Ashlee Chapman: Specializing In What Most Agents Hate
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Ashlee sticks to "traditional" real estate because it's "easier." That is NOT Ashlee Chapman! While most agents are running out of the home, that's when she rolls up her sleeves and runs in. Inside Sales? Yep. Cold calling? Yep. Foreclosures? Yep. Bankrupcies? Yep. Short Sales? Yep. Wholesaling? Yep. All with no training provided. She bootstrapped and figured out what she needed to do. Not to mention, she left her home in the Pacific NW and moved to San Diego on a whim, so all the traction she's gained is in an area she didn't know. Today, Ashlee serves as Director of Acquisitions for the Middleton Group with Big Block Realty. She LOVES what she does and is going to do big things in the future.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Ashlee got started and worked so many sales jobs. She worked sales at Sunglass Hut, sales in a salon, selling designer jeans. She felt like she had done all the sales things up until that point, then she got into car sales
- Ashlee got her real estate license in July 2018.
- She started reaching out to people that were 90 days late, code violations, liens, tax liens, and every sort of distressed situation. She was calling them.
- Middleton Group is a lifelong partnership for Ashlee, because she really enjoys working for them and they help each other build their businesses.
- She gives some examples of a couple of the deals that she done recently, including one a $85,000 wholesale deal.
- According to Ashlee, all of her deals came from the phone and cold calls. Her approach to business and sales comes from the book "Never Split The Difference." by Chris Voss. She believes that it will change your sales game. And that's what got Ashlee under contract with those deals.
- Ashlee realizes that there's also a lot of things behind the scenes that she did for years to get that good on the phone. It has also allowed her to be open and ethical with people. That's the number one thing that will get her deals.
- She likes working 8-10 hour days nonstop. Ashlee really loves real estate. She loves cold calling. She loves appointments. If she did that forever, it would be fine to her.
Timestamps: If You Want To Jump Ahead To Your Favorite Part
00:00 - Intro and overview of Ashlee’s career
07:00 - How Ashlee went through the process in the finding of investments and wholesaling
10:43 - How Ashlee found her next opportunity doing foreclosures, short sales, etc
12:46 - How Ashlee financed her career
18:02 - How did the Middleton group and Ashlee came together
25:37 - Ashlee's strategies to build her investor business
35:36 - What Ashlee’s future looks like
Links From This Episode:
Ashlee's Real Estate Team: https://middletongroupsd.com/team/ashlee-chapman/
Ashlee Champan - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleechapman/
Never Split The Difference - By Chris Voss
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Full episode transcript:
Introduction: Welcome to the REL freedom podcast. We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some REL freedom together.
Mike Swenson: Welcome everybody to another episode of the REL freedom podcast. Today we have Ashley Chapman here. She's going to talk about how she's gotten into investments and wholesaling and has transplanted her career to San Diego having originally been born in Washington. We're so excited to have Ashley here. Just a little bit of her background, she is the director of acquisitions for the Middleton Group, which is brokered by Big Block Realty. Her team specializes in investment properties, fixing up properties, and that is really a key niche for them. Ashley's just been killing it in her role, and very excited to share all the wisdom that she's gained along the way. So welcome, Ashley. We're so excited to have you.
Ashlee Chapman: Thanks, Mike. I’m super jazzed. I love acquisitions in real estate, so--
Mike Swenson: Cool. Well, for those folks that don’t know you, which is probably most people. Why don't you just give us a little bit about your background and how you ended up in San Diego and doing real estate?
Ashlee Chapman: Yes, I am from Washington State. I'm from a small town in Elmo Washington. Before I moved to San Diego, I've worked so many sales jobs. I’ve worked sales at Sunglass Hut, I’ve worked sales at Henning salon, I’ve worked sales selling designer jeans, I've done all the sales things and everything up until that point I hit car sales and that was the final sales job.
