Minimal Risk, Maximum Profit: The Real Estate Investing Mindset You Need With Tim Bowman

 

Mastering the real estate investing mindset is the key to building generational wealth and confidently navigating today’s volatile financial landscape. This dynamic episode features Billboard Chart-topping musician and successful real estate investor, Tim Bowman, creator of the “Harmonies of Wealth Building” master class, who shares his compelling journey from a side man not making money to a real estate powerhouse. Bowman details how he transitioned from a mindset of fear to one of opportunity by securing his first deal with seller financing and building passive income through strategic rentals and flips. He dives deep into the essential systems needed for success, including building a trustworthy team of specialized contractors and agents, the crucial role of in-depth due diligence and financial analysis before buying a distressed property, and proven, practical strategies for minimizing risk and maximizing profit in the competitive real estate market.

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Minimal Risk, Maximum Profit: The Real Estate Investing Mindset You Need With Tim Bowman

Musician Tim Bowman’s Generational Wealth Blueprint

Everybody, Kevin Shortle here once again with another episode for you of the show. Thank you, as always, for tuning in to the show. If you liked the show, please go ahead, click that like button. Also, if you want to see a video replay of all of this, go to my YouTube channel. Just look up my name, Kevin Shortle. Remember that it is Shortle.

You will find the channel right there. Not only do I have the podcast episodes, but I also have my tip of the day, Water Cooler Wednesday, and a lot of content for you to dive into on that channel. As always, if you like the videos on YouTube, please go ahead, like them. It allows me to bring in great guests, as I do with me.

I get the opportunity to have a lot of emails come my way about people who want to be on the show. Quite frankly, a lot of them are not really a good fit for what I do, which is real estate. The real estate notes, of course, are the area of expertise. I was really intrigued by the story of our guests. He is going to bring a lot of good insight into the real estate investment world, into the mindset, into a lot of the categories that we talk about on a regular basis through all of the various channels that I do.

I am really happy to introduce you to Tim Bowman. Tim is a billboard chart-topping musician, eighteen number one singles, everybody. He parlayed that into real estate investing because he was interested in building generational wealth. That is important, especially with the advent. One of the things I like to talk about with you, Tim, is getting into the mindset. We will do that. Welcome to the show, Tim.

Thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it, Kev.

I am intrigued by your story, not only being a very successful musician, but also realizing that you need to build some foundational wealth as well, and getting into real estate, which has been a passion of mine for a long time as well. It’s so important that we have too many people getting sucked into the negativity, social media, and just the constant politics. You have the advent of AI coming in and just completely changing things.

It leaves people to be lost a little bit. Part of what I saw when I was reading your background was the mindset of switching over from all this fear. There can be a lot of fear built into showing where you have to transition that into an opportunity. That would be a good place for us to start.

You are correct. I understand where that fear comes from. It is one thing to say, “I am going to buy a car.” That is a car. There is another thing for your mind to be able to say, “I am going to buy a house.” You see what I am saying?

Sure.

You think house, you think lifetime. This is a big investment. The thing that really made me train my mind, or got my mind to the place I needed to be, was traveling all over the world as a sideman at age 22. I really did not know the music business because I was playing at church. I was straight from church. I never played in clubs. Straight from church to traveling the world with the biggest gospel group in the world at the time. That was just something, I did not know the music business.

All I knew I had spent all these years trying to become an elite musician. I had just finished conservatory. I was traveling around the world. I am thinking, not understanding the music business, “We are getting ready to be rich. We are going to be financially set.” The music business does not work like that. I was a sideman. This went on for a couple of years.

I am starting to realize, “I am out here traveling around the world. I am newly married. I am not making any money.” These pain points are starting to show up. We want to start a family, but I cannot. My father raised us, “If you are going to have a family, you have got to be able to support them.” Now we are in the 4 or 5 years, by I was in the position I was, the music director for the group. I was always in the music industry with the executives in the industry.

They were always talking about their real estate, whether they were buying, selling, or buying, holding. These were executives in the music business. They could not even whistle. They knew nothing about music, but they were businessmen. I am in these meetings. I am just listening to them talk. It was always about real estate.

I started to think, “I am out here struggling. I need to have some passive income because I am still playing, but I need something to be making money, have something making money for me that I am not doing, passive income.” It clicked. I got to a point where I am burnt out. It had been seven years on the road. That is when I left and went back home before I started my own record career.

A guy told me he was a real estate agent. He was an insurance agent. He said, “On the side, I have passive income. I buy a rental property for passive income. I will show you what to do.” I did not know anything about it. I had heard about it from music guys. He showed me how to get my first property with seller financing. A thousand dollars down, and that started everything.

