Dominique Gunderson (02:15):
And not that I wanted money to kind of revolve in my world, but I definitely saw the struggle of being in debt and much more difficult if you didn’t have good access to financial freedom and strategies that could produce you a good living. So that definitely was put in my head at a young age, that I really wanted to be an entrepreneur, I wanted to make sure that I could make it well for myself and not have to struggle with money when I was older.

Robert Leonard (02:47):
Was your mom, or dad, or even any other family members successful real estate investors, so you kind of already knew that you wanted to go down that path? Or are you the first in your family to get involved?

Dominique Gunderson (02:59):
I am the first. My parents have nothing to do in the real estate industry. And like I said, growing up they kind of go in and out of different jobs. Stretches of periods where they were unemployed. And so there was never like anything consistent. And again, that just drove me more to make sure I wanted to have that very consistent income that I could produce for myself.

Robert Leonard (03:19):
There’s a lot of ways, I think, you could do that. So why real estate? As a high school student, how in the world did you pick real estate? And how did you know you could even do it?

Dominique Gunderson (03:29):
Yeah. That’s a great question. I’m actually really fortunate that it kind of fell in my lap in a sense. Neither of my parents ever owned real estate or did anything with real estate growing up, but when I was in high school, my mom was finally able to buy her first home. We grew up in Los Angeles, so it’s pretty expensive. It was rented and there wasn’t a lot of opportunity, but she had finally saved up enough for a down payment.

Dominique Gunderson (03:50):
And I think I was about 15, she started looking for a home and that really sparked my interest in something I had never even heard of or knew what it was to buy and sell a home before. I kind of got interested in the entire process. And then I started getting more interested in learning about people who renovated homes and added value to properties. And just was so intrigued by, I guess, the scale of the business that you could be dealing with. Probably the greatest asset you’ll ever own, most expensive thing that you’ll ever be able to buy and being able to do little things to tweak it, add value, and just seeing the potential of, I guess, the returns that you could make from doing something like that.

Robert Leonard (04:33):
Did you have any limiting beliefs as you entered the real estate world? And if you did, what were they and how did you overcome them?

Dominique Gunderson (04:40):
I think I was lucky to have gotten interested in it when I was super, super young, like a teenager. So like most teenagers, the sky’s the limit and you don’t necessarily think about things logically all the time. You just want to go after it and do it. I definitely had that attitude. When I started learning about real estate, I thought I could do anything.

Dominique Gunderson (05:00):
And when I graduated high school at 17 is when I actually started doing real estate as a job. Again, I still had that attitude. I was really confident in myself and I just knew I could do it if I wanted it. But that was when I definitely started realizing that, okay, I’m working in this real estate industry in a very, very high-end market. I was in like the beach cities of Southern California. So very, very expensive area. And I was trying to start pursuing real estate, talking to these multimillionaires or billionaires that own these homes and I was 17.

Dominique Gunderson (05:34):
So that was when stuff kind of started to set in for me, where I had to figure out, what would be my niche, who could I really work with and talk to best in order to have success.

Robert Leonard (05:45):
Today, it’s become a lot more common and popular for people to forego college or to at least consider that option than I think it was years ago. I’m only 26. So I’m not that old, but even eight years ago when I was graduating high school, and it’s kind of crazy to even say that it was eight years ago, but people didn’t really talk about skipping college. That was pretty much the only path that was talked about. Entrepreneurship wasn’t “cool” like it is today.

Robert Leonard (06:12):
Social media and the educational resources that are available today weren’t around even just eight years ago when I was graduating high school. It’s kind of crazy to think about, but that’s just how it was. Even for you when you, when graduated high school about five years ago or so, skipping college was relatively still a novel idea. What went through your mind as you made the decision to skip college? How did you think about this decision?

Dominique Gunderson (06:36):
I think I always knew since I was maybe like a junior or senior or my later years of high school, I knew I didn’t want to go to college. And nothing against it. I think there are many jobs in degrees that you do need in order to do certain things in the world, but for me, I was pretty set by that point of high school that I was going to do real estate. I knew that’s what interested me and what I wanted to do as soon as I graduated.

Dominique Gunderson (06:59):
And so I just kind of thought that real estate didn’t necessarily… It wasn’t one of those jobs that needed a degree in order to do it. It was sales. You needed a real estate license, [which] probably would be a good idea, but you didn’t need to go to college for that. And you needed to learn sales. So I guess I thought of it like there are courses I could have taken in college that probably would have helped with some of those things, but I would be paying for four years of education instead of getting involved firsthand experience for four years of paying myself to learn by doing it hands-on. And so that was always my strategy. I’ve really never even thought of going to college.

Robert Leonard (07:42):
Did you face any pushback from friends, family, or even people at your high school like guidance, counselors, and teachers?

