Pro Wholesaler VIP Program Review: How Mark Wholesaled His First Deal & Made $4000

Peter Soros (Coach at Real Estate Skills) interviews Mark, a Real Estate Skills student who recently joined the Pro Wholesaler VIP Program and started wholesaling real estate in Arizona. In just 90 days, he closed his first deal resulting in a $4,000 net profit!

Like most Americans, Mark faced an unfortunate challenge: the 9-5 grind and traditional retirement plans aren't enough to build lasting wealth or financial freedom for their families.

Mark was no exception.

After unexpected layoffs shook his family’s sense of security, Mark knew something had to change.

In this interview:

✅ Mark shares how he went from uncertainty to closing his first wholesale deal in Arizona in just 90 days—earning a $4,000 net profit!

✅ With the in-depth training, step-by-step guidance, and unwavering support of the Real Estate Skills coaches and community, Mark found the confidence and tools to make it happen!

✅ If you're tired of relying on a broken system to secure your financial future, this story will show you what’s possible with the right education and a committed mindset.

At Real Estate Skills, we don’t just teach theory—we hand you the systems, strategies, and support you need to actually close wholesale deals in ANY market--even Mark's competitive market in Arizona.

If you want to learn EXACTLY how to wholesale real estate in Arizona, read our article: https://www.realestateskills.com/blog/how-to-wholesale-arizona

Want to learn how to wholesale deals just like Mark? Apply for the Pro Wholesaler VIP Program!

*For in-depth training on real estate investing, Real Estate Skills offers extensive courses to get you ready to make your first investment! Attend our FREE Webinar Training and gain insider knowledge, expert strategies, and essential skills to make the most of every real estate opportunity that comes your way!

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Peter (RES Coach) (00:00):

Hey everyone, it's Peter Soros here with RealEstateSkills.com. Today we're going to be talking with Mark Rodriguez. He's the owner of Joint Venture Properties in Phoenix, Arizona. He's been a member of our community for a little over 90 days, and he closed his first wholesale deal within those 90 days. I can't wait to share the story with you, so let's dive right into it. How are you doing today, ​​Mark?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (00:21):

I'm doing amazing. How are you doing, sir?

Peter (RES Coach) (00:24):

I'm doing really good. I'm excited to hear the details about this deal. I was honestly very impressed with what you did to make this deal work. Not too many people new to this would even think or go that far of what you did to get this deal across the line, so I'm really looking forward to dive into that. But before we do, it kind of makes me wonder, did you have any kind of experience or background in real estate or what were you coming from before doing this?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (00:55):

Zero background in real estate. My main, I guess, business or working, what I would do would be consulting for restaurants, bars, nightclubs for about 13 years. Just basically fixing places that were dwindling, they're ready to go under, and the owners needed help. So I would go in and revamp, remodel merchandise, redo everything for them, basically take it over and then move on to the next project.

Peter (RES Coach) (01:25):

Got it. Okay. So nothing real estate related, but you had a good idea of how to go and solve problems.

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (01:32):

Being in restaurant and service hospitality industry, that's all you're doing all day pretty much.

Peter (RES Coach) (01:37):

One of the things we always like to ask, you probably saw in the program, we really focus on mindset going into it. What was your mindset about going into real estate before joining the program?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (01:52):

Well, I mean, me and my wife have always wanted better things in life. We have really good friends of ours that are our kids' godparents, that are multimillionaires and they've done a lot of different businesses, but also do a lot of real estate. And so the mindset for me was let's build something for our family. Let's build something for our children and let's really just get after something that we can have as our own. Just because corporate America can go one of two ways and a lot of times it doesn't go the right way for a lot of people when they look back at some of their lives sometimes, and sometimes it goes great. But my wife was laid off three times in a matter of five years and once right after she gave birth and the next time right after a second child was born. So she kind of was looking to me for some answers just like, what are we going to do? And I researched real estate and that's what I figured that we would put our focus on.

