There is fear and apprehension among pretty much everyone because we are living in uncertain times as we fight our way through the COVID-19 pandemic. In all the panic, going back to basics is the best way to keep plowing through each day. Real estate agent and mentor Kristi Duvall stresses the need to go back to the basics, adopt a healthy mindset and take the power back in order to move forward. Kristi joins Michael Silvers and The Mentor Studio community to talk about the trends and prospects in the real estate market, the effect of the pandemic on peoples’ mindset and the importance of a mentoring program to get you through this crisis.
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Going Back To Basics: What Works In Real Estate With Kristi Duvall
I am glad that you’re on with us. I wanted to let everybody know, thank you for being on here, whether it’s in your car, if you’re essentially at work or getting out there, whether you’re at home and you want more educational information. It’s a show for all of you and for us to mentor you in many different facets. We have many exciting podcasters coming on in health and wellness, mentoring, business, and acting voiceover entertainment. We’re there to mentor you and to help you find that direction. You can also go to www.TheMentorStudio.com. We’re moving to another site. It’s a membership site and we’re going to have a place for all of you that follow the show. It’s a way to become more involved with us if that’s something that you’d like to do.
I’ve known our guest for many years and I’m going to let her do it because she knows how to do this. You have to respect somebody that is always out there to be of service to others, somebody who is always there to help others. She was part of a large mastermind that we used to run. She traveled the country with us and was always of service. At the last one we did, we worked with the wounded warriors and we built wheelchairs and guitars. They said they had never seen anybody build one so fast and it is how we give back, which is that big piece. With an amazing amount of information, Kristi, tell us a little bit about your story.
Thank you, Michael. When you first asked me to do this, I thought, “Why me?” I did something, went back and reviewed some of the challenges both positive and negative things that I’ve done in my career. I would like everybody to sit down and take some time after this and list out what it is you’ve accomplished and what you have had in your life that you’ve overcome? We are all so consumed with our powers being taken away while the craziness is going on and all that stuff. If we will look inside and realize what we’ve overcome and what we have ahead of us can be much better times, it will give us more power. That’s when I sit down and look at it. I’ve been doing real estate. I’ve been an entrepreneur. I did real estate full-time for several years. I laugh and say I’m unemployable at this point because I’ve been self-employed for many years, ups and downs.
When I first got into real estate, it was about 2004 or 2005. Things were a lot different then but I did a lot of real estate on the subject to seller financing, taking over debt, a lot of different varieties, done rehabs, done wholesale and all the different things, but then the market started to change. One thing I want to touch on is not getting set in your ways, but being able to be flexible with the market and shift as this market shifts. That’s what I want to help people do. I got involved and made a lot of mistakes. I used to read some of the books. If I read half the book, I’d try it. I probably should have read the full book a lot of different times, and then I realized a lot of people that are out there writing books, giving seminars and stuff aren’t doing the business. You have to be careful about who you learn from. That’s why I like being involved with Michael and his group. They’ve always been professional and knowledgeable in whoever they bring on and the things that they get involved with.
A few years ago, I got involved in commercial. I got involved with the idea that it’d be great to go out and own commercial and it grew too fast. Be careful what you wish for. I learned a lot of things the hard way. I’ve done apartments, self-storage, RV parks, and a lot of different things. I feel like I’ve stepped back as far as what the market is doing and how it’s changing. To say that I’m out there in the middle of it, I am. I had a commercial project that I’ve had for a while, an RV park shut down by the state. They shut down all the state parks and then they shut down the private ones. I’m out there in the market. I’m right in the middle of this stuff. What I have decided to do and what I want to share with you is going back to the basics. Sometimes, we get ahead of ourselves because we get this idea that we’ve got to do everything bigger and better and just grow, then we have an adjustment in the market that happened or is happening. We have to plan for these things. We have to be able to shift and change with the market as things happen. What I’d like to do is help you protect yourselves from the same mistakes, financially, stress-wise, emotionally, and everything that I’ve had over these years and help you move forward quickly with confidence without going through all that.
