Podcast Transcription

Dave: Did you say more fun?

Melina: Obviously.

Dave: You’re always about having more fun.

Melina: Babe. You love that about me.

Dave: Oh, you’re right, I do. I’m so boring without you.

Melina: I know.

Melina: Welcome to “Flippin’ Off,” a purpose-driven podcast about flipping houses and making a difference.

Dave: Well, that was so nice of you, honey.

Melina: I didn’t say you were boring, you said you were boring, baby.

Dave: You agreed.

Melina: Well.

Dave: Jeez.

Melina: Facts are the facts.

Dave: Do we have to cut this already? We’re gonna have to take you out back and…anyway. Oh yeah, we’re on. We’re live.

Melina: Okay.

Frank: …just take out…take her out to dinner.

Dave: Well we’re so excited to be back here again to talk about all of our wonderful mistakes. And if you heard, a couple of weeks ago, we just barely started touching mistakes and as we go back we’re going, “Oh my gosh. We could probably do this for the next three or four weeks.”

Melina: Oh, easily.

Dave: Easily. Talk about all the different mistakes, and I want people to really get that. Like, just because you come to the club, and you see this big facility and all these offices, and people are closing deals, and all that stuff, we have had our fair share of trials and tribulations. In fact, we go through them daily. And they’ll never stop.

Melina: That’s right.

Dave: They’ll never stop, so…

Melina: You’ve got to be able to laugh at them.

Dave: If you don’t, it makes for some really, really challenging, challenging days. So we heard a little bit from Oscar and Tim, and obviously our screw-up in Vegas. I’ve got Frank and Peter sitting here now, so I’m gonna look at one of these guys and go, who’s gonna share with us first this week? Let’s hear about one of your screw-ups, one of you. Who wants to…?

Peter: I’ll pick one up. They kind of piggybacks off…

Dave: You’ve got to slide up there, we can’t hear you.

Melina: There you go.

Peter: I’ll pick one up that kind of piggybacks off of what Tim covered last week in referring to being able to choose your partner and do good deals. There’s one that Tim and I are in, and actually as partners, we’re doing the right thing by everyone involved. I guess the mistake would be putting money into a deal that isn’t certain, which like Tim said last week, I’ve definitely been taught and definitely been told not to do, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re gonna listen.

Tim: It was…the upside was very good.

Peter: Yes.

Dave: It’s kind…is that like…

Peter: It was not that bad.

Dave: Is that like playing the lottery?

Tim: It was a very calculated risk and we made a very conscious decision to do it, but, yeah.

Dave: But you lost how much?

Peter: To be continued.

Tim: Yeah.

Melina: To be continued.

Peter: There’s still a decent chance that we’ll break even. We went and invested…

Dave: What’s the lesson here? What happened?

Peter: The lesson is, kind of piggybacking off last week again, do your due diligence. The one thing I would say is, steer clear of real estate emergencies. And that’s kind of what this was. It was something that was brought to us at last minute. The story that was presented to us was absolutely nothing near the whole truth, but again, we looked at the possible upside, we looked at what was at risk. The fact that we had partners together that were willing to spread that risk out, rather than one person stepping up and being on the hook for it, I believe that’s what made it where we said, “Okay, as conglomeratively with what we have, with what we stand to possibly gain and what we are, at this point, willing to lose, it’s a go-ahead.”

Dave: Got it.

Tim: So I kind of feel like we’re being very vague and I don’t want to be vague. So this specific situation, it was a door knock, I believe, right?

Peter: Yeah. Tax default.

Tim: This was a door knock. Property was going to tax sale.

Dave: Oh, this property.

Tim: Property was going to tax sale and when we made contact, there was less than a week before the actual sale date.

Dave: So let’s talk about this real quick. So tax default. So we’re talking about…they were how many years behind on their taxes?

Tim: Five years behind.

Dave: Five years.

Tim: Yeah.

Dave: And they gave you five days to solve the problem.

Tim: Yes.

Dave: Anybody see a problem with that?

Melina: Yes.

Dave: In that five years’ time, how many hundreds of people, do you think, probably offered them solutions?

Tim: There’s two right here. At least…

Dave: All right. So five years, we’re down to five days, sorry, go ahead.

Tim: Yeah. We had five days to look into things. The person that we were talking to presented herself as the sole person who could make decisions. It was also a property that needed to go through probate.

