235 Building Wealth vs. Getting Rich | REI Show - Hard Money for Real Estate Investors

Bill Fairman

00:00:02

Hi everyone. We are continuing this theme of how to build wealth, whether it's in the stock market or real estate. And we've got a wonderful guest right after this,

 

Bill Fairman

00:00:37

Your eatings, once again, from the, I wanna say it's the capital of South Carolina, but it really isn't. It is not. No, yeah, we're just on top of the hill here. That's rock hill, South Carolina. Thank you so much for joining us on the real estate investors show hard money for real estate investors. We are Carolina capital management. We are private lenders and the Southeast for real estate professionals. If you're interested in having us look at one of your projects, go to Carolina, hard money.com and click on the apply out tab. If you're a passive investor, looking for passive returns, go to our accredited investor tab and click it on and get all the fine info there. Don't forget the like share subscribe, hit the bell. And don't forget about Wednesdays with Wendy when Wendy dedicates 30 minutes per person on Wednesdays to talk about anything real estate for free, even though it's free, it's it has value.

 

Jonathan Davis

00:01:49

Oh, it's extremely valuable. Now,

 

Bill Fairman

00:01:51

Especially if you're talking real estate, now you can talk anything you want, but you wouldn't be wasting your time if you didn't talk about real estate. So if she's usually booked out a couple of months in advance, there's the link to get on her calendar. And it's also in the chat section, which depending on the platform that you're viewing us from, it's either gonna be on the right hand set of your screen or underneath.

 

Jonathan Davis

00:02:13

Yeah.

 

Bill Fairman

00:02:14

Welcome.

 

Jonathan Davis

00:02:15

Welcome. And on this show, we're excited. We have Dean Rogers with us. Former NFL player turned real estate investor. It's it's gonna be a great show and we're gonna kind of, you know, pick his brain on how to build wealth and you know what he's experienced over, over his tenure in, in investing before we get to that though, do you have any breaking news or

 

Bill Fairman

00:02:39

Actually, I don't know if it's breaking news, but the president signed the bill that supposed to be lowering inflation, if not. So that was kind of anti-climatic. Yeah,

 

Jonathan Davis

00:03:06

Well, you know, to, to build on that inflation is down in July from June from 9.1 to 8.5, right? It's flat month over month, I guess is the best way to describe that rents are still rising in a lot of metros. We are seeing decline in, in some, you know, namely Miami we're seeing the highest rent climbs in, well, Raleigh's in the top three,

 

Bill Fairman

00:03:34

By the way, average median rent nationwide for the first time hit $2,000 a month.

 

Jonathan Davis

00:03:43

Wow. Yep. Still going up, man. Yeah. So yeah. All that I think, yeah. I said for all these number three, I think San Francisco is number one, but I think they were hit the hardest. So, I mean, you expect the one that dropped the most would have the yeah. Hopefully have the highest appreciation. So yeah. Other than that, millennials now make up 43% of all home purchases in 2022.

 

Bill Fairman

00:04:10

Good.

 

Jonathan Davis

00:04:10

Look at that. Look at

 

Bill Fairman

00:04:11

Them, go they're the largest population. They should be climbing even higher.

 

Jonathan Davis

00:04:16

Yep. Absolutely. Well, without further ado, I guess we need to bring on our guests and we talk about building wealth.

 

Bill Fairman

00:04:22

Yeah. So before I bring him on, you know, Dean played in the NFL with San Diego chargers, I, I don't know why he would've left other than what most people leave for worried about your, your health because your body is being brutalized in the NFL. Yeah. But he was, I'm not sure if he still lives there or not. And we will ask, but San Diego it's like room temperature all the time.

 

Jonathan Davis

00:04:48

Yep.

 

Bill Fairman

00:04:49

And they have some great food there too. Dean created a book, the wholesale playbook and provides resources to people that want to get into the real estate investing business. He owns an active seven figure business in real estate. And we want to talk to him about creating wealth. Yeah. Whether it's best through the stock market or real estate and you know, where our bias is. So without further ado, Dan, come on outta that green room.

 

Dean Rogers

00:05:23

Well it's time guys. How you doing?

 

Bill Fairman

00:05:25

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for joining us.

