The Atlanta market is the hotbed of real estate deals. Although many investors love to invest in the area, there can be a couple of tricky little things that show up and will need careful attention. Scott Carson invites someone who is killing it in what she does to impart with us some helpful tips and tricks on navigating this market. He interviews long-time real estate investor, broker, and coach, Amy Ransdell from the Powerhouse Real Estate team, to talk about the Atlanta, GA real estate market and where she sees the opportunities lie. She also discusses the current trends, how the COVID-19 is affecting the market, and where she sees investors struggling the most. Diving into the systems and strategies to overcome what investing curveballs could come your way, Amy then shares the Four Steps to Efficiency, the follow-up process, and the kind of mindset you have to get into to succeed.

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Powerhouse Deals And Opportunities In The Atlanta Real Estate Market With Amy Ransdell

I’m jacked up and excited to have somebody who’s doing an amazing job. She’s an absolute powerhouse when it comes to what she is doing with her teams, her staff and the amazing people that she leads out of the Atlanta market. We all know Atlanta, hotline as I would like to say, is a hotbed of real estate deals. We always have so many investors that are loving to invest in Georgia. Obviously, as note investors, one of the fastest foreclosures states out there. It’s got a couple of tricky little things they want you to do as a note investor, but I wanted to bring on somebody who was killing it. She is running an investment team of brokerage sales there in Marietta, Georgia, and has been renovating the wholesaling homes for over eighteen years. She’s also a note investor, but she’s also a big marketer. That’s one of the big things that I love about what she is doing with her national blogs, different events and coaching. A couple of my friends are doing an amazing job with their podcasts as well out there. We are honored and as always excited to have Amy Ransdell joining us. What’s going on, Amy? How are you doing?

I’m doing great. Thank you for asking and thank you for having me. This is awesome. When you reached out, I’m like, “I would be in your show.” You had great content that I enjoy.

Thank you very much. We’ll get into some of the systems that you are a fan of, and then also cracks that we see because we were joking about that, how most people think we’re always going to have everything together.

People think we do?

Let’s keep them thinking that. Let’s talk a little bit about where are you seeing the Atlanta market? You’re doing so many amazing things, wholesale, and fix and flipping homes. You’re also a note investor. Where do you see Atlanta being at for you?

We’ve come through crazy events. We’re supposed to talk timely with COVID. In Georgia, I will say we had a little bit of an advantage because real estate was considered an essential business. We didn’t have to completely freeze, although it did change the game of how we applied ourselves. What we’re watching is not only what’s happening but what’s going to come in the next 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24 months. When there’s a massive economic event that we had, there’s going to be a natural progression of events that come from it before it heals itself. In Atlanta, we’re experiencing a massive real estate crazy night.

It’s a kaboom but it’s a blip. We’re having a lot of activity. The inventory is low. If a buyer is in the market, they’re a serious buyer because they’re willing to go out there and look even with COVID. That’s something important. Of course, interest rates being a historical low and going to hit even deeper lows, we all presume, then this is a market where everybody is pushing. We’re seeing multiple offers, over list price is a consistent thing that’s happening which is good.

Are you seeing the most activity in your first time or are you talking $500,000 or less? Let’s talk some of the specific numbers of the Atlanta market to meet price range and days of markets, stuff like that.

In our market, we don’t have first time home buyers. It’s going to be $175,000 to $275,000 and so forth. I can say this is not all-inclusive and looked at the dummy for saying this, but in almost every market, there is a need for housing at the lower end. It’s highly competitive here to find properties to flip on the lower end that are going to go retail flips. It’s highly competitive to find rental properties because of the same thing. Although we are a fairly good market, fairly diverse for finding positive cashflow property, I will say that’s always going to be a pocket. Anybody in any market should figure out what that range is in your area and see if you can make that happen.

In certain micro-markets in Atlanta, it’s powerful to find property to flip or sell. Let’s put it this way. There are aggressive investors who are adding on square footage and making this house as much bigger to go for these bigger ARV’s. The reality is there’s a very low amount of inventory for the smaller footprint properties and a lot of buyers that want those, so same thing. If you can figure out what those little ranges are, then you’ve got a hot place to play in. Once you get over about $550,000, $575,000 is about everywhere. We’re seeing longer days on market, we’re seeing price reductions, and if you want to win at the higher price point, you better have stellar products. It’s going to have a great living plan and be well done. If you’re a retail listing, you better do everything your agent says. Make sure that property is very marketable because it’s not going to move as quickly unless it stands out from the crowd. I don’t know if that answered you, but that’s what we’re seeing.

