Joe:   Welcome, this is Joe McCall with the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast and we got a great special treat today. I've got a guest on, his name is Jack Kehoe. This guy has been tearing it up in the land investing space and I'm excited about it. I’ve seen his pictures in my Facebook group and he just did, I don't know if I feel a little, I, whenever I say numbers like this, I just want to give, you know, a little grain of salt and a little caution to say this isn't typical. I'm not promising or making any income claims because most people who buy real estate education products and courses don't do anything with it. They don't make any money. Most people don't Make any money, but Jack is not like most people, right? And he's got an amazing story. He's done like 50 something thousand dollars in profits in six months since he started working with me and my land program. So I wanted to ask Jack about what's, what's working? Like, why is it working so well for him? What are some of his secrets to success? Why, what is, and what advice would he give to somebody who is beginning, who is just interested in this real estate space, right? Whether you're getting my program or somebody else's, like, what does it take to be successful and to actually do deals? What separates the people that are successfully doing deals and making money and what separates them from everybody else? So I'm, I love doing these conversations. And when I texted Jack the other day and asked him, he was like, yeah, let's do this. And so I have saved all of my questions for this podcast because I want to just ask him one time. I don't want to have to make him answer my questions twice. Jack, Jack Kehoe from Franklin, Tennessee. How are you?

Jack:   I'm doing great and thank you so much Joe for having me on. I'm honored to be with the legend himself in person.

Joe:   I appreciate that. I saw a post, first of all, you, I do what's called a business completion challenge. And for those who don't know, explain what that is.

Jack:   It's crazy, I still don't actually understand why you do it. I've gone through other online courses before and never have I seen something like this, but Joe says if you go through his whole course and if you send, is it 50 offers?

Joe:   I've increased it since then. I've updated my program since you bought it.

Jack:   Okay, if you send a certain amount of offers and you go through his course, he will refund you what you originally paid on the course. And that's how I convinced my wife to let me do it. I was like, I'm for sure going to complete the course and do at least this and get the money back. And she was like okay, that sounds great.

Joe:   And that's why I do it, to get the wives on board, right? A little bit. And this is, again, why I do it because I get guys like Jack then who does it, implements it, he does deals, makes money. And I gave him a business completion challenge check and I saw him holding his picture, holding in the picture, holding a check for the refund. And I was like, yes, you know, and I do for two reasons. The number one is it's one of the ways I do deals. A lot of people bring me deals. I'm funding three deals right now from one of my students in the community and other small little deals. He's got the money for him. He just doesn't want to use his own capital. And so I like to fund deals. Sometimes I partner with people on deals. So it's one of the ways that I've used to create just the sense of urgency and accountability. You've only got six months to make these offers. And if you make all the offers, chances are, now you didn't bring me a deal. That's totally fine. We can talk about that later. Maybe if you need some funding for some of your deals. If I ask you about that, yeah, okay, it's habits. We'll do that. All right. And if I can't fund the deal, then I have other friends and partners and funding companies that we work with that will fund the deals. But that's one reason I do it is I want to do more deals. The other reason I do it is to get testimonials like this, to get Jack to get on my podcast and talk about what he's doing, what's working for him, because then it will encourage other people to take action. It'll encourage other people to maybe invest in the program. And you know, I've got a raving fan and a customer for life now, and Jack might sign up for other things that I sell in the future. Do you use Freedom Soft, Jack?

Jack:   I do use Freedom Soft.

Joe:   OK good thing you said that. I was going to say.

Jack:   Your coaching. I'm in the inner… I got paid the 97 a month. That's really valuable.

Joe:   Right. And I've updated that since then that's not actually even available anymore, but regardless. So yeah, now he's in this $97 a month thing and it's a lot more expensive. That's why I'm saying that now. So you're, you're locked in at the good price, but anyway, he's a customer and I'm getting great testimonials. So people ask me all the time, why on earth do you do that? You know, it's just the way it is. And we know what's, what's interesting is I only get about eight to 10% of people that submit, do the business completion challenge. Yeah, I wish it was more, I really do, but I'm also, I'm able to talk about guys like you, Jack, and what you're doing. And it sure is helpful when you have a spouse that's, I don't want you to do that, and you can tell them, no, look, here's 300 pictures of people that have done it and have gotten their money back. And all we have to do is go through the modules and make offers, even if we don't do a deal. My goal is to refund a million dollars, and I'm at about 670,000, I think, right I'm close to 700 grand, and my goal is just to refund the million dollars. Come on, why not? You know, it's the way I get testimonials and it is profitable for me. It helps me sell more programs and get more people involved. So I'm glad you're here. Now, Jack, you actually started doing deals and I wanted to ask you some questions about your journey and you're also a man of faith and I love seeing your encouraging words and stuff like that. You do a podcast with your wife about your relationship with the Lord and I want to talk about that later as well. You bought the program, you bought other programs on real estate investing before or land before, kind of how did you get into real estate?

Jack:   No, not on real estate investing or land. I've done… I started a Facebook advertising agency. This is seven years ago now. And then I did a… And it failed in COVID. And then, I did real estate media company. So photo, video, 3D tours. And that is what I shifted into. And I did courses for both of those. And, then I built that company. And I sold that a year and a half ago. And then my wife and I, I sold this so that my wife and I could travel for a year doing mission work and service work. So we traveled in South America, Central America and East Africa. And then we came back to the state. We found out we were pregnant in Uganda. And so then we started praying about moving back to states. And I just began to pray and look into different kinds of businesses on YouTube. I looked into wholesaling. I found you and just the idea of land. And I had, during my previous company, I'd begun to invest a little bit in real estate. And yeah, I had just been interested in wholesaling because it seems it would help with investing as well. Because then I could, yeah, force things, learn more about real estate, be spending my day job in real state, and then invest as well.

