Transforming from Engineer to Real Estate Pro: Robin Carrigers Journey

Christian (00:01.066)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show today. I have a special guest with me here today. His name is Robin. He’s a seasoned real estate investor with over 21 years of experience in fix and flips, wholesaling, rental property management, you name it, Robin has the experience. So without further ado, my friend, welcome to the show. I’m super excited to have you on. I know you and I just spent, you know, a few minutes just getting to know each other before we started recording. So for those that don’t know you, why don’t you just introduce to the audience who you are, Robin, and just share maybe your experience and just-

your background and how you got here.

Robin Carriger (00:32.77)
Yeah, thanks Christian. Yeah, it’s great to be on with you. Wow, it’s a long story. I won’t take the full time that I could describing my history there, but once upon a time I was a software engineer actually for decades and back around 2003 I started looking at the 401k and going, hmm, I’m not so sure that’s going to work out for me. I think I want to actually have some financial independence here one day. And so…

I started looking for other ways other than just the 401k because that didn’t really make sense to me to… even if I saved up a big bunch of money, now I’m racing my money to the end of my life. Hopefully I die before I run out money kind of thing. That just seems silly. Anyway, I heard about Robert Kiyosaki and some other gurus, started looking into it and just thought I need to start buying some…

some houses and started networking with other people who were doing it, learning, taking classes, etc. A big step for me is when I actually, I think I had about 30 grand in the bank back then, and I spent 20 grand on my initial education, which was a huge step of faith, you know, but I needed to do it, you know, and that right there is probably the biggest thing that propelled us, and my wife, to success.

taking that big risk to begin with because then when you take a big step of faith you don’t just stop on a dime. There’s some follow through that goes with that, And so when I hit the ground after that big leap of faith we just kept on running. So we’ve got now 30 rental properties, we’ve got 46 doors, we’ve done countless fix and flips, wholesale deals, we teach classes on wholesale real estate investing.

We run DFW Real Estate Investor Club, is just a local REA networking and education. Yeah, so much to say, so little time, right?

Christian (02:40.63)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So how did you why don’t you walk us through? How did you land your first deal?

Robin Carriger (02:47.145)
Right, so I had just been to my first class with the guru that I signed up with back then. It was a wholesaling class and He gave us a sample postcard, you know, so talked about postcards and so I was like, okay I did my best to go out and find you know people that might want to sell their house quickly at a discount and send out I don’t know a couple hundred postcards and

got a call one day and the guy was like hey man you know if you don’t want it you know don’t worry about it and before I even got to say anything you know so I’m on the phone with him like no no no no I’m interested tell me tell me more about the property and why you’re selling it and all that kind of stuff

So we ended up buying a house actually for cash, which I don’t necessarily recommend, but when all the cash is like five thousand bucks. Okay. Yeah, got I got that much cash. So I paid five thousand for a property and yeah before I it was a good it was a good deal that I did too because before I even got the for sale by owner sign even one hammer on the sign in the yard some guys from across the street came across and said

Long story short, they said, we’ll offer you $7,500 right now. So I was like, OK, I think I did a good deal here. So anyhow, I did not accept their $7,500 offer, even though I would have made money. We marketed it. We’re going to real estate investor networking clubs back then and also acquiring our list of buyers and such. so we got up selling, think, for $17,000.

or something like that, 11.5 profit on it because we had done some rehabbing. We never intended to be wholesalers. We actually, we got into the business to be fix and flip rehabbers, right? Because that’s where the big money was, or at least I thought. So yeah, that’s the short version of how we found and a little bit about the interaction with the guy. It’s funny, signing the contract on that, I’ll never forget. I was over in…

Robin Carriger (05:01.319)
at a barbeque restaurant. And I had read the Trek 1-4 family residential resale contract, but man, I did not, I was no contract expert and I’ll never forget sitting down there with the guy. And I was about to go over and explain to him the contract that I did not understand very well myself at all. And so as I turned the contract around to show it to him, and I started to explain, he goes, thank God he said.

dude, don’t even bother with all that. Just show me where to sign. And so, not on the outside, but on the inside, went, whew, I’m sure glad that… I’m sure glad I didn’t have to explain that to him. This is a truly motivated sailor here, this guy, right? He inherited the property from his mom or something like that.

Christian (05:37.397)
Ha ha ha!

Robin Carriger (05:47.758)
Yeah, there’s so much more to say on that. I we learned a lot of lessons on the first deal or two, you know, but after a couple deals, not that one, but the next one was even more profitable. We were up about 41,000, 41,500, something like that on our first couple deals. I was like, yeah, I think I’m liking this. I think I’ll keep doing this, you know, so anyway. Oh yeah, no question. Yeah, no question about it.

