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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PODCAST: 0:48 - Introduction 1:17 - Getting to know Dani Beit-Or 11:18 - Patterns and realigning 18:51 - Action, Action, Action. What helped him to take action 25:10 - Great Opportunity! Email: [email protected] for more information 26:04 - Transition from buying rental properties to helping other investors through their journey 30:39 - Challenges his students are facing Contact: simplydoit.net [email protected] FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE PODCAST AUDIO: Spencer Sutton: And I said that the most successful investors we see are action takers. Dani Beit-Or: Of course. Spencer Sutton: They're doing it. So, what is the difference? Why do you think some people have to spend so much time doing research and never take action versus those who... I mean, investing from Tel-Aviv into a market you've never been in. And we do, we have a lot of out-of-state investors that let us manage their properties that they've never even been to, so I get that, but what is the difference between just talking about it, doing all the research and never pulling the trigger and those that pull the trigger? Dani Beit-Or: I think it comes down to one thing and that's fear. Fear can either paralyze you or it can either drive you to get better understanding. Spencer Sutton: All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Birmingham Real Estate Investor podcast. I am your host, Spencer Sutton, and I've got a special guest with me today. I've got Dani Beit-Or from simplydoit.net and Dani, man, welcome to the show. Dani Beit-Or: Thank you, Spencer. Thanks for having me, much appreciated. I know this goes to a large crowd. Spencer Sutton: It does! We've got a great audience and they're always interested to hear what's going on, not only in our local markets, but also around the country. So we're going to get into this and I'm excited to get to know you better. I was doing some research, just reading a little bit about your background. I know that you were in the Israeli Special Forces previously. You retired. So I want to talk about how that connects to your real estate investing. Spencer Sutton: But first of all, I do want to talk and find out just more about you. Our audience always loves to hear kind of the origin stories. Like how did you get involved in real estate? Because I know you've been investing since around 2002, I think, and you've helped over 5,000 real estate investors along their own journey. So I would love just to hear the beginning. Dani Beit-Or: With pleasure. I'm originally from Israel. During my mandatory service, I decided to do it to the best of my abilities. I joined the Special Forces unit. Great experience, very hard, very tough, very demanding on physical and mental, but very rewarding, especially in terms of the people that I call my buddies, this is my brothers for life. It sounds like what people always say, but my friends in Israel meet the team on a weekly basis. We talk regularly. So this is an amazing experience and it lasted. It lasting a lifetime for us. Dani Beit-Or: After the military and after getting my engineering degree, I started working for the some Israeli high-tech company. That company recently was purchased for $1.3 billion by Salesforce, maybe two years ago. I wish I can accredit some of that to me. I can't, really. I wasn't there for a long time, but what happened when I was there, the interesting thing that the internal engine that was established or created there is very quickly. Here I am, at the time because everything is because of the military is a little bit late in Israel, I think I was 24, 25. Starting my adult life, so to speak, after the military, after having my engineering degree. First year into the job, I'm all in, kind of getting the raps. Honestly, I was good at my job because it was project management and it was challenging. But after a year, it wasn't as challenging as before, but I was good at my job and I had time. Dani Beit-Or: I started looking around and asking myself, what the heck is going on here? Is this what I'm looking for in the next 10, 15, 20 years of working hard. Israeli work culture around the high-tech industry is very demanding, long hours. Yes, a lot of flexibility, but very, very demanding in terms of the hours. And I thought, "Wait." I have my girlfriend at the time, we're married today, we're living together, we kind of know what the path for us is, thinking about it, and I just could not accept the fact that this is it. I'm going to work... I was mainly looking at my older cousins, my uncles, my parents. For 10, 15, 20 years working hard, long hours giving up a lot of family time and stuff like that, and what do they have 10, 15, 20 years later? A condo with a mortgage. Sure, right? Dani Beit-Or: And they're kind of struggling. They're not necessarily struggling in the sense of being poor, but middle-class, they're never... My house, middle-class, military career, my dad. My mom worked two jobs, no complaints. I love my childhood. I never felt something is missing. We were not poor, but we were never in a luxury life at my house. We had everything we needed, but there's never more than the basic