From 23 Deals to 213: How Eddie Marin Scaled a Nationwide Real Estate Disposition Business

Eddie Marin (00:00)

I mentioned this earlier. but the biggest bottleneck is me, right? the head of the business. Why aren’t you at a billion dollars a year? Because of you, right? and so the leader of the business, the owner of the business, the founder, the head of the business is always gonna be the biggest bottleneck and having that self accountability, self reflection and

is most important, but then doing something about it is second, right? Not just saying that I’m the biggest bottleneck is this the solution. No, it’s me actually seeing that I am, right?

Scott Bursey (02:00)

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey Glad you’re with us. Today we’re delighted to be joined by Eddie Marin on the show.

A Phoenix based real estate investor with over two hundred completed transactions across more than thirty states. Eddie specializes in creative finance, wraps, fix and flips, and wholesale acquisitions. Listeners, you can expect to learn how to scale creative deals across state lines, optimize disposition workflows, and build reliable nationwide real estate systems. Eddie, welcome to the show.

Eddie Marin (02:37)

thank you so much for having me.

Scott Bursey (02:38)

It is wonderful having you here. And Eddie, to help our listeners get up to speed, please give us the ninety second highlight reel of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Eddie Marin (02:49)

Yeah, absolutely. So I started off, I was born and raised in the car industry. So inventory has always been something that I’m very familiar with. And so I started a dealership for two years. then got involved with life insurance and the financial services business for about eleven months. and then heard about real estate wholesaling and then thought you needed money. And I always wanted to get into bigger assets doing the same amount of like taking all the skills from the dealership world over to

you know, the bigger asset classes where you’re making way more than a car business would. and kind of tried wholesaling out, failed the first time trying, went back to the car business and then joined a community, had mentorship, had coaching, figured out resources that I didn’t know existed prior and got around the right circles. And since 2021,

joined or redid wholesaling even though I told myself I was not gonna go do it again and the rest is history. that is my quick ninety second little feed background to it.

Scott Bursey (03:45)

That is some fascinating background. Thank you for that, Eddie. what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to transition out of the automotive industry and launch three successful nationwide platforms: Dispo Buddy, Terms for Sale, and TC Deal Pros. Building off that

Curious to know what is your biggest strength when structuring creative finance and wrap deals across thirty plus states?

Eddie Marin (04:13)

I’m gonna say the biggest strength is having the team behind it that you can hand things off to and work as a unit. I think was our biggest strength that we have. having the ecosystem of reliability is most important, especially your team means everything. Your team is everything, right? and so I think that was number one. But number two is having the strength from an operational perspective is having

Being a part of a community, number one, that has multiple boots and multiple different state lines. because of being of a community that let is being led with values and so forth, we’ve had I’ve had great success in fixing flips over state lines, never been to any of the properties or any of the deals I’ve ever been a part of besides here in Arizona. I think that’s the biggest strength here is having the connections and network.

in those areas or different states.

Scott Bursey (05:01)

You spoke of teams. How do you make sure your local teams keep those closing procedures airtight in every market?

Eddie Marin (05:56)

You know what? That is something that we absolutely work on a daily basis. it’s the part where we’ve had the most bickering on. It’s the part where it’s the most keeping self-accountability and showing up for your team because it doesn’t your team relies on you and no one else is something that is being learned every single day from a new perspective. There’s always a new challenge, there’s always something new, and there’s always

The best way I can say this, book talked about the power of one more. He says that there’s going to be relationships that come and go because of seasons in your life, right? And no matter how much you try to have your team to grow with you, you can only support them for their next journey no matter what. because it was a season of life. And making sure that the people that you have here today is that you give them all your undivided attention. I have a close friend, his stepdad.

very successful, has a very big general contracting company. I mentioned to him, I’m like, hey, you know, I’m having these little hurdles in our business and partners and stuff. And what was it that made that ultimate change in you? Because he started off as a regular project manager and now owns one of the largest general contracting companies for government issue or government relationships for schools and stuff, right? And he told me, make sure your team is successful.

make sure that if someone’s like struggling, go talk to them. Figure out what’s going on. How can you support them? And when you pour into people, you want them to be at their best, but you also want to make sure that you’re giving them the room to be their best. Right. And so a lot of us do struggle from

you know, trying to control a lot of things or not giving the empowerment or the things that you know that require in order to make that come to fruition. but it is when overthinking starts to come, you go back to the basics.