Joe:   Oh, cool. I've always thought that wholesaling is like being a deal finder, learning how to find deals is probably the most important skill in real estate, right? Learning how to find deal, how to do marketing, how they make offers, you know, talk to sellers, negotiate and things like that. Okay, so six months ago, was it? Did you add on my program?

Jack:   Yep, in August. So I think this is month seven-er. Actually, no, I started doing your course in September because we moved here in September. And so maybe I bought it in September .

Joe:   February, November, December, January, January about six months. Yeah. Something like that. Okay. Yes. And did you find the concept of why don't you explain, how about this? Let's do this. Will you explain the process of how a wholesale deal works for land?

Jack:   Yep. With your model, you send out, you get freedom software, the software, it helps you, it's where you're going to do all your communication. And then you're able to send out mail to a bunch of people that own land. And you say, hey, I'm interested in buying your land. Do you want to essentially have a conversation? People that are interested call you and then you have a conversation with them. You negotiate. If you can come to an agreement on a price point, that's gonna make sense, you send a contract, get them in contract, and then you need to find a buyer who's going to buy it for a margin that is higher, or a price that's higher than what you're buying it for so that then you can make the margin in between. And use a title company to do that, but that's essentially what it is.

Joe:   That sounds really complicated. I, so you basically, you find sellers who have property that they own, that they might want to sell at a discount. You negotiate an offer with them. You get it under contract. And did you mainly, did you just do assignments? Did you close on the deal or double close? How did you sell the deals? I've double closed every deal so far. Okay. Yeah. Did you use, now when I say double close, I mean like single day closing. So you close on the deal today and you sell it the same day or something like that?

Jack:   Yeah, a few of them haven't been single day because issues came up and it'd be like three day or something. But yeah, pretty much.

Joe:   Okay. And whose money did you use for the transactional funding there?

Jack:   I used my own.

Joe:   Did you know we have free transactional funding in the program?

Jack:   I did know that. I think you told me that on one of the coaching calls. I just want to learn more about it because my worry, and this is good because this is probably other people's worries too, is that it will, two worries. One is that will take a lot of effort for me to fill out whatever forms it is. And then two is what happens in this case that like twice it's happened where I closed on it and then it took three more days because the buyers didn't send in their wire or didn't get their thing as to what happens. In that case, those are my two.

Joe:   Yeah, those are good things to be aware of and concerned about, right? The guy that we partner with on the transactional funding, he's okay with the money staying there for a couple of days. He's got some wiggle room there. But the good thing about it is they've got a lot of checks and balances, but I'm glad you did it yourself actually, because now you kind of learn the process of what's involved and going on. And maybe eventually someday you could be the lender as well, yourself lending money to people's deals, right? But yes, I'm that you were doing that. So you had the money, you'd actually closed on it and then you would, you would sell it. Now you've done how many deals since you got started.

Jack:   Nine or ten. I can't remember where I'm at this month, but I think maybe ten.

Joe:   You posted something, it was crazy in the Facebook group. I'm going to try to open it here, where you had in the last three months, no, no, in the 30 days, you had closed five deals and your profit was, Oh, I got to find it here. I should have had it open. Your, your profit was 42,000. No, 46. I think I can pull up my. I got it right here. I got it. Yeah, this is insane. So your profit and the deals that you sold in the month $46,212.65

Joe:   Yeah, that's your profit from February.

Jack:   Yeah, those February's profit. That was net. Gross, it would be fifty three something.

Joe:   Fifty three thousand eight hundred ninety dollars and fifty six cents.

Jack:   Yeah. Oh, he's… Yeah, I love it. Everything turned around last month and it took five months of a lot of work and then, and then it would end like prayer and seeking the Lord because I was getting stressed. You know, I knew it would take a while and I had to close two in one month, like a couple months before, but then I kind of like, yeah, just things started to work out a lot better.

Joe:   I'm glad you brought that up because sometimes people think, oh man, I need to make some money right away. And they don't factor in the fact that, okay, when you get a deal under contract, it might take a couple months to sell it. Maybe three months. It shouldn't take more than three months to sale. I just interviewed a couple that they do a lot of, they sell a lot of deals on owner financing. And they said on average, it takes them three months was sell their deals, right? Now they're selling it with owner financing, they're selling it for higher prices. They don't have to sell them right away, but I tell people all the time when you are pricing your property to sell it be very aggressive like price that thing aggressive so you can sell it quickly so i want to ask you more questions about how you found these deals how you picked the markets and things like that but you were you were buying them and selling them so During that time you were marketing the property. Did you own it yet?

Jack:   No, no, no. I start marketing. As soon as I get in contract, I hire a real estate photographer, and then I list it. Actually, all of mine, I've gone on market with a realtor.

Joe:   Okay, cool. So you found a realtor to actually list it before you bought it yet that can be done. Yes. Okay, great Yeah, yeah, let's talk about how did you pick your mark? You don't have to tell us the markets you chose if you don't want but how did You find the good areas to go into and target?

Jack:   I actually just picked where I invest already and where I kind of knew a good amount about and I wanted to learn more because I knew I wanted do invest in this area and my market is good because there's a lot of transactions happening, there's a lot investor activity in this market but it's actually still a smaller. There's just a lot of lots being purchased and sold.

