Discover the keys to standing out in the competitive note investing market as Dan Deppen and I, Justin Bogard, share a treasure trove of experiences that have shaped our professional journeys. From the subtleties of maintaining professionalism to the art of scaling a business, our conversation traverses the landscape of performing notes, the current market's heartbeat. And because life isn't all spreadsheets and interest rates, we also celebrate our love for the lighter things – sports, golf, and the unexpected life lessons from Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
The note business is a complex dance of trust, communication, and reputation. Dan and I dissect this intricate ballet, discussing the consequences of slipping up and the power of transparency. We highlight the underappreciated art of due diligence and how it can be the difference between a deal turning sour or sweet. As we navigate the importance of establishing genuine industry connections, we reveal how professionalism is not just good business sense; it's the currency of long-term success in this niche field.
Wrapping up our insightful exchange, Dan and I reflect on the friendships forged in the fires of financial dealings. We underscore the necessity of being principled in transactions, the significance of verifying asset ownership, and the security that comes with trusted escrow services. As we bid farewell, we leave listeners with anecdotes of personal pursuits that give us balance and joy, painting a full picture of the lives we lead beyond the notes and numbers. Join us for a discussion that's as enriching as it is enlightening, and walk away with a new perspective on the fine line between personal passions and professional prowess.
About the Host: Justin Bogard – Note Investor specializing in performing Residential Real Estate Debt. He finds deals and acquires them for his own portfolio as well as educates investors while walking them through the process of owning a Real Estate Note!
Connect with the Host: Facebook - bethebank Twitter - bethebank1 Instagram - bethebankpodcast American Note Buyers - https://anbfunds.com/ Monthly Broadcast - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzc944w1xydt5aLDrrEPHJhdJeDkBjjD4
Discover the keys to standing out in the competitive note investing market as Dan Deppen and I, Justin Bogard, share a treasure trove of experiences that have shaped our professional journeys. From the subtleties of maintaining professionalism to the art of scaling a business, our conversation traverses the landscape of performing notes, the current market's heartbeat. And because life isn't all spreadsheets and interest rates, we also celebrate our love for the lighter things – sports, golf, and the unexpected life lessons from Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
The note business is a complex dance of trust, communication, and reputation. Dan and I dissect this intricate ballet, discussing the consequences of slipping up and the power of transparency. We highlight the underappreciated art of due diligence and how it can be the difference between a deal turning sour or sweet. As we navigate the importance of establishing genuine industry connections, we reveal how professionalism is not just good business sense; it's the currency of long-term success in this niche field.
Wrapping up our insightful exchange, Dan and I reflect on the friendships forged in the fires of financial dealings. We underscore the necessity of being principled in transactions, the significance of verifying asset ownership, and the security that comes with trusted escrow services. As we bid farewell, we leave listeners with anecdotes of personal pursuits that give us balance and joy, painting a full picture of the lives we lead beyond the notes and numbers. Join us for a discussion that's as enriching as it is enlightening, and walk away with a new perspective on the fine line between personal passions and professional prowess.
About the Host: Justin Bogard – Note Investor specializing in performing Residential Real Estate Debt. He finds deals and acquires them for his own portfolio as well as educates investors while walking them through the process of owning a Real Estate Note!
Connect with the Host: Facebook - bethebank Twitter - bethebank1 Instagram - bethebankpodcast American Note Buyers - https://anbfunds.com/ Monthly Broadcast - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzc944w1xydt5aLDrrEPHJhdJeDkBjjD4
Narrator:
Thank you, hey listener. Now here's your host, justin Bogard.
Justin Bogard:
Hey listener, welcome to another episode on the Be the Bank podcast. This is episode number 10 of season six. Today I have a guest, mr Dan Deppin. He's a friend of mine. He's been in the note business about as long as I have and today we're really going to beat up the topic of professionalism in our industry and we have a lot of experience between the both of us and dealing with different people and the corporate backgrounds that we both come from. So you guys can enjoy this conversation. Stay tuned. Denver, dan Deppin, how you doing? You like that. The three D's. You're the three D man.
Dan Deppen:
I've never been called that before. I've been called other things, but yeah.
