Wayne Gray at National Achievers Congress 2017
“Success doesn’t come to you; you have to go to it.” – Wayne Gray
Wayne Gray was an entertaining public speaker. He, along with three other speakers at the congress, had something to sell. The model for the day made a lot of sense to me: Get some big names to fill the seats (Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuck, and Robert Herjavec), and mix in some sales pitches.
It worked very well. After Wayne’s presentation, people flooded to the tables to sign up for his class. Afterward, I did a little research on him, and I couldn’t even find a picture of him online, which made me very skeptical. Some stuff I did find were people complaining about his products.
Regardless, that’s not what these posts are about: I am writing to pass along the golden nuggets that I took away from each presenter. I’m not here to vouch for or boycott them. As always in this wonderful, free market of ours, buyer be ware.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- He went to Liberty University, graduated with a degree in theater arts, and went on to perform for 5 years. This is a nice story for his brand, which seems to focus on helping “regular” people invest in real estate.
- He has now been an investor and public speaker for 14 years.
- His business teaches thousands of “regular” people how to invest in real estate.
TAKE-AWAYS
- People have 2 excuses for not investing in real estate
- Don’t know how
- Not enough money
This sounds like the same excuses that people use for every investing opportunity, and it makes sense. In my previous post on Robert Herjavec, he said that the difference between the rich and poor is knowledge, so it seems that Mr. Gray is on point with the first excuse, and his business teaches people how to do it.
The second point is something that Robert Kiyosaki stresses, and that is that debt can be a good thing. The rich use debt–or “other peoples’ money” (OPM) as he lovingly refers to it–to invest and make more money for themselves. Mr. Gray’s business solves the lack of money by connecting people with funding sources.
- Buy very low and sell low. Instead of the common investing advice that we’ve all heard for decades of “buy low and sell high,” he argues that, specifically for real estate, you need to sell low. The reason for this is that the indirect cost of holding onto a property too long is high, and it can be the difference between a profitable sale and a loss.
- You can flip or hold for rent. He said that a common strategy was for people to do their first project as a flip, which would help generate a quick return which could be used for future investments.
- The tax law is beneficial in this area too, because income from real estate sales that are reinvested in real estate within a certain amount of time are tax-free. However, excess income is taxed at a higher rate, so it’s good to know that rental income is taxed at one of the lowest rates.
One way many people have become financially independent is to acquire enough rental properties that the income they generate pays for all of your expenses. This leads into the next point.
- Pay a property manager 8-10% of the monthly rent to manage all the details of the property.
Some people recommend that, when you’re just starting out, you try to learn the inner-workings of a rental. However, even that, I would prefer to learn from a professional. Once you get to a certain number of properties, though, there is no way that one person can manage them all, so this is how you can scale this business.
- Know everything before investing. This is good advice in any investment situation. Unfortunately, it’s impossible. But many people stress how important this is when purchasing real estate, because oversights can be catastrophic for the investment.
- One of my mentors stressed two areas in a real estate investment that could make the difference: Get a good electrician and a good plumber to survey the house before you buy. These are the guts of the home, which makes them affect its value a lot, and they are very expensive to fix.
Comment below on this post, and look for more videos on the NAC17!