Justin Stoddart 0:00
Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I’m your host Justin Stoddart. My passion and my mission are to help you think bigger so that you can have a life of more possibilities and more impact. And today I have with me, somebody who is going to personify and redefine for you what it means to think bigger. His name is Joseph McCabe. He’s out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the owner of REMAX experts Philadelphia. He also owns home first mortgage owns a title company and an insurance company. In addition to that, in the past five years, he’s picked up 112 investor- excuse me, units as an investor, and is raising money to do to pick up about 400 more. Needless to say, these past five years have been a pretty fruitful five years for Joseph McCabe and I don’t see any signs of him slowing down. So let me first begin by saying thank you, Joseph, for being on the figure real estate show today.
Joseph McCabe 0:50
Yeah, no problem. Thanks for inviting me. excited to see what I can do to help everybody out.
Justin Stoddart 0:54
I love it, man. So again, 26 didn’t finish college and I understand you correctly?
Joseph McCabe 1:01
No, I finished I just did it. Pretty accelerated way. Okay. See, I
Justin Stoddart 1:06
kind of seems like your style.
Joseph McCabe 1:08
Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah, they actually they were like, yeah, you need to talk to a counselor, you’re going to take 24 credits. That’s part of taking action everyone is so they think everybody’s like a snowflake kind of week. And you know, they can’t handle it. We better talk to them. So no, I did two years of Penn State. Then I enlisted in the Army, went to school became an MP. Military Police with the army, got out, started training people at GNC or started training people to LA Fitness, working at GNC while getting my real estate license while going to Cabrini. So for two semesters, I took I needed like 50 or 60 credits. So I took 24 credits each semester and graduated a year early. And while I was training people, I think in that first semester, maybe over the summer, when I got out of the army, this guy was like driving in a nice Mercedes, I found out that later, you know, I didn’t know anything. So it wasn’t the nicest Mercedes. So he could have done better. But I used to make fun of it. And he told me he was in real estate. And so I got my license, and I jumped at I started working out long and foster pull off you start
Justin Stoddart 2:15
and an end. And that’s where it all began.
Joseph McCabe 2:17
That’s where it all began.
Yeah. So then, uh, you know, because as I do it, my first two weeks, I had two deals right off the bat. And nobody there would help me. I was just kind of brought in and left to myself. So thank God for Google. I just went out there and started Googling what to do, ended up going to an independent and then eventually Keller Williams, open up my title company, Keller Williams, and then realized I didn’t like the culture, I wanted to do something, start my own Colts or start my own company. And that’s when I decided to buy a REMAX franchise. Although, when I did that I still wasn’t sold on I’m going to be in real estate for the rest of my life. So I was still in the process to be a Philadelphia cop.
Justin Stoddart 3:01
So you’re buying a franchise and you’re still deciding as to whether or not it’s
Joseph McCabe 3:07
I think my mind was made up but I couldn’t tell myself that, you know,
made up but
but ya know, it was a good experience and my initial partner in REMAX was a Philadelphia cop. My whole family’s filled up with police officers, my brother’s a cop, and I was a cop in the army. So something that for some reason, I wouldn’t let go out right away. But, you know, thankfully, now I did because the income potential was much better.
Justin Stoddart 3:32
Yeah, to say the least. Um, it’s funny recently, I was listening to Tony Robbins talks about how we live in North America, where there are endless amounts of opportunity, yet most people don’t make the kind of money that they want, they are the shape that they cut that that they want to be in. They don’t have the relationships that they want to have. And he said the biggest reason for that is because they don’t take enough action. And I want to get into that with you. Because I feel like that’s the great Golden Nugget, I’m sure there’s a ton of golden nuggets that we can extract for you today. But I feel like you pouring into this audience, what it means to take a step when you don’t know what the outcome is going to look like. or even if that’s even the right step. Talk to us there when you are present an opportunity to buy you know, purchase a title company or insurance company or a real estate company and you don’t know how it’s going to turn out you do it anyway and decide later. Talk to us through mine.
