowledge and as much as you should put into your craft, you should put that much effort, if not more, into meeting people.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (14:26.74)
Agree, completely agree. That’s a really smart point It is always about who you know and it is always about the five people you’re around and everyone says it that people don’t believe it and then it’s amazing that you were able to see that funny story real quick on that note because you made a comment too about you know how those people I weren’t the people I aspired to look to be like so one of my last few weeks I think I had put my notice in by this point is my last week or something I’m sitting there with one of the attorneys I didn’t usually work with and he was I was a defamation case and it was a bullshit case the whole thing was But anyway, he’s sitting there with his fat

gut on his lap and he goes he’s licked back on zoom and he goes been doing this six days a week 12 hours a day for 25 years that’s how you get to where I’m at and I look at him and I just remember the appalled feeling of like I would never want to be where you’re at first of all you’re down the hall so you’re not farther than me in a like a sexy office you’re you’re fat you’re unhappy you’re like I know he just got divorced a couple years prior like just like nothing about this man was inspiring and he’s not making that much money and he’s there sitting bragging I’m like if I’m stuck here

Dylan Silver (15:20.589)
Yeah.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (15:26.504)
to become you, like absolutely not. That’s not who I want to be. And then as soon as I got out, I joined masterminds and real estate groups and started networking and meeting people and making friends in the business who are entrepreneurs. Now I’m around the people I want to be like and around and everyone’s accelerating each other up. It’s amazing that you found the same thing for yourself and got out. You have to pull a rip cord.

Dylan Silver (15:30.722)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (15:46.562)
I’m actually glad, Mike, I’m glad that I was not an attorney. Because let me tell you, if I was an attorney, I would not have had the courage, I know this about me, I would not have had the courage to do what you did. I got people telling me, literally, I lost friends, good friends. Because whenever I would be excited and tell them about real estate, dude, I haven’t even said this on the podcast, I would get excited and tell them about real estate and I would want them to participate in my journey with me.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (15:54.772)
Thank you.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (16:01.758)
Yeah. Yep.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (16:13.406)
Right.

Dylan Silver (16:13.536)
and even inviting them like, should take, you’re making good money in the car business. You should take a look at this. Later, we’re talking like almost two years later, I now realize those people didn’t even want to see me succeed, let alone have me bring them to where I was going. Like they didn’t even want to see me succeed. So me offering them money or helping elevate them was like…

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (16:18.846)
Yep.

Dylan Silver (16:39.094)
it was irrelevant to them because they didn’t they don’t want to elevate me at all and so I don’t know how you were able to disassociate yourself from from so much education and from so much of society telling you I gotta go be a lawyer now. What was the reception like from Pierce when you did that move?

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (16:57.126)
It’s a it’s an interesting insight that you had and I think about this a lot there’s I’ll go in reverse order so there’s a Chris Williamson clip that I see a million times on Instagram where he talks about the lonely chapter and he goes there’s a period of every successful person’s life where they’re not fitting in with people they grew up with or who they used to be like but they’re not yet as successful as the people that they want to be like and you find yourself in this lonely middle and I’ve experienced that lonely middle I still experience that lonely middle sometimes I also had really really good friends who stayed where they were I don’t want to call them small-minded because it’s just how

most people are and we are built different that’s why we’re here but to most people to smaller minded people a lot of people don’t want to see you succeed more than they are able to succeed but their whole paradigm is what tells them what they are able to succeed like and why that’s their limitation so when they have that paradigm saying that’s their limitation and they see you trying to breach that they’re not always comfortable especially small-minded people are not always comfortable seeing that in someone else because then they have to justify why they can’t do it too and they have to face that reality you’re making them face their reality that they’re

Dylan Silver (17:28.28)
Yeah.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (17:56.903)
They’re staying where they are for at least those two years, if not a lot longer. And I guarantee you, you’ll be farther in two more years. So them having to reconcile that is really their problem. You’re correct that I got all that pressure of, I’m $181,000 in law student debt. there’s a lot of reasons not to do what I did. And that’s the thing that everyone would bring up, that you just spent all this time. You just spent all this money. Right, but if I’m unhappy, then what’s the point?

