Frank Jr got started buying houses by investing in homes in Cuba where pastors could then live and plant a church. So yeah, he had a really unusual entry into real estate investing. Now around the Tampa, Florida market, he’s perched himself in both the investor and agent camps so that he is in a position to help more people. As a wholesaler, he’d meet people who had to discount the price of their home, but they really needed more money. Holding both positions lets him help people with whatever they need.

Frank’s not there to talk the sellers into something. He’s not there to sell them. He walks into the room as a problem solver, and that completely changes the energy in the room. Everyone’s relaxed because they know that Frank’s on their side. You’ve probably seen this before, where people suddenly get defensive when they feel like you’re going to lowball an offer. But switching between investor and agent lets Frank help sellers wherever they’re at, and puts everyone into a win-win situation.

One of the lessons Frank and I have both learned: We do not buy what we cannot wholesale. Everything you buy has to have multiple exits, or you’re going to find yourself in trouble. I’ve passed on deals because if everything didn’t go perfectly, then I was going to lose money. And Frank learned this expensive lesson on his first deal when it had only one exit strategy.

If you’re interested in partnering with Frank, you can call or text him at 305-775-8750, or send him an email: [email protected]. He loves what he does, and he loves working with other agents and investors.

Watch the Episode:

What’s Inside:

  • When Frank walks into the room as a problem solver, the temperature in the room cools down.
  • I don’t think I’ve ever done a deal from start to finish on my own. And Frank’s with me on that.
  • If you don’t have multiple exit strategies from every deal, you risk losing your shirt like Frank did on his first deal.

Gavin: Hey, guys, how are you doing? Welcome back to the network podcast. OK, if you are watching us on the podcast or YouTube, make sure you like and subscribe. We’ve got some more episodes coming with some really cool people. I want to introduce today’s guest just here in a second. But I did want to give you a quick giveaway. If you want five thousand free property records for you to mail or skip trace to start calling and text him, wanting to go to Batchleads.io/Gavin. They’re running a promotion right now to give people in my audience five thousand records. So jump on that, get them and get them and get some leads coming in. All right. So now I am going to introduce my guest. I want to bring him over right now. It is Frank Hopkins. Frank, how are you? 

Frank: Hey, Gavin. Good. I’m doing really well. How are you? 

Gavin: Yeah, good. I appreciate you jumping on. I’ve been pretty impressed. I’ve known you for I don’t know how many years. It seems like a lot of years. 

Frank: It’s been a while. 

Gavin: Yes, it has. And it’s been impressive to see a journey. Right when we spoke back in I don’t know what year several years ago. I know you were at the day job. Yeah. Know you were looking for a way to go into real estate full time. And I think our big discussion today, which is going to be a killer one, is the advantages of being an investor and an agent. Right. And getting that across of how come people that have that license do both sides and I think sometimes different ways. Right. Investors get their license to stay maybe compliant or realtors have been doing traditional real estate, but they have no idea on the investment side. So I’m definitely going to dove into that and talk about it. I’m not an agent and I have my reasons for not being an agent, mainly because I’m virtually in multiple markets. It doesn’t make any sense, but I do have, depending on what we’re doing, I do have agents that I do use to bring in for certain things if it’s listing the property after a flip and things like that. So let’s dove in and tell us a little bit about you, kind of your background, your back story, how you got into real estate, and then we’ll build it from that. 

Frank: OK, cool. Well, honored to be with you, Gavin, and I’ve learned so much from you over the years, so I really want to acknowledge that first I started I was actually working for a church in Miami at the time. And because there was so many people in the church in Miami from Cuba, we had a big missions ministry in Cuba. We started going down there to help plant churches. You couldn’t build a church in Cuba at the time, but you could buy a house and then a pastor would live in the house and then he could have church out of that house. So our my first foray into buying houses was in Cuba. We’d go in and help fund houses and you could you’d pay, I don’t know, three or four or five thousand dollars, really inexpensive. And then there was a pastor would move in with their family and his family and then they would start having church there. So that’s when I really got started buying houses. Very unusual way, I’m sure. But and then the church in Miami started wanting to expand. So I spent a lot of time with our commercial real estate folks doing that. And then when I finished my time at the church, I got my license because I was going to be a business broker. You had to have your license in Florida to do that, because I had sold my business before. I worked for the church and then bought I moved to Orlando to be closer to my kids and then bought a franchise from a national wholesaler. And that’s kind of the short version of my journey into real estate. 

