Gary Pinkerton is joined by former police officer David Greene about his experience as an investor. David shares his story of starting to invest while still working full-time as a police officer. He also details the Core 4 that he has on his team and explains how he mixes it with technology.
Announcer 0:04
Welcome to the heroic investing show. As first responders we risk our lives every day our financial security is under attack. Our pensions are in a state of emergency. A single on duty incident can alter or erase our earning potential instantly and forever. We are the heroes of society. We are self reliant, and we need to take care of our own financial future. The heroic investing show is our toolkit of business and investing tactics on our mission to financial freedom.
Gary Pinkerton 0:39
Hello, and welcome to Episode 106 of the heroic investing show, where we focus on challenges unique to members of the first responders, organizations of firefighters, police officers, EMTs, members of the active duty armed services, reservists, National Guard, and those of us that get to call ourselves veterans nowadays. But we also focus on those issues common to all investors, we aim to provide the tools that enable our listeners to have the confidence and the tools, the experience and knowledge about how to secure their family’s future and their own personal retirement, but to free up time, to allow them to focus on those things that perhaps they know in the back of their mind are where they hold unique genius. It allows them to gain expertise, to gain knowledge to gain business practices, sales, training, and all of the things needed to launch that business to launch your idea and make a difference in the world. As john Locke said, those of us in a free country have the ability to pursue personal property, we get to have intellectual property cause others to compensate you for the things whether they be products or services that you provide that bring value to others lives that is in fact what capitalism, what people in free societies are good at doing. And it’s what keeps us free and keeps us prospering. You know very well that I am a huge fan of the book Atlas Shrugged that ein Rand wrote many years ago. And in her book, there was a place called Gault Gulch, john Galt, who was one of the first engineers to leave society and create a new society that went back to the foundations of our founding fathers of people like john Locke, where individuals freely created added more and more value, and we’re compensated for their contributions to a free and prosperous society. So I love that book. I love this society and the picture that it paints in my mind, and it’s what I see my vision, my calling, being, specifically to help others put in place safe protected foundations for their family, and passive income to help free their minds free their time, and bolster their confidence to do what they know they can do uniquely better than others to help improve our world. And so David green is an individual just like that David is a police officer in the San Francisco Bay Area. And a few years ago, as a single hard working individual on the police force, he started to buy real estate, and boy has he bought real estate he has bought across the United States, several states. He’s a active member in the bigger pockets podcast team, he has written a couple of key books, and is just a really good speaker. So I think you will enjoy this motivated young man and his story about helping inspire the others out there. Again, I think you’ve seen my common theme here, I want to continue to bring individuals that are of our target target audience group that are out there doing it as examples for us if you keep hearing more and more and more people doing what I believe all of us can do, as first responders and members of the military, I just want you to feel this common and that there are a lot of mentors out there and pick one that you connect with, and start a mentorship program with them, start talking with them about how to do what they’ve done. And David is no different. David is a really inspiring individual. He’s got a great book. His book is called long distance real estate investing, how to buy rehab and manage out of state rental properties. So David does a little bit more hands on stuff than the typical Jason Hartman follower would do. A lot of us, myself included, choose, you know, because of time commitments because of deployments, because we feel that we are already in our unique genius and want to spend time mastering that skill. We choose not to do The actual rehabbing, you know, the bird dogging and the rehabbing, we outsource that. But his book is not all about that. And there are many I know who are listeners of this that actually do intend to do things like the burst strategy of bigger pockets where you’re gonna go out and you’re gonna buy it yourself, I feel personally, that’s a very risky thing to do long distance. But David and I talked about that. And that’s why in his book, he has got a group called the core four team. So similar Jason Hartman’s message, having the team, the right team on the ground in the location means that you can pull off successfully, obviously, David has done it, many people out there have done it, and his book talks about that. But even if you’re not looking to do those initial steps, you’re going to do turnkey sourcing, there still an amazing amount of information here having to do with the core four, but also everything about out of state investing, how to pick the right market, how to stay away from what he calls, the frightening for the for roadblocks, that keep people from taking action and out of state investing. So it’s a good book, it is directly targeted to people who listen to this book. So or excuse me listen to this podcast. And so I was extremely excited that David would give us some of his time, David’s also a podcast host, and, you know, an extremely knowledgeable individual. But most importantly, he’s shining a light in the direction down the tunnel, that many of us are getting nudged to go down. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be listening to my podcast. So thank you so much for continuing to do so for continuing to investigate things like Jason’s 10 commandments of real estate investing are 30 lessons of things to avoid, and things that David points out in his book, like the core 14, and how to overcome the frightening for. So please, without further ado, enjoy this discussion with author, police officer, inspiring individual, Mr. David green.