Joe:   Yeah, so you saw there's a lot of investors. There's I liken it a lot to the fishing analogy. You're going to where the fish are biting, right? Mm-hmm. So you're able to go see inside of Zillow or Redfin where there's already a lot

Jack:   Yeah, but there's only actually, I'm pretty focused in just one city and there's only 36,000 people in the city. So it's a relatively small area, but just has a lot of investment.

Joe:   So are you are you targeting like infill rural? I mean, urban infill lots or recreational lots, larger lots.

Jack:   People are gonna, they're all about a third of an acre to an acre, and people are gonna build on them. Build mostly single-family homes.

Joe:   Yeah, so is this in a large metro area or smaller town or a suburb of a big town?

Jack:   Suburb, but even the big, bigger city that it's next to is I think a hundred thousand or eighty thousand Maybe population so not huge, but

Joe:   Nice. So is land there still pretty cheap? What is the average sale price of a half acre lot in this area?

Jack:   It varies a ton and this is what's been helpful because I've gotten to know the market super well because slope and whether or not it's on sewer. Most of the lots require septic whether or it's not on sewer, there's a ton of factors and location, but you can buy like I've bought some of my lots for 3,000. My purchases have been I think the lowest is 3,100 and then the highest because it was a lakefront lot was 53,000 and that's very… That's on the very high end in this area.

Joe:   I love this land because you can buy land for super cheap and you're not risking a ton of money on it. So let's talk about, you picked your areas. You saw there was a lot of activity there already. People were maybe building new homes or a lot of, lot of land purchasing going on there. You got a list. How did you pull your list in freedom soft? Did you do like people who own land over a certain amount of time?

Jack:   Yeah, at first I did I think just out of zip code landowners and now I've pulled every because I'm just focusing on this area Kind of until it stops working as well. Yeah, I just pulled every single land

Joe:   Now, how big is your list right now in this area? Just curious. 17,000. Okay. So if you're mailing a thousand a week, that's 17 weeks. That's pretty good. And you can repeat that. I usually mail the same list every three months.

Jack:   I'm on the second round right now, I've just finished, because I'm doing about 1500 mailers a week. Or I do 350 a day, five days a week, so that's 1750 a week and yeah, I just restarted the list with, I asked in the Facebook group and you recommended the neutral lamb litter, so we just started out this week.

Joe:   Oh, nice. All right. One thing you could do, by the way, after maybe your second round of mail, cold call the list and you can hire VAs.

Jack:   I just hired cold callers as well last week.

Joe:   Nice. I love it. I Love it. Okay. So what was the piece? What was the mail that you were first sending out? The third notice postcard, the yellow. Infamous. Yeah. I heard notice post card. Yeah, that's funny. That's the postcard I borrowed. I know the guy who invented that postcard. You guys just listening to this, go Google third notice postcard and it used to be really popular with house wholesalers back five, 10 years ago, 10 years ago probably. And I soften the language a lot. The original postcard said something like, I've been trying for hours to reach you and I haven't been able to. It said, please call this 24 hour recorded voicemail and keep it secret. Don't tell anybody. And so it made a lot of people upset. So I just kind of softened the language and removed it. But it's, it's just as third notice. Hey, I've got an important message for you about your property. Call this number and listen to my 24 hour recorded voicemail. And So you got a phone number in Freedom Soft, right? And what does your voicemails say just generally?

Jack:   Oh, I can't remember. I followed- I haven't even listened to it, but I followed exactly whatever your script was when I first went through the course. So it's something like- I actually don't even know, I- can't even- okay.

Joe:   But it's real simple. It's something like, hey, this is Jack and we buy land. If you want to sell your land, leave your name and number and the reference ID on that postcard and we'll send you an offer. Simple as that. Have you been tracking your stats in terms of response rates?

Jack:   Not that, I did a little bit in the beginning when I got the first two deals, but yeah, no, I really haven't.

Joe:   You're going to find with the new letter that you're sending. Now, the letter that you're gonna be sending for everybody who doesn't know, it's called a neutral letter, but it's like, hey, do you want to sell your land? Text or call this 24-hour recorded voicemail. I find you'll get about half of the number of calls with that letter, but a higher percentage of the leads on that letter will be more qualified. So you'll get more qualified leads with that. So it's a good thing. It's a good way to mix things up a little bit, right? So when they call, do you look up the properties, send them an offer, or do you call them back?

Jack:   I call. I call every person, and then I've now hired a halftime VA that I pay $5 an hour, so $100 a week, to call the less, like, valuable ones, or ones that I think are… I call everything that I… I think is a good lot, has good margin, and I have him call and kind of lowball all of the not as quality ones.

Joe:   Okay. Interesting. So you're getting a lot.

Jack:   Yeah, a lot of calls like I probably get I don't know at least probably five to ten leads a day I would say something like that

Joe:   That, that is insane. That's insane. And here's the crazy thing. If you, I don't know if you know this, Jack, but with, with houses, I was lucky to get half of 1% response rates. One direct mail, right? A half of one percent. Yeah. You're probably, I'm going to guess you're getting about two and a half, three and a 1% percent response rate. Yeah. So you're giving four or five times the number of calls with when you're sending land, because there's just, they're just not as competitive. Yeah. All right, cool. When, when you call that seller back, what do you say to them? How do you talk to them? How does the conversation typically go?