Gavin: OK, awesome. Yeah. So let’s talk about Olin. You get in. Obviously, you started that way so you could see the opportunity within real estate. And obviously your job with the church led to like I could probably take this on full time. And I remember the transition. I remember exactly kind of where I was. I was traveling at the time when we talked about the ways to get invested. I remember you go in with the franchise, which can we don’t need to talk about. The problem is this franchises that they tie you down with your marketing pieces. I remember that was one of our big things and the way that you advertise yourself. So you got out of that. Well, let’s talk about then. So the big advantage of what do you do in between the investment and the agent side? How are you playing both sides? So give us some examples of how it’s working for you and what people can take away. 

Frank: Yeah, so I meet quite a few folks who are obviously investors and I made quite a few that are agents. I don’t always meet folks who are agents who utilize the investing side of it or vice versa. So first of all, the idea in terms of the actual testing and it’s fairly simple process, but I feel like that when especially, as you know, real estate today is so competitive that when I was only a wholesaler, I started out this wholesaling with that company that I had a franchise with and really good experience just want to be free to do my own thing, but I would go into houses and make offers whatever and if my offer didn’t work, which many times it didn’t, then I had nothing. I got frustrated walking away from leads, and not only that, the bigger thing to me was I would meet people and I would think to myself, they shouldn’t discount this house like they did. Their best exit is to sell this house with a professional agent and sell it well. So I got tired of that pretty quick and I decided I had my license, but that wasn’t really active with it at the time. 

Frank: And so I said, how can I utilize the license part of this? Because I really thought in my soul there was many people that needed to they needed more money than I could offer as a wholesaler and within and partnering with professional agents. Because a lot of times I get calls, then people will say to me, hey, I don’t want to work with a real estate agent. Well, the reason I the reason I say that is because either they’ve had a bad experience or they need to leave quick or whatever the case may be. But there’s been something in the past that they have this idea of working with a real estate agent is so if you have a license and you understand whether it’s a creative deal, whether it’s subject to whether it’s a pay cash, whatever the case is, if I believe this one hundred percent, like from the depths of my soul, that when I walk into a house, I have the option or the answer for you. You’re going to be the one that’s going to define what that answer is. And then I’ll roll whichever way you want to roll. But personally, I can honestly tell you, I don’t care which way you go. And I’ll tell you this, too. And if I’m not the answer for you, I always tell customers this. If I’m not the answer for you and I’m not always the answer, I’ll help you find the one that is. But I believe by being able to do both, I walk into a customer feeling like I can help them do what’s best for them. And then the other day, you know, I mean, this is a people business, as you’ve told me from day one. And we’re there to help the people. 

Gavin: Absolutely. People do business with who they like. And I think there’s another big learning curve, a learning curve, a learning point in what you just said is the way that you position yourself going in. He said something that was crucial when you said that. Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, if I can’t help you, I will be able to provide someone that can. What you’re doing is you’re not there to sell them. You’re not there to talk them in. And you literally relax the room, right? You’re not here pushing the cash offer. You’re not here pushing the retail. You’re listening. You’re getting the information. You’re kind of then taking that and then going, what is the best move to solve that problem and how to solve it doesn’t work or I can’t help you. Then I’m going to try and help you find someone who can write. What that’s showing is the seller is like this guy’s not trying to sell me that kind of it’s just going to blow the room temperature. Right. And everyone’s just going to relax. And when everyone’s relaxed, they can have a conversation. So I just want to point that out, because that was awesome. 

