Navigating Real Estate Across States: Michael Pinter’s Journey from New York to Texas

Recently in REsimpli Podcast, Sharad Mehta spoke with seasoned Long Island, New York real estate investor Michael Pinter. Michael delved further into his 2013 transition from a 17-year mortgage industry employment to full-time real estate investment. Originally focused on purchasing and fixing confiscated New York homes, Michael viewed the auction-driven approach limited by fluctuating demand and lack of control to be constructive. After discussions with Brad Chandler, he decided in 2017 to start wholesaling in order to expand his company via direct-to-seller marketing.

Michael concentrated mainly on the specific difficulties of the New York real estate market, including the need for lawyers in deals, big earnest money deposits, and default non-assignable contracts. Despite these challenges, he adjusted well and discovered that, when a business closes, New York’s strict contracts provide some kind of protection. Still, the great expenses connected with many closures and protracted foreclosure procedures present difficult obstacles.

Still, Michael’s presence in the Texas market—especially in El Paso—has been welcomed. Texas appeals to Hispanic customers seeking non-bank financing options because of fewer owner financing restrictions and a speedier cash conversion cycle. Michael’s company has expanded in Texas because of this flexibility; sales there complete faster and there are fewer production expenses. To increase his lead producing potential, he keeps using many marketing techniques like tax late data mailers.

Michael’s team, mostly working remotely, illustrates the expanding trend of virtual real estate companies. With only a local dispositions manager in New York, the remote technology helps him to efficiently oversee operations throughout many states.

Apart from his work life, Michael loves reading books on negotiating techniques such as “Never Split the Difference”. Spending time with his granddaughters is also something he deeply enjoys. One of the main ingredients in his career successes is the personal insights and care his family provides.

Sharad Mehta and Michael Pinter’s conversation provides a whole picture of the complexity of real estate investing in highly regulated markets such as New York vs more liberal states like Texas. Michael’s ability to seize possibilities and overcome obstacles gives investors in different real estate marketplaces wise advise.

Watch on YouTube:

Transcript:

Sharad Mehta  0:02  

Right, let’s go, 123, hey guys. This is Sharad with REsimpli. I’m the host of the REsimpli podcast. Really excited to have Michael Pinter on our podcast today. Michael has been using REsimpli for about four years now, since, like, very, early days, and it’s I met him for the first time last month, and I still don’t know enough about his business. I know where he lives, but I’m really excited to get into it and see kind of learn more about his journey. Michael, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Michael Pinter  0:34  

Thank you very much. Radha, I’m good.

Sharad Mehta  0:36  

Yeah. So yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where do you live? What kind of investing do you do, and how long have you been investing for?

Michael Pinter  0:44  

So I been living in around New York City my whole life. I live on Long Island now, which is a new york city suburb. I was in the mortgage business at the same company for 17 years of 1997 to 2013 and when I was there, I started dabbling in real estate investment. Eventually I left, probably four years too late. In 2013 I went full time into investing in real estate, really, most of the time I’ve been doing that. It’s it’s been in New York so it’s Long Island and New York City. And about a year ago, I started expanding to El Paso Texas also, and so I’ve been marketing there and doing deals there. So that’s, that’s my story. I had a partner for a while. We broke up about five years ago, and it’s, I am the only owner, and I have a team that’s almost all remote cool.

Sharad Mehta  1:41  

And what kind of investing are you doing in New York, in Texas?

Michael Pinter  1:44  

So I would say probably 50% of the properties that I go into contract on, I wholesale, and the other 50 I either rehab or hotel or wholesale ornovate, which means I don’t end up closing on them. And then half, half I’ll wholesale innovate, and half I’ll end up closing

Sharad Mehta  2:00  

on got it, and then while you were working at the mortgage company, like, what was it about working there that kind of, you know, led you down the path of real estate.

Michael Pinter  2:11  

So, I mean, I was there for the really good years, you know, 2004 567, those were amazing years. And then everything hit the fan when the crash happened in 2008 and 2009 and then the there was a tremendous amount of overregulation. They blamed a lot of the crash on mortgage professionals, even though I don’t think it was mortgage professionals who were responsible for most of it. And I realized I gotta get out of there. And I should have left much earlier, but I stayed as long as I did, but thankfully, it led me down a path where I could start investing in real estate full time, which I enjoy for the most. A lot of it because a lot of regulation. There’s not that much regulation in what we do, right?

Sharad Mehta  2:55  

So how did you get into real estate? Like you decided to get into real estate. I most people that think about real estate think of like, hey, I want to buy rental properties. I want to have passive income. How did you go about getting started in wholesaling?

Michael Pinter  3:09  

So the truth is, the truth is, when I first started, when I first bought my first properties in 2004 they were rental properties, right? That was the that was the idea. But, and I’ve been managing rental properties, really, for 20 years. But, and I didn’t, I didn’t even know what wholesaling was. When I started doing this full time, I really, I thought wholesalers were like knuckle dragging Neanderthals who tried to make $2,000 and don’t really bring any value. I didn’t understand the concept of direct to seller marketing. None of that made any sense to me. What I did, because of what I knew, was that I bought properties at the foreclosure auctions, and I bought it from bank owned real estate agents, and that was the only way that my mind understood that you could make money. You buy a house that was foreclosed and you fix it up, you know, renovate it and sell it. I was four years into that, and really, I was in a place where it’s very hard to grow the business, because when you only buy at auctions, or primarily buy at auction. You can’t control how much you buy. You never know if you can get outbid, right? You can get out bid on everything. And there were many times, and I was spending probably 40% of my week on the auction, right? The whole Monday I was preparing for the auction, and every Tuesday, like the whole day, was the auction. So I realized that that wasn’t great if I wanted to grow the business. And I spoke to Brad Chandler, and Brad Chandler basically told me, You got to start marketing direct to sellers, and you should really try to wholesale, because you can scale a wholesale business. It’s very hard to scale a business where you’re rehabbing and flipping. And I really got to a point around that time where I got into, like, doing 17 rehabs at one time, and I wanted to kill myself because it was right. You know, there’s a lot of businesses that they grow. You think that growth is the answer, and you grow, and then you realize you can’t handle it. So I had a situation where materials were going to the wrong places and and contractors were lying to me, and I started losing money on deals, and I saw that it’s very hard to scale a rehab. Of slash flipping business. There are people who have done it, but it’s very, very hard, because every single one is different. It’s it’s not uniform, but you can grow and scale a wholesaling business because it’s much simpler. So that’s when I started doing that. So 2017 is when I started marketing director sellers, where I could buy properties at enough of a discount that I could wholesale, or if I wanted, I could, you know, do anything else with it, and it’s been, I’ve been a much happier person since then.

