Property Pathways: A Personal Success Story with Jack Fullerton #880

Jack was known as a problem solver, Jack Fullerton has acquired millions of dollars of real estate over the years. He was a member of the Academy of Real Estate where he received the Pathfinder Award. He has been listed in Who’s Who in Real Estate. In 1997 Jack received the MEA award from the Phoenix Foundation. He was the first to receive the prestigious Rohny Award at I Survived Real Estate for his teachings and mentorship he showed to so many in the real estate investment community.

In this episode:

• Get to know Coach Jack Fullerton
• Jack's journey in real estate investing
• How important values are in one's success
• Important lessons that he learned in the business
• Friendship and Mentorship

The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669.  For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.


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Narrator: 0:01

Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a show committed to bringing you insights from thought leaders shaping the real estate industry. In each episode, we'll dive into conversations with industry experts and local insiders, all aimed at helping you thrive in an ever-changing real estate market. continuing the legacy that Bruce Norris created, sharing valuable knowledge, and empowering you on your real estate journey. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this is your go-to source for insider tips, market trends and success strategies. Here's your host, Craig Evans.

Joey Romero: 0:43

Hey everybody. It's Joey Romero, Senior Vice President of Operations for the Norris Group. We are super excited about tomorrow's event ELEVATED. So we didn't get to record a radio show for this week, a podcast. So what we're going to do is we're going to, this week, we're going to share a a really cool interview we've had with Coach Jack Fullerton. Bruce got to interview him on October 16 of 2020 and it's just a really cool show that we have in our archive. We thought we'd share it, in case you didn't come across it or, you know, it's cool to reminisce about coach. You know, he has since passed. He was such an instrumental part of Bruce beginning his speed and career. We just thought it would be a really cool episode to share while we take a little break. We will be back next week with a new radio show. So new podcast. So we hope you enjoy this episode with Coach Jack Fullerton.

Bruce Norris: 1:50

the first Rohny award ever given to recognize his contribution to the real estate investment business and the many lives who have been changed because Jack took the time to teach what he knew and also encouraged them to teach what they knew. Coach Fullerton, former real estate investor club owner in Orange County, and he is a major connector in the real estate investor community. Jack, welcome back to our show.

Jack Fullerton: 2:19

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Bruce Norris: 2:22

Now, where did the coach description come in? What were you doing as a coach? And when did what age were you doing

Jack Fullerton: 2:31

Okay, here's where the coach came from. I was that in? the water polo swimming coach at Orange Coast College, and I literally had gone to hobakkat sailing in San Diego in 1980 and got down there on Friday, went to sleep, we got up the next morning, and there's no wind. And because of that, is how I found John Schaub and Jack Miller, who had flown out to San Diego that day to speak at something where Billy had these free tickets to the rough convention. And we went, and when the first speaker got done, he looked out, there's still no way, and he says, I'm in real estate. We go to real estate that starts my whole life. I had no interest in real estate at the time. I was really trying to be the most successful water polo swimming coach I could be. I had studied great coaches. Then, what happened? There was a seminar in Vegas sometime, oh, I'd say I started in 80 so I'd say sometime between, yeah, 81 and 83 and it I just had a roll of the dice. John Schaub and I are sitting at the 21 table next to each other. We don't know each other hardly at all at the time. You knew I was one of the students that was about it. And what about happened is that I kept winning at 21 and he kept not doing as well. But then after we got done, I did well, he didn't do as well. He said, we won the same hands. How did you do it? And I told him how I'd learned to bet at 21 not how I played it. And he came back into the class the next day, and he started calling me out coach, and he told everybody how we have to invest in real estate from now on, from what we did at the 21, he says, you buy one house, handle it, learn how to use it for about six months. Buy two more houses, learn how to handle it. Buy after that then the next six months, you buy three, but if one goes bad, you go back on the next six months and buy one. And that was basically all I was doing. And from that point on, he kept calling me coach, and it just because I swimming water polo coach. So that's how..

Bruce Norris: 4:42

I got a question. Was John's job there as a teacher at the time, or was he a student?

