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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Garrett Von Flue, a real estate professional who shares his journey from a blue-collar worker to a successful real estate agent and investor. Garrett discusses the importance of relationships in business, learning from failures, and his future goals in real estate development. He emphasizes the need for genuine connections and the value of perseverance in achieving success.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Garrett Von Flue (00:00)
So if you’re not having failures, you need to start having failures because that’s how you grow. I guess we’ll talk about one of my failures. I’ve never put this on public record before. It’s been a quiet deal. but uh you know, when I was in…Memphis real estate. Um, I was new to it. Obviously I was younger and a lot of times when you start running your own business you chase the shiny objects um and
you know, to forefront that you really need to focus on your business as a whole, but you also need to be very specific about your business and your business plan. So a lot of people get into the business and they chase too many different things at once and they can’t really sit down and focus on what is going to drive their business forward.
Quentin (02:11)
Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host Q Edmonds. And listen, I’m excited to be here. I’m excited that I got this gentleman here. You know, I’ve been looking forward to this podcast episode and I just can’t wait for you as our viewers, as our listeners, for you to get to peek at things through his lens. He’s an Asian in Wichita, Kansas. He has served our country. So I give him all the due respect that is due to him.But listen, I want him to tell you kind of what he’s doing now, what he’s doing in Wichita, Kansas. So I just want to introduce you guys to Mr. Garrett Von Flue, Mr. Garrett, how you doing today,
Garrett Von Flue (02:52)
Hey, I’m doing good, man. How are you?Quentin (02:54)
man, man, doing good, doing good. Like I said, man, I’ve been looking forward to this and listen, man, I want you to take our viewers, our listeners, take them into your world, man. Tell them the things that you’re mainly focused on these days. If you want to give us a little backstory on how you got started, we love origin stories. So if you want to do that, I would love to hear that. And I already kind of tipped them on what markets you’re operating in. But if you want to sprinkle that in, you can do that as well. But the floor is yours, sir.Garrett Von Flue (03:07)
Okay.Yeah, I mean, a quick backstory is, you know, I was a blue collar guy living in California, did a lot of welding, built race cars, hot rods, diesel mechanic. At the age of 25, I kind of got tired of,
a lot of that and I wanted to find something that I could build wealth from for my family. So we decided to completely uproot and moved over into Mississippi and started doing some real estate in Memphis.
So Memphis was a great market for me. Did quite a bit of deals there. Sold seven to eight million dollars a year there. Made it into a couple magazines. And then at the age of 27, after just doing it couple years, becoming successful, I decided to put that on pause and we went ahead and joined the Army. So it was kind of a pivotal moment in life. I knew I was, you know, it was one of those things where
It was kind of an hour and everything. And I always wanted to serve. And I knew that once I did serve a contract, I’d still be young enough to get out and pursue real estate again. So we went ahead and did that. three years in the Army, stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. Um I was artillery. So that was an experience. And we just got out in April.
So instead of going back to Memphis, decided to try out a new market and I saw all the growth um and opportunity that Wichita had to offer. So I landed in Wichita and here we are. I’ve been back in real estate for a couple of months now.
And we’ve been killing it. I mean, we’ve got a lot under contract right now. I do a variety of different things from agent to consultant to investor myself, and then kind of getting into the development world. So that’s kind where we’re sitting at right now.
Quentin (05:36)
I love it. I told you backstage and I want to put it on record here, man. Thank you for what you’ve done for this country, man. I appreciate you so much, sir um Now, man, you said you added, been added for, you know I think think I you said April. You’re bad in the game. You’re killing it. You killing it before. You’re killing it now. So give us some of the secrets of your sauce, man. What are some of the key strategies that you have to kind of keep that machine running smooth?Garrett Von Flue (06:00)
So it’s a lot, there’s a lot of moving pieces in real estate, but I think the biggest thing for me is I base my my business around relationships. you know one with clients, two with anything, anyone you’re networking with. The relationships that you make are going to make or break your business.I’ve had some bad relationships in the Memphis market and I lost some money to some shady people. And so now I just try to drive myself around genuine good people as far as peers go and then clients. I make sure that I take the time to build that relationship and that rapport and let them know that they are taken care of. And it feels like they’re shopping with a friend. They’re not shopping with a sales guy. So that’s kind of how I look at things.
Quentin (06:41)
Nah man, I’m with you man, those relationships and actually if we get to it, I wanna talk a little bit about relationships, but I’ll do that a little bit later. But relationships, building those authentic relationships is everything man, because they say that your net worth is tied to your network. So being around a people that’s like-minded, you know? So yeah man, I know you know that and that’s what you just said, that’s what I gleaned from it.is just being around the right people. It’s a game changer, absolute game changer. And so man, yeah.
