4000 Homes and Counting: A Convo with Brad Chandler on Investing and Creating An Impact-Driven Life.

Welcome back to the *Collective Clicks Podcast*. This is your host, Brandon Bateman, and today I'm going to be joined by Brad Chandler.

Brad Chandler is an investor in the DMV area who has purchased over 4,000 homes in the past 20 years. They purchased about 300 homes over the past year, and he has a wealth of knowledge from experiences both in his personal life and business life. We’re going to talk in this episode about marketing directors and what it looks like to hire them. We’re going to discuss marketing and some of the key lessons he’s learned. We’ll also talk about how he learned in his personal life to be happier and more impact-driven rather than money-driven. And there’s so much more to cover. I'm looking forward to the episode, and I hope it adds some good value for you.

Thank you for joining us today, Brad. How are you doing?

"I'm awesome, thanks for having me," Brad responded.

"Yeah, of course. Really happy to talk to you," I said. "You know, you're one of the very few people who wants to talk to me right now, right between Christmas and the New Year," I joked. "It seems like everybody’s taking time off, and here we are."

Brad laughed, "Yeah, I love it."

"Well, I've been looking forward to this conversation. You're someone I consider to have a great depth of knowledge and experience—more so than most real estate investors. Personally, I’ve learned a lot from you, and I think our listeners certainly will as well," I said.

Before we get into it, just to kind of set the background so everyone’s aware, could you share a little bit about yourself, what you're passionate about, your journey in real estate, and what you’ve accomplished?"

"Yeah, man," Brad replied. "So, let’s go back to ninth grade. I read a book on how to buy real estate with no money down, and at that time, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. So, I went, I got my undergraduate degree, then I got a graduate degree in real estate. I came out and was working for a developer in 2002, and an investor bought my neighbor's house in Vienna, Virginia. I went and talked to him, and he said, 'I buy houses at 30% below market, fix them up, and resell them.' I was like, ‘Geez, I didn’t know you could do that. I thought you got rich by putting 20% down and holding onto real estate.’ So that was in November or December of 2002. And I thought, ‘This is what I’m going to do.’ I was working full-time. My son had just been born, so I’d come home at like six o'clock, spend time with him until eight, put him to bed, and then work from eight to eleven every day. And on weekends, I’d be pounding 'We Buy Houses' signs, mailing out direct mail. Every month went by without a deal, but I was showing up to these real estate meetings and meetups, seeing people making all this money. And I thought, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’ So I just became more and more persistent."

"In July of 2003, I bought my first house, and by August, I had bought six. In October, I came home and told my wife at the time, ‘Hey, I just quit. I’m forming Express Homebuyers.’ And she was like, ‘What?! We have a newborn, I’ve got two kids to support, and you just quit?’ And I was like, ‘It’ll be fine.’ And here we are, 19 years later, with 4,000 houses bought, and, well, I was right," Brad chuckled.

"Yeah, that’s... wow," I said, laughing. "I think everyone has a similar experience. When I started my company, it took years for my wife to even realize it was a real company. For a while, it just felt like that thing I do to avoid working, where I’d just kind of sit in that room on the computer and 'work'—like, whatever that is," I joked.

"Yeah, it's funny. I think it’s how everyone starts," Brad said. "It takes some time for your family to believe in it. But that was way back in the day. So you were sending mail back in 2002?"

"Yeah, man," Brad replied. "And I started SEO in 2003. I launched a website and began working on SEO in 2003."

"Nice," I said. "That definitely gave you a jump on the market. It was a different world back then. So, tell me about Express Homebuyers today. What kind of volume do you guys do? What kind of staff do you have? What’s your focus?"

"We’ll do around 300 deals this year, primarily in DC, Baltimore, and Los Angeles," Brad explained. "We just opened Los Angeles in the last six months because we had a really talented employee move out there. So we started spending some marketing dollars out there. We're focusing on wholesaling and fix-and-flips. Obviously, it’s a tough market right now. Prices are declining, so we have to be really careful about the fix-and-flips we do. If we could do all wholesales, we would. But sometimes, you leave money on the table if you only wholesale, so we do both. Right now, our focus is just to weather the storm. It’ll pass; it always does. And hopefully, as prices continue to decline, we can build up another portfolio. Back in 2010 to 2012, we bought 80 rentals, rode them up, and sold them. This time, maybe we can put another zero on that number and buy 800 rentals."

