Michael Moulton is the founding member and has been real estate investing in the greater Charlotte NC area since 1998. He and his team has bought and sold hundreds of properties.
Michael T. Moulton
Broker-In-Charge/Realtor
Bee Home Solutions, Inc.
The Creative Realty Firm.
Phone: 704-885-0488
Fax: 704-200-2805
Visit us on the web: www.BeeHomeSolutions.com
Mike Moulton has been a full-time real estate investor in the Charlotte, NC market since 2005 when he officially “fired” his manager at GE and launched his real estate brokerage and investment companies. Utilizing his 6 sigma and IT background, Mike has built systems in place to run the various businesses. His team maximizes a range of strategies: fix and flips, new construction, rentals, airbnb’s, wholesaling, brokerage and commercial adaptive reuse projects.
Mike owns a Charlotte based real estate brokerage called Bee Home Solutions, Inc. which is the brokerage arm and dispositions platform to a number of investment companies he owns. He acquires properties through his buying brand 866FairOffer.com and utilizes multiple platforms for acquisitions. If you are looking for off-market properties in the Greater Charlotte market, be sure to sign up to receive deals at doubleyourclosings.com.
Carolina Capital is a hard money lender serving the needs of the “Real Estate Investor” and the "Small Builder" borrower who is striving to build wealth and generate income for themselves and their families. We offer “hard money rehab loans” and "Ground up Construction Loans" for investors only in NC, SC, GA, VA and TN (some areas of FL, as well). As part of our business practices, we also serve as consultants for investors guiding them to network with other investors and educating them in locating and structuring transactions. Rarely, if ever, will you find a hard money lender willing to invest in your success like Carolina Capital Management.
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Bill Fairman (00:07):
Good afternoon, everyone! Thank you so much for joining us for our Passive Income, Active Wealth show. I am Bill Fairman. This is Wendy Sweet and that is Jonathan Davis and I’m not pointing them to him and you can figure out who’s who. We are Carolina Capital Management. We are a lender and we land in the Southeast. If you are a borrower interested in borrowing.
Jonathan Davis (00:32):
Money.
Bill Fairman (00:34):
Go to our website, CarolinaHardMoney.com. Click on the apply now button. If you’re a passive investor, looking for active wealth returns, then click on the investor tab.
Jonathan Davis (00:45):
Nice, nicely done.
Bill Fairman (00:46):
Thank you.
Wendy Sweet (00:47):
You’ve only said that once or 200 times and he still mess up
Bill Fairman (00:49):
Don’t forget to like subscribe, share, hit the bell. That’s in my nature, to mess up.
Wendy Sweet (00:57):
Sorry.
Bill Fairman (00:58):
By the way, we do have a question section. It’s either going to be on the right or underneath, depending on the platform you’re viewing from. So you can ask questions, make very nice comments.
Wendy Sweet (01:13):
Don’t don’t give us anything bad. We can’t handle that live.
Bill Fairman (01:18):
That’s right. So this is the second hour. If you miss the last hour, it will record and you’ll be able to watch it on whatever platform that you have.
Wendy Sweet (01:25):
Watch and tell all your friends about it, that’s right.
Bill Fairman (01:28):
It was our Ask an Ugly Questions segment. It was awesome. Only two ugly questions. We had pretty answers.
Wendy Sweet (01:36):
We’ve been getting a lot of really good response off of those two. I’m thrilled at how it’s really grown and it’s becoming more and more interactive, which I really liked, but.
Jonathan Davis (01:48):
We want that. We want you all to ask questions, you know, have a conversation about it. More ugly questions can be discovered that way.
Wendy Sweet (01:56):
And we ain’t scared, ask us.
Jonathan Davis (01:58):
And Bill can give us beautiful answers.
Bill Fairman (02:01):
Mainly, we want you to ask questions because we’re tired of just bloviating for an hour.
Wendy Sweet (02:06):
Speak for yourself. We liked to bloviate but you can’t spell that.
Bill Fairman (02:10):
By the way, we have a great show for you today. Afternoon show for you today. This is really funny, our guests, Michael Moulton, we will introduce him here shortly.
Wendy Sweet (02:27):
He’s a neighbor.
Bill Fairman (02:27):
It’s so funny. We talk about collective genius in the show all the time and Michael works in our same MSA and we never see him until we go to Click to Genius meet and we’ve been saying this for years, you know, we need to do something together. I think it’s finally gonna happen.
Wendy Sweet (02:48):
That’s right. That’s right.
Bill Fairman (02:50):
So without further ado,
Wendy Sweet (02:53):
Ado, ado!
Bill Fairman (02:53):
Michael, thank you so much for joining us.
Michael Moulton (02:56):
Hey guys, thanks for having me on.
Bill Fairman (03:00):
Michael, you’re a contractor, correct?
