Two years nomadic on a 3-person team and a $600K goal
Runs his entire $600K operation remotely while traveling the world. Systems do the work, not geography.
About
Jacob Bluestein wholesales the Jacksonville, FL market with a three-person team: himself plus two VAs in Egypt. He has run the operation nomadically for close to two years, working from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. A kidney transplant at age 25 in 2018 sparked the real estate career that now funds his software startup.
Operating market
Jacksonville, FL
Favorite features
The Challenge
Jacob Bluestein's first real estate business ran out of New York City. He tried wholesaling Cleveland, Ohio virtually because the houses were cheap, and he got crushed. He did not understand the market or its street by street dynamics. He also paid tens of thousands of dollars for masterminds that never fit how he thinks about money. The lesson stuck: cheap markets and borrowed playbooks do not replace knowing one market cold.
He rebuilt in Jacksonville, FL and found himself behind a desk 95 percent of the time. Jacksonville sprawls, and he refused to drive 40 minutes each way to appointments. So he closed over the phone, and the desk became the business. Then he wanted to travel the world full time. The fear was real: older sellers who distrust a phone voice, an investor community he would stop seeing, time zones far from Florida. By his own admission, it was more scary in his head than in practice.
What They Built
One market, a couple of lists, four attempts
The marketing engine is deliberately small. DataSift is the core: sales, marketing, and the CRM in one place, with boards for the pipeline and for lead management. Sequential marketing carries 98 percent of the workload, run on only a couple of lists and cut from seven attempts to four. Every quarter he asks one question: how do we get more out of this without spending more.
It took about a year or so to really get dialed in on our virtual SIF line with just those couple of lists and just the Sensei flow through four attempts.
Two VAs in Egypt covering the phones
The whole team is three people. A cold caller and a lead manager, both based in Egypt, plus Jacob on acquisitions and dispositions. Culture is the hard part of a virtual team, so he spent a week of his first trip with them in Egypt. If the team hits its revenue goal this year, he has promised a week long retreat anywhere in the world they choose.
I met up with them, we were together for a whole week. They toured me around the whole country.
Closing every deal over the phone
Roughly one seller in 10 to 15 will not sign electronically. For those, wholesaler friends in Jacksonville take the in person appointment and earn a $3,000 to $10,000 commission. Probate deals with multiple siblings get a conference call so every decision maker hears the same offer at once. A local contact, paid per visit, shoots photos and walks inspections on the rare deal that needs eyes on site.
Quarterly trips to keep the network warm
The investor community in any market is tight, and being gone weakens it. So he flies back to Jacksonville once a quarter, hits the events, and meets his lenders and old friends. The relationships stay fresh, and the deals keep coming from a market he knows block by block.
Before and After
Before DataSift
- A VA Works Every No-Contact Lead in DataSift
- Daily Follow-Ups Run From the Sift Line Tasks
- Nine Deals Under Contract After the Stacked Niche Switch
- Cold Callers Sent KPIs by Hand Outside the System
- Expensive PPC Spend With No Return
- Follow-Up Leads Vanished Into an Abyss in the Old CRM
- 60,000 Records a Quarter Feeding His Bulk Callers
- Four Contracts Signed in 10 Days
- Three Deals a Week, Two Weeks Running
- First Direct to Seller Push in 30 Years of Business
- A $10,000 Mail Campaign That Produced Nothing
- 15 Years Buying Only From the MLS and Wholesalers
- New lender agreed 12 days after the first collapsed
- $105,696 net profit after closing costs
- Nine properties contracted at $360K, sold at $450K
- Hard money lenders would not lend on rural portfolios
- Local title companies refused assignments and passthroughs
- Seller would only sell one house, priced far over appraisal
- Still Runs on a $500 Monthly Budget
- An $85K Deal Off a 50-Name Stacked List
- 13 Contracts in Six Weeks From 250 Prospects
- About $40K Spread Across Six Months, Still Behind
- Five Contracts in a Row Fell Through
- Shotgun Lists Across Too Many Zip Codes
- One Contract Per 25-35 Leads, Half the Typical Ratio
- Each Caller Brings 16-18 Leads a Week
- 50,000 Free County Records Called on a Four-Month Cycle
- Two Partners Dialing Everything Themselves From 2017 to 2019
- VA Cleaned Every County Download by Hand in Excel
- Another Blanket ListSource Pull Whenever the Pipeline Ran Dry
- Same county-data system expanding into Texas and Miami
- $800K in revenue from six or seven deep-research deals
- About 20 people across data, calling, research, and sales
- PropStream tax delinquent lists arrived after owners had already paid
- Two years hunting a golden list that did not exist
- Bandit signs at intersections, cold calling all day from a coffee shop
- Four deals closed faster than his first three
- 8,200 dials and 25 leads in one November
- Four VAs running one calling and texting protocol
- Generic YouTube advice with no sequence to follow
- Back at a sales job four months after going full time
- Spent $35,000 on marketing with zero return
- About 35 Leads Per Deal Across 347 Total Leads
- $253K In Cash And Equity From One Package Deal
- 40 Properties Wholesaled In Under Four Months
- 12-Hour Days And A 45-Minute Commute
- No Deals Found Through Realtors, MLS, Or Craigslist
- Cold Calling From A Printed Spreadsheet In The Parking Lot
- Pulls Nearly All His Data Straight From the County
- Runs Jacksonville Virtually on $1,000 a Month
- Locked a Contract Four Days After His January Restart
- Scattered Across SMS, Facebook Ads, and a Website