Gary Pinkerton 7:07
So everyone again, after the introduction, I mentioned that David is a law enforcement officer. So he’s right in with the group that first responders, military veterans that are trying to transition to alternative investments, cash flow, getting time back with family and friends, everyone, please welcome Mr. David green,
David Greene 7:25
What’s going on, Gary? How are you this morning?
Gary Pinkerton 7:27
Very good, very good. Not morning out here. But I do appreciate the fact that it’s probably something warm and beautiful out where you live. Very, almost. So is almost gone here. David, let’s start off with you know, most of my listeners are struggling with the concept. You know, a lot of them maybe until they came across this podcast didn’t really even consider the idea that full time stressed out individual, whether it be deploying in the military, or working, you know, several shifts in a row as a firefighter, police officer or an EMT that they have time to do this. But you kind of let into your story initially with me before we started recording that you took that on kind of head on and built your portfolio initially, while still working full time. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about that story?
David Greene 8:13
Yeah, so I was working as a police officer and I recognize I had an opportunity to do overtime, I’m a single guy. So I didn’t have to worry about you know, taking care of a family or going to T ball games. So I really thought there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be working a lot and preparing for my future. And I realized, you know, if I set my schedule like this, I can make this much money working this much overtime. A lot of us that are public servants have that opportunity. Whether you’re a firefighter or a medic, a police officer, we actually make significantly more money when you work overtime, I knew I had an opportunity there. And I just wanted to find a way that I could capitalize on it. So I would work and I would save money. And then I would start buying rental properties in markets that were much cheaper than where I lived. So it didn’t make sense to try to buy a rental property near me just because it was convenient in California won’t make sense for anyone in Denver in LA in New York, you know, lots of areas in the country right now are kind of a seller’s market. But it did make sense to go to areas like the Midwest, the south where they had a lot of cash flowing properties. My problem was I had to figure out how am I going to buy these properties while also working because the minute you stop working to focus on buying the properties, now you’re not making money. And if you’re making money, then you can’t buy the properties. And what I found is that most of us make this much more difficult than it really needs to be. There’s very few decisions I need to make in this whole process. And really, once I get the information, I gather it together, it’s a very simple decision, I look at what the math tells me and I make a good decision. The work is spent gathering the data that you need to make the decision and most of us make that much much much much harder than it has to be. I was talking to my buddy the other day about this and I’m like, you know, I think when I buy a house, it’s it’s probably seven or eight different 32nd chunks of time where I have to make a decision about something, communicate that and then I’m done. And then it goes on to the next step. So surrounding yourself with really good people to do this kind of stuff for you was what I did, and then learning what I need to actually be a part of and what I don’t so that I can focus on my job. A lot of the time, I would Look at a deal that somebody came to me while, you know waiting at a red light just sitting there. There’s nothing going on, check it out, reply back to a text that no, you don’t do this when you’re texting and driving, of course. But hey, yeah, this is the information I need or find out this for me or Yep, that sounds good. Send me the contract, and then you’re on to the next spot. I would challenge everyone who thinks they don’t have time to ask themselves. Do you really understand what you’re doing good enough to be able to make that assumption? Or is there a chance that you do have time and you just haven’t streamlined the process yet?
