8: How a 19 Year Old Got Funding For His First Deals

Kevin Ramirez shares detailed information on how he found money partners and got them on board to work with him on his first flips!

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Show Notes

Kevin Ramirez is from Venezuela living and is doing business in Raleigh, North Carolina.

He started in Real Estate at 19 years old with a flip, found a JV partner to fund the whole deal and after that fell in love with the business. He currently focuses on rehabbing and wholesaling. Every deal he has done has been without his own money.

Currently 21 years old, still a one man operation, he is working on building systems to automate his business. With 19 deals to date in 2015 he is looking to close the year with 25.

He doesn’t yet consider himself an expert and stays open to learning more and more every day.

What you will learn in this episode:

• How Kevin Ramirez was able to get funding for his first deals even though he was 19 years and new to the business
• Find out how his first flip made a total profit of $65,000
• Where he found his money partners and how he got them on board with him
• What key points need to be covered in a Joint Venture agreement when flipping

Kevin’s first deal generated a total profit of about $65,000! Not bad for any deal, let alone a first rehab deal.

Kevin didn’t have the money to buy the house and fix it up so he teamed up with another investor to fund the deal with an agreement to split the profit 50/50. Not bad all, especially considering he didn’t have any of his own money in the deal…meaning no risk!

The numbers for that first deal are as follows (rough figures):

Purchase: $145k
Repairs: $75k (taking 4 months to fix)
Sold in 1 day for $295k
Netting about $65k profit that he split with his JV partner

He found his first JV partner that put up the money for the first deal and several deals after that from his craigslist ad.

Kevin also shared some of the key points from the joint venture contract he was using. It’s important to make sure that any unknowns are covered and thought through before partnering with somebody.

Make sure to get competent legal advice for the joint venture contract from a local attorney. The agreement should contain things to cover what happens if more money than was anticipated for the rehab is needed, how profits (and losses if that happens) will be split, and any other details for who is supposed to what in the partnership.

It’s also important to specify that the partnership is just for the single deal and not future deals. This is important because you don’t want them saying you guys have a business partnership where they want a piece of all of your future deals.

Kevin shares how a sign he put in the yard of the house he was rehabbing generated a call that became his second deal.

He was very generous in the episode and gave a lot of great information and tips. You don’t have to start real estate investing by wholesaling. You can do what Kevin did and partner with people that can put up the money.

Find out more about how to do that by listening to this incredible episode.