"Yeah, I understand," I said. "I’d also love to dig a little bit more into your experience during that last recession because, I mean, you know as well as I do, if you talk to the average wholesaler today and ask them how long they’ve been in the business, most of them got into it between 2015 and now. You're definitely the exception. You've been doing this for a bit longer. Tell me about your business during 2008 and 2009. What was that time like for you?"

"Yeah," Brad began. "So, before I jump into that, let me just say that the new wholesalers today are really struggling. Everything’s changing—credit is tightening, interest rates are rising, so buy-and-hold strategies don’t make sense anymore. These guys who just started out? It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be tough for anyone, but especially for the new guys. We’ve been around a long time. We have cash, we’ve spent millions on marketing, so people still think of us even if we’re not running ads."

"Um, but place a bigger emphasis on the active comps now in the declining market than the sold comps. So that's a big, that's a big, uh, kind of gold nugget," someone said. "And then, you know, we made our houses look extra nice because we were renovating at the time. And you know, like my partner said, we didn't need to sell a thousand houses, we needed to sell one house in one neighborhood right at a given time. So let's make our house the nicest one in the neighborhood. We've started staging again. We've started, uh, doing landscape packages outside."

"We used to go to brokerage firms and offer them incentives. We would take them to the Redskins games. We would, um, we would give them an extra percent or an extra couple thousand dollars. So those were a lot of things that we did back then. Um, some of the stuff we're starting to introduce again," they continued.

"Yeah, understood. In other words, you actually have to try to sell deals these days," another replied. "Yeah, it's not like it was before, but I've actually heard similar things because so many people are trying to cut back on their rehabs. But I know quite a few companies that are kind of preaching like, 'Now's the time, if any, to spend more money on your rehabs because you need a good product. You need the best-looking house.'"

"You do," someone agreed. "I mean, because, you know, the average person who could afford a $400,000 house a couple of years ago or a year ago can now afford maybe $260,000. It's crazy what the interest rates have done in terms of volume and affordability."

"Yeah. Yeah, understandable," another added. "So, what about right now? If we're looking at your life and what you care about, what's important to you? What are you passionate about, and where are you trying to go?"

"Fortunately, I've got an amazing team," the speaker replied. "You asked about the team structure. I've got about 15 full-time employees in our Springfield office, and I've got about another 12 full-time virtual assistants in the Philippines. And we have the best team we've ever had in 19 years. So, I am only working about three hours a week, if that, on Express Homebuyers. I'm in a great position where it’s running without me."

"Two years ago, while trying to get my son help for anxiety, I came across a lady. I was on a Zoom call like this, and she said, 'You know, you have a tic.' I was like, 'What are you talking about?' She said, 'You blink profusely when you talk about your childhood. You may have some unresolved childhood trauma. Do you want to come out and work with me? Bring your son out and we can work with my Navy SEAL husband.' At the time, I went out and, in a weekend, my life was radically transformed. There was actually a three-hour session that transformed my life."

"We went back and looked at stresses and traumas from childhood," they explained. "What we all do when we experience stress or trauma is form meanings or untruths to get through that stressful period. But when you're six years old and something bad happens to you, you typically say, 'It's happening to me because I'm bad,' and that’s how you cope. At 47, when your subconscious mind is still telling you that you’re bad and unworthy, it no longer serves you. It led to two divorces, the use of alcohol and drugs in my life, five business mistakes that cost me $9 million, and the list goes on."

"But, I don't drink anymore. I don't smoke weed anymore. It’ll be two years in a couple of weeks. It’s been the best two years of my life. My life has radically changed, and I’ve found freedom and happiness on such a deep level. I know God put me here now to do this work and help other people."