Peter (RES Coach) (02:48):

Was there anything that was holding you back from getting real estate training before or sooner than when you actually did?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (02:58):

Nothing really. I worked for a friend of mine's company and it was more of getting out of the restaurant business when my kids were born just because that's a, that's a 10 hour, 50 hour, 60 hour gig running restaurants. So it was more just to get myself out of that situation, work from home, be more present, and then nothing was really holding me back. It was just looking for opportunity. And after watching my friend who I've known for 20 years, who was my best man at my wedding five, six years ago, watch him become very wealthy, partly through real estate was a huge indicator and just a way that you've got to do something different to find something else out there.

Peter (RES Coach) (03:42):

What things could you kind of pinpoint are specific things that we did to help you get past what was holding you back when it came to taking that dive into real estate?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (03:55):

Well, I'll be honest with you, I've looked at a couple of different programs in Arizona. Everyone says it's the guru state of real estate. Everyone's out here, pace is out here and Kiyosaki and all sorts of people are out here. So I looked at a couple of different ones and I talked and spoke with people that sell you the programs and the person I spoke with Real Estate Skills was very open and very honest, very transparent, and it was just more of a better vibe. My wife and I both sat with him, my wife and I both sat with these other companies and the overall consensus was, you guys are trustworthy. You guys put it out there. There was a system put in place which made huge strides for just like, here's a bunch of videos, go try and figure it out. It was very, very detailed and I think that's what got me was how organized it was down to everything, which I think is needed, especially if you're great in business or if you're not great in business, you kind of need that to stay successful.

Peter (RES Coach) (04:59):

Was there anything specific about the program that meant more to you? Was it the training side of it, the fundamentals, or was it the support side of things? Those two that kind of come together, was there anything that really stood out about the program itself once you got into it and the support?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (05:16):

Yeah, I think the mentality of it, getting the mindset first. A lot of people that's probably start with programs here, it's easy. Or here it's somebody else saw it, they saw it on YouTube and now they can do it. But the mindset really is the big part of it and really going through the action steps of the training and not skipping through it, not fast forwarding through it. So I think getting that mindset, even though I've always had a mindset for business and things like that, going along with it, my wife even, she doesn't do wholesaling, but she wants to be a part of it. She even went through the training just because we wanted to be on the same page if we're going to be spending money and finding ways to make money and investing in ourselves and things like that. So I think just the organization and the mindset training was great, and then the contracts were awesome, very well put together all the different attachments and ways we could use the documents that you guys provided were amazing.

Peter (RES Coach) (06:19):

How has Real Estate Skills given you more confidence to take action now?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (06:25):

Just gaining the experience. I think through going through the motions, finding out all the different ways you can, could not have a deal close or the ways you can have a deal close. I think just basically getting the actual physical boots on the ground type mentality of where you're getting thrown, different ways that people, obstacles and overcoming them and finding ways to figure it out.

Peter (RES Coach) (06:52):

Nice. All right. Well, let's just start diving into the actual deal itself. So tell us a little bit about this. Where was this located? I know I already mentioned Phoenix, but tell us a little bit about the area and then we'll dive into more details of it.

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (07:06):

Yeah, for sure. So this was a on market deal and from there it was in north central Phoenix, so kind of close to Scottsdale above downtown south of the north Paradise Valley area, so very essentially located and the area there was probably, I don't know, on that one street where that house was, there was probably seven renovated houses on that one street, and then there was the old houses like that one looked from the 1950s, I believe 54 build. But yeah, it's an up and coming area. It's a lot of good area right there.

Peter (RES Coach) (07:49):

So let's jump into the deal numbers. What was the purchase price? What was your A RV? What was your rehab estimate? If you can, I know maybe we don't have it in front of you, but just kind of ballpark it.

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (08:01):

So it was listed for 489,000 on the MLS and I got it down to 420,000 and it wound up being, I got under contract at 412,500 I believe, and the numbers for the restoration was probably, probably around mine were around a hundred thousand to redo the house and the RV was around, I believe it was about six 20.

