Most businesses only manage to survive three to five years. Business owners who make it past the five-year mark should be proud of their background, knowledge, and experience in the industry. They stay afloat and make it through minor to major downturns by knowing how to talk the same language and turn a profit. Today, Michael Bowman of Anderson Business Advisors and Bowman’s Business Brief talks to Eddie Gant, co-owner of Jet Lending, LLC. The asset-based lender started investing in the real estate business by buying, fixing, and flipping distressed properties, but decided to take a leap into lending, as well.
Highlights/Topics:
- How to evaluate asset-based lending? Multiple forms of protection; #1 is collateral
- Why go to an asset-based lender? Security, safety net, and speedy closing of deals
- Is it a good deal or not? Second set of eyes to review deals; include terms to get an out
- How has the industry changed? Increased competition and bigger audience
- Who to include on your team and build your network? Responsible and reliable partners, contractors, insurance companies, roofers, and structural engineers
- What’s the hardest part of the business? Not finding deals but managing contractors
- How did lottery curse lead to one of Eddie’s biggest wins? Bought house from Texas lottery winner who burned through millions of dollars in a few months
- How to create a win-win for client and company? Do business right to build clientele, your brand, and word-of-mouth referrals without needing to be the cheapest
- Are meetups worthwhile, why? Education, networking, and fostering a community
Resources
Anderson Advisors Tax and Asset Protection Event
Full Episode Transcript
Michael: Welcome everybody to the Anderson Business Advisors Podcast. We got Eddie Gant here today. This is also a subsection, we’ve got Bowman’s Business Brief, and today we got Eddie Gant with Jet Lending. We’re going to pack 30-45 minutes full of great little nuggets. I wanted to get Eddie on this podcast because we’ve been following Eddie for years now and he’s got great insight to a lot of real estate investors and ways that he can help them out. Welcome Eddie.
Eddie: Hi Michael, how are you doing?
Michael: I’m doing fantastic. I’m up here in Salt Lake City, Utah, right over the base of the mountains and it’s a balmy 30 degrees out.
Eddie: Well, I’m in Houston Texas and it’s a balmy 75. We don’t have too many mountains to look at from where I’m nested up.
Michael: That’s right. Eddie, to give our audiences a little background. Tell us about what you guys do?
Eddie: I’m one of the co-owners Jet Lending here in Houston. We’re an asset-based lender. We’ve been in business for a while. January 1, I guess six days ago, marked our 16th year anniversary of being in business.
Michael: 16 years.
Eddie: 16, we’ve made it through one big downturn, and a couple of little minor downturns. We’re kind of seasoned veterans down here at Houston.
Michael: Every time I run into a business owner that’s in business longer than five years, I always tell them, “That’s something to be really proud of,” because most businesses, as you know, come in and come out three to five years and once you make it past the five, you got to be proud Eddie.
Eddie: Well thank you. You read the statistics and all, the business journals, expert standard businesses fell in the five years, three years or whatever, the number’s high as you know. We’re proud about it. We actually started in the real estate business about five years before we actually started our asset-based lending and we’re still in that business operation here in Houston, moving, buying and fixing up distressed properties here in Houston and in Austin.
We watched the market for about five years before we make that big leap as a lender. We’ve got that background of being in the real estate business, being real estate investors. I’m a RE/MAX agent, I’m actually RE/MAX hall of fame for whatever that means, I guess that means I’m old, I guess, I don’t know. That actually was probably one of the keys, when we got that big downturn in 2008, not only to stay afloat and make it through it, but also we turned a profit in those years.
Michael: Well, and knowing you guys’ business model too, I think that’s what makes you guys key is you guys have a first-hand knowledge and experience of what everyone’s going through, so you talk the same language. There’s been a problem with financing in some of our clients where they couldn’t get financing because the banker didn’t talk the same language. They didn’t understand what the actual investor was trying to do or the different types of income. What is it you said that you guys have experience in the actual industry that’s huge?
Eddie: One of my really good friends who runs a rather large company in Austin, Texas, he said this to me one day, what I’m about to describe and at first I thought it was an insult and then I found out what it was, I guess it’s a compliment. He said we were dirt smart, so I guess we are. We’re dirt smart.