That’s exactly what we’re looking for. It’s good stuff out there.

Let me add to everybody reading, I’m a complete and utter number’s nerd. If you’re not a nerd, find somebody that is that likes to study numbers, and study your different micro markets. Don’t listen to macro projections. It doesn’t apply. I don’t want to hear national projection, statewide projection, series of citywide projection. Every small micro market is going to have its numbers and saturation of inventory. You get to know your markets. Drive around in that market or get somebody or have boots on the ground that can do that for you. If I see tons of dumpsters and temporary power poles in a market, that means we’re going to have an inventory push come, and that’s going to push prices down on days on market out. You want to know your market and study it.

That dives into my next question with such a need for affordable first-time buyers. We see the same thing in many different markets across especially here in Austin, Texas. With your experience and if you look back at history. I think back to 2008 and 2009, what was going on because we had big growth. Have you seen a lot of new communities, new housing, first-time home buyer opportunities sprout up over the last couple of years?

In Atlanta, there’s been a ton. One thing about Atlanta is that we don’t have any geographic restrictions. We’re this big sprawling flat fat city. We go all the way from Alabama. We’d go from every state line as Greater Atlanta. There’s been a lot of construction inventory starts over the years. There have been some ups and downs where there’s been an over excess of construction inventory and we watched that. Construction numbers are the first ones to watch before you start watching the rest of the retail numbers. We’re seeing a lot of construction starts way outside the city. That’s in direct response to builders and developers, assuming people want to get out of the city after dealing with COVID.

All of the protests and so forth that happened here in Atlanta particularly. We’re going to continue to watch that. One of the challenges with the construction starts though, is that there’s already quite a bit of backlog on construction material because of COVID. We have some meat shortages, dairy shortages, things being predicted, already agrarian experience, there’s also a material and supplies shortages because a lot of those places close down for COVID, and the same thing, they’re backlog on orders. There is inventory outside, particularly the city for the first-time homebuyer and affordable housing. That’s not something else, anybody who’s reading, that’s a great niche to get into. There are huge government grants and all kinds of things that can come your way where the entire project is paid for. It’s no joke. Affordable housing can be very profitable. It sounds like an oxymoron. I’m going to build affordable housing and it’s profitable, but it can be.

You’ve got to make sure you’re checking it out. One of the things that always concerns me is the things that we’ve been tracking over the last several months. A lot of times it’s been the rollback to as little down as possible, $500 or $1,000 down. I was even talking before all this back with a guy at Bank of America. He was talking about how they were donating the down payment on an FHA mortgage and then giving up to $7,500 worth of closing costs. The ex-mortgage banker and me was thinking back to 2008, 2009 and 2010. Have you seen things like that pop up there with people getting in for as little down and skin in the game as possible? It’s a beautiful thing, but then it always worries me when we have things like this happen where they’re in forbearance agreement is not paying, or even when the tax values come back now that they’re being taxed on the full value and improvements of the property versus the land. Do you foresee that’s a little bit of start of the wave in some of those areas in those parts around Atlanta?

In fact, we were talking about this before COVID. We have experienced on our side in the sense that I’ve been through several market corrections or shifts in my career. I clearly remember the ‘08 world. I was heavily involved in short sales at that time. I happened to be at an advantage during that shift because of the niche that we were working primarily but we all remember how loose lending was. We were watching lending become looser and looser and already saying to ourselves that that’s going to create a wave of potential defaults, etc. Not necessarily in the short sale arena like we saw before where there’s an overwhelming amount of zero equity properties, all of a sudden and so forth, but still seeing a lot of people who would end up in that mortgage late scenario so they ended up with a more motivated seller pool.

 

We were pulling back out a lot of our transaction engineering of how to make money with pretty houses and all kinds of things because those start to become strategies you want to pull back out. That’s already a conversation. Now, we sit here with COVID and everybody gets unemployment or stimulus. We’re seeing this little blip of a lower unemployment number and everybody’s going back to work, but not really. The real numbers are going to come in a few months when anybody that was living on savings, that savings are now gone, they’ve gotten complacent, they’ve not put together any proactive efforts to be in a good financial position. A lot of companies are going to do those permanent layoffs and salary reductions so they’re going to close their doors. That’s going to create a wave of people who were in these situations where they put no money down and that’s going to be your default wave. We are all prepared and strategically for there to be a wave of defaults and foreclosures.