Melina: Wee.

Tim: So, yeah. So this property needed to go through probate, it was getting ready to go to tax sale, and lose everything. It was owned outright. So there was nothing owed on the property except for the taxes, which was just under $15,000, right Peter?

Peter: Yes. Right at like $14,852.47.

Tim: So Peter’s the one who took the actual cashier’s check and paid it 15 minutes before the cut-off.

Melina: Nice.

Dave: Wow.

Tim: Because we had to make a last-minute, like a very quick decision that said, “We’re gonna pay this $15 grand and put ourselves in a position to make a decent amount of money,” I mean if the deal went through. But what ended up happening is, we paid the taxes, got things into probate, and found out that the person we were talking to is one of about 14 heirs.

Dave: Million?

Tim: And she’s like three families…I don’t know the word, but it’s the owner’s daughter’s…like she’s like three generations separated.

Dave: Cousin’s nanny?

Peter: Yeah, like not Schwarz.

Tim: She is an heir but she’s multiple times separated from the actual owner, and there are her aunts. There’s like six aunts who don’t want her to deal with the property and they’re taking over the probate and of course, they don’t want to sell us the property based on the agreements we had set up. And they don’t want to give us back our $15,000 that we paid to…

Melina: Save the property.

Tim: To save the property. Even though, if it wasn’t for us, none of them would have gotten it.

Dave: What integrity.

Melina: That’s awesome sauce.

Dave: Wow.

Tim: Here’s what I always tell Peter. I spent way more money for way less education.

Melina: That is such a fantastic, 50,000-foot perspective to have. Yes, Very good. Are you swallowing that, Pete?

Peter: Yeah. I mean, I’m also at the fact…

Dave: He’s choking on it, but…

Peter: We’ve done some of our follow-up due diligence and we’ve kind of made a somewhat peaceful relationship with the administrator who’s more than likely gonna be accounted for, and she’s given us the verbal promise, if you will, that everything she can do…She realized her relative or distant person, whoever, really took us for a loop and lied to us and if she can make it happen, she at least wants to get us the money we invested back. So, being diligent, and at least continuing to reach out, trying to resolve better counsel, is absolutely…may prevail.

Tim: Yeah. Gotcha.

Dave: So it’s out of probate now.

Peter: It’s still in.

Dave: It’s still in probate.

Peter: She’s doing pro per, so there’s a couple bumps and bruises, like she needs…

Melina: So she fired the attorney?

Peter: Never had one.

Tim: Never had one.

Meilna: Oh. Oh, got it.

Tim: We hired an attorney.

Melina: Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Peter: Right, for the other one.

Tim: The family went and filed with no attorney but they’re gonna win anyways because they have more right to the property.

Melina: Sure.

Peter: Right.

Dave: Got it.

Tim: They’re not as far removed from the owner.
.
Dave: Got it. So real estate emergencies.

Tim: Don’t do them.

Peter: Don’t do them.

Dave: Don’t do them. How many times, honey, have we got a real estate emergency and literally bashed our head against the wall for days on end, trying to deal with, emergency, emergency, emergency, emergency.

Melina: Yeah, you know, the thing is, and the reason emergencies are attractive is because generally speaking, there’s an upside. It’s the only reason that you want to contemplate it so that’s why you have to be really clear. And I actually really appreciate…I feel like there’s a lot of growth in the conversation that I just heard from both Peter and Tim and that is, that you guys were clear at what the risk was and you were willing to risk it, so, that to me is a professional. That is.

Dave: And they’re risking their own money.

Melina: Absolutely.

Dave: So hear that part too. They’re risking their own money. There are times when we will teach you to do certain things and say, “Don’t do this” but we can also afford to take the risk. You know, I can remember, Peter, the house in Chino, right? And that emergency.

Peter: That was an emergency too. Yeah, another week.

Dave: Yeah. One week, and the HOA lien is going to auction, and there’s plenty of equity, and these people are…

Melina: And that was the week before Christmas.

Dave: Yeah. Yeah. And you know it was our money at risk…

Melina: Yes.

Dave: And ultimately, it turned out okay. It wasn’t, you know, a home run. I think we bunted our way onto first base. But you know, we didn’t lose anything there but that was another real estate emergency that we jumped in and…There’s part of us that’s, you know, we see people hurting.