Scott Bursey (07:38)

Absolutely. And thank you for expanding on that, Eddie. And want to dig a little deeper. What is your biggest bottleneck right now challenge, if you will, when coordinating transactions nationwide through TC Deal Pros?

Eddie Marin (07:53)

I mentioned this earlier. but the biggest bottleneck is me, right? the head of the business. Why aren’t you at a billion dollars a year? Because of you, right? and so the leader of the business, the owner of the business, the founder, the head of the business is always gonna be the biggest bottleneck and having that self accountability, self reflection and

is most important, but then doing something about it is second, right? Not just saying that I’m the biggest bottleneck is this the solution. No, it’s me actually seeing that I am, right?

And when you’re talking nationwide, we’ve recognized that 90% of all our deal flow comes from four markets. Texas being our biggest, Arizona being our second, Florida, and then Georgia. and seeing that the more you are in multiple different other states, the slower your team can operate.

And so comes taking a step back and saying, hey, like this is an actual live thing. That’s why I’m talking about it. taking a step back to say, hey, what if we cut off all the other markets and just focus on the four that have been absolutely paying producing the most, right? How much more attention can we get those deals that come in those areas to make them work, right? so I think being

Capacity is the biggest bottleneck for individuals, proper expectations, but also taking full accountability as an owner of a company that your job is to make sure that it’s successful.

Scott Bursey (09:10)

Gotta ask, Eddie, where are you seeing an edge today in wholesale disposition?

Eddie Marin (09:16)

the edge is it’s a business, it’s all about inventory management, marketing, for the disposition side, but it gives you an opportunity to build relationships with other successful teams that are up and coming teams that are needing to focus on that one thing. and

while you handle the back end and handle everything else, right? And so I tell everybody this all the time when I first joined wholesaling, I had an acquisitions partner and myself and it was just us under one umbrella. And the second, and we closed nearly I think 23 deals over two and a half years or so, wholesale deals. The second we transitioned out of just that, we closed 213, we’re about to close our 213 deal today.

and from repositioning and focusing on one piece of the business. and so that’s what I tell everybody. It’s like, hey, if you’re barely getting started or if you already started, there’s nothing more important for you to really hyper focus on that one thing. And so from a disposition perspective, is that

I am instead of knocking doors like I used to and cold calling like I used to, I go establish the relationships with other people and or I go teach them how to go fish, how to go find them, or people that get stuck and I help them now get their first deal or their hundredth deal, right? and so that’s basically

what do you call the strength of dispositions in my opinion.

Scott Bursey (10:38)

You specialize on creative financing and advising others in that realm. What should what’s the the first step real estate investors should take right now to lock in higher buyer margins or on creative assignments?

Eddie Marin (10:52)

creative assignments have always been less than the cash, of course. now there’s bigger if you want to get bigger assignments and all that, you’re gonna have to get into the more multifamily RV park like avenues, but you have to be very creative on those ones. I’m gonna say stick to the metro markets in the creative realm. stick to no HOA.

our buyers before we were selling like hotcakes every creative deal possible because the interest rates made sense. So when I’m building a buyer profile, you have to ask yourself who would buy this deal. And back in the day when a when a when a when a deal had a two and a half, three and a half percent, four and a half percent interest rate, it was easy to find another buyer to say, I don’t care that’s an HOA because I’m just gonna buy it to write off and depreciate my against my taxes. Great.

But now if the rates are at five percent, five and a half, six and a half percent interest, those same buyers are saying, I’m not gonna negative cash flow six hundred dollars so that I can save X amount of dollars at the end of the year, it just doesn’t make sense. So to them, you lose your long-term rental, your buy and hold investors that are just doing for depreciation. so you have to get, you have to ask who would buy this deal and does it make sense?

And so when you’re negotiating, you’re talking with this homeowners or the agents or whoever you’re speaking and negotiating with, it’s important to understand that and not because you’re trying to get a bigger payday, it’s because it’s just what’s happening in today’s world, in today’s market. And so if you come to me and you’re like, hey, I have a deal that requires twenty thousand dollars on a six and a half, it doesn’t cash flow, doesn’t have any exit on it besides, I’m gonna buy it so I can live in it.

