Adam Torres and Dwan Bent-Twyford discuss investing in real estate.
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Show Notes:
What does it take to become a successful real estate investor? In this episode, Adam Torres and Dwan Bent-Twyford, Founder of Dwanderful, explore her career in real estate and how she became a successful real estate investor.
About Dwan Bent-Twyford
Dwan Bent-Twyford and her husband, Bill Twyford, are professional real estate investment coaches, mentors, and top podcasters. With over 2,000 real estate transactions under their belts, they have created a duplicatable system to help you find the same success.
Their goal is to educate you on everything related to real estate investing from short sale investments to real estate foreclosures to Subject-To’s.
Their home study courses, proven methods, internet training program, and live classes not only teach you how to become a multimillionaire real estate investor… they also hold you accountable for your progression along the way.
Specialties: Teaching seminars to my many students and helping homeowners get out of underwater situations!
About Dwanderful
Dwan Bent-Twyford is a professional real estate investment coach and mentor. With over 2,000 real estate transactions under her belt, she has created a duplicatable system to help you find the same success.
Their goal is to educate you on everything related to real estate investing from short sale investments to real estate foreclosures.
Their home study courses, proven methods, internet training program, and live classes not only teach you how to become a multimillionaire real estate investor… they also hold you accountable for your progression along the way.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s guest is Duann Bent Twyford. Duann, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, Adam.
I’m excited to be on here today. All right. So we got a lot to talk about today. So definitely want to get into your business where you’re founder of Dwanderful. And we’re going to get into that, what you’re doing in real estate as well. And I guess just to get us kicked off, we’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with our Mission Matters Minute.
So Dwan at Mission Matters, our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That’s what we do. Dwan, what mission matters to you? Oh, gosh. You know, I think for me is creating generational wealth. That’s what I focus on teaching people how to become investors and then work for themselves and then, you know, build like a little mini empire if they want and, and create generational wealth.
That’s awesome. When do you get either introduced to or into this concept? Like, where’d that start for you? Real estate or generational wealth? Generational wealth. I think that’s interesting. So I’ve been investing for almost 35 years and I’m 65 now. And I got around 50, you know, my kids are growing up, and you know, there’s grandkids, and I thought, you know what, I don’t come from a family of wealth, my family were like factory workers, and I thought, we’re making so much money in real estate, and the Bible says it’s a blessing to like lead generational wealth and stuff.
So, you know what, I’m going to focus on helping other families that maybe came from a similar background as mine with no education, no nothing, and get involved in real estate, and then they can, they can build generational wealth for their family because somebody’s got to be the first one. And my husband and I are like, well, his dad didn’t do it.
My dad didn’t do it. So we are the first ones in our family to become millionaires on both sides So we thought we’re going to teach our kids and pass that down. Wow, and for you like how did real estate? There’s a lot of different ways that you could have gone, you know on that journey What introduced you to real estate?
Well, I was 30. I had a baby I was married when my baby was eight months old, her dad and I unexpectedly split up. And, you know, at the age I am now, having kids at 30 back in 1988 was really old. Like, all my friends had kids, like, out of high school. And I waited so I could be, like, the Girl Scout mom, the cookie mom, the homeroom mom, the field trip mom.
I’m single and I don’t have any job skills. I’ve worked in the bar business for my entire twenties and I have a kid and I was like, man, I need to find something I can do from home and raise my daughter and still do the things I want to do. And I, Adam, honestly, it was like, I am like truly an accidental investor.
I met a couple of guys, oh yeah, we buy houses, we fix them up, we sell them. And my mind was like, Oh, they fix them up. So they decorate. I like to decorate. Okay. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to decorate houses. I found a folder and I moved into it and after I painted it and put it in corporate and had custom made blinds and decorate,
and I said, it needs kitchen. Everything’s avocado. Everything’s green. And I realized at that very moment, after I was already in the house, that decorating and rehabbing were not the same thing. And I started going to Home Depot, and I took classes, and I learned how to lay tile, and I tiled the kitchen and the bathrooms, and I learned how to build cabinets, and I put in the cabinets, and I learned how to put in sinks and toilets, and I basically rehabbed the whole house myself, with a little bit of help from like my mom and my sister and a few of my friends.