Jack:   Yeah, I have my script. I want to try to not use my because I definitely try to make myself I'm building trust initially. So I call in and say, Hey, this is Jack Kehoe. I sent you a letter about your land and then you gave me a call back. So, I'm just calling to follow up because I missed your call. And they're like, okay. And then I say, I actually just first ask, are you interested in selling the land? It kind of I feel out a little bit how they are if they're on their heels or if they are open to conversation, I just jump into it and I'm like, are you just selling your land? And then I ask my specific questions about it. Have they had a soil test done? Because in this area, most of the lots need a better test done to see if it has septic. So I just kind of jump into those and then I go to I'm an investor. And here's what I say is I own, which is true, I own five other properties in the area. And I buy lots for all cash. I pay all the title fees, typically about $2,000 to $3,000 in closing costs. And then I work directly with… I name the most reputable local title company that I do work with so that you don't have to pay the 6% that you would typically pay if you listed this property on the market. Do you have a price in mind that you'd be willing to let this one go for? And then they name it or don't. And then I, I, this is actually what I think has helped me the most is I will have up on Zillow as I'm talking to them, the sale comps and they're nice sale comp in this area. Yeah. And so I tell them, Hey, I just based my offer off of comparable sales in the last 12 months of a similar lot. And because there's so many transactions happening in this. Area, I genuinely tell them two to three other comps that are the low end comps. There might be some higher comps but I tell them this lot sold for 5,000 that's directly across the street this one sold for this and I tell him the addresses and everything and then I'm like based on that here's what I can do and they might say oh but there's this one that's listed on the market and then I look it up really quick I'm I get it's been on the markets for six months listed at that price so obviously it's overpriced and I think that this piece the Negotiating based upon the comps has helped me so much to get deals at good prices.

Joe:   Man, who taught you that? That's a great idea. You know, I do that all the time, right? Before you call them, I don't want you guys doing a bunch of research first, but just pull the property up on Zillow or Redfin, right. Get it on the center of the map and then look at sold and active comps, right, and when you look at actives, don't forget to look at pendings. And when you looked at solds, you sort the list by low to high. And you might wanna do some filters for making sure you're looking at similar size properties and all that. If you don't have enough comps, just keep on zooming out. But I do this all the time. It's so simple. Because when you're talking to the realtor or you're talking to that landowner, you're like, so tell me what, first of all, I like to ask more questions along the lines of, sounds like a nice property, why do you even want to sell it? I'll say things like, what's more important, you to sell a fast or to list it or to sell it for a high price, get as much out of it as possible. You should just list it with a realtor. Have you thought about that? Have you tried contacting an agent yet? I'm not going to, I can't pay full retail. You should list it with an agent if you want that. I'm the easy button. No, I can pay cash. I can close quickly. So what would you like for it? And sometimes they just don't know because there's not usually a zestimate value on vacant land or there's not as many comps that they don't know. And that's when I'll pull up these sold comps. And I can say, I'm just looking here and I see some properties that have sold recently, this and this and this. I'd probably need to be around there. That's not going to work for you, is it? Or if they say I want 20 grand for the property, you have those comps ready right there where you can pull them up and say, I'm sure yours is really nice, but I don't know if I would want to pay you 20 when I can buy this property right now for 10, that's just a couple of miles away. So do you think 20 grand is a fair price for this crazy market right now? Those are just some of the things I like to ask, right? But it's good to have those numbers pulled up and you need to get good, I'm not talking to you, Jack, I'm talking to everybody here. But you guys, you need get good at quickly looking at Zillow and switching from actives to solds, right, and being able to pull these properties up. But I'm so glad you actually talked to the sellers first before you send an offer. You know, I did my first 30, 40 deals without talking to the seller. Just get the voicemails, send them an offer, and we were averaging about one out of every 30 offers that we sent would get accepted. But when we started talking to them first, we were average about one out of 15 or 20 offers that send out get accepted.” That's awesome. So cool. So when it comes time for you to actually make the offer, how do you determine or figure the offer that you're going to send?

Jack:   I'm not as much of an organization like spreadsheet guy, so I just kind of look at comps, and I try to get at least, I mean I try get the best margin I can. I try negotiate as much as I can, and it's a little bit of a balancing act where sometimes you don't want to offend people and get them like, you're not even serious and they just think you're no legit, but I just try to at least like as long as can get 6k of margin between my price and what I like with them and what I think I can sell it for then I'll do it and then I just try to get as much as I can though based on that.

Joe:   Nice. So you're hoping to after realtor commissions, closing costs, you know, the pictures and for the, for, for the photos and stuff like that, you're hoping to make at least a $6,000 profit. Is that your target?

Jack:   Yo, I'm saying, I would be happy to, I will do, I don't think it's, I think this whole thing is so simple, like, all of this, I am only doing two hours of work a day right now and I don' think it is that much. I think some people think it' like, to me it's really not much work because I send it off to the title company, I hire the photographer, I send it to the Realtor and so I'm happy, if I can make 2-3k profit on a deal, I'll do that. I don't really mind

Joe:   So, here you are making $46,212.65 net profit on five deals. You're averaging about nine grand net profit per deal, which is awesome. I would encourage you to try to get a little bit more, shoot a little higher, right? I mean, three grand is better than a poke in the eye with a stick, but I've always shot for $10,000 minimum profit. Net profit. After my costs, but I mean what you're doing is working. I don't want to discourage you with all the nuts Yeah, that's great. Maybe shoot a little higher

Jack:   Yeah, but I'll do them all. I'd rather just do all of them because if my time was maxed out, then I would do less. But as of now, I'm just focused on this market and trying to get everything.

