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Real estate investor, author, and podcast host Henry Washington entered the industry in search of building passive income to achieve financial freedom. In just three and a half years, Henry built an impressive rental portfolio and now turns his focus to teaching others how to create wealth through real estate investment. Listen in todays episode where Henry talks us through how to work with small banks to get initial loans, make contractor connections, market effectively to generate leads, and adjust your mindset for success. Episode Link: https://henrywashington.clickfunnels.com/order-485129501621009952063 --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals. Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today I'm joined by Henry Washington and Henry is an investor and he's gonna be talking to us about how he went from zero to like a gazillion doors in a very short amount of time, and what he did to get there. So let's get right into it. Henry, what's going on, man, thanks so much for coming on and hanging out with me and I really appreciate you. Henry: Hey, man, thanks for having me, I appreciate it. Michael: No, it's gonna be a lot of fun. So I know a little bit about your background but for those of our listeners who might not be familiar with the Mr. Henry Washington gave us the quick and dirty who you are, where you're coming from and what is it? You're doing real estate today? Henry: Yeah, Henry Washington, I'm a real estate investor based out of the Northwest Arkansas market. So it's the northwest corner of the state. It's this like little unique bubble have an area. There's so much huge recession proof industry here. So it's a lot of money in this little part of the country that makes this market pretty unique and so I've been investing here, four and a half years, I'd say close to five years now I bought my first house five years ago and prior to that I was a nine to five or working for I worked for Walmart and so they're headquartered out here. It's one of the companies, you know, that's, that's based out here and so I did data analytics and software development for them for 10 years, and made a great salary and I also spent a great salary and so I often found myself not having money before I was to get paid again and, you know, I think a lot of people find themselves in that situation. My, I guess the pivot for me came when I got married, got married fairly quickly, my wife did not want to run out of money before we got paid again and that was that was the first time where… Michael: A reasonable request… Henry: I guess. It's so I, you know, I started to realize that the path I was on financially wasn't going to provide me the life that I truly wanted and I knew that but when it was just me, like, there was no like, I was okay, I was like, whatever, I'll figure it out but like, when you have somebody else who's depending on you, you know, a lot of those things become a lot more real and so I had a panic attack one night, after we tried to buy a house together, and I couldn't be on the loan, because my credit was so bad and the bank said, hey, you're gonna ruin this for your wife, if you guys want to be able to buy a house and so then we, you know, we had conversations as a couple of about our future and what we wanted and kids and dream houses and you know, all the things married couples, young new married couples talk about, and I was like, I can't afford any of this. Like, I just, it was just as unsettling realization that like, even though I did all the things inside me told me to do, you know, I got the good grades, I went to the good schools, I got the good degree, I got the good job and I still couldn't do normal things, you know, without an extensive amount of like planning, budgeting, and like, it just was normal, things were going to be difficult and I just, I didn't want life to be like that and I didn't want her to feel like she was struggling by choosing me as her partner, and so I had a panic attack. Three in the morning woke up in a cold sweat because I was like, I gotta figure out a way to make some money and so I googled, how can I make some money and that's when that's when real estate kind of hit me over the head were really, really long story short is that's when I started to like pay attention to the articles that were popping up about passive income and about building wealth and well, you know, all those buzzwords that we all hear all the time, but like none of it seems to stick in our brains. Well, it started to stick and I started to realize that like, owning real estate was feasible. I just never thought it was feasible before. I just thought super rich people in corporations on real estate, but like, stumbling upon us across articles on bigger pockets and all these places and seeing that it's just regular people that have real estate and they are building wealth and they are retiring from their jobs and I was just like, This is crazy and I didn't I didn't know it was I didn't know it was achievable, you know, and so I just made a decision that three in the morning and then I was going to figure it out because I figured it if all these people on the internet have figured out how to do it, there's no reason that I can't figure out how to do it. Pretty smart guy, so I'll just I'll just I literally said, I'll just do this and I had bad credit still and I had only had $1,000 in my savings account. So I didn't have any money. I had bad credit, but I made the decision that I was going to be a real estate investor and, you know, at the time, I'm sure that sounds like a crazy idea. But you know, now fast forward five years, I've got, we just counted yesterday, we've got 75 doors, and we are, we flipped 10 to 12 to 15 houses a year and I teach people how to be investors now and CO hosts a couple of Bigger Pockets podcasts and you know, why stick in a crazy turn in five years. Michael: Dude, dude, that's amazing. So, okay, I have so many questions. Tell me some of them in the episode, when you say we are talking about we owning sending code, or is that you and your wife is that you and a partner, tell me about that? Henry: Yeah, so when I say we, I'm referring to my wife and I, so my wife and I own the majority of our portfolio. Together, I have about 25 doors that I do have with a business partner that we bought early on in my investing career early on, I'm still early on in my office, but like in the first couple of years, and then I've got a few other doors and some partnerships, but you know, it's a mix, but the majority we owe… Michael: Okay and so there's a pretty big gap in your story here, Henry, from the day that you woke up at 3am, Nicole 12 1000 bucks to now having $74. So fill in a little bit about for us and let's start with kind of that first deal. I mean, what did you do because I think so many people listening to this right now are in a similar boat. They're like, what I'm doing isn't working and I just discovered that real estate investing. I've always thought it was for other people. But I'd realize it can now be for me. So walk us through how do you get that first deal done? Henry: Yeah, man. So I'll give will give to a couple of mindset and a couple of practical pieces of advice. So what I've learned, through retrospect, I didn't I wasn't the smart one at AG when I actually