We see people that are down on their luck, they just need a break and you know what’s gonna happen on their side if some of these things end up going to auction and people just evict them, and then they’re out on the streets. So there’s a human side of this that…we do, we wanna help. And then I think there’s even…Gosh, I think sometimes people are like, you know, what’s your ulterior motive? Like, you really wanna help me? Like for real you wanna help me? Like, yeah, here’s the alternative and I don’t know. Maybe that’s why we get into some of the emergencies if you will.

Melina: We do. There is. There’s always something that draws us in and frankly, I don’t think I would change it. I think that it would make us…I believe this. I believe that some of the risks that we take personally, they’ve created…well, obviously funny stories. But it’s what makes this business fun, you know? It’s what makes it interesting. It’s what makes it exciting because I still think we win way more than we lose, but I think it is important to talk about the losses so that people don’t have a false expectation of what this business looks like. And why it’s not for the weak-minded or the faint of heart.

You know, it does require grit. And grit shows up when you’re losing. Right? You keep on showing up even when you don’t feel like it, even when you’re standing to lose money. Even when your heart is broken. Even when you have been betrayed, and you’ve been stolen from, and you’ve been lied to. You still show up. And you know what? You continue to serve the next person, who possibly is going to lie to you, betray you, rip you off. You do it anyway. You just do it anyway. I feel like Mother Teresa told us to do it anyway. Pretty sure she did.

Dave: I’m pretty sure you’re right.

Melina: Yeah. No, she did. I’m gonna find the quote. All right, Frank.

Frank: Hi.

Dave: How’s it going?

Melina: Hi. What are you gonna share? What kind of nonsense you got?

Frank: Well, I was up late last night thinking about all the different mistakes that I’ve made. And I was trying to think of the most interesting, fun story. And I was like, “Well, they’re all interesting and fun in some way.” I’ve definitely lost money on a deal, for sure. It’s been a long time, but I’ve definitely lost money. I know in reaching out to you guys, looking at numbers and things, I think my problem probably was overanalyzing, having analysis paralysis for the first couple of years of being in this business. That was my mistake. But that being said, and moving forward, we’ve worked on short sales, and different things. I think I probably get caught on different calculations everywhere, which is why we have our hedge. Right, we have our hedge. But there’s always something in every deal that we didn’t know about or didn’t calculate for and one of the ones that I didn’t calculate for was probably the personality of the homeowner of the house that we bought at auction.

Everything seemed great. Right up to…I mean, we talked to her before we bought it at auction, everything seemed good, she was communicating. I’m pretty sure we got a written agreement of what was going to happen. So I think we kind of covered all the bases but she was definitely a maverick when it came to…After we closed, everything changed. It was like, we weren’t calculating for an eviction cost. We didn’t have to go there, but it looked like we were on our way there. We had agreed for cash for keys, it was…

Melina: You paid the eviction cost to her directly, actually.

Frank: Yeah, we paid it directly to her and she didn’t leave when she was supposed to. I believe it took about, I think it was like two weeks. It was supposed to be. 10 days or two weeks. And I think it pushed almost to a month, that she stayed there and she strung us along. We showed up at her door to tell her, “Hey, it’s moving time.” There was a couple of times we showed up and she wasn’t there. One time, her father ended up…he had travelled across the country and he was there…

Melina: It was really funny. Me and Frank go to the door, we knock on the door, and she was supposed to be moving and so we go to the door together, we knock on the door, and we’re calling her, like, “Hey,” calling her by her name. And we literally heard her go, “Hello, This is her father, and I…”

Peter: No way.

Frank: Way, yeah.

Melina: It’s totally true, and me and Frank started belly laughing at the door. We like, fell over laughing because it was such a bad impersonation of her father. And so we started playing along with it. Like, “Oh. Oh, you’re her dad? Oh, where did you come from?” “I just came over here from Chicago,” and we were laughing.

Frank: I couldn’t believe it was happening.

Melina: We just kept on looking at each other. We started crying at some point because we were laughing so hard. She was straight-back crazy.

Frank: Yeah, I believe we talked to him on the phone before we went over. It was her same voice imitating, saying that it was her dad, and I was like, “There’s no way.”

Melina: Well, remember, we looked right through the…remember the door had a window on it? And we knew it was her. We could see her.

Frank: Could we see her? I don’t remember if we could see her.

Melina: Yeah yeah. Well, we could see her shadow.

