In today’s episode of The Same Day Podcast, Mat Zalk speaks with Curtis Kupfersmith, a real estate sales and investment coach, about his journey as a real estate investment and agent. Curtis mentions how he transitioned into sales coaching, the widespread challenges real estate professionals face, and how to develop relationships with bankers.
Real Estate Investing and Brokering: What You Should Know
Curtis Kupfersmith is a real estate sales and investment coach. After selling nearly 50 properties during his first full year as a licensed realtor, he grew a team that reached the top 1% of real estate teams in the state of Oklahoma for three consecutive years. As a real estate consultant, Curtis hosts a mastermind group and the annual Oklahoma Real Estate Conference.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Curtis Kupfersmith’s personal and professional background — and how he became involved in real estate
- Strategies for developing relationships with bankers
- Curtis shares what he learned from navigating a real estate investment lawsuit
- Transitioning into entrepreneurship: crucial considerations and insights
- The trials and tribulations of property management
- How Curtis shifted into sales coaching
- Common challenges real estate professionals face
- Real estate market trends investors should leverage
In this episode…
Real estate investing provides an opportunity for professionals to build a lucrative business. Yet with multiple methods of breaking into the space and various strategies for profitability, what should you consider when weighing your options?
Real estate sales professional Curtis Kupfersmith never intended to venture into real estate. However, after obtaining his license and discovering he could make more money than his day job, he became a realtor before opening an independent brokerage. Throughout his journey, Curtis learned that brokerages produce limited income since property management is often involved. He warns against managing rental properties independently, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the process. Since investing in real estate can be risky and you may lose money, Curtis advises regarding this venture as an alternative route to retirement rather than relying on it entirely. When selecting an investment strategy, remaining consistent is crucial to ensure a steady cash flow.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Mat Zalk on LinkedIn
- Keyrenter Property Management
- Keyrenter Property Management in Tulsa | Oklahoma City | Arkansas
- Keyrenter Property Management email address: [email protected]
- Chris Lile State Farm
- Chris Lile’s phone number: 918-878-7771
- Curtis Kupfersmith: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
- “Paving the Way for Affordable Housing in Urban Communities” with Devin Howland on The Same Day Podcast
- “Revitalizing Communities Through Multi-Concept Restaurant Development” with Elliot Nelson on The Same Day Podcast
Sponsor for this episode…
Chris Lile at State Farm Insurance:
This episode is brought to you by Chris Lile at State Farm Insurance.
Chris Lile at State Farm helps you protect your most precious assets and investments, including home and auto.
To learn more about how you can save double digits on all your insurance needs, visit dialliale.com or call Chris’ office at 918-878-7771.
Keyrenter Property Management:
This episode is also brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management.
Keyrenter Property Management is a full-service property management company that helps clients buy, renovate, and operate real estate assets.
The team helps clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management.
That’s why, no matter what rental you have — single-family homes, condos, townhomes, or apartments — they can give you the management solutions you need.
To learn more about their services, go to https://keyrenterpmc.com/ or send them an email at [email protected].
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:05
Welcome to The Same Day Podcast where we discuss driving incremental business growth and other topics related to real estate, property management and entrepreneurship. Now to the show at hand.
Mat Zalk 0:20
Mat Zalk here on the host of The Same Day Podcast where I connect with top business experts and real estate leaders past guests include Devin Howland, talking about economic development in Fayetteville, Arkansas we also had Elliot Nelson on the show from McNelly’s group discussing community development through restaurants and bars and Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Today’s episode is brought to you by Chris Lile State Farm. Chris Lile State Farm helps you protect your most precious assets and investments whether it’s your home and auto investment rental properties or other valuables called Chris Lile State Farm for a quick and painless phone call to potentially save double digits on all of your insurance needs. Call his office at 918-878-7771 or visit diallile.com diallile.com. Today’s episode is also brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management Keyrenter Property Management we are a full service property management company helping our clients buy renovate and operate real estate assets. We help our clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management. And that’s why no matter what rental you have single family homes, condos, townhomes, we have the management solutions you need go to keyrenterpmc.com dot com. Curtis Kupfersmith first got his real estate license in 2013 and 2017, he founded a real estate firm that sold over 200 properties per year for three years in a row and employed 10 plus people. In 2020. Curtis sold that company. Since then he’s been a real estate consultant hosts a mastermind group and puts on the real estate Oklahoma Real Estate conference that hosts over 600 Oklahoma Real Estate Professionals annually. Curtis has Kupfersmith, welcome to the show. How are you?
