Transcription
$1.5 million this year. Yeah. Yourself, right? But it come and I have I have less than $10,000 in expenses this year.
So Demetri, you are one of my favorite wholesalers on planet earth. And I say that very specifically on planet Earth. I didn't say in the country, which is usually said in times like this because you live in Belgium. You live in Belgium. This is your second time on the podcast and you keep growing your business virtually from a completely different continent. So, um, this is really, really, really exciting. Give people just a couple minutes of how you got into real estate and then we'll get into the nitty-gritty on how you have made uh $1.5 million this year on the on that headset that you're wearing right now by yourself, right? Um all the way across the world. So, how did you how did you get into this? Why not why not do something in Europe? Why not work work uh you know where you live?
Yeah, sure. Um, so, okay, long story short, which is always what people say when they're going to talk about a very long story, but I'm I'm really going to keep it short. Um so I was at university and I did like a very sort of like a really too difficult engineering degree and um I thought I was going to get a good salary and then when I graduated when I was in my last year um they showed me the salaries it was very disappointing and so I started reading like real estate books and um I started doing some real estate in Belgium. Um and then I pretty quickly realized that it's easier to do real estate in the United States. So, I I just I I gave notice to my landlord back then and I packed two suitcases and I went on a plane to Florida and I started handwriting uh letters on uh to code violation lists in Orlando and I used some of the money that I had saved up from doing deals in Belgium. And then I bought a mobile home on 5 acres in Mount Dora. Um it was 4162 Laughlin Road. And um I bought it. You can you can look up the the deeds if you want to. and um and and then I started doing deals in Southwest Florida and I've been doing deals in Florida ever since. So I've spent over probably over a year in in Florida in total and um I just went with my wife to Florida and uh we've you know we we we like spending time there. Um but yeah, I do I do a lot of deals while I'm in Europe or when I'm in uh you know where we even uh when we're on a on a holiday and a lead comes in. Um, you know, it doesn't really matter. I mostly focus on vacant land. So, there's not really a reason to meet each other at the property and there's not even I would argue there's not even an advantage to really being in your local market if you're doing vacant land. Um, so yeah.
So, you're doing you're doing deals in Belgium and then you're like, wait, this isn't like what what's the difference between doing deals in Belgium and doing like real estate transactions there and here?
Well, um, so if you do a deal in Belgium, uh, first of all, there's nothing like a real estate investor association. There's nothing like podcasts. There is just there is literally no real estate community. And, um, and so it's it's it's much more difficult. And the reason why there's no community, you could argue, is because um it's the regulations just sort of kills it because your the transfer tax when you buy a property as an investor, you pay 12% of the purchase price as a transfer tax and you can get half of that back. If you sell within two years, but if you miss the two years, then you never get the 12% back. So, and then if you buy it too cheap, then the government will find you because they will say you sort of like you disadvantage the sellers and they can even give it back to the seller. If it's called the 512th rule if you buy it for less than 512th of what the government says it's worth. Uh, and that's a bureaucrat uh who's going to determine that. Then they can just literally give the property back to the previous owners even after you paid for it and you closed on it. And then a closing takes four months. Uh it's it takes four months. It during Corona it took up to six months to close on a property. That's just closing for buying or selling it. So if you're buying and then you're selling, it'll take you a year.
How did they determine how did they determine the worth of it? You said if you buy it at 512ths of the worth?
Yeah. Um and listen guys, if you're watching this and listening to this, you're like, I don't care about European. I think that this is really important to understand how unbelievable the opportunity is here in the United States to be able to be a real estate entrepreneur because other places you can't. Okay? And and we take it for granted because we're we're entitled here and we we our parents bought and sold houses and people can own a thousand doors and people can flip 10,000 houses and we can do all these things. Other places you can't. So, like wake up today and and just realize how beautiful it is to be able to um be in a country that allows you to be a real estate entrepreneur. It's amazing.
