How do you get started in Real Estate while also working a full-time job? Join Ken McElroy, Danille, and BiggerPockets host David Greene in a conversation about quitting your full-time salary job and making the transition to a full-time real estate investor (it’s easier than you think!).
Ken McElroy:
It’s Ken McElroy here, I’m with Danille, and, uh, I’m really excited about today’s guest David Greene. I met David through biggerpockets and what a lot of you guys know is obviously David’s done very, very well in the residential space. Last year, his team sold over a hundred million dollars. Uh, the coolest thing is, is that David started off in law enforcement. He was a sheriff. He was a police officer. Uh, and I can’t wait to hear that transition. David, welcome to the show.
David Greene:
Thank you guys. I’m glad to be here.
Ken McElroy:
Yeah. Yeah. We had a, we had a great talk, uh, recently with Brandon Turner and you, and uh, on, you know, how COVID impacted real estate, but, and we’re going to get into that in the second show, but before we do, I’d love to know like what, you know, obviously you’re in law enforcement, you what the school you’re in, you know, uh, in San Francisco area, and that was kind of your path. What was it? What was your “why” on, on stepping into the real estate business?
David Greene:
It’s so funny, I really fell into it. Bass ackwards. I had no intention of getting into real estate, which is the opposite of what we usually tell people is, Hey, have a plan be intentional. That just isn’t the way it worked out for me. So I was always a good saver. I saved a lot of money and I was pretty dedicated to making money. So I was a hard worker when I was young. I worked in restaurants and I would, I was working in saving money when all my buddies were partying. And especially in the restaurant industry, as a young person, you can make pretty good money there, but it goes just as easy as you make it. It flies out of people’s pockets. So I was good there. And then I got a job as a deputy sheriff and I would just work overtime and I saved my money.
David Greene:
I knew at some point I wanted to buy a house. That was it. I just wanted to own a house. It wasn’t this crazy. I want to be on a yacht with girls in bikinis and Ferrari’s, and Lamborghini’s like, we typically see people getting sold. And, uh, I happened to just have the stroke of luck that when the market tanked in 2009, where I lived, what really, I didn’t buy a house. Cause I saw prices were going up so fast. There was just no way to keep up with it. This was like, you know, oh four through oh seven or so when it was just like an insane housing market, not like it is now where we have strong fundamentals in a lot of ways, this was, there was no fundamentals. Literally lenders were creating loan packages to make real estate affordable. I’d say it wasn’t like people’s debt to income ratios could support it.
David Greene:
And so I got discouraged and I just thought, you know what? I’m going to save up money and just build my own house. There’s no way around this. I can’t pay that much money for a house. And then the market tanked and my buddy had a house in escrow and he was moving to go to Bible college and he was going to lose his earnest money deposit. And so his name was Matt and I said, well, man, maybe if I buy your house, you can keep your money. That’s all it was. I went and looked at it. I remember it was a house that was about two years old, three years old and it sold for 5 65. He had it under contract at two 15. It basically needed someone to run a carp, a vacuum over the carpets. This was, this was like real estate back then.
David Greene:
And uh, I called his agent and said, Hey, I want to buy the house that Matt can’t buy. Can you help me with the price? And they went to the broker who was also the asset manager controller. Uh, they were talking to the bank and they came back and said, can you do 1 95? And I was like, yeah, I was going to buy it at two 15. So I got this 2,500 square foot house, two years old. They did no work for 195,000. It rented right off the bat for like maybe 1500 bucks or so. So when interest rates are low, that 1% rule, there’s some flexibility there. So it made a couple hundred dollars a month. And that was basically how I just ended up a real estate investor. So, and then you’re like, okay, that worked now a wash and repeat kinda. So I, I try to manage it myself and I did terrible.
David Greene:
My tenant stole money from me, took advantage of me. The, the title company ended up sending the cause when the house sold, I paid taxes on it as if it was worth 5 65. So they collect on that. Then when it’s reassess, you get the refund check. Well, they didn’t send it to me. They sent it to the house. And so the tenant Forrest by signature cashed the check and paid me rent with my own money for three months. And it’s actually funny now that I say this, like I’m going through something similar now where somebody has forged documents of the LLC that I own property in and has sold properties that I own, uh, claiming that they were there. As we were finding out that a couple of properties have been transferred out of my name to other peoples. So this like fraud does happen in real estate.