Sharad Mehta  5:29  

No, I agree. Yeah, we do. We do primarily fix the clip, though we did close on a property today, which we’re going to clean up and put it back on the MLS wholesale hotel, whatever people want to call it. Yeah, yeah, I do agree. It’s a very cash constrained business. It your cash gets tied up and it’s not fun. Then you get like, you know, I don’t have more money to buy a property, so I totally understand. So before you got started into wholesaling, I’m curious, like, Did you take any courses, or did you I mean, four years is a long time, because 2013 I remember I was I was, I started investing 2010 2013 14. You can still buy properties on MLS, you know, auction and stuff. But after that in

Michael Pinter  6:07  

New York, there was never a time in New York where there were deals on the MLS, ever the the the asset managers were not ever putting them on the MLS. They were selling them in bulk to groups.

Sharad Mehta  6:20  

Got it. So there was never, it would never come on the MLS, never,

Michael Pinter  6:24  

they would never, ever make it

Sharad Mehta  6:26  

to the MLS. So for four years, you were primarily auction like I went to the

Michael Pinter  6:30  

auction every single week for four years. And I bought from I bought an online auctions like Hubzu and zone and auction.com and I bought from bank owned Realtors where the property had gone to auction and then bought by bank. And the banks weren’t even thinking about rehabbing them then. So, right? Those, those were what I was buying for four for four years, but I couldn’t really control how much I was

Sharad Mehta  6:50  

buying. Yeah, yeah, it’s not very scalable, like, I remember I used to buy at auction. Also, it’s fun buying at auction when you get a deal, but yeah, it’s not something I mean, sometimes the auctions end up getting cancer, and then you people get people get carried away, they end up overpaying. So, yeah, totally understand. So you started like 2017 is when you started doing direct to seller. And then you also changed your business model from flipping, rehabbing heavy to wholesaling. Did you take a course work with a coach or a mentor? Like, how did you go from flipping to like wholesaling.

Michael Pinter  7:21  

At that point, I understood what was going on with wholesaling. What I didn’t know was how different New York Realty, real estate was with the rest of the country. So I soon. So as soon as I started, I joined investor

Sharad Mehta  7:40  

fuel, which I think started to the great mastermind. Yeah, right. So that’s

Michael Pinter  7:43  

that from there, I learned a lot, because I got up there in the beginning and I started talking about the problems I had in New York, and nobody knew what the hell I was talking about. I was the only member from New York, and I’m talking about attorneys, and I’m talking about big, big deposits, and they didn’t know. That’s when I realized that this was specific to New York and which helped me at least understand what was going on. But no, I didn’t really take a course. I just to me. I had four years of full time real estate experience. I knew how the process worked. I just didn’t know how it worked direct to seller. And then I that, I figured out pretty quickly.

Sharad Mehta  8:17  

So what direct to seller? Do you like direct mail? Calling. Today, I’m

Michael Pinter  8:21  

doing a lot of pay per lead. There was no, really no paper lead. Then, yeah, no paper click. Then I did a lot of texting. Then I have I’m not texting now. I also do cold calling now, so I have cold calling services, and some cold callers work for me, right? So I’m still doing that. Those are my main methods, and a little RVM also,

Sharad Mehta  8:40  

right? What were some of the challenges that you ran into, like wholesaling, and especially, like, you can be New York specific, or just like generally, you know, as you it’s a different business model, from flipping to wholesaling. Like people think it’s real estate investing, but it’s like totally different business model. What were some of the challenges you started running into?

Michael Pinter  9:00  

So I’ll tell you the basic challenges that still exist in New York, and when I tell people the difference in New York, most people don’t believe me, but everything I’m about to tell you is true. So in New York, number one is that every transaction takes place between the seller’s attorney and a buyer’s attorney. I can’t bring a contract to a meet with a seller and have them sign it if a seller agrees, seller agrees to my price, but I just as a tip of the iceberg, seller agrees to my price, he has to engage an attorney, and that attorney prepares the contract and sends it to my attorney. That’s number one, it gets Oh, it only this is just the beginning. Number two is the standard EMD, the standard earnest money deposit in New York is 10% 10% negotiable, yes, but if I’m buying something for $300,000 that seller’s attorney is almost certainly going to ask me for $30,000 can I negotiate? Yeah, yes, but the contract is not even enforceable until my funds clear the seller’s attorney’s account. So it’s not like in other states where I can give a check and nobody deposits or I. Have a check for $50 I can give nothing, so I can negotiate it, but very it’s very rare that I’ll buy something with less than five or $10,000 down payment. And here’s the part that’s really going to blow your mind. There are no contingencies in New York state contracts, so there’s no inspection contingencies. The way it works in New York State is that as soon as a seller and a buyer agree on the price, the buyer does an inspection and any repairs he wants done goes in a rider to the contract, and there is no contingency period after that. So in a standard retail deal, there’ll be a mortgage contingency. That’s the only contingency. So every single contract that I have gone into, number one, I needed my attorney involved. Number two, I had to give a significant deposit. And number three, I had no outs. I had no way out of that contract. They either had to close or assign that contract. People, when they hear that, they

Sharad Mehta  10:48  

Oh, you lose your EMD well, or you lose your EMD, correct,

Michael Pinter  10:52  

which is usually significant

Sharad Mehta  10:55  

I’m talking about, yeah, exactly like, okay, oh, wow. I had no idea. No, most people

Michael Pinter  11:01  

don’t. New York is looking like

Sharad Mehta  11:02  

hundreds of transactions. You put this money up and then you no contingency. You can’t even negotiate. You

Michael Pinter  11:11  

can negotiate the amount, but you you can

negotiate to have to have what contingency.