Yeah, absolutely. And there's nothing like a thousand doors in Belgium. You've never I've never heard I I know people with six doors, but I I don't know anyone with a thousand doors because you you can't really refinance because then the the stamp duty and the mortgage is like 2% of the value and you you you don't get that back. So, you can't really refinance, you know, you can't really raise money to buy properties. The cap rates are like 2 or 3% because um you know there it's just less of a market. Um, it's pretty much anyone who buys an investment property in Belgium because you could argue then don't flip but then buy and hold. But I even heard Dolph Darus say on your podcast that he used to live in Belgium and he's like, "Yeah, you can't do you can't do real estate in Belgium." No. Um and and and so the cap rates are like two or three%. So you could a house that's a million dollars, you know, that that'll rent for like two or three thousand a month. And um so so how will you buy and rent things out? And pretty much everyone buys it because you can still depreciate within a corporation if you have like if you're a painter, you could still buy a building and then depreciated against your income in like a C corp, what you would call a C corp in the US. Um, but but then it doesn't cash flow. Everyone just knows in Belgium they're like, "Yeah, real estate you you pay an extra like your negative cash flow a thousand or 2,000 a month on a house and then you just do that for 20 years and then you own it and that's their savings plan and that's that's how they do it." So
So who determines worth? Sorry, I kind of got off that track, but who determines worth there? Like you said, 512th of what it's worth?
Yeah, you can still free I can still negotiate with you. And then there's a real estate agent. Um, there's nothing as a buyer agent, by the way. There's just one real estate agent. There's also no public comps. There are no comparable sales.
You can't just buy directly from the property owner.
You can that's allowed. But so you can you can even determine the price between the two of you. But if there would ever be a government agency smelling that something is off and they look in their computer and they're like, "Well, this doesn't seem right." Then they'll contact you. they'll first send you uh letters with fines which I ended up paying over 40,000 in fines after we did um real estate in Belgium and we made we made well over a million euros. So we we still we still came came out ahead but um but what um what what ends up happening is they first find you and then they they they will look at what houses sell for in that area. The government will and then if it sells for less than 512th they can actually give it back. That never happened to me by the way. uh we were able to to sort of prevent that, but they can give it back to the previous owner. But
How do they know the condition of the property? How do they know how much repairs needs to be done? How do they know?
Yeah, I I mean, we get this argument in the United States at times where people go, "Oh, you bought this house for 50% of what it's worth." And I say I argue back. I say, "No, no, no. I bought it for fair market value based on the condition of the property, what needed to go into it, and the return that I was looking to get." Like that is the pro price that I determine the value. The buyer determines the value. Not the comps, not not the the government, not real estate agents, not appraisals, not the tax valuation, none of that. I I'm the buyer. I'm the buyer of this. They want to go and and and and have somebody else buy it and they'll give them more. Then that's the fair market value. But they don't they make a decision to sell to me.
Well, but you have to understand there's a big cultural difference between the United States and Western Europe. In the United States, you still have a strong belief in free market and like a free market mechanism. Um, and you sort of um feel that the market the free market works to a larger extent and you do have some safety valves there. But in in in um in Western Europe, it's more like people look at the government to provide safety for people. Sure. And that's the big that's the big difference. It's even when you look at things like retirement, we don't have things like 401k plans. I even asked someone the other day, they're like in their in their 40s and and uh we're talking about like investing and I'm like I asked them, "What's your what's your retirement plan?" And they're like, "Well, that's not my my job. That's the government's job." And I'm like I'm like, "Okay, well that's fine. That's how you think about it. That's that's that's you're okay to do that." Um but um it's a cultural difference. So
Got it. Um, well, let's move let's move back over to the United States here and talk about how you get the deals and and and why land? I mean, I understand uh going after land because there's not a lot of appointments that you have to go on to like walk a piece of land. I mean, you can with Google Maps and some of the local mapping uh tools that you can use, you can you can pretty much get an idea of what's going on with that piece of land. So, but there's just it's a smaller pool of buyers, right, Dimmitri? I mean, it's there can't be that many buyers for land, are there?