Justin Bogard:
I just made that up. I don't know. I just I'm weird like that man. I come up with little catchphrases and those things really quickly and they stick. So hopefully people like it when they're received.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, maybe it they stick, so hopefully people like it when they're received. Yeah, maybe it'll stick.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, so yeah, you're from Denver. You're got your swag on there representing your team. The old Denver nuggets out there with the Joker. That's taken over. Taken over the game against the Timberwolves.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, it's playoff season.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah. Rough start against the Timberwolves but they're coming back a little, so we'll see. Yeah, we're recording this actually the day before this comes out, so this actually will air tomorrow. So this is going to be fresh new content. But yeah, so I'm in Indiana, I'm a Pacer fan. The Pacers are in the second round as well, going against the Knicks, so the series is tied 2-2. And obviously Dan's out there representing Denver and his team is. They're tied as well.
Dan Deppen:
2-2, right, 2-2, yeah, yeah, they dropped the first two home games and then won the next two and caught it up.
Justin Bogard:
It usually doesn't work like that. Like our series both teams are winning the home games, and then your series both teams are winning the away games.
Dan Deppen:
And what was weird was the first two games the Nuggets didn't just lose, they got blown out. So I don't know what's been going on, but hopefully they fixed whatever that was my aunt and uncle live out there in Denver, so they're Denver fans as well.
Justin Bogard:
of all the teams Avalanche, broncos, nuggets and the Rockies.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, the Rockies are pretty awful, from what I understand.
Justin Bogard:
I just like it because people can just hit home, runs out there because the air air so much thinner.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, I play a lot of golf and it's definitely also a fun place to play golf. Yeah, it goes a lot further.
Justin Bogard:
Okay, so my my experience in Denver. I'm kind of spoiled, so I've been to Vail to go skiing and then I also played at I think it's called Castle Rock, the course. Oh, castle Pines, castle Pines, yeah, which is in Castle Rock, I believe. Yeah, yeah, so that's my kind of experience out there. So I think I've kind of touched on the lavishness of Denver there.
Dan Deppen:
That's cool. I've definitely skied Vail vale. I've never played castle pines, though, so you're ahead of me on that one there's one hole.
Justin Bogard:
It's a par four and it's a drivable par four, but you wouldn't. You wouldn't think that, because the length I think it's like 450 yards, so like straight downhill or something.
Dan Deppen:
Straight downhill, yeah yeah, the other place to go if you want to have fun is play golf at uh, I believe it's called eagle vale golf club, so it's up at vale, so you're actually much higher. Yeah, in denver or castle rock and all the t-boxes are like artificially elevated, it's like it's riding only, and they drive you like way up, so you're not only playing at like 8 000 or 8 500 feet, but you're hitting way downhill, so it's like playing on the moon.
Justin Bogard:
The ball doesn't come down I just hope it it goes straight yeah.
Dan Deppen:
If it's offline, it's not stopping. Yeah, it's not findable.
Justin Bogard:
No, you might hit, hit a house and then two neighborhoods away, yeah, the next town. Yeah, all right, dan. So you've been on my show before when it was the previous iteration called the two wealth show, and you haven't been on a while. So I just want to reintroduce you to the audience.
Dan Deppen:
I'll let you kind of tell your quick little story there and kind of how you started in the note business and kind of what you're doing today, yeah, sounds good. So I started in notes in 2017 and then scaled up fairly rapidly. Then did it full-time for a couple of years in there and then went back to having a W-2 for a couple of years. But when I was doing the W2, I was still doing a lot of notes on the side and then, you know, earlier this year I left that again. So back to full-time notes. Um, I've been doing notes the whole time, um, but I've just gone through, you know, periods of bearing busyness with day jobs. But, yeah, I've been at it for several years now and, you know, this year really focused on growing. So I bought a decent number of notes so far this year and look to be acquiring more soon.
Justin Bogard:
Are you buying non-performing, performing, mixed bag of both?
Dan Deppen:
I'm buying both. It's predominantly performing Okay, although I did buy a couple of non-performing performing mixed bag of both. I'm buying both. It's predominantly performing Okay, although I did buy a couple of non-performers this year, which these days I just don't see as many of them. The price is about the same. Yeah, so a couple of years ago I really moved mostly to performing notes. Yeah, because the spread between a performing and non-performing note tightened to the point where I didn't see the point and messing with the non-performing. So they've been a little fewer and farther between.