Dominique Gunderson (07:50):
There were definitely a few people. I remember I had this one coach that kind of mentored me a lot and he was really keen on college. And so there were definitely a couple of people like mentors in my life and even some family members that would tell me you’re never going to be successful unless you go to college and get that degree, you’re just going to be wasting your time trying to pursue real estate.

Dominique Gunderson (08:12):
So there were definitely some times where people would say some things that really made me question a little bit if I was on the right path. But again, I think my confidence and belief in myself and just knowing that I could do it if I put my mind to it were always stronger than those negative pushbacks. And so it kind of just gave me more fuel and fire to prove them wrong.

Robert Leonard (08:34):
There’s actually quite a wide range of ages of people that listen to this show. So it’s not everyone that’s listening today, but I do get reached out to, frequently from younger listeners that want to get started in real estate. And they say to me that they can’t because they’re young. I got started in real estate when I was about 21-ish when I was a senior in college. And you started even younger than me having started right out of high school. How have you managed this dynamic of being a young person in real estate? What hurdles have you had to overcome because you’re young in real estate that older investors might not have to?

Dominique Gunderson (09:08):
Yeah. I think starting out young, the experience is really the main hurdle. It’s always competitive and you’re going to be going up against people who have done hundreds of deals or have talked to hundreds of sellers, or whatever the situation is that you’re competing and maybe you’re on deal number one. And that’s usually how it is when you start and you start young. You don’t have experience, you don’t really know what you’re talking about. You may be like pitching a seller on something, trying to buy their property and you’ve never bought a property. So you don’t have all the answers. You don’t know everything that’s coming next, whereas someone who had tons of experience knows exactly what to do.

Dominique Gunderson (09:43):
So I think that was the biggest hurdle for me when I started. I could just tell there were a lot of conversations I was having where I thought I was holding myself pretty well. And I’ve always been pretty good at talking to people, but I could just tell maybe there were a few steps down the line that I really didn’t know. I didn’t know what was coming next. I didn’t know the answers to certain questions that I knew were coming.

Dominique Gunderson (10:04):
So I think that’s the biggest hurdle when you’re starting, is just not having experienced. But education, I think, can definitely help you with that, too. If you’ve talked to other people and get mentored by people who have been in the game longer and can kind of coach you through some of those conversations that you’re going to have at least step you through the process so you know what to expect, that can definitely help. And that’s kind of where I started. I didn’t just jump in on my own. I started working with and around other people who had been doing it for a long time. So that definitely helped me with some of those conversations.

Robert Leonard (10:37):
What I find is that, or what I’ve found in my journey, at least, is that as long as I act or can talk the talk like if I know what I’m doing and I can show that to people and they realize that I actually know what I’m talking about, they don’t really care how old I am. Whether I’m 18 or 50, it doesn’t matter as long as you know what you’re talking about. Have you found this to be the case in your real estate journey?

Dominique Gunderson (10:59):
Absolutely. I definitely remember, for one example, there was a property that I was buying and I could tell when I showed up to the house, it was like a gutted house. And I was probably 19 at the time, a 19-year-old female walking into this gutted house with this older guy who was halfway through the Renault, was rehabbing, knew what he was doing. And I could just tell the vibe of the conversation was, he didn’t trust me. He was like, who are you? Why are you here? You’re really going to buy my property?

Dominique Gunderson (11:28):
And we started walking around. We started talking about numbers, resale price, renovation costs. And I started giving him my thoughts and feedback and analysis. And everything I said, you could tell he totally shifted the conversation. He was like, “Wow, how did you know that?” Or, “How did you come up with that number? That’s exactly what I came up with. That’s exactly what I was thinking.” And we just started bonding over, I knew my numbers, I knew what I was talking about.

Dominique Gunderson (11:51):
And I’ve had conversations like that with people where it was very hesitant at first, just maybe by how I looked or my age. And all of a sudden, as soon as I started giving the facts as they are, and they knew what I was talking about, and they could tell I had some experience, the mood totally changed and got the deal done.

Robert Leonard (12:11):
So how did you know that information? What did you do in the early days to get educated on real estate investing so you could talk the talk and really have competent conversations?

Dominique Gunderson (12:20):
Wow. When I was just starting out right out of high school, 17, 18, those years, I started actually working in a real estate office. So not necessarily real estate investing, however this guy did do some investing, but his main business was just being an agent. But he was a very, very successful agent in a high-end market. So for me, that was my first step, is I just wanted to learn about real estate. I wanted to learn the contracts. I wanted to learn negotiation sales. And I knew this guy could really help me.

Dominique Gunderson (12:50):
So I started working, even though it wasn’t investing and it wasn’t what I wanted to do, I learned so much there. And I took those as just kind of my education years to learn from someone who was really good. And then I started working in the investing world. And so I took those skills, started applying them, and just started doing deals. Like this conversation that I just talked to you about with a guy where I changed the mood, that was many deals into me doing investments.