Well, I mean, you only need for every deal you do one buyer. And at the end of the day, the only thing that counts is something has a certain value and you know that's a retail value and if you're buying at wholesale value, then it's just pure mathematics. So if something is retail 100 and if you if you can solve a problem for a sellers or the person who has a legal interest in it's typically an air and you can get it with legal fees and back taxes and all the expenses that you make you can get it for 50 then you have a a spread of 50 because it's worth 100 you get it for 50 um and then the question is what are your expenses to sell it so at the end of the day it's pure mathematics um the reason why land is better in my opinion and you know I don't want I would say I don't want to create competition, but at this point I don't really care. Like I mean, you know, enjoy yourself. There's plenty of land. Um, but um it's better in my opinion because for several reasons. Okay, first reason, there is no emotional attachment to land. So if someone lives in Germany and their father had a piece of land and the father died and the house where he lived in Germany gets sold and that was the mailing address and every direct mail piece bounces from everyone in the US and I find those heirs and I talk to them and I'm like hey there's a piece of land here in Florida. I can offer you X amount at closing net and I take care of all the expenses so you have certainty. Then they'll be like how much? 24,000 sounds good. But for a house, the problem is for a house, there's typically first a story. And there's also like something that people have in their mind like, okay, a house in Miami, well, everyone knows it's not 50 or 100,000. Everyone knows that's anywhere from a couple of hundred thousand to a million or more if it's a nice house. And so you have like with houses, you have first of all the fact that people are not emotional attached to it in any way. there's no story to it in terms of people just bought it and it just sat there. And and then the other thing is um people have they don't do what I call self anchoring. They don't anchor a price which they do with houses. I'm pretty sure in Phoenix most people who are heirs they're like oh yeah that's a house I want to get two or three or $400,000. Everyone sort of knows that it's all over the news what a house sold sells for. Now, if I tell you Brent, um, two acres of commercial zoned land of the main road in Fort Meyers, what's the value?
Nobody knows.
50,000, 100,000, 400,000, is it 2 million? We don't know, right? And and that's the big advantage of it. Um, because uh people can easily talk themselves out of a deal where they just want too much, which happens with houses all the time. But with land, people are more reasonable, I would say. So
Yeah. Got it. So, a couple years ago, you were sending emails and uh texting. Everybody was texting a few years ago uh when that was really hot and popular. But are you still doing some of those things? Like, how do you get a hold of the property owners to be able to communic
I shut down the email thing because it was still getting me a lot of replies, like 10 20 a day. Um, the problem was a lot of people were doing it in my local markets and because of that people just had too many expectations. Like they thought their quarter acre $30,000 piece of land was the next hot thing, right? And so people were sort of unreasonable, the same as you would typically have with houses. Um, so I was still doing a couple of deals every month from it, but it was just too much work for me. And then the problem is because you have to email a very big list. The problem is a lot of those pieces of land are deals where you make five or $10,000 on. So I rather I rather move to the bigger deals where you have a little bit more problems to solve and a little bit more digging work but you can make a lot more per deal. Um, so what I am really focused on is pretty much finding people who no one else is able to find. And um, and most of the time they they either don't know that there was even a piece of land or if they know that it was there, then they they're like, "Oh, yeah, it hasn't been auctioned off yet, or or maybe just let it go to auction." And I'm like, it's I can offer you $26,000 at closing, you know, and and you're with whatever you're with four siblings who are all the heirs. You get um $6,500 each and you have to do nothing. I pay for everything. If you can bring us the will and the debt certificate or whatever it is, a couple of documents, then we can make it happen for you. So
So you're finding is this on like tax default lists? Is this
Yeah. local lists that uh have those code violations like you started out with way back when when you when you when you flew into Florida and started uh started going after those like what what are some good lists that that are effective for that?