Gary Pinkerton 10:26
Yeah, very great. Great points. Great points. I had a, I was listening to Robert Kiyosaki once and he said, you know, you ought to just try to always be in escrow and I was like, holy cow, how can you be in a deal buying or selling non stop for years, and actually, I have been, I’ve been in escrow non stop, except for maybe a month since I started this, you know, this journey back in 2011. And we have very similar portfolios, I think, you know, about 30 properties. 2030 properties are 30 to 40. I think he said, are they all single family? Are they one to four family?
David Greene 10:59
I have one for family, and the rest of them are all single family.
Gary Pinkerton 11:02
Okay, good. And so, for 10 of those properties, you use Fannie Mae, and then are they all financed? I should have asked that question
David Greene 11:08
Just about everything is financed by my goal is to have them all financed the first six, I believe I did Fannie Mae, and then I couldn’t. And then after that the next six or so I did portfolio lenders in the markets where I was buying. And now what I do is I buy houses and I use what we call the burst strategy. It’s an acronym for you know, buy rehab, rent, refinance, repeat, but doesn’t really matter how you get the property. I financed them through commercial loans now. So once you get enough properties, you can find a lender that will lend on commercial terms and look at your portfolio foams as if it was a single asset. That’s where I get my lending from at this point. Because once as you know, you get above 10, you can’t get traditional loans anymore,
Gary Pinkerton 11:41
Right as a, as a single individual, right? Like soon I’ve gone to 20. Good, okay, there’s a lot of our audience it’s very interested in what do I do when I get past, you know, the Fannie Mae limit, they keep dangling out there in front of you that there’s going to be you know, 25 per person, but that that hasn’t changed yet. And with higher interest rates, that may not be the solution anyway, come coming up. Good. So what is the like that after repair value, basic price of your homes just got, if you had to average things out, it’s probably
David Greene 12:09
somewhere for the bulk of them between 80 and 120,000. That’s kind of my standard run of the mill property.
Gary Pinkerton 12:16
Got it. Okay. And so you started in California that quickly right after the crash, and that quickly priced itself out of reasonableness. And then you said, you went to Arizona, Florida, still in Florida, or kind of across the US.
David Greene 12:27
islands, primarily in Florida, that’s where I’m buying probably 80% of everything I buy, and then the Midwest and, you know, other parts of the South, I’m still picking them up kind of here and there, Florida is where I do most of what I’m doing. And that’s really only because I just find that there’s more to buy in those areas. You know, like, I have a good team there. And they bring me the most deals. And so it’s just easiest, there’s no i don’t think Florida is the magic pill versus anywhere else. But for me, I tend to focus on where do I have a system put in place? Where do I have someone I can trust, as opposed to trying to time the market, and guess when the next big thing is gonna hit? What happens with those people as they get into this, when they’re always looking for the next big market, you just start spinning your wheels and your brains analyzing all this information that you don’t ever do anything with, and you spend all this time and energy, you don’t ever get a result. So what I found is that, try to avoid that shiny object syndrome and feeding your ego thinking, Oh, I got into this market, because this is the next big thing. And it’s going to grow blah, blah, blah. And just ask yourself, where can I get solid, consistent investments that overtime are going to add up to give you really, really big results. And then when you retire, and you’re sitting there 60 years old with you know, 20 houses that are all cash flowing 500 bucks or more a month, you’re gonna look like the genius while the guy that was running around with shiny object syndrome has to because he couldn’t pull the trigger on anything.
Gary Pinkerton 13:38
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The I just wrote this book with a group and one of the guys in there was I was talking about, if you want to perform better, fail faster, you know, and Kiyosaki said that a lot. You know, he says his rich dad told him to, you know, go to a call center and learn how to sell but also learn how to fail fast so that you get experiences fast, and you learn faster. And so yeah, the analysis paralysis thing is just killed so many people just amazing. So, but you’ve written a book for us, for all of us out there that aren’t quite at your level yet. Tell us about the book a little bit.
