Myles Berrio: Growing A Business During Major Personal Tragedy
LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:
Myles Berrio has a smile, personality, and energy that are infectious. He loves to go big in life. Prior to real estate, this resident of Greenville, South Carolina had previously worked as a photographer (including being a photographer for Netflix's "Love Is Blind" series). During the pandemic, he was shifting his attention to growing his real estate business when tragedy hit. In the fall of 2020 Myles was struck by a drunk driver. He lost one of his legs, and over the next 6 months had to learn how to walk, talk, and eat all over again. He did not give up, but instead leaned into the work. He now has 4 growing businesses in real estate less than a year and a half later! Myles discusses rising above the tragedy, how he had to focus on his mindset, and how he's looking to grow in the future. This is a must listen!
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- He actually has four businesses. He's got the wholesaling business, real risen real estate investment company, coaching business, and his fix & flips and buy and holds.
- His massive life-altering accident, where Myles was hit by a drunk driver and lost one of his legs. He’s been a story of inspiration, fighting, battling through and still continuing to do what he does in real estate.
- He was previously a full-time wedding coordinator and photographer before he get into real estate last Jan 22. Some people know him as a photographer on the Netflix show Love Is Blind.
- He believes that every investor in real estate should have some aspect of wholesaling a part of their business. And it's not because he’s a “wholesaler”, but because it is the art of finding the deal.
- His goal was to build a smaller rental portfolio. He said he doesn't want to spend 20 years buying apartments. A single-family property appreciates well, and they're easier to liquidate.
- How to raise private money. (1) Tell them what to do; (2) Do not overlook the value of taking someone to lunch and having conversations;] and (3) Tell everyone what you do.
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro and overview on Myles' career
03:48 - Talking about his accident
12:47 - Deciding what to invest in
27:30 - Raising private money
35:01 - Starting his coaching business
37:43 - His future plans
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL freedom podcast where 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 real freedom together. Welcome to another episode of REL freedom stories, and today is different than a lot of our episodes. We've got a story of personal inspiration and triumph, as well as investing in real estate and building wealth through real estate. So I'm so excited and so honored to share with you we've got Myles Berrio, and a little bit of a backstory, obviously, he's going to tell it way better than I can. But a little bit of his backstory is he's in real estate. So he actually has four businesses. He's got the wholesaling business, he's got real risen real estate investment company. He's got his coaching business, he does fixin flips, and then also does properties that he owns buy and hold.
Mike Swenson
So kind of four aspects there in real estate. He lives in Greenville area, South Carolina. But then tragedy struck about a year and a half ago. And he was actually hit by a drunk driver, and, and lost one of his legs. And so he's been a story of inspiration, fighting, battling through and still continuing to do what he does in real estate. And so, you know, like I said, you'll you'll tell the story much better than me. But welcome, Myles. Were super excited, and super thrilled to have you on the show.
Myles Berrio
Now, man, I really appreciate it. It's always kind of interesting to kind of hear an overview of your life a little bit. It's like, man, you know, it's crazy life life.
Mike Swenson
yeah, so why don't you Yeah, just give us a little bit of the background. You know, maybe before you got into real estate, how that worked, how you transition to real estate, and then obviously, what what's happened in your life these last couple years?
Myles Berrio
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, anything that I do, I just like, go all in. So I think, you know, especially with social media, I love and document my journey. I think people think I've been in real estate for a long time, and I'm some guru expert. And I'm really not that I'm honestly been doing real estate for less than 24 months full time, I learned about investing in real estate. Back in January of 22. That was actually the month in the first time I'd ever heard about wholesaling real estate. But before then, I was actually a full time wedding and commercial photographer. So and I know some people say, Oh, your wedding photography wedding. No, I just forget anything I do. I go all in. So I've traveled all around the world I've been, I mean, my wife, our honeymoon is in Belize, because I had to shoot a wedding in Belize. But I've been all you know, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Mexico, Dominican Republic, in all kinds of places. And some people know me as a photographer on Netflix, love is blind shopping in shopper. We work Uber Eats anyway, had a really awesome photography career.
Myles Berrio
But once we moved to Greenville, kind of like anybody and everybody COVID Definitely have interesting impacts, pretty much my entire photography business just shut off and shut down pretty much overnight. Because then you could, you know, do any work in venues. It's not like you're meeting up with people to do photography and things like that. So, and the interesting thing, too, is like as a photographer, people, you know, weddings, they book you usually like a year in advance, you know, 789 months in advance. So not only did my income stop, you know, that that week, a couple of weeks, but people were so nervous, they rescheduled their weddings to the next year so that so they're leaving the rest of the calendar was just like disappeared. So anyway, I was really kind of out of place like, man, what am I going to do just got married, just had a baby. It was just kind of, you know, crazy situation. And just by the grace of God, man, just craziness. I was just watching random YouTube channel. And they don't even talk about real estate investing.
Myles Berrio
It's actually called The Breakfast Club. And it's usually something I watched just because it's funny and entertaining. But they interviewed this guy that was talking about how he was like, investing in real estate and doing this thing called wholesaling. And didn't have didn't have to buy a house and you know, didn't have to use his credit or didn't have to, you know, use income statements and, you know, go to a bank and just you can invest in your own and I'm like, What is this like, This is crazy. I'm like, Oh, this guy can do this. I know I could do this. No way. So of course I heard about it January of 2020. And I studied full sailing like crazy all of January I mean all the guys when the pace Morbi job you know, Max Maxwell, you know all the guys out there you could think of you know, TTP Brent Daniels, Steve sure everybody, anyone you can think of I just watched all the videos, ton of podcasts, bigger pockets everything. And February's when I actually hit the ground running. So it's kind of my journey as I heard about wholesaling January 2020.
