141: How to Find and Manage Great Contractors

Welcome to the new iteration of Mark Ferguson's real estate podcast. Now under the name OPM Mastery, Mark really digs into how you can get the money to be a successful real estate investor. Mark shares how he got into real estate, what he did wrong, and what he learned.

On my 150th episode of The InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast, I go over my business, which has been a little crazy lately. I started a new real estate brokerage in April, which we have been getting up and running as well as remodeling a new space. I am still flipping a lot of houses, but I have not been buying as many flips as I would like too. I have not been buying a lot of rentals, but the one rental I bought this year has been doing very well. On the podcast, I talk about all of this, the challenges, the progress, and the plan moving forward.  

On this episode of the InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast, I interview Christopher Watters, who started Watters International Realty. Christopher started out in the real estate business at a young age, but it took him a while to find his niche as a real estate broker. He obtained his real estate license right after college but was distracted by a number of jobs within the real estate industry before he started his own company. Christopher created a huge real estate team and then created a large real estate brokerage with multiple offices throughout Texas.  On the show, we talk about Christopher's journey, including how he got started, how he created his team, how he finds leads, how to sell houses as an agent, how to create a brokerage, and much more.  

I interviewed Dean Ueda on the InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast in 2016. We talked about how he has invested in rental properties in the mainland US while living in Hawaii. Dean also was getting his real estate license and had a couple of properties in Hawaii. On this podcast, we talk to Dean again about the progress he has made with his investing, his real estate license, and how he has bought more properties in the mainland and Hawaii.  

On this week's episode of the InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast, I interview Ryan Dossey. Ryan is a super-successful wholesaler and an investor. Ryan got started in real estate at a very young age and has found incredible success. He is only 24 and has set up a wholesaling business and bought many rentals. Ryan has also helped me with my direct marketing and runs a company that takes motivated-seller calls for investors. One of the biggest reasons I have not done much direct marketing was because I did not want to take calls, but his company takes the calls for me, vets leads, and gets as much information as they can for me to follow up with. We talk all about Ryan's past, his wholesaling business, his rentals, his direct marketing, and his company, Call Porter, on the show.  

I started Blue Steel Real Estate last week. It has been an exciting and slightly stressful process. We opened earlier than we thought we would open, but everything has worked out extremely well and I am glad things happened the way that they did. On this episode of the InvestFourMore Podcast, I talk about the move, the process, and how everything has gone so far.

In March, I was lucky enough to have two vacations! I took a work vacation by myself in the mountains, and I took a vacation with my family to Turks and Caicos. The work vacation was meant to help me focus on work and accomplish as much as I could in a couple of days. The family vacation was meant for me to have fun and not think about work. Both vacations were awesome, and both were great for my business, even though one is all about business and the other has nothing to do with business. You can listen to why I loved both vacations on this episode of the InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast.  

On this weeks episode of the InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast, I interview Ray Sturm who was one of the founders of Realty Shares and is the current CEO and founder of Alphaflow. Alphaflow is a company that brings a brand new investing concept to the market. They invest in hard money loans that are typically used by house flippers. Alphaflow buys hard money loans for their investment fund, which is available to get involved with. On this episode, we talk about Alphaflow, how it works, how to invest in it, as well as why Ray likes to start companies and what is involved in building a startup.  

On this episode of the InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast, Jason Downing is our guest. Jason is a personal trainer who has bought rentals and become a real estate agent. Jason has an interesting story as he is just a regular guy with a regular job who has been successful as a part-time real estate investor. Jason is a personal trainer and knew his income was limited to how many hours he could work. He looked to supplement his income and chose real estate to help him. Jason was able to buy 7 rental property units in a couple of years, and he also recently got his real estate license. On this show, we talk about Jason buying his first rental, how he has found his deals, why he got his real estate license, and what his plans are for the future.  

When I am completing up to 22 flips at once, having great contractors and a system to keep track of them is vital to my business. It has taken some time, mistakes, and multiple people, but I have things running relatively smoothly now. On this episode of The InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast, I go over exactly how I have developed my contractor system, how I hire contractors, how I find them, how I pay them, and how I use subcontractors.