I love commercial. Don’t get me wrong, but everybody talks about commercial as being the end-all-be-all. Truthfully, I had to step back from my whole business due to a health issue and it’s my residential properties that I put in place many years ago that kept my lights on, kept food on my table, and kept my bills paid when I completely stepped back. Unfortunately, I became a motivated seller on some of my commercial stuff, which I always try to be on the other side of that. This has been a huge learning experience in what works, what doesn’t, how we need to prepare, bigger is not always better, consistency, systems in place, focus and mindset. These are all things that I want to talk about.
I did traditional education, got a Bachelor’s degree, and was going to be set up to do a career and that stuff. I always had this, “There’s got to be something different. I don’t want to work in a cubicle. I don’t want to work for somebody else.” That definitely had its ups and downs. Now more than ever, your education and your mentors are critical. That’s why I like being involved with the types of things that Michael teaches. I’m already seeing my Facebook feed loaded with people selling, how to do real estate, how to change, and how to do all this stuff, and that’s fine, but these are not necessarily the people that I’ve seen long-term as educators that are out doing the business. Be careful with that.
We have to be able to shift and change with the market as things happen. Click To TweetMy number one why is my daughter and being free, having the freedom to be with family when I want to, travel when I want to, but also not be in a position where somebody else controls my future. It’s teaching and helping, but you have to come from a service standpoint. My big why is freedom and my daughter. Unfortunately, she was forced into the whole entrepreneur thing because I needed her help. She stepped in and took over. She’s heading down that path and she’s doing her own consulting and things. Seeing her be able to take off and do those things has been a huge reward to me. I want to touch base on how critical the mindset is. I see many people that are in that, “What am I going to do?” Especially with real estate because the market is changing by the minute as we’re talking.
The type of real estate that I do has gone from going out and meeting with people individually to doing virtual meetings, virtual showings. We are taking what used to be face-to-face offline and doing virtual. The other thing is we are going to have a tidal wave of people that are becoming more flexible with the way they sell their house. We’re going to have to create more flexibility in the way they buy. I’ve spent several years doing residential and commercial and never want to use a bank loan on anything. What I’ve mastered is not using banks and not having to worry about your credit and that type of thing.
That’s huge because many people I know, we’ve had lots of, “I’m not going to use one.” We’ve had a lot of people want to get into real estate and they’re hard workers. They’ll get it done. They’re personable and they even have an online presence. They’re afraid. Maybe they had a bad one last year so their credit looks terrible, even though they paid every single bill or they’ve always been responsible or they think they need money to start. There are all these things that blocked us from starting. For you to say that, it takes a lot of fear away and that’s awesome.
Thank you. That’s what we need to get. We are all much more powerful than we give ourselves credit for. It’s about focusing, keeping it simple, and putting systems in place. The systems in place are critical going forward to success. This is something I learned absolutely the hard way because we have to learn things our way a lot of times. Why real estate and why now? As we all know, everybody’s got to have a place to live. It’s been such a seller’s market for a while and you see all these reality shows, fix and flips, rehabs, and all that stuff. This market has shifted drastically. Fix and flip is probably the most dangerous thing you can do and financially most risky. I would suggest anybody that’s doing that to finish it up and get it moved on. They may have to do some different types of format of selling, that type of thing.
We need to become transaction engineers, not wholesalers, flippers, retailers or whatever. There are a lot of different ways of acquiring real estate, but we need to look at not just one way of doing things because it has transitioned much. Our goal should be solution providers. How do we solve the problems? We’ve gone from a basic market for investing in a severe problem that is starting and it’s going to get more drastic. When we can help that, we can help sellers, buyers, lenders, and it helps the banks because they’re not going to be taking these houses back. Some people will talk about foreclosures, which are fine. I personally don’t deal with foreclosures. I try to help consumers out before they get to that point.