Well, I would say the the the most obvious sign of neglect for a property is a property tax is not being paid and um and that's the most obvious sign. I sort of have a thesis where I think to myself if there are a couple of things that are true then I can always make a deal out of it. Now in reality I might not because I can't find the heirs or or when they learn about it they just want to they become greedy and they want to pay the back taxes and get top dollar for it and they're not really greedy. They just you know they can do what they want. They're the heirs. Um but there's a couple of things if they're if those things are true I can always pretty much make a deal happen. Uh the first thing is if the taxes have not been paid for several years. So not one years, one year or two years, preferably three years or sometimes people think in after three years in Florida a property goes to auction. Well, that's not true. That's only if the person who bought the tax certificate >> does the you know if they if they file for the tax deeds. >> If they don't file for the tax deed then it doesn't go to auction. And and so you have properties in Florida there four, five, six. I did a deal um a couple of months ago. They were like eight years tax delinquent. And um if if if that if that is the case, then you clearly have neglect. Um the second thing is if the um if the property has enough value because if if it's 10 or $20,000 retail, I mean, you're kind of wasting your time a little bit. You don't want to do all that work to make $5,000. Um, so if the value is at least, let's say, you know, 80, 100, 120, 160,000, then there's something there to work with, right? You can pay for two or three probates because sometimes you have more legal fees than just a standard probate. You might have to do quiet title or a trust uh action in front of the court, you know, you can pay that if the if the spread is big enough. So if you're a couple of years tax delinquent and there's a value there and the owner is deceased and the owner is out of state or out of the country and it's vacant land. If all those things are true, >> you have a deal.
So what do you do? You call them?
Well, it's sort of like detective work. I'm actually um comparing courses now for uh international being like international private detective because I kind of find it cool. Um so I go pretty far now. So I literally I call courouses in Germany and the UK and if if the deal is big enough. Um so I go very very far. Um but you know what what you can do is you can look for okay first of all you need to figure out if the owner is still alive. Uh often there's a clue there and the clue is often on the deed. The deed by the way has a lot of important information. A lot of people don't know that. Um, but the deed, the last deed, and sometimes the deed before that, if they got it gifted from a family member, that has a lot of information. So, if they bought it in 1971, which is 54 years ago, >> Mhm. >> they're probably not I mean, and and and by the way, you can see the tax history. If they paid the taxes for 52 years, and then they stopped paying all of a sudden, they paid every year on time for like 50 years or something, and then they stopped paying. Well, you know, unfortunately, they probably deceased. uh now and and so that's a clue. They bought it a long time ago and they paid the taxes on time each year which you can see uh because some people they also they they each time they let it go three years that a tax deed gets filed and they suddenly pay it off and then they do it again and they have that bad habit, right? Probably the same people who don't pay their income tax on time and but some people they really they're very diligent. They pay on time each year. They own it for many decades and then they suddenly stop paying. Well, that's an indication that they're probably deceased and they bought it a long time ago. Um, and then you start you start figuring things out. So, you look on the deed. Sometimes there is um several people on the deed or they got a deed from someone else. You can look on all those people for all those people who are on the deed. You can look them up uh being verified. You can Google them. You can go on the socials. Uh you do all of that. If they're out of the country, um I have a couple of cool things that I do. I I'll give you one. Um if they have uh if the property needs to be valuable to do this, right? So I'll give you two I'll give you two things uh that that I that I like doing. Okay. So one thing is if the property has a lot of value and they're out of the country. This gonna people are going to say I'm nuts for doing this but h if the property the mailing address if the mailing address you can cold call not I mean based on an address in many countries in Europe so they have their own phone book right? >> Sure. and you look up the mailing address that's with the county and you call that address and someone picks up and they're German, they're like good. And then you say, "Hi, uh, I'm calling about uh this for this person." And then they'll tell you, "Oh, the house we bought it two years ago and it got sold." And then you're like, "Hey, so do you do you know um because I'm trying to reach the family members of the previous owner and they might give you the phone number." That's that's I've gotten several deals like that. So, so you you is there a website that you use to get the phone numbers for people that live out like what if they live in Canada? What if they live in Brazil? What if they live
I just I just I just signed a deal with someone from Canada last week.
