David Granzella, Founder, NorCal REIA
NorCal REIA is Sacramento’s premier real estate investment club. NorCal REIA provides quality real estate investment education and resources for their members, guests, and friends. The emphasis and commitment to solid real estate investor education enables their members to make calculated investment decisions for continued wealth acquisition and wealth retention in this rapidly changing market environment.
Since 2004, associations and relationships with some of the most successful investors and educators in the business have allowed NorCal REIA to provide its members with the most current and essential real estate investment techniques, strategies, and industry analysis.
Laurel Sagen, President, Laurel Buys Houses
Laurel a real estate professional in the Sacramento area where she runs a real estate investment and development company called Laurel Buys Houses. Her primary goal is to do everything she can to help homeowners work through their difficult situations and find options that meet their needs. For the past 20 years, she has helped thousands of families feel in control again.
Enhancing and transforming distressed properties to the highest standards, Laurel is known for building beautiful homes and strong business relationships. Some of her renovated homes have featured on HGTV, multiple media outlets, and home tours.
Laurel values empathy, honesty, and results as guiding principles for how her company conducts business.
Episode Notes:
Narrator This is The Norris Group’s real estate investor radio show, the award-winning show dedicated to thought leaders shaping the real estate industry and local experts revealing their insider tips to succeed in an ever-changing real estate market hosted by author, investor and hard money lender, Bruce Norris. The Norris Group proudly presents our 14th annual award winning event I Survived Real Estate, industry experts join Bruce and Aaron Norris to discuss evolving industry trends, real estate bubbles, inflation, and opportunities emerging for real estate professionals. All proceeds from the event benefited Make-a-wish and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Bruce Norris Hi, thanks for joining us. My name is Bruce Norris. And once again we are joined by David Granzella founder of NorCalREIA and Laurel Sagen, President of Laurel Buys Houses. David, you’ve been, you’ve been gone, you’ve gone through some cycles. Well, how do you feel about what’s next? Are you concerned about round two of a crash?
David Granzella I guess? Well, it is cyclical. I think one of the things I’ve learned being around for a while now is we make money. We’re real estate investors, we make money up down sideways, it doesn’t really matter. I think it’s just a matter of having a better perspective. What quadrant are we going to be in? Where are we going to go and what’s it going to look like? I think I’ve been fortunate enough to acquire some multi families where there’s that income coming in that passive income gives me the ability to pull the trigger and not have to make questionable decisions on a market or a project.
Bruce Norris Yeah. Well…
David Granzella It is gonna change and affect more things I was thinking about while you were talking earlier. I remember in 2006, I had been at your end of 2005. I’d been in Irvine to see you for the California Crash. My mail carrier in early 2006 had come by we’re chatting and I don’t mean mirrored carriers pretty well. And chatted Nate, her husband just bought a house in place called Winchester up in Auburn. Well, Winchester is a multi, back then a multimillion dollar area. And here’s my mail carrier mine and I’m talking to her and I hadn’t really understood what a pickup payment was or what a negative payment was. And she started telling me and I just gave him a quick synopsis. But I thought to myself, I knew at that point that oh my god, this is, this is just failure waiting to come. So that being said, I can take that knowledge from you, my mail carrier from the people to realize that it’s going to be a transition. And what it’s going to be I don’t see the downside, because I’m not highly leveraged on multi units. So, I don’t have to stress about you know, if there was payments or not which they have been 100% it gives me the opportunity to look, where are we going to go? How are we gonna handle this? What quadrant? What are we gonna use? What type of marketing we’re going to do, just like Laurel has got a hold of her marketing out there. Sometimes when I’m not getting some of her letters, I wonders if I’m not feeling loved. Am I gonna, by the way, because Laurel and some other people does such a great job marketing, I shut my my marketing back, because in competition, it’s, percentage wise, you got to figure out how it’s going to work. And there’s guerilla marketing out there. Am I gonna knock on doors? or What am I gonna do I love multi unit, how am I going to get to that client and find out? But am I worried? No, I just need to find out. I just feel better if I understood better about inflation, as you and I were talking about last night at the meeting, which direction and how do I best suited to follow it? And how can I create solutions for myself and for other people involved? And create housing along the way because there’s a housing shortage included, especially in the apartment segment.