Joseph McCabe 4:29
Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, you know, people, people spend all day spreadsheets, and paralysis analysis on every single, every single real estate deal every single, you know, an opportunity that comes up to them, how are they going to get started being a realtor? How are they going to get into the mortgage industry, if you’re going to be a loan officer? And it’s like, dude, just, it’s pretty freaking simple. You need to get out there and talk to people and get applications where the real estate business you need to get out there, talk to people get them to go look at houses, you know, it’s not even that it’s complex. You’re overthinking. And maybe really, in your head, you’re like, I don’t know if I want to actually take that type of action. And I wish there was a magic bullet. And I think or Yeah, I guess a magic bullet. But when I first got into real estate, I, at some point found Grant Cardone. So you know, I don’t agree with everything he says. But a lot of what he says it’s true. It’s like, you know, no one really cares where you came from, what happened to you, you know, why you’re holding yourself back, but you need to get out there and take action because no, no one’s going to do anything else for you. So whenever I heard him, say, you know, commit, first do the rest of the, you know, figure the rest out later, that’s when I started. Just going out there finding awkward to opportunities would find me, to be honest. You know, whether it was jumping on Toby Salgado show or Pat Hiban show. And now your show, you know, if you put yourself out there enough, you take enough action, you can always take more action, you can create 24-hour action, you have a CRM talking to people three in the morning, and while you’re asleep, I would encourage that. But the more action you can take, the more money you’re gonna make. It’s, it’s a simple formula for success. That’s it.
Justin Stoddart 6:07
So your take is rather than learn, learn, learn so that I can apply you say Do do do so that I will learn.
Joseph McCabe 6:13
Yeah, four years learned in college, and I use none of that. So I didn’t learn that way. I learned a lot in the army, but the army is a lot of, you know, trial and error, get out there and figure it out. And it’s a lot more aggressive in the army, but then it isn’t college.
Justin Stoddart 6:31
So So obviously, that the reality of going out and getting an application for a loan, or getting a listing is probably far less scary, right? And busting through a door like a police officer, right? You know, on the front lines in the army. I would imagine some of that military training some of that cop training you to like be like guys, we should not be fearful of this. This is not this is this crap is not real. This is not anything to be afraid of. You’re not going to shoot us in your head. You know,
Joseph McCabe 7:03
if you think about it too long to create all types of reasons why you can’t do it. I mean, you’ll come up with a million different things million different you can play the what if game all freakin day, right? And then it’s like, well, all the country songs What if you don’t you know, what if you don’t do it, and you know, the best examples like I was gonna get on Pat hype. And when I got all that hype and show, and I talked about the mortgage company, and my genius self decided to say that no one calls me from the show. Well, now we’re opening from Pat Ivan’s call alone 13 branch offices of the mortgage company nationwide. With realtors Who do-you know our offices, we’re still fairly new at five years old. So we do like five will do about five to 600 transactions this year as a brokerage. Not including the mortgage company, the real estate brokers, we’re doing joint ventures with doing two 3000 deals a year. And I’m a baby to this industry. These people have been in the industry 2030 years, now they’re going to be my partner is on a mortgage company. So people would also get caught up in Oh, I don’t have enough experience really? Who the hell told you that? Because did you actually go out and try the chances are probably not.
Justin Stoddart 8:12
And what’s showing up for me, Joseph is that the world in which we live, that just our industry is void of leadership, right? That it’s simply looking for confidence for people who could confidently say, look, we’re going to do this, we’re going to figure it out, there’s plenty of resources, the only thing is lacking is us being resourceful enough to figure it out. And like, we’re going to go do it. And there’s a whole herd of people that will say, I’m following that guy, I’ll follow that guy because that guy’s got the confidence and the resourcefulness to figure it out.
