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Willie Mandrell - Cash Flow Secrets Revealed · REL Freedom Podcast

• 0:00
  Willie Mandrell: You know, I think one of the biggest questions to back up that she asked me early on was like, Have you ever known me to work?
• 0:05
  Willie Mandrell: And when I thought stepped back and thought about it, I was like, No, I've never known you to have a job or anything.
• 0:09
  Willie Mandrell: Like she was, you know, used to explain to me that all this money comes from rental income.
• 0:13
  Willie Mandrell: She'd had me knocking on doors, collecting rents, sweeping downstairs.
• 0:16
  Willie Mandrell: And it just kind of came along.
• 0:18
  Willie Mandrell: And when I got out of college, she basically just said, Look, you know, I'm a, you know, a black woman from the South with a sixth grade education, and I was able to do what I was able to do.
• 0:27
  Willie Mandrell: You're gonna have a high school education, a college education.
• 0:29
  Willie Mandrell: You should be able to take this thing a lot further than I was able to.
• 0:32
  Willie Mandrell: Welcome to the Real Freedom Show.
• 0:34
  Mike Swenson: We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.
• 0:39
  Mike Swenson: I'm your host, Mike Swenson.
• 0:41
  Mike Swenson: Let's get some real freedom together.
• 0:43
  Mike Swenson: Hello, everybody.
• 0:52
  Mike Swenson: Welcome to another episode of Real Freedom Real Estate Leverage Freedom, where we talk about different ways that people build time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.
• 1:02
  Mike Swenson: I'm your host, Mike Swens, and if you want to get started on your real estate journey, check out our website freedom through realestate.com.
• 1:10
  Mike Swenson: It's where we put all of our content, all of our interviews for you to be able to figure out what path you want to choose and where best to start and jump in and take action so that you can build an awesome career inside of real estate.
• 1:22
  Mike Swenson: Today I'm super excited to share.
• 1:24
  Mike Swenson: We're going to the East Coast to Boston.
• 1:27
  Mike Swenson: We've got Willie Mindrel here.
• 1:28
  Mike Swenson: Willie is self-made, multimillionaire real estate investor, broker, coach, lecturer, and author involved in well over $200 million in real estate transactions, author of the book Cash Flow Secrets, and your focus is buy and hold value add type properties in the Boston area.
• 1:45
  Mike Swenson: So excited to be able to dig into that more.
• 1:47
  Mike Swenson: Thank you so much, Willie, for being on the show.
• 1:50
  Willie Mandrell: I appreciate the opportunity.
• 1:51
  Willie Mandrell: Thanks for having me.
• 1:52
  Mike Swenson: To get started, give us a little bit about your background, why you got into real estate, how that got started, and we'll just take it from there.
• 1:58
  Willie Mandrell: It's funny, I'm in I'm in an uh anniversary year.
• 2:01
  Willie Mandrell: I'm in year 20 of this real estate, this journey.
• 2:04
  Willie Mandrell: Uh I bought my first property in 2006.
• 2:07
  Willie Mandrell: Um, I was 23 at the time, um, fresh out of college, uh, went to Northeastern here in Boston.
• 2:15
  Willie Mandrell: And uh my grandmother had been in the business.
• 2:17
  Willie Mandrell: She was um older woman, black woman, came up from the south, Macon, Georgia, moved to Boston in the 1950s.
• 2:24
  Willie Mandrell: Really tough time to be a woman, really tough time to be black.
• 2:27
  Willie Mandrell: It was pre, you know, civil rights moving, pre-you know, integration of schools and everything else.
• 2:31
  Willie Mandrell: Um, and somebody just, you know, uh, you know, suggested that she buy some real estate.
• 2:36
  Willie Mandrell: She bought a couple brownstones in the South End, completely different neighborhood than what it is today.
• 2:42
  Willie Mandrell: Um, very luxurious neighborhood, definitely, definitely difficult to get in.
• 2:45
  Willie Mandrell: Um and she just made, she just did really well for herself.
• 2:48
  Willie Mandrell: And um, it skipped a generation.
• 2:50
  Willie Mandrell: My father wanted nothing to do with it, uncle wanted nothing to do with real estate.
• 2:54
  Willie Mandrell: Um, and then when my brothers came along, she basically just said, Hey, I'm gonna, you know, continue to pass down this knowledge.
• 2:59
  Willie Mandrell: Um, don't want to give you anything, don't want to hand you anything, but want to make sure that um you understand, you know, I think one of the biggest questions to back up that she asked me early on was like, Have you ever known me to work?
• 3:11
  Willie Mandrell: And when I thought, stepped back and thought about it, I was like, No, I've never known you to have a job or anything.
• 3:15
  Willie Mandrell: Like she was, you know, used to explain to me that all this money comes from rental income.
• 3:19
  Willie Mandrell: She'd had me knocking on doors, collecting rents, sweeping downstairs.
• 3:22
  Willie Mandrell: And it just kind of came along.
• 3:23
  Willie Mandrell: And when I got out of college, she basically just said, Look, you know, I'm a you know, a black woman from the South with a sixth grade education, and I was able to do what I was able to do.
