You're listening to the REI Marketing Nerds podcast, the leading resource for real estate investors who want to dominate their market online. Dan Barrett is the founder of AdWords Nerds, a high tech digital agency focusing exclusively on helping real estate investors like you get more leads and deals online. Outsmart your competition and live a freer, more awesome life. And now your host, Dan Barrett.
(00:42): All. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the REI Marketing Nerds podcast. As always, this is Daniel Barrett here from AdWords nerds.com. And if you need help finding more leads and deals for your real estate investing business, where to go, AdWords nerds.com is the place to be. We will help you build a strategy for online marketing in your market today. Okay, so without any further ado, I wanna jump right into my interview with Henry Washington. If you don't know Henry, he's one of the co-hosts on the Bigger Pockets podcast. He's got an incredible real estate investing business and is an influential coach and mentor as well. Henry's one of those people where his personality just comes across. He's got a really inspirational story. He's fun, he's funny, he's insightful. I just love this interview. So without any further ado, let's get into my interview with Henry Washington. All right, I'm here with Henry Washington from henry washington.com. Henry, welcome the Showman. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
(01:53): We were talking right before we jumped on and I was like, I like the URL because it's an easy thing to remember because it is your name. So henry washington.com people can go there, learn all about you, but I am gonna give you the opportunity to give listeners who maybe aren't familiar with you or the different types of stuff you do, kind of not quite the elevator pitch, but the sort, give people some context on who you are, what you do. Cuz you are all over the real estate investing space in a variety of ways. So how would you describe what you're doing today? Oh man. It's a good sign when it's a hard question to answer. Yeah, that means it's gonna be kind of a fun renaissance man type of thing.
(02:36): It's hard. It's hard. Whenever somebody asks me what I struggle with, I don't know what the right answer is. I'm obviously a real estate investor. We've got about se, well we counted yesterday, we've got 75 doors. Cool. And we flip houses. I flip maybe 10, 15 houses a year. I am, gosh, an influencer. I've got a coaching and teaching business. And so we do digital products courses to help people get started investing in real estate. And I really focus on affordability with my courses because this is life changing information and not everybody has access to it. And not everybody has $500 to spend on a course every time. And so I try to create courses and price them at a price point where somebody who may have to go to work making $15 an hour and working 40 hours a week doesn't have to worry about giving me half his paycheck to get access to information like this. And so there's a real focus on affordability. There's a focus on giving information away for free. That's where the influencer aspect comes in. I give tons of free information away that's helpful that people can use to put into action on my social media. And all that really came after I bought my first property. So 90 days before I bought my first property, I had a panic attack about not being able to afford the life that I felt like my new wife deserved.
(04:08): We bought a house and I say we generously, she bought a house. I was not allowed to be on the loan . When we tried to get the loan, the bank basically told, the bank called me, the lender called me and said, Hey, if you want your wife to buy a house, you're gonna have to not be on the loan. You're gonna ruin this for her. And so that was a blow. Yeah, because I financially made great money but I'd had no financial education and I spent more than I made, which gave me bad credit and debt and all the things that come with overspending and not knowing how to manage your money. So then my wife and I, after she bought that house and I wasn't on the loan, then I was quickly starting to pick up the signs that there are things that we want to do. There are things that she deserves that I can't provide her. I can't be on the loan for the house, I can't go on these vacations without some level of large amounts of saving. And it just wasn't feasible. We were talking about how many kids we were gonna have and I was like, I dunno how gonna afford to have kids that they cost money and then they get older and then daycare and that's it cost more money. And it all became super overwhelming. And it all came to a head one night at three in the morning and I had a panic attack. I woke up sweating and doing all the things that you do in a panic attack. And the only thing I could think to do was just to Google at three in the morning, How can I make some extra money? Cuz I just figured if I could make extra money on the side doing something, then that would be the start of fixing the problem.