I moved to Seattle, got into car sales, started selling Honda's and Toyota's. I had a blast. I had so much fun. It was super challenging, considering the fact that I worked with a bunch of people who had been doing it for 20 years. I was new, I was 20 years old [chuckles]. I thought I knew sales. “You're like 20, yes I know everything.” So, I started selling cars and doing pretty well. We do take cars in on trade, just like mass marketing. But it was super expensive. I was like, ‘gosh, there has to be an easier way.’ But fast forward, I only worked in car sales for about a year, I did well. The sales manager that I had there, I was like, I literally quit my job one day, move to San Diego. I’d never been down to San Diego before, I just quit and moved. I literally came in, I was sitting in my office and I was like, ‘I'm out, peace. I signed a lease yesterday. I'm taking the summer off.’ And they literally looked at me in the face and they were like, ‘You're never gonna sell real estate down there. And don't try to sell cars, you'll get eaten alive.’ And I was like, “I do well, here. You guys want to keep me here that's why you're being such brats about it”.
I moved to San Diego. I started my cold calling journey in real estate, which, luckily car sales translated really well, because you're just calling people who put an information online all the time. It was a little bit different in the fact that it was a true cold call and they didn't inquire about anything. I just hit the phones with my prior brokerage who wasn't licensed, so I was an inside sales agent. I was just making phone calls and setting appointments. I was doing that, six hours a day or eight hours a day sometimes. It was pretty taxing but you know, I didn't get my license for almost a year because I was just so hot on the phone. It is like a hidden goldmine the agents don't think about they're like, ‘Oh, my God, cold calling can never do that.’ Well, I had to do it to get paid. Fast forward, I still do it every once in a while. I love it. And that's a little bit of the journey to real estate.
Mike Swenson: I love--- you know, there's a lot of people that have been very successful in real estate that got started out in inside sales. You're perfecting a spot where so many people don't want to touch, and if you can do that well, you can do anything well, because you know what to say. Especially if it's true cold calling, you're getting objections left and right and you know how to handle them. You're answering a lot of questions and it's really the best boots on the ground training that you can get. Then, now you get your real estate license and you're just adding pieces on top of that really solid foundation that you've built.
Ashlee Chapman: Honestly, cold calling and being in inside sales teaches you- I mean, I wasn't from San Diego, I came here sight unseen. I didn't know where I was sleeping. I signed a lease like that quickly. And it just so happened I was on the beach like, I didn't know that before I got here. It was so interesting. But all of the things that a traditional person who gets into real estate does is network. You know, they know people, like if I did real estate back in my hometown, I would dominate the market. I know everyone, you know what I mean? I get it. But here, I didn't know anyone. I didn't even know cold calling was a thing. And on top of that, I was cold calling foreclosures, which I didn't even know what that was. The only thing I knew was back in 2008. I think I was in eighth grade, or going into my freshman year of high school, and the only thing I knew was, I see ‘for sale’ signs everywhere, even in my hometown, as small as it was. That's it. I didn't know anything, and nobody gave me a handbook. I had to figure all of it out on my own; foreclosures, bankruptcy, all of it. It was like walking in to one of those rooms that have all those mirrors on the walls where you're just like, “What is going on?” That's how it was in 2017. I started cold calling.
Mike Swenson: How did you go through the process of figuring things out?
Ashlee Chapman: I got really obsessed with real estate early on. First two weeks, I was cold calling, we got a deal under contract. So, I was like, "I could do this. I'm the best”, which I wasn't soon to find out. But I just got so involved in everything to do with foreclosures, I started reaching out to attorneys, I started reaching out to loan modification attorneys, specifically, there's only one in San Diego, California that I've ever found that still practices on loan mods, because the majority of them back in the day all got in trouble. So, it was a lot of trial and error.
I started doing loan modifications myself, I figured out that you don't have to hold a license to do loan mods. So, when I learned that I started telling people like, ‘hey, it's illegal to charge up [inaudible 7:54:00] California for loan modifications, if somebody is doing that. And I figured out that the companies are doing that. And then I was like, oh, gosh, a loan mod is really simple. And obviously, it's not the best-case scenario, but I just started doing it. You just go online, select portfolio services, where's their loan modification package? Well, it's typically the same as a short sale package. So you know, you can get all of the documents to yourself. I just started going into the weeds, so to speak, like I just started doing it.
