FLASHBACK EPISODE: 11 Years Later To The Day, What's Been Learned & What Remains The Same

Marking the one-year anniversary of the Stephan Piscano podcast, this reflective episode explains how a family visit to Florida in June 2024 ultimately led to the launch of this show and our other podcasts on YouTube as well. What began as casual YouTube viewing while spending time with a newborn nephew evolved into a realization: authentic market insights from someone with decades of real-world experience could provide genuine value amid a sea of content creators without practical expertise.  A year in to that journey of starting a YouTube channel from scratch Stephan explains what's been learned, and gives advice to other small business owners on growing a digital platform from the ground up!

We reflect on the past year's market predictions of gold, bitcoin, the stock market, and of course the real estate markets in general making projections for how to capitalize on market chaos and how chaos creates opportunity before getting to the star of this episode!

We play an interview Stephan Piscano did with Real Estate Income Magazine in 2014 which originally aired EXACTLY 11 years earlier to the day.  This nostalgic look back at what was happening in real estate and tech then and what is happening now lets listeners learn much more about Stephan Piscano's backstory while also learning how much is still exactly the same in our current markets!

Stephan Piscano also goes in to more detail about founding the real estate website ListedBy.com discusses selling hundreds of homes on eBay during the 2008 crash and of course as always even back then as is still the case now rambles about rapid-inflation!

We hope you enjoy this nostalgic interview episode on real estate and tech and as always thank you for subscribing to our podcasts and shows on Youtube as we all continue to grow and prosper together as well!

www.stephanpiscanopodcast.com
To Follow Us On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VacationWealthPartners

Transcript

Podcast Anniversary Reflections

Speaker 1 0:00

All right, guys. Thank you so much and welcome. This is Stephan Piscano with the Stephan Piscano podcast. Appreciate you guys, as always joining us, and I apologize that it's been almost a month since we've had our last episode. Wanted to check in with you guys and just thank you, because it's kind of a special week for the podcast here and this is a bit of a silly story, but I'm going to go ahead and tell it.

Speaker 1 0:26

So, one year ago, almost exactly to the day, we spent the whole month of June 2024 in Florida to celebrate and be there for the birth of my second nephew and be involved in all of that, and an interesting thing happened on that trip. So for those of you that have kids or have raised little kids, you know those first few months after they're born there's a lot of sitting that goes on. There's a lot of watching the baby, watching TV or, in my case, with my brother, I'm watching a lot of baseball and we probably watched in the month of June 2024, we probably watched more baseball than most people will ever watch in their entire lifetime and I loved it. It was great. It was one of my favorite trips that I've ever gotten to be blessed to be a part of, and we also watched a lot of YouTube, probably more YouTube than I personally had ever watched, because, for a guy in my early 40s, I am one of the oldest minded human beings that you'll ever meet and it took me a while to get used to the idea of YouTube, and it was during that month of watching all of this online content to where, to be honest with you, I would hear people I loved and respect telling me oh, this person's really smart, this person knows this, and I'm listening to it. And there's just so many people on YouTube that were doing different things, and I enjoyed watching it, and I've become fans of many, but a lot, of, people that really hadn't done the things that they were talking about doing, and so I thought to myself well, you know what? I actually have been buying properties for 25 years. I do own a digital marketing company. I've hosted a bunch of webinars and all that fun stuff. This is something that we could do, and so I thought, well, let's try this out.

Speaker 1 2:16

So it was exactly a year ago that I took the first steps to really trying to grow our YouTube channel and then ultimately, a couple months later, start this podcast, and I want to thank all of you that have supported the podcast the last year. It has been a humbling experience in a lot of ways and a very fun experience in a lot of ways. I've learned things that I never thought that I would learn. We've gotten to get our comments and our opinions on the record and hopefully add some value to people in some certain ways Over the last year. We told you 12 months ago that we thought gold was going to hit $2,500 an ounce, which it did in August of last year. Then we told you we thought that it was going to hit $3,000 an ounce, which it did. Then, when it hit $3,500 an ounce or $3,491, we did an episode in April of this year where we told you it's probably going to pull back a little bit, which it did. So we've hit our predictions pretty well on the gold side of things.

A Year of Market Predictions

Speaker 1 3:13

We also predicted the stock market. We've talked with you about rapid inflation at nauseam, to the point where you're probably tired of hearing the term. Tired of hearing the term and ironically for a real estate guy, I'd say we've talked as far as asset classes go, other than we've talked a lot about seller financing and some of the fun things that we do there. We might have talked the least about the housing market, partially because, if anybody knows anything about my strategy, the values of the homes are one of the things we care about the least, so really, what the market's doing doesn't matter as much, but also because it's been more consistent than the other asset classes have. Oh, I forgot to mention Bitcoin, where we told you we thought, when it hit 100,000, that it would probably be a good time to sell a little bit. So in these last 12 months, if you had listened to any of our projections on these different asset classes, you probably did pretty well.