And I made 22, 000. Which has been, like, 1991 or 2, which was an entire year’s salary at that time. And I thought, wow, I made all that money. I really enjoyed doing this. My daughter was with me every day. And every time I would take a sledgehammer and like tear a cabinet off the wall, I’d take it to my ex husband right there.
I thought, oh, this is good therapy too. I feel great. Oh my gosh. What an amazing story. And then I did it again. And then I thought, like five years on, I’m like, dang, I guess I’m a real estate investor. Wow, what was it like with that first house and to just like be going at it and like not necessarily know what you’re doing because a lot of people will listen to this and you know, I’m one of those people and I make excuses to for some things and I’m like, ah, but hearing these stories is just So helpful to me and I’m sure hopefully to the audience as well.
What was it like when you didn’t, you didn’t know what you’re doing? You’re trying to figure it. I can’t even imagine going to home depot and they’re like, Oh, what’s going on? Do I, what do you got for me today? I’m telling you, Adam, there was a point, this was in Boynton Beach, Florida, right?
I rehabbed my first house and I remember so vividly one day I’d taken a class on something. And I was going over there like every day, and I would grab a worker and say, listen, I need to do this. Can you just, just explain? I know they knew you well, Dwan. I know they did. I remember one day walking down the aisle, and the guy made eye contact with me, and he turned around, and went the other way, and went back in the break room.
And I thought, I just got like, The Home Depot guy just totally ghosted me. Dang. So, when I walked up to the very next house, I said, Hey, it’s right in the middle of the Home Depot here in Boynton Beach in the Lomboka. They’re like, you should go to the one in bogo. They could teach you more things over there.
And they literally tried to get rid of me. , . But you, but you person, but you persevered. What do you think was the reason for your success? Like why do you think you were able to push through? Well, I really did have a dream of wanting to do all those things because my mom did all those things with me as a kid.
Girl Scouts, brownies, you know, field trips, and I really wanted to do that. I was 30, so I was smart enough to realize if I take a job, I’ll probably have it till she turns 18, so I will be 50, and I don’t know how old you are, but when you’re 30, 50 seems like ancient. And I thought if I work for myself, I can at least try it.
If it doesn’t work, I can get a job. But if I get a job, I knew I would stay in the safe path, so I thought, I’m gonna try it on my own. And if I don’t make it, I can get a job. But if I get a job, I know I’ll be there and then I’ll be 50 and my daughter will be raised and what will I be doing? Like what will I be possibly doing?
So I think fear of Getting stuck in a job instead of working for myself, which I’d always thought would be fun to do But I never actually had the guts to implement it And then I would just throw in a big giant curveball and I thought well I got now’s the time to put on my big girl pants and Make something happen, and if I don’t do it now, I probably won’t ever do it.
So, I just did. Wow. Let’s fast forward a bit. How many properties through the years have you, I mean, just roughly, have you rehabbed or worked through? Like, just talk to me a little bit more about, like, your present day business. So, over the years of rehabbing and wholesaling and subject to’s and all that, I’ve done over 2, 000 properties.
Wow. I thought it was a big number. Yeah. And my husband and I decided to buy some commercial in a little town in Clinton, Iowa, that’s right there on the Mississippi river where he was raised. And they’re doing one of those, like bring back the downtown projects. So five years ago we got involved in that and now we own 28 parcels of commercial land and we’re rehabbing buildings and we’re building.
Bring him back to downtown. Wow, what an amazing story. And so, what are you helping people? And by the way, I have to, it’s pretty obvious that Dwonderful, the name of your company is a mix between your first name and wonderful. But like, , how’d you come up with this? Like, were you driving one day and you’re like, it’s a dwonderful world.