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Episode Transcription

Today’s guest started flipping houses at the super early age of 19. His name is Kevin Ramirez. And even though he was brand new to the business of flipping houses and he didn’t have any experience, he was still able to find someone that was willing to lend money for his first flips. When getting started almost all of us have that hurdle to overcome and that’s coming up with the money for buying these houses buy them and fix them up. What he shares in this episode is a great way to get started flipping real estate when you don’t have much money to buy houses yourself and don’t have any experience, so not only did he find the money to do his first deal, that first deal actually netted him about $65,000 and I’m super excited you to hear about where he found his money partners and how he got them on board with him. Kevin’s story is very interesting and very motivating and I’m sure going you’re going to get a lot out of this interview. So enjoy the show.
Danny Johnson:  All right. Today I’ve got Kevin Ramirez on the show. Kevin’s from Venezuela. He’s living and doing business in Raleigh North Carolina or is that pronounced “Raley?”
Kevin Ramirez: Raleigh yeah, North Carolina.
Danny Johnson: All right, “Raley” And he started in real estate at 19 years old with a flip, found a JV partner to fund the whole deal and after that he fell in love with the business and he’s currently focusing on rehabbing and wholesaling. Every deal that he has done has been without any of his own money. He’s currently 21 years old and still a one man operation. He’s working on building systems to automate his flipping business and with 19 deals to date in 2015, he’s looking to close the year with 25. He doesn’t yet consider himself an expert, that keeps him staying open to learning more and more every day which all of us should be doing. So thanks for being on the show Kevin.
Kevin Ramirez: Danny, thank you for having me on your podcast.
Danny Johnson: All right. So we’ll just get right into it. I want to find out more about what got you interested in real estate investing and flipping and how you got your start.
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah absolutely. So I graduated high school and I decided to take a year off just kind of after high school just to learn a little bit more about myself and while I was doing that I started reading more about real estate. I had a family member actually that was doing ___ [0:02:44] deals and she just kind of approached me and she told me what she was doing and if found interest in it. And for my 18th birthday present was actually one of those real estate investing courses and I delved a little bit in it and I said, “Hey, I can do this.” So after taking a year off I started college, in my first semester I got my first four deals done. I just said, “Hey, this is something that I can do if I can scale it and I can be good at it.” So I dropped out of college and I started doing it 100%
Danny Johnson: Cool, yeah. That’s awesome that you had that faith and determination at such a young age to even take that risk and go out there because a lot of people at that age are struggling to figure out what they want to do and how they’re going to do it. So it’s really awesome that you started so young in the business. Did you find yourself running into any difficulties being so young getting started?
Kevin Ramirez: It went either way actually. It went both ways. Some people ___ [0:03:48] at the beginning where I was and my confidence wasn’t as high as it is now when talking to sellers and things like that because I’ll be ___ [0:03:56] some other people actually thought it was a thing. This kid there is getting started. I see that he’s being active, he’s doing things, he’s approaching me with such energy then they wanted to work with me more because I was young and doing things that – or people who are older were trying to do or looking to do and they don’t pull the trigger on it.
Danny Johnson:  Yeah, it’s great. I started a little bit younger too. I think I was 24 or 25 or something like that and I remember even some of the first sellers that I talked to they were asking me, “Is your dad the one that buys the houses?” They know it’s me. He does buy a house but I buy houses as well, but anyway – so I was just wondering. I don’t know if maybe you looked as young as I did when I was young.
Kevin Ramirez: I think I did.
Danny Johnson: You barely just got a license, right?
Kevin Ramirez: I think I did, I think I did. I actually got that question too a couple times actually. I still get it.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. It’s awesome. It feels good though to be able to say, “Nope, I’m the one buying the houses.”
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah. For sure it is, for sure it is.
Danny Johnson: Yeah, so I wanted to delve in to something a lot of people getting in the business struggle with and that’s figuring out how they’re going to get money to be able to buy a house, fix it up and deal with holding costs and all that kind of stuff. Most people just don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars lying around, I didn’t, and from your story I know that you didn’t either. So I wanted to find out how you figured it out what to do to get money and then how you did end up getting money to do your first deal and then the deals after that if you don’t mind going into a lot of detail and we can ask more questions in between where necessary just to try to figure out how you did that because a lot of people struggle, so much with that and that keeps them out of getting started.
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah absolutely. So every deal that I have ever done, I’ve done with none of my own money. So it’s really other than marketing that that’s all the money spent on doing my rehab. I started out my first year was a rehab and just done JV partners. With a JV partner, what I do is I offer them – I come to them with a good deal that they want to go into and they just pretty much fund the whole deal and at the end we split the profits or losses 50/50 or depending on if I’ve done business with them before. If I haven’t done business with it before, then I offer that offer up a little bit more, maybe 60-65% of the profit. At the end of the day, what counts is getting the deal done and being able to close a property for that motivated seller.