Speaker 1 4:10

And either way, whether you did or you didn't, I want to truly thank everybody in the network for taking the time to join us, taking the time to subscribe to this show on Apple or Spotify or player FM or YouTube or whatever you do. It really is a lot of fun. We're going to continue to do it. We're going to continue to do it. We're going to continue to have more and more guests on the show. We're going to continue to try to get more frequent with it and give you something that you can count on on a weekly basis, but I really appreciate everybody in the network. I really see it as a family and when I look back, being the sappy guy that I am, and when I look back being the sappy guy that I am, I now have both more and less respect for these YouTubers I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 4:53

I will say this about YouTube, and this is my little small business owner, since we are an entrepreneurial-themed show in a lot of ways. This is my small business owner advice to anybody, especially if you're my age let's say you're 40 and up, or you're even older than that and you want to start a YouTube channel, there really isn't any way to fake it. There's no way to speed it up. As a guy that owns a digital marketing company and has sent literally billions of emails and text message marketing campaigns over the last 15, 20 years here, I assumed wrongfully so that I could probably grow a YouTube channel quicker than most, but what I found is the algorithm really has to choose you. It really has to, and if it doesn't, not only will you not be able to push traffic and have your channel grow faster, that way it actually the algorithm is trained to slow it down. So if you are somebody that has a large email list or database and you're thinking you want to drive traffic. Honestly, I can tell you if you do that, you will kill the organic growth of your channel, and that's as honest as I can put it.

Speaker 1 6:07

Now. Why the algorithm decides it likes certain things and others. I'm still trying to figure that out and we'll report back when we do, but that's my sincere advice to you is if you have a big network, don't try to speed through the process. They also tell you. If you listen to any of these guys and gals that are are really big time at this whole thing, they'll tell you the secret. They all kind of have the same answer and it sounds like a bs answer when you hear it which is that just make better videos, make good content. But it really and I thought the same thing. I thought, oh gosh, come on, it really is true, though you.

Speaker 1 6:43

You change the definition of what you consider to be good content, because it's not just making a video where you feel like it sounds good, or it's accurate, or it's smart, or it helps someone in some way. It's the thumbnail, it's the timing of the transitions, of the editing. There's so many things that go into it that mean making something good, and you do learn something with everyone that you make and you post, and you get a little better every time. One of these big guru guys I'm blanking on his name said make a hundred videos and then you get to square one and then we can talk. And I heard that about a year ago and I thought, well, that's kind of silly. But I understand now what he means, because you don't even know what you don't know when you go into it.

Speaker 1 7:30

So, having said that too, my advice to everybody in my network that's a small business owner, an entrepreneur, and you want to grow that platform, cause I do believe that that digital technology is the future of of marketing in this country, without a doubt. So if you want to be a part of that, my advice to you really is just be yourself. Stick to whatever that is, as corny as that sounds, and just pay attention to the details, see what works, what doesn't work and don't get frustrated. But that's the same thing as it is with anything in life or in business, right, and that's what separates people from people that succeed and people that fail, because everybody fails. So it's just. How do you respond to that failure when you're dealing with it. Do you continue on? You try to learn something from it and improve, or do you give up? Or do you blame somebody else? Blame yourself you can blame yourself. That's good, but only if you're going to use that internal blame to try to get better and improve. So that's my two cents on that and, as always, if you haven't subscribed, we sure would appreciate it, because I am a numbers junkie and I love seeing those numbers go up. I will tell you what I'm going to do today, guys, just because it's kind of fun and I think it's a good thing with everything going on in the markets right now with the housing market. Kind of fun, and I think it's a good thing with everything going on in the markets right now with the housing market.

YouTube Growth Journey Lessons

Speaker 1 8:46

I'm starting to hear a lot of people talk about a market crash that's either already started or is coming and all that stuff. And you've heard me say this, if you've heard any of our stuff before. But I want to let you know I really mean it, I've experienced it, I believe it to be true. If the market does crash, that is not a bad thing. Not only is it not a bad thing, but it's these wild, chaotic shifts in the market that create the most opportunity for informed investors and engaged. What I mean by engaged is you're active. You're actively seeking opportunities to deploy capital into the markets. That's where we can make the biggest profits, the biggest returns and ultimately be the most prosperous and successful. You know, rising tide is fine. It floats all boats. A flat market's fine. There's opportunities there too. But by far and away billions are made in profits by savvy, engaged investors during market crashes. That's by far what creates the biggest opportunities If you're ready for it and if you have a set of fundamental principles that you stand by, that you can fall back on and that you can take comfort in in times of chaos, when everybody else is running around, everybody else is scared, everybody else is clutching to their bedpost, wondering what's going to happen next.