There’s no such thing as an inspection contingency in a contract in New York, the inspections are done before contract, not after. So

Sharad Mehta  11:23  

an appraisal and mortgage would be, you know, for traditional retail, traditional

Michael Pinter  11:27  

retail, but for an investor, they’re assuming you’re you’re all, how do you then wholesale a property. So oh and Oh, I forgot another thing. Fourth thing, all standard contracts in New York are not assignable. Clause 26 in the contracts, there’s no assignability. So I have to negotiate to make it assignable. I have to negotiate to get the EMD down from bazillion dollars, and I have no and I still have no contingencies in the contract.

Sharad Mehta  11:50  

Okay, so this is really, really interesting. I know nobody, nobody. I went I went to school in New York. I went to Baruch College, right in downtown. I’m so happy I moved out of New York. I mean, not that I live in California, which has its own set of problems. But okay, so walk me through an example. Like, first of all, what’s your typical purchase price on a deal that you’re buying now? Like in 2024,

Michael Pinter  12:17  

425,000 Wow.

Sharad Mehta  12:18  

So you’re putting, like, minimum 10,000

Michael Pinter  12:23  

sometimes I can negotiate 5000 Okay,

Sharad Mehta  12:25  

yeah, so five to 10,000 EMD, which, I mean, in a way, it’s good that you have less competition. You don’t have, like, newbies coming in, you know, because they’re just like, 510 1000 newbies

Michael Pinter  12:36  

come into New York, and then what? All those things I just told you happen. They don’t. They’re, yeah, they’re not. They’re not in New York. I

Sharad Mehta  12:44  

had no idea. I’ve been investing so long. I had no idea. Okay, so you so let’s say get a property under contract, like, I really want to understand you get a property under contract for 400,000 right? So this is 400,000 is ARV or that’s what, that’s my price. Oh, wow. Okay, that’s crazy. Before 8000 get this property into contact, let’s say, put 5000 10,000 EMD. Okay, you have no contingency, so you have to be very, very sure what the repairs are and what the ARV is, and then the market is gonna, like, agree with you. Great. Okay, so, and then let’s say, in this case you negotiate, how many? What percentage would you say you’re able to negotiate? EMD, not EMD like assignable clause, most,

Michael Pinter  13:30  

most. But I will. I, in the past, I had lost deals over that issue, and now I have a workaround. So in the event, in the event that the contract’s not assignable. They’ll usually allow me to create an LLC and just and create an created they’ll say you can’t assign it somebody else, but you can buy it in a specific LLC for the transaction, and then sell the LLC. Okay, then I’ll sell the LLC. But again, again, half the primes, half the times I’m closing on it anyway. I don’t need, I don’t need to fight for that. But, um, but, but you’re missing a step because a seller, a seller agrees on a price, then they have to have an attorney. So many of them do have an attorney. If not, I’ll recommend an attorney, and then that attorneys then negotiate with my attorney. And the legal fees here are, like, two or $3,000 so they they want to earn their their legal fees, so they argue over stupid bullshit, and that process, just to get it from when a seller agrees to when it goes under contract, that could be six weeks, someone’s gonna be two what? Yeah, right, that’s Wow. That’s one of the things that I want. I wanted in Ari simply, I wanted there to be a status of seller agrees to price. But I know that in 49 states, as soon as the seller agrees to price, it’s automatically under contract. Well,

Sharad Mehta  14:43  

no, we have, we have those updates coming, by the way. Yeah, that is crazy. So it’s crazy.

Michael Pinter  14:50  

It’s different from the world. I know it’s different because, I mean, I don’t

Sharad Mehta  14:54  

think, I don’t think I other than my personal residence, which took from the time I made. Didn’t offer to the time we closed, took about like six weeks. I mean, we had some issue with the lender, but it was a pretty smooth process, like there were no attorneys involved, nothing like that. All right. So, so, because that blows my mind, that right? So,

Michael Pinter  15:13  

because of what I just told you, you’ve got to understand the way people think about real estate in New York is different than another 49 states, because they don’t look at their real estate as this incredibly liquid asset. Right? In California, if you really want to sell something, you can sell in a week. You know, you can get titles. But in New York, because they went through the process of buying the property and saw how long it takes, they look at a real estate is not as something that’s going to take time. So it’s just a way people think here. So, yeah, so the marketing in other states is like, Hey, if you’re in a financial pinch, I’ll get you out in two days. In New York, if you say, that’s people, they know you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re full of crap. So you have so you you

Sharad Mehta  15:51  

kind of like most, like, you know, on, on our website, on REsimpli, website that I didn’t say, we say, Hey, close in seven days, cash you.