If I had a question, I'd pick up the phone and call Janet Gutierrez, the attorney that I worked pretty exclusively with about bankruptcy or loan mods. Then I learned the foreclosure process. I also went to a couple trustee sales at the courthouse which back in the day, hear stories about how they used to be. And now when you go, there is a table outside of the El Cajon courthouse where they play cards, and they call out property addresses. There are a few people there and they have cashier's checks. So, I did all of it. I went and just kind of immersed myself in that and also started doing it instead of Oh, well. If I mess it up, whatever. There's no like, “I don't know how to do it, so I'm not going to do it”, no, I just started doing it. Like the loan modification package was step by step, okay. They need to recent pay stubs, two recent bank statements, mortgage statement, all this stuff, and they need to fill out their financial hardship and blah, blah, blah. It's literally so black and white. If you don't like doing any research, of course, you don't know that.
Mike Swenson: I think you showed so many people have so many questions about things and you just figured it out. You rolled up your sleeves and you dug in and you forged ahead and you got answers where you needed answers. You didn't wait for stuff to come to you.
Ashlee Chapman: Correct. Yes. It is with anything, any sort of real estate transaction, even probate. Of course, you're not really comfortable with that situation until you really know what the probate process is, similar to foreclosure. I mean, there's so many different things, code violations. I mean, who wants to talk to the city of San Diego? Not me. They're usually really lazy over there. You know, but if you don't figure out what it is that they need, of course, you're never gonna learn it.
Mike Swenson: So then how did you transition? You’re doing your ISA role. Now this was kind of moving into the next role that you had. So where did this go? How did you find your next opportunity from doing all the foreclosures, short sales, loan mods, all that stuff?
Ashlee Chapman: Yeah, so I got licensed in July 2018. Then I had been prospecting so much at that point, it was like I got my license and prior to that, my broker took all the listings. I had nothing to show for it. But at the same time, I still this- you know, almost four years into my career, I would pass off, I would rather pass off a listing than take one. I'll take some here and there, but I came in, like with five listings, like right out right out of the gate, because I had been following up with people so much, I'd been prospecting so much. And then I quit prospecting, just foreclosures. And I moved, like, Oh, my gosh, there's so many different things that I could prospect now, I'm started hitting up [inaudible 11:31:00] code violations, liens, tax liens, every sort of distressed situation, I was calling them. And then that's when I walked into a deal. Early 2019, I walked into a deal. That was a duplex that I was like, “Oh my gosh, they only want this much for the house and there's equity. What?” I was so mind blown, I was like, how do I buy this house? What am I doing? I'm not listing this, it was a mess. I was like, “I'm not listing this house, I'm gonna buy it.” That's when I officially did my first wholesale deal.
Mike Swenson: It's so funny that it just came up out of the opportunity presented to you. I think that's fantastic. You know, you hear a lot of times when people say, before you take a listing, you should decide if you want to purchase that first because as real estate agents, we kind of have first dibs with the market that's out there. And yes, if you run across a great property, figure out a way to jump on it. Then how did you finance that? Did you finance that personally? Or did you find money from other folks to help you with that?
Ashlee Chapman: Yes, I partnered on it with somebody. The thing is like, wholesaling was like a whole new language to me too. I mean, I knew short sales, negotiation of short sales, and, like the contracts really well, but I didn't know what a wholesale contract looked like, let alone I didn't even have an LLC, I didn't have any of like my back-end business stuff ready to go. I was really still new. Even though I'd been prospecting, the only thing I knew up until that point was how to set appointments, and I knew appointments equaled contracts. But it's the same thing in investments. Literally, I think it happens for everybody.
