Unlocking Real Estate Wealth: 5 Proven Strategies for Smart Investors

John Harcar (00:01.416)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m here today with Mickey Booher. And what we’re going to talk to Mickey about is, you his real estate journey and what got him here, but also time shares, right. And how he helps with those. Remember guys, that investor fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers. mean, really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five extra business. And we do it by providing tools to grow the business they want to grow in turn, you know, kind of have that life that they want to live. So.

Without ado, Mickey, welcome to our show.

Mickey Booher (00:33.18)
Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here.

John Harcar (00:35.06)
Yeah, man, I’m excited to talk about your journey and the timeshare thing. I’ve heard a lot about that and I hear about it a lot. So before we get into talking about those, tell our audience about you, your background and what really got you here.

Mickey Booher (00:49.966)
Yeah, was, I’ve had a long, it depends how far back you go. I used to be a therapist and at one point I went and got my real estate license, said, hey, I think I want to do real estate, which doesn’t seem related to therapy at all. Or maybe.

John Harcar (01:06.08)
it can be sometimes depending upon the motivation of your homeowner. I mean, I don’t know.

Mickey Booher (01:10.86)
Well, I definitely had a few buyers that needed some therapy for sure. But anyway, it wasn’t long after that somebody noticed that a real estate license and they recruited me into the timeshare business. I love to travel, so I thought it would be a great fit. And within a couple of years, I was the vice president of a local timeshare company in California, and they were locally, I should say locally owned private.

John Harcar (01:15.744)
There you go.

Mickey Booher (01:40.514)
company. They operated with lot of integrity and things were really good.

John Harcar (01:40.64)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (01:45.404)
OK. And when was this? How? What year was this?

Mickey Booher (01:49.358)
In 1996, started. In 1998, I should say 1999, I was privileged to be the vice president of the company and I ran a lot of their sales and marketing operations and I answered at that point directly to the ownership of that company.

John Harcar (01:51.744)
Okay.

John Harcar (02:03.112)
Awesome.

John Harcar (02:07.776)
OK. What happened with when you got into real estate? You just started doing traditional real estate, right, with your license?

Mickey Booher (02:14.828)
Yeah, I was just doing residential real estate. Liked it, never really, I thought it was a nice departure from what I’d been doing. And I was probably set to go a hundred miles an hour that direction when I got distracted with somebody recruiting me to the timeshare business.

John Harcar (02:33.504)
Did you have any type of influence in your past or like someone in a family in your family or something like that that maybe was kind of like Or did where did that I guess better maybe a better question. Where did that real estate I didn’t even come from?

Mickey Booher (02:45.838)
You know, I did have an uncle who did real estate. Like I think everybody probably has an uncle with a real estate license, right? And like most of those, I don’t think he did much with it. But I remember being very young when he got his license and I thought, wow, that sounds like a great industry to be in. Everybody wants to be in the house. Everybody wants to be in the home. And then of course, if you get into the commercial side of it, I mean, that’s a whole nother thing, but.

John Harcar (02:52.672)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (03:06.88)
Mm-hmm.

Mickey Booher (03:13.304)
So I think it was always in the back of my mind, even though I was on this therapy course. And so when I got a little bit of a lull in my therapy career and started to get some doldrums, thought, you know, maybe it was always in the back of my mind. So I went after it, yeah.

John Harcar (03:28.988)
Awesome. Okay. And then how did you learn even before you took your license? mean, did you just say, I’m gonna go get a booklet and learn that way. I mean, did you

Mickey Booher (03:36.18)
We had a… I reached out to a local broker who’s no longer in business, but at the time he was very persuasive. I liked, I was not offended by that. I thought it was great. He walked the walk. so, I kind of apprenticed under him and he was very good at sales, but he had a lot of integrity as well.

It just seemed like he made the process fun from start to finish. And I liked that about him. And I took it for granted at the time, but it’s not like that for everybody where the, listen, guys, you want to get a home? This should be a fun, exciting experience. And he really kept that enthusiasm the whole time. And so if there’s nothing else I learned, I learned that from him. Hey, let’s make this a fun process. And he did a good job of that.

John Harcar (04:20.585)
Right.

John Harcar (04:28.415)
Okay.

John Harcar (04:32.884)
Was there a hard transition in your talk track, your talk tone, your talk pace from your therapy business to talk into homeowners and sellers?