Joseph McCabe 8:41
Yeah, it’s true. It’s true. It’s true. The, I just think like, no matter what it is you’re doing, or no matter what it is you want to do. I mean, there’s just, there’s just so many people in every industry, every walk of life, every business, you know, hourly jobs, they want to get promoted to manager, but then they still, you know, they’re on their iPhone the whole time working at the retail store, they’re at, instead of busting their ass, you know, yeah, you’re making $10 an hour now, but you could be making 30 or whatever score manager makes. But the point is people just get so caught up in all What are all these possibilities that could go wrong, and then they don’t take the action to actually get the positive result. Yeah, that’s another issue too
Justin Stoddart 9:21
you know, it actually reminds me when I was in college, I was a construction management student, a lot of my counterparts were like, nervous about having a job during, you know, during school for fear that they wouldn’t have enough time to do well in their studies. And if they had a job, it was a very simple kind of like, I’m gonna go clean up a job site type job, and I have kind of a similar strategy as you Although yours is on absolute steroids. Like no like it like building a home is not rocket science, right? It’s not brain surgery. Right? Me this out. So I will literally cram not even at school, it was like all the internet, right? Like, how does like what happens here, I quickly was promoted to oversee a division of the company and left and started my own company. And I remember like coming back in the classroom and being like, man, how did you get that job? And it’s like, guys, like, you don’t have to know everything to get started. You don’t get started. If you’re ever going to know everything right? Are you ever going to know anything? Yeah. But it’s fun to hear you say that? Because you’re inspiring me? to think bigger, right? It’s to take a look at like, what am I holding back on? Because I feel like I don’t have I don’t know enough about yet. When you’re right, we have the freaking internet at our fingertips, people there are, there are endless amounts of content, teaching you how to do anything, if you’ll simply apply yourself and turn off Netflix, like candy crush, and go learn something in five years, you can change your stars entirely.
Joseph McCabe 10:51
Yeah, it’s true. And, you know, I didn’t know anything about anything and mortgage except for same thing you probably know is when the doing goes south threatened and ever send a loan officer deal again. Now I know the ins and outs of underwriting and guidelines and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a lot of things that I never wanted to know about the business that I know now. And you know, we started the mortgage company three years ago. And in three years, we’re now going national, we’re going to go from a mortgage company that makes a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to millions every year in one freaking podcast, one podcast that I knew this, I had a lot of followers and I was like, you know, shit, these people are rock stars compared to me, because I listened to them. And now you’re working with me. So this is so so much fear people just get so caught up in the wrong things. What, um,
Justin Stoddart 11:43
talk to us through kind of this fear process when what when fear comes at you? Right? I’m sure prior that, let me let me back up really quick. I don’t want to the point. Is it getting into the mortgage business for you? You realize you didn’t know everything? Right? And that there was some liability, like you could find yourself in jail if things went really sour. Right? Right. But you did what you surround yourself with people that understood that side of the business, and you bars forward, I’m assuming that I miss something.
Joseph McCabe 12:07
Now, Google man, if it wasn’t for Google, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, even with realtors, like oh, what can I do for advertising? Well, did you did you call the real estate commission? Because you’ve been talking about this advertising idea? For like 13 years? Why don’t you call the real estate commission and find out if it’s legal? You know, and it’s just like, it’s just it’s common sense or google it? Hey, is this legal? The top right the hell up? And if there’s a whole website in the mortgage world called MLS nationwide licensing something you go on there, it’s actually the exact guidelines exactly what you need to do. I mean, all the guidelines are clearly spelled out. And in the broker world, the mortgage broker world, you know, used to be a dangerous world, it’s not anymore, we’re so regulated. So cap, there’s nothing can hurt the consumer, you can try, but you can’t, because there’s so many wholesale wholesalers that kind of handle everything. And basically, with the mortgage, the mortgage world is becoming your large banks are just becoming services. And then you’re going to have brokers at the bottom. And the brokers are going to make their percentage or 2.75%, similar to real estate, and run credit, take the application and the wholesaler, lenders are going to do the rest of the work. So it’s a really safe place a good place for a consumer to be and allow, sir.