David Greene:
If you’re not careful with the, like having the right protections in place, it can’t happen to you. So what I learned was I’m not good at being the landlord. He is way better at be the tenant that I am at being a landlord. I was focused on my law enforcement career. I really wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention. So I hired a property manager and they weren’t very good. But even with the not very good property manager, it was a hundred times better than me trying to do it myself. And so that was one of my first ahas. When it comes to leverage, just quit pinching pennies and trying to buy a landlord for dummies books. I don’t want to spend a hundred bucks a month and I lost thousands. And so I hired a property manager and it was just became night and day better.
David Greene:
So then I probably would have bought another house at some point, but I wasn’t intentionally looking for it. I had a bad taste in my mouth from what that tenant had done. And a house came up for sale down the street from my mom. And she called me, she’s like, Hey, there’s a house for sale down the street. You think you want to buy it and move in and live close to me like every mom would want, so I didn’t want to move back to where she lived. Cause I was in the bay area, uh, being a super cop, but I did want to buy another rental. So I went and uh, I talked to the agent and it was under contract with somebody else. I waiting for it to fall out because in 2010, everything was falling out of contract. It was, you know, very unlikely to close, put it under contract for less than what they had had it under contract for before about that one for 183,000.
David Greene:
And I mean, California just that’s, you can’t even buy condos for half of that price at this, you know, with the way prices are now. So it felt scary. Everyone is telling me don’t buy real estate. It was just like you hear right now every smart person or seemingly well-meaning person is going to say, don’t buy, it’s going to crash. But they were telling me that at that point too, the prices are coming down. The economy is going to go into recession. 183 is too much. It’s going to go down. So closed down that one, put another tenant in there, got a second property manager. And this one was better than the first. And this was my first aha moment of, oh, I could just have like diversity that way. If I don’t like what I could use the other one, and this sounds obvious, but 26 year old David had no one teaching him how real estate supposed to work.
David Greene:
So to me, these were like light bulbs going off on top of my bald head. And uh, and then my grandma died the next year. And so I had the presence of mind to say, Hey, why don’t I just get the house appraised and buy it from the family instead of what you guys putting it on the market. And then I had three houses. And so now I sort of identify as a real estate investor. I see myself as like a guy who owns home. So I bought a fourplex the next year. It was kind of like one house a year. That fourplex was just, oh my God, I didn’t know what ROI was. I didn’t understand how to like that. There was actual names for the math that he would do. I just read the numbers and realize this house will pay for itself in three years.
David Greene:
Right? I’ll have all my money back in three years, which is like a 33% ROI. And I was like, what else can you do that? I don’t know anywhere else, you can do that. And the rent’s going to go up and I’m going to pay this off. This real estate investing thing is insane. People should talk about this more. So I made up my mind that I’m going all in. This is what I’m going to do. And right around that time, the market in California took off 2013. It was all the people that had foreclosure or a short sales in 2010 were now eligible to get loans. They came back in the market and they jumped in and they saw fixed rates. And it was, I remember just that spring. It was real estate. It’s awesome to real estate and affordable like that. The market shifted so quick.
David Greene:
There was no time to prepare. So I spent a year upset, just kicking myself like, wow, this sucks. I lost my chance. I only got four houses. And then I heard a realtor on Fox business news talking about how the Arizona real estate market was still waiting for its recovery. And I was like, oh yeah, I noticed this thing in California where we have slang words. Okay. And people in the Midwest will catch onto what we’ve been saying like four years later. And I would always think that was funny that they’d be saying things like bling-bling after no one thought bling-bling was a cool thing to say. And it kind of hit me. Like I bet that happens with real estate. Like we have the turnaround and then it slowly makes its way inland. I just gotta jump out to where it hasn’t happened yet and buy houses there.