Dan Deppen:
I'd say my specialty is kind of what I call sub-performing. There are a lot of loans out there that are cash flowing. The borrower makes payments but they don't necessarily make them reliably every month. So they'll make a couple, miss one or two, maybe make a double payment. But I like those because over the course of a year you're going to get 11 or 12 payments. So on a yearly basis the cashflow nice. Just on a monthly basis it's sporadic. You can get better pricing on those. So those are kind of what I've been focused on mostly.
Justin Bogard:
I'm glad you said that, because I think that's a missed opportunity with people in our business is that they they're so, they're so enamored with having a loan that's paying perfectly and paying, you know, at the first of the month, on time. And they don't understand. This is an imperfect world with imperfect inventory that we have. We're not buying, you know, a $700,000 mortgage in a high-end neighborhood the north side of Indianapolis. It's like you're not going to have a 3% interest rate. You're not going to get payments coming in like that. It's going to be a little bit different. You have to be a little bit flexible with it. It may come in the first, it may come in before the first or it may come in nine days after the first.
Dan Deppen:
That's why you can get the higher yields right. If you could buy those other pristine loans you're going to be getting, I don't know what it'd be these days six or 7%, something like that, which most people aren't happy with. So there's no free lunch, so something to give.
Justin Bogard:
No, free lunch, I like that, but yeah, so did you start a fund?
Dan Deppen:
No, I didn't. I left with starting one a couple of years ago and that was like I think that was like right around like the onset of COVID and you know the challenge with the fund was finding the right portfolio at the right price to like kind of get it off the ground and I was working on that and then, like right around when, like COVID broke loose, investors got super scared, just like everybody clamped down, and so I haven't gone back to that.
Dan Deppen:
I may pick that up at some point. Although I've got a pretty good system for managing what I have now, and while I'm buying more loans and definitely growing, I'm not the kind of guy that's trying to manage a thousand loans or something like that You're not this guy over here. No, I've got. I've got my sweet spot and where I'm trying to hit.
Justin Bogard:
So yeah, I, I did stumble into wanting to get a fund. So Richard and I my my old business partner Richard he's retired now we set up a fund last year over a year ago and so we. It's a smaller fund, it's only a $10 million fund and so we are buying all performing. It's a 506B. So we just bought all performing loans and we've probably gotten I don't know, I think I've bought 16 so far in a year. So it's cashflow and pretty good. But you know, we're pretty picky with the loans that we buy because obviously we want our investors to continue to get paid and obviously us make money on the backside as well.
Justin Bogard:
But it's been interesting. It's a big learning curve. Accounting was definitely something that I had to stay on top of and make sure it was set up correctly. But after it was set up correctly it runs fairly smooth. And then every now and then you might get a borrower that just balks on a payment and just kind of move the needle in the right direction and maybe get an attorney letter involved to scare somebody. But it doesn't happen very often. Like, maybe like two or three loans have kind of gotten behind a little bit, but they've also gotten caught back up as well. So it's it's worked out pretty good in our fund so far.
Justin Bogard:
So not sure what the future holds for it. We may dabble in some non-performing commercial maybe next year or the year after, and. But you know, the capital raising is the biggest challenge for me. It's just because you know when you're trying to run the fund and you're doing it, you know kind of all on your own, so to speak. Without you know employees and just relying on some vendors. It's just tough to manage all that expectation of running the operations and raising the private capital. So it's like you have to set aside time of when you raise private capital and events and doing, you know, webinars and things like that.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, it's tough, and so it sounds like you did the B fund so you can do non-accredited investors. That's nice, that makes life a little bit easier it does.
Justin Bogard:
We had a pretty good database pool between Richard and I and so we were able to to make connections and reconnect with people from our our database and that's, that's already new us to get started with our funds. We definitely had a good base to go to to start off with, and then it's just, you know, reaching out to new people and having them learn about what we do and stuff, and then introducing the fund to them at a later point.
Dan Deppen:
So yeah, my challenge was just looking at the operational costs of running it and all the legal costs and I was like, well, to have it make sense. You know, I had to come out the gate like at a certain size, and it was just difficult to get everything aligned. I didn't want to kind of ramp it up slowly and almost treat it as a loss leader till I got to a certain scale, because I can still fund deals, you know, with the certain individuals that I work with. So, yeah, so so far I haven't been driven to that model just yet.
Justin Bogard:
Well, if you need need some advice on what not to do, I can. I can help you with that. Okay, I might take you up on that. Well, dan, today's I thought it would be fun to talk about professionalism and we talked about that in the little opener there, and so in my experience, I've been doing this full time since 2016.