Danny Johnson:  All right, so let’s dive into this. And so you have the numbers, I’m sure everybody typically remembers most of the numbers for their first deals. Do you remember what the numbers were like for that first deal that you had?
Kevin Ramirez: Yes I do, I do. It was a really good deal. I got the lead from pretty much my first week of doing online marketing on the Google Adwords. It’s my first move doing it. It was actually one of my first lead that I got on it and I came to then, the property was worth at that time $275,000 but they were asking $225 at first, but the property really needed a lot of work. It was in a really really good neighborhood. Properties were selling in less than 14 days once it’s on market if priced right. And I negotiated with them a little bit, got the property down to $160 and got it under contract. Now after that when we’re getting closer to the closing, something that I like to do, re-negotiating so close in closing it, but this property really needed it. So I ended up getting the property at $142 and we ended up putting in about $75,000 worth of repairs. It sold for to $295 on the first day on the market.
Danny Johnson:  Oh wow. So you said $295 is what it’s all for?
Kevin Ramirez: Yes. It sold for $295.
Danny Johnson: All right. So what kind of profit was that? So that was roughly – what’s the total profit then?
Kevin Ramirez: So the total profit we ended up splitting $65,000 for the profit. It ended up splitting between me and the JV partner. We did overspend a little bit on the rehabbing. It could’ve easily been $100,000 deal. But ended up ___ [0:08:41] first flip as well with mine and we just got a ___ [0:08:47] with the repairs, but it ended up being really good. Everything worked out fine. We were really pleased with the with the profits. We ended up splitting $65,000 almost $70,000 with the profits and like I said it sold on the first day on the market. It took us four months for rehab, so it was a very good flip in my opinion for the first one.
Danny Johnson: Oh yeah and that’s awesome $65000 to split. Especially on the first deal when a lot of people actually lose money on the first deal, so that’s incredible. I bet that got you fired up to do a lot more at that point.
Kevin Ramirez: Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. After that it was just game on.
Danny Johnson: So you had a partner in that one. You got a JV partner that was also their first deal. How did that go down? How did you find this partner and how did you pitch the deal to them and did you already have it under contract?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah absolutely. So I got the property under contract and I then I was like, “What do I do now?” My initial thought was to wholsesale the property and I had a very very small buyers list at that time and on a coincidence, that same week that I got the property under contract, this JV partner happened to contact me through, I think it was, Craigslist where he saw my ad ___ [0:10:11] and he just said, “Hey Kevin, I’m getting started in real estate. I just did a course just like you and I want to get a partner. I want to do my first flip.” And I said, “Hey, I happen to have this deal going on. Would you like to you take a look at it?” So we had a property, I sent him all the numbers. The number looked great from the beginning. So I sent on the numbers and everything worked out great. We ended up splitting the profit. Like I said the profits are 50/50 and we would split the losses if we would’ve lost money 50/50 as well. That was kind of my gamble and my risk that I was taking there. But we worked on the property, went on managing the repairs and things like that and it worked out good. ___ [0:10:53] that JV partner.
Danny Johnson: Did you worry about any issues with partnering with somebody that you didn’t know very well? Was it sort of like where they – because obviously they wanted to be in the business, right? So were they wanting to be a lot more hands on than maybe you wanted or how did that work out?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah I had a question at the beginning. I was kind of like, how do I feel about you know going into my first flip with someone else. But from the moment I met them, I knew they really want to make this work. They weren’t going to be a problem or so I thought and my relationship was great. The more I met him, the more I get to know more of him, the better it was and we got along very well. And when he came to actually doing the flip, we both had kind of an equal amount of responsibility and we both were really on top of that. We were both getting what we have to get done. We were getting it done. So that’s why it worked out pretty well. We didn’t have a problem with it. Like I said, it ended up working perfectly fine and I’ve deals with him since then.
Danny Johnson: Great. How did you guys handle the securing of the loan from him for the money for the house being that you put it under contract first and then brought him on afterwards. How did you handle that part of it?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah. So I have the property on the contract first and after I got in contact with them and they started to go through with the deal we did a JV contract between me and the JV partner, so that’s where my interest – my security on the contract was with the JV contract that I had with the partner. So then after when the closing came, they actually closed down the property not me. So I was never actually on the deal. They were the ones kind of closing on the deal and what I had was kind of their word and this JV contract that I had between them that said that the profit of this property is going to be split 50/50 between you and him.