Yeah. Canada has if you put just Canada white pages in Google.
Um but I mean something more you know something that's not as close to the United States, you know. Okay. Let's call it uh New Zealand. Let's call it uh
Sure. Yeah, Madagascar. How do you find those numbers?
Yeah. So, if you actually put into Google a phone book by country, I don't know the exact link. Um, but my wife one day years ago, I was like, "Oh, no. Those people are in this country. I don't know how to find them." And my wife was like, "Don't be lazy." And she gave me a link uh with phone like phone books by country. So, you can just Google uh phone phone book by country or something. If you put that into Google or definitely if you ask Chad GPT, he'll give you the link. Um I I would you know I I maybe I can send it to you after the show or something and you you drop it for people but um you each country has their own phone book same as um you know in the US you have the white pages and every country has their own phone book in the United Kingdom it's ukphonebook.com I believe um in in Germany it's dust telephone book um and each country has their own or something uh is in Germany as well and Switzerland has one and so what you can do is you can um you can just look up the local phone book and you call not based on the name because if the person deceased three years ago, you'll not find them anymore. They'll remove them after a year. But you look based on the mailing address from the property taxes uh that the county has and then you can call them or you door knock, which I have done several times and I've gotten several deals from that. So, especially in Belgium, I'll just drive to to that house and I'll knock on the door. I'll be like, "Hey, um, sorry. Um, you know, just knocking your door. I know it's kind of weird, but um, you know, there's this property and I I don't even know if you're the right person, but um, I've been trying to reach them and you know, to no a to no avail. Um, and yeah, I'm just here to see if if there's any way we you know, you know who they are or or whatever." Um, one other thing you can do, um, if they have a very funny last name is, and I don't mean funny last name, I mean like a not so common a unique last name, you know, it's just not a common last name.
Uh what I sometimes do is I'll call everyone with uh that last name in the country,
which I know sounds crazy, but I got a deal um a few months ago from someone last name in um Zurich. And um and there was no like I I I did everything. I I looked for the owner. I saw he passed away. I couldn't find family members. And so I what I did is I uh called every stutter in in that canton of u of Switzerland and suddenly someone picked up and and I was like um I was like hi I'm trying to reach uh this person's truth alter he's like uh this was my brother he's deceased but we are handling the estates what is your offer and and so I made him an offer and we did a deal and it was it was a pretty
You can make you can make a whole career you can make a whole business out of I mean I can't imagine how many pieces of land are owned by foreign investors.
Uh thousands and thousands. Yeah.
Oh, for sure. Just just in Florida. Florida alone probably tens of thousands alone.
Yeah. There's going to be hundreds of thousands. Not only that, I mean,
Who's going who's going to do that work, Demetri? Nobody's doing that work.
Yeah. I think it's kind of fun.
Are are you are you going and when you're talking to these people, they're like, "Oh my gosh, you're the fifth call I got today."
No, there's no one calling.
Right. that that that there's no one. And by the way, I don't so when when I'm in I I just did a deal with a lady from Greece.
Yeah. Um she was in Greece and um I called her. She was in Athens in Greece and I called her on her on her landline in in in Greece and um and and but she her mailing address was actually she was alive and her mailing address was up to date. And so she she she told me she gets letters every week, postcards, letters, but at the end of the day she did she said she did a deal with me for two reasons. First, I did the effort of calling her instead of just sending some generic piece of mail. And then the second reason is she said that um I have a link on my website um with video testimonials and I have like uh 12 of them now and they're literally people in the camera saying I sold my piece of land to Dimmitri Vancamp and um you know he's very trustworthy. He he responds within a couple of like he he really does the business properly and and she said that that's why she did it with me because she didn't know about title companies and how all of that works. So it's a little bit scary for them. Right.
