From Contractor to Investor: BRRRR, Bold Offers & Smarter Systems

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
What's up, all my Wisco investors?
This is Corey Raymond, your hostof the Wisconsin Investor
Podcast.
As usual, I say this on everyepisode, but I only bring you
guys good people.
And I got another good dude herewho I've known for several
years, and we're gonna get intohis story here in a minute.
But I did want to also bring upWisconsin discount properties as
I do on every episode and justshare with you guys again, kind

(00:23):
of going back to something we'vetalked about.
We haven't talked about this fora few weeks, but the case
studies that we have on ourwebsite, I think this is super
interesting for those of you outthere that are trying to
understand deals.
Uh you can go through these uhcase studies.
Reese from our team spent a lotof time putting these numbers
together.
And what we're showcasing onthere is the ARVs compared to

(00:44):
what we advertise to our buyerscompared to what they actually
sold for.
And the data is really, reallycool to go through.
You'll see some that are reallylow on there.
We included those as well.
That brings the average down.
But those were typically peoplewho just kind of cleaned and
listed it and sold them forless.
They did not take it to theafter repair value, but we still
included it.
So I think anybody out there, ifyou're listening to this, you're

(01:05):
trying to understand the market,you're trying to understand what
other investors are doing, youcan go back, look at those ARVs.
If you've been on the list for ahot minute, go back and pull up
some of those old emails, lookback at your numbers, look at
what you thought it would sellfor, compare it to what it
actually sold for, and see howyou did on that.
So you can get that on ourwebsite.
You just go to WisconsinDiscount Properties.com across

(01:27):
the top bar, I believe it saysresources.
You're gonna go there and you'regonna see the case studies tab.
With that, let's get intotoday's episode.
So I got my good buddy KentZoretsky here.
Did I say that right, Kent?

SPEAKER_00 (01:38):
You said it, yeah.
You're good.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
He it he is the owner of Mr.
Sandless of Northeast Wisconsin.
So we're gonna get into that alittle bit.
And one of the reasons I wantedto have Kent on here, guys,
getting good quality contractorsis always a big challenge,
right?
And getting people to do thework for you.
Not only does Kent provide anawesome service, he's I've never
had anybody that I've ever heardin the investment space say, oh

(02:01):
gosh, stay away from that Kentguy.
He is somebody you do not wantin your houses.
That's never been the case withKent.
He's got a great reputation inour market for the quality he
does, the service he provides,and the business that he runs.
He's running a great business,he's grown a business, and so
there's a lot of great lessonsthat we can all learn from Kent
on how to take a business as theone-man operation and start to

(02:21):
scale that.
Additionally, Kent also ownsreal estate himself.
And so we'll get into some ofthat.
We'll talk some real estatetoday.
We're gonna talk some contractorstuff, and we're you know, we
never know where theseconversations are gonna go.
But Kent, welcome to the show,man.

SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
Well, thank you.
I really appreciate you havingme on here.
I uh I've listened to some ofthe episodes and and they're
fantastic.
So I I it's an honor to be here.
So thanks.

SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Awesome, buddy.
Well, tell us, take us back,man.
How how long have you been inpeople's houses starting with
the with the flooring business?
Yeah, so tell us a little bitabout Mr.
Sandless.

SPEAKER_00 (02:54):
Yeah, so Mr.
Sandless is a wood floorrefinishing business.
That's a franchise that startedout in Philadelphia.
Um, I am not the original ownerof uh Mr.
Sandless Northeast Wisconsin.
Um, it was actually my goodfriend who started it, and I was
working at Berkstrom at thetime, and I was just feeling
kind of stuck.
And so he was a full-timefirefighter, so he wanted to

(03:15):
have something to do on his daysoff.
And yeah, so he uh we were in aBible study together at the
time, and he ended up uh saying,Hey, I know you're feeling kind
of stuck.
Would you be interested incoming and working for me?
And uh, you know, especially onlike I need someone on a days
off, or I'm sorry, on the daysat the station, um he needs

(03:36):
somebody to do the jobs.
So um we had just had our firstbaby uh and we took a the leap
of faith.
He said he had three months ofincome available in in savings
available for me.
So as long as we got jobs on thebooks to you know start filling
up the schedule uh after threemonths, uh we were good to go.

(03:58):
But that was quite a leap, youknow, having a newborn, um,
which is pretty wild.
So um, but jumped in and then uhgot to learn the business a
little bit, got to learn how todo the flory finishing.
Um but so and with Mr.
Sandless, we actually have it isa proprietary process where we

(04:19):
can basically refinish floors inone day.
That's the that's the main themain process.
Um and there it's there's a moreto it, um, you know, and I can
get I can give my littleelevator pitch if you want.
Um but the the main gist is thatwith our sandless refinishing,
what we do is we take a solutionand we apply it to the floor

(04:39):
first, and then we buff thefloor of that solution down.
So the idea is we're we'rebasically chemically prepping
the surface of the floor withouttaking it down to raw wood.
So once that is done, then wecan go ahead and we can apply
multiple coats of sealer andfinish, and that whole process
is done in one day.

SPEAKER_01 (04:58):
So nice.
So we how long does it normallytake, Kent?
Like if but if if you're notusing the Mr.
Sandless process, like what doesthat normally take uh any other
company to do?

SPEAKER_00 (05:09):
Yeah, so we can refinish with our sandless
refinishing, we can refinish upto about a thousand square feet
in a day.
Um obviously I have some peoplewe have more than just one
person doing it if we're gonnado that.
Um we have you know, I havemultiple guys, you know, that
we'd have on the floor at thesame time.
But if it was a thousand squarefeet, like a full sanding job,
we'd probably be looking at Iwould suspect probably two or

(05:31):
three days to to do.
So um it cuts down a lot oftime, um, keeps people in their
house you know longer and umlets people get back into their
house faster.

SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
So no doubt.
So it's good for you guysbecause you can do more jobs,
right, in a faster amount oftime, but it's also great for
the customer, as you mentioned,you're not displaced for nearly
as long.
Or I know you've done you'vedone a few of our properties
that had hardwoods in there whenwe're remodeling, and you know,
if you're trying to generalcontract this thing yourself,
it's you're trying to, you know,the goal is speed to get it up

(06:02):
as quickly as you can, right?
And so if I know, hey, Kent saysit's gonna take two days, even
great.
I I can bank on that versuspotentially, you know, if it's a
bigger property.
Now you're talking five, six,seven days with with the regular
process, and that time reallymesses with you.
Now you got to try to linesomebody else up, your holding
costs, there's all kinds ofstuff that factor into that,

(06:23):
that kind of those untangiblethings that I think a lot of
people don't really factor in.

SPEAKER_00 (06:27):
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
And well, and the other goodthing with our sales for
finishing is that there'sabsolutely no dust whatsoever.
So there's no there's no realcleanup when we're all done
either.
The the biggest thing would be,you know, um, you know,
basically we we expect that ifwe are going to come in there
that we'd be as close to last aspossible.
So that basically all you got todo on the at the end of your

(06:49):
project is touch up paint whereyou know wherever it needs it,
because that's usually the oneof the last things.
Touch up paint and final cleanand either get it on the market
or get somebody in there torent.
So um, but the good thing is isthat you can, you know, you can
depend that we're gonna um we wedo pride ourselves on making
sure that we are there the daythat we say we're gonna be
there.
Um that's one of our big goals.

