Stop Chasing Every Opportunity: Ryan Harthan’s Real Estate Success Strategy

Ryan Harthan (00:00)
Man, just do the thing that you’re good at. you can’t be the jack of all trades. It doesn’t work. It’s never worked, it’s never happened. They keep trying it. Again, me and you can we can drop some names and our personal text messages. I’ll tell you who to talk to. But it never works. So guys like just be good at be the best at what you’re at.

Issa Hanna (00:21)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Show. I’m your host, Issa Hanna, and today I have Ryan Harthan a seasoned investor, here to share his knowledge with us. Ryan, welcome to my show.

Ryan Harthan (02:07)
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, Issa

Issa Hanna (02:09)
man, I’m glad to have you. We were talking a little bit. We had a little bit of pre-conversation. and you are one knowledgeable guy. So with that, can you kind of run down your day to day st what you’re doing nowadays and then what kind of businesses you’re getting into?

Ryan Harthan (02:26)
Okay. So that’s kind of a little bit of a complicated question. But what I will say is I wake up at about three to four o’clock in the morning, Eastern time. I have to deal with my partners in Europe. And what I will say is there’s a couple businesses that I’ve my partner Bless his soul. I don’t want to be involved in whatsoever. Flipping houses is the worst thing you can do. It is it’s a terrible idea, costs way too much money, it’s always over budget, it’s always over time. what else he try to do? Boy, he’s gonna he’s gonna be listening to this. You try to start off a a title company. And I was like, terrible idea. Least amount of money, most amount of problems. Like just everybody’s complaining the entire time. Like let somebody else do that. Property management. Get out of that. Let somebody else do it. There’s people that are better than it than me. I mean, I know how to do it, but it never works out. And again, you’re making the least amount of money for the most amount of problems. So we stay out of that. I I’m trying to stay out of that. at least on like the wholesale stuff and like doing the commercial real estate thing, like that’s pretty easy. You just gotta know how to do it. And a lot of people are gonna give you really bad advice to where. It doesn’t quite make sense. So throw me throw me some more questions.

Issa Hanna (04:35)
For sure. So we were talking earlier and you mentioned your business partner being in Europe. you also mentioned that you you have a lot of other international business that you do and that you speak multiple languages. So can you shed some light on how many languages you speak and and what they are?

Ryan Harthan (04:51)
Que merecer en español, interpretó decir. Latin I can do a little bit of. I got a church, I’m Catholic. Mandarin I can do a little bit of. Portuguese I’m not great with.

Issa Hanna (05:04)
And all these and all these languages that that you had to learn is is out of necessity because you’ve got to do business with these people and best way to do business is to talk to them in their language, right?

Ryan Harthan (05:05)
A little bit. it’s like like you said, it’s more out of necessity. I don’t wanna do it. I wish they all spoke English.

Issa Hanna (05:19)
Like But they don’t and you gotta communicate.

Ryan Harthan (05:24)
If you can’t pick up from my accent, I’m definitely from South Texas.

Issa Hanna (05:29)
Like the same thing. Yeah, nothing wrong with Texas. I’m also a fellow Texan myself. and and it’s even more remarkable, you know, how many Texans can speak that many languages. That’s that’s unbelievable. And then we also talked about your your extensive education. You you know, you went to UT Dallas and You’ve got your degrees. Can you tell people what kind of degrees that you got?

Ryan Harthan (05:53)
Yeah, so I went to UT Dallas. I was originally going to medical school. And that didn’t work out because I don’t understand stereochemistry. Go Google that if you want to figure out what that’s about. but my dad got I think he broke his back or something. I had to move back to San Antonio. So I moved out of you. Dallas, I moved back to San Antonio and yeah, to run the business. So I was going to college at the time and I was get I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do and like what degrees I was gonna have and I got syndicated finance, business administration and real estate. By the way, complete waste of money. I would not advise anyone to do that. Stop doing it.

Issa Hanna (06:33)
Yeah, because you’ll get to get a job. Well, you told me, you said, you know, the best way to learn is through the school of hard knocks and that you want to write a book and you don’t want to hear about the guys winning, you want to hear about the guys losing. So can you shed some more light about that?

Ryan Harthan (06:47)
Sure. Who do you think has better advice? The guy that’s sitting on stage. I mean, I’m not gonna name any names. I have a lot of them. You guys are like, This is how you make money in real estate? Or the guy’s like, I lost a ton of money, and here’s how it happened. That’s the guy you want to hear, bro. That guy goes, Okay, you’re in Texas, we don’t really have this issue in Florida. But what I would say is like fix the foundation first. You know, start there.

