Wendell’s Weekly Wins and Whiffs

🏆 WIN OF THE WEEK: Catching Up, Hiring Help, and Momentum is Building Everywhere

I caught up on a lot since I got back from Japan which is awesome, even though I have been jet lagged like crazy haha. But here is the thing that really mattered this week. I hired a Go High Level expert to help finalize my Flip Fuel Lending CRM and I had to remember that classic principle: who not how. I realized I was just wasting time trying to do it myself when I could pay someone who knows exactly what they are doing to get it done right and get it done fast. By the end of this week I am hoping GHL will be fully finalized and I can start implementing some marketing strategies through there to start getting more inbound leads flowing in.

Also on the lending side we have a few loans in process which is great and one of my loan officers just got their first deal funded. That is awesome to see and I love paying out commission checks to awesome people who are executing! That is what it is all about.

But here is where it gets really exciting. On the Tide and Timber Ventures side we are close to breaking ground on our three townhome builds. We are just waiting on permits to get approved, but we are ready to roll. We are closing on our luxury duet build project this week which is fully funded thanks to our investing partners, so shout out to them. And we just got a nine townhome project under contract which is a very exciting deal that I cannot wait to start diving into and presenting to our investors. We have a ton of momentum right now across all aspects of the business. Our projected pipeline revenue for Tide and Timber Ventures is already seven figures plus and we are only a few months into pivoting more towards a new development strategy. That is insane. The momentum is here and I cannot wait to see it build even more.

💨 WHIFF OF THE WEEK: Red Tape is Creeping Into Hard Money and I Am Not Happy About It

There are a lot of moving things in the lending world right now. Out of nowhere we are requiring some administrative work for licensing and such since it is now required in some states. Usually for hard money lending you don't necessarily need any mortgage license or registrations because you are dealing with business loans. These are not primary home loans and do not fall under RESPA and NMLS rulings (depending on what state of course). But here is what is happening. A ton of loan officers are moving from the primary home loan conventional route to non-QM and real estate business loans because the residential primary home loan space has been brutal. I do not blame them at all, but the massive movement of people trying to hop into the investor loan game is causing a bit of admin work and new rulings to be pushed out by regulators.

This is annoying for a couple reasons. First, now I will have more competition which I honestly do not care about because almost all of these people do not know what they are doing. We pride ourselves on being investors that also lend, most of these people do not invest so they have no idea how to communicate and relate to their clients. More importantly it is annoying that there is now more red tape involved. It is what it is and I will get whatever I need to get done, but this is a whiff because I literally left the conventional mortgage world because of all the red tape and annoying rules. If that starts coming into the hard money space more, that will really piss me off quite frankly. Other than that I have been jet lagged to hell from the Japan trip, but we are slowly bouncing back!!

🎯 TACTICAL TIP OF THE WEEK: The Bigger the Deal the Easier. Stop Thinking Small.

Here is something I need you to understand. The bigger the deal the easier the deal becomes. The bigger the deal the bigger the spread, the more flexibility you have, the better returns you can get. And to be honest it takes just the same amount of work as the smaller deals. So why waste time on smaller deals when you can go bigger? Usually it is mind constraints causing people to think they cannot do it. I do not have enough money. I need to start small first before I do bigger things. That is semi true as you want to build a track record, but it does not mean you need to stay there forever.

A bigger deal is usually just more commas and zeros in it. But the process is mainly the exact same. Do you have to still be disciplined with your underwriting and analysis? Of course. Just like with the small deals. But here is my tip for you this week. Think about what you are doing right now. Then think about how that can be bigger. For my latest deals I went from doing fix and flips to single family new builds to now already jumping into multiple townhome developments within a matter of months. Same process. Same underwriting. Same analysis and research. But much bigger profits and much bigger opportunities, especially for investors. And guess what that solves? Your money problem. Because the bigger the profit, the more room you have to get investors in and let them make some money with you. You scale by going bigger and bringing partners in, that is the game.

🔦 FROM THE FIELD: Building a Luxury Duet and Changing the Game One Project at a Time

We are purchasing a single family home this week to then demolish and build a luxury duet on and then sell each side individually. I am extremely excited to see this thing come to life and I think it will be an amazing finished product. Check out the sneak peak preview here to see what I am talking about:

This is the type of project that shows the difference between fix and flip mentality and new development mentality. We are creating value. We are creating something that did not exist before. That is how you make real money in this space. Stay tuned to see this one come to life!

💰 Passive Investor Opportunities

We are continuing to move deals through the pipeline at Tide and Timber Ventures. If you have been curious about passive investing with our team, reach out. These opportunities fill fast and now is a solid time to have that conversation.

🐝 The Hive CLT Entrepreneurs Network 

The Hive community keeps growing. The conversations in that room actually move needles. We are building something special and if you are serious about your business and want to be around other builders, RSVP for our next event at https://jointhehive.co/

💬 FINAL WORD

This week showed me something I already knew, but it was reinforced even more. Momentum is real. When you start making the right moves and building the right team and making the right decisions, everything starts compounding. You catch one win and it opens the door for the next win. You close one deal and it opens the door for the next deal. You hire the right person and suddenly you have all this time back to actually build more.

But here is the other thing. Most people never get to experience that momentum because they are stuck thinking too small. They are stuck doing the small deals. They are stuck doing the work themselves. They are stuck in their own head about what they can and cannot do. They are stuck in the conventional world that does not pay and does not scale.

The red tape is annoying. The jet lag is real. The admin work sucks. But none of that matters when you are building something that actually matters and when you are making real money doing it. We are seven figures plus in pipeline revenue only a few months into a new strategy for Tide & Timber Ventures. We are breaking ground on multiple projects. We are getting funded by investors. We are solving problems in the market.

That is momentum. That is scaling. That is what happens when you stop thinking small and start thinking big. Stop waiting. Stop planning. Stop doing it all yourself. Hire the experts. Bring in the partners. Go after the bigger deals. That is the only way to actually build something that lasts.

Let's get it!!

Keep growing or die,