Bruce Norris Yeah. Laurel, I’m just, I’m really curious about your marketing methods. So, I just heard mailers is that, is that been the main source of what you do?
Laurel Sagen Well, you know, for the most part we, we’ve decided, we’ve created a company that it’s a marketing company.
Bruce Norris Okay.
Laurel Sagen So, Laurel Buys Houses is owned by a different company and some marketing company. So, we do direct mail. I have TV commercials, we do social media, we have our website, we’ve spent a lot of time and money having our not paid ads, but having our SEO be really good and a really, a website that informs people on more than just that. I co-authored a book for seniors about the housing market and even assisted living. We have joined lots of professional organizations, for the elderly to be able to, so that I can refer people when they need assisted living or something like that. You know, spend more time in the community, just doing marketing. I, I have as a matter of our team decided not to do cold calling not to do the texting, not to do some of the things that I think are not on brand for my brand of empathy caring and integrity. But yeah we’re on TV we started doing that in March and it’s pretty funny I’m sitting at the bank trying to open an HSA account and somebody comes up to you, are, ‘You’re Laurel! You buy houses!’ I go, “Yes, I do.” Little old lady she comes up to me she says ‘are you Laurel?’ I go ‘Yeah,’ she goes ‘Well your commercials work darling’ that’s what we’re doing um and you know, I, you know, for us we decided not to hire an actress, is, this ugly mug but you know, I think it’s most honest and that’s the way we’ve just decided to do it. Our card is very simple. It has picture of our team on it we, we have the same card people been getting like, David can tell you, we’ve tried a few little fun things every once a while but we’ve been doing direct marketing for five years now people get upset if they don’t see your card sometimes and…
Bruce Norris Interesting. Now. All right. Now…
Laurel Sagen If you see my face on the milk carton that’ll be different.
Bruce Norris What’s the trick? What? Okay, so I get one of your cards and I call, who am I going to talk to?
Laurel Sagen You’re going to talk to Samantha or Aaron. Samantha’s my leads manager she answers the phone mostly.
Bruce Norris Okay.
Laurel Sagen And she’s very, I mean well, we might spend you know, time training her every week to make sure that, that call is, is informative and is easy as possible for our client and then she’ll book you an appointment with me.
Bruce Norris Okay, so you actually meet with all the people. Okay, now you just said five years you’ve done mailers What did you do prior to that?
Laurel Sagen Well, we believe it or not, I guess it’s going on six years now. Wow. I used to buy everything through the MLS Bruce, okay. We had real estate agents and I just bought it the way I knew other, you know, wholesalers, you know, buying stuff off the MLS realtors who bring us deals, we spent dollars, but a lot of time going to talk to realtors and I spent all my time doing construction. I mean, it’s kind of interesting story how we decided to do this, but that’s how we knew to buy it. That’s, that’s why everybody was buying right? Wholesalers for, for newbies. Right? By going directly to the seller, knocking on doors and stuff. I mean, I did that a little bit. But in the, you know, back in the day, during the crash, but that’s all we knew was realtors.
Bruce Norris I, David, I’m gonna ask you first and then Laura, I’d like your input. Why? Why do you think most people don’t succeeded at a business that both of you have done different paths, but done very well? Because a lot of people don’t.
David Granzella I speak myself. But you know, a lot of people don’t I think tenacity, purpose. I say you really have to have a purpose. You have a purpose driven in life, but especially this business, you have to be able to know why you’re doing it. There’s tenacity, there’s purpose, there’s drive, you’ve got to be consistent. You’ve got to have you need to create a system, how you’re going to build your, build your business in real estate, where you’re going to flip. I’ve been fortunate enough to have people in my life like fixer Jay, yourself, you and Aaron, John Schaub, there’s a number of,Jim Harris, there’s a number of people out there that I’ve reached out to and I still see to this day, I still talk to this day. And I just followed up I figured you know, I met Fixer Jay and he had his old, you met Fixer Jay in my home.