I feel like we’ve stepped back for many years. It used to when I was taking over debt, doing subject to, and things like that were great. We could go in and help people and then all of a sudden, the market shifted a little after 2008 and people were upside down. What I’ve tried to do traditionally over the years is when something’s not working, it’s like, “Let’s go back to the drawing board. What is working?” I started learning about short sales so then we came up with another way to help consumers and bidding within the market change. We’re back to that. How do we help more people sell their homes and get into homes before they get into trouble? I could talk for days on real estate and all the different details. I want to try to give more of a 30,000-foot level and be able to answer some questions.
Do remember, too, Kristi, I’m going to let you know that because we are in the blog world, people are going to be reading this a few years from now. We’re not done with the banks, but what you’re talking about the money coming from other ways is the natural way of being. Does that make sense?
Yes. Real estate has been done in all different types of markets. Going back to the basics and getting back to what I was doing years ago is what’s working. People want to stay away from guaranteeing the debt. They want to stay away from trying to go to the bank and borrow money because we’re going to start seeing a slide in values. You want to get out of that place where you’re dependent on selling that one house based on what the appraisal is. The appraisal was going to be different last week than it’s going to be three weeks from now, so we do a lot of seller financing and taking over debt, both buying and selling. I’ve done it in commercial and residential, and there are multiple reasons why it’s better for the seller and the buyer. Michael, the truth is there are a lot of us entrepreneurs that can’t necessarily qualify for a home loan, even before because we’re self-employed.
Now more than ever, who you learn from is critical. Click To TweetThere are a lot of people out there that have a good downpayment. They can afford a monthly payment, that kind of stuff, but they do not fit into the bank’s traditional lending and they’re an underserved market. Also, we can pay more on the actual price if we can get terms, which benefits sellers, buyers. It’s about stepping back and going, “Get out of fear. Take back my power. What can I do to help these sellers and buyers?” The other thing is financial stress and stress, in general, is one of the biggest downfalls of relationships, health, self-confidence, and all that kind of thing. This is a way that we can help move people forward, move ourselves forward, and get out of that because the stress will take your health and everything else if you let it. I have a lot of experience with that and I want to help people avoid those huge mistakes and that fear and know that you can do it.
It’s interesting because you talk about systems. It’s that mindset, though, because it’s the fear that stops us from doing any of that if I haven’t done it once, which is why having a mentor is critical. Having somebody who’s already doing what you want to do and already out there that you can take the lead from and move in that direction. That’s brilliant and that’s why I’m glad you’re doing this show. We’re no different than anybody else. Maybe we’ve done it longer and it’s something that we’ve done and other people don’t understand what that means. It’s a critical piece. We’ll do Q&A and there are some questions already. If you have questions, you can also put that.
Do you want me to get into the details as far as specific methods of contacting sellers, buyers, and that kind of stuff?
We don’t probably have time for too much of that. What can they know in this period to start using to know from even a systems perspective or mindset, wherever you want to go because we can definitely have you back? That’s not a problem. You’re part of the community. By the way, everybody, Kristi signed up everybody who works for her into The Mentor Studio. She thought she got it and she says, “Everybody needs to have mentoring.”
I can’t begin to tell you the amount of money that I have spent over the years on mentoring, education, classes and all these things. Some of it was a decent education, but you want to be involved with a mentor that will take you step-by-step because some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made is getting involved with mentors who says, “Here’s how you acquire it.” I acquire it and then it’s like, “What do you do with it?” It ended up costing me much more in the long run because of having to figure it out along the way. Mentoring needs to be ongoing. It can’t be, “Here’s how you buy the real estate.” “Now what am I going to do? How do I manage it? How do I sell it? How do I take care of a lot of these problems?” You can’t just buy something, put a manager in and walk off, and collect a big check. That sounds great, but so far, I haven’t found that to work well.
Ongoing mentoring and all different aspects is critical. You have to look at the mindset, financial side of it, bookkeeping, management, and who’s going to take care of all those things. Set systems up in place so that it can be a cookie-cutter. The biggest issue with people that I work with that I find is mastering that phone call. Picking up their phone because everybody wants to deal with Facebook, texting and all that stuff. It all has a place but this is a people business. Even though we can do everything virtually, you still want to be able to connect with that person. If we can come across as we are here to help and I worked a lot with for sale by owners, not a realtor. I have worked with realtors and that’s fine. With this type of real estate that I’m talking about, we deal with people who want to sell their house. A lot of people don’t want people in and out even before this Coronavirus. They need to sell, divorce, death transfer, and all that thing.
I’ve worked with a lot of people who get transferred. They’ve got two house payments and they can’t do two house payments. We can go and help them solve that problem. I don’t want to get too much into the details because we can do a whole day seminar on that. The main thing that I want to encourage people to do is to get back, take back your power, get off the news, and quit watching your Facebook feed about all the craziness that’s going on. Here’s a way that you can help your family and other families, but I’m dealing with for sale by owner. I work with people to partner on deals, but mainly I want to encourage people to know that there’s a way to do this without having to spend money. You do not have to borrow money. You don’t have to do those things. We help people in all kinds of situations. The price range doesn’t matter. This isn’t your basic fixer upper wholesale flip-type of thing.
People are working and I understand that the fear is what is normal? What is the new normal? Will things get going again? There’s always that fear. Look at other countries that are already opening back up. It may be a little too fast, but they are opening back up. They’re going back to business, but we will keep the so-called social distance for a while. There are things that are going to continue especially until there is a vaccine. How do you not let that fear stop you? Can you talk a little bit about that mindset?
We are all so much more powerful than we give ourselves credit for. Click To TweetEven in the way that this business has changed, it changed overnight. From going and looking at houses, meeting with people, sitting down at their kitchen table, talking to them and working things to doing things virtually. To me, the best way to get out of fear is to do it and go, “Here’s what I can do. What am I missing? What do I need to do to start?” You’ve got to focus forward. Take that desire you have inside and create an outside reality for it. Get off the TV, get off the news and all that stuff. It’s a perfect time. Everybody’s at home and we’re able to get ahold of people that we could hardly get ahold of before. I’m familiar with Scott Carson, by the way. I knew him years ago and I’m excited that you’re bringing him into the group.
What is it that we want?
He was away ahead of his time. Texting is a big way to get ahold of people. You don’t have to have a huge list. You don’t have to be famous. You don’t have to know everything because no matter what, with a little bit of education, you’re going to know more than the person you’re talking to and you’re going to know how to help them. Coming from a place of solving their problems, we all have problems, how can we help solve it? By solving their problems, we help solve our problems financially and everything else.
People are tired of that. There are a couple of things going on. I wasn’t set for this to happen. I know a lot of businesses in our personal development that is shut down because they didn’t set. They didn’t make a change. Even when it was coming, they didn’t make a change. They said, “They’ll never shut down the events.” There’s the scrambling. There are a million calls online but there’s no coordination because they’re coming out of fear. They’re not doing it. “I’m altruistically trying to take my message online. I’ve got to do my message online. I’m going out of business.” You can feel it on the calls. There’s a little of that part of themselves that they’re there for themselves. It’s transferring over. What you’re saying is that long-term set you up and that’s the other thing, it’s long-term. Can you talk about that a little bit?
That’s part of why I wanted to talk about how I went back to what I was doing years ago because we do have to look at the long-term. The real estate that we’re talking about is we’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s good for the long-term because cashflow is king and a lot of types of real estate that are taught and promoted is a quick check. One check and then you’ve got to start over. What we’re talking about is money upfront, monthly income, and then a payout down the road. That cashflow will cut down on the stress, which helps with personal relationships, which is huge, and health. Those are the two things that we’re going to see starting to be tested, personal health and personal relationships. Monthly cashflow can help with both of those things. This is all long-term. Everything I have set up has been for the long-term and it’s critical.
