Anthony Cota
Appearances
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And again, you know, back to the YouTube University, the challenge is, and I think we all kind of face this in the beginning, is without a coach, it's so easy to get shiny object syndrome. Like you said, everyone has the right answer. Everything that you see on YouTube is possible and tangible. But if you're kind of just trying one of everything.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Yeah. I mean, honestly, you know, and it kind of, I don't want to say like hurts me to mention this on camera, but, you know, like there's even my own kids birthdays that we've sacrificed, you know, like our own, you know, holidays.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Like we've never put too much emphasis on, you know, like those additional holidays, you know, like Valentine's Day and all those things like we make very short work of them. But I mean, we've sacrificed just about everything. And on top of finances, you know, like we kind of went into this solely based off faith, just through the understanding like, hey, there can't be another way.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And just like you were saying before, like can't serve two masters. Like when I go into something, I'm kind of all in. So I realized like working in the car industry, I was kind of half-assing both. And it's starting to affect me as well. For sure. So, yeah, I mean, when it comes down to sacrifice, I mean, man, we were willing to sacrifice it all, you know.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Totally. And I'll kind of touch on that just for a second. You know, I was making a couple hundred grand a year, like on autopilot in the car industry and,
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
started to become where I started to get repeat business stuff like that but one thing that you kind of touched on again is like purpose like who do we want to be as men again we all have that kind of provider instinct that like hurts if you can't do those things but one thing that my wife and I decided like when leaving the car industry because I didn't do a single deal when I decided to quit I had two deals that blew up in my face like on closing day so that's always fun but I didn't have a single deal yet when I decided to quit and
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And it was solely based off of the idea of just like you said, like, where do we want to be in the future? You know, like I know financially, like I probably could have gotten to where we wanted to be somewhat in the car industry. I don't know if I would have had a relationship that stood on it.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
You know, we'll say like when it when it comes to making the leap, like and, you know, we talk about this often, like it comes down to a decision of who you want to be in the future. Right. Like I knew that more important to me was was my family walk, you know, like the finances came second.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And that's kind of going back to what I said earlier, like we kind of had to flip the script on on what it is that we're actually seeking. Because before it's kind of like money first, family came second, you know, and so turning that around a family first and then money second. Yeah.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Um, and I think that's what convinced us to make the ultimate leap, but we had to sit down with each other and just say, Hey, like we've built whatever we built, you know, no big deal. We're 30 years old. You know, if we happen to lose it all in the next two years, based off of us taking this risk, like we'll lose it all.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Like literally every single thing we'll sell our houses, we'll sell our cars. Like, If we come out of this thing in two, three years and we're, you know, God forbid, 33, 35 and we're back at zero and we have to start over. Like we had three to five years of spending time with each other, getting more time with family that we ever had and just living life on our terms.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And that was the number one challenge. like dream that we had as a family since like we first met was, hey, like we want freedom to make choices for ourselves, not not someone else making the choices for us. So I love the day, even if we went down to zero, man, like the three to five years is a dream come true.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Yeah. So, um, again, that, that was a challenge and that I,
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Respect the coaching aspect a lot because I think without having a coach like I would have given up on those first two blown up deals like the way they happened how it all happened like if I didn't have someone there in my corner to tell me like hey man everything's going to be okay like there's going to be another deal that's coming along like you know don't worry about X Y and Z.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
I probably wouldn't have made it past those first two deals. So just speaking on just that really quick, like, you know, for all the people who more so believe in like YouTube University is the way to go, I think you can get by doing that.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
But man, I just find it hard to believe that if you don't have someone in your corner, like, it's going to take you much longer and be much more difficult to get to that next step. But
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Um, so yeah, then my first real deal came in, uh, January of 24, um, came from, you know, that 10 months or nine months, however long it was of, of literally just dialing agents, you know, day in, day out five to 10 agents a day follow-ups. And I mean, it wasn't a huge deal by any means. I think my first deal was like a $5,000 deal. Um,
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
I want to say it was in Birmingham, Alabama, of all places, which, you know, beautiful place to invest. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I own a lot of real estate in. Yeah, definitely. But yeah, I mean, they really just came from outbound agent outreach.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
You know, I think that's where my first handful of deals came from because I didn't really have any, you know, I didn't have the funds or honestly the confidence to go and start doing any off market acquisitions or anything like that. So I'd say my first handful of deals, three, four or five deals all just came from talking to agents of properties that were already listed.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Yeah, absolutely, man. So I think, you know, I always find the nine to five talk funny because I think anyone knows that has been any type of sales industry before, you know, it ends up being more like as soon as you open your eyes to as soon as you go to bed, you know, whatever it looks like. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I mean, I was in the car industry, you know, four years.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