Michael: Absolutely.
Eddie: It helps you evaluate an asset-based lender, there’s multiple form protection you, but the number one is your collateral. If you don’t have the value of the collateral that you think you have, unfortunately, you end up or that piece of property back in your inventory as a lender, you better be able to get your money back, however you can. If it happens too many times, you won’t be in business very long.
Michael: That’s correct and also you understand what the actual person is going through. A traditional finance company, they’re going to want your right arm, your DNA sample, letters of explanations on everything, tax returns from even 10 years ago, then they find one little thing and then they go down that trail, you can’t figure out why they even want this information, so at least you have some insight to what they’re going through and actually request documents that are pertinent and pertinent to the actual property they’re actually trying to get the loan against, right?
Eddie: That’s right. Let me give this little analogy on it. I talked to a lot of bankers. We built Jet Lending around the community bank revolving lines credit. It’s very different from most hard money companies. Most of them have a Reg D fund and everybody’s private money. We raise our money through banks primarily. Yes, we have a raise through the profit, but mainly we get our money from banks, but when I meet with new bankers or I meet with the Wall Street guys or the West Coast Guys that got funds, they, a lot of times, the new banker thinks someone comes through Jet Lending, an asset-based member because they have bad credit. That is not the case.
Michael: No.
Eddie: If somebody looks at our long table, they’re honestly very surprised at all of the 700s, the 720s, the 740s, the 600 […]. We have a few on there that’s low, but for the most part, they’re high-priced people, so they think, “Well okay, they don’t have any money or have any income, so they come to us,” that’s not it. There are multiple reasons someone comes to an asset-based lender, but the number one reason is they get in this heck of a deal on a piece of property and in order to get that discount, they promise the seller will close within seven days, will close in 10 days, will close it in 15 days. You cannot get through to traditional lending, a conventional lender, for that loan. It’s never going to close.
Michael: Never going to close. I actually just purchased another property with a conventional-based lender and I had to go through a few to come to get the property closed quickly. One of them was a month-and-a-half out. In a hot real estate market, you can’t wait a month-and-a-half to close, if it’s a great deal, the sellers aren’t going to wait around for you to get the financing lined up.
Eddie: That’s right. The investor comes to us mainly for the speed of the game and yes, they pay a little bit more for the money, but it is not as much as you think in most situations, meaning they’re going to borrow money from me for 60 days, 90 days, and maybe 180 days, could be longer depending on the budget, but if you add up the incremental, additional cost of that interest over 180 days or 90 days, the bank money’s free, you have certain ground bases of interest you’re going to pay there, so you pay a little more to an asset-based lender, when you total it up, it’s not that much more and I was able to get them the deal quickly and safely without losing their deal, so they’re not risk a couple of thousand dollars worth in interest payments, when they’re going to pop that deal for tens of thousands are greater profit when it’s all said and done. That’s what the […] investor’s going to do.
Michael: Well yeah, and getting the deal done earlier, waiting around, there’s an opportunity cost there, too. It doesn’t matter if you get a lower rate, which saves you pennies. You’re actually going to be able to get that deal done and move on to the next one.
Eddie: That’s right. In addition to the speed, a high percent of properties—not all—is distressed, they may be in poor condition, this multi-family maybe unstable, I got to get in and stabilize it, but a traditional lender’s not going to want to lend on a property that doesn’t look good or smell good. That’s another avenue we come in and we’ll […] profits.
Michael: That’s what actually impressed me also is when I found out, you go out and you lend on the actual deal, the property as opposed to the person, correct? I mean, you guys even do some sort of analysis, which are another pair of eyes looking at the deal, right?
Eddie: That’s right and we have a term called second eyes, we have a second set of eyes.
Michael: Well, you actually call it that.
Eddie: Yeah.
Michael: Again, when I’ve done some research, over the time we’ve been together, it’s like to get another pair of eyes on the deal is invaluable.
Eddie: That’s right and we’re safe in that. I’m kind of jumping around just a little bit, but we’re safe in that and what I mean by that is, you say you got maybe a rookie investor or maybe someone not so seasoned or maybe yet, and that person, he or she just doesn’t really know, is this a deal or not.