I think everybody is breathlessly waiting to see what’s going to happen and shake out from the government. Who’s going to get bailed out? Who’s going to be saved? How big a check will the government write to the banks? There are going to be a lot of people especially borrowers but also owners, landlords, smaller investment companies, or even smaller real estate investors who have owner-financed their properties. They’re not getting the aspect of the bailout and things like that. Any insight on that that you’d like to throw into there with your geekdom. I love your geekdom. I love your number’s aspect of things like that. You and I are fellow geeks.

I love studying economics, but I was a Biochem major that got an Arts degree. It’s a long story. I should have studied economics. I told that I’m a complete nerd. This isn’t going to go out of the landlords. Again, this is a trickle-down effect. This is a natural impact on a series of events that have to happen. There were a lot of statistics that most rents were pays to a 75% pay rate during COVID. A lot of people were shocked because one of the first things I thought was that nobody would pay their rent anywhere across the country, but that wasn’t true. Stimulus shut and so forth seem to have been applied towards doing that.

There was stimulus and support happening. When the real numbers start happening where people are affected, then they stopped paying the rents, that’s when you start seeing the landlords where they can’t pay the mortgages, the owner finance payments or the wraps, or whatever structure they put themselves in, and then we start sitting away from that. We see those landlords that are in that break-even. Those break-even landlords where they can’t afford to do the repairs, assessments, and so forth. That’s a negative cash position for them. They may be benefiting from a tax position or initial equity gain, but they’re still at a negative monthly cashflow position. Those are the guys that are going to start wanting to get rid of a property. We’re also going to see a wave of hard money stuff hit the market on default, or there’s a lot that already coming. As a note person, I’m getting brought lists of default properties like, “Do you want to buy these?” I’m shocked. I’m looking at the addresses and I’m like, “I know these houses and borrower.” Those waves are coming.

I’m glad you brought that up because that was the next question. I’m sure you’re seeing an increase in mezzanine financing, hard money loans starting to roll out there too.

You talk about retail lending and how to lose it was getting again. Let’s give the bank some credit. They did learn some lessons in ‘08. Even though they were lowering rates, lowering down payment requirements, and so forth and opening up some no-doc loan type of products again, they still were not 100% like it was in ‘08. In ‘08, a guy who collected worms and I could buy a $1 million house. You could. I could find 3 or 4 of them. It’s different. Even in that situation, the lenders were doing more due diligence to make sure that the borrower did have a DTI ratio that could support it. They did have verifiable income of some form or another. They were doing a lot more. I’ll give them some credit and props. In the hard money side, this is institutionally backed funding.

I’m watching this happen and it’s breaking my heart where they’re getting these crazy rate hard money loans and even dropping the interest rates because it’s got so competitive, letting newbie investors come in with no experience whatsoever or fake experience because they’d bring in a “partner” on the LLC that had an experience. I was watching all these things happen and I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” You drive through neighborhoods and there are lots of projects that are boarded up and unfinished. It’s because it was a borrower who wasn’t in a cash-rich enough position to handle the hard money scenario. They didn’t know how to put a property through production, stay in budget, and didn’t know what they were doing. I watched hard money lenders also. Personally, I watched some inflations of appraisals and things like that, or they push ARV appraisals because the wholesalers and sourcing, they were pushing the buy prices up and up. They’re trying to justify the end by lower construction costs and is an ARV higher than it was to not supply it. I know a lot of those where people are in bad shape.

A lot of them are scared.

We get those calls in our office. They’re like, “Amy, can you help me?” They’re making that noise. I’m like, “Maybe not.”

That leads to opportunities if you know what you’re looking at, how to structure those deals, and that’s the beautiful thing about seeing what you’re doing, Knowing the rehab side versus what do you have to put into it versus what do you want to pull into it? We all know a lot of real estate investors that have gotten into fix and flipping of over rehab or over amenitied a property.

Over amenitied or worse under amenitied sometimes. They don’t have a design eye but understanding of the marketability of a property to make the right choices and living plan. It’s crazy because they don’t have an experience. They watch Chip and Joanna Gaines on TV and they’re like, “I can do that. All I’ve got to do is put ship up on a wall, I got a household.” It doesn’t work like that. They learned the hard lesson the hard way. We all need to hire a person in mentoring, but not everybody does.

HGTV, Flip This House or Flip or Flop does not count as mentoring.