Dominique Gunderson (13:19):
So how did I learn those things? It was just from doing deals, the repetition, the experience. Whereas in the beginning, it was more so the mentorship. I did learn some things that way, just from asking good questions and getting educated, but seriously, the main education came from the experience.

Robert Leonard (13:38):
And so do you just have to kind of force your way through your first deal or two? “I know I don’t know what I’m doing fully. I just need to do this deal. It’s going to give me the experience. It’s going to answer all these questions I have.” Whether you have a mentor or not, I still think there’s a lot to learn to go through a deal. So you think that’s the best way, is just [to] push through that deal even though you know you’re not a hundred percent confident in everything you’re doing so you can build that experience and eventually get to a point where you could have competent conversations?

Dominique Gunderson (14:04):
I definitely think everybody has to go through that experience as much as you could. Someone could tell you until you’re blue in the face about how to do a real estate deal, how do you walk through escrow and close on a property. But there are just so many things that are going to come up different on every single deal you do that you can never learn in a book or have someone talk to you about. It really is through experience.

Dominique Gunderson (14:27):
So I definitely believe that as much as you know, as much as you’ve watched somebody else do it, as soon as you do your first deal on your own, you’re going to have some things that you didn’t see coming. You just don’t remember or think about it until you’ve actually done it. And then it really sinks into your brain to remember

Robert Leonard (14:46):
I love that you just mentioned that. Because I had the same thought process and I felt the way and not that long ago. And so I launched this community it’s called [DREI 00:14:54] Shadow. And the reason I did that is because I want to do allow people to shadow me on my real estate journeys because I felt exactly what you just said is. I’m a big reader, I love to read, but there are so many little things that you don’t see when you’re walking through a transaction that you can’t get from a book. Like the other day, I just had an issue with mowing the lawn at one of my rental properties.

Robert Leonard (15:13):
You’re never going to learn about that in a book, but as part of this community, for shadowing me, I provide you updates on all of these small little things, like an issue with the lawn mowing, an issue with the insurance, all these small little things that pop up. And it’s a way to learn about all these little tiny things that you just can’t understand from books or podcasts even. You have to do a deal to really learn it.

Dominique Gunderson (15:36):
Yeah. That’s amazing and such a great idea for a community like that. Because yeah, most of the time I think books and education are great, but there tend to be a bit more on a broad scale. And really don’t go into those little specifics that you do, just learn as you do it. So being able to mentor and shadow somebody who’s actually doing the deals and sharing about those little specifics. Those are honestly the things that are really key for people to know and learn, they’re just not written about, they’re not talked about anywhere else. So that’s the only place you’re going to find out about it.

Robert Leonard (16:06):
And it’s not really the book’s fault or the author’s fault, even, because there are so many things. You could never write a book about all the things. Like three days ago, a big tree fell at one of my rental properties. You can’t really write about a tree falling in a book. You can’t write about every little thing that pops up. So it’s just this experience that you get, whether it’s from shadowing somebody, getting a mentor, or even doing a deal yourself. It’s that type of experience that I think is super valuable. And you just have to push your limiting beliefs behind you and just get that first deal done.

Robert Leonard (16:35):
When you were approaching your first deal, you’re just coming out of high school, how were you able to fund your deals? Did you wait a little bit to start investing so you could make some money as an agent, or how were you able to fund your first few deals?

Dominique Gunderson (16:47):
I actually started wholesaling properties when I started investing. That was where I felt I could bring the most value and also add the most value to myself. So I found this to be totally true. And although today I have no desire to wholesale properties anymore, I would really recommend this strategy to anyone who’s getting started. Because it allows you to get experience and build great relationships on all ends of the transaction.

Dominique Gunderson (17:17):
So you’re still out there, “buying deals.” You’re not the actual one closing on it, but you’re out there talking to sellers, marketing yourself, talking to real estate agents, trying to get deals. And then you’re also working on the other end trying to find buyers to buy these deals from you. So you get to network with some of the top players in your market who are actually flipping houses, buying deals, keeping rentals. And you get to learn from them because you’re pitching them deals and you’re working on these properties with them.

Dominique Gunderson (17:43):
So, for me, it was a great way to get started where I didn’t have to fund them, I was just finding deals and matching deals with buyers. And it was a great way for me to educate myself and also build capital. That was my thought when I started doing this. I knew that this isn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to have my own properties, flip homes on rentals, but I also knew that I needed some capital to do that. So I thought this would be the perfect way for me to get that again, do a ton of deals, get the repetition, make a lot of money while doing it and build up my capital. And then I could get started buying my own deals.