Why Mentorship Is Your #1 Real Estate Accelerator

Everybody that I have talked to who has done real estate at a high level started with that one-on-one with somebody. Somebody to show you the way. I never hear the story, “I just read the book, I went out there, did it,” or “Back in my day, I listened to the cassette tapes, and that did it.” No, it is one of those things. If you want to accelerate your results, you really have to think in terms of the true definition of mentorship.

That can go across trades. It can go across music. You want somebody there in lessons. Yes, you can teach yourself in music, practice, but to really refine it, you probably had somebody there as well. “Let me show you how that does. Listen to that chord. Do it this way. Think about that.” In every trade that you do, in every sport that you do. Why wouldn’t it make sense to do that in real estate? That is just really how life works.

That is how life works. Somebody has gone down the road before you. They are turning around, looking, and say, “Do not go right there. Do not go left here.” Keep you out of the ditch. Stay centered. Same thing with music. It is one thing to be a musician, but it is another thing to be a professional.

 

The professional is the whole package. You come prepared. You are at the airport. You do the gig. You go home. Know the music. That is what somebody else has to show you. Same thing with real estate. The guy, when he mentioned to me about getting passive income, I said, “I do not have any money. I do not know anything about it. I have heard people talk about it.” He said, “Do not worry about it.”

I buy real estate with no money, right?

He said, “I do not have any money. I am broke.” He said, “I tell you, I am going to introduce you to my real estate agent. You do not need any money. I want you to meet her next Wednesday at this address.” We met in front of a two-family unit. She told me what the deal was. She explained seller financing. Back then, she called it a land contract.

Three weeks from that day, I was cash flowing with $1,000 down. He just grabbed me by the hand, took me. Three months later, he said, “How is this going?” I said, “It is going well.” He said, “There is a four-family that is available. You can get on the same terms for $1,000 down.” In less than six months, I had six doors. We were going to cash flow. That is how I got into it. I fell in love with it.

What a gift they gave you for that. That is amazing. As just as a side note. I have done a lot of real estate, traditional real estate as well. My specialty has been real estate notes. I do not buy the property itself. I bought the debt on the property. For example, when you did seller financing, and let us say Mrs. Smith was carrying back the paper. You owe Mrs. Smith all that.

I would contact Mrs. Smith and say, “I will buy that debt for cash. I will give you a lump sum. Now Tim makes the payments to me.” That is the timeline of what I do. That is why my book is Real Estate Without Renters. I get the cash flow like a landlord, but I do not own the property. Do not call me about the toilets, the roof, this, and that. I am the bank.” I explained this in my classes as well. We used to buy lottery winnings.

We used to buy casino winnings. We could buy actor, actress contracts. We could buy music royalties. That is still a popular business. Just as a point of interest, I used to tell the story about David Bowie, of course, the famous musician. David Bowie was the first one who took his collection. After he had many albums and royalties coming in, he said, “I am going to sell these royalties that I am going to get for the next ten years for a lump sum today.”

He was the first one to do that. They called him Bowie Bonds. You could actually trade them on Wall Street. Instead of him getting royalties for the next ten years, he got a lump sum. The investors got all the royalties. They bought that income receivable. In fact, in his case, he also promised the next two album royalties as part of the package.

Those were albums that he had not even conceived of yet, had not done yet. You will notice that before he died, he did what? He cranked out two more albums. All of those royalties go to the investors. He got the whole lump sum before. That is why you see big musicians like Bruce Springsteen, Dylan. They are all selling their whole collection.

That is tens of millions of dollars. It is a booming business. I have had several calls trying to buy my collection.

I do the same thing, but related to real estate. That is why real estate, we are on the opposite sides of the same coin. You are working with people to create paper. I try to find the people who have the paper and say, “Would you rather have a lump sum or collect those monthly payments?”

We are both in the real estate business.

It all works together because understanding that side, your side of the business, because I was on that side as well, understanding my side, once again, you mentioned the word, “If you want to be a professional musician, you have to know all of these skills.” It is important for investors to understand the paper side, if you will, the finance side of the business, as well as the brick-and-mortar side.

You have to understand the financial side because you are in the business to make money. You have to understand that side. All that comes with the location, who you are renting to, and how you renovate it. All of these things are part of it. It is just not about, “I can purchase this house over on the East side of Detroit.” What can you do with the house after you have it? Can you make any money with it? Can you flip it?

You have to understand the financial side because you're in the business to make money. Click To Tweet

Can you get the renters that you want in that area? All that comes back to the finance. I do the financial analysis long before I even talk about purchasing the property because it has to make sense. If I am flipping, I need to know. I am talking to my real estate agent, “How long will it take me to move this house? Is this a house? Is this a hot area?” What I have been able to do when I am flipping, I do all the due diligence. What are the rents like? What can I get it for? What is the profit margin?