Bruce Norris Oh yeah.
David Granzella Live, live in my home and the party. And you know, I’ve met him he had overalls on he had his little straw hat and things like that. And here’s the guy that I’ve been following for a while. And so I realized, here’s a guy who’s got his degree, has advanced degree in school and education. He’s also used to work for AT & T and man, upper management for a long time. And he’s got 250 rental doors. So, I said he’s got to have something to be able to teach me if I, if I’ve reached out to him. And he did. I think that’s, a good face. I was a single parent, I had a 14 year old son it was it was sink or swim. And that was a good thing. But then the next thing transition came different level was like where do I want to be? And that’s when I started reaching out to Southern California. I met some people down there including yourself, and I started going to your meetings because we didn’t have that format and I would go down there and people would share things and matter of fact I would talk to people up here and they would actually give you, I hear them giving other people newbies the wrong information. And I thought it’s better to say nothing and then they’re really mislead people, and especially back there to courthouse steps, it was pretty ruthless. But that being said, I saw, I met a lot of people, they were giving it away. They were sharing, and I realized one day, even being new, there’s more than enough for everyone in this business. Absolutely, unequivocally. And it was when I realized that, that it made it easier, and I wasn’t attached to any one deal. It was a matter of sinking, sinking or swimming. But I think tenacity follow through. I mean, I still talk to people, especially I love to see people, especially young people get in this business. And realize, I think Mike Cantu says that if you’re willing to do spend 10 years, doing whether people want to spend the rest of life doing what you want to do. And it’s the absolute truth.
Bruce Norris You know, it was really interesting. We had, we live in a gated area, and we got to notice, Hey, you got to, you got to clean your roof, okay. So, you know, I’m going forward, I’m sort of recreating the wheel with the people I deal with, because I got used to dealing with the same people for three decades. And all of a sudden, I’m reinventing every time I need something, I’ve got a new one. Well, I met somebody that could be very successful in this business. And she was just really good at what she did. She was very persuasive, but very kind. And I just thought, Oh, my gosh, this lady is going to be she could be a great property buyer. So, I told her a little bit about this business. And she she had said, Man, she’s got she’s got generational goals she wants, you know, she wants her family to understand that America is the land of opportunity if she was no joke, and I thought, okay, lady, I’m going to give you some accent. So, gave her access to the website. So, where she can she can start. And I gave her some things to do and including talk to Pete Fortunato. Because Pete’s a creative guy, Bear, I said, Okay, I said, you need to understand two big pieces, you need to understand how to do a repair estimate and how to value houses. I think you can talk your way into a yes, answer. I don’t have any doubt about that. But you got to know that it’s the right thing. So I said, if you talk to Pete Fortunato, go to club meeting and offer a barter, because that’s kind of what he does. He does it like trade meetings. I said, take your skill and say I will powerwash four rooms for you aor a day of you taking three through five houses and doing repair assessments. I want to see if she wants to do that.
David Granzella Right.
Bruce Norris I mean, really, this is sort of a test. So, you said you wanted it. I think this is a path to do it. But I have a feeling, and that’s the fun of educating every once in a while you just see somebody you go, I think they want this as bad as I did. And it’s fun, you know, and then the other thing and Laurel, of getting back to you what, what, why do you think so few people actually really succeed at something that you’ve done so well.
Laurel Sagen Well, you know, I gotta say that for me, I mean, I read a Robert Kiyosaki book. Retire Rich, Retire Young. Okay, that was running through the airport, going on another vacation because we’re making all that money. My wife said, I know that this what we’re doing now isn’t going to last but I sure love this lifestyle. So, I saw this book, Retire Rich, Retire Young, I took it, I read it on the vacation, and it said go to 100, go, go look at 100 houses, make 10 offers buy one house. That’s what I did.