I've had a couple of newer agents under me in the past. And I have said to them, you know, somebody wants to get into wholesaling. Like, if you focus too much on it, other than just doing the activity, if you just do the activity, it comes to everybody at a certain time. But you can't just pinpoint like, ‘Oh, you know, if it's not a purchase, I'm walking away.’ You have to be creative. I didn't use my own money. I wholesaled the deal. And, for lack of a better term, I made more than people make in a year on the deal. And at that point, I was like, I need to really focus on this. So, when I say I didn't use my own money, and when you do an assignment contract, you put an earnest money deposit in an escrow and you have to have equitable interest in it. And then you assign that contract and the investor that you assign it to, because you're essentially selling the contract does reach out to, but that's the thing and the one thing I just want to make sure people know too is you really need to disclose these things. The seller needs to know I'm a licensed agent, I'm held to a higher standard, everything is on paper, they know everything. Don't go out and try to wholesale and pull the wool over a seller's eyes or try to screw them. Be honest, like, this is what you're doing. And you know, nine times out of 10 will be fine with it.
Mike Swenson: Okay, so then you had your first wholesale deal. And you looked up and you said, holy cow, I made a lot of money off of this. Where did it lead from there?
Ashlee Chapman: Then it was like a snowball effect, I had, somebody prospecting for me at the time after that, and I was probably going on 10 to 15 appointments a week. I literally remember, just-- I wasn't even sleeping. I was so stoked about life. I was like, holy crap! I have four appointments on my calendar tomorrow. So it was just the snowball effect. I remember I went on some appointments at 6:30 in the morning, you know, these are distressed properties. People who are in dire situations, and it was just yeah, I mean, that's the best way I could describe it. I feel like, I felt then in 2019 how people felt in 2005. I was like, Holy smokes, I'm killing it. It was just a snowball effect. I just started focusing on that. And then I realized, you give people options, like, “I am a licensed agent”, if somebody truly doesn't want to take a cash offer, don't force them into it, put the property in the market. Then I started referring those listings out, because I don't want to take a listing. I was like, that's gonna get me off track, I need to focus on this one thing. And with the amount of appointments I was going on, it was really fun. I mean, I had it, I had a ball.
Mike Swenson: Well, and the funny thing is for most people, like listings is the thing that they want. They'd rather refer out anything else that isn't a listing. And here you are doing the exact opposite, where you're like, I don't want to take a listing, I want to do all the other stuff.
Ashlee Chapman: Yes, no listings. I enjoyed them a little bit more now. Because I realized after doing that, and I think something that we all realize, is I probably did the wrong thing by not taking the listings, because I would actually walk away from deals if it were not a cash deal. Because ultimately, I was like thinking in my head, ‘Oh, I just want to be an investor.’ And then I was just leaving money on the table. I was really doing myself a disservice even though I wasn't. Like I thought, okay, I need to focus on this one thing, but as time went on, now I take more and more listings, but I still would rather that if I can give the listing to somebody else and take 50% or whatever, then I'd rather do that.
Mike Swenson: How did you get lined up with your current group, the Middleton Group, how did that come together?
Ashlee Chapman: Middleton group writer die, lifer. I love the Middleton Group, Luke and I met Luke Middleton, the owner of Middleton Group. I actually was referred to him by Yasmin Kusa. She is a wholesale broker here in San Diego, she does loans. I was chatting with her and I was like, you know, I was on my own, I’m a prior brokerage, but I just think I could do more with a little bit more guidance. I hadn't worked really with any buyers still. I was just so gung-ho on listings, appointments, short sales, that was it. And I was like, I think I could do more.
I met Luke in 2019. He was like, come to the team. He actually wanted me to work with buyers and then he had--[chuckles] it was so funny. I was like, you know what, every team that I've interviewed with, I was like, I either sit in my house by myself all the time, and prospect, or work with people who want to do bigger things. That was my idea and then I thought to myself, ‘if people know that I'm wholesaling, they're going to turn it away.’ At the time I didn't know who's the big investors were.
Luke was an investor. He'd done 500 flips prior; he's been with renovation reality. He knows construction, has really strong background in that. And think this could be a win-win. We actually start working with an investor in San Diego, who's also up in Orange County. And it was just a major fail. I think everything kind of turned opposite on us. But Luke wanted me to do open houses of the listings of the flips that the investor is doing, and I was like, ‘You could not pay me to do that. No, I'm not doing it’, and I thought I haven't worked with a buyer, but I just didn't want to. ‘This just seems like a waste of my time.’ I actually would do open houses with our other agents and set appointments for them in those open houses so they can get deals. And so, my first wholesale deal, I had already been with Luke and I didn't even know about it. It was just like, No, I'm going to do what I want to do. That was the thing about me as a person, ‘I'm a partner, I'm not a buyer's agent.’