Michael Pinter  16:01  

I have to change it, because it’s never gonna happen. It takes, yeah, takes about two weeks to get best case. Takes two weeks to get title in New York. So,

Sharad Mehta  16:10  

so every so you have so you agree with this. This just, I, it seems so unbelievable. Buyer and seller agree on the price, just and the attorney, just because they want to earn their 234, 1000. They’re just like, prolonging the entire is it

Michael Pinter  16:27  

possible that they can agree in a couple days? Yeah, but a couple days is the quickest it’s going to be. It’s not going to be, it’s not going to be instant like it

Sharad Mehta  16:34  

is in the rest of the country. Wow. So, so you cannot, like the attorney, so you go to a seller, they cannot even sign it. I mean, they can sign an agreement, but it’s like, null and void. It goes to escrow, and they’re like, Okay, who’s the attorney? He said, We don’t have an attorney. Like, okay.

Michael Pinter  16:50  

So if there’s occasionally, there’s no attorney, then they have to sign a very strongly worded affidavit that my attorney will provide to saying they’re not being represented. You’ve got to understand, because it’s so typical here. Yeah, if I didn’t get that, and the guy came back and said, You took advantage of me, he’d probably win. Yeah, so I, you have to be careful here. So I occasionally, but here’s the thing, also, there’s, there’s more differences. So in New York, the the title company, so in 49 states, the title company really runs the closing and the transaction right, and they disperse the funds. They’re the ones who are making decisions in New York. The title company is really just a service provider. They’re just making sure the liens get paid off, and they are just making sure the taxes get paid off. The attorneys really disperse the funds and run everything. So it has to be handled differently in that way, too. But because of that, like, I’ve had a few cases where the seller said, I don’t want an attorney. And I was like, This is great, right? I’ll have no attorney. And then it ended up being a huge pain in my behind, because the sales attorney is responsible to clear all the title issues. The sales attorney is responsible to create a checklist of all the disbursements at the closing. So in one situation, there were a bunch of death certificates that were needed, and no one took care of it. And we got to the closing, and I had to be running around like a crazy man getting your testificance on another situation. They mentioned to me, when I first met them, that it was a brother and a sister, and they wanted to split it 5050, but I didn’t remember that. So we got to the closing, it was one check, and they were all screaming at me, but again, those were activities that the sales attorney usually did, that they didn’t do, and that, in case, in that situation, it falls on me to take care of it, and I don’t like doing that stuff. So, you know, I got, I’ve got my wish on a couple of deals. And it was, it was difficult. All

Sharad Mehta  18:31  

right, that’s, that’s insane. I still can’t believe, yeah. All right, so you get a property in the contract for 400,000 you paid like 510, 1000. If you want a wholesale What do you do? In that case? I you have your cash buyers that you send the list out to cash

Michael Pinter  18:48  

buyers, come out, and then my attorney will send them an assignment. They’ll sign the assignment, send an EMD to my attorney, deposit. And then, and then, and then they

Sharad Mehta  18:57  

and your cash buyers have to have an attorney also. Yeah, by the

Michael Pinter  19:01  

way, on a wholesale deal, there could be four attorneys at the closing, buyer, assignee, seller, and if the buyer is getting hard money, then the hard money lender has an attorney to be four, four attorneys.

Sharad Mehta  19:15  

Anyone who’s listening, assigning law student go to New York, there’s plenty of job opportunities. Wow. All right, so what about so let’s say you, I mean, it sounds like it’s easy to get that assignable, uh, agreement in, clause in so are you having your cash buyers all come to the property, except that they have to come with their attorneys, no to see the

Michael Pinter  19:41  

property, but when I show it, then

Sharad Mehta  19:44  

the Is that what you do is typically, like, you just have one open house for your buyers,

Michael Pinter  19:50  

or try, ideally it would be one open house. Depends on the situation. Depends if it’s vacant, depends who’s living there depends, you know, sometimes it gets complicated, but it’s. But attorneys do not have to come and see that.

Sharad Mehta  20:02  

Okay? So you bring your cash buyers, and then they you sign an agreement with them, assign the deal. I mean, you sign an assign, sign an assignment agreement with them, and then you guys go to a closing table, and there’s at least three attorneys involved, seller, your attorney and the buyer’s attorney. If there’s sometimes,

Michael Pinter  20:23  

sometimes me as the assignee, my attorney doesn’t have to attend, but they’re involved, right?

Sharad Mehta  20:28  

They’re involved. The three attorneys are involved. And then is there any limit on, like, how much assignment fee you can have? Or no, okay,

Michael Pinter  20:37  

first deal, first deal I ever assigned, was $120,000 Wow, first deal, yeah, $120,000 and and so let me tell you. Let me tell you the flip side of all the difficulties I told you of new about New York, the flip side is nobody’s getting out of contract in New York, if a seller wants to get out of contract. So occasionally a seller will call me and go, I changed my mind. I want more money, I just say, speak to your attorney. Because in New York, if a buyer wants to perform and a seller doesn’t want to perform, the buyer can a file a list pendants on the property. So the same as a mortgage foreclosure, they’ll never sell to anybody else. And b i can sue them for specific performance, which means the entire purchase price, and I’ll win. So that’s a good thing. So I remember the first deal that first I spoke to you about, was $120,000 something, and I was scared. Signing. I was scared, right? Because I had heard about all these other people doing double closes if the assignment fee is over $20,000 and I said to my attorney, you know, and the guy was a really angry seller, and I’m like, This guy’s gonna see I’m making $120,000 he’s gonna be upset. He said to me, he might be upset, but he’s can’t sell to anybody else, and he’s got to sell to you. So that’s, that’s the truth. So that is a good part. There’s no contract fallout in New York ever, except if there’s a title issue, yeah, no contract issues, no contract fallout. So that’s a good that’s a good thing. Another good thing is that there’s a lot less competition because, because, because of the things I just told you, most people that are going online and and seeing a course about wholesaling and they try to do in New York, and it just doesn’t work that way.

Sharad Mehta  22:01  

So, yeah, they may, they may start doing marketing, but wants to get a property under contract. They’re like, oh, shoot, this.