Bruce Norris Wow.
Laurel Sagen Came back to Sacramento. I looked at it. I, looked at 100 houses make 10 offers. I burned out two real estate agents before I found Dan, my current business partner at the time. And I promise you for two years I spent every weekend in Sacramento, driving houses with floodlights. looking at things. Dan and I would write offer Saturday night, Sunday night, I go back to work and that’s I guess it’s just my work ethic. I promise you I have, I have tried to mentor people and I’ve just given them homework read this book. Do this, three hours worth of work. And I never hear from them again.
Bruce Norris That’s a I want to share with you. You know, a lot of people do mentoring and we don’t. Now, we decided I mean we were asked about it constantly. And I, I finally just said okay, I set a price that I didn’t think anybody would pay. I said they have to sign up for five hours I think it was a grand an hour so they’re they’re committing five grand. And we got an I said only 10 spaces in literally the first day. They were all taken. And I was like ‘Oh no.’ And the very first person that came, you know, what do you want to accomplish? What are the tools that you have? What do you think you’re. you’re not good at and so Okay, here’s. what’s what’s made in a month and here’s your assignment and then they came back in 100% of the people did not do the first assignment 30 days later and I was thinking okay i’m not, i’m not, i’m not the counseling business because now I’ve got to figure out what why did you not do that? Because that’s, let’s get to the bottom of that because you got to go through this step before we get to the next one like go see 100 houses, well I didn’t, you know and then go okay well the next assignment is the same one and you got to get, you got to get through this stuff and you got to, you got to be willing to do the uncomfortable that was you know, everybody’s had their beginning but when I when I started I didn’t know anything about real estate I’m on the phone talking to people. And you know, it was if I had been uncomfortable with that type of thing where I didn’t know but I had learned a long time ago that it was okay not to know and I never pretended I did and that when I called 100 people a day for that first month I had so many good conversations that I, I gained a little knowledge here and there because I didn’t fake anything if I didn’t know I said I don’t know what you just said, what does that mean? Well now the next call if that didn’t happen, you know, in other words it built and after 30 days, you know, you talk to a lot of people you got to start recognizing and you just I don’t know it was it was crazy time because how many people buy 10 houses in their first month of the business? But you know if and it was funny because I’m sitting with all the people that had the experience with the same MLS. So Laurel just like you said I bought all of them out of the MLS and some of the offers were 60 cents on what was listed and I got yes answers I was just, I was too stupid to know it was not usually not possible and… I always freak out when I got one because I thought ‘oh I must have be a mistake, it can’t be this easy.’ And you know what? I’ve hired people to try to help me buy houses right? Yeah.
Laurel Sagen And now I don’t expect them to be at my level. I mean I’ve been doing this 20 years but they get frustrated really too quickly I think they they got no tolerance for ‘no’.
Bruce Norris Yeah.
Laurel Sagen And you know in this business I, I’m one of the best house buyers statistically from you know, we belong to a group of house buyers across the country and I know my statistics are like stupid good but that’s because I’ve listened to the ‘NO’so many times, right? So, and I’m not afraid to tell somebody NO, right? That is just critical I think for doing the work and being a student also you got to set this thing up like it’s a real business not like a hobby for goodness sakes. It’s to make money on things you know, I see people buy houses like ‘well I think it’ll might work’ I’m like, Are you insane?