The main thing for me is, “Can I sell this house within a week?” Is the area hot? If the area is not hot, I can wind up being stuck with it. That is not what you want to do because I look at trying to buy, renovate, and sell in 60 days, long-term 90. If you do due diligence, know you are getting into a hot area, you renovate it right without blowing all your money in the renovation, you can put that thing on the market, have it sold in two or three days, and move on to the next one.

Your Real Estate Team: The Difference Between Profit And Disaster

We are talking the same language here. I always explain that, again, to master this, you have to understand the numbers but also the story. Both of those things have to make sense. If you just understand the numbers, not the story, you are missing half the picture. If you just understand the story, but do not know how to run your numbers, that is not going to work either. You have got to have both.

That is where probably your Harmonies of Wealth Building come in. That is the name of your new program, because it is putting it all together. You were blessed with having this person say, “Let me lead you the way.” At that point in time, as you started to expand, you had to build a team because this is a team sport.

The team. When I am teaching in my master class, one of the main things I talk about is having a team. You have to have a team around you because if you do not, you can just wander off into different areas that do not show up immediately, but they will show up, whether you are a landlord for renters or you are going to flip. If you do not have a team around you of good contractors that you can trust, who are honest, because you purchased the property. This is what you got for renovation.

This is your profit. If you have the wrong contractors, do not know what you are doing, your profits are just being eaten up. Your time, your profits are gone. You have to have a real estate agent on your team who knows investment properties, how to sell them, and if she has a list or he has a list of investors who are willing to buy or people who are willing to buy properties from you. I have an organization of hard money lenders who understand how to make the deals happen that are amicable for both sides of the coin. The team is most important when you start talking about real estate.

If you have the wrong contractors and don't know what you're doing, your profits are just being eaten up. Click To Tweet

What advice do you have on building a team? Part of that is, that is your database. That is your Rolodex. Your database is key. That is what makes everything click. When I was doing rehabs, we probably had ten rehabs going on at a time. We needed a team, you know, and I had to section them out to go, “You guys are good for the beginning stuff. You guys are in the intermediate, but I need a finisher because you guys, intermediate guys, are looking at the next job. I cannot sell a house when it is not polished.” I had to recognize what the skillset was, build the teams out that way. How long did it take to put together a team? How did you go about it?

We had over 50 houses. It took me about four houses before I understood that these guys are not the finishing guys. I had these guys trying to finish. It was not finished.

You went through that, too.

I had guys who have been going, cleaning it up, getting it all ready. I had the guys who can go into the plumbing, carpentry, and all of that. I had the guys who can come into the finished carpentry, painters. The guys, I had all the landscapers. One group cannot do it all. It took me a minute to learn that. I am sitting there talking about frustrating, like, “No, I cannot. What are we doing?” It took me about four houses before I understood I had to have teams. Just like you just said.

Guys, go clean the property up, get it all ready to bring the next group of people in. They do what they need to do as far as the plumbing, the electrical. Put it all in. We come in with the drywall, the painting guys. We come with the finished carpentry, the whole shop. We give it to the real estate agent, the financial people. We are gone. It took a minute because if you do not have that organization or that in place, you are going to spend money, time because you are going to have to redo a lot of things. You do not want to do that.

Everybody gets the concept of real estate because everybody has been a landlord or tenant at some point in time. Everybody understands buying the house, that sort of thing. A lot of people are attracted to investing in real estate. They learn, like, if you do not have your systems in place, it is a rocky road. Too many people get into deals.

I try to explain to people, “Look, you are going to learn this business one way or another. You can go through trial and error, or you can work with an expert and someone to guide you through the process, and earn that way. Either way, you are going to learn.” One is going to be painful in time, money. The other one is going to be less painful, a lot less money. You might have to front some cost, get a little education, and maybe have to cut some people in on a deal.

It is an easier road than just trying to do it yourself, because trial and error can ruin it. It is painful. It ruins people. You can get in one deal. Now you will never do real estate again because you lost everything, you know. It just does not make sense to me. A lot of people get this idea that, “What is so hard? You buy the house, you fix it up, you sell it.” Those are the bullet points.

I did not know. Most people that come to me, I wouldn’t say most people, but a lot of people that come to me now, “We tried it. We did this.” I sit down, talk to them. In about five minutes, I can name off three things. “You did this wrong, and you did this wrong, you did this wrong.” You say, “Still got another twenty minutes of things you want to talk about. This is just five minutes in the conversation.” That is what happened. They give up.

They give up. Like you said, “You need to front some costs upfront to learn how to do it.” If you do not front that cost, it is going to cost you tons of money, time, and frustration. The dream that you have of being in real estate is gone because now you are really scared. You are never going to get back into it. I learned that to hard wood.