Robert Leonard (18:22):
A few minutes ago, we talked about how we both started young in real estate and we’re both able to have some success. So we have that in common, but one thing that you deal with a bit differently than me is that you’re a female. And real estate is historically a male-dominated industry. So not only are you young in an industry with mostly older people, but you’re also a female in a male-dominated industry.

Robert Leonard (18:48):
For me, personally, I want to work with the best of the best. Age, race, gender, none of that matters to me at all. I just want to work with the absolute best people that I can. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks that way. And some people in the industry do treat females worse than they do males. What has been your experience as a female in a male-dominated industry? Have you been forced to deal with unfair treatment because you’re a female?

Dominique Gunderson (19:12):
I would say I’ve necessarily been treated unfairly. Like I mentioned a little bit ago, certain conversations that I’d have with people, maybe there was pre-judgment going into the conversation like, “Who is this person? Does she really know what she’s doing? She’s super young and how could a female be walking around this job site?” And different things like that.

Dominique Gunderson (19:32):
I think there were definitely preconceived notions with different people as I talked to them, But like I said, for me, the biggest thing was just proving my worth, proving myself. And the people that I surrounded myself with and was doing deals with, and still I’m today, I think I’ve been able to show everybody as soon as they get to know me that I do really know what I’m talking about. I am a hustler. I work really hard and I get things done.

Dominique Gunderson (19:57):
And so it’s definitely kind of throws that preconceived notion out the window pretty quickly, I think, once people start working with me and they see that I do what I say I’m going to do and I’m not just some girl walking around a property that has no idea what I’m talking about.

Robert Leonard (20:14):
We’ll talk through all the different strategies and ways that you’re involved in real estate today and that you have been in the past, but I want to first learn about how you decided on your very first strategy. A lot of people getting into real estate don’t know which strategy to pick or even how to pick a strategy. So back when you were in high school and you decided real estate was going to be for you, which strategy or avenue to get involved in real estate did you decide to focus on first? And why that strategy?

Dominique Gunderson (20:41):
So when I was in high school, I really didn’t know too much about the different strategies. I knew house flipping was something I really wanted to do, but again, I knew I didn’t have the money to do it yet. So as far as a strategy for me, when I got out of high school, I just wanted to learn something to be involved in any way I could with real estate.

Dominique Gunderson (21:01):
And so I kind of got this opportunity that I did to start working for this really successful real estate agent. And I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I did know that. I just thought that it would be a great opportunity to learn from him, whatever I could that he knew about negotiations and contracts and sales and all of that. So that just kind of happened for me. But when I did start doing real estate investing full time, like I said, wholesaling was the one that made the most sense for me because I didn’t have the capital yet. And I also didn’t have the experience to say, “Hey, look, I’ve done this amount of flips. So let me go raise capital from somebody else.” So wholesaling just made the most sense for me because I knew that I needed to get that experience, I needed to do deals and get the repetition, and I also needed to make some money doing it so that I could really start doing what I wanted to do.

Robert Leonard (21:54):
If you could go back and start over, if you go back to being 17 years old about to walk at your high school graduation, but you still know what you know today, would you have started with a different strategy first or maybe just gone a different route?

Dominique Gunderson (22:08):
I think… Actually, I’m really happy with where I am today. And I think everything kind of happens for a reason. So I don’t know that I’d necessarily change things, but I might have surpassed those first couple years and a half that I spent just working with that real estate agent. I might’ve taken that away and just started wholesaling right away, but, again, I do feel like I had so much success wholesaling because I had those first couple of years of training and learning. So it’s hard to say if you go back and did things differently if it’s still a result the same way it did today, but I definitely got more value out of the wholesaling years than I probably did out of the mentorship years.

Robert Leonard (22:49):
Was it kind of a natural transition as deals flowed into each other? So did you maybe get a wholesale deal and then you weren’t able to wholesale as you turned it into a rental and you became a rental property owner that way, or was it more of a conscious decision that you were like, okay, I have enough experience wholesaling, let’s try the next thing, let’s start flipping? And then you got good at that. So you’re like, all right, let’s try rentals. Or did they kind of flow into each other? How did that kind of transpire?

Dominique Gunderson (23:14):
It was definitely a conscious decision. I knew when I started wholesaling that it would be great, but I didn’t want to do it forever. I had my mind set on me being the end decision maker, me being the end buyer. Whether that be for flips, rentals, anything else, I knew that’s what I ultimately wanted to do. So it was definitely a very conscious decision. Once I had reached a certain level, I had done a certain amount of deals, felt like I had the experience, and then also I had the capital, it was a very conscious decision at that point for me to say, “Okay, now I’m going to leave all this behind, stop working with people, under people, for other people, and I’m going to go do everything on my own.”