I have a lot of friends who are on reality TV shows, I know them. I know what’s going on. These people that watch these shows that cross me up, but it is what it is. That’s never going to change. In any market, trading spaces ruined it for us all many years ago.

The original Flip This House series. I probably need $1,500 to pay in cash.

We’re going to finish under budget before we thought we would.

Let’s dive into some of the things on the systems because we could talk on the market all day long. You’re also a big part of REVA Global. We had Bob Lachance on. He was on Note CAMP briefly talking about some of the systems put in place. Bob is a great guy and good friends with Patrick Precourt as well. You guys make a great tripod. A triangle of content and expertise in different markets, making things happen out there. What are some of the biggest system errors that you see from investors? We always talk about what people should be doing, but let’s talk about the biggest errors or the biggest gaps that people fail on, especially investors.

The broad one is failing to do what I call the Four Steps to Efficiency. They try to do everything themselves so that’s that typical entrepreneurial failure mindset. Some people get it right away. They love execution and they understand that they’re not the guy to execute, there will be other big idea guys, and they find people to execute. That’s great but a lot of people jump into entrepreneurialship and they aren’t prepared for what all that means. When they’re in the weeds of everything, they keep growing more weeds, but still trying to cut them all themselves. They’re trying to keep everything internally and then they end up in a burnout position, procrastinating, or their business always looks like a roller coaster for production.

 

They’ve got a great deal then they let every other department fall apart while they get that deal closed. When that deal closes, they don’t understand why they’re in a bad position. They go to start again. They’re always pushing the mossy rock up the hill, they’re getting smashed, and they give up. My thing is number one on a macro level, readers, do yourself a favor after you get done with Scott’s show. Sit there with a pen and paper, and write down all the things that you’re good at, all the things that you’re not, the things you procrastinate on, the things that are highest revenue-generating, most important decision-making activities for your business that you should do, and everything else. We’re going to find another solution.

The first solution is you should eliminate a lot of it. I’m just saying. There’s a lot of stuff we all do that we think we should be doing, should is an emotionally abusive word, “I should be doing this. I should be doing that.” The reality is you should not be. Eliminate a lot of stuff and figure out what you can automate with technology then outsource. Outsourcing I mean virtually. This is remote outsourcing. I don’t care if you hire one of our virtual assistants although I would love for you to but get stuff outsourced and what’s left should only be two things. Either what you should be doing, or what you can delegate to a physical team member on your team. That’s my macro answer. My micro answer is my number one pet peeve with investors in general, agents, realtors, brokers, or anybody in sales. They don’t follow up with the leads they generate. You’re throwing money down the drain by not having a follow-up process. You’ll increase your net bottom line by a minimum of 70% across industry broad if you add a follow-up sequence.

American Marketing Association says that only about 48% of people follow up after the first phone call, the first lead. The same thing with investors. We see people that go to a workshop, they go to a seminar, and they get all excited about marketing. They send out a letter blast and then they are scared to answer the phones. I was working with an investor and he did an email blast. He had a great open rate to leads. He was looking for some self-storage facilities and email owners. He had about twenty people that opened the email more than once. I was like, “That’s a good sign that they’re thinking you’re planting seeds. Call them.” “No, I can’t call them.”

If I was his coach, I’d immediately say, “We’ve either got a limiting belief in the way there. We don’t believe in the results, we don’t believe in what we’re doing, or we need to get rid of whatever fear it is, whatever phobia it is.” Sometimes it’s not knowing what to say, but you’re right. They don’t touch up. A lot of people do like, “I’ll see you guys spend $20,000 on a direct mail campaign.” It’s a lot of money. Cost per acquisition on average in the country is about $4,000 CPA. If you’re putting a big direct mail campaign come out and you’re not answering the live calls when they come in, that’s the number one mistake. You could have a VA help with that. They can be consistently answering that phone or they want the lay-up. They want the one call, one and done, it’s a deal, I’m done.

If they don’t get the lay-up then they’ll say that that $20,000 direct mail campaign didn’t work. I’m like, “Excuse me.” First of all, most people are several months away. Remember sellers are ready when they’re ready. Our bumper sticker phrase here in our office, I use it all the time and every type of strategy is “I’m ready when you’re ready.” Whether it’s learning or selling your house. I’m going to stay on your radar until you want a restraining order against me so that I’m available when you’re ready. That’s the key because you’re going to touch them multiple times. Most of your conversions are going to happen about the 3rd or 4th potential follow-up. You have another pool that are months out that are follow-ups 10, 11, and 12. You’ve got to have that in place and it will change the game for your business.