Danny Johnson: Right. And so I guess that made it a lot easier for them to agree to put up the money for the house being that they were actually going to be owning the house throughout the whole process, right?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that made them feel a little better at the end of the day. They were the ones controlling the house. They were the ones who closed on it. They actually had a home equity line of credit. That’s what they used to fund the whole deal, fund the acquisition and also the repairs and any closing cost that we had. Like I said I didn’t even put money for the closing costs or anything or due diligence. I had the property, when I had it under the contract, I offered the sellers $500 of due diligence and then I came in contact with these people like three maybe two and a half days after I had it under contract, so that same day I was going to give them – to give the sellers $500 of due diligence, when they came to the property with me on that third day they actually wrote the check for the due diligence because that’s how much they wanted the property, so I didn’t even have to put down the due diligence. It was virtually zero money for the whole deal. Even the marketing, I mean it was my first week of Google Adwords. Maybe the lead was ___ [0:14:07] I think that’s what it was.
Danny Johnson: Right, I know. That’s awesome. All right, did you end up getting some other deals under contract while you were doing that or did you focus solely on just getting that one done and sold and then moving on?
Kevin Ramirez: This one towards the end, we were actually getting closer to you know finishing the rehabbing. We are maybe a month away from listing the property and I was still doing my Craigslist advertising and I was doing a little bit of direct mailing and I got a couple of leads, maybe ten leads or so and of those I got under contract and I actually ended up wholesaling that property to another investor or my cash buyer, so it was ___ [0:14:56] closing a wholesale and then like a week after that, we put the property on that on the market and then it ended up coming under contract that same day.
Danny Johnson: Wow, that’s awesome. How long would you say that it was that you – you said you got that then lead real quick for the first one? I mean, most people take them several months, two to six months maybe to get a first deal, so you got yours pretty quick then, huh?
Kevin Ramirez: No, no, no. This took me some time. It was my first at Google Adwords leads, but I had been doing direct mailing for maybe six months or so. I had to Craigslist ads, like I said, maybe six months before that or even longer. It took me, like I said, my first semester of college to get started in – so maybe like six months or so to get that first deal under contract.
Danny Johnson: And then you said the second one was like four months after the first one right because you said you were rehabbing for about four months.
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah. The second lead was maybe two months after I started doing the rehab of this one and that’s when that one came. That one, like I said, that was from the direct yelling and such.
Danny Johnson: Okay. And then you said you found the JV partner from a Craigslist ad that you had put out. Was that a sample Craigslist ad from somebody’s course that’s may be copyrighted or something or is that something that you came up with that you could maybe share with the audience.
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah. I was looking for sellers. It was just like, hey, we buy houses. That’s kind of what it says, but that was not my ad was saying. The ad was just like, we buy houses, local real estate investor – I was already calling myself real estate investor. Yeah, you got to take it to make it, right? – Yeah, local real estate investor looking for properties that need repairs. Call me at 919 whatever my number was and they saw the ad and they contacted me.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. So the JV partner called you on your ad to buy houses?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah, they did. They saw the “We buy houses” and I guess they would do that to some of the ads that they we’re seeing, but I was very confident on posting ads on Craigslist so I would always start to be on the top ___ [0:17:18] posting ads and stuff. I guess they saw mine and he contacted and I know I was the first person they talked to they was doing the business other than the people that they talk to with courses and stuff like that. But I was the first person that they actually talked to that was actively trying to get a deal going even though it was the first one and we got along pretty well and we got the deal going.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. I’m sure glad just from that deal they had 30-plus-thousand reasons to be grateful for calling you on that ad I’m sure.
Kevin Ramirez: Oh yeah. They were very pleased and like I said we’ve done deals since then. I’ve wholesaled them some properties as well. So it’s created a very good relationship. The reason why I ended up not wholesaling the property to them was because I actually wanted to be part of that first flipping. I want to get that ___ [0:18:05] I want to get that experience of working with subcontractors in the GC and working with finding and materials and making sure everything’s fine and just seeing the process everything coming together, it was very exciting to me. It was like what I saw on TV, what I was seeing on YouTube – they were the people that I was looking up to. That’s what they were doing. So I was very excited.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. It’s the fun part. Taking something from a dump into like a beautiful house, there’s something really gratifying and rewarding for that.
Kevin Ramirez: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Danny Johnson: With the JV contract agreement that you had with your JV partner on that first deal, was that also something that – did you have somebody draw that up for you or was that a part of a course that you had or something?