David Greene 14:11
So the book is called long distance real estate investing, how to buy rehab and manage out of state rental property. And the goal for the book was just to get people that were saying, Hey, I can’t invest because of whatever excuse they had. My market is too expensive. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to find people to do it. It’s scary and detail all the systems that I use to put my business together and show people there is an answer for every question that you have. Don’t let that question become an excuse that that question become a motivation to go find the answer so that you can move forward. Because I truly believe that in the world we live in today, technology has increased so much that buying a house across the country is not any different than when I buy a house in my own market. We’re using the same resources, the same tools. I’m using the same numbers to make my decision. It’s all the same. The only difference is I’m not jumping on a plane to go walk property. And I would argue that that’s probably better that I’m not. Because I’m not a home inspector, I’m not a contractor. I’m a real estate agent, I see houses all the time. But I don’t know how to tell if a house needs work. Or if it doesn’t any more than the experts gonna, I need to look at the report that the expert gives me, I need a home inspection report, I need to bid from the contractor, I need to take that information and plug it into my formula and see if these numbers work. So I can make an educated decision, walking a house yourself will make you feel like it’s a safer investment. Really, all you’re doing is impacting your emotions unnecessarily, like your emotions really shouldn’t be a part of this decision making process. So I don’t look at homes at all, it forces me to rely on other people, which makes me much more productive, because I have my agent going to take pictures and record a video of it. I have my property manager walking in saying, David, here’s a punch list of all the stuff that we need to do to get this place ready to rent. I have another investor looking at my numbers to make sure that they look the same to him, right, I get multiple layers of security, because I’ve removed myself from this process. Because I know I’m not the expert when it comes to knowing if I should buy this house or not based on how I feel, those are the experts that I want their opinion,
Gary Pinkerton 16:06
you mentioned specifically for people that need to be on the ground, you know, for your investment to go well, no matter where it is across the country. You mentioned some of those individuals Did you cover all four of them in there. And that’s all
David Greene 16:18
almost so I call my core four, right. And what I found is after doing this in four or five different markets that I’ve done, if I have these four people on my team, I can buy real estate anywhere, all right, so they are made up of a lender, of course, you’re going to need financing. And once you get more than 10, it gets much harder to find them as a single person. So you’re gonna spend time looking for a lender, you’re gonna want a contractor or a handyman, someone that can get the place and condition that you want, you’re gonna want a property manager, somebody can manage it for you. And then you’re gonna want to deal finder, that could be a real estate agent that could be a wholesaler that could be a turnkey provider, whatever model works better for what your goals are, you need someone that can basically find you the deal, you don’t need to be doing any of those four jobs, that is somebody else’s career, they’re going to do it better than you, you need to be going to work and focusing on doing the very best job you can at the job you have and making as much money as you can there and letting them do that in their world on your behalf. Right? I don’t need to go learn how to work on cars, I need to find a mechanic that knows how to do it. So I can go be a better police officer a better doctor better whatever I am. That’s the philosophy I have. So what I found is that if you can find just one Rockstar out of those for someone who’s really, really good, a great turnkey provider, a great wholesaler, a great property manager, they will usually be able to refer you to the other three members of the team that you need, or they’ll give you another Rockstar and he’ll know the other to some combination of that, right. So what you really need to do is find one person who has experienced investing in a market who’s really good, and start pumping them for what referrals they can give you finding the best of those people. And that’s how you put your team together. Rather than thinking I have to go do it all I better go get on Google and look for 50 different handyman and call them all and see which one I liked the most. That’s where people get their anxiety from, well, I don’t know, I haven’t met him. I don’t know these people. But you don’t really need to know those people, if they have a good reputation. You’re covering your bases with the way you do business. And they were referred to you by someone that you can trust. So in the book, I’d have this philosophy that I talk about rock stars, no rock stars, if you come to me, I’m a real estate agent in the Bay Area. And you say, David, I need an appraiser. I’m trying to figure out what my house is worth, I’m not going to send you a guy who isn’t really, really good because my reputations on the line, if you have a bad experience with that appraiser, you’re not going to use me to sell your house probably right. And that’s going to kill my business. So I’m only going to refer you to a great appraiser or tell you, I don’t know a good one. Now, if you go to a shady person, he’s probably gonna say, hey, use this appraiser, because that appraiser gives him a $50 kickback under the table or something ridiculous, right? And you’re going to have a bad experience. So I know that that’s the way it works with Rockstar. So if you find a rockstar, the referrals they give you are pre vetted by that person. Now you’re still gonna do your due diligence with them. But it’s so much less risky than when it’s a stranger that you found from someone you didn’t really know. And you’re hoping that things go well.