You’re exactly right, 3rd, 4th, 5th time, 80% sales remainder for the 5th contact. I’m ready when you’re ready. That can be for a lot of things in life besides real estate.

I use it for everything. It’s the most powerful phrase in marketing. You need to make a whole book about that and I probably am. Nobody steal that. It’s mine. We’re saying it forever. We even have shirts that say it. It is a powerful line. If you think about it that way then it will help you affect the decisions you’re going to make or how you interact with the leads you generate. I don’t want to monetize all effort. I’m not spending money on a lead unless I’ve got a plan to turn that into money or it’s not worth spending the money in the first place.

Many people will try something but not commit to it, not give a time for those seeds to sprout, for those leads to return, to that follow-up process as they bounce from strategy to strategy, but they never have any type of success. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves of the real estate investor market. Follow-up doesn’t happen unless you are committed to it. A lot of people teach the theory, but they don’t follow up. That’s why I like having you guys on because you guys do follow up. You are teaching that. You’ve put REVA Global together for VA’s. I’ve been interactive with Bob and his team over there to get some stuff put together for our students, but that’s the key more than anything else. We love fix and flip, rentals, and buy and sell property. It is the media business we’re all in and staying at a touch and follow up aspect of things.

I tell people all the time like, “All this stuff that you subscribed, whether I rent, flip, buy notes, buy assisted living facilities, or buy commercial apartments, whatever. I don’t care all that stuff. Those are all exit strategies.” You’re never going to get to any one of those beautiful exit strategies unless you first on the front end have kick-ass system to get the leads coming in the door and then a great process to convert them. That has to be a dedicated part of your business. You said something. I had a pet peeve too about everybody goes to REIA meetings, they listen to this guru, that guru, they hear stuff and I have no problem. A lot of them are my friends. The problem is that if I could get my hands on all of them to help them as a coach, filter their decision based upon alignment with their core values and their life goals to pick the niche they want to stick with and then rock it.

If I could do that because so many of them will go and listen to something and they’re like, “Now I need to do that.” They’ll spend several thousand and they’ll say, “That doesn’t work.” Because they didn’t take the calls and they didn’t do the follow up then they do another one. Before you know it, they’re saying real estate investing doesn’t work. I’m like, “That’s not true.” We know that, but I’m able to look at those and, “This guy over here is killing it.” Pick a niche, but make sure that you’re prepared. First of all, decide that that’s what you want to do and be disciplined and committed to converting the business that you generate and you’ll do well. I can guarantee it. I would put $100 on that, anybody that challenged me.

You’ve got to align your goal, what you want to accomplish, and what you’re passionate about as well with what you’re doing in the market and your focus with things. That takes me to another aspect of things. We’ve given a lot of people that have expressed a lot of interest in the commercial market space, commercial real estate or aspect of things. You mentioned a couple of things. Residential assisted living, apartments, or self-storage. You talked about office space there. If you’re looking at your crystal ball and you’ll maybe see a Guinness beer, sometimes we look into the beer to look our future here for you, where do you see the investment opportunities in the commercial space there in your guys’ markets in different areas? Are you guys oversaturated in one spot that you think is going to be opportunities for things in the next 6 to 12 months?

I’ll get macro-micro. Here’s the thing on commercial. Let’s first talk about what happened with COVID and some stuff to watch. In my opinion, I believe there’s going to be a massive default wave. We already have a default wave on the rents, but a default wave for the retail restaurant space. The second wave, I believe will be some of your large brick-and-mortar office spaces, your big corporate Titans. They’re going to tighten up and they’re going to get rid of any peripheral office types of environments that they don’t need because a lot of people are adopting the work from home scenario, more than ever, or that pool work environment where they have a smaller office, but people only come in half a day, they use the same space.

Those are things that are going to happen in direct response to the fact that people are enjoying working from home. If that company didn’t provide them a great in-office corporate environment or corporate culture, then they’re going to either go somewhere else. They’re going to say, “Sorry, you didn’t let me work from home or I leave.” That’s going to create a wave in the office space environment. There are waves of opportunity coming in storage facilities, co-work, co-share, workspace facilities. Assisted living is something that is a powerful space because that Boomer generation. This is one of the largest groups of a generation pocket. They all are living longer and living healthier. That 55 plus community area is strong. The assisted living facility is strong. It’s the smaller facilities now that are going to be even more attractive than the larger ones in response to the COVID events.