• 3:32
  Willie Mandrell: You're gonna have a high school education, a college education.
• 3:35
  Willie Mandrell: You should be able to take this thing a lot further than I was able to push me to grab my first multifamily, and I've been addicted and just buying ever since.
• 3:43
  Mike Swenson: So such a great story, and awesome that you were exposed to entrepreneurship and and building something inside of real estate so early and had a model of somebody to be able to show you and teach you.
• 3:55
  Mike Swenson: And and yeah, to your point, you know, because I look at my kids, you know, and I've kind of told them like, you don't have to do this if you don't want to.
• 4:01
  Mike Swenson: Like, I'm not gonna make you.
• 4:02
  Mike Swenson: I mean to see that you, you know, your parents or your dad decided not to, but stuck with you and and here you are.
• 4:08
  Willie Mandrell: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:08
  Willie Mandrell: No, it's been it's been an amazing ride.
• 4:10
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, it's been a lot of ups and downs.
• 4:12
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, I can tell you 2006, if you take the journey back, you know, market was pretty good.
• 4:16
  Willie Mandrell: 2007, stock market crashed, 2008, housing market crashed.
• 4:20
  Willie Mandrell: Um, you know, I took some lumps pretty early in the process.
• 4:23
  Willie Mandrell: But I mean, the the one thing that I've learned over the years, and you know, a little bit of what we're going through right now is, you know, there's gonna be economic downturns, economic cycles.
• 4:31
  Willie Mandrell: That's the way the economy works.
• 4:33
  Willie Mandrell: You got to stick with it.
• 4:34
  Willie Mandrell: You know, I mean, I would say there's a lot of, you know, your listeners potential.
• 4:37
  Willie Mandrell: I talk to people every day that are sitting on the sidelines waiting for things to improve.
• 4:42
  Willie Mandrell: It's the wrong, the wrong strategy.
• 4:43
  Willie Mandrell: You got to get in and then ride that cycle all the way up, you know, on the other end.
• 4:47
  Willie Mandrell: You know, we made some of our best investments 2012 when people were running away from the market, 11, 12, 13, some of the best years to buy.
• 4:55
  Willie Mandrell: And those properties in Boston have tripled in value since then.
• 4:58
  Willie Mandrell: So yeah.
• 4:59
  Mike Swenson: The hard part is everybody says, like, I wish I would have bought, you know, X number of years ago, and you don't know that that time was the sweet spot to buy until you're further ahead.
• 5:09
  Mike Swenson: Because either it's gonna continue to go down or it's gonna stay, and you don't know.
• 5:13
  Mike Swenson: And so that's why you've always got to be just thinking, you know, how can you continue to acquire stuff?
• 5:18
  Mike Swenson: Because we we always share, you know, hey, the two best times to plant a tree 20 years ago and today.
• 5:23
  Mike Swenson: And so you've got to figure out a way to do it now.
• 5:26
  Willie Mandrell: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:27
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, I I think the biggest thing is you can't follow the crowd.
• 5:30
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, I look at it like you know, like this.
• 5:32
  Willie Mandrell: If everyone else is running in one direction, I'm trying to look for opportunities in the other direction, right?
• 5:37
  Willie Mandrell: And that's it was the same thing I I looked at.
• 5:39
  Willie Mandrell: I'm not a big stock trader, but I looked at the same thing after COVID.
• 5:42
  Willie Mandrell: There was a everyone was running away from carnival cruises and you know, airline stocks and just a whole bunch of things that involve mass gatherings.
• 5:50
  Willie Mandrell: And I looked at those things as, hey, well, the stocks are going on sales.
• 5:53
  Willie Mandrell: Coronavirus is going to to end or COVID-19 is going to end at some point, right?
• 5:57
  Willie Mandrell: So civilization is not going to end right now with this virus, we hope.
• 6:01
  Willie Mandrell: Um, and you know, think people are gonna get back to traveling.
• 6:04
  Willie Mandrell: And those, you know, those those uh were value add um opportunities as well.
• 6:08
  Mike Swenson: So now you mentioned val value add burr strategy, you know, new construction, whatever that might be.
• 6:14
  Mike Swenson: When did you get into that kind of niche?
• 6:17
  Mike Swenson: Or uh did you start with that coming from your grammar, or kind of how did you decide that value add was gonna be, you know, one of those key points for you?
• 6:25
  Willie Mandrell: Um no, value add has been the last decade, I would say.
• 6:28
  Willie Mandrell: And the reason is is because you basically at some point get capped out on your conventional lending.
• 6:34
  Willie Mandrell: Um, meaning, you know, I went and Boston's a very expensive city, right?
• 6:38
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, we don't, we know, even back 10, 15 years ago, everything was $500,000, $600,000.
• 6:45
  Willie Mandrell: We're, you know, typical multifamily here is a million plus now.
• 6:48
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, you really don't find anything for under a million.
• 6:50
  Willie Mandrell: Um, so I bought a three-family FHA, federal housing administration, three and a half percent down.
• 6:57
  Willie Mandrell: My wife, not girlfriend at the time, she bought one as well.