Robert Leonard (23:52):
A lot of real estate gurus recommend focusing on one strategy and really mastering it, but we just talked about how you’ve done and do various different strategies. How do you think of this dynamic of focusing on one strategy versus simultaneously working on multiple strategies?

Dominique Gunderson (24:09):
I personally like to mainly focus on one thing at a time. When I was wholesaling, I wasn’t flipping. Now that I’m flipping houses, I’m not wholesaling. That type of thing. But I do think that you need to have some flexibility where if you buy a deal that maybe you thought was going to work for the strategy you’re focusing on and you realize it doesn’t, I think you have to have some flexibility to not be so stuck in one way that you can’t do anything else with a deal, because…

Dominique Gunderson (24:40):
Even now that I’m mainly focusing on flipping right now, I’ve definitely bought deals before that as I got into it, I realized it would not be a good flip. It would not make sense. And I changed directions and did something else with it. So I think you have to have that flexibility. But for me, I like to mainly focus on one thing.

Robert Leonard (24:58):
Is it different for new investors versus experienced investors? Should new investors may be focused first and then expand as they gain more experience.

Dominique Gunderson (25:07):
I think that’s probably the best route. That’s what I did. I didn’t try to do everything all at once. When I started, I was very focused and it worked out well for me. So I think it just depends on the person though. I know there are people that start doing all kinds of different things and have lots of success, but for me the way it worked out was really focusing on one thing, getting really, really good at it. And then figuring out like, hey, maybe it’s time to try something else. Or I’ve mastered this, now I can move to my next challenge.

Robert Leonard (25:39):
In entrepreneurship, I struggle with this because I fall victim to the shiny object syndrome so badly. I always want to go after so many different things and I always do. But in real estate specifically, I tend to fall on the side of focus more. And at least right now in my own portfolio. Not so much with the different types of assets within a specific strategy. So like multi-family versus single-family rentals, I look at those both as rentals and I’m okay with that. But when it comes to different strategies, I tend to be like you and really focus on one.

Robert Leonard (26:13):
I plan to expand in the future, but for now, I just want to focus on one. With that said, I do see the benefit of understanding and being able to work on multiple strategies from the perspective of having multiple ways to exit a deal. So for example, you do a lot of flipping. If you bought a flip and you weren’t able to sell it, you can always rent it out. Because you already know how to do rentals. If you didn’t know how to do a rental property as well as flipping, you might be stuck with no exit strategy. How do you think about combining different strategies to have multiple ways to exit a deal and reduce your risk?

Dominique Gunderson (26:46):
Yeah. I think in that situation, you’re right. It definitely makes sense to know and be familiar with several strategies. So that way you’re not caught in a deal, like you mentioned, where you have to do something else that’s maybe outside your comfort zone and you have no idea how to do it. For me, I think with education, the education portion of it, I didn’t necessarily focus on educating myself only on one thing or surrounding myself with only one type of person or mentor. I definitely always had people in my circle that were involved in many different aspects.

Dominique Gunderson (27:20):
So, like you said, if you get a property where you plan on flipping it and maybe you have to keep it for a rental, it was never too much of a concern for me. And I think if you structure your circle and your relationships right, it doesn’t have to be a concern for anyone. You know you have good people that you can ask those questions too. If maybe you do get stuck with keeping one as a rental, and it’s your first rental and you’ve never done this before, and you do have a lot of questions, I think that’s okay. You don’t have to know everything. And everybody has a first rental deal at some point. So as long as you’re surrounded with good people and you feel confident that you can ask those questions and educate yourself well, I think it’s okay.

Robert Leonard (27:59):
When you reached out to be a guest on the show, one of the things that really stuck out to me, other than you being a fellow young investor, was that you’re also investing long distance. You live in Los Angeles and you’re investing in New Orleans. This stood out to me because I invest almost exclusively long-distance as well. But I do long-term buy and hold rentals that don’t really require a ton of rehab.

Robert Leonard (28:22):
I started to burr long distance very recently, like last month or two months ago. But even those were relatively minor compared to what I’ve seen that you’re doing. So that stood out to me. And it amazes me because I just don’t know if I could flip long distance like you do. I could do long-term rentals, but I’m not sure if I could do a flip. So how did you get started investing long distance and how do you manage your flip projects from so far away?

Dominique Gunderson (28:50):
Yeah. It’s definitely not the easiest thing to do all the time. There are many days where I’m like, “Man, I just wish I could be there all the time and handle these things from the job site myself instead of over the phone.” For me, the biggest thing was kind of like the barrier to entry and the price point of where I live. I live here in Los Angeles and that’s where I had done my first probably 50 deals or so when I was wholesaling.