Jack Fullerton: 4:47

No, I was there for a for a jack and John class, and he started okay off about telling everybody how I won at 21 and he didn't, and what I was and how it was betting. And he said, that's how. We should be investing in real estate. It's fascinating.

Bruce Norris: 5:04

So, so you were kind of getting your feet wet in real estate when you got introduced to Jim Rohn?

Jack Fullerton: 5:09

Yes, that's true. Yeah, because I was in the same room you were that day, we figured that out, what 35 years later, and yeah, in the back of the room. And that was in August of 81 and he, I think that was a blessing. I had the opportunity to go to work for him. So I worked for him for about five years. I was there when Tony Robbins was working there, and Tony was incredible, and he was just about 20, and I was 43 and studied all the great coaches. And here I'm learning all this, you know, great stuff, and I, you know, I'd say great coaches, but there's so much more to learn. So Jim Rohn was real had a lot to do with my success, as well as my mentors in real estate.

Bruce Norris: 5:54

Would you say that Jim Rohn had as big as impact on your life as anybody?

Jack Fullerton: 5:58

Yeah? Yeah. I like to believe that there's more than just one person, but I think he had a great deal to do with my life. I still listened to that 1981 challenge 60 state. I probably listened to it at least once within the last month.

Bruce Norris: 6:16

Have you ever gone on YouTube? You can watch the 81 talk live.

Jack Fullerton: 6:21

I didn't realize that I will have to do that. I actually have it on the VCR. Back when I worked for him, I bought that silly thing and I was using it as training. But I haven't watched in ages. I listened to it because, you know, I mean, I also have the script. And what's really fascinating when I watch it. I know exactly when he's going to turn to the left and touch his right side of his nose. Turned out that he did it so many times. It was like a play, and he had it recorded every time he did it, and they gave it to him in three, you know, triple space. And he'd go back and he restructure how he says some of the words. The guy was an amazing man. He really was. I am so blessed to know him. I was so the last time I actually saw him was at your seminar, and I got to have lunch with him that day, which was fascinating.

Bruce Norris: 7:12

That was a great experience. Somebody in the audience actually was sitting next to me. He says, I wonder why he's still speaking like there was, you know, what's up? And during the one hour talk, he got three standing ovations, and I leaned over after the third one, and I said, let me ask you a question. When would you want to give that up? When you have the ability to change people's lives in three hours? I get the sense you were a pretty willing participant going to that seminar. I was not, what's amazing about that he got me in five minutes, my first note on the top of my page is he, this man, does not need our money, and that it was important to me because, you know, I had never attended a seminar, and I wanted to feel like there was somebody there that was genuine. And I felt like and maybe, you know, maybe I over read it, and I'm sure he was making money on it, it seemed like there was a bigger purpose for him to doing what he did.

Jack Fullerton: 8:13

Well, here's this interesting thing. I don't know whether they've ever shared this with you, but there was a break halfway through, and I turned to my wife, Mary, and I said, Mary, I'm going to go to work for him. And I did, so I figured that out by the break, so we both had a real light go off that night. It was an incredible night for us. I think it helped both of us a great deal.

Bruce Norris: 8:38

Yeah, I actually didn't sleep that night. I went home and I wrote goals for the first time in my life.

Jack Fullerton: 8:42

You know? What saddens me is somewhere in my house is my notes from that night. I really hope they turn up before I pass away, because I would like to review them.

Bruce Norris: 8:52

That would be fascinating. You know what? I had those notes with me every time I ever went to hear him speak, so I could make new notes on top of notes, and I was if he ever missed a story, man, I knew it. Well, wait a minute, Where's, the story that I wanted to hear, you know?

