034: Scaling a Mortgage Business to $12M/Year and Acquiring $75M of Real Estate with David Lawver

David Lawver is a mortgage lending expert, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, who took his mortgage brokerage business from $200k to $12M/year in revenue.

His years in the mortgage industry naturally lead him into real estate investing. He started with single-family homes, dabbled in short-term rentals and apartment buildings, and eventually got into retail centers, which became his most profitable real estate asset class. Since 2014, David has acquired over $75M of real estate projects.

In this episode, I dig into David’s story, his progression from broker to investor, and what makes retail centers such an attractive vertical for him.

We also discuss the value of great mentors, his process for recruiting and grooming a top-performing sales team, the VC business model, real estate tax strategies, and much more.

Key Takeaways with David Lawver

• How a mentor’s advice helped David scale his mortgage business from $200k to $12M/year in revenue.
• The value of learning from those who are just out of reach versus leagues ahead of you.
• Stop competing on price if you want to charge more for your services. Do this instead.
• How David grew his mortgage team and the recruiting/grooming process he used to increase employee retention.
• David’s transition into buying real estate and doing $100M in deals with zero overhead expenses.
• The downsides to investing in short-term rentals.
• Buying a $5M apartment building with $500k down and flipping it for $7.3M twelve months later. He also purchased a group of homes for $3.8M that he sold six months later for $7.2M.
• The many verticals of real estate investing—and why retail centers are David’s preferred asset class.
• How David finds solid tenants for his retail centers.
• Why he decided to invest in one of his tenants, Crunch Fitness—and how they thrived during the pandemic when most gyms went out of business.
• Reframing your behaviors and habits around spending. How much is too much? How can you justify “expensive” dinners, cars, and more?
• Does the VC business model actually work? And what will come after the easy money era ends for cash-burning tech companies?
• Leveraging real estate tax strategies to legally pay little to no tax—and how David strategically positioned himself to save $1.2M in taxes last year alone.

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