Myles Berrio
And then February is when I hit the ground running and then three months it took me to get my first deal was actually two deals and it was and I actually have a photo I wish I could share my screen. And maybe there's a way you can see but actually, you know still have the photo today. It's actually on my website actually so anyone can see that. To check For the same amount $11,000 each, so it was over $20,000 Do those just insane to have that experience? I mean, especially in the middle COVID And just coming from, you know, photography background, it was wild after that just did never look back.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. So, okay, so we'll, we'll talk about the wholesaling and we'll get into real estate, but let's, let's talk about, you know, the, the the accident that you had, and how that changed your life and how that impacted. You know, your your career here. So why don't you share with the folks, you know, what happened there?
Myles Berrio
Yeah, and it actually started while I was, like doing real estate. So I mean, it really just kind of points to the fact that man, you could be crushing it at whatever your life but none of us are exempt from just things of life, things that just happen, things just do happen. And you really have to have the mindset to really push through those things. But basically, like I said, heard about wholesaling in January, and then studied on January, February. And then for the next three months, I did my first two deals, and then for the next six months, and that's kind of how I got some other shows. I did $100,000. In wholesaling, like on the dot actually, the last deal, it was like a $35,000 deal that really hit 100,000. And what's crazy, the reason I say that is not to be boastful, but it just kind of shows again, life can be amazing. And things are great. Because the very next month is when I was just randomly coming home from the gym, did not concur. Just I was driving home from the gym. And there's just a drunk lady she was she was intoxicated and going like 91 miles per hour.
Myles Berrio
And she just hit me head on just straight on my car just crushed it everything. I mean every bone. I mean, I mean, I you know, I was at Prisma here in Greenville, great hospital, amazing hospital. I mean, all of the doctors are like, I have no idea how you survived. I mean, there's just I mean, there's this statistic, I mean, there's no way like I should have just not, there's no way you know, and it was just a crazy time. And I don't really remember the impact. I just remember me saying I can't breathe, I can't breathe and kind of going in and out and blood coming out of my mouth. And then there's just I do remember seeing blue lights a little bit. I think that's when the cops are there. And then I just remember waking up and seeing my family. I was like in the hospital, I couldn't really fully understand. I just knew, I guess I'm taking care of right now. I guess there's people when I'm in the hospital, so that's good. But everything was very time sensitive.
Myles Berrio
So you know, imagine you're like driving, having a normal day, and then a car hits you. And then you like waking up out of some crazy accident. And then like the first thing you wake up to them asking like, hey, we need to amputate your leg. So it was a lot going on. But it was very time sensitive. So we had to just get going. So I'm like, you know, I only think I could talk at the moment I remember I had a feeding tube and every limb was wrapped up all of my limbs of my both arms, both legs. And I just remember I think shaking my head and just you know, do you know, whatever. And then I just remember going back to sleep and waking back up. And I just remember being in a dark room and hearing the feed feed, you know, kinda like the movies or like in a hospital like get up and every limb dude, I mean, it's like a mummy like literally every limb, both of my arms wrapped up my everyone talks about how I lost my leg. But what's crazy is that's not even the biggest part of my injury. So you probably see most people don't see it all the time on social media.
Myles Berrio
But my arm as you can see looks like a burn victim. So I can't even ever, I will never, I will never be able to use this arm again. So actually have many more injuries than my leg being amputated. So my left arm is totally just done. It hurts all the time. And then my right leg, which is supposed to be my good leg, right that I still have actually hurts more than any part of my other body. Because the ankle has foot drop. So I wear a brace to keep my foot from dropping. But it's just intense super pain all the time because I have to walk or I have to get around and walk on it. So pretty much like this arm is like my one arm is like the good arm. But pretty much like 75% of my body is just like constantly in pain and you know, obviously, you know, my leg amputated and all these other injuries.
Myles Berrio
And that's just for life, man, that's the rest of your life. You know, so it definitely impacted you know, my life for sure. I mean, you know, I mean, just you can only imagine, you know how your life would change. But I think, you know, I could sit here and say, you know, you know it may be changed it for the negative but I don't know, it really didn't for me that's not how my mind works. And I'm a true believer that your outside world is really depend on the inside, right? It's just like a tree it's like what you put under the ground is what produces above the ground, you know, apple trees on an apple tree because of what's above the ground. You planted apple seeds right? And that's not motivation that's just that's just reality. So the reality is is the way my life looks today that was already in my head so I spent a lot of time working on mindset when I was in college, you know, personal development Jhansi Maxwell Darren Hardy, Les Brown, you know, Tony Robbins, you know everyone Dale Carnegie, you know, all all the guys you can think of tons of videos, you know, in audios, Bob Proctor all these guys and I think it really served me well.
Myles Berrio
To push through that but anyway that yeah, that's what happened and every day I wake up it's it's definitely a battle. I mean, I wake up with like limbs missing and I got to put things together and mean can't yes or no date no days definite, easy, but everything's worth it, you know?