Curtis Kupfersmith 1:48
I’m good. How are you, man? Thanks for having me.
Mat Zalk 1:50
Absolutely good to have Walter on the show too. Want to start with a little bit of background, tell us how you got started, where you’ve come from and where you are now.
Curtis Kupfersmith 2:02
So I was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas. And then I actually used to Rodeo professionally. So I lived in Texas for a while. And then I got a really bad car wreck when I was 19. And I couldn’t radio or anything anymore after that. And so I ended up moving to Oklahoma City and really didn’t think I would like it. I thought I wouldn’t be here for very long. But I fell in love with it. And I owned a house in Texas that I bought just kind of on a fluke deal. It was in 2009, a lady that I worked with had went through a divorce and I was only 19. And she was kind of the you know, crying in the office about how she didn’t want this house and you know, somebody would just pay off the mortgage. She’d give it away. And I said, Well, how much do you owe on it? She said I owe $42,000. And it was four acres with a mobile home as a two bed two bath mobile home had a barn and it was fence and I still had horses at the time. So it was like perfect for me. But I had no idea how to buy a house and I didn’t have money. So I went around to every little bank in town in Decatur, Texas, just begging for money. And this man who was the president of this little bank, he said look, I we can’t give you a loan through the bank. But I will give you a personal loan on this. You start you move your deposits like your checking account and stuff here. And I’ll just withhold it from your check every two weeks. And I was like Okay, deal. So I bought this place and my payment was $264 a month. And I just thought, Oh, I got a cheap, good place to live now. And then I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. And so when I moved to Oklahoma, I decided to just rent this plays out because I thought I’d be moving back to Texas. I didn’t think I biked Oklahoma. So I rented it out rented out for 1000 bucks a month. Like oh wow, I see why people like this rental property thing. You know, just thinking that was normal to make $100 a month in profit. So that’s kind of how I got started with real estate. Real quick real quick.
Mat Zalk 4:39
I’m sure the irony is not lost on you that you were a rodeo guy and you got injured not on the back of an animal or running away from an animal but rather in a car which is insane. Most most rodeo folks are like I can’t I can’t run it anymore because I blew off a Bronco or I whatever it was bull riding and crack my neck but you got to by car, you’re in a car accident. That’s crazy. First, number two, good point, the worst time to be developing relationships with bankers is when you need money. Right? Which you learn what’s what’s your strategy for developing relationships with bankers now that you have that experience under your belt. Um,
Curtis Kupfersmith 5:19
I mean, I think a lot of it is just having good relationships. And it takes a while, I mean, but what I have found is the best thing to do is when you find one banker who is good that you have a good relationship with, keep that good relationship with them, but always, never shut off talking to other banks, because banks change what they want to lend on all the time. And they may be given you the certain terms on the you know, $100,000 and under Properties, and then one day you wake up and they say, Yeah, we’re not lending on those anymore,
Mat Zalk 5:58
that bucket fills and they got a new industrial or they’ve got to go to asset backed financing or whatever it is interesting. Yep. Okay, so, you so you, you hit the dream, by by finding an $800 a month cash flowing property, you move? Yeah. I think a little known secret about Oklahoma is that it’s not that different from Texas. What’s it like? What’s it like? I’m like, it’s it’s pretty simple. I grew up in Houston. It’s Tulsa and Houston are not that dissimilar, except for size. But culturally, they’re very similar. Yeah, I think the people
Curtis Kupfersmith 6:31
are nicer. I mean, that’s the one thing everybody that means to Oklahoma is always like, gosh, the people are just so nice here. I mean, they really are, for the most part.