Joe:   I love it. So you're working a couple hours a day doing this. You, you, you're getting about five or 10 leads a day, which is really awesome. Your, your callings about what, what would you guess percentage of sellers that call you actually leave a message or just hang up?

Jack:   What percentage of the sale is that I'm male, call me?

Joe:   No, no, like the ones that do call you a percentage of them hang up or leave a voicemail

Jack:   Oh, I've heard a text. A good amount respond to the text. Like more than 50% either leave a voicemail or respond to text. Okay, I think people are confused because of the postcard. Some people are a little bit annoyed, but then they'll use, so a lot of them don't leave a voice mail. It's just like blank or it's like a one second voicemails with nothing. No, no, they'll respond to auto text though. What was that reference ID?

Joe:   You know, you want to look into something really cool here? And I just started playing with this. Yeah, there's an app. It took me like five minutes to set it up on my phone. It's called M1, just the letter M is in Mary, one. And it's an App. It's about 120 bucks for the year. And it gives you a phone number and an automated assistant that answers the calls. And you can train it what to say. It's an AI bot. And you tell it a little bit about your business and you give it an intro script. There's about 10 different voices to choose from. It's actually pretty legit. And so what I did is I took my Freedom soft number. So when they call my Freedom Soft number that goes on the letter, the postcard, it forwards through what Freedom Soft calls call automation, forwards to this M1 number, and this automated assistant says, hey, this is Amanda, Joe's automated assistant. We from company XY, Dream Big Land, is the name of our company, we buy and sell a vacant land. How are you doing today? And it'll actually correspond and talk to them. And it will say, what's the reference number or what's your name? And then it says, what's the reference on that postcard we sent? Okay, great. So how can we help you today? And then, it just responds. And if it asks a question, it'll give you an answer. Or if it can't answer, it will, say, I'm not able to answer that or something like that. And then it'll say, okay, just to confirm, your name is Billy Bob, your phone number is blank, I think the reference ID was jac1964 and you would like an offer for your property. Is that right? Okay, great Thank you so much. I'm gonna pass this along and we will send you an offer within 24 to 48 hours. Wow, that's great It's insane. I've been playing with this thing and again, it's ten bucks a month for one phone number Yeah, and if anybody else wants to take it and run with it and play with it I'm thinking that is awesome And so you just so whatever phone number you're using in freedom soft you set up what's called a call automation to forward to that number and make sure you do you make on the phone number itself make sure you check the box to record all your calls. So it will record that conversation with the m1 bot and then when you go to your conversations tab you'll see the whole conversation in there. Wow. In Freedom Soft or in the… Yes, in Freedom Soft. That's great. But you don't even ever have to go to M1 once it's set up. It just keeps all that conversation in there. And then when you, if you call it seller back from your Freedom Soft number, it's the same number that they were calling before. I don't want to get too technical in here, but I'm playing with that. It's pretty cool. You might want to test it and you may not need that other VA. Yeah. That's pretty much, I don' know. I mean, your VA is calling people back. This automated system is not calling people back. Yeah. Although I bet you there is something out there right now that is automated AI that can call people back, but yeah.

Jack:   That's awesome. That's really cool. Yeah, because I also have my VA, he like links them the reference ID to the lot and then I have him look up the slope of every lot that comes in so I can just look and see how steep the grade is. So that really helps me with valuation. Are you in an area where there's a lot of hills? Lot of hills. It's very hilly. So you almost never get a flat lot. Like, yeah, today actually, I'm hopefully getting a flat a lot under contract. And I know that Those are gold. Those will go so easy when I… Nice.

Joe:   It's good for you, man. Okay. So when you send an offer, do you send the, the standard template that I have, the one page letter, and then the one-page contract?

Jack:   Mm-hmm. Yeah, your two page like general contract. I edit it like I just closed today or got in contract on and this one I'm actually holding because I want to get into building soon But I just like they he was a guy who's done a lot of real estate and he was like This is completely favorable to you and not at all to me And so I talent in the word doc and completely I said hey What do you want me to take out of it took out all the stuff edited a bunch? So I have that and have to edit for some people, but most people are good with uh, general gully.

Joe:   You know, one thing I've done before is I've used the Realtors contracts, but then I have taken out the broker language or I've crossed it out. And I've said, I've written over it with a Sharpie non-brokered transaction. And that way it's, it is a standard contract that everybody uses in your area that was written by attorneys. And so if you wanted to just be extra careful, you could use those contracts. Realtor's don't like it if you're using their contracts and you're not licensed, but whatever, just cross that stuff out. Even if you are licensed realtor, cross that stuff out and write non-brokered transaction. So everybody is clear. If you are an agent, by the way, you have to disclose it. You're a realtor and whatnot. But so you send an offer. Are you doing any follow-up? What does your follow-ups look like?

Jack:   Yeah, yeah, I do a lot of follow up. It depends on what I think the value of the lot is, how much follow up we do, but that's another thing I have my VA do a good amount of follow-up. He follows up and calls. Again, it kind of depends on what the lot could be worth, but he will call every day and keep calling, sending a text to them. But then I set up, like for some people, once we've sent a contract, we follow up at least every two weeks. But, if it's a good one, if I know it's good one I'm personally following up every day. I'm calling, I'm texting them, and then if I've done that for a week I maybe switch to every two days. But I pretty much keep hammering them and I call every number that I see on freedom soft. Cause I skip trace them.

Joe: Oh you'll skip trace them all, even after they call you.

Jack:   Yeah, I skipped trace the whole list that I have for the cold callers to be able to call the list.