Justin Stoddart 13:23
So back to this concept of when fear comes at you. Yeah. What do you do? Like, what’s the internal dialogue? What are the words that go through your head? Yeah. When all of a sudden, you’ve got this great idea. But fear comes up because I know you’re not immune to it. Do you just move past it? through how you move past it.
Joseph McCabe 13:43
Yeah, you got to find life, you got to find the dark side. You got to find the dark side. And you know, Grant always says fear means your head in the right direction. And then, you know, you listen to other other guys like in the military will turn it into a joke. My new favorite line is, you know, Jocko willing, that is right. But he always says, you know, used to say to those guys stand by to get some, you know, and it’s a joke, like, you know, we’re totally screwed, like, but we’re making a joke out of it right now. And I think if you take it that way, and you take everything a little more lightly, and, you know, there’s really nothing you can’t fix, or you can’t reverse, you know, unless you’re gonna take a life for do something criminal. There’s nothing you can’t do that you can’t fix. And you’re not going to get in trouble for it. Yeah. I mean, like, you turn around and say, Oh, you know, I didn’t know Sorry, I’ll correct that move, you know, fix it moving forward. You didn’t do it to 300 consumers. But if you make one mistake, it’s usually something that can be corrected. Or talk your way out, and we’re all salespeople. So I just see, like, you know, a lot of the times people get so caught up in what can go wrong. What, what if this happens? What if I get sued? Okay? What if you get sued, you probably need to get sued to be successful. You know, I’ve been sued, you have to be soon to be successful. It’s just how it is you get sued twice. And you’re like, you know, thank God I listened. You know, Grant would say, if you don’t get sued, you’re not taking enough action. It’s freakin true. It’s 100% true, because you got to be pissing people off. And I can say right now that at 26, you know, there’s some significant brokerages significant brokers in our area that have three 400 agents, you know, like the number one Keller Williams in the city, that the broker the owners there, they know my name.
Justin Stoddart 15:20
Of course they do.
Joseph McCabe 15:23
Yeah, because I’m in front of their face taking their agents, but will also go have coffee with me and find out why I’m such a lunatic.
Justin Stoddart 15:29
Yeah. Yeah, I think it probably comes a lot down to hunger. I mean, what I hear coming from you that that’s, that’s not being spoken, but it’s being felt, is that you’re just freaking hungry to succeed, like you want it worse than other people want it. And I, I sense that because, like, what I’m realizing is it and really kind of a clarion call to them to the audience, that if you don’t have the life that you want, or your or if you’re not on a fast path to get it. The only one that you can only perceive look at it yourself. Because we live in America, right? This is the most fertile soil to build a great career and build a great life that has ever been on the face of this planet, ever. Yeah. Frankly, if-if you’re not like, again, on a fast track to get what you want or don’t already have it, then it’s entirely that you don’t want it bad enough, correct?
Joseph McCabe 16:19
Yeah. No, it’s true. And I mean, the one thing you know, is you’re going to die. You know,
that’s about all you know, so you’re gonna die at some point. And people like, you know, I think Gary Vee says a lot of good stuff. But he also says some shit that he needs to not say. I don’t think that you know, at 18 years old to 25 years old, while you’re in college, I don’t believe that that’s the time that you should be out there. partying and taking dumb risk like that and traveling the world, I think you should be focused on building your like, I mean, me personally, I’d rather go to Italy when I have hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I really don’t give a shit. You know, versus now where it’s like, oh, man, you know, I’ve got a couple thousand we got Italy, let me budget for this on the plan. What do I want to do do that
Justin Stoddart 17:00
backpack, hostel.
Joseph McCabe 17:04
I can put in so much work right now. Because of my age, I don’t need sleep, and I can still go to the gym for two hours a day work while I’m there. You know, my I’m the youngest person in my office. So I’m attracting the people that do all that bullshit when they were young. And now they regret it. Because they don’t have their 401k is running out. So now they’re selling real estate again, you know, whatever the issue is, but the point is like, oh, man, I hope they don’t watch them. But the point is that, like those people who do take who kind of mess around while they’re younger, I don’t think that’s the right message. I mean, if that’s really what success is for you, that’s fine. But I think that there’s a lot more potential when you’re under, under 40. You know, you this is the time you have the energy you can get out there and kill it.