Kevin Ramirez: They brought it in actually. They wanted to make sure everything was legal, everything was going to work out fine. Like I said, it was their first year and it was their money on the line. So you know I had never done any deal before. I had never done anything like that. Like I said, I wanted to wholesale it but then I said, “Okay, I know there are some people who were doing this JV thing when they’re ___ [0:19:12] equity partners, let’s l try it out. I talked to them about it and they said, “Hey Kevin, we’ll bring in the contract.” So they went to their attorney. He drafted the contract for the property. He brought it to me. I looked over it. I actually had my aunt who is in real estate investing who does ___ [0:19:35] family to look over to see if everything was good and everything was good and everything is how we’re supposed to be. So that’s what we used, they brought it in though.
Danny Johnson: Do you remember some of the key points from that contract for the people listening as far as what maybe people are looking for to protect their interests and for you to be able to make sure that you have your interest protected? Do you remember any of the key points from that JV contract?
Kevin Ramirez: Let’s see. That’s a little bit of a hard question. So there’s a lot of them. It was a pretty extensive contract. I don’t use that contract anymore, but it was it was pretty long I thought at the time. It just that we were all in this venture for that particular for that property and nothing else and that we were going to at the end were going to be splitting the profits 50/50 or the losses as well. That clause, I’ve never heard of that because every time you know I had heard of a JV deal, I’ve always heard of people doing no money down and no risk. Someone else is pulling all the money and then at the end they’re splitting 50/50 for the profits, but nobody ever tells you that you’re also splitting or you should be splitting the loss if you really want to get the person to work with you. Some people ask for it, some people don’t ask for it. That really is what it is. But this particular contract had that clause in where if we were get any losses, we would also split those 50/50. And yeah and that was definitely the main one and we also had a clause that said that if you went over a certain amount of flip or repairs – we have an estimate of $70,000 seventy thousand dollars in repairs, if we went over that, 20% would go to meet that I will have the pay 20% interest on that. That’s the only part that we switch and changed on our contract. I didn’t do that because of how likely it was for us to go over the repair estimate since we were both doing this for the first time. So we were just kind of “Let’s just not do this one.” But everything else stayed the way it was, but those are pretty much the keypoints on that contract.
Danny Johnson: All right, great. I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah, sometimes it’s kind of hard to remember all the specifics of it. I’m glad you were able to come up with the main points because that’s something that people worry about, it’s like what should this say. Obviously we’re not attorneys, so if you structure a JV contract, they’ll do it just base on what you heard here. But speak to a competent local attorney to have that done, but just so you know some of the keypoints. That’s really pretty cool how you go about what happens if there’s a loss because if you don’t specify or talk about that in the contract, and then you do have a loss you could end up in a situation where somebody is not happy and then loss and everything else, so that’s good to try to cover all potential outcomes and be upfront about all of it, so that you guys don’t have any disputes later on.
Kevin Ramirez: Absolutely, absolutely.
Danny Johnson: So let’s talk about going into the second deal. You said you did a wholesale. What was the next one that you ended up rehabbing? Did you use the same JV partner or did you end up with another one?
Kevin Ramirez: For the second rehab, I ended up using him again.
Danny Johnson: Yeah, easy.
Kevin Ramirez: It was a similar – same contract actually for him. It’s a similar situation. This particular lead came from the sign that we put in front of the property. It was one of my signs that I had to put in front of the property when I had the property under contract before it closed. And they had called me and they said, “Hey Kevin, we’re interested in selling our house. We see that you have a house that you’re buying here in the neighborhood. Come over and take a look at ours.” So I did and then we ended up getting under contract. We ended up making on that one $50,000 on that one, splitting 50/50 as well with the same partner. That was a lucky, that was at a whole time was just very exciting for me getting my first three deals done, that first semester in college and you’re just kind of so excited that they all fell through so easily once my marketing was up and what was the chance of someone in the same neighborhood getting to see that sign and calling me and me to get that property under contract. That’s what I thought, but obviously now that’s what I do every time I have a rehab. If the neighborhood ___ [0:24:21] you can have a sign up or a banner. I always try to have it so that the neighbors can see it and they know what I’m doing. I also do a lot of door knocking as soon as I get a property that I’m starting to rehab around there probably just to let the neighbors know what I’m doing – what I’m looking to do with this property that’s going to make their neighborhood better and also to see if I can get a referral.
Danny Johnson: Well, that’s great. Most people don’t take the time to do that. I need to start putting the signs back out at rehabs we’re doing. It’s awesome that you got to you to a deal from them. What did your sign say on it?
