950 » Deals Gone Bad #13 – Accidentally Buying A Property From Someone Who Didn’t Even Own It – Justin Lee

Joe: Welcome, guys, Episode 13 of the Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast, and this is our series, The Deal Gone Bad. This is episode 13 of Deals Gone Bad. And we’ve got a great guest on today, and I’ve known him for years and years. His name is Justin Lee. And I first met him when a couple of different times I’ve met him first time I think I’m trying to remember when it was. But he was doing some deals in St. Louis from California. But I also met him when I was traveling around doing deals virtually from the Czech Republic and from an RV or something like that. And Justin came on my radar because he’s been doing deals virtually for a long, long time. He’s one of the pioneers in the business, doing deals virtually, and he’s got a great bad deal here. If there is such a thing where he actually bought a property from somebody who didn’t own it through a fraudulent deed.

Joe: And unfortunately, that sucks when that happens and it’s happened a lot. So we’re going to be talking about on this podcast, how do you avoid situations like that? And I’m sure just he’s been around the block for a long, long time and he’s done a lot of deals. And you’re going to be learning about things to watch out for, which is the whole theme of this deals gone bad podcast series here of what do you watch out for? So a few things. First, guys, if you’re watching this live right now on YouTube and Facebook, say hello, Carla right here is in the House. Hey, Carla, how are you doing? Carla owns, a background screening company out in Illinois called Landlord Tenant Services. LT Services.us. What’s up, Carla? All right. So if you want the notes from these podcasts, you can text the word bad to thirty one, thirty one thirty one, or you can go to JoeMcCall.com/bad to get all the notes. And I’m going to be turning this into a book and hopefully that’s OK with just me and ask them but I’ll make everything anonymous if Justin doesn’t want to.

Joe: But we’ve said this too, guys. The smart people learn from their own mistakes. Wise people learn from the mistakes of others and you can spend a lot of money and lose a lot of money making bad mistakes. But the thing I love about this series is that we’re not interviewing people who have always had success, that have always made a lot of money doing deals. We’re interviewing people who have had success and have had failures, but they rebounded. They came back. These are all people who made mistakes or learned really valuable lessons. Maybe they didn’t make mistakes. They just didn’t know. But things happened. But they all came back. They didn’t quit. They didn’t give up. Which leads me to one of my favorite quotes. And maybe I’ll read this quote after I bring Justin on. How about we do that? We’ll bring Justin on. There he is. Justin Lee, how are you?

Justin: I’m awesome. Nice to see you.

Joe: Man, you were in Costa Rica?

Justin: Panama, one country over.

Joe: Yes. In Panama and doing deals, in what part of the United States when we met?

Justin: Panama, when we were living in Panama, we were doing them in Southern California.

Joe: That’s awesome. It’s hard enough to do deals in Southern California when you live there. Now, you’re doing them from South America. That’s awesome. Glad you’re on the show, man.

Justin: It’s great to be here. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so it’s nice to see you. And I saw you promoting this on Facebook. And I’m like, you know what I mean? Don’t get me wrong, I got plenty, but I got one that’s worth talking about.

Joe: And I’m excited about this one. Not in a sensationalist way, you know, because sometimes bad news sells, which is sucky and unfortunate. But I want these podcasts to be real lessons learned for people they can learn and get away from this, something that can help them avoid the same mistakes. And this is a real famous quote from Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt in the when was he president? In the thirties and forties. I should know that. But this is what he said. I’m going to try to bring it up on the screen here. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who was actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who airs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds? Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause? Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat the good.

Justin: That’s great. Especially because you worked at work. The word deeds into the quote, which is my deal is all about the deed.

Joe: All right. All right. So when was this deal that we’re going to talk about here?

Justin: Great question. So we’re going back. I actually just opened up my email folder, so I get dates and stuff, accuracy. I bought the house in 2010 and I’m looking here through the legal brief. I closed on it September 17th, 2010. So this is over a decade old bad deeds, butit still sticks in my craw.