Speaker 1 10:03

If you're the one that's calm, if you're the one that's active, you're the one that has a plan, you are going to be so happy, you're going to be happier than you could ever imagine that you took that leap of faith and got engaged with the market. So, personally, I don't really believe we're going to see an all-out crash. If you want my two cents on it, I think that we're going to see extreme volatility, which we already are seeing. I think we're going to see certain demographics, certain markets, shift dramatically and go up and down and have a big little roller coaster deal here, but I don't think we're going to have an all-out 2008-style crash. If we do, then that's fine, we've got a game plan for that. But I just don't believe that that's where the markets are going. I think this year, right here, right now, is going to be the height of the chaos 2025, going into 2026. And then I think it levels off after that 2025 going into 2026. And then I think it levels off after that and I think we see continued appreciation, largely based on the rapid inflation that is still going on and still needs to go on and the devaluation of the dollar, which makes everything more expensive, including and specifically especially hard assets like real estate, like precious metals, so on and so forth.

Speaker 1 11:20

So what I'm going to do today, just because it's kind of fun and since I'm kind of nostalgic and sappy as I am, and being this kind of the one-year anniversary of the idea of this podcast, at least I came across an interview that I did that I had never watched. I did an interview when I had made the website listedbuycom back in 2012. And I did this interview with a nice Indian gentleman with Real Estate Wealth Magazine in 2014. For some reason, it popped up on my thing the other day and I decided to watch it, and I'm not going to show you the video because I'm a little embarrassed. It's funny. It shows the change in the times, how different the lighting is and I don't know, I look like a 17-year-old kid, but what I loved about it is the same principles that I was talking about 11, 12 years ago were the same principles we're executing on today, and those principles don't change and it's the foundation of those principles and my gratitude for that that developed in 2008, 2009,.

Market Volatility Creates Opportunity

Speaker 1 12:28

Got extrapolated during the rise 11, 12, 13, 14, and so on, and to this day, you're still always learning. You're always trying to get better, you're always failing, you're always succeeding, but you're always grateful. I'm always grateful for the opportunity and I think personally, we've got more buying opportunity as investors in 2025 than probably any year since 2020, which, if you go and look at our YouTube channel that I keep rambling about here, you'll see a video I did with the market outlook for 2020, going into 2021. And I'm pretty grateful and proud of all the predictions we made in that one, because I think that was about the biggest home run and that's how I feel about 2025. I feel like this chaos is at an all-time peak and it's going to continue to be for the duration of this year, early next year, and if we are calm and if we're focused and if we stick to the fundamentals, try to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves and try to take advantage of the opportunity that chaos creates, we're going to be extremely happy and grateful that we did when 2027 rolls around. So that's my two cents.

Speaker 1 13:41

I'm going to play this old school Stefan video for you here and then I'm going to tell you too, to make up for not doing any postings for the last 21 days or so here. I am going to have multiple episodes this week and I'll go ahead and tee that up. I got interviewed for a travel show podcast because my company Vacation Wealth Partners we invest in luxury vacation rentals and so I was honored to be a guest on the when have you Been podcast and it's one of the best interviews that I've ever done. And he's not going to air that episode until August. So what I'm going to do this week I'm going to interview the episode where he interviewed me, and then I also interviewed him for this show, and then we're going to close it out with a long-awaited interview that I've been trying to get edited and it finally, thankfully, is and is all set up. That I'm really excited about.

Speaker 1 14:37

And you've heard me tease quite a bit on the DISC system D-I-S-C personality profiles that will be here this week as well. So you're going to want to make sure you're subscribed if you like hearing me and like hearing our fun stuff, because you're going to get more episodes in the next six days than we did in the whole month of June, and I sincerely hope you enjoy it. I hope that we add value to you and sincerely hope you enjoy it. I hope that we add value to you and I hope that it adds comfort in this time of need. If it is a time of need for you, or if you're already like me, you're already excited, you're already ready to go then like-minded people can breed that success together. So thank you guys for all you do, hope you enjoy this interview from 2014 and I'll look forward to seeing you on the show next week.

Speaker 2 15:15

Hello, this is Mohammed Sadiq from Real Estate Income Magazine with another session of Hangout with a very special guest.

