Dyches Boddiford (pronounced Dykes) grew up on a farm in rural South Georgia, 10 miles from the small town of Sylvania.
Dyches attended the Georgia Institute of Technology, graduating with a BS degree in Physics in 1971, a MS in Information & Computer Science in 1972 and post-graduate work in 1973.
In 1980 he began to learn about real estate and buy property on a part-time basis. His first property was his own home, but soon was picking up rental properties as well.
Then around 1984, because of his travel schedule, Dyches began studying and purchasing discount mortgages. He saw this as a way to invest in real estate without the need to deal with the property itself. But even then, he continued to add properties to his portfolio for the tax advantages and appreciation.
In 1986 he formed The Oaks Group, Inc. to handle real estate related activities. The first purchase was an apartment complex.
After making a couple of job moves, the original company with which he had worked contacted Dyches and convinced him to return to them. Over the next few years he moved up to Vice-President of the holding company.
During 1991 Dyches was President of the Georgia Real Estate Investors Association (GaREIA). He was instrumental in securing the first permanent office space GaREIA enjoyed.
During the late 1980s, Dyches and another investor had researched the use of land trusts in Georgia. By 1992, they decided that because they were getting so many calls asking about trusts, they would teach a weekend class for GaREIA. Dyches also added a Corporation segment to the session to show how other entities could be used with the trusts.
Over the next couple of years, Dyches was approached by a national seminar promoter to teach Corporations for him. Thus the Corporate Fortress was born and has subsequently been licensed by an attorney to use with a presentation he makes nationally.
Dyches also developed his Mobile Home Money Machine course to teach others how to make money as he did in manufactured homes. When he began to develop subdivisions for mobile homes, he joined Newton Boykin in writing the book Deals in Dirt.
Dyches has written books and teaches seminars on Financial Freedom, Asset Protection, The Corporate Fortress, Limited Liability Companies & Partnerships, Real Estate Investment Using Self-Directed IRAs, Advanced Strategies, Business Tax Strategies, Estate Planning with Asset Protection, Guerrilla Bankruptcy Tactics for Creditors, The Mobile Home Money Machine, Deals in Dirt, Discount Notes & Mortgages, Private Money Lending  as well as other topics.
Episode Notes:
Narrator  This is The Norris Group’s real estate investor radio show the award-winning show dedicated to thought leaders shaping the real estate industry and local experts revealing their insider tips to succeed in an ever -changing real estate market hosted by author, investor, and hard money lender, Bruce Norris. The Norris Group proudly presents our 15th annual award winning event I Survived Real Estate. Industry experts join Bruce Norris to discuss the evolving industry trends, real estate bubbles, inflation and opportunities emerging for real estate professionals. All proceeds from the event benefit Make-a-wish and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. See Isurvivedrealestate.com for event details information on all our generous sponsors and to connect with our speakers. We want to thank our Platinum partners, San Diego Creative Investors Association, uDirect IRA Services, White Feather investments, The Collective Genius, MVT Productions, and Realty411.
Bruce Norris  Hi thanks for joining us. My name is Bruce Norris. Today our special guest is Dyches Boddiford. In 1981, a man named Jim Rohn taught a seminar that changed my entire life and in 2014, with permission of the Jim Rohn’s estate. We created the Rohny award to be given out at I Survived Real Estate every year. The Rohny award honors investors and teachers who have changed the lives of people in our industry, Dyches Boddiford has been teaching people and changing their lives for a long time. And that’s why he received the Rohny award. Dyches is a leading expert on how to hold property, property safely, has written a series of courses on how to protect your assets. He also has been involved in purchase of mobile homes, notes, houses and apartments. His daughter, Dorsey has also been involved in the business she has her own flipping business for the last 10 years or so. Dyches attended Georgia Institute of Technology, graduating with a BS degree in 71, and a Master’s in Computer Science in 72. Dyches welcome back to our show.
Dyches Boddiford  Thank you glad to be here.
Bruce Norris  You know what’s it’s kind of fun when I read your, your bio and your timing. We have we have some things that are almost exactly in common. And then we have things that are absolutely the opposite. So, you went to college, I got married at 17, so, I didn’t follow that one. But I did get involved in real estate in 1980 and then in 1990, really began at full time. And that’s almost a mirror of what you did. And I, and I also had my, my kids get involved in the business. So, that’s, that’s the similarities. But you know, we both have taught classes, none of the classes you teach, or anywhere close to an expertise of mine. So, we definitely headed in a different direction. So, that’s, it’s interesting that real estate can be such a broad subject, that you can both make a career or something and do something completely different than somebody else.