Gary Pinkerton 18:54
Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. So as part of that rock star that I’m not sure you ever actually said but certainly was implied in there was an ethical individual, right? So if you find somebody who is well connected, they probably are already a person with high integrity and ethics. Otherwise, the actual rock stars they’re referring you to wouldn’t stick around them. Right. So it’s, it comes back.
David Greene 19:16
That’s exactly right.
Gary Pinkerton 19:16
Yeah. So it comes back to this year, the sum total, you know, Jim, Ron’s comment sum total of the five people you hang around the most. But what’s not really discussed heavily in that is that you’re not going to get the hang around those people if you don’t have the right character.
David Greene 19:28
Right. So and you know, that’s funny. That’s my big like, my soapbox I stand on when I go speak when I’m writing when I’m doing stuff, is everyone comes to me, says, David, how do I find rock stars? And I say you need to be a rock star. Yeah, right. If you can find the perfect person, and if you’re not up to par ethically yourself, they’re gonna sniff you out. They’re gonna know it and they’re not going to give you the time of day. They’re going to figure it out that you’re not someone they can trust and they’re going to go if you’re calling an agent, when you know that you don’t have any intention of buying or a turnkey provider and you’re taking their time and they figure out this guy just wants to free education, he’s not going to buy from me, they’re going to stop taking your call and they’re gonna ignore you. They’re not going to give you their good referrals. If you’re going to a contractor and you’re basically saying, hey, I need you to go give me a bid on this house and you send them to 10 houses in a row and you never buy when you just wanted to learn how to estimate rehab costs through him. He’s gonna stop working with you, the only people you’re gonna have a left that will work with you or shady people that are trying to take advantage of you too. And that’s what I find in the world is like birds of a feather flock together when you find shady people or unambitious people, they tend to hang out with other unambitious people because they don’t want to feel bad because their own success, right?
Gary Pinkerton 20:32
Well, I know the other ones that will hang out with them.
David Greene 20:34
That’s exactly right. You’re exactly right. If you want to find that the really talented people in the world that you can trust, you need to be that and you need to know people can tell it works in the dating world, it works in the professional world. You know, like, when you hear someone complaining, Why are there no good guys left? or Why are there no good girls left? What it means is they’re drawing from their energy and the way they do business, the worst part of the world to them and then their experiences. Why am I only getting bad stuff? So that’s the advice I’d give people is really take a good hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, Am I a rock star? Do I act like a rock star? My ethical? Am I treating them the way I’d want to be treated? Or am I trying to get over on them? Because every time you think you’re getting over on someone, I tell the people this from like, every time you think you go to buy a new car, and you go to the dealer, they are very good at making you think you got a great deal. But you never get a good deal. They don’t. Right? They got the better end of the deal. But they made you think you did and they applied your ego. It’s like that with other people too. If you think you’re getting over on someone, they’re probably getting over on you just the same and you don’t see it.
