On the show today we have our favorite young real estate investors on the show, Ariv Adiaman & Kasim Siddiqui of Vozhi!
Listen on: iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play
Show Links:
– Vozhi.com
– Vozhi Instagram
– Future Simple CRM
– Asana Project Management Tool
– Boomerang for Gmail
Notes from the show
The Vantastic Life is…
– in Miami Florida
Ariv and Kasim of Vozhi are two young awesome entrepreneurs from the Seattle area.
New SIC format is kicking butt! The bi weekly small table masterminds are going so well. Just so much value and so much focus given.
There’s a deep level of assistance and help to newer investors.
Join us on Tuesday or Thursday at All City Coffee in Georgetown (Tuesday) or Zoka Coffee in Greenlake (Thursday).
Underwater calls coming into lenders and these guys can help you out.
Ariv was born in India until 7 years old and moved to Kirkland WA.
Being an immigrant there was always a topic about being successful in this country. He went to University of Washington and got a degree in electrical engineering. Then decided to sell something, and that led him into real estate.
Kasim born in Pakistan and was first born. Also went to UW, and met Ariv in calculus class.
They thought they were both smart, and liked hanging out together, and that led into being friends.
Then down the line after working in W2 jobs for a while they decided to buy some real estate together. And from there that led to trying wholesaling because it seemed like there was very little risk to it.
Julie
What were the biggest hurdles when you got started?
Kasim
Learned about wholesaling from Nick Ruez who was in Wisconsin, but we should have learned from someone local in our market.
They accidentally told the seller that they would pay the excise tax, and it was actually Tarl Yarber who was the buyer.
Julie
That’s a great tip! There are a lot of little nuances that can be missed.
Ariv
Understanding the whole deal is really important in getting the deal done.
Julie
What have you learned since then?
Ariv
We have started to look a real estate from an abundance mentality. We used to think that we must go forward with every deal, but we don’t need to. There are enough deals to go around.
Julie
We all need to remember that there is price and terms, and you can leverage either or both of those.
You can always ask who is in your network that can help you leverage deals that you don’t know how to do.
Ariv
We both have our real estate license. We started off with just one of us, but it started to make more sense for us both to have a license.
Julie
Are you doing flips or wholesales or both?
Ariv
We tried to do a flip, and didn’t make as much as we would have liked, so we pivoted to wholesale and list the property on the back end.
Started asking how could we get equitable interest to make more money… and we started partnering with some of our buyers to provide the property, and do the listing, but have equity in the whole project.
Julie
What a great way to get started. Getting started as a broker can be a great way to get into the game.
Is your broker cool with you just collecting the fees?
Ariv
Yep and we do it a little different. We actually use an LLC and then sell the LLC instead of assigning the contract like a tradition wholesale.
Julie
Cool!
Let me ask you… there are some investors that list their wholesale deals on the MLS. What is that like and how does it work?
Ariv
We are typically just on the buyers side on the MLS. We’ve never actually listed our wholesales on the MLS.
Julie
If you want to see what a wholesale looks like on the MLS… email julie@seattleinvestorsclub.com, and I’ll show you one.
I think the idea of doing it is to get more of a retail price on a wholesale deal. It’s a very interesting idea if you can pull it off.
So, you guys have won some awards… one of which from the SIC and the others from 30 under 30 business magazine.
Julie
What does your company do to incorporate real estate, technologies, and music?
Ariv
The only way we can do that is to be authentic to who we are. I make hip hop music and like to rap, and that’s where the music part comes from.
A big part of our branding has to do with us doing music and it helps to create recognition for both the music and real estate.
Julie
You should connect with Jacob Weaver, he does real estate and music with the Regrets.
Ariv
We will totally connect with Jacob.
We have brought technology into real estate because we have a lot of data that can be brought into our marketing. There is this tool that we’ve brought into our marketing that hits people on google, facebook, and text, so they could be hit up on more than one platforms in one day.
Julie
I call that pre framing.
Ariv
I like it! Yeah, that’s a big part of how we do our business. We like to stay abreast of the new tools that are coming out.
We do AdWords, we use a squeeze page, we do data pulls to find peoples information.
This gives us multiple different touches on each person which makes them more warm when we talk to them.
The biggest part of real estate is the relationships that you create.
Julie
I like the old FU…. follow up :-).
We always like to walk into each house with options. If you walk into a house with options you’ll look like the experts. And that becomes the exciting part and the fun part.
That could be creative structuring, or somethign like that.
Hey, I’m a big advocate of telling people not to quit their job because you can’t borrow any money without having a W2. Do you feel like you quit your jobs at the right time?
Ariv
Knowing what we know now we don’t think that we quit our jobs at the right time.
Kasim
We did try to do real estate when we had our jobs, but we didn’t have enough time or energy to really do it the right way.
Once we quit our jobs we could focus a little more, and it put a fire under us.
Ariv
We know some amazing people in real estate that are great investors and have a full time job.
We have some great partners that can help us out with investing and borrowing money.
Julie
A credit partner is a real deal, it’s a real thing.
I do council people before quitting their job to talk to a mentor about the pros and cons.
Ariv
Age is a big part. We felt that we had age on our side (26/27), so if we messed up we would be able to restart and be ok.
It did give us the fire to succeed.
I agree that you should talk to some mentors to see if it’s the right path. Maybe partner with someone while you still have your full time job.
Julie
When you’re getting started in real estate, or having trouble getting to that next level. Take a second and sit down and asses what you bring to the table to offer someone else that you can maybe partner with someone.
Like Julie (real estate) and Joe (tech and marketing).
Or day job W2 to help another investor with financing. Partner up and help each other get to the next level.
What are your favorite apps
Ariv
Future simple is our CRM – it has it’s own view that is very intuitive for customer management
Asana – we use the free version and it’s been wonderful! Great tool!
Kasim
If you’re not good with Excel become one or become friends with someone who is.
This will keep you from wasting time.
Like scrubbing data lists.
Ariv
Boomerang for Gmail is great for follow up.
The greatest thing about technology is that you don’t have to think about anything.
Julie
I’m stoked for your guys successes! And can’t wait to see what you do this year.
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