Joe:   That is ninja next level. You got their phone number already because they called you and you're still skip tracing them and calling them to follow up. But when you're doing so many deals, it is so awesome. That's so awesome, right? So you're following up. I love that. And man, you're what I teach in the program because like we have found in our experience on average, it's seven to eight touches over two to three months of follow up for deals. And you know, we looked at in a previous 12 months, we did 58 deals and of those 58 deals, four came from that first conversation, only four. So we would not have done any follow-up. We would have only done four deals that year. Well, some of the follow-ups was over a year. Some of it was just, you know, a few weeks. Yeah. But that follow- up is so important. You're sitting, you're going to be doing deals this month that came from marketing that was three months ago.

Jack:   Yeah, totally. I have reason to call me. I had someone call me yesterday. I was super confused. And for some reason, I couldn't find my freedom soft because and I tried to act like I knew what was going on. And then I was like, wait, hold up. What is the street that this is on there talking about? She was like sorry. Like I lost the contract. I guess we got in contract like six months ago in my first month or something. He was saying he's trying to like maybe it wasn't in his name and he was trying to find a death certificate of someone or something like that but I had no idea and he said yeah we're in contract and I was like oh that's fun because I didn't know we were in all in time and hadn't followed up but it was cool it would be like oh maybe this is gonna work out because then he sent me some info but it was literally six months later

Joe:   What I love to do with follow up is I keep on sending that offer again every 30 days, at least for a couple three months, just send the contract again.

Jack:   Yeah, I don't do that. That'd be good to do.

Joe:   Because I normally have a 15-day expiration period on there. And you should think about, because right now, in the template that you probably have in Freedom Soft, I've recently changed this, you have to put in a manual expiration date, right? I changed the language in the contract that just says, this contract will expire within 15 days from the date on this letter. So I can keep on using that over and over again. So every 30 days, I'll just send the same letter and the same contract for at least a couple, three months in the physical mail, in addition to texting and calling and all, and emailing and all of that. But then after that, you could change it, maybe send the offer again six months later or whatever, but follow up. And then this is, this is why follow up is so important. And this is what I so strongly believe in sending written offers to every seller you talk to. Because when you follow up, you're always following up with, Hey, Jim, how you doing? I'm following up on that offer I sent you for your property a few months ago. You're following up an offer. And when you're sending another letter or a text, it's like, Hey did you get that offer in the mail I sent It just kind of prioritizes a little higher the follow-up that in the seller's mind that you're doing. Okay. So, you're closing on the deals. When you get a deal under contract, what are some of the steps then? Do you do some due diligence? Do you have a realtor go look at it? Do you go look it yourself? What do you do?

Jack:   I immediately, I have found a good drone photographer. I basically just looked at other listings and I saw which ones I thought were the, was the best drone photography. And then I called that realtor and I asked him who his drone photographer was and then, and then reached out and it's pretty affordable. It's 153. I have a deal with this guy, but it's like $153 per one. So I immediately email him his name's Shane. And then, I just send him, Hey, here's the parcel ID. Here's the street. Here's how big it is. And then he's pretty good. He goes out and typically within two days, shoots back to me one day out here. And then I just send that to the realtor and he gets it on market that day. Once we have the photos, he gets that on market. But I sent it to the Realtor first as well because now that we've done a fair amount of deals, he has some different builders and stuff. At first I was trying to dispo things so I had a builder list as well. I just found it so much better for me once I was going on market So he will text it to those people before we got it shot just in case because he found one buyer before I even got it shot and then I canceled it. No use. But yeah, so I get it shot and then once that's done I send it off to the realtor and then it's on market. And I ask his thoughts. I say hey to my realtor, his name's Chris, I say, hey Chris, here's what I'm thinking price-wise, what do you think? And I get his second opinion. On some, I'll have even another realtor that I've worked with for my own investment stuff. I'll send it to him and ask him his thoughts as well on a price point on some that's like hard to comp out.

Joe:   So how did you find these Realtors? Or this one in particular that you're doing right now with…

Jack:   I had to call a bunch because I just started, because I was so frustrated with trying to dispo the deals, it was so much effort, texting and calling all these different people and putting in all the posting because I had one realtor that I'd worked with for my own investments. His brokerage wouldn't let him do it. I probably called like 20 to 30 realtors and I explained everything to them and a lot of them couldn't do it. Their brokerage had a rule that they couldn't do it, but then I found this guy, Chris, who, he was the broker, or he is the broker. Him and his wife run a brokerage, and he was like, yeah, I've done that before, I understand wholesaling, like, I can, I can list it for you. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Do you pay him generous commissions? No, I pay him regular, 3%, 3% on both sides, and he's been awesome. I mean, one of the deals, And he's represented both sides for a fair number of them. One of the deals, you know, we sold for 85. So on that he makes, you now, what is that, 2,400. So he's made some money at this point, but yeah, he's been fine with it.

Joe:   You might think about maybe offering him a bonus if he sells it within 30 days. Yeah, you offer him a thousand dollar bonus. Because you want real I I always am probably more generous than maybe I should be with my realtors because I want them to Have my property their priority So offering a bonus maybe five percent on the buy side five percent of the sell side even so ten percent total commissions And it gets a little tricky when you're just okay with the little three thousand dollar profit on a deal, right? So you got to make sure you're working those numbers in and that makes sense But what you've got going is working for and I hear this a lot from people It's hard to find good realtors. Of course it is, right? Because it's hard just sell land in their mind. They're only making a few hundred bucks, maybe a thousand bucks, right. And they take realtors think that land takes forever to sell and it's a long drive to go out there and look at it or whatnot. So it, you do have to work hard and I'm glad to hear that you actually did not give up and you kept on calling and calling and calling to find a good realtor. That's awesome.