Mat Zalk 6:42
Dealing with an hour of trash. I mean, going from one place in Houston to another you got to go through an hour of traffic and nothing boils your blood, like an hour of traffic now. Yeah, that
Curtis Kupfersmith 6:54
stop. So yeah, so I had that place. And up here, I was working for a construction company. And I loved it. I loved the people I worked with. We did oil and gas construction. And we also did big commercial dirt work. Like we did the dirt work for the Amazon facility here. Like huge projects. And I loved it. But I was hanging out with a group of friends when I there was a guy there that he, you know, we’re talking whatever. And I asked him what he did. And he said he sold real estate. And I was like, why? Like, how do you know how do you do that? You know, Beaubois. And so I signed up to start the real estate license class that night, and I honestly forgot about it. And I ran into him about a month later. And he was like, Hey, did you do that course? And I was like, What do you mean, I’m not in school? And he was like, you have real estates,
Mat Zalk 7:55
telling the story about like, drunk shopping.
Curtis Kupfersmith 7:59
Yeah, literally.
Mat Zalk 8:00
I bought myself something. But I can’t remember when it showed up. I was surprised.
Curtis Kupfersmith 8:06
Yeah, so I went ahead. And I went through that, but I really had I didn’t really know him. I didn’t know anybody who was a realtor. I just got it because I thought, well, I have a rental property, this may help you get more rental properties. And then one day, I was at a gas station, and I ran into a guy who I used to actually teach roping lessons to when I lived in Texas. And I knew he had money and I knew he did well. And and so we’re talking about guesses as to what do you do for a living up here? And he said, Oh, I sell real estate. I said, no crap. I said, I have my license, but I don’t know what to do with it. And he said, Man, I’ll tell you what, you need to join Keller Williams that will change your life. And I did and he was right. There is literally nothing, no one decision I ever made that changed my life more than joining Keller, Roy. They are. And I mean, I haven’t been a part of Keller Williams for a long time. But back then, you know, they were the big dogs here. I mean, it was like they had over 50% market share all the big producers were there. And they really taught me how to fish instead of you know, given me fish. They taught me how to fish. And I remember when I met with the broker there, she said, you know, what’s your goals? And I said, Well, my goal is to quit my job within five years. And she kind of laughed at me and said, you it will not take you five years to quit your job. And I said yeah, but I love them and I love my job and she was like okay, and whatever. Well, within about four months, I had sold more than I had made in my salary. And so I was working all the time. And it got to a point where my boss who was also one of my really good friends, he just came to me and said well up, dude, you need to quit, or I’m gonna fire you because you can’t keep doing this, like, you’re going crazy. So I quit and just never really looked back. And you know, I started just selling regular real estate, are you sourcing clients?
Mat Zalk 10:15
How are you sourcing new clients in those early days?
Curtis Kupfersmith 10:19
So when I started, I was just selling regular real estate, you know, just personal properties. And I did an open house every Sunday for three years, every Sunday. So I did, that’s how I started getting clients. And then the other thing that and I still tell people today is the best thing I ever did was, I had a lady tell me that if you can get 25 advocates, you will never have to lead generate for business ever again. And what advocates are, these are people who you are helping them get business, and they help you get business. These are like influential type people of some type that, you know, you have their back, they have years. And so that’s what I did. And I would literally find business owners and then I would help them get business that would be my like lead generation was just connecting people, which I feel like that’s kind of my superpower is I’m really good connector. And so what would happen is I would help them get business and then they would just bite to get me business. So between doing open houses, those referrals, and then I got into direct mail, and direct mail was big I farm neighborhoods. And then when we got into the investment side, sent 1000s of letters every month, and I can kind of get into what we sent there too. But but that’s how I source deals was what was
Mat Zalk 11:53
your conversion rate typically on on mailers? If you sent 10,000, mailers? How many? How many clients do you expect to to
Curtis Kupfersmith 12:02
come out of those. So it depends whether you’re going after retail business, as a realtor, whether you’re going after deals. When I was farming neighborhoods, as a realtor, my conversion rate was way higher. In the beginning, it was slow. But the key with direct mail, especially if you’re farming a neighborhood is they have to just keep hearing from you and keep hearing from you. So I would send everyone I had two different neighborhoods, I farmed, and they would get a quarterly market update. And then they would also get in those word letters, like I would type it out. And then I would hand write everyone’s names on those letters. And then every time I sold a house in there, they would get a postcard that said, just sold. And it would have the picture of the house on it. And then my information, what it sold for, et cetera. And then if you want information on what your house is worth, you know, go here, but on sending direct mail for deals, it was anywhere between one and a half to 4% is what we would get. That’s awesome. Yeah. So, I mean, it really depended but we would hit, you know, we would figure out our lists at the beginning of the year, we would hit each list at least three times. So we’d you know, every other month is what we would hit and then they would we’d keep mailing them until they either told us to eff off or, you know, we got Yeah. How long
Mat Zalk 13:40
were you selling real estate before? You are? Yes? Are you still selling real estate? Or have you transitioned full time into coaching and real estate conferences?