Michael: It doesn’t matter if your rookie or seasoned person sometimes, that all emotional attachment, and you’re not going to get emotional with your investments, but I do and I have another objective person, my wife laughs as she says, “Michael, you tell everybody about everything we invest in and get into,” and I say, “Yeah. Why have only us looking at it? Why not bouncing off your whole network and then get an opinion back? Then you boil it down and then you got the truth behind it where there’s no emotion behind the investment.”
Eddie: That’s right and the real story here is if the asset-based lender says no to the deal, keep in mind, we don’t make any money here unless we close the deal.
Michael: True.
Eddie: There’s no money in not closing deals, so when we tell our client or potential client, “No, we’re not going to loan on that deal,” or, “We’ll loan on that deal but not what you’re paying, we’ll a lot less than what you’re paying,” that’s a straight the action in place right there. If an asset-based lender tells you they don’t want to loan you the deal, you’ll probably […].
Michael: Yeah.
Eddie: It eliminates that (I’m going to use the word again) rookie investor from making the catastrophic mistake of getting into a bad deal when his asset-based lender says, “Get away from it.” Instead of getting mad at your asset-based lender, you should give him a hug and a kiss, and a Christmas present.
Michael: “Oh, thank you for not letting me get into a bad deal,” absolutely. It’s real estate, the deals don’t always make us money, but having another safety net that keeps us out of trouble, that’s invaluable.
Eddie: That’s right. We’ll coach them to say, “Get some kind of due diligence period, get some type option period. Get some type of inspection period,” all of those words, basically, they mean the same thing, it’s just different terminology, “Get yourself an out. Get yourself the second eyes, if you will, to look at it.” Get your asset-based lender to look at it, to keep you out of trouble because what puts you out of this business is not the deals that you don’t buy, it’s the deals you buy. Those are the ones that put you out of business.
There are many reasons to go out of business in what we do, but the main one here is you lose your liquidity, you spend all your money and not operate. You can be equity rich and cash poor, you can’t operate.
Michael: I’m a little conservative in my investing at times and people say, “Being conservative, you don’t make as much money, maybe,” and I always say, “You know what, being conservative, I probably have saved more than I would have made by being unrisky in going out there and not, again, putting it through a network of people and not doing due diligence.” and saying no at times and possibly, I look back and maybe I should have, but just being a little more conservative or getting another pair of eyes is invaluable, because then you don’t get involved, then your liquidity doesn’t go up, and you don’t lose a ton of money and you’re not diversified.
Eddie: I agree. I know I will probably […] deals that I was a […] that I could’ve made a lot of money, but I’ll bet you I won’t buy a whole lot more than that that could put me out of business. Just do whatever reason, but we sent a lot of changes in this industry. It’s way different. I started flipping houses in 1999. I’ve got about somewhere between 1500 and 1600 under my belt.
Michael: You were flipping before the flipping shows got cool, huh?
Eddie: I say that all the time, “I was country before country was cool,” and I was flipping before flipping houses was cool. There are lots of differences now in the industry, but the main one is when I used to go look at a property to try to buy at a discount, very seldom that I have competition and to be honest with you I’ve missed them.
Michael: Every time you watch one of those flipping shows, you’re cursing the TV, saying, “Man, you ruined it for everybody.”
Eddie: That’s right, the HDTV has gotten […] and everybody’s after doing seminars. There’s a huge seminar market out there I’m sure you’re aware of, everybody else watching this podcast is aware of, but there’s so many people going to masterminds now. There’s 8 or 10 very large one that’s across the nation. I know a lot of people that run these masterminds, they’re just ruining people for it.
Now, that’s bad for may be in terms of going out and buying property very significantly in Jet Lending because we have a bigger audience to loan money to. That’s less than positive, but the biggest difference is, there’s many people in the business now, but that’s a good thing for lending, a bad thing for your competition.