Bruce Norris Yeah, that’s a bad habit. Wait, Craig Craig Hill got a call one time and you know to Craig’s credit you know we, we could make safe loans on properties that we know people are going to get wiped out on you know, they just have to have more money in it but he’s always looking at tell me how this is going to work out for you. You know you got a 400 grand house you’re buying it for 380 and needs 50 grand with the work how’s that going to work out you know it’s just like so the broker, this is actually an honest conversation. The broker calls in and talks to Craig he says we’re just, we’re just practicing on this one. And I said, and that Craig said oh so on this practice one you’re not taking a commission right? So you’re right, people have to understand that they bring value you know, that’s what I like about you’re basically what you’re doing is you’re you’re a counselor to the people that don’t know how to get out of what they’ve got that’s and or the situation that’s overwhelming them that doesn’t overwhelm you. You know, that’s the type two thing where you just go okay and it’s repetitive that’s the thing too, Laurel, when you, you’ll have those conversation and within five seconds you kind of know the ending point you know where we’re going and, and you know, you’re going to help somebody make the right decision. Even if it doesn’t profit you today, you’re going to direct traffic to the right place.
Laurel Sagen Exactly. And you know what, I’ve been in business long enough to know that those people will refer people to me.
Bruce Norris Absolutely.
Laurel Sagen …can help. Yeah, it was good. Hey, Joey.
Joey Romero Bruce can I ask a question one the David one the Laurel?
Bruce Norris Sure.
Joey Romero Yeah. So, you know what I do here is I, I’m Investor Relations, so I get to talk to a lot of the investors know what they’re doing. They’re always asking me like, ‘Hey, what’s Bruce’s doing? What’s Aaron doing? So, my question to David is, what’s the mood of the people attending your meetings now? You know, since you’re, you know, everybody’s coming to you for that same question like, what’s next? You know, what do you think about the market? All that kind of stuff? What’s, what’s the general mood of the attending of folks on NorCalREIA?
David Granzella It’s interesting, you bring that question up, I noticed the past month or a couple of couple months, people are coming out of the woodwork say, ‘Hey, I, I’m one of your attendees. And you’re like, Whoa, yeah, I was there, like, two, three years ago, and I, you know, I sat the back is like it out’. Okay, it’s like, so people are seeing, I feel people are seeing a transition in the marketplace. And they’re coming forward. I think a lot of the regular members, regular attendees from the club, have caught it was we talked about, we educate people every month where we go, and they see there’s gonna be a trans transition in the market. And they want to know what to do about it, how to be prepared, whether they’re long term holder, holder for rentals, whether there are flippers who want to be more precautious, because that’s one of the things we teach the club, make calculated decisions. And we’ve been through this, you know, last time holding the bag in 2006, and seven, you do not want to be holding the bag. And I think right about now is the same thing, as a similar look where you have to be precautious and know what your exit strategies are. So, I think a lot of people are at the club come to find out what is happening I read about I hear about is like, not everything on the internet or the TV is true, guys. So, be careful here. We have a wonderful appraiser named Brian Lundqvist. He’s got a great blog, I highly recommend Brian Lundqvist Google on he’s got a fabulous blog out there ton of information, especially for Sacramento. But you know, we’re kind of hitting right now into a normal market. But at the same time, I kind of my perspective is we’ve been overheated. And that’s oftentimes what’s happened in the past. Instead of going to a normal market, we kind of go to a downturn. So that being said, I think people see here, people are tired, people who have sit on the sidelines, I think a lot of people sit in the sidelines, when it goes up goes down and trying to figure out when to get in, you know, you get in whenever whenever you’re there, you just have to make different decisions on what you’re doing once you get in, you still make money off flips, you still make money off of rentals, absolutely, you just got to be know how to make a calculated decision where you’re going to flip it and or where you’re going to keep it because if the numbers make sense, the numbers make sense. But pencils out pencils out. So, I think a lot of people are coming into the club, to find out where we’re going. And they have been there. And a lot of people showing up again, they show up I’m interesting because they show up during transitions. And a lot of them don’t stay with the people I try to mentor and give them homework to do and they come back maybe once probably not twice, rarely a third time. At I’ve got this done. And it’s you know, you’re trying to educate them. But you have to do as Bruce was saying, you actually have to do some, I think hopefully the people are coming back, are showing up, newbies are showing up. Lastly, take action. I always say from every meeting, just learn one nugget and implement it is I still do to this day.