If you just get somebody like this guy, he took me by the hand, “Do this, this, and this. Do not do that.” He did tell me what to do to a certain extent. The other part I learned on my own. I told you about the 4 or 5 houses I had to learn before systems. I had to learn about location, about what type of houses to buy that people really look for. I only buy in nice neighborhoods that I would live in. I only buy three homes.

 

Unless this is a great deal, that is on the two bedrooms, but three bedrooms, because you have a mother, a father, and two children. That is the average family size. It is getting a little bigger now because my son has four kids, one another one. What kind of houses can to buy that you can move to, you rent? Three bedrooms. Make it as nice as the renovations. Really polished that you would live there because you want to draw people like yourself who are responsible.

Navigating Inspections And Costly County Paperwork (Pro Tips)

You add your skill sets, your experiences, onto what you learned from other people. That makes sense to do. I always liked the little things in the business that you learn, and stack away that end up being bigger things, lessons in life. For example, I do not know if you said something that kind of triggered this thought of, “I remember I learned the lesson with inspectors.”

I had my houses ready to go. What I learned was, inspectors like to let you know that they are a part of this. If you have a house that is done perfectly, they tend to stay there longer just to try to find something to go, “Come here, boy. Let me show you. Here is what you missed, son.” That sort of thing. I got smart and said, “I am going to leave five easy things that I can fix real quick that the inspector could go, come here.

You have got that threshold under the door. You have got to fix that. You have got a tear in a screen over here.” “Yes.” They are gone. I am like, “Beautiful guys, wrap it up. We already knew that stuff had to be done.” It was just like, “Leave a little something so we can move through this process here,” because it is a part of it. There are definitely little things that you pick up along the way, add those into the memory bank, and get to utilize.

I have had those issues, too, with inspectors. It is one city. In the county that I was investing in. They were notorious about what you just said. You knew this. You go in. You just go over with a fine-tooth comb. You are just looking for everything. You are looking at the light switch cover. Making sure it is, you got this level.

You measured from the wall.

You are doing this with the tape. They will come in and see a little speck on the wall and say, “We do that whole wall.” I am like “Huh?” To the point, I do not even invest in that city anymore. That is it. A little spec, we went over this place with a fine-tooth comb. It is ready for the president to live with it. Now there is a spot on the wall about this big. “Do the whole wall back. Come back, fill out the papers. We will come back and compare again. We will come back out next week.”

Whether you are on the paper side, like I am, or the brick and mortar side that you are, there are all these nuances. We go through one of the big things is recording documents. Again, I do not own the property, but I have to file paperwork that needs to be recorded. Most counties you can record online these days, but not all of them. The ones that you have to mail to, we just had to do a couple of mail-aways.

Wayne County in Detroit is tough. We were doing a deal in Mahoning County. I tell people this all the time. They do not believe me until they do it because you are right. Now I want to come back circle back to this because part of what you learn in the business is you have to do something. You cannot just learn a theory. It is part of this business is learning as you go through. We have to do a mail-in. Just try to get it right.

Perfect the first time you send it in. What they do is they go down the document. If they find a mistake, they stop right there. They send it back to you. You are wasting 3 or 4 days to get it back in the mail. They go, “You have got to fix this.” You fix this. You send it back. They go that and then go, “Down here, there is another mistake.” They do not go through and scan the whole thing, and go, “There are four mistakes you have got to fix.” They go, “Here is one, send it back. Here is another one, send it back.”

It drives you absolutely nuts. It is like, “You guys are wasting your time, your money, my time, my money. Why can’t we just do this?” That is what it is. You have to learn to take a more conscious effort. Again, the same thing on the real estate side of just going, “This is how the system works. I am not going to beat Wayne County.” I have got to figure out with Wayne County. When I have somebody prepping a doc, it is like, it has got to meet this. Otherwise, I am going through this back-and-forth nonsense that drives me up.

All of my properties are in Wayne County.

Are they really?

All of them are in Wayne County.

You can drive in there. See, I have got to mail it off. It is just like, “Oh man.”

I can go right down to the county and treasure. I have done very well in Wayne County.

You did too. The only thing I have with Wayne County is just like, “God, I have got to make sure.” We just closed on one in Wayne County yesterday on Braille Street.

I used to have 1, 2, 3 houses on Braille. We just bought the debt on this one on Braille Street.

It is a small world.

That is what I mean. We are kind of in the same thing. “If you are creating paper or somebody else is creating the paper for you to buy these deals, let me know who they are. We will see if they want to cash out.” We can do some business together. That is how the networking begins. Circling back to what I was saying, the active participation. There are certain things that you cannot teach. I have been teaching this for 30-something years, my specialty.

Real Estate Investing With Minimal Risk: The Distressed Property Strategy

I tell people all the time, as good as my curriculum is, as good as my online programs are, my videos, everything else, I cannot teach you 100% because part of it is you have to go through a deal, experience some of these things. That is important. Sometimes you have to get off your training wheels. Just say, “I have learned it. I feel prepared. Let me start to take action on there.” Again, it is easier if you have somebody there, but what is your advice to people on that?

When do they start to say, “Let us pull the trigger?” Part of it is that we have to minimize risk. How I minimize risk is the crux of my master class, which is real estate investing with minimal risk. The way I do it is we only buy distressed properties. The way that I explain to them how to minimize risk with that is, if the house next door is $100,000, we will just keep it simple, $100,000, you want this one for 55, 60.

Real estate investing with minimal risk: only buy distressed properties. Click To Tweet

Before you buy it, you are going to do your due diligence. As I said earlier, you are going to talk to the real estate agent. “Can we sell in this area?” “Yes, this is a hot area.” You are going to ask three questions. “What is the neighborhood like? What is the block like? What do I live there?” If all of those come back yes, you take the next step. You call the real estate agent, “What are they selling for?” “$100,000.” “What can I get this one for?” Say “$50,000.” We will just say that. You want to see how much you need to put into it. We need to put twenty in it.

There is still $30,000. Worst case scenario, somebody will buy that house for you, from you, with that much equity in it, for $60,000, $70,000, as is. You walk out even. You see what I am saying? If you start buying properties that need a lot of work at market value, you are teetering. That eliminates the fear, knowing that in a worst-case scenario, I can get out of this thing with a very small loss. If I do what I need to do, follow the plan, I can make a lot of money.

You have to follow the steps. “Can I sell it? Is it a three-bedroom? Where is it? Can I get a good?” This is for flipping here now. You put all these things in place. That minimizes the risk right off the rip. We buy distressed properties. We go and take a look. We are not going in there to try to put $50,000 in the house and walk out of it with just $95,000 profit. You see what I am saying?

You want to keep yourself in a position that if you decide you do not want to do it, you can turn around, sell it to another investor, and walk out solid. By minimizing the risk like that, being able to explain it to them, that minimizes the fear of me losing all of my money because people have this big thing, “It is a house. I can lose everything because it is not a car, it is a house.” If you do it right, you do not have that much space to lose. You minimize the risk if you do it as I say.

 

Investment-To-Value Vs. After Repaired Value: Mastering Risk

I agree. Draw a parallel on the note side of things. I do the same thing and teach it from that standpoint. The first thing we look at is risk. We hope for the best-case scenario. We prepare for the worst-case scenario. At the end of the day, especially if you are buying broken assets, I will use that term. You are buying a broken home, basically. You have got to figure out what it is going to cost me in time, money to fix it up.

What will be at the end of the day? What is my profit margin? Simple. In the note space, we have calibers of notes as well. We can buy performing notes that have a lengthy payment history, and the person is making payments on time. We can buy non-performing notes where a person is not making the payment. That is a broken note. Same thing. We look at that note. It is like, “All right, what is the problem? What might it cost me in time, money to fix it up?

How can I then enhance the value of that note if I get it re-performing?” It’s very similar parallels on that. It comes down to, yes, identifying risk because at the end of the day, for us, the property is not ours, but it is our collateral. For you, the property is yours. You have an equity interest in it. I have a debt interest in the property. That is my collateral. You have an equitable interest in that property. It is the same thing. It is what is that property worth?

Both of us are concerned about that. We weigh how much we are willing to put into that versus what the property is ultimately worth. For me, for example, when I look at I will use your same numbers. You got $100,000 house. Somebody put $10,000 down. They created a $90,000 note. They might have written that note for, let us say, 10% interest. What would I pay for that note? I will tell you what, not $90,000, because what I am getting is payments over time, maybe over 30 years, maybe over 10 years.

I am trading a future value, present value sort of thing. I will tell you right now on a risk scale, the most I pay for that note, even if they wrote it at 12%, the most I pay is $70,000. Why? It’s because my first thought is, what is the worst-case scenario? They do not pay. If they do not pay, I do not want to be in that property for any more than $70,000. Why? It’s because I leave myself that margin.

If it is worth $100,000, I am in it for $70,000. They stopped paying me. I take that back through deed, lieu, or foreclosure. I got room. I am still going to be okay. I am going to make some money on that deal. That is the first thing that we look at. We just call it to investment-to-value ratio. On the same side as yours is the after-repair value and all those numbers. How much room is in there?

That is the whole thing. I teach, you start getting real shaky if you start talking about anything less than $25,000 because you are starting to teeter. You never know what can happen. An inspection, they come in, say, “You know what? We need you to do this.” That repair that the inspector wants is $15,000.

You have got to rewire the whole house. Now you are like, “Oh.” I would not count on that. I have to re-plug stuff that has happened.

That is what we look at. The main thing is to have all of this stuff before you even spend one dime. Do not buy the house. Start evaluating, doing your market analysis, evaluations. You do not want to do that. That is the way we have been successful. The reason I can say that with such confidence, that I have done it the wrong way when I first started. I told you I had the rentals who were selling financing, and then I got into flipping.

Did not really understand that all the things we just went through, talking about the location, having left room. I did not know that. The first flip, I think I made $4,000. This is like 30 years ago, $4,000 on the flip after all that work. I am like, “That did not work out.” I learned how to renovate, especially if I am flipping. I am not going to put $15,000 cabinets in the house I am selling next week. I have seen people do that.

I have gotten phone calls where people call. Say, “Tim, can you come look at this piece of property?” These guys started renovating. They ran out of money. You go over there. You see just stacks of drywall, these fine oak cabinets on the wall, and a gold chandelier. I am like, “Man, you all need to go to Home Depot. What are you doing? You are flipping the property.”

If they want oak cabinets, they can put oak cabinets in there. If they want to go chandelier, they can put a gold chandelier in there. You put it in the house. You are going to pass inspection. You are going to make that bring the house up to code. It is going to look like a million dollars, but you have to always remember the numbers. Numbers have to make sense when you walk out of there.

 

Maximize Efficiency: Simple Systems For Real Estate Scaling

We used to drop ship all our stuff from Home Depot. I did not want those guys going back and forth to Home Depot at all because they get lost. They come back with a bag of screws two hours later, and you are like, “What happened? You left it two hours ago.” We drop shipped everything. “You guys do not have to go anywhere. It is coming right here, baby.” When we had those crews like that, it made sense for us to go, “Look, every light fixture is the same. Every ceiling fan same doorknob.”

They did not have to think anymore. It was all muscle memory at that point in time. It was just easy. Same color paint. “This is our interior paint. That is our exterior paint. That is it.” Every house we do. You could drive through these neighborhoods. See the same thing. That is where you get to control your costs more. You get to cut down on labor time because, again, they are not reading through a manual on some newfangled ceiling fan that you got. It is like, it is the same one. Same one you put in 30 other times.

Tony Burch, the color paint in every house. Satin Tony Burch with white semi-gloss trim. Every house. Same color.

There you go. I will tell you, you said something else there, which I have told people all the time. Said, “Look, every deal you do pays you in money, knowledge.” When somebody is starting out, I do not know which is best, to be honest with you. That $4,000 that you made may have been $4,000 made here.

I have seen some people get all of this money, with no knowledge of one deal. The problem becomes they go, “This is easy. I bought this thing, flipped it, and made $20,000. It was a piece of cake.” They start to think they all go that way because they made all the money, but none of the knowledge. I do not know. I like to see that scale a little bit at the beginning, where you are like, “Yes, you made a little less money, but man, did you learn?”

I would take, I learned any day, and then you go, “I made it.” Did not learn anything because that lack of knowledge is going to blow up on you at some point. It is going to blow up on you. When you learn, you know how to put the systems in place. It is just cookie-cutter once you learn, experience.

Passive Income Vs. Quick Cash: When To Choose Rentals Or Flips

What is working in your area? Rental properties, rehabs, you mentioned doing flips. Is that your concentration now?

I have done both, but I started out, like I said, with the rentals because as a musician, I needed that passive income. I had a lot of rentals. I got into flipping. I always had like a 2-to-1. We will say that after I had like 10, 15 rentals, I started doing 2 to 1 rentals, flip. Flipping to me is a way to put how that works.

You can put cash in your hand, but you have got to go, hit that deal again. You have got to keep hitting it. As opposed to rentals, it is that passive income coming in. I learned from rentals, you have to rehab that house, bring it up to a point where it is so nice that you can start renting to people who are responsible.

You do not want to be a slumlord because it is not passive anymore. You are chasing people for your rent. It is always something going wrong. If you do it right, get the right house in the right location, it becomes passive. Nowadays, some houses I forgot I even had until my Cash App goes off because I am over here in the music business.

Real estate is something everybody needs. Everybody needs a roof over their head. Click To Tweet

It was not like that in the beginning, but over the last 30 years, after I figured it out, I would say, like the last 27, 28 years, it has been straight passive. When I had some time, if I went on tour, I would go out, flip a house just because I loved to do it. I just love the renovation. I love putting houses back together. I even like going in sometimes, doing some of the work myself, because it just slows everything down. You know what I am saying?

Yes, absolutely.