Sure. Um but but but but what I'm trying to say is in that case there was competition, but I prefer to not have competition, you know. Um it's it's just a better life. Um yeah.
So does it does it help that they're on your time zone for the most part if you if you're if you're going for properties that are owned by Europeans as opposed to, you know, calling and and trying to reach out on property owners that are just in the United States, live in the United States because there's a big
What time is it there? It's 4. It's 2 It's 2:37 p.m. in Phoenix. What time is it?
Yeah, it's 10:37 p.m.,
right?
Yeah.
So, I assume that, you know, what does your schedule look like?
It So, so for me, I don't really care about like time. I mean, I I I care about it to the extent that I respect the sellers, but for myself, I don't care about it. I typically work noon to midnight, and sometimes I work 1:00 am, 2 am. Um you if if if you're looking for a message where I'm going to tell you how to do the business in in one hour a day, I'm sorry, can't help you. Um but um but but the times when I don't care about it in the to the extent for myself, but definitely for the sellers, yes. Uh I don't think it's much of an advantage for me because I even typically call with my American phone number. Unless if I'm calling someone in Belgium, then I use my my Belgian phone number. No. I don't I don't think I have much of an advantage. I think it's maybe more like a mindset. Like I've been in Germany, so I'm not intimidated by calling a court and asking them if there's an open probate for a certain person. And a lot of times, by the way, in Europe, data is very protected, so they won't give you that information. But if you have a good reason, they at least give you some surface level information.
So yeah, the world's global. I mean, you could go you could go on um you know, some some website or get a VPN in in a you know, a country that is uh that you're interested that that the owner of the property's mailing address is in and find some resources of people that speak the language and just say, "Hey, listen. You know, I'll pay you a certain amount almost like a VA would do but but a VA in that country. I I need you to reach out to these five owners in that area and see if you could have a conversation and see if they would sell their property. I mean, this is open this is opening up a can of ideas uh for for me because what I have seen Demetri in the last 18 months especially >> in the Rhino tribe is quality over quantity going after the properties. Nobody else is going through layers 2, 3, 5, 7, 12 to get property owner and have that unique >> Yeah. >> conversation with that property owner or the heirs of that property owner and and and help them through the process of selling it. A lot of them don't even know that they own it or or or could potentially own it. And those are those have been massive deals.
Really great strong deals. And the sellers couldn't be happier. It's like extra money for them. Now, some you tell you tell them about the property and they go through the process and they they keep it or they they you know sell it on the market or they do what else whatever else for. But for the good >> for a lot of these deals, >> I'm telling you, the tax defaults, people that are behind on property taxes, man, >> you or or people that have giant judgments that you can negotiate those judgments and get it, you know, get properties for, you know, nothing and negotiate those judgments. Those have been huge deals and it's got to be something that people wake up to because if you're not going to go the extra efforts and you're just relying on a call center making bazillion calls for you um and you getting these low quality leads that everybody has talked to, you got to go through so much more of those and and with if you just do maybe less effort on the actual you know talking to people side but more effort on the research side, >> you can make a tremendous $1 million. You're doing one point, sorry, $1.5 million this year.
Yeah. Yourself, right? But it come and and I have I have less than $10,000 in expenses this year um in total expenses.
Yeah. For the year. Yeah. Because I have I have been verified, which is $150 a month, and then some local subscriptions to foreign phone books, but that's like $10, $20. Um, and then what else? Um, it's pretty much it. I mean, I have some some other things. I I bought a couple of small courses for land. I bought a course on skip tracing. Um, some small stuff. I took some Spanish classes and some some small stuff, but uh, you know,
International um, private detective.