Joey Romero Have you felt any pressure to bring value? Because the things changed? Everybody loves being in a room with, with people, you know, networking? Has there been any pressure on the club, club owners to find continuous value month after month through this pandemic?
David Granzella Um, yes, but at the same time, what’s one of the things I whether it be I miss being live, I miss eyeball to eyeball, I truly, I still have pictures with Bruce and Aaron in the back of the room when they show up. And you know, I love that that’s part of the connection, which I adhered to. And really I’m fond of, but reality is it’s not happening right now. So, I’m not, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, it’s just not going to be happening. Sacramento as like Los Angeles is still relatively closed down. So, I want to work with we have one of the things I realized it was our format, is I always have to bring something if you guys if my club members are giving me their time, I always have to have value. So one of the things I’ve been really careful about that from day one, right now we’re doing it on zoom, and we’re doing it at no charge, you know, some of our annual members continue to support us, we’ve got affiliates to keep the because you know, you how it is, there’s all these, we still have to pay all these payments, whether you’re doing the hotel or not to keep the zoom going all the marketing going. So, that helps keep the club going. But I want content, I also want people to realize, you give them something so they can actually make a decision and do something I still like after Bruce is me last night, I still take all these notes. And every meeting from the same person by Peter Fortunato from the same thing for the fourth time, I still get another nugget. So, I want to make sure that every month we’re giving that to the club. Matter of fact, I’ll reach out Bruce and you I want to see if I get a hold of Harry Dent. He said he wanted to get to the everyday man. We’re the everyday man and woman. And that being said, that’s really important. So, content from myself is still just as important as it is on zoom as it was live. Because that’s my purpose. You guys, someone’s giving me their time. I want to value that and give them content and something they can use. And you guys have been great supporting us to all these years.
Joey Romero No, thank you, Laurel, my question for you since you came from the tech world and there’s all you know a couple years ago there was all this talk about iBuyers taking over and everything but now that the talks have been shifting to you know Wall Street money coming in having had to spend money and buying just rentals, just tracks or rentals How has the end buyer change for you or are you still selling it to people who are you know buying the forever home?
Laurel Sagen Well, yeah, we’re not we you know, for us the iBuyers are coming in they’re, they’re really aggressive and they’re, I don’t understand how they make money right. But they’re only doing simple rehabs. So, for us where there’s still a lot of distress in the property or in the family we can help a lot right? We’re only selling to and you know, either to an investor is going to sell to an end buyer or as a rental or to the end buyers themselves you know, a few properties go to the iBuyers and and there, I to tell you they don’t understand their profit ma model they’ll buy property at the top of the market do a really terrible remail, rehab and throw back on for 10,000 more I don’t understand how they make money doing that but for us there’s it’s not the iBuyers themselves there’s other people doing very strange things kind of a cross between being real estate agents and being cash buyers right. There’s a couple of companies that are doing some of that stuff which is you know, they’re bringing in investors to buy the properties but they’re also being real estate agents. So, you know, that’s happening a little bit with some of the very distressed properties but pretty much we’re buying whatever we want to buy to tell you the truth. The iBuyers are like making it almost impossible for a tarketing to get through sometimes because they are spending so much money on marketing I mean billboards and TV commercials and mailings I own two rentals you wouldn’t believe how many mailings I get from some of these companies but in the iBuyers you know it it works for somebody I think they’re hurting the realtors more than me to tell you the truth because those are more retail kind of properties so.
Joey Romero It’s interesting. Thank you Bruce.
Bruce Norris Okay. Couple more minutes I was just curious what, who is, Laurel first you and then David, who’s your favorite real estate educator? The person that’s, the person that’s made the most impact and I’m not I’m certainly not trying to get my name here. I’m really not so who did the most for you?