Michael: Sure, and you know what, it just takes a little more work to get that deal. I always tell people, when you get into flipping properties or into real estate, you got to get the education behind you and when you get the education, then you actually have to implement it and you’re not buying a money tree, where you walk out every morning with your cup of coffee, in your bathrobe and you pull dollar bills off of it and then when it starts dying, you wonder what happened. Well, you got to water it, feed it, fertilize it, take care of it. There are still deals out there, you just have to work at them and pick the right ones.
Eddie: You do, you got to accept early on, you can’t do everything. I bought over 1500 houses. I can’t remember one house I put a paintbrush in my hand, I just don’t do it, you got to run the business like a businessman, don’t run it like rehab. You have to have business partners. Anderson Advisors, you need a company like Anderson Advisors to help. You need the insurance company. You need the roofer. You need the structural engineer. You got to have all of these different people on your team and you make these people industry advance. You think it’s hard to get these people, but it’s not and I think that’s how we met you guys.
Michael: Yes. We saw you around a few times and researched you and you checked out and had great reviews too. You’re talking about building your network out and that so huge. Finding good contractors and I always say sometimes finding good contractors are like finding bigfoot, you hear about them, but you never really find them, but find those good contractors.
Speaking of contractors, Eddie, there’s something that caught my eye. Contractors say it’s going to be done in X amount of time and it’s usually double and it’s over budget, speaking of over budget, what happens when you get into a deal and you need further repairs you thought you did? You guys take care of financing for that.
Eddie: Well, we do hold a repair […] and we advance the monies too unless they improve the properties. We go out and inspect to make sure the repairs are being done adequately with good quality. We do have that […] works very well. At Jet Lending, we have full-time field crew, but we do advise our client when we’re onsite with them, maybe some areas that need to be a little more careful and maybe change their direction.
Michael: Oh, you’re kidding?
Eddie: No, we actually do that.
Michael: It seems so altruistic that you, “Hey, when you get in there and you help them when with the deal.” But it’s actually coming out like CYA also, right?
Eddie: It is. People starting off in the industry think, the hardest part in the business is finding deals. It’s not. It’s managing contractors. That is the hardest part of the business. It truly is. We do a lot of advice, we do a lot of consultation […] property manager for them. But an investor that’s doing single family houses has to make a decision early on. Do they want to hire a general contractor or do they want a self perform and just hire tradesmen sales and subcontract everything out? That’s the decision they got to make.
A lot of things go into that decision, the main thing is, “Do they have a day job? Do they work for Exxon? Are they a doctor, that’s getting into flipping houses or whatever?” There’s a lot of medical people in this business.
If you have a day job, you probably don’t need to be self performing and hiring trades. You don’t have time to do it and watch the project. You hire a general contractor. That’s an advantage to hire a general contractor, but you’re going to spend more, because now you hired a man or a woman who manage the project for you.
Michael: But you’re keeping your main source of income, you’re keeping your day job, and then you’re building out another business at the same time.
Eddie: That’s right. You hire, hopefully, a professional to run the job for you and you may be limited in experience. That’s a good thing.
Michael: That person is going to keep you out of trouble of things if you didn’t have experience in there, you’re going to run into. That person is like, “I’ve got experience, we’re going to keep you out of that trouble.” Just like, if you’re a doctor, you won’t want a contractor coming in and monkeying around in the operating room.
Eddie: That’s right. Watch how the general contractor manages your project. That doesn’t mean, not ever be […]. That’s means, be […] and watch what the general contractor does and how he manages the business for your property. Then after you’ve done two, three, four, five, six, whatever you might be able to experience, level, step up, then hire your own trades, and what we call, self-perform. You save money by doing that, but you’re working just went up, because you’re managing those trade yourself.
There’s no right or wrong. It’s whatever is the right fit for the right investor. There’s no right or wrong answer. You’re going to pay more, but you are going to get help and expertise with a general contractor, you’re going to save a little money, if you hire the trade yourself, but you work those way up.
Michael: Absolutely.
Eddie: Heart and core of the business.
Michael: Somebody always like to cover with people, they’re in the business that have the experience. Get me one of your biggest wins?
Eddie: In terms of a project?
Michael: Yeah.
Eddie: Well, I got more of one, I think?
Michael: Nice. One of the biggest wins.
