Flipping, Wholesaling, and Wholetailing Over 1500 Houses with Justin Colby
In this episode, I am excited to interview Justin Colby who is the Founder and President of The Science of Flipping and Phoenix Wealth Builders. The Science of Flipping is a top-ranked real estate investing podcast and Justin now has a second podcast called The Entrepreneur DNA for those going through the entrepreneurial journey. His real estate investment company, Phoenix Wealth Builders, specializes in purchasing, rehab, wholesaling, and wholetailing properties in the Metro Phoenix Area and they have flipped and wholesaled over 1500 properties to date. Justin has been called a master at finding deals in a market that many say is the most difficult market to be a real estate investor.
Justin began by telling us that he started as a realtor in 2005 and then bought a brokerage with a friend. He talked about how it was almost impossible not to make a lot of money in real estate in the years before the market crash. Being really young at that time, he spent a ton of money, had a really expensive car and condo, which all went away in 2007. He shares how he lost everything and ended up sleeping on his buddy’s couch.
Things started to turn around for Justin when he and a friend decided to begin investing in real estate. They ended up using transactional funding for their deals, which was popular at that time, where they would get a deal funded and closed basically simultaneously or same day. I asked if, at this time, he was doing any work on these properties and he said no, effectively what he was doing was wholetailing. Justin talked about setting a goal for himself of calling 100 realtors a day in order to find deals and people to work with, and it took a full nine months before they had their first deal.
After Justin talked about his resilience and fortitude in getting some traction in his new business, I asked him to share how he gets his deals. He addressed several different marketing strategies, including pay per click advertising, direct mail, cold-calling and auto-texting, and driving for dollars. Justin also examined the level of seller motivation and relative cost for each, as well.
I then asked Justin to describe how he is brokering deals by working with iBuyer companies such as Opendoor and Offerpad. If a deal isn’t attractive to his company for wholesaling, wholetailing, flipping, or even buy-and-hold, he will inquire with his realtor about the price one of these companies will offer the seller for their home and take a portion of the transaction fees if he can successfully hook them up. This is a really creative way of working with them instead of getting swallowed up by them as a smaller investor.
We discussed how the COVID pandemic was affecting his business and how he has been able to adapt. Justin says he really prides himself on the ability to stay flexible and make adjustments, if necessary. He talks about how he had refocused his energy on his business after a partnership fell through, and when the pandemic hit, it was actually good timing for him.
Justin was incredibly transparent in his business dealings and if you join us I know you will get a ton of actionable wisdom!
Notable Quotes:
“The beginning years were the fun ones - when I was broke, busted, and disgusted.”
- Justin Colby
“Pain is more of a motivator than the carrot.”
- Justin Colby
“Just talk about what you are doing and people will get excited and gravitate toward you.”
- Mike Simmons
“Here is my secret sauce - I’m a people person.”
- Justin Colby
“I just had fortitude - I was willing to endure pain when other people can’t or won’t.”
- Justin Colby
“I know what I want to achieve and I am relentless in trying to achieve it regardless of when I achieve it.”
- Justin Colby
“People overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can accomplish in ten.”
- Tony Robbins
“You can get exactly what you want if you are willing to: (a) work for it but (b) have patience.”
- Justin Colby
“You need to have more than one market strategy going at all times.”
- Justin Colby
“I have been able to make adjustments and pivot when required, and remained very flexible.”
- Justin Colby
“The only times I ever got hurt was when I chased money.”
- Justin Colby
Links:
Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months
The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh
