Creating Revenue Streams in Real Estate | Chris Craddock

Justin Stoddart  
Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. Today I have a treat for you. We're gonna be talking about creating revenue streams through real estate. I have with me today, someone who owns nine businesses in the real estate industry. 

Justin Stoddart  
Now you don't need to do that to create revenue streams in real estate. He's overly ambitious, he's a big thinker. I'm gonna get to the full introduction on him here in just a second. But leaving this show, you will have more tools in your tool chest on how to create revenue from real estate. 

Justin Stoddart  
Before I go there, again, I want to remind you that inside of the Think Bigger Real Estate Group on Facebook, we take this this audio learning that you're getting right now and we go deep with it. We invite you to engage with us so that you actually internalize it and you become something more. 

Justin Stoddart  
Remember, you don't get what you want. You get what you are. 

Justin Stoddart  
And inside that Group, we help you to become something more. Today's guest His name is Chris Craddock. Chris, I'm so grateful to have you here. Did I say your name right? Chris? 

Chris Craddock  
Chris Craddock, you did it.

Justin Stoddart  
I'm second guessing myself after the fact when we've had conversations before. Let's talk a little bit about you and how you got into the real estate industry. Obviously, you were a residential real estate agent started realized that there was all kinds of missed opportunity that were like that you were almost kind of blind to right. And all of a sudden you started uncover this. Talk to us a little bit about kind of how that came about?

Chris Craddock  
Well, it started, you know, I was I was on staff at the ministry in the early 2000s. Right after I got married, and I made $20,000 a year in the DC area, which if you know anything about the DC area, you can't live on $20,000 a year. And we always had a goal that my wife would stay home with the kids when we had had kids. 

Chris Craddock  
And so yeah, when when she got pregnant 2003 I just was like, how do I make money to, you know, to survive, and also do what I love doing in ministry. And so we started, we, I just went the library, checked out every book on on real estate investing, and started knocking on doors of distressed properties, you know, and I literally knew nothing about what I was doing. 

Chris Craddock  
And one of my catchphrases in life is imperfect action trumps perfect inaction any day of the week. 

Chris Craddock  
And so I just went out and started doing it. And I didn't know what I was doing. But somehow I made money. And, and so, you know, I made 12 times what I made in a year and about in about four months. And so I was able to kind of step back and, you know, continue doing ministry, but then, you know,.

Chris Craddock  
We have six kids, and anybody knows, I mean, I know you've got six kids too. So you know, it's like literally throwing your your money in a bathtub and somebody drains the plug, right? Like that's, that's basically what we did. And so I had to go back and figure out how was I, you know, how is it going to continue to make money. And so while I was doing ministry stuff, and so I started flipping houses again. But this was after the crash. So. 

Chris Craddock  
So what I was looking for before the way I was getting deals before, we're all short sales. So I got a ton of short sales. And I realized the bank was paying a commission to real estate agents. So I'm like, why wouldn't I just get get licensed and make the commission myself. 

Chris Craddock  
So I got licensed. And then, you know, during that time in ministry, I'd always I'd always loved leading people, I'd always, you know, Zig Ziglar says you can have everything you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want in life. And so I always have big teams and I came across Gary Keller's millionaire real estate agent book. And it just made sense to me. 

Chris Craddock  
And so I guess it was like 2014, we started building our retail team, December 2014. And then last year, in 2020, we finished up with 501 transactions, both on and off market. And 167 million in volume. And yeah, just grew really, really fast. And a big piece of that was learning how to cross and bridge the gap between agents and investors, which should be a very good get, like a very good relationship. But for whatever reason, investors live in one world and agents live in another and you know, they leave a lot of money on the table because of it. 

Justin Stoddart  
So I gotta highlight a few things here. Number one, you close 501 transactions, your team's 501 transactions last year, 167 million, as you said,

Chris Craddock  
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin Stoddart  
And you have six children. Like, I'm just like not doing anything over here. Let's let's talk about this concept of success and significance. I think people think that I can either have a successful business, or I can have a family at all, or it's especially a big family, right? And I love how you're kind of breaking that, like the stereotypes here of like, No, you can actually have it all, you can actually have success and significance. That's what this show is all about, is to help people to think bigger, to realize you don't have to choose you can actually have a great family life, a great spiritual life, be involved in ministry or whatever is important to you. And you can have a robust business that absolutely slays it like it's killer, Chris, I love your story for all kinds of reasons. 

Justin Stoddart  
You're my kind of guy. You're the kind of guy that thinks bigger than real estate. Right. And I think that's one of the things that sometimes we get caught up in is like, like, we feel like we have to just build an empire, right? In the in the real estate world. Whereas you've built multiple empires, right? And sometimes you probably feel like that, as you look across six heads at the dinner table seven heads with your wife like, Wow, I've got an empire here. 

Chris Craddock  
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And, and it's really, it's really incredible. I mean, if you are the bottleneck on on each of the businesses, it's not a business. It's a job, right? Like, let's just be honest. And so to build something where you can step back, and it still runs when you're not there, I've got a good friend of mine. He's actually based out of Salt Lake City. And, you know, he took a year off from his business, he was just working like crazy. And so his coach, we both have a similar but at the same business coach, challenged me just said, Hey, why don't you go away for a year? 

Chris Craddock  
He's like, I mean, imagine that like, like, literally, if I were to say, Hey, go away for a year, I mean, think about what happens, your heart just starts beating, saying, I can't do that for all the different reasons. But then you start having to ask yourself, what would I have to do to get away from a business or to get away from a job and into a business? And so that was, that was the question there. 

Chris Craddock  
And honestly, you just can't, you can, you can have a high paying job forever, but you got to get out of it. Because nobody wants to be 82 years old, still showing showing houses. At that point. Like, if you haven't built yourself and parlayed all of the money you make into wealth, which gives you better options, then, you know, then you're in trouble. So that that's the whole thing, whether it's building a business in real estate, or building a business through ...