Frank: Well, you know, I would say, you know, I feel like when people reach out to investors because I’ve had them tell me this, that they have this idea or this perception of what being an investor is. And they’ll say things like, I know you’re going to lowball me or take my house. You’re going to steal it from here or whatever, or you don’t close out here. You guys get things in a contract, clothes. So there’s again, those are experiences somebody had. And so I know some of those things are true. I know people that have told me that they’ve experienced that. So when people reach out, there’s a defensiveness. I mean, like there’s a wall like, hey, I need to do this and then I’m going to reluctantly go down this road. And so I think the more I think it’s so important, absolutely so important. I learned a lot of this from top back as well as you and Joe that you pull back like, listen, I don’t have to have this deal. I don’t have to help this person. I don’t have to do this. I’m here to help. If it makes sense for your great. If it doesn’t, that’s fine, too. But when I need to deal and Melbourne. You want to tell me this? I forgot, but somebody said to me, I haven’t forgotten. There’s a way to be successful in this business is to not need the deal, because when you need it, it comes across as being a big dollar, signs in your eyes or whatever, and you’re all focused on you and your bills or whatever. You cannot succeed in this business that way. 

Gavin: Might be there a little kumbayah? Absolutely. Exactly. Because it right. It shows, you know, the panic sets in, the desperation sets in, and you’re always going to win more than you lose by doing that. Right. Right. At the end of the day, we can only work with motivated people. And that’s what that proves, right? It’s not motivated to do anything. It doesn’t matter who’s in front. It doesn’t matter if it’s the best closing or ever. If you have found out the situation and the situation isn’t really a bad situation and they don’t really want to sell, then there’s no deal to be done. Right. But I think what you’re doing is it’s kind of like my method when I say no lead left behind, right? You’re basically saying we’ll buy cash, we’ll take it creative finance or we’ll list the property. We’ll cover pretty much anything that’s going on with. And you’re right, you go into that house knowing or believing that there’s nothing that you can’t do or achieve in this deal. Well, you’re also dropping in that conference table. If there is someone better, I’ll find him. I’ll help you find them. So that’s really good. So when you’re doing this, how is that since you started to apply this method? How is that changed like your business from how you sit in these types of deals? Because I already know the answer. But I want you to say, like, are you taking these down as the investor? Are you handing them off on the real society partner? Are you doing it all at once? So that look like a great question. 

Frank: So when they reach out, I’m the one that talks to the people because I use my own name. Frank Jr. buys houses. Somebody suggested to me early on, people like to do business, the person. So that’s what I did. And so when I feel like the most important piece of this is connecting and building rapport. So when to that initial call, once the person comes in and it’s passed to me, I talk to them. And then Gavin, I’ve heard different things about this, but my own experience is that when I assume when someone reaches out, they’re interested. Now I realize not everybody is interested. I got it. But the majority of the time when I assume you reached out, you didn’t wanna waste your time. You reach out for a reason. I assume you’re interested. And so my goal is to get in the house. Now, I know many do virtual etc. I still want to go into the house. I love the connection and I know when you and I connect that something good is going to happen. And so, so, so what. So what happens is once we decide, we’re going to meet and sometimes that’s hey, call me back in two months or I’m not quite ready or whatever. 

Frank: And so there’s a follow up CRM and follow up as well. But when I go in, depending upon where it is in central Florida, I’ll go in with an agent. Now, if somebody says to me, hey, I just want to I got to sell and I got to go. And even then I will go in with my partner agent. So there’s two of us in the room. And I literally I suppose you’re the customer. I’ll say this is my partner. Like one of my partners is Tom is my partner, Tom. We partner together when I when we buy it, I’m the one who buys it and I’ve got my own lenders and explain that how that works. But sometimes customers decide they want us to list it for them and Tom focuses more on that side of it. So I feel like I work with five different agents who are like these awesome. Like they get deals done. And so when what so what happens is when they tell you I had had people on the phone say to me, I don’t want to talk to a real estate agent and I’ll say, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to either. And I’ll say to them on the phone, we are licensed. I’m a licensed agent. I know you didn’t call me for that reason. I reached out to me for that reason. But I am. I just want you to know that. And I can help however you want help. No, no, no. I don’t want to do with a real estate agent. I got no problem. 