Then your buyer pool becomes a lot a lot less, and you’re just not gonna have a market of buyers for that. So if you’re really when you’re leading these conversations, simply just saying, look, the market’s changed. It’s just in reality, that’s just how it is. These buyers have to be incentivized some way or some form, which is if the interest rate’s high, then what’s the other side? I either have equity or I have, I can basically buy the house for a very low money down kind of approach.

Scott Bursey (12:48)

Let’s shift gears a little bit then. what is your next big move with seller financing?

Eddie Marin (12:53)

So very good question. big move for our company is most likely we’re gonna pull back on the markets that we’re servicing. We’re actually gonna pull back and really dig our heels deeper in our biggest four biggest market. That’s gonna be number one. Number two is I really do enjoy wraparound mortgages on a passive approach. So if I can start really building out a platform to

pre-qualify actual wrap buyers much more efficiently. so that way when we get deals sent to us, we can automatically send them to the people that are already interested or open for a homestead, because those people are most likely willing to pay the six and a half, seven percent, because market rates are seven and a quarter. Right. And so if market rates are seven and a quarter and you can get them into a house at seven, eight percent interest and

you’re able to get a lot of times a little bit more money out of them. Average down payment back two and a half years ago was forty thousand cash. Now our average down payment’s nearly twenty eight thousand for homestead owners. So people have less cash they’re just willing to pay less up front is what we’re recognizing based off of what people say and how much money they have towards a house.

Scott Bursey (14:01)

Looking at risks, what is the one thing you’re most concerned about in this market?

Eddie Marin (14:06)

risk wise in this market, I’m gonna say people are buying properties without any equity in them. And if you’re buying a negative cash flow property and you don’t have any other means of exiting that property, meaning or stabilizing the property, whether it’s co living, whether it’s wraparound, whether it’s long term, midterm, short term, a group home of any kind, then my biggest concern is that.

Buyers are getting FOMO or they’re pre-buying opportunities that might put themselves in a tight bind if they ever like, oh my gosh, I’m losing you know $500 a month in cash flow and I have no equity. And what happens next, right? about creative finance, it’s amazing. It’s a beautiful market, it’s a beautiful industry. But

It’s very you have to do it with the right value system. Otherwise you might start people start taking advantage of the system it could leave the seller high and dry if you don’t have the proper documentation and structure to protect the seller. So with us, we’re always trying to protect the seller at all given times first. We can’t make adult decisions for adults, right? That’s their job. but my our job is to make sure that

we’re not structuring a creative transaction that can put the seller and jeopardize them in the future from a bigger extent than just saying just take back the house kind of approach.

Scott Bursey (16:05)

What could potentially throw a wrench in your disposition plans?

Eddie Marin (16:09)

I’ll give you a live example right now. we had two acquisition partners that submitted nearly I think two hundred and forty deals to us out of two. Right? In the last two years, these two acquisition partners were our heaviest suppliers of deals so that we can go sell them, right? one of them stopped

wholesaling in general, he went to the tech world and started servicing the tech world. The other one went and started acquiring RV parks and mobile home parks and all these bigger asset classes. And they no longer focus on single family residences as much. So the biggest risk for dispositions for us is your biggest supply you rely too much and you get comfortable with your biggest suppliers.

And then if the second they have a change in business operation or business strategy or any of the sort can affect you greatly. Right. And so that’s where I tell everybody, like that’s where we, business development, talking to the right people, having the right offer with people, especially in a market like this when everybody’s already shaking and holding their bags to their pockets kind of approach and they don’t want to share anything. you have to figure out and pivot how to.

service new and build relationships with more people because the relationships you have now, you may not be everything. they may not fit every box that you want to work with. But I’m telling you right now, it’s an opportunity to cherish those relationships and nurture them to make sure that they’re successful so that they can continue going and have that experience.

Scott Bursey (17:38)

Thank you for that excellent example, Eddie. And need to know, how do you keep buyer demand consistently active on terms for sale during market shifts?