did it. I didn't know what I was doing. But now that I've looked back here, and I see I see what it was right and so I think the thing, the one thing that I did, that led me to where I am today had nothing to do with buying real estate. It had everything to do with mindset and I know people get all like, ooh, it's not that easy. You can't just make up your mind. You're rich, like, you're right, you can't but you can make up your mind that you're gonna do whatever it takes to hit to your goals, right and so that's what people that's what people mean, when they say the mindset changed their life because without the mindset, none of this was possible and so for me, the thing that I did, that led me here, the one thing was at three in the morning, I decided I was going to be a real estate investor, I made a decision I chose right, decide the suffix of the word decide aside, like suicide, or homicide, it means to kill off, there's no other option, right? It's option A, or there's no option B is going to work or it's gonna work, right and when you decide, what you're doing, is you're telling your brain that this is what is going to be. So when we can't figure out how to do something, brain, go help me figure out how to do it, right, and you just open your mind up to helping you search for the answer for the root for the path for the thing that you need to get around the obstacle, like our brains are powerful, they do that. Like, if you tell your brain, if you tell your brain that we're doing something, it's gonna help you try to figure out how to do that and I think that most people, when they go down a path of anything, a business or a new venture, you know, fitness, whatever it is, like when you go down that path, most of us say, well, yeah, that looks cool. I'll give that a try, right? I'll try that out and when you say you're gonna try something, what you're telling your brain is like, we're gonna do it until we don't know what to do anymore and then we're not going to do it, your brain is just not going to help you navigate the difficult parts you didn't tell it to. You just told me you were trying it. You did, right and so I think the most powerful thing you can do is like truly make a decision in your heart and your mind. Like no matter what option A there is no option B, I knew I was gonna be a real estate investor, period, I was gonna figure it out and so everything I did to that point, like all the subsequent decisions that were made, were made with all that in mind, right and so when I bumped into walls and I obstacles and things. It was it was never like, well, I can't do it. It was just like, how are we gonna get around this obstacle, right? It's got to be a way people are doing this right and so I would say that's the biggest thing you can do is like, really do some serious soul searching like, you're you? Like, are you interested in real estate or are you committed to real estate, right? And if you're interested in it, that's cool. Do some research. See, see what's out there, right. But being interested in is isn't gonna get you to wealth being committed to it is, if you're committed to it, that means you're doing it no matter what, right, so. Michael: Yeah and so what? Yeah, walk us through, like what you did, like, clearly, at the very end, you're committing to it, like, what did you do next? Henry: Yeah, that's a great question. I had no idea what I was gonna do and so I just like…. Michael: You had to put it out to the world, you declare him…. Henry: I put it out there and then my thought process was like, alright, well, I don't know how to do this but somebody here is doing it. Like maybe I can just find people who are doing it and so I just started Googling, like real estate investment groups, meetups clubs, like I did all the words I could find to find people who were into this kind of thing. Who me I mean, there's, there's knitting groups, and there's, you know, there's dog walking groups, and there's, you know, you know, absolute backgammon groups, and like, I was like, there's got to be some investor groups, right and so that's what I did, I went and I found every investment Meetup group club, you know, association, wherever there was investors in a room in my area, I got in the room because I've always, you know, even before I was investor, I've always believed like, you know, who you know, who you choose to be around, let you know who you are, right? We are the sub parts of the people who are closest to us, right? We naturally as humans take on the characteristics of those who are closest to us. It's just human nature, we can't help it, right and so I was like, well, I'll just get around other investors and then it'll do a few things for me, it'll start to show me like how they're doing it. So maybe I can do it similarly, or how they're doing it. So maybe I don't want to do what they're doing or it'll start to show me what's possible because we like as people, we determine what's possible, based on what we see those closest to us doing, right? Our views are limited to the knowledge that we have about a particular subject based on the people that are around us, right and so like, I knew that it seemed daunting, and I knew I had no idea how I was gonna buy a property. But I knew if I got around people who were buying properties all the time, it wasn't gonna seem as daunting anymore and so and so I would say the best, the next best thing you do is just surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do, you will naturally start to take on those characteristics and remember, you told your brain, you're gonna figure it out and so as you're in these rooms, and you're hearing these people talk, and you're networking with these people, and you're starting to understand what's happening, your brain is listening, it's actively listening for the things that you need to know, that's going to help you down your path, right. It's the, you know, I would say it's like the, it's the red truck. I forget what they call it Pavlov's law or something like where it's like you buy a red truck, the truck you see is red. It's the same thing, right? You've told yourself, you've told your brain, I'm going to be an investor and so now every time something like it still happens to me, like if I'm out to dinner, and I hear somebody say something like rental, I'm like, who's to rent a property? There, it is good like, my brain is actively listening for it like, and then I'm like, yeah, I rented this boat. I'm like, it's not like your brain, it's gonna help you out, right and so when you go, and you surround yourself, you're not only learning new strategies, that you're meeting the people who are going to be able to help you down that path. That business partner I mentioned on 25 doors with, I met him in a real estate group. I met him at that same real estate group that I googled and found that that first day at the panic attack, the title company that I've used for almost every single closing I've ever done, I met through a connection at that real estate investment meetup and they have been a godsend to my business. I've met several contractors that I've used in that group, the banks that I've used, that have financed my deals at almost 100% sometimes I found in that group and so like you are, you are building your network, you ar…
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