Joe: And this is a deal during the last recession. So house prices were still kind of falling. A lot of things happened. Back then, with mortgage fraud back in two thousand six and seven and eight, nine and all that, and it didn’t stop, did it?

Justin: So do you want me to just jump right into the background? So in gosh, I don’t even remember how I came into contact with this gentleman. I don’t remember if it was a Facebook group or an email or whatever it was. This guy I got a lead on the deal in Oceanside, California, which for people who don’t know, that’s the San Diego County. It’s the northernmost end of San Diego County. It’s right next to Camp Pendleton. And I had this deal and he’s like, come on up. I’m selling this house. Jumped in the car. Forty-five-minute drive one way. Got up there, regular sort of standard track home. And I do remember the guy’s name was Michael Mayfield, and he was very I had never been to a house where a wholesaler was so intent about showing me the deed. Like I don’t really care about the dude. Like, I just want to walk through the house, get my repair estimate. How much do you want for it? And let’s close this deal.

Justin: And so he kept showing me, look, I got the deed, OK? That’s great. How much do you want for it? Got a contract done with the wholesaler. He selected an escrow company in San Diego. I was using private money at the time, private lender who was financing one hundred percent of the purchase price. And I would fund the flip’s. So we get the house under contract. And this was going to be because we got such a good deal on it. It was just going to be sort of a paint and carpet kind of a deal, got the paint and got the carpet done, put the house on the MLS and about, I don’t even know. A week into the process, the realtor, whom I listed it with, my former business partner, his name was Miguel, his broker reached out to him. And for this, I don’t even know what the name of the document was, but basically they’d come from the previous broker saying, you can’t sell this house, you don’t legally own it. And I’m thinking, what are you talking about? I’ve been through escrow. I’ve bought the property. We funded it. It’s closed. I own this house. Get out of here.

Joe: How many months had it been since you bought it?

Justin:  So we closed on September 17th, and I’m looking through the notes. Not even it says on October 1st that Deutsche Bank reached out to us and said Deutsche Bank says, no, no, no, we own this property. And I’m thinking to myself, I bought the property. You don’t own it. Long story short, after a bunch of back and forth, Deutsche Bank said it puts a list pendants on the house. So now I can’t sell it. The back story is what happened was this guy had basically gone, forged a deed, taken it, recorded the deed, had gotten it passed. The notary had accepted the whatever I paid for the house. Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars or whatever the hell it was. I don’t even remember. I go back and look at it, basically taken the money and poof, it had scrammed with the money.

Joe: So this is now closed with the title company or an escrow company. We talk to the company in the title insurance for sure. Had title insurance. Yes. How did they not catch this?

Justin: I don’t know how the title didn’t catch it. All I can tell you is and I’ll say it now and I’m sure I’ll say it again at the end of the call. I’m like the living, walking, breathing reason, like testimonials. Hey, this is why you get title insurance.

Joe:  OK, so like this is, let’s rewind it to Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bank, whatever. They had a mortgage on there. Deutsche Bank. Yeah. They had an actual mortgage on the property.

Justin:  No Deutsche Bank. So Deutsche Bank technically owned it. They’d taken it, they’d taken it back. REO and this guy filled out the fraudulent deed as if to say, no, no, no, Deutsche Bank doesn’t own this. I do this. So when the house went up for sale, I guess it triggered some sort of notification in the former REO broker called us or called the broker who had the deal where we were reselling it, said, what do you do? And you don’t own this house. You can’t legally sell this. And that’s what started the unraveling of the ball of twine, so to speak. Wow. So long story short, was my the broker came to me and he goes, Justin, there’s list pendance against this from Deutsche Bank. You can’t sell this house. You’re never going to get clear title. You’re not even the legal owner of it.

Joe: I’m still like it. Maybe you’re going to explain this. How did you get clear title on it?

Justin: I mean, we went through the escrow company and they said they I don’t know what happened, but it was lawyer’s title insured the deal and we bought it in a way we left. I don’t technically know how or why they did it or how they didn’t catch it. But the guy who was the fraud guy, I guess he did a good job on the fraudulent side.