 

Dean Rogers

00:05:28

Yeah. Thanks for having me. I mean, we we're, we're just meeting, but I, I can't help, but say I like you guys a lot already, not only the, the humor, but some, some implied opinions on some certain topics can't help, but, but like where you're, what, what you're thinking.

 

Bill Fairman

00:05:47

Well, we are somewhat opinionated,

 

Bill Fairman

00:05:53

You know, in, in my working career, I've either been self-employed or I've been commissioned only for the vast majority of my life. And I think when you're an entrepreneurial in the first place, and Jonathan's the same way you, you just have a different take it's about it. It's about hard work. It it's about working smart and you have to use common sense when you're talking about business. I have very little patience for people that expect to get handouts. Now there's nothing wrong with helping people that fall through the cracks and helping people that are needy. But if you're fully able and capable, I ain't got no time for you.

 

Dean Rogers

00:06:40

I can't help. But agree with that.

 

Jonathan Davis

00:06:43

Well, well, Dean tell, tell us about, you know, you know, first getting in, you know, in the NFL and then what made you wanna leave and then kind of, why did you choose real estate?

 

Dean Rogers

00:06:55

Yeah. So let me, let me take you a trip down memory lane here. So, you know, going back to when I was a little kid, you know, I was, I was the sports guy. It's all I, all I did, right. Eat, sleep and breathe it. And, and, and class, when you fill out, what do you want to be when you grow up? I was almost embarrassed to write that I wanted to be a professional athlete and you know, every other year was, I want to be in the NFL or, you know, be in the NBA through high school. I finally realized that, you know, my best shot was probably playing in the NFL as opposed to the NBA, cuz you know, 6, 2, 6, 3, and, and, and didn't necessarily jump out the gym as I would've probably needed to. But that being said, that's, that's what my whole life was.

 

Dean Rogers

00:07:44

You know? And for me, I also recognized me kind of like reflecting on, on my life and having different perspective. Now I always wanted to be that guy. I always wanted to be the provider. I always wanted to like put, put the family on my shoulders. And I grew up in a good family of entrepreneurs who provided everything that was needed. And, and I saw the ups and downs of that. And it actually funny enough convinced me by seeing the ups and downs, that when I was older, when I grew up, I wanted to go be a hard worker for a company and get paid a lot of money, but not have to take on the risk, which is interesting where I, where I wound up. But that being said, being the sports guy, you know, I was kind of under recruited my, my whole life.

 

Dean Rogers

00:08:37

I always got stuff done, but maybe overlooked or maybe wasn't fast enough or whatever it was, but always, always showed up, put in the work and then got the results on the field. And, and that without question is translated to my professional working career now, but yeah, get getting through kind of the, the system of high school and, you know, excelling and, and doing great there being recruited by, by different colleges. And ultimately I went to UC Davis to play football there, a small school, not really on the radar, but had a history of quarterbacks and tight ends going to the NFL and I played tight end. And so, you know, my, my later seasons, I had Scouts coming to practices and, and watching me and, and some other people. And, and there, there it happened, you know, it came together was, was called and signed by the chargers.

 

Dean Rogers

00:09:37

And, and all of a sudden my, my dreams became a reality and it was the most, you know, surreal experience ever. Now the, the thing that kind of led me to making the decision to walk away and hang up the cleats was not because I didn't like it. I loved it. It was, it was insane. You know, I had a locker, you know, four for lockers down from Phillip rivers and I'm one of the guys, right? I'm, I'm, you know, talking with Antonio gates and, and you know, these are my teammates, these are my peers. These are the people who I looked up to and played the video games, played as them on the video games. And now I'm, I'm one of them. Right. And it was, it was a dream come true. And I've got endless stories that could go down about what that experience was like.

 

Dean Rogers

01:10:31

But it, it was without question that Hollywood first, you know, a class lifestyle, first class lifestyle kind of roll out the red carpet experience everywhere we went. And, you know, it was pretty wild. Now that being said that year 2011, when I, when I went into the NFL was the year that ESPN finally started talking about concussions. They never really talked about it before, but now all of a sudden they're talking about concussions and oh my God, they're bad for you. Well, no kidding. But, but now, now we're talking about it. Okay. Now that same year junior Sal kills himself. Right. And I'm now on the other side of the fence, seeing these veterans, seeing the, you know, alumni and seeing how some of these people are just beat to hell. And for me, what was the biggest shift and why I made the decision I did is they changed positions on me.