Christian (06:10.39)
Yeah, that’s the story right there. There definitely was God in that situation to save you on that one. Yeah, no question. That’s awesome. So why don’t you list out, Robin, I what are, I’m curious to know, what are some of your top strategies for finding your distress properties before others do? mean, were you doing direct mail? Were you doing cold calling? What were you doing?

Robin Carriger (06:33.035)
Yeah, when we started we were doing postcards and we were doing roadside signs, ads in the paper, yellow pages. Just to be honest, after 21 and a half years, mean, it gets a little foggy on all the stuff that we did back then, but I know for sure that we did that.

And we got that first one from a from a person calling me back off a postcard. This is the second deal we did actually was From a I Was needing to get more direct access to the MLS so I could pull cops and that sort of stuff. So actually

was poking around on the internet and I found that my own credit unit was a member of the MLS and so I was like, okay, maybe I can call them up and schmooze with them and they’ll let me piggyback on their access or something. so I did, I called them and they were like, yeah, Mr. Carragher, we appreciate your business, but no, we’re not really gonna do that. Well, what if I, well no, no, no, no.

So I was like, okay, well. So I was just about to hang up and I remember, it was one of those things where people remember where they were when some major event happened, know, some, the Kennedy assassination, where they found out about that, or 9-11, or whatever, you know, the major event. I know where I was exactly, what I was doing. Well, I could take you to the spot on the earth where I was when I was about to hang up and I said,

But wait, before you hang up, do you guys ever do any foreclosures? And I’m talking to the lady who’s the head of the real estate department of my credit union, and she said, you know what, I’ve been here 18 years, and we have never foreclosed on anybody until just the other day. And so she ends up putting me in touch with the guy in the collections area. He was new to the company, et cetera. We ended up.

Robin Carriger (08:44.781)
buying that property for $35,000. Well, the Tarrant Appraisal District website had it listed at $91,700.

blah blah blah, we started to rehab it again, because again, we weren’t wholesalers, we were rehabbers, so we thought, right? We did have the intuition or the insight to put out a couple of different we buy houses, or not we buy houses, for sale by owner houses in the yard when we started rehabbing it. And at the end of the day, I think we ended up putting about $800 of our own money into it or something like that. And before a wholesaler drove by,

And again, skipping over a lot of details there, we sold it for $68,000, I think, something like that. But with some expenses, holding costs, et cetera, I think we netted like $29,000 on that one. So $11,500, $29,000. And I’m like, yes, we’re rocking this. And again, so much more detail, though I’m skipping over. I can make a whole podcast out of just one of these deals.

Christian (09:46.293)
You

Christian (09:55.2)
No. Yeah.

Robin Carriger (09:56.217)
the good stuff in there, you know. But anyway. Yeah.

Christian (09:58.164)
Absolutely. Especially after 21 years of experience, right? You’ve been through it. You’ve seen it all, right? That’s what it’s about. And I think it’s, I think that’s right now, Robin. mean, it’s incredible to me to even see you, you know, being here for 21 years. You’ve experienced, you know, all the highs, all the lows. I want to talk to you about maybe some of the low moments in your career. You know, could you maybe just talk about maybe some times to where, you know, you were going through a struggle in your business. Maybe, you know, the operations, maybe you were struggling with building systems around managing, you know, multiple flips.

at one time, you know, getting into, you know, maybe in your rental properties and the, in the challenges when, when it comes to managing your rentals, why don’t you just walk us through maybe just some, you know, some examples of, know, how you kind of got through that, because I think it’s imperative that you have to build a strong mindset in this business or really any business, right? You have to put yourself in a place to where, know, you’re going to go through the fire, you know, a lot of times throughout your career and you do have to be built almost for battle when these times come because it’s,

It’s all about how you respond to situations that’s ultimately gonna set you up for long-term success. So, we’d love if you could share that.

Robin Carriger (11:05.905)
yeah, that’s right. Yeah, and I’m sitting here as you’re saying that Just kind of going through my mental, you know Rolodex of okay. There was that one. There was that one. There was that one. There was that one, you know Which one which one should I share with you here? Well of all the properties that were ever done any deal any kind there’s only one that we actually lost money on And it was like, know, 1500 bucks after you did all the math, right, you know, so

Christian (11:19.862)
you

Robin Carriger (11:35.022)
It wasn’t a huge loss of any sort, you know, but what So it was a rehab and I had I actually got laid off of my software engineering job after I had Been in the business for three four years something like that

And at the time I was like, okay, that’s okay. I’m a real estate investor now, so I’m just going to do this full time. Now later, people that I had known and worked with in the software engineering business called me back and I went actually back into being a software engineer for another.