Eddie: They say, “What’s one that’s constants?” I’ll tell you, because it’s interesting. I bought a house one time for my Texas lottery winner.
Michael: Really?
Eddie: Burned through $4 million in 11 months.
Michael: I’ve never heard of that happening. What is it called? The lottery curse?
Eddie: Yeah. He gets the numbers, he get $4.6 million, he bought an upscale home, paid cash for it, and when he bought it I knew how much he’s pay, because he bought it off the MLS through an agent so I had the data and I really didn’t know why he was selling this property 11 months later and trying to get out of it, but for a discount cash. In the conversation walking around the pool, I determined that, he told me, that he won the lottery. I remember I said to him, “Well, congratulations.” He said, “No. Worst, blank blank thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Michael: It’s called a lottery curse.
Eddie: Yup. He said, “$4 million something I burned all through it. My wife just left, she’s got on drugs. It’s a disaster.” He said, “I’m going to sell everything, move to my travel trailer, park it on my daddy’s land, and I’m going to be a heck a lot happier.” His exact words if you point. I had made an offer that was pretty high, because it was a high-end house. He turned me down and I raise it a little bit, he turned me down I raise a little bit, and turned me down. Finally asked it, “Okay, that’s my top-end, but this is what I’ll do, if you’ll trust me, I’ll pay you this much money today, and then when I sell the property, I will give you 20% of whatever my profit is.” He took that deal.
It was back in the market was bad around 2009–2010. It took me a long time to sell that house, took me almost all of the year. We still did really good on the property, we made about a $100,000 on the property. His 20% cut was probably around $20,000. He hadn’t seen me in a long time and I called him up and telling […] his check. He drives into my office, comes in, it was rough, there’s $19,000 in change, handed him his check, he cried, and gave me a hug.
Michael: Really?
Eddie: That he said, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I thought you were just going to screw me on this deal.”
Michael: Like everyone else in his life, probably after he wins the lottery, it probably happened and that the story actually talks about real estate also. A lot of people just look at the price, price, price, but in the end, we already get deals, also, you gotta look at terms, you got to look at other options outside the box thinking, “We’ll get you more deals and it makes you more profits too.”
Eddie: Yeah. Well I like it. I use this all the time. I hear it a long time […] I’m a deal maker not a deal breaker. The way we really do deals is sitting typically in the living room on the couch, watch the kids at the kitchen table. That’s normally where you get your best deals, where you sit and visit and you find out you why the seller is calling you in the first place. What they told you over the phone, I’m not necessarily saying they would lie to you, but the story changes and gets more in depth as you sat at the kitchen table with them.
For an investor, it is something that I have to look at myself and learn to check myself. Sometimes, I have a tendency too big a hurry, but if you’ll sit down at the kitchen table or in the couch in the living room and slow down, you’ll be amazed at the amount of good deals you will stumble yourself into, just by being patient and let the seller talk.
Michael: You we’re talking about also being a human. I have something in business that I’ve had since I was in my early 20s. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Sitting down, talking with somebody and making a win-win situation. Too many times, we’re looking at a win-loss or if you’re not winning, you’re losing, but in Anderson particularly, we go by that guiding the light of a win-win, make sure the clients win, you win, and do unto others as you would have done unto you, which is a golden rule that’s been around for hundreds of thousands of years, whatever you want to call it. Then you’ll get referrals, too.
If you’ve done right by the people, people talk about you. When you speak of the down term, when it decreased in 2009 for three or four years, we expected our business to go down, because we deal with small business owners, we deal with real estate investors, and stock investors. We didn’t see a decrease for our business, we saw a gradual slight increase even, which was phenomenal at that time, which is a big win.
One of the things that I did was went back, looked at where our clients were coming from, and was coming from word of mouth. If you do business, you get into the real estate, you do right by the seller, you’re buying and selling, and do unto others as you would have done unto you, you’re going to get more business, you’re going to get people calling up, “Hey, call up Eddie, he does right by you.” It always says, “Just snowballs.” That pertains up as this concept pertains to every profession, I believe.
