Is Dylan taking a Huge and Crazy Gamble?

0:00This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate to see. According to Indeed Data, Sponsored Jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit at Indeed.com slash podcast, Terms and Conditions Apply. Already folks, as you learned at the ORAT event, Dylan Miracle is on a new journey. He's gone from being mainly wholesaling and flipping residential to getting into bigger and bigger deals. And he wanted to ask me some questions. So Dylan, the floor is yours. What's going on? Yeah. Happy Tuesday. Been a couple of weeks since we all have done. So excited to be back on. Yeah. I want to discuss how I'm thinking through things now and apply your lens on it. So please poke holes in it.

1:00Essentially what I'm trying to do now, so I've done a fixed flip and wholesaling as a way to kind of make active income. And a lot of my friends were buying bigger deals and doing bigger stuff. And I realized I had to, I just wasn't playing the game in a smart way. I was thinking a lot in terms of how I can make money today, not necessarily how I can make money tomorrow. That wasn't holding a lot. So what I'm looking to do now is buy bigger deals. What I'm trying to do that with is maybe buy some apartments. The bottlenecks that I see are capital and experience. And so my plan to do that is to partner with people that have the experience and the capital and then bring them the deal. And that's kind of what I'm looking at it through. What are your thoughts on just that very, very rudimentary? Yeah. So I think there's, I think there's a couple of things that we need to acknowledge first. And foremost, what you accomplished in what we'll call phase one of your journey is nothing to be sneezed at, right?

2:01You're one of probably five people on the planet who stuck to it for two years. You were making phone calls, you know, hiding into your bed in college and don't ever feel like that was a mistake. That sheer grit should never be diminished. That is something so few people have. So I'm not saying you're doing that, but for the audience. Second, because you actually built up a business and, you know, produced six figures repeatedly and you had a system, that also should not be forgotten. You have learned how to communicate with owners. You have learned how to price. You have learned how to run projects. You've learned how to raise money. You've learned how to have difficult conversations, right? Again, all of that skill will play in any real estate game you want, even if it has an extra zero or two. So again, don't look at this first phase as a mistake, right?

3:05You were playing small, they were playing big, absolutely not. You learned with repetition and consistency, you know, what you did in three years probably takes them 10 years to learn. So don't diminish what you've already done. So that's the first thing I take away. Second, I would tell you you have to invest side by side with a real operator for probably two or three deals. Frankly, your goal for 2026 should be able to get inside a deal that somebody else is the general partner on. And it might just be a small sliver. But you absolutely have to get that experience and suck it out for all its worth. Learn everything you can, disproportionately extract learning over money because you're going to have to do that probably three times before I would feel comfortable going out

4:10on your own. The numbers that we're going to talk about with multi-family are just gargantuan. Both on the upside and the downside, right? You've had a residential deal go sideways. That's like 40 grand. That's easily replaceable. But if you're doing multifamily and something goes sideways, you could be talking $400 or $4 million. So do not be in a rush to GP on your own. Spend at least a year and maybe two under the wings of somebody that you can extract the lessons and the learnings, just like you did when you were making cold calls. You need to spend a year or two just sucking at that tit, getting all of the value and experience in scars and bandages and just crap that happens so that you could be more confident. So the game that you're playing now is a bigger game. But frankly, you've done it all before so it shouldn't scare you.

5:14You just got to respect it. Those are my first thoughts. Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate it. I appreciate that. It's honestly validating because that's kind of how I'm trying to think through things because I think this is probably good for the audience, but as I was thinking about bigger things, reality was kind of setting in and reality being like, oh, I'm not able to do this myself, right? At least I could probably force my way, but it would be reckless if I don't know what I'm doing. And so it's gratifying to know that it sounds like I'm thinking about it the right way. One of my bigger questions to you because I feel like it's counterintuitive. Let me, let me, let me, let me set this. So how do you approach me taking a very small portion in these deals as a way to learn? Because I feel like a lot of times in order to do like a safe flip, a lot of us are encouraged to just take action and do it.

6:18My goal is not necessarily to make a ton of money right now. I kind of just want to learn the process kind of like what you were saying, but how do you approach partnerships like am I thinking about this the right way? Is it okay to be taking smaller deals or should I be buying single deals? How do you just approach the game is so different at these levels? I would, I would encourage you to take a small sliver. But again, I want you to look at this. Let's just pretend it's a thousand unit deal and let's pretend you get one percent. You could be focused on the one percent, which is a rounding error to the GP, but that's not what's important to you. Which important to you is the next 12 months of operation and communication and, you know, investor notes and delivering bad news and you're going to just just extract, right? You may get equity of one person, but I want you to extract 25% of value from running that thousand unit deals.