• 7:01
  Willie Mandrell: We got married, we're able to trade up into a two-family, traded up into a single family.
• 7:06
  Willie Mandrell: So now we're stuck with six, uh, eight, nine, you know, units, including our single family.
• 7:11
  Willie Mandrell: And then you're kind of capped out at that point, right?
• 7:13
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, unless you want to put 20% down, you're starting to, you know, like I said, and again, 20% down here is six figures easily, you know, plus.
• 7:22
  Willie Mandrell: So then we start looking at things like value add uh opportunities, the birth strategy where we can go into something, put some money that we saved into that property, create a value spread, and then pull our capital right back out.
• 7:35
  Willie Mandrell: So the velocity of money, how do we keep our money moving faster?
• 7:39
  Willie Mandrell: If you buy a rent-ready three family, you put a hundred grand a hundred grand down, that hundred thousand is stuck in there until you sell the property or the property appreciates substantially.
• 7:50
  Willie Mandrell: The burr strategy allows us, and I'll give you some hard numbers here.
• 7:53
  Willie Mandrell: The burr strategy allows us to basically put that $100,000 in, create a significant amount of value, and then pull that $100,000 right back out.
• 8:01
  Willie Mandrell: And our typical business model here is, you know, we're buying at roughly $700,000 for a three-family.
• 8:08
  Willie Mandrell: We're gonna put $200,000 in, we're into it for $900,000, the building is worth $1.25 or $1.2 on the other end.
• 8:16
  Willie Mandrell: The banks allow us to say, yes, the LTV is there, you can pull your capital back out and allows us to keep that money moving a lot faster.
• 8:24
  Willie Mandrell: And then, in if you're in this, I wouldn't suggest this to anybody who's new, but once you have a really solid business model that revolves around the birth strategy or proven, then we really started to scale.
• 8:36
  Willie Mandrell: We're somewhere around 120 units right now.
• 8:39
  Willie Mandrell: And the we the way we were able to do that is not by using just our own money, was using private capital as well in that same birth strategy model and pulling those the I borrow 100,000 from you, invested into that same, that same multifamily.
• 8:53
  Willie Mandrell: Nine months later, we're pulling that capital right back out, giving you your your capital plus interest and just doing that over and over again.
• 8:59
  Mike Swenson: And my next question I was gonna go with that is being able to show the value that you had and offer these opportunities to others, talk about kind of how those conversations started or finding those people, because you know, a lot of people that want to get into the real estate may not have the capital to be able to do it themselves, and yet they might know people that do.
• 9:17
  Mike Swenson: And so, how do you convey that value so that somebody's gonna you know put their 100K with you?
• 9:22
  Willie Mandrell: Yep.
• 9:23
  Willie Mandrell: So again, it's it's a belief in yourself.
• 9:26
  Willie Mandrell: We took a lot of risk, and I and I I always hesitate to have these conversations on kind of a public, you know, place because I think it that's the right strategy for the right person, right?
• 9:36
  Willie Mandrell: So I'll give you uh, you know, once we got capped out, we said we bought our, you know, I bought a three, mother, you know, my wife bought a three.
• 9:43
  Willie Mandrell: Um, and then I started looking at, I was running a real estate brokerage at the time.
• 9:48
  Willie Mandrell: Brokerage was doing really well.
• 9:50
  Willie Mandrell: So again, risky strategy for those, you know, you have to be responsible with some of these.
• 9:54
  Willie Mandrell: Great power comes great responsibility, type of, you know, that conversation.
• 9:57
  Willie Mandrell: I took a line of credit against my business.
• 9:59
  Willie Mandrell: It was about a hundred thousand dollar line of credit from Eastern Bank, and I used that hundred thousand dollars to buy another multifamily.
• 10:06
  Willie Mandrell: And then one of the things that I encourage people to do, and I that I was doing for years, I would go out to RIAs or real estate investment associations, and I would invite people out to our projects as we were doing these birth strategies and say, hey, this is how you do it, this is how we found the property, this is how we're funding it, this is how the debt structure goes.
• 10:24
  Willie Mandrell: And typically what's gonna happen through those those uh those meetings is you're gonna have one of two things, or or it's a few different things, but one of the things, two things that we find often is you're gonna say, you're gonna have the person who's brand new and they're gonna say, Hey, I don't have the capital, but what I would love to do is just go find deals for you.
• 10:42
  Willie Mandrell: And then your deal flow increases.
• 10:44
  Willie Mandrell: Hey, I love what you're doing here.
• 10:45
  Willie Mandrell: How can I get involved?
• 10:46
  Willie Mandrell: I'm gonna go, you know, uh source deals for you.
• 10:49
  Willie Mandrell: Or you're gonna have the other person who says, Hey, I love what you're doing.
• 10:54
  Willie Mandrell: This is great.
• 10:55
  Willie Mandrell: I see an opportunity here, but I'm in tech.
• 10:57
  Willie Mandrell: I love my job.
• 10:58
  Willie Mandrell: I'm a pharmacist, I love my job, I work full-time, I work 60 hours a week, but I have 100,000 in my 401k or my you know self-directed IRA or my checking account, and I'd love to invest with you.