David Greene:
So I did, I flew to Arizona and I met the realtor and I looked at houses and I ended up not buying anything on the trip, but I bought some when I got back that she emailed me and I, now next thing I know, I’m a long distance investor. And I just realized, well, what do I have in California? I need handyman. I need a painter. I need an inspector. I need a property manager. I need a lender, all these little pieces. It was just sort of repeatable processes. So I asked her and said a couple of other people. I knew who they could recommend. I slowly like put my team together in Arizona and I started buying there. And that was where long distance investing became a thing. I just kind of fell into that bass ackwards as well.
Ken McElroy:
Yeah. And you wrote a book about that too. That’s by the way, we’ll put it in the, in the show links for you. Um, I think that, uh, uh, you know, you’ve got three books and you’ve got that new one called sold, but before we jump into that, uh, Danille had a similar story, by the way, the first words that she ever said to me were “bling-bling” cause she’s from Ohio.
David Greene:
That’s funny. That’s funny. So it’s no, you just heard it, right. It was hot off the press.
Ken McElroy:
So she bought three houses also, but she was a teacher and also started small. Right. So
Danille:
Yeah, I just wanted to get a condo, you know, that was my goal. It just somewhere to live. So I didn’t have to pay rent, you know, and in one thing turned into another and I kept making money, save for the next place and then the next place.
Ken McElroy:
Then the next thing you know, she’s a real estate investor.
David Greene:
And then did, was there a point to know where you sort of identified as, oh, this is who I am. I buy houses.
Danille:
Um, yeah, I think on my last one, my third one, I was kind of just like, you know what? Cause that was my only time I intentionally saved for it. You know, the first one I was saving for a place to live, the second one, I was saving for a bigger place to live and I was going to actually sell the condo to put towards the house. And then, you know, through Ken, just being like, why wouldn’t you just rent the condo I did. And then on this third one, it was an intentional saving and purchasing it strictly for a rental.
Ken McElroy:
So what was cool was that, like you said, the first one was a condo and then she was going to sell it, use that as a down payment, like a lot of people do. Um, and uh, she figured out how to pay for the second one by obviously getting a line of credit or refinancing on the first one and then paid off that and then ended up doing again our third one. But by the third one, like you David she’s like, okay, what are the, what’s the interest rate? What’s the cashflow, what’s the way what’s this what’s that you don’t really looking at it more like a business, which a lot of people don’t do. And to you just like you guys and just like me and the first couple, I mean, you could read a book, you can listen to stuff, but until you actually go through it, it doesn’t make complete sense.
David Greene:
Yeah. There’s something special. I think about the third property where your identity sort of shifts and you’re like, well, this is who I am. And then your reticular activating system is looking for opportunity, right? Like when someone is mentioning a death in the family, our brain just goes right to, oh, I wonder if they have to sell their house and you don’t meet it to be rude, you have to try to find the right way to bring it up. But you start seeing like how like the Domino’s will fall in the direction. And so what are the problem? I think that newbies make is there. They want to have all this information we’re talking about now lined up before they make the first move. And I understand that is always what a human brain wants to do. I recently started taking jujitsu classes and it was the same way I did not want to go to that class.
David Greene:
And so I felt like I knew as much as humanly possible before I got there. So what happened is I spent years never going because there was always something more to learn. I never felt prepared. And so I finally made myself go and, you know, I made more progress in the first month of going then the two years that I spent trying to learn about it. So I’m not unsympathetic to the plight of people who don’t jump in with both feet, but it’s just, that’s how it goes. Like you can’t learn how to ride a bike by watching people ride bikes and watching YouTube videos on bike, riding and listening to Ken McElroy’s ABCs of bike riding, you have to go ride a bike. Now it’s smart to start with training wheels. It’s smart to get a spotter there in case you’re going to fall. There. There’s things like mentors that you want to have around you, but your brain is going to figure it out when you buy that first house like Neil did and sort of saw, it’s not as hard as I thought, or there’s only a few things you got to get, right? And the rest falls into place.