Gary Pinkerton 21:34
Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s all certainly true. And there’s a lot of these lessons that have been learned and taught to us by some pretty impressive self improvement individuals or success individuals, they all sound a little bit different. But they’re really the same thing talking about what you just said there about attracting stuff into your life. And Napoleon Hill talked about it, you know, thinking Grow Rich, that was his whole point. Think about being successful. And you end up surrounding yourself with people who are Zig Ziglar, you know, have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want, right? So all of this stuff is about not being so self focused, being more outwardly focused. And that just forces you to say, hey, my buddy, Aaron allender. Hey, Aaron, I haven’t talked to in a while How can I help your life, you know, so if you approach it like that, you end up surrounding yourself with those kind of people. And we talked a little bit before the recording, I want you to launch into this, if you’re okay with it, about the idea of you know, abundance mentality and being successful and helping others do so.
David Greene 22:30
I love what you just said, You’re 1,000% right about that. And the problem is most people in the world cannot get over their own selfish desires to put other people first. But that also creates opportunity for those that do, right, because like I’m a real estate agent now. And we work in the Bay Area of Northern California and the Sacramento area. And what I found is that agents have a terrible reputation. And I don’t really like them myself, because most agents will just tell you, whatever you want to hear because they want to get business and they have no intention of following up on any of it. And they don’t have the skill to follow up even if they did when people can see this guy’s an investor, he buys houses himself. He’s really smart. He knows what he’s doing. And I can trust him. My reputation spread like wildfire. I ended up being the top agent, my office in my first year. That’s not because I’m so awesome. That’s because the bar was set so low from other agents ethically, that because I went in and I talked to people saying how can I help you? They all want to help me back. Right? When you meet someone and you’re like, Dude, what’s going on? My kids are driving me crazy. I can’t take it every day. It’s something new. You volunteer to watch their kids for him and let them have a date night with their wife or something. They remember that you did something for me that mattered a lot when I meet lenders and I say what is your business need? And they say, Well, I really, really, really need referrals, I kind of find people that need to refinance. And as I’m talking to people, and they mentioned they need to refinance, I get their number and give it to my lender and say, Hey, this guy will give you a free quote, see if it’s worth doing. Those lenders Remember to David’s like an out for my business. I love that guy. Who do you think they’re gonna send their referrals to my real estate agent business? And it works like that in everything, right? I’ll meet a wholesaler, and I’ll say, What’s your biggest problem? And they’re like, well, we have a ton of buyers. But we don’t have guys that are serious that can close. Or I’ll meet a turnkey provider and say, What’s your biggest problem? He’s like, we’ve got tons of cash flowing property, but nobody around here has any money, right? Well, I live in California where a lot of people have money. So when I’m doing seminars, and I find people that say like, hey, David, I want to invest in real estate, but I don’t have time. I mean, to put them in touch with that turnkey person, if that’s what they want to do. He’s going to remember that now he’s going to feel like this law of reciprocity that I have to pay david back, I owe him and I don’t like this feeling. It’s not a negative thing. It’s a very positive thing. I want everyone in my life with that feeling. Because then I can explain, hey, you can pay me back by giving me referrals or business advice. Or by pointing out to me when I’m not acting consistent with the person that I say I want to be right. Whatever the case may be, you end up with this army of people that are all supporting you and your goals. And it’s not that hard because no one else is doing it. If you’re the guy who says I’m going to be the best friend I can to all my friends instead of complaining that nobody’s a good friend to me. You’re going to be the guy that ends up with all the friends That’s right. That’s right.