• 11:08
  Willie Mandrell: So it's really about going out there and showing people what you're doing and and building a you know relationship with the public.
• 11:15
  Willie Mandrell: I find that just educating people is the best way to get your business out there and um and just you know, just exposure.
• 11:21
  Willie Mandrell: And then we we got a lot of family involved too.
• 11:23
  Willie Mandrell: My brother-in-law bought, you know, a three, um, saw what we were doing, he got involved.
• 11:28
  Willie Mandrell: Um, as he gets involved, he starts bringing in more capital from other places.
• 11:32
  Willie Mandrell: It's just about not being shy about what you're doing and just going out there and really just telling the world.
• 11:36
  Mike Swenson: It's a lot like when people are trying to apply for their first job, right?
• 11:39
  Mike Swenson: And they say, sorry, we're not gonna hire hire you.
• 11:42
  Mike Swenson: We're looking for somebody with experience.
• 11:43
  Mike Swenson: And people are like, well, how do I get experience if I can't get hired for a job, right?
• 11:47
  Mike Swenson: And so it's like you've got to scratch and claw and find a way to start your resume.
• 11:51
  Mike Swenson: And once you start your resume, now you can point to your resume.
• 11:54
  Mike Swenson: And so it's, you know, finding, you know, maybe if you don't have the experience, it's finding ways you can get experience from other people in other deals.
• 12:02
  Mike Swenson: Like you said, you know, your relatives, like it's it's a way to build that.
• 12:06
  Mike Swenson: But once you start to build that, now you can point back and say, hey, here's what I've done.
• 12:09
  Mike Swenson: That trust grows, and then that money continues to come in because people have seen you've done it.
• 12:14
  Willie Mandrell: Yeah, and I I can tell you, and you you just said it best, and I I I I it's always difficult for me to articulate this to people because you you have to, you have to beg, crawl, scrape, grab, do whatever you get to do to get in and build that resume.
• 12:26
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, I there's been times where, you know, I was $15,000 short on, you know, a deposit or, you know, a down payment.
• 12:34
  Willie Mandrell: And I've had to, you know, I was on three different credit cards with cash advances, you know, and I mean it sounds crazy, and I don't, and again, it's not a good, you know, I wouldn't encourage people to do it.
• 12:43
  Willie Mandrell: If you can avoid it, do it.
• 12:45
  Willie Mandrell: But there were certain situations where I saw $200,000, $300,000 in equity or, you know, on profit on the back end of this thing.
• 12:53
  Willie Mandrell: I wasn't going to miss it for $15,000.
• 12:55
  Willie Mandrell: You know, I just, I just, that just wasn't gonna happen.
• 12:57
  Willie Mandrell: I was gonna do everything I needed to do.
• 12:59
  Willie Mandrell: There's been times where, you know, um very early when my wife bought her three, you know, we I think the down payment was $20,000.
• 13:08
  Willie Mandrell: We had 13 or something like that.
• 13:10
  Willie Mandrell: You know, we had one of her cousins, you know, um do a family gift, you know, and cousin was like, hey, how am I gonna get this money back?
• 13:18
  Willie Mandrell: We're like, hey, we're buying a three.
• 13:19
  Willie Mandrell: There's gonna be a thousand dollars in cash flow coming out of this thing.
• 13:22
  Willie Mandrell: We're gonna give you, you know, you're you're loaning us 13, we're gonna give you back 17 over the next, you know, uh 17 months.
• 13:29
  Willie Mandrell: Sounds like a good deal to me.
• 13:30
  Willie Mandrell: So it's just about being creative, understanding money, really tracking what you're doing, and just kind of like you just mentioned, just kind of scrape, crawl, grab, bag, do whatever you got to do to get yourself in, and then it really starts to take off and snowball.
• 13:44
  Mike Swenson: Yeah.
• 13:44
  Mike Swenson: And I think the key part too is it does involve some risks, right?
• 13:47
  Mike Swenson: Like you, you know, for the people that want to plan everything out and have it perfectly laid out, there's probably gonna be some of those moments where you said, Yeah, you're 15K short and you got to figure out a way to get it, or you know, you lose time, you lose momentum, whatever that is.
• 14:02
  Mike Swenson: And so you're gonna have to find ways to take those calculated risks and bet on yourself because hey, I know I'm gonna be able to come through, but I'm still short.
• 14:11
  Mike Swenson: It doesn't mean that everything's gonna come up where it's like you've got everything lined up and it just works out perfectly.
• 14:16
  Mike Swenson: You're still gonna have those shortages, you're still gonna have those risks and those little leaps, like the credit card advances, right?
• 14:22
  Mike Swenson: Um, to be able to live another day to see that next step of the plateau through.
• 14:28
  Willie Mandrell: That's it.
• 14:28
  Willie Mandrell: You have to have a little bit of crazy in you, just a little bit.
• 14:31
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, like I said, you want to stay away from anything too extreme, anything where you know, I'm the type of person I always look at deals and I say, is this gonna make me bankrupt?