necessities "plus," we just say, and that kind of stuck. Dani Beit-Or: And then the vision, or the understanding or realization that people around me are working so many hours for so many years and they barely have something to show for all that hard work for so many years. I didn't know what the answer is. I knew what I don't agree with. The path that I was watching myself going, my friends, and seeing where it's leading, I just didn't agree with it. And what they did, it's actually drove me to start searching, like a financial searching. Dani Beit-Or: Young adult, I felt real-life finances illiterate, so I started educating myself about different financial vehicles or different things in my financial world. Compensation, worker compensation, this insurance, that insurance. And I got that covered within a year or two while I was working, getting to know better. That's okay, what's the next step? Dani Beit-Or: And the next step was start looking for investment. I think in a very comfortable way, I started asking about stocks and options and investing in that. And I wasn't happy. I wasn't pleased with the risk-reward that I was getting. It wasn't bad but it didn't make any sense to me, still. And while I was on this kind of, "search" is a nice term. It was actually anywhere from a quest to a fetish. I don't know, because I was really- Spencer Sutton: It was a journey. Yeah, you're on a quest. It's a journey. Dani Beit-Or: It's a journey. It wasn't like, "Ah, let's just read here and there." I was on a quest. That's probably the right term because I told myself, you cannot live life as an adult with this stuff, just the basic not knowing. And that eventually led me, while I'm still in Tel Aviv, to learn about US real estate investment. So here I am, a young guy in Tel Aviv, 2000-ish. Nobody's talking about US investing in real estate. And I heard about it. There's one, I went to see a lecture. When I was there, I'm like, "Okay, this makes perfect sense to me, but what do I know?" Completely insecure, no one around me, is doing it. There's nobody really to talk to about. There's no forum, Facebook groups, stuff like that. It's around, but it's really the 1.0, so to speak, era. Right? Or maybe just- Spencer Sutton: I remember. Dani Beit-Or: Yeah. So, Google was a startup. Google was a startup. Spencer Sutton: Yeah. Dani Beit-Or: Let's just face it, right? Facebook was not even an idea. So not all the resources that we have today which some of us take for granted were not there. And I had to work hard and kind of tried to make a decision. And I went in and listened to another lecture and read online what I could. And then I told myself after maybe a year of digesting it, I had a conversation with myself and I just asked myself, "Are you a talker? Are you a walker?" That was the conversation. I said, "I'm a Walker." And I actually went and purchased my first rental property in a tiny town that nobody knows where it is. It's called Phoenix, Arizona. I'm sure you've never heard of it. Spencer Sutton: Never heard of it, right. Dani Beit-Or: Honestly, I've got to say, I lived, I went to high school in the US for two years with my dad's military assignment for two years in Washington, DC, and that gave me a little bit of a, maybe opened my eyes towards the US. So it wasn't completely strange. I heard the name "Phoenix," I didn't know where it is. Luckily, Google Maps were not around, but MapQuest was. Spencer Sutton: MaQuest was, yeah. Dani Beit-Or: Exactly. And I looked it up. I saw where it is. I bought a nice house on a street called Honeysuckle, cute neighborhood subdivision. You know the little boxes and they all look just the same? Spencer Sutton: Yes. Dani Beit-Or: Every house on the street looks pretty much the same. Spencer Sutton: Yes, that's right. Dani Beit-Or: A very uniform community with a HOA from a builder, in a good school district. Such a boring type of real estate, unbelievably boring. And it was great because I bought that house completely sight unseen. Put money down to buy it, to reserve it basically. Then they started building it. Six months later, the house is ready. Never been to Phoenix, never seen the house. All remotely. No Zillow, no public records, no all this stuff, barely knowing what I do, very simplistic analysis, that house was purchased in 2002 closing maybe 2003. It got rented within 45 days and that house was a really amazing experience for me because what that house did is, first of all, it was rented, I call it, to my little zoo in Phoenix. It was rented to a family of 6, 4 kids and parents. Dani Beit-Or: And in 2004, when my wife and I decided to move to the states, we moved to the states and I go, and I travel, from California, I'm going to see my house. I think, I can't remember if I was... You know what, for the first time I went there, when it was a lot, I actually flew from Israel eventually when I was under contract, but it was still a lot. Now it's a house. I'm a beginner investor. I already own this. I already did two other small investments. Maybe bought another house by that time. I look, I come in, I was not happy because as soon as I come in, I noticed there are two dogs, hamster and a bunny in the house. That's why, when I nickname it, my little