On today’s show, Real Estate Investing With Jay Conner, Jay is joined by Glenn and Amber Schworm.
This power couple is not only passionate about helping other people create wealth through real estate investing but they also learned to set aside their fears and pursued their goals.
They started their career in real estate out of sheer desperation. They were in $80K of credit card debt and needed to make large chunks of cash to get out from under it.
In 2007 they flipped their first house and made $17,000.
On their second flip, they profited $33,000 in 33 days.
That’s when they knew they were on to something.
They have now flipped over 600 houses and counting.
Watch this video and learn how to be successful in real estate.
Jay’s new book “Where To Get The Money Now”: www.JayConner.com/Book
Time Stamp:
0:01 – Introduction
2:39 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now”
6:00 – Today’s Guests: Glenn and Amber Schworm
14:43 – Lessons Learned by Glenn and Amber
21:34 – How Do You Find Your Deals?
42:00 – Where to contact Glenn & Amber
Real Estate Cashflow Conference:
https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135
Free Webinar:
https://www.jayconner.com/training/wtgtmn-webinar-rev2-podcast/?oprid=&ref=42135
#RealEstate #PrivateMoney #FlipYourHouse
------------------
Jay Conner (00:02):
If you have found it harder these days to get money and funding for your real estate deals. Well, you're in the right place. My friend, because I'm getting ready to give you in just a moment, a free copy of my brand new book, where to get the money now for your real estate deals, without relying on traditional or hard money lenders they'll go anywhere.
Jay Conner (00:35):
Well, hello there I'm Jay Conner, the Private Money Authority welcoming you here to Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner. And we're so excited to have you. If you're brand new here to the show, a very special welcome to you. You may be viewing and or watching us or listening on iTunes or Google play or watching us on one of our YouTube channels, regardless of where you're tuning in from we really appreciate you liking, sharing, subscribing ringing that bell. So you don't miss out on our fantastic interviews that we have with real estate investors from all across the country here on the show, we talk about all things that relate to real estate investing. We talk about single family houses. We talk about commercial deals. We talk about small apartments, duplexes, large apartments. We talk about land deals, self storage, and everything in between.
Jay Conner (01:30):
Now, if you're brand new to the show, a little bit about myself real quick, my wife Carol Joy and I started investing in single family houses here in Eastern North Carolina, back in 2003. And since that time we've rehabbed over 400 houses then a lot more deals than that, but that's been the rehabbing part of our business. And for the first six years, we relied on local banks, traditional lenders to fund our real estate deals. And in January 2009, I got cut off from the banks like the rest of the world. Yes, it was like global financial crisis. Well, I was introduced to this world of private money and private lending and that same month in January of 2009. And I was able to raise over $2 million in less than 90 days using private money and private lenders. Since that time I haven't missed out on a deal today, we've got 44 private lenders that are funding our deals.
Jay Conner (02:27):
And as I said a moment ago, you know, if you found it harder today than you did a year ago to get funding for your real estate deals, I've got a free gift for you just for the asking. So my brand new book where to get the money now, without relying on traditional money or hard money lenders, this is getting money from private lenders. So I've got this free book ready to ship to you. I'll autograph it for you. I'll send it to you for free. All I ask for you to do is just cover the shipping and handling. With just a couple of bucks and we'll ship it right out to you. All you gotta do is go to www.JayConner.com/Book.
Jay Conner (03:18):
And I'll get the book rushed and shipped right out to you. Well, if you've been tuning into the show at all, since we launched my lands coming up one on there's three years ago, you know that I have phenomenal experts and guests come here on the show well a day is no exception whatsoever. My special guests today are very passionate about helping everyday people who may be interested in creating wealth through real estate investing. Well, this dynamic couple as of today, they have bought and flipped over 600 houses with a lot of success. I mean, these flips value are worth over $57 million and still counting. So this couple knows a thing or two about real estate investing. So you see, they continue even today to flip houses as they help everyday people change their lives by teaching them about how to find and fun and fix and flip and hold properties in order to create immediate cash flow and assets that generate long-term passive income.
Jay Conner (04:37):
Now they started their career in investing quite frankly out of sheer desperation, you see, they were in $80,000 worth of credit card debt, and they needed to make some big chunks of cash just to get out from underneath the debt of their credit card. So in 2007, they flipped their first house made $17,000 profit. Then they went onto their second house and they profited $33,000 in just a very, very short 33 days. That's when they knew that they were onto something. So they've always been wanting to help people make a difference in their lives. So when they got their business model put together, got it through that, by teaching other people, their success formula. So as I said, as of now, they have flipped over 600 houses and counting, well, this couple didn't have any like formal education in real estate investing, but their knowledge and their expertise comes from hands on real life experience. What's that called? That's called the Knox. And they got a strong desire for a better life for themselves and for their family. They just knew they had to get more out of life than a nine to five job. So with that, I'm so excited to have here on the show with me today, my good friends, Glenn and Amber Schwarm. Welcome to the show, Amber and Glenn.
Amber Schworm (06:08):
Yeah. Thank you so much. That was quite the introduction.
Glenn Schworm (06:11):
I can't wait to hear you see these special guests they sound amazing.
Jay Conner (06:14):
Yeah. And they're actually a, really besides smart, they're actually a really good looking couple.
Glenn Schworm (06:21):
I can't wait to meet them, they sound awesome.