Garrett Von Flue (07:14)
Yeah,and from a business standpoint, like you said, your network is your net worth. You have to really make sure you’re surrounding yourself with people um that have the same vision as you, you have a you know higher goals, you have ambition. And if you’re not surrounding yourself with those kind of people, you know I don’t know where you’re going to go.
Quentin (07:33)
Absolutely. No, you’re absolutely correct, man So, I know you talked about just going from one market to the next. And so, and I know you talked about, know, I think you talked about being around the wrong person has kind of hurt you in a little bit. And so there are times, you know, when things get real, right, when things go sideways, times when you had to pivot fast in this game. And I was wondering if you could, if you don’t mind sharing a story like that. And I tell you why, because we have people listening.that different parts of their journey. And I don’t want to be one of those podcasts that always talk about the success, but don’t talk about the journey to success. You know what I mean? And so that’s why I kind of asked you that question to kind of build motivation for people that may be in a situation where they haven’t overcame it. They’re just going in and they like, what the hell? And so I was just wondering if you could share like a story like that. Yeah.
Garrett Von Flue (08:23)
Yeah. Yeah.So if you’re not having failures, you need to start having failures because that’s how you grow. I guess we’ll talk about one of my failures. I’ve never put this on public record before. It’s been a quiet deal. but uh you know, when I was in…
Memphis real estate. Um, I was new to it. Obviously I was younger and a lot of times when you start running your own business you chase the shiny objects and
you know, to forefront that you really need to focus on your business as a whole, but you also need to be very specific about your business and your business plan. So a lot of people get into the business and they chase too many different things at once and they can’t really sit down and focus on what is going to drive their business forward.
So that’s one of the biggest problems I had when I was younger.
You know, as a real estate agent, I was so excited about getting into investing and doing flips and what not that the very first flip that I tried to do, I completely failed at. I had I was so excited that I had found one of the bigger flippers in town. He was doing a lot of deals and he seemed like a great person. We we got along. We had lunch a couple of times and then we decided to do a joint venture.
You know I should have done more research. I should have looked into things a little bit more. But this is 100 % on me. And this cost me a lot of money as a learning lesson. I jumped into this joint venture with him before signing a contract. And we found the house that we wanted to purchase together. So we each were going to put up the money for it.
And so I handed him a check for $12,500, which was half of the down payment and everything we needed to get this done.
prior to signing any type of joint venture with my name on it. Well, unfortunately, he decided to take that money and run, and I never saw it again. So going back to chasing shiny objects, you, you just really need to focus on, if you’re a real estate agent, focus on that until you’re really good real estate agent. Anything that you’re doing, focus a lot of your attention on that before you start jumping into other paths.
Quentin (10:58)
Yeah. ⁓Garrett Von Flue (11:00)
because things get wonky.Quentin (11:02)
Yeah. No, man, Gary, sir, I got to be honest, man. Thank you for the gift of your vulnerability. Thank you for sharing that story in this space. And it’s no doubt in my mind that that story is going to be impactful for somebody. You know, I’ve heard so many stories like yours, and that’s not to make your story sound insignificant. But I’m glad you shared it, because like you said, listen, failure is part of success.Like that’s, that’s literally the two sides of the coin. This is how you appreciate success because of the failures that we’ve been through. And so, ⁓ it just shows me your, your mindset that you’re not just a person that dabble. You’re somebody that’s going to be in it for the long term. And so again, man, I appreciate you saying that, sharing that story here. And I just wanted to say that to you.
Garrett Von Flue (11:53)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of us are afraid to talk about our failures. We don’t want to put that out publicly. But at the end of the day, like we both said, you know, if you’re not failing, you’re not learning. You’re going to have failures. That’s OK. You can you can tell, you know, tell people about that, you know, talk to your peer groups. It doesn’t have to be public. You don’t have to share it. But, you know, make sure that you’re talking about that and you’re adjusting and you’re moving forward so that we can learn and adjust from those failures.Quentin (12:21)
Absolutely, man. Absolutely love it, man. So let me ask you this. What are you most, what are you focused on scaling or solving next? Like what’s the next real goal for you,Garrett Von Flue (12:31)
So it’s funny we go from what we just talked about to this now because now my attention is going in a couple different directions. But I’m also at a point in my business where I think I’m able to do that.Quentin (12:34)
Yeah.Garrett Von Flue (12:40)
So obviously I’m an agent first and foremost. That is my passion. I love helping families get into homes. But aside from the agent part, what other things I’m pursuing at the moment is real estate development. It’s something that’s always been a passion of mine. I want to start building houses. So that’s something we’ve started really looking into. We’ve been looking for some land. We’ve been building a team of architect, builders, civil engineer, everything that you need onon your team. But the thing that we’re doing is we’re making sure we have that team in place before we go out and we do too much. And so that’s a tricky thing too, because people get stuck in analysis paralysis, right? Where you have to have everything perfect before you go out and do things.