I was probably at like deal 10 to 12 before I started spending any money on marketing.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
No doubt, man. And one thing I want to like people to understand, you know, is like one thing that you said that kind of resonated with me is like off market is great. Like I think there's a lot of potential there, but realtors can feed you forever. You know, if you get 10 good realtors on your side, That can feed you one or two deals a year.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Again, just kind of like I was talking about in the car industry, like you almost get to go on autopilot and then everything after that is just cherry on top. Once you build that trust and relationship, people know you can close, know you're honest, ethical, like you get, they start feeding you deals without you having to go search for them. Yep.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
you're never gonna get anywhere and like I'm guilty of it you know when I first got into coaching like not necessarily under your advisement but like I bought every comping tool I bought you know everything imaginable right and still through the first year I was like okay should I go try you know to learn tax deeds and should I try this and that and so like
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
So just like we were just talking about, you know, eight hour days were not really relevant to me. It was more like 12, 16 hour days. And that kind of laid six, seven days a week. And I don't want to say it's necessarily like burnout that got me to a place where I wanted more because I don't like to say that about myself, that there's any sort of burnout there. But yeah.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Yeah, I think the often conversation is that I have with people, especially like newer people that wanted to get into wholesaling. It's kind of like you have one of two things, right? You usually have more time than money or more money than time. And the select few are blessed to have both. So I was under the I had more time than money at, you know, in the beginning. So yeah.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
The conversations with realtors are obviously a bit easier because they're already representing someone who wants to sell their house, but they're also challenging because they're listed on the open market to hopefully get the most substantial amount of value they could possibly get. And the realtors are kind of protecting that, right?
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
In a sense that like they're gatekeeping what the real price of the property should be based off of whatever they think it should be, right? It has nothing to do with what the real value is, just what they think it should be.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
if you can't get past that realtor um you're kind of sol right the benefit of working direct to homeowner is the opposite like you get direct to homeowner obviously there's there's usually payment for speed and convenience of working with you know people like us cash buyers etc um so there's a lot of ease in that and again you get to build rapport and relationship through that as well before making those like lower offers like you were saying um
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
So preference, honestly, I think if you have the means to do it, I think there's a good balance of both. I think obviously realtors are free. You know, you can dial as many realtors as you want on the open MLS. There are, you're going to accrue costs trying to find off market deals, you know?
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
So it's just, I think it's your threshold of what you're willing to spend and or how much time that you have. There's also freeways, man, like you've taught before the social media method that you can find deals off market just on Facebook, which I've done a few times as well.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Agreed. And again, you know, back to the YouTube University, the challenges, and I think we all kind of face this in the beginning, is without a coach, it's so easy to get shiny object syndrome. Like you said, everyone has the right answer. Everything that you see on YouTube is possible and tangible. But if you're kind of just trying one of everything... you're never going to get anywhere.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
A perspective that I had that the burnout didn't even come for me, it was more for my family.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And like, I'm guilty of it. You know, when I first got into coaching, like not necessarily under your advisement, but like I bought every comping tool I bought, you know, everything imaginable. Right. And still through the first year, I was like, okay, should I go try, you know, to learn tax deeds and should I try this and that? And so like,
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Not having a coach to guide you and just tell you like, hey, dude, like just chill out, you know, which I think we've had to have that conversation quite a few times. I think it's just a lot of time wasted. And, you know, people always say time is money.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
You know, so from putting in those 12, 16 hour days, five, six, seven days a week, you know, missing the birthdays, missing the sports games, you know, not going to any family members wedding, like pretty much limiting everything to try to grow a life for us, quickly realized that the time part was more important than the money. So so we kind of had to reverse engineer where we wanted to be.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
So from a coaching aspect, like you can go do the YouTube university, but you're going to spend a lot of wasted time just filtering, finally trying to find what works for you when the reality is all of them would work if you just stay true to one and kind of go, you know, head on.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Well, first of all, I wish you had invented it when I first started because Yeah, I get it. I get it. It's, again, I just wish it was there when I first started. Because being able to transfer you, you know, or transfer Anthony, a homeowner and or an agent, just say, hey, man, can you take over this deal for me and close it? Like, oh, man, again, I can't go back two years.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