Jay Conner (06:25):
It's so good to have you here on the show. You had me on your show on your podcast, not too long ago, in fact, so I don't forget telling everybody about your show and how they can start following you.
Amber Schworm (06:37):
Yeah, we're at, we' do The Real Estate of Mind Show with Glenn and Amber Schwarm . So we talk all things real estate. You know, we talk about contractors and flipping and holding and Airbnbs and you know, just any, all things real estate and also how to work together. As a couple.
Glenn Schworm (06:49):
We also really talk about on our podcast, we like to kind of dive into, we call it The Real Estate of Mind Show because we, we believe that the mechanics are 20% of what we do. We buy low, we sell high, we fixed, we buy and sell. We do wholesale. We make, we negotiate with contractors. Those are all things you can teach in a regular book, but 80% of our success in life is mental. And I think that's, once to overcome those challenges in life, which can overcome the mental challenges, then sky's the limit.
Glenn Schworm (07:16):
But until you, you're only going to be as successful as your mind will let you be. So we believe in really working on that. Most of you know, I tell people, most people have at six inches in between their ears is the most expensive or most valuable real estate. Mine's about eight inches. I have a big noggin, so muscle bigger than most. So yeah, that's what we work on in our pockets. You can go to www.GlennandAmber.com, right. And learn about our podcast, shows all that kind of stuff, and that's where you can find about us www.GlennandAmber.com.
Jay Conner (07:42):
Now, Glenn has got two inches folks for those of you that are listening. So that's www.GlennandAmber.com. So what year did you all invest in your first single family house? I mean, you've done over 600 of these houses now.
Glenn Schworm (08:14):
It's about 700 now we've done. So we started back in 2007. So right before the real estate housing crisis, right. Wasn't just a financial crisis. It was a real estate housing real estate crisis. And we bought our first house in 07 and sold in early 08 and that's when we made 17 grand on. Then we moved to, we decided to one the first year three, the second year seven, the next year, and so we grew from 7 to 20. That was a bad year.
Amber Schworm (08:44):
It was a growing pain doing that.
Glenn Schworm (08:44):
Because we didn't have systems in place and whatnot, but that was kind of how our journey went. And now we have a full-blown company with team members. Most of them were virtually right in upstate New York for now. And so we are, but our team works virtually here.
Amber Schworm (09:01):
But I think It's important to like, we started.
Glenn Schworm (09:03):
I thought I was done but I guess I'm not.
Amber Schworm (09:03):
He's not done. You know, we started, when everybody said the sky is falling, don't do real estate. You know, like, lit was, it was bad in real estate and we didn't know any different. So we just kind of like jumped in head first and just went feet first. Was I saying.
Glenn Schworm (09:23):
Whatever you do I don't know.
Amber Schworm (09:23):
But you know, and I think that's really applicable because of the time we're in right now. You know, we are in the era of COVID right now, and I think people might be sitting on their hands wondering, you know, what should I do? what I fear, and maybe not making a move. And we would say, go for it.
Glenn Schworm (09:38):
Yeah, I see. In life, when you have a dream, you have to go for it for sure. I'd say going back a step, though, when we first start our first year we got a bank loan to our first flip and use credit cards to finance the rest of $80,000 in debt. We used every ounce of everything we had that first flip, we were actually down to our last 15 or $1,400 in anything like cash credit, home equity. We had used everything to make this deal work. And so it had to sell, and I had more payments coming due, and if that didn't sell the month it sold in, I don't know where I'd be today, but it finally sold and we got going, and then we did the next, we had two more deals under contract after that, but here's where Jay's where yours in my story crossed years ago that you didn't know until 12 years later, right.
Glenn Schworm (10:24):
Until our last podcast we did. And that was literally the industry, when the housing market, when the crash happened in O8, I had two houses under contract to purchase in the banks. They yanked all the funding. And I remember saying, well, no, I have good credit, I just flipped a house, I'm professional. I just flipped the house. They didn't care. They yanked all that funny. And I had to find another way to fund my deals. And lo and behold, I threw a weird twist of fate. I had a CD. This is back before it was a high tech to have things playing on your phone or that kind of stuff. I had a CD player, I guess I'm dating myself, right. It's weird to say, I'm dating myself with a CD player, but I guess I was, so I had a CD player.
Glenn Schworm (11:05):
I remember jogging around the condo that we lived, and that was the second purchase we had. We tried to flip a condo and it was our home. And I was walking around, I heard this guy with a Southern accent and talking about private money. Didn't even know who he was, but years later we joined that Mastermind group and so let me, before I tell you years later, I heard all of what you said, and I don't remember any call to action. You don't think you had your books and stuff back, I don't know. I don't think you had, maybe you did, but I didn't hear, you know, it wasn't, so information didn't travel so fast, like it does now. Right. And so I wasn't sure how to get ahold of your who even were, and I'm thinking, well, he's way up there. I can't talk to him because I'm just a guy who has flipped the house. Who am I? I'm just some from New York.
Amber Schworm (11:45):
Plus I think he just likes people from the South today.
Glenn Schworm (11:47):
Clearly.