Mike Swenson
So kind of the the journey then after the accident, how long were you in the hospital? And then how long was kind of the recovery time to where you got, quote unquote, you're back to normal in the sense of Yeah, as normal as normal will be for you ready?
Myles Berrio
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I was basically, basically it was a period of six months, okay, a period of six months. The accident happened October 18. And then, for the next six months, is when I had to learn how to walk again, I had to learn how to talk again, how to eat again, literally, I remember the forks, I couldn't even hold a fork or spoon they had to custom design, like the squishy to kind of give enough surface area for me to because I couldn't even close my hand because I had a bruise on my wrist. And I mean, you know, whatever. I mean, we're all adults here. I mean, literally, it's just the reality of life. I mean, you know, I, my wife had to wipe my mind, dude, you know, I can't even when I go to the bathroom other than a bucket and my wife had to, like, wipe me and, you know, I couldn't really shower how to use like, a bucket and squeeze a washcloth for weeks and does crazy stuff.
Myles Berrio
So I just man, the gym, really, really, if anyone follows me knows me like, man, your physical fitness and physique. There's so much more than just getting in shape and being like, ripped, do not do it. There's so much mindset to that. I mean, I get up and go to the gym early in the morning. And if you can imagine, what do you think the rest of your day is gonna look like? If the very first thing you do when you open your eyes, is do something you really don't want to do? Get your butt up, go to the gym, crush your body go workout, dude. I mean, you're gonna crush the day. Right? So going to the gym was a really big part of my, my recovery.
Myles Berrio
But anyway, yeah, it was about six months, before I can really like even even think about even getting in a car and trying to drive or do anything, but I was still trying to do work, like within the fourth month, third month, and everyone's like, Dude, what are you doing? Like you need to like, everyone's like, rest, rest, rest, like relax. I'm like, no, like, do I want to go do stuff, man. So yeah, I was kind of pushing it. But I think that's kind of what helped my healing process a little better, as well, as, you know, I kind of didn't look at myself or look at this accident as like a, as a prison, you know, it's kind of like a motivating factor for me to just keep doing it and keep pushing, you know, kind of got out of there.
Mike Swenson
you know, I love what you said in terms of, of mindset, getting that right, getting your body, right, because you have a extremely positive outlook on life. Your your stuff on social medias is extremely motivating. And you know, somebody can't help but smile, after, you know, looking at one of your posts or watching one of your videos, like you just have a great charisma as well. So, so talk about the business now. How, you know, obviously being beat in the hospital, you're recovering, you had to put a pause on that. But then you got it back up and going. And then let's kind of dig into each of those pieces in terms of, you know, the the buy and hold higher, you know, kind of finding properties, deciding what to invest in what you're going to fix and flip. And then maybe kind of the coaching business and that sort of stuff, too. So, so talk about how that's grown over the last year and a half.
Myles Berrio
Yeah, absolutely. So my first year was completely wholesaling. And I'll go ahead and just touch on the fact that I do not care what you do in real estate. In terms of investing. This is just my opinion, I truly believe that every investor in real estate should have some aspect of wholesaling a part of their business. And it's not because I'm a quote unquote wholesaler, because I'm not I own property and fix and flip there's much more than I do in wholesaling. But here's what I learned. When that became my entryway into the into the industry. Wholesaling is the art of finding the deal. I started realizing that I had a system where I could see a lead and I could choose, you know what I want to hold on to that, you know, I mean, I want to fix that raise money to buy that and flip that, or, you know what, let me just assign this to another investor.
Myles Berrio
Whereas I found a lot of my investor friends who maybe were just split flippers, they were at the mercy of maybe finding deals on market from a real estate agent or another wholesaler having to pay a markup fee and you know, having and I just realized man, you know, I can really control my flow because the leads coming to the I'm talking directly to the seller. So I do think it's important for anybody listening to this, it doesn't matter even if you're in commercial, even if you're doing it doesn't like do their deals right now my first deal that I was looking at as an apartment complex, a seven unit apartment complex deal came from a wholesale my wholesaling business right in the fact that I got to work directly with the owner, you know that it's, there's so much value in that. But anyway, one thing the second thing that I did realize, though, is that you need to automate your wholesale business.
Myles Berrio
So when I first started, I was wearing all the hats. Now it's funny because the accident that happened it kind of forced me into this but I was already on my journey on my way doing this but I had to when I got out of the accident and just because I pushed through and I guess it just became very inspiring to a lot of people. I ended up being put in certain rooms that definitely I'm super grateful for and blessed. But I was able to learn kind of you know, a little bit quicker on how to automate this. So I learned how to basically grow business around wholesaling instead of you just do it on your Sell. So that's where I started hiring vas, I started putting together the concept of an acquisitions manager and dismiss all these different things that now allowed me to focus on other parts of the business. So that was step number two is getting that automated. And that really helped because then I could focus on other things, but just kind of specific to my situation. But it is kind of true. I'm I really focus on when I do a wholesale deal, I really try and build relationships with the people that I wholesale with like the seller, and even the buyers.