"So, I've started Brad Chandler Coaching. I'm helping other people, whether they’re anxious, dealing with depression, weight issues, relationship problems—really anything involving the mind. It can be solved because it always comes back to the same thing. It always comes back to unmet childhood needs. We didn’t get our needs met as children, so we developed coping mechanisms. Those mechanisms cause mental distress, bad relationships, and self-destructive behaviors like drinking."

"I’m passionate about this work, if you can’t tell," they added with a smile. "I’ve read probably 40 books. I’ve studied under some of the best people in the world in this space. I’ve gone to conferences. I’ve immersed myself in it, and I’m getting better every day. I’m also seeing amazing results with my clients."

"That’s awesome," someone responded. "So that’s what you do with your other 37 hours of work each week now that you’re not as involved in Express Homebuyers. It sounds like that contributes to your happiness quite a bit since you’re passionate about it."

"Let me tell you," the speaker said, "I’ve made $300,000 on a wholesale deal before. But nothing compares to getting the texts and phone calls I get now, with people saying, ‘You have radically changed my life and my family’s life. I’ll forever be indebted to you.’ It’s priceless."

"That sounds incredible," the listener said. "What advice would you give to someone who might be in a similar situation to where you were before?"

"Totally," they answered. "I’ve developed a proven system. I was taken through it myself, and then I refined it with input from three amazing people in this space. It can help anyone who’s suffering—whether it’s relationships, business chaos, or anything else. This is the first business I’ve started where I’m not focusing on the money. It is a for-profit business, and I do charge, but my focus is on making the biggest impact."

"Um, I got involved in a trademark lawsuit. Most investors know I was the guy who got 'We Buy Houses' trademark canceled. Well, should it have gone that far? That cost us almost $2 million?" someone lamented. "No. It was my ego. It was like, I gotta protect myself. It was silly, it was stupid. I mean, it cost us probably both $4 million between me and the 'We Buy Houses' guy. So, yeah, lots of mistakes."

"And what I would tell you now in this market is you gotta be really good. You shouldn't be looking at expanding unless every system is dialed in unless you've got every person in the right seat, unless you've got your follow-up systems where a call comes in and you are all over that call immediately and you're setting appointments and you're following up with appointments. If you don't have everything dialed in, number one, you're probably gonna go out of business in this environment. But number two, you really shouldn't be thinking about anything else. Expansion, self-storage, multi-family, anything until you get your house right. That's actually paying your mortgage and feeding your family."

"Yeah. Understood. Focus. And then move on," another agreed. "Make sense."

"Yeah. That's heartbreaking to hear about all those mistakes, but sounds like you've had some wins over the years too, that hopefully add up to a little bit more."

"Yep, yep. That's definitely the case. I've made millions and I've lost millions. And, look, it's who I am, right? Your story of who you are is who you are, and you are right where you should be at any given point in the universe. It doesn't mean you have to stay there if you want, but if you want to change your life and your future, all you gotta do is change your thinking about how you perceive yourself in the world."

"Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about marketing a little bit because that's my focus. Really curious to hear some of your thoughts there. What are some things that you've learned about marketing in this world of wholesaling and flipping real estate?"

"I mean, what have I learned about marketing? Just forget real estate. What's important about marketing? You know, StoryBrand is a great organization and it talks about everyone having an internal problem and an external problem. So, you need your grass cut. That is the external problem. You never call because you need your grass cut. The internal problem is you've got house guests coming over and you don't want to be embarrassed. Your HOA is gonna fine you. Your neighbors have been bugging you, so that's why you call someone. A lot of companies make the mistake of marketing to the external. So, you've gotta market to the internal problem, which is their pain. Why are they calling you from a marketing standpoint? And then from a sales standpoint, it's the same thing. You gotta focus on their pain. Don't focus on the offer number, don't focus on how great you are as a company. Focus on how can you solve that problem. No one cares about who's listening to this podcast. No one cares about Brad Chandler or Justin. Right? What they care about is what can we do to help them, help them change their lives, right? So, that's part of what I've learned from marketing."

"I've learned we could have a two-hour session on this, right? But marketing is, don't spend dollars unless you've got a really great follow-up system because for many years we spent a million dollars a year in marketing and our follow-up system was terrible. Now our follow-up system is amazing. So, don't spend a dollar or a dime in marketing until you can really make sure that you can service those leads that are coming in."