Which, you know, we’re trying to get as much of it in rhythm as possible before we do it, but at the same time, we will jump into it full steam before we’re exactly probably ready. But so there’s two sides of the coin there. But yeah, that’s what we’re doing at the moment. And that’s what excites me is we’re starting to get into the real estate development space. We’re going to start building some houses.
Quentin (14:20)
I love it, man. I love it. Now, I hear you saying we, and I told you I was going to come back to relationships because you’ve had a bad relationship, business relationship, but it sounds like you are building healthy relationships, business relationships. And so I want to get your perspective on relationships. So when it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?Garrett Von Flue (14:46)
Yeah, so I keep saying we because it’s not me. You can’t do the entire business by yourself. You’ve got to have a team of people, a network. You’ve got to have someone smarter in the room than you. so, yeah, relationships, I think, are one of the biggest things. You know like I talked about, we… Good, genuine people in your corner, smarter people in your corner.the more people you know, the further you will go. And so that’s a quote that I’ve always thought was really cool. And it really
Quentin (15:13)
with you, sir, relationships are everything in this space. you know it’s always, you know, I got a saying that says two, two is better than one because if somebody else fall, you got, who can help you up if you by yourself. So when two are together, if somebody can fall, somebody be there to help you up. And so I definitely think, you know, building community and common unity together is the way to go. I think relationships.or everything in this space, having somebody that you can lean on when times get tough is so pivotal. And so listen, I’ll be honest with you, Garrett, man. Is there any kind of encouragement, inspiration that you want to leave with our audience? You you don’t went from one market to another. You didn’t went to the army and came back. You’ve had some bad relationships that you overcome. You’re about to move into this real estate development. So is there kind of just…
any inspirational encouragement that maybe you want to leave people before we leave.
Garrett Von Flue (16:12)
Yeah, I mean, listen, we haven’t really talked about my past as a child either. You know, I came from a pretty rough upbringing. You know, the 20s were a lot of trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I’m 31 years old right now, and we’re kind of just getting back on track with what I want to do. So I think the biggest thing is like, give yourself grace. If you’re 25, if you’re 27 and you still haven’t figured it out.You got time. All you got to do is keep going. I think a lot of timelines are pushed upon us from the um uh you know world. Um, you know. You’ve got to be married by this age. You’ve got to have kids by this age. You have to be successful by this age. And I think everyone has their own timeline. And I think it really puts a down feeling on people when they don’t have something accomplished by a certain age. So I think that’s huge. I think that you just need to give yourself grace.
and you need to keep pushing and you need to keep going after your goals. Don’t sit there and be stagnant because then you’re not going to get anywhere. But if you’re effort in and you’re constantly making steps and progress forward, that’s when you get somewhere. So I think that’s my biggest piece of advice is don’t listen to other people, don’t listen to the social norms, the social timelines, and just keep going.
Quentin (17:31)
Yeah, man, I appreciate that. I’m glad we made space for that message, man. And thank you so much. Thank you for sharing. Just again, just thank you for the gift of your vulnerability. It’s not always easy just to come from a vulnerable place and let people see like, hey, this is where I come from. This is what I’ve been through. But I appreciate you sharing so much, So listen, man, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you.They may be in the Wichita, Kansas area, so if they wanted to collaborate with you, come see what you’re doing, work with you, hire you. What’s the best way for them to get in contact with you,
Garrett Von Flue (18:05)
I’m on all platforms, gvonflue. So that’s G-V-O-N-F-L-U-E. I use Instagram and Facebook a lot. That’s kind of mainly where I’m at. So if you want to find me, that’s where you find me.Quentin (18:16)
And gvonflue was pretty dope, man. That’s a pretty dope hand, bro. I gotta say myself. ⁓ But listen, man, thank you so much for coming through. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for your story, your perspective. I know our viewers have gotten really, really good value out of this conversation. So, man, I appreciate you coming through.Garrett Von Flue (18:21)
Thank you.Good,
absolutely. I appreciate you having me. Like this is great. I enjoy being able put some type of message that will hopefully help someone out there.
Quentin (18:47)
Yes, sir.Well, man, you put it out there and we’re to let the seeds fall where they will. And some plant some water and then increase is all out of our hands. It’s up to the people to do the grind. You know what I’m saying? And so you definitely planted some seeds here today, man. I appreciate it,
Garrett Von Flue (19:02)
Absolutely. Thank you, Quentin.Quentin (19:04)
No problem, So listen, y’all got the value. Y’all heard my man, GVonFlue Listen, all I ask is that you go ahead and subscribe. Just subscribe that way you can come back because we’re going to continue just to bring up amazing people. Just like today was just no different. So Mr. Garrett, again, I appreciate you so much. And listen, everyone else, we will see you on the next time.
