From Selling Meat to Making $25,000 on One Real Estate Deal

Wes had a decent-paying job selling 10,000 pounds of meat at a time to grocery stores. But once he had kids, he realized he wanted more freedom and to stop working 60 hours per week. His wife was extremely supportive of him finding a business that could replace his income but allow him to be around more for his young children.

In this post, you'll learn:

• How Wes made $18,000 on his first ever real estate wholesaling deal
• Why he quit his job after just one deal
• The key details behind his largest $25,000 payday
• How you can replicate his success

Pay attention to Wes' journey of replacing a good income through real estate wholesaling if you're someone who would like to quit their 9-5!

From Selling Meat to Selling Houses

Wes had been working in meat sales for a decent salary. As he describes it:

"I sold beef. I was a sales and marketing guy for a beef company here in Kansas City. Our minimum sale was 10,000 pounds. So it wasn't like a box here, a couple of there. It was large quantities."

He didn't mind the job but was working long hours:

"I'd get there before 06:00 a.m. And I'd work till almost 05:00 p.m. And then I had a lot of travel throughout the country."

Once Wes had kids, the heavy travel and long hours meant he didn't get to spend much time with his family.

With the goal of gaining more time freedom, Wes got into real estate investing in 2018 via the buy-and-hold strategy. But he quickly realized that the small monthly cash flows would take forever to replace his active income.

That led him to wholesaling as a way to make bigger chunks of money. As Wes puts it:

"I started looking at a little bit more active approach to the investing and wholesale comes up. I mean, you do any kind of Internet search, it comes up in ways to make money in real estate. So that was going to be the way to make bigger chunks of money."

The concept of wholesaling real estate deals attracted Wes because it meant he could get paid well for finding discounted properties without needing to be the end buyer.

Making $18,000 on His First Ever Wholesale Deal

Wes found his first deal via text message marketing. He partnered with another wholesaler who gave him access to an existing text campaign.

However, Wes quickly realized texting wasn't the right model long-term:

"Texting was kind of coming under a little bit of pressure, as we've seen here recently with getting shut down. And then you just have to follow up. Those leads aren't near as warm as, say, a direct mail lead is."

Even still, the text campaign generated a solid lead that led to Wes' first deal. Here are the key details:

• Motivated Seller: The homeowner had taken a new remote job and wanted to pay off debts and move to central Missouri
• Making the Offer: Wes used Zillow and Redfin to estimate repairs and ARV, backing into a 70% max allowable offer price after his fee
• Assignment Fee: Despite being nervous, Wes earned $18,000 on just assigning the purchase contract to an experienced local buyer

When asked how he came up with his offer price, here's what Wes said:

"I used Zillow Redfin and just kind of got what the ARV (after repair value) would be on the house, backed out what I thought the rehab costs were going to be...and then did the 70% to back into where I thought we would need to be, and then deducted what I wanted to get on my assignment."

This first deal gave Wes the confidence to quit his job, despite having a decent income and his wife at home with two young kids.

"It makes you not chase the deal as much like, you know that we used to say, the fish is swimming to the boat."

Having a truly motivated seller in front of him made Wes realize wholesaling could work.

$25,000 Payday Years Later

In the year after quitting his job, Wes has completed around 15 more wholesale deals. His biggest payday yet was $25,800 on a single transaction.

On that deal, Wes made $17,000+ from assigning the purchase contract. But he also negotiated a 30% back-end profit split with the buyer who planned to fix and flip the property.

By agreeing to that split in exchange for a lower assignment fee, Wes earned an additional $8,400 when the flipper resold the fixed-up house.

Over the past year, he's found that some of the toughest deals end up being the most profitable.

Key Takeaways

Here are some tips based on Wes' journey:

Find a Wholesale Mentor: Wes joined Mike Dehan's group, crediting it for much of his success

Commit to Marketing: Wes spent $7-8k a month before seeing results. You must commit and be consistent.

Convert Leads: Use joint venture agreements to partner with others who can help sell your deals. Revenue is what matters.

Problem Solve: Getting deals done isn't always easy. Offer to pay flood insurance on one deal to ensure it closed.

Best of luck! With consistent effort, you can replicate Wes' success transitioning from a W-2 job to real estate.