Justin Bogard:
I started off as someone that didn't have a lot of money in this business and so I would be the guy that kind of has the hustle and I would find the deal and I'd put the deal in front of somebody and I've kind of learned some things what buyers are looking for, what sellers are looking to do. And in the process of learning things what, what buyers are looking for, what sellers are looking to do and in the process of learning things, I've I've also seen how I stood out from other people and I would get this feedback from people on saying, like gosh, you know you actually do what you say you're going to do and you know you, you wear, you know you dress the part. I guess I would say verbally and you know physically, dress the part. And so I, and so I I kept that in the back of my mind going okay, is this? Am I like the only one that's doing this, or is it just a lot of people that are out there that are just bad actors and posers and so?
Justin Bogard:
And so I think it's the latter of the two, where there's just there's just people out there that are just lazy about this stuff, and I just find it so irritating that you you can make a pretty good spread on a commission if you find a tape and flip it to somebody, or if you find a deal and you're able to make some money on it, we'll be called flipping a note and you're making a pretty, pretty sizable you know, a few thousand bucks maybe on on a note that you're flipping, but you know you're not having to put a lot of hours into it. But at the same time, you know I still understand why people are so lazy about stuff, like you know, with information, like emails, and being lazy about it, and we're typing it from their phone and you can tell that they're mistyping things and it's just, I don't know little nuances like that. They just irritate the crap out of me.
Dan Deppen:
I'm not sure how you feel about that, but um, yeah, I mean, I see a lot of that same stuff out there.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, I mean, it's always a challenge, right, like there's, there's the folks who are, you know, some of them are just bad actors, and then they're the ones who are a little bit lazy and kind of difficult to work with.
Dan Deppen:
The good thing about that, though, is it's a small industry and it still kind of surprises me some of the bad behavior I've seen.
Dan Deppen:
Like when I started in notes, I knew it's a small industry and it still kind of surprises me some of the bad behavior I've seen. Like when I started in notes, I knew it was a small industry and I just kind of assumed that that would enforce good behavior, and I realized, like you can't make that assumption, but the glasses have full view on that is, if you are very reliable, you know that gives you a big advantage, right. So, like, some of the best deals that I've had that I've bought were from my network, where they just called me, and those notes didn't even really hit the market because they knew if something fit my buy box and there was nothing super wrong with it, there wasn't some title flaw or whatever. That would close on it, you know, pretty quickly and reliably. So you know it's annoying to have to deal with that stuff. The advantage is it becomes a little bit easier to kind of stand out from the crowd.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, and I say that not to introduce more competition for you. There's just not going to be competition because there's just too much inventory out there. So, if anything, you know, we're just encouraging people to do things the right way because there are and we can probably name a few names, and we could probably name the first two names that come to our head are probably the same ones in this industry that are just a problem. Yeah, and we're not going to say that on the over the air here, but we're just going to say like and the people that are not doing this the right way are the ones that are basically screwing over people and not doing what they say that they're going to do.
Justin Bogard:
They get blacklisted really quickly and it's not the gossip isn't intentional to be gossip, it's just like, hey, I did this deal with this one company or this one person. This is what happened to me in my experience. And they said, okay, I'm glad that you said that, because I'm getting ready to do due diligence on a file with that person or that company. And now I know to keep my eyes open to make sure that you know, I'm checking all my boxes and making sure I'm doing due diligence on them. You know some of these people or these companies. They don't have liquidity and they don't tell you they have. They don't have liquidity until you get to the 11th hour, when they're wondering why they can't fund a deal.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, it's kind of insane right and it's funny, especially if you could go to a live event. You'll learn all kinds of stuff that's going on in the industry. I know, like me, I'll have conversations face-to-face or on or on the phone. That was stuff. Information I'm not necessarily going to throw into emails or or other places.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, there's a time and place for it. Like, if someone has a casual conversation with me, I can just tell my experience. I'm going to be like, hey, this could have been something where it was just me and it's just the transaction I had with them, but I'm just going to share with you what happened to me. So hopefully your experience wasn't the same, because I've had that with people that were. I've had a bad experience with somebody, but their experience was okay and maybe it was something that I did, or maybe it was just that one transaction.