Joe:  So already I have the lesson learned that I’ve already typed down here. I always buy title insurance. Yes, always. How much would that cost you? Do you remember approximately?

Justin: Oh, I’d have to go back and check, but it was probably a couple of thousand bucks, maybe not. Probably not even that much. Maybe less title insurance.

Joe: Educate people a little bit. What is that and is it required you have to buy it or do you have to.

Justin: I don’t know if you have to like could you theoretically buy? It’s important to note is in California I don’t know how it works in other states, there’s a lenders’ policy and an owner’s policy, and I believe it’s the lender’s policy is optional, but we got both policies and it’s not something I know the profit margins in the title insurance business are absurd, but like I said, it was worth it based on what the potential loss was, because the second they reached out to us, the instant feeling in my heart sank. And now it’s panic and it’s holy crap. I have a private lender who was loaned against this. They’ve loaned me two hundred and seventy grand or whatever the purchase price was. How the heck am I going to repay them? What is going to happen now?

Justin: I’m panicking. I am panicking big time. Fortunately, I had a friend who worked in the title insurance business at lawyer’s title and I went to him. The long story short is that he put me in charge or in touch with their frauds or claims department went through the whole process. We were assigned an attorney by the lawyer’s title who was retained by them. And I’m just looking here through my email. This case was resolved. It took about a year and a half to get this being resolved.

Justin: So for a year and a half now, the silver lining was and granted this was back. So we’re talking twenty ten, twenty eleven. So we’re really at the bottom of the market. There’s REO product everywhere. People are trying to do this quite title, fraudulent foreclosures, all this stuff. So I’m caught up in the middle of this world and I’m just this one little isolated case. We very quickly because I had payments due to my private lender. So how am I going to service this debt? We stuck a renter in there for you, did we did we stuck a renter in there.

Justin: Fortunately, they paid everything from month to month. What did we do? I don’t know. Remember, we did a one year lease a month to month. They were in there for over a year anyway. We ended up going to court. Obviously, I had to like I was involved with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, like I had to go in the courtroom and it was like the whole thing. Do you see the man who gave you the fraudulent deed or you threw out the whole thing? You point him out. I got to I have to point to the guy like it. It’s sort of creepy because, like, the guy committed murder or anything. But it’s really creepy being in a courtroom, staring across at the guy who basically defrauded the transaction.

Joe: Were you behind like a like a window with not a not see through window.

Justin: No, it was a full open court like he could’ve went Charles Manson and jumped at them.

Joe: And so you saw him and he was there.

Justin: He was there. And I had to explain the story. And here’s exactly what happened. Here’s the crazy part. Deutsche Bank comes back and they go, they wanted me to buy the house from them at some insane valuation. And I’m like, no, this is what this is how much I have into it. Anyway, we ended up and then so we said to Deutsche Bank, right, why don’t you just buy it for me then and I’ll probably. If you’re telling me this is the value. You can buy it for me and I’ll take the difference. Anyway, long story short, we went back and forth, back and forth, and finally the lawyer was like, do you want this all to be over? And I said, absolutely. And he said, Then you just need to take the Deutsche Bank, which is basically a deal, which was lawyers, which is going to give me back the money. And I honestly, Joe, it’s been a decade now. I don’t remember the difference between what I rented it out for and what the servicing of the debt to the private lender was. It was one hundred bucks a month difference. And either I made or lost a hundred bucks a month, I don’t remember, but it dragged on and on for about a year and a half.

Justin: I mean, I could only imagine if I had to pay those lawyer bills myself because it was all paid for by my lawyers’ title. I’m sorry, but the first American earlier it was lawyers’ title. They paid all the legal bills. And I had like I’d like when I say a proper lawyer, like one of the big fancy downtown San Diego offices with the law firm with five names on it and you walk it, you know what I mean? It was they weren’t skimping on the legal they had retained some pretty powerful counsel. But anyway, it was a year and a half of my life of stress and anxiety and basically the you know, anybody tries to do all well, I don’t need a lender’s policy or I’ll just get an owner’s policy or my advice is to not skimp on title insurance whatsoever. And I gladly pay it now, on every single transaction I’ve ever been in.