Peter (RES Coach) (08:36):

And when you brought it to the cash buyers, they instantly said, there's a deal here. They saw you were pretty close with your repair estimates and all that, or they said, oh, you're actually kind of high or you're kind of low. What was their feedback?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (08:51):

So I have about eight to 10 cash buyers and some of 'em only do under 500,000, some of them do over 500,000. So the seasoned investors that I sent it to kind of more for a little bit of guidance to make sure my numbers were correct of what they thought, they thought the numbers were great. They thought that my rehab budget was pretty much on point, but for them to take this deal, it was not worth it for them. They want to make a hundred plus thousand on every deal they do kind of thing. And so some of my other caf fires that only go under 500,000, were interested in it as well, and I think they're going to go below my rehab budget, to be honest with you. But they kept in contact me the whole time. I didn't blast it out to a bunch of people, I kept it to a few people and just wanted to make sure it was something that was worth it for the cashier.

Peter (RES Coach) (09:45):

So here's one of the interesting questions I really want to dive into. How much money did you have to put into the deal? Now, I know you actually did put some money into the deal to help it get across the finish line, but you did get that money back. So tell us from the beginning you had the earnest money deposit, but then you also had a cash buyer who told me that he was out of town and couldn't make it to view the property.

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (10:08):

Yeah, well, to even get this deal under contract, I sent the purchase agreement to the real estate agent who was part owner of the house, and he sent me an addendum back to sign that says, this is not assignable, and I believe I spoke to you on either the phone or by email and just said, how do I get over this obstacle? And you kind of just told me a straightforward answer, and that was what I told him exactly, almost verbatim, and I just told him to give, he's chopping me off at the knees if I can't get this out there to more people and if he's really trying to not pay more money and holding costs, he was going to flip it then let me use my connections to try to get this deal done. And so I had to have him literally redo the contract to make it assignable and then move forward from there.

But from there, my cash buyer was out of town and still is out of town, and it was just, they were there for work and business in northern California and the earnest money was deposited 4,000. I paid 4,000 out of my own pocket because some of the stipulations of the contract made it be, wanted it to be after 48 hours. And so I did that just to get on that playing field with them. And it was only a five day inspection because they wanted less days. And then doing all this from out of town cash investors, they really wanted to have one of their GCs walk it or they wanted to have a appraisal of some sort go through. And so kind of coming down to the last 48 hours of the deal, I said, Hey, I know you're the cash investor. I said, Hey, I know you're out of town.

What if I just pay for an appraiser to go see the house? I'll meet the there, I'll walk it with him or get the notes on it and then I'll send it to you on Sunday morning. First of all, trying to find an appraiser on Sunday morning was not easy, probably paid a little bit more than normal. I think it was 600 bucks. After that, I sent that appraisal to my cash buyer and he looked it over and said that he was willing to go for it and ready to go. And then upon close of escrow, we just had to have some things put into place where I got the earnest money back and then he deposited his earnest money to replace mine and he also paid me back for the appraisal.

Peter (RES Coach) (12:31):

Beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, when I heard this I was like, man, good job, Mark. Those are things that I started doing when I was doing more deals, more intermediate things, made it very complex, but going above and beyond for that, I was very, very happy to hear that you did that to make it happen. A lot of people would've given up already. So I'm glad you didn't, so

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (12:52):

Thanks. I appreciate that.

Peter (RES Coach) (12:54):

How many offers did you have to put in until you got this first deal accepted and all the way through?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (13:01):

Probably it wasn't a ton. I mean, I probably put in 10 offers. Maybe I signed the contract for this to go through 90 days exactly from when I finished the real estate school's classes. And so that's a good thing for, I thought in myself just part-time I worked full-time as well, so it was doing both of them simultaneously through the day and weekends, but not a ton of offers went out just because of time restraints and having two kids under two and all sorts of crazy stuff going on at home. But maybe 10 to 15 offers maybe in three months. Three months.