Frank: We knew it was her. 100% it was her.

Melina: Yeah. It was so funny.

Frank: It was not anybody else but her.

Melina: That was crazy.

Dave: So, did you give her cash to move out already?

Melina: We did. We did give her cash, but then remember what we had…

Frank: We did give her some cash.

Melina: We had given her cash, in agreement with whatever contract you guys had, and then, she didn’t have a moving truck. So we actually drove down to the U-Haul store with her, Frank and I did. We rented the U-Haul, and paid cash for the U-Haul for her, and…She wasn’t very clean. That’s all I can say. I just know that I had to ride in the U-Haul truck with her and she smelled really bad.

Dave: Wow.

Frank: She was quite a personality. I mean, after all’s said and done, looking back, we probably should have structured the move better, really accounted for everything, like, “Okay how are you gonna do this? How are you gonna do that? Who’s helping you with this?” We didn’t cover all the bases on our cash for keys arrangement that we had. And we got it in writing, but what we had in writing wasn’t gonna be sufficient to get her out on the day that she had committed to based on her resources and help, so I’m pretty sure we…

Melina: We moved her. We moved everything.

Frank: Packed. Didn’t we pack stuff? I remember packing things.

Melina: We did. I feel like you and I have done that before, Frank. That’s totally…Frank and I, we have packed people before. She had herself packed, but we loaded the U-Haul. I remember, you, me, Jason, Kevin. We actually packed the U-Haul after we rented it, after I drove back with her in that car. Oh.

Dave: Good stuff. Good stuff.

Frank: And I think we might even have overpaid for the property. We didn’t make the profit that we thought we were…we made a profit, but we definitely, in walking the property, and looking at what was needing to be done to it, we probably underestimated the repairs, overpaid for it, and I think it sold for just under what we thought it would. So I think we had like a trifecta as far as underestimating the repairs, we overpaid for it, and then, of course, it didn’t sell quite for what we thought it was gonna sell for. And that was actually our last property we bought at auction.

Melina: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. We did kind of quit buying at auction then.

Dave: Well, the only reason you went to auction though and that only reason you went is because you had inside knowledge already as to what you were buying because…

Frank: That’s correct.

Dave: …that was a short sale that the bank ultimately took to auction instead of approving the short sale, right?

Melina: That’s right.

Frank: Yeah.

Melina: That is correct.

Frank: Yep.

Dave: It’s definitely not a strategy that I…we’ve just done too many of those like trying to go down to the auction, and too many unknowns, and just not worth the risk and the time associated with it. So it’s not something we’re actively pursuing anymore, going to auctions, at all.

Peter: Makes good television, though.

Melina: That is true, it does make good television.

Dave: There you go. That’s pretty funny.

Melina: Yeah. But it’s not the truth. That is the truth. The only benefit, or the upside of buying at auction, is that you can get it at a deep discount because the risk at buying at auction is so high because of the things we’re talking about right now. Generally speaking, you cannot get in to walk the property so you don’t understand what it is that you’re buying. You’re buying the whole problem as is. You can’t get inspections, you can’t get a title report, you don’t know what you’re dealing with. In this scenario, we did know those things, so we did have inside information. So there was an opportunity for them to pay a little bit more, probably, than what they would have had they not seen it, which gave us an edge.

Frank: We 100% wouldn’t have paid what we paid at auction if we hadn’t gone in the house and did all of those things.

Melina: Well, that’s why you won the bid.

Frank: Yeah.

Dave: Yeah I was thinking, a lesson I guess we could give while we’re here, but, you and I have done this a few times, hon, with structuring it so that people stay motivated in order to perform.

Melina: Yes.

Dave: What I mean by that is, you’ve got to remember these people put yourself in their position. They’re losing a house at some point, and they’ve got to move. Some of them have been there for a long time. There’s emotions attached to it. They get emotional about even the move. And if you solve that temporary problem, the temporary problem is, “Okay, I don’t have any money to move.” “Okay, well here’s the money to move.” “Well, I haven’t even found a place to move to yet.”

So now I’ve got to go out and actually do that activity to find some place. “Well, you just gave me money to move, there’s a little money in the bank, I’m not all that motivated to get out of here right now because actually you’ve helped me out, and so I can kind of…” You know, we call it hunkering down, but to them, they have no…I don’t know what the word is. Their frame of reference, if you will, as to like the velocity of money, like if we’re borrowing money to do a fix and flip, or whatever that is, that money starts ticking, like that clock starts ticking on us. And so not only are we giving them money, it’s costing us money on the other side. And so you’ve got to be able to structure the deal where it keeps them motivated to move, keeps them motivated to keep going on.