Michael Pinter  22:06  

I don’t understand why. Why can’t I get an inspection contingency? And then sells turn you’ll go inspection. You see what? What

Sharad Mehta  22:12  

was that? Yeah, wow, you made $120,000 yeah, I’m curious, right? How was seller’s reaction on that? I

Michael Pinter  22:20  

didn’t go to closing, so I don’t know. So okay, well, but then, in

Sharad Mehta  22:23  

this case, they all see how much money you’re making on your assignment. Is that typically what you do assign or you do double close.

Michael Pinter  22:28  

So I double close once, because there was some other properties involved. But it’s expensive. The closed course network are very expensive, so it’s very expensive to double close. So I’ll tell you this deal. This was my best I have a deal now that should be better. But my best deal ever. I was buying five houses from one seller, and I was wholesaling five houses to one,

Sharad Mehta  22:51  

boxing, catching for the attorneys. 750, $700,000 my

Michael Pinter  22:56  

buy price. 975, was my sell price. So it was 225,000 Wow. But because I was in contract with some other properties and I didn’t want them to know what was going on, I decided to double close. Cost me almost $40,000 to double close. So that’s what is that five properties, it was like $8,000 it was crazy amount of money. It was expensive. So, so I’m just saying it’s expensive to double close. You

Sharad Mehta  23:19  

paid like, 20% of your assignment fee to attorneys. I paid a lot, 225, and then you paid 40,000 it’s like it was a lot. I forgot

Michael Pinter  23:29  

the whole detail, but it was a lot. So I usually own a couple clothes. I almost always assign, and I’m fine. I’m fine with that. Yeah,

Sharad Mehta  23:35  

I’m just curious. I do you have any pushback from buyers, or they’re just used to in New York? I mean, I guess once they’ve signed a contract, by them.

Michael Pinter  23:41  

I’ve never had a pushback from well, not once we’ve assigned the contract. In other words, when I went, when I went to the the auction for all those years, I kept very, very good notes of everybody who was a real buyer there and what they bought. And I thought when I went to wholesaling, I have the ultimate buyers list. In the end, almost none of those guys would ever buy anything from me. They just figured, if I figured if I was selling it to them, that something was wrong with it. But one guy what I knew exactly what he paid for. And I came back to him with his properties. I’m like, you buy this property for 300 I have it for 250 and he said to me, I need to know how much money you’re making. And I said, What is the difference? I’m giving it to you a $50,000 lesson. You go, buy the auction, and he goes, I can’t, I can’t make X, and you make 2x so for every guy like that, who I think is an idiot, because he could have bought 50 over the years, there’s, there’s 99 guys who don’t get,

Sharad Mehta  24:32  

yeah, exactly, yeah, no, I, when I used to buy it foreclosure auctions, like, I would always have some new investor, you know, they would See me better. They’re like, hey, you know, can I get you? Like, yeah, of course. Like, if I don’t have to, like, bid air, and just like, sometimes you get carried away, you end up paying more. Like, do, yeah, just if you can get ready for you for cheaper,

Michael Pinter  24:51  

yeah, what I, what I, what surprised me is that these guys saw me buying a lot of houses over the years, and they just assumed if I was

Sharad Mehta  24:57  

they did not keep it. And also. Thing must be wrong with it. Something must

Michael Pinter  25:01  

be off. And a lot of these guys didn’t know it’s funny, during covid, when they stopped doing the auctions, a lot of those guys called me back because they didn’t have auctions to buy and they were asking for product. But a lot of them really just couldn’t get past the idea that I was selling it to them. So it was okay. I built a different buyers list, and

Sharad Mehta  25:19  

it’s fine, yeah, but that’s interesting. Like, the guy would rather make less money not get a good deal. Just like

Michael Pinter  25:24  

you bought the same house for 300 I have it for $50,000 less. And he goes, I need to know how much money you’re making. I go, we’re not going to be able to do business. That’s crazy, yeah?

Sharad Mehta  25:33  

But in general, the good thing in New York is, once someone has signed an agreement, then there’s nothing they can do. Like, if they if they find out you’re buying a house for $1 you’re selling them for $400,000 making 399,900 like, okay, there’s nothing you can do obligated. You have to, have to

perform. I like that. And like that part. I

like that part. I like, you know, I wish more states would would do that. I mean, I’d buy in in Indiana. And it’s just so easy to, like, just, just walk out of a contract, yeah,

Michael Pinter  25:58  

you gotta say. And this is a whole crazy loop because of the attorneys. Think about this, the attorneys don’t want to spend their time to prepare a contract unless it’s really solid. Right now, how much time to take prepare a contract probably takes a good guy 15 minutes, but they look at it as, I’m not going to spend my time if somebody can just walk away with an inspection. Yeah,

Sharad Mehta  26:16  

and they’re only getting paid at closing. They all get paid at closing, okay? But

Michael Pinter  26:20  

at the same point, they say, on the other end, you as a buyer are not walking away, you as a seller are not walking away from my buyer, and you as a buyer not working with my seller. You have an iron clad contract, so I’m getting paid because this deal is going to close. It’s all about attorneys and how they got involved in it.