Michael Moulton (03:03):
I am not. I just play one on TV. Everyone thinks I am. I am not. I actually, I know a lot about construction. We do a lot of projects, but we generally outsourced that piece of it.
Bill Fairman (03:18):
So, the name of, your you’re a realtor?
Michael Moulton (03:22):
Yeah, I have it. So the way I’m made up,
Bill Fairman (03:25):
You don’t have to be disappointed about being a realtor.
Michael Moulton (03:30):
I kinda, you know, I view it like this, this utility knife. It’s like one more tool on the belt, right? One more way to monetize something we’re in on it but I do own a brokerage called Bee Home Solutions in the Charlotte area. We don’t do a lot of retail stuff. That’s not ours. We work off referral. I have a couple of weeks or three agents and we just basically use it to do dispositions on all of our stuff, whether it’s wholesaling fix and flip new builds or whatnot and then we also get quite a bit of just referrals. You know, when you’ve got a property, as you guys know, it’s what we refer to it as bait, right? Once it hits the internet, people are looking for stuff. So we recently just started, putting wholesale deals on our website to probably about six, eight months ago and prior to that, we would actually take down almost everything that we would work on, meaning we would fix and flip it ourselves or build it and now we’re doing some online TV marketing through our other brand 8664 offer. That’s our acquisition brand. So with that, we’re getting a lot more leads. So we’re able to provide deals and other guys and gals in the areas.
Bill Fairman (04:49):
Well, that has turned into recently a great way to wholesale is do hotel stuff.
Michael Moulton (04:59):
Yes.
Bill Fairman (04:59):
The prices are going up in the areas that, you know, people want to be in. They’re more and more willing to move into something that they can get into and then do work on it as, you know, as needed or, you know, while they’re in it and get them to get it at a lower price or more affordable for them, right?
Michael Moulton (05:21):
Yeah, that’s exactly right. A lot of times it is, we talked about this all the time at Collective Genius. We’re talking about, you know, the highest paying people are the discount or the retail market. So if you could get on the MLS and get it so someone can close a conventional loan on it, that’s definitely going to be your highest, probably sale price, you know, a lot of the professional home buyers, like all of us, you know, they’re good to have in your database as well but sometimes, you know, everyone wants to buy these calculations, you know, the, whatever it is now, 70% of ARV minus repairs or whatnot so it makes it harder just to get deals wholesale to people. But yes, if you can just close on it and throw it on the MLS and put handyman special and all that verbiage that goes with it, there’s a lot of agents out there that have a lot of buyers looking for stuff because they’re all watching HGTV every night and getting excited.
Bill Fairman (06:24):
And if, well, if there’s a way to make sure that it doesn’t change hands, and that’s the great thing about wholesaling. They’re eligible for FHA financing, which has a rehab loan available for people that are going to occupied. Awesome opportunities for people to get into the properties.
Wendy Sweet (06:49):
It just takes longer to get those closed on your end. You know, you’re going to wait a little longer on your money, but, you know, depending on the amount of money, you know, it’s certainly worth that.
Michael Moulton (07:00):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I agree. And you know, like running, running a high marketing channel and we’re not anywhere near a lot of the guys that we all hang out with as far as marketing spend per month, but, you know, you have to be able to monetize in other ways. So we’re, you know, being able to list things on the MLS, just for like being able to do brokerage services, we have our other company, which has the home solutions we can refer to so that is where. We actually did quite a bit of training on that this week we’re doing, we’re doing more of that now, so that we can increase our TV spend as we, you know, in the election is getting out, like, I don’t know if it’s actually over, we don’t know, but at least [Inaudible] I’ve heard another Tom Tilly said I was going to jump out my window, but it’s just kind of funny because now I think the like, the TV ad spend is back to normal before everything was manipulated by all the political spend nd we watched our leads coming down for the last two months with TV ad. So it’s just interesting kind of seeing how it plays. It’s all starting to work its way back up again.
Wendy Sweet (08:15):
Yeah. I even found that in the radio too. I mean, well, I like talk radio and I listen to it every time I get in the car, but I had to turn it off. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Michael Moulton (08:24):
I know. I know it’s crazy.
Bill Fairman (08:28):
We’ll just be glad you don’t live in Georgia in there for a while either. So tell me how you got started in this business in the first place.