Myles Berrio
A lot of times, wholesalers are always looking for that next deal with the next deal, they wholesale and move on to something else. But you don't realize that you're always going like horizontally. But if you really build relations people, you can really start going linear to where that one deal can start to stretch and grow instead of you having to go to the next and go to the next to the next. What I mean by that is, before I had my accident, one of my biggest deals, I still remember her today, Sheila Rogers, cuz I had done like a $7,000 wholesale deal. 18,000 5000 6000. That was a $35,000 wholesale deal. Before my accident, literally the month after I was able to get back into doing real estate. So six months of recovery. She reached out to me, that was a three I did not even market it. She reached out to me, because I had such a great transaction when I wholesale, which I also know the buyer, the guy actually that was on sale does have arms, listen to this.
Myles Berrio
He's a great multifamily investor in Greenville, South Carolina. He's the guy who bought that deal. But anyway, because I had such a great transaction with that seller, she reached back out to me and she said, You know what? Myles, I'm looking to sell my personal home. And I'm like, I'm listening, you know, and she's like, but it's a big home. And I'm like, I'm listening. Long story short, dude. And everyone knows in South Carolina, I mean, you know, it's not like Atlanta, Georgia, Phoenix, where houses are like, you know, 350 $400,000 plus everywhere. You know, that's not necessarily the median, you know, sort of price reached out here, this house, the ARV was definitely close to like 550,000, definitely over half a million. And long story short, I wholesale that deal and made a $40,000 $40,000 deal. So as I got back out, so I'm just kind of seeing the timeline. As I got out of my injury or got back up and recovery over six months, I worked on building this automated business. And I had done that deal, because I had built that relationship with that seller prior. So now I have two strong things that are kind of pushing me through.
Myles Berrio
And really what started happening is I started saying, Okay, I also know that I can't wholesale from there forever. Even though this is automated, I need to start taking down deals. Because what I learned my when I start realizing cuz I remember be doing 30,000 20,000 15,000 Like, dude, it's amazing. Why would you ever flip a home? I want to do I can do, you know, pat on the shoulder for you. That's great. You made 30 40k. On a flip it, I did that just wholesaling the thing, right. But then I realized I had I talked to a buddy of mine, he said, Myles, that might be true. But here's the thing, you might make 20,000 or $15,000, even $30,000 on a wholesale, but the person who can add enough value because they raised the money or they you know, whatever way they Trent, you know funded the deal. They bought it, they renovated it, they added value that we sold it, they make 70 or 80 or 100,000. So you're leaving on the table, sir, being able to maximize profits and opportunities because you can't do other strategies. So I said, Dan, you know, I do need to figure out how to start buying deals.
Myles Berrio
So that's how I started figuring out, that's where I started going down the route of raising private money. Now that ties into what I said originally about automating your wholesale. Because if you're the one running around, doing all the things in the wholesale business, it's hard for you to focus on raising private money, because you're wearing all the hats. As soon as you start marketing, your lead flows dying. So because I have lead flow coming in constantly, I'm only just focusing on hot leads that are ready to go and making just maybe higher level decisions on what we're doing. But I could start having lunches with investors around the year I can start, you know, going to different meetups doing different that I'm not necessarily old days focused on running around going to appointments and running around and like, you know, talking to sellers all day, you know, there's a team in place.
Myles Berrio
So allowed me to focus on private money. And that's what allowed me to buy my first deal is I had my first private money experience, I looked at the hard money. I know a lot of guys are using hard money. But man, I just thought maybe I don't know, maybe I'm spoiled. But my first deal bought was private money, fully funded purchase and rehab. No points, literally just wired at closing and in the funds $40,000 wire to my account, renovating the property, it is so hard for me to do like, you know, bank loans or hard money. And I know there's times where, you know, it makes sense. But private money is really really awesome, you know, when you can build these relations with people and give people great returns on their money. Right? So anyway, you might have another question. So I don't want to I can go on and on and on about stuff. But anyway, that's how I ended up getting into you know, buying deals to flip and then of course, there's the buy and hold side that was really important to you.
Mike Swenson
Well, and there's a you know, as you were talking about having the different options I was thinking about, you know, growing up they had those choose your own adventure books, you know, where it was, what do you want to do here? And I think that's the thing that you know, being on the the real estate sales side, so many agents only think about the transaction, you know, and, you know, my belief is, when you find a property, you should look Yeah, what's what's the potential here and for a lot of these investment properties, yeah, you can fix and flip, you can buy and hold. You can wholesale, but you're in control of what happens with this property.
Mike Swenson
And because you're looking at multiple levels now it's not just the the burnout from wholesaling. And once I get this deal, I gotta go get the next deal, because you are building some long term wealth and some income. Yes, just like, you know, as a realtor, it's, Hey, as soon as I have that sale, and I get that commission check, now I gotta go find the next one. And so the only way you grow is through leverage. But it's just as a sales business, I could be slinging copiers, or I could be slinging houses. And people don't think about the long term impact, but but being able to live in those different buckets, you're able to not burn out, not just be chasing the next deal and have an opportunity to build some real long term wealth. Yeah,
Myles Berrio
yeah, absolutely. And that's what transition means to to holding property. So that's what I started figuring out, okay, you got to know who you are and where you are in your life. Now, I don't have a W two or, you know, I can go to a bank and get a, you know, you know, loan and maybe do the bur method and refi that, and I just knew banks weren't gonna be my way, I need to figure out how I can creatively work with a seller and buy the house. So that's where I started exploring creative financing. So buying property subject to taking over mortgage payments, buying houses owner finance, my first rental property in Easley, South Carolina, I bought owner finance, armies, like 150 totally renovated the house right in front of it actually just got rid of it in flips on a boat 150 bought the property at $5,000 $4,000, down at one and a half percent for 15 years, no balloon. I mean, just where are you? I mean, there's, there's no way you're gonna go to a bank and get turns like that. You can't argue you're not going to negotiate with the bank.