Like, I don’t, take me into your world, Dwan. You know what, Adam? I had been being guest on podcasts for like the last 15 years, and there were always audio, you know, like this one, and, I was on a lot of them, and then one day, I don’t know, five years ago, I thought, I don’t know why I don’t have a podcast.
I mean, at this point, I’ve been investing 30 years, I’ve done thousands of deals. I feel like I know just about everything. You know, to get started and the things I don’t know about, I’ll bring guests on to talk about. And so I just sat down one day and I told my husband, I said, you know what, I’m going to start a podcast.
I’m going to build a brand around like me and my pink hair. And I turned 60, so I want to do something amazing. And so I talked to one of my guys that helps on my website. I said, I’ve been looking at all these names, everyone uses their name, or some little, you know, like yours is, you know Mission Matter.
And he’s like, you should do a play on your name. And as soon as he said that, I was like, you know what, that’s a really good idea. So then I was like, Dwan tastic, you know, like Dwan is fantastic. And then I was like, Dwanderful. And then I was like, my people could be Dwan den airs, like millionaires, like, I came up with this whole vocabulary.
I was like, 15 words, and then I actually put a Facebook post up, I said, hey, I’m going to start a podcast, and I’m going to use one of these names, and I want everybody to vote, and everybody to love Dwan der ful. Oh my gosh, I love it. The most wonderful real estate podcast ever! Like, what more could you ask for?
Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. So now I’m in my fifth year. Yay! And I’m at like 400, episode 400 ish or so. Wow. And I’ve got a lot of downloads. Congratulations, by the way, that’s absolutely amazing. Like, I feel like the podcasting community is just one of the best communities out there for creating content.
And just people and collaborating and everything else. I just think it’s a, great place to be. Form to get your content out there. , what is like building a brand? I always talk to people like that about this, by the way. And it’s good to have you on the show to kind of give your perspective, because on my end, like we launched a lot of podcasts on the production side.
We’ve launched over 200 shows. So I’m always telling people like you should launch podcasts. But I might sound biased because I’m in the launch a podcast business as well. So I like hearing when, when another podcaster comes on that I, you know, I have no relation to, we just met like, what is it meant to you to be, to build your podcast?
What has that journey been like? And what are some of the benefits that have maybe come to it from you or for you? Well, the first thing is I thought, okay, you know, I’m Ben Twyford and I also have the trademark on the queen of short sales and actually back in the 90s, I registered the term short sales as it applies to real estate investing.
So I like kind of coined the term that everybody uses today. And I thought, well, I don’t want to do short sale anything, but it seems too limited. And I’m in like, so many areas of investing. But I really like, mostly Adam, I like to help new people that are new, because I was super new. You can remember, I’m before the internet.
There was no internet, we didn’t even have pagers. There was nothing. If I needed to make a phone call, I had to stop and pay phone. And there was nobody teaching or training. And then now there’s so many people teaching and training and there’s so many people that I personally know of that did like two deals and wrote a program.
I was like, well, that person can’t help you learn. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re a good marketer. They know nothing about investing. So that kind of made me think like, you know what, I need to start a really good podcast with a good moral compass and teach people this is how it really is.
Here’s how it works. Everyone can do it. I was a broke single mom. In fact, my last job, I was fired from Denny’s. So think about that, fired from Denny’s. I said, okay, I got nowhere to go after this. I might as well just try it. So then the podcast was like, okay, so what do I want to do? And, and I’m fun and I was turning 60 and I dyed my hair purple.
And I thought, okay, I want to create like this really fun, fun brand and lighthearted, but also like really educational. So I started messing around with the name and I came up with D’Wonderful and then I built a website and it’s kind of like pink and purple and gold are the colors and now I’ve got pink hair and I just kind of made a brand around like being amazing and just being D’Wonderful and having a D’Wonderful day and just meeting people where they are.