• 14:39
  Willie Mandrell: You know, and I'm like, if the if the if there's a chance of bankruptcy on the other end, then I'm I'm probably that's not that's not the deal for me.
• 14:45
  Willie Mandrell: I like to bite off little aggressive little chunks, but you know, um, but they're but they're but they're little chunks um in build.
• 14:52
  Willie Mandrell: You know, I grew up in a um a tough situation despite my mother or my grandmother having a you know some funds.
• 14:57
  Willie Mandrell: You know, that was my father's mother.
• 14:59
  Willie Mandrell: My mother and father got divorced.
• 15:01
  Willie Mandrell: They my mother and my grandmother didn't get along.
• 15:03
  Willie Mandrell: We ended up in the projects and shelters in multiple situations.
• 15:07
  Willie Mandrell: So me, you know, coming from where I'm coming from, I I never want to go back.
• 15:12
  Willie Mandrell: So the idea of just kind of starting all over again is unacceptable to me.
• 15:15
  Willie Mandrell: So I'm the type of person that likes to take, I stay aggressive, but they're more calculated risks.
• 15:20
  Willie Mandrell: If I'm worth a million dollars, I'm probably not gonna take a risk that's gonna knock me back any more than $200,000, right?
• 15:26
  Willie Mandrell: Or something along those lines.
• 15:27
  Willie Mandrell: I never want to take a risk or a multi-million dollar risk that's gonna put me into um, or you know, my me and my family into a situation we don't want to be in.
• 15:36
  Willie Mandrell: But that's that's part of the game, is you have to take, you have to figure out where what you're comfortable with.
• 15:40
  Willie Mandrell: But at the end of the day, that's why it's called an investment because there's an inherent uh you know piece of it that is risky, you know, at the end of the day.
• 15:47
  Mike Swenson: So so here we are today, we're we're talking on a podcast.
• 15:50
  Mike Swenson: You're not swinging a hammer, you're not, you know, putting in the plumbing into a property right now because you're here.
• 15:56
  Mike Swenson: So obviously you found ways to build relationships with other people that are doing work on those properties.
• 16:02
  Mike Swenson: So talk a little bit about finding good vendors, maybe lessons that you've learned or tips for people to find those people that are really gonna help you.
• 16:11
  Mike Swenson: Because short of you doing the doing all the work yourself, you have to have other people to be able to build that dream for what you're doing.
• 16:17
  Willie Mandrell: Yeah, I think it it's difficult.
• 16:18
  Willie Mandrell: I'm not I'm I there's no quick, you know, method that says, hey, you know, we're I think one of the the methods that we're looking for, always looking for good people.
• 16:26
  Willie Mandrell: We're always looking for new people, always, even if you're happy and you're good where you are right now, someone is going to, you know, leave.
• 16:33
  Willie Mandrell: Someone's going to get sick.
• 16:34
  Willie Mandrell: We have a great, you know, our electrician has been with us for 10 years.
• 16:38
  Willie Mandrell: Um, unfortunately, he's in hospice right now.
• 16:41
  Willie Mandrell: You know, I mean, he's he's had some some some issues and he may no longer be with us.
• 16:45
  Willie Mandrell: So we're always looking for, you know, new people.
• 16:46
  Willie Mandrell: We're celebrating him as, you know, in his final days.
• 16:49
  Willie Mandrell: But um, and then, you know, we had a guy that was with us for, you know, also like 10 years.
• 16:54
  Willie Mandrell: He did all of our trash runs, all of our, you know, kind of our nasty work.
• 16:58
  Willie Mandrell: And, you know, he's um uh was self-deportated, you know, not too long ago.
• 17:03
  Willie Mandrell: He was a little afraid about, you know, uh immigration and everything that was going on in the country, so he decided to leave.
• 17:08
  Willie Mandrell: Was a guy that was with us that did a lot of that created a lot of value.
• 17:12
  Willie Mandrell: So I guess the idea is that we're always looking for new people.
• 17:15
  Willie Mandrell: And then when you find people, you really have to, um, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as an investor, as a boss, you you have to have a multitude of skills.
• 17:27
  Willie Mandrell: And one of the best skills that you can have is you have to be a great communicator.
• 17:30
  Willie Mandrell: You have to be a psychologist, you have to be a parent almost.
• 17:34
  Willie Mandrell: Every person on your team is gonna have a different personality.
• 17:37
  Willie Mandrell: We have some people that are super talkative, some people that don't talk enough, that have great ideas, but we have to pull them, pull those ideas out of them.
• 17:43
  Willie Mandrell: We have people who are have terrible ideas who but or are great workers, but sometimes we have to shut them up.
• 17:48
  Willie Mandrell: And it it that's what it's like.
• 17:50
  Willie Mandrell: It's it's being um a psychologist almost.
• 17:53
  Willie Mandrell: You have to understand the personalities.
• 17:55
  Willie Mandrell: It's you have to get away from who you are so much and understand who your team is and and and cater to them and their their needs at the end of the day.
• 18:03
  Willie Mandrell: We try as much as we can to get people involved in our deals.
• 18:07
  Willie Mandrell: We give out equity, we give you know um opportunities to invest in the properties that we own.