So, when we moved from that investor to Big Block Realty, Luke was like, we just need to partner up more. I look at you like a partner, I don't have a commission split, I don't have any of that, we run our own investments separately and together. And at that point, when Luke saw the value that I bring to the table, he didn't turn that away like a threat. Because a lot of team leaders like these big teams I know in San Diego, they think, “well, you know, I'm the big dog here.” But, that's not how it is on our team. Everybody has equal opportunity to do whatever it is that they want to do, and be extremely freaking good at it. And so we have agents that are really freaking good, who love working with buyers. We also have one agent, Josh in particular, who's all of his listings have been over a million dollars. He's like a newer agent, he got licensed, I think couple years ago, and he's been with us since the beginning. He's really good at capturing some sort of luxury market where I'm like, I just took my first $2 million listing and I can tell you, it's not probably my biggest strength working with luxury clients, you know, but it is. So, everybody has the opportunity to do what they want. I can flip as many houses as I want, I can wholesale as many deals as they want, and I think the cool thing about our team and what keeps people around, and the morale so high is that, it's our names on those listings. And Luke isn't taking a cut of it, because ultimately, it's a growth period. We'll take cuts of certain things like if I'm giving out leads, or Luke is giving out leads, like if I get a referral, and I don't have time for it, of course, that's a separate situation. But, you know, everybody is out building their own businesses with the Middleton Group and they're just able to do what they want. So that was a big turning point for me, it was like, this is a lifelong partnership for me.
Mike Swenson: So great to see--, that's why I like doing this podcast is because finding people operating within their strength zones, doing what they love, and what they're good at, and finding that combination. And for some people, it's the traditional agent. For some people, it's not, it's also why on the podcast I've had people that have VA companies, admin companies, tax liens, you name it. It's helping people to find that sweet spot of the mixture of doing what I love, and finding a spot where that fits. Because that's going to be what carries you through life versus just being an agent where after two, three years, you get burned out, if you're kind of a square peg in a round hole, and you haven't found that fit in the right environment, and using the best part of your skill set, you're going to want to go somewhere else. And so seeing somebody that values what you value and values your interests and your abilities, is phenomenal. So that's great!
Ashlee Chapman: It really is. I think that real estate teams got really big recently, you know, everybody is on a team. But I think the thing about it is they all have like the one listing agent. Even some of the investors I worked with, they have the one listing agent. That person lists all the flips, or they do all of this.
I urge people to allow your team members to become real producers, and help them and guide them in that direction. Because if you don't, they will leave you, when they find the tricks in the hat that you so badly want to hang on to that, there is no reason for that. There is so much money for everybody to go around. And so much success and opportunity allow them to build it because what will happen is they will come back and thank you later for that opportunity and will continue to do business with you and likely you will always be their first phone call when they want to do a deal with you. And I think that is way more powerful than building a following. I think it makes more sense to build leadership
Mike Swenson: Cool. So let's talk about a few of the deals that you've done. Maybe some good stories to share on some of the flips. You just mentioned, you had a really big wholesale deal that came together. Share some of the examples and then, we know that there's a lot of agents out there that don't really know the next steps. And we talked about this beforehand, like, what if I don't have the money to get started? How do I find the money to get started? And so let's walk through some of those objections that a normal agent might have and how you were to overcome them to build your investor business, and to continue and to do more wholesaling.