Frank: So I always bring my partner and depending on where I’m at. So if I’m on the coast like Volusia County, I have something I work with. There we go in together. We have the conversation. And I feel like between the two of us, there’s so much experience and knowledge of what possible exits could happen that it works like I’m really shocked. And I don’t mean to sound arrogant on this at all. But I’m shocked if we don’t walk out with an agreement, either a listing or an offer to buy the house ourselves. So if we buy it, I like to include the agent in that as well. So I literally like to partner with them the whole way. So if I buy it, then they get a percentage of that. It’s a listing they’ll list itand then I get a referral fee for that. So so let’s say you said to me, hey, you know, after thinking about this, I need the money from a listing. Let’s retell this. Then I’ll hand the conversation off to the agent. Hey, OK, so Tom is going to kind of walk you through what this would look like and then he’ll talk through that part of it and then I’ll stay quiet. 

Frank: And then I’ll assure the customer hey, listen, we’re both in this together and we’re both available to answer any part of this. But Tom is going to drive the retail listing part of this. And I’m here to support him in doing that. And then if it turns out that we buy it, then I’ll be the one kind of drive that and then Tom will be the one to sell it for me. I don’t unless I’m going to wholesale and I generally try not to wholesale. So I’d rather just take it down and put it on the MLS because I’ve just seen that to work out better financially. I like for the guys that I work with to benefit either way, which means they so they’re getting parts of listings that are deals that we take down that in the past they wouldn’t have. So I’m splitting. I got four deals that are going to gross right up two hundred thousand that an agent is going to get half of that money. And so, so but I also feel like this is my risk to. 

Gavin: Well I think also like because people listen to that number, the all you could have had it, you could have had it all. But the reality is. Yeah, you could, but could you? Right. Could you have done four or would you been just on two on your own. Because right not only are you partnering, but you’re also giving a lot of tasks away. You’re giving and gaining a lot of time back. That’s exactly my model. I tell everyone I don’t think I have ever done a deal start to finish on my own, whether it’s from me looking at me, displaying it, bringing someone in to partner. I’ve always had people unpartnered on deals because I know the people are better in certain areas than me. And why they’re handling that, I can get it right. I told you that’s that. 

Frank: Well, here’s the other thing. The agents know people I don’t know, and they have investors who know that. So, for example, I went to a mobile home because I will buy mobile homes on owned land as well and noticed another agent in Volusia County. And so it tells us what they need. And what happens is, as they’re telling us what they need, they needed more money than what I could pay. But the agent knew somebody who would pay what they wanted. So literally, while we’re sitting there, the agent gets on the phone and calls their investor, hey, that’s what we got out of a bar. OK, yeah, I’ll take it. So we literally the agent sold that property while we’re sitting there. So I’m with you. I don’t like I mean. Yeah. Could I have made the two a thousand cups. I don’t know. Maybe, but that’s not even like a thought for me. I don’t even care because my goal is to bring as many guys along with me like I want I want a bunch of us to be successful. And that’s not just me. That’s just my thing. 

Gavin: I agree 100 percent, 100 percent. We just closed on two big deals close. Finally yesterday, the same thing we are two fifty K deals close and I make after acquisition and closing, I made about forty six thousand for me. But again I’m happy everyone’s been paid and I think that’s really important. The other key thing, I just want to jump back real quickly. You said, which is huge when you get on and this goes for anyone and the seller gets on the phone right there are going to attack either party. What I mean by that, you’re an agent. I don’t want to deal with agents. You’re an investor. I don’t want to deal with investors. You’re going to hear it on both. Yes. The key is, is to try and shut that down and agree with them as fast as they can. Is that you said something genius. You said, I don’t blame me. I wouldn’t either. Something along these lines, it’s the same thing. So I’m on the investment side. If someone if I get on the phone, call you an investor, you’re going to lowball.