• 18:12
  Willie Mandrell: It's not just our our management team, go handle this this leak or go do this.
• 18:16
  Willie Mandrell: No, there's an opportunity to come in and have some ownership in these things as well.
• 18:20
  Willie Mandrell: Um, so just different strategies like that have done really well for us.
• 18:23
  Willie Mandrell: But I think the main thing is um, I think the main thing that I've done over the years is even if we don't have a position open, we find a place for good people.
• 18:33
  Willie Mandrell: If I bump into somebody at a real estate investment association and they're just hungry and they're just ready to get after it, blah, blah, I'm not gonna push them away for 90 days and wait for somebody to quit.
• 18:43
  Willie Mandrell: I'm gonna find, I'm gonna create a position.
• 18:44
  Willie Mandrell: I'm gonna create in a new acquisitions position.
• 18:47
  Willie Mandrell: I'm gonna create some type of marketing um position.
• 18:50
  Willie Mandrell: I I give you a perfect example.
• 18:51
  Willie Mandrell: The reason I'm on this podcast with you right now is one of the girls that came to these um, you know, marketing events that we do was like, I got I I really want to be part of your team.
• 18:59
  Willie Mandrell: I really, hey, here's what you can do.
• 19:01
  Willie Mandrell: I really want to get myself out there, I really want to, you know, speak more, get on more stages.
• 19:05
  Willie Mandrell: Open here's my calendar, get me, get you know, set me up and and make sure that I'm taking.
• 19:10
  Willie Mandrell: We just find a place for good people at the end of the day.
• 19:12
  Mike Swenson: So now, obviously, a big big piece of the deals that you do is finding those deals.
• 19:17
  Mike Swenson: So talk a little bit about your acquisition strategy kind of over the years, some tips of what you guys have done and how you've been able to continue to find good deals over 20 years' time.
• 19:26
  Willie Mandrell: Yeah, so there is a point in your career where you're gonna have more time than money.
• 19:32
  Willie Mandrell: And then some at some point that transitions into more time, you know, more money than time.
• 19:36
  Willie Mandrell: And I, you know, I'm obviously at the ladder now.
• 19:38
  Willie Mandrell: In the beginning, you just get after it.
• 19:40
  Willie Mandrell: We did driving for dollars.
• 19:42
  Willie Mandrell: Um, for those of you not familiar, it's just basically going around and saying, This house is nice, this house is nice, this house is nice.
• 19:47
  Willie Mandrell: That house looks like shit.
• 19:48
  Willie Mandrell: Let's let's try to, you know, let's try to grab.
• 19:50
  Willie Mandrell: There's obviously some some opportunity there.
• 19:53
  Willie Mandrell: We'd send out thousands.
• 19:55
  Willie Mandrell: I've I've put thousands of stamps on mailers, thousand hundreds of thousands, probably.
• 19:59
  Willie Mandrell: Some crazy number, um, bandit signs.
• 20:02
  Willie Mandrell: Uh, you know, probably not.
• 20:04
  Willie Mandrell: If you're in if you're in a big city right now, you probably don't want to do those anymore.
• 20:07
  Willie Mandrell: But back in the day, we used to put these we buy houses signs up on the polls.
• 20:12
  Willie Mandrell: Um, we've done cold calling, we've done a little bit of everything.
• 20:15
  Willie Mandrell: I think it's just a grind to find opportunities, you know, in the beginning.
• 20:19
  Willie Mandrell: And that's what you're gonna have to do.
• 20:20
  Willie Mandrell: You're gonna find opportunities and you're going to, you know, either get with another developer or investor and learn um or you know, take it yourself.
• 20:28
  Willie Mandrell: The one thing that I, the advice that I would give to your listeners is that marketing in lead generation should never stop.
• 20:36
  Willie Mandrell: It should never stop, no matter where you are.
• 20:38
  Willie Mandrell: And by that I mean a lot of investors will hunt, hunt, hunt for a deal, find one, and then turn into a real estate developer, take a dip because they're no longer looking for deals anymore while they're rehabbing this house, they're finding financing, they're putting the house black on the market, they flip the house, and then it's 90 days later, 120 days later, yes, you've made a nice profit, but that whole time that you were flipping the house, you stopped marketing for deals.
• 21:01
  Willie Mandrell: That creates the ebbs and flows in your businesses, the lows, the highs, the springs, the uh whatever.
• 21:07
  Willie Mandrell: You want to create a system.
• 21:09
  Willie Mandrell: And nowadays with AI and everything and automation and everything else, you should be able to create some system where you can you know continue to steady and be marketing out there um constantly, and that'll create you know more of a flat level income in your business.
• 21:23
  Willie Mandrell: Today, um, I do a lot of education.
• 21:26
  Willie Mandrell: We have a real estate investment group here in Boston.
• 21:29
  Willie Mandrell: It's called Boston Wealth Builders, roughly 3,000 members in the group uh today.
• 21:34
  Willie Mandrell: Um, I've been doing that for about 12 years.
• 21:37
  Willie Mandrell: I bring people out to our job sites, we do webinars, we do Zoom, we just educate people on money, credit, finding finding opportunities, um, everything under the sun in terms of real estate, and that grows our platform.