Mickey Booher (04:44.32)
Yeah, I have to tell you, I think it was a big advantage for me. Yeah.

John Harcar (04:48.32)
I would assume it would be, but I just wonder if it’s like, you always just have that way you’re set, you know?

Mickey Booher (04:55.97)
Yeah, I think the big thing is, and now all these years later, if I dissect it, I would say that in my humble opinion, most salespeople talk too much.

John Harcar (05:07.252)
Yep, it’s, I was gonna say, it’s listening.

Mickey Booher (05:09.718)
Yeah, a good, and bad therapist talk too much too. So, but you know, if you’re striving to be good at either one, it really is, I hate to be this simple, but like, hey, what’s that look like to you? How does that make you feel? If you could float out into the future and, you know, see this the way you want to see it, what would that look like? I mean, and then.

They tell you exactly what they need to be happy. And so that was great, yeah.

John Harcar (05:40.212)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you listen, they’re going to tell you the answer. But you got to listen. And I think the problem is, is a lot of people try to think about the answer while they’re trying to listen at the same time. And that just doesn’t work. All right. So you got recruited by this shiny object vacation rental because you like to travel. Why else? What else appeals you to it?

Mickey Booher (05:55.244)
Yeah.

Mickey Booher (06:06.381)
Mm-hmm.

Well, I have to say in the timeshare business, the money was quick and it was very good money and a really good, talented timeshare sales professional can make a lot of money. And so if I’m being honest, that was, know, yeah, I’m going to do this for a few months. And the next thing you know, you’re like, I might be doing this a lot longer. For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

John Harcar (06:14.176)
Mmm.

John Harcar (06:23.561)
Okay.

John Harcar (06:33.042)
You’re making that type of money for sure. Yeah.

Mickey Booher (06:38.292)
And working for an independently privately owned company, they treated the people really well at that time too. So you felt good about what you did because the people were getting, they were being treated well. And if anybody had a really big problem, you can make a call and get it fixed and make the client happy. So it seemed to satisfy all my immediate needs at that point in my life.

John Harcar (07:01.61)
Sure, and I’m sure there wasn’t too much of a difference in the pitch or not in the pitch, the way you’re approaching people. mean, you’re still in the same listening, the tone, type of things.

Mickey Booher (07:14.242)
Yeah, and you know, the questions are almost the same too, you know, like, hey, if you floated out for the next three, four years, what do you want your vacation life to look like? You know, and I used to ask people, hey, forget about right now today, four years from now, you know, what would this house look like to you? Would you still be excited to have done this? And in both cases, it puts them to imagine it.

And yeah, sometimes they go, I don’t want this house in four years. Well, great, let’s move on, look at something else, you know? So yeah, it was very congruent.

John Harcar (07:44.979)
for

What were the struggles you started to come up against or you were having in there that got you kind of on the other side of the coin in a sense?

Mickey Booher (07:58.606)
You mean that’s what we do today? Yeah. Well, when the financial tsunami, I think that we all remember hit, you know, between 2005 and 2007, it affected the company that I was the vice president of. We no longer had lending potential to sell our product to people. And so we got bought out by a company. And when I was in the transition process,

John Harcar (08:00.606)
Yeah, as to what you do today.

Mickey Booher (08:26.51)
helping them with the purchase of the company. was on the transition team. I got to really hear what are the, and I don’t want to mention their name, but the timeshare company that took us over, there was some stuff set around the, know, smokey table that was just, I couldn’t believe what was said out loud. So they offered me to stay on and I respectfully declined. And I left and went to a company that had recruited me that was

one of the largest in the world. had a nice big brand name. And I thought to myself, my gosh, thank goodness I’m finally with a reputable big name company. And they offered me an executive position, which was great. But I was there, it wasn’t there too long when I realized that it was worse than anything I’d ever heard as far as misrepresentation and fraud and that kind of thing.

John Harcar (09:05.929)
Right.

John Harcar (09:21.022)
Like what? Give me an example. mean, it doesn’t have be a general example.

Mickey Booher (09:23.854)
Yeah, no. You know, selling a timeshare as an investment is a perfect example, right? By this today, it’s going to go up in value. When the reality is, when a legitimate real estate transaction takes place, we run comps on a property, right? Well, if you did that in the timeshare industry, you would run a comp that would show somebody selling it for a dollar on eBay and nobody’s buying it. So when you take 30, 40, 50, $100,000 from somebody,

you know, you’ve done it in my opinion, you’ve done a disservice to those people. could have bought it on eBay for a buck. but worse than that is, Hey, buy this today. You’re not a vacationer. That’s fine. Buy this because it’ll go up and within five, 10 years, it’ll be worth X amount of dollars. And you can put your kids through college and that kind of stuff. There was a lot of that going on. promises of, big paybacks on rental.