Ashlee Chapman: Yes, I think the first thing as an agent that you can do to build your investor business, I think at that portion of real estate is so important, because you need to get out there and assert yourself. At every town or big city has investors, right? Like, you look at San Diego, there's so many big investors, there's GG homes, Sterling investments, Acropolis, all these big guys who also run these big teams, and they're number one in production every single year. And it just so happens that we compete with them at Big Block Realty. So I encourage you to reach out to those people in your market place and ask for the business. There's also investors out there who aren't licensed. I recently just went to Sterling investments. And I said, they had a listing agent who's listing all of their flips, but they didn't even bringing them deals. I don't know, I didn't even know who that agent was. That's how much I don't pay attention. But they're flipping 30 condos right now. And I didn't know, I just had called. And I was like, I want to be your listing agent. Nick, and I get along, “why am I not your frickin listing agent”. And then that translated into a couple meetings where no conversation was, ‘give one listing to Ashlee and give another to somebody else’. And in that moment, I just said, I don't compete for business, you either give me all 30, or I don't want them. And if you don't come with that sort of confidence, like, “I'm the effing best, I don't care, I'll do whatever it takes.” Nobody's going to take you seriously. Because I can tell you that we're all cut from the same cloth, so to speak. We all do the same things in real estate. We all put a listing on the market, whether we market it or not, we're getting phone calls, and we're negotiating deals. But I can tell you that if you assert yourself in the marketplace as the number one person even if you aren't, people will take you seriously. So first of all, put yourself out there, make statements that are bold, because people love it, like everyone knows me, for me, they know Ashlee doesn't take any bs from anyone, and I'm going to get what I want, because that's who I am. So I just encourage you to get uncomfortable and go talk to them. Go get the investor business. And if you don't ask for it, you'll never receive it.
Then the other thing is, start making cold calls. Like you want to do some investment deals, get on the phones. And if you don't know how to do that and get in touch with your title, rep, your title rep is your biggest piece to the puzzle. I'm telling you like your my title rep, Noah, he gets me all of all of the stuff that I want. And he just,-- I love him. He will get me resources, whatever. So sit down with them and just start doing it. And to find money is just networking. Like I said, we don't usually ever use our own money we use hard money loans. But if you don't have the 20% to put down on the hard money alone, go ahead and start next networking, find somebody who does, somebody who's going to partner with you on that deal. I have an investor that we flipped a house last year, he actually brought all of the money, and I managed the entire project and we made a 100 plus grand on the on the flip. And he was super happy. He's literally so loyal to me now. I didn't even have any skin in the game. I had no money, but that's how good the deal was. So do things like that.
A couple of the deals that I've done recently and we're doing one, that's an $85,000 wholesale fee, acquisition fee. I just did another one that was $206,000, one earlier this year was a $100,000. Another one I got to one of our investors and is being flipped in house right now. All of those deals came from the phone and cold calls. You know, every single aspect of that was the book, “Never Split The Difference”. If you have not read it by Chris Voss, you should, that will change your sales game and that's what got me in contract with those deals.
The one property that I got to Luke's investor that he's flipping with his investor right now -- the seller was so stoked. That property had been on the market last year fell off. The seller was so skeptical. Absolutely. He told me on the phone that he hated me. He was like, I don't want to talk to you. Everybody's calling me and I was like, yes, I know. But I actually have a real offer, how many people are calling you? He's like, tons of people. And I was like, what are they saying? You know, I just kind of got in his head a little bit. And it took us a little bit to close escrow on that deal, because it was Christmas them New Year's, I was in Mexico, and then you don't need $130,000 of foundation work. So there was a lot of moving pieces and inspections that we had to do. But at the end of it, you know, he actually kind of was mad at me during the transaction, and we were direct to seller, so there's no agency involved, right? So by the end of it, he was like, if you guys don't close on this thing, I'm gonna freak out and blah, blah. And I was like, Look, we are closing, I can guarantee you, it's just going to take a two more days. Finally we closed it and I didn't hear anything from him. I called texted, emailed. And then he finally called me back. He's actually going to fly out here this summer when we're done with that deal to see it because he had owned it since 89. And had been vacant for 12 years. He thought he was going to move back. But we did that deal. He doesn't even live in San Diego, he lives in Arizona. We did that deal all over the phone and through email. And he's like, super stoked. I've sent him some photos of the demo process. And even though I'm not really flipping it, I got it to one of our investors, and I made my money and they're gonna make their money. He's like super excited. So those are the reasons why I do what I do is like, seeing it from beginning to end and going through. You know, people are gonna hate you. I've had sellers hate me, but by the end of it, they're like, “it's over. I'm done.” I mean, there's a lot of success. But there's also a lot of things behind the scenes that I did for two to three years to get that good on the phone. And to also be honest, open and ethical with people. That's the number one thing that will get you deals.
