How to build your Real Estate Company with Mike Simmons (CFFL 0011)

How to build your Real Estate Company with Mike Simmons Jack Butala:                   Today's guest, Mike Simmons of juststartrealestate.com, says this from his bio, "I started my real estate career investing a few years back, and since then I've done several very profitable real estate flips. Along the way, I've learned a lot and get approached all the time by new real estate investors who have questions about real estate investing." Hey, that's exactly what the show is all about. "I've helped a lot of them, but I noticed a real lack of good real estate advice in the industry," except for Land Academy. "Most of my experience is in flipping houses, and I have also been a landlord, investing properties to overseas investors as well as a few other types of real estate investments. I'm here to help you and avoid some of the mistakes that I have made." Mike, welcome to the show. Mike Simmons:                 I am very happy to be here. Thanks for having me. That's really cool. Jack Butala:                   In our little pre-talk, you let me know that you've got your own podcast. It's such a relief, because we've been interviewing people in a pretty good high-paced rate lately. I think some of them, it's the first time they'd ever talked on the telephone before. Mike Simmons:                 Yeah, I know. I get that a lot too. That's why I suggested we went this [raw 00:01:51], because I knew you had the equipment to make it sound a little bit better, better than a phone call for sure. Jack Butala:                   Let's learn a bit about your company before we get into our interview. Mike Simmons:                 Okay, will do. My company is evolved. I have done what I preach to people for years to do, and that's, look at your market, figure out what's working in your market, and adapt your business so that you can be successful. I started off as a house flipper in '08, which was like the apocalypse of real estate time, except for investors. Honestly, if you take away all of the hardships that people went through, and just look at it purely from an investor's standpoint, I wish it would happen again. I don't want people to be displaced and all that, obviously, but from just a purely investing standpoint, greatest time ever to get involved. It was hard for me to get involved at the money that houses were being bought and sold at, and then everything dropped off, it was a lot easier to get in the game. That's how I started as a flipper, and I did that for about six years pretty steady. I was pretty successful at it, and then the deal started drying up a little bit. I got all my deals off the MLS, through a realtor. He wasn't bringing me deals anymore. He wasn't able to find them. I would go to events, and local meetups, and things, and talk to a lot of friends I had made in the industry who were also real estate flippers, and they had the same complaint, "Can't find any deals. Can't find any deals, it's drying up. It's drying up. I used to do 30 deals, and now I'm lucky to do 10." It was the same thing no matter who I talked to. They couldn't find deals. I knew I was looking for deals the same way they were looking for deals, and they were looking for deals the same way I was. It just occurred to me how, the definition of insanity, keep doing the same thing over and over, and expect different results. I decided, "I've got to do something different. I have to take control of this. I'm sick of waiting for a realtor to bring me deals that they find." I started doing my own marketing, and the deal started coming. I started flipping them, and then the deal started coming a little bit higher volume. It started to overwhelm me, so I said, "I know a lot of people that want to flip houses just like me. I'm going to give them a call and see if they'll take this one on." I called them up and, "Hey, Joe. I got this deal ..." I knew in my head that I got it for $90,000. I said, "Hey, I got this deal for $105,000.