17 years or something or 15 years something anyway But at that time I was not working, you know as a software engineer and I got this deal So I was like, okay, I need every deal I can find here. So I was trying to I sliced it a little thin right? I thought we were gonna make maybe a hundred and fifteen, you know

Well the price should have been about 115 something like that and we picked it up for 85. Anyway by the time you did the math on the rehab a good outcome here would have been that we would have made you know 10 grand. Okay. But lots of things went wrong. It was during the summer of 2007.

And I know you don’t remember that and most people won’t But it rained like you know Noah would have been proud You know of this of this summer. It just kept raining and raining and raining Well, we had a pool in the backyard that we needed to break up Everybody we called was like yeah, that’s five grand. I was like, five grand is gonna really hurt our budget here So was like, okay. Let me my wife is looking for somebody she kept hearing five grand. I said

Robin Carriger (13:30.221)
let me take over this search for somebody that can break that pool up, right? So I found somebody that did it for 2,500 bucks. was like, yes, I’m so awesome that I found this guy. OK, anyway, long story short.

It finally let up raining for like a couple days, okay? And I was pressuring this guy get back there with your backhoe and break that sucker up so we can move on with the program here Okay, because time is money right when you’re when you’re having a house you’re paying debt service Taxes insurance, you know, you’re you’re bleeding money until you get it sold Okay, so I’m like, okay, we got to go with program. Well, anyway, I pressed him too much

And it didn’t rain for a couple days yet, but the ground was still wet, still soft. He goes back there, he breaks up the pool. long story short, skipping over a bunch of stuff, unbeknownst to me or him or anybody at the time, he ran that over the sewer line.

The house is built in like 1957 or something like that most airlines come out the front of the house Okay, but this one whatever for whatever reason back then in this neighborhood. It went out the back None of us actually realized that anyway, he cracked it. I didn’t know till later So we buried the pool sawed the whole thing man the saw that was a major bunch of work but anyways so we finally got it sold and

We, we, the budget was killed, but I think we making maybe 3,500 bucks by that time. And we’re just glad to get it off of our plates. About 30 days after we sold it, I get a call from the guy we sold it to, and he says, he says, I’m having some plumbing problems here. And I’m like, well, okay, but.

Robin Carriger (15:22.111)
I bought you a home warranty as part of the deal and you had full opportunity to have it inspected and everything so I don’t think so. I’m done with you man. I’m sorry. mean I’m sorry that’s happened to you but I don’t see how it’s my responsibility. We called an attorney. The attorney wrote me a letter you know and

He, this was in retrospect, he was just, it was just a fishing expedition. know, but I was, it sobered me up enough that I was like, I need to do something here because he pointed out that I marked on the seller’s disclosure that there were no subsurface pits.

And I still to this day don’t think there was any subsurface pits, but I was like, do I want to go to court and hire an attorney and mess around? Well, I ended up hiring an attorney anyways who was completely worthless.

And I don’t obviously I’m not gonna say this person’s name, you know, but they were worthless and but they charged me every time I scratched my nose You know, I mean it was just anyway, so forty five hundred dollars down the toilet with my attorney alone and I ended up having to fix the sewer line on top of it, you know to get the whole thing released and just and and with all of that I’m actually I mean, that’s the that’s the

That’s the short version of that. There’s so much more that I learned about insurance and legal stuff and, you know, don’t do the work yourself. Anyway, so, but yeah, we lost about $1,500. But I mean, in retrospect, all that we learned, the tuition for that course was a little bit expensive, but man, did we learn a lot. And $1,500 compared to…

Robin Carriger (17:08.397)
you know, 18 grand, 23 grand, 45 grand, 55 grand, and other fix and flips that we did along the line.

Who cares, right, that I lost $1,500 on one deal? So, yeah, and that’s a lesson for any new people. Like you were kind of saying on the intro to this part, you can’t let little, piddly stuff slow you down, right? You are gonna have failures, and when you do, learn from them. Don’t repeat those, but keep on moving.

Christian (17:19.773)
peanuts, right?

Christian (17:33.014)
Mm-hmm.

Christian (17:38.558)
And to add to that, Robin, I really want to get your input on maybe what are some of the key mindset shifts that separate successful investors from those who are maybe struggling. How can people improve when it comes to that?

Robin Carriger (17:57.72)
Well, like I said, learning. Honestly, our intention was never really to do fix and flips. mean, everything we’ve done besides rental properties really has been.

Christian (18:00.182)
in.

Robin Carriger (18:13.121)
just to make money so that we could feed it into the rental business, you know, honestly. Because it’s the rental business that, for us, that has built our wealth, right? You know, so the mindset shift for me when I got into real estate was stop trading my time for money, you know, which is a big thing that Robert Kiyosaki preaches all the time, right? Instead of that, buy assets that will pay you, build up your passive income.

But.

until it that passive income is large enough that it is bigger than your living expenses and then you’re quote-unquote financially independent, you know, so that’s what that’s what we always wanted That’s what we have now. I did I do get a question sometimes from newer people, you know And then they’ll put it this way all you experienced people if you had it to do all over again What would you do differently? You know, and that’s kind of what I

maybe that’s kind of what you’re asking. I always answer what I would try to do better from the beginning. And I know Investor Fuel stresses this, is I would try to automate my business better from the beginning and focus more on that in the beginning. Of course, when you’re new, if you don’t hear that from anybody, what you’re just trying to…

figure out if you can do this at all, you know, and look for deals and you make money, hey cool, I made money, you know, and so you’re maybe thinking, you’re not putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, you know, so. But yeah, that’s the one thing. And because that passive income, you think it’s just gonna be automatic. Well, it’s not, you know, so. Even if you hire a property manager and it’s a good property manager, it’s still, it’s…

Robin Carriger (20:05.705)
It takes you a while to get to that more passive, and it takes a lot of work. And that’s a whole seminar in and of itself, depending on what you’re doing.

Christian (20:13.974)
100 % I couldn’t agree anymore and that’s something I’m seeing you know right now in the industry right now because the big thing is just you know let’s talk about you know the typical wholesaler you know they get stuck on the deal to deal and it’s a very active business model for wholesaling right the tax burden is heavy you know innovations are heavy things like that and it’s

I think it’s imperative that you are making an action and a game plan to where you are looking at the passive side of the business, right? Because you have to look for the next 30, 40 years and also, what do you want to leave your children behind? What do you want to leave your family behind as well? Right? And it’s, you can get a lot of your time back if you’re willing to make that sacrifice, but this is where it’s important to learn from people such as yourself that have the experience and actually have the assets at hand.

Robin Carriger (20:52.449)
Yeah.

Christian (21:06.249)
because you’ve been through it, right? And it’s a lot of people I feel like are sometimes struggle because they feel like they’re on an island. They just want to try to figure it out themselves.

Robin Carriger (21:07.991)
Right.

Christian (21:17.202)
The best thing you can do is just be part of a community or you know reach out to somebody you know you never know who is willing to lead like lend you a helping hand in the industry right to help you right and I think it’s that’s that’s what it is you know it really comes down to networking building relationships and just put yourself out there you know it’s only gonna help you for the long haul especially when you’re just starting out right that’s the best thing so that’s awesome so

Robin Carriger (21:27.137)
Yeah. Yeah.

Robin Carriger (21:40.674)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Christian (21:45.246)
I’m interested, Robin, for those that don’t know, you are the owner of DFW, the REI club in Dallas. Why don’t you share what that organization looks like and how are you helping people through that club?

Robin Carriger (21:58.029)
Sure.

We have weekly meetings, know, there’s a lot of clubs that meet monthly. We have weekly meetings on Saturday mornings. And it’s networking and education, like you were saying, it’s about building relationships with.

Basically everybody that you’re going to need to be successful in just about doing whatever you want to do in real estate as a real estate investor in any any form that that might take multi-family wholesaling we teach a class on wholesaling and We have classes we have national gurus come through and talk about we just had some folks come in and talk about residential assisted living Investing but I mean multi-family You could talk about short-term

I believe we’re going to have somebody come in and talk about short-term rentals again a little later in the year. But most of the time it’s just talking about the core stuff about how to find your next deal. When you market your business and the sellers call, how to have that conversation about learning various different exit strategies, foreclosures, seller financing.

subject to deals, short sales, you just you name it, right? What’s the What do you what do you want to do? And so mobile home? mean, I again I could just go on and on just as a club owner. I feel like it’s my role to Present as many different possibilities for people to be successful You know from an educational perspective as well as from a networking perspective, right? I want again we were talking before the meeting, you know life is about

Robin Carriger (23:40.032)
For me, for a long time now, life is about helping people. There better be words on my tombstone to the effect of, he helped people. If not, I was a failure.

Christian (23:55.616)
Yeah.

Christian (23:59.126)
That’s right.

Robin Carriger (24:01.025)
That’s the kind of spirit that we try to foster too. It’s not just me. I feel like most people that come to a few meetings will see that that’s what we’re about.

Christian (24:10.72)
Right, that family oriented type of circle. That’s what it’s about, right? It’s what are you gonna leave behind? And I think that you have to ask yourself that question. It’s like your duty on earth is to give, right? And it’s not to focus on what am I gonna receive out of this from giving. It’s just about doing your best and helping your neighbor, right? It talks about that on the religious aspect in the Bible, right? Help that neighbor. And that is the mentality I feel like if you follow

Robin Carriger (24:20.77)
Yeah.

Robin Carriger (24:34.859)
Yeah, absolutely.

Christian (24:40.562)
you will be rich in any aspect of life.

Robin Carriger (24:42.177)
Well the thing is, you get that, because I’m not talking about just my fellow investors or…

people that want to learn, I’m talking about motivated sellers, I’m talking about the people we sell to, I’m talking about the people, our tenants, talking about the people that do the repairs and updates on the properties we buy, you know, it’s all the way around, it’s everybody that you interact with, If you’re bringing value, you’re helping other people. I mean, goodness gracious, I get calls sometimes from people out of the blue that I don’t even know off the internet.

Christian (25:11.094)
Absolutely.

Robin Carriger (25:19.951)
And I might talk to him for an hour, know, just because honestly just because I can’t help myself You know now obviously if I have an appointment, you know, I can’t do that, you know, but It’s rare that I don’t tell people at least hey, you know I’ll get back with you or try me another time or something just because again and you know, some people will go, you know

I’ve seen people whose name you might even recognize, post something on Facebook and somebody will say, they get frustrated with somebody who contacts them and says, hey, you got a minute? And they go, no, I don’t got a minute. Well, let me tell you, Robin’s always got a minute. The day that I don’t have a minute is the day that I’ve made some kind of mistake. mean, again, appointments is one thing. But the spirit of it is I want to help you. And yeah, we sell mentorships.

Christian (26:07.766)
That’s right.

Robin Carriger (26:11.349)
you know, memberships and mentorships and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, we do get paid. Okay, yes, but that’s not why I do it. know, DFWREI club and all that stuff, that’s not why. That’s not why we do this. We do this because we really genuinely want to help people. you know, I don’t want to get too mushy or I’ll get emotional.

Christian (26:28.278)
I love that. I love that.

Christian (26:32.992)
No, mean, it shows the passion and the care you actually pour into your people and your tribe. And that’s a testament also to why you’ve been successful. And currently also why you and I were talking, the family you build and your grandkids. I those are all your pillars of life that are so important, right? And there’s no question on why you are where you are, because you keep that mentality first. So Robin, it’s…

Robin Carriger (26:38.509)
Yeah.

Christian (26:57.886)
Man, I wish we honestly had another hour because I got a bunch of more stuff and a bunch of more ammo that I could ask you of questions. So I’d love to have you back on here in the near future because there’s a lot more stuff I want to dive into. But it’s been an absolute pleasure, my friend, having you on. Before we jet, could you just share to the audience where do people need to reach out to you to join the DFW REI club or anything else you have to offer as well?

Robin Carriger (27:03.799)
Okay.

Yeah?

Robin Carriger (27:25.037)
So even though I have this phone number on my shirt, don’t call that number. The better number to call me is just my mobile number. It’s 817-300-1132. Or just go to DFWREIClub.com if you want to see what we’ve got on the calendar and all that kind of stuff.

Christian (27:28.533)
You

Robin Carriger (27:44.715)
Yeah, I mean, just one more point on the helping people side too. You’ll get people who call you back, you’ll get motivated sellers sometimes who will call you back and you’ll do a deal because you treated them, you were straight up with them and you treated them fairly and honestly and they could sense that you wanted to help them. I’ve done countless deals like that. I thought we’re gone. I thought they were gone completely, but people call me back. Anyway, that’s right.

Christian (27:54.227)
you

Christian (28:10.761)
people over profits, right? That’s the mentality to keep. I love that. I love that, Robin. Well, guys, Robin, we’re gonna definitely put your phone number and more people can find you in the description on YouTube so they know exactly where to go. But again, thank you so much for taking your time out of your day to join us today and to share in the value that you brought. I definitely learned a lot. Your career and your life is incredible, and I’m just excited to see what you do next, my friend.

Robin Carriger (28:13.855)
Absolutely.

Robin Carriger (28:35.73)
I’m so so honored to have been able to be on.

Christian (28:41.022)
Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you. Well guys. Hope you enjoyed today’s show I know I did and as always my friends We will see you on the next episode. Take care

Robin Carriger (28:50.958)
Alright.