Justin Bogard:
But you know, I I just don't like to deal with a lot of BS, and so if someone is honest and truthful and transparent, even if they screw up something, I'm okay with that, because I just want to have a relationship with somebody to where I can just trust them. You know, be like oh, okay, you know, hey, I totally made a mistake here. This is my, my air, you know I'll, I'll pay for it or or whatever. Not not to be like, okay, I hope I can close this with this person. They don't know, find out about this till it's too late.
Justin Bogard:
Like, oh, you own it, sorry, it's your problem, now you have to pay the taxes on it or hey, they didn't have insurance on it. So now you got to advance the insurance. You know forced place insurance on it. So I just don't, I don't like to deal with that stuff, obviously, and so I just try to make it clear with people like hey look, you know I'm, I'm an open, open door policy over here. So anything you want to know about me, you know the guy that I closed some notes with earlier this- year has been.
Dan Deppen:
you know I've worked with him before, but you know he's pretty fantastic. There was one where, like you know, I bought the note. We got it, you know, transferred over. And then there was this court date coming up for a code violation this was a land contract and he called me. He's like, hey, I didn't know this was going on. He's like I'll, I'll, I'll take care of this. You know, don't worry about it. And then we had some hassles with the loan servicers getting the loans transferred and it took entirely too long to get the loans transferred.
Dan Deppen:
I can get on my soapbox about loan servicers as well, but like oh then, we have enough time for that, Dan, and in the meantime a bunch of payments had gone to him that were after the cutoff day that should have gone to me, and so we basically just figured out what he owed me and he sent me a check and it was like no problem. And then I bought a couple more notes from the guy just the other week.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, even if the pricing is not that great. If I know I'm going to get experience like that with a person that I can do business with, I'm willing to pay a little bit more money, because it's actually going to be cheaper for me in the long run to work with them than it is somebody else that may be giving me a great deal, but they may, you know, be hiding some things or disguising some things that are going to be a problem for me in the future, cause they're trying to get rid of their problem and not really tell me all the details.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, and I mean, if you think about it right, like notes is a game you can play for a really long time, like if anybody's gone to the paper source conference in particular, there's, you know, I met a bunch of dudes there in their 70s and 80s that have been doing this for like 40 years, right, so I try to think of things in like a decades long timeline and so I want to work with people that are easy to work with and that I can just do business with over and over and over again. I don't like the I mean I do it sometimes, but I don't like like the trust but verify type relationships where it's like, okay, I can get a deal from this guy, but I got to watch him like a Hawk and I got to cross all the T's and all the not all the eyes, or you know he's going to get me at some point Like that's just, that's just draining and not really sustainable.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, it is, it's so what I've been working on lately is is looking at many different portfolios from people that are kind of new to originating loans, whether it's, you know, on single family houses or commercial stuff or land, land stuff, and so I don't really know these what we'll call operators. Like they're manufacturing notes and they're doing it, you know a smart way to trying to create wealth and build wealth, and they just don't know what they don't know and sometimes they get in their own way because they make assumptions that they, they are the expert financier, because they feel like this is a simple product with a simple methodology and a simple way to design this note, when in fact they're just they're just shooting themselves in the foot and they're actually not making the most wealth that they could be doing. Um, just because they don't have the proper note education.
Dan Deppen:
Is that because they're not structuring the note? What's that? Is that because they're not structuring the note optimally? Correct, yeah.
Justin Bogard:
That's kind of one of the main points there. I think they make the generalization that if they charge a higher interest rate, they're making more money and they may have a longer amortization as opposed to a shorter as opposed to a shorter, and they just do things that are just contradictory to what logic does for our business and what makes sense mathematically. Because we know that they don't want to hold the paper forever. Right, they have to have liquidity and they have to recycle their money and otherwise they're not going to be able to continue to run their operation because at some point they're going to borrow as much as they can and have much their much of their money out there that they just they can't do anymore. They have to wait until you income comes in to build up so they can go buy more opportunities.