Eddie Marin (17:48)

we’re very transparent up front. We try to give you all the information as possible, make it very easy for you to ask questions, you know, verify. Like right now we’re going, we’re revamping our buyer qualification. So like if you’re a buyer and you go on terms for sale, we’re gonna require you to submit proof of funds to make sure you’re a legit buyer, you’re ready to act on things. because there’s a lot of wholesalers out there that pretend to be buyers and all they do is they fake it till they make it, or they’re just

I hate to say it. There’s a lot of schemers, I guess you would say. And a lot of people that try to go around you and all that stuff. So we’re gonna now provide ask for proof of funds, make sure you’re ready to actually push through, number one. But number two, the deals that get submitted, we’re going through an extensive underwriting. So we’re now not gonna push as many deals as we used to. We’re gonna pull back like pull back a little bit.

just because we want to make sure that when we provide new deals to you guys, there is a way to at least break even or monetize, especially on a creative deal. On our cash deals, man, we just closed one and guy was more than ecstatic. It was here in Phoenix. this year we worked the beauty behind us and that one of the strength going back to the strength thing now that I’m thinking about it is you get to work with

both the transaction coordinating company and myself and in the wholesale business, but I bring to the table. And I don’t say that as a boasting. I say that broken titles, right? There’s too many t people in title, inherited properties, probates, anything of that nature, messy titles, anything like that, we take it, we look at them and we love those ones. Why? Because no one knows how to fix them. No one has the relationships to know how to work them. No one knows how to communicate through them.

And because of that, that is a strength of working with us because of all that experience that we bring to the table.

Scott Bursey (19:28)

Is there a key metric that you use daily to ensure inventory is moving fast?

Eddie Marin (19:33)

Yeah. so like creative deals, they last about thirteen days before they get they find a buyer. if it’s a true deal, it takes about thirteen days on average to find a buyer to connect them with. A cash deal typically is four days before an actual full cash buy offer on a full on a real deal. it’s definitely

That’s when we recognized the market was kind of adjusting a little bit, was because our average to find a good buyer was about seven days on a creative deal. Now it’s almost doubled the amount of time. So we set those proper expectations. close ratio is everything to us as well. Like that’s how we measure like

Are we getting enough closings? Are we not getting enough closings? Like for example, we are a non-exclusive disposition partner, which means that if we don’t do our job, we don’t get paid. So we only get paid if we bring a buyer that meets what we’re looking for, and then we become exclusive. and so we have to the more deals we take in and the more deals that don’t get sold because of us or whatever.

or they just fall they’re just not a deal anymore in this market that we’ve that was a deal last year, the year the year before. we take that percentage and we want to start increasing it a lot higher than what it is. but you can only control there’s too many variables, and that’s another risk in this market, is too many variables as a disposition company to keep up with,

Reality is, I mean, if I only take on 10 deals and I close three of them, that’s 30% close ratio. But if I take on 30 and I close three, you’re at 1%. Right. it’s hard to dictate close ratio. I think that’s our leading indicator whether or not we’re selling enough or they’re moving enough or so forth.

Scott Bursey (21:09)

Eddie, could you fill us in on what does your professional network look like currently?

Eddie Marin (21:15)

And what do you mean by that?

Scott Bursey (21:16)

As far as being in the right rooms with the right people, what sort of value have you found that has given you over your career? do you have certain people that you engage with on a daily basis that helps you in that respect?

Eddie Marin (21:32)

yes. So our JV partners that are also in the brand, I’m gonna do a quick shout out to Ingrid Hernandez. She’s great. she’s always supporting the brand and supporting us as a company. we just closed, that’s the deal we closed here in Phoenix. with her. our disposition like our J V partnerships, we’re always speaking to them, calling them. They’re we’re always talking to figure out, hey, how are you guys doing? Where are you guys looking at? so forth, providing valuable feedback.

the biggest thing is like I’m gonna give a great shout out to Pace. Not everybody, you know, not everybody agrees with the creative and subject to world, but Pace did leave lead the pack. And because of that, he opened up a lot of doors that provided the opportunities that essentially allow us to show up in a bigger, bigger way. Now, yes, he opened the doors, but you still gotta do the work. Most people feel that, you open the door, now do the work for me because I wanna get paid.

It’s like, no, you open the door and you go to work, right? That’s your job to get in the door and and build those relationships. Your job is to get out and network. Your job is to go to everything and lead with the values that’s going to be there for people. Like you want to lead with that. It’s a win-win relationship. It’s a win-win-lose lose. Which means that if we’re in a partnership, we win together, but we also lose together. And I don’t question whether it was your fault or my fault. I don’t score keep.

That’s one of the biggest values in our business is that we’re win-win lose lose. And so that’s basically Ingrid, I’m gonna say Pace was a huge open opportunity provider for us, right? he’s given us a lot of shout outs and everything. And because of that, you know, it’s it has opened up a lot of opportunity for us.