Joe: You said there’s two title insurance, the lenders and the what the lenders and the owner’s policy. OK, whatever happened to the guy who sold you the deal?

Justin: Believe he’s hanging out in the gray motel.

Joe: Is he still?

Justin: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if he got out after ten years, but the crazy part was when they tracked him down and figured out who he was like and the escrow company gave all of the information and here’s where we sent the wire, the money was gone. Like he took it 270 or whatever it was, and he closed on a Wednesday. And by Friday, that money had been taken out of his bank account. Who knows what he did with it?

Joe: Well, you think I mean, that kind of a crime, it would be hard to hide, wouldn’t it?

Justin: I mean, I don’t know. What did you do, go into the bank and take to 270 grand in cash?

Joe: It would be hard to hide your identity. You know, all of that stuff you have to sign. And the wire, the money gets wired. It goes to a bank. And you think the feds would be easy to find somebody who tries to perpetrate.

Justin: So he successfully did this or two separate houses in San Diego within a couple of weeks of each other. And the other guy he did it to is this guy here. If there’s any people here or watching this who are in San Diego, there’s a guy who runs a REA group or used to run a REA group, and his name is Chief Denny. And they call him Chief Denny because he’s a former police officer. So my link to chief Denny is we were both defrauded by this same scumbag. And so, yeah, he did it twice. He got away with it twice. And in the whole circle of life type of thing here in Southern California, I’ve done I bought a mobile home for the first time in my life two years ago. The mobile home park. No, just one of the single units in the park. OK, and when we went to sell it, the guy who was the realtor who brought the deal, he was like the expert in this mobile home park.

Justin: And he’s like, no, we want to use this one specific escrow company because they’re experts. When it comes to mobile home, I really want you to use them. I’m like, I don’t care. That’s fine. We’ll use whatever you want. And when we went to sell the house, you’ll never guess who the escrow company was. The same one, the same one that did the fraudulent deed. And I walked in and I knew the name of it and it all started coming back to me. And I walked in the door and she goes, I know you and I don’t want to know how you know me. And she’s like, Oh, my goodness. And it was.

Joe: Were they complicit in it, do you think?

Justin: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Now, the notary, that’s a different story because what notary was like. Oh, sure. So I don’t know. I can’t say that. But yeah, it’s crazy how eight years after that, it all came full circle and I walked back into the same escrow company to close a completely separate transaction. And because escrow companies here in San Diego County, I mean, there’s hundreds and hundreds of them just in.

Joe: Justin, you look like Robert De Niro. How many times do people tell you that?

Justin: Never.

Joe: Is it the camera right now in the way you’ve got your jacket up or down?

Justin: Oh, man, no, never. I’ll take it. I’ll take it.

Joe: Does anybody like you guys see this, like Robert De Niro?

Justin: Wow. I’ll take it. When I was younger, I got Keanu Reeves and Mario Lemieux.

Joe: You look like a younger version of him, not the older one. Watch this video back. You’ll see what I mean when you see it. So how can, it sounds like this would be easy, an easy fraud to do. Like how does local governments, local county recorder’s courthouse and all that? Well, how do they prevent this from happening?

Justin:  I don’t know. But I guess at the end of the day, what happened is and I used to do I’ll call I got a different name for him right on the old kitchen table closing. Right. I mean, I remember the first deal that I ever did in two thousand three. I did a kitchen table closing.

Joe: I mean, I was like a creative deal or something.