Justin Bogard:
So, knowing that, going forward, they should be talking to somebody like a Dan or a Justin and saying, hey, how do I set this up in a manner at which this is a business flow of inventory that comes in and out. So we have people that do that, that think ahead like that, but some people aren't, aren't seeing the big picture and it goes back to they just don't know what they don't know, and so I wish we had more opportunity to get in front of these bigger operators or these land developers or these you know commercial property guys that are doing solar financing, just say, hey look, you know, this is, this is a really cool tool that you can get liquidity. You don't have to go to a bank, you know, you can just use us, and then everybody's happy because we all see this inventory come through and and you're doing the work on the front end and we're creating wealth on the back end for you and us.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, I'm always a little surprised that sellers don't of notes, don't make it easier for buyers. Like I've never done that mass creation of notes, whether it's through, you know, buying raw land and you know carving it up and seller financing the lots or or some of the mobile home stuff that people are doing. But if I was doing that, I would just create like a really tight due diligence package and make it like super simple for the buyer. Like I see a lot of deals where they give you kind of limited information and it's very buyer beware and it's like I'm not going to do a bunch of work to figure this out. If you've done your homework and this is a good note, just give me all the inference if info it's in your best interest, you know to do that. So, cause the market's plenty big right that there's.
Dan Deppen:
You know, on the generation side. You know on the the generation side, you know I had a conversation recently with Fred and Tracy Rui. Um, you know, and I think there were like 89,000 seller finance notes created last year plus all the other ones that are out there. Um, and you know all the other paper that's floating in the system relative, you know, relative to a kind of a relatively small number of of people like us who who buy these things. That's why I'm never really worried about competition. That's why you know, share information freely and things like that, cause I feel like once everything gets a lot more professionalized, this whole market should really be like 20 times larger than what it is today?
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, my local real estate club. There's. There's still nobody else that that does this as a branding and advertisement, that they are a note buyer and seller like I do, and I just still can't believe it. I've been doing this for seven, eight years now and there's still no one else that does it like this. So it's just. It's just surprised me, because they all have this conversations and these ideas and these topics and they all think about either wholesaling, being a landlord or fixing and flipping houses, and nobody talks about the financial part of it or being the note creator, the note seller or the note harvester, as I call it. They just don't look at it because it's not, it's not mainstream enough. You know, you got flipping.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, and the information is difficult to get right, like you have to go looking for it. Um, you know some of the like training mastermind options or can be extremely expensive in some cases. And yeah, because I feel like there's a little bit of a chicken and the egg problem too. Right, because if there aren't people like to do what everybody else is doing, yeah, so if they don't see a lot of examples of people doing that.
Dan Deppen:
then they're less likely to get involved. But I'm strongly convinced that you know I'll see a day where that does flip and it's far larger. And I think, like if you could travel forward in time and tell people there was a state of the market like this where you had a relatively small number of investors and this gigantic market of notes and really nobody to compete with, they probably wouldn't believe you, right, like?
Dan Deppen:
this is the time. You know, everybody like wishes they had taken advantage of opportunities in. In retrospect people see that housing prices like oh my God, I can't believe what I could have bought that house for 20 years ago. Or they do that with stocks, like I'm telling you, like with the note market, like these are the good old days right now, so we're living it.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, all right If you had to start all over again, or if you had to tell somebody that's starting over in the industry right now. That's just starting out. What are some ways they can be professional and what are some ways they can stand out?
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the best ways you can be professional is just be real serious about your processes and systems, right, like if you have kind of a. One of the good things about loans is they can be kind of rinse and repeat, so you should understand, like, what kind of assets you're looking for and have a system for when you get a tape, quickly look, identify on the assets that you might be interested in and then have a system for getting through the due diligence process, a little system for pricing. It doesn't have to necessarily be super elaborate, it doesn't have to be long, but one that's going to allow you to do more deals and be more repeatable and it's going to allow you to respond a lot quicker to other people, right, because even though deals tend to move kind of slow, you can definitely stand out by being able to move more quickly and more accurately than other folks.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, I definitely, definitely agree with all that the internal processes needs to be. You need to treat it like a company. This isn't a hobby. If you want to do this full time and if you want to make money being what we call a broker in the business or, you know, a full-time real estate note investor, with your own money and you know this is a profession and you have to act professional. So you know, get an LLC.
Justin Bogard:
Don't just have your own personal name out there with your home address, like be, be a storefront, look like a 10 story building is what somebody told me. So you know you have a, have a website. It doesn't have to be a $50,000 website. You can spend, you know, 1500 bucks and hire somebody just to make something that looks cool and and mirrors what other people in our business do. It's not that complicated. You know. Make sure you have, you know, some sort of marketing material, so you look like you've been in business for a while and make sure you have connections, like you know us two on here.