(05:45): So that's when I found all the buzzwords. All the buzzwords started to stick out passive income and cash flow and wealth. And the one common denominator amongst all those buzz words was real estate. I just kept seeing articles and things about real estate. And when I was reading through their articles, the thing that stuck out most to me was that the people that were doing this were just people I'd never really paid attention to who owned real estate before. I just assumed rich people in corporations real estate. But what I was discovering through my panic attack search was that it was just regular people. So I made a pact with myself at three in the morning. I made a decision that I was gonna figure out how to be a successful real estate investor cuz if all these people figured it out, then I was gonna figure it out too. And so that's what I did. And so 90 days later I ended up buying my first property mind. I only had a thousand dollars in my savings account when I made this decision and I had bad credit and I couldn't be on the loan for the house that I had the panic attack. Right, you Weren't exactly, Yeah. It wasn't like I was spring Boarding offer,
(06:55): I didn't have this amazing foundation to get started from. But I wanna put that out there cuz it's just that if you make a decision and you truly make a decision, then you've told yourself, you've told your brain that we're gonna go figure this thing out. And so the steps you take towards your goals after you truly make a decision, they all how it's gonna get done, it starts to reveal itself even though you don't know how. And I think that's where a lot of people don't find success, not just with real estate but with anything. It's because we just say we're gonna give it a shot or a try or we'll check it out. All that language does is tell your brain you'll do it until it gets hard and then you'll stop. That's why the people who are successful, the only difference between them and everybody else is when it got hard they didn't stop.
(07:44): So that's kind of how I got into it and that was the moment that kind of led me into it. And you man, that first property kind of changed everything for me from a perspective. But what happened was after I bought that first property the bank that I used was a small local bank. They called me and said, Hey, that was a great deal. I bought a house for one 15 that appraised for over one 50. And so they called me and they were like, Hey, you've got equity in this property, we want to give you a line of credit on that equity so you can go bring us more good deals like that. And that really helped put all the pieces together in my head that okay, this is something I can do that's scalable and as long as I can continue to find deals, I can continue to leverage this money. And then it was just like, man, 90 days ago I had a panic attack and now I own this asset that's paying me paying for itself and now the bank's giving me access to 25 grand to go do more of these things. That's mind blowing.
(08:48): And so going from not being able to even be on the loan to get the house you wanted to live in to the bank actually calling you up and being like, here's right. A line of credit. I imagine that. So we're sort of skipping ahead a little bit, but I imagine when you are coaching and you're teaching now that backstory must kind of help people hear what you're trying to say. Because I think usually it's like if you hear someone who's like, Well I'm a really successful real estate investor and here's my spreadsheet of all the deals or whatever in people's heads, they're already going like, Well that doesn't apply to me because I'm in a different market or I've got this or I'm a back credit or whatever. So it must be that people, it helps people connect to you because they kind of see themselves in you. Do you find that that's the case?
(09:39): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. With my, what kind of brought this thing full circle is once I did that first deal, I just had this overwhelming sense of responsibility that kind of came over me. Obviously I was excited but excitement wasn't the overarching feeling. It was a sense of responsibility to share this information with as many people as possible to go from panic attack to cash flow. And then understanding that I had now found this thing that was gonna change my life for the rest for forever and change my kids' life that I w have yet I just knew I had to share it. And so that's when I started my social media. I had no idea what's gonna get as big as it's gotten. That wasn't the intent. The intent was just put the information out for people, try to help people. And so that's tried to maintain that throughout and yeah, absolutely.
(10:30): When people hear the story, it's helpful for me cuz I'm like, I don't want to hear the excuses. There's a hundred thousand ways to get into real estate investing and I'm not here to tell you exactly the way you should go do it. I'm here to tell you you can go do it and I'm gonna help you work your way through doing it. But how you get into real estate is different than how maybe I got into real estate or I share. The concepts are the same. But the minute steps that you need to take from an action perspective may be different cuz your finances are different and your credit may be different and your end goal with real estate may be different. But conceptually the basics of real estate are the same. You need to find something that you can buy at a price point where you can add value to it.
(11:22): And when you add value to it, then you monetize it, right? Either you flip it wholesale at whole tail it, rent it, the exit strategy doesn't matter. And so the concepts are the same. And so for me it's about helping people realize that we have to stop getting so tied up in the how because there's a million ways of how you need to be more tied up in the going to, I'm going to be successful, I'm going to figure this out. And then the more you expose yourself to people like myself, people like yourself in the same position you're in, other investors, other successful investors podcast books, the more you surround yourself with those things, coupled with the mindset that you're gonna figure it out, how reveals itself, you will find your path in real estate. Yeah,
(12:11): I mean it strikes me too, it's like the more married you are to a particular way, , I've gotta do it this way. It's a particular type of deal that this, I'm gonna use this crm. It's like everything's gotta be exactly the same. That's actually getting you sort of further away from your goal. Because if every single individual step in this master plan you have has to go, each one of those is a certain percentage. Maybe this one's 75% percent chance to go, This one's 99%, that one's 99%. But if you want the likelihood that that whole thing works out, you gotta multiply all those together and it just goes down. When everyone gets Your
(12:53): Steps gets harder, harder, harder. The less married you are to the particular thing, the better it is. And I think you make a really good point. I talked to a lot of real estate investors, but both for Edwards nerd for the podcast and it's like everybody's story is a little bit different. It's like I did another interview for the podcast this morning. Her story was nothing like yours, but it's also kind of yours in all the underlying ways that actually make sense. Right? Yeah. Okay. So I am curious, you know mentioned you do this for deal 90 days after you decide to, you make this decision, you commit to it, you do this for deal, you feel good, but then you also feel like this sense of obligation, I have this responsibility now. Yes. Which is fascinating to me. Cuz clearly most people don't feel that, right? It's like most investors, they do their deal and they're like awesome and they're just onto the next one. There's nothing wrong with that. But you had a very different reaction. I'm curious, why do you think that was? Is that something in your background where you're have a particular model in your head that you're thinking about? Why did you feel a sense of responsibility to go along with the relief? You must have also felt that, hey, now I'm making some extra money.
(14:12): Yeah, I think part of it is my background. Both my father and my stepmother were teachers for their whole career. And so I think that's just been ingrained in me. I never saw myself being a teacher, I never even had those thoughts. But once the seeds planted, it's planted. So I think part of that started to show itself, but I think a lot more of it was my faith, right? I had a panic attack and I started to do something about it, but I also prayed and was like, I need help out of this situation. And I felt real estate was the answer to that. And I've just always been a firm believer that none of this is for me, none of this is for us, the wealth that I get to generate. It's not for me. I get to read the benefits of it, don't get me wrong.
(15:12): I get to take care of my family and travel and do all these amazing things and have financial freedom. But the point of it isn't for me to do that. The point of it is for me to share it, for me to help other people with it. Just when you see stories of people who've amassed wealth of some kind and then they lose it, I think you can always see some theme of they lost track of what they were supposed to do with it. They weren't being good stewards of it. And so I just feel like abundance comes with giving. And so I want to be a good steward of what I've been blessed with. I've been blessed with this information that helps me build this wealth. And so I need to give both away if I want to continue to have abundance because I just feel like that's what life is about.
(16:05): And so I just say I feel passionately about making sure that when I found that thing, I knew, I knew I found something incredible. It wasn't like, oh cool, I found a way to make some extra money. No, I, I remember saying to my wife, we wrote down our goals before we had bought anything, we had wrote down our goals and our goals were to buy one house a year for the next five years to try to supplement our income. And when we got that first deal and got access to that 30 grand and I saw and we bought it, I only had a thousand dollars and we figured out a way to buy it without using our own money. And I just went and I looked at her and I said, We gotta redo our goals . This is way too small. We did five deals in our first month and that was our goal for the next five years. And so once I saw how powerful that was, I was like, I have to share this can't just be for me.