"Let's talk about what a great follow-up system is. Because I have some suspicions. We have some clients that, like my experience with follow-up systems and acquisitions and everything is that generally companies believe that they're in a really good spot there. And if everybody believes they're in a good spot, but some statistically are just performing significantly better than others, then it tells me that probably not everybody's doing everything exactly right. But it's hard to dig into all the details. I imagine maybe you, years ago when you were spending this million dollars a year in marketing, did you feel like you had it figured out?"

"We did. And we were using Infusionsoft, which is really hard to figure out if you're doing something right. And when we switched systems, we went onto Salesforce, it was evident that we weren't that good at it."

"So the CRM helped you?"

"Yeah, so we have a 99% contact rate, I think, of people of leads that come in. So we're all over them. Those 13 VAs, when the phone call, the lead comes in. If it's not picked up by an acquisition specialist in our home office, it rolls over to the VAs and they're all over it. And if there are missed calls or after-hours calls, they are just all over them all the time following up."

"What kind of metrics do you measure that help you know that your follow-up game is on?"

"So it's response to lead time. It's contact rate. Those are two huge ones. We look at appointments, we look at appointments closed. You know, the one area of our business we probably could get better at, but I think we've made a lot of strides in the last six months, is going on an appointment where we don't get the deal and we don't close it. We could probably get a little better there. And I think that's where most of the leaky buckets around the country, at least with the big investors are, they're really good at getting an appointment and then when they don't get the appointment, they're not great at the follow-up."

"Understood. What about after that? So what about long-term follow-up?"

"So we do, I mean, we have a category just called long-term follow-up. And we, you know, we hit people unless you're telling us not to, like, we're hitting people every single month. I mean, we've closed leads from our old Infusionsoft system seven years prior, uh, that they had literally come in seven years ago and we, so, so we never stop contacting people again unless they ask us to."

"Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, that's the tough thing about marketing, return on investment. You have to realize there's a, if you're good at your follow-up game, I've talked to a few people that are like, 'Oh, I always close like 75% of my deals. I close it like on the spot.' Um, and like they view that as a positive thing. And I view that as you probably don't have enough follow-up because that would skew your metrics quite a bit. I'm also curious to hear from you in terms of, uh, speaking of a well-running machine, from a marketing standpoint."

"How do you manage the marketing? Cause I know you've gone through, uh, a few different phases and, and some better times and worse times in terms of like hiring marketing directors or managing it yourself, that kind of thing."

"Yeah, I mean, right now, um, we, we, we do not have a marketing director. Um, I played that role for many years and I love it. I love the whole marketing. I love the creative. Uh, don't, I'm not great at the data analytics point, but I like it. I like looking at reports and stuff and figuring out what we do. So right now, um, we are managing, you know, we're working with agencies like yourself. We have a couple of agencies and they, they kind of handle everything and, and they, you know, I mean, you know, this, we, we have a weekly or biweekly, you know, every two weeks call and we just walk through the metrics and we, we work together as a team to try to, you know, improve things."

"Understood. So basically outsourcing is your solution right now. Why have you chosen to go that way?"

"I mean overhead. The, the, our last marketing director was costing us a lot of money, on several fronts."

"Yeah. Fair enough. And, and I, uh, that's kind of one thing that I'm getting at here because I had that experience of working with your past marketing director. I don't wanna name any names or hope he never hears this or anything. Cause I'm trying to make this like a positive learning experience."

"Sure."

"My honest belief, like most marketing directors that we have worked with as a company, I really don't think they're adding that much value to the company that they're working with. That's been my experience. Like when your previous marketing director left, you probably remember that your return on investment on your marketing with us literally quadrupled, the moment that they left because they put so many constraints on us and what we could do, what we couldn't do, what we could say, what we couldn't say, where the landing pages were, all these things and, and they basically like didn't allow us or potentially even some of your other vendors to really like, make the impact that they need to make."

"Sure I heard that from, from other vendors as well."