Justin Bogard:
You've called me about deals before Indianapolis and I've talked to you about deals in Colorado before, and that's the connection that we have, because I can rely on you and you can rely on me, because we both have the same knowledge in our business and stuff, and so having that network is huge, because you don't have to be able to answer all the questions today. You just have to know somebody that can answer the question for you, right? Exactly, it's the old Ford CEO, right, it's like he didn't know everything. Exactly, it's the old, the old ford ford ceo, right, it's like he didn't know everything. He just like? Well, I hired somebody to do that because they know how to do it, like, I don't need to know it, right, exactly?
Dan Deppen:
yeah, I mean, you know it's kind of a myth right in like movies and things. Like people watch iron man and they think tony stark like builds everything haven't worked in high tech, like that's not how it works, right, steve jobs didn't build the iphone by himself, right'm sorry. They had like thousands of people doing that for him, so he just had the idea, yeah, which is important, right, and then what he did was valuable, but it's, it's. It's. Takes a lot more than that to actually get the product out the door.
Justin Bogard:
So I'd say you're being professional, you're acting professional. And what gets me the most and maybe this is just me, dan but I cannot stand it when people are using like AOL or Gmail email addresses. It's so easy to go out and get just a domain to where you can have your email address be your domain, and it just makes you look way more professional. Like you can tell, when somebody uses Gmail and they don't have like a email signature at the end, it's just it looks like amateur hour to me. So I I just it just irritates me and I get it when somebody's starting out, they might not have a lot of money to spend and and that's okay, but to a certain point you got to get to a level, because otherwise you're going to lose opportunity, you're going to be looked at as a small player, even though you might be a small player, but you'd want to have that feeling that you're not a small player and you're not inexperienced.
Dan Deppen:
So, um, yeah the reason that's important. It's like like I don't care if somebody's using a gmail in and of itself, um, but the problem is because there are a lot of flaky people out there, right, who will like waste your time or like make an offer and you accept it, and they never close right when you don't know somebody-.
Justin Bogard:
There's another episode there.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, you know there's a pretty good chance they're in that bucket and so the email they're using those little things. It's just another indicator, right, because I might instantly assume that oh okay, there's a high chance this person's in that bucket. I'm not going to give them as much time, so yeah, so somebody gets to know you. That's helpful.
Justin Bogard:
Every virtual assistant or SEO marketing advertisement I get definitely has a Gmail address or some sort of address that's not a professional address at the end. So I'm just like delete, delete, delete, because I know that they're going to be wasting my time. And you're exactly right, and thank you for saying that, because I wasn't going to bring that up, because I honestly didn't think about it, so you said it. But, yeah, you're exactly right. The assumption is, this is going to be a waste of my time because they're somebody that's just, you know, three degrees of separation removed from somebody else that I should be talking to because I'm a principal buyer. You're a principal buyer, you want to talk to a principal seller or vice versa You're a principal seller, you want to talk to the principal buyer. You don't really want to deal with the person. That's like the assistant. So, yeah, it's nice to know. When you read the room, you know who you're talking to.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, and one other quick tip right to yeah. And one other quick tip right. If somebody has something for sale, you're not familiar with them and you want to make sure they're a principal seller, it's not that difficult to go to Netter online or use DataTree or something like that to start looking up the chain of assignments on the mortgage to see what entity that goes to and see if it actually maps to that person. Right, because I've had people send me stuff before and I find out it's owned by somebody else that I know.
Justin Bogard:
So yeah, you do have to be careful in this business. That's why it's good to find people that you can trust and you've done multiple deals with, because you don't have to be so, you don't have to scrutinize it so much, and that's why I feel it's important to build those relationships and stuff.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, that's why I also like the paper stack escrow process, which is kind of nice, especially if I'm dealing with someone I don't know, because basically the way that works is you'll wire the funds to them, they get the hard collateral and do an audit and they release everything after they've assured that everything's kosher. So it costs a little more money, but if I'm dealing with someone new, I kind of like that to just protect myself.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, I agree with that. It's nice to have that protection there. Sometimes I feel like people just absorb too much of your time before they get to that point to where they want to buy it. It's like I'm just trying to get to point, like if you're serious, just commit. If you're not serious, please, just, you know, go ahead and move on. You don't have to tie up the deal, you know.