Dyches Boddiford  No, my wife says that every five years, I find some new area to get into. Keep it interesting. She’s right.
Bruce Norris  Well, that’s good. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know where you’d run across something, okay. Well, I think, well, that definitely happened to me. I never intended to teach.
Dyches Boddiford  Well, I’m sure you agree that you learned a whole lot more when you started teaching than you did before?
Bruce Norris  Oh, absolutely. You’re absolutely right about that, because that’s kind of another level of responsibility.
Dyches Boddiford  That’s right.
Bruce Norris  Yeah. So, I appreciate you saying that people need to understand when, when good teachers teach, they’ve given it their all and they look at it constantly and say, ‘Okay, do I need to change something? Is that as good as it could be?’ Yes, that’s that is part of…
Dyches Boddiford  You don’t have to necessarily be a national speaker, even a local speaker, just getting together wanting to the people that are interested in real estate or in the area that you’re interested in can be a good educational experience for both parties.
Bruce Norris  Yeah, I know, you know, Jack Fortin, if it wasn’t for him, I would never have stood in front of a real estate audience. wasn’t wasn’t it? Yeah, it wasn’t in the back of my mind. You know, I, I didn’t even like speaking. But he encouraged me to give that a shot. And so I’m very grateful that he did. You know, you started, you started a whole different career, went to college and then started working for a business that you became pretty, success, you, you became pretty successful at. When did real estate start to enter into the picture part time?
Dyches Boddiford Â
n 1980, I bought my first property. And I did it basically, because I needed an area to invest in. And I looked around all the different kinds of investments that you could talk and be involved in. And found that I kept coming back to real estate as having a lot of the check, check boxes that I needed, such as I can affect the value of property by a whole sweat equity that I put into working nights weekends, I could have is local. So that wasn’t a problem didn’t go greatest way to find property. And it was somewhat of the people association type of investment where you get to know other people and the value of those relationships also help your investment. So, that’s why I started buying properties using spare cash I had in cash I could borrow from other people, including the sellers to build a portfolio that I had intended, first to pay off and after several years, and be able to retire from wanting to or get into a different area of business.
Bruce Norris  Okay, what was, what was the impetus as far as when you just you just said a couple of topics, you know, seller carrying back, that’s not a, that’s not a typical topic that you would, you know, get out of the gate and say, ‘Let’s have you carried back paper.’ So, how did that idea dawn on you and did the timing of the let’s say the interest rates in 1980 were crazy. So, maybe the existing, existing loans in place…
Dyches Boddiford  Part of the reason I got and I was the hypnotist that really started studying some of this seller carry back financing or owner financing. Because the banks were wanting such high rates, if they would even give you a loan for most people, they wouldn’t provide a loan because the rates were so high that they were afraid that you might not get paid.
Bruce Norris  When I, when I became an investor full time was about 1981. So, my timing was terrible. I refinance, virtually free and clear residence at 17 and a half to become a real estate investor. As my, as my wife cried and signed the document. No, I’m not kidding. Yeah, so we went from no house payment and big house payment.
Dyches Boddiford  Yeah, I bought a house that I got on financing for, you’d say I’m crazy to do it. But I paid 24% on refinance, the fortunate part was, I bought way under market, because nobody else will make an offer. And I was able to pay it off using the ransom a little bit extra money I had from a salary in less than two years.
Bruce Norris  Well, you know, what’s, what’s interesting about what you just said, That’s very unusual, because that was one of your first two, two transactions, right?
Dyches Boddiford  That’s correct, it was.
Bruce Norris  What was the what was the training that preceded that? Was there any or you just decided, I think I’ll make a low offer and see if it flies?
Dyches Boddiford  Well, I had read that about owner financing, because again, the banks weren’t really listening to investors, they would make homeowner loans, but they didn’t make the name investor loans. So, I knew about it, I knew that you tried to get low rates from the seller, low interest rate, low payments from the seller. But what, what really threw me was how was that how I can do that was hopping on the fortunate part is I had a math background. And that doesn’t mean that you got to have a math background to being in real estate. But it made me constantly recalculate things to see if there was a better way of doing it would make good numbers better. And that showed me that even with a 24% interest rate for the short term money that I can make the investment fly, and I didn’t make anything out of that investment for 4 or 5years, but that’s still a short period of time to start making a real good return, because I was able to pay off the house.