 

Dean Rogers

01:11:34

So I went from tied end to full back. Okay. And as you can imagine at, at fullback, instead of being on a, let's say a running play, instead of being a tight end, then you're a yard or two yards away from, from the defensive end. And you gotta, you know, get 'em at a nine technique and block 'em and, and, and seal the edge there. Or you're, you're blocking with the tackle and, you know, rolling up to the, the linebacker, who's three or four more yards away. You're now running 10 yards, full speed, trying to kill each other. Right. And you're trying to run through a hole that's this narrow and the best way to do that because my shoulders are so wide is to lead with my head, right. If I want to be effective and I wanna block this guy effectively, I gotta lead with my head because that's, that's the first thing that's going through the hole.

 

Dean Rogers

01:12:25

So I would literally go back from just practices and be icing my head thinking like, holy crap, I, I don't know how long I can do this. Because from the neck down, I felt amazing. Like, I felt like a superhero. I, I had the best nutrition, the Bo best vitamins, the best, you know, support team to, for physical therapy and everything. After every practice, every game, I felt amazing from the neck down. But from the, from the neck up, I was like, okay, I'm gonna be brain dead in, you know, 10 years from now when I'm done playing. And so it was hard now, what made it even harder? Okay. And, and probably what makes me sleep well at night and feel some somewhat fulfilled is I had north Turner stop me in the hallways, tell me I'm gonna have a long career. Just keep doing what you're doing.

 

Dean Rogers

01:13:13

And I'm like, holy crap, man. Like, this is crazy. You know, I I've made it. I got this dude who I've been watching coaching, you know, winning teams telling me this, like this, this means something right. I'm onto something. I, I, I know I'm here and I've made it, but I had this terrible feeling inside. If I keep doing this, I'm gonna be dead in a vegetable. So there was only a handful of people that made the decision around this time. But people started to make the decision like, Hey, you know what? I got other things to live for. I got other skills. Right. I got other opportunities. So I made, you know, the hardest decision in my life to this day to walk away from the game I love from, from, you know, what the lifestyle provides, you know, millions of dollars, literally on the line to walk away from it. So I still have dreams, you know, I'll wake up and think I'm still there in the locker room playing, getting ready for a game. And you know, it makes me a little sad, but at the same time, I know if I would've stuck through and done it, I'd be in a world of pain right now, without question,

 

Bill Fairman

01:14:18

Well, you, you made the right decision. It, it's nice to have those that, that adrenaline every week. Yeah. Not to mention the adrenaline after the game where the after parties,

 

Dean Rogers

01:14:30

But,

 

Bill Fairman

01:14:32

And, and it's, I know it, I don't know from experience, cuz I've never been at that level, but I can only imagine what it's like to, you know, not have the, we'll call it the adoring fans hanging around all the time. Yeah. So I know that's kind of, kind of tough to give up, but again, you have a lot, what's the average career in the NFL about three years or

 

Dean Rogers

01:14:59

Something like three years. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Bill Fairman

01:15:01

So you do, you do have life after football. Yeah. I was fortunate enough to be a, a colleague with Allen Vinegrad. He was a offensive tackle for the Cowboys during the Emmett Smith years won several super bowls. And when I first met him, I thought he was a basketball player because he was so skinny and I couldn't believe all that. He had to go through to maintain his weight as a offensive tackle. It's amazing. He looked completely different, but that said, so what got you into the, to the real estate business? Yeah.

 

Jonathan Davis

01:15:40

You, you you're walk, you decide that you don't wanna do this. Yeah. What, what triggers you to, to say, okay, here's my path.