Curtis Kupfersmith 13:48
Yeah, I don’t have my license anymore. I still do some deals, but I don’t I don’t even have my license anymore. So I’m completely out of selling.
Mat Zalk 13:59
What did you let’s talk about what you transition to when you got out of selling and what that transition was like.
Curtis Kupfersmith 14:06
So well, I’ll back up a little bit because I you know, sold regular real estate for a while, but then I started an investment firm in late 2016. And what we did was we sold cash flowing properties out of state investors. And it started out as just being like a little side thing. And it grew really fast just because you know, kind of going back to what I was saying earlier we got a few key relationships that were sending us a lot of referrals and that business grew very quickly and it went from just selling cash flowing properties to property management. We built duplex neighborhoods we did construction you know had like all of the maintenance guys handyman doing all that stuff. that company, I ended up selling that company at the beginning of 2020. And was supposed to stay on for two years and that company to keep running all the sales, but my business partner who I sold it to did not. It’s a long story, but basically didn’t like the way that all of the employees still kind of viewed me as the boss. And so that turned into a year and a half lawsuit that was really not fun to go through. But, you know, it ended up settling. And, you know, I was happy with it. But it was very, very difficult for a while, for those
Mat Zalk 15:45
people that view or threatened view lawsuits or threatened lawsuits all the time. Oh, I’m gonna take you to court or on my attorneys anything. What are the key lessons? What did you learn from being in a lawsuit for a year and
Curtis Kupfersmith 15:58
a half? That they’re horrible. And I even though I won, I would not wish them on my worst enemy. And every time that I hear somebody say, Oh, I’m just gonna sue him. I’m like, You have no freaking clue what you’re signing up for. Because it is. It is a emotional and mental battle, like you will never understand until you go through it. And I knew all along, I was going to win. I mean, I everything was stacked in my favor. The second we filed the lawsuit, they came back and said, We’re not going to fight this. We’re going to settle it. But it is just, it’s grueling. You’re paying an attorney so much money. It, there’s nothing fun about it. So my best advice to everyone when it comes to lawsuits is Do everything you can to not get into a lawsuit, because the only people who win are the attorneys in a lawsuit. Yeah, they’re horrible.
Mat Zalk 17:10
And you made that when you made that leap from being at Keller Williams to opening up your own firm. I mean, a real you know, the real tour lifestyle is certainly one of entrepreneurship, hustle muscle and grit and other stuff. But what did you What did you learn about entrepreneurship, as you transition into like, a full time, this is my business, I got to keep the lights on and pay salaries. Yeah, and I mean,
Curtis Kupfersmith 17:38
it didn’t really change a whole lot, because the beauty of kW is, they want you running it as your own business. And I mean, you’re an independent contractor. So it is your own business anyways. And we had already had our own office we already had, we were already paying all of our own staff, the only thing that really changed was a lot of our back end systems that kW had. For us, as well as like, just the liability is if something goes wrong, when you’re with a big name and have a broker working with you, when things go wrong, you turn over to them and walk away when you’re on your own. You’re taking on all of that. But, you know, I think that especially in Oklahoma City, we have more. We have more independent brokerages here than most big like really big cities. I can’t remember the numbers, but I saw it last year, the amount of independent brokerages here is just through the frickin roof. Everyone in their dog wants to start an independent brokerage here. And there is no money to be made. And having a brokerage, there’s just not it is a very hard way to make a living. And we didn’t start ours as a way to like recruit agents and do that it was just out of necessity to do property management. So but man, I can’t even imagine how bad it would you you’re just a frickin realtor babysitter when you run an independent brokerage. It’s
Mat Zalk 19:13
all you are. So to speak in and property management, which is our core focus and what we do every single day. Talk to us about the pain the trials and tribulations of some of them some of the best and worst experiences.