I started now. The main thing, I have got the master class for everybody. What it did for me in my music career, I started out trying to show other musicians. I say, “Man, you have to have something else coming in.” Now with AI, AI is just running through the music business like it is nothing right now. You need to have something else coming in. You have to have something coming in, something tangible.

Some form of real estate, like what you are talking about, is great. I love that or having some money coming in where it does not affect your touring schedule or your work schedule if you have a 9:00 to 5:00. AI is just, I am constantly staying on top of the music business now into the other parts of the economy. AI is just running through. I tell everybody to get something. In real estate, it is something everybody needs. Everybody needs a roof over their head.

Final Thoughts: Real Estate As An AI-Proof Asset & The ‘Harmonies Of Wealth’

I agree. I want to talk about that a little bit more. By the way, I have been talking with Tim Bowman. You go to TimBowman.com. Check out his website there. He has got some nice videos up there for you. He talks about his program, Harmonies in Wealth Building. Check that out. You are also working with your wife, Wanda.

She writes financial books. She is very good at it. She writes these paperback books. I can tell by the smile on your face. You know what is funny? When we first started, the guy came to me and said, “Need to get some passive income.” I mentioned to him, this was, we were young then, in our late twenties. I was saying, “I think we ought to try to get this piece of property.”

His name was Henry Chapman. Henry said, “It will be good passive income.” We were skeptical. She was like, “I do not know.” You know how that goes. She said, “Let us give it a try. We do not need a thousand dollars down.” We did it. When that first check came in, she was like, “We need to do this again.” She was hooked. It has just been a wonderful ride. I just thoroughly enjoyed doing it. I love teaching it.

I have been lucky in that area, too. My wife, I will be married 35 years coming up in April. Same thing, when we first started with the rehab properties, we did some rentals, we did some money lending. I eventually came back to the note business. She is there the whole time. We work together once again now in the note space because we partner with people, buy deals together with my clients. Like you, I do coaching, personal consulting, but I also partner with my elite members.

We manage all the notes, find them, get them recorded, all that sort of stuff. She is an integral part of that. That is very important. I was going to say, I think that is important. It is great when it works like that. AI, coming back to that, I agree with you. There are definitely going to be people who just their jobs are no longer really necessary.

It is unfortunate, but it is progress. It is coming. People really need to recognize that. I have embraced it. I am using AI more in my business to create contracts, to look up laws so they can explain them in English to us, to analyze spreadsheets, documents, things like that. For me, I am finding that it is very useful. I have it open at all times when I am working now. I am training it up a little bit as to what I do, what I look at.

It is tremendous what it can do. It is just beyond belief. When you look at something, you go, “This thing already knows all the answers to any question that you could have. It has a PhD degree in every subject. You just have to know how to talk to it.” Bad info in, bad info out. You have got to learn how to prompt it, everything properly. Are you using it a lot in your analysis?

As you said, at first, I would hear a lot about it. I do not know anything about this, but now I do not do anything without it. It is open right there. What I do, and I teach students, is how to prompt it to look for and say, for instance, I will give you an area code or zip code. In Wayne County, 48228. We will just say that.

You can prompt it to look for every two-family flat or every four-family, or any distressed properties in this zip code. I teach them how to write these prompts. Give me the list. Program the list to come to my phone every Monday, or every Monday and Wednesday. Once it spat out this long list, it is just mind-boggling because this is stuff we would have to just get in the car and go, “Look, you have to go all around the city looking.”

If your mind is right and you're ready, you can do it. Click To Tweet

The list would come. You would look at the list. You go on. I would tell them how to go look at the list, go on Zillow, and how to do a bird’s eye view, all these things. Then you do your evaluations. After you get down to like 4 or 5 properties that look good, you do the bird’s eye view on Zillow to make sure the neighborhood is good, everything, and then you go from there. You get to the real estate agent because you want to get in, take a look. You have just knocked off days of walking around the city trying to find these properties because AI just gave them to you. You see what I am saying?

Yes, 100%.

It gives you a list of everybody that is in who is in tax trouble with the county, everybody who is about to be foreclosed, and everybody who is foreclosed. It just gives you everything you need to do. It just takes up days.

Yes, it is incredible. I was in our industry in the note space. I was the first guy on the AI train. I did a live presentation, an event I was speaking. I just showed everybody, “Let me show you everybody.” Everybody is just like, “What?” They had never seen it before. I said, “Watch how quickly this does this. We are going to analyze the demographics in this neighborhood.” Here is everything about this neighborhood we never need to know in seconds. I will say, “It is a land contract in that area. Does Michigan have a land contract law?”

“Yes, it does. Here is what you do. Here is what you need to record.” It is like, “It is a game changer.” Again, I do not think somebody can start flipping the business just by going to AI. That is the problem. That some people are going to overreach a little bit. Go, “I do not need help from. I can just go into AI.” It is like, “No,” because you have to prop the AI. The AI has the answers, but you have to ask the right questions. If you do not know the questions. Now that takes some expertise.