Glenn Schworm (11:50):
Very true, no argument there. So I was literally walking around and I listened to all of the concepts that you have in that train. I was like, well, I can do that. And I, it took me a while to piece together. Like, you know, having something like you have now makes it so much easier to shorten the learning curve is it took me several months of banging my head against the wall and trying to figure it out. But I did, but it took a long time. And I really wish I had known how to get my hands on what you have now. But anyways, long story short, I did that. I started getting private funding. And since then we raised over $5 million in private lender funds that we use just from average everyday folks, these aren't hedge funds are ridiculously wealthy people. They're just people that want to make a better return.
Glenn Schworm (12:31):
So we did that and we use a lot of concepts that you did, and I didn't even know who you were until, you know, we, about a year ago, we're in our Mastermind group. And I'm like, well, that voice sounds familiar. The Private Money Authority, that guy sounds familiar, and then we had our podcasts I'm like, that's got to be the same voice. And here we are. So without, without you Jay we may not be here. So I have to tell you, A debt of gratitude, didn't even know who you were and that kind of stuff by that training, you did it got us into private lending. And that let us do deals when nobody else was doing deals up here in New York. And we were like, how are you finding the money? I'm like, I don't know. It's just happening. You know, we're just out there grinding and finding deals. So.
Amber Schworm (13:07):
Yeah It opened up a lot of possibilities. And I think a lot of people think that they have to use their own money to get started in investing. And when people understand the power of using other people's money, it is like the, you know, that light bulb goes off and they have that aha moment. and they're like, Oh, so that's how you do it.
Glenn Schworm (13:23):
I teach it my trains all the time. I say, you know, the golden rule in life is he who has the gold makes the rules. But the I believe that the golden rule in investing is he has access to the most money is the one who wins. So that's just having private money, just made it a lot easier for us.
Jay Conner (13:38):
That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you sharing that part of your success story. So, you know, you all really have been down the road or been to the school of hard knocks. And so, you know, something that would really be valuable to our listeners is what are some of the, like really, really important, big lessons learned, or if you had to do it all over again, you wouldn't do it that way, or you wouldn't make that mistake again, that, you know, I tell folks, you know, you're either going to make your own mistakes or you don't learn from other people's mistakes. And it's a lot cheaper to take heed, pay attention to what other people have done. That was not the best way to do it. So you know, you don't fall into those kind of pits, so what's some of the big lessons learned or mistakes you've made that you can share with folks.
Glenn Schworm (14:45):
How long is your show?
Jay Conner (14:49):
Well, let's start with one Big one and see how long it takes.
Amber Schworm (14:54):
I think I can think of two, like right off the top of my head, one is pretty simple. One is don't pay contractors upfront because they'll screw you almost every time. And two is, don't do the work yourself. And I think that's another big misconception in real estate is that if I do the work, I'm going to be saving all this money on labor. And the time it takes you to do that, especially if you're a weekend warrior, that's just doing it on the side, which is how most people start out. You're only able to be there, you know, on the evenings and weekends. Whereas if you are, and so it'll take you six to nine months to get a house done, where if you have a contracting crew to do it, you know, it's going to take you probably four to six weeks to get the renovation done so that the money you pay in holding costs during that difference more than makes up for the money you just would've paid the contractor and you would've saved yourself. All of the headache. And the other side to that is you can only be in one place at a time too. So if you want to do multiple projects at a time, you have to hire it out. Instead of doing it yourself,
Glenn Schworm (15:53):
I would say for me, it would have been to get a good coach early on. I've learned in my life that positioning myself around the right people, shortens time. It just shortens the learning curve. And we won't, you know, you hit a certain point in life. I'm more, if I'm 52 you hit a certain point in life where you said to yourself, you know, I'm, don't have endless days. And I want to make sure that I use them the best of my ability. I can either beat my head against the wall. Like, I don't even know why I just literally beat my head against a concrete wall until It feels like half the time when you're trying to figure stuff out for yourself I can hire somebody that has been down the road to coach me. Now, I still have to take that advice and apply it.
Glenn Schworm (16:33):
I think a lot of people sometimes hire a coach and then go, yeah. So that's a good idea, but I'm gonna do it my way. Okay. Well, you know, I can't help you there, but I think that had I had that and had I learned how to, I always tell everybody, we make our money when we buy real estate and if we don't buy, right. And if we use eraser math on our sheets, you know, we do workshops. We give out what's called a home flipping evaluator. And so I always tell people, if you use eraser math, you will get burned. If you say to yourself, well, I could do that kitchen cheaper. I could find lumber. I could go to the garage sale and find that part and you start doing eraser to make it, I can, I made this deal, work, numbers don't lie.
Glenn Schworm (17:07):
And so I think that that's a really important thing is to, just know your numbers going in. I think that we've lost money on a few deals over the years. And it hurts when you lose money, it stings. And I think for me, it's like sticking my hand in hot coal on our workshops. I'll talk about losing money on the first day, like right in the morning, they're like, you talk about losing money. I said, yeah, because I'm honest, I talk about stuff. I mean, if you can, lose money in real estate if you don't do it right.
Amber Schworm (17:33):
If you don't stay long enough, you will.
Glenn Schworm (17:34):
You do not deals are not all going to be home runs. I hate to tell you, so some you skin by some bites, sometimes if you make nothing you've made money. Right. So, I think that for me it just brought the numbers, that's the important part.