Curtis Kupfersmith 19:29
Did I tell people all the time that property management is when it comes to ways to make money in real estate. You’re gonna work harder for less money doing property management than anything else. And it always makes me laugh when realtors are like, Yeah, I have some investor clients. I think I’m going to start doing property management to on the side and I’m like, okay, block out fun because it is not fun. Yeah,
Mat Zalk 20:00
everybody to hate you, your tenants, Hu your vendors and you you’re underpaid you Yeah.
Curtis Kupfersmith 20:07
I think the hardest part about property management is, and I remember when we were with before we started it. I mean, we were already selling over 200 houses a year, we were making a lot in referral fees from referring all the property management companies we were already sending out. And when we looked at the numbers, we were like, holy crap, we’re gonna make less doing the property management ourselves than we’re making, sending these out and getting the referral fees from the property managers. Because there’s this like break even point in property management, especially when you start that you need help right from the get go, even if you only have like 20 to 50 properties, but you can’t afford them. And so you have to do all the work yourself until you get to a certain number of properties. And then once you hire that next person, you have to rush to get more properties to be able to afford that, that salary. And then you’re in this constant, this constant flow of like, Alright, I need more help, but I gotta get more properties to be able to afford it. And that’s the part that I think a lot of people don’t realize is they’re like, Oh, well, I can just hire a property manager to help run this, it’s like, okay, well, you’re gonna have to pay them a lot to be able to keep them around them, and
Mat Zalk 21:36
just keep them going all the time. The challenge also at a certain point, so I think there’s a, there’s a point at which you reach scale, and you’ve got enough people in the organization, of course, that by that point, have a lot of properties under management. But then when somebody goes on maternity leave, or somebody wants to take vacation for two weeks, or do whatever else, you’ve got to have the redundancy, to take over those properties. And if somebody’s made 50 properties or something, you can’t just dump that on the next person, now they’re managing 300 properties for a month or two or two weeks for vacation, you’ve got to be able to split them up. So you either have to have, you have to have like, I call it accordion like capacity, so that a bunch of people can take on a bunch of can scale a little bit more and then flex back down when when they when the person comes back, but it becomes you know, cross training becomes an issue. And then just capacity, pure capacity, especially if somebody’s taking vacation or whatever. In summer, when you’re doing peak leasing stuff. It’s it can be really hard. Yes.
Curtis Kupfersmith 22:35
Very difficult. Yeah. So I mean, I didn’t want to do property management. I mean, it was my business partner wanted to, and it really only happened because a lot of our clients who we were referring to other property managers weren’t happy, and kept asking us to do it. And so that’s really the only reason we ended up doing it. And, you know, it’s a tough way. It’s it. You know, I commend you and others that are just doing property management, because it is a tough way to make a living for a while. I mean, once you get it Bill, you get your systems, everything in place, it can work really well. But it’s a very tough way to get started in real estate.
Mat Zalk 23:25
For sure, any any particular worst memories of property management that you share, to share to share a recount?
Curtis Kupfersmith 23:33
Oh, gosh, you ever get to the point against nude? Oh, yeah, I mean, quite a few times, and would run into it a lot, you know, just in selling cash flowing properties, you know, where, because, especially in selling them, it’s like most companies that sell cash line properties are turnkey companies, they’re going in, they’re buying the house, they’re fixing it up, then they’re selling it. And our thought was, we would rather pass on this cash flow to you. Because if we were the one, if we were to buy it, fix it up, the cash flow is way less. Whereas if we can sell it when it’s in the best shape, you can decide if you want to fix it up or if you want to just leave it the way it is. And you know, we still did inspections, we still did all that stuff. And we would get people all the time that a lot of it is just an uneducated bar buyers, especially investors, and that was a lot of the issues with selling them and with managing. They listen to all these podcasts and all this shit that think, Oh, well I’m just gonna buy a couple rental houses and I’m gonna retire and it’s like, no, you’re you’re Are the you have one thing go wrong, and it eats up the entire year of profit? Yeah, rental properties are a long term retirement account. That’s what they are. And people cannot get it. You can tell them that over and over and over again. But as soon as they see their statement that they’re losing money that month, they go. Absolutely ballistic. Not all, but a lot of them do. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. So true. We had
Mat Zalk 25:35
a, I had about the $800 a month cash flow that I’m going to start believing it, you know, I get 10 of them, and I can replace my income and be done. Yeah.