Sharad Mehta  26:35  

That is crazy. Yeah, what? What are some of the I mean, besides these major, major issues, what are some of the I don’t even know if there’s any other challenge big enough in your business, just being in New York, by the way, what’s your experience been like? What made you look at Texas market? Sure,

Michael Pinter  26:56  

so I really would like to at some point, and I’ve struggled. I haven’t done it yet. I’ve done deals there. But I want to be, I want to become an owner financer, right? So I want to be the bank and do owner financing properties. And you can’t do that in New York. Can’t be the bank in New York, because it could take 15 years to foreclose in New York. Literally. Wow. But so, and what I spoke to people who have been successful owner finances, they told me that the prototypical best owner finance buyer is usually a Mexican national or something very often Spanish speaker. So El Paso, where I operate is, you know, I don’t know if you know. I mean, when I went to El Paso, I was shocked, but El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico is one city with a border going down the middle of it, so I figured I couldn’t find more potential owner finance buyers there. So again, that’s

Sharad Mehta  27:43  

what, that’s what I’ve heard from, like successful guys. We had one Bethel on a podcast, and he did a mastermind call. That’s what he mentioned. He’s in, he’s in East color. I forgot the market that he’s in South Carolina, I believe. And he said they’re doing very high volume of owner financing. It’s his typical buyer is a Hispanic buyer because, you know, they have money. And then, for some reason, it’s also, he said, the cultural thing that Hispanic buyers don’t trust the bank. Just for some reason he it was interesting that he mentioned on

Michael Pinter  28:19  

some of the I don’t understand why it is, but, yeah, but I’m going under the assumption that I have a better chance finding, finding owner finance buyers there. So,

Sharad Mehta  28:28  

so your main reason for moving doing an El Paso, El Paso Texas is the owner financing like, yeah.

Michael Pinter  28:35  

I also like the fact that it it’s significantly quicker. So I’ve done a bunch deals there, and I like the fact that that just how I needed something where my cash conversion cycle was a little shorter than New York. Cash Conversion cycles in New York are very long. So absolutely, I do like. I do like that,

Sharad Mehta  28:53  

yeah. I mean, let’s say I don’t think you can have more opposite experience investing New York and Texas. Completely

Michael Pinter  29:00  

opposite. I like, I like, going to the polar opposite. Are

Sharad Mehta  29:05  

you looking to like scale more in Texas or in your home market?

Michael Pinter  29:09  

I am. I mean, I bought, I bought three properties in Texas in the last three weeks. I’m trying to grow in Texas. I think

Sharad Mehta  29:14  

it’s, how are you, how are you funding these deals you’re doing same direct to seller marketing in Texas. Like,

Michael Pinter  29:21  

yeah, so now kiavi is really good. If you’re an investigative member, it’s 100% financing. So I can finance. I can really get all the money from Calvi easily. I’ve been using them mostly for the projects out there. So

Sharad Mehta  29:32  

okay, so you get a 30 year fixed loan on these properties, right? No,

Michael Pinter  29:38  

no, I’m buying these short term. So I’m looking to hold you down. I’m looking to, you know, fix them up a little bit so I get a short term but

Sharad Mehta  29:45  

if you’re owner financing like

Michael Pinter  29:48  

so in theory, if I found an owner finance buyer, I have a property now that I may then I’m going to have to refinance into a longer term loan, either either with kiavi or. With a private lender, and then you’ll wrap mortgage to the to the

Sharad Mehta  30:03  

Okay, okay, okay, okay,

Michael Pinter  30:05  

it’s close, but it hasn’t happened yet. Isn’t it

Sharad Mehta  30:09  

crazy? Like you’ve closed three deals in Texas in three weeks. That’s less time than in some cases it would take the attorneys to just agree on, like, a simple contract in your that’s insane.

Michael Pinter  30:23  

I’ve come to accept it. Yeah, all right, so, so you’re

Sharad Mehta  30:27  

doing some fix and flip in Texas also, right? And then you’re using kiawi. Kiawi is great, by the way. I haven’t used them, but I’ve heard from many investors that they’re really, really great, an

Michael Pinter  30:39  

excellent system, as good a system as I’ve ever seen. It really works. Yeah,

Sharad Mehta  30:44  

absolutely, yeah. So, what are some of the challenges that you’re facing, you know, in, like, your very interesting experience of being in one of the most difficult market to operate in, in New York and then Texas, which is relatively much easier market to operate in. Like, what are some of the challenges, like business challenges that you’re running into, like this is made end of May 2024, when we recording. I’m curious. You

Michael Pinter  31:07  

know, lead generation is still a challenge in New York. I’ve never been in a situation in New York where I was flooded with leads ever What

Sharad Mehta  31:13  

are you paying for your paper lead? How much are you paying in New York?

Michael Pinter  31:17  

It’s probably, on average, about $300

Sharad Mehta  31:20  

Wow, that’s pretty high. Yeah,

Michael Pinter  31:22  

yeah, I know it’s high. I mean, like, my cost for a deal in New York is typically eight to $9,000

Sharad Mehta  31:28  

right? But your margins are also higher. It’s high.

Michael Pinter  31:31  

Margins very high. The ROI is good, and Texas, it’s cheaper. I paying less than paper. Leads are less too,

Sharad Mehta  31:38  

right? So biggest challenge right now, you would say it’s like lead gen, lead gen. How, what are you doing in your business to manage that?

Michael Pinter  31:48  

You know, it just, it’s the same. You know, it lead gen goes up and down, but you have to be consistent. So I’m sending out mail. I’m trying different types of mailers. Now, I was able to get some data in New York. Before that, I was able to get tax delinquent data. Delinquent data New York’s really first time in my county that it was available. Wasn’t ever available before. So I’m using that as another list to send to. I mean, I’m always, it’s something that’s always that’s really what I’m always thinking about, is getting enough leads into the business to keep everybody

Sharad Mehta  32:14  

busy. And I forgot to ask earlier in the call, what does your team structure looks like? So you’re the owner, and you said your team is totally remote, virtual, like just

Michael Pinter  32:24  

one local employee who’s my dispositions manager, because we list our own properties, so she’s there to list them. So

Sharad Mehta  32:30  

when you say, list your own properties, like she’s an agent, yeah. So I have

Michael Pinter  32:34  

a brokerage. I have like 35 agents, but whatever, most of them are investors who don’t aren’t active, but so we list our own properties. So she she does that. And then I have two leads managers in one lead manager in the Philippines and one in Mexico. I need somebody to speak Spanish for El Paso. And then I have two admins who also do some cold calling. And then I have two more cold callers, so about six or seven people. Remotely,

Sharad Mehta  33:03  

you’re doing all the acquisition and

Michael Pinter  33:06  

I do the acquisitions, yeah, which I don’t want to do, but Right, right now I’m still doing

Sharad Mehta  33:10  

in New York. Typically, are you going on appointments, or are you doing everything virtual?