Myles Berrio
But here's the thing, the seller had motivation, the seller moved out of state. And he's just to kind of maybe talk a little about what you said earlier is like, what kind of properties are grafter? One of the problems I love are tired landlords, there's so many upside of that, because a lot of times the properties are in ok condition, because there's tenants in there, right? But there's still enough value because maybe it's you know, mom and pop, you know, they just haven't renovated it fully. So there's still some upside, you know, you can add some force appreciation. But also, there's motivation because they're tired, there's some issue, maybe they want to get out of the rental business, maybe they want to retire, maybe they have problems with attendance. And that's what this situation was, the guy lived out of state, in that he lives in Oregon, in a tenant was not paying rent. So anyway, give the guy a call, he wanted to sell it for 85,000. And I knew that wouldn't work for cash based on what you'd have to put into it, maybe 20 30,000. And then you could I mean, you'd have like, you know, a profit margin of maybe 20k.
Myles Berrio
And you just want to play around with, you know, something like that, for what you'd have to put into it. And I just said, You know what, let me ask you this, because you bought this property, and you were supposed to be making money, and you're losing money on this deal. Let's figure out how I can put money into your pocket. And I walked through this situation, how much was your tenant supposed to be paying? Yeah, it was like, I don't know. It's like $700 a month, something like that. Okay, well, how long have they not been paying you? And basically total, it was like three 530 600 Something around and I just rounded up to 4000. I said, Look, what if I just gave you all the money that 10 has, the tenant hasn't paid you upfront at closing. Now you're made whole, all the money, everything you've been worried about for the past, dude, I'll just give you all that money up front. Dude. They're like, Oh, heck yeah, all day, right. Now, of course, they probably could have asked for $15,000 down $20,000 Now, but they're not because you're focusing on solving their problems.
Myles Berrio
So that's what they're focusing on is their problem being solved. So he took the 4000, right, and the $85,000 purchase price. First of all, that was below market value. Any I mean, it was a little bit higher than what someone would pay cash. But it's okay, because I'm going to hold on to it long term anyway. And I only put $4,000 into it. And then the interest rate, I went to three years, but he said I only want to do 15 years and that's how we got to one and a half. So I said at least can work with me on industry. So I got one and a half percent do every payment is tenant. So I put a tenant in there, she pays $950 a month in and I pay him about $500 a month. Dude, I mean, absolutely insane. The every payment is seen as being as paying down so much of that principle. So now this property is appreciating every single time as soon as paying and I didn't and I didn't pay a dime even that $4,000 I raise private money for did I have the fourth that of course I gotta pay the 4000 but I'm a big believer of practicing what you preach and I want to learn raising private money and getting into deals without spending at my own money.
Myles Berrio
Right so I actually worked with a friend of mine who wanted to be a private money lender but she didn't actually have 3040 $50,000 to work with. So I said hey look, let's just start with 5000 bucks because she didn't have that and I said we can start small and let's work through you having the whole experience from A to Z to being a part of mine and now you'll be a private money lender you know experience and that's what dude at closing I got a check at closing that was so crazy for me I'm like this is wild. We I got paid at closing right and buy this house. I just put that in the bank honestly. But um, so now I pay that private money lender, my friend of mine, I think it's like $16.33 a month. And then I only got $5 a month. And I own this real property. I mean crazy, never went to a bank, never cared about my credit, never cared about tax statements, income stay or whatever. And it's just do people don't know, this is how you can build wealth.
Myles Berrio
So my goal was to build not an enormous rental portfolio, because I noticed that a lot of people that I look up to that have these big real portfolios, a lot of times they'll sell them all and get into commercial or you know, multifamily, or apartments. So I said, let me just go straight to that there, I don't want to spend 20 years buying image apartments and then go to that. So I am going to buy, you know, a single family properties because they do appreciate well, and they're easier to liquidate, it's a little bit easier to liquidate, you know, a three bed two bath, you know, be the selling or whatever, get the cat in, like 150 unit apartment complex, obviously. Right? Right. So there is a lot of value in single family homes, and just the value of helping families, I mean, people that need to rent or people that are owner financing people that can go to a bank, etc. But there's a lot of value of apartments. And that's a lot of where my focus is right now is raising money, I get too many deals that I don't have money for that I have enough money for. And apartment complexes, multifamily.
Mike Swenson
Kind of going back to the creative piece here, because so many people are focused on, you know, list price, you know, what's the offer price, that sort of thing. And you took, you kind of went around the site and figured, okay, if I'm, if I have a purchase price that's maybe a little bit higher than I want, but I've got these sweet terms, you're paying way less than what you'd have to pay, versus if you had an interest rate of three or 4%. So if you go back, and this is where me I'm a finance major, I'd love to put together the spreadsheet of at this purchase price and this interest rate, how much are you paying at the end versus a normal loan? What would that look like? And how much did you save, having a little bit higher purchase price, but the lower interest rate, but then I think the other thing that people don't realize is you're helping us solve problems. And you mentioned that it's it's finding a win win for both parties. And sometimes wholesaling can get a bad rap.