zoo in Phoenix. Dani Beit-Or: Now I have to tell you, my first gut reaction was like, what the heck is going on here? How come I don't know about it? This is not good, but by that time, I think I already own it maybe for two or three years, something around that. And I come back from my trip and I think about it, I said, "Wait, so there's a little zoo. Four kids, four pets, the parents. They've only been late once or twice on rent, but everything else is just..." And they've been there for a while. That zoo was very stable. And actually, if you really think about it, if you run such a zoo as a parent and you're late only twice on your rent in multiple years, that's impressive. Spencer Sutton: That is impressive, yeah. Dani Beit-Or: It's not that they didn't pay. There were just late a few days because they missed something. So I told myself, "You know what? Let it be. The zoo is stable." They ended up living there for five and a half years being late twice. I refinanced that house twice when it shot through the roof when everything went up 2005, 6, 7, before the crash. And that actually was translated into buying more properties. Dani Beit-Or: So that was, what started is the trigger of the knowledge and kind of how I got with my first property. Spencer Sutton: I think that's a great story, Dani. I talk to a lot of investors from around the country. They're looking to buy properties in cities that we manage in. It really does seem like they started asking themselves very similar questions. Is the 401k that I'm building up, is this what's going to take me through to retirement, or is there something more? And so they start getting interested in real estate and they start their own journey and they become obsessed about it. They literally become obsessed. And then what I've noticed is, just like you back in 2002, a lot of people they've done enough research and it's time to take the step. And it's either you're a walker or you're a talker. You're either going to do it or you're not going to do it. The most successful ones take action and do things. Dani Beit-Or: Yeah. Absolutely agree. I've been doing it for such a long time that the benefit, I think, of doing, it's not just the experience, but the benefit is I'm an observer of human behavior in the same category for so many years. And some patterns only emerge maybe every two years. And to identify that pattern, you need to see it once or twice or three times to see that it's actually a pattern. To observe three incidents over so many years, that's six years just to see that there's a pattern. Dani Beit-Or: One of the two patterns that blew my mind that I've seen over the years, and this is something I think a lot of investors need to understand, first one, almost always that the two years mark of ownership is the eye-opener to people. So someone purchased a property and then two years later, something happens in their understanding. Why? They've been collecting rent for about two years. They've been handling some of the challenges, issues, situations with residents. We all know it's never a hundred percent quiet. "Buy, forget," that doesn't exist. And that's okay. It doesn't mean big drama, but stuff happens. So they got used to the ownership, dealing with the property manager, dealing with residents, even the minimum noise that they have from the system, they got to experience it over a period of time. Dani Beit-Or: And now I'm two years of, aha! In two years, they look back and say, "What happened here?" So I've been collecting cashflow two or three, four, whatever, $500 a month, pretty consistently for the past two years. Maybe the value of my house even appreciate a bit, by 20,000, by 30,000, maybe more depending on what we're doing. And all of a sudden they look back and say, "Two years. How much time did I spend over this property? Maybe an hour a month, on average. Maybe two. I don't know, maybe none, maybe half an hour." And then all this money started accumulating, right? Trickling in, but all of a sudden it's a bigger chunk. And then there's an aha moment. It's not too bad. It works. Dani Beit-Or: And then the other thing that comes, once they have this realization, they start saying, "Wait, wait, wait. I spent, I don't know, let's say 20 hours, 30 hours in the past two years, that's it. And I've gained $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 combined between cashflow. That's amazing number. Plus, I'm seeing where I'm heading, the future." And the next thing that usually happens is that the entire household is realigned. They don't even plan for it. All of a sudden, they're saying, "Wait, if this was such a good investment, maybe I should do another one like this. How can I do another one if I don't have enough money? Okay, let's realign." Dani Beit-Or: Sometimes I see couples, they're not even intentionally sitting down and realigning. Some do, most don't, but they have the realization and then there's a realignment in the prioritization of the household finances. And then there's a, even if it's not amazing, it's still a good one. It doesn't have to be an amazing... You know what? My story in Phoenix, of the house that I bought for less than 130, doubling in two or three years to 300, more than doubling, right? Even 