Curtis Kupfersmith 25:44
Since that day, that was in 2010, or 11. I’ve seen maybe two, ever, that cash flowed like that on a single family house. They just they don’t happen.
Mat Zalk 26:00
Doesn’t happen. Well, one years ago, in Boulder, Colorado, where my sister lives, I think we paid for 65, which at the time, I was like, That’s an insane amount of money. Probably worth a million bucks. Now, I think our mortgage is like 2500 $2,300 a month, we get $4,700 a month in rent, or 4750.
Curtis Kupfersmith 26:16
That’s a pretty good one. Wow, the truth is,
Mat Zalk 26:19
if you actually look at that return for the equity that we’ve got in the property, right, we put down 25%, I’m sure 20% Of 465 80 grand, we put it in another ad to renovate it. So I’m in 160. And if you consider that it’s worth, let’s call it, you know, I’m paid 465, let’s call it worth seven $800,000. I’ve got $500,000 in the property and cash, I mean equity. So if I were to sell that and put money somewhere else, get take five $600,000 out and get 10% A year and be getting 60,000 or $50,000 a year free cash flow. So free cash flow of $2,500 a month is you know, $30,000 a year is not actually that good. It’s a 5% return on my equity is not that great. So your reality, it sounds like a lot of money, but for the amount of cash that I’m in this or equity that I’m in this it’s really not as sweet as some
Curtis Kupfersmith 27:12
of my right? Yeah. Yeah. That’s how you look at it. Yep.
Mat Zalk 27:20
So you’ve envisioned, so you sell the business 2020? You spent a year and a half in in a legal drama battles? And how did you transition into your next your next phase.
Curtis Kupfersmith 27:31
So when all of that happened, I had a non compete. And so she was paying for our buyout agreement. I wasn’t getting paid. And so I thought, well, shoot, I can just go back to selling real estate. But when I got my attorney, he was like, Look, man, if this actually does go to trial, you need to show that you stopped every letter of this agreement. And so I know it sucks, but don’t go back to selling real estate, you know, find other things to do. So I started doing deals and other markets. I tried in Bentonville, Arkansas, and I did a couple of deals there. But then I started doing deals and lot. And mainly what I was doing in Washington was finding deals for a couple of people. They were paying me to do their direct mail and negotiate their deals. And then I was also getting a cut on each deal they did. And then I bought some myself too, I would wholesale deals, I’d just buy them turn around, list them on the MLS and some that way. So I was doing that. And that was really supplementing my income. But then I just in 2020 I made a post and was just like, hey, you know, I’ve always had people reach out and ask me for help, but I have time now. So for anybody who would want one on one help, you know, either investing or getting more business as a realtor, I’d be happy to help. And I didn’t really know what to expect, but I got quite a few people that reached out. And so that started this kind of little side hustle thing is what it was in the beginning of just kind of coaching people one on one. And what happened was as it went into 2021 I kept talking to more realtors and people were just really lonely, honestly, is what it was. Offices weren’t doing office meetings anymore. There weren’t really meetups or when a stuff like that. And in the real estate world in general, especially with realtors, there is this big divide, where brokerages will do conferences, events, masterminds, but nobody outside of that brokerage goes because they’re scared they’re gonna get recruited. And so there’s just there’s really no cohesiveness in In real estate, it’s like, as a realtor, you have to be cooperative when you’re doing deals with other realtors, but you really don’t talk about anything other than how you’re doing the deal. So, I had this idea that I was like, Look, I get to talk to all these Realtors one on one, I hear what they’re doing, what’s working, what’s not working. But all of these other realtors don’t get to hear any of this stuff like, and I’m not even selling real estate. So like, how can I make this to where everybody can hear this. So I decided to start just like an online Facebook group at the time as