Bruce Norris  Right. Now, who was your first real estate trainer?
Dyches Boddiford  Well, the first trainer was a fellow actually can’t remember his name. He was out of Canada and he went around putting on advertisements in local newspapers and doing seminars to get people to come to a weekend class on a real estate investment.
Bruce Norris  Okay.
Dyches Boddiford  I wish I could remember his name right offhand, but he was out there and I didn’t follow him very long. I did. I got all the basic information we can and then I started reading meeting and talking to people. But my first real person that I found and followed was, was Jimmy Napier.
Bruce Norris  Wow.
Dyches Boddiford  Because I was also interested in notes and paper on that side of the business. And then from Jack, from Jimmy, I met Jack Miller, who is, who was a great guy, sorry we don’t have him around anymore. But he taught some very interesting classes on some of the nuances of investing, and met a lot of people in his meetings that were very advanced, had been in the business for a long time. And of course, Pete Fortunato and others I met subsequent to that. And they were the ones that encouraged me to continue to build my portfolio and do some classes.
Bruce Norris  What was your original plan to still do that on the side while you had a full time job was that you’re just going to go along with that, or when did that change?
Dyches Boddiford  Well, I started again, started in 1980 really didn’t have a real objective except to get some free and clear houses. And I got married and 86 and I started, okay, I really want to do this full time. And I made a five year plan to do that. And I was started on five year plan, I was good three years into it, my company I work for and I was the VP for I got bought out by a company when New York Stock Exchange. And as you well know, ultra management’s first to go when it comes to buying another company. So, I was let go, and I didn’t even look around for another job. I just cut up now on the next Monday morning, went down to my little home office I had and started making phone calls. And that’s how I started my full time investing.
Bruce Norris  That was 89, 90?
Dyches Boddiford  Around 1990.
Bruce Norris  Okay, well, that’s interesting, because that’s the end, that’s an end of a good cycle headed to a not so good cycle.
Dyches Boddiford  No.
Bruce Norris  So, how did that change what you did, just curious?
Dyches Boddiford  Well, I had a lot more time to put into the business course. I had one of work for somebody else. And I was able to do things that require me to be out and about during the day. So, I had intended to try and replace most of my salary. And what happened was 12 months after I started that I have made the same salary that I have gotten from the company twice over basically. Well, I’m happy about that.
Bruce Norris  I bet so, well, that’s that’s a great start. How are you attracting deals? What did you do to put deals together?
Dyches Boddiford  Well, I tried to deal with by doing drive, driving for dollars you know a lot of people call it where I will look for owners, for owner sellers and I didn’t do a lot with real estate agents and companies I worked out in the French is what they were say owners, directly with owners that gave me the incentive to learn a little bit more about owner finance because possibility of owner saying that they refinance where you might not have that I probably wouldn’t have that just dealing with real estate agents. So, that’s how I got into doing a lot of the owner financing was just the kind of contacts I was making. Then I also network with a lot of other real estate investors we had a local real estate organization that probably in some deals because I would go far enough long I could do some deals and other beginner investors were unsure of and reluctant to do so sometimes I got deals brought to me that were just on a platter you finding what to do to pick up the phone and put structure together and make a good deal whether it was quick turn or a house I held for rental just depending on, on the numbers.
Bruce Norris  What did you concentrate on? Or each, each individual property you decided whether it could work as if it could work as both a holder or flip but what could have been your preference?
Dyches Boddiford  Always hold.
Bruce Norris  Always hold.
Dyches Boddiford  A god hold property.
Bruce Norris  Okay.
Dyches Boddiford  Really what I did when I wanted to look at a house I didn’t have in mind, I might have an idea of which I wanted it to be, but I didn’t have it hard set in my mind which it would be. I’d wait until I went to the house, figured out what it was going to pay to get it fixed up, see what the neighborhood looks like one of the things I always did was just kind of sat in the car for a while and watched the people in the neighborhood because the kind of people you find in the neighborhood are the kind of people you will have either for buyers of houses flip, or for rental kind of paper, you’d be running to that area, they’d like to be in a neighborhood or area where there are people like them both in economic status, and cost status. So, you kind of got to be honest with yourself about what is neighborhood going to attract?