Justin Stoddart 17:50
I agree. I think sometimes people, they they say no, I’m going to go play while I’m young. I’m you but like, I have as much fun working as I do on vacation like that go in like to step in and make an impact in someone’s life. Business. Like, I get on vacation, and I like four days in and I’m like, all right, like,
Joseph McCabe 18:09
my
Justin Stoddart 18:11
feet in the sand is fun for minutes. But like I got people to help. I got things to do. I got this. This is the bill, you know,
Joseph McCabe 18:17
right? Yeah, my work is my vacation. I say that I’m stressed when I’m in when I’m on work, because people need me. We’re still small. You know, I’m the broker and I am the CEO of home for mortgage. So I’m running both divisions. I’m running both sides. You know, there’s no time for that.
Justin Stoddart 18:33
Yeah. This has been great stuff. Man, I really appreciate you coming in and changing some paradigms of what it means to think bigger. I’m going to ask kind of our signature question here as we wrap up, which is what do you do to keep this whole episode has been about this, which is funny, you know, but what did you do to position yourself to, to, to always be expanding your possibilities to be thinking bigger, right? Like, like, What’s something that you’re, you’ve grown accustomed to doing to where it’s like, hey, it’s because of that, that I’m a big thinker. It’s because of this thing that I do, or these things that I do? Any come to mind?
Joseph McCabe 19:06
Yeah, stop listening to people that aren’t where you want to be. You know, I mean, it’s amazing how many people below me financially, that will give me advice. My mom still tells me it’s really hard to run a real estate brokerage, but she’s been a teacher her whole life. So it’s interesting. And if, you know, talk to the people that are where you want to be, you know, I’ll, this week last week, the week before that, now that we’re opening nationally mortgage company, what am I doing? I’m calling every mortgage broker and every correspondent lending co that will pick up my phone and say, What am I missing? And guess what they’ll tell you, they’ll tell you exactly what you’re missing, and they’ll help you people want to help you. And people underestimate human nature. You know, one of the things I’ll just say to everybody is like every realtor in the world will tell you what, ask your client for referrals. Okay, well, the studies show that like 80% of realtors never ask for referrals. What’s funny is they’ll give that advice to every other realtor, look, never asked for the referrals, not getting your clients would give them to you. Never underestimate the value of just the human being and what they’ll do and how much they want to help you and reciprocate that.
Justin Stoddart 20:13
Great stuff, man. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more that there’s, again, people want it bad enough. They can be resourceful. You don’t need all the resources. You need to be resourceful. Right? Once you’ve got that hunger once you realize that, hey, somebody’s doing Joseph McCabe, right is doing it. I’m hopeful that a lot of my audience is going to light up today because of what you shared. They’re gonna realize like, Man, I’m living far below my privileges. I’m living far below my means, far below my own possibilities. And if this big thinker can do it, I’m going to be a big thinker, too. I can do it as well. So that’s been super fun. Man. I really appreciate the wisdom. You shared that fantastic. I’m going to definitely invite you back on the show because you’re fired me on that.
Joseph McCabe 20:53
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate it. For any of your listeners, as I said, I’ve been showing if there’s anything I can do, you know, if you have any question, if you have a massive real estate team or your own real estate brokerage, and you think that, uh, you might want to open up a mortgage company, we can talk. So I’ll help you with your income right there.
Justin Stoddart 21:11
Go ask the question, seek the help and you’ll be amazed at what, like you said what people will do.
Joseph McCabe 21:17
Yeah, that’s true.
Justin Stoddart 21:18
Alright man thanks again for being on the show
today. Thanks, everybody for tuning in to this episode of Think Bigger Real Estate Show. This has been fantastic one on Thank you, Joseph. And we’ll talk again soon my friend
Transcribed by https://otter.ai