If you’re looking for things to invest in there, the Atlanta market, I would say there are a lot of development opportunities still. There’s some infrastructure development need within certain parts of Atlanta. We had something called the BeltLine, which if people don’t understand Atlanta market came in and it changed the face of our city considerably in a beautiful way, but there are some challenged parts of the BeltLine where there isn’t any infrastructure support. I do mean ironically, some of that retail restaurant type of scenario, shopping, and so forth. What comes around that are things like gas stations, apartments, townhomes, and things like that. People should be paying attention to those opportunities and where they are.

You’ve got to be finding a spot that’s flexible is the biggest thing. We’ve got the death of the mall. The big-box stores, those getting converted to something, self-storage, logical working spaces, it got to be a flexible space and be able to pivot when things are going there, where you can see a glutton of those things like we’ve seen in the past.

I love that you said flex. It’s the same thing. If you can have multi work views, storage, retail, all-in-one. That’s going to have some strength and some power, but I do caution everybody in that course that retail restaurant side of things. If you’re going to have dedicated space within your flex space for that, you may still have a challenge finding a good platinum tenant. I want to make sure that they are.

You can look at some of the bigger platinum tenants in the bigger staples for your smaller strip malls like Subway, 20,000 locations are not paying rent immediately overnight. The pizza places and stuff like that. The bigger operators, they’re going to figure out a way. They buy and stuff. They’ve got money cheap enough that they can go through it. You’re going to see a lot of stuff, obviously, in the smaller operators, the mom-and-pop commercial owners that don’t have the resources like we talked about before similar to the residential side, but being able to come in. That’s why I love about the debt space is being able to come in and buy that debt at a discount, but then working to create some flexible solution for the owner-operators.

We had 49 IHOPs brought to us in bankruptcy. The guy just walked away. He was like, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m done.” As soon as COVID started. These were not unhealthy IHOPs on their financial statements. He didn’t want to have to even deal with trying to figure out how to balance all the cost and expense that he knew was coming in response to the COVID challenge. Even though he’d have qualified for a sizable PPP stimulus. It’s the smaller stuff, you’re right. If anybody that’s watching the financial markets, a lot of the retailers on the retail spectrum, some of the ones on the bottom, they’ve already declared, they’re done bankrupt, and so forth.

 

On a daily basis, I hear of an individual restaurant, mom-and-pop operator that are saying, “I’m done. We’re close.” In fact, I went and hung out at one of my local pubs. They tried. It is what it is. From a macro statement, everybody, make sure that you’re doing your research and being well-educated on what’s coming and what’s happening around an area. If you’re going to do any commercial type of investment, you’ve got to be on the pulse of what’s coming in development around it? What’s the city backing? Go over and hang out with the Chamber of Commerce. Go hang out with the city development. Go to the town hall meetings. Go and find out these things. Go and shake hands with your politicians. Go and understand what’s happening and coming, because that will affect. That type of investing is not short-term. It’s a longer-term deal. You want to be very well-aware of what’s coming.

You’ve got to plant the seeds, you’ve got to see what’s going on, talking to the people surrounding you. It’s not like, “I’m going to do this one thing.” Real estate investing is a long-term play. It’s not a get-rich-quick aspect of things, even though the show just likes to say, “I’m a gamer and I’m an Airbnb or Uber driver and I can afford $3 million. We’re going to flip this for $5,000 and make $1 million.”

In regards, to making a lot of money off me, I’m just saying.

We’ll take us back here. We know you’ve got Steve and Dennis for eighteen years, so you got started when you were three. If you think back, what was one of your biggest lessons along the way as an investor for you in the last couple of years? What’s one of the biggest things that when you think about it, it stands out the most which is teaching you something more or something that changed the way you approach real estate?

I am broad across a lot of niches. I work as a coach as well. The majority of my career, I’m a high-level coach. I don’t advertise it so it’s a purely referral type of scenario and I work with a lot of people with different types of businesses. I learn a lot doing that too. As soon as I learn them, I’m more from them than I am from myself. Personally, two huge lessons. I know these are not going to blow anybody’s minds as being original and new, but I believe in how powerful they were for me, they still are. One is that you have to find someone to work with as a mentor or coach in whatever niche you’re going after and at whatever level you’re playing at.