Michael Moulton (08:38):
Okay. You guys are gonna laugh, but you’ve probably heard this before. I was, literally. So I was a corporate boot prior to this, like proud of it, you know, worked for GE general electric had a good job, was in a leadership, an IT leadership. They had me right out of college, traveling around the globe a little bit, which was cool, six months assignments at the time. I was doing that and I was going up in the company fairly quickly and well, but I just, my stomach was not there for it. I just did not like building someone else’s dream. So I basically, at that point started getting into creative real estate and it’s really funny because I saw a Russ Whitney ad and at like one in the morning, just like everybody else that are Carleton sheets, but mine was Russ Whitney. So I went, I bought. You guys are cracking up on this. So I bought their a four part program. I went to one of their info sessions on a Saturday and bought their four-part program. It was pretty expensive. It’s like 5,000 bucks a class. I think it’s between that bucks. I went to the first class in Greensboro, I think it was. I brought my wife, Jean with me. I’m like, we didn’t have kids at the time so I’m like, let’s go for the weekend up there and so this one woman teaching the wholesale class says, you know, there’s this local thing in all your areas called a REIA and I’m like, REIA? So I immediately came home and I joined like the metro road REIA. This was probably like 20 years ago. I’m doubting myself. So I go into an REIA and who’s the head of the REIA But Larry Guns it’s really funny. I’m like, I think Wendy, I met you back then and we talked about some loans or whatever, and it was really funny. So I immediately dusted off my, you know, there was a speaker there. I think it was even like, I’ll remember it. What’s the note like ?Donna, Donna Bower?
Wendy Sweet (10:42):
Donna Bower.
Michael Moulton (10:46):
[Inaudible] I saw her at an event last last year. It was funny. So I’m like, she’s like, you can buy my stuff for like 199 and I’m like, what the heck Russ Whitney doing over here at five grand. This is like, 199. So I researched it a little more and very Russ Whitney course, I had three more left, comes with like a title to it, like a car so you can sell. So I immediately got on eBay and I sold the other three classes, which were like short sales and landlording or whatever that some guy out of New Jersey for 15 grand. He paid me retail for it and I was like, I’m hoot! Then I just started doing a lot of a lease option deals. This was like, I was doing a little bit of fix and flipping, but we were doing, we were taking over loans subject too, and then some of them on lease options and then I ended up firing my manager. I’m like, I’m having too much fun with this. So 2005, I went full-time and then, you know, we did that. I did that for like two years and then the market hit and I’m like, Oh my gosh. So I like to explain it to everyone. It’s kind of like having, like, when you have a bunch of rentals, it’s like having a bunch of kids and every month, like someone needs braces or [inaudible]
Bill Fairman (12:03):
Yeah.
Michael Moulton (12:06):
I started getting these calls and I think I had like 10 at the time and I get these calls from these subject to buyers, or, sorry, these lease option buyer tenants that were in like, a lot of my stuff was in 28269, 28262, like the university area and they were like, Oh, Mike can we meet you at Dunkin donuts? I’m like, sure. I’m like, so I meet these people and they’re like, listen, and these people were working for like Tia Cref, Ingersoll, Rand, like good companies and they’re like, I hate to tell you this, but I’m not going to be able to pay you. Like, I’m like, all right, well, when are you gonna be able to pay me? They’re like, like never, I’m just telling you, like I got fired. I’m going to protect my family cause that’s what I need to do. You’re going to have to file a fiction. I’m going to stay in here until the last second and they’re like, we’re just telling you to your face. We’re going to screw you up. Come out of that. I’m like, Holy cow, I wasn’t even like a bourbon drinker at the time, but I think I would have been. Next thing you know, I get back to my office and I get a call from another one that I can meet you at, like whatever, Starbucks. I’m like, sure. Same thing. I had like six of these in two weeks and then on the other ones, they eventually just screwed me without even telling me. So I’m like, all right, well, so that was a learning in itself and I didn’t know what I know now back then, I mean, I was cutting my teeth and we still are in certain things. So anyway, that it’s a long story, but that’s how I got started.
Wendy Sweet (13:33):
Wow. Well at least you got the option money out of them if they were on a lease purchase. So that’s a good thing. You don’t have any of those properties?
Michael Moulton (13:43):
I do. I do. I have a few of them that are just rentals. Now they’re just total rentals and I guess, you know, lease options are still, they’re not technically illegal in North Carolina, but I guess you have to have a hearing. Marshall was actually telling me that it was fine. Like you just have to get it drawn up by an attorney, but it’s [inaudible] so yeah. There’s other ways to put the paperwork together, I guess.
Wendy Sweet (14:08):
That’s awesome.