In fact just yesterday, I was talking with John and Joe. And the squatter that they have that’s…you know the squatter is a nice guy, he just has no place to go, and he’s a squatter that’s protecting the house. He’s like, “Look at me, I’m protecting the house.” And when it came time to move, they let him know he’s gonna have to move, and the house was gonna be sold, and he was okay. They go up there on the day he’s supposed to move, and he’s like, “I’m not moving. I got nowhere to go. And so, in fact I’m not gonna come out of the house. I have rights and so you’re gonna have to do what you’ve got to do.”

And so, they called the police department. The police department’s like, “Okay, yeah, we’re busy but we’ll get there eventually.” And I said, you know, “Guys, this guy just needs a place to go. Why don’t we do this, why don’t we buy him a motel for a week? I mean, he’s been squatting from house to house to house, not that I’m condoning that, but that’s what he’s been doing. So it’s not like he’s not going to do that again, so you need to get him out. So let’s do this. Offer him 200 bucks for a motel for the week, and then offer him a couple hundred dollars to fill his van up with gas, give him some money for the week, and he doesn’t have a whole lot of belongings, let his stuff go in there.”

And so Joe calls me, he goes, “Hey, I asked the guy, I said, ‘hey, you know, what’s it gonna take for you to move out?’ I said, how about if I give you 300 bucks, can you move out today?” And the guy goes, “Make it 500 and I’ll get out of here in a few minutes. I’m actually moving right across the street with that guy over there.” He totally already had a plan, was already there. But he had to keep him motivated to perform. And at the end of the day, the money motivates.

I mean, that one house that we did a while back where…And we do this with every deal, just so you know, I’m working on one right now where the conversation with the homeowner the other day was, “Okay, so we have a plan to purchase your house. Your house is going to auction. What I need to know is where are you going?” Like you have to get really real with “where are you going?” because in three weeks, when I purchase this house, you cannot be in it.

So, she’s like, “Oh I don’t know where I’m going yet.” “Okay, well, I’m not gonna make you any offer. I’m just gonna allow your house to go to auction, because it’s not worth the headache to me if you have nowhere to go. I’m not gonna leave you in a worse spot than I found you. And so if you choose to do nothing, that’s gonna be up to you. So what I’ll do is, you find a place to move, get qualified to move there, and then I’ll make your first and last month’s security deposit and give you your rent to be able to do that.”

And when I did that, she suddenly was like, “Oh. Oh okay, it’s not so big and so daunting.”

Well, we’ve done that on deals before. We’ve gone directly to, “Okay, well where did you get approved?” “Okay, I got approved here.” “Great, do we have permission to talk to them?” “Yes.” “Great, and we’ve wrote the check directly to the new landlord. And so now, here you go, you’ve moved out? That’s great. Here’s your landlord, your rent’s been paid, and here’s whatever our agreement is.” And now they’re out of the home.

Melina: Right. I think that the thing that people forget to take into consideration is, when you’re dealing with a homeowner that is in a distressed situation like that, their mindset is not clear. They’re operating in scarcity. They’re totally scared. The idea of moving, in and of itself, is overwhelming to them. They don’t know what to do. It’s just like this lady that we’re kind of joking about, but the reality was, is that she had the money, but she was actually moving across state. Or, I’m sorry, across country. Yeah, she was going back East. And so, you know, she needed to get a U-Haul that would actually hold everything she owned, and drive it across the country. So when you’d walk into her house, she would have boxes, but she didn’t have anywhere to put them. And so when we gave her money, she had a place to go to, but no way to get there. And that was the one thing I think that we didn’t anticipate, was that she didn’t know how she was gonna get everything she owned across the country, which is really what led us to have to rent the U-Haul.

So you do need to be able to think through their entire scenario for them, which to us may seem absurd, because we would think, “Well how in the world…” you know, “Why would you not think that through?” But when they’re in dire straits like that, it’s almost an impossibility for them to be able to see that all the way through. So you need to be able to think that through for them. When we talk about serving homeowners, that’s one of the things that we do.