all it was Where the thing was, you join them, if you join, it’s $50 a month. And we do a new Facebook video every Wednesday where I interview somebody else. And the point of you joining and part of the agreement is you have to be willing to share everything that you’re doing. If we asked you to share it, you have to be willing to share it. So if you are good at investing, you have to share how you’re getting deals. What is your letters look like? What if you’re running ads? What are your ads look like? If you’re cold calling, what are your scripts? Who are you calling? When are you calling? And so that was the premise of it. And it started out just online, and then moved to doing in person masterminds? And the first in-person mastermind I did had, I think I had 16 people on it. That was it. And from that to me. Yeah, well, I mean, it was great, especially for the beginning. But from that I had this idea where I would do. Like, it wasn’t going to be a conference at the time, it was just my goal was to have 70 people there, I got a little venue that fit 70 people, I had 30 Some people from my group who are going to be there. So the premise was, I’m going to bring in people who are experts on all these different topics in our market. They’re not people from out of state, they’re people from Oklahoma City. And they’re going to share what they do and what’s working on each topic. So I had 40 more spots left, I made a post last year and just said, Hey, I’m gonna do this event. I’ve got 40 spots left, if anybody would want to come. Here’s the link to buy tickets. And I had over 200 comments on that post. And they sold out immediately. And I was like, Oh, shit, I gotta get a bigger venue. So I did, I got a bigger venue last year, and we sold out over 300 people. Just really quickly. I mean, I had to throw it together within like a month and a half. And so I realized like, Oh, crap, like, there is a market for this in OKC. And so we did it again this year, and we had about Around 650 people were there this year. Wow. And what topics are we Yeah, what do you um, we have everything from just for realtors. I mean, we have. We have an investing panel where I had Nathan and Scarlet cow who are their big developers, they do a lot of development. I had Jimmy Greene who they own around 90 properties Airbnbs and single family. They flip a lot. His wife is Bree green. She sells 150 houses a year. And then another guy named Eli Davis to Eli is he owns one of the biggest property management companies here in OKC. And then he’s also a huge developer. He’s developing two full city blocks in Tulsa right now. He He’s done a couple of the golf courses here. So like, just on that panel, we talked about, like the basics of how do you find a deal and what does it do look like right now? All the way up to this is how you get in developing this how you find the money, blah, blah, blah. We also had bouncing Parenthood in real estate. We had, yeah, we had a wreck in the OKC planning committee did a panel where they talked about new zoning and permits and stuff like that for the year. I’m looking at right now we had a vendor panel where it was just different. We had a roofer, a the president of Chicago title, a homebuilder and an Insurance insurance agent, and they just talked about things from their perspective of like What’s going on that people need to know in their industries. We did a listings panel assistance panel. Weed and then I had a guy named Cody harbourage. He’s one of the biggest mortgage lenders here with Cornerstone on Wednesday, he spoke as well. So next year, we’re going to, we’re still going to have topics like that. But we’re also going to do breakout rooms, where we’ll have three different time slots throughout the day where you can go pick between three different topics so that you can really pick which thing you really want to learn about. So that’s kind of the plan for next year, but next year will be the Oklahoma Real Estate conference instead of just OKC. Because we we have a lot of people from Tulsa and northwest Oklahoma, and you know, kind of all overcoming now so I want it to be for all of Oklahoma not just okay. See,
Mat Zalk 35:59
on your on your one on one coaching sessions, what are common challenges that you see among real estate professionals.