Dylan Silver (18:18.382)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (18:23.768)
How are you dealing with that? Like in your head, are you the type of dude who’s like, literally there’s some guys, not me, I envy you if this is the case, where things can be negative, like a whole storm of negative things, a tornado of negative things. And some dudes are like, you know what, I’m gonna go do jujitsu, I’m gonna go to the gym and I’ll be fine. Like it’s just, that’s my routine. Were you able to just like completely disassociate from that or was that, cause I wouldn’t sleep.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (18:47.508)
So, I’ll say this, no, I wasn’t. I think there’s an element of the, what I think you’re picking up on as the association is I did have conviction. I’m right, I do hate this. I want that. I’m going. Fuck it.

That was the plan. so, I mean, I’m not kidding, but it’s not just that, there also was planning and like, I remember I did a UPW with Tony Robbins, it’s Unleash the Power Within, a four day seminar, all immersive of like, changing and figuring out who you wanna become. And so for me, that was, well, not this, more that. And so there was no choice for me because the alternative was more painful than whatever would come next. I don’t care about the debt.

Dylan Silver (19:15.355)
huh.

Dylan Silver (19:28.78)
So you broke away, you found time, don’t know how, when busy law career you found four days to go to a Tony Robbins while you were still employed. Okay.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (19:36.821)
Yeah, yeah, I took four days off. said, well, I took two days off, were weekends. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I said, look, I’m just not working. I don’t remember if it was paid time off or, yeah, that’s what it was. I said, I’m taking two days off. And you.

With law, it’s all about billing. If I hit 200 billed hours at the end of the month and I bill them in six minute increments, then they don’t care when I put them in. So said, I’m not working Thursday, Friday, don’t call me, but I’ll make up for it with extra night hours, whatever. So that was it. I just took the two days off. You force it. I don’t care if it was paid time off or not. That was for my future. That I knew was the move. And so that, I remember, was just the most important thing that I could have done to set the mindset transition in motion. I had read a couple Tony Robbins books. I’m a big fan of Napoleon.

inhale and mindset work in general and it all came together of like I don’t have a choice I can either definitely hate this or try something that I probably will love like

Dylan Silver (20:31.928)
Did you get this feeling too that if you continue to do it that you might die? I know this is a weird thing to say.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (20:37.458)
No, it’s, yeah, I’ve had physical psychosomatic symptoms from jobs that I don’t like in the past because it’s just brutal. Like, I can’t function like that. I’m an ADHD entrepreneur visionary type of person. So I feel what you’re saying. Well, how do you mean?

Dylan Silver (20:45.517)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (20:50.346)
I felt like if I continued to sell cars and continue to do what I was doing.

And the car industry has its issues. One of the things is the margins are getting slimmer and slimmer for new cars. So a lot of, I would say, I don’t know what it is right now, but it feels like more than 50 % of new cars are actually in a position where the car is potentially losing money and they’re just trying to make it up in what’s called the back end. And probably these statistics are off, but like in financing and in selling warranties and so on and so forth. so, right, and so.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (21:03.828)
Okay.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (21:18.196)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (21:22.534)
Right. Fees. Yep.

Dylan Silver (21:26.331)
The car business went from you could make tons of money in the

90s even early 2000s to then just being about used cars to then now Every time that I would sell a new car and this is getting another car business thing But people who are from car business can relate to this every time that I would sell a new a new car It would take time away where I could be prospecting for used car customers are talking people a lot about used cars So you you could spend you know a whole day with someone and make a hundred dollars for that whole day Versus you could you could have sold? Realistically if you’re a top salesperson you could be selling

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (21:35.998)
Mm.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (21:40.584)
Yeah. Yeah, cool.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (21:56.232)
Right.

Dylan Silver (22:00.304)
selling one and a half, two cars a day and be making $1,200 like clockwork. And so I was seeing this going on and then icing on the cake, which is really what pushed me out is the value of people. So I didn’t feel like car dealerships in general valued salespeople, that it was everything moving to …

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (22:05.598)
Yep. Right.