Danille:
Yeah. You know, you just got to kind of do one thing at a time. You’re not going to know how to do everything. You’re going to make mistakes. You know, I was fortunate when I rented out my condo that I had, uh, you know, Ken’s knowledge. Um, but you know, the first guy that came to look at it was like, I’ll pay you, you know, three months or six months in advance. Um, you know, whatever. And I, and he gave me a check and I told Ken, Hey, I have this guy that wants to move in. He just gave me a check. You know, we’re good. He’s like, oh my gosh, no, you still need to do a credit and background check. And you know, me being a new, um, landlord, I’m like, well, why you just gave me six months? He has cash, whatever. Well, sure enough. I tell him, Hey, I still got to do a background, check on you. And he’s like, nevermind, scratch that. Getting my chest back. You know, the whole thing that could have been a, but thankfully it was a verdad, but you know what happened to you? If it is a disaster, you just move on and learn from it, right?
David Greene:
Yes. It’s funny that as you tell that story, for anyone listening, who doesn’t relate, this would be the same as you met a stranger and they asked you on a date and you’re like, okay, they seem nice. And then before the date, you’re like, Hey, by the way, can I see your Facebook or Instagram? And they’re like, oh, you want to see that? Nevermind. Let’s not go, that’s the same thing. Like that person had something they didn’t want you finding out.
Danille:
Exactly, exactly. So, you know, but you just learn, you learn and you go with it. And even now I’m still learning. You know what I mean? I mean, I still now have tenants where I’ve bent over backwards to fix things and little things. And I’ll, you know, things that, but I didn’t have it spelled out in the lease and I didn’t create a good tenant landlord relationship. So moving forward, that’s the next thing I’m going to work on. You know, so it’s a learning process. You know, you get better at it as you go and you make mistakes along the way.
Ken McElroy:
One thing I want to point out is, you know, David, uh, it really is common sense guys. So, uh, I mean, you know, obviously if something comes at you just like it does in any capacity on any phone call or any email or any texts at any moment is this one more thing it’s not, it’s not overwhelming and it’s not very complicated. Uh, but there’s a lot of things you can do in the beginning to mitigate potential issues. Uh, on the buyer side, on the rental side, on the collection side, on, on hiring a property manager, all those kinds of things. And that’s kind of what David was talking about earlier is, you know, there are things that you can do. You don’t have to know everything like your jujitsu example I thought was perfect. You know, the, the best thing that this investing is a team sport. It really is. It requires a team. If you’re trying to be the smartest person on the team, um, then you’re probably on the wrong team.
David Greene:
Yeah. And I’ll give you maybe like a, a practical example of how this would play out. I like Danielle, I’m going to make some assumptions here just because I was in the same boat. I’m assuming it’s probably very similar to you when we were, when we were getting our first tenant, I didn’t do a credit check. I did zero. It was a person from Craigslist. He seemed nice. And what I was thinking to say, I’ll be good to them. They’ll be good to me. Everything will be fine. Okay. A lot of us have a personality that wants to believe this is how the world works. This is how well-meaning people end up getting in trouble. Like me and I had a little feeling that was like, ah, you probably shouldn’t do that. I would just got busy or you don’t want to be confrontational or whatever issues with your own personality stopped you from doing the way that maybe Ken on the podcast says, here’s the steps that you should take.
David Greene:
You can listen to a million podcasts. That piece of your personality is still going to like stubbornly, stay there and that’s, what’s going to make the mistake. So then we get burned. What happens when you get burned is that piece of your personality becomes a whole lot less desirable than it was before you got burned. Okay. W we knew this wasn’t the right way to do it. We just didn’t care after you screw up. All of a sudden now you really care. And that’s where like true learning takes place. It’s the same thing with when I go to class, if the instructor says, like, for example, one of the problems that I’ll have all the time with jujitsu is that I’m usually stronger than the person that I’m going against. And so I can sort of cheat without realizing, and I could just overwhelm them with strength and that works great until I get tired and I get tired way faster than them.
David Greene:
I’m like this Hummer with no gas mileage and I’m going against the Prius. Well, if I don’t take them out in the first minute or two, then I’m at a gas and they’re not. And that strength actually becomes a problem. They can tell me, learn the technique. Don’t rely on your strength. And I’ll be like, yeah, I probably should, but, or I can be exhausted and can’t breathe. And I’m getting manhandled by this little person. And now that advice they gave me really, really matters. It’s just like, after we get burned. And so what I’m getting at is hearing the information isn’t going to change what’s in your head or how you approach things. Okay? Getting out there, getting punched in the face or burned by somebody or having a bad experience will make you very hungry for the information that is already being provided to you. And that’s why I’m telling people, you have to get in the game in some capacity because your emotions will be affected when you make mistakes. And then you will pay more attention. You’ll start to tighten up the stuff that was wrong. And that’s where you actually become a better investor.