Michael Pinter  33:14  

So, New York, New York, face to face. I just came back from an from an appointment in in, in Texas, obviously, I’m not going to see it, but I have a guy that can run out there and take pictures right away.

Sharad Mehta  33:26  

So, like an agent, or someone that you have, I don’t know how I found this guy, that found this

Michael Pinter  33:30  

guy, Craig’s, but He’s amazing. He’s just okay anywhere in El Paso for, you know, a very small fee, and he takes a million pictures to me,

Sharad Mehta  33:36  

so, and then you’re doing all the negotiation on the phone with us. What’s that experience been like? A lot of investors using REsimpliant, just like otherwise, also are doing nationwide virtual investing, you know, buying locking up contracts over the phone. What’s your experience been like in New York, where it’s all face to face, versus in Texas, where you’re doing everything remote.

Michael Pinter  34:01  

So everything is quicker in Texas, you know, the mindset of the seller is quicker in Texas, though, what was a challenge with my team is to get them there’s not a lot of urgency in New York, it’s very rare that a deal. In fact, when I go to the appointment, I don’t even make an offer there. I’ll make an offer later that day or tomorrow. I don’t think I’ve ever lost a deal because of that. But in Texas, somebody wants to move, they’re expecting you to get an get them an offer right away. So, you know, it was a little bit of a challenge to train my team that the Texas deals we have, we need much more urgency than in New York. So it, but what I found is that it, you know, it’s, it’s just something that I had to learn, and I learned it, and we send out the documents via DocuSign, and we got contract signed. It’s, it’s, it works

Sharad Mehta  34:43  

nice, yeah, it’s, yeah, it’s, I didn’t even think of it, just the mindset shift that your team would need to have negotiating. I mean, they could be negotiating with a seller in New York, and then right after they’re negotiating with a seller in Texas, just. Like having them go back and forth in, like, the sense of urgency that you need to have with sellers in Texas versus in New York. Said, like, you’re looking to have, like, different people for different market. I

Michael Pinter  35:11  

really don’t, I’m thinking about it, but right now I know right what’s

Sharad Mehta  35:17  

your what’s your plan for, like, next three to five years. Where do you see your business, your investing going next three to five years? So I’m

Michael Pinter  35:25  

doing something now that’s short of changing my business, where I bought some properties, and I’m developing ground to some ground up construction. I’m doing three houses in New York City, which is taking forever to get approved, New York City, in Queens, okay? And I’m building a house near me and in city, in Valley Stream near my office. And if these work out the way, I hope they do, I may shift some of my focus from my lease management to people where I can buy properties and maybe subdivide them. Or I sort of need to set up a database where my where my remote VAs can sort of get an idea of what land might be worth. And almost because I bought a lot of properties and sold them to developers through the years, where I bought property, subdivided them, and sold the land to a developer. And I think I want to be that developer going forward, and it may do a sort of a shift. Is there

Sharad Mehta  36:19  

even any like I used to live in queen. Queen. Is there any, even, any, like, vacant land in Queens? Yeah.

Michael Pinter  36:24  

I found three continuous vacant lots in Queens, yes, in a part of queens that nobody knows called

Sharad Mehta  36:28  

it just seems like there’s like no, no place,

Michael Pinter  36:32  

even very, most of it’s very densely populated. But I found some, I found some, I

Sharad Mehta  36:36  

found some land. Yeah, interesting, interesting. Yeah, wow. I didn’t, I didn’t realize that like, queens had some vacant lot, all right, so, but once you’ll see kind of how it goes, and then you could always, like, look into buying some, like, Billy rundown property, tear it down, and then, right, do that, right?

Michael Pinter  36:53  

But the question is, like, what can, what can I build there, right? A lot of different municipalities, and some of it are complicated. If I can, I’m sort of want to create a database, assuming these work out the way I do, where, where, even my remote VAs can sort of look at it and go, maybe this has something. It’s big enough for two houses. And it makes sense, because sometimes I can pay, you know, almost retail, for a house, and if I can subdivide the property and build two houses, it might, might make sense. I don’t know, much of a discount if I have this option to build on it.

Sharad Mehta  37:21  

In California, you know, there’s because of the high housing cost. Now they’ve started allowing this called adu additional dwelling unit, which you can build on your property. And then there the, you know, the municipalities are being a little bit more flexible with the zoning. Is that something are you noticing in New York also? I mean, I can, you know, it’s going to be pretty expensive,

Michael Pinter  37:43  

came up in legislation, and it got shot down, right? Because most of the municipalities here, they’re the opposite of you would think that they would want ADUs, because it’s good for people who need housing, and it’s good for landlords for additional income. But they don’t look at it that way here. They look at it as this is going to be too dense. It’s going to more traffic, more cars, more strain on the school system, more strain on the sewage system. And they don’t look at it. They hate rentals in general. Building rentals here is incredibly difficult. They look at that as these are transient people. They may be not voters, politicians. Look at all rentals as as as something that they’re not interested in, at least on Long Island and in the city. It’s also it was a it was a struggle. Right now the entire state is controlled by one party, which the Democrats, and they’re they’re not interested in helping out landlords. So let me just tell you something crazy that what you don’t may not