Gavin: And I go, yeah, there’s nothing worse than a lowball cash offer is that I don’t blame you. But what if I could get you the price that you wanted? What would you do then and then all of a sudden disarmed in the light? What way? You’re not going to let me know. Absolutely. I’m not going to sit here and I’m not going to say that I don’t buy cash. House is going to see is a situation. So let me ask you a few questions and then we’ll start to build that rapport. So I always believe that when you’re on the phone, you have ten seconds. Right. The first ten seconds is crucial to whether this call is going to go or if it’s going to be a get off the phone moment. Right. Little technique like you just said. And I just wanted to really bring that to the service for people to have a like a ha moment. Right. Because these things are like killer little moves. That’s kind of going to change everything. 

Frank: So, yeah, if you get on the phone, tell them all that you can do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, like you said, you’re lucky if you get ten seconds to hang up on you. Because we’re so used to getting spammed because I answer my phone every day, I get calls from telemarketers, etc. I mean, you just don’t get much time. So I agree with that. You’ve got to be like you’ve got to be on point. But I think the other thing, too, is, you know, when I was being coached on the speaking side, they used to say to us, don’t get in speaker mode. I just have a conversation like what we’re doing now. You get on the phone and I go, like, Seller, let me read my script. And then, I mean, I’m OK with scripts, but I’m coming across Rosales. 

Gavin: Absolutely. And that was like when we got on. Right, we just hopped on today and I’m like, just be you like will roll with it. I just want to be I want to know Frank. I want to be I want to know you just like it was sitting just in a bar in a restaurant and we bump into each other at the airport right now and he’s just got to be natural. You know, there’s no anything. There’s no it’s just me. You having a conversation, delivering value for people to this interested in this field. And guess what is a lot of interest, right? Especially it’s easier probably for the investors to go to agents because they already understand it. And the agents, in my opinion, is just one way is retail for retail. So it’s easier for the agent, for the investors turn to agents. But I think it’s very difficult for the agents to go to investors because I learned one way and now everyone’s teaching something that’s not whole the one way. And I think that’s harder. So how will you with these agents that have these leads coming in? Right. First thing, who is the seller going to call? They’re going to call an agent. Right. For the most part. Right. They’re going to pick up. We’re going to find an agent. So these agents, the investors, are you networking? Then are you trying to build relationships with them while you’re trying to show them a different way? 

Frank: Yeah, good question, the one with a really large international brokerage. And so we have a lot of opportunity to connect. So what I did was I went to when I joined this brokerage, I asked the person that did some of my training with me, hey, who are some guys who really know how to make customers happy and that I could work with? So he introduced me to some of them. So we reach out, we connect and then. OK, tell me about how do you treat customers? Give me your philosophy and all that. I wanted to be sure that our philosophies on dealing with the customer. For example, if you text me and this is just me, if you text me, unless I’m just sitting there with my wife or my kid, her grandkid or something, we’re in the middle of conversation. I’m going to respond back to you, especially if it’s like a deal is going sideways. Was trouble closing or whatever it is like I expect you to treat that customer the same way. I would like there are a priority. And as I’m sure you know as well, I’ve tried to spend my money with companies where I couldn’t get anybody to respond or I have dollars I want to give you and I can’t get anybody to get back with me. I can’t stand that. So I met. So I had the broker sent me some names. I reached out to them and found the ones that I feel like we’re a good fit. Now I work with a few different companies, but I try to work with the agents and the brokers that I’m in because I try to also add value to them by teaching them some ways. 