Justin: It was a creative deal, was a sub to. And I’m just like, here’s the deed. And we met at the UPS store, the UPS guy notarized deal and all that that I took it down. This is in Virginia and got that because I started my company when I was living in the D.C. area and I took it down and I got it recorded. And obviously the seller didn’t do anything shady. I didn’t do it. And change was completely a legitimate transaction. But I would just say maybe lesson learned and I haven’t done one in 50 years. I would do everything either through for a title company lawyer, whatever they use in your in your particular state, this whole sign the deed over to me and I’m going to run down to the courthouse and record it. And I don’t know, I would be. You can, but you know, had I have done that with this guy, it would have been game over.

Joe: The question, I think is still like how can the government prevent this from happening? Like, I filed a quick claim deed before, and this was actually it was it was the house I actually really did own. And I wanted to get it out of my personal name into my LLC or something like that. And I just did it myself. And they didn’t ask. I thought anybody could have done this right. Like anybody could have did it out. Yeah. So how do these how can governments prevent this kind of thing from happening?

Justin: I don’t think they can. I don’t think they can, because now this is coming back to me. So I used to invest in Washington State and for those who are Washington state investors, you’ll know they’ve got this brutal transfer tax there. Basically, two percent. So you sell two hundred thousand one hundred thousand dollars. You’re paying two grand a closing and traditionally the seller pays it. Yeah, and I bought a house subject to out of foreclosure where I did a table top close and I transferred the debt I filled out and I went from the seller into my entity and I walked into the county courthouse, had all the deed and it was all legit. But I thought, I’m going to be a smart guy and circumvent the tax write because I didn’t want to pay the tax because I think it was a devaluation was like three hundred and fifty grand. Long story short was I transferred it in and you have to fill out this form and it’s like, what is your exemption? Why do you not have to pay tax? I thought oh, estate planning purposes and it came through.

Justin: Long story short is on the back end. When I resold that property, they caught me and I had to pay the transfer tax that I didn’t pay the first time and again when I sold it. And so they catch it. And so, you know, these little things that sometimes that was on me and I was an idiot doing that to try and save a few thousand bucks and I shouldn’t have done it. In hindsight, I was younger and more foolish. But again, it was one of those tabletop closings where we didn’t go through an escrow company or a title company who would have said, hang on a minute, you gotta pay this tax. You’re transferring it from party A to party B.

Joe: All right. So let’s talk lessons learned. I think we’ve already talked about it. Number one, always use the title company or an escrow company or.

Justin: Yeah, whatever they use. Right. And a reputable one and ninety-nine-point nine percent of them out there are reputable.

Joe: So how does somebody find a reputable title company?

Justin: I always go referral. I’d always just ask a fellow investor in my market, because what’s funny is we have it now in San Diego, depending upon the type of deal that I’m doing, regular transaction, assignment of contract, wholesale deal, double escrow, or I’m taking it down myself. I got it. Or subject to I’ve got a different one for each one because have a combination of what they specialize will or won’t do and their pricing. So you always get you always see on Facebook. I always see this. I need an investor friendly title company in such and such. And my response is right. And I’m not trying to be I don’t know what the word is arrogant about it or whatever, but I was right back and say what type of transaction are you trying to do? Because depending upon the type of transaction you’re trying to do, I’m going to recommend a different escrow company to you.

Joe: All right, good. Second lesson, always buy title insurance and owners policy. Yes. It goes without saying yes. Any other lessons learned? Anything you would have done differently?

Justin: I mean, I think I was just I mean, I’m a pretty trusting person. I’m also a horrible judge of character, which is trust your own character. So, yeah, but like, I don’t know, like maybe somebody would say, oh, Justin, I would sniff that guy out in the second or whatever. In hindsight, it was he wanted to keep showing me the deed, but I didn’t think anything of it. I more when I go into a house, I’m, I’m just I’m obsessed with the numbers. What can I buy for? How much is it going to cost to fix it up? What could I resell it for? I think you owe the other lessons learned was so yeah. Go through a title or escrow Company and make sure you get title insurance. Don’t skimp. Any other thing I would say is don’t get me wrong. I’m sure if you watch watching this going, oh, I’ve done dozens and dozens and dozens of tabletop closings and I’m sure you have and I’m sure they’ve all gone, well, I won’t ever do another one. It’s just not worth it.

