How To Find the BEST Real Estate Deals off the MLS? feat. Ryan Zolin
Yo, yo, what is up? Welcome back to the science flipping podcast. I’m your host Justin Colby and on this episode, we have our guy Ryan Zoan. Joining us (Ryan: what’s up? What’s up?) What’s up, dude? We are proving the myth that you can’t find deals on the MLS. Mr. Zolin is absolutely crushing it and by the way, if you’re not watching this on YouTube, you should because we are live in in action right now, right here in Scottsdale, Arizona. So everyone jump over to youtube.com/justincolby and watch this episode. If you’re on iTunes drop five stars.
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Justin: But otherwise, Ryan, what’s up, dude?
Ryan: Not much man out here enjoying the conference watching some of the speakers getting to meet some cool people.
Justin: Yeah, cool. So I have been doing this 15 years, I’ve done almost 2000 transactions. And I will tell you, I’ve probably done if I’m guessing I’ve probably maybe done 150 of those 2000. (Ryan: Yep). From the MLS. (Ryan: Wow) I’ve been educating for 9 years and for the vast majority that I’ve said go off market. That’s where you’ll get your this kind of properties. You my friend, (Ryan: Yes) are changing the game, trying to we’re proving this old man wrong. I say that humbly. Because how old are you? (Ryan: I am 24). I am almost double your age. There’s making me feel bad. But talk to me about how you are finding properties, how this MLS hack that you’ve done and, and made so successful. How’s that working?
Ryan: Sure. So it started back when I was 18. I started off as a traditional real estate agent. So fresh out of high school, no college background, anything like that. I wanted to get in real estate just because college wasn’t in the cards. But then also I figured I wanted to be an entrepreneur and my own boss. And this was the easiest route to go full transparency. And if I didn’t succeed, I was 18. What did I have to lose? I had nothing but time on my hands. (Justin: Right) So I started off as an agent for about three years. And I sold about like 25, 30 million and I was like just an alright agent, nothing crazy. But the one thing I realized as an agent was that there’s a few things. Number one, the hardest part of being a realtor is to find a willing able and qualified client. (Justin: Okay). The second part is that most people get into real estate for freedom and flexibility, which I think you’d probably agree with (Justin: Of course). And the one thing as a realtor is that you show houses when? (Justin: Yeah), Weekends and nights (Justin: Okay) so there was no freedom. I transitioned over to the investment side, and I was like, oh, man, the hardest part of being an investor is finding a deal. (Justin: Yeah) So then I was obviously able to surround myself with a lot of guys being local in Arizona that are doing at a very high level. The one thing that I failed at from the beginning was comparison. So I was like, Okay, well, I need VA’s. I need to have acquisitions, dispositions, TC’s, Junior acquisitions, you know, whole nine yards. And I failed very quickly because I realized, okay, I’m spending too much money. I don’t have the skill set. And I’m relying on Right Place Right Time, right. So that I was okay, well, what if I could take the gap of people understanding that the hardest part of being the investor is finding a deal, the hardest part of being a realtor is finding a client? What if I could just be my like, be my own client. So I accidentally did what I call now is the double dip in my very first transaction on the investment side, where I ended up going getting a deal on the MLS. I had myself as the buyer’s agent, because that’s just what I was familiar with. I got a deal under contract, and then I wholesaled it out, just expecting to get the assignment fee. On the HUD I noticed I had to commission coming to me too. And I’m like, Whoa, this is crazy. I’m double dipping, I’m getting commission and an assignment fee, this is insane. So at this point, I was like, How do I scale this? How do I like just really double down on the double dip, and I failed forward, I kept continuously building relationships with agents, realize the flow of them not understanding how the process works. And then from there, we were able to really hone in on our process. And I mean, dude, now we’re hitting 15, 20 deals a month off the MLS and agent relationships, $0 in marketing, and we’re clearing six figures every single month. (Justin: What are you doing this here in Phoenix? Are you doing it?) Yep. So Phoenix is my primary market. I have some secondaries. It’s Florida, Vegas and Atlanta. But we usually pull like one maybe two out of those markets every month. Other than that, it’s all Phoenix.