320. That's an amazing story. I was lucky. I bought the tickets. Right. But better stories like this house, instead of doubling, even going up to 160 in two years, that's nice and cash flow. All of a sudden the alignment of the house is changing whether they want it to not because they want it. It's working. Yes, there's hiccups. Yes, there's some noise in the system, but bigger picture, it's working. I need more because they all, every one of those people can see how in 10, 15, 20 years, if they pay off the mortgage, even a 30-year mortgage will pay sooner. They have the benefit of that. Then it's going to be a super cash cow, right? Now it's not a cash cow. It's going to be super cash cow. It just needs to get there. Ir amazes me every time all over again. Spencer Sutton: That reminds me of this progression with money. Step one, or stage one, is we make money. Stage two is we learn how to keep money. Not every dime is going out the door. And then stage three, which is what you're talking about, the realignment of the family. Stage three is growing money. And that's what you're talking about. So once people see that, "Hey, our passive investment that we're not spending a whole bunch of time dealing with is growing in equity. We're paying down the debt. It's appreciating a little bit and we have some cashflow. Yes, we have some maintenance issues every once in a while, but..." Yeah, I agree. I think that's a really good picture. Dani Beit-Or: Sometimes I want to talk sense into people and tell them, "You know what? Investing in a piece of property could be one of the best thing you will do financially. Not because of its own merits of just buying a property and letting it appreciate and cashflow and whatever, because exactly the side effect it does on your household." We're all running around crazy busy. People, kids, family, job, everything, life and that's okay. But we're always worried, especially as adults with kids about our finances in the near future, so to speak, and the far future. And the effect of rental property to dazzle people psyche, it works. It's true. It can happen. Yes, dealing with property manager is not always easy, but big picture it works. That has such a significant impact on people's understanding what is the right thing to do and how to go about it. Some of them may come to the realization that maybe real estate is not their flavor, but it still has the financial impact on their life. Nothing clicked there. And I don't see a lot of things making that happen. Spencer Sutton: Let me ask you this question, and I want to go back to the phrase where you said, "I had to make a decision. I'm either going to just talk about it or I'm actually going to do it and do the walk." Dani Beit-Or: Yeah. Spencer Sutton: And I said that the most successful investors we see are action takers. Dani Beit-Or: Of course. Spencer Sutton: They're doing it. So, what is the difference? Why do you think some people have to spend so much time doing research and never take action versus those who... I mean, investing from Tel-Aviv into a market you've never been in. And we do, we have a lot of out-of-state investors that let us manage their properties that they've never even been to, so I get that. But what is the difference between just talking about it, doing all the research and never pulling the trigger and those that pull the trigger. Dani Beit-Or: I think it comes down to, in my opinion, one thing, and that's fear. And fear can either paralyze you or it can either drive you to get better understanding, research more. I think that's what the determining factor if that's what you're asking about. Spencer Sutton: Yeah. Dani Beit-Or: And I can tell you how, if it will be beneficial, how I dealt with that point specifically, because I think fear, when you are in Tel Aviv, the foreigner, the Israeli investor in the US the gaps are 10 times more. You've got language gaps, time gaps, cultural gaps. I always say we all speak English, but I also speak American now. I didn't speak American before. American and English, it's a little bit different. Those codes are really important, so there's a lot of gaps. Also gaps of how real estate is done here and how real estate is done here. Dani Beit-Or: What always helped me when I was getting started, or even throughout my career, not just when I was getting started, I call it the negative role model. You know how in life, they teach us a to have a role model in our life so we can look up to? I decided that I needed a negative role model. A negative role model for me is someone that I look up to and see what they've done and use that on what not to do. I love my parents, but my parents were very cautious with money, they're not risk takers, and that was for me a role model I don't want to follow, in that sense. In many other senses, ethics, works, family, absolutely. Spencer Sutton: Sure, they were great. Dani Beit-Or: And that, financially, they were for me the role model of how not to work. There was someone I worked with over the years, that he was a very... I would always ask myself, what is this guy would have done in that situation? And anytime I'd asked myself this question, I always went in 90 or 180 degrees, because I knew, that's what I