John Harcar (10:00.576)
So sure.

Mickey Booher (10:23.086)
which, which really didn’t exist. and you know, being from a corporate level, the higher ups, everybody knew what was going on. So it wasn’t like it was a couple of rogue salespeople. was, you know, it was a systemic problem. they would, we’d sit around and they would talk about, Hey, here’s a, a, a little, piece that we can give them.

John Harcar (10:36.224)
All right.

Yeah.

Mickey Booher (10:49.55)
that will help them with some of their misrepresentation. So it was collaborative. And after a couple of years, I guess it took me a year to kind of figure out what the game really was. But there wasn’t a week that came by that I would work at a local resort and a client would come in and they’d say, hey,

John Harcar (11:04.064)
Mm-hmm.

Mickey Booher (11:14.586)
We understand that you’re in town and whatnot, can we talk to you?” I’d say, sure. And they’d say, we bought this product 10, 15 years ago, whatever it is, we’ve upgraded it four times. We’ve got a half a million dollars invested in this thing. And we just want to give it back because I’m trying to retire. And I would have somebody in their 70s say, you know, I should be playing golf right now, but my maintenance fees on this are thousands of dollars a month in some cases.

John Harcar (11:37.61)
Yeah.

Mickey Booher (11:43.118)
And I can’t retire because I can’t get rid of this timeshare. I don’t want my kids to have it. You know, can you just take it back for free? And you would think that that would be an easy decision. Hey, sure, I’ll just sell it to somebody else. But if you see the way a timeshare company really makes their money, it’s on those maintenance fees. So they don’t want to give the money, you know, even for free, they have to go spend money to go find another dues paying owner. They’ve got you trapped.

John Harcar (12:02.026)
Yeah.

Mickey Booher (12:11.086)
So why would they, you know, want to spend my time? Yeah. So I found myself meeting some people after work, you know, at the diner or cafe or wherever down the street. And I’d say, listen, if you tell this company I’m working for what I’m doing, I could and should be fired. But here, let me tell you what we can do to help you get out of it. And I would just send them to somebody that could help them.

John Harcar (12:12.778)
Why would they let you go?

Mickey Booher (12:40.62)
get out of it because I knew how the sausage was made on the back end.

John Harcar (12:43.902)
someone like who? Like who are you sending these people to?

Mickey Booher (12:47.074)
I just knew a couple people that would help them and I would call them up and say, hey, in some cases if it was bad enough, but I also knew what you had to do to the resort that would get their attention and make them address your concerns. after about, you know, eight, nine months of doing this, to be honest, I kind of felt guilty. I’m like, you know, I’m working for this company and I’m working against them. I shouldn’t, you know,

John Harcar (12:49.564)
okay. Attorneys like someone like that or?

John Harcar (13:00.234)
Got it.

Mickey Booher (13:14.894)
So I finally just came to them and just said, hey, I can’t partake in this anymore. I wrote them a sheet of all the fraud that was occurring as if they didn’t know, but they knew. And I resigned and three months later, the calls kept coming in. So I started my own exit firm. that was this September, I believe will be our ninth year in business. So yeah.

John Harcar (13:41.354)
Wow, that’s awesome. What timing, isn’t there any type of legislation or anything anywhere that protects people from all these different things? mean, obviously you’re fighting, fighting it, so.

Mickey Booher (13:52.716)
Yeah, it’s really defeating sometimes because there’s a lobby, they have a lot, the Timeshare organization has a lobby and it’s called ARDA, American Resort Development Association. And they are a very powerful lobby. mean, I always say that the biggest lobby you never heard of, right? Because we all heard of big tobacco, big pharma, big oil. Once you get past those…

John Harcar (14:14.741)
Hehe.

Yeah.

Mickey Booher (14:20.206)
the top four, this is probably the next biggest one, it would be my guess. But they’re out there working against this. In fact, the legislation that has happened has been against this, not for us. I’ll give you a good example. Back, you know, before 2013, if you wanted to get rid of a timeshare, there was a few people that did this. They would go to a homeless place, encampment.