Dominique Gunderson (29:17):
And I really strongly considered starting my own deals, my own fix and flip projects here in Los Angeles just because I lived here, I knew them with peer. It just made sense for all those reasons. But I only had so much capital saved up. I wanted to start my own capital. I didn’t want to have to rely on anyone else. And so I decided to search for a cheaper market. And that was my main reason for going anywhere other than where I live. And how I fell into New Orleans is my dad actually lived in New Orleans. So I knew somebody there. I knew I could go out and check it out. Walk the streets and get to know the market really well.

Dominique Gunderson (29:56):
And I had someone there that I could trust who could possibly tell me like, “Hey, stay away from that neighborhood.” Because that’s always one of the big risks when you go somewhere you don’t know, is buying a property that just because you don’t know the area, it’s actually a really bad deal. And you just don’t know that because you don’t know the neighborhoods, you don’t know the price points, you don’t know certain things about that market. So that was huge for me, is having someone there I knew I could trust and being able to easily go and visit the area.

Dominique Gunderson (30:24):
And then the price point, like I said, that was the main reason I tried to search for somewhere else in the first place. And it was very, very inexpensive. I felt very confident that I could fund fully, my own capital, the first couple of deals that I did. So that was a huge draw for me to go there as well. But management from afar is definitely a challenge. I’ve had to build a really good, strong, trustworthy team there on the ground.

Dominique Gunderson (30:50):
I think that is the biggest part. Having a contractor that I know will call me with any issues and just kind of take care of things. If something goes wrong on a project that I wouldn’t know about because I’m not there walking it, I have people that I know I can trust that are working on the projects to just take care of it, fix it, or let me know.

Dominique Gunderson (31:11):
And then also a huge part of flipping long distance, I think is just having, I guess for me, I call it kind of like a runner. Someone who’s there on the ground, doesn’t necessarily do the real estate, doesn’t necessarily do the construction, but they’re just someone who you can rely on to do little things that are going to come up where it’s not like a hard job to do, but you just need someone there on the ground when the cabinets arrive and you need someone to meet the delivery guy, or you need to go change the locks. Just little things like that. So I have a really good person in place, too, for that. It’s kind of me on the ground when I can’t be there. And I think that’s another really critical part.

Robert Leonard (31:55):
How did you find that runner?

Dominique Gunderson (31:57):
Actually, it was somebody that I bought a deal from. He was wholesaling a property and it was his first deal. He had never done a wholesale deal before. And so it was an opportunity for me to gain trust with them because I kind of coached him through the process and really helped him. And I also bought his deal. So we built that relationship and he was just starting in wholesaling. Wasn’t really a full-time thing for him yet, but he’s interested in real estate, wants to get involved. So he was very happy and interested to start working on fix-and-flip deals with me, and kind of worked out that way.

Robert Leonard (32:29):
What has been the hardest part of flipping and investing long distance?

Dominique Gunderson (32:33):
I would say it’s just when issues come up and you can’t be there. There are issues that come up on every single deal where things get overlooked or there’s just stuff that can’t be handled over the phone. Someone has to physically be there. And so I really have had to put my trust in the team that I have on the ground. And most of the time it goes well and I can kind of coach them on exactly what to do. But there have definitely been some times where I do travel back and forth. So I go to the properties. I usually see my properties at least once or twice before they’re sold.

Dominique Gunderson (33:07):
So I do travel back and forth, but there have definitely been times where I’ve been out to a project and I’m like, man, people really overlooked this thing that should have been fixed or such like that. So, probably just relying on everyone else with everything, the hardest part.

Robert Leonard (33:24):
So we use that word “hardest” part, that doesn’t necessarily mean the worst. So do you think it’s a bad thing that you can’t just show up there? And the reason I asked that is because I actually really liked that part about my business. Like I said, I’m long-distance as well. And I actually really liked that. And I think that’s a huge benefit, personally, of long-distance. Because it forces you to treat your real estate like a business.

Robert Leonard (33:50):
And if it wasn’t, you might walk there and just try and fix something that you really shouldn’t be involved in, and really you have processes and systems in place to really have this handle because it’s probably going to happen again. So you need to figure out a really efficient way to take care of it and being long-distance. You’re forced to do that. And that’s what I find in my business. Maybe you think about it differently, but I’m curious to hear, just because it’s the hardest it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the worst. So how do you think about that?

Dominique Gunderson (34:17):
I totally agree with you. I think it’s actually a huge benefit. Personally, I’m pretty controlling. I like to have control and oversight over every little thing. So it’s actually been a really good growing thing for me to have to let stuff go and have to trust and rely on other people. And I think it’s going to progress me even quicker into truly becoming just an investor and not doing this as a job. Flipping houses is kind of a job.

Dominique Gunderson (34:47):
And so the more that I don’t have to be there, the more that I just pay other people to do what I can’t be there to do anyway. It frees up more of my time, which is what you want. Ultimately, when you invest in real estate, you want it to be passive, you want it to free up your time to do other things and be financially free. So I agree with you. I think it’s actually a great thing, even though it can be hard sometimes.