Let me explain. I have multiple coaches. I invest in coaches. When COVID started, I hired a coach immediately specific to the needs. I knew I was getting ready to face in order to lead all the different teams that I do. If you haven’t sought someone out that’s going to do that for you that you’ve decided clearly and committed to go next then that will be it. For me, those were always the game-changing, where I would have those massive growth changes in my business. It’s where I applied having an awesome mentor or coach. The second thing is to check your ego. Where I’ve ever made a mistake that costs me, it was where I allowed my ego to make a decision.

Ego doesn’t mean big-headed. Ego is also things like being shame or guilt. That’s still your ego speaking. There’s a great book called Ego is the Enemy. If somebody has read that, it can change your life. Honestly, if I ever made a decision that lost me something, it’s because I made it impulsively or I made an assumption because I have my experience therefore, I knew. as I get older and more and more mature, I check myself more than I ever have before as to, “Why am I making this decision? Where is it coming from?” That’s my two biggest takeaway things. I know I’m not going to do it strategic real estate investing, but that’s going to come into play on everything you do.

Ego could be a strangler when it comes to success. We’ve all struggled with it. As entrepreneurs, we’re all control freak and egomaniacs in some fashion and you’re right.

In a way, you have to be a little bit. To play at our level, you’ve got to have a little bit of that crazy. The guy that wants to work the same job for 40 years doesn’t have. There’s a different, you are different when you’re an entrepreneur. You have something in you that’s a driver that’s willing to put yourself out there, to take this big risk, to go after something. That does require a little bit of crazy. You’ve got to make sure that you check that little guy and measure how is that driving your decisions? You’ll thank yourself so much later, you won’t end up doing something you don’t love because of it. A lot of people who make big decisions based of calling us, “I heard this, I’m going to go be great at it.” They’re miserable ten years later because it wasn’t what they wanted to do. Do that commitment for yourself. Check it.

I love what you said, finding a coach, somebody you can talk to, somebody that you can share, somebody who’s been where you want to go, or is where you’re at. That’s the biggest thing. Many people hire coaches that they’re not where they’re going to need to be in the long run.

That’s part of it too. Vetted that this is a person that’s going to take you where you want to go, and this is all areas of life. If you want to go be a bikini competitor, then you need to hire a coach that’s trained other bikini competitors and/or been one themselves. Whatever that is, you want to be the best hot dog eating champion. You find the guy that’s won every award for hot dog eatings and be that guy. I don’t care what area it is. I say that not lightly. If you’re worried about your health, you hire the best nutrition coach. If you want to seek that out, don’t let your ego tell you that you don’t need it, instead find it, and then let your ego allow you to receive what that coach tells you. By the way, a good coach is not nice. They’re not there to be your friends. They’re like as a parent. I’m not my kid’s friend. I love them. I’m there to be their parent. Sometimes I’m going to make them do something they don’t want to do or don’t want to hear. That’s a big part of good coaching. Good coaching will help you hear things you might not want to hear. That’s why you’ve hired the coach.

You don’t want somebody just blowing smoke up your skirt or up your shorts. You want somebody who’s going to sit there. Back to the college coaches, when a college coach stops yelling at you, you had to worry about things and then they stopped caring for the most part.

That’s true in relationships too. When someone goes silent, they’re done. Listen when they’re not, because if they care about you then what they’re saying is important. If you’ve vetted them out and you know that they’re of that high-value position to help you, then don’t refuse to acknowledge the support they’re giving you. We do it on a lower scale with REVA. A lot of what we do is business owners call us and they’re like, “I know I need to outsource, but I have no idea how, where, what to do, or where to start.” We have to ask those tough coaching level questions with them. Sometimes they don’t want to hear the questions because they have to face the fact that they should be doing something differently. It’s hard. Being a business owner is hard. Being disciplined is hard. Discipline requires oftentimes being outside of your comfort zone. What we’re talking about here that’s what all that is. Reach out, listen, get that support that you need. If you can’t do a coach, do an accountability group, but even then, make sure that members of that group are at the level that where you’re trying to go.

Amy, what’s one of the things that you like to do to recharge your batteries? You’re constantly going and managing teams, working with a variety of things. As entrepreneurs are easy about burning the candle at both ends. What’s the thing that you love to do that you recharge or you get away? What’s the thing that you love to help you get that in a good mindset? We’ve all got to take a break from time-to-time.

The little postal moments do happen. My team knows. I’m known for having a roar. God did not bless me with a beautiful sweet button. I don’t have a sugar-coating button. As far as recharging the battery. Personally, and as to share with everyone, find whatever that is. For me, it’s two things. I’m a trail runner. I like to go out and hit the trails. I oftentimes will do that because I can’t be on my phone and do that. If you’re not focused on the trail, you’ll end up injuring yourself. It’s a cathartic process because I have to focus. If anybody that’s into hypnosis or anything like that, I do a lot with NLP.