Danille:
But then you also have to remember some people, you know, they make those mistakes and then they give up like, oh, this isn’t for me. You know, this like went sideways. So when you make those mistakes, you don’t just throw in the towel and say, screw it. I’m going to do something else. You say, I’m going to learn from this. What did I do wrong? And what
David Greene:
That’s such a good point. I was just, I did a Ted talk last weekend and I was talking to my best friend who lives out there and his wife, and we were sort of discussing the differences in our childhoods. And I know this isn’t technical real estate, but I think it has a lot to do with being successful. And he and I grew up with this mindset that if we fail at something, it’s because we didn’t know how to do it. We didn’t practice enough. We didn’t get a good enough coaching. We had a bad technique. We always understood. It’s not me. I’m not defective of a human being. I didn’t put the time in. Okay. Like I can’t lift that weight because I haven’t been working out. His wife would process everything. Like if she failed, there’s something wrong with me. I should be able to hit it out of the park on my first deal.
David Greene:
Right. If I was stronger, I could lift that weight. I shouldn’t lift weights. This isn’t for me. And so she would get very discouraged by failure where he and I, we don’t like failure, but we didn’t internalize it and think is there’s a problem with David. He is not smart enough to be a real estate investor. And I think depending on how you grew up, the people that will quit are the ones that internalize it and say, oh, I can’t believe I didn’t do a credit check. I’m an idiot. I never should be investing. I’m not smart enough to do this. No, you just did the process wrong. It’s not a problem with you. What was a problem with your process? And you don’t internalize it if it’s a process-oriented problem. And that’s where I’d really like to get this information out there. Cause I think a lot of people are in that position. Maybe the Neil, you were at one point where you internalize your mistake and you thought, oh, this is a sign from God. I shouldn’t do this. Right. I should have caught that. No, you’re not supposed to catch that. Nobody catches it. When you first go to jujitsu, the 90 pound guy is going to manhandle you. Cause he’s been going for five years and it’s your first day. You should not expect to be good right off the bat.
Ken McElroy:
I know one of the things David we do at our company at MC companies is we, we S we do annual book study with all our employees. So we bring a couple, a hundred people in every year in a Scottsdale. And one year we studied this book, turning pro by Steven Pressfield. And if you haven’t picked it up, it’s so short, so small. And, uh, he’s a brilliant, brilliant writer. Oh, you, haven’t One of the things I love is, uh, he, uh, we studied this one concept was there is no tribe. In other words, nobody cares. You know, everybody has their own stuff going on. Everybody’s going through highs and lows and nobody really cares. And, and, uh, it, we got into this big, big, deep discussion about it. Oh, there it is. Look at that. Yeah.
David Greene:
Yeah. That’s it great. But, and it’s not too big either.
Ken McElroy:
Yeah. And, and, you know, they’re there, some of the, some of the pages, you know, just have three or four sentences on them, but they’re profound, right?
David Greene:
That is such a great point. The older I get, the more I have to realize that a lot of people think the world’s out to get them, that there’s people that are trying to stop you from being successful, but then ask yourself, well, how many times in your life have you ever tried to stop a stranger from being successful? You don’t care what they’re doing. We’re all just very narcissistic. And we care about what we’re going to do. And we pay attention to the strangers that we think could benefit us or that we like. And that’s how everybody else is too. Nobody really it’s. The human condition is much more apathetic than they are like vengeance filled, where they’re trying to stop people. And when you realize that, that 99.9% of people don’t care, if you fail don’t care, if you succeed only Karen, in the sense of how much, what you did affects them, it takes a lot of pressure off of you worrying about what other people are going to think. If you go do something.