Peter (RES Coach) (13:47):

So was it easier than expected or was it harder than expected or about the same?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (13:53):

I came in maybe a little confident is what my wife would say. Maybe she doesn't know where I get my confidence from, but I mean she may have another word for it, but we won't say that right here. But no, I honestly thought just seeing other people going through the program and just hearing things in the community, watching YouTube videos from other people that do wholesaling, seeing young 19 year olds, 20 year olds close deals. There was the gentleman you interviewed last month from Florida that got 12 grand and he was a younger guy. And so I just figured with the skillset I've accumulated over the 20, 30 years being in business, I just was like, I can do this. And so my confidence level was very high. I thought I could have done it honestly in 30 days, to be honest, at least my first deal. But then when I really started getting into going to ESRI meetings, going to meetup groups, having those coffee dates with investors and networking, it took about 60 to 90 days to build a network of people that knew what I was doing, trusted what I was saying, and putting me in the right relationships with people that I could feel comfortable putting these deals out there too.

Peter (RES Coach) (15:09):

Yeah, no, that's great. That network, a lot of the things I'm constantly talking to students about is you're going into an industry where people are spending a lot of money. We're talking about people's homes that they've raised their families, and you're talking about investors putting up a lots of money towards things that if they get the wrong deal, it could end their business. They want to be working with people who take their money seriously. So a lot of it is how we approach cash buyers, how we just go through the deals with the agents and the sellers; all of it comes together. People are trusting you to bring a deal together and not try to hurt anybody doing anything. So a lot of it is that mindset and it's the approach, the networking, the professionalism. So your experience definitely in your business experience is definitely making a big difference total.

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (16:04):

Well, you just reminded me of something else that stood out from the program and what you just said. And probably the number one thing comment I got back from cash buyers that I've built is me taking the extra time to get on the phone with them or meet 'em for coffee or just ask them exactly what their buy box is. They give you one, but then I would go into what you gave us on the script to ask them, and I'm asking them for 10, 15 minutes on a call filling all this out, and they're like, wow, you're really detailed with this. And I was like, well, the last thing I want to do is waste your time or my time because that's valuable. But regardless it, that was the number one thing my cash buyer said to me was You took a lot of notes and you got my buying criteria down to a T. And we've even done mock trials of a house and just on email gone back and forth, give me your numbers, give me my numbers and see if they match.

Peter (RES Coach) (16:58):

That's awesome. Whenever you come across a cash buyer who appreciates that you appreciate their time and value, their time and then is willing to go back and forth, that is one of those relationships that you might have for the rest of your life and could lead to many, many, many lucrative deals down the line. So that is what it's all about. A hundred percent. That was actually kind of answered my question. What I was going to ask you is how did the training help you get this deal across the finish line? A lot of that was just that professionalism, which you probably already have quite a bit from your experience in business, but those specific things of how to talk to cash buyers and what to ask them. So

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (17:39):

Yeah, professionalism was a huge thing that came out of this from what I've heard from just, I mean, I went to my two RIA meetings and I met a wholesaler, two wholesalers are brothers, they're in Real Estate Skills, and they were talking to me how you're supposed to talk to each other. And I asked 'em if they're taking any courses or classes and they said, yeah, Real Estate Skills. And I'm like, oh yeah, I've done that too. And they're like, how many years have you've been doing it? And I'm like, three weeks. And they were just like, well, can we get your number? Can we talk to you outside of here? And all that kind of good stuff. So they were a little younger, but the professionalism definitely stood out I think because people were, if you can remember and study it and really get involved in it and engulf yourself in it, it comes through once you put it out there. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Peter (RES Coach) (18:27):

So now we went through the first deal. Did we even say how much you made on it? What did you actually make on the deal?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (18:33):

So it started out at 7,500 was going to be the original assignment fee. And to get it all done with everything going on, the moving parts, I went down to four, 4,000 just to make it all work. If my cash buyer didn't want to go any higher than a certain amount, and my seller didn't want to go any lower than a certain amount. So the only other option was to just decrease a little bit and then make it up on the next one and just get the deal done.