(07:10):
Um, and then also that uh and Ijoke about this, I may have even
said this to you in the past,but my goal is to be the least
stressful contractor you workwith.
So um, because I know howstressful, you know, generally
speaking, even if you have greatcontractors doing your project,
it's just always stressful.
So my goal is to just be theleast stressful contractor you

(07:30):
work with.

SPEAKER_01 (07:31):
So yeah, I like that.
You're not saying stress-freebecause there's gonna be stress
with it.
It's just be the leaststressful.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you were pretty painless.
I mean, any project we've everhad, John, dude, it's pretty
painless.
The communication is awesome.
I mean, the bar is really low inthe contractor space.
And so, you know, it's not hardto exceed expectations, but I
mean, you you do like a I wouldsay I I consider you like uh the

(07:53):
expectation I would have for ahigh performing business, right?
Like I'm like, oh, this is theexpectation I have looking at
it.
You guys always uh I don't Idon't put you in the contractor
category anymore, Kent.
So that's a huge that's a bigcompliment.

SPEAKER_00 (08:04):
But I take that as a huge compliment.
So yeah, um yeah, yeah.
It's it's it is really hard toto find to find good
contractors.
I'm um I I'm constantly lookingfor good contractors, and I also
like to find, especially whenpeople do perform at a high
standard uh and a high standardquality, I I recommend them like
crazy.

(08:25):
Problem is then those guys getbusy and now you can't get a
hold of them.
Um so it's a it's a catch-22,and especially in the investment
world.
So I think that's why there'sprobably a lot of churn of
contractors because once theyget once they get big enough, uh
then they may or may not havetime to get uh to take on

(08:46):
investor projects.
Yeah, that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 (08:49):
One of the best strategies we ever utilized when
we were flipping a lot ofproperties and and when we
started out, Carrie and I, itwas mostly in Green Bay, is
where we were doing all of ourstuff.
So we were able to get acontractor, he was great, we had
a great relationship.
He liked working with us becausewe didn't micromanage him and we
didn't need to because he didwhat he said he was gonna do
when he said he was gonna do it.
And if they couldn't make itwork, he communicated and we're
like, oh my gosh, this guy's aunicorn.

(09:11):
Like what we did is we snatchedhim up, like we started flipping
properties just to keep him busyso we didn't lose him because we
knew how valuable he was.
Even if we were gonna break evenon one, yeah, but we we kept him
in our in our sphere and kepthim working, we were fine with
that because we knew, okay,we'll make 30 on the next one
and 20 on the next one, andwhatever the case is.

(09:32):
But we needed him, he was soimportant in that process when
we were really activelyflipping, then we had to just
keep him kind of too selfishlyto ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 (09:40):
That makes perfect sense.
I also think that especiallywhen you find a general
contractor, um, that and if nowwere you generaling the majority
of your projects, or were youleaving that up to him?

SPEAKER_01 (09:52):
I was leaving that up to him.

SPEAKER_00 (09:53):
So that's a I mean, then you really found a unicorn.
Somebody I mean, because I'll behonest with you, I would never
want to be a general contractorbecause it sounds like the most
stressful thing in the world.
Um, just you know, balance doingthe balancing act.
But uh, I'm always impressedwhen you find a detail-oriented
um general contractor that keepsthe timeline moving.
It's so important on these onthese flips, and um, especially

(10:17):
flips, uh, because especially ifyou have hard money, you know,
you like you said before, yougot it, you have a deadline, and
that helps us to be sold at adeadline.

SPEAKER_01 (10:25):
So, yeah.
Yeah, when you see the a lot ofthese hard money loans, you
know, it's six months, you havea six-month note, and you're
like, Oh, cool, I got six monthsto sell this, you know, sell
this thing.
And then you get into it, you'relike, Yeah, that's right, I got
six months to get it listed.
Then all of a sudden you'relike, wait a minute, no, I gotta
pay this thing back in sixmonths.
Crap.
That means you gotta have thatthing listed.
Yeah, you gotta have that thinglisted three and a half months,

(10:46):
maybe four months if you'rereally starting to push the
boundaries.
So that timeline is really,really important.
You know, if that if you can'tget that project done in eight
to twelve weeks, you're gonna beyou're gonna be in a bit of a
pickle and it's gonna becomestressful, as you said, Kent.

SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (11:01):
What are the things, what are the things you see uh
as a contractor right out therethat some of the most successful
investors that you work with,what do they do on the uh as it
relates to, you know, maybe youcan just speak from your
personal experience, or maybejust uh observing because you're
there on job sites, right?
You're seeing these things inprogress.
Like, what are you seeing someof the most successful investors

(11:22):
doing out there as it relates tohow they how they communicate
with you as a contractor, howthey organize their days, how
they organize their business,any kind of insights on what
these guys are doing?

SPEAKER_00 (11:31):
So I I I'm I'm jumping back in my mind, I'm
jumping back and forth betweenmy contractor hat and my uh and
my investor hat because I'mpretty poor time manager when it
comes to my my own investments.
I I'm terrible at it, mostlyprobably because I'm doing all
you know, I'm running Mr.
Samless.
That's probably the main reason.
Um but um in from the contractorside, I think the biggest thing

(11:55):
that I see that makes asuccessful investor is when they
have a project that's coming up,they're already putting the
wheels or the you know thewheels in motion before they
even close on it.
And it's they're basically thesecond they close, they already
have everything lined up as muchas possible.
Um, everything lined up, butthey've also communicated with

(12:16):
their contractors, you know,whether it's plumbing or HVAC or
it's you know electrician orflooring or painting, and they
already have a general timeline.
And the more specific thattimeline is, the the better that
project's gonna run, you know.
And and obviously there'scontingencies and there's leeway
to kind of in there, um, becausewho knows, especially when you

(12:37):
open up.
But I mean, even right away,they're gonna they already have
the cleanup crew, you know, assoon as they get keys, the
cleanup crew is you know linedup to be there.
Um and that's huge because thesooner you get on that clean out
uh and demo, you know, you getthe ball rolling right away.
So for sure.
Yeah.
But also, they're communicatingwith all of their contractors a

(13:00):
lot.
Um, I'm a big fan ofovercommunication.
Um, I'd much rather haveovercommunication than not
enough.
There's nothing more frustratingfrom a contractor side when you
don't get any communication.
Um or very little, I guess Ishould say.

SPEAKER_01 (13:13):
Yeah.
When you say communication, Kenas a contractor, what kind of
communication are you lookingfor?
Are you looking for specificslike, hey, I want this
specifically done?
Are you looking for time?
Like what are the things thatmake things from your end of
things go really, really smooth?

SPEAKER_00 (13:28):
So I think the first thing is does the investor have
a general idea of what theywant?
So like if you're bringing meinto a project and you're like,
hey, we could do, you know, wehave the option, we have wood
floors in here.
I I want your opinion on whetheror not the wood floors are
worthwhile to save.
Um, because I get that questiona lot.
You know, should we save this?
Should we have, you know, dothese wood floors?