Dylan Silver (22:22.542)
a survey model, meaning the cars weren’t making money, so the dealership would be getting paid based on surveys that you would get from a Nissan or a Toyota doesn’t do surveys any longer, but a Toyota. And so I saw all this and I didn’t have the four day event or I didn’t have any of that. So I just said, I’m gonna go get a job in real estate, figure out how to do it. I was blessed to get this job. And then about three months later, I had a switch moment for me, which was I paid a bunch of money,

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (22:31.453)
Mmm

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (22:44.02)
Good for you.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (22:50.772)
What was that?

Dylan Silver (22:52.496)
probably similar to you to go to a real estate conference. And at this real estate conference, I met all these people from across the country. And dude, I was just, I was just faking it. Like, I don’t even know what I was saying to people. But like they were asking me like, what do you do? And I’m pretty sure I told them like, you know, I’m active in real estate wholesale and like doing all these things.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (22:57.235)
Yep.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (23:06.376)
Good!

Dylan Silver (23:17.686)
And I wasn’t exaggerating the truth, but I did not know anything of what I was doing. Like I was brand new. didn’t know. I didn’t know what a in Texas we have Trek promulgated forms. I don’t know how to read these contracts. I didn’t know what a title company was like. Nothing, nothing. And so there I was having these conversations with people, going to lunch with people and just faking it like just totally. And then fast forward two years later, I’m like, that was the moment.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (23:23.016)
Right. Right.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (23:33.438)
Right. Right.

Dylan Silver (23:47.234)
For me, that was it, you know? And so that was it.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (23:49.301)
It’s amazing how the immersive experience changes everything for you because you see what other people’s vibrations feel like when you’re around especially at a conference where it’s condensed everybody in that same room with the same purpose and the business mindset. That’s what Napoleon Hill calls the mastermind principle. It’s just everyone, when you’re in that room, you also get access to the universal source and you can understand and think at a higher level than you could alone or then the sum of the parts. And so that really is what it is and that was also what got me sucked deeper and deeper in is masterminds and conferences. Just meet people who do

Dylan Silver (24:08.59)
Yeah.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (24:19.324)
this. What conference was the one that you went to? Do remember? It Bigger Pockets or something like that?

Dylan Silver (24:22.574)
Yes, no, it was, do you know Phil Grove?

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (24:27.09)
Someone said that name to me recently, actually. I can’t picture his face.

Dylan Silver (24:30.806)
It was a, this was a RIA conference in Texas. So funny enough, I’m in Dallas right now and that conference was two years ago in Addison, Texas. And so it’s so crazy because I was living in San Antonio. I had no idea that I would end up in the, like it’s truly crazy, like divine intervention that the area where that conference was, I’m now living in two years later on the real estate journey, just further along the path.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (24:42.964)
Okay.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (24:59.898)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. You’re digging your heels in.

Dylan Silver (25:01.006)
crazy. I really need to have you back on the show so that we can talk at Nausium about deals and so on and so forth. But just briefly, talk to us about, because I could cheer you off all day, talk to us about what it was like those first six months where you’re in the real estate space. Did you get your real estate license? What happened? Do even need a real estate license if you’re an attorney? And what was the first year like for you?

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (25:09.394)
I love that.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (25:26.812)
Yeah, so interesting. So my first year wasn’t licensed because I was just doing I started with just arbitrage and then co-host and then in Arizona You don’t need a real estate license to do that So kind of the way you went the w-2 route just to get into real estate Like the next level will be you know, maybe getting more advanced deals and then the next level you’re in the deals, right? But like I had to kind of start that same process from scratch myself. So I didn’t get my license for a while I just ran it like arbitrage model and technically a tenant. So there’s no real regulation co-host there’s

rules and stuff to be mindful of but I just complied and it was fine and then Now I recently actually I actually got my real estate license at you about a year and a half ago And I didn’t hang it because I had no desire to be a realtor residential sales is not for me It’s not why I exist I am obsessed with financial performance of investment properties. How do I run a spreadsheet that makes this property amazing? How do I design it to the nines? What amenities are we putting in from pickleball to pool with a rock grotto and a water slide and like golf simulator? Like how do I make this sick? What are the what’s deal with the views?

