Mymodel is to get in and out so quick that if a market adjustment happens, I am beating that adjustment.”
JESSIE RODRIGUEZ OWNER CAL AMERICAN HOMES
became a loan officer himself. He started to do loans independently in the early 2000s and ran a mortgage company until the market crash in 2007. Unfortunately, the crash led to his real estate company going under and Rodriguez saw his home foreclosed and his cars repossessed. “It was a typical, first time, young guy making money, not saving, not being smart,” Rodriguez said. “When the market crashed, I took a step back and said, ‘Oh my God, what the heck am I going to do here?’” What Rodriguez did was analyze the industry and the market, and he recognized that mortgages were difficult to do, and real estate agents didn’t have much business at the time. Rodriguez also noted that banks were foreclos- ing a lot of homes and the only people making money in real estate in 2007 and 2008 were real estate agents who started to sell foreclosures to the banks. “I took all of the years of mortgage experience and the relationships I had and started to call different mortgage servicers and companies,” Rodriguez said. “I’d just ask around, saying I am a real estate agent specializing in the disposition of foreclosed properties. I just started marketing myself as a foreclosure agent. At that point, I had never sold a house—I was a loan guy for seven years.” Rodriguez might have lacked the knowledge at the time, but he had the real estate license, which was enough to get him started on his new path. He fully
immersed himself in the foreclosure agent world, which entailed cold calling mortgage companies, searching for listings online, and attending foreclosure conferences. His hard work paid off; by the first quarter of 2009, Rodri - guez had secured 50 listings with Wells Fargo and closed 100 real estate owned (REO) properties by the end of that year. That figure was closer to 500 in just two years. “It turned into this powerhouse of a real estate dis- position company on behalf of servicers and banks,” Rodriguez said. THE FLIPPING INVESTOR As Rodriguez was making his mark on the foreclo- sure world, he was saving more of his money. Between 2009 and 2011, he noticed there were a lot of distressed property opportunities and a lot of cheap deals to be had. He had a few clients who were house flippers to whom he was often selling deals and decided it was time he got into the arena himself. “After a couple of years of selling to them, learning the business and watching them do it, I decided to buy my first flip property in 2010,” Rodriguez said. “I bought a little house for $60,000, put $20,000 to $30,000 into it and sold if for $110,000. At that point I was hooked; I realized I wanted to be an investor and buy more houses and a rent- al property.” That’s exactly what Rodriguez did. He maintained his job as a real estate agent, selling properties for the
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