(13:48):
And if so, asking me what myopinion is, especially since I
do have that investor mindset,and I will be more than happy to
tell someone, like, no, just youknow, on this one, you know,
just go with LVP or just carpetit because of your time frame,
your budget, whatever it is.
Um, but if they're asking me myopinion and also um letting me

(14:12):
know um, yeah, so if they ifthey have a general idea, but
also um of what they want, butalso a general idea of their
timing.
Um and getting in front ofbecause I'm usually booked out
anywhere from four to eightweeks almost all the time.
Uh so realistically, a aninvestor, since I am on the back
end of the project, an investorshould call me basically the day

(14:35):
they close, the day before theyclose.
If I can get in early, evenbefore they close, all the
better.
Then I can go do an estimate andI can get them a ballpark price,
a general idea of what they ofwhat um it's gonna cost to do
the job.
But then as soon as they close,hey, just so you know, I closed
on the property, um, my timelineroughly is you know, six weeks,

(14:57):
two months, you know, two and ahalf months.
And then if they already kind ofknow what they want, then we can
go ahead and we can put it onthe schedule right away.
And I'd much rather move aroundmy schedule to accommodate than
for them to call and say, Hey,by the way, can you get in in
two weeks?
Or can you get in next week?
How fast can you get in?
And it's like, I mean, I don't Idon't know because six weeks.

(15:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's the hard part.

SPEAKER_01 (15:23):
So that's a that's such a good nugget, guys.
Go back and re-listen to thatbecause I think with hardwoods,
obviously, you're hearing that.
If you guys do have hardwoodshere, that's an important thing
here to talk to any of thosefolks as early as you can
because they're gonna be on theback end, as Kent's saying.
But think about that with anyproject.
You know, it sounds like what Iheard here, Kent, and we've
definitely seen this as wellwith with our own flips and with
um successful investors thatwe're selling deals to.

(15:44):
The guys that are ahead of thegame, they're not waiting for
close date.
They are on the they're on thephone the minute we award them a
property, they're making callsand they're getting things lined
up, and they're at least justgiving people the heads up.
You know, we don't let people gointo the property until the
three-day prior to closingwindow.
It's just messy with thesellers, it creates conflict.
It blows, we've had deals blowup because one of the investors

(16:06):
in there, they say somethingthey shouldn't say to the
seller, and all of a sudden, nowwe got to put a fire out, right?
So it becomes a mess.
But we have, you know, we havewe do the best we can with
inspections.
We give people inspections aheadof time, they have video
walkthroughs.
The most successful investors Isee like working with our deals,
they're taking that inspectionreport and they're sending that
to their contractors, theappropriate ones, if they have
you know certain uh subs thatthey want to reach out to,

(16:29):
electricians, plumbers,whatever.
They're getting you know,ballpark quotes ahead of time.
They're telling them, hey, I'mI'm expecting to close on this
date.
As soon as I close, you know, Iwant you in there, and then I'm
you know, hey, two weeks later,I want you in here, whatever the
case is.
And they're kind of lining a lotof this stuff up and just
getting it on those contractors'radars ahead of time.
And they don't need to get intothe property a lot of times to

(16:49):
do this stuff.
They've got a video, they've gotan inspection report.
The contractors don't have todrive over there then.
They can just get a rough ideaof what they're dealing with.
I mean, it seems to be a reallygood system for those kinds of
people.
But I think that's such a goodnugget that you just laid out
there of just getting ahead ofwhatever your project is, not
waiting for that close date.

SPEAKER_00 (17:06):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, what I and Ialways mess up the at the old
that old adage, but like, youknow, those who fail to plan,
plan to fail, you know.
I think that's how approximatelyhow it goes.
I think you nailed it.
So I mean, if you're if you'reready to, you know, if you're
ready to plan this thing out,it's gonna make everything

(17:26):
easier.

SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
Yeah, that's so good.
And one more point.
Sorry, one more point.

SPEAKER_00 (17:31):
The only other thing that I would say is treat your
contractors with respect.
You know, we we we hustle ourbutts off.
I mean, we especially especiallythe good ones that like you
know, like I love working forinvestors.
You guys make and this is asymbiotic relationship, right?
Like if I make it easy on you,you're probably gonna make it
easy on me.

(17:52):
But you know, we are we'rebusting our butts.
Um, and we're out there, youknow, trying to make a living
for our family and doing hardwork.
Um, I mean, you know, that woodfor finishing specifically is
hard, but any of the tradesspecifically, we are we are
really trying to do good work.
Most people are trying to dogood work.

(18:12):
Um, but like just I will treatyou with respect.
I would just expect the samething to be you know treated
with respect.
I'm not just a lowly contractor,right?
So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (18:23):
Is that is that a common thing, Kent?
Like, are you are you gettingthat sentiment on a regular
basis from people?

SPEAKER_00 (18:30):
I think I think yeah, I think in early days it
was a little bit that way.
Um I mean, granted, I've beendoing this for almost 15 years
now, so yeah, time time flieswhen you're having fun.
Wow, wow.
But I think that I'm establishedenough, especially in this
community, um, you know, that Ithink that there's a lot more

(18:50):
respect for me now than therewas in the beginning because I
think I've proven myself.
But how do you how do you getbetter and get uh have a better
business relationship if youaren't treating your contractors
with respect?
Um it just it tells a lot aboutyou.
There's some people who I don'treally like to work for um

(19:11):
because they don't treat youknow me or any of their
contractors with respect.

SPEAKER_01 (19:16):
Um the general rule just don't be an a-hole in
general.
Yeah, that's about it.
Right.
It's it's as simple as that.
That can kind of go with any anyrelationship in business.
But talk to me about this.
So this is one thing I kind ofstruggle with with contractors,
right?
Sure.
I have I have a gentleman rightnow in particular that I've had

(19:36):
do like handyman things for meand sort of stuff.
And and that I think it's uhit's always goes back to like
what can I do differently,right?
That's anytime there's somethingthat goes wrong in the business,
I'm like, well, shoot, whatshould I have done differently
in this situation?
Biggest thing I can do is like Ijust expect certain things from
people, and I don't alwayscommunicate that effectively.
And so my expectation of thelevel of quality is here, yeah.

(19:59):
And that person is like here fortheir level of quality.
What's the what do you you knowwhat recommendation would you
give me, Ken, as a contractor,to give a contractor feedback
without it turning into somekind of um you know, hard
feelings, being a dick kind ofstuff?
Like, how do you how do you dothat respectfully without that

(20:19):
per and again every person'sgonna be different, but if there
was a way to that you've gottenfeedback maybe on some of like,
hey, I was expecting this andthis is what I feel like I got,
what's the what's the one that'sfelt the best maybe for you to
receive that?