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, my other hot tip is if somebody I've had this happen a couple of times where I have a deal with someone and they come back and they're like, oh, I don't like this one thing, can we make this one adjustment? And I've occasionally just said, okay, fine, let's just get this done. Whenever I've done that, they've always come back with something else and something else. So if someone's starting to like tread down that path of finding problems, causing delays, like they're usually they're, they're never going to close. Yeah Right, so you can see where that's heading pretty quick.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, definitely. All right, Dan, we're going to close out this episode today. I got one last question to ask you, and that is I want you to name your top five sports that you like, and starting with number one.
Dan Deppen:
Well, number one is golf.
Justin Bogard:
Okay, that's pretty easy Okay.
Dan Deppen:
Number two is hiking. Is that a sport?
Justin Bogard:
I don't know if it's a sport, but it's an activity. Okay, let me rephrase the question here. Let's talk about, like professional sports. Here I want to hear your professional sports.
Dan Deppen:
Oh, I thought you were talking about things like I was doing. Okay, Well.
Justin Bogard:
I wasn't clear.
Dan Deppen:
That's still golf. Second would be football.
Justin Bogard:
Yeah, nfl.
Dan Deppen:
Although I am a university of Colorado guy and so I will be following coach prime, although they've been horrible for years.
Justin Bogard:
Where's your glasses at? You don't have coach prime glasses. Oh, I've got them. Hold on, all right. Those of coach prime glass oh, I've got them. Hold on, oh, you all right. Those of you that are listening, you need to get over to the uh american note buyers youtube channel so you can check out yeah, I've got these, I got these glasses, but uh, yeah, um, let's see.
Dan Deppen:
So, yeah. So first golf, second football, third basketball wait, pro or men's Pro? Yeah, college basketball I don't really watch at all, although I did go to one CU game, okay, this year. Beyond that, it drops off. So you got three and then it drops off Pretty quick. Yeah, I don't watch a whole lot of TV to begin with, and if I do, it's it's sports of of some sort.
Justin Bogard:
I used to watch UFC but I've kind of fallen out of that. Haven't followed that. I can see boxing. Okay, I might watch like a like. A like maybe whatever it is is a. Jake Paul and Mike Tyson are going to fight. Maybe they've already fought and I totally missed it.
Dan Deppen:
But yeah, during COVID. Um, that sounds interesting. I got into Brazilian jujitsu for a little bit. I didn't get too far into it. It's like the most anti COVID thing you could do. It's like meeting with strangers and choking each other.
Dan Deppen:
Let's just put the put our germs on each other, but it was a good way to stay sane and then and then I moved when I was further away from the gym so I kind of dropped it. But but that was fun because the guy that ran that gym actually coached UFC fighters and stuff. In fact, if you remember when, um, several years ago, when conor mcgregor attacked the bus in new york, this guy was on the bus when it when it happened and when he told that story it was.
Dan Deppen:
It was pretty funny, yeah, oh my gosh.
Justin Bogard:
Well, I'm about to hear that story offline here. So, all right, this was denver. Dan deppin uh coming to you live from the what's the Nuggets Arena called.
Dan Deppen:
Ball Arena. Ball Arena, yeah, like a former Indiana company, like the Ball Canning. Yeah, oh, I'm still not getting it. Ball Corporation the Ball Jars. They make soda cans oh gotcha. They were originally headquartered in Muncie, Indiana, and then they moved their headquarters to Colorado late 90s, something like that.
Justin Bogard:
You're full of awesome knowledge, man. I like this.
Dan Deppen:
I'm like Cliff Clavin. Yeah, I've got all kinds of stuff, oh man.
Justin Bogard:
Dan, thanks so much for being on the podcast Episode 10 of Season 6 on the Be the Bank podcast sponsored by American Notebuyers. Dan, if somebody wants to reach out to you, how would they get a hold of you?
Dan Deppen:
Yeah, best way is if you go to fusionnotescom slash listeners. There's links to all of my stuff on that page.
Justin Bogard:
All right, dan's got his own podcast as well, and it's called the Note Investor Podcast. That's pretty easy to find out what you talk about. Yeah, it's pretty direct, that's right. All right, dan, thanks again for being on the show today. I appreciate it. I appreciate you being my friend and I enjoyed having this conversation and we will see you guys on the next episode here. See you, dan, all right, thanks.
Narrator:
Thanks for listening to Be the Bank. We hope you learned something from today's show. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us. Plus, check out our channel on YouTube and follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Be the Bank, and on Instagram at Be the Bank Podcast. Be the Bank is sponsored by American Notebuyers. Thanks again for listening.