Bill Fairman (14:09):
So are those properties worth a little bit more than you paid for them?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yes. They are worth like two to three times, like Highland Creek type properties. I tell you what, you know, I’ve been through the whole gamut of real estate techniques and for me now we really, you know, and this was another learning for people is Russ Whitney, that first class, they were teaching everyone to become a transaction engineer, like every lead comes in should be monetized, don’t waste anything and they’re like, you should go be a landlord, be a fix and flip guy, be a wholesaler, it’d be whatever. So we’re all like, I’m a newbie, like totally stressed out. Like, how am I going to do this? And you’re wasting all your time on stuff that you can’t then I realized I really just needed to focus. So I focused on the subject twos and then when that kind of was going bad, I went into short sales, like quick turn, short sales through the bad market. But then I hopped back on the fix and flip horse and like 2012 and just focus really hard on that and made a ton of money doing that one thing. So then now that I have all that experience, now is the time to introduce the transactional engineering piece of it, like you still want to focused, but now this, so we’re wholesaling some stuff now that doesn’t fit our buy box or whatnot to help monetize the rest of the business. We’re still doing rentals. Tat’s a super, super cool commercial adaptive reuse project over in Wesley Heights and doing with another one under contract. So we’re, I’m basically just setting up my business to be a tad, more automated on the active side so that I can take all that and put it into passive assets
Wendy Sweet (15:54):
That’s awesome. You know, I love everything you’re saying here, you’re you, you know, you talked about moving from one focus to another and I think that’s really the key to being successful in this business is you have to be open-minded and you have to keep your eyes open to see what’s coming down the pike so that you can switch to what’s more successful for you. Transaction engineer that you’re referring to because that’s really, and there’s a question. What is transactional engineering? Go ahead and explain that.
Michael Moulton (16:33):
Yeah, so that’s basically, you know, say you’ve got a hundred leads that come in. You’re able to literally just these out into different focus areas or strategies. So you’re like these five are wholesaling. I can look at this lead and say, perfect example. A guy comes in and says, Hey, I have a 200 K home. I owe one 90 on it. As a transactional engineer, you’re going to say I can’t wholesale. It there’s not enough spread. I can’t fix and flip it either because of the same reasons. The guy’s not behind on his payments. So there’s not really a short-sale opportunity. So the only thing I could really do is ask him, what’s his financing look like? Maybe he got a 3.8% loan 15 years ago. Well, I wouldn’t be 15 with only 10 grand a difference, but meaning like sometimes the payment might be a 900 a month in that area rents for 1600 a month. So you start applying different rules and say, listen, I can take over your payment cause you have, you know, it’d be really zero cost to me to close the thing and then just go ahead and put that lease option tenant or a normal tenant in and make the spread. So maybe, it’s the long-term game with a good fixed loan and you make the spread. So it’s really just entering the actual engineer is just really being able to take any situation and understand how to disposition it, really.
Wendy Sweet (18:07):
Awesome. You know, the other thing too, I think that that plays a key role in that is having a good network like you have, because there are going to be deals that come across your desk or computer that you don’t have an answer for that when it’s not going to work in anything that you can do, but you know, somebody you can send it to.
Michael Moulton (18:29):
Yeah, that’s exactly right, Wendy. And that’s what we’ve been doing in the past six months, as you guys said, you haven’t seen me anywhere. It’s funny. I’ve been kind of since my early days in the REIAs, I haven’t been back to a REIA since, I mean, it’s been gosh, 12, 14 years and it’s nothing against REIAs. I think they’re great. And I think meetups are awesome. I just, I don’t know. I always tend to kind of roll on entrepreneurial Island. Like I get up every day, we get the kids to school then like we’re working on deals and working with my team and then I’m like the day’s over and I didn’t network locally with anybody but now we’ve built up a great buyers list and we continue to, so that’s where, we actually have a website here in Charlotte, if it’s okay. I can plug it. If you go to DoubleYourClosings.com, that’s just a redirect or be home solutions. We have a page to sign up for our investor deals so, and it’s not like you’re going to get signed up and spanned on the list. You can select the zip codes you want and we’ll contact you and we get stuff from those zip codes. Yeah. Thanks, Scott. Very good,
Wendy Sweet (19:40):
I’m writing it down too because, you know, I always loved turning people onto wholesalers because especially the newer investors that they don’t know how to find properties. They need somebody that can find deals for them.
Michael Moulton (19:54):
Yeah. And you know, we talked about this at a collective genius as a group. I think those of us that are willing to help somebody figure out how to do the deal. Like if I can say, Hey, go to, Carolina Capital and get the funding and maybe we can, this is what Bill and Eric were working in the workup last time we were in Florida and we failed to connect, but we will, just so I’m going to you guys and say, Hey, you know, these guys have already approved it. There’s a loan in place so we could send out the deal with your, your funding attached and then being able to say, if they’re like, Hey, I’m going to need a GC to do this, or I’m going to need a target and do that. We’re, 100% will help them be successful in that, because then they’re going to want to do more deals. So
Wendy Sweet (20:44):
Absolutely. And if bill doesn’t follow up on that, I will.
Michael Moulton (20:49):
Yeah. I think honestly, my email went to a spam folder or something. That’s fine.
Bill Fairman (20:55):
Yeah, we had to connect on our Facebook messenger because for some reason the email got lost in cyberspace for some reason. This is what I love about the real estate space is that number one, it teaches you to be very flexible and you take what the market gives you and you’re doing that with your, with your lead generation. You’re getting the leads in, and then you’re doing deals based on what the market is throwing at you. If you can’t monetize it through your business, then you can always pass it off to somebody who may be able to, and vice versa, that person will end up sending you stuff that they know you can do that they can’t and it works out great by the way, in this last show that we did, earlier today, we were talking about diversifying your revenue streams and you’re sounds like you’re doing a great job of that.