Issa Hanna (07:15)
And then and

Ryan Harthan (07:16)
then move forward. yeah, people have just like bad ideas about this stuff. And there’s there’s ton of videos on YouTube and a ton of people who are talking about stuff that like is not relevant. And when you start actually looking into it you go Wait a minute, none of this makes any sense.

Issa Hanna (07:18)
Hundred percent. Hundred percent. Hundred percent. There’s a lot of guys out there, man. they they don’t have the type of experience that that somebody like you has. when you have experience

Ryan Harthan (08:19)
I’ll send you a text I’ll send you a text message of people that I’m talking about.

Issa Hanna (08:24)
Uh-huh. It’ll be our and if you guys want to see it, we may or may not release it. Depends on how many views this video gets.

Ryan Harthan (08:31)
It’s up to you. It’s up to you. So I’m not I’m not gonna tell you whether you can or can’t. But let’s just say that come from San Antonio and Dallas and moving to Tampa. I’m technically I’m in St. Petersburg. Whatever. I say Tampa all the time because nobody knows where St. Petersburg is. But when you start looking through what they actually are saying. is white. And I would advise everybody to not listen to that.

Issa Hanna (08:58)
Definitely. and not only are you qualified through your experience to be giving this advice and your education at UT, but you’ve also had a hand in building a huge company and you were there from almost the start. can you shed some more light on your time at that company?

Ryan Harthan (09:14)
Sure. So the day of my graduation from UT was the first day I started work. So my mom called me from South Carolina and she was like, I’m gonna come to your graduation. I was like, okay, well, funny thing about that is you’re gonna be the only one there. Because I started work the next day. And I worked for a company. do you want me to disclose that or

Issa Hanna (09:37)
Yeah, you can say it. You can say yours.

Ryan Harthan (09:39)
I yeah, I worked for New Western Acquisitions for solid seven years. And when we started we had three offices. I started the third office with them and by the time I left we had thirty-five. And a thousand employees. So when I tell you like we were doing like the business was You know, I’m just guessing right now. I could be wrong. It was like A thousand houses a month. That we were closing. So, I mean, it was all over the country. And I went there. To Philly. I thought we were talking about this earlier. I went to Philly. I went to Denver. I went to Imperial Beach. Atlanta. And then I brought him out to Florida. But eventually I I I had to leave. It just wasn’t you know, it wasn’t working. But then I hooked up with my business partner from Frosinone.

Issa Hanna (10:29)
Sounds cool.

Ryan Harthan (10:30)
Little little south of Rome. And we linked up on that. And it’s been good since then. Now I don’t want to say too much about that, because if you’re gonna post those, he’s gonna hear it.

Issa Hanna (10:43)
Okay.

Ryan Harthan (10:44)
I will just say he’s made some bad decisions in the past.

Issa Hanna (10:48)
And he needs a guy like you to kinda rein him in and be like, Hey, listen, I’ve been through the fire, I’ve got the knowledge, and this is what she should be doing. So you better be thanking him.

Ryan Harthan (10:58)
Issa, I’m good at one thing and one thing only. I stick in my life.

Issa Hanna (11:03)
And and that’s why.

Ryan Harthan (11:04)
a new business. I’m not trying to do all this. I do one thing very well.

Issa Hanna (11:50)
you know what you do well and you stick to it, it makes you money and and that’s how successful real estate people are when people are in our industry. Yeah. And I

Ryan Harthan (11:58)
think that’s the fallacy of where everybody kind of gets caught up with it because Again, 15 years in this. What I will say is there’s there’s a progression from idiots. And this is how you can tell. So here’s how you know you’re talking to an idiot. first thing they do, they start wholesaling, right? Good job for you. Then they go, I’m gonna flip houses. And then they try that out for a little bit. They’re like, I’m gonna buy rentals. And then they go, I’m gonna buy multifamily, and then somehow in this progression of things, they’re like, I’m gonna write a book, or I’m gonna do a TV show. Like, that’s the ultimate like end of it. Yeah, it’s like I’m gonna start a TV show, and you’re like, Man, just do the thing that you’re good at. Can’t be good at you can’t be the jack of all trades. It doesn’t work. It’s never worked, it’s never happened. They keep trying it. Again, me and you can we can drop some names and our personal text messages. I’ll tell you who to talk to. But it never works. So guys like just be good at be the best at what you’re at.