Mike Swenson: Simple and not easy. For you, you've put in the work and doing the hard thing. If you want to have those wholesale contracts, where you're making $200,000 well, you've also been pounding the phones for hours and hours and hours and hours, for months and months to be able to get to that point. We see what's above the surface, but below the iceberg, there's all that hard work, all that difficult time that you've spent on the phone, all the people that have been mad at you and you've never talked to, again, to get the people that are mad at you when you're doing the sale. They're home and eventually they love you.
Ashlee Chapman: Yes, exactly. That's the thing like, what people don't see is the evolution of it, like the calls and the self development, because, you know, I wasn't always really good on the phones, I hit a really big plateau when I was an ISA of like, how I was setting all these appointments. Well, it was because when I first started, I didn't know what I didn't know. And then I started to learn about the process and foreclosures and loan mods. And I started to forget, like, Okay, if these people are not going to lose their house, I need to set an appointment. So then once I kind of got out of my own head, it just snowballed.
I hate when people say, “I just don't know anything, or I would never do that, or you know, I can't do that”. Well, you know what, I can barely stand doing a traditional transaction, but I still do them. It's because of my clients and how awesome they are. I have amazing clients; my traditional clients are phenomenal. Some of them are really close friends. And it's because of the difficult things in the distressed real estate market that make the traditional transactions look like gold. I'm like, holy smokes, this is easy. You know, when I have a client who got upset about light bulbs, the seller wouldn't put a new light bulbs. And I was like, You know what, I get it, you want to cancel over lightbulbs, I just want to tell you right now that there are bigger issues in the world and light bulbs are like 10 bucks. And then at that point, it was squashed, and we moved on. But there are multiple facets to real estate, capitalize on the one thing that you love, but also still keep your streams of income open to make money.
Mike Swenson: What is the future hold for you? Where do you see, you know, these last couple years of the great success that you've had? Where do you see this building?
Ashlee Chapman: I'm coming up on my third year being licensed in my fourth year in the business. I'm really focusing on building capital right now. Because we all know that the market is extremely hot. But we also all know that it probably can't last forever. So, you know, COVID, propped up the real estate market. And I've done a ton of research, and I have not experienced a downturn. But what I do know is, if you have done the work, and I'm putting money away to save to then purchase property, and I'm looking at other areas, not San Diego, when the market turns, that’s when I'm going to stuff cash in places where the returns are going to be massive, five to 10 years after that. That is through wealth building and also through retirement, and there's no other investment that you can make better than that. That's where I'm headed. I laugh with, with Luke, I tell him, I want to retire by 30. I have an investment property now. But I'm like, I want to retire at 30. So I'm doing all this crap now. I'm like working 8-10 hour a day non-stop. And he's like, I bet you can do it. I'm like, yes, I think I could, but the chances of that are very slim. I freaking love real estate. I love cold calling. I love appointments. If I did that forever, I would be fine.
Mike Swenson: Awesome, cool. So for folks that, that love your story and want to hear more? How can they get ahold of you?
Ashlee Chapman: Yes, they can get ahold of me on Instagram, Ashlee Chapman, Facebook -- I'm actually holding a Mastermind at the end of the year in Scottsdale, Arizona, the first week in October but end of September. And there is going to be limited spots about investing in real estate and also wholesaling, performance, numbers, all of these things. I'm going to have guest speakers, Greg McDaniel included. If you want to learn you can come to the Mastermind. If you send me an email, we'll do that. But you can also call me my direct line is 858-401-6927. I always happy to chat and go through what it is your goals are so that I can help you anyway I can.
Mike Swenson: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on today, Ashlee and sharing your story. We really appreciate it.
Ashlee Chapman: Thank you, Mike. My pleasure.