Jack Fullerton: 9:12

Well, here's an interesting thing, because I had a copy of what the talk was, that we had, because we worked for him. I actually, we went to that meeting, every month we had 1000 people. We put in at the park, and the next night, Tony Robbins put about 475 in the Bona Fincher and we put 25 and every time I go, I take a different color pen. So when I pull that thing out, right now, it's fascinating. I have different things that he says underlined in four or five different colors, which means I've, you know, it hit me, you know, sometimes. I've got something, it's just one color, which means I got it one time, but other times, something hit me really hard. I underlined it again, a different color, different color, different color, and it's fascinating every time. In fact, I think when we get done, I'll go over, grab the book and go look at it again. I tend to look at every now and then. It's really fun.

Bruce Norris: 10:17

The method that you ended up finding most of your properties was literally going into a neighborhood and just knocking on doors. Who taught you that message?

Jack Fullerton: 10:28

Well, if you followed up on what Jack Miller did, Jack's program, and he tell us about it, and many people don't follow up on it, but it was really a good program, and he had just, he had to survive. He got fired from, I think it was Honeywell and he picked up a license, and he's going to work for this guy. And he figured out that what he had to do is he had to go out and buy some houses to put bread on the table for his family. He had two kids and his wife, and what he did is he buy 1000 calling cards. And the way I understand it is the way he would tell us every day, he'd get up early and he'd go out on the street and he had to put 33 cards in somebody's hand, and he wouldn't come home until he got rid of those 33 on that day, which is, you know, so he's getting rid of 1000 cards a month. \

Bruce Norris: 11:27

Right.

Jack Fullerton: 11:28

And then he would, you know, make offers. And he would, he was trying to be a salesman, but he'd also would give them $100 for an option on their property, and then try and sell. And he figured out he could make more money doing that. And then the other thing that was interesting, his son told me, like maybe 10 or 15 years ago, that one of the things was back in the old days, we didn't have walk around phones, and he had, he would come home and say, get home at seven that night, he would immediately go grab that phone and start making phone calls, and he'd walk all over the house. They had the longest cord they could get for that phone. He'd walk all over the house and be making phone calls because he had to make money to put money on the table for his family. And I learned from that. And then, you know, I I realized my first, here's something I really think I should share with you, and I've been thinking about a lot of things, about what I did to get where I am. And what's really interesting is I bought the first house I had no down payment, and my teaching assistant had come to me and said, I got 18,000 in a divorce. She knew I was studying the real estate, and she had let eight out and hadn't got anything back. And she said, You know, I got 10,000 and my ex husband, who was an art dealer, is now a mortgage guy. He says he'll put it out and put it to work for him. And I said, Do you trust him? And she says, No. And I fortunately said, I told her, Well, you should go buy a house, and she didn't want to buy the house. So I, in my way, I tend to do things. I said, Okay, I'll love, I'll give you 2% more than your husband, who you don't trust, offers you. And he offered nine, I mean, 18, and I had to pay 20, which is 167 a month. I could not get her to buy the house. I went, bought my first rental house. After that, I bought the wrong house. I had gotten a license, and during the summer to make a little extra money, I was trying to be a realtor. I take it three people out. We found three properties, and I hope my mouth again, I said, I'm going to buy whichever one you guys don't buy. Well, they made offers, on two houses, which today are the better houses of the three. And I bought the third one, and it looked really good. But in those days it was buyer beware, and the people had a broken Foundation. They had covered everything up, and I bought the house. And the other thing is the two people I was going to make a commission on all backed out because the interest rate went from 11 to 14 in about four weeks. I closed at 14 and and it bought it on an 8010 10. I use the $10,000 for the down payment. I got the seller to carry 10 and I got 80% loan. And then Robert Allen came around, and he was saying, well, once you put your money out, get it back as fast as you can. That's the same thing we were doing in regards to the betting on 21 so we put our money on and if we want, we pulled it out. And so I refinanced, and it got about 12,000 out of a 14,000 refinance, because it went up a little bit, and I'm paying 18% for that money, because that's interest rates were high then. And I took that money and bought the next three. Well after I had bought two of them, and I'm about to buy the third one, my wife leaves for greater pastures, so when all the smoke clears, I've got four houses and don't know what I'm doing. There's a guy out on the YouTube who says you should buy four houses. And the more I thought about that, I went back and looked at my own life, and that's what happened if my wife had left me, my goal was to have 100 houses. I was trying to buy one a month at the time when she leaves. And it made me stop. And for the next two years, I studied. It got better, and then I did the next Easter vacation, because I'm working 60 to 80 hours a week as a water polo swimming coach. So Easter vacation, I'm kind of off for part of the week. And on that Monday, I bought three houses. Well actually, I bought a condo in two houses, and the condo I bought with $100 bill took subjects all the financing. The two houses I'm going to flip. And I had a friend who I was helping out, and she had was a very successful lady, and she was going to buy REOs. I said, Can I go with you? We went with her to that when she got done buying the fourplexes that she was buying, I said, You got any houses? And they offered me two houses. So I took the money, I had a little money, and I from a line of credit, and I bought two rental houses for about 80,000 just selling for about 100 105. Well, I'm a failed flipper. I never got. I'm sitting there the best one I still have. This is 1983 and I still have it. And what's fascinating, I'm writing an $800 check every month to pay for this house. And I finally said, You know what? If I rented it for 595 it would take me four months to lose $800 which, that guy that probably nets me easily 2000 a month. So, you know, every I look back at along the way, I bought a lot of not a I didn't buy nearly what what you or others have, but I bought more. And along the way, I'd sell one and I'd pay down debt on others so I could keep what I had. And what's fascinating, when I look back at it, if I had flipped that property, I might have made five to $7,000 right? You know, look at what it's doing today, and I look back at the houses that I've got rid of, I got rid of houses that are worth a million dollars today, and yeah, granted, if I had to do it again, I probably did the right thing, because those the purchases, when I sold them, that money went to pay down debt on other houses.