We work in that world. Trail running is my hypnotic moment where I’m able to close everything else out and laser-focus on one thing, which teaches you how to laser-focus on one thing. As entrepreneurs, we’ve got shiny pennies and squirrels going on and everything. We’re always being reactionary and it’s exhausting. If you can train your brain to get laser-focused and you’ll also be able to do that when you’re in a situation with lots of stuff going on around you. I have three beautiful children, so we’re, “Let’s go kayaking and paddle boarding.” We’re usually at the lake as often as humanly possible hitting the water. Everybody knows that about me if you follow me on social media.

Where you can get to that, you’ve got to focus on something versus what’s going on in the chaotic world wall behind us. Any way you can turn this off and unplug is one of the most important things these days.

 

Everybody do something, find whatever that is. I could sit here and say yes. I also read incessantly. I spent every day, no less than an hour per day on personal growth. I do meditate every day or I do what I call my intention setting time. I have a moment where I get quiet and remind myself of my intention so I can guide my day. There are a lot of things that I could sit here and list, “These are the great things to do.” For whatever it is, whoever is reading, pick something and then start making it a discipline until it becomes a habit and allow that to make you stronger. That muscle appears stronger underneath the work of what we do. You’re counting on that thing to be strong. If you wear it out, your whole business can go down the drain.

What’s the best way for our audience to reach out to you or to work with you, Amy? Do you have a specific client that you’d like to work with or people that you like to coach or mentor? Do you have somebody that’s an ideal client aspect of that too?

My ideal client is coachable and has determined what they want. If you have that very clear, then I may or may not be the right fit, but let’s talk. If you’re needing to get a virtual assistant in place and two people that will get ahold of me. If you’re also interested in working with us in the Atlanta market, I have a massive team here in Atlanta. We are a true powerhouse. We are the most unique brokerage that exists. I get told this all the time by my colleagues I admire. They’re always like, “We are?” If you want to work with a great group in Atlanta, the same way to contact me, go through my REVA Global connection. You can go to Amy@REVAGlobal.com or go to ThinkREVA.com, go ahead and schedule a strategy session when it comes to getting a VA in place.

Readers, Amy and her team are a Powerhouse of not a better perfect name to identify and classify what she does and her team does, not only for their clients, their investors, and a whole variety of people that they’re helping out there. Take the opportunity and reach out to her, it’s Amy@REVAGlobal.com. Amy, thank you so much for coming on the show sharing your insight, your guidance, your counsel on the market, and what’s going on and advice for other investors out there.

Thank you so much for having me. Truly, it’s an honor. I’m very glad to be here.

That’s going to wrap it up for this episode. Go out, do what Amy was mentioning, find a real estate niche that identifies with your passions, long-term goals and then find a coach. Go and find someone that can help you get there, who aligns with where you want to go. You don’t need another friend, you need somebody who’s not going to pull the punches, not going to blow smoke and then take the action and give it time for your investment to put roots in to grow. You’ll be a lot happier in the long run versus bouncing and bouncing like Tigger does all over the place. Go out, take some action. We’ll see you all at the top.

Important Links:

• Amy Ransdell
• Bob Lachance – previous episode
• Ego is the Enemy
• Amy@REVAGlobal.com
• ThinkReva.com
• REVAGlobal.net/

About Amy Ransdell

Actively running an investment team and brokerage sales team in Marietta, Georgia, Amy has been buying, renovating, and wholesaling homes for over 18 years. During that time Amy has run real estate national blogs, some of the most exclusive real estate events, coaching programs, and online content funnels. Heavily experienced in marketing & lead generation, short sales, turn-key investments, and extensive renovations, her team assists investors nationally and internationally. She is the CMO for virtual assistant provider www.REVAGlobal.com and lead generation company Deal-Dialers™ as well as the founder of the AtlantaCRC, Powerhouse Real Estate, and founding partner of LevelUp Atlanta and The Social Media Success Academy™. While working as a real estate investment coach for an Inc-500 top program for over 9 years she realized her deepest passion is to empower people to grow their investment skills and entrepreneurial fortitude. Amy Ransdell is an active real estate investor, real estate investment coach, investment strategist, licensed real estate broker, brokerage owner, speaker, and marketing lead for multiple companies.

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