Bruce Norris  I used to do…
Dyches Boddiford  …from that I was I was quick turn or not.
Bruce Norris  Okay, I used to do something similar. I used to think, Okay, if I get out of the car, do I have to lock it? Same thought pattern, you know, it’s like, okay, if I have to lock the car, I’m flipping the house.
Dyches Boddiford  So, the same time I kept reminding myself if the house is for long term, didn’t one pouring concrete and I had holes houses for a long length of time. If I had a house that was renting, because it just wasn’t tracking the right kind of tenant, then I would mark the house the sales as soon as I could, and maybe use now I learned a lot about tax methods of buying and selling property to 1031 exchange where you can sell a property, use all the cash that you derive from that property, to buy another property and from tax purposes, all you’ve done is move your basis from one property to another. And so I use that to upgrade my portfolio. So, at least once a year, I would go through my portfolio and mark, mark two or three houses as I wanted to get a better house, I wouldn’t force myself either to get a better house, if I sold a house and I had 1031 language in the documents. I wouldn’t say I gotta find house because I can make you forget a poor deal. We say okay, if I can find a better house, I’ve saved some taxes. I post our I actually postponed for a later date. If I can’t find a house, I got a good cash return and I can pay the taxes. And here’s was left to reinvest. So, there’s a lot of self discipline that is taught to you the hard way. And if you pay attention to what’s happening to you over a period of time, you gave good education as well.
Bruce Norris  Absolutely. I’m unfortunately, you know, it sounds like you went in sort of the you paid attention to people that had a fair amount of experience and knowledge early on. And I honestly avoided that like the plague because I was very suspicious of the of the training world. But I had a brother that attended that attended that stuff. Yeah, my brother attended this stuff. And I would look at what he got. And I went, they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Dyches Boddiford  Well, I think one thing that helped me a lot was the fact that their local real estate, full time investors, I knew real estate meetings. After a while, of course, you figure out who’s real who’s just full of hot air. And I’ve listened to they said they went to this guy named Jack Miller’s class. And he told him this time that sounds like something I want to do. They told me that whoever was teaching another class was full of whatever, hot air, would like you to stay away from, like the plague.
Bruce Norris  Well, what, how I met Jack Fullerton, I had never been to a real estate club ever. And I had done a trade where he ended up with some mobile home lots. And it just so happened at his club. He had a mobile home expert about lots and how to put units on there. So, I attended my first real estate meetingsa nd Jack’s deck for 10s opening statement was that anyone that says in California that they can buy houses cheap enough to immediately flip for profit. They are lying. And I just sat there and I went, Wow, that’s what I do, you know’. And so, at the end of the meeting, I was the last, I was that last person that hung on, which is always a that’s the dangerous person, right? And so I came up to Jack I said, Mr. Fullerton, I just want you to know that I do for a business what do you say no one does I flip houses And in the parking lot, and I didn’t know Jack Fullerton at all, but you know, he’s pretty frugal. So, in the parking lot, it was like a Ford Fairlane that’s probably 10 years old. And there’s a brand new gold Mercedes and I have the gold Mercedes and he has lots more stuff than I do. So, I think he looked at that and kind of wrote me off. Well, the only reason I did the following was to kind of say, I wasn’t kidding. I took pictures of 100 houses, I had flipped. And I sent it to him in a book. And I basically I just wanted to let him know that that’s I wasn’t kidding. He calls me back and says, I want you to teach in front of my group. I said, I have no interest in that. But he but he talked me into it and the rest is history. So that was pretty cool.
Joey Romero  All right, everybody. That’s gonna do it for this week’s episode of The Norris group real estate radio show and podcast. Please be sure to catch us next week. As we finish with part two of our interview with Dyches Boddiford.
Narrator  We’d also like to thank our gold sponsors, Chase Leland Photography, Inland Valley Association of Realtors, Keystone CPA, Inc, LA South REIA, Leivas Tax Wealth Management, NorCal REIA, NSDREI, Pasadena FIBI, Tony Alvarez, White House Catering, Wilson Investments, Windermere Tower Realty. See Isurvivedrealestate.com for event details, information on all our generous supporters and to connect with our speakers.For more information on hard money, loans and upcoming events with The Norris Group, check out thenorrisgroup.com. For information on passive investing with trust deeds, visit tngtrustdeeds.com.
Aaron Norris  The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.