call the negative role model. If he's going to go this way, this is what I think is going to do, or my parents, this is the way I'm going. Dani Beit-Or: And that helped me deal with the fear. If you think that when I sign on the purchase document in Tel Aviv, all remotely, and I was going down the elevator with my cousin, I brought my cousin to help me with the first purchase because I didn't have enough money. We were young guys and I remember I put everything I had in my bank account into this deal. I knew the next salary is coming. I was still an employee. It's coming in few weeks, so I wasn't completely terrified, but we were looking at each other, going down in the elevator, literally watching it, looking, and we're kind of nodding and asking ourselves, "What the heck have we done?" The fear was there. We didn't let it paralyze us. We actually channeled that fear. Dani Beit-Or: So I think that if someone is in the fear, the fear is paralyzing them, the best way to address fear if you can't use the negative role model is knowledge. Knowledge, right? For me, when I'm facing a new challenge, what I try to do is I literally sit down and I try to write, break it down because a lot of investors are... I don't know, it can be overwhelming. What is your fear? Can you break it down? And then you write, for example, "Will it rent? Do I have money to do it? Who will manage it?" Start, if you break it down to 10, 15, 20 questions. Dani Beit-Or: Yes, you need to face yourself. You need to meet with yourself. Not all of us, it's easy for us to sit down and write, write those things down. Once you broke down the fear from an overwhelming kind of word to specifics, now start tackling all of those things. Maybe you've got a list of 15 items, and maybe out of those 15 items you were able to mitigate or receive an acceptable answer under your values, and five are "not," or "not yet." That's in his huge accomplishment right there, because all of a sudden this fear, which is, "How do you even..." Or risk, right? Risk, fear. Now you broke it down and now we can tackle each one. And if you're not doing that exercise, you are hurting yourself because you're not going to be able to break that cloud of fear, which is just so overwhelming because it's philosophical. Fear is on philosophical. Spencer Sutton: Yeah, it is. That's right. Dani Beit-Or: When you break it down with questions and specific, it become specific. Hopefully you will be able to address all the questions you have that you listed. But even if you have 12 out of the 15, 10 out of 15, still much better, a few days ago when it was all fear. Spencer Sutton: I think that's a great point because a lot of times what we do is we allow the fear just to play stories in our head. And we think about them, we think about, we never write them down. So you're right. When you start writing these things down, then you start tackling them. What that does is it removes the fear of the unknown and you're able to see it on paper and say, "Okay, I've got this handled. I can do this. This is what's within my control. And here are the things that I still need to go and tackle." And I think that's great advice. Spencer Sutton: Everyone, Spencer Sutton here. And I wanted to make you aware of a great opportunity here in our Birmingham office. We are hiring a new Business Development Manager. So this is a sales role. Someone who's going to sell our property management services to out-of-state investors, local investors and local homeowners here in Birmingham. If this sounds like something that you would be interested in, I would love to talk to you. This position is going to be perfect for someone who is a self-starter, somebody who is results oriented, who loves to win, who is able to communicate very well, who can negotiate, just a natural relationship builder. So if this is you, or maybe it's somebody that you know, again, I'd love to talk to you. So feel free to email me at [email protected]. That is [email protected] hope to hear from you soon. Spencer Sutton: So let's talk about you bought your first property. It became a passion for you. You moved to California. You were like, "I'm going to invest." You started investing in other markets. What was the transition from buying rental properties for yourself to then helping other investors start their own journey? Dani Beit-Or: I started working with investors slowly and I saw that I'm really enjoying it. When I was in the eighth grade, that's a funny story. I don't think I ever told it. When I was ninth grade, junior high, those years. Spencer Sutton: Yeah. Dani Beit-Or: Ninth grade is the graduation before you go to high school in Israel, unlike the States. So we're doing the year-end play, part of the graduation, and we're doing Alice in Wonderland. And there's this part, what was it? The caterpillar sitting, or the snail? I think caterpillar sitting on a mushroom and everybody comes for his advice. Maybe I'm mixing stuff, right? Spencer Sutton: Yeah. Dani Beit-Or: It's been a few years. Spencer Sutton: I know what you're talking about, yeah. Dani Beit-Or: There's a situation where everybody's seeking advice from this guy who is just sitting back and kicking back on the mushroom, something like that. That's my recollection. True or not, doesn't matter. And I'm thinking to myself, what an awesome place to be in. He's there and everybody comes to seek his advice. And I don't know why, but that's taught me like few things in life did. I still carry that from ninth grade. And for some reason that kind of created an idea. I think when I started seeing that investors are coming and asking for advice, maybe it's an ego thing. I think I don't carry a big one if at all, but maybe it did pat it. Maybe it was me liking helping others. But I could see that not only that I'm enjoying it, I'm also good at it. I'm also good with deciphering the problem, breaking down the challenges, similar to what we just talked about a minute ago. Addressing the concerns. It was like a challenge. Dani Beit-Or: I found that everybody that I work with has set of challenges. A beginner, an advanced. whatever, even sellers have challenges. There's always something. And then they come to me. I'm enjoying the conversation. I'm enjoying showing them the solution I'm enjoying all this interaction with them. And the interesting thing to me, the best test case, when I work with investors, the first thing we do is like an intra-session. I call it a strategy session. No sales pitch, no... Let's talk about what your needs are. And you know what? Honestly, I also want to check you out, if it's a good fit. The way I look at it. Dani Beit-Or: And in that session, I have had more than 10,000 such sessions in my career. More than 10,000, maybe even much more, somewhere, last time I counted was 7,000 and that was about five years ago, or four years ago. Even today, when I still have those sessions, I'm seeing 10,000 sessions after, I'm still enjoying it. I'm not like, "Ugh, here's another one." I'm all pumped up. That always tells me I'm in the right spot with myself. Now that's the passion of doing it. I will say, when I work with investors, I also get compensated. I earn money, I buy more real estate. So it definitely goes hand in hand, but I could go and get compensated in other areas. I'm just enjoying this. I think I'm enjoying the challenges real estate presents. I'm enjoying working with the investors and finding solutions. It feels good doing something that I like doing. Even sometimes fun to see, "Wow, this guy's been working me for more than 10 years and look at all his accomplishment." Can I really credit all that to myself, or is it just part of it is me? I don't know, but it's just nice to see from the side. I am enjoying it. It sounds weird, but maybe... Spencer Sutton: No, I think that's great. And to tie it back to that story from ninth grade, that's great. So what are- Dani Beit-Or: The caterpillar. Spencer Sutton: Yeah, the caterpillar. I think it was a caterpillar on a mushroom sitting back smoking a pipe. I think that's what it was, Alice in Wonderland. I think. Dani Beit-Or: I think it was a real mushroom or a stage mushroom, and not... There was no microdosing going around. Spencer Sutton: No, no, no. No micro... No, no, no, no. There was none of that. None of that. Spencer Sutton: So tell me about, I know that investors have different challenges around the country, but we are in an extremely hot market nationwide in different pockets. We're in Nashville, we're in Denver, we're in Atlanta, we're in Birmingham. These are all very extremely hot markets. What are the challenges that you're seeing your students facing finding properties in a market like this? Dani Beit-Or: Obviously, I can tell you that in my career of almost 21 years, I've never seen such a market. Never. The supply-demand is off the chart, and that's obviously the biggest challenge, is finding properties or suitable or investible properties and acquiring them. The biggest challenge of competition are homeowners nowadays. Well, let's just say, first of all, we have multiple players in the playground. We've got the homeowners. Approximately two-thirds of the owners in the United States are homeowners, right? One third is investment property. It's just about right, generally speaking. First of all, homeowners have a lot of advantage because the rates they're getting for mortgages are much better than we are getting, especially starting April of this year. So they have an easier time. Homeowners are also driven by FOMO very powerfully these days. Spencer Sutton: Right. Dani Beit-Or: Just because this is their fifth, seventh, 10th offer and they're losing again. So by the 11th one, they're not going to make 20,000, over 30,000 over, they're going to make even more. So they're driven, and they're measuring it by affordability. Rate is low, I can afford the 250,000, 300, whatever, 200. And we, investors, are very much ROI driven. I am rent driven and I can absorb a little bit along the way or calculate things in maybe a little bit, but at some point, if it's less than breaking even, I may not want to even touch the house. I'm not even saying that I would want it. So that's the biggest challenge for competing with the biggest buying power here, which are homeowners. Dani Beit-Or: Within the investment portion of one-third, we see the institutions really came into our playground around the crash of 2008. Wall Street money was not really present before the crash. The crash changed things and then now obviously they're coming with big bucks and it's hard to compete with. Right. You said it in the beginning. Spencer Sutton: Yeah. Dani Beit-Or: I think you mentioned it earlier. The competition with the institution, with other investors, with homeowners on a tight inventory, that's the biggest challenge for all the investors. I tell my investors, "First of all, be patient. We may need to submit 10 offers. We may need to submit 50 offers. We may be able to do it in two weeks, it may take us three months, but we're going to make a correct decision. We're not going to rush in." And that's okay. Now in my entire career, I've never had an investor, except once, that was really, and obviously not really like, "We have to do it quickly." It did happen for personal reasons actually more than once, but very rarely. Dani Beit-Or: So normally they're very cool, but that's the challenge. That's the challenge. And then in my world of real estate, where even, I would say, it's even narrower because we are so picky. The age, the size, the street, the power lines too close. I can look at the map of Nashville, start a search of properties and it shows 500 properties. When I'm done with filtering, I may have 10 to 15 properties. And even out of the 10, 15, half or more are not relevant and almost the rest are under contract or something like that. So that's challenging. That's very, very challenging. So, inventory. There's no doubt. Inventory, very hard. Spencer Sutton: Yeah, and in this market, even within the investment community, you have so much competition, but I think your point is a very great point. It is: be patient and stick to your buy box. Create your buy box and then don't stray. Just be patient and you will find deals. There are still investors buying deals in these markets. I know that we- Dani Beit-Or: Oh, absolutely. Spencer Sutton: We found several. Dani Beit-Or: I looked at our system to track how many properties we have under contract, just the other day. In my mind, we were struggling because in my mind, I'm thinking about day-to-day and I'm like, "Oh, another one didn't get. And another didn't." And that's just what goes into my mind. But then I opened our CRM system to see what's going on in the pipeline. I'm like, "Ooh, wow." I guess the efforts that I'm doing, we're all doing as a system, are working. My pipeline looks good, right? I never trust the pipeline 100% because things change and we had a cancellation yesterday, and I'm always kind of nervous about it, but compared to what I thought we are and what I'm seeing in my pipeline in closing for the next two months, thank God because it's crazy. I've been working for many years. And this is the first time in my history that I have tons of buyers and very low inventory relatively. If there is more balance, I would be making more deals right now, but it's always one or the other and all of a sudden, a lot of buyers and less inventory. And I'm like, "Ah, finally, we're here." It's kind of annoying, but the pipeline looks good. Knock on wood. Spencer Sutton: Well, that's good. I was buying houses in 04, 05, 06 and we thought it was a hot market, and it was a hot market, but nothing like today. Dani Beit-Or: No, nothing like this. Spencer Sutton: There's none. Dani Beit-Or: In 04, 05, 06, you had inventory. Spencer Sutton: You had inventory. Dani Beit-Or: But you weren't struggling for inventory. Now the biggest challenge on my end: inventory. And I'm doing a lot of things to mitigate that, to help the teams in the field, that's the challenge. A lot of creativity, a lot of work, a lot of hours spent on evaluating, digesting only to realize it's not a good transaction. It is a good transaction, et cetera. Yeah. Spencer Sutton: Well awesome. Dani, this has been great. I would love... How can people connect with you online? What is the best way for our listeners to reach out to you? Dani Beit-Or: If you didn't get it by now, my web identity is Simply Do It. Everywhere you would go and put simply do it or simply do it real estate, you probably will be reaching me through the different social media out there. The website is simplydoit.net. Dot net. Spencer Sutton: Okay. Dani Beit-Or: And you can email us at meet, like "meeting," but "meet" at simplydoit.net. We are quick to respond. We happy to talk to investors. I'm not a very good sales person, so no sales pitch. And I do like to talk to people first to see if there's a good fit. If there's not a good fit, that's okay. No problem. No courses speech, no books-and-tapes kind of a pitch. Our core business is investing and helping investors invest in real estate. Everything else is supplementary. That's the core. Spencer Sutton: Yeah. And that's great. I was on Dani's website earlier before we got on and there's a lot of great information. So I encourage you to check it out, simplydoit.net. So Dani, man, thanks for being on the show. It's been great to meet you and I wish you all the best. Everyone, if you have not subscribed yet, go ahead and subscribe to our podcast. We would love for you to review our podcast. It's a great way for people to find us on iTunes. So until next time, we'll be back with another episode of The Birmingham Real Estate Investor podcast.
