During today’s HyperFast Wealth segment, host Dan Lesniak speaks with Matt Fullerton, a real estate investor who also helps educate and train new investors. In this episode, Matt shares how real estate investing has changed during the pandemic, who is selling, and where they are finding the best deals.
Episode Highlights:
- Matt Fullerton is a lifelong sales guy. He began his career selling cars and left that business for private equity.
- Then he became associated with Express Home Buyers, a real estate investment company that was specializing in flips when he joined. They now specialize in wholesale. He started his own company in late 2018.
- Matt shares his approach to buying distressed listings from agents.
- He also helps other established real estate companies by taking their old leads. If he gets them under contract, they split the profits.
- Their main exit is wholesale with no marketing.
- Because lender guidelines have tightened up during COVID, they are taking on more flips.
- During COVID they've seen landlords and vacation rental owners reaching out to sell their properties.
- On the buyer side, a lot of lending has tightened up. Some deals that made sense three months ago no longer make sense.
- In Dan's observations, getting investor money has become more difficult during these times.
- Renovated houses are in very high demand.
- The inventory shortage encouraged Matt's company to do more flips.
- Commercial and retail have taken a beating so there will be an opportunity there to pick up some commercial property and redevelop it.
- They're finding more townhouses and condos than they usually do because people often hold those as rentals.
- They think there will be a lot of opportunity in PG (Prince George County), Maryland. They're now finding great deals in the Baltimore suburbs.
- They're always looking for new list providers. They're looking at niche lists.
- For marketing, they use social media. They decided not to spend a ton of money on marketing during COVID.
- They don't have a lot of overhead and they don't have debt aside from properties they're working on.
- Dan has experienced great success with online leads.
- They founded a REIA group, the Real Deals Real Estate Investors Group.
- Matt tells people who are new to their REIA to get their real estate license.
- There's tremendous value in partnering with as many realtors as possible.
- Matt’s advice to a new investor is to not get trapped in other people’s dogma.
- He advises experienced realtors not to get trapped in their own way of thinking.
- When you're being rigid, consider other ways to look at the situation.
- The biggest challenge they faced was having to generate leads without any marketing.
- If you're a decent person and want to help people, you will succeed.
- Matt shares his love for the outdoors and traveling.
- In five years he wants to be setting up the companies he's part of for his exit. He will then pursue environmental work.
3 Key Points:
1. COVID has changed the landscape for real estate investing because getting investor money is more difficult right now.
2. There’s high demand for renovated homes, which encourages investors to consider flipping.
3. If you’re an investor, consider getting your real estate license to reap the benefits of referrals.
Tweetable Quotes:
- “We've had to adjust our percentages and keep track of our buyers and really grind on getting buyers into the program so we can move our deals.” – Matt Fullerton
- “We're seeing a lot of buyer competition now.” – Matt Fullerton
- “I think a lot of investors could benefit by partnering with agents and getting licensed even if they're not going to really use it.” – Dan Lesniak
- “We benefited a ton from REIAs when we first started our business so we wanted to start one to help newer people and also for lead gen.” – Matt Fullerton
- “Don't get locked into your own realm of thinking.” – Matt Fullerton
Resources Mentioned: