Real estate investors often hear the same concerns over and over again: the market is slow, houses aren’t moving, or now isn’t the right time to invest. But according to Dwan Bent-Twyford, those beliefs are some of the biggest myths holding aspiring investors back.

As the host of The Most Dwanderful Real Estate Podcast Ever, Dwan has spent decades teaching people how to succeed in real estate, even during uncertain market conditions. In this episode, she shares why the market headlines don’t matter and how investors can still find profitable opportunities today.

Celebrating a Major Milestone: One Million Podcast Downloads

Dwan recently celebrated an exciting achievement: one million downloads of her podcast. The milestone reflects years of sharing real-world experience and helping investors learn how to navigate the real estate market.

For over five years, the podcast has focused on teaching practical strategies for finding deals, negotiating with banks, and helping homeowners in difficult situations.

But for Dwan, the mission goes far beyond teaching techniques.

Her goal is simple: help create more millionaires through real estate investing.

From Single Mom to Successful Real Estate Investor

Dwan’s journey into real estate didn’t start with wealth or connections. She began as a single mother raising a baby on her own.

In fact, before becoming a successful investor, she was even fired from a third-shift job at Denny’s. That moment forced her to rethink her future and find a better way to support her family.

Determined to change her situation, she started investing in real estate.

Her early deals involved buying homes, moving into them, renovating them, and selling them for a profit:

• First deal: $22,000 profit
  
  
• Second deal: $50,000 profit
  
  
• Third deal: $75,000 profit

These deals happened in the early 1990s, when the average annual salary for many workers was under $20,000.

For Dwan, this proved one important lesson: real estate investing can completely transform someone’s financial future.

The Biggest Myth About Real Estate Investing

One of the most common myths Dwan hears from new investors is:

“The market isn’t moving right now.”

According to her, this belief comes from misunderstanding how investors actually operate.

Most people are referring to the traditional housing market, where buyers and sellers negotiate retail prices. But many successful investors work in a completely different segment of the market: distressed properties and foreclosures.

And that market never disappears.

Why Foreclosure Opportunities Always Exist

No matter what the economy is doing, the reasons people fall into foreclosure remain the same.

These situations happen every single day:

• Divorce
• Death in the family
• Job loss
• Illness
• Bankruptcy
• Job transfers
• Financial hardship

Because these life events never stop occurring, distressed property opportunities continue to exist regardless of market conditions.

In fact, many of these situations are public records that investors can access through their local county courthouse, including:

• Foreclosure filings
• Probate cases
• Bankruptcy filings
• Delinquent property taxes
• Eviction records

For investors willing to look beyond the retail housing market, these records reveal a steady flow of potential deals.

Understanding Short Sales and Bank Motivation

Dwan is widely known as the “Queen of Short Sales” and was one of the first educators to teach investors how to use this strategy.

A short sale happens when a lender agrees to accept less than the total amount owed on a property.

Why would a bank do that?

Because foreclosures are expensive.

According to industry estimates, once a foreclosure notice is filed, banks may immediately lose up to 40% of the property’s value due to:

• Missed mortgage payments
• Legal fees
• Insurance costs
• Property taxes
• Maintenance expenses
• Declining property condition

By the time a property moves through the entire foreclosure process, the bank may have lost years of interest payments and additional operational costs.

That’s why short sales can actually benefit lenders, they allow the bank to recover part of their investment sooner rather than later.

Why Vacant Foreclosure Homes Sit for Years

Many people notice vacant homes in their neighborhoods and wonder why they remain empty for so long.

The answer is simple: foreclosure timelines can be extremely long.

A typical timeline might look like this:

1. Homeowner stops making payments
2. Months or years pass before foreclosure proceedings begin
3. Legal processes extend the timeline further
4. The bank eventually takes ownership
5. The property sits vacant while the bank prepares to sell it

In some cases, properties remain empty for two years or more before reaching the market.

During that time, the bank continues paying taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs, another reason lenders may be open to short-sale negotiations.

Finding Real Estate Deals Using Public Records

Dwan encourages investors to focus on publicly available data sources to find opportunities.

Some of the best lists to explore include:

• Foreclosure filings
• Probate cases
• Divorce records
• Bankruptcy filings
• Eviction records

One particularly overlooked opportunity is the bankruptcy list.

According to Dwan, about 75% of bankruptcy filings occur within three days of a scheduled foreclosure sale. Homeowners often file bankruptcy as a last-minute attempt to stop losing their home.

For investors, this can signal someone who urgently needs a solution.

By offering assistance and options, investors may be able to negotiate a purchase that helps both parties.

Using Social Media to Find Distressed Sellers

One modern strategy many investors overlook is searching for homeowners on social media.

Once you obtain a foreclosure list, it’s often possible to locate many of those homeowners online. Sending a respectful direct message offering help can open the door to a conversation.

Rather than aggressively pushing a purchase, Dwan recommends offering homeowners options to buy time or avoid foreclosure.

This approach builds trust and increases the likelihood that they will choose to work with you if selling becomes their best option.

Creative Ways to Market to Distressed Sellers

Investors don’t need expensive marketing campaigns to find deals.

Some simple methods include:

• Door knocking in foreclosure neighborhoods
• Mailing postcards to homeowners in distress
• Posting flyers in community bulletin boards
• Advertising in local newsletters or church bulletins
• Contacting landlords who recently completed evictions

Even small efforts can generate leads when applied consistently.

The Mindset Shift Every Investor Needs

One of Dwan’s biggest lessons is that investors must learn to think differently than the average homebuyer.

Instead of worrying about the broader housing market, successful investors focus on solving problems for homeowners facing difficult circumstances.

Dwan calls this putting on your “investor goggles.”

When you start viewing the market through that lens, opportunities become much easier to identify.

People Before Profits

Despite decades of success, Dwan emphasizes one guiding principle in real estate investing:

People before profits.

Helping homeowners solve problems should always come first. When investors focus on providing genuine solutions, the profits naturally follow.

This philosophy has guided her career for decades and helped thousands of investors learn how to build wealth while making a positive impact in their communities.

Final Thoughts: Real Estate Success Starts with the Right Mindset

Real estate investing can feel overwhelming, especially when headlines constantly talk about market downturns, rising interest rates, or economic uncertainty. However, successful investors know that opportunities exist in every market cycle. The key is understanding where to look and how to think like an investor rather than relying on what the general market is doing.

As Dwan Bent-Twyford explains throughout her teachings, the foreclosure and distressed property market operates differently from the traditional housing market. Life events such as divorce, probate, job loss, relocation, or financial hardship continue to happen regardless of economic conditions. For investors who understand how to navigate these situations, these circumstances can create opportunities to help homeowners while building a profitable real estate business.

Another important takeaway is the mindset shift. Instead of focusing on obstacles like market trends or competition, investors should focus on solutions and strategies, finding distressed properties, understanding short sales, building relationships with homeowners, and using creative deal structures. When investors approach deals with the mindset of helping people first, the financial rewards often follow.

Platforms like Dwanderful help make this learning process easier for aspiring and experienced investors alike. Dwanderful is a real estate investing platform and podcast hosted by Dwan Bent-Twyford, where she shares decades of experience in foreclosure investing, short sales, and creative real estate strategies. On the site, visitors can explore valuable resources such as Dwan’s free book Real Estate Lingo, which helps investors understand essential industry terminology, as well as her paid book Five Pillars of Real Estate Investing, which dives deeper into the foundational strategies for building a successful investing business.

For those who want to quickly understand their potential in real estate investing, Dwanderful also offers a short interactive quiz that takes less than a minute to complete. This quiz helps visitors discover how they could potentially generate six figures in the next six months, whether they are buying their first investment property or their next deal.

With the right education, mindset, and strategies, real estate investing can become a powerful path to financial freedom. And as Dwan often emphasizes, success comes from consistently taking action, focusing on helping homeowners, and recognizing opportunities that others might overlook. Contact us now!.