Hey everybody! Flip and Dani here, founders of the Freedom Real Estate Group Family of Companies and welcome to another episode of our podcast, which is called Freedom Through Passive Income. Yeah, good job. Thank you. Welcome to another episode. This is our new mini series. This is the Flip & Dani story. This is part tres. Yes. And this is "Beginning Their Real Estate Journey to Building 5 Companies".
That's right. Yes. So we're gonna start where you left off. Yup. In episode two. And that was in 2008. That was when the, basically the bottom dropped out of the economy. That's right. So at this point in time, I am home. And you're still working on cruise ships with the art auctioneer gig. Because we had the idea of, hey, let's transition ourselves out. Because we didn't want to do that forever, right? Right. The art auctions. Oh, no, no, we're not on ships, you're just on land. Yeah. I was doing art auctions on land. That's right. Yeah. So you were flying almost every weekend. And actually it's funny. It's funny that you said that because they were trying to get me to go back out on cruise ships in 2008, to train and to work with other auctioneers. Right. And this is all at this time when all this was happening. And I was just like, yeah, no. Yeah, exactly right.
So as he continued to do the art auction gig, I stayed at home and was trying to figure out what new career that I wanted to do, so that I could start working, and then transition him out of the art auctions. And so I had chosen a few different paths of I might like this, I might like this, I might like this. Real estate was one of them. Insurance was another and it was really more the financial piece of it. Yeah. I wanted to, you know, get my series seven in order to do mutual funds, and you know, like the investing piece, and then the other one was mortgage. So I tried insurance, and then really didn't love it. Tried mortgage, really didn't love it. Tried real estate, boom! Fell in love. Yup. So that was the answer. That's what I really, really, really liked doing. But it was in 2008, that we got to that point where we're trying real estate. Yeah.
And we were Realtors at the times we had our license. So we had very little network to none. Yeah, zero. Because we had been on cruise ships and then traveling every single weekend. And when we are choosing which way to live, it was a matter of whose family's bigger because we knew we're gonna have to fly to go see the other person's family. Yeah, so Flip's family was in Texas, mine was in Arizona. So settling down, we decided to move to Texas because Flip's family was bigger. So we're in Texas, didn't know anybody really except for your family. Right. And so the realtor thing just didn't work out, took us a long time to get our first deal done. 8 months. Yeah, and it was just a nightmare. We actually have a separate podcast about being a realtor and just how unfun it really was, and how you are at the mercy of the people that you're working with, the sellers who are unreasonable, the buyers who want you to jump at a moment's notice to go see a property and it was just miserable. We didn't want to live a life like that.
So we decided, hey, let's be investors instead, you know, that's kind of, was a passion of mine. Anyway, when I chose, let me try insurance, mortgage or real estate, I was like, I want to, I want to understand real estate, I want to understand investing. And that's where, and so we ultimately said that and then we interviewed three different, well we didn't even interview them, we reached out to three different mentors. You emailed three different people. In that local area, because we wanted to learn from somebody that was actually there. And so only one of them actually replied, and it was Phill Grove. And Phill Grove is widely known. He has been coaching and teaching for a very long time and is very, very successful. And so we learned 12 different ways to buy and sell real estate, went to like a two day class, ended up forming a team with our broker, so our broker and her husband and then, me and you and I think we had one more person with us at the time. And so the five of us said, Hey, let's all learn together, let's all you know, go on this journey together.
And you and I have always been of that mindset. We are never let's just do it by ourselves. Let's do it with other people. Because we'll learn faster, we'll keep each other motivated and accountable. And so that's when we started our journey. And we started in that environment, that market at the time. We were doing mortgage assignments, sub 2 wraps, we really didn't get into sub 2 wraps too much until about a year later, but short sales. And I think those are the big ones, right? Yeah. And so even then we were actually going to Sam's Club buying, you know, big colors of rainbow colored paper. Bright paper. Bright neon colored paper, writing on them and then going and just targeting neighborhoods that we really wanted to get houses. It was a grand adventure. And we learned so much. And most importantly, we learned how to shift very quickly, depending on the market. And I think that's probably been the most valuable advice from our career. And again, going back to everything happens for a reason, like, this is one of those things that you know, who would have known we would actually chose real estate as one of our options in a down market and still took advantage of it. And it launched our career, right, we became what is known as the REI rockstars. During that time, because we were so successful in what we were doing that our coach was like, Phill was like, maybe 10% of the people that are, you know, that coach under me are successful. And it's not because of him. And we experienced the exact same thing. Yeah, they just don't do what you tell them to do. And it's very, very frustrating when you're a coach, when you're trying to help people. And they're investing in you to help. So he started bringing us out on panels across the United States to talk about, hey, you know, we actually did exactly what Phill told us to do. And, you know, look at how successful we are in this journey. And so that was really super exciting and kind of took us into this world of we know that this is what we're going to do for the rest of our lives. Yup. And then where do you want to go from here? So I'll just let you take over the story from here. And see where we land.