Michael Moulton (22:00):
Oh yeah. Yeah. That’s good. You know, it’s interesting, you know, like, I like to buy Roach stout, single wides on lots. There’s a lot of people that don’t like to do that, you know, so everybody,
Wendy Sweet (22:12):
[Inaudible]
Michael Moulton (22:13):
Yeah. Everyone’s buy box is completely different. So I think what you said earlier, Bill, just knowing who, and what they want to do to or what they like to get cause so if I could make this point as a, I guess some becoming a veteran, I’m dating myself again, and always learning, always learning. But the, you know, you can fix and flip it or wholesale and make a big stack of cash and buy everything you need in life, which is cool but I will agree that rentals or some sort of, or loans, something that’s more passive is really, especially if you’re talking about rental properties over time, like you said, Bill, like this, that house I bought subject to in 2006 and having freak is now worth like twice what I paid for it, right? So I think it’s a good mix. I don’t think there’s really, I don’t think you want to have all of one thing. I really don’t, especially if the market shifts, but adding that flexibility back in is really the key, I think.
Bill Fairman (23:18):
Well, we are prejudice because we’re lenders, but we like that long-term passive to be on the note side of things.
Michael Moulton (23:25):
Sure.
Bill Fairman (23:26):
So we can control the asset without being responsible for it and still get that passive cashflow. You don’t get any of the tax write offs that you get with owning the property.
Jonathan Davis (23:42):
Or the appreciation.
Bill Fairman (23:43):
Or the appreciation. But, you know, each method has its pros and cons and in our particular case, we’re always talking about return on effort and little effort in it as possible.
Michael Moulton (24:02):
I know we work our butts off. We do, like I tell everybody this all the time, I was talking to one of my private lenders yesterday. I said, you know, if I retired today, I’d still want to build stuff. Like I love building stuff. I don’t know what it is. Like I could show you one side of my window here. I’m building a pool cabana, just cause I like to do that when I’m not building stuff Monday through Friday, no Jeep projects, that little truck projects, I just love building stuff. So I think even when I retire, I’ll still have my finger in it a little bit doing something, but maybe, maybe my son’s [Inaudible]. Maybe they’ll take it over if they’re competent enough, which we’re training them to be, so,
Wendy Sweet (24:44):
Another thing too is you, you do work really hard when you’re in this world. But the difference is you also have that sense of freedom. I mean, you talked about you’re, working from home. You get to drop your kids off at school. You probably are the one that gets to pick them up when they have baseball, football games, whatever it is that they’re doing, you get to be a family.
Michael Moulton (25:09):
Yeah, we do. We do. It’s fun. You know, when you’re putting in a hundred percent of the effort and getting a hundred percent of the return,. not like when I was a GE guy, I put in a hundred percent of the effort and they promote me, but it’s like, we’ve worked on projects for two years and they cancel them last minute because the leadership changed and they’re like, it’s not a priority anymore. That is so not rewarding at all. Screw that
Wendy Sweet (25:35):
That is frustrating. Plus your kids get to know number one, what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. That sense of freedom that you get and they get to see what you’re doing. I mean, they get an opportunity to learn, you know, is it something that they would be interested in
Michael Moulton (25:49):
Yeah, exactly. They’ve seen it. We’ll bring them over to properties and you know and send them. If anyone’s gotten a little or kids like ours, are you as well, but there’s this green light app and it’s a debit card and it’s cool because I can assign them. We live on 14 acres now. So we have like all sorts of stuff to do around here, but I can assign them tasks and they can accept or decline or try to renegotiate their chores on this app and then they get it done, they can like send it for approval. So my wife and I are constantly busting their chops, like watch one of my cars yesterday and I’m like, I go down, like, you didn’t even do the front rims. Like you’re not getting paid. This is the hard [Inaudible] I’m like no excuses, you know? So we have fun with like putting the kids to work and teaching them some
Wendy Sweet (26:45):
That is really awesome. What is the name of that app?
Wendy Sweet (26:47):
GreenLight.com.
Jonathan Davis (26:49):
I know I already wrote it down.
Wendy Sweet (26:49):
You wrote it down?
Jonathan Davis (26:52):
Oh, yeah.
Bill Fairman (26:52):
You know, speaking of 14 acres, we had a conversation about when you were building out there.
Michael Moulton (26:59):
Yes.
Bill Fairman (26:59):
Can you tell the folks, the investment that you personally had to make in getting internet to your house.
Michael Moulton (27:07):
Oh my gosh. This was insane. I won’t mention anyone’s name, but this company rhymes with rectum. Yeah. Sorry if it’s something inappropriate for Carolina Capital show. You see Scott putting it along the bottom
Wendy Sweet (27:31):
Don’t use rectum
Michael Moulton (27:34):
Spectrum. So everybody out here was like, and I live in Concord, like literally near Davidson, like not that far. And it’s just funny when everyone was on the Windstream on the street, I’m like, we’re at the end of the street. And I’m just like, I can’t hear that like 9,600 hour sound when I like, try to check my email. It’s like dialing in [inaudible]. So anyway, we checked in spectrum and I built, I had built my parents. I have someone’s property as well and they’re closer to the street. So I finally talked spectrum into, they wanted $23,000 to bring internet to their house and I built, like I took all the spare wood when we were building framing the two houses and I had our team build like a Gatehouse to our house. So that’s actually first on the property. So we, I got spectrum to bring it to my parents. And then my dad, we love equipment. We’re like total men geeks out here. So my dad’s 84, he’s got an excavator, mini excavator with the bucket. So he and I have a track loader. So he does a trench from his house up to our Gatehouse and we basically, then we dug it all the way through the woods to my house. So we ran, I got a spectrum guy to kind of agree that we could do whatever with the signal once it hits our property, as long as we’re willing to maintain. So short story long, we basically ran about a thousand feet of fiber optic and then I was talking to a guy that wires, buffalo wild wings, and there’s these things called immediate converters and they go on like the broadband and then they convert into fiber. So he had a bunch of them from buffalo, wild wings so he gave me those. So we converted everything to a fiber network so I’m actually right now on my parents’ internet. So I don’t have internet. So like I just paid to have it brought to the property. So the day, this took like nine months, then the day we’re about to execute on the property on the project, we had engineers come out from spectrum. They upgraded their IT system and totally lost any information or history on our project. I’m like, I’m still not surprised by this. So anyway, I got that 23 grand down a 3,100 bucks.
Wendy Sweet (29:56):
That is incredible.
Michael Moulton (29:58):
Yeah. So now all the other people on my street are tapping into it and I’m wanting to call spectrum, like, shouldn’t I get like a rebate on this or whatever. It’s like we live in the middle of the mountains, but we’re only in Concord. Like it’s really funny.
Wendy Sweet (30:15):
That’s awesome.
Bill Fairman (30:16):
Yeah, you should be, you should get commission off of all those neighbors.
Michael Moulton (30:21):
I know, it’s crazy.
Bill Fairman (30:23):
Cause you could complain. You can say, listen, this is broadband. The more people on the train, the slower the train gets so I need to be compensated.
Michael Moulton (30:30):
Yeah. We’ve seen that. We’ve seen that and have them come back out and have to upgrade everything on the street. It’s crazy
Jonathan Davis (30:38):
That’s a good story. That’s a great story.
Bill Fairman (30:41):
It should be shared
Michael Moulton (30:45):
One little finish to that story, which is a learning for anyone that does these projects. I didn’t know this. It was super cool. So like the guy that did all the wiring in our house, like they called structured wiring, all the ethernet and all that. He told me, he goes, if you’ve got conduit like a thousand feet under the ground, you can get the stream of the string and you can make it what they call a kite out of a sandwich bag and you put it in so we put it in up by the street, into the pipe and then my dad wrapped like a t-shirt around it to give it some suction and then I came over with a wet drive back at the house. After 60 seconds, we sucked that string all the way down, over a thousand feet to the house and then just tie the fiber up to two and pulled it through.
Wendy Sweet (31:31):
That’s amazing. My husband did that at our house.
Michael Moulton (31:36):
Oh he did?
Wendy Sweet (31:36):
He used to bury cable when he was young working for electric company. So he knew how to do that and that worked out really good. I think he’s an inventor. You know, I’m still amazed that your first flip deal was a Russ Whitney course that, you know, you didn’t flip real estate, you flipped a course. And that’s just amazing to me.
Michael Moulton (32:04):
At the time. You know, we were really scraping pennies together to get this going and I was like 20 grand really hurts and then I guess when I went to the REIAs at the time, the value of the speakers, like Richard Root came in and I became friends with Richard and did all his courses and all this stuff and was used to be on his stage is like a deal. They’d have people like what’s working best. I’d be up there for probably five years and I met Richard here. So it was just kind of funny, like yeah, we find your different paths.