Mike Swenson
Because people think you're, you're trying to swindle somebody or, you know, hide something from them, and, and hey, I'm making this $35,000 Check. And, you know, I'm running to the bank, and they don't really know what they had, and, and that sort of thing. But here, you're really helping to solve a problem. I want to help this person, this person needs help. And you solve the problem. They got the money that they wanted, they got rid of the hassle of the tenant, you took that over, and they're going to get the money that they want for the next 15 years. And if you're happy, and if they're happy then great. Yeah, everybody wins. Well, let's talk about the the raising private money because I know there's a lot of people that would be interested in how do I do that Myles? Yeah, I have more deals than I can fund. So how do I go about through that process of raising private money?
Myles Berrio
Yeah, yeah. So honestly, I'll be super practical. I think there's three steps in this that can really help anybody. Just take my word for it, guys. Just understand that this is how I did it. It's just my opinion. But look, number one, it's just it Bob, it baffles me when people just are like, especially in today's time, I'm like, Oh, you have an Instagram or Facebook and like now I'm not any of that stuff. Dude. What like, and you're like in an industry like, are you? Are you kidding me? I get that it might be something that's like, oh, you know, I don't want to be sucked it but just use it. Don't let it use you. So I encourage everyone you should be sharing your journey document what you're doing. Even if you're not even do I'm not an expert in multi million own 500 door all this dude. My journey is very authentic. And it's true. I'm it says on my Instagram, my journey to $100 million in real estate, right? I'm not saying I'm this or that I'm just showing you this is my journey. And you can follow along, right?
Myles Berrio
There's nothing but people love that actually, instead of maybe finding someone that already has a million doors and all this stuff. So that's number one. People can't help you if they don't know how. So you've got to start document journey until everybody what you do. That's number one, tell her what to do. Just I'm looking to do deals. I'm like I'm in real estate. I'm next to all this different stuff, then people will know. And I know this is true, because one of the private money lender, the lady Dude, this is crazy. She never met me in person. And she lent me over $100,000 118,000 76,500 $40,000 rehab, fully funded, never met me in person. But it wasn't hard to see that this guy's authentic.
Myles Berrio
This guy Of course, he did our due diligence. But also you can just see my life and just seemed to be very open and very, like I just share my journey and everything. Right. So you can see that. So that's number one. I think everyone should be documenting their journey. Number two, do not overlook the value of taking someone to lunch and having conversations. I kid you not. I literally he might I don't know if you'll listen to this or whatnot. But I literally just had a conversation with a guy here in Greenville. And I'll just say I won't say his name, but I'll say he's a really big radio host guy here in Greenville. And we had to reschedule a couple times. But I wanted to make sure I'm you know, I need to sit down with God because I know I value lunches and I never know what to come out. Like let me just sit down Scott. I had no intentions of him being a private money lender. He just wanted to meet up because he sees on doing real estate and I know he's in radio and I was thinking oh maybe I can maybe play around with like radio ads. Like you know, I've heard some people do like radio ads or real estate investing or whatever.
Myles Berrio
And I just thought who knows let's just he seems like a really cool guy and you know He likes me I like it. Let's just have lunch comes to find that come to find out this guy, him and his family member like they have X amount of money just in the bank. And he had no idea about private money because he was trying to figure out because he owns like a real property. He's like, trying to figure out what's the next step and doesn't really have a lot of time to be running around to do like what I'm doing. And I said, Dude, you should be a private money lender. That's what some private money lenders do. They don't have that time and that energy. So they say, Hey, look, I have this money. Let me just give somebody who's running around and doing all this and let and let the person's all active and let me give them the money and I get a big return on this. So you're helping that person it's a win win for both he's like, dude, this I love that idea. That's great. So now he's like, dude, anytime you got to do let me know like, this is absolutely I'd love to do this. Dude crazy and what's so insane literally got you're gonna do I'm telling I'm showing this on my journey. I literally got an Instagram DM, which is another reason but goes back to number one, you should document your journey.
Myles Berrio
I got an Instagram DM with this lady who reaches out to me. And she says Myles, you know, I wanted to reach out to you to see if you're interested in buying our house as a fixin flip. Because we just I just got a job offer to Oregon and I have to move. And I'm going to be really quick for the numbers here. Basically, the ARV is like 250, literally a house on the exact same street sold for 245 like months ago. And it's not even like crazy ATT renovated for 245. So I know ARV is at least 250. And it's a three to 1700 square feet. So it's even bigger. And you'll be you'll be like oh my gosh, do just cosmetic work. And she's willing to sell it for like $150,000 to me. Oh my god. So where do you think now I'm gonna go get private money to go just take down this deal instead of worrying about okay, let me see if I can wholesale this for maybe 10 15,000. And then now that money just goes to zero every wholesale check every real estate agent, check whatever commission, I look at every deal like that is it is a ticking time bomb the zero unless you have it in a way that it can grow. So we wait. So I'm like, dude, amazing, crazy.
Myles Berrio
So that's another way that you can raise private money, taking people out to lunch, right? And then number one, just really being open and sharing documenting your journey on social media. I kind of touched on a little bit. But the third option is tell everyone what you do. Anytime I meet people, he's I'm talking to people I am dude, I tell people what I do all the time. Because you never know who you meet, dude. I mean, you could just I mean, you could be sitting in a bus station or in the grocery stores, whatever. And I'm very quickly Oh, no. What do you do? Oh, you know, oh, no, yeah, I'm in real estate, you know, whatever, you just start going into you being a real estate investing in real estate. And always they'll be like, oh, yeah, I'm in real estate. I'm not not like on the agent side. But just an investment side, you know, did it I don't know, no way. You know, everybody's always interested in real estate investing in some way, right. So I go to that route, and you just never know, you need to get that contact. And it's just a great way for you to be able to use primary.