Eddie: It is. I mean, you look around and you see businesses that are in existence for 15 years, 20 years plus, maybe not all of the time, but I will say, most of the time you look at them. They’re not out, live, […], and stated. They’re doing […] and developing a clientele.
Down here in Houston, I think it’s safe to say that everybody knows whoJet Lending is. I mean, we’re pretty well-grounded in Texas. We’re not the cheapest, let’s just get it out off the table. Our money is a little higher than some other people’s money, but you don’t ever hear that we put a […], or held back their repair monies, or anything like that. It’s all been on the up and up.
Michael: They’re also getting value for that money, maybe it was expensive, but just similar fact, but another pair of eyes on that project. How much is that worth?
Eddie: It’s invaluable, because we had […], I was talking about that early […], we’ve had clients getting mad at us for telling them to get away from a deal.
Michael: Maybe momentarily, until they realized that you’re actually right.
Eddie: Most of the time, you hear back from them and you get a thank you.
Michael: I love the thank yous.
Eddie: They know the business a little better now, reflect back on the deal that realize they shouldn’t have got in, or they did it with somebody else and come back later and says, “I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have gotten that deal. It killed me.” You just have to do it the right way. In my house flipping business, in 2019 I bought, I don’t know the exact number, 70-80 houses, 40% of my purchases last year were referrals.
Michael: See, they’re a believer.
Eddie: Yeah, it is, but this is a wonderful business.
Michael: I can tell this, not just by talking to you and everytime I talk to you about your passion, about the business, and about the people in the business. I think that helps you to be successful, too.
Eddie: It is. Down here in Houston it’s a close-knit industry. Most of my social friends are real estate investors now, that […].
Michael: Did you get away from them or they get away from you?
Eddie: One or the other, but you know this, because you’ve been to it. We put on an event once a month.
Michael: I was going to ask you, that’s something I want to get into, because that’s a hoot. I tell you, I love going down there, it’s casual, as you can tell I like to be a little casual, I’m going to suit all the time. Everyone who is probably on this have seen me in a suit in most of my life, but tell us about your meetup. At Republic, right?
Eddie: Yeah. It’s at the the Republic BBQ & Country Club, it’s a huge country bar. It’s a very nice establishment as you know, it’s a nice place. We have 11 events last year, we have an events January through November, we don’t do a December event, so we do 11 a year. Our average is over 800 last year.
Michael: 800 people at each event?
Eddie: Yeah, we averaged over 800 people for an event. Our load mark was around 413. Our middle-of-the-road through the same day we have the event and we still have 400 people showed up, then we had over a thousand three times, and we had a bunch of meetings and that 700-900 people.
Michael: What’s the city? Where is it? Where is Republic again?
Eddie: It’s in Southwest Houston, Republic BBQ & Country Club, it’s in the southwest corner of Houston. We’ve been having it there for about, it’s going on 4th year to have it there. We’ve been running this meeting, it will soon be 13 years. Every month we do this meeting. We started out with 20 people. Now we build it up, we’re consistently 800-1000. It’s darn intimidating if it is the first time we ever walk in, because you don’t […].
Michael: I felt like it was walking in with a bunch of my people, I just walked in and everyone is so friendly. In regards, I got an idea in my mind, I want to see if we’re congruent in this, what do you think the value of going to those greetings are?
Eddie: When you’re new, you come there for education and networking, more than you’re making the education as your experience. We have two different, you’re either the inside or the outside. The outside is where all the vendors and we have approximately 40 vendors now. It’s just a mass mob of people out there networking and talking to the vendors. Then on the inside, we have the technical presentation and it’s me or one of several other chosen ones that you have the technical presentation, it could be from managing contractors, to how do you cash flow rental property. It’s such a whole variety of topics that we visit throughout the year.
What we’ll have on the inside, 300-400 seats available and they’ll typically be full and out of the patio. With the network we got the, probably more seasoned people that maybe have heard the presentation before, after networking and doing deals on the patio and talking all of the vendors.