Laurel Sagen Um, well, I tell you in the beginning Robert Kiyosaki made it easy because it was pretty easy to get to. But I have to admit the local, kind of the local people here, you know, brought bringing the education together and we I, I have spent 1000s and 1000s of dollars on real estate, okay. Probably one of the most impactful times this week when Pete Fortunato was talking at the club for a different club. That’s no longer really around. We had a dinner at our house at Dan’s house for Pete and sat him down so we you know, we put on this lavish dinner and brought a lot of people over kind of what David does now, and really spent time one on one with Pete and that was insane. Dyches was awesome. I learned a lot and I can’t wait for a market where I can be that creative to really get those two guys but I have to met Reggie Law for for mentor he mentored Dan and I local guy now retired out day in day out how to do the work of being a real estate investor. Available to answer questions mentor us in a great way. It’s kind of how I, how come I am always willing to speak or talk about anything when David calls or any of the other clubs because Reggie was so generous with teaching us the day in and day out how to analyze this deal. That kind of thing. I mean, yes, I’ve learned a lot from a lot of the other guys that we all talk about Jim Rohn mindset up to Yang Yang. I listened to his stuff today. I’m so sad he’s gone. But Reggie Law for day in day out work. You know, I gotta I just gotta credit…
Bruce Norris Very cool. He was at a boot camp in, at The Norris group, and the time he was working for the city. And the boot camp is…
Laurel Sagen Open.
Bruce Norris Yeah, yeah. And one of the fun, one of the fun days for me as a speaker. There was a gentleman there were three people came up, Reggie was one of them. He said, because of you, I just quit my job. That was pretty cool. Someone else came up and said his wife quit her job. Because he was doing well. Then there was a there was an older guy. And he came up and he said, ‘I just want you to know because of you, I’m rich.’ And that was, you know, so Reggie. That’s so nice that he, that he passed that on to other people, because that’s life changing stuff. You know, it really is. That’s I’m glad that he did that. That’s pretty cool.
Laurel Sagen Yeah, He even gave us you know, he lend us money. And gave us lots of advice in our in the beginning of us before, you know, we knew better, so…
Bruce Norris Well, Pete Fortunato. Every time I talk with him, I feel like I got it. I got to take notes. It’s like, ‘What did you just say?’ So creative. Oh, like, wow.
Laurel Sagen You can do that? You can do that?
Bruce Norris David, what about yourself?
David Granzella Uh, you know, I was just writing some things down with people that I’ve consistently followed. And you know, actually, you know, you’re at the top of the list. I followed you for all this. I mean, that seriously, it’s your education. And you put it in books. So, a man like me can go back and forth to it and continue to implement it. So, as a millionaire maker. So, I say, Bruce Norris, Fixer Jay, John Schaub, Peter Fortunato, Dyches Bodiford, Sean O’Toole, from PropertyRadar. These gentlemen have always all been instrumental in my success and continue to stay in touch with all.
Bruce Norris Yeah, you know, what was interesting, you know, when I, I went to my first real estate seminar, not seminar real estate club meeting. After many years of being in the business, because I looked at the whole education space is nonsense, honestly. So. you know, I paid for education on the street by like, building a house on a lot I didn’t own stuff like that. Which was, which is a real bummer when you find that out. But…
Laurel Sagen That’s a blessing.
Bruce Norris Yeah, that is that was. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty crazy. But I finally learned from Jack Fullerton you know, that’s he introduced me to that group of you know, Pete Fortunato and Dyches Bodiford and all that group. And then you realize, wow, there’s some honest trainers out there, man, and they know their stuff. Jim Rohn for me, and although it wasn’t real estate, he just cranked me up for some reason. And he still can, so that when you said, Laurel, he’s still here. It’s crazy. You know, I can go, I, discovered YouTube about two years ago. And I thought, I wonder if I can actually watch Jim Rohn do a presentation. Not only could I do that I could watch the presentation in 1981 that I first heard him, what’s, what? That was so unbelievable.