Myles Berrio
Now I'm gonna say real quick, this the fourth thing, it's a bonus, you can actually just raise private money. If you utilize the social media, one of the things that you can do. And I think there's actually a challenge out there, Cameron, what it's called, I think maybe seven figure flipping, they call this a certain challenge that they do or flip hacking live, I can't remember. But basically, for like seven days straight, you're supposed to go on Facebook Live. And you basically just go on Facebook Live and tell people like what you do and what you're trying to do real estate, and that you're looking to help people basically make a higher return on their income. Just letting people know, Hey, guys, my name is Myles. And you know, really excited to get involved in real estate investing whatnot, one of the problems that I have is I got a lot of opportunity, but not a lot, not a lot of funding. And I know some of you guys have capital that's just sitting in a bank account.
Myles Berrio
And we all know banks are giving you like less than 1%. And it's not like you're gonna you know, what's the most secure way you can put your money? If it's in stocks? Of course, that's super volatile. I mean, the President can say something and that screw up the stock or whatever, right? Bitcoin? I mean, oh, my God. So it's like, everyone's to learn Bitcoin? I don't know, I don't even know. Because like microwaves to me right now, I don't know. Right? So the most secure like that it's been tested time and time for many, many Millennium decades. Whatever is real estate, that will not change, you can see how see the value, and it can be secured by an asset. And you were basically just educating people, there's a way to do it.
Myles Berrio
Obviously, we can talk about that at some point, or someone can reach out and explain it. But you just do that day after day after day. And you'll notice people come Hey, I saw that video that you posted or that law that you're doing. I was kind of interested. You know, my husband and I are all my friends. And we had about 30 grand. And you just you'll be surprised the amount of money that people have that just don't say anything because they didn't know there was an opportunity.
Mike Swenson
Wow, that's amazing. Sorry, that was too much. But no, that's awesome. Amazing. And net still simple at the same time, right? I mean, yes. Sharing your journey. Is that hard to do? No, it's not. You just have to keep remembering to do it. And then actually do it. Taking people to lunch. Is that easy? Yeah, you can invite some people to lunch. Yep. Can you tell people what you do? Yes. So just doing that being consistent and just continue, continue. Continue. That's awesome. So you coach which is, you know, kind of what you're doing right here, right? Being able to take complex problems and break it down to that people can execute How did that coaching business kind of get started for you?
Myles Berrio
Yeah, I'll try as quick as possible. Honestly, I had no intentions of being in like a mentor or a coach or anything like that. I simply kept getting questions from people like, Hey, how are you doing what you're doing? What do you do? Because people know like, I was a photographer Mike, isn't it? I had no real estate years ago. years ago, you were photographer. Yeah, two years ago with six months out of that learning how to walk again and talking because a freakin crazy accident, like not even a full tear. So it's like, dude, if I can do this, I just know anyone else can do this. I'm not getting into coaching cuz I'm trying to make money. I think I'm so cool. Like, I just know if I can do this dude, I'm telling you, I can assure you the things that I did I know this thing could work for you. There's no way I can't write. I'm a father. I'm a husband. I got all this stuff. I got kids. I got kids to all my husband or wife. I'm a married man.
Myles Berrio
Do you know I'm freaking disabled. I got to do there's no reason why someone cannot do this freakin business. So the reality is, is though people kept reaching out and asking me how are you doing? How are you doing? So I would get on phones. And I would share it because as you can tell, I love to share about this dog, etc. But honestly, like, I really started to realize that like, man, you know, not to be condescending, or anything, but I really start feel like I'm wasting time sometimes. Because I share all this stuff, and then come to find out they just don't even go do anything. You know, they're just like takers. They just kind of want to, you know, oh, let me pick your brain. I just did I hate when people say let me pick your brain. It's all about just what they need, what they want. And they get all this information. And then there's just nothing that you know, so I started saying, I really do want to help people though. I still love doing that. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a private little Facebook group. And yeah, it's not going to be crazy major expensive. I'm not in here to try and make a ton of money. But there will be the what it costs to be in as minutiae isn't has nothing to do about me. Trust me, dude. It is so minimal.
Myles Berrio
People are always surprised like, what are you serious? Because it's not about me, it's it's for the person getting started. It's it's so that there's a little bit of skin in the game. Because I just I've just realized over the time, I've done a lot of different businesses, that when people have stuff for just free, they just they just don't treat it the same way if it's just free, no matter how valuable it really can be. So I just said there has to be a little bit of cost has to be something there. And really the whole idea is for it to just be crazy community do we do on I talk about everything I share everything. There's so much and I shared on my Instagram people see, like people that are getting started like, oh my gosh, this community is so crazy.
Myles Berrio
So many people love it. It's just, it's an awesome, awesome community. And it's all about it's called wholesale to freedom. Because the idea is that it's not just to be wholesaler, but it's what allowed me to have the freedom I have today. It started with wholesaling. But we don't just talk about wholesale. And obviously I fix and flip, buy and renovate. We're talking about all different types of aspects in it. But it's it Yeah, it's just a, it's not a sales pitch. It's not for someone who feels like they need to be sold to get involved. It's either you really want to, you know, find someone who can help you and guide you, and you get started or it's just not the right time. But yeah, it's been really, really fun. Really exciting to have a lot of people.