Bruce Norris: 17:53

You definitely had a big impact on me eventually waking up to the fact that I had to own something and pay it off, and that would make my my life completely sane. In 2005 when we, well, obviously we we kind of worried about the California market, but we had a housing track that we sold 90 houses we built, and it did really well, and I just decided to pay everything off. And the only day of the year I did not like that was April 15, but every other day I liked it a lot. And I've liked it ever since. So that's, it's it's just been one of those things that you're just very thankful that you don't have to worry about. And it wasn't in my vocabulary, seriously, until you talk to me one day, pretty seriously about what happens to to Marsha if you can't go find another house. And yeah, it actually stuck home one day, and I realized, yeah, I better, I better do some of that. But you know, some of the, we have gone down different paths. I was looking at my son, Greg took over the flipping business, probably for about nine years. So 2007 to 2016 maybe 2017 I literally did not see the last 900 houses I flipped.

Jack Fullerton: 19:35

Wow.

Bruce Norris: 19:37

And you literally have almost, you almost have every house you've ever seen. This is a very different, very different world.

Jack Fullerton: 19:48

Oh yeah, i Because, you know, my goal of 100 houses I never made.

Bruce Norris: 19:54

didn't need to.

Jack Fullerton: 19:55

I didn't make 100 I've probably been lucky if I got 70. But, you know, I live in a very. Higher age. I mean, today, if I were buying one of my rental houses, well, the last one I bought was two years ago. Is the 900,000 and that's a rental house.

Bruce Norris: 20:09

Yeah.

Jack Fullerton: 20:10

And when I started, those same houses were 100 now, I'd say my average rental house is somewhere between seven and eight right now, maybe, 850 and you know, the saddest part of it is, if somebody were starting today, and they wanted to buy an$800,000 house, and they needed to have 10% down, they need to have figured out how to keep 80,000

Bruce Norris: 20:35

Yeah.

Jack Fullerton: 20:37

And that's hard to do, you know.

Bruce Norris: 20:39

It's hard to do.

Jack Fullerton: 20:40

Yeah. So I really encourage people, if you can do anything, go buy a condo at 500 or 600 then you only need 50 to 60,000 and if you can get your I mean, you know, one of the things I do is I go back Bruce and look at what I've done before I started in the real estate business. I had bought, let me think I had bought 1,2,3, houses. Yeah, and I bought the first one in a $25,000 market, which is within two miles where I live today.