Yeah, that one I'm looking at. That one I'm looking at of taking taking one. Um, but there's really like if you pick up a phone and you call someone, there's there's really I mean, there's there's not much in terms of expenses. And I was really thinking about it when I was going to the gym today is let's assume that you want to make $4 million profit in a year, right? Which I know is a very big amount, but let's just think about it for a second. Well, you can do the typical model, $20,000 a deal on assignments. um you you know clearly if you want to get to that amount you need a a big team and you need um a lot of marketing budget so probably you're keeping 20% so 20% of a $20,000 deal is 4,000 you need to do a thousand deals in a year a thousand a thousand that's like three deals a day
Keep four million yes
to keep four million now and and someone else could do 10 deals in a year that are $400,000 each and they make four million and they have and and the person you know the the the typical uh sort of like common knowledge in the industry is like, "Yeah, but the first person has a business and the second one, well, I would rather do 10."
Yeah, it's a job. Yeah, I would rather do 10 deals in a year and then you can tell me I have a job. So, I go on a holiday for a month and I get zero phone calls and I have zero worries and you can go on a for a month on a holiday with a team of 20 people and we'll see how that works out. And so, and it's nothing, it's not like saying a big team is is bad, but for me, I just I sort of think about would I rather have big big profits per deal and and keep 99% of it? Um, or would I rather do much smaller deals and then also of those smaller because it's sort of like a a dooms loop because because of the fact that you're doing smaller deals, you have to do many more of them and because of the fact that you have to do many more of them, your profit margin on those small deals also collapses. So it's like a it's like a double negative if you know what I mean. Whereas with the big deals it's the opposite. It's because of the fact that you're doing big deals you can afford to do few of them and because of the fact that you do few of them you can you can be laser focused on them. So it's sort of like there's no right or wrong. I'm not I'm not dissing having big teams. I think it's actually pretty cool. But um in terms of profitability, you can't deny that there's a lot a lot of beauty in the simplicity of doing big deals.
Well, and and and that's what we're seeing. We're seeing a a real transition, Dimmitri, from the people that were like, "Hey, I just want to have this passive company that I make the money from and uh I build it up. I I send it like the way that I run it, right? You just I I'm the rain maker. I spend the money. My team runs the whole thing." I've seen more of a transition from people wanting to to follow that model to one going, listen, let me get really good at this super super niche list and these this super niche problem that people have and get really educated, really good and really good at the research and and have genealogologists on my team and have private detectives on my uh investigators, not detective, same thing, but whatever in investigator on the team and and really go after the the properties that nobody else is thinking about yes I have to put in the work but also I don't I don't have the headache of payroll I don't I don't have to worry about when the market shifts who do I have to let go of how do I reduce my marketing spend you know all of these things it's you know if you look at the people keeping the most amount of money it man I'll tell you it is looking like the people that are taking it like I'm gonna be a surgeon in this not the guy that owns the the hospital, you know what I mean? I'm going to be the I'm going to be the the the attorney, not the not the person that uh you know, own the law firm type of thing. You know what I mean? Like it's it's the whole it's the whole do you want to be, you know, LeBron James or own the Lakers thing. Well, most of us aren't going to own the Lakers, you know what I mean? But if you can make money that is really good and you can take it home and after taxes you have enough to buy assets and to put away. You do that for 10 15 20 years which you're going to work anyway. Let's let's not have a fallacy here. You're going to work anyway.
You are I mean you're going to work.
Yeah. Because even if you don't do deals anymore, then you're managing your portfolio and then you're you get sucked into an active buying some business. Then at the end of the day, if you're an if you're an entrepreneurial person, you'll you'll always do business pretty mo I think most I think it's a if you look at likelihood of success, I think the likelihood of success of somebody figuring out a niche, getting really good at it, doing 10, 15, 20 deals that net them, you know, 50 to $100,000 each a year and doing that year over year over year is way more likely than people growing a multi multi-million dollar business that is wildly profitable that's going to change their life and they're going to make more than the people that are just doing it the way that you're doing it.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and and there's no like it's important to understand like there's no right or wrong here. It's not because people have this mindset from from school like what's the right answer? Well, there's no right answer. It's just there's advantages and there's disadvantages and you have to decide for yourself what you want to do. Um, for me I also look at it from a risk adjusted perspective. Meaning that if you're the problem also that you can have if you have a marketing channel where you're getting four times or five times or three times your your ad spend is that can change and as it changes like you have to completely change your business and you know there's there's certain risks with that. Another beauty of it is clearly it's more like a machine uh where it runs like a factory almost and that's why you can put people in place to do to do the business but you know there's also disadvantages to it. So yeah.