- Partner's $2 an Hour Caller Hit a 1% Contact Rate
- Called Lists Three Times Then Trashed Them
- 50,000 sqft warehouses in negotiation, one to two leads daily
- $59,000 spread on his first big wholesale deal
- Every eviction filed in New Jersey, worked daily
- Old CRM buried callers in highlight and right-click drama
- Phenomenal months, then crickets for months
- Overnight pharmacy shifts, 84 hours in a single week
- Knows the playbook works and is replicating it
- First off-market contract four months after starting
- $250,000 assignment fee on deal one
- Weak cash position after funding ground-up projects
- Questioned whether real estate money was even real
- Two years spending on development deals, not making much back
- $40,000 month tracking with fixed costs
- Five first to market deals since April
- Probate filings pulled daily in multiple counties
- Two mail campaigns, response rates he did not like
- Costs fluctuated month to month with list spend
- Custom Podio build, broad absentee and vacant lists
- Owner buried beside her son after two years unclaimed
- Runs every heir search solo now
- Five heirs found, contacted, and signed across Texas
- Needed a specialist for her first deep heir search
- Paper records only, fathers listed by initials
- Probate leads dead-ended with no findable heirs
- Every No Recycled On A Two-Year Rehash Cycle
- Three VAs Clean Data Before A Single Dial
- Three First To Market Niche Filters Worked Daily
- Loose Onboarding And Under-Corrected Bad Hires
- Team Swung From Large To Small To Solo
- Broad Marketing Across Every Niche At Once
- Mornings and evenings back with his family
- 8 person crew handles whole projects in sets of two
- 40+ properties across three portfolios in about six months
- Afraid to take on payroll and a crew
- The bottleneck on his own projects
- Software job eight to five, real estate five to midnight
- 55% Answer Rate On One-By-One Click To Call
- Free County Data Replaced Every Paid List
- $45K Fee Closed One Week After The Callback
- Podio, Slack, And Multiple VAs, No Traction
- 30,000-Record Lists Dialed Two Or Three Times Through
- At Least $40K Wasted On Lists And VAs
- Four Marketing Attempts on a Couple of Lists
- A Three-Person Team at About $1,800 Cost Per Contract
- Almost Two Years Nomadic Across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East
- Behind a Jacksonville Desk 95 Percent of the Time
After DataSift
- Achieved Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Little Data Clarity
- Relied On Google Sheets
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Data Clarity / Organization
- Wholesales, Flips And Does Retail
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Didn't Understand Data Management
- Strong Real Estate Agent
- Wanted To Break Into Wholesaling But Didn't Know How
- Healthy Scale
- Data Driven Decisions
- Consistent Deals
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent
- Little Data Insight
- Unorganized Bulk Marketing
- Strategic Focus on Niches
- Enhanced Lead Flow and Certainty
- Streamlined Marketing Process
- Efficient Use of Data
- Direct Mail & Deep Prospecting
- Broad, Unfocused Strategy
- Inconsistency in Results
- Dependency on Luck
- Marketing Clarity
- 6 Figure Months
- High Deal Volume
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Proper Data Management
- Weak Marketing Flow
- Poor Data Management
- Lack of Focus
- Manual Efforts
- Successful Scale
- Total Data Clarity
- Clear Marketing Approach
- Large Deal Spreads
- Improper Data Management
- Poor Marketing Method
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Clear Data Management
- Clear Data Management
- Successful Scale
- Many ways to close deals
- Large deal spreads
- Poor data management
- Unable to scale properly
- Poor marketing flow
- Smaller Deal Spreads
- Increased Deal Volume
- Platform Utilization
- Realtor Collaboration
- Funding Efforts
- Lots Of Deals
- Data Driven Decisions
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Poor Data Management
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Relied On Bulk Marketing
- Lack of Clarity
- Automated Acquisition
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Data Driven Decisions
- Structured Follow-ups
- Increased Lead Generation
- Achieved Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Manual Acquisition Processes
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Minimal Lead Insights
- Poor Follow Up Flow
- Inconsistent Lead Generation
- Lacked Sales And Marketing Clarity
What changed
The click happened at a desk in Jacksonville, before any of the travel. The metro is so spread out that he refused to drive 40 minutes each way to appointments. So he stayed behind the desk 95 percent of the time and worked the phones instead. "I started locking up houses over the phone. I was like, well, if I can do this from a computer here why can't I do it from anywhere else?" The first test was a one month trip to the Middle East. It worked, and the better part of two years abroad followed.
The Results
The target for the year is $600,000 in revenue. His model math is simple: 20 deals a year at $30,000 per deal is $600,000. Cost per contract on the sequential flow runs about $1,800, and monthly overhead sits between $3,000 and $4,000. The team is still three people, and the flow still stops at four attempts, not seven.
The before and after is geography. His first virtual attempt, New York City into Cleveland, failed outright. Now he has been nomadic for the better part of two years across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East while the Jacksonville pipeline runs. In Asia that meant working 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. to catch the Florida day. The $600,000 goal is not banked yet, and he says so. If it lands, the team picks the retreat destination.
The business exists to serve my lifestyle and goals and my employees goals, not the other way around.
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