Robert Leonard (35:13):
I agree. For me, it’s the financial freedom focus. But even if for you, it’s not, even if it’s just, you’re going to work on something else, that’s fine, too. Like you’re just going to work on a different piece of the business. I think a lot of times if you have access like that, you’re going to work on everything when you shouldn’t be. There’s a lot of things you shouldn’t do and there’s a lot of things you should do. So being at a distance keeps you from working on things you shouldn’t and really focusing on the things that you should be doing, even if it’s not a financial freedom perspective, but it’s just kind of keeping you working on the things that you should be.

Robert Leonard (35:44):
when you started flipping, did you have the skills, like handyman skills? Did you know how to fix things? Did your dad or mom teach you these growing up or did you just kind of go into it with no handy skills?

Dominique Gunderson (35:57):
I personally don’t have a lot of handy skills. I’m not clueless about it. I can definitely do some stuff. My brother is actually a contractor as well. So that helps. Just bouncing ideas off of him all the time is awesome. And I kind of grew up around it a little bit because he’s always been really handy and good with stuff. So I knew some things and my time during wholesaling was really awesome for me to build up some of those skills as well. Because I’d get a property and I’d pitch it to a bunch of investors and have four or five different ones that are interested come walk the property with me.

Dominique Gunderson (36:33):
And I’d get to see from many different people’s perspectives and experience levels. Them pointing out different things to me about, “Hey, this needs this amount of work and it’s going to cost this much to do this.” And stuff like that. I got a ton of experience from other people teaching me through the wholesaling years, all that. So I felt pretty confident analyzing deals and budgeting for renovation costs. But I think, again, having it long-distance helped a lot for me because I didn’t have to be the one there to feel like we’re going over budget and, “Shoot, I guess I should just go over to the property and lay the floors or something like that.” I didn’t even have that option.

Robert Leonard (37:16):
One of your deals had a bit of a wild story. You were under contract on a property when the seller, unfortunately, passed away before you were able to close on the property, give us a bit more detail on this deal and how it all kind of shook out.

Dominique Gunderson (37:30):
Yeah. That was a crazy one. It was a very unfortunate deal, obviously because the seller passed away, but it also ended up ruining the deal as well. So everything about it was pretty unfortunate, but it was a great property. I was super excited to flip it. I had gotten an under contract for a really good price. Things were going great. And I think it was probably like two or three days before closing, very, very close to the end, everything was done, paperwork filled out, and stuff. The seller had to sign some documents. And unfortunately, we found out that they had passed away and they weren’t going to be able to sign the paperwork.

Dominique Gunderson (38:07):
And so the way that things worked with court systems and inheritance from the will and stuff, none of that that we had done, all the work we had done on that deal wasn’t able to transfer over to the new heirs to the property. Everything had to be started over. And at that point, the heirs of the property weren’t even sure that they wanted to sell it anymore. So the whole thing fell apart. The deal didn’t go through and the contract, everything we had just became completely void once the seller passed away.

Robert Leonard (38:40):
Is there anything you learned from that, that you’ve taken to future deals? And I’m sure it’s hard, right? That’s a random… Maybe random is not the right word. It’s just an unfortunate thing that you can never expect to happen. But is there anything that you were able to take from that that you’ve applied to future deals?

Dominique Gunderson (38:57):
I think it was more a mindset thing that I actually took from that deal. Because it’s a super random thing and those specific lessons are probably not going to help you on every deal you do. But it was definitely a mindset thing, because I was so excited about this deal. So invested in it. And so it hit me so much harder when it happened like, “Wow, I don’t get to do this flip anymore?”It was pretty early on when I was doing flips. So I was really only working on like one or two deals at a time. So each one meant so much to me to be able to do. I put so much work into each one.

Dominique Gunderson (39:29):
So it was definitely a mindset shift that I took away from it. And still try to remember all the time that each deal you get under a contract, first of all, it’s not a deal until it’s closed. It’s not done till it’s done. And to not get so focused and wrapped up on each one. Keep my mindset more in the bigger picture and on broad terms that there are always more deals out there. I always have to be searching for the next one and not so focused and tied up on each individual deal.

Robert Leonard (39:59):
It doesn’t have to be the biggest financial loss. It could have just been a massive headache or you might have just made some avoidable mistakes. What has been your worst deal so far? What made it your worst deal? And what did you learn from that experience?

Dominique Gunderson (40:14):
Yeah. This one, I would call it my worst deal, but not because of financial loss. It actually ended up turning out okay in the end. But I bought this property sight unseen. And, I guess to some extent, you could say all of my properties are sight unseen because they’re not seen by me, but they’re usually seen by somebody. I get to see pictures, videos, something before I buy it. And I had bought this property from the owner directly. It was for sale by the owner and the owner didn’t even live in the state. Nobody had been in this property in years. It was a really good price. And I was flipping a home literally right around the corner. So I knew it was a great area. Closed on the deal and nobody had gone inside.