Like if this is where you’re at, I can take you from there up to this next level. You just got to step into my zone. That’s amazing. What do you think has helped you to, teach others as well? Like when they, like people that go through your program and people that work with you, why do you feel like some of them are successful?
I’m not trying to, you know, talk negatively about anybody else’s programs or anything like that, and I know you’re not either, but I’m just saying that’s not why I asked the question. I just, I’m just curious about like, what are some of the benefits or some of the things that make your program and working with you just so unique?
Other than it being wonderful, of course. Of course. I mean, What else could you ask for? Really? The given of course. But you know what that Adam back when I started when my husband and I went to that, that super unexpected divorce, I actually lost my car and my house in foreclosure and like all that stuff happened to me.
And nobody came knocking on my door and like, Hey, let me help you. Like there was nothing. And so I was just feeling like, you know, obviously super down, very low point in my life. What am I going to do? I need to work for myself. I want to take care of my daughter. Then I meet these people and they tell me, go to West Palm Beach and write down all the foreclosures and go to Noronha and tell people you want to, you know, buy their house and you’re going to, you know, fix it up.
But I thought again, it was decorating. And after I did just only like five or six. I thought, gosh, there’s so many people in foreclosure and there are no real groups or anything in South Florida yet. And I’m like, people need to know how to do this. Cause if I can do this, anybody can do this. And I’m meeting hundreds of people a month and I can only do one deal at a time.
So way in the beginning, when I barely knew anything, I put a little ad in the paper and said, if you want to learn how to, Rehab foreclosures. And I did like a little seminar in my living room with like 10 people. And I just said, look, I don’t know a lot, but I know that when I go door knocking that there’s like 99 people and I can help one and I don’t see anybody else investing really.
And I just want to get people out there to help other people. Cause I went through it and it really. and I don’t want to say that happened to anybody else. So, way in the beginning, I just felt a heart for teaching, I think because I went through it. Yeah. And then as I got bigger, you know, people started having me speak at read groups and then I wrote a book and then I was widely publishing and they asked me to write another book and then I wrote a book with Steve Forbes called success onomic and then they were like, Oh, let’s put you on TV and I had an infomercial and just everything just kept growing and my motto from day one was people before profits.
Yeah. And I just stuck to my guns on making sure the deal’s good and it helps the other person. And sometimes I don’t make any money, sometimes I make a gob of money. I just stuck to my people before profits. Teach everybody, meet them where they’re at, bring them up through the, the real estate food chain, help them create generational wealth, and I don’t know, it turned into this really crazy wild journey that never did I think would happen the day I went down to Tepo and took that first class on how to lay tiles.
Oh my gosh, this is amazing. It really is a wonderful life. I love it. It’s amazing. Duann, first off, I really appreciate you coming on the show. This has been so much fun and getting to know more about you, your business, really your journey. I mean, I think it’s so, it’s so inspiring. How do people I know there’s people listening here that are going to want to follow you, listen to your show, your podcast, and also to connect with you and your team.
How do people do that? Super easy. They can just go to dwonderful. com and right there at the top of the page it says click here and you’ll get a free e book on wholesaling and another little e book on short sales and kind of a few things that sort of help you take this, you know, your first step. And I’ve got webinars people can watch and just all kinds of training stuff because I’m just really focused on helping people, you know, just, you know, Work for themselves, I guess.
It’s not the, I mean, really, today, working for the man’s not the same. Like, when I was a kid, my parents, you worked your whole life in a factory, so you worked for the man. And now, you know, people keep jobs for a few years, and every company’s going in and out of business, and I a lot of stability. And financing.
So I’m like, you know what? Work for yourself and build your own little mini empire. You don’t have to worry about other people. Yeah, that’s great. Well, John. Well, so for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll put the website link and all that other good stuff in the show notes. So you can just click on it and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters, and you haven’t done it yet. Hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show each and every day or releasing new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and Juan really appreciate you coming to the show.
There’s been a lot of fun. Thanks, Adam. You’re so much fun, too.