Bruce Norris: 21:16

Right.

Jack Fullerton: 21:16

That's what's changed. But what's interesting is the only way I could buy that house that day is somebody said, Well, just offer them 19. So we bought that $25,000, house for 20. Now I don't know what I'm doing that day.

Bruce Norris: 21:32

Right.

Jack Fullerton: 21:33

$2,000 down I needed. I got from my mother and paid her back. So then the next thing that happens is I end up buying my my next house by selling that house for 30,000 on an 80-10-10. So I learned the 8010 10 program, and I took my money from that and bought the house that the mother of my children lives in at three houses away from me, and we bought that for 49 but we took the money out of the house that we sold and put that into the new house. It was 49,000 and then I had a divorce with the mother of my children, and when I remarried, I bought a $42,000 house on a fluke, and still didn't know what I was doing. And I said to Martha Bannon at the time, she showed me about 30 houses, and we knew we could afford 35 and I said, she shows us this last one, which is a little bit of a fixer, had a big tear down the carpet, needed to be painted all kinds of things, and I'd remarried, had no money. And I told Martha, you know, you need to make offer for 35,000 for me. She said, Yeah, but somebody in the office turned down 39 yesterday. I said, Martha, you know, if I make the offer, you got to take it in. She takes it in. She calls me the next day and say, You got it. You know what the situation was? It was a divorcee's house who had remarried, and her new husband said, I don't care what the next offer is. You take it. Wow. So that's how we got that. Now, once again, I need 3500 down, right? Because I don't have, because I don't have a house to sell because I've been divorced, and my wife had the house she lives in today, and my mom loaned me the money again, so there's my 10% now that house, we were so poor, somebody loaned us a refrigerator that we put in the garage that had coils on the top. We couldn't afford a bed. Somebody loaned us a waterbed bag. We put it in the corner of the living room, and we slept on that. And then what we did is we spent the next week or two painting the house ourselves. Never replaced the carpet in the living room that had a 12 foot tear down the carpet. And then when I had the divorce with Carol, we end up when Mary moves in, she never Mary and I are 36 years together. Never had new carpet under her feet, because we put the carpet into the rental houses. And I go back to something I think is the most important thing that anybody could ever learn is my good friend Jimmy Napier, who has unfortunately passed away. Jimmy once came into town and he said to everybody, everybody in this room has a five year sacrifice period. You could sacrifice five years when you're old and sick and broke, or you can sacrifice five years when you're young and viable. Now we're about I'm 43 about that time, and Mary and I bought that program. So for five years, Mary and I watched every single nickel we spent every Tuesday we went to Bob's Big Boy for the two for one combo. That was our night. And look at that, and I look back, and now I'm in a position where I can't do what I used to be able to do. And I get my 75 to 85 year old friends call me and say, What do I do now? I have no money. Many of those were 10 times better at it than I was, but they flipped and sold everything and spent the money. Now Mary and I just waited a while, and at five years, we thought maybe we'd made a mistake, but at eight to 10 years, I had retired from the college, and because of that, we've been all over the world. We had a great life, and the fact that we let it and then here's something else with the Commonwealth, I'll never forget. We've got a great person, Ray Reese. He was coming to our meetings. You know, it's really interesting. Successful people used to come. They just came because they wanted to learn something extra, or they wanted to remember things they might have forgotten. And we had Ray speak, and he had a five year sacrifice period. We had Mick Blackwell speak. Oh, I it was like pulling teeth to get Mick to speak. I said, I'll interview you. We'll sit on some bar stools and pray so he comes up there within about seven minutes. I knew he didn't need me anymore, and that's spoke and I moved away. And along the way, he said, Yeah, we sacrificed for five years. We had five meals we used to have, oh, this didn't work. Hang on. I gotta answer it and hang up, okay? And, and what happened is, he's talking about spaghetti and, oh, different things, and he couldn't remember the last one. And Marge out in the audience is pork and beans and the place. Look at Mick. He's out teaching people every day. Mick is a wonderful, wonderful man. He does a lot to help everybody, and it's really interesting. But we had a bunch of other different people. Gosh, one guy just passed away, and his net worth was really big. And I will never forget when he got up and talk, he's talked without everybody defining it five year sacrifice period. And I think that's one of the big secrets, is you've got to cut back on the dollars that come through your fingers and don't spend them. And I remember reading a book called The think like a tycoon by Bill Green. If they could grow rich, no nothing. The Richest Man in Babylon tells you to put 10% away to invest right in Bill Green's book, he says, Put more than 10% and so those two books were really valuable to me. The Richest Man in Babylon got me out of debt, because when I started in this trip, I was 35,000 in debt, making 30,000 a year, which means you've already spent next year's income right able to get out of debt by listening to the parables and the richest man in Babylon. Should I talk?