Justin: So let’s walk through the profit process really quick. You’re a licensed agent here. (Ryan: Correct). You go to the MLS, you find a deal that is listed that you essentially underwritten analyzed comped and said, There’s margin here? (Ryan: Yes). You then contract it as the buyer that is representing yourself meaning you’ll get the commission but you’re also the buyer. (Ryan: Correct) Okay. So you’ll get your 2 1/2 to 3%. (Ryan: Yep). You also then basically just go find the right buyer knowing the buyer (Ryan: that’s it) and say “Hey, buddy, I noticed on the MLS (Ryan: Yep.) But it fits your buy box. (Ryan: Yep). Are you willing to buy it?” Let’s just say 10 grand above (Ryan: For sure). And they say “Yes”, (Ryan: that’s it). Okay. Now, do you get any pushback from your buyers about it being on the MLS? And you’re not giving them a discount?
Ryan: I think that there’s this misconception that people are like, Oh my God, it’s on the market. Yes, I do have buyers that are like, why wouldn’t I just go to the listing agent? Well, that’s a good question that you have. It’s exclusively available through me, there was a bidding war, there was multiple offers on the table, I got it available. Like I said, it’s exclusive through me. If you don’t want to buy it, no worries, I do have the buying capability myself, and I’ll take it down if I don’t sell it. So it’s really not that complex. What people need to understand is what I said a minute ago, the hardest part of being an investor is finding a deal. So what I would challenge people, and this is what I tell them, my students that bring me the same roadblock. I’m like, number one, did you actually have that happen? Or are you asking me a hypothetical? Two get better buyers? (Justin: Yeah), understand, like I just said, again, investors hardest part is finding the deal. If it’s a deal, the numbers don’t lie, it doesn’t matter how they found the deal.
Justin: So how do you know it’s deal a for that right buyer?
Ryan: So this is a (Justin: buyer’s first?) that’s it. I was just gonna say it’s from Glenn Stearns. So the number one thing he always teaches us find your buyers first. So you go in, you qualify them going and trying to find a buyer in a market like this is not that hard. The hardest part is actually trying to identify, are you actually a buyer? Or are you just a wholesaler that’s gonna put up your fee on top and mark it up and send it out on the list.
Justin: And that’s why I use privy or prop stream or any of the list sources that can show you these people are who closed on it correct. Go to open corporates look up the corporation column. (Ryan: That’s it) I love it. And it’s funny because quite literally, after educating as long as I have and probably doing 150 out of 2,000 deals on the MLS. I’ve actually flipped it and because of Benson in previous kind of why I’ve really decided to do it is because their algorithm allows you to see the percentage of ARV (Ryan: Yep) and that’s huge. Because, yeah, you’re finding the real buyer. But now you know exactly percentage ARV they’re willing to buy at. (Ryan: Yep). And you don’t have to run some formula and call an agent say, “hey, I need you know, 15% off the list price”, you can literally contract it at list price. (Ryan: literally. Yeah). And so do you do that in a general sense of like, ask your buyer where their bite threshold is? Or do you always go in and ask for discounts based around this price?
Ryan: No, it’s really what their threshold is. I have a handful of buyers that really don’t care. Like it’s not often but we’ll get deals that are at list price more often than not, it’s like day one on market really coming soon. We’re okay, yes, it was listed at 430. My price is 445. ARV is like 600. Okay, sounds good. That’s a deal. Go for it. It was either just a seller incentive motivation, where they have motivation to sell quick or it’s an agent that just didn’t do their due diligence and they’ve underpriced it. So aside from that, most of the time our offers are below list price. But optically, then going back to your question of what do you get kickback from buyers? If it’s below list price? Why would they have a problem? It’s lower than what they could get it?
Justin: They shouldn’t (Ryan: exactly) ideally in our world, they shouldn’t. You’re saying “Hey, dude, this is the the potential of this home is 600. (Ryan: Yep) I’m getting it to you at 445”. (Ryan: Exactly). Why do you care? (Ryan: Exactly) Now, that’s the perfect world, some buyers do and you say great, to your point, is your indifferent. If you don’t want it not a big deal. I can just by myself, I figured I just kind of offload this one but not a big deal, right. And you move on to the next buyer.
