Dave Dinkel: Hi, I’m Dave Dinkel. I’m here today with Evelyne Bobo-Deglace. Evelyne was the Fearless student and turned into a Mentor student who had the most deals last year. And what we’re going to talk about today is something like just the generalities of becoming a real estate investor. Now, you had done some real estate investing way back when?

Evelyne: Yes, back in 2006 I used to do mortgages but not so much real estate investment.

Dave Dinkel: OK. So you had a little bit of background but not really in buying properties or such.

Evelyne: No.

Dave Dinkel: OK. What was the– I’m going to say the biggest surprise to you to begin with in terms of coming into the program?

Evelyne: Well, my biggest surprise was the amount of work that I had to put into it to get the deal done. I thought it was easy for me at first but it wasn’t. It was very difficult.

Dave Dinkel: OK. So the amount of work is two-part, it’s kind of you got to get the deal first which requires…

Evelyne: That is correct.

Dave Dinkel: …marketing and effort on follow up.

Evelyne: Exactly.

Dave Dinkel: But the second part is probably what has been worse in some cases is the title work and actually closing the deal.

Evelyne: Yes.

Dave Dinkel: Yeah. Especially in our area, we have a lot of foreclosures. And with that brings title issues and title convolutions I’m going to say. So very oftentimes once you found them it was easy to get another contract.

Evelyne: Mm-hmm.

Dave Dinkel: And we did sell them, the problem was you just couldn’t get them closed.

Evelyne: Exactly.

Dave Dinkel: A lot of code violations, liens, and stuff like that.

Evelyne: Yes, I’m blessed to have a lot of properties with issues. As you can see [Laughter] every single one of them, I don’t get the easy one. They always have some kind of problems.

Dave Dinkel: So you have the– you’ve been challenged with that. But let’s talk about where you’ve come from. Your biggest profit to date was…

Evelyne: 53, 53,000.

Dave Dinkel: 53,000 OK. And the smallest profit to date that you can…

Evelyne: About 9,000.

Dave Dinkel: About 9,000?

Evelyne: Mm-hmm.

Dave Dinkel: OK. And what sorts of prospects have you been looking for? Short sales?

Evelyne: For me, it’s a little bit of everything. Because I do a lot of door knocking, I put bandit signs.

Dave Dinkel: OK.

Evelyne: And we fax, I blast a lot of agents you know on a weekly basis, mainly on Sundays. I send them emails, I follow up. So when I do that, I get a mixture of basically everything. So whatever I can find I put my hand on it and it doesn’t matter.

Dave Dinkel: It doesn’t matter, throw it out there and see what happens. I was just talking to someone else about one of the things and she was kind of surprised at it. And I said to her it doesn’t matter if you offered too much money. It doesn’t mean you’re going to close at that price, it only means you’re going to get it under contract.

Evelyne: That’s the key.

Dave Dinkel: What’s the biggest negotiation that you’ve redone for condition or code violations? Do you remember?

Evelyne: Oh, I have one right now.

Dave Dinkel: Oh that’s a good example.

Evelyne: That’s a good one.  We list it for 127 but I’ve been battling with the agent for over a year now.

[Laughter]

Evelyne: And I got it for 50. I brought it down for 50 and I’m still trying to get a discount because they made me wait for a year. I mean not my problem but their problem on their end at least for another 5,000.

Dave Dinkel: What’s the source of that? Is it a short sale?

Evelyne: It’s a– no, it’s a regular sale.

Dave Dinkel: Regular, home owner direct.

Evelyne: Mm-hmm. No, I’m sorry. It’s an REO.

Dave Dinkel: OK, an REO.

Evelyne: It’s an REO.

Dave Dinkel: We hear very often times that agents will say, “I don’t sell anything except at or above the list price.” What has been your experience on that?

Evelyne: I never pay anything above list price.

Dave Dinkel: How can you pay at list or above and make any money? You can’t.

Evelyne: You can’t. You can’t because the end buyers, they have access to MLS®. They can see how much the property is listed for so technically they can just go to the agent directly instead of buying it from you.

Dave Dinkel: Yeah. why should they buy it from you?

Evelyne: Exactly.

Dave Dinkel: OK, what else can you tell somebody who might be coming into the program about it?

Evelyne: I would say you have to– it has to start from you first. You know you have to be dedicated and you cannot quit because at first for me, I got a lot of “No’s”. I mean it was all “No’s”.

Dave Dinkel:  All “No’s”.

[Laughter]

Dave Dinkel: That’s because you made ridiculous offers.  You’re supposed to.

Evelyne: I make ridiculous offers. I got a lot of “No’s” and right now if somebody tells me yes too quick, I question it. Because I’m so used to all the “No’s” so there’s something that must be wrong with it.

Dave Dinkel: Right. It’s– they say yes because they want to get rid of it.

Evelyne: Yes. Yes. But the price may not be what I want to pay for it.

Dave Dinkel: Mm-hmm. OK. As a short cut for some people coming in, what would you say for them to do?

Evelyne: As a short cut, I will say for them to do Fearless first because the Mentoring, it’s a lot of information because I did mentoring first and then before I did Fearless and I was clueless because I didn’t know what I was doing and I quit. But once I did Fearless, immediately from Fearless, I started doing deal within the first month. You know, I got one of my first deal closed. Get your feet wet and start sending offers and definitely meet with the agent. Because you can send offers and then they send you email back, they will chew you up on emails you know and everything in caps by screaming at you. But I think you have to make the effort and get out and really meet with them.

Dave Dinkel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the relationship is important as much as I chastise them.

Evelyne: Yes, yes, yes. It’s key. It’s key. Because once they see you face to face even if you’ll give them that ridiculous offer, they will most likely be able to negotiate something with you while you are in their presence as opposed to an email or phone call. So, I meet with a lot of the agents when I send in, you know before I even send offers, I meet with the agent.

Dave Dinkel: Now, you have children but you also have a full time business.

Evelyne: Yes, I do. I do. I have four children.

Dave Dinkel: I didn’t– I thought you had three but that’s fine. Four is OK.

[Laughter]

Evelyne: Yeah, I have four and then I own a financial firm. I stay busy, which takes up a lot of my time too.

Dave Dinkel: It does. What else do you want to say before we say goodbye?

Evelyne: Just be committed and have a lot of empathy for the home owners, mainly for the home owners I have a lot of empathy because they will you know, they will be willing to work with you if you show them that you are there to solve their problem versus trying to take their house away from them.

Dave Dinkel: Right.

Evelyne: Because you know they have some sentimental interest you know in the property and a lot of times they don’t want to give it up so easily. But if you show them you’re mostly there to just help them, they will close the deal for you and give you exactly what you want.

Dave Dinkel: And you have to stick with it. Keep following up you’re working on one for a year now.

Evelyne: Oh yes.  Oh yeah, follow up. Follow up is key. Follow up is key.

Dave Dinkel: OK. Thank you very much. Appreciate you being in the program.

Evelyne: Thank you. I’m very appreciative for all your help.

Dave Dinkel: Thank you. OK.

To learn more about my fearless real estate mentoring program, click here https://davedinkel.com/mentoring-program/ or click below.