"Yeah. So it's, uh, yeah, that's a case where maybe a marketing director adds negative value, but, but there's other cases where it's, it's a tough game though because, uh, you want someone like, it's like being a marketing director is like being a steward of your money, right? Uh, you're investing in that

person. And it's, uh, like, I think, I think many are, are well-intentioned, but it's just, it's a hard role and it's hard to treat that money as if it was your own right? A business owner just does absolutely on a different level."

"But on the flip side of that, Brandon, it's hard to find good agencies. Like you. You're the exception out there, right? So while I'd say, yeah, maybe go the agency route, I mean, you can get snowed by agencies because they'll tell you what they want you to hear. Not, you know, what, what really should be happening? Cuz their incentive is just make more money. Make more money, make more money. You don't operate like that."

"And so, yeah, just, just be really careful of the agency that you select."

"Yeah. Fair enough. What's, uh, do you have any guidance on that? What, what makes you choose one agency over another?"

"I mean, look, I, so is it, this is, you know, it's kinda like the whole IT thing. Um, we don't, when you don't know something, it's really hard. Um, I, I would have to just say, Do exhaustive research on them, have several conversations with them, and then look for referrals. Like, uh, you know, this is a pretty connected community. Um, and so if I'm saying, hey, just, uh, just Brandon's organization is amazing to work with, um, you know, I've got a pretty good name. So as people who've worked with, that's, I, I would do that. First of all, I would ask people who've worked with them and not just over two months, three months, but who are the clients that have been with someone for a year or two And see if, see if you can talk with them."

"Yeah, understood. Uh, which, . Yeah. Probably, honestly is the best, the best way to get an idea of it."

"I agree. It's, it's a tough game to, to make a decision on something that you don't fully understand the, the details of it."

"Um, so, so in closing this up is, is there any other advice that, that you would share or anything you want our listeners to know?"

"Yeah. I mean, this is gonna go back to the personal side because you guys can make, you know, 10 million bucks and, and not be fulfilled. Uh, you can pick up, you know, look at the newspaper, look at all the people who've died. You know, the princes of the world, the Michael Jacksons, the on and on, and on, and on and on. Um, so if you're suffering, I just want you to know that you don't have to suffer a day longer. Uh, there is a proven method to, to stop your suffering. , once you do the work and figure out, you know, the truths and live under the truth, like everything in your life will change, including the business, the way you run your business. Just, just like it's done with me, like I have literally transformed the way that I run my business, the way that I attract people, the way that I look at growth. Now, I don't need to go make 10 million. Would I like to make $10 million to change the world? But I'm not, I'm not looking from the standpoint that I'm, I have to make this, I have to make this. So now I don't come up with all these crazy ideas and market expansion, and let's do this business and let, and let's do that business. So I would just take a good hard look at where you are in your life when you look in the mirror. Um, do you say, Hey, this is exactly where I want to be, and or do you, do you look in the mirror and say, gosh, I wish things were different. I thought things would be different by now. And if the, if the, if it's the latter answer, you thought things would be different. Now you gotta take action, right? You, you keep doing what you're gonna do. You're always gonna get what you get. So if you're in a shitty marriage or your business is going downhill, or you're outta shape or whatever it is, you gotta take some change. And there is a little bit of pain like to, to look at the truth. You gotta go through the, the pain of the truth to get to the freedom. But I am a testament to. that going through that pain and getting to the freedom is something I never, um, I never even dreamed about. I did not know life could be this good and, and there's no reason that that can't happen for you too."

"Yeah, understood. Um, for, for anybody that wants to contact you specifically, uh, to talk about that or, or anything else, how do they get ahold of you?"

"Yeah, so go to bradchandler.com/contact, and I've got everything in there. My little four-minute story of my life and my transformation. Um, I'll do, I have a free 30-minute phone call with you, whether you work with me or not. I wanna help you. I wanna help you find the freedom I have. And then every single day of the year, I put out a video on freedom and happiness and relationships and all this great stuff. So every social media link is on that page. Bradchandler.com/contact."

"Okay. Awesome. Well, good for you. Thank you for taking the time to join me today and for everybody else listening. I'll see you next time."

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