Amber Schworm (17:47):
And so a lot of times we get stuck in there or we you know, we live life on our emotions. A lot of us do, and so if you can take the emotion out of it and make business decisions that can help you make the right kind of decisions too.
Glenn Schworm (18:00):
Yeah. Growing too fast, another one I can think of Jay is when you we grew that year from seven to 20, we got out of control. Didn't have the right systems in place. Didn't have the right process and procedure.
Amber Schworm (18:08):
Didn't have the right people.
Glenn Schworm (18:11):
Didn't have the right people.
Amber Schworm (18:11):
There, all the hats, ourself. And, you know, again, you can only be in one place at a time. So we were trying to wear too many hats.
Glenn Schworm (18:18):
Thinking you're invincible. That's definitely not a, you know, cause we were like, well, no one else is doing this, we're really good at this. You start getting the big head, it'll get popped. No question about it like a big balloon, so.
Jay Conner (18:28):
Yeah, Amber you say, you know don't do the work yourself. Make sure you hire it out. I couldn't agree more for more than one reason. First of all, I don't even know how to swing a hammer without hitting my thumb. Right. And you know, there's no way that you can scale yourself or grow yourself if you're, if doing it, you know, sometimes people will say, well, you know, if I'm going to hire out of a general contractor, then you know, I've got to, I mean, there's no way I can find deals that's got enough spread in it to where I can afford to hire a contractor. Well, obviously there is, I never rehabbed a house myself. I don't think you all have. And here's the deal, I had a student tell me a few years ago that I was teaching at a live event.
Jay Conner (19:18):
And we were having this conversation about who should rehab your houses and you know, one student raise their hand and said, Oh Jay, I gotta tell you I rehab my own houses because when I rehab my own houses, not only do I save money, but rehabbing myself is like therapy. I looked at this student and I said, well, let me tell you something, a person that rehabs their house needs therapy therapy. Right. So, you know, so yeah, you know, if a house now, not all real estate deals need rehabbing. Right? Sure. There's the pretty house business. Right. And I do the pretty house business, but the majority of the business I do is rehabbing because you're not going to make an average profit. What's your all's average profit conservatively on a house these days?
Glenn Schworm (20:08):
On a flip, or a wholesale?
Jay Conner (20:10):
On a flip.
Glenn Schworm (20:12):
You know, probably about 52 to 54 in that range here.
Jay Conner (20:16):
Ours is the same. Monica, the way our average is 67,000, our Median prices 200, $225,000, of course, to make 50 or $60,000 on a $225,000 house, that's got a $30,000 rehab. You gotta know how to find the deals to where you can actually buy a house at 50% of the After Repaired Value that anyone ever put on her word you know restate that to make kinds of profits. You got to know how to find the deals to where you can buy them at pennies on the dollar, you know, half or less than half of the After Repaired Value. So that brings me to my next question for you too. And that is in today's market. I hear it all across the country. I hear students asking all the time and say, and Jay, it's harder than ever. It's harder than ever to find the deals. It's a hot market. Even in the midst of the COVID, it's a hot market. As soon as a House System Market and the Multiple Listing Service the houses are hot, how are you finding your deals? So there's my question, Glenn and Amber in today's market, how do you find the deals?
Glenn Schworm (21:36):
So for us, Jay, we, you know, we've been doing marketing for a lot of years. And so we've done everything from radio to TV, to direct mail, to we get a lot of band it signs for a lot of years. Didn't I never loved those things, but they work, people call it those things. So we did that for a lot of years, you know, the bird dogging and all that stuff. What we do now is a combination of direct mail we've been doing TV for a number of years. And so we have a lot of TV ads that run. And that's not for everybody when you first start out doing TV ads, but if you can make the investment and start to do that, you'll see a huge return because if you're spending a couple thousand bucks a month in TV marketing, you know, if you do it right, right?
Glenn Schworm (22:14):
And you look reputable and all that kind of stuff, and you have a good reputation, you'll the phone will ring and it takes one deal at 50,000 to take care of a lotta, lotta years of marketing. So you have to sort of think about that when you're going in, but TV is one way again, direct mail works for us. It's we have some competition. I know some markets, they say people are getting 300 letters when they you know, they're going into foreclosure or they're having tax problems or whatever, but that's the way to do it. So the driving for dollars is a big one that we do. Just looking for those vacant houses and whatnot. But I will tell you that for us, it's a grind. We're looking really else. We know that it's hard out there. We still buy, you know, I think we're doing between eight to 10 deals a month right now, maybe we're averaging eight to nine.
Glenn Schworm (22:52):
We're averaging having a hard time closing in upstate New York, that's a whole different conversation, but during COVID. But we're doing about eight or nine deals that could come and see wholesales renovations and buying rentals and whatnot, but we're, but the phone rings to us probably, I don't know, a hundred and some times a month, we're buying one of every 15 to 20 house leads that call in. So maybe it's a couple hundred times. I don't have my exact math there for what we're buying. But what 1 of the 20 I know is what we buy. So I think people forget that it's a process. And just because someone says, well, you got to buy, let's say one out of 20 leads. So it's going to be, if you're, if you need 20 leads to buy a house, people go, well, I had 20 leads last week.
Glenn Schworm (23:33):
I didn't get a single house. Well, you know what? It might take you 40. It might take you 60. And then you buy three within a week, right? And it's you have to play the numbers. It's really a, it's a mathematical it's. It is map. Marketing is math. So whatever method you choose, direct mail, TV, knocking on doors, driving for dollars, whatever band it signs, when the phone rings to you, that's an opportunity to make money, right? But you have to go through the opportunities. You have to sift through all the dirt to find the gold period. And if you don't sift the dirt, you'll never find the gold. And I think most people make the biggest mistake is that they start sifting and gold, yeah, this is kind of hard. And I didn't find it. I don't know it doesn't work for me.
Glenn Schworm (24:15):
Nobody's putting up. I can't find a house. Well, guess what? You get what you focus on. So if you keep saying that you're right, but if you keep digging, you keep grinding, you keep looking and looking and looking. It may not be, you know, you may get pissed off too, because you may have a friend of yours who had five phone calls and they bought a deal and made 70 grand that happens. But they may not find another deal for 60 leads, you know, but you might find one of your 40, but you have to go through the process. If you take a systematic approach to it. And you just simply, you know, Jay, you said, when you were on our show, you said, you can never fail if you just don't give up. Right. And I wrote that down. I said, that's fantastic. That's it? You know, I, I know that, but hearing someone else say it back in a different way, it was like, of course, you know, you're, you're never over. So same with when you're out there marketing, it's a tough market to find housing, no question about it. And the bigger your city, the more competition, the harder it is to find those deals. But it doesn't mean that they're out there
Amber Schworm (25:07):
And the golden nugget I think in that is to find off market deals. Because if you're out there competing with everybody else.
Glenn Schworm (25:12):
Yes.
Amber Schworm (25:12):
That's just looking on the MLS. You know, if you stick with the masses, you're probably not that's going to be even more challenging. You have to kind of go against the grain and carve your own road there. And look for the off-market deals if you're going to find something that's
Glenn Schworm (25:25):
I would also say this. Agreed. I would also say this reputation is huge. I think when you start this from day one, you should be thinking about your own reputation. Do you want to be a snake oil salesman? Do you want to be someone who's gouging people? Do you want to be somewhat new? We're all looking for deals, don't get me wrong. But if you're in a situation where you feel like you're about to give somebody really bad, maybe you don't go so bad, right. Maybe you figure that out. So and do I think it'd be try and do what's right for people and try, you know, when you're trying to find a good deal too, but try and make it a win-win and have a good reputation that will stay with you, right? It takes years to build a good reputation, takes one bad deal or one or a dishonest unethical deal to ruin your entire reputation.
Glenn Schworm (26:06):
But if you have a strong reputation deals will come to you, not in your first week, not in your first month, maybe not in your first three years, but eventually I had a phone call today from a guy that we, Ryan are, we have a, this guy does some private chef work at our house for some private parties, sometimes he's awesome. But anyways he texted me today and said, Hey, my sister's got a house for sale it probably needs fixing love to know if you guys take care of it. We may be the only ones calling him back. I gave it right to my team and said, Hey, this guy's a friend of mine, take care of it. I don't know if we'll buy it or not. It's just one of those many leads. But if we do, I probably won't. I probably could do with anybody else.
Glenn Schworm (26:38):
Why? Because of reputation. And I don't mean just in how you do business with the people that do business with you, but how you do business, everybody around you. This guy that sent us to me is a chef. And I met him through someone gave him to me as a gift, one time to come to my house and do a private dinner for six people. Which you ever done that Jay, you have to go do. It's a ton of fun.
Amber Schworm (26:57):
Super fun.
Glenn Schworm (26:57):
Yeah. But so we did that and I've had them come four or five times since then. And every time I've treated him, well, I've kept him well, I treat him with respect. I helped him bring stuff in the car. You know, I don't treat them like I just treat them like an equal. And because he is, and we do our thing, but I think that reputation proceeds us. Cause now they want to do business with us. And that had nothing to do with real estate. But he's heard so many conversations around our table about real estate. And he's like schedule real people. These guys are good. They're not here sitting around, talking about being snakes and screw people. Here's good conversations. Good solid stuff. I think the better person you can be in generally a community. I think the better you will do in business, that is a long-term investment that takes time. And you've got to be good and be patient, but it will pay off.
Jay Conner (27:40):
You just mentioned that you're a chef, gave you a lead and then you took that lead and you handed it off to your team member. Let's talk about your team. You've put together an awesome team that allows you to podcast show, be on other people's podcasts. You know, to where you're not, you know, you're running in circles and you're actually able to create the life that, you know, the two of you want to enjoy. So what does your team look like? How many you got, what do they do? Who's on 1099. Who's on a W2. And what's that look like?
Glenn Schworm (28:21):
So we've got, we have an integrator named Spencer. So an integrator, he's like a COO Chief Operating Officer. So his job is to take my vision and make it a reality. So he's the one neck I get to wring. That's what we joke around here. He's the neck I get to wring or my office. So I talk to him on a daily basis, five minutes a day or so sometimes 10. And then once a week we have a meeting. He then runs the meetings, right? So he runs the meetings. We've got a sales manager, we have two acquisitions manager underneath him. We have a dispositions manager with a dispo girl under him, under her rather. Then we have a home inspectors that go out and look at the home. Now, these aren't certified home inspectors. There are people that go out and take pictures for our acquisitions team.