Because that’s the only amenity you can’t buy you know there’s very fun stuff to do in short-term rental real estate That is different from residential so I when I got my license I just had it and held it so it was just kind of there And I just never wanted to activate it until I met a team a realtor team called savvy STR agents What makes savvy unique and special is that our agents were countrywide we have I think 34 markets and 48 agents and we are all investor specific but

even more niche we are short term rental investor specific and so we’re all experts owners investors ourselves and we know and managers ourselves so we know how to put people in the best position for their own financial performance instead of working with a traditional agent who I have a good friend of mine I tell this story sometimes I have a good friend same guy from law school who builds for Starbucks and Dutch Bros Deca millionaire he goes I hate agents so why he goes I hate him I said why he goes no you don’t understand I absolutely hate him I said you have to

He they’re all commission sharks. They all have commission breadth. this is a good deal. Really? Then why is this number negative? It’s like, goes, to them they just think differently. They think school district or they think, you know, this area is up and coming. But if you, if those aren’t my goals, for example, I don’t care about the school district in an Airbnb or you know, what part of town, like if it’s up and coming, but still ghetto, then it’s not yet ready for hospitality. So things like they just don’t understand. goes, so I hate agents. goes, but for short-term rental specific agents,

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (27:56.295)
We know all those things we can go deep on the financial performance most of us all of us and savvy are very well Networked as well between STR lenders and DSCR loans between designers who actually know ROI on their designs between amenity Contractors who can build out a pickleball court for you at a reasonable price that will make you that money back the first year All that sort of stuff and then we can tell them I just pulled a guy out of a deal recently because he was trying to put three hundred sixty thousand dollars in when my vision for that property was two hundred forty thousand dollars of renovation costs, so you’re getting

way over your skis like this is not necessary he wanted to extend the pool they told me would have to redo it for 100 to 120k so you’re not redoing the pool the pool exists it’s fine it’s good leave it alone he’s like now I want a bigger pool okay well then you can’t do the deal you can’t afford it it ruins the whole actually didn’t even ruin the P &L it’s just he didn’t have the capital but I can walk him through that and say hey here’s where the money is important here’s where the money is not important don’t spend that do spend this this will come back to you faster than this but in a vacuum you know this will have a greater ROI because it’ll bring you know the right avatar of golfers because you’re

doing a golf simulator instead of putt-putt which is for frat boys. All of the above completely end to end. So it’s such a more complete service and truthfully the sellers are usually paying for the buyer’s agent fee anyway at least two and a half percent if not three. So it’s relatively free for complete expert experience.

Dylan Silver (28:57.838)
So you’re finding the deals and you’re also consulting.

Dylan Silver (29:16.078)
I just realized too, as you were mentioning this, Ashley has the L-E-I-G-H spelling. Ashley, she’s like the director of sales over there, right? I did speak to her, but when I searched for it, yeah, when I searched for it, I did Ashley L-E-Y and it wasn’t showing up. And then I remembered that it had a different spelling. So I searched and yeah, I spoke with her early part of April. yeah, we had a great conversation. I remember she was living in Boston for a time. We talked about that because I was living in Boston for a time.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (29:26.182)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she’s the best. You did?

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (29:37.46)
Yup, yup.

Dylan Silver (29:45.846)
And so, so yeah, it’s funny. What a, just a great show, man. It has honestly been a pleasure meeting you. I’m super glad that we crossed paths here. I have to have you back on. But we are, we are coming up on time here. Mike, where can folks go to get ahold of you?

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (29:46.009)
cool.

Mike Stone, STR Realtor AZ (29:52.638)
Back at you. I would love to. Mutual. Sure.

So I’ll say this, I’m a property manager as well as a realtor. They are separate. So if you’re looking for acquisition services and design services, come to me through Savvy. You can find me, mikestone at Savvy dot realty is my email, no dot com. Or you can find me on Instagram at mikestone group is where I direct traffic. It’s the easiest to find me. Mikestone group on Instagram is the best. If you’re looking for property management services, again, the Instagram is perfect, but my company is called Ziva Estates. You go to zivaestates.com, a little bit about us.

I charge on rent revenue only not top line revenue, so I’m less expensive than other companies So there’s that and I’m definitely better at revenue management, so I’ll make you more money, Appreciate you having me would love to man. This is great pleasure

Dylan Silver (30:40.92)
Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for your time. I enjoyed it. Let’s have you back on.