 

Dean Rogers

01:15:47

Yep. So I walk away from football, right. And, and some close buddies, buddies of mine that I played college with. One, one in particular reached out and he said, Hey Dean, you know what, now you're done playing football, but I got a really great opportunity for you. I'm working for this corporation and San Francisco. So I'm thinking to myself, well, great. You know, he explained to me everything that was going on and it just seemed like the, exactly what I was dreaming of once I got into my professional working career. Right. So he basically walks me in the door. I, I join and start working for them and move to San Francisco. And after a year of busting my ass, doing what I always do, like I, I literally would be, you know, spinning in my, my seat thinking like, this is all it is like, I just gotta slap this keyboard around. This is the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. Like, this is a joke, you know? Right. Like I get paid to do this

 

Bill Fairman

01:16:42

After two days

 

Dean Rogers

01:16:44

After, after, you know, waking up at six and you know, practicing all day and then you you're in film and everything. You're, you're not getting outta there till 8:00 PM. You know, you're just doing it all day long. And, and this was just incredibly easy to me. So I, I worked my butt off. And at the end of the year, I'm thinking, well, surely they're gonna recognize how skilled I am and the value that I bring, like, I'm, I'm ready for the big pay raise right now, mind you, I went from signing a seven figure contract and walking away from it to signing a $65,000 annual salary. Right. So I kind of had to, to adjust to that, but I'm thinking, all right, I I'm ready to take it to the next level. I'm ready for the six figure, you know, pay, pay, increase, like, let's do this thing.

 

Dean Rogers

01:17:34

And they're like, wow, you know, great work. We're gonna increase your salary by $2,000. You know, like, congratulations. I'm like, what now, mind you, I wasn't in a sales position where, you know, my effort could necessarily have those big jumps, but that being said, it really opened up my eyes like, holy crap. If, if I wanna have the lifestyle that I, that I had in my, my hands and my fingertips and, and I wanna be able to provide and live the lifestyle of, you know, abundance and freedom and, and create wealth. Like I wanna be that guy, remember I wanna be that guy that provides and, and generationally people are like, wow. He, he, he paved the way for all of us. And, and now we have this, this wealth and freedom. This was not the path, right. This was not the path. So I did the good old Google how to get started in real estate and found Sean, Terry don't know if you know Sean, Terry, but Sean Terry has the, the flip two freedom podcast.

 

Dean Rogers

01:18:35

And all it was was a free podcast that I listened to and immediately was obsessed. Like as soon as the first episode I listened to, I was like, whoa, how to get started with little to no money, how to, you know, basically start a business from scratch without any prior experience. Like you can find deals, you know, by following these strategies, to me, it was, it was something that just, you know, drew me to it. So I became obsessed was listened to it all day, every day at every opportunity I could. And three months from that very first day, I found it. I did my first deal. Coincidentally, I actually did it by co wholesaling it with Sean Terry, because I was following what he was saying. So to the book that I was actually marketing in his market rather than my own in, in Phoenix.

 

Dean Rogers

01:19:28

So that was the proof of concept. That's all it took for me to know, this is what I want to do after doing like a couple deals that first year I even told my wife, Hey, you know what, you, you could stop working. I got this thing figured out little little did I know that it definitely required a lot more effort, a lot more work to create that consistency and build the income, but yeah, flash forward to where I'm at today. You know, we have a, a seven figure a year business doing wholesale and flips, you know, kind of started out by wholesaling, single family houses. And then after a year found my business partner, we started flipping houses, which we've done, you know, hundreds of flips at this point. And, and for me, I realized that there was kind of a, a, a lot of de missioning returns.

 

Dean Rogers

02:20:19

The more flips we did, right? The more cash was out. The more I was stressed out, the, the less money we were making per flip, but we were really good at finding deals. So in 2018, the, the, the light bulb went off. Well, dude, if I, if I wanna build wealth, I'm on the hamster wheel right now doing 20 flips at a time doing a hundred flips a year. And I, it is just a revolving door of cash and always feel like I have none. So in order for me to have that shift, we focused on more wholesale with the, you know, handful of flips at a time and buying rentals. Okay. So for me, I finally realized that to build wealth, the, the people who are truly wealthy, they own real estate, and they get all the benefits that we, we all know about the appreciation, the principle paydown the depreciation and the cash flow, right?

 

Dean Rogers

02:21:16

So all four of those were all the areas that the light bulb went off. And for me, I was like, okay, I need to start buying. So to this day, we've, we've got a 63 doors or something like that, nothing too crazy, but it's, you know, $10 million worth of real estate that if I do nothing else, I don't buy another property, which I know I'll buy many, many more properties just with appreciation and principle paydown is gonna be, you know, multiple eight figures, you know, 10, 20, $30,000. By the time my kids take it over. And for me, that, that feels like a great accomplishment already, but naturally I can't help myself competitive and driven and, and wanna to grow it more and more.