Dominique Gunderson (40:54):
And as soon as they got the property, I very quickly realized that this was not going to be a plausible flip for me. It was absolutely a teardown. It was land value. Right now, to this day, I’ve driven by the property and it’s no longer there. Somebody did tear it down. So it was in really bad shape. So this was an example of a deal where I decided to change strategies mid-progress, doing an investigation with how much it would to cost tear down. Is it worth to rebuild? And I just figured out that it wasn’t.

Dominique Gunderson (41:26):
So I switched strategies. I knew I had bought it for a really good price. So I said, “You know what? I’m going to try to actually just wholesale this deal and see if maybe there’s somebody else with the experience in the area who does new construction and would prefer to work on this than me.” So like I said, it wasn’t the worst deal because of a financial loss, I actually ended up wholesaling it and still making like a 20% return on that deal, which was great. But it was sort of the worst deal in the sense of just having that panic moment of, “Oh my gosh, I bought this deal and I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know if I can get rid of it. Does anybody want this thing?” So it worked out in the end, but it was definitely a bit of a disaster house.

Robert Leonard (42:08):
I want to scare the listeners away from real estate from your worst deal, but I did want everyone to hear that real estate Isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. I talked about this a little while ago that I had a massive tree fall at one of my rental properties. It costs thousands of dollars to remove that. It’s not great, but it’s a relatively small thing and things do happen in real estate. Sometimes they go up, some things come up and some things go wrong sometimes. On the other end of the spectrum, what has been your best deal? What made it the best deal?

Dominique Gunderson (42:42):
I’ve had a good share of great deals just because they’ve been really good transformations, renovations as well as being profitable. I just did a flip that I recently sold. I’d say it was a really good one for me. It made almost a 30% return. So that was huge profitability-wise. It was a great project just because it was one of the bigger houses that I had bought. And I still bought it for a similar price that I was buying some of the smaller houses I was working on. So price per square, foot-wise and everything, I had bought it for a really great value. Ended up being all into the property for somewhere in the low 130 range, maybe 133,000 or something like that. And it ended up selling for 187.

Dominique Gunderson (43:25):
So it was a really great flip. Made a really good profit. And one thing that turned out really good on that deal is when I bought it, I had actually only expected it to sell for about 160. That was where I had projected that the numbers would work on it. And the timing just worked out really good. The particular neighborhood it was in was having a lot of renovations happen to it, whereas previously nobody was really renovating this particular area. And so it really just ended up being good timing. I had some really great comps when I went to list it. And was able to get way more than I ever thought I would for it.

Robert Leonard (44:04):
Whether it’s about life in general or real estate investing, what piece of advice have you received that has really had an impact on you and you continue to use it and think of it to this day?

Dominique Gunderson (44:16):
I would say one of the first guys that I mentioned I worked for, for a couple of years, the real estate agent. When I was interviewing to work for him, he asked me if I knew what it was like to be working in real estate. He was like, “Hey, could you explain to me what you think this job is about?” And I gave my answer of, “Oh, we tore houses and do paperwork.” Whatever I said. And he said something that really stuck with me. He said, “No. Real estate is the business of getting business and nothing else.”

Dominique Gunderson (44:48):
And to this day I feel that that is so true and can be relatable to anything, any avenue or strategy that you want to do with real estate. For me now, for example, flipping homes, it’s not really the business of renovating homes. Yes, that’s part of it, but you can’t do that. You can’t do any of that without having a business, without finding homes to flip. So it’s glorified a lot, I think on shows and social media. And truly, if you’re interested in real estate, I’d say you have to be interested in sales, and networking, and talking to people. Because that’s truly what it’s about, is getting business. You’re not going to do all the fun stuff if you don’t actually have a business together.

Robert Leonard (45:34):
Dominique, thank you for joining me on the show today and sharing your story and your journey. For those listening that are interested in connecting with you after the show, where’s the best place for them to go?

Dominique Gunderson (45:45):
You can definitely check out my Instagram. That’s where I post most stuff about the projects I’m working on. It’s dom_flips_nola. And I post a lot of stuff there. So that’s probably the best way to get in touch.

Robert Leonard (45:59):
Awesome. I will be sure to put a link to that in the show notes below for anybody that’s interested in connecting with Dominique. Thank you so much for joining me.

Dominique Gunderson (46:07):
Thank you, Robert. Appreciate it.

Robert Leonard (46:09):
All right, guys. That’s all I had for this week’s episode of Real Estate Investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro (46:15):
Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin. And every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.