Wendy Sweet (32:36):
Yeah. I always tell people that, you know, listening to these gurus are so much good information out there and you know, there’s people that are really teaching great stuff and if you ever want to buy a course, check it on eBay first because you’ll find it used all day long, find people that, that may have it. That’s why it’s good to go to these groups cause there’s other people that have it that would be willing to rent it to you or share it with you and that’s really, really important, but really just getting involved in your REIAs like you did in the first place, there are some out there that you can hook up into and, there’s just, you don’t have to spend 20 grand to learn the business. I had people come to me for loans that didn’t qualify for the loans because now they were 20, 30, 40, 70,000 to the highest I heard in their courses
Michael Moulton (33:31):
I know I heard fortune builders not to drop any names cause they’re good too but they have like a 70 K course right now, I believe in paying for education and mastermind groups and all that. I believe in all that, because we have a lot of friends, all of us that are successful info marketers and coaches. But, yeah. I tell people too, I’m like, you can’t be afraid to buy a deal and fail like 10 grand, you lose whatever, you learned, you took your seminar on the streets, right? That’s what I tell people, take your seminar on the streets. You’re going to have to figure it out. If you like, I bought a warehouse in Wesley Heights, I got an idea what I’m going to do with it, but like I’ve never done it. So I’m doing an adaptive reuse just with a rezoning. Like I was forced to figure it out and I lost some money on holding costs on it, but it’s going to be awesome in the longterm. We’re going to keep it so we’ll have five industrial lofts and two commercial spaces in the front, right by this new hard seltzer in brewery that went in. so I don’t know if you just keep rocking it, you know, it’s like you can do,
Bill Fairman (34:45):
You might wanna move there.
Michael Moulton (34:45):
I know, I might too!
Wendy Sweet (34:45):
That’s awesome.
Bill Fairman (34:45):
You know, it’s a shame, people don’t look at, let me put it this way. The cost of inaction typically is more than the cost of failure when you are acting. And if you don’t do it, you’re never going to learn number one and if you don’t lose money in real estate, you’re not doing enough real estate cause you are going to lose. The key is you’re going to make more than you lose. [Inaudible].
Jonathan Davis (35:21):
Lose money.
Wendy Sweet (35:21):
Oh yeah. And I’m sure I’ll lose more. And I think another thing that’s really important to think about is don’t hide where you are. Um, if you’re losing on a deal. Your network around and other people that are in the site business, most of us have all been through it too and you know, we’re not here to judge, we’re here to help and I don’t keep it a secret when you need help, right?
Michael Moulton (35:50):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have months where where we’re, you know, strapped for cash and then we you want to wholesale more and then you have months where you got more cash and you want to deploy it and maybe fund more of your own deals or whatnot instead of bringing in financing. So, I mean, there’s totally a bunch of different ways. We generally have like a property loss a year out of out of the ones we do. I mean, we had one of the bigger ones last year, but I actually chose to, I gave our private lender more money in it and chose to take a loss for tax purposes and sometimes you do that too, but I’m always going to keep my face with anyone that’s believed in lending to me, you know? So it is what it is, but you can’t be like, Oh, I just lost 30 grand. You gotta be like, Oh, well look over here. I’ve got like another, 180 in the pipeline I could go. Maybe let’s focus there and not, let’s learn from the past, but let’s not dwell on that because that’s going to bring you down.
Wendy Sweet (36:52):
That’s right. That’s right.
Bill Fairman (36:53):
The thing about it is there are so many things that are beyond your control or you can do is minimize the stuff that are the risks that are in your control. Stuff is going to happen. That’s just the way it is. Markets change events come up that no one thought of no one has x-ray vision. When you walk into a house, you don’t know what’s in the walls. So there is risk with investing. There is you just have to do your best to minimize all the things that you can control, right?
Wendy Sweet (37:25):
Suck it up, buttercup, move forward, right.
Bill Fairman (37:27):
I do want to ask you this, uh, working, being the corporate boob that you used to be, isn’t it much nicer besides the lifestyle where you get to spend a lot of times with your family. It is a lot nicer to be able to control. You’re the one that’s in control over what you make and who you want to hang out with.
Michael Moulton (37:51):
That is correct. And I will say this because we are all friends with very high power people and we’re also friends with people I think were most recently in the past year, I’ve noticed a lot of my close friends in the real estate space nationwide. Some of them are in like the super hard charger build, build, build higher, higher people, overhead, overhead, whatever. Cause that that drives them. And then I have a whole another group of friends that are like, not for me, let’s do lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle. Like how can I just get 20 rentals or whatever to give my family 10,000 bucks a month or whatever it is and it’s funny because depending on which day I wake up kind of like on either side of it. Cause I just like building stuff, including businesses. So I’m like, let’s go there. But then I really dislike managing people. I’m just going to throw it out there. It’s just one thing I’ve always hated. You know, I create training videos for everyone. I train on, you know, my maps, Google docs, all that and then I’m just like, why don’t we just do it? I can understand why you’re not doing what I’m asking you to do. I’ve actually got a COO coming on board in like two weeks and this is going to be amazing for me because then I can just focus on money and projects awesome. In the sales team. So that’ll be good to answer your question. It’s just being able to run it however you want to run it. And, you guys know [Inaudible], right? We were out in Kentucky at a mastermind group like four years ago and he said to me, one day we were sitting in the car waiting for somebody to run into the grocery store or whatever and he’s like, you know, Mike, we were talking about 2008 and nine and he’s like, it’s okay. The next time around when it happens. Cause it will happen to just shut down, shop and study for two years, you know, you wouldn’t be here money and maybe you can just take advantage of some opportunities coming out of that. So that was very, very good wisdom that stuck with me because the last time you kind of, you’re riding, paying that staff with all your savings as it’s time and it’s just like man, I should’ve saved that savings and let everyone go and make the hard decision but you just never know where you’re having a market cycle. That’s a problem.