Frank: Like we’re in a deal like we walk. For example, we came in and we talked to you as a customer. When we drive away, we’re having a phone call to go, hey, what can we have said? How do we do what? How did the customer respond and how can we improve that? So we’re giving each other feedback on the lead. But then I’m also telling them now this is an opportunity to keep this as a rental. And here’s the reasons why or this is opportunity to flip this house and here’s how this could happen. And so I’m explaining to them things that they may or may not understand to help them learn the investing side of it. I don’t have all the details. I’m kind of like I forget who was that said, I don’t need to have all the details. I just need to know somebody who has them. And so I don’t have all the legalese on the retail side. I depend on the agents for that. But my goal is to help them build wealth. And I’ve seen in my own life, my wife and I started buying rentals in twenty seventeen and I’ve seen just how it’s changed our life. I mean, it’s just had a complete, huge impact on us. And so my passion is to help as many people. 

Frank: There’s a lot of great companies, a lot of great organizations. I hear everybody should work for themselves. I don’t agree with that. Some people love a company they work with. Great. But I do believe that if you’re totally dependent on that, like it’s a dangerous place to be. And so I know many agents don’t have retirement plans and accumulating properties along the way and building wealth through real estate is a way to do that. I’m just shocked at how little time that I’ve seen. Maybe it’s different in other places where agents aren’t taught the investing side of real estate so that when you finish, then you busted your tail for 30 years, did great service like your deal, like after I was like, dude, I don’t want to chase deals anymore. I want to keep stuff along the way so I don’t have to do that at some point. 

Gavin: Yeah, absolutely. And I think everyone, depending on where you are on your journey. Right. I think that that happens and I love starting with I wouldn’t even say wholesale in the way my mind works. If I can be a marketer, if I can be a master, sales and marketing, I choose what happens with the deal. I choose to wholesale. I choose to flip it. I choose to do a lease option to create finance. I choose to list it. I choose. I make the decisions when I get control of something great. The author of Everything that we do is the having the ability to find off market deals to then get them to market. Right. And that’s how what we kind of specialize in doing, because there’s so many investors trying to get on the MLS, buying on the MLS to flip. And for me, the margins aren’t there for someone to go in and said there’s twenty-five thousand in this deal, right. Top and twenty-five thousand, they’re going to flip it in this market is just madness to me. You’ve got to be making twenty-five thousand and everything went wrong to make exactly that. My and we will not buy. This is another typical listing. We do not buy what we call wholesale. Right. Meaning if it doesn’t fit the whole say if I can’t sell it to friends the ten grand and I can’t sell it to anyone, I’m not going to go well Will because no one else wants it. No, no, no. That is signs that you don’t have a good deal. I want to pay I can wholesale this for ten to Frank. I’ll take it down and make sixty and flip it right so I’ll stick with that. And if it doesn’t, if I can’t wholesale it myself, we do not buy it. And that’s kind of what we. And find good stuff. 

Frank: Yeah, I totally agree with you and I want to emphasize, you guys taught me this. So a coach I had here in Orlando that everything that you buy has to have multiple exits. If you don’t have multiple exits, then you could find yourself in trouble. The first flip that I ever lost my tail on the first flip and is because I did it by myself, I didn’t see enough information. And the information I got, I didn’t listen to it because I thought, oh, you know, I got to figure it out. I did not. But the other thing is there was only one exit on that property. And so that was a huge mistake. And just to emphasize, your point has got there’s got to be multiple exits. And I know this theory about today, like I have like a price point that I’ll buy in. Like, I don’t I don’t want to buy expensive houses. Like, I don’t want to worry about that. I’m going to there’s a price point where I’m going to stay and I’m not going to be tempted by something that looks awesome, that’s in a higher price point because it’s good today. But I don’t want to be with a game where you pull away and somebody left without a chair, what do they call that? I don’t want to be in it. Yeah, yeah. I don’t want to be in this market where there’s no chairs and I’m stuck with this real expensive home. I don’t do it. When I buy a house in a certain range.