Speaker 1 15:22

Hey, my friend.

Speaker 2 15:22

How are we doing? Yeah, good, glad to meet you. Thank you so much. My guest today is Stephen Piscano. Stephen, did I pronounce your name right?

Speaker 1 15:34

You know it gets butchered about 40 times a day. So as long as it starts with an S, I usually answer to it Stephen Piscano. But yeah, so you got it right.

Speaker 2 15:41

Okay, stefan Piscano, thank you. Thank you, plus forgive me about my accent, and plus you know, oh, no, worries.

Speaker 1 15:47

No worries, I'm happy to be here. Really appreciate you having us on.

Speaker 2 15:51

Oh no, thank you so much for coming. It's a daily player and you know the gentleman again. His name is Stefan Pascano. Pascano is the founder and CEO of listedbuycom, a global online real estate marketplace which provides listing and auctions. This is like a social media network for real estate investors. Is that right?

Speaker 1 16:11

Stefan, yeah, we're an online real estate marketplace and social network with live bidding auction functionality. So the easiest way to describe it in a nutshell is we're like eBay, but tailored for real estate. And then we also have the social network component, which we tailored similarly to LinkedIn or Facebook and functionality, and I also own the largest real estate related group on LinkedIn, which is the real estate networking group as well, so the two entities kind of play off each other to some extent.

Speaker 2 16:40

Oh, thank you. Before you start, jump on that, what actually you do, what makes you uniquely qualified to speak on the future of real estate investing? I see, when I saw the real estate, mr Buycom, that's almost like a future of real estate investing. How should?

Speaker 1 16:55

I hope so. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, that was definitely the idea was to fundamentally take the real estate market into the digital era and bring the whole home buying process online. Just to answer your question specifically, my background I've been in real estate investments for about 15 years. I've literally been buying investment properties since I was a teenager. So I kind of grew up in the industry and have done everything from subdividing acreage to small real estate developments to long-term income producing properties and short-term flips.

Speaker 1 17:28

From 2008 to 2011, I actually liquidated a few hundred properties on eBay of all places, and that was what gave me the idea to really harness that eBay functionality in a marketplace setting but tailor it to the real estate sector, because I realized that while eBay was great because it was getting all this traffic, it just wasn't set up on the front end or the back end to give me what I needed to actually complete a transaction. So with Listed by, we put a lot of emphasis on the social network component so that users can actually really integrate, like you said, cut out the middleman and really have that direct connectivity between buyers and sellers because, unlisted by, you can actually submit an offer through the website and then you're dealing with someone that has the functionality and the understanding on the other side to actually accept that offer and really engage in direct conversation. So I'm probably rambling a little bit, but that's kind of my background and probably a much wordier answer to your question than you anticipated.

Speaker 2 18:26

No, that's great, and many people really want to know where you and what was the moment when you really get into all this by the way. What was that?

Speaker 1 18:33

time People say in general.

Speaker 2 18:35

When you started getting into all this, you saw the problem in eBay and then you started creating your own.

Speaker 1 18:42

Yeah, I mean. Well, I can tell you it's kind of a neat story. Summer 2008, well, really winter 2007, early 2008, I started seeing all these properties going on eBay in Detroit for $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000. I said, wow, that's amazingly cheap and I almost bought some myself. But I said, you know, if they're buying them that cheap, they must be, or if they're selling them that cheap, they must be buying them even cheaper.

2025 Investment Outlook

Speaker 1 19:04

So, being in California, I set out to research the Detroit real estate market as much as I could. I called asset managers, real estate agents, every day, woke at 5 am, 6 am, and really gota feel for the movers and shakers in that market. And then, after a few months of research, I pulled the trigger on my first property, which was a duplex, for $600, and I sold it for $6,900 a few days later. So I said, wow, this is great. So then, like I said, we proceeded to buy in packs of 40, 50 at a time for, you know, usually $500 a door, and flip in that online setting. And what's neat about listed by is that, as opposed to you know a lot of companies that come from guys sitting around a table saying how do we make money Listed by literally came from me complaining in my office to one of my partners on a regular basis that, you know, ebay wasn't tailored to real estate. The other sites out there, like RealtyBid, you had to, you know, charge a commission on the front end of the back end, so there was no connectivity between the parties, so I couldn't get a deal done. And he finally said well, if there's nothing out there that really gives you what you need functionality wise, why don't you just do it yourself?