Bruce Norris: 28:10

No, no one of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes, "do what you have to for as long as you need to, so you can do what you want to for as long as you can."

Jack Fullerton: 28:21

So true.

Bruce Norris: 28:24

Yep.

Jack Fullerton: 28:25

You know, yeah, I was just gonna say or something else from Jim. Let me see if I can get this right. He always said standard education gets standard results, and self education gets incredible results. Trying to remember is, oh, his decision of the difference between financially free and those who are not. And I send out a little cover letter whenever I give away one of my free newsletters, which I stopped writing in '91 you can't buy them and what it says is that financially free, people save their money first and spend after they've saved, the rest of the population, about 95% of what they do is they spend their money first. When they get their paycheck, if they have anything left, they save it, and they do exactly what I did in my first you know, 20 or so adult times we were saving money all the time, but if I got $500 gosh darn, I had to go buy a new TV, restart. And that's one of the biggest traps that none of us have. We want it today instead of waiting. And I think, thank God, Mary came into my life because she was willing to wait with me. And that's really important. Your partner's got to be with you. And it turned out my second wife was a wonderful lady, I think the world over today, but she wasn't on the same page, and she wanted to play now, and ran off with a playboy. So fascinating like this.

Bruce Norris: 30:03

It is, I'm gonna we don't have a lot more time, but what I'd like to do is I always want to go down a list of people's names who I know have impacted your life and that you've either co taught with or been taught by. And I want the first word that kind of comes to your mind when I say their name like the category that you remember them for so and I'm going to, I'm going to say Ward Hannigan, but I'm going to prep it before, I talked to him earlier today, and you invited him to speak before he knew he was going to enjoy it, and he said, When he got done, your whole group gave him a standing ovation, and ever since that day, he has loved, loved, loved being in front of an audience. So you had a really big impact on Ward. Hannigan.

Jack Fullerton: 31:02

I think he had a big impact on me.

Bruce Norris: 31:06

So what's the word that comes to mind with Ward?

Jack Fullerton: 31:10

Probably changed my life a lot. I'd like to share with you what happened we were we went to a guy named Charlie Dorsey. He spoke three times, and he got halfway through the morning and he said, everybody in this room should be saving$1,000 a month. Well, I'm at that point. I'm doing that 35,000 in debt program and and I'm ready to leave. And Ward talked me into going to lunch with him. So went to lunch room. We've got our name tags on. There's a big table where Charlie was, and I'm a water polo coach. I don't know anything. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. And so we get invited to sit at the opposite end from Charlie Dorsey at his big table. And so I sit there, and I don't say a word, I don't say a word. And one thing happens is that it turns out that everybody stops talking. So I said, Mr Dorsey, you don't understand my life. I'm spending 110% of what I made. And I had never heard this before, but it was a blessing. And I'm sure it's, you know, a lot of people teach it. And he said, Young man, write down everything you spend for the next 30 days, of which I did, and I used to go to breakfast at Charlie's chili before I'd spend $6.35 I wrote that down. I then decided, well, gosh, instead of going at five o'clock and what am I going to eight o'clock on the captain's table on campus, which is has no real estate cost in the food and the students are in a classroom, so there's no cost for the the people. And so I got the same breakfast for 3.35 I wrote that down the next week, I went to the galley and stood up, got the same food dollar 35 I just saved$5 per day by writing down everything I spent. And I did that on a lot of other things, but that's dollars a month right there. And you know, I didn't learn any of that. They didn't teach me that in high school. Nobody taught me that I had to wait until I was 43 to learn that.