Ken McElroy:
Yeah. I know. And then there’s a couple other things takeaways there that I found. One is that I find that a lot of people are carrying a lot, all the time, you know, their, their care. Uh, sometimes they mask a heaviness, um, you know, or they’re, or they don’t. And, and so oftentimes by just being nice, having an open dialogue with people say, how are you doing anything I can help you with? Um, I do it all the time. And you know, and you’d be surprised at how open and how honest people can be in how transparent can people can be and found that if, if you can, if you can do that even in business, then what happens is when you have an opportunity, I, I think, you know, a, a re a tenant, not paying rent, it’s an opportunity to share and to learn. And, and, uh, you’re teaching at the same time you’re learning. And there’s people that show up like yourself with, oh, yeah, that happened to me. And all of a sudden you’re like, okay, well, you know, maybe, you know, maybe it wasn’t such a bad mistake. I hear it does happen a lot. And it does happen a lot by the way. But a lot of times to Neil’s point, people shut down and they go, okay, real estate is a bad investment. It doesn’t work.
David Greene:
Yeah. That’s exactly right. But I don’t know anybody who on their first deal crushed it. That’s just another thing is, I think it’s not just real estate. Anything you did anything, anytime you did anything in life, the first time you rode a bike, the first time you snowboarded, the first time you went to the gym to work out the first time you tried to go to basketball practice, did anyone just walk out there and crush it on their first time with no experience? There’s nothing skill-based in life that works that way. And yet there’s always a part of our brain that thinks we should be able to, I don’t know where that comes from. Maybe it’s part of what Steven Pressfield talks to when he talks about the resistance, but let that go. Don’t like the reason that the investors should become big, they started like Danielle did.
David Greene:
They’re like, I just wanted to buy a house. They had very low expectations and they got a little momentum from that first deal. And then that’d be cool to have another one of these. That’s all they thought. And then you buy it and you just have to know are the income more than the expenses? If you can figure that out. You’re good. And then after the third, fourth, fifth, when you start to recognize patterns in deals, and then you just become intentional about looking for the things that you found in those patterns, right? It’s, it’s way more natural. If you do it that way, then the person who pays a $90,000 to take a course and spends five hours a day analyzing deals that they’re never going to buy. And they just, they put all this energy into something that isn’t ever going to become fruitful.
Ken McElroy:
Yeah, it’s completely true. Um, before we wrap up the podcast, David, I tell you what I would also love is for you to touch on, because Danielle’s going through this now, you know, okay, now you’ve got a few, and then all of a sudden, you somehow bridge, you know, a a not only buying a lot yourself, but developing a team. And, uh, your team has been very, very impressive. The David Green team, we’ll put that up in the show notes so people can go check you out. Um, how did you learn that? Cause it’s one thing to go out and find a deal that, you know, here and there through family members and some, you know, kind of low-hanging fruit, but then you had to take it to a whole new level, new market. Um, what did you do? Uh, what were some of the steps you did to punch through those barriers?
David Greene:
That’s a really good question because as intimidating or scary, as people think investing is running a real estate businesses, like times harder to me, I just long for the days when all I had to do is find a deal, analyze it, managed to rehab. And I had a success. There’s so many more variables when it comes to the psychological implications of dealing with people who are trying to buy one that are scared and the legal side of it and the profit and loss element of it and all that. I think what allowed me to build the residential sales team, which is doing pretty good. I think we’re going to sell over 200 million somewhere between 200 and 250 million for this year was I spent so much time talking to other people, just like we are right now about real estate. Really simplifying things always seem complicated in the beginning.
David Greene:
And then as you get deeper and deeper into it, it starts to become simple that I was able to articulate those concepts to clients better than another agent. And I also understood those elements better than another agent who just can show you a pretty kitchen or a nice backyard and kind of pull on the emotional heart strings. And that was all that they would do. Um, I could help people that were, they wanted to own real estate, but they were intimidated when they talked to me, they felt safer. They wanted to own real estate, but they couldn’t justify the expense. Well, if we could figure out a way to make it in an investment, they could get over that hurdle. You’re basically just getting to know a person, just like you said, Ken, and getting them to open up and share what they’re afraid of, what their struggle is, what they think might happen, listening to it, waiting for the right moment where they have an open mind, right?