Issa Hanna (13:01)
No. Mm-hmm. And stay in your lane. you know, every everybody has a specialty. So stick to your specialty. you know, because in real estate, when you venture out, if you really don’t know what you’re doing, or partner up with somebody that that that fills in those weak spots, because if you don’t know what you’re doing in real estate, you could lose thousands, thousands of dollars. I mean, it can be riding a high wave and then you boom, you crash. So man, Ryan, I love your style.

Ryan Harthan (13:32)
Well I will say is

Issa Hanna (13:33)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Harthan (13:33)
That’s adorable that you said that. you can lose millions of dollars.

Issa Hanna (13:38)
Hundred percent.

Ryan Harthan (13:39)
me.

Issa Hanna (13:40)
Yeah.

Ryan Harthan (13:41)
you’re dealing with like you have to be on that level with the person and at least like when I when I connected with my business partner, it was actually kind of one of the funniest things that ever happen. Do you want to hear that story?

Issa Hanna (13:54)
Of course. Feel free.

Ryan Harthan (13:55)
So I left New Western in spectacular fashion. Exactly how you would imagine I would. with not not great. Not great. But yeah, I took like a month off. I was just sitting in my house and I applied for a job. I think it was like I forget what it was. It’s like property management or something like that. And then can I curse on this show or is that not exact? I’ll try not to.

Issa Hanna (14:18)
if you if it happens to happen, we’ll have the editors bleep it out.

Ryan Harthan (14:22)
Won’t do it. So, anyways, I apply for this job. I think it’s like property management or something like that in Tampa. And then I go to the interview. And it was like, I know this guy. Like, we still ask him. Exactly who it is. And he was like, I know who you are.

Issa Hanna (14:37)
Find it

Ryan Harthan (14:40)
So he just crumples up the piece of paper and throws it away. That was my interview, paperwork. And they he was like, I got a different job for you. I was like, all right. Gotta be a little bit careful at this point. At that time, non-compete agreements were kind of a thing. I was like, okay. So let’s work together. And we’ve been I don’t want to say best friends. We’ve definitely got in arguments. But if you haven’t got an argument with your business partner, you don’t have a good business partner.

Issa Hanna (15:08)
Mm-hmm. 100%. And and that’s actually such a man, perfect segue into my next question. a lot of people that watch my show are just starting out, or you know, they’re trying to get into a different field of real estate. but a lot of them are just starting out. They’re trying to build their networks, they’re trying to grow these relationships. You have been able to build a a huge company and be there from the ground up. You’ve been able to do international business you know, with international business partners, learn languages in order to cultivate these relationships. So what advice would you give them on how to grow their networks and cultivate these business relationships?

Ryan Harthan (15:45)
So like a new guy coming in?

Issa Hanna (15:47)
Yeah, like a new guy coming in trying to grow his network.

Ryan Harthan (15:49)
Hmm, that’s challenging. There’s a lot of different pieces of advice that I could give you. And The first thing is that Yeah. There’s a lot of things I can say about this. one, you’re not in the customer service business. You gotta start off with that. if you’ve got a good price, there’s a price for everything. I’ve told everybody this when I’m buying houses or I’m buying a boat or a car. There is a number for everything. I’ll sell the damn suit that I’m wearing for the right price. I’ll walk home naked. you gotta get the number right. So make sure that you’re evaluating it correctly. at the second time, you can’t let customers push you around. One of my one of my best friends. man, I want to say his name. I was just saying one of my best friends. I’ll shoot you a message later. You can talk to him. If you have an investor that’s giving you a bunch of trouble, punch him in the face. That that was his answer, and it is the best answer. Because what happens after that is there’s going to be 20 other investors that line up behind him to get punched in the face. So don’t listen to there’s a lot of static going on about people that don’t know what they’re talking about.

Issa Hanna (17:03)
Hundred percent. A hundred percent. And your philosophy of I’m gonna tell you what can go wrong before I could tell you what goes right, I believe is the right philosophy in our game because the hardest lessons learned are those those those real estate nightmares. speaking of a real estate nightmare, why don’t you give us one of yours?

Ryan Harthan (17:20)
There’s ones that you have to pay for.

Issa Hanna (17:22)
You pretty much have to pay for all the real estate nightmares. Yeah.

Ryan Harthan (17:25)
That that’s when it gets difficult. It’s when you have to start paying the bill.