Bruce Norris: 33:18

All right. John Schaub, what comes to mind?

Jack Fullerton: 33:22

Probably my first teacher.

Bruce Norris: 33:25

Okay.

Jack Fullerton: 33:26

First guy that I really believed in when I took that class called making it big on little deals, which is my philosophy. And John is probably the most honorable, one of the most honorable guys. He probably is the most honorable or one of the most that I've ever known. He is always a giver. Uh, when they found out that Mary was sick, he was on the phone from a seminar immediately. Uh, when I lost Mary, he called me all the time. When I went through my divorce, we had gotten to know each other a little bit. We had taken a class from Warren Harding called personal magnetism and leadership training, and it was a week later that I lost my wife, and he called and checked on me. He's just become a great friend, and yet, I've learned a lot from him. And I used to do the the we used to take it from his class. We take a group of seven, but here's something really valuable. We used to take a group out on the street on Friday night at a seminar when he would do making it big on little deals here in Costa Mesa. We took people into my farm, and we put seven groups into a street with 28 to 32 houses. Let's just say 30 houses. So now we've got 30 houses. Seven groups is 210 houses. Half the people aren't home, 105 houses. And they knock on the doors and talk to people. They come back in the next day, and you know what they found about eight deals.. Now, if a person said, Gosh, 210 houses were knocked on, they only talked 105 of them, and they did that hour and a half one night. What if you went and spent an hour and a half every Saturday and did it seven weeks in a row? You probably find something, but most people won't go out there. They get, they get, they get the no's No no no, and they quit. And so I think people give up too quick.

Bruce Norris: 35:29

I had an interesting experience with a mailer. I decided I would just write offers instead of write I buy houses. So I did an experiment, and I wrote 100 offers into an area in Marino Valley. At the time, the house was worth about 75, 80,000 I literally went drove. I drove all the houses. I I looked at the repairs and, you know, kind of gave an estimate. So I did, I did a mailer. I got a I got a really nasty phone call, and how dare you, you know, whatever, and I had a pleasant attitude, and I said, I really appreciate you calling. And she Why would you say that? I said, Well, I What happens is, whenever I get a really nasty response, I naturally get a yes answer on the next call, so I really appreciate you making way for that next call.

Jack Fullerton: 36:29

Yeah. So did you get the yes on the next call?

Bruce Norris: 36:33

I got four yeses on that mailer.

Jack Fullerton: 36:36

Isn't that fascinating?

Bruce Norris: 36:38

Yep. And here, here's a here's a true story about one of the purchases. The guy owned the house that he was living in next. It was across the street from the rental. It was exactly the same house in a track. We were signing the agreement for 35 grand. He said, you couldn't buy my residence for less than 80 grand, what he was selling me his house for 35 that was exactly the same house across the street because it didn't have the same meaning to him.

Jack Fullerton: 37:13

That is a fascinating point.

Bruce Norris: 37:15

It really was same house half price had no connection, because he didn't plant the roses and he didn't do that stuff that was just sort of like, oh, the last tenant was a pain in the butt, and that's what his memory was.

Jack Fullerton: 37:31

You know, I had a good friend named Karen kaizuka, who, when she passed away, she had 40 houses, and I don't think Karen ever bought a house that she paid less than 98% of the value. She buy them, and she'd keep them, and she'd manage them, and then she just kept them. Now, 40 houses sounds like a lot. She really had 12, 10, to 12 in Cyprus, and the rest were in Oklahoma, so they were really cheaper houses, but still at that, that's what she did. And some people say, Well, I can't buy anything if I can't get it for 60 cents of $1, well, I'm going to say I bought things too high, and I bought things where I've gotten good deals. But it's crazy. If you think you gotta have everything be 60 cents on the dollar,

Bruce Norris: 38:24

You're right. You know, you remember a gentleman named Schumacher?