Ryan: And that happens all the time. Like where I actually do just close on the property. And we’ll sell it more often in that situation. It’s still like a hedge fund or to somebody that would have an issue seeing an assignment fee and I didn’t want to double close. (Justin: Sure) So.
Justin: No, I love it. And again, this is in any market access. That’s why preview really changed for me is quite literally I just was telling my manager I was like, hey, we need to pull one full time person off of acquisition, (Ryan: put them on Privy) Only go privy MLS (Ryan: Yep). And that’s why when I was when I was able to interview for this spot on like, Absolutely, because this has been like the old dog new tricks kind of thing. I’m like, it’s not really a new trick. But like I just, I was in my own way like, Oh, it doesn’t really work that way. Well, it does. (Ryan: Yeah) right?
Ryan: I will tell you, I’m the biggest advocate of the MLS like yeah, people go around calling me the MLS king. And I’m like, I love that. I appreciate it. But like, you’re foolish if you’re not at least looking because it’s free. It’s free.
Justin: What’s your day look like? Like, are you just drowned in MLS all day, you’re just always analyzing properties, or is it more like, you get the notification that something new came on? You’re really only measuring the news. Like when I say news, the new listings (Ryan: Yep). come out?
Ryan: My day to day is a little bit different now. As of about two months ago, I’m actually out of the day to day operations in the wholesale company. So the acquisition team dispositions, they’ve got it all under control, but what their day looks like is they’ve got specific KPI’s. It’s 50 real estate agent conversations per day. (Justin: 50 agent conversations a day). Yep. And then five offers minimum (Justin: five offers a day) and I would argue very, very comfortably that you could get more than five offers out if you’d really like to, like.
Ryan: What should be the conversion rate of those five offers. If five offers go out. What are you expecting then?
Ryan: Yep, So 25 a week 100 A month when you’re first getting started? You should probably get about like 15 to 20 under contract. Good month 15, 20 under contract closing on about 10 to 12 of those (Justin: Okay), now keep in mind those are like we’re numbers are over like this, the sense of, okay, I understand what I’m looking for, I’ve got my maybe not like a shotgun up…(Justin: when someone’s just starting, it might not be as good as those numbers yet) Exactly. If I were to go off of someone just starting off the 100 offers that they would submit you’re more likely submitting offers on properties that you’re not gonna get under contract which is fine. Expect on your first 100 offers to get probably a handful under contract closing on one to two. (Justin: Yep) But if I’m still selling…(Justin: so five to 10%, reasonable?) Correct and one to two, I’d say full conversion from obviously being able to close.
Justin: To sell the, Okay, so 100 offers five to 10 contracted oneto two close.
Ryan: And I can tell you our numbers so last week we wrote 50 offers we had eight under contract, (Justin: Okay) so we closed a really sold I think six of them were trying to sell two we had to get extension.
Justin: So like 18% and then you actually closed on like 80%
Ryan: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, our numbers and remember, I mean, this has been like a refined process. Over the years I’ve been doing this for now three years of really honed in on MLS and agents. As of last year, I put all my effort and energy into doing this full time like, like full time on this side. Just MLS and agents. (Justin: Yeah) And we did over seven figures last year. So 90, it was like 89, 90% profit margins.
Justin: Guys, I’m telling you sometimes you just gotta open up your mind. There are other ways to do it. Again, Ryan Zolin, where are we finding you? Let’s follow Ryan.
Ryan: Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube. I do a show with Brent Daniels every Thursday millionaire before 30.
Justin: I love it. Yeah, that’s That’s right. (Ryan: Yeah). So listen, make sure to follow him. Thank you guys for paying attention. I’ll tell you right now this is an opportunity game whether you’re cold calling like Brent myself, whether you’re making offers like Ryan and now myself or your direct mail, whatever it is. Create those opportunities so you can convert the deals. That’s really what it’s about. I appreciate you coming on board bro.
Ryan: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it
Justin: Right on. Awesome peace.