And the trick was if you could find somebody with a valid driver’s license, that was the hardest part. If you could do that, you brought a mobile notary with you, you could sell them your timeshare for a dollar or a case of beer or whatever it was. And it worked. That was legal. You could do it. In 2013, that became a criminal act. And that’s because of the timeshare lobby. So.

John Harcar (15:03.839)
Yeah.

Mickey Booher (15:16.343)
If you do that now, there’s all kinds of repercussions for somebody doing that. So it’s, yeah, it’s a real.

John Harcar (15:16.864)
Crazy.

John Harcar (15:23.21)
So eventually they would have to just, I mean the guy wouldn’t be paying the dues on it so they would… What, a victim?

Mickey Booher (15:30.028)
Well, here’s the funny thing. Generally, timeshare company will threaten foreclosure with very rare instance. Do they really foreclose? They just know that’s a word that people were associated to go. no, I don’t want that. But if honestly, if they’d foreclose, it would be worth it for most people to get out of this debt load that’s going to haunt them in perpetuity. But I’ve rarely seen a timeshare. I’ve seen it, but very rarely have I seen a timeshare company foreclose.

John Harcar (15:35.36)
for closing.

Really.

Mickey Booher (15:59.276)
What they will do is, is they will let those fees add up. And here in California is an example. Once the fees, the back fees are over $10,000, you’re no longer in small claims court. And they will go to court. They’ll get a judgment against you. There’s not a week that somebody doesn’t come to my office and they’re like, what is this? know, like they’re garnishing my wages now. There’s a lien on my house. And once it gets to that level,

John Harcar (16:12.064)
Mm-hmm.

Mickey Booher (16:28.014)
I have to tell them there’s really not much anybody can do for you. mean, you’re going to have to once he gets that level, just tough to find people that will work those cases. Yeah.

John Harcar (16:36.852)
Yeah. So what does your team look like? mean, how are you going out there and finding these folks that need your help? How are you advertising?

Mickey Booher (16:46.222)
For the most part, I would say 80 % of our clients are referred to us, which has been nice. In the past, we did a local radio spot one time. We’ve done some social media advertising here and there. But I would say 70 % of the people we get are referrals from other people we got out of their timeshares. So, yeah.

John Harcar (17:10.548)
some of the best kind. Yeah, best kind. What do you attribute your success, your drive, you know, what do you attribute it all to? That keeps you going.

Mickey Booher (17:22.988)
Well, I guess I’d say really two things. One, I love doing it. If you sat across from enough people that said, I should be retired now, I just want to go play golf, and you see a grown man cry when you get him out, all of a sudden, you take a step back, you say, wow, this is real. I mean, this is real. I’ve got a set of golf clubs.

John Harcar (17:35.262)
Yeah.

Mickey Booher (17:52.174)
from a guy that works at a, I probably shouldn’t say the name of the golf club company, but was a bunch of them here in Carl’s bed. And he had me over and fit me for a free set and he gave me one. He did, yeah. And I told him, said, no, you don’t have to do this. This is crazy. And he goes, I think you saved my marriage. And I always laugh. go, I love the word think in there. I think you saved my marriage.

John Harcar (18:03.424)
I’m gonna say custom Fitchy for some ga- that’s nice right there. Nice.

John Harcar (18:17.374)
I think I saved it, yeah. No, that’s…

Mickey Booher (18:20.238)
But yeah, it’s real. I know what’s coming, the next one. I know somebody isn’t emotional today, but they’re holding that stress in. Maybe it’s the therapist in me. They’ve been holding him for so long. And then once it’s gone, their whole body shifts and they just release. And they’ve been holding on to, cause they know that this company’s had a gun to their head. And every year, hey, know, last year was $1,200. This year’s $1,500.

John Harcar (18:36.96)
Mm-hmm.

Mickey Booher (18:48.11)
Next year’s 2,100 bucks. What are you gonna do about it? Nothing. Nothing you could do. that kind of, yeah, that impacts us a lot. The other thing I would just say, you know, when I first got nine years ago, when we first started, I felt like there was only eight or nine of us in the business. And one or two of the companies were, I don’t even want to say they intentionally were bad, but I think they were well-intended, but they just weren’t getting people out.