David Greene:
What most salespeople do is they try to change your mind. You walk in wanting to look at something and they try to force you to want to buy it. And the human beings don’t like that. It’s like trying to punch somebody. Who’s got their arms up. You’re not getting through. You need to wait until they get tired and their arms come down. That’s when you can deliver your message. And so it was just a very personal growth driven struggle. As I learned, I cannot overcome this other person’s will with mine, just very similar to the jujitsu thing where I just want to use strength, have a strong personality. I would go in there and I would try to convince them why they should own real estate. And I had to change that. I had to listen way more talk way less. Sometimes the things people are afraid of are just ridiculous.
David Greene:
And sometimes you need to get them to say it so they can hear it. And then once I figured out how to communicate with someone, to get them, to let me sell their house or buy a house, then the challenge became, how do I get a team member to come into my business and do the same work I’m doing with the same standard that I have. And that was a big challenge. Okay. Because just like, like I was saying earlier, people only care about how something benefits them. So it’s very difficult when you’re trying to grow a team and the client is very insecure that they’re going to be taken advantage of. Or they’re not, you’re not like a little kid learning to ride a bike. The number one question they ask is, are you going to let go, don’t let go. Make sure you hold that seat.
David Greene:
That’s what all your clients are thinking when they’re going through this escrow. And then you’re trying to hire people who have this mentality. Like this is just a job. I just want to get paid. They don’t care if the client falls and skins their knees, it’s not their knee. So there was this really long arduous process of trying to find the right people with the right heart and the right brain and the right drive and all the right pieces that would serve that client the same way that I did. And that’s why business growth takes so long when you’re trying to build a team is there’s a lot of things you’ve got to find in one person that was really, really challenging and trying to grow this. And that’s still the biggest challenge, right? I feel like my skill level, we should be selling a billion dollars a year in real estate.
David Greene:
And that’s not me sounding arrogant. I just, with how much I know about real estate, that is probably my potential, but what limits it is. I don’t have enough other people on the team who have that same, uh, knowledge and, and mix of skills to get to a billion. So the beautiful thing of it is that I can only hit my potential. If I pull people up with me, it forces me to invest in other human beings and bring them along. The struggle of it is that many times we want to just cut through those chords and run as fast as we can go. But if you don’t have a team you’re not going to get very far.
Ken McElroy:
Yeah. A hundred percent true. So David, we’re going to wrap this up. Uh, how can people get ahold of you? What’s the best way to reach you and check out some of your deals. I went to your website, uh, it’s impressive. Uh, obviously your history and your experience and your team is impressive. So what’s the best way for you.
David Greene:
Thank you for that. I’m actually in the process of getting a new website made. So I’ll have to let you guys know. It’s probably a couple of weeks out. Um, and on social media, I’m DavidGreene24, everywhere, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, whatever it is, there’s an E at the end of green, uh, you can find me on bigger pockets on their website. I have a profile on there and you can message me there. I also run a private mastermind where I just teach people skills to be successful. So that was basically grown out of what I would find is that every human being that isn’t successful is complaining. There’s no opportunity. Okay. There’s a lot of that. Like, man, there’s no good jobs. There’s no good opportunity. I don’t want to spend my life working for somebody else. And then you become a business owner and you’re like, there’s nobody that really wants this opportunity.
David Greene:
They won’t try very hard. They don’t show up on time. Right? So the mastermind was kind of created to close the gap between those two pieces. Here’s the skills that successful people have. If you could get those skills, you’d be very valuable to a successful person. I promise you listeners, Ken McElroy wants to buy more real estate and better real estate and impact more people just by the physics of how business works. I know you’re probably also limited by the number of people you can get in your company that understand your vision and can execute it at the level you have. If you can get the employees to figure out what the boss needs and give it to them, you’ll throw money at people. There’s none of us that are like, I don’t want to pay somebody if they’re making me more money. Right? Like, so the mastermind was basically created to teach the people who want more to think like the people that have more so that they can get a piece of that pie. And that’s at a, you can find that at DavidGreeneMastermind.com. Awesome.
Ken McElroy:
David, thanks. Appreciate your wisdom.
David Greene:
Thanks guys.