Sharad Mehta  38:38  

know more crazy than what you wanted to Yeah, well, I’m

Michael Pinter  38:41  

about to tell you even crazy, it doesn’t affect our business, but it’s not so Governor Cuomo, before he left in 2019 changed the almost all the laws. Well, he he changed the real estate law in New York state. There were a lot of changes, right? So evicting people became more, became harder, and one of the things he changed is rent stabilization and rent control laws. So in Manhattan, there’s half the units there talking about hundreds of 1000s of units are either rent controlled or rent stabilized. The laws that changed made it almost impossible to raise rent on a on a rent on a rent stabilized property. So the way it used to be is if you had a rent stabilized tenant that was paying less rent and paying less rent and they passed away, or they left, or they vacated it, you can fix that property up and go to market rent. Now you can’t, right? You can raise the rent like $30 so if you have a house, a rent apartment that should get a should the market rent is $6,000 and they’re paying 800 you can now rent it for $820 so now what a lot of landlords are doing, and I’m talking about a lot, dozens of 1000s of apartments in Manhattan are just shut down. They are warehousing them. They are hoping that the law changes at some point, because it’s not worth it for them to have a tenant in there who’s going to who could complain, who could not pay. Who they can’t evict for a long time, and they’d rather just close up the apartment and have nobody in there. So talking about housing crisises and problems that is only going to continue, dozens of 1000s. People estimate 60,000 some people estimate 30,000 no one knows the number, because no one reports it, but it’s dozens of 1000 apartments in Manhattan right now that are just shut up, shut down where the landlord says it’s not worth it for me to put somebody in,

Sharad Mehta  40:23  

yeah, yeah, because then the tenant majors end up staying there for like, you know, like decades,

Michael Pinter  40:29  

right? Because I’m gonna get an $800 a month tenant. I can never raise his rent, pretty much ever, right? I’ll get another $20 in in two years. And if he how much is gonna cost me to fix the property up, to fix the property up, to make it nice? How much is going to cost me if something goes wrong? How much it cost me to make repairs? How much does it cost me to to manage it? So it’s, it’s, he really left this the state in a in a bad situation, and unless that law changes, it’s, it’s going to get worse.

Sharad Mehta  40:55  

Great when I, when I first started investing, I did tons and tons of research on bigger pocket. And one thing, I used to live in Chicago, which is not very different from New York in terms of, like, the landlord tenant laws, but not not as bad either. And one thing, anybody that had been investing for a while said, invest in a tenant friendly state, not to get political, which basically I mean, like, invest in red states, you know, and then I just happened to be living 30 minutes away from Indiana, and I’m like, I’m not even going to look at Chicago to invest. I’m just going to invest in Indiana. And that I can’t even imagine, like, being in a market where you can evict someone. It’s, I mean, even during covid, we were able to evict. I mean on regular, I mean on, like, outside of covid, before and after, we’re able to evict tenants in like, less than a month during covid to maybe three months. That’s right, yeah, that’s great, wow. Michael, this, it’s

Michael Pinter  41:55  

an interesting, it’s an interesting dynamic going on right now. Yeah, wow,

Sharad Mehta  41:59  

yeah. Michael, this has been incredible. This is one of the most interesting podcasts. I had no idea. It’s almost like, I feel like I’m talking to someone from a totally different country. They just, that’s what it

Michael Pinter  42:11  

that’s, it’s like a different it’s like a different country or a different planet. Yeah,

Sharad Mehta  42:15  

I lived in Canada for three years, and I don’t think it was even that bad in Canada. Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty bad, like, how what you’re saying? I mean, Canada had its own sets a problem with housing and stuff, but wow, this, it just really was like, like, you guys are in a totally different country, totally different market of your own than rest. All Yeah, yeah, wow. All right, Michael, this is incredible. Couple of last question for you sure, what do you do for fun, other than like hanging out with the deities?

Michael Pinter  42:47  

But I have, I have three grandchildren. I have two grandsons in LA, and born three months ago in New York. And congratulations. Thank you. My daughter in LA is due with the third in August. So we try and spend a lot of time with the grandchildren. So we try and see the kids every month, either we go out to California or they come in. So we we’ve been we travel a lot, and that’s really what I do for fun. That’s congrats.

Sharad Mehta  43:13  

Yeah, that’s great, congratulations. What’s the one book that’s had the biggest impact in your life? It could be a business book, or it could be a personal book, or it could be one of each looking

Michael Pinter  43:26  

at my bookshelf, I really liked never split the difference by Chris Voss, I thought that completely different way to look at a negotiation and what the other side usually wants. So I like that book a lot, right?

Sharad Mehta  43:40  

Thanks. Yeah, that’s a great book. All right. Last question for you, if you could spend a day with anyone, dead or alive, who would you want to spend the day with, and why

Michael Pinter  43:53  

spend the day? Probably my father, who died when I was eight. It was 45 years ago. I’d like to spend the day with him. I didn’t get a lot of time with him when he was

Sharad Mehta  44:00  

around. Yeah. Oh, that would that. That would be great, Michael, if someone wants to connect with you and they’re on the fence about investing in New York and you want to just get them to the right side, what’s the best way for someone to connect with you? Sure. So

Michael Pinter  44:15  

anybody can call my office. It’s 5162092092010, I’m reachable on a lot of social media. I have a YouTube channel and a Facebook channel called bigger flips, B, I, G, G, E, R, F, l, i, p, s, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook, I’m on pretty much everything. I’m even on Tiktok. So I’m reachable on a million different ways, but it’s the best way to probably call my office and

Sharad Mehta  44:40  

we’ll put all of that in the show notes. Yeah. Michael, thank you so much, definitely one of the most interesting, informative, most informative, most informative. Yeah, just a note to self. Never, ever invest. Think, even think about investing in New York. Yeah? Michael, thank you so much. Really, really incredible having you. Thank you for. Thanks bye.