Gary Pinkerton 25:01
Yep, yep. And if you can get to the point, and I will admit, I have not been here too long. But if you can get to the point where you don’t even need to make the connection, well, if I do this, if I go through all this extra effort for this individual, what are they going to do for me, if you can get to the point where it doesn’t even have to be them, they’re going to mention something, some offhand comments, somehow, it may be their friend or their friend twice removed, but somehow you’re going to get it back, you’re going to get the cosmic stuff back, you know, that Napoleon Hill talks about? Yeah, and if you can get to this point where you just kind of release like, I don’t need returned for this, I don’t need to calculate the return on investment of doing this favor for a buddy making this connection. I don’t need any of that stuff. I don’t need a referral fees. Because it’s going to come back, you know, multiplied. Because doing that for other people, you’ll have everything in life you want. I mean, I’m such a huge believer of that. But it takes a leap of faith to get there, you know, like, the old saying of it would be nice if I could just say, hey, still give me some heat. And then I’ll go cut some firewood down and throw in Yeah, right. I mean, you got it, like do the effort first. And so when you’re out there, like, you know, referring when you’re helping other people doing all of this, often, it’s without seeing a clear path of what’s coming your way,
David Greene 26:10
You’re 1,000%, right. And the reason that I like it is that it forces you to work on your own character, because you do that for three or four people and nothing comes back your way. And your your selfish nature is gonna say, See, what was the point, no one’s looking out for you, you better go look out for yourself. And now you have that moment of Am I going it’s like the point in the workout when you just got tired, my gonna push through it and keep going and or am I gonna fold up and quit. And if you want to be successful, you’re going to push through it, and that’s what’s gonna make you stronger. Well, this is making your character stronger. Like, the more I do this, the more I see, I’m not really a good person, because I get irritated all the time with people that don’t pay back. But I know what’s gonna make me a good person is doing it, I don’t want to wait until I feel like the good person to do it. Just like I don’t want to wait till the stove is hot before I give it wood. So for the people that want to be successful, in my opinion, you’re really committing to a journey of self improvement and like self mastery and a lot of ways and you need to count the cost before you take that journey. And know, it’s gonna make me aware of much more of my flaws than I thought. And it’s gonna be challenging in more ways. But none of us have ever regretted a workout we did. We never regret the time we ate the broccoli, you know what I mean? It just isn’t fun. you’re committing to a lifetime of doing that, and you’re going to get the results. If you work out enough and you eat, right, you’re gonna get results, there’s no way that you can avoid. And it’s like that with success, too. If you help enough people, and you put them first, it’s going to come back to you. And then the secret A lot of people don’t realize is, the more buddies I help, the more I learn about what their problem was in the world. And my brain starts to recognize patterns that helped me to fix what their problem was. And then I apply it to my own life. And I benefit too.
Gary Pinkerton 27:38
Yeah, exactly. That’s some awesome stuff. Speaking of benefiting, let’s circle is a little bit back to real estate. So you have you have an individual who’s purchased a property, maybe it’s through turnkey, or something and they’ve drifted away from the package that was there when you initially had it set up. Or maybe they decided, you know what, I’m going to self manage. I’ve talked to people about things like home advisor, and there’s a couple of self management programs out there. Have you exclusively stuck with the team you put on ground on the ground, your core four? Or have you gone out and used, you know, technology, basically, to solve problems for you like that, around the country,
David Greene 28:16
I use a combination of the two. So I’m going to use technology to come up with the solution. And then I’m going to pass that off to the core four member gods, hey, this is how you can fix it. Right? So what I often hear people say is, my property manager wants to send a handyman, and the guy is going to charge me 150 bucks, but I could find a guy to go do it for 70. I’m so frustrated with my property manager, right. And they just let that be I don’t like the product manager. He’s not good. Yeah. And I looked at it like, Alright, this property managers making like $65 a month to manage this thing. It’s nothing, right? every phone call he has to make he’s losing money every month, because he has to pay someone to do it. Why would I expect that guy to go like work really hard to find a guy to do it for 70 bucks, he’s not making any money. And the reason he’s not as I’m not paying in it, right? Like, I make money. What I want to do is I’ll go find the guy that works for 70 bucks an hour. And I’ll say call this guy when that happens. Here’s the protocol, right? And that guy’s gonna do a good job. And now that property manager is going to use that guy for all the other people that he has. His business just got better, his reputation gets better. And what does he think I love David, that dude help my business? Who do you think steps to the front of the line when when their phone is ringing? Who do you think is gonna get that deal when he’s like, Hey, I got a guy who owns five houses. He wants to sell them. It’s gonna come to me first.