Peter (RES Coach) (18:58):

That's what it takes sometimes. Even Aaron, who you are mentioning in Florida, he was supposed to get a 17 K wholesale fee last day. The seller kind of pulled something, I don't have the money. So he took that off his end and nobody else, nobody else wanted to, but that's what you got to do sometimes it's still better than nothing.

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (19:17):

Take the good with the bad.

Peter (RES Coach) (19:20):

So what's life like now since the first deal? Is anything changing now with how you're moving forward with the business or what's next on the horizon?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (19:31):

Honestly, the confidence you get from closing your first deal is to just prove to yourself that you can do it. The second thing is proving to your family that you can do it. Having the support of my wife and we haven't even told the rest of my immediate family what I'm doing in real estate. They know I'm doing something, but they don't know exactly. I wanted to prove first and then explain later what was going on just to make it that way. But right now, honestly, my company has laid off. I've withheld or withstood about three layoffs this past year and I'm still working with my company and my friend who's been my friend for 20 years, who's a multimillionaire, who owns part of this company, owns it. And I'm still here, not because of him, but it's just one of those things where I got a call from my vice president last week and I thought I was going to be let go on the day I was signing with title to get the money transferred to me.

And I thought, this is just going to be ironic if I lose a job on one hand, but make 4,000 on this hand, I can definitely do this full time and just go with it and good and bad. He gave me a promotion, so I said yes for now. But my wife and I are really looking forward to the next six months doing at least a deal per month. We want to just stack up some reserve money, make sure everything is good on the horizon, but eventually quit the full-time job as soon as possible. And then within the year, hopefully have her working with me on board, doing more, a little more of a behind the scenes or maybe transaction coordinator type stuff and branching out into expanding the business to monetize and really scale it more.

Peter (RES Coach) (21:20):

So what's the ultimate long-term goal with this? Is it to get into fix and flipping, buy and holds? Is that the evolution you're going on the path?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (21:29):

Yeah, yeah, definitely it. I've had offers to go in with some JV deals with other investors on certain deals. So if I come across any that I think that are good deals, I'll definitely jump to that fix and flip section. But I would only do it with somebody that is an experienced flipper just because I don't have necessarily the time to be there and watch it work. So I am open to doing fix and flips and then eventually the buy and holds and just figuring out ways for sellers to use me as a funnel to go towards anything they need with their home. And if I make money off it, great. If I don't and I can send them to somebody that does sub two or somebody that does buy and holds, then perfectly fine.

Peter (RES Coach) (22:11):

Yeah, exactly. You just want to be a versatile investor. And that's one of the things we always say, you want to be a versatile investor. There are buy and hold investors. There are fix and flip investors who don't even know how to wholesale, believe it or not, and they've been leaving money on the table. So this is why we start there. It's the lowest risk way of getting started in real estate investing and then building from there. So you're definitely on that path and that's great to see. And I think you can kind of see how this would compare to your current career of how much time, more time you'd have available with the family and all that. Are you starting to see how that might be able to change actually your lifestyle as well and the time that you spent with your family now?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (22:50):

Yeah, because honestly the first deal took about, I mean it took 90 days to get, but actual work with probably about seven hours of driving to the property and phone calls and things like that. And just thinking about numbers and redoing numbers. So I mean, if you put that into hours, time for money and hours for dollars and it's a decent amount of money. So if you could just do that every day and every week, you can definitely make a good living. Do that for sure.

Peter (RES Coach) (23:21):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's a transformation you're going to start to see, once you start seeing it's possible, you start thinking, well, what else can I do? How can I get there faster? Which I'm sure is something you and your wife are looking into now as you're saying, because those careers that you have are time-consuming. They are probably still profitable, something probably still worth sticking into for a little bit until you get this really great foundation for long term. But there are so many options, which is the beauty of it. And we still have students who are full-time doctors and still doing this and they, they've been able to convert to buy and hold and doing fix and flips, having and JV with people. I ended up JVing on my first deal instead of doing a small deal ended up being a big deal because I did JV with someone.

I would never have been able to do that on my own. So that's one of the great things where you can team up with people in the network and there's even other students as you met aea, so you never know what can come of those networks that you've built. So it's so awesome to see it happening so fast for you because you were so dedicated to it. So it's always great to see the results happen faster, but it is really you because of you and your commitment to it. That's one of the things we give you the foundations and all that, but you got to do it. And that's something I talk to students probably every day. You've probably heard me on the calls and on the school community, but those are things that those is what really moves the needle forward. We give you all the guidance, but you got to put in that work and be committed. Nothing can replace that in the end. Was there kind of a big transformation for you that you kind of went through to get from here to there, or was it just kind of the transformation was like, oh, I can actually do this and this is something I can see myself doing and I guess my whole family doing moving forward at this point?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (25:21):

Yeah, I think it just gave me the roadmap of getting into real estate and figuring out where I want to go. And that was kind of the biggest thing. I've always invested in myself for motivational speakers and Tony Robbins things. I've gone on week-long training courses like that where I've paid my own airfare and paid for my hotel and gone for a week to a Tony Robbins type special thing. And I've always believed in for doing your education, paying for it, but getting to do it with my wife and having her support and just making sure that she just said, is this something you really want to do? And I'm like, well, I can't sleep at night because all I think about is my number is correct from the deal or the call I got to make tomorrow morning. So it's keeping me up at night.

But regardless, it's something that I really, really like to connect, fix problems, and connect those dots, and it fell in line with what my previous career took me, which was fixing problems, which is finding a way to get things done. And just seeing what you built at the end of it was one of the best things I had when I was consulting. And this has given me that back, that kind of that passion to where I can build something and literally see what I've built from the work going forward. And I know it's only one deal and I get that, but it's the foundation of what I think propels you to the next level.

Peter (RES Coach) (26:43):

You got to start somewhere. I say it all the time, you have to start crawling before you walk and then you can run. You can't do that out of order because things don't work that way. So yeah, that's always great to hear. Any advice you would give to someone who's thinking about getting into real estate investing and even thinking about joining the pro wholesaler community?

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (27:09):

Figure out where you want to go, and what you want to do, take some time. I'm sure you've heard this scenario, but more people take more time picking up. It's a holiday, more people take more time picking out a Christmas gift for a loved one than they do about their financial future. And that's the sad part about reality for a lot of people. And if you could just pause a little bit and think about where you're at in life and if you're not happy with it, change it. And that's the biggest thing. I think that as you get older, it comes a little bit easier As you have kids, it comes a little bit easier as you get that way. And I've had cancer two years ago I was with chemo and I had all that stuff going on. So it takes your temperature a little bit and you realize what this life is worth and why not go for a shoot for the moon and go for it

Peter (RES Coach) (27:59):

Definitely sets priorities and is straight when we're faced with real-life situations. Yeah, so commend you for that and glad you're here with us still. Well, that's pretty much it. Mark, I want to thank you for your time. We appreciate you taking the time. We're so happy to have you here sharing this inspiring story. It's always glad to see that what I'm putting in, people are taking it. Everything that Alex, Ryan and Tony have put into the program, people are using it to change their lives like it did mine. I was a student many years ago and it changed my life too. So it's kind of like, I see this is just the beginning for you. We're happy to be here to continue supporting you along your journey. So any last words for students, the world out, there's going to see this

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (28:54):

Video. Just believe in yourself, keep going. Whatever you're afraid of, just go through it and do it. You'll see it's not that scary on the other side.

Peter (RES Coach) (29:03):

Well, thanks again so much for joining us, Mark, and we'll see you soon. Okay.

Mark (Pro Wholesaler) (29:08):

Alright, I appreciate it. Thank you, man.

Peter (RES Coach) (29:09):

And there you have it. As you can see from Mark's story, he didn't have a real estate background, but he knew he needed to have the right education. He knew he needed to invest in himself first. He got the education he needed, he got the support he needed, and he ended up closing his first wholesale deal within the first 90 days of joining the program. If you're interested in learning more, go to RealEstateSkills.com and find out more. Take care.

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