And it’s always our first question. Where are you going? What are you going to do? Because like you said, our business mindset, our mission says we leave a homeowner better than when we found them. Always. And if we can’t do that, we’ll walk away. And sometimes, we don’t even know what that looks like which is kind of comical.

Dave: Did you say you had it in writing with her? You had an agreement with her in writing?

Melina: Yeah.

Frank: Yeah, we had an agreement in writing. It looked good but she just kept changing the agreement.

Melina: Well, I remember we had a conversation. Frank said to me, “Are we gonna have to evict her?” and I said, “Well, I’ve done those.” Remember? I can remember.

Frank: Yeah, But the credit card that we used for the U-Haul, that became an issue.

Melina: It was my credit card.

Frank: Yeah. We had a call from U-Haul, right?

Melina: Yeah.

Frank: At the end of her trip, I don’t know what…something happened.

Dave: Oh that’s right.

Melina: Yeah. I had to give…Even though…

Frank: I was like…I think definite lesson. Don’t put your credit card on someone’s U-Haul they’re taking across the country. That probably wasn’t a good idea.

Melina: That’s right. We paid cash for the U-Haul, but U-Haul required a credit card. And of course, it was mine because I was there with her. And they said, “No, we’re not going to charge your credit card,” but what I didn’t get is that, I don’t know, she went over mileage or whatever she did.

Frank: It was late.

Dave: They did something, it charged. They charged her credit card.

Melina: It did.

Dave: She was late. Remember, she didn’t arrive there on time…it was extra days or something to get there. She stopped off and smelled the roses along the way.

Melina: Yeah.

Dave: That’s right. I remember that.

Melina: Holy cow.

Dave: Oh yeah. Don’t put your credit card on someone’s U-Haul slip. That’s a good lesson. Oh my goodness. The things we don’t think about at the time trying to solve the problem. I was talking to a student just the other day, and they were like, “I don’t know how to…I have this agreement with the homeowner and I don’t know how to write it up. I don’t know how to like, put those agreement.” And I was talking to one of my attorneys the other day and he said, “We can put all kinds of legalese in this things but these are pieces of paper.” Right?

And at the end of the day, you’ve got to enforce a piece of paper, a contract if you will, so you’re gonna end up with, no matter what you do, you can go spend thousands of dollars getting all these crazy contracts written up and everything else, but it comes down to building that rapport with people. And then you’ve got to keep them motivated. And help them through that process. I think we do a really good job of enrolling that homeowner into the solution because we really do wanna provide a solution for them. We don’t wanna go over and be like, “Okay, it’s time to get out. The sheriff’s here, we’re gonna lock all your stuff in, and see you later.” Like that’s not our intention, so, you know, if you’re gonna put these things in writing, put them in writing in layman’s terms. This is what we all agree to.

This is how we keep them motivated to do what they needed to do. And boy, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve moved people, and grabbed U-Hauls, and packed boxes and…

Melina: I was gonna say, I remember one time Frank and I were working on a property where I had gone over and I had paid the homeowner’s landlord directly, paid them their first month and last month for the seller to move out. And we had a date and time that the locksmith was gonna be at the property to change the locks. You were somewhere and so Frank came with me to meet the locksmith. And we drove up, and she was starting to pack.

Dave: Starting to pack.

Melina: She had just started to pack and she had some things out. She had like her armoire in the front yard, and there was like…

Frank: It looked like a yard sale.

Melina: It looked like a yard sale but it was just, she knew the locks were being changed but she had put it off until the last possible minute. So she was throwing things out in the yard. And me and Frank walked in and I was like, “Oh,” and we opened up all of her drawers, full of stuff. She had no boxes. So me and Frank go, “Well I guess we’re gonna go to Staples.” We went to Staples and bought a whole bunch of boxes and then we put them together and then we sat in her….I remember I was walking into her bedroom and…or the kitchen, remember? And we were just…everything that was in the kitchen, we were just throwing into boxes.

Frank: Yep. That was insane. The cat was like…

Melina: Oh.

Frank: The litter box, the litter box in the bathtub.

Melina: Oh yeah, that’s right.

Frank: I forgot about that.

Dave: That’s why I wasn’t at that house because I would have been in the hospital from the allergies. That’s what happened.

Frank: I forgot about that.

Melina: That was a big one,

Frank: Melina, come here. Come check this out.

Melina: Just when you think you’ve seen it all, uh-uh.