Kevin Ramirez: It was a handwritten sign that I had. I didn’t have a bannerat the time. I didn’t have a sign or anything. It was a handwritten sign that says “We buy houses” and I just put it in there with my number. So it was kind of like a bandit sign, but it was supposed to be – I was going to replace it which I did and I ended replacing it with a company sign.
Danny Johnson: It probably didn’t work as well though.
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah. It was just a company name and the number, but it was just a ___ [0:25:20] put in front of the front of the property.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. So do you think that the handwritten one maybe works better than the professional company?
Kevin Ramirez: I couldn’t tell you. Like I said, it was my first time ever doing something like that and it happened to work. I’d say about 1% of the properties that I do, I would say only 1% of those properties I will get from a lead like that. I’ve only gotten two off of doing that so far. But I can’t tell you if it works because it was handwritten. I can tell you though that from the bandit signs that I have done around town, I don’t really like doing bandit signs anymore. I did it for a little bit when I was just getting started. I did find out that I handwritten ones work a little bit better for me.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. They grab the attention a little bit better. You got to be careful. So are bandit signs probably like in most places, are they illegal in your area?
Kevin Ramirez: Oh yeah, yeah. They don’t like them. There are some areas where they really push on it too hard in the Raleigh area. ___ [0:26:30] Raleigh they don’t really push on it as hard as they do in other cities like them. You know they didn’t like them they will call you and they’ll take them down in that same day.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. It makes it difficult. I wanted to ask also about you said that you used that JV partner for two deals and you said that you had done some with some other JV partners. How did you find the other JV partners that you ended up using for some of the deals?
Kevin Ramirez: Same way. They saw my ads on Craigslist, maybe they saw my Google Adwords and they contacted me. Those are the JV partners that I’ve had, happened to be first time flippers as well. It’s just people who are looking to get started. They just saw that I had an ad up and things like that and like I said, I didn’t get calls from other people. But some of the other people in the area may be a little bit bigger than I am or that I was at the time. So maybe they didn’t want to do the lead deals. They only wanted only to do wholesaling or they only wanted to do to where they would lend them money and they would do the flip. I was hoping to do a JV deal with the leads that I found and – I just was able to define that win-win situation for me and the partner as well, so I packed on it that way with them. Like I said, most of the partners I’ve had have come to me and I’ve met some people also that I’ve work with on blogs and forums and things like that.
Danny Johnson: Wow, cool. Whenever they call you, I’m assuming because they were calling on your marketing for buying houses, that they were just going and saying introducing themselves as another investor and asking for any kind of deals. Did you then go into – how did you approach them about becoming a JV? I’m assuming they didn’t ask you about becoming a JV or maybe that you approached them about it? How did you do that?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah, so when they called me they introduce ourselves as other investors, “Hey Kevin, we want to get started in real estate” or “We’re home flippers. We’re wondering if you have any deals to wholesale. So usually it starts like that. Some people have actually come to me and say “Hey, if you have any deals you’d like and you’re going in half and half or something like that or “If you want to work together” – that’s how they phrase do you want work together. We were able to do it that way. Then when I send them the deal, I add them to cash buyers list when I send them the actual deal on the email. Depending on who it is, I have some people who only ___ [0:29:04] to wholesale and then that’s after I send out he email to rehab or I’m working on maybe two or three rehabs at a time and I’m just kind of like, “Hey, maybe let’s wholesale this one and let someone else have it.” So I’m going to send it out to my wholesaling list. But yeah, usually I start out by asking, “Hey, I have this deal going on. These are the numbers. This is the projected profit.” I send them some pitches, I send everything. They are usually the deals that I try to send out. I don’t send out a lot of deals, but the deals that I do send out are pretty good deals. They’re not homeruns every time, but they’re deals that the average investor would be like, “Okay, let’s make it work because it sounds like a good deal.” So I offer that out, I just say, hey, looking to deal with, I’m looking to sell it for this amount of money or I’m looking for a partner who would want to go in with me and for us to work together in rehab ___ [0:29:59] because like I said I’d like to get some more experience rehabbing. Even now it takes some time to figure out the repairs needed and the scope of work and things like. I’m getting better I still mess up a lot of the times.
Danny Johnson: There’s a lot to be said about that then because you’re basically – you’re seeing yourself I’m not an expert at determining repair cost and all that kind of stuff. But you didn’t let that stop you, you took action. You talk with other people, work stuff out with other people and helped each other figure it out and make a go of it.
Kevin Ramirez: Absolutely, absolutely.
Danny Johnson: That’s an awesome story and I really really like the idea of not just calling people or talking to people about wholesale deals but seeing that there’s a potential in there to create JV partnerships instead and having them fund deals so that you’re not just looking at I got to get started, I don’t have money, so I need to wholesale everything. You didn’t look at it that way, you said I’m going to find someone to put up the money and do this work together and learn the ropes and that’s pretty awesome. It’s a good way to start.