 

Bill Fairman

02:22:01

Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny people don't think about the, the fix and flip and the wholesale business in the way of, I mean, you can get wealthy that way, but you're not growing wealth that way. It you're only as good as the last deal that you did. You

 

Jonathan Davis

02:22:17

Can get rich that way.

 

Bill Fairman

02:22:18

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, one of the things that you didn't mention about owning the real estate is if you leverage it with cheap, long term money, you're at that point, you're also paying in inflation adjusted dollars, much less over time, which that helps even more, in my opinion, this is why we don't do any long term loans. Oh yeah. Personally, out of our fund, we only do short term. Yeah.

 

Jonathan Davis

02:22:49

It's inflation adjustment also while rents. Right. Do what increase

 

Bill Fairman

02:22:53

That that's right. Yeah. I tell you, I like the old school loan business where, and you're probably too young for this. We would do. What's called a call option. Not a, not a, what do you call it after three years or five years.

 

Jonathan Davis

02:23:13

Oh, you mean an arm? Yeah. Yeah. You do a call auction on it. Yeah.

 

Bill Fairman

02:23:16

So you do a call option where you're allowed to either adjust for rate increases. You can leave it the same, or you can actually lower it if you want, or you could call the thing due. And that way you're never obligated to a long term contract. Now, what market are you ending?

 

Dean Rogers

02:23:36

So to answer your question earlier, I still live in San Diego. I was in San Francisco, realized holy smokes, it's cold and windy here. And I don't see myself raising a family. I, I was pretty, I was pinching myself when I was playing in San Diego. So we moved back to San Diego. We're in LA JOA, if you know where that's at. Yep. And so, so love that area. Yeah. We, we love it here. We, we do the, the golf cart life. You know, we drive the golf cart to the beach and to go work out and get food and all that stuff. So I still pinch myself all the time about that. But my business is actually where I grew up, which is central California. So for me, I love investing in the market where I grew up because it's all, you know, houses that are actually at and below the medium, the, the national medium price point, which in California, I mean, most people don't even know that exists.

 

Dean Rogers

02:24:32

Right, right. Central California, where I grew up, which is more intimately known as the central valley people don't even realize that it's there. I tell 'em, oh yeah, I'm from Visalia. And a lot of times they're like, well, where's that, you know? And so the nearest city that people kind of relate to is Fresno and maybe be they, because Fresno state has kind of put them on the map. Right? Sure. From a sports standpoint. So for me, you know, houses, I'm buying for a hundred, 200, $300,000. It's rare that I'm buying anything above that. And, and so for me, I sleep so well at night because those are just easy to understand. There's such a, such a demand for that price point. Now you look at compared to San Diego, I've done some flips here. I mean, I was thinking all the time about my flip that I had in ocean beach that, you know, I bought for $560,000 and, and had it on the market to sell for seven 50 after I put, you know, 60, $70,000 into, I couldn't help, but think about it every day, because the interest payment was, you know, 6,000 bucks a month or something.

 

Dean Rogers

02:25:43

Whereas, you know, in, in my market, it's, you know, pretty much a thousand bucks or less. And, and you can have a lot more of those that you're taking on. So,

 

Bill Fairman

02:25:53

Yep. Go ahead. I was gonna say, that's exactly what we preach. Yeah. We only lend in those median price points anyway, because as a lender, we have to look at it this way. If we have another 2008, so there's a worst case scenario and everyone's a seller and no one's a buyer. We can at least rent out those homes. Yep. For our expected return in our fund, it is the most liquid of the single families because you've got empty nesters that are looking for those homes. You have first time home buyers and you have investors that will all look at those homes. So it is the most liquid. And it's the easiest to move. If you have to, you're also not gonna get big price fluctuations when the markets change in those markets as well. So yep. There, there's another thing we have in common.

 

Dean Rogers

02:26:44

Yes.