Gary Pinkerton 29:29
Right? And so exactly right back to what we just talked about, right? Where you helped solve somebody else’s problem. You didn’t get paid for that he didn’t give you a referral fee for helping czar a discount on your management, right? Yep. But it certainly came around and helped you big time.
David Greene 29:42
Absolutely. So that’s what I do is if I get frustrated with anything, I take the responsibility on myself to fix it, that I share that with somebody else because I don’t want to be the one that does it every single time. I don’t want that guy and say you got another job on this house times however many homes I have. Let the property manager do it but I’ll help him to make it easier for him to help me.
Gary Pinkerton 30:01
That’s awesome. All right. So folks, there’s a lot of wisdom in this man’s words that are coming out here. So I’m sure they’re in the book too. So tell us where the book is, and how to find out more on your website. And specifically for those in the Bay Area, how to find you.
David Greene 30:14
Thank you. So you can buy the book at Amazon or Barnes and Noble, they sell it in Barnes and Noble stores. If you go to the real estate section, it’s a white and blue book, and there’s some binoculars on the cover. You can buy it online as well. And then my website is green income. com, My last name is green, and there’s an E at the end of green. So it’s gr e and e income.com. And that’s where I post blog articles that I write podcasts that I’ve been on, I post the deals that I do a lot of the time. So you can see like, this is how he did it. This is how he manages is the kind of stuff he’s getting. This is kind of like the things that I’m the education that I’m sharing. And then for those that live in Northern California, I’m a real estate agent here. If you want any information of what your house is worth help finding a house, you know somebody else that wants to buy a house or you just want to get educated, please email me it’s David green at kW Comm. That’s my email. We do free seminars every month about different real estate investing topics. So it may be how do I analyze a property? How do I rehab a property? How do I know I’m not getting ripped off by a person I every month, we pick a different topic and I teach about it. So I’d love for any of your listeners who want to learn more get to know me better to email me to get signed up for some of these seminars, because sharing the information like we just talked about, it only comes back to me, you know, in the long run beneficial.
Gary Pinkerton 31:21
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And so I know that there’s an A yet unveiled opportunity for us to hear a lot more from you on this kind of podcast kind of environment. But are you running one on your own right now, David,
David Greene 31:31
I’m not running my own podcast, I have been featured on a lot of other other podcasts. And now I’m a guest host of the BiggerPockets podcast, which is a real estate investing podcast every week, they have a different person come on, and we interview them about how they found success in real estate investing. That’s really where I got my confidence to say, Hey, I’m a cop, but I can build wealth. I don’t have to just subscribe to this idea that you can’t be wealthy if you’re a public servant. Or if you’re military or whatever the case is right? Like, that’s horse crap. You can be wealthy if you want to be wealthy. We interviewed somebody last week who was a teacher, and he retired at 35 with $10,000 a month in passive income coming in because he managed his money well, so it doesn’t matter who you are. You can do it. If you believe you can do it doesn’t matter where you are. If you don’t think you could do it, you’re not gonna
Gary Pinkerton 32:16
Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Well, maybe one day I’ll be on their way. That’s pretty awesome. And I’m looking at, we had an opportunity to share screens here and I’m looking at a Yeti snowball on the front of his on the front of his mug there. So I think he knows what he’s doing. He’s got a great mic, and I think he set up for huge success in the future. David, thank you so much for joining me in my audience. I can’t wait to we’re back on together.
David Greene 32:38
Thank you, Gary, thanks for for doing what you guys do. I really love your audience. And I love people that have a heart for first responders and military, anybody who’s putting other people first like I love giving back to those kinds of people. So let’s do this again. Whenever you’re ready. I got as much to talk about as you’ve got time to listen.
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