Kevin Ramirez: Absolutely.
Danny Johnson: And did you find that there was – in these other ones with the other JV partners, did they expect you to do more of the leg work as far as handling with contractors or how did that work out with you guys making decisions on what kind of remodelling to do, what kind of cabinets and tile, and all that kind of stuff. How did that all work out?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah. Well, you actually won’t believe him. He knows the people – I guess it does make sense that most of the people that I’ve worked with who have put in all of the money for the property where their money is on the line, they usually want to to be more in charge of certain things when it comes to the property. So actually the leg work, they’re doing most of the call and they’re doing most of the – if they have to pick materials ___ [0:31:59] my role really was on most of the deals I’ve done was finding the deal, negotiating the deal, getting it under contract making sure it’s a solid very good deal. And then from then, getting them and just kind of out getting us to the close and getting us to that profit share. But you know doing the rehab, they like to be very involved. ___ [0:32:22] I’m doing all the work, I have be very involved as well. So we kind of split it half and half, but sometimes they do like to be more cautious. They want to pick some things and it’s worked out great with all of the people who I’ve worked with. This particular couple, the first couple that I worked with, I’ve done maybe five deals with them or six deals with them as rehabs. They’re a couple and the girl has is really really good taste when it comes to rehabbing, things like that. She’s was on top of making everything – choosing the colors, choosing the fabric everything. And now I just kind of use her color palette or flipping taste as a temple for my flip that I do with anybody else. That’s going to light up my ___ [0:33:15]
Danny Johnson: Yeah, that’s awesome. I don’t know what I’d do without my wife because I would probably end up choosing really hideous colors and things like that, that other people wouldn’t appreciate it.
Kevin Ramirez: Yup, that’s how it is.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. And so how are you guys selling these properties? Were you selling them yourselves for FSBO, hiring a realtor and were you staging them or anything like that?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah. So the first properties that we got, we listed it on the market with a realtor. I actually happened to have a real estate license. I got it this year. Actually, I’ve had it for about a year now and since then, I’ve been listing the properties myself, so all of my rehabs now, I list them myself as a realtor.
Danny Johnson: Right. And so, you actually go and do the showings and stuff like that when people call?
Kevin Ramirez: No. The buyers’ agent would do the showing when it comes to that. I just [Crosstalk] the buyers’ agent and I get in contact with the buyers’ agent and I negotiate with them directly. But yes, like I said, ___ [0:34:14] I list them on the market now.
Danny Johnson: Great. And like the first one, do you still sell them pretty quick?
Kevin Ramirez: Oh yeah, yeah. Especially this year, we’re experiencing a very very good market here in the Raleigh area. All of the properties – most of the properties I’ve had have sold in less than 15 days. I think 15 days have been the highest one. I think I’m lucky to have started in a very good ___ [0:34:43] crash and then after that I really started in 2012 even after that. So it was picking up then and now we’re really really good right now. Houses are selling in days in the neighborhoods that I like working.
Danny Johnson: That’s great. It’s been really nice lately with how quickly things are selling for what they’re selling for. We’ve all made mistakes though in this business and I’m sure you’ve probably made some. We all have. So what’s the biggest mistake maybe that you think that you’ve made that others can avoid?
Kevin Ramirez: Man, I’ve made many. Where would I start? Definitely being careful with over rehabbing because like I said I’ve never lost money on any of the deals that I’ve done, but I could’ve capitalized a little bit more on the rehab side when it came to getting bids from different subcontractors and things like that. Also when it came to working with the subcontractors, being a little bit more careful of who I was choosing, how long they were taking when it came to finishing deals sometimes, they like to take a little bit longer and then other people ___ [0:36:06] and they just kind of slack off for the last 10% of the rehab. Taking action – sometimes
I pull the trigger especially for the first six months that I was into it – getting calls, answering calls, talking for some hours just searching everything I could be doing and actually doing the things I should have been doing back, that was definitely my biggest flaw back then and it still is. I’m progressing a little bit when it comes to talking to – actually searching sellers ___ [0:36:45] or Craigslist and things like that, reaching out to them and calling them.
Danny Johnson:  Yeah. That could be some work sometimes, but that’s what pays the bills, that’s what brings the deals.
Kevin Ramirez: Absolutely, yeah.
Danny Johnson: I’m not really trying to rhyme. I don’t know how that happened but are there –
what are your current goals in this business? You’ve got an awesome start, do you have any goals that you want to share? I know you had told me about wanting to do 25 this year. Any other goals?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah. My goal at the beginning of this year starting 2015, my goal was to finish the year with 25 ___ [0:37:30] I’m at 19 now and that’s kind of what I’m focusing on for the end of this year and also another goal is obviously to increase that next year. I’d like to do at least 35 next year where I am getting more used to it now. I’m getting some momentum, increasing my marketing. Another goal of mine is getting better at direct mailing. I’m actually not doing any direct mailing. All my leads are coming from online marketing and ___ [0:37:59]. So I’m going to start doing direct mailing probably this month and getting different lists and things like that. Those are really my goals, definitely had to do with improving and ramping up my marketing –