Thank you for saying that because this is life and everything we teach. This is a marathon. If we keep sprinting, we’re always reinventing, restarting and we’re tired all the time. At the same time, we don’t even understand where we’re going or what our why is.
That’s huge. You asked me that and I probably need to develop how to answer that better because that’s something we all need to sit back on and realize that we can overcome a lot of things. All of us have. We just haven’t reached, don’t sit in and don’t realize it, but the why is critical.
I have to be honest. You jumped in, it was a text between and you signed up right away to The Mentor Studio. You got your whole group to sign up, and that’s leadership because they’ll do what you do. “They signed up for this. Now, what do I do?” They start to look at their ownership. The true leader is not about being the boss. It’s how to have others do that. You’re talking about the long-term and the vision. You’re even willing to say, “I may need to refine that a little bit more,” because we’re always developing. That’s a big piece to be clear on why we’re doing it. I tell the members all the time, “Go out and get one person to sign up for the Vertical Live Mentor Studio.” It’s a lifetime membership. By the way, it’s www.TheVerticalLive.com. The lifetime is going to go away eventually and you didn’t even blink, hesitate. It was done before you knew what happened. It’s the same thing you’re creating in your business, for your family and those around you. This is a marathon. You’ve gone through life challenges and you’re leaving it for the legacy of the next generation of whoever that is.
Take your power back. Get off the news and quit watching your Facebook feed about all the craziness that’s going on. Click To TweetYou and I’ve talked about masterminds and how important that is because people need to connect. I’ve jumped into your mastermind groups. It’s important to stay connected and reach out. There are days when I feel this way and I don’t know about you, Michael, but most people feel like, “I’m out here all by myself. How am I going to do this? Who can I ask a question to? This isn’t working for me. I need some encouragement.” That’s a big reason to be involved in these types of groups. This is a unique group to be involved in to learn and connect. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I want to save other people from the mistakes. Every time we do, we need to sit back and go, “Get back to basics. I would focus on eliminating anything that I don’t have to be spending time and energy on.” If it’s not making you grow, happy, or increasing financially in your family life, get it out of the way.
It’s interesting, too, that we partner. It’s about partnerships because you talked about masterminds. We’ve been partnering and we partnered with a group that it’s awesome. That’s part of we’re going to move our platform over. I’ve been asked to talk to some Hollywood types one time and I love them dearly. I said, “If you have a following of 1,000 or more that’s fairly engaged, this new company partner of ours will produce a 5 to 7-series part like an education piece for you.” We’ll create the cycle and we’ll put it up on their network. If you bring people in, you get a percentage because it’s like an affiliate program but at the same time, there are thousands of other people that are going to look at what you have and their comment back was, “Don’t I get paid on everyone?” I’m like, “You just missed it. This is called shared economy. This is about abundance.” I had to break through that. It’s like, “How much am I going to make now?” They could not see. We’re going to market you with SEO and everything. You’re not paying for any of that. When you have 1,000 members, let’s do the math on it. It was frustrating for me, honestly. I had to take a step back on my own and see where they were coming from. Does that make sense?
It does. We all have to do that because people are in a completely different mindset than they have been. I’ve got my manager come to my RV park going, “How do I do this because we’ve been ordered to shut down and things like that?” There are things happening and we have to be patient with people and with ourselves. Take a deep breath and go, “Where’s this person coming from?” It can be frustrating for us sometimes because people can be short-sighted. Get out of this panic mode.