Jack Fullerton: 38:28

Oh, David, yes.

Bruce Norris: 38:29

Yeah. So, David taught me a good lesson, and he was very kind to me when I started speaking. He showed up. He literally showed up one time, three days in a week. He drove at the time he could see he was in San Diego to hear me Orange County, to hear me at your club in LA, three times in a week. And I think he was sort of, he was sort of fascinated at some of the stuff that I was able to do. So he invited me to lunch. Now, it turned out differently than I thought, because I'm sitting in front of the his I'm on the beach, on in one of his houses, and we were, he was, we were, he was talking about being fascinated that I was able to buy stuff at a discount, and I was pretty enthralled with that, you know. And then he said this. He said, Well, he said, buying a discount is good, but he said, I bought this house for 60 grand. And by the way, how he did that is he rented a helicopter crew, and he flew all over the place, looking for like, blank patches of activity in on the coast, and he bought where he knew it would fill in. Now he's a little bit over out of my league, and when he thinks like that, so he buys this house for, I'll just say it's 60 or 80 grand. And then he overpays for the next one, literally, a month later, next door, for 120 overpays for 100 100 at 120 because it was on terms. And then he said, it'll be a little bit of pause, he says, But he says, now they're both worth 3 million, so I guess it didn't really matter.

Jack Fullerton: 40:14

Well, you know that he gave a million dollars. I think it's the Hermosa Beach to redo their pier.

Bruce Norris: 40:20

Wow.

Jack Fullerton: 40:21

And I think that's if I've got the right town, that's where they have the big volleyball tournaments. And you know what he did? You know, did you were you in his house where he goes upstairs? Yeah, the was outside. Yeah, elevator later. And when I went there, he was, you know, legally blind. But at one time, there was a volleyball, one volleyball court in front of his house, and they'd come over and use his spicket. He goes to the city, says, Look, I want to put a drinking fountain on the other side. And so he paid to put it underneath the strand there, and they had a drinking fountain on this. I think, I don't know what this could be. I don't know what it is, but I think there's like, 20 or 30 volleyball courts there now, and they hold big volleyball tournaments right in front of his house, all because he took the initiative to help the volleyball players. Well, when he could see he saw these girls running around, these cute bikinis. You know, it was fun. He would come to the Commonwealth all the time. He would sit there and somebody say that none of us got what was said. And you'd hear this chuckle out of David. He was so far advanced to the rest of us, it was crazy. But he helped everybody.

Bruce Norris: 41:36

He did. He was very, very kind man and very patient with a young upstart that thought he was doing great things, and then he kind of taught me locations pretty important, if you can get one, even if you overpay, maybe that's a good idea. Well, Jack, I we're out of time. I want to thank you for all you've contributed to my life and for to our industry. You've mattered to an awful lot of people, and I really appreciate you.

Jack Fullerton: 42:04

Well, thank you, Bruce, and I appreciate that we've become such great friends. And I remember I wouldn't let you speak for a long time. You know that it's just been great. And I appreciate you. And everything you do for everybody, people just don't understand how much value you're giving back to the the the beginners and the pros. I mean, we all listen to whatever you say. So thank you very much.

Bruce Norris: 42:32

Okay, all right, Jack. Well, you have a you have a wonderful night. Okay?

Jack Fullerton: 42:35

You too. Thank you so much

Narrator: 42:37

For more information on hard money loans, trust deed investing, and upcoming events with The Norris group. Check out thenorrisgroup.com. For more information on passive investing through the DBL Capital Real Estate Investment Fund, please visit dblapital.com.

Joey Romero: 42:57

The Norris group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE license 01219911. Florida mortgage lender license 1577 and NMLS license 1623669. For more information on hard money lending go to thenorrisgroup.com and click the hard money tab.