Laurel Sagen Really, I haven’t tried, I have his disks. You have like boxes.
Bruce Norris Oh, me too. But you can watch the live thing way back.
Laurel Sagen YouTube?
Bruce Norris Yep.
Laurel Sagen If anybody wants to be a real estate investor, that’s where you should start.
David Granzella Right.
Bruce Norris With?
Laurel Sagen With Jim Rohn.
David Granzella Also, you know, another…
Laurel Sagen …mindset.
Bruce Norris Yeah, I agree with that helped me a lot. Still does.
David Granzella Jack Miller was also instrumental. He just got to Reno and so forth. Jack Miller was, Jack Miller was an amazing educator, and very successful. He’s passed since but…
Bruce Norris Yeah, I think I think Mike Cantu’s probably that’s his favorite mentor. You know, it just and that’s one of the reasons we created the Rohny award I mean, I believe that’s an honor Jim Rohn but man these these guys that spend their life training other people have changed so many lives and it’s just, it’s fun to get to honor them and by the way, David at the dinner that’s, that’s why we gave the Rohny award to Fixer Jay, I got to spend two hours with him I said this guy is worth giving this award to.
David Granzella We had a…
Bruce Norris …pretty cool.
David Granzella When you guys were at my house during that party we had to pull you guys apart.
Bruce Norris Oh yeah, yeah.
David Granzella Yeah. I laugh…talk to you and perfect but that’s that’s a that’s a one of many gifts of this business. It’s a people business and only people business for us buying and selling houses but it’s a people business from us as investors to the camaraderie and the help that we give to each other.
Bruce Norris Well, credit is to you David, because as a speaker, you’ll always want to go to a club where the main emphasis isn’t taken other people’s money. Absolutely. You know, it just drives you crazy. I I’ll tell you just a quick story. I just got into the, while I spoke I spoke at Jack Fullerton’s club for the first time anywhere and in the audience was somebody who worked for AD Kessler. So, AD Kessler calls me the next day says, ‘Sounds like you really know what you’re doing. Would do you write for our magazine?’ Oh, okay. Well, that’s crazy. So, I’m introduced to the real world of training, and all of a sudden, I’m writing for a magazine, I get invited to speak to another club. Now, I think it’s like Jack Fullerton because jack Fullerton is all about education.
David Granzella Right.
Bruce Norris Well, I go there, and the guy doesn’t even there. The guy that owns the club isn’t even there. So, it’s about five minutes after starting time. And I just stood up and I said, Tell you what, I’m just gonna start teaching when he shows up, he shows up. So, I just taught my stuff. When he came, the demeanor of the room change so bad, because this guy had stolen these people’s money. And I told AD Kessler about the experiences and Bruce he says, don’t you dare go speak to another club until you ask me if it’s okay.
David Granzella Yeah, exactly.
Bruce Norris Yeah. So it’s important, you know, because you get a reputation for doing the right thing. And people talk you know, that’s the thing ‘Hey, go to this club’. And they treat you right and to give you a lot of opportunity to learn so well thank you guys for joining us. It’s been a lot of lot of fun. And thanks for supporting, supporting all the things that we’ve done over the years. It’s a it’s a fun goal to have written raised more than a million dollars to help other people that’s, that’s, that’s a fun thing.
David Granzella And November 5 is our next I Survived and I. By the way, you’re, you’re quarterly, quarterly newsletters and on the VIP service are amazing. It does fill that gap as you’re talking about the live events. It really helps fill that gap. So, thank you, Joey for coordinating that.
Bruce Norris All right, you guys have a great afternoon.
David Granzella Sure say. Thank you.
Bruce Norris Alrighty. Bye bye.
Narrator See, Isurvivedrealestate.com for event details, information on all our generous sponsors and to connect with our speakers. For more information on hard money, loans and upcoming events with The Norris Group, check out thenorrisgroup.com. For information on passive investing with trust deeds, visit tngtrustdeeds.com.
Aaron Norris The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.