Jack:   Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And most of ours, we get in contract actually a lot, like probably half we've gotten in contract in one day. Oh, wow. And then the other half, some have taken up to a few weeks. We keep price dropping. So I text him and I'm like, Hey, let's price drop to that. We were pretty aggressive because I don't really want to stay and I'd rather just get the deal done. So I just price drop like every three to five days, somewhere like that.

Joe:   Okay, all right, cool. And who are you mainly selling these to? Homebuilders?

Jack:   Yeah, mostly builders. Yeah, mostly builders.

Joe:   Okay, so good. That's interesting is you're in a market where there's a lot of new constructions.

Jack:   Yeah, a lot.

Joe:   Okay, cool. And what advice would you give to somebody who wants to find those kinds of markets where there's a lot of home building going on?

Jack:   Oh, I don't know exactly. I would just type in on Google because I have been, I came to this place because it's one of the higher appreciation markets in America. That's a low, that's a small, it's not a huge city. But if you go to any high growth area, there's going to be a lot, like where I live actually, I didn't wholesale here yet, but in national Tennessee area, it is growing so quickly. So there's a ton of building happening. I just drive and I see development after development. So I think any of the high appreciation and high growth cities are gonna have a lot of building.

Joe:   Again, every city and state has that, even if you're in Missouri, where are they building new homes? And one of the ways I like to look at that for those areas is just go to Zillow and look at solds of homes built after 2023. And you'll see a bunch of pockets where there's a lot of new homes that are being sold. You could even look at active listings where the year built is one of filters. Again, minimum year built 2023, and you could find where those pockets are. I'm curious to know this too, because I sometimes I'll go in and look for the home builders that aren't building big, huge subdivisions, but they're just building these ones here and there. Is that what you're looking for? Those are the best buyers that you have found too.

Jack:   I don't actually know because my realtors mostly find them. But yes, I think most of them are not big. Most of them or builders that are building like a couple at a time. There's a lot of those in the market that I'm in.

Joe:   Yeah, nice. Good, good. All right, what other questions do I have for you? You're using your own money. Now, you're wholesaling everything. Are you buying and holding anything and selling it with owner financing?

Jack:   Not with owner financing no, but I'm now and now because I really want to build as well So I found a I did the same thing I called a bunch of builders and called references and then I'm Now holding two lots because I know this market so well and what is Happening and what bigger investments are gonna change the area and so I have gotten like some of the best lots in the area So I'm holding, I'm in contract on both of them right now, but I'm going to hold them both and then build on them. But no, not on any seller financing yet.

Joe:   You know, I wish I, I have not done this yet, but I want to, I want to find somebody that has a dealer's license for manufactured homes. And on one of my next lots, just hold it and do what you're talking about. Because I've heard people doing really, really right now with buying the land half acres, you know, out in the country and you have to get a dealer's license or know somebody who has a dealers license that, you know, these big DR Hortons or a Centex, if Centex is even still around that they, they build their big home builders, right? They also build manufactured homes and you can get a manufactured home on a lot and get it FHA approved for financing if it's on a physical foundation. That's interesting. And so you can it from purchase to actually with a home sold within three months with really if you've got it all lined up. So all you need a contractor for is to lay the foundations, underground utilities, bring usually these modular homes. When you put it together, they don't look like mobile homes. They put them together and you get somebody who tapes and muds the interior after it's put together, connects all of the underground utilities and it's tied to the foundation. And then they finish the roof and all of that stuff and the exterior and the siding. And you've got a really nice house. And when you price it with, when you sell it to an FHA buyer, they sell super fast and they're really nice, beautiful looking homes. And that's something I want to do someday. I've heard from people that are buying lots, instead of building a brand new stick construction there, try to get a manufactured home there. And if you get it set up right with the right permits and the right contractor to do the foundations and underground utilities, you can get them turned really fast. That's for all. All right, cool. Let's see what else. Any advice you'd give to beginners, Jack?

Jack:   Oh, just follow exactly what Joe says to do in the course. If you just do exactly what he tells you to do and you don't give up, it will work. That's what I love about our online course that is good with someone like you. You just it just do it exactly what it tells you is do and it will work. And then what I would say is when you get discouraged, because it takes longer than you hope that it would take, the calls were super helpful for me. Like as long as you're getting re-encouraged, you have to figure out how do I get re-encouraged? Because as long as you stay the route, it's gonna work. And so I would read the testimonial stuff in the Facebook group, and then I would hop into the calls and I would hear these other people, and I'd ask all my questions to you as well, but I would here other people saying, oh, I just got a deal, how do I do this? And that would, hearing the testimonies would re-encourage me along the way. Okay, if they can do it, I can do. So those are just the two things.