Curtis Kupfersmith 36:07
So I’ve got wholesalers and investors and realtors, it’s about I’d say it’s about 60%, realtors, the rest are other stuff. Man, the main thing right now is just, you know, getting business. But what I have noticed is a lot of my clients are already pretty big producers. And so a lot of our conversations are more about like, either hiring and firing systems. And then the main thing is just it doesn’t matter if you’re brand new, or you been a big producer for years, the main thing people struggle with Excel is consistently doing the right things every day. And I tell people all the time that success is boring. And it sucks. But that is what it actually looks like. Like when you are really doing the work and you’re really like you’re flowing in a good flow state, your day should be very repetitive, and look pretty boring. To the outside person. It’s not all these flashy, fancy things. And that’s the hardest thing for people to get over and deal with is just consistently doing it can imagine somebody
Mat Zalk 37:27
that does two or three deals early on in their career, every 12 months, and they do three, four deals, and they’ve got a $20,000 month, it can cause you to want to rest on your laurels. Yeah, successes and take a little bit of a breather, if you’ve been running and gunning for for 12 months or 18 months or whatever. Yeah,
Curtis Kupfersmith 37:47
and it’s it’s like the roller coaster of real estate. And I mean 90% of Realtors deal with it, the top 10% Do not because they know what they do to get business. And they do those things consistently every single week, but the rest of everybody else it I get a couple get a couple of contracts, I spend all my time, you know managing those and doing all that. So I’m going up on the roller coaster, those deals close, quite fall down the rollercoaster, I have no business breaking out, and they have to build it back up and then they stop working again. And it’s just a matter of getting people to realize that like if you will do the same thing, day in and day out, whether you only want to sell 20 deals a year or you want to sell 200 you can consistently do that if you’ll just do the same things every day.
Mat Zalk 38:41
Yeah. What are you seeing trend wise in terms of the real estate market where some of our investors could be could be capitalizing on?
Curtis Kupfersmith 38:54
And I think the biggest thing right now is new construction is just through the roof. I mean, it is there so much new construction. And it’s not slowing down anytime soon. I mean, you know, these builders pull permits more than a year in advance. So I mean, they’re building on the permits, they pulled in 2021 2022. They’re not slowing down, like if they decide to slow down, it’s going to slow down and like 2024 2025 So what I am seeing is seller sellers are getting more realistic. Not all of them but some of them. clients that are going after deals are there. The deal flow is picked up because a lot of these wholesalers who it was easy to find deals and it was easy to sell them for a lot of money because they were selling to institutions they were selling to brand new investors too, we’re buying left and right. A lot of those big investors, and especially institutions, a lot of the big institutions aren’t buying, right. I mean, most of the people I know that like, all they were doing was hole selling the institutions. They haven’t sold one to an institution and over a year. And so what I think that’s doing is it has, it’s made the wholesaler a lot of the wholesalers fall off because they can’t afford the marketing. That’s the thing that most people don’t realize until you start doing it. It costs so much money to go after deals off market. And so they can’t afford the marketing anymore. So there are more deals for the people who are going after them. And then for you as third, you know, somebody who’s wanting to be an investor and buy them as rental properties, I think the main thing you have to know is nearly impossible to get good cash flow at a 9% interest rate, which is not going to happen. I mean, even back in the day where 1% deals were everywhere in OKC and Tulsa. If you cashflow 200, ollars a month, that was a great, great deal. I mean, I I bought them all day long at $200 cash flow. Those deals don’t you’re not finding those anymore. And so you have to view owning rental properties as a retirement account. If you can view it as a retirement account, you will not get upset when you’re not cashflow positive, you won’t get upset when there’s a bit of a major repair. Because long term, you are somebody else paying off your house, you’re gaining equity and you’re gaining appreciation. And if you were just funding a retirement account, you would be paying to your 401 K Ira whatever you’re doing three or $400 a month. So if it’s costing you a couple $100 a month to have this rental property, you’re still coming out positive compared to a 401 K Ira whatever you want to talk about perspective, where
Mat Zalk 42:18
do people reach you Curtis if they want to find out more about one on one coaching or if they want to get involved in
Curtis Kupfersmith 42:25
my instagram or my Facebook is best place my last name spelled weird but my first name is Curtis And then my last name is Kupfersmith. That’s best buy either one of those I’m on there you’ll find me. Curtis
Mat Zalk 42:41
Kupfersmith first got his start in real estate he got his license in 2013 and 2017 He founded a real estate investment firm that sold over 200 properties per year for three years in a row and employed 10 plus people and 2022 Curtis sold that company since then he’s been a real estate consultant host a mastermind mastermind group and puts on the Oklahoma Real Estate conference. Over 600 Oklahoma Real Estate Professionals attend annually Curtis we appreciate you being on the show. This is awesome. Hey
Curtis Kupfersmith 43:08
dude, thank you for having me, Mat. Appreciate you.
Outro 43:14
Thanks for listening to The Same Day Podcast. Tune in to a new show each week and be sure to subscribe to get future episodes