Speaker 1 20:08

And unfortunately, that was 2010, about the time that damn social network movie came out and made it look so easy to do to start a website. So we said, okay, let's do it. Several hundred, several hundred thousand dollars. A year and a half later we went live, you know, may 2012. And it's hard to believe that it's been more than two years now. It's amazing how far we've come. We've now got more than 400,000 members of the site and, you know, an additional 500,000 plus members in our social media reach, so it's pretty exciting. I mean, we're a free community, so the growth has been pretty outstanding and hopefully we're just scratching the surface with what we can do and as we get more brand recognition, we can really work to not only have investors use our site, because it makes sense for guys like myself that want to research so many properties in a short period of time, but actually appeal to the everyday homebuyers as well, that just want to speed up the process and have that easy access.

Speaker 2 21:03

Well, wonderful, while I was doing a research on you a little bit before getting ready for the interview, and I saw that you predicted the future of real estate investing a few years ago. So here is my question what is the future of real estate investing in your point of view?

Speaker 1 21:20

Yeah, I mean and unfortunately you are correct and I appreciate you pointing that out I did say everybody in 2011, 2012, that that was going to be the bottom. And then I projected it would come up. And we did a lot of investing based on inflation hedges because I thought we were going to see some form of rapid inflation at the market. And we kind of have To be honest with you, right now my outlook is not as exciting for the markets I wish it was, but I do think it's going to continue to go up 2015, 2016,. But I'm a little bit concerned that at some point the interest rates have to go up.

Speaker 1 21:54

And I also know that part of what's propping the market up right now is there's a lack of inventory, obviously, which everybody talks about.

Speaker 1 22:00

So you've got a lot of new construction going on all over the place, especially in the key demographics that are feeling the lack of inventory. So I could see a situation where the interest rates go up and the inventory problem goes away at the same time. And then the third thing that's propping the market up right now was just that mental feeling in the markets that hey, this was the bottom, we better take advantage of this. So obviously that third one would go away as well if the other two did. So if you have those three key factors going the wrong direction at the same time which I think could happen around 2017, you could see a dip or, at a minimum, a stabilization or leveling of the markets, and I really think the only thing that could prevent that from happening, specifically when the interest rates go up, is the key item there would be if we saw rapid inflation, which you know hopefully we will. Actually, inflation is not always a bad thing, but it'll be interesting to see what happens between 2016 and 2018.

Speaker 2 22:56

Thank you. You almost predicted the future of real estate investing again Well we'll see.

Speaker 1 23:02

I don't know. I'd like to time it just right. We bought a bunch of stuff at the bottom. We're selling some of our stuff now. If we can sell everything in 2016 and then buy more when it crashes again, I'll be a pretty happy guy.

Speaker 2 23:13

So we'll see Jim Rohn said bigger the why, easier the how, why learning the future of real estate investing is so.

Speaker 1 23:24

Yeah well, you know. So to me, anything that you're going to do, anything you're going to invest in, you want to know it inside and out, and so it's kind of been neat for us. Really, I can take real estate to me is like breathing, because I mean I love it. I always joke with people. You know, if I make more money, I just go buy more condos, so I don't really care about it. You can see I'm wearing a T-shirt, I don't really care about it. You can see I'm wearing a t-shirt. I don't really buy the fanciest cars, I just buy condos, rental properties. That's what makes me happy. So I can more tailor that towards the tech industry, because for me the tech industry was the new frontier.

Speaker 1 23:58

And so a few years ago, getting into what we do now, with the driving traffic and social media and specifically LinkedIn, and being able to really learn and open up my minds, I mean it's just night and day. The knowledge I have now, as opposed to three and a half years ago, is just I didn't know what a wireframe was. I remember when we went in and to the web development team for Listify and they said we need you to have a wireframe. And I'm looking at them like they're crazy. They told me what it was. You know it was supposed to be eight weeks of work. We did it in a week because I love the process of getting obsessed with something, figuring out what the end game is and then executing whatever that task is. And so, whether it's real estate, tech or whatever your chosen field is, having that hunger for knowledge but, more importantly, the drive to see it through, I think, is what's most important.

Speaker 2 24:47

Importantly, the drive to see it through, I think, is what's most important. Here's what I learned from that answer Execution. It's not about oh, let me learn more, learn more. We all will be learning all the time for the rest of our life. We all need to be good students. However, execution, whatever you know, execute and see if it's working right. I just said to make it happen for you. Is that correct?