You get the best of both worlds there, but your typical newbies are going to come in and drink free beer and eat free food, it’s free, that’s free food, […] to get 800-1000 people there and have free beer, but you come in and and every time, as soon as I take the stage, one of the first things I say, “How many first timers in here?” We’ll have, let’s say, 400 people in the room, 30% of the people raise their hand all the time. We’ll get a 100-150 first timers at every meeting and then the other 800 people, or 700 people, or […] that come in for the networking and to give a presentation. It’s a pretty cool event we’re all proud of.
Michael: You should be proud of it. For decades, I’ve been going to these events, you absolutely should be proud of it, because it just fosters a community. I think we’re congruent in networking, if you’re getting into this business, you’ve got to network, you’ve got to make sure you’re surrounded by those people who are doing the same thing as you are.
Like I said about my wife and I when we invest, we bounce ideas off of other people, because they’ll see things you’re not seeing and why stick to your mentality when you can have everyone giving an input on it, then surrounding yourself on those meetups, groups like yours, and those meetings.
That’s what you need to do. You need to build that network and keep yourself out of trouble and get those better deals. Who’s to say that you’re not going to run a new investor that came across the deal and because you stand up, they’re going to pass that deal unto you, because they can’t handle it at that time.
Eddie: That’s right. I’ll tell many people this and tell me, “What should I do?” I said, “Walk out of here with 20 business calls.”
Michael: Yes.
Eddie: If you could do more it’s fine, but I said, “You go and you should get 20 business calls. Then when you get home or in the morning, you email, make contact with those people and you add them in to where you used them on Constant Contact or Mailchimp, or one of the other services. You get them on your master database and you start keeping in touch with those people, we started that 20 years ago. We got 140,000 people in our Constant Contact. Do I have 140,000 active investment today? No, but some section that is […] our customers? We’re a 140,000, but we started at one business card way back 21 years ago.
Michael: I don’t know what the actual saying is and I hate clichés, but the value of your view is like your network or what have you. It does more than just that. Again, it’s the synergy you have. At times, in any business, you get run down and maybe they give the energy going. Another point of going to those meetings, again, go to those meetings and if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed, it re-energizes you at times.
Eddie: It truly does, especially this time of the year. Everybody is coming off of Christmas break, everybody is excited, everybody is ready to go, we’re having webinar here at […], the podcast here today, January 7th. Everybody around my office is energized today, but we’re all been gone for on and off for two weeks. It’s a fun time […]. You buy the most houses, at least for us here, we got 20 years of records, January, December, June, […] off for about investment properties for here in Texas. December is gone, January now and then of course we’ll be in June, in the middle of the year, but December and January are the two biggest most […] to buy properties.
Michael: Perfect. All right, just a recap, you guys do hard money lending. What are the terms again? What were generally your terms of, like monthwise?
Eddie: Let me give a ballpark. We like to know who our client is and what the property is before we put the exact rate. Mostly […] rate we get it in writing, so our client has it in writing.
Michael: How many months though? What’s a length?
Eddie: We do 2 months long, 3 months long, 6 months, 12 month long, or 24 months long, depending on what the client needs.
Michael: Perfect.
Eddie: Two to twenty-four, we’ll do rehab for fix and flip, we’ll do long term for winters. They’ve wanted out business way back in 2004, 100% of our business was about fix and flip, 100% of our business. Today, that’s 50% of our business, the other 50% is the buy and hold for rental.
Michael: You know, those people that are listening, Eddie’s at jetinvestorlending.com, by the way, if you guys wanted to take a look and look into it for sure.
Eddie: In Houston, Texas. Where also proud of our partnership with you guys, you guys have been great, you guys supported us, and gives a lot of advice. A lot of our clients chose you. I think you guys can do a workshop in Houston, the first half of the year?
Michael: We are. Yes, coming up, I can’t remember the specific dates, I don’t have it in front of me, but they can go to andersonadvisors.com and look it up there. Definitely, can’t wait to get down there, share a beer with you, and we’ll do all right. Really appreciate you Eddie and thank you for your insights. Any parting words for real estate investors out there?
Eddie: Don’t procrastinate, get educated, and get involved.
Michael: Awesome, hey Eddie you have a fantastic day. Great talking to you and we’ll see you soon.
Eddie: Okay, bye now.
Michael: Thank you.
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