7:19Your goal isn't the one percent. You want the one percent so you can tell people I'm in that deal, but it's earfuckin relevant. What you want to do is just like be on the quarterly calls and read the investor letter and do all of that stuff, that's the value you're trying to extract. Okay, okay, that's, that's, that's helpful. I feel like you're going to have a good lens on this as well too. Sort of what I really want to know with how you're thinking through things. Your whole brand is one rental at a time. Is it irresponsible of me to jump over just trying to accumulate one rental at a time and buying house after house or am I leveraging my skills in the right way by doing, like to me, the reason why I'm doing this should be told is I feel like it's an easier way to scale. It would be, I sounds really fundamental. That's, that's pretty much my witness.

8:19That's it. I'm curious is that while the media approach that it might, should I be focused on small deals too? Or is it okay if I'm focusing on that? Remind me how old are you? 26. No kids, no wife, no responsibilities. No. You, you need to attack this with everything you've got. You could, like, just be real real. You could spend the next two years learning a bunch of lessons and not making a lot of money. And it's still worthwhile. At 28, you could come back and go, you know what? That's just not for me for A, B and C reason. I'm going to go back and play this, this other game again. You're not 38. You're not 40 with three kids to in high school, right? Well, you have to play a different game. You can still chase exciting and new and fresh. You could live on ramen noodles if you have to, in couch, so go for it. You know how many people in their 50s want to trade places with you right now?

9:24Even if it doesn't work out, you are going to have an amazing story, right? I think it's Alex Ramose that talks all the time is go create the most epic story you can. And even if you lose, you have an epic story. Yeah. Fuckin' go, man. Just go. Cool. Yeah, that's sweet. Cool. And that's honestly, it's funny you said, and that's literally what I'm doing. For those of the people that weren't at the event, or weren't attending the live event either, I am, that's exactly what I'm doing. I am Calcifer right now, one to find the city I want to live in, and two, like I kind of just think it's cool, and like I really want to, a lot of what I was talking about at the event was learning cheat codes, and one of the cheat codes is providing value for people and trying to get more than I take, and so I'm not 20 years old anymore. I've learned these skills, and so now when I'm thinking, I have enough idea around how debt works, how to raise money, how to bring in equity.

10:27I have enough resources in terms of people that can teach me the thing, and once I got something, and so if I, I feel like it would be the wrong question to ask, like, how can I do this alone? It's more, who can I do this with, and how can I provide value to these people? And the thing, and this is probably good for the audience, especially if you're someone that has never done, but for some, maybe you're looking to do a flip or a duplex or whatever the case is, if you're bottlenecks by money, well, how can you create more wealth for other people? So that's kind of what I'm doing. People at this stage, what I've learned, and Michael, I'm sure you'd probably agree, because I know you wouldn't do this. I think I would suggest to people, and you're one of these things that's what you're planning out with, well, the people are always down to make more money, and they're always down to help people that want to change their lives, and if you're an entrepreneur, it's good. So most people are looking for more deals. So that's kind of what I'm doing, is like, instead of trying to figure it out all myself, bring people that are good operators or good people that I would want to partner with,

11:28good deals. And so the bottleneck now becomes, how can I find good deals? So now, I'm going to ask you the next question, because you're in a different place, in terms of deals probably come to you, how would you, in terms of like 80-20? So where would you spend 80% of your time to get, or 20% of your time to get the 80% of results? How would you focus your time and effort and energy on getting these bigger deals, would you be talking to brokers, would you be talking to wholesalers, lowly be your approach, if you were me trying to get these deals? So that would really be based on the buy box that your potential partners have, because that's the driving force, right? And for example, do they want 100 units in bigger or 100 units in smaller, and I use 100 on purpose? And really, it's 50, but we'll stay at 100, because in some parts of the country, 100 still works. Why is that important? Most, and by most, I'm going to say 90% plus, probably 95% of multifamily properties

12:32that are 100 units and above are owned by insurance companies and just REITs and all of that stuff. 100 units and below is mom and pop. Why is that important? Well, if you're going to be playing in the 100 unit gain, you've got to deal with brokers. If you want to go below 100, you can still do the things that you did very well in the other place, which was sending mailers and doorknoc or whatever, because it's just, it's the same game with just more zeros. So that would be based on the buy box that your potential partners want to play in. So that's where I would go fish first. Like, show me your last three deals. And then when you look at their last three deals, you can kind of self-articulate what are they buying? Because the last thing you want to do is bring them something that they don't want, because that doesn't help anybody. So that's what I would probably do is I would try to get the story of their last three deals. And then I'm going to guess they probably came from brokers. And yeah, and then the other thing is never forget going direct.