Glenn Schworm (29:04):
So there was a Jay the phone rings. Our team goes through a few questions. They pull it up on Zillow or whatever. They look up on our software. They give them a ballpark offer where we're going to be on that house. And if they accept that, they say, you know what, that's in my range. Then we send out somebody, one of those is our son, actually our 21 year old son is one of those guys. And they'll go out and take pictures of the house, do a 3d. We have a camera that does a 3d walkthrough picture, whatnot. And our team will get the paperwork signed usually before they go out to get paperwork signed. And that's it then it comes back and runaway, our dispositions team then puts it through our marketing and sales that house. Now we also a lot of renovations, right?
Glenn Schworm (29:42):
So we have a project manager. He's got people on his team as well. So he's got a lot of people that are contractors that work for him also, but we have some subs that work underneath him. Just more helping us. We have video guides with some of our video work, that kind of stuff. And we have a big coaching business too. That's a whole different thing with about 30 employees. We can talk about that in a minute, but we have that whole leg of our business. Also we actually run about six businesses out of here in total, but we're not involved in them every day because we're putting the right people in the right places.
Amber Schworm (30:12):
And that was a game changer for us, Jay, because in the past, we've just kind of hired off of our gut, you know, hired off, you know, and a lot of times we ended up with the wrong butts in the wrong seats. And that kind of goes back to your original question too, of some things that you would do different. And we, we ended up finding this company that does a test called PI Predictive Index. And when we started putting our candidates through that test, you know, it measures their aptitude for the job. It measures their personality for the job. It measures, you know, whether they have the,
Glenn Schworm (30:44):
Skills.
Amber Schworm (30:45):
the skills for it., I mean, the test is like, it's actually pretty amazing. It tells you how to communicate with them and how they communicate with the outside world. And like when we started getting the right butts in the right seats, that was a huge game changer for us.
Glenn Schworm (30:59):
And in making sure everyone's accountable, that was a big game changer. So just saying, Hey,
Amber Schworm (31:04):
Keeping your KPIs.
Glenn Schworm (31:05):
Go make it happen. Well, you can't do that with people, you have to say, listen, we're going to have regular meetings. Here's how we're going to structure our meetings. There's a book, You can get the book called traction. That's really how we run our meetings, but a shorter versus called what the heck is EOS Entrepreneur Operating System. And so that we implemented last summer, absolute game changer. Like I never, during COVID I made an investment in our company when I didn't know, even know if we're going to be in business.
Amber Schworm (31:30):
And even for us, like when we personally did that test, you know, it's very eye opening because you're like, yeah, that is the way I tick. And sometimes we try to do things because we think they just need to get done. But like just for example, Glenn is an off the charts visionary. And so, you know, he would always like be in these meetings and whatever, and he'd be very distracting though. Like visionaries can be very distracting personalities and they can actually get people off track. You know, you might be going in a direction and then, Oh, there's a shiny object. Let's turn the whole ship that way. And so,
Glenn Schworm (31:59):
I don't know what you mean, let me tell you what I was gonna say.
Amber Schworm (32:04):
So even by learning those personality traits about ourselves as individuals that helped our business too.
Glenn Schworm (32:09):
The guy, the moderator said, Jay said, you know your personality, you said you and Amber have an amazing combination. He said, when you guys are ticking, like when you're clicking on all cylinders, you guys are unstoppable and amazing. But when you fight, I bet I could sell tickets. We went, yeah, pretty much.
Jay Conner (32:28):
What size population or target market area do you invest in?
Amber Schworm (32:34):
About a million people in the capital region.
Glenn Schworm (32:35):
Yeah, we're in the capital region of New York. So it's about two and a half hours North of New York city. People would think people whisper from New York. Oh, the city. No, it's a lot bigger state than that.
Amber Schworm (32:43):
Yeah. So Albany is like the main city and then all around it is the capital region.
Glenn Schworm (32:47):
Yeah. about a million people in about five different counties, a lot of rural stuff that we work with, you know, the communities and suburbs, that kind of stuff.
Jay Conner (32:56):
Right. And how many deals are you doing a year now?
Glenn Schworm (33:00):
So we'll do probably over a hundred this year. We'll have about a hundred a year for about 80, 80 to a hundred this year. We're on track of about a hundred. Again, if we can get them closed, we're back logged we're backlog like 40 deals right now because the New York state has don't even get me going about New York state. They closed down courtrooms. They think the world's dying here. So it's just, it's crazy, but we're backlogged, but it is what it is so.
Jay Conner (33:26):
Well out of those hundred deals. How many do those of those deals do you stay in and actually do yourself and take down and rehab if it needs it. And what percentage of them are wholesale?
Glenn Schworm (33:39):
About 80% are probably wholesale where we just buy off and sell to somebody else. Then about probably 10, 10 ish of those. Are we cherry pick the renovations? Now we used to do all the renovations now. No, we just cherry pick. Well, you know, after a while you're like, Oh enough, uncle, I can't take anymore. So we did that. And then about, we try and handle about 10 a year in rentals. Now we've got about 40 something rentals. They're all single family, a couple of two families, but mostly all single family. We also do, we've been Amber has really taken on building an Airbnb wing of our business, another business that we have, and that's been really taking off and we are not in a vacation location at all. We are in the capital region It's cold up here, and.
Amber Schworm (34:21):
There's nobody that says.
Glenn Schworm (34:22):
I was almost done, but feel free to jump in.