Justin: I would rather pay to have that neutral, independent third party do it. And it’s an independent set of eyes on the transaction. And I also think with the tabletop closings, I mean, unfortunately, we live in a litigious society today. And the next thing you know, you bought a house on the cheap from somebody and then they find out about it. They want to come back at you. If you haven’t done it through a title or an escrow company, you’re just open yourself up to all sorts of additional scrutiny.

Joe: Especially when you have private lenders involved. Would you have done anything different to protect your private investor better?

Justin: I don’t think so, because we’ve got the lenders policy. So that was the coverage. So I don’t think so. I think it was just bad luck. But I will say this to your point. When you start at the beginning and you’re like, how the heck did this get through? How did nobody catch it? Had there been a hard money lender, a professional business, maybe they would have caught something during the underwriting process that most of our private lenders have. And it is a pet peeve, by the way, when people misuse the term private lender. But for us to have true private lenders, friends, family, people who just want to invest in real estate, possibly they are very trusting of us. And that’s why I said for me, this was that hard thinking, holy crap moment of, oh, my goodness, this person has wired the two hundred seventy grant the escrow company. What am I going to tell them?

Joe: Well, good for you though, for taking care of your private lender.

Justin: It took a lot longer, obviously, but, yeah, I still get chills thinking about it.

Joe: Is there anything you could have done to like? Well, they were secured, right? I mean, they were kinda. But there was really just hanging on your word.

Justin: Yes. If I’d been like, oh I don’t need a lender’s policy. I don’t know what would’ve happen.

Joe: So the lender got his money back plus interest.

Justin: Well, we were paying the interest monthly. And that’s when we had the renters. So they got their they got the principal amount back. It was an interest only loan.

Joe: How much money did you lose in this deal?

Justin: I don’t think I lost so much money. I don’t think I lost much money at all. But I lost a lot of sleep and there was a lot of stress and a lot of time at depositions. And like talking to I don’t think I ever spoke to the FBI, but certainly like all the local authorities here and conference calls and going and sitting through courtroom and depositions and then getting into it with Deutsche Bank, like the amount of time that it took away from being able to find or do other deals, it was huge.

Joe: You probably could have stroked the check. Would you have stroked the check to not have to pay all of that had a headache and hassle in time?

Justin: Well, you know, because I thought that I thought that it came down to a battle of between me and Deutsche Bank of who technically owns this. And they wanted me to pay them more for it. I spun it around and said, well, no, you pay me for that if you think that that’s what it’s worth. At the time, I found it somewhat incredulous because Deutsche Bank was very much complicit with all that mortgage fraud and all that stuff going down. For me I was sort of like at this point now I had free legal work and I’m thinking myself, why can’t you just have the one little guy here get this house and why don’t we all go about our business? Why do you want this house back so badly? Deutsche Bank, why don’t you just let me buy it out for you? I’ll settle. But it didn’t happen that way, but it all ended up working out for the best in the end.

Joe: Wow. All right. So final thoughts. Justin, like what advice would you give to somebody who’s maybe listening to this and is a little intimidated, maybe a little scared now to go after big deals or. I don’t know. What would you say to somebody?

Justin: I would say don’t let my story scare you from being in this business. This is a tremendous business and it’s a really great way to wealth. I would say that if you do everything above board, go to the title company, go through the company by the title insurance. Don’t skimp. It’s there for a reason because I know a lot of people complain about the profit margins in title insurance. My brother’s starting a title company because the profit margins. Don’t let that discourage you because I’m living walking proof that I’ve gotten my ROI on it thousands of times.

Joe: Never try to take shortcuts I think is another big lesson.