Joe:   That's why I love doing these interviews. And in the past couple, three months, you're about the fifth one that I've done. And I keep on telling everybody to listen to these because you're going to get discouraged. It's going to hard and you're gonna be like, man, I've not gotten anywhere. And it could be for some very simple reasons. Could just be for, I'm not been consistently doing my marketing. I've been consistently making offers or it's taking me too long to call them back. It's taken me too, long to send them an offer or I've not been following up guys. Because what we just told you on this podcast is really, really simple. And if you're wanting to do deals, just do what Jack does, right? I just interviewed a guy named Grant and he actually lives here in St. Louis. We had lunch the other day and he was telling me, he had been in my program for over two years and he's averaging about $30,000 a month. And somebody else told me about him, hey, do you know this guy, Grant, he lives in your backyard. I was like, who, Grant? Grant, He's one of your students, ding-a-ling, he's got your course. I'm like, what? And so I called him up and said, Hey, Grant, nice to meet you. What do you, he says, yeah, man, I'm quitting my job, you know, in a couple of months. And I'm just so excited. This is awesome. I said, what are you doing? What's the secret? Like, how you doing it? He's just doing what you say to do in the course. And I was, I hate to say it, but I was shocked. I was like, wow, that's awesome. And I interviewed him, just released it a few days ago, but I love doing these interviews because exactly you're right. This, people are going to be listening to this and going to get some encouragement and they're going to some faith and they're going to be like, yes, I can do this as well. So speaking of faith, Jackie, your faith is really important to you. So talk a little bit about what does that mean to you in this journey with your wife and you've got some kids now, right?

Jack:   One, yes. Our first. It just came three weeks ago. Three weeks ago today.

Joe:   Wow! Congratulations! It's a girl?

Jack:   It's a girl, yeah, and it's Esther.

Joe:   Man, that's so cool. And how long have you been married?

Jack:   Two years. A little over two years now.

Joe:   Yeah. Cool, so describe your faith journey a little bit.

Jack:   Yeah, I was a drug addict. At 14, I started smoking weed, and then I really quickly got into pills, over-the-counter medications, cough syrup, and got arrested when I was 15, started getting into harder drugs, and was depressed. I was on antidepressants, borderline suicidal. One day, a youth pastor called me up. I knew him because I met him at my high school. He called me and invited me to come on a mission trip to serve the homeless, and was so shocked. I was at a really low point and I was like, all right, I'll come. While I was there, I heard test miracle stories of God healing people and speaking to people in dreams and different things. I'd never heard anything like that. And so I prayed after I heard those stories. I prayed. I said, Jesus, I want to live for you. I want make an impact for my life and I actually want to do something good. And immediately, like next day I woke up with peace. I felt joy for the first time in a long time. And then I got prayed over on the last night of this trip and I just really had this incredible encounter with the Lord where my body was filled with heat and I actually couldn't speak or move until they read scriptures over me. And eventually they read scriptures over me and I could speak and move again. And in this experience, I realized that everything I had been searching for in drugs, I had searching for some kind of high, some kind of ultimate experience, and I found that in an encounter with the Lord. No drug that I had ever done can compare to how it felt, like being in His presence and experiencing the Lord, and so in that experience through prayer, I was healed of addiction and depression. I stopped and never taken antidepressants again and my life completely 180 and I started pursuing Jesus With everything and life has been so much better with how? The hell those few years of just kind of thinking down into darkness

Joe:   Jesus is so much better than drugs. I have to look for sure. So much better. How long ago was that, Jack?

Jack:   That was 10 years ago now, so I was 17 at the time.

Joe:   You're 27 now, married, little newborn baby girl, Esther. Good man. Hey, let's do this. Would you pray for us? Can we end this podcast in a prayer? I've never done this before. Yeah. But it would be cool. I'd be honored if you said a prayer.

Jack:   Yeah, I would love to, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jesus, we thank you that you are available to everyone. God, we thank you, that you came for the whole world and that you desire that everyone would have relationship with you. And God, I thank you that there's no person too far gone, that no matter what we've done or what we've gotten ourselves into, God, that You are always willing to lend a helping hand to pull us out of our mess. And, God I pray that right now and you would just reveal yourself to every person listening. Jesus, and God I thank you that all we need to do is turn our hearts to you and say, God, I'm sorry for living without you, and would you, Jesus, God would you come into my life and would You transform me? And then you come, God, and you transform us. And so, Jesus, we just invite you into our hearts. We invite you to transform our lives. We believe that you are God and that you were raised from the And Jesus, we thank you for the opportunity to have abundant life in you and joy. And I thank you just for this podcast, God. I pray that it was an encouragement to everyone who listened. And I think you for Joe, God, I pray a special blessing over Joe that you would just continue to use him to bring financial freedom and to bring hope and healing to people. So, God we thank You for this time that we got to spend together in Jesus' name.

Joe:   InJesus name. Amen. That was good, man. Awesome. Thanks. If somebody wants to know more about Jesus, where do you have a website or anything that you send people to?

Jack:   I mean, I love going through the Bible with people, but I would say just the Bible. Get a Bible and read, start in the Gospels. There's four books in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and these are the stories of Jesus' life told by four different people. Three of them walked with Him. And yeah, you can just get to know Him through the Bible, find a church near you, go and tell them, hey, I'm interested in learning more about Jesus. That's what I would recommend.

Joe:   I love it. There's my church has a website called future and hope.org. God's given everybody a future and a hope. I love a future. And hope. Org. You won't even find a reference to our church. And I don't think anywhere on that website. So you can go check that out. And let me know too, if that's the right link, it might be.com future and Hope.org I think that's it. But yeah, cool. Appreciate you, Jack. And what's your wife's name? If you don't mind me asking Riley, my wife's Riley. Yeah. Say hi to Riley for us. Yeah, well, And thank her for letting you buy the program. It was all thank you for said awesome. This has been good. Thank you so much. Hey guys. Take care. Have a good one We'll see you later. Thank You Jack. Bye. Bye.

Jack:   Thanks, Joe.