We work with students. You’re all mentoring students. Everybody on here is amazing. Everybody going to read this is amazing. When it goes out to the blog world, you’re all amazing. Kristi, I got to tag you with Ron. He’s a true entrepreneur because he hears it, sees it, does it and gets it done because he’s not looking at the short-term. How does this play out long-term? That’s where the entrepreneur stands out. That thing is long-term. Why don’t we take a couple of questions? Kristi, they’re also asking how they can contact you. Kristi is part of The Mentor Studio and she’s becoming a mentor so she’s on the Vertical Live group. You can ask her right in the group.
Kristi, I want to thank you for doing this because I totally understand the buyer on contracts. I have done that in my family and it’s a great reminder of thinking outside the box.
Thank you, Ron. You remind me of something. We can help you sell your house the way people are in this group. That’s how I sold my house and my parents’ ranch in multiple ways. There are a lot of different ways of using it. Even if you don’t go out and build a business with it, it can help you and all of us in the way that we buy and sell real estate.
The good thing was I sold my house before all this came down. All that happened.
It’s funny to know there are three of us out here. What’s interesting, too, is that I’ve talked to some people who have a lot of equity. Their home is $500,000 but they can’t touch it because something’s happened to their credit and their banks won’t even talk to them. They’re like, “I have all this equity to pay off all my credit cards and put me in great financial standing.” The bank got a little slap on the hand because it’s not flowing the way it should. We need to talk about that one day because people are stuck in that focus equity. If I have $500,000 equity, I just want $100,000 because I’d rather pay somebody the 10% to 12% of my credit card companies and I’d still have $400,000 equity in my house. I’m not going bottoms up on it and they can’t move it.
The best way to get out of fear is to just do it. Click To TweetThat’s a niche we need to figure out.
It’s a big niche. If somebody can do that, there are a lot of people that want to push past that. Maybe the banks hold it, too, because they’d rather have you pay 20% something on that. We don’t know that. Who knows? We love them all. Kristi, any last thoughts on what people could do?
Know that there are alternatives out there and taking control of your own finances is important. Take that deep breath and go, “What can I do?” Don’t focus on what you can’t do. Focus on what you can do and move forward and get going.
It’s been great, Kristi, and I appreciate it. I want everybody to know that we are launching an education site. It’s all been built for years and the group runs a digital media big firm for many years. We cut the deal and we partnered. They’re awesome. The Mentor Studio is moving over there and a lot of my talents are moving over there. I want to let everybody know, if you have a list of over about 1,000 and they’re fairly engaged, user engagement, I’d like to see about 20% to 25% engagement, which means they’re talking to you and know what you do, I’d be happy to talk to you.
You can always get in touch with us on MSilvers@VTGRP.com. Let me know you’re engaged and my team is going to search for it. They’re going to search you and they’re going to search all the search teams. They’ll know exactly what the engagement is within one hour. Please tell us something that’s truly going on. If you have an engagement of over 1,000 followers on any platform and you’re engaged with them, talk to us because they’ll fly you out to the studio. They can produce your whole show and they’ll put it because we’re adding content all the time. There’s the revenue of the affiliate program. The charge for clients is $50,000 to $75,000 to do this and it becomes, “Mike, it was my convincing. Let’s do this. Let’s mentor. Let’s get people their home. Let’s get them engaged. Let’s do this for the rest of our lives because we don’t know what’s going to be going on, but it’s a great day.”
From myself, Kristi Duvall, and The Mentor Studio, we want to thank you for being on. If you’ve driven somewhere and pulled up to a hospital, an essential worker and helping, pumping gas to keep the trucks moving, feeding people, and whatever that is for you. We do help in our church all the time. We’re still working a couple of hours a day and we’re not allowed to congregate or anything like that. We have a homeless encampment behind us. My wife is probably going to get them kerosene. Do what it takes to help the rest of mankind out there. Volunteer, be of service, and do everything that you can. I wanted to thank you for being on, morning, afternoon, or evening. Kristi, you were awesome. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael.
Important Links
- Kristi Duvall
- www.TheVerticalLive.com
- MSilvers@VTGRP.com
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