Issa Hanna (17:29)
Do you have an example of a chime?

Ryan Harthan (17:31)
Are we over time?

Issa Hanna (17:32)
No, no, I said

Ryan Harthan (17:34)
I’ve got this one thing. This is aggravating me to no extent. I’ve got this eight-plex, which is probably worth like 1.2 million dollars, but I’m paying interest on it, and it’s like nine grand a month. It’s not occupied. It’s been two years we’ve been working on, and it’s because of incompetence. So I wouldn’t advise anyone, like in the beginning, unless you have look, if you want to get in flipping houses, like you really want to do that, you better have a system down. Like you need to have Really dedicated contractors for everything that are gonna get things done on time, on price. I I try to describe it as a triangle. You got a triangle, price, quality, time. So if it ideally you want to be kinda in the middle. And when you get too close to an edge or a corner, like you’re in trouble. So I would advise them to do that.

Issa Hanna (18:32)
And wow. What a great can you repeat it one time, the three sides of this triangle as well? I I love that.

Ryan Harthan (18:39)
There’s price, quality, time.

Issa Hanna (18:41)
I used to.

Ryan Harthan (18:42)
Yeah, you wanna be somewhere in the middle. Once you start getting towards an edge or like definitely you’re in trouble when you’re getting to the like the corner. Not good. but you also have to understand like contractors, they have a lifespan. They’re not good forever. Like you can you can deal with them for a little bit and you should. But one of those three things you’re gonna start moving out of the triangle here that we’re talking about eventually it’s gonna get not great. So just understand what you’re paying them, and if I can give one last piece of advice to anyone that’s gonna Thinking about getting involved in real estate. This is the dumbest thing that’s ever happened. And I know my business partner is going to see this. in Italy, but I’ll I’ll still count

Issa Hanna (19:27)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Harthan (19:27)
Pay somebody what they’re worth. Like I know I know you don’t want to pay that much. Like I don’t want to pay my accountant that much. I don’t want to pay my contractor that much. But if you start skipping on that. You’re always gonna get bamboozled. It’s never gonna work out. So just give them the money that they deserve. As a matter of fact, should you should pay them more.

Issa Hanna (19:43)
Yeah. You should Yeah. You keep happy because a c a a contractor that you have that will pick up your phone call, drop what he’s doing and and and treat you like a priority in in our business is golden. You know, but you gotta keep happy with the money.

Ryan Harthan (20:06)
Contractor, an accountant, like whatever you’re talking about.

Issa Hanna (20:10)
Man.

Ryan Harthan (20:11)
I mean it sounds like a it sounds like an easy thing to be like, I wanna cut money and you wanna cut money certain places, but when you start dealing with those type of people, you’re getting what you’re paying for. So give them the money that they’re worth, I think it’s a hundred percent worth it. Nobody’s gonna like it. Nobody likes paying the bill. Let’s start off with that. But you’re getting what you pay for. So if somebody if somebody’s dumb, like I have a dumb account. Mm. I should say that. Well I should say I have I have a bad bookkeeper. Yeah, I’m getting exactly what I pay for. If you’re paying her four hundred bucks a month She’s in Sardinia. That’s where you’re gonna you’re gonna get the same result.

Issa Hanna (20:53)
Whoa. Okay.

Ryan Harthan (20:54)
Pay for the correct person and get it done. This is the best advice I can give to anyone. I know it sucks. Everybody hates it. Nobody wants to do it. But you’re like, you’re going out you you have to go out of pocket for that.

Issa Hanna (21:07)
Hundred percent. And you in other words, don’t don’t pay the discount and get the headache, you know? Pay ability over like ability. and definitely relate on that and agree with you a hundred percent on that.

Ryan Harthan (21:21)
Hey, I’d get hernia surgery. And I’ll tell you what, dude, you’re getting what you pay for.

Issa Hanna (21:27)
Yep. Exactly. You d you you wouldn’t go to the doctor and be like, you know, he’s he’s thirty percent cheaper. I’m gonna I think I’m gonna let him give me my life saving operation. You want the best doctor, so a hundred percent I know it

Ryan Harthan (21:40)
Hurted up and now I got five herdies instead of three.

Issa Hanna (21:44)
So Ryan, five years down the line, am I gonna see you as the next great real estate coach? w what plans do we have?

Ryan Harthan (21:51)
Hopefully not. I hopefully hopefully never hear from me again.

Issa Hanna (21:55)
Ha ha. I love that.