13:35That's one thing that being a wholesaler and doing that, where it's valuable is, is again, and this is how Cody Davis built his portfolio. He just called, literally called owners and said, hey, I'm a kid growing, you know, trying to go more portfolio when you go to lunch. If it's mom and pop, they'll have those conversations with you. Okay. That's what I know. My thoughts on it, so I talked to a buddy that they do this, they syndicate more than they just kind of buy themselves, which is a whole different conversation inside itself. But I was asking them how they can lacrosse a lot of their deals and they were saying, because they do some deals that are probably 50 to 100 units, and they do some deals that are 100 units plus, they had a blend of broker conversations and a blend of direct to seller. The reason I like direct to seller, traditionally, from coming from the fixed equipment

14:39wholesale businesses, you have a lot more control of your margin. And if you, especially for these bigger deals, I think understanding seller need is going to be more important than it has been before, because we're dealing with distressed owners for say, single family, they probably need cash now. Very rarely are they going to be open to seller finance, but if they have that query, they might be open to, because they might not need cash now, and if you're going to go straight, but with these bigger deals, if you can still get in front of the owner, A, learn from them, like what you're saying was Cody Davis, but you can also find out what their needs are, what they're looking for it. Well, they're savvy or investors, so they might be a lot more open to creative solutions. Your strength is going to be going direct, and you shouldn't be confused. You going to brokers, probably not very efficient, until you've got a couple of deals. So again, I, you know, I would be leaning in to go direct. That's your history, that's your experience, you've proved it works.

15:41It's, it's, and it's also, let's be clear, it's what most people don't do. Part of the reason I'm as rich as I am is because I'm willing to do what most people won't do. And I don't like competition. Yeah. And if something's with a broker, you're going to have competition. Yeah. So I like going direct. I like, I like controlling it. I like deal structuring and being creative and finding out needs. So yeah, I would lean into direct. That's the plus that you're, that's, that's your unfair advantage, so go use your unfair advantage. Okay. Cool. What do you think, uh, why don't you think people are willing to do that kind of stuff? I don't, I don't really, I'm pretty risk tolerant, I would say, but I, uh, I don't, most people like easy, most people want easy, calling a broker is easy, telling a broker, oh, I buy in Toledo, Ohio, let me know what you have. It's easy talking to like, I think you probably did 10,000 cold calls before you got even a sniff of a deal.

16:42That's hard. Yeah. That's hard. Most people would have stopped at 10, certainly at 100 and nobody goes past 1,000, the fact that you did 10,000 means you're unique. So that's why most people like easy, they're not, they're not, I'm excited. I'm excited. I think, uh, it's, I mean, it's all theory right now, you know, it's going to be really cool. I feel like in a few months to actually, um, to tell you the progress that we made to, um, what I've kind of cooked up now, uh, is to like, for, for the audience out there, I've been fully, you'll like this, Michael, you'll like this a lot, but, uh, for the audience out there that has never heard my story, um, I'm a big believer in going on the offense and I think one of the best ways to go on the offense is to first go on the defense. So what I mean by that is I've consolidated my life and completely stripped out a lot of, uh, unnecessary overhead so that I could be more aggressive with making a crazy self

17:43like I'm doing now. Uh, and so that was giving it my apartment, that was giving up a lot of things and how children intentionally so that I can try to figure this out because truth is, I don't know what I'm doing. So what I picked up, city and section of this idea, which was early January, it's now early March, uh, I have someone that was going to fund my marketing for me, uh, with their buy box that they've told me, which, uh, and a lot of the buy boxes help, they've kind of leaned on me to kind of help decide on because I think that I, in leveraging what I've learned with, you know, the, the smaller stuff, the single family, I'm like, okay, we're going to have more creative structure here. I talked to a couple of friends that were doing the thing, so I figured out how debt works and how equity works, talked to a couple of people who have money. And so now I'm currently underwriting a 27 unit, um, with, based off of zero marketing, now I'm just kind of trying to figure out if we can make the numbers work. Yeah. And, uh, my plan now is just to kind of leverage relationships and have someone who want to fund my marketing. I'm going to start cold calling these owners on a niche list, um, and then hopefully in

18:44a few months, we'll have something, uh, something we're talking about. No, and again, all of that is going to be a legendary, even if at the end of two years, nothing happens. It's a legendary story. It's cool. It's cool. I got, it's a story I would want to tell. Like, yeah. This is sounds so fun to me. And like, I have no, Michael, the idea, let's say, let's say the best case scenario happens, I get a deal out of this year, which I do think is very possible. Oh, yeah. I think so. Many end of the year. How fucking cool would it be to say that I bought an apartment building? You know, my money or experience from a couch? That sounds cool. Um, first off, I would bet money on you. I'd probably bet a thousand bucks on you that that will happen, um, just knowing who you are. So, yeah, it is going to be an epic story. Yeah. Cool. I appreciate that. I appreciate the insight. Yeah. Very cool, man. Well, I appreciate this. Every Tuesday we talk, and it's always you asking me questions. This is a, a new way, a new format. I like it. Dylan, where can people find you?

19:45Yeah. You just places Instagram, Dillionaire 321, also on TikTok, same thing, and then also on YouTube, same thing. So if you want more behind-the-scenes, kind of what I'm doing day to day, um, YouTube is probably the best place if you want lessons and stuff. You can buy it size and it's going to be the best place to do it. Again, folks, it's right there on the screen. Dillionaire 321, take care, bud. Enjoy. Thank you.