They would do a letter writing campaign. And today that doesn’t work. If you think you’re just going write a bunch of letters to the resort for the client and all of sudden they’re going to go, OK, and let you out. It doesn’t work that way. Depending on the resort, it’s a fight. And today I feel like, and I don’t know this to be statistically factual, so forgive me, but it feels like three out of four of my competitors, that’s what they do. They’re just going to write letters.

John Harcar (19:29.639)
No.

Mickey Booher (19:45.228)
saying mean things to the timeshare company who if you just open up your browser and put one of them in Google, you’re to find all the mean things in the world said about them already. They’re not affected by this. And then the customer a lot of times doesn’t get out and then they’re fighting over a money back guarantee or some whatever they were advertised to get. So the fact that we really get people out, we’re not a phone room. We have an actual office. People come in here.

John Harcar (19:53.876)
Right.

Mickey Booher (20:15.182)
A lot of people now are contacting us via Zoom. But today on the internet, you can look people up. You can see that we’ve got a BBB that’s not just A plus, but it’s accredited. The BBB has an advertisement endorsement on our site, which is something you can’t buy. And they’ve nominated us twice for a Torch Award for Ethics. We have not won. So we’re still…

John Harcar (20:33.312)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (20:43.092)
Well, got nominated. that’s a step above other people that aren’t nominated.

Mickey Booher (20:45.696)
Yeah, I guess you’re right. You know, we should be happy with the nomination.

That’s true. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. We get a little, we’re taking it a little personal this last one, but, but, we also got a best of the best award from the timeshare owners Alliance, which is a separate outfit. That’s a not for profit. And they’re very good. They’re, they’re made up of timeshare owners. So, so we’re privileged to have that. So yeah, just doing it right. But we call it the woohoo call when we call somebody up and say it’s done. Yeah, that’s it. So.

John Harcar (21:07.764)
Got it. Very cool.

John Harcar (21:17.418)
Woohoo. What advice would you recommend or give to someone who is thinking about or being approached by a timeshare or looking at a timeshare?

Mickey Booher (21:20.462)
Yes.

Mickey Booher (21:27.886)
Um, you know, this is what I would say. I’ve some of the smartest people I’ve ever met are my clients. So a lot of times if you think, man, I’m impervious, I’ll go take the free round of golf for the free vacuum cleaner or whatever it is they’re offering you and I’ll be okay. Um, I can tell you I’ve literally had NASA employees. I’ve had MIT graduates, like a literal rocket science. mean, I’m not even joking. That’s literally what it is. A rocket scientist.

Was one of our clients and they’ve all been duped at one point or another the average timeshare sales professional That is a top producer has received more training than a chiropractor more hours They’re good at what they do So don’t you know just put the ego away pay for your own vacuum cleaner golf trip That would be my advice I’m awesome

John Harcar (22:11.584)
Right?

Mickey Booher (22:24.142)
I’m also asked all the time, know, well, what’s a good time share? you know, I, I don’t even like to recommend one cause what’s good today could change ownership and be bad tomorrow. You know, Airbnb is a great way to, and by the way,

John Harcar (22:35.44)
Airbnb, there you go. That’s a good time. Sure. Go Airbnb, save some, you it might cost a little money now, but it’s gonna save you lot of money in long run.

Mickey Booher (22:43.95)
And a lot of times on Airbnb or VRBO, you’re renting from a timeshare owner who’s stuck. And his maintenance fees are $2,000. He just wants 900 to offset it. You’re getting a great deal and he’s offsetting his fees a little bit. So yeah, you’re very wise. That is true.

John Harcar (23:01.274)
If folks are hearing this and maybe they’re caught in a timeshare or they know somebody, how would they get a hold of you? What’s the best way for them to connect with you?

Mickey Booher (23:11.052)
Most people know us by our website. It’s www.helpmeexit.com. Just spell it out, put no spaces, helpmeexit.com. And if you’d like to call us, we’re at 888-501-EXIT.

John Harcar (23:26.918)
Awesome. Well, and I’ll put all that in the show notes. Mickey, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing your knowledge on, I totally forget now, Time Sheriff. And I hope if there’s anybody out there that is stuck, call Mickey. It sounds like he’s got a great track record and he can maybe get you out. So I hope you guys enjoyed the show. Mickey, hope you had a good show with me here. I know I did. And yeah, I appreciate you. And we’ll see everybody out there on the next one. Cheers.

Mickey Booher (23:37.891)
Yeah.

Mickey Booher (23:52.139)
I love it.

Mickey Booher (23:56.034)
I’m a big fan, thanks.