(16:57): So when you guys started investing, you guys were doing it together. Do you guys still invest together? Is that part of the Business? Yeah, absolutely. , What is that? . You don't have to open the curtain too much, but it's, I've thought about this before where it's, I think it's just the way that I work is extremely irritating to had this conversation. We're like, I try to bring her in or whatever and she's just like, It's your thing. I love you, but that's your thing and I wanna do my own thing. And she has her own business. It's cool. So how has that been for you and is, I dunno if you wanna call it a secret, but how do you manage that, right? Because it's a lot, even just working with someone you're not married to is a lot, right? So yeah, for sure. How do you guys think through that? Yeah, I mean she finds joy in helping me, in supporting me. She doesn't have this business thing she wants to go do as much as I encourage her to, I'm always throwing her business ideas on you can do this and you're so good at that and you should start this business. And She too,
(18:07): She doesn't wanna do that right now. And if she ever does, I fully support it and want her to go do that and we'll find someone to fill her shoes in this business here because I want her to be the best version of herself. And right now she feels like the best version of her is being there in this business with me. And so I guess the answer to that question is you gotta allow people to be who they are and she helps me in this business because that's what she wants to do. She's our property manager and she's really kind of taking that bull by the horns and is doing a good, great job at it. And it's freed me up to focus on more income generating activities and that's a benefit. And I always tell her, any minute you don't wanna do this, we'll figure out somebody else to come and do this. Right? You're not trapped in this role.
(18:57): Right, Right. But I think some practical things that really help us is just in our marriage in general, we've just taken the approach to overshare, right? Overcommunicate just try to put everything out there how we're feeling about things and just not keeping secrets essentially. And I think that helped when we got into this business because it's just been I think communicating helps us watch out for problems. And so I would say if you're gonna work with your spouse then you need to a set boundaries. Each of you're gonna have different boundaries and then each of you are gonna have boundaries that you want the other person to have. You gotta be open about that. For example, I will work until I feel like whatever task I'm doing is done. But her expectation of a boundary for me might be like, well when that clock strikes five, I want you at home. If she doesn't tell me that that's an expectation, then I'm gonna blow right past that several times. And so just being honest about what boundaries you wanna put in place for yourself versus what boundaries your spouse wants you to have. And then finding some middle ground between those and then sticking to them is, it's really not rocket science, it's just overcommunication and setting boundaries. Well, you make it sound so easy my friend. We are not experts at it. .
(20:32): Well, it's like I'm a huge believer in this idea that there's two vehicles at least that I have personal experience with two vehicles for massive personal growth in life and it's business and marriage. Both of those challenging in ways that you're probably not gonna be ready for, but they also challenge you in ways you need to be challenged the most. So it's, I, it's combining the two strikes me as incredibly powerful. I think it, I have a lot of respect for people that do that. So I think that's really amazing. I wanna ask you specifically, cuz you do mentioned social media, obviously it's already I marketing nerds. We're gonna talk about marketing a little bit, and I know you do a lot of social media for the coaching aspect and everything, but one of the things I think investors particularly have trouble with is putting themselves out on social media.
(21:23): And I think for most investors what it ends up being is they're just saying, we buy houses some of your house over and over and over again with a different stock image or whatever. And I'm always trying to tell people, you don't have to have this master plan, but you have to be an actual person, right? Yeah. At this stock image is not doing it for anybody. So did you always feel comfortable with social media? Is that something No. Do. All right. So walk me through this process of getting used to it and feeling finding your voice there because I think you do a really good job of it. You're obviously very good at communication, the sense connecting with people. So yeah, how do you do that on social media? How do you think through that from, Hey guys, hope you enjoyed part one of this episode. It's just too good to limit to one show. Join us next week to hear the rest.
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