SPEAKER_00 (20:34):
You know, the hard the hard part for me is that I
am a overcommunicator.
I mean you we've known eachother long enough, you know I
like to talk.
So um and I'm and I'm more thanhappy to I've learned a long
time ago that as a contractor,if I'm not giving you what my
expectation is about what can bedone or what should be done or

(20:54):
how long it'll take, then howcan you give me feedback to
whether or not what I'm layingout is correct?
Does that make sense?
Yeah, so if if I lay out if Ilay out my expectation for how
this floor is gonna turn out,and you're like, well, I don't I
don't like that.
I don't you know like let's sayI I go in and I'm gonna say, you
know, we're we can do oursandless refinishing in here,

(21:16):
but there's a couple waterstains here, or there's you
know, and those won't come outbecause we're not sanding, um,
or there's this really toughwear spot, I don't know if
that'll come out.
What I typically then go is ifthat stays there, is that
acceptable for you?
Or do you need that water markgone, that water stain gone, or

(21:36):
that, you know, whatever gone.
So I think that when as aninvestor going in and saying,
Hey, so this is what I see, andcome in humbly, right?
I think that's the big thing toyour contractor, because the
contractor should obviously knowwhat they're talking about.
Um, if you come in and humblysay, Hey, this is what I see,

(22:00):
can you tell me what yourthoughts are on how this is
going to turn out?
I mean, I'm trying to think ofum cabinet installer.
Let's just take a cabinetinstaller, generally speaking.
Sure.
And you see that that that youknow that wall is all sorts of
wavy, and the cabinet installmay not be the best that it
could be because that wall isall wavy.

(22:21):
Well, then a commun aconversation needs to happen
about well, so how do we remedythis?
Because I want these cabinets tolook good.
This is a, you know, this isgonna this is what my thought is
of the whole project as an end.
I want this to sell for 400,000or 300,000, whatever it is.
I mean, it doesn't really matterthe price, but this is my

(22:41):
standard for this uh for for thequality of work for this house.
Can you install these cabinetsand countertops so that we don't
have gaps behind the behind thethe countertop um and or a big
chunk of caulk on there becauseyou know you just decide to

(23:02):
caulk the top of it.
That's not acceptable, you know.
Like how could or how can we fixthis, you know?
So I think you pointing out thethings that you see to the
contractor, um, and then justasking what their thoughts are
to remedy it, but then hold themaccountable to that.

SPEAKER_01 (23:20):
That's good.
Yeah, I think the biggest thingwhere I get in trouble with this
stuff is I'm just running doinga hundred different things, and
I'm like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, gotake, go take care of that.
You're professional, you knowwhat you're doing.
And then they do what they thinkis what I want because I wasn't
very clear on the front end,like the stuff you're talking
about, that's an example ofsomeone who clearly knows what
they want or asks, hey, whatwhat is a reasonable expectation

(23:44):
here up front?
And then you guys are kind ofboth agreeing on that level of
of craftsmanship, if you will,or exactly quality of work,
right?
And then if if you don't performthat, it's probably not you
know, it's probably hard for youto get upset because you could
look at it and say, Oh, yeah, wedid talk about that, and you're
right.
That is not what we discussed.

(24:05):
So let me take care of that.
Where I think sometimes where Iget in trouble, and I imagine
other listeners get in trouble,is doing exactly that.
We're just running, we're like,hey, go go do this project, and
then they do what they think isbest.
And I think there's there'sfault there on both sides,
right?
Like what you're describing isyou're going in and you're you
as the contractor are gettingout in front and being
proactive, right?

(24:26):
And you're saying, Hey, yeah,here's this problem.
I see this, this, this, you coolwith that.
I think where some of thecontractors get in trouble too,
and that quality, right, thatyou're dealing with is you might
get a cheaper contractor, but ifthey're not doing some of the
stuff Kent's talking about,you're gonna have to spend a lot
more time explaining things andthen maybe holding hands of that
person where the person who's aprofessional here, like Kent,

(24:47):
they're gonna come in andthey're gonna say, Hey, here's
the potential pitfalls of this,here's your options, here's how
we would remedy it.
What do you want me to do?
And how do you have it done?

SPEAKER_00 (24:55):
Right.
You know, it's funny becauseyou're coming at this.
What you just said before was uhwhen something does go awry,
you're like, okay, well, whatcould I have done differently?
If your contractor is also doingthat, your general or your
plumber or your drywall guy, ifthey're doing that as well, you
both can learn what the nextproject should look like faster

(25:20):
because you guys are bothactually doing, well, what did I
do?
How can I make it better?
You know?
Um, but if anyone is going,well, I didn't know that, it's
not my fault, you told me this.
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (25:31):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (25:32):
Well, but also did was there communication, you
know, was there communicationbetween the people to to know
that this wasn't going to turnout the best, you know?
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
Yeah.
So exactly.
Yeah.
And I have it on both sides.
I have another guy on thisJackson port house in in Door
County that I'm working on, thismanufactured thing.
I'm learning as I go.
It's been kind of a crazyprocess.
Some of it was likecommunication with some people
that was just like, like, I'mlike a deer in the headlights on
this thing.
So I'm very humbly.
I'm very humble on this one.

(26:04):
Like, hey, please help me.
I don't know what I'm doing.
Tell me what I'm doing.
And then I got guys though thathave been great, and they will
be like, hey, this is what youneed.
And then they'll send mepictures.
They'll say, is this what you'rethinking?
You know, are you thinking this?
What if we did something likethis?
And I'm like, yeah, let's dothat.
You know, so then we come intoagreements on the scope of it,
and then I can't really bepissed if they do what I tell
them to do.
Yep.
And it turns out the way thatthey said it was going to turn

(26:25):
out, and it just I just don'tlike the finished look.
Well, I told them to do it.
So I can't be mad at thecontractor that it's on me.

SPEAKER_00 (26:31):
As does now you'll learn and move forward.

SPEAKER_01 (26:34):
Yep.
And on the next one, hey, don'tdo that.

SPEAKER_00 (26:36):
Yep, yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 (26:38):
Yep.
Yep.
Let's uh let's transition overto the real estate biz, Ken.
So you got your first purchasein 2019, was it?

SPEAKER_00 (26:46):
Yep, 2019.

SPEAKER_01 (26:47):
2019.
Yeah, great.
Talk about talk about that firstpurchase because you you had you
were solopreneur for a longtime.
Now you're scaling the business,but solopreneur for a long time.
What made you transition into umstarting to acquire real estate?

SPEAKER_00 (27:00):
So probably about a year and a half after Mr.
Sandless opened, um, I gotinvited to ARIA.
I'm gonna go way back, um, solike 2011, and I uh I got
invited to ARIA as a contractorbecause one of the guys was
like, hey, you should show upbecause you would probably be
it'd be useful really useful foryou to work with these you know

(27:21):
people are in flipping housesand have rentals and all that
kind of stuff.
So I just started showing up tomeetings every month um as a
contractor and became a sponsorand all that.
And the more I sat in there, Iwas like, we should I should
probably get some, you know, uhprobably get some you know
rentals at some point andprobably do some real estate
stuff because you know grantingaway on floors every day may or

(27:43):
may not end up working out, youknow, if my body gives out, you
know.
So um, and realistically, youknow, I need a retirement plan
of some sort, so might as wellget some rental units.
So um my ex-wife and I hemmedand hawed on it for a while, and
you know, we were both obviouslyscared to to jump into that, and

(28:03):
also didn't have any extramoney, and I didn't necessarily
understand hard money at thetime.
And so um so eventually I juststarted kind of getting on all
the lists to the wholesale listsand keeping an eye out to see
what people are selling, andthen um uh in tw in 2019, Dave
McClone, if you guys know DaveMcClone, um yeah, he had a

(28:26):
property on Evans Street inOshkosh, and it was a pretty
run-down duplex.
Um, and mind you, this is theseare 2019 numbers.
Uh he had it listed, not listed,he had it uh as a wholesale deal
for uh 67,000.
So it was a three-bedroom, onebath lower, and a basically one

(28:51):
bedroom, one bath upper.
And so uh and I was I endeddeciding to initially pass on
it, and I'm like, eh, I just Ican't I can't take this on, and
I'm just admittedly too scaredto do it.
Well, he ended up calling me, heended up calling me back, and I
went to an open house, and heended up calling me, you know,
open house, you know, basicallya look through.

(29:13):
I was the only one that showedup to it.
So, which was wild.
I couldn't believe it.
So he ended up calling me backand he goes, I got like six or
seven projects I'm in the middleof right now.
I can't take on another one.
He goes, What if I dropped$4,000, you know, dropped it
down to 60, 63,000?
And I I was thinking about himlike,$4,000 will actually bring
me a pretty far away in re inthe rehab.

(29:33):
So um, okay, sounds good.
So um ended up going to myex-in-law's, uh actually my ex
brother in law, and asked him ifhe would um finance it for me
and then uh do a bird deal onit.
Um and so I ended up rehabbingthe upper by myself, um, for the
most part, rehabbing the upperby myself.

(29:54):
Um I shouldn't say that, not bymyself, but um had the painter
and stuff, but I did all theflooring and And trim and stuff
like that.
Um, and then got that rented uhright away.
And then uh I got it rented aone bedroom, one bath upper.
I got it rented for like sevenseventy-five, which was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 (30:13):
In twenty nineteen.
In twenty nineteen.

SPEAKER_00 (30:15):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dang, dude.
It was crazy.
I just put it in there.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I want to say that's whatit was.
It might have been seventwenty-five, but either way, it
was in the 700s.
I'm like, I'll just toss it upthere.
It was really nice.
It was, I mean, it was nicelydone.

unknown (30:28):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (30:28):
Um, but it's still an upper, you know, one bedroom
upper.
Um got that rented, and then sothat helped me pay for um
basically the the loan that Ihad for him from him.
Um so he paid for the he paidfor the down payment, and then
he also financed the rehab.

SPEAKER_01 (30:46):
Um he was in second basically in second position on
this thing.
You had what uh what do youhave?
A bank in the in the firstposition or the hard money?

SPEAKER_00 (30:53):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (30:54):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (30:55):
So um, yeah, so ended up uh then rehabbing the
lower uh while the person was inthe upper, and that worked out
really well because I alreadyhad income coming in.
Um and all in I ended up to be90,000, I think it was 99,000
all in after the rehab andeverything.
And then I ended up having itappraised for 135.

(31:18):
Um and then I got I think I got1150 for the lower.
So um dang, dude.
Yeah, it was it was good, andthen I ended up being able to
pull$5,000 out on the on therefund, um, which was nice.
So um, and that was after payinghim all of his money back, um,
which was great.

SPEAKER_01 (31:39):
Awesome, dude.

SPEAKER_00 (31:40):
So yeah, it was it was good.
Um and so that cash flowednicely.
Um it does it does.
Um and then um and then the nextyear we ended up finding a
property uh side-by-side duplex,uh two-story side-by-side duplex
in Oshkosh.
Um, and we only saw that one ofthem was on the market and went

(32:02):
and looked at it, and it waslike 159,000.
Um and we got there and saw thatthe the exact same duplex was
right next to it was also forsale for 159.
So that would have been, youknow, what is that 320 total?
Um my math is right.

(32:23):
Well, we ended up offering them270 and they took it.
So yeah, so we got yeah, so twoside-by-side duplexes, bought
them for 135 a piece.
Um, they did work, um, but yeah,it was it was pretty awesome.
So um ended up having instantequity right away, which was
awesome.

(32:44):
And then now those those catchflow really nicely.
They're catch flowing at like Ithink my rents right now are
averaging like$1,500 a month.
Um ish.
So yeah, dude.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (32:58):
I love I love it.
So those those side-by-sideduplexes were listed on the MLS?

SPEAKER_00 (33:02):
They were listed on the MLS, and they they've been
sitting for like 45 days orsomething like that.
Um wasn't it's not the nicestplace, not the nicest
neighborhood in Oscash, sothat's why they sat.
But um but it worked.
I don't know.
I mean, I've had good luck withthem.

SPEAKER_01 (33:17):
So I was just gonna say, I think that's an important
lesson for people out there whenlistening to this.
You know, like even with ourdeals on the wholesale list, I
always tell people just put anoffer if you like the if you
like the the property or it fitsfuture growth plans or whatever
you're planning to do, youalready ran the numbers, even if
it's low.
Like, I don't really getoffended.
Like now, if you come in and youoffer ridiculously low like

(33:39):
every week, yeah, we're gonnahave a conversation and figure
out like how are you running.
It's more from a coachingperspective.
We're we're gonna coach you andsay, Hey, how are you running
your numbers, bro?
Like, let's figure this outbecause you you ain't gonna get
any deals at these numbers,okay?
So let's figure out how to makeyou more competitive, right?
Not that I'm mad, I'm just gonnabe like more of a coaching
conversation with you.
But on the MLS, and same thing,like if you're cons if if you

(34:00):
have a realtor and you'reconsistently like way low and
never getting deals, likethey're they're gonna eventually
lose patience with you, even themost patient agents out there.
But if you're running numbersand you have legitimate reasons
why you're offering a lowernumber than what you're
offering, just law just offer itif you buy it.
Like you're like in your case,320.

(34:21):
Now we look at that.
Like if you offered 270 for twoside by sides right now, and
Oshkosh, like you'd get laughedout of town.
You got a smoking deal though,bro.
Like even at that time, that wasstill a really good deal for
those those duplexes.
It was.
And now you've and now you'vegot an asset, you got to
basically build your rehabprobably into that number,
right?
Yep.
And now you were able to, Iwould imagine, be able to pull

(34:42):
all that cash out on thoseduplexes as well.
So you have yeah, six units withnone of your own money into it.
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (34:49):
Yeah, yeah.
It's a I mean a no-brainer,right?
Jeez.
So yeah, it was it's good.
Um yeah, and now the the thefirst one uh just appraised for
um 189, and the other two were224 and 240.
Um so yeah.

(35:11):
So they they've gone up in priceand yeah, gained equity, and you
know, and now then it's a matterof just keeping good renters in
there and being a decentlandlord, right?

SPEAKER_01 (35:21):
Yeah, that's why I love real estate, dude.
I mean, this is the onlyinvestment I know of where you
can have none of your own moneyinto it, and it can still kick
off a divid a dividend everymonth to you, basically, in the
form of cash flow.
Yeah, yeah.
And you and you get taxbenefits, and you're gaining
equity.
I mean, there's just so manybenefits to it that it's just
incredible to be able to dothis.

SPEAKER_00 (35:41):
And the deeper you dive, the into what kind of
benefits there are, and youknow, learning all those things,
the the better, the better thoseultimately perform for you.
And you know, especially if youhave a business, if you have
another business that brings inincome, um, or or maybe even a
high paying you know, W-2 orwhatever, and you're trying to
offset some of your you know,your W2 income um for taxes, you

(36:05):
know, it it sure is nice to havethose things that you can you
know do a cost seg and you know,do and all those kinds of things
that will lower your tax burden.
So yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (36:17):
We just had uh my accountant was at our REI
success meeting this lastTuesday at the time we're
recording this, along with anattorney, and they were they
were they did a great job kindof breaking down a lot of those
benefits, and how do you getthat that giant tax benefit with
the big beautiful bill that waspassed this year?
They've accelerated it back tosome levels that we haven't seen

(36:38):
for being able to get to somedepreciation since I think.
Because it went back up to aone, right?
100% bonus depreciation.
Yeah, yeah.
So if you're listening to thisand you're like, I have no clue
what the hell bonus depreciationis or what that even means, you
know.
We have some other episodes onthat with some accountants.
I'd recommend go back and listento those episodes.
Just know, to me, it's theeighth wonder of the world.

(36:59):
If you can buy real estate andthen legally not pay income tax
even on W-2 income, I mean, Idon't know how it gets much
better than that, to be honestwith you.
But there's some caveats to it.
There's some there's somerestrictions, and we don't have
to get into the weeds of whatyou need to do in order to be
able to get that hundred percentbonus appreciation.
Again, we we lay that out prettypretty detailed in other
episodes.
I'm sure YouTube's probably gota bunch of stuff on it, but it

(37:21):
is amazing when you look at likehow much you actually just don't
pay an income tax.
Yeah, it means you can take thatmoney and then reinvest it in
other deals.

SPEAKER_00 (37:30):
Yeah.
You know, I I remember hearingum in regards to the tax, you
know, everybody um I rememberlistening to a Robert Kiyosaki
book.
It was actually an audio book,and in there he said, There are
no tax loopholes, there are justtax laws that you don't know
about.
And you know, though thoseeverybody talks about like,
well, you know, you know, thepoliticians have all these tax

(37:52):
loopholes.
No, they they make tax laws sothat they can don't have to pay
taxes.
It's just our job to figure themout and tell them how to do it.
So um and how to because it'sall legal, you know, as long as
you're doing the legal thing.
Um all these things are legal,they're just they seem sometimes
too good to be true.

SPEAKER_01 (38:10):
Yeah.
As I get older, I'm less andless political, and I'm more and
more of just trying tounderstand who's the politicians
in place and what are the rulesthat they're putting in place,
and then how do I play the game?
How do I play the game they wantme to play?
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
I used to I used to be a bigproponent before I got into real
estate of just flat taxeverybody, right?
Everybody pays the samepercentage, everything's fair,
then everything's equal.

(38:31):
And then I realized why theyhave a lot of these tax laws.
It's to incentivize the behaviorthey want to they want to
incentivize, right?
Like if they want to drive, ifthey want to drive more
manufacturing here in thecountry and create jobs and do
all that stuff, they giveincentives to manufacturing
companies to build here and doall these things.
They want people to buy and holdreal estate, they offer more
depreciation and you buy and youhold and you do these sort of
things.
So there's these differentincentives that you take away

(38:52):
that and you just go with a flattax.
I realize, like, well, they loseall the power to drive whatever
economic drivers they want todrive.
Right.
And so by having these thingsand understanding what those tax
laws are, as you said, I lovethat.
That's not a loophole, it's justunderstanding the laws, it's
understanding the game, how toplay it, and how to get the most
out of the game.
And then it becomes a game andit becomes fun.
Yeah, absolutely.

(39:14):
Yeah.
Well, that is awesome stuff,Ken.
I'm excited about those dealsfor you.
I mean, I love good Burr deals.
Anybody who knows me, Burr is myfavorite strategy in real
estate.
We actually have a free Burrcourse for anybody out there
listening right now.
Used to charge$1,500 for thisthing.
It is now or$1,900 or something.
Anyway, it's now free.
So if you're not on our buyer'slist and you want that, you just
go to the Wisconsin DiscountProperties website, get added to

(39:37):
the buyer's list, and ask aboutthe Burr course, and we'll get
it to you for free.
So pretty awesome.
You can create some equity, somecash flow, all this stuff, just
like Kent did on these deals,and we'll teach y'all how to do
it for free right here in ourmarket.
So pretty incredible stuff.
Um, talk about what is the uh ifyou don't mind going down this
road, Kent.
You talked about you and your exhad done some of this stuff.

(39:58):
So you've you've you you've gonethrough a divorce, unfortunate
as that is in a lot of cases.
Uh was there any kind of lessonsas it relates to your real
estate holdings that you kind oflearned from from going through
this divorce?
And anybody who's maybe in thisposition, maybe in the process
of a divorce or in the future.
We all hope, you know, thisdoesn't happen to us, or why
would we get married?
We don't get married to getdivorced, but shit happens.

(40:21):
It happens.
So what what if there's anylessons you can talk about, you
know, um that you learn as itrelates to the real estate
stuff, then we can lean from.

SPEAKER_00 (40:32):
Yeah, I think that the first thing would be is you
know, have honest discussion.
First, let me say the firstthing is is that we are very
amicable.
Um and and you know, we are veryfocused on making sure that the
the kids are as well taken careof as possible and everything.
So the that was the main focusof you know, as we were as we

(40:53):
were going through the divorceand everything.
Um the biggest thing that, yeah,um, yes, it it is awesome.
So first things first, you know,if if that does if if you do
ever find yourself going througha divorce and there is
properties, do anything you canto just realize that they're
just things.

(41:14):
Like a property is just aproperty.
First of all, there's more to bebought.
Um, so don't make it your don'tmake it your hill to die on.
Your hill to die on is if youhave kids, that's your hill to
die on.
That's my first bit ofinformation is who cares?
It's just another thing.
Um, a property, uh something,whatever, it's just stuff.

(41:36):
You can always get more stuff.
Um so that's the first thing.
Um, but in in regards to alittle bit more tangible stuff,
um the the other thing that Iwould say is if you are um if
you're if you're getting yourown lawyer in in the divorce, I
would say make sure that thatlawyer is well versed on the

(41:58):
things that you do want to moveforward with.
So like um making sure that theyunderstand the full scope of how
these properties are being held.
Are they being held in a in ayou know a corporation or like
in a in a S Corp or in an LLC?
If they're just in your name,you know, that changes things
too.
So make sure that your um yourattorney understands, you know,

(42:23):
the full scope of it.
Unfortunately, our attorney wasnot very helpful.
Um we did we had a a sharedattorney um because we had most
of the stuff figured outourselves already.
We just had to basically go tothe attorney and you know make
sure that he was cool with it.
Um he was um less helpful than Iwould have, in retrospect, much
less helpful than I would haveliked.

(42:44):
Um but you know, it was my firsttime going through a divorce,
and I hope that I don't everhave to do it again, but I had
never gone through it.
So I didn't know what I didn'tknow what was going on, I didn't
know what to do.
Um so but the the one thing thatum so I did end up with the
properties.
I had to refinance theproperties and give equity to my
ex.
Um give the the the uh give therefi uh you know half of the

(43:07):
equity to my ex.
But we had we came to theconclusion that you know she's
you know she was cool that Ikept the properties.
There was no forced sale oranything.
Um that was an agreement we had.
She just wanted half the equitybecause we had built that
together.
Totally fair.
That's totally fair.

SPEAKER_02 (43:22):
Yep.

SPEAKER_00 (43:22):
Um the big things that we did not take into
account of at uh at the time wasat some point I would be selling
them, um which I probably willat some point sell them, and
there will be realtor costs inthere and there will be closing
costs.
So if we didn't had done aforced sale, we would have had
to split those costs and thenwhatever was left over.

(43:44):
Well, in in the process of itall, I didn't think about that.
Um and so she ended up gettinghalf the equity, but I should
have gotten half of the closingcosts of what a what the sale
would have been.
Um, you know.
Yeah.
So you know, closing costs andrealtor fees, um, that should
have been still half of thatshould have still been my money.

SPEAKER_01 (44:07):
So yeah, that makes sense.
That's making sense.
That's such a good lessonbecause I think I think it is
important.
Like nobody goes into a marriageplanning to get divorced, right?
Right.
And and then when you're buyingthese properties, you're
probably in a position whereeverything's good.
Oh, yeah, nothing's ever gonnahappen.
And then when you are goingthrough it, you're not thinking
about some of these things,right?
So anybody out there listeningto this again, I I don't I don't

(44:29):
think we're having thisconversation because we want you
to go get a divorce tomorrow orsomething, but it it happens,
it's life, and it's things tothink about, you know.
And hopefully this is a littlenugget that'll you'll carry with
you if that ever does, you know,become your situation.
And and can't sharing this willmaybe ring back true.
Oh, yeah, I heard that once, andI gotta remember those closing

(44:50):
costs and realtor fees, right?

SPEAKER_00 (44:51):
I mean, and I mean, realistically, I mean, if you're
let's say you have a portfolioof five, six, seven, eight, ten
properties.
I mean, if you had to force ifyou if there was a forced sale
in the divorce, and let's justsay they're even if they're all
worth 200,000.
I mean, you know, you got what,you know, two, you know, what
two million dollars worth ofproperties that you're selling,
I mean, percentages of twomillion dollars adds up real

(45:15):
fast.
So yeah, you know, it's not justa small thing.

SPEAKER_01 (45:18):
So yeah, yeah.
If you're paying full retail foryour commissions, which again,
for those of you out there thatlisten to the show, you know,
never pay full realtorcommissions.
Okay.
And you all my realtor friends,sorry, but you know it's true.
Uh anyway, if you are though,and you figure probably roughly
one and a half percent to twopercent for closing costs,

(45:39):
that's like just factor eightpercent roughly of two million
dollars.
That's a big chunk of cash, man.
Yeah, yeah, that's a big chunkof cash.

SPEAKER_00 (45:46):
And so so four percent, you know, if we were
splitting those costs, it'd befour percent back to me.
Um, so you know, it is what itis.
You live and learn, and um, youknow, and if somebody else can
learn without having to go to,you know, have that loss, then
hopefully somebody will rememberit.

SPEAKER_01 (46:03):
So absolutely, buddy.
Well, I appreciate you sharingthat.
I know sometimes these topicscan be a little you know touchy
for people to discuss on theshow and that kind of thing.
So I appreciate you kind ofputting that out there and being
being able to give some nuggetsfor people out there listening
to this.
So you're you're a go-giver,brother.
I appreciate that.
Um, as we start to wrap here,Kent, you know, we're gonna ask
you our final question.
We ask every guest, but beforewe do that, any final kind of

(46:25):
thoughts, words on either thereal estate thing, contractor
thing we discussed, anything wedidn't get to yet that you want
to share with the audience?

SPEAKER_00 (46:33):
You know me, I could talk to you for another four
hours.
Um, so you're you're asking meto choose one thing.
Um you know I wouldn't know if Ihave anything specific.
I guess the the the biggest bitof information I would say is if
you're thinking about gettinginto real estate, just start

(46:56):
start the process.
And that's as easy as just startrunning numbers.
Find somebody that has an ideaof what they're doing and run
some numbers.
Run what you know.
I I mean I I probably ran 150,you know, I ran numbers on about
150 houses before I ended upbuying one.
Um because I wanted tounderstand the scope of what

(47:17):
things would actually cost.
I actually called othercontractor friends of mine and
said, hey, you know, how muchwould it cost to paint a
three-bedroom house, you know,or a three-bedroom house that
you know is about 1,100 squarefeet?
Generally speaking, can you giveme a range?
Yes.
And just yeah, just ask them thegeneral ideas, and it's always
going to be a little bit off,but if you can start putting

(47:38):
together your numbers before youactually buy it, um, when you do
buy one, your numbers areprobably gonna be pretty spot
on.
Um just get in the get in thegame.
You know, yes, there's it'sthere's a lot of people, you
know, Corey in your community,and there's we have there's
other RIAs in the area, andthere's you know, there's so
many good people that are verywilling to help.

(48:01):
Um it can be cutthroat if youdecide to make a cutthroat, but
I'll tell you what, most peopledon't like to work with
cutthroat people, so we usuallyare just cheering each other on
to get in the game.
Um and so just ask for help, youknow.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (48:18):
So I I love that.
There's a couple a couple keypoints to what Kent just said,
guys.
Number one, the calling aroundthing and asking people to give
you just a general rough ballidea, genius, right?
And that to me, when I gotstarted, Kent, I had no handy
experience.
I know nothing about fixinganything.
Any project that I've tried todo since we've bought real
estate has just cost me moremoney than it was saving me

(48:41):
because I had to get somebodycome fix my mess ups.
So getting into it, that was mybiggest fear was like, oh my
gosh, what if the rehab isactually three times what I
thought it was gonna be, right?
How do I even figure out, like,where do I even start to figure
out what rehab costs are gonnabe?
And what Kent talked about wascalling some some friends of his
in the in the space and justgetting some rough ball ideas.

(49:01):
Once I figured that out withthat first contractor I talked
about, Ken, I that's what I didwhen we had a project for him.
I said, hey, roughly to put LVPflooring in a place, what should
I budget like square foot?
Back then he's like, I don'tknow,$1.50, two bucks to for the
material, maybe a dollar fifty,two bucks to install.
I was like, perfect.
That's all I needed.
Thank you.
Now I can go on, and when I'mbudgeting floors, I know okay,

(49:22):
boom, that's it.
How much square feet?
Yeah, easy peasy, right?
Windows, how much would it costto replace some windows?
Ah, roughly budget this forwindows, and wrapping is this.
And I was like, okay, boom, gotthat, like locked in here.
Yeah, once I got like the thebigger basic kind of repetitive
things you're gonna seeconsistently showing up on a lot
of these deals, it just becamelike every house I could I could
then just walk through and like,ah, that's about 30 grand in

(49:44):
here.
Right.
I could do it just from walkingthrough a house or watching a
video, like that's probablyabout 30 G's, yeah, whatever it
was gonna be.
Yeah, that actually used to beour joke, Carrie, and I we'd
always joke like, how much doyou think the rehab's gonna be?
I'm like, probably about 30.
And then our contractor, we'dhave them go through, like, hey,
give us a rough ball quote.
He's like, Yeah, do this andthis.
I think it's gonna be about 30grand.
Like every time that was the oldjoke.

SPEAKER_00 (50:05):
But yeah, yeah.
I mean, but in all honesty, whenyou walk through enough
properties and you see enoughrepairs and you you've ran
numbers enough times, I mean,give or take 10%, but you know,
you'll you do it often enough,you're gonna start you're gonna
start getting it.
Um but also have somecontingency too.

SPEAKER_01 (50:25):
So yeah, and and I think there's a um that for for
for those of you brand new, ifyou don't know like the things
that you can't see or that don'teven inspectors like they miss
stuff, they're not gettingthey're not ripping walls apart
and doing things.
So if your scope of work isgonna be starting to rip walls
down and do different things,you're gonna find some other
stuff, probably, right?
You ever watch those HG TV showsand they're like five thousand

(50:46):
dollars?
Oh my god.
That's the reality of it.
So just but you know, budget forthat if your scope of work is
gonna be more than just you knowsome light things that are
pretty easy to see.
But ultimately, once I learned,Kent, what are the things that
could blow my budget up?
There's only a few of them,right?
It's like a foundation thingthat could that could cost a
lot.
If you're out in the country, anew well or septic, those are

(51:07):
two things that can be reallyexpensive.
Roof even, isn't that like it'snot even that big of I mean it
is, but usually you're gonna beable to tell if you need a new
roof or not pretty easily.
Yep.
Um outside of that, there's nota lot else that's huge that's
gonna blow it up.

SPEAKER_00 (51:23):
Yeah, I would say the only other thing that I've
seen sometimes is um when you dopull a permit and the inspector
decides to walk through and seessomething that maybe he has a
little, you know, bean is bonnetabout something, and you know,
and so that sometimes canhappen.
You don't see it too often, butit it can.

SPEAKER_01 (51:44):
So yeah, yeah.
And the only other thing I wouldsay too is if you if you don't
have a friend, like Ken'stalking about he had some
friends in the space and you'rejust calling a random
contractor, don't just take thatone contractor's price and and
then that is the holy grail.
These things vary vastlydepending on who you're talking
to.
And again, quality is gonna bethe factor, but also the price

(52:06):
is a big factor.
You know, I got a quote from aguy recently on a on a paver,
like putting some papers in fora hot tub.
The price difference on that wascomplete, like I mean, just
astronomical from some people,and other people you're like,
well, that seems too cheap.
Uh-huh.
So it varies a lot.
So just if you know like qualitypeople, like Kent's talking
about you got some friends,those are your best people

(52:27):
because they're gonna shoot youstraight.
But even they might be highprice, who knows, right?
So shop those things around alittle bit and kind of get a
feel for what's the average, orkind of if you see keep seeing a
consistent price from people,it's probably a pretty good idea
that you can use that as a as abarometer to use.
But Kent, our last question.
We ask every guest.
And part of the reason westarted doing this is we we want

(52:49):
people from outside of Wisconsinto know about Wisconsin because
we think it's pretty cool here.
You know, we're kind of off thegrid.
I don't I don't know what peoplethink of Wisconsin.
Even they they hear Green BayPackers and they're like, oh
cool, Green Bay, what what stateis that?
They don't even know it'sWisconsin.
Right.
So we like to tell them a littlebit about it.
Do you have a favorite Wisconsintradition or place here in this
great state you like to visit?

SPEAKER_00 (53:09):
You know, I am a huge sucker for going fishing up
north.
Um I I love, I mean, we have somany gorgeous lakes up up north,
especially this time of year.
Get up there and see the see allthe leaves, man.
Holy cow, it's gorgeous.
Um I grew up on Lake Archibaldor Archibald Lake.

(53:30):
Um and yeah, my grandpa, mygreat grandpa and grandma had a
place, and man, oh man.
I and then later in life I hadsome friends that ended up with
had that had a cabin on the samelake.
So I've been going up to thatlake since I was like three.
Oh my goodness, yeah.
Um but yeah, I mean the justgoing up to, you know, going up

(53:50):
north, and you know, there'strails and there's um, you know,
if you like, you know, going ona side-by-side or four-wheeling,
you know, um hunting up upnorth.
I'm not I'm not a big hunter, Ijust never got into it because I
don't like being cold.
So I don't like sitting, youknow, I don't like sitting
around waiting for a deer topass me.
Uh that's just my own thing.
But um getting out on the lake,and there's just so many great

(54:11):
lakes up there up north.
So true.

SPEAKER_01 (54:14):
Yeah, very true.

SPEAKER_00 (54:15):
We have a good we have a lot of good outdoors,
that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (54:17):
We do.
I I uh up north Wisconsin islike my heaven on earth, man.
We travel a lot, and I alwaysstill go back to like where do I
feel the most peace?
It's usually like on a quietlake somewhere in northern
Wisconsin.
Yep, yep.
Turn the phone off and uh andjust be out on the lake and
stuff.
A lot of times you don't evenhave to turn it off because you
don't get reception anyway.

(54:39):
So true.

SPEAKER_02 (54:40):
That's so true.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (54:42):
Well, Ken, if anybody wants to get a hold of
you to talk about yourexperience in real estate or
talk about maybe having you helpthem on a project with some
flooring or whatever you knowyou guys do, what's the best way
for them to get in contact withyou, my man?

SPEAKER_00 (54:55):
Uh you can honestly they can get give my cell phone
a call.
Um, by all means.
Do you do you recommend givingout a cell phone on the podcast?
Or uh would it be easier tothat's up to you, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 (55:05):
That's totally every guess is a little different.
We definitely have certainly hadit, and nobody has been like,
damn, I shouldn't have given myphone out.
Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 (55:12):
Well, you know, most people have it anyway.
So um it's uh so my cell phoneis 920 716 8031.
Um that is the easiest and bestway to get a hold of me.
Um so if you have any questionsabout real estate or um, you
know, wood floors that need tobe refinished or LVP or LVT that
needs to be installed or youknow, really anything with you

(55:34):
know wood wood floors and um youknow LVP, we we we take care of
it.

SPEAKER_01 (55:38):
So awesome, buddy.
Do you guys have a website?
Are you on the world wide web?

SPEAKER_00 (55:43):
Yeah, so uh it's mrsandless.com, mrsandless.com.
Um, and then Facebook page aswell, just look up uh Northeast
Wisconsin Mr.
Sandless or Northeast W I Mr.
Sandless.
So perfect.

SPEAKER_01 (55:59):
Awesome, man.
Appreciate you being on, Kent,and taking time to drop some
nuggets for the audience.
I know this is gonna be anotherpopular one here uh after having
this conversation.
I I know people are gonna sharethis thing and they're gonna get
some value out of it.
So that said, if you guys didget some value, please share the
episode.
If you aren't subscribed to usyet on YouTube and you're
checking out the video here,please hit the old subscribe
button.
I know this is kind of cliche,everybody says this on their

(56:20):
shows, but the reason we say itis because it helps us a lot and
it it really means a lot to uswhen you guys rate, review, and
subscribe to the show.
So uh appreciate you guys doingthat.
As Kent said, if you guys needsome help with flooring, hit up
Kent.
If you are out there listeningto this and you're not ready to
start getting deals sent to youyet, you're just kind of dipping
your toe in real estate, you'resucking up these episodes, kind
of like, man, should I dive intothis thing?

(56:42):
You can also just go to ourwebsite and fill out the contact
us form, and uh we'll just reachout to you, have a conversation,
figure out your goals, what areyou trying to accomplish, feel
out if real estate's for you,and if that's true, we'll we'll
help guide you in the rightdirection and get you some
coaching.
So until we see you guys on thenext episode, appreciate you
tuning in.
Uh looking forward to what wegot coming up next.

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