Speaker 1 25:11

Yeah, I think you hit it on the head. And to bring it back to real estate because I know I rambled a little bit off topic there For example, you could have a great building, you could go buy a 40-unit building in a great location, have a great plan, but if you have a bad on-the-ground property manager, you could turn a 30% on paper cash-on-c cash return into a negative 10% pretty quick. I mean, I've seen it happen and then I've seen it the other way, to where we go and we could buy a bad set of properties condos in Las Vegas and a horrible neighborhood but if we have good execution, good on the ground management, and we really follow through with our plan, then we could turn a bad investment or a marginal investment into a great one. So yeah, execution, anybody can have an idea, but executing that idea and dealing with things that go wrong because anybody can deal with it when it goes right but it's how do you adjust to it when it doesn't work out and come back stronger that, I think, is the key in anything.

Speaker 2 26:00

So it seems like on listedbuycom, you have amazing things going on. So let me ask you a question how do real estate investors typically get started with you, with listedbuycom, on a step-by-step basis?

Speaker 1 26:15

Yeah, so for listedbuy it's pretty simple. I mean, it's a free website. So you go to listedbuy, create your free user profile automatically. You can search thousands of properties, most of which are off markets. You're going to see inventory there that you wouldn't see anywhere else. You can list your properties on the site, either as an agent or as an investor or everyday homeowner. There's no fee for that.

Speaker 1 26:35

If you did want to feature your property on the homepage, then you can do that. It's a nominal fee I think it's $50 and you get a rotation to our hundreds of thousands of members that come to the site. And yeah, then you've got it set up. At that point you can actually submit offers to the website, or, if you're a seller, you can receive offers and then you get those leads automatically coming to your inbox to where you get those notifications. This person submitted the offer at this price. Here's their contact info and you can either utilize the site to counter, accept or reject that offer, or you can reach out to the person from there and start your typical process as well when I go on this website, listed up, listed bycom, everything is free, free, free, it's like you know.

Speaker 2 27:15

What I learned is so far there's nothing for free. So how do you make money on that one? Is it like it's good to?

Speaker 1 27:20

improve. Yeah, it's funny. I mean we do make a little bit on the in the premium listings, but we make pretty much all of our money on corporate advertising, and so the website itself really is free right now and, honestly, people I don't think believe it. So I'm thinking about charging five bucks or something, because I think people could comprehend that better than it being completely free. But yeah, right now, I mean, we, like I said, we've got an opt-in email database of about actually 450,000 members now. We've got an opt-in email database of about actually 450,000 members now, and then, with our social media reach, we're right under a million total users, so it's a really, really targeted demographic for any real estate-related advertiser.

Speaker 1 27:58

We've worked with Quicken Loans, auctioncom, long-term Advertiser EquityBuild and many, many other smaller companies as well Well, foreclosurecom being another big one that you would have heard of and so what we do is we give our base of real estate investors and agents helpful tools and resources like a Quicken Loans or Auctioncom that they need, so it's a benefit to them and then, at the same time, for our advertisers, we're putting them in front of an extremely targeted and active base that we know needs their services at the moment when they need it the most.

Speaker 2 28:31

What if any one of our real estate income magazine subscribers got started with you today, with listedbuycom? What would be their life look like in 30 days, 90 days or a year from now?

Speaker 1 28:42

Oh well, I could tell you as a user it all depends, obviously, I mean, everybody's situation is different, but they're going to have a lot more ease can tell you as a user it all depends, obviously, I mean, everybody's situation is different, but they're going to have a lot more ease. If you're a real estate agent, you're going to get a lot of really targeted exposure to your listings and if you use the free options completely no cost, so that's great You're also going to potentially get new clients and you're going to drive traffic to your own website as well. If you're a real estate investor, you're going to cut your time in half. I mean, for me, I would spend so much time on redfinrealtorcom just trying to track down the list agent's information because they want to play middleman and route it to their own agents that they're getting a referral fee from.

Speaker 1 29:15

With us, you've got that direct connectivity so you can look at thousands of properties in the time it would take you to look at dozens of properties. And then, if you're an advertiser, honestly that's going to be obviously the biggest benefit, because what we've been able to do in the traffic generation sector has been out of this world. So I think at this point we are by far and away the most targeted infrastructure for the real estate sector, specifically real estate investor sector that's around. So any of your readers, listeners, that would fit into that category as a real estate related service provider would probably get the most value from working with us.

Speaker 2 29:53

Great. That really makes it easy for real estate investors, especially when it's free. Everybody loves the free part. Free is the most powerful word.

Speaker 1 30:02

It's kind of the Google and Facebook model, so you know, we give someone something that they need and we don't charge anything for it, and then it streamlines from there.

Speaker 2 30:12

What are the specific roadblocks that typically prevent your members from starting to start with you?