Yeah. I love it to meet you. You're the man. How can people uh reach out to you? Are you on social media? What what what do you do? Where do you hang out?
Um yeah, I'm on uh I'm on Facebook and um and and I'm uh you can reach me through my email address info@vancampholding.com. Um, if I would say
That again, say that again a little slower.
info info@vancampholding.com vancmpolding.com. Um, especially if I would say if you have a a big deal, a big juicy deal, a $200,000 um um piece of land maybe on a canal or or oceanfront and um you know, you can't find airs, it has title problems or something. I mean, especially hit me up. Um I'm I'm really um I'm really excited to uh to work on something like that. Um smaller deals I don't do all over Florida. I only do in Southwest Florida. So, if you have a $50,000 piece of land in uh Southwest Florida and it's you get it for 20 or or something or, you know, give me a call and I can I can buy it and close in a week. So
Awesome. And and do you have any intentions of going outside of Florida? Is there any other areas that you're looking at or you just you're staying focused on on what you know?
No, I'm I'm I'm staying focused. Um there's there's just a tremendous amount of opportunity and I've sort of you know I've sort of taken I'm at peace with the fact that I'm not going to going to be able to to um to to do to to uh get all the opportunities in the world. Um so I have to make a choice there and um my choice is Florida. I have a great team of um title company u probate attorney. I understand uh a lot of the local laws. I mean, I'm clearly I'm not an attorney, but you know, to the extent that I can pre do some preliminary screening on the deals, I understand enough to um to um to work in the Florida market. Um so, for now, yeah, I'm good with Florida. There's actually there's so many counties, like literally, I thought I was going to do like 20 or there's I believe 60 something counties in Florida. I thought I was going to do 20 of them and I I'm still at number four for the year. And so, there's just there's so much opportunity. Um, it's it's just it's unbelievable. Um, you know it's really um the United States is really it's awesome how you can you know I was thinking about this today. People used to say well you can make it on a boat to the United States or something. That's what they said like 100 years ago right? And it's like now you just take a cable you plug it in the wall and now you've made it to the United States. How cool is that? Right.
It's incredible.
And uh yeah. Yeah. So it's uh but but yeah for Florida I'm I'm good for now. Yeah.
Well, Dimmitri, you're you're one of my favorite wholesalers on the planet. Uh I love this conversation. I think it's absolutely brought an incredible amount of value and and really opened people's minds to some different opportunities in their own markets. And I again like this is if if this business will work if you do, right? And yeah, if Dmitri can do it from Belgium >> with everything stacked against him, he's not he's not meeting up with us tomorrow. He's not he's not, you know, uh going to the the conferences and the RIA and and have all that the all the, you know, the cheerleading and the support and all those things. He gets it through Facebook, which if you you need to friend request him because he's absolutely phenomenal. And if you have any deals in Southwest Florida, you need to uh work with Dimmitri because he's going to get it across the finish line for you. But if Dimmitri can do this business, so can you. This this business works if you do 100%.
Yeah, abs. Absolutely. And and in terms of the strategies that we talked about, I would say the number one thing because I can, you know, I gave you a couple of ways you can find people, but I I would say just use common sense and don't just stop because you can't reach someone. So, if you're doing direct mail, you get returned mail. Well, that would be for me my lead source. Um, the returned mail is probably the only thing I would focus on. So, just focus on wherever everyone else gets stuck. That's your that's now your job starts. That's how I would look at it. So
Awesome. Awesome. Thank you, Dmitri. Thanks for being on here.
Yeah, you're welcome. There's a man.