Ryan Harthan (21:56)
And this is this is the funniest thing. Like everybody everybody tries to it this is how you know somebody’s turns in is in the nicest way. somebody’s not real is when they want to be everywhere. Like if you see me, that’s bad thing.

Issa Hanna (22:08)
Mm.

Ryan Harthan (22:12)
I’m trying to stay off the radar. Now, me and you, we can talk, and I’ll give you some information. You’d be like, try this one out, try this out. This works, this doesn’t work. This was working for us. But yeah, those guys that go on. I’m not gonna name specific things, you know what it is. When they go on there and they’re like, I know everything about everything, it’s like, Mm, dude.

Issa Hanna (22:36)
Yeah. Because a a true a true real estate guy or any guy in the field knows that you you never know everything. There’s always a a learning moment. So a hundred percent man, we’re rolling on your advice.

Ryan Harthan (22:50)
In in the nicest way I can say this, you shut the hell up. Do you see Apple giving out how they make their product? No. Do you see Coca-Cola giving out their recipe? No. So I mean my philosophy is if you’re on stage, you’re lying.

Issa Hanna (23:08)
Exactly. Because you you’re trying

Ryan Harthan (23:10)
Telling you how to do that, if you were doing it and you weren’t making that much money, you would shut the hell up. You would not be talking to anybody about that. It’d be a secret. You would stop talking to anyone about

Issa Hanna (23:25)
You know, somebody very successful once told me, and it’s it’s echoing now, is one of the greatest pieces of advice I got. Don’t go don’t give your knowledge away for free. and that seems to be the same type of echo that you’re giving is if you know something and it’s making you money, why are you gonna go publicize it to the world, right? Why not keep it in your pocket?

Ryan Harthan (23:44)
Yeah, that’s that’s kind of the concept. And people get too confused about that. Read the book, those help out, listen to a podcast with Issa here because actually you’re gonna get some good information as opposed to just dumb things that people say all the time, and happens constantly.

Issa Hanna (24:05)
Hundred percent. And here on on my show, at Investor Fuel, we we love to bring different perspectives and brainstorm and there’s no wrong thing to say, right? you put this on the table.

Ryan Harthan (24:16)
Some wrong things to say, yes, correct. There are some wrong things to say, but you are doing your best to combat that and at least give This idea I mean the only way you can combat bad ideas is with good ideas.

Issa Hanna (24:31)
Yes, sir. Hundred percent.

Ryan Harthan (24:33)
We did a deep dive into Investor Fuel at my company. And God bless you, brother. I don’t know if you’re Catholic or whatever. Believe in whatever you want. I don’t care. It’s fine. But you’ve been a great guy to talk to. And if you want to have me back on talk about all the terrible situations that I’ve

Issa Hanna (24:52)
One hundred percent I want to have you back, Ryan. I enjoyed this conversation. For the record, fellow Catholic as well, so we got that in common as well. So Yes sir, yes sir. and man, and I super enjoyed.

Ryan Harthan (25:02)
You’re yelling? I’m gonna write some stuff down in the meantime until the next time you call me back. But I will tell you I think that probably should be the next conversation that we have. It’s like what are the worst things that have ever happened to you?

Issa Hanna (25:13)
I think Definitely. ’cause you can learn a lot from just hearing those those stories. So I think that will be our next topic when I bring Ryan back on the show. we’re all out of time for today, Ryan. But man, I literally we even ran a little bit extra because I was enjoying our conversation and your philosophy, your fresh perspective to real estate. so man, I enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show. and a hundred percent I want to have you back on. So I mean.

Ryan Harthan (25:49)
Right. and your friends and your followers. If I can say one last thing.

Issa Hanna (25:53)
Yes, sir.

Ryan Harthan (25:54)
followers I am not the smartest person in the world. I have screwed up a lot. Tons of times. But all I’m here to do is tell you how I screwed up. Don’t do the same that you

Issa Hanna (26:07)
Yeah. Because you can learn a lot from hearing the failures. You know, you can learn a lot more from failure. I mean it sounds cliche than you can from success.

Ryan Harthan (26:16)
I will say if you’re gonna get married, make sure she has a green card.

Issa Hanna (26:19)
Hundred percent. and you know what? we will end it on that one. to our viewers. if you enjoyed my conversation with Ryan and want to hear more just like it, make sure to hit like and subscribe. I talk to people every day that can bring us different knowledge on every aspect of the real estate industry. Until next time, the Real Estate Pros are out.