Flashback: 2014 Listed Buy Interview

Speaker 1 30:19

I don't know if there is a road. I mean, since it is free and since it just takes a few minutes to set it up, I don't know if there's any roadblock there. I think it might just be information. So things like this is really helpful in talking about how to use the site. It's pretty turnkey. We tried to make it as efficient and effective as possible, but you know, getting that first listing, we're here to help. So if there's any questions, if anyone has about setting up the account or adding your listing or searching the properties, we're extremely responsive to that. But really it's just all about diving in and seeing all the fun that can happen from there.

Speaker 2 30:52

So, folks, you can see that it looks like Stephen does not even know that if there's any roadblock, he makes it so easy. He thinks everybody should be no-brainer to use this. This is by com, Is that correct?

Speaker 1 31:05

Yeah, if there is a roadblock, let me know what it is and we'll get rid of it, Okay wonderful, that's good.

Speaker 2 31:11

What are the specific strategies to use a listedbycom? They are like keys to unlock a roadblock doors to achieve a wireless success.

Speaker 1 31:20

I mean, again, it depends on what your goals are and what sector you're coming from. So I mean, I think that it's really just utilizing it just the way that you would with LinkedIn or Facebook. It's about utilizing it for whatever your benefits that you need are. So, if you're an agent, again, if you're looking for clients, use the social network aspect, search members of the site, engage, send messages back and forth, import your contacts to join you on the site. If you're a real estate investor, get in there, dig through the properties, search the auction sector.

Speaker 1 31:52

I just did a promo last week or I suppose been about a week and a half now where I auctioned off one of my condos that I own personally. That's worth at least $200,000. And we did $100, no reserve auction. I think the bidding is up to about $120,000 right now, so I'm hoping it gets up a little higher.

Speaker 1 32:07

But you know we do stuff like that sometimes just to drive excitement and traffic, and so if you're there, you're going to be privy to that and, honestly, be on the email list, because being on the email list is where you're going to see everything that we've got going on from ourselves and all of our partners and you're going to get the most action and activity there as well. And then really again, you know, a big piece of the puzzle has been the LinkedIn groups. So we invite all of our users to engage on social media. And again, that would be the real estate networking group there, real estate investor group, and then the listed by LinkedIn group and then several other groups as well. So there's a lot of different ways to connect and engage.

Speaker 2 32:46

So, folks, that's a really big invitation from Stephen to actually engage with these guys. If LinkedIn has how many? 200, 300 million by the time you are watching, there may be 100 million more, you never know. And these guys you know. I know his partners, kent, little John and probably a few other partners which I may not be aware of him. Is that correct?

Speaker 1 33:06

So I don't know, I got partners in my sleep here, so yeah.

Speaker 2 33:11

Oh wonderful, that's good. They almost own the real estate market on LinkedIn. That's huge. There's no one else. If you are really looking for a joint venture, partners on a much bigger scale, and just get in touch with listedbuycom. That should be the step you will be taking and you'll be thanking for us forever, you know, yeah, so what would be the first physical action step you want someone to take to get started with listedbycom?

Speaker 1 33:42

You know, just like I said, go to the site, create your free user profile and then go from there with a lot of the steps we've talked about today.

Speaker 2 33:49

What question did you want me to ask? But I did not get around to it.

Speaker 1 33:55

Well, you know, no, I think it was a great interview. I'm happy with it. If you want to talk more about some of the LinkedIn stuff, that's great too, but if not, then that's fine. I'm happy with all the ground we've covered.

Speaker 2 34:07

Here's my most favorite question when do you have faced challenges while building listedbuycom and how you went around to it?

Speaker 1 34:15

Oh gosh. Well, I don't know if we've got enough time for that. Well, let's see. I mean for me again, being a real estate guy, my whole life the tech industry has definitely been a new journey. And so initially you think it's as simple I'll just pay 50 grand, we'll have somebody build our website and that's that. We'll never have any more cost again.

Speaker 1 34:37

You don't realize how much intricity goes into developing a top-tier website. And so initially, the web development aspect like I said, it took us 18 months just to get live as a website. So it's funny when I look back now that we've been live for more than two years. It's like two life forms. There was that extremely long period of time where you're getting to that point, and then it's tailoring the expectations and learning to, to reevaluate successes as you go and then. So the first level would be the web development, which we finally overcame, and thankfully so.

Speaker 1 35:14

One that's probably a little more relevant and has a happy ending would be initially driving traffic, because you know I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars the first six months just really trying to find out hey, how do we drive massive traffic?