Well, I want to touch on a couple of things. So you know, when we first started, you talked about the colored paper. Yeah, yeah. So we bought a ream of a bright, bright paper. And then we didn't write on them. We wrote on one piece of paper and then photocopied it 500 times. And then we would wake up and we would go in the morning, because it's Texas. It's not so hot in the morning. And it's also when people have usually typically left their house. And so they would see this color paper when they came home from work. And so we're out one morning, and I love telling the story, because out of the two of us, you know, I'm, back then I was the outgoing guy. And you were the not so introvert. But you were like, the quiet one. And boy, we're walking down the street and you're doing one side, I was doing the other side. And all sudden, I saw this woman in her driveway. And I'm like, yikes! So I quick went over to her side over to Dani side, Dani went over to my side. And so this lady came walking out, what are you putting on all these doors? And Dani just goes, Oh, well, we're on a raising values campaign. And we're trying to find houses in this neighborhood that are for sale, and that we can help raise the value of everyone else's houses. And oh, boy, she was like, Oh, well, that guy over there. And make sure you're talking to this person over here. That's right. You know, she just went on it. And so the raising values campaigns. I was joking about writing that on my arm. You know, but that's what we did. We, it was a shoestring budget, and we just did as much as possibly could without spending any money. And we did that for years. Sorry, our dog is having fun here. Our Bulldog Rosie might be playing in the background. No daycare today. So.
So, you know, so that was the biggest thing. You know, it's just, we, we didn't have anything to go with because we burned through most of our savings when we were realtors, that sucked. But you know, we're like, we're gonna do this, you know, as we always do. And like I talked to you about yesterday, I know that I can do whatever I want. Yeah. And it was not I can do whatever you want. I know that I'm whatever I want. Whatever I'm going to do, I'm going to be good at or that type of thing. And so I hope that makes sense. It didn't come off too arrogant.
But, uh, so we had a blast doing it. We had so much fun doing it. Now. Like you said, Phill was flying us to LA, Chicago. He's flying us everywhere. To be a part of the panelists. And these two people did what I said and they're successful. Yup. You know, if that doesn't tell people to buy his program, I don't know what will. Which is why he paid for us to fly everywhere. So it was a great learning experience. It was really teaching us that, you know, that we could be a chameleon. We knew we had all these 12 different ways on how to buy and sell real estate. You know, we didn't touch probably eight of them. Because we didn't need to. Not in that market. But you know, we have them in case anything happens. And you know, whatever the market does, and we need to go to that strategy. We know how to do it. We already have, we've already learned it. Yeah. But I remember picking you up the second day after the first two day class. Oh my gosh, you were beaming. You're like, this is what we're gonna do. It was so fun.
Yeah. So from there, we became coaches. We eventually moved to Arizona, right? Because my mom got sick. So I'm just fast forwarding, right? Yeah, actually, in Texas. We actually did started the sub 2 wraps, right? Yeah, we were doing sub 2 wraps in Texas. Yeah, yeah. So we partnered with an attorney, started doing subject 2 wraps, and there's an episode about that to learn what it is. We won't go into it here. But it's another strategy that you can use depending on the market. And right now, quite frankly, is the market. You do subject twos, and mortgage assignments and short sales. All those things that we learned in 2008 are very important to today's market and understanding how to navigate, shift and adapt is really, really important. It's something that we talk about a lot. And when you're trusting who you're going to invest with or who you're going to learn from, is it, do they understand the market cycles? Do they know how to shift and adapt based on the market cycle? So those things are really important. So we started coaching. And then we moved to Arizona because my mom went into the ICU and so I thought, I don't know how long she's gonna be with us. And so I wanted to be with her.
Hey everybody. Hey everyone! This episode is running a little long, because somebody got a little chatty. What?! You said, tell my story. So we're gonna cut it off right here and tune in tomorrow to hear the other half.
That's right, but we still like to end all our episodes with Invest Smart, Live Happy, Bye everybody!
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