Gavin: Yeah, absolutely. And the deals that we just closed. Right. There were two fifty apiece. Right. But they were high end and I don’t know if people use this word, but I say I hold it right. I basically was scared to take the deal down. These things were probably one was four hundred grand, one was 450 fifty in Alabama. Now they needed four, five hundred grand in each and they sell for one point five million and take and take about eight, nine months to do it. And we can make 400 grand profit on each one. Right. But at the same time, look at the job, look at the look at all the money and look how many times the how long it’s going to take. So then we thought, hold on, we can get fifty a pop here just to hold him to a high end flipper underground. We could make eight hundred grand if everything goes to plan, but we’re talking up two million dollars or whatever. Right. One point seven million dollars for eight months. We were in a madness market. Everything we flip, we want to make sure it’s on the market with about eight weeks. Right. We’re not taking off. So it just fit didn’t fit the model. And I think as asas investors, you’ve just got to stay disciplined to the whole thing and not chase the shiny things because you think that that’s what you should be doing. And I nearly did it. I went back and forth for seven, eight days on this. Yeah. And then we just had not. We can’t because. Yeah, great. If we could have made that. But I’m thinking, OK, can I make that money in eight months anyway with a lot less risk, 

Frank: With a lot less risk, stress. And by the way, if you don’t have a like a full time or ongoing rehab crew today, I mean, it’s a struggle. So, yeah, I actually like to buy properties that I can wholetail, like where you do like very little, little polish, little spit shine and put them on the market. I don’t the other one hundred twenty thousand dollars rehab and last year in 2020 and I said never again. That’s not my specialty. And to your point, you know I could have run it, I could have wholesale that, but I thought it’d be an awesome thing to do. As it turns out, we went over budget. It cost a lot more money, a lot more stress. We had to fire the GC in the process trying to find someone else. And just like, OK, no, no thanks. And it’s easy to do even I mean, you’re you know, you’re super experienced. One of the most successful investors I know. And even year with two recent deals are going back and forth. So should we, you know, flip it? so I think you just have to remind yourself, OK, what’s my sweet spot? And I need to stay there. 

Gavin: Yeah, definitely. We just had something I’d like your opinion on this to see this happen. So we’ve got a flip right now. That’s in closing, right. We listed it at to two hundred and fifty-two thousand. We got an offer three, for three hundred grand or ten thousand over appraisal. Right. We know it won’t appraise for three hundred grand. And I had to think it in my appraisal two seventy-five, maybe two eighty. OK, the appraisal comes back yesterday at $263K. Oh no. So we’re like there’s no way. There’s no way. We’ve looked at comps. There’s no way anyway we get the appraisal to start dig in. The appraisal guy has not. We’ve got a pool. It’s not on says no pool. We have a pool. It says it’s not been remodeled. The bathrooms haven’t been remodeled in the last six to ten years. It’s been fully remodeled. Right. So I’ve never had this happen. 

Gavin: So we’ve got to like we were appealing it right now to the mortgage company because that’s who sends out the lender sends out the appraisal guy. And she’s telling them, yeah, I’ve no idea what he’s done. And, you know, because now. Like covid, everything’s taken for ages now, we’ve got to go and dispute something that’s clearly wrong, because if he wouldn’t have ticked the box, like if he would have said pool, renovated and it came in at that, I’d be like scratching my head thinking how? He’s run a comp that sold for the two sixty-five. That’s not been fixed up and smaller without a pool. I’m just mind blown into this thing. So anyway, so we dealt with that yesterday. We’ve gone in and we’ve done like appealed against it or whatever. No idea that’s going to take. Have you run into anything like that yourself? I’m just curious. 

Frank: Yeah. I mean, I have I got four houses closing in the next couple of weeks and I think the process I don’t think it’ll take long. I’ve seen this appeal some appraisals and I’m just guessing I don’t know what this person and I’m sure they even went to the house. I mean, they might have done it from someplace else. 

Gavin: He was he was there for sure. Boy, was OK. We don’t know if it took a week to get it back. We don’t know if he’s mixed it up. We don’t know what he’s done, but he’s done. I was thankful to see, like, my team is fuming and I was at the store, but then I was like, well, he’s made all these mistakes so that the name saying everything was right. I mean, the bathrooms are like brand new, but redone. This thing is like nice. And anyway, it was just I 

Frank: I think it’ll come out OK, I think. And to your point, the appraisers are like backed up for weeks. I mean, I got I got the results from one like ten days later or whatever, and it’s possible all that happened. But I think you’ll get it fixed and it shouldn’t be a big issue. The challenge is, is that when they do an appraisal where you actually did it correctly. But now I had a for example, a house that called a gentleman called to sell his house for cash. But when we got there, like, then this is a killer house like this is beautiful, does nothing like take this or sell it for you. And he did the first appraisal came in like forty thousand under like. Well, and so when we challenged the comps at all and then the sellers like I’m not going to take that. So cool. So we just put it back on the market and then the second time sold it for the lowest price and done deal. So sometimes it doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense what happened.

Gavin: The seller was we even went back to the seller and said, hey, come in. And he said, that’s crazy. He was happy to pay more. He’s got no way. He’s like, don’t blame. Yeah, exactly. I just don’t take another offer. Just figure it out because we had tons of offers on it. You know, it was I’m sure it 

Frank: Was this in Alabama? Yeah. You should they’ll get it figured out. You should be fine. 

Gavin: Awesome. Well I appreciate it. Just last thing before we go here. You’re working obviously central Florida, Orlando. What you going coast to coast across. Correct. So what does that, what areas are they? 

Frank: So I go from like Palm Coast was just north of Volusia County and then kind of down the corridor from the East Coast down to just the north east side of Tampa, like Pinellas County. So we do like Lakeland is really the point where we stop, but we do a little in some communities surrounding area. And I partner with agents from coast to coast, basically. Yeah. So it’s a lot of fun. I enjoy that. And I want to say and I want to give proper credit here. So before we hang up, thanks for all the learning I’ve done from you. I’ll text you, called you all kind of stuff until you guys have taught me so much about this business. And maybe the two most important things that I’ve learned from you guys is this is not a real estate business. It’s a marketing business. So if you don’t market like you got no shot at being successful in this, whatever that channel is for you and make offers like, you know, make offers. And so you don’t make offers, you can’t win. So anyway, I’m hugely indebted to you guys, and I really appreciate all that you’ve done to help me in this journey. 

Gavin: I appreciate that. Thank you so much. And just one last thing here. If people are listening here, they’re going to be thinking, well, how do I plan to be frank? They might be new. They may be of an investor that that doesn’t have a relationship with an agent to say, hey, we’ve got a retail one here. Can you come in? How do people kind of get hold of you? If they want to message and reach out? 

Frank: They can. I’m happy to take calls on my cell phone. I still have my Miami area code 305-775-8750. Feel free to text me or call me. I answer my phone and or you can email me Frank. If I think Frank J.R. buys houses, Dotcom, Frank and Frank Junior buys houses dot com that way. 

Gavin: Our guys. Yeah, Frank. Frank Junior buys houses dot com. Awesome. So guys, if you are interested in partnering with Frank in that kind of window that he gave, I’m sure he’d love to do a call. I just say this to everyone as well. Listen and try and always bring when not just with. But with anyone, right, trying to bring when you get on and you reach out to people, how can you help frankly thinking about that? Right. Don’t come in and go. Frank, I take you for a coffee, right. Frank? You give me all this information, Frank. Right. Try and think. Well, hold on, Frank. This time is in every program is learn is work with me and all these other people. And he’s got to where he’s got by taking massive action to just be thinking about guys like when you reach an hour, hey, how can I help you, what can I do for you. How do we do business together? Hey, Frank, here’s a deal. Just be really thinking. And that’s that goes for all people in the market. Any investors that wish I could work with that guy, I wish I could know that guy in your market. That’s how you need to do it. You need to add value as quickly as possible and not just be the guy or another. Take, take, take. Right. And if you do that, you’re going to get you’re going to network a lot faster. You’re going to get to where you go in a lot faster as well. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you. Great episode. Thank you so much. And we will catch up soon. 

 

Frank: Thank you. Take care. Bye bye. 

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