Mike Swenson
so what, what's the future hold for you? Where are you looking to take this in the next two or three years?
Myles Berrio
Yeah, so honestly, the next two or three years, honestly, there's a big focus on multifamily. I really, really want to jump from everything I'm doing right now to owning a 10 unit apartment complex 30 unit apartment complex in the next two years, you know, you know, doing a syndication raising money to buy a one on an 80 unit apartment complex. And it's not because I'm just trying to be like Grant Cardone or something. You know, I think I'm so crazy cool. And all this to do. First of all, I love to hear but it's really because I've learned the value of having multiple doors within one property. I love the
Mike Swenson
economy of scale.
Myles Berrio
Economies of scale, dude, I mean, you have a single family home. Like it I mean, if there's anything that goes wrong, do all net everything disappears, it's just done. But you got an apartment complex, you know 80 doors or 50 door 30 Don't do five people sick for two three people stop paying rent, you're not like under automate you're not in the enemy you're not like worried about eating you know, I mean so it's just and I didn't really realize this until I really started trying to you know work on some bigger deals I've been involved actually now slowly started getting involved with their stuff is it's actually easier in some degree obviously, you know, there's a carrier out there but it's actually easier to raise money sometimes some of these bigger deals, you know, some of these smaller deals because people don't see so the upside is much you know, it's a little bit more capital intensive you know, with one person
Myles Berrio
or just how you raise it's hard to explain but if you get a 200 unit apartment complex that just is solid and just like has a great return Do you be surprised specially in this more I mean month there is not there's just more money out there and then you can you imagine when people are trying to get involved in it get a great return on their money so it's more the difficulty more so is finding those deals right because a lot of people that own them obviously are just trying to sell them you know, in obviously funding it to you know, whether it's creatively maybe they might want to finance or something like that or you have to just pay him out cash or whatever so but that's really the big focus two things is that multifamily in the in the second thing is really really helping a ton of people just changed your life. I cannot wait to the story app is listening. I say there's a student of mine named Angelina and she is a mom dude, this girl she's like burping or her baby while she's on these calls. like I am. So for her, I'm so proud of her. And one of the things that I do I give everything anything, I can help people succeed in this in the community.
Myles Berrio
There's a guy that reached out to me, he goes, Hey, Myles, you know, I'm closing on this property, I'm gonna have like, $300,000 of cash, I need to buy something, man, I need to buy something soon on February 1. And I'm like, bro, I got a whole community of people that are looking for deals for investors, how about you send me a video, who you are what you're looking for, and I'll post in the group. He's like, Oh, my God, man, it'd be amazing. So I got, I got my community like base and trying to find this guy ideal. And I'm doing like a fun little challenge. You know, where I'm giving you a little giveaway, whoever can actually get him a deal. But Angelina found a property. That's exactly what he's looking for like a three bedroom, one and a half bath or more in Greenville, great upside. I mean, just he walked through the great, great property. The only hiccup is and I'm gonna go through all the details, but it might take a little longer to actually move forward because it's in probate.
Myles Berrio
But it's not fully and probate because probate happens when you have one owner who passes away with a property. But actually, there's three owners the sister passed away and the other two are brothers that are still alive. But apparently that person's paperwork and kind of wait. So we don't I don't think it's gonna go through probate. But anyway, when this thing goes for the price that they're willing to sell. And for what we can assign it for to the guy, he just has cash ready to go the 300,000 for purchase and rehab. And it's not even going to be anywhere close for purchases wrapped around 1000. She'll basically make like $27,000 and she do they've net, it'll absolutely change your life as you change your life. And it's stuff like that it gets me so fired up. And I just can't wait for this year to just have like, just story after story after story of people just like having their lives changed and you know, really succeeding. So anyway, that's kind of my main focus, man.
Mike Swenson
That's it. Just just that awesome. Well, Myles. I mean, we could talk for a lot longer but but I love what you've shared. I just I just love your your heart for helping people, your energy and just pressing forward in the face of tragedy and a lot of people could wallow in self pity and why me why me? And you just keep going forward. And so thank you so much for for sharing your story. where can folks learn more about you that that want to reach out?
Myles Berrio
Yeah, um, honestly, three places. I mean, they're all pretty straightforward. My Facebook is just Myles Berrio. So Myles Berrio. My Instagram, same thing Myles Berrio but with the dot, so myles.berrio. But if you want to kind of I've kind of put together a little website that kind of covers is a good bit of stuff that I'm doing. Like, it's called mylesberriogo, like go into the park, go.com . So mylesberriogo.com. And you can also find information if someone's interested about you know, being a part of the community and whatnot and learning about just how can you really start building wholesale business, all of those stuff. There's a link within that website, but that website kind of encompasses a good bit of stuff. So that's kind of where people connect with me.
Mike Swenson
awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing. I know there's a lot of wealth there. And I would just encourage people to take action on what you said right? Don't just listen to it. You're entertaining to hear and had a lot of wisdom but but it really comes down to doing something right and going and sharing your journey. Take action on the stuff that you said to have success. So thanks so much for sharing. I really appreciate your time.