• 21:50
  Willie Mandrell: The larger you get, um driving for dollars no longer becomes an opportunity for you.
• 21:55
  Willie Mandrell: There's no time for me to sit in a car today.
• 21:57
  Willie Mandrell: So I try to do one to many of Um, is the strategy, podcasts, interviews, webinars, Zoom, um, and get the voice out there um to the masses a little bit easier.
• 22:07
  Willie Mandrell: So more, more money than time now.
• 22:10
  Willie Mandrell: So you have to switch your strategy.
• 22:12
  Mike Swenson: Yeah, and I'd imagine, you know, the the Boston Wealth Builders, like you've created now an ecosystem of people that, you know, you're teaching them, but they also want to be a part of what you're doing.
• 22:20
  Mike Swenson: And and so naturally, like you said, finding good people and being able to plug them in, those people you've created a a little ecosphere where those people can come and kind of raise their hand or you know, show their how hungry they are for the stuff that you're working on.
• 22:34
  Willie Mandrell: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 22:35
  Willie Mandrell: It's been it's been a it's probably been the biggest success that we've had.
• 22:38
  Willie Mandrell: We've had, you know, when I was uh when I went to real estate brokers or recruited a lot of agents out there, our real estate brokers focused on the multifamily space and working with investors and developers.
• 22:46
  Willie Mandrell: So there was a lot of recruitments out there.
• 22:49
  Willie Mandrell: Most of our team comes from wealth builders.
• 22:51
  Willie Mandrell: Uh, if you and again, I wouldn't say if each one of your listeners has some type of specialized knowledge in their head, right?
• 22:59
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, I I was under the impression for the longest time that if I knew it, then everyone knew it.
• 23:04
  Willie Mandrell: I didn't think I was special in any way.
• 23:05
  Willie Mandrell: Um, I'm over that now.
• 23:07
  Willie Mandrell: I realize that there are some certain certain things, specialized knowledge that I have in my head that I can share with other people.
• 23:13
  Willie Mandrell: And you as an individual can figure if you can figure out what that is, put it in some type of format.
• 23:20
  Willie Mandrell: You know, get on Canva and just kind of create a 15-point slideshow of whatever it may be.
• 23:25
  Willie Mandrell: Um, you can get out there.
• 23:26
  Willie Mandrell: You don't even have to start your own Boston wealth builders.
• 23:29
  Willie Mandrell: There are real estate investment associations in every single community, in every single city, in every single town, get with the local um uh association, you know, head of the that association to say, hey, look, this is what I have to offer.
• 23:42
  Willie Mandrell: You're your your group.
• 23:43
  Willie Mandrell: And most of the time, they're not even gonna charge you or anything for the exposure because it helps them out to be offering new information, a new face, a new voice, and a new personality to their to their exposure.
• 23:54
  Willie Mandrell: I tell people all the time, if you want to speak in front of Boston wealth builders, I have no no qualms with that.
• 24:00
  Willie Mandrell: It actually helps me.
• 24:00
  Willie Mandrell: It gives them one more meeting on the website, it gives me one more opportunity to put my name out there as well.
• 24:05
  Willie Mandrell: So um I would encourage people, like I said, if they if they, hey, if you've done a property, if you're in the middle of your first flip um or your first deal, tell a real real estate associate come out.
• 24:15
  Willie Mandrell: These are all the things that I've done wrong.
• 24:17
  Willie Mandrell: You know, people always want to be the expert.
• 24:18
  Willie Mandrell: Sometimes you just invite people out and say, look, you know, I messed this up, I overspent on this.
• 24:23
  Willie Mandrell: Here's here are the things that here are the ten things that I did wrong on this first flip that you don't have to do or you shouldn't do on your first flip, you know, and you'll get a lot of exposure just like that.
• 24:32
  Mike Swenson: And I think people really appreciate the relatability for those types of stories too.
• 24:35
  Mike Swenson: I I remember when I was first starting my podcast, this is five years ago, and somebody that I knew that was a really, really big name and really well known was um kind of in a similar world, was starting a podcast talking about wealth building in real estate.
• 24:49
  Mike Swenson: And I was kind of like, oh shoot, they're gonna steal my thunder.
• 24:52
  Mike Swenson: Like, what do I have to offer?
• 24:53
  Mike Swenson: And I remember a friend told me, they said, Mike, you know, a lot of people hear that story and they can't relate because it's you know, a billion of this and a thousand of that and all this, and it's like you're just a guy who's pretty normal starting out, and people appreciate that relatability.
• 25:08
  Mike Swenson: And so, yeah, that's why I love, you know, when I have people on my podcast sometimes and they're like, hey, you know, after we get done recording, and I can kind of tell they're nervous or they're figuring out the words, and they're like, Yeah, this is my first podcast or this is my third podcast.
• 25:21
  Mike Swenson: And I was like, Great, I absolutely love having you because I love those people sharing their stories as they're just getting started because people need to hear that.
• 25:29
  Mike Swenson: Are you looking to get started or scale in real estate investing but don't know your next step?