offline marketing at this moment.
Danny Johnson: Right. So to do more deals, you got to do more marketing and get more leads and everything. Do you have any good books that you’ve read recently that you would recommend to anybody?
Kevin Ramirez: Oh yeah. absolutely. Are you looking for a real estate book or a business book?
Danny Johnson: Either way.
Kevin Ramirez: Either way. I’m sure your audience has heard this one a lot. The One Thing by Gary Keller, I thought that was book was absolutely brave [0:38:47], really just getting on point with what you should be doing, your path that you should be doing, the ones that are worth more, figuring those out and actually getting those on the table. And also a book – an older book but I just recently read it, The E Myth by Michael Gerber. It just really changed my mindset on the business. Before that I was just kind of – I’m still kind of a one-man team but after reading that book which has kind of changed my mind to make this more of a business, more of a trench [0:39:21]. That’s where I’m going to be able to kind of step out a little bit. As of now, I’m doing a lot of the things. I’m setting up most of the marketing campaign, I’m working on my website, I’m doing ___ [0:39:33], I’m meeting with sellers, I’m meeting buyers, I’m meeting with cash buyers – so my goal really is to just kind of give the leg work to someone else, let someone get into my marking or let someone else handle some of the things that I’m doing now that I could be – should be spending time doing something different. So those two books have definitely changed my mindset when it comes to business.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. It’s awesome I love both of those books and I think you’re spot on with the whole making sure that you’re actually running a business instead of just building another job for yourself, so super smart. It’s awesome to hear that you’re focusing on that, especially ___ [0:40:14] too. The one thing is an awesome book too and I actually have a blog post about how the systems are used to do what’s talked about and the one thing to make sure that I’m focused on the most important thing I should be doing next hour using free software out there that’s available for everybody and that blog post I’ll put on the show notes. That’ll give you basically sort of like the blueprint of how I keep track of my one thing and so it’s really cool. Check it out at the show notes page. The notes for this show, all the key points that we talked about and then these books and then that post and I think that you said that you have something for the audience as well don’t you?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah, absolutely. It’s going to be in for graphic that kind of talks about exactly what I do from the moment I get a lead, to the moment I get the JV contract, to the moment I get that closing on that property and flip the property. It’s going the whole step up step guide on getting a contract and getting the funding through a JV partner and then making a rehab happy.
Danny Johnson: Awesome. Yeah, so I’ll have there in the show notes page as well so everybody can download that for free. And the show on its pages is going to be for this episode at flipping junkie dot com slash podcast slash Kevin Ramirez and that’s K-E-V-I-N R-A-M-I-R-E-Z, so flippingjunkie.com/podcast/kevinramirez – no spaces, all lower case and you’ll be able
to find all the information there. And Kevin, I really appreciate you coming on the show and I enjoyed hearing from you and got some awesome ideas from you.
Kevin Ramirez: Thank you. Thank you for having me on the podcast for sure. Man, you blog has been –you are pretty much the first blogger I ever followed and really started reading. I’m excited for sure.
Danny Johnson: Cool. I appreciate that. And is there any way that people out there can find you? Any website you want to share or anything like that?
Kevin Ramirez: Yeah, absolutely. They can find me on Google+, my tag is just nchomebuyers at Google+. They can find me on my website at SellYourHouseRaleigh.com and they can also follow me on Twitter @nc_homebuyers and that’s pretty much where I hangout online.
Danny Johnson: All right man, I really appreciate it Kevin.
Kevin Ramirez: Thank you. Thank you for sure. Thank you for having me on the podcast Danny.
Danny Johnson: All right. Have a great day.

Hey thanks for listening to the show. I wanted to ask really quick, if you got something that you’re struggling with, something that you are finding it difficult to overcome to get started flipping houses, if so you can visit Facebook dot com slash flipping junkie and leave me a message there at facebook.com/flippingjunkie. And that way I know what you’re struggling with and I want to tailor specific episodes to the things that you guys submit and want to hear specifically about. So please go to facebook.com/flippingjunkie and leave a message there with what’s been holding you back and any questions that you have about flipping houses. And also be sure to stop by flipping junkie do com slash 8 – that’s the number 8, flippingjunkie.com/8 to get the awesome infographic that that Kevin has been kind enough to share with us. And also I just wanted to say thank you very much for everybody. You’ve been great with the new release of the podcast. I was pretty nervous about releasing it, but everybody has been really enjoying it and I really want to thank everybody who’s left a rating and a review of the show on iTunes. I very much appreciate that. It just takes just a second and if you’re not sure how to do that, you can go to flippingjunkie.com/rate and we’ll see you next week.