If I were giving anybody any advice, the number one thing I would do is not try to do this by yourself in the beginning. Get one deal under your feet or in the bag so you understand what is going on, because you are going to make mistakes. There are a lot of things out there that you just do not know.

We are talking about the things that you need to know, but there is a whole other room of things that you do not know until you do them. You need to have somebody to take you by the hand. Whatever aspect of real estate investing you are in, or what lane you are in, you need to have some coaching. You do because it is a big undertaking. If you do not, you can really mess up. Your whole dream of being a real estate investor is over because now you are fearful. You do not want to do it again.

I know the answer to this, but do you really believe anybody can do this?

I do, yes. Let me go back. If you get your mind right, if you get your mind, put the blinders on. What is the old saying? “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.” Some people just will not drink the water. If your mind is right, you are ready, you can do it. I do not want to say everybody, but anybody who has the right mindset can do it. I should say that.

The Power Of Drive: Inspiring Real Estate Success Stories

I have seen people in my experience in teaching real estate notes for over 30 years. People have all walks of life, all different backgrounds. Again, the drive has to be there. The motivation has to be there. There is something about it is works. Come in, going, “I am going to make this work. I am going to do it the right way.”

I learned early on, thankfully, another good lesson in speaking. I remember to this day Carol from Texas. I almost talked her out of getting involved because I just did not think she could do it. That was me putting that on her because she was widowed. She never handled money before. Her husband did all of that. Never did a real estate, no idea, let alone real estate notes.

I really was like, she is very shy, and I said, “Carol, at the end of the day, it is still a people business. If you are going to do this, you have got to break out of your shell a little bit. You have got to get a little uncomfortable. You are going to do things that you are not used to doing. You are going into something else.”

I really felt myself kind of going, “I do not know if I want her to get involved.” Thank goodness. I did not do that because she took off, and until this day stands out to be one of my greatest testimonials because a year later, you had a person who was dressed impeccably, standing tall, who got her children who graduated from college into the business.

She is doing business nationwide. Just took this thing and ran with it. Part of that is drive, motivation, and having somebody who is going to be there to guide you through that process. It is just a smart way to go in whatever endeavors you are doing. I hope that motivates some people who are listening to the show. Tim, it is a pleasure.

Man, I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.

Time goes by fast, right?

Yes.

I have been talking for an hour here.

An hour?

Almost, yes, coming up on it. It was a lot of fun. I learned some things. We passed on some good information to everybody. Again, Tim Bowman. Go to TimBowman.com. Check out his Harmonies of Wealth Building on there. He has got a nice, easy-to-read website, that thing, some videos on there. He explains it, lays it out well for you. Just an interesting story, a great person. I am glad I got the chance to meet you, Tim.

Kevin, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am going to get your book. That is a product of real estate I did not know anything about.

You want that passive income without the tenant stuff, man. I am your guy. You get the book. The book he is talking about is Real Estate Without Renters. You can get that on Amazon. Number one bestseller there. It is a good way to get an introduction to it. Of course, for me, just go to KevinShortle.com. Check out my website. If you have notes you are looking to sell, we buy notes directly from them.

If you are interested in anything from education programs, personal mentorship, also partnering programs, all of that is laid out on the website as well. I have got a special right now with the whole video series. It is a four-part, one-hour video series, an excellent series, only $49, maybe $39. You will have to check it out on the website, KevinShortle.com. On behalf of Tim Bowman, thank you to everybody for tuning in. Tim, it’s been a pleasure. I look forward to talking, and I love to put on a follow-up with you.

 

Important Links

• Tim Bowman
• Tim Bowman on Instagram
• Harmonies of Wealth Building
• Real Estate Without Renters
• Kevin Shortle
• Kevin Shortle on YouTube

 

About Tim Bowman

Tim Bowman, Author, Musician, Real Estate Investment Coach continues to harmonize creativity and analytical acumen to empower individuals in a community of self-starters to achieve financial independence through strategic real estate investment.

A Billboard chart-topper with 18 #1 singles and 25 songs in the Top 10, Tim Bowman is a master of leveraging success across industries. After building a global music brand with over 70 million streams, he strategically parlayed his financial gains into real estate, achieving true financial independence. As a featured keynote speaker and panel moderator at events such as Financial Glow Up, Bowman now shares his methodology, helping everyday people systemize their own path to generational wealth.

“A secondary stream of income and taking control of your financial future has never been more relevant than now as artificial intelligence and companies are reducing workforces to transition to more sustainable solutions.”

To learn more about innovative management tips, follow him on TimBowman.com

 

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