Amber Schworm (34:26):
Oh yeah I was going to, There's nobody that says, Hey, let's hop on a plane and go to Albany for vacation. I mean, there's, this is not a vacation destination.
Glenn Schworm (34:32):
Yeah.
Amber Schworm (34:33):
That people come here for weddings and family and graduations and performances and work crews. And so llike our Airbnbs, they stay jam packed. We have we're just finishing up our eighth one this week and we have five more in the works. So we'll have 13. And then we're about to add two more to it too.
Glenn Schworm (34:54):
We are that, those Airbnbs, the funny part is today we signed the con, literally an hour, not even an hour, five minutes before we started this podcast here Jay,, we signed a contract on our dream home on the water in Florida, down in Redington beach area. So, right, just amazing. So the our, the Airbnb business is more than paying for that.
Glenn Schworm (35:16):
Like just the residual income that comes in from that's just that business. That's not including the existing rentals that we have just regular single family rentals. So, you know, were big on building passive income. We're big on that. So the wholesaling came about for us, very like a lot, some people nowadays start by wholesaling. They like, all they do is whole, so they don't really know how to be renovated. Right. So when the market changes, I don't know if they're still going to be around or not, but I tell you, we renovated first for years, all we did was renovate and we would do 10 deals, 13, 15, 20, 50 deals. And in one year we did like 48 renovations by our, not by ourselves. We do the work ourselves. We're managing the whole process and all the people.
Glenn Schworm (35:54):
And honestly, I was crying uncle. I felt it was my arm. It was horrible, it was just a tough year. But around that time, we started to wholesale a few, we used to say no to what I talked before about doing marketing and the phone would ring and I'd say, Oh, in the city of Scottsdale, no, we don't buy there, thank you. Oh, on the city of Albany. I'm sorry. We don't buy there. Oh, Now don't worry about it. And I kept saying that, and one day I thought to myself, am I an idiot? Like I paid for that lead. I paid thousands of dollars. Or maybe, maybe it cost $300 for that lead or a hundred dollars for that lead. And they're calling me if there's money to be made there. I should make that. So I started researching and looking about wholesaling and we did a couple hundred thousand in one year.
Glenn Schworm (36:32):
And then we did 400,000 1 year. And now we're doing a couple hundred thousand a month in wholesale deals. And it's, you know, the team is it's just a method to pay the bills and make a profit while I'm looking for good renovation deals. And while I'm looking for my real end game, passive income with building wealth through real estate rentals, that's really the game, right? So the money's great that keeps the wheel moving, keeps all the employees can look on of stuff, make some profit, but then we're cherry picking those 50, 70, 80, a hundred thousand dollar renovation deals. But more importantly, we're able to keep those rentals. And for me, that's my end game. And that's, I want to, you know, we want to get to at least a hundred of those. I'm not looking to have thousands like some people do.
Glenn Schworm (37:15):
I just want to have a hundred, maybe a couple hundred, who knows. I kind of push the bar when I get close sometimes. But as long as those are all stabilized and making money that's, to me, that's legacy. That's what I want to leave for my children and teach them how to build a business and then have all that income for them. And, you know, I do this Jay, cause I don't want to, I've always joked about this, but now it's actually a reality. I'm almost, we only, we signed the paperwork today, but I said, if you know something into my life comes and I start losing my mind and I, they want to put me in a home. I don't want to go there. I want to be able to have enough money coming in every month that I can have someone come to me, come take care of me.
Glenn Schworm (37:52):
And if I lose my mind, I really be losing when I'm looking at the ocean than sitting in a room, looking at a wall someplace, you know what I mean? I'd rather be, I may not be with it. Who knows? I may not be with it. Right. I could be doing that right now. I think I'm done doing a podcast. I don't know, but I'm, you know, I, that's what I do for us to have income, to give real freedom. Cause that's real freedom, flipping houses' nice, wholesaling's nice. But every time you do it, you have to do it again to make more money, if do it again and make more money. And in my mind, the more that you can build a portfolio of people that pay you every month, a couple hundred bucks, 500 bucks airbnb's a thousand bucks a month, a thousand bucks a month. That's real.
Amber Schworm (38:25):
Yeah. And I wish I could, you know, there's you always like, look back and go, why didn't I do that sooner? I think that's what we're going to do when we go to Florida, like, why didn't we move here sooner? But, you know, it's fear that holds people back from becoming investors. I know on our podcast, I'm sure you got a lot of people that want to get started investing, but they're not actually investors yet because they have that fear. And like, that's one of the reasons we do our home flipping workshop is we help people get over that fear because it's, about lifestyle. You know, when I think so many people get stuck in what's normal in that nine to five or the corporate world, or, you know, I have to do what I went to college for. You know, they get tuck in that rut and they're scared to kind of step outside of the box.
Amber Schworm (39:05):
But I think if you can like have the courage to make that move, like there's no looking back because the lifestyle it provides you. I mean, lately, even as a mom, we have our kids. Two of them are young, they're five and eight years old. And so, you know, this morning I didn't even come to work until 2:30. I didn't even come to the office until 2:30. I was,
Glenn Schworm (39:24):
Well your're fired,
Amber Schworm (39:24):
Helping them with their schoolwork. And, you know, we, Sunday we just got back from being in Florida for two weeks. We were going to stay for 10 days. And we're like, what the heck? It's cold at home. Let's stay, let's extend our stay. So like, we didn't have a boss we had to call home for and say, Hey, can I stay those four extra days? And that's nice. It's nice not having to like ask off of work to go to my kid's school or to take them to their doctor appointment.