Speaker 1 35:29

You know we did radio prints, tv pay-per-click, a lot of money spent with Google, facebook, you know, so on and so forth and ultimately found nothing worked better for us than full content-based email marketing, and so we really put all of our resources in the building out our opt-in email list, and when I bought the largest real estate group on LinkedIn, that became a resource that has really taken our traffic to another level, to where now we're in a position where we don't spend any money on advertising and we're able to use the tools and the tactics that we've learned to be able to make our base happy and provide informational content that keeps them coming to the site for other partners as well. So that's something that's really transformed our business and our business model, to where we took a negative into a positive. We said, hey, how do we do this for us? And once we were able to do it for ourselves, we realized we had an amazing asset that could help other people as well.

Speaker 2 36:29

And once we were able to do it for ourselves, we realized we had an amazing asset that could help other people as well. Great, so how many hours do you work every day? I guess that investors somebody probably spending 18 hours a day and someone spending 10 hours a day they just want to know. You build a lot of like a quote unquote lifestyle, but I don't know what the lifestyle mean. Everybody has their own definition of lifestyle quote unquote lifestyle but I don't know what the lifestyle mean.

Speaker 1 36:48

Everybody has their own definition of lifestyle. Yeah, no, I definitely, I'm definitely doing a lot of those 80 hour work weeks, without question.

Speaker 2 36:54

So is that your passion, then you love what you do.

Speaker 1 36:58

No, I really do, and that's what I was going to say is it's really not work, because I honestly really love this stuff and me and Kent talk about it a lot how addicted we are to traffic, watching the numbers come through. I've always loved real estate. Still do. I love searching properties. I love submitting the things that people see as work. I see as that's a fun way to spend the afternoon. I'm going to go and I'm going to search through thousands of properties. I'm going to submit hundreds of offers and see what sticks, and it's the same thing, same thing with the traffic.

Speaker 1 37:27

Now, when I sit on Google Analytics and I can watch the real-time traffic coming into the site, I see people engaging, using the site. You know, finding deals. That just makes me happier than pretty much anything except my son. So you know so that for me it's it's not really work. It's, it's an exciting. There's something new every day and there's always. I mean from the real estate side. I mean I've had everything to finding dead bodies in our houses, which is sad, obviously, to you know, buying a house for, like I said, six hundred dollars and sell it for 12 times when I pay for three days later. So you get the lows and the highs. Like I said, $600 and sell it for 12 times what I pay for three days later. So you get the lows and the highs. And then, on the tech side, it's been the same thing to where, whether it's developing a landing page or it's, you know, engaging with how to import contact functionality on the Listed by site, there's always something new to learn and to enjoy.

Speaker 2 38:21

Great, that's a great information as an average real estate investor who has not done so much, vast experience. But you have what would be the one piece of like a wisdom you would share with them One thing they should be doing it and one thing they should not be doing it. That's like a lesson learned you are sharing with them.

Speaker 1 38:40

Gosh, yeah. Well, one thing they should be doing I would say is they should be in a sector that they've researched fully and they should be in. They should not pull the trigger on buying a property until they know exactly why they're doing it. I suppose never buy a product. And that kind of leads me to what you shouldn't do Never buy a property because someone else says it's a good deal. You should understand fully for yourself why it's a good deal and you should make sure that it tailors to what your specific strategy is, because there's dozens, maybe hundreds of ways to make a lot of money or to lose a lot of money in real estate and everybody's situation is different.

Speaker 1 39:18

For me personally, I had the times where we did the Detroit flips and that's obviously as fast flip as you can get, and now I don't do that at all and I buy owner financed income producing properties and it's a leverage play and it's all about a high cash on cash return. So for me that makes sense because I don't need the high intensity of the flip. I just want long-term cash flow and stabilization for an inflation hedge. But for other people that's not going to make sense. So you need to learn the fundamentals what a cap rate is going to make sense. So you need to learn the fundamentals. What a cap rate is, how to calculate your cash on cash return. Learn the fundamentals and then go from there to find out what do you really need in your life, short term and long term, and then execute from there.

Speaker 2 39:59

Thank you so much. Here's my last question, a very easy one. What would you say as a final word, who would like to join on listbuycom?

Speaker 1 40:09

no, we would love to have you join listed by. We're an ever-growing membership base. We have some pretty exciting properties that come on the site on a regular basis and there's a lot of the top industry people there industry experts, professionals from all around the country so we'd love to have you be a part of it thank.

Speaker 2 40:27

Thank you so much, stephen Piscano, for sharing your wisdom with us today On the behalf of Real Estate Income Magazine, myself and Shiv Ganesh, editor-in-chief. We really appreciate you. This is Mohammed Sadiq. Wish you good luck Our path across again our next hangout at Real Estate Income Magazine. All good wishes. Bye-bye.