Frank: No.

Dave: Like, but where’s the cat?

Melina: The cat was gone, there was no cat.

Frank: That was great.

Dave: Are you sure it was a litter box?

Melina: No, we’re not sure.

Peter: Are you sure it was for the cat?

Melina: No, we weren’t sure.

Dave: Oh my god.

Melina: That was kind of the point.

Dave: Wow.

Melina: All right, so someone bring this back together, because this just went down like a wild train.

Frank: Oh man, so many stories.

Dave: Get it in writing, get it in writing, get it in writing. Get it in writing, over and over and over again I’ve heard so many people. We say it, “Hey, make sure you have a joint venture whether it’s with your partner, whether it’s with your homeowner, whatever, get it in writing.” And I can’t tell you how many people go, “Yeah, yeah we were working on that” and, “No, we just didn’t do it. We just didn’t do it. We just didn’t do it.” That’s a huge mistake. Just put it in writing. I know our attorneys told us before, negotiate upfront like enemies, you can be best of friends…

Melina: Absolutely,

Dave: …you know at the end of the day, because we are talking about deals here, where we’ve lost money, right? And everybody always wants to talk about the profit, the win. Right? But they never really take into consideration the loss. And I know of a few club members right now that just lost on a deal, that….they should have never done the deal. And their joint venture says, we share in the loss. Well, the problem with that loss is, when you’ve borrowed money and it’s your reputation that borrowed that money, and your partners have no reputation and no money to come back and pay for that loss, what do you do?

So they’re all three looking and staring at each other right now going, “What do you do?” “I don’t know, I don’t have the money for the loss.” “I don’t have the money for the loss, I guess it’s yours.” Well, what’s your agreement? These are just some important takeaways. It’s just, get some advice if you need help putting that stuff together but just get it in writing. Especially homeowners, gosh. Melina’s dealt with more homeowners than anybody in our club times a hundred, and if anybody’s going to be a good person to go bounce things off of, “Hey, what do you think I should do here? What do you think I should do here?” She has a really good way of just going in and solving those problems. And I’ve learned a lot from you from that.

Melina: Thanks, babe.

Dave: Yeah. Anybody else? Any last minute thoughts?

Tim: I have one. I thought that these two last podcasts were really cool. I’ve been to a lot of seminars in the past and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the speakers say things like, “Well, we could teach a three-day class on how not to do real estate.” Right, I mean, we’ve made our mistakes, but they never really share their mistakes. So you don’t actually get that. I’ve never seen anywhere else where people actually shared the reality of what those losses might look like, or those mistakes might look like.

I just thought it was really cool that we were able to come together. I mean, I remember Frank dealing with that homeowner. I went to that property at one point, I don’t remember…

Melina: I probably got you to help me move.

Tim: Yeah, I don’t remember why I was there but I didn’t know all the details of that deal until literally just now. So I think it’s really cool that we can all come together and kind of share these things, and if I’m not in this room and I’m listening, I think, I don’t know. It’s pretty cool that all of you guys are willing to share with us the mistakes that you’ve made. It’s awesome.

Melina: Appreciate that.

Dave: Maybe we keep these going on occasionally, because I’m sure there’s gonna be plenty more.

Melina: That’s the thing.

Frank: To follow up on Tim’s comments there. This is probably the…actually, i know for a fact this is the reason that I gravitated towards you guys, right, because I saw that integrity. I saw that openness, that willingness. Had it not been for that, I wouldn’t be here today at all. So it’s just something that…it’s rare. You don’t see that anymore, wherever you go. You don’t even see it in family.

Melina: Isn’t that the truth.

Frank: So it’s the way it is. So.

Dave: Wow, Well, thank you guys. Thanks for joining us today and we will…You know, I just remembered, we’re gonna be going on a little trip. So I don’t know what we’ll do, whether we’ll make the next podcast or not. Maybe you guys might have to host it without us.

Melina: We’re gonna be in Israel.

Peter: Oh boy.

Dave: Yeah, we’re gonna…

Frank: When the cat’s away…

Tim: Podcast will be live from Israel.

Melina: I don’t know about that.

Frank: FaceTime.

Dave: I don’t think we’re doing that one.

Melina: Nope.

Dave: Well we’ll see how it works out in the schedule. Otherwise we’ll catch you guys around the club and with that, we’ll call it a wrap.