Scott Bursey (23:02)

Eddie, thank you for sharing the quality of your inner circle. And wonderful to know. If an investor has, let’s say ten thousand and wants to complete their first creative finance rap deal this month, what move should they make first, Eddie?

Eddie Marin (23:17)

So I’ve learned a lot in the wrap world. Okay. number one, if you’re gonna go wrap a property, wrap a property that with the worst possible case scenario happens, right? Plan for the worst, hope for the best. And so the worst possible case scenario is that if I buy a property and I sell it to an end buyer, a wrap buyer, and then I have to take that property back.

I have to be willing and able to satisfy that financial burden that I by taking that property back. Most people think like, I’m gonna get, I’m gonna build my cash flow very quickly. The answer is yes, you can. But you have to have self-accountability and responsibility to know that if you take on of underlying debt, it is your job to perform on that.

That is your job. You made that arrangement. Now, when you sell it to someone else, that’s their job to perform on that. But your job doesn’t leave when you sell it to someone else. Their job just makes it easier to do your job, which is perform. And so as a wrap buyer, when you’re first getting in started, I always talk about this deal. It’s the best deal I’ve ever done. It’s the reason why I got into wrapping. it was a

Deal in Besemere, Alabama. The average house is, I don’t know, $80,000, maybe. In Arizona, average house is $400,000. So Besemere, Alabama comes, I, you know, it gets brought to me by a person that’s never done a deal before. she brings it to me at $15,000. I was able to negotiate a $9,000 seller finance 0%, $1,000 down, $250 payments every month until payoff.

And zero percent interest on it as well. And the second we get it, we put it up on marketplace, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist and all these places to market it. Two and a half months later, we find the buyer within sixty days, 45 days or so, and we list it for sixty thousand dollars.

8% interest, $15,000 down. The buyer comes in and says, I’ll give you twelve and a half down and I’ll take it. So they we sell it for 60, 8% at $12,500 down. Already we’re like, wow, that was amazing. Their payment was $563 or something like that, or $637. And we were cash flowing about $350 a month.

On that one small deal that was nothing. And we made money up front. So I’m like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Well, long story short, seven months later, we sell the note. we end up making a total of $53,000 on that deal after paying everything in seven months. but now fast forward today, I wrapped a house in Buckeye, Arizona. Price point is $360. payments on that one, remember $250 on the first one. Payments on this one were.

$2,700 in Buckeye, Arizona. We sold it. We’re cash flowing about $380 on that deal. It was not the best deal, but it was $380. We get all our money back at closing. And now I’m in the process of taking that property back. But guess what? It’s not $250 a month that I’m paying to cover my first leg. I’m paying $2,700 for the last three months.

plus attorney fees to take that property back so that I can go sell it again on a wrap. when it’s your first deal, you have to ask yourself, do I have the money to financially satisfy that underlying in case this person stops paying? God forbid. I never wish that upon anybody, but it happens. and do I have that financial mean? And if I don’t, I gotta go find a $250 a month payment.

Or a $500 a month payment or $750 payment so that I can take absorb those three months or six months while I go take the property back. so that I can go and go do it again. But $2,800 a month, most people don’t have an extra $2,800 a month to pay that, right? And so choosing your market and your location and your price point, look at the underlying monthly payment.

And say that I can afford if I were to have to take this property back, I can make that payment every month until I get the property back.

Scott Bursey (27:15)

Excellent insight right there. Thank you for that, Eddie. And for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane, perhaps collaborate with you on future deals. What’s the best way for them to reach you directly?

Eddie Marin (27:28)

I’ll give you number one my Instagram handle and I’ll give you my website. it’s an easy go to jvwitheddie.com JVwitheddie.com. E-D-D-I-E.com. Okay. and then my Instagram handle is Eddie E D D I E G Marin M-A-R-I-N.

on Instagram and shoot me a DM if it’s a lot of the times they get pushed into the like unknown or not just bear with me, I will get back to you. and then we can connect from there. But jvwitheddie you’ll get most of my resources. you’ll be able to go to terms for sale, dispo buddy and all that good stuff.

Scott Bursey (28:03)

Eddie, thank you so much for joining us on the Real Estate Pros podcast today.

Eddie Marin (28:08)

Well, thank you for having me, Scott, so much.

Scott Bursey (28:10)

It’s been a pleasure. And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be fueling your tanks with a lineup of elite guests, just like Eddie Marin, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you on the next episode, everyone.