Justin: And I wouldn’t I mean, again, I’m sure there’s people out there doing the tabletop close. I wouldn’t do those. I would do everything through a formal title and escrow company. I think it also on the acquisition side, when you’ve got sellers and you’re doing off market deals, it’s going to put them more at ease and give them more confidence. You know, for example, my favorite title and escrow company, because I’m a work from home guy for years I had a very good relationship with them. I would use their conference table or conference room and book it out and they would let me book it whenever I want and I would meet sellers there. And so when the seller comes in, it’s like, hey, here’s where you’re going to sign the contract and you’re going to come back in thirty days to sign all your final docs and they’re going to check for you. And all of a sudden you can add high level of legitimacy. It’s an illegitimate business. But, you know, when you walk out of your house and you’ve got the P.O. Box, all that kind of stuff, sometimes it’s nice. And there are some people, a lot of people actually who they just associate office in a big tower in a big part of your local city or area. It gives you instant extra credibility.

Joe: Yeah, I’m writing this down. If you work from home, if you have a great relationship with your title company or escrow company, read the sellers there. Yeah, excellent. Yeah. It’s another thing I wrote down here lesson.

Justin: I learned a side note. It’s also a great place to meet them. If you need to ask for price reduction, it’s a great place to work. Meet them if you need to ask for a price reduction. I just had a contract saying if I were going to reduce the price of it.

Joe: So that’s good. All right. So also, I wrote down, always make sure your private lenders are being taken care of. That’s would you agree with that? I mean, before you make a dime on profit, you’ve got to make sure your private lenders are taking care of?

Justin: A hundred percent. That’s why that we turned it into a rental, because we were going to pay the whatever it was at the time, we were paying 12 percent. So one percent a month. So twenty seven hundred bucks a month. That’s not an insignificant amount of money or check to be writing every month. So, yes, we took care of them. Absolutely.

Joe: All right, Robert. I swear, you got you kind of watch the replay of this, you get the lighting in the way, the lights on your eyes, it looks like you look like Robert De Niro, but don’t take it all day long. How can people get a hold of you just and maybe they’ve got a deal. Maybe they listen to this thinking, man, I want to lend some money to Justin.

Justin: Yeah. So if they want to get on my they want to get on my buyers list, they can see our wholesale deals that we have in San Diego, and that’s San Diego Cash Deals.com.

Joe: SanDiegoCashDeals.com.

Justin: Yeah. Look at that. Fast and fancy like that. And that website screams 2011 to the point where I won’t change it to modernize it, because it is an homage to what websites you still look like in twenty eleven.

Joe: I’m looking at it right now. Holy smokes. It sure does. Let me share my screen here. Oh hold on one second.

Justin: We like to keep it simple here. We’re not doing a lot of fancy stuff. Oh yeah baby that’s awesome. Yes. That was back when the big debate was Aryal or Tahoma. Which font is going to do better?

Joe: That’s funny. What was the name? The guy who built those websites back in the day? There was a guy who had like he was a guy who had all of the websites, remember?

Justin: Yes. But that wasn’t one of those that actually sits on a word that’s customized on WordPress. That’s how ugly that customization is. It hasn’t been updated in over a decade. Well, maybe you’re right. Around a decade.

Joe: Secure and confidential. Yeah, right. Cool. All right. Any other way people can reach you? Is that it?

Justin: Yeah, that’s probably the best way they can get that off our corporate website. If they wanted to talk to us about doing some private lending now that they will hopefully they think I know what I’m doing. They can get ABIILLC.com Abi, LLC, Two Eyes Alpha, Bravo, India, India and then LLC, the company. All right. So changing the name of our company is Abi Investments. And you know what Abi stands for. You know, it’s one of our core values of our company and it’s always be improving.

Joe: Always be improving. I love that. That’s cool. That’s a good lesson learned. Let me write that down in my notes. Always be improving, that’s one of your core values.

Justin: One of our core values. And we’re huge on that because as I tell people, when they join our team, I don’t I don’t. As long as you’re getting better every day, that’s all I care about.

Joe: Good stuff. All right, Justin, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Appreciate it.

Justin: Thank you. It’s great seeing you. Talk to you soon.