Amber Schworm (39:46):
Or, you know, I'm speaking as a mom here. And I'm sure there's plenty of other things dads can say, or just any individual could say whether they have kids or not. But the lifestyle that real estate investing provides for you, is not something you'll ever be sorry for.
Glenn Schworm (40:00):
I think you've got to make sure that in life. So if any of your listeners right now are, I'm sure they have business owners that are out here and people that have done a flip or two, they do a couple of year. They're making 80 a hundred grand a year and they feel like this is okay, but I want it. You know, if you're listening to this, you probably want more. That's probably something that you're kind of thinking in the back of your mind, that we all kinda want more at some level. But you know, I would say if you gotta be in the right vehicle to have true financial freedom, you have to, you have to be in the right vehicle.
Glenn Schworm (40:25):
So you have to look at your actual business that you're in. Whether it's your job, a business, a retail business, a small service business, flipping whatever, and ask yourself, am I in the right vehicle to get me where I want to go? Because I don't care if you're the best race car driver in the world, you know how to make the turns and the brakes and all that stuff, you're the best driver ever. But you show up to the Indy 500 in a go-kart you're not going to win. I don't care what great driver, what kind of skills you have, it doesn't matter. You gotta be in the right vehicle. I think you and I know the three of us right now, we all know that real estate for us is that vehicle. I think it is for that's what we teach in our workshops, right? It's the way we help average people create wealth is through real estate investing. How else can you do it right now? The Bitcoin thing. Everyone's going nuts about that. And who knows that might be wonderful for some people might be. They also might lose everything. I don't know, hard to say with that, but one thing that's tried and true is real estate.
Amber Schworm (41:18):
Suitable.
Glenn Schworm (41:19):
We know it works.
Jay Conner (41:21):
Amber, you mentioned starting to grow your all's, Airbnb business. And that seems to be a hot topic these days. Would you come back on the show and join me to talk about Airbnb sometime soon?
Amber Schworm (41:32):
I'd love to.
Jay Conner (41:32):
Awesome.
Amber Schworm (41:36):
I'd love to.
Glenn Schworm (41:36):
Well Glenn and Amber, what a joy to have you here on the show. You all are a dynamic couple. I love your story. I love the difference that you're out there making. And so I know folks want to stay connected with you. So how do they stay connected?
Amber Schworm (41:53):
Yep. One of the best ways is to go. We have a lot of companies, so we just kind of put everything together www.GlennandAmber.com. If they want to know more about the workshop or they can actually learn how to become investors, they can go to www.HomeFlippingWorkshop.com.
Glenn Schworm (42:06):
And the whole new workshop we do now is virtual. So crazy enough, we were doing live workshops in different cities, were traveling, doing all that. We didn't love the travel part because we were away from our family. We're family people. And all of a sudden when COVID hit, I thought that business might shut down. And I'm like, how am I? How in the world am I going to go living? And we converted that to a hundred percent virtual. We do it over Zoom. It's all interactive. It's three days.
Amber Schworm (42:30):
It's Awesome.
Glenn Schworm (42:30):
We do an actual tour of a house like virtually. We take them through, we give them a free home from the evaluator. We actually federal express them a packet to go out, which are 59 bucks for three days to come to the event. We do pretty much one a month this year, one a month. This year, again, www.HomeFlippingWorkshop.com. We'll get you there. But if that's something that you want to see and check out the fact that you can do it from home and anybody that does attend, I always think I open the room by thanking them for allowing me to be home with my family while they're home with their family. We were a small family.
Amber Schworm (43:00):
We were worried when it went virtual that we wouldn't have that same, like in-person feel cause usually at the end of the workshops, you know, we're, you know, hearing people's stories and how real estate is going to change their life. And we're giving them hugs. And you know we were worried about missing that connection, but the feedback we've gotten on the home flipping workshops has been amazing. Like on the Friday night, we stay after and do like a little cocktail hour where we just have normal conversations with people. We do that on Saturday. I mean, it's amazing how Zoom has made the world a smaller place.
Glenn Schworm (43:29):
Amazing.
Amber Schworm (43:29):
And we're able to connect with more people and really still get to know them and give them a good education. We're all about value too.
Glenn Schworm (43:36):
Now we're moving to Florida and nothing changes for us. Our business continues on where we go. So Jay, I appreciate that no sound though, but yeah. Check out our websites or whatever, but I, we, this has been great and we've it's been life-changing for us and that people it's work. I tell everybody right now,
Amber Schworm (43:50):
Yeah.
Glenn Schworm (43:50):
This is hard work, but it's worth it. Nothing else in my life has been this much hard work, but also this worth it.
Jay Conner (43:56):
Glenn and Amber, thank you so much for joining me. And I'll be in touch with you soon. I'm sure. And thanks to you for tuning in and joining us here on Real Estate. Investing with Jay Conner, always an honor to have you I'm Jay Conner, the private money authority wishing you all the best and here's the taking your business to the next level. We'll see you right here on the next episode of real estate investing with Jay Conner.
No comments:
Post a Comment