But so I'll reminisce on that later. But yeah, just just the value from a new person or even a seasoned person that not only needs help just closing the deal that might not have the skills of a closer or again, 18 years of experience, but Also, the value of the disposition side, like I found out five, six deals in like, I don't want to do disposition.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
I don't want to do both because it both takes so much time, like acquisitions and dispositions need, in my opinion, like their own category. Yep. So the fact that, you know, you're able to assist in whatever deals that we contract and help us disposition. And not only that, but through that, we get to leverage your name along the way. You know, holy, it's a there's so much value in that.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And I mean, I think it feel like I've kind of hung on your coattails doing that since I've started anyway. And now you've just given people the opportunity to do it as well. So.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Right. And so we we took a step backwards and started with time first and then started looking for money. And I think that's how we came across to you. You know, we're looking for avenues and always found real estate as a vehicle that could get us that time back as well as that money on the back end. And funny enough, my wife actually caught you on a Grant Cordon episode.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And I was like, hey, we got to check out this Justin Colby guy. And I was like, man, you know, like I've never heard of him, but I know Grant. Like I've watched him for a while. And dude.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Yeah, you know, it's funny because on our first call or like how I got introduced to your program, you kind of challenged me because the reality was we sat down for a while because it was kind of like a week like before we made the decision to join your program.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And one of the things that you said that kind of still rang true to me to this day, because we were pretty much ready to tell, you know, like that was the decision that we made. Like, hey, this is too risky. We don't really know this guy. You know, all the excuses that everyone makes. Right.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And I remember getting on a hold and kind of looking over at my wife and just just asking her like, man, like we've spent so much more money on way stupider things than to actually just invest in ourselves. So like, what are we actually risking here? Right. So, yeah, again, that was, you know. 2023, May of 2023.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And, and here we are, man, it's been such a blessing to be a part of this community and, you know, be, you always say, you know, do business with people who you know, like, and trust. And I definitely think over two years, we've developed that for sure.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Not having a coach to guide you and just tell you like, hey, dude, like, just chill out, you know, which I think we've had to have that conversation quite a few times. I think it's just a lot of time wasted.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Absolutely, man. And funny enough, I was lucky enough to learn this at a really young age is to find a person that emulates the life that you want to live. You know, so I got really granular on my wife and I both like. That person not only needs to have the finances that we want, but they need to have the family that we want.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
They need to have the kids raising them the way we want our kids to be raised. So, you know, obviously through time, it didn't happen on our first phone call, but we found that out, you know, through coaching with you for two years now, like that. That's kind of the development process that we needed. Like we needed someone that had all those aspects of life that we're looking for.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
And just like you were saying is, is I had to find out who I wanted to be. And then, you know, great mentor once told me, you know, you have to find that person's just doing exactly what you want to do and just beg them to help you. And luckily, you know, here we are.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Yeah.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Yeah, I mean, man, when I first started, again, working full time in the car industry, I had to start waking up earlier. So I'd already I drove an hour for work. So I'd already have to wake up at, you know, 630 to make it to work by eight.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
I'd realistically start waking up at four to start dialing people on the East Coast because I live on the West Coast and just making adjustments like that in our lives. So, you know, I take lunch breaks to be on the calls to be on the coaching calls. Um, you know, I'd spend my nights comping properties, you know, after the kids go to bed.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
So, I mean, you know, people always say you think you're going to quit your nine to five for, um, like freedom, but you know, you end up getting a 24 seven and that's how it looked like for me, you know, uh, up until I actually got the opportunity to leave my job. And the funny thing is, is that journey was about eight months, right? From, from when I met you until I actually quit my job and under,
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
You kind of go back to not telling people to burn the boats, you know, and that was kind of your advisement towards me. And I was just like, hey, man, like I have so much faith in what's happening here. Let's just go ahead and set them aflame.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Yeah, 100%, man. And it's kind of like I spoke on before, like it wasn't because of my burnout, because I'm just like you said, we're cut from the same cloth. Like I can go 100% all day, every day, get four hours of sleep, wake up the next day, be ready to go again. But man, my family was getting burnt. Like they were getting torched. Again, no weekends, like not even a thought of a weekend.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
Luckily, kids weren't in school yet. We were dealing with newborns. But when you have a wife that is just coming off her pregnancy and we're preparing for another one, it's not easy for them. And having a separated husband, we were kind of living two different lives. She was being a parent to our kids and I was being an employee to this business.
The Science of Flipping
Faith Over Fear: The Bold Leap in Real Estate That Changed This Man's Life | Anthony Cota
So that that journey, you know, it lasted about eight months again of just grinding early mornings, late nights and just giving all my spare time, even at work. Again, you know, I was lucky enough to to work at a job that allowed me breaks to where I can get on calls and learn the information. But just really long days in the beginning.