• 25:34
  Mike Swenson: Are you overwhelmed thinking about finding deals, analyzing deals, doing due diligence, and managing properties on top of it?
• 25:40
  Mike Swenson: Go ahead and push the easy button and invest with us.
• 25:43
  Mike Swenson: Real estate investing is what we do full time.
• 25:46
  Mike Swenson: We've done dozens of deals with hundreds of doors.
• 25:48
  Mike Swenson: We have the knowledge and experience to handpick the best deals that most investors can't find.
• 25:53
  Mike Swenson: We've at large off-market deals all the time where you can hopefully find returns and economies of scale that you just can't find on your own.
• 26:00
  Mike Swenson: The best thing is it's 100% passive to you for less capital than you put down trying to acquire a property on your own.
• 26:07
  Mike Swenson: Don't let this year go by where you don't make the leap, add to your portfolio, or you just sit in analysis by paralysis.
• 26:14
  Mike Swenson: To find out more, visit freedom throughrealestate.com and click on invest.
• 26:18
  Mike Swenson: You can book a call and learn more there.
• 26:20
  Mike Swenson: So get to scaling your portfolio now with us by your side.
• 26:24
  Mike Swenson: That's freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest.
• 26:28
  Willie Mandrell: Yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 26:28
  Willie Mandrell: No, I mean, like I said, we're all individuals.
• 26:30
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, there there might be, and the thing about it is is everyone has their own objective, right?
• 26:35
  Willie Mandrell: Somebody might say, hey, well, well, Will's a black guy in Boston, right?
• 26:38
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, Boston's big money, and blah, I'm I'm here in Minnesota or wherever I am, and you know, I it's a different market.
• 26:44
  Willie Mandrell: That's not well, you know, like I said, there's a there's a voice in Minnesota.
• 26:48
  Willie Mandrell: You know, someone may say, well, it's a it's real estate's a male-dominated industry, which it is, you know.
• 26:52
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, you know, so there might be, you know, a female saying the same exact thing that Mike and I are saying might be more relatable to women trying to get into the business, you know.
• 27:01
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, it's geographic, it's niche, it's, you know, everything else.
• 27:05
  Willie Mandrell: I listen to some podcasts, you know, out of New York.
• 27:07
  Willie Mandrell: New York's right next door to us, and I still feel intimidated by the $26 million, you know, buyout sometimes.
• 27:13
  Willie Mandrell: I'm like, that's not that's not Boston, right?
• 27:15
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, it's the same thing for LA and and San Francisco and some of these other big high-price markets, right?
• 27:20
  Willie Mandrell: So I think that if you go out and share your story, there's there's always an audience for you.
• 27:24
  Willie Mandrell: And I mean, here's the other thing is I think people also often forget that this isn't the 80s or the 90s.
• 27:32
  Willie Mandrell: We live in an international world at this point.
• 27:34
  Willie Mandrell: There's people from other countries listening, going to be listening to this podcast that are saying, hey, I, you know, I live in India right now, but I plan on, I, you know, plan on going to the United States and investing there.
• 27:44
  Willie Mandrell: Or a friend of mine lives in the United States.
• 27:46
  Willie Mandrell: I I I went to Northeastern.
• 27:48
  Willie Mandrell: 60% of my classes were international students.
• 27:51
  Willie Mandrell: You know, there's so much international money coming into the states that you put yourself out there and there's going to be a crowd.
• 27:57
  Willie Mandrell: There's eight billion people on the planet.
• 27:59
  Willie Mandrell: There's going to be your own, your own crowd.
• 28:01
  Willie Mandrell: You can you can carve them out for sure.
• 28:02
  Mike Swenson: Awesome.
• 28:03
  Mike Swenson: Well, well, Willie, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story um and giving us a little bit of insight of who you are and what you're doing.
• 28:10
  Mike Swenson: Uh, for people that do want to reach out to you, um, hear this episode and learn more, uh, how can they do so?
• 28:16
  Willie Mandrell: Yeah, sure.
• 28:16
  Willie Mandrell: I mean, if you're if you if you're local to Boston, great.
• 28:19
  Willie Mandrell: And even if you're not local to Boston, BostonWealthbuilders.com.
• 28:22
  Willie Mandrell: Um, again, we do Zooms, we do webinars.
• 28:24
  Willie Mandrell: You can certainly join and listen in from whatever wherever you are.
• 28:28
  Willie Mandrell: And then willymandrell uh.com is my personal website.
• 28:32
  Willie Mandrell: Cash flow secrets is available for download on that website, the digital version.
• 28:36
  Willie Mandrell: You can get that for free.
• 28:37
  Willie Mandrell: Shares my story, a little bit about investing, and kind of tips as you uh as you move along.
• 28:42
  Willie Mandrell: And that's that's willymandrell.com.
• 28:44
  Mike Swenson: Awesome.
• 28:45
  Mike Swenson: Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story.
• 28:47
  Mike Swenson: Excited to see what you've been able to build and excited to see where you continue to go.
• 28:51
  Willie Mandrell: I appreciate you having me.
• 28:53
  Mike Swenson: Thank you.