 

Bill Fairman

02:26:45

That's awesome. Listen, I, I wanna make sure that I promote your, you have a, do you have a class or a book or

 

Dean Rogers

02:26:54

Yes. So I have a coaching program. So something unique that I'll just kind of touch on is over the past couple years when pardon part, in my opinion, but when the scam demo happened, you know, I, I couldn't help, but notice that the more that I networked and, and reached out to other people that more opportunities kept coming to me. So the more that I helped, the more that I had the abundant mindset, the more that opportunities came to me from other people and, you know, blessed our business. And, and we kept, you know, doing more deals, making more money. So that same kind of concept with, with good friends around me, kind of encouraging me to, to do deals with other people to, to help other people learn, had some good friends, kind of push me off the edge to get into the education business.

 

Dean Rogers

02:27:45

So I started what I call the wholesaling playbook, which is essentially step by step exactly what we're doing in our business from, you know, a marketing standpoint, how we're negotiating, how we're, we're structuring our deals and analyzing them and the processes and systems we have in place, how we built our team, how we built out our CRM, everything that we're doing from a to Z, we cover that in the wholesaling playbook. So sweet with that. You know, I have a coaching program that has all of that. You can go to Dean rogers.com and check it out. I got a video that explains everything that's in it. And, and really my goal with that is to build a community of other people who are developing the skills, who are getting deals, closing deals and, and helping them elevate in their life and change their lifestyle and, and their resources.

 

Dean Rogers

02:28:42

And, and as a result of that, there'll be many more people around me in my community that are also winning. And that just without question opens up more doors, right? Absolutely. The whole reason I just joined the family mastermind, where we met was being around other winners who are doing the same thing. And already as a result, it's opening other doors and new relationships. So that's kind of the motive behind the wholesaling playbook and the coaching program is just to elevate other people. Naturally, I'm super passionate about the business and, and love, love doing deals and helping other people do deals too.

 

Bill Fairman

02:29:21

Excellent. Well, we, we are very passionate about masterminds as well. We also have that abundance mentality. All it does is bring more like-minded people into the fold. You can't think of PE people that are in that business as competition, because at some point you guys are gonna be doing deals together anyway. Yeah.

 

Jonathan Davis

02:29:42

Rob Robert Ingersol, you know, we rise by lifting others. Yep.

 

Bill Fairman

02:29:45

Now, absolutely.

 

Jonathan Davis

02:29:47

Before I forget, I want to go ahead and get the question of the week out to everyone.

 

Bill Fairman

02:29:53

Yes. Go ahead.

 

Jonathan Davis

02:29:53

Yeah. So

 

Bill Fairman

03:30:03

We have to be, we have to be careful. I love it. We, we don't hesitate for our graphics coming in. Yeah. We

 

Jonathan Davis

03:30:08

Just talk. So we wanna know what is your preferred way of building wealth? You just heard from Dean, you know, he was in the NFL kind of kicked around in the corporate life and then figured out, Hey, I wanna build well through realized wholesaling, wasn't it. So, you know, rentals. So into the real estate section, what are you doing? We wanna know, and we'd love to talk about it next week.

 

Bill Fairman

03:30:33

So yeah, you can put it in the comment section and then we will follow up with you guys next week and we'll put it in our lab broadcast. Thank you very much, Dean. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you spending time with us. You got a great story. The, the one thing that I caution you on is that you still live in California.

 

Dean Rogers

03:30:56

I still question that too. It's so beautiful here. You know, I, I know to look out the front door and see a, a little sliver of the beach. I go to the corner of the, the end of the block and, and see it and can drive to it in the golf cart. So it's, it's hard to leave that, but man, they, they sure make it easy to wanna leave.

 

Bill Fairman

03:31:13

We have many friends out in California and the typical comp you know, comeback from that is that's the price of living in paradise.

 

Dean Rogers

03:31:22

Yep. True.

 

Bill Fairman

03:31:25

Again, thank you so much. Hang around. We'll we'll talk here right after we get done folks. Thank you so much for joining us on the real estate investors show. We are Carolina capital management. We are private lenders in the Southeast for real estate investors. If you have a project you'd like us to take a look at, please go to Carolina, hardman.com and click on the apply. Now tab, if you're a passive investor looking for passive returns, then go to the accredited investor tab. Don't forget the like share subscribe, hit the bell. I did forget that to mention that we're gonna be at the quest expo September. I believe it's 23rd through the 25th. That's also over in the comment section. You can get a discount of 30% by putting in Fairman 30. That's also in the comments. We will see you guys next week. Have a great week.