Wendy Sweet (40:12):
That’s right. That’s right.
Bill Fairman (40:13):
Well, you feel bad because they’re sort of like your family. Sure. At the same time, you still have to protect your own interests. It’s a substitution.
Wendy Sweet (40:21):
But I believe you get in God’s way of being able to show who he is to those people too. If you’re trying to save them, cause it’s not your responsibility to save them. You gotta protect what you have, you want to do them right but you tend to get in God’s way when you thinking, save everybody around you. I speak from experience.
Michael Moulton (40:48):
I would agree with that. We just had a team members that were a little more on the senior side and she just was having a hard time keeping up with everything we’re doing. So we kind of worked together to get her into like a role with one of our closing attorneys so that worked out well for everybody because she’s happy. She’s back to like one little scope, like calling for payout and loan payoffs and stuff like that, where we had her doing all sorts of stuff so I took that role and put it off shore and not only am I at like 25% of her salary in that role, I’ve got like a younger book that’s ready to rock and roll every day, you know? So it’s like just a change in attitude. So I think my is, if you can shoot down that woman was with me eight years so it’s like, if you’re just trying to help people. If you don’t address it, it can get very toxic. I was getting frustrated it’s stuff’s not getting debrided or forgetful things are happening and then I’m like, you know, it just, it’s frustrating
Wendy Sweet (41:54):
Yeah. That’s well said.
Bill Fairman (41:55):
Well, we’re getting here close to the end. Michael, if you, are you still taking on, private lenders? Do you have a role for them?
Michael Moulton (42:05):
I do. Absolutely.
Bill Fairman (42:05):
To give out contact information if anybody wants to get involved with any of your projects
Michael Moulton (42:15):
Yeah, sure. You can contact me of course, on any of the major like Facebook. My name’s up there, Michael Moulton. Michael@thehomesolutions.com is my email such as b, e, e, h, o, m, e, solutions.com. Yeah, it’s up there on the screen. That’s probably the best way to get in touch with me and then we can set up a call or whatnot. That’d be great.
Wendy Sweet (42:42):
Awesome.
Bill Fairman (42:42):
Okay. And then the Bee Home Solutions. If you’ve got people that are looking to buy some wholesale stuff, you add people to your buyer’s list or even individuals that want to buy as owner-occupied, right?
Michael Moulton (42:57):
Yeah. Yeah. We can help you there with that too cause we own a brokerage. So it’s DoubleYourClosings.com was that website. It’s easier to redirect store be home solution. I think it’s like forward slash investor or something like that but the Double Your Closing is easier to remember.
Bill Fairman (43:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
Wendy Sweet (43:16):
Okay. Got it. I’ve written that one down.
Bill Fairman (43:19):
Good.
Wendy Sweet (43:19):
Yeah.
Jonathan Davis (43:20):
We have Scott that it wrote it down too.
Wendy Sweet (43:24):
Oh look. DoubleYourClosings.com. That’s awesome.
Bill Fairman (43:25):
Michael, thank you so much for being our guest today.
Wendy Sweet (43:28):
You’ve been awesome.
Bill Fairman (43:28):
Great stories.
Jonathan Davis (43:31):
Yeah. Love the stories.
Bill Fairman (43:31):
And, you know, you inspire newer folks too with knowing that there’s a path to get where they might want to be as well. So thank you for sharing.
Wendy Sweet (43:40):
And I’ll never look at spectrum the same way again, it does rhyme with rectum that was very good choice.
Bill Fairman (43:50):
All we see is what happens when I see a ups truck? Cause there’s a whole story behind that too.
Bill Fairman (44:02):
What can brown do for you?
Michael Moulton (44:02):
I can say it really fast.
Wendy Sweet (44:02):
Okay. Go. That’s awesome.
Bill Fairman (44:06):
All right, folks, thank you so much for joining us on our Passive Income, Active Wealth show. If you are a borrower and you’re interested in borrowing some money, go to CarolinaHardMoney.com and click on the apply now button. If you’re a passive investor or any kind of an investor looking for passive returns, click on the, what is it? The investor tab. Good Lord. I’m losing it.
Wendy Sweet (44:33):
Aren’t you saying there’s a REIA group tonight?
Bill Fairman (44:33):
Yes I am.
Wendy Sweet (44:33):
Yeah. Metrolina REIA, if you’re going at it tonight.
Bill Fairman (44:33):
Don’t forget to like share, subscribe and hit the bell. We are Carolina Capital Management. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a great day. See you next week.
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