August 19, 2025 • 59 mins
📉 Tired of the 9-to-5 grind? This episode of The Wisconsin Investor Podcast features Eric Nelson, a former 20-year corporate employee who walked away from his job at US Cellular — and flipped his first house for a $35,000 profit in just 70 days.
🎙️ In this inspiring interview, Eric breaks down:
- How he turned a severance package into a real estate business
- The foundation problem flip that scared away other investors (but made him $35K)
- Leveraging Home Depot’s kitchen design services to save time and money
- Transitioning from corporate structure to entrepreneurial freedom
- Balancing work-life with a blended family of 6 kids
- Building out a portfolio of long-term and short-term rentals
- How he handles low appraisals and confidently runs the numbers
💬 Want to connect with Eric personally?
Follow him on Facebook → facebook.com/eric.nelson.56
(Tip: Look for the profile showing a family man, investor, and Midwest local — that's our guy.)
💥 Whether you're new to investing or looking to scale, Eric's story proves you don’t need decades of experience — just the guts to get started and a smart strategy. His journey from “flip phones to flipping houses” will leave you inspired, educated, and ready to take action.
👇 Get off-market Wisconsin real estate deals every week at 6AM:
📬 Join the Buyers List
🔔 Subscribe now for more real investor stories and cash-flow strategies.
#realestateinvesting #houseflipping #BRRRR #wisconsinrealestate #passiveincome #financialfreedom #thewisconsininvestorpodcast #propertyinvestment
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, you're listening to another episode of
the Wisconsin Investor Podcast.
I'm your host, corey Raymond,and as usual, I am bringing you
guys another rockstar guesttoday.
I'm super excited about today'sepisode.
I'm going to introduce him herein a second, but I did want to
talk about something I've beentalking about recently was our
Burfer Beginners Course.
You guys have heard that on alot of the episodes, but what
(00:22):
I'm going to talk about today isrecently we put some data
together at Wisconsin DiscountProperties of our ARVs, and so a
lot of times I've been in thisbusiness now almost a decade One
of the things I hear from youguys out there when you're
looking at some of theoff-market deals is that the
ARVs are inflated.
I hear that all the time.
You guys, you're putting theseARVs out way too high.
(00:42):
So we said, well, let's seewhat are we putting the ARVs out
at.
And so we look back at over 50different flips in a time span.
We didn't hold back anything.
It's on our website.
You can go check it out undercase studies and in that the
(01:06):
data came back and showed thatof 50 different flips that you
guys out there have bought fromus in this time span, the
average ARV of what it sold forwas five grand higher than the
ARV that we advertised when wewere marketing it at Wisconsin
Discount Properties.
So that also included somedeals that had sold way less.
And those were folks who wetalked to that just basically
cleaned it and listed it.
They didn't bring it to thefull ARV but guess what?
(01:26):
We included those anyway.
So our ARV is probably evenmore conservative than what we
have been advertising.
So you can have confidence ifyou go to
wisconsindiscountpropertiescom,join the buyers list, start
getting these off-market dealsin your inbox every week 6 am if
you're Central Time, week 6 amif you're central time, and you
(01:47):
can have confidence that theseARVs are to the best of our
knowledge and we are doing ourbest to be as transparent as
possible here.
All right, with that, let's getinto today's episode.
I have Mr Eric Nelson with uswho, for those of you guys out
there that don't know, is prettydarn new to this space, and so
I love bringing people like Ericon because a lot of times they
have so many good nuggets and somany good things that we can
(02:09):
all learn from, no matter whatexperience level we have, and so
we're going to dive into thattoday.
But Eric is one of those guyswho's been buying a lot of deals
from WDP, so we appreciate thatman.
That helps all of us out overhere on this side of the coin.
But, eric, tell everybody alittle bit about yourself, man
and um, how'd you get into thisreal estate thing, man?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
sure thanks, cory, appreciate you having me on uh,
yeah, man one of those thingswhere I've I've really been
wanting to dive into this forfor a long time.
I mean, I've been wanting to dothis.
I was thinking back I don'tknow if you remember uh, because
armando montelongo or somethinglike that.
He started to flip this houseback in 2003 on HUTV, before
(02:51):
there was that.
I've been watching the old realestate shows for 20 plus years,
and even as most recently as Ilook back at my text with Joey,
who I know everyone there,probably everyone watching this
podcast knows podcast knows thatworks for you guys over there
at WDP.
He and I worked together at USCellular and we had some texts
(03:13):
back in 2022 where I was likeall right.
I'm ready.
He started sharing someinformation on WDP, how it all
works, and I'm like man, thatsounds too good to be true.
He's like no, he's like youjust got, you just gotta.
You know, you gotta, gotta getin.
Man, you gotta get in.
I'm like, all right, we'll see,we'll see.
So, fast forward to 2025, Ifinally, you know, finally, you
(03:35):
know, not only dipped the toesbut jumped fully in, fully into
the real estate investment worldand had some shifts in my
corporate career my nine to five, so I mentioned us cellular.
Worked for them for, uh, really20 plus years and, um, you know
, they have a merger coming in,where t-mobile is is purchasing
them.
They threw a nice littleseverance package in front of me
(03:57):
and, um, you know so well, nobetter time than now to jump
into this real estate thing.
I guess, yeah, I started Ifound out about that in November
of 2024.
Started LLC basically the nextday in January 1st, september
2nd was my last day there in2025 and started full goal in
(04:20):
the real estate world in 2025.
Purchased my first property, Ithink by end of February.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Oh my gosh, dude.
So you had this on your mind in2022 and you said there was
some exchange.
So those of you guys that don'tknow, Joey is one of my
acquisition specialists.
Been with me, he's one of mylongest tenured guys and he's an
absolute rockstar for us, so hedoes a great job.
There's a whole what's funny,Eric there's this whole US
cellular network of people.
(04:48):
I think all three of myacquisitions guys have all come
from US cellular backgrounds, somaybe I just need to start
recruiting US cellular people,maybe to work for me.
I don't know, I've got aproblem over there.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, it's been a great connection, you know,
getting reacquainted with you,know those other guys that work
there, and the partnership hasbeen great with all of you guys
there.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Quite honestly, that's awesome, man.
What was the?
You know you've been watching.
You watched for 20 years HGTVroughly right.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Didn't take any action 2022,.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
You said it was too good to be true.
Tell me a little bit about that.
What was the holdback?
What were the things that youwere thinking like, man, this is
too good to be true.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I, I, I can't, I'm not ready yet I think I think
the risk right.
Um, I have, I have four kids.
Um, you know just well, notrecently, more than six years,
here come, come november, but mywife and I, you know, blended
families.
We had six kids.
You know, together, so together.
So we've been going through allthat stuff and it's not always
(05:49):
the easiest sell right To belike.
I'm going to quit my nine tofive and go flip some houses
right, it's not the easiest sellright?
So I would consider myself a,you know, conservative person
when it comes to just makingsure my finances are in a good
place.
Right, especially when you havekids that depend on you.
(06:09):
You need health insurance.
You need, um, you know, stableincomes, all all those, all
those things right, we all havebills to pay.
So that was probably whatdeterred me the most, um, and
you know it's.
I'm fortunate enough to have,um, you know, a, a very good
partner and a great, great wifethat has a steady W-2 job.
(06:29):
Right, that we can have theinsurance and the stable income,
if you will.
Right, and it was just one ofthose things where timing I felt
like it was really, you know, Igot the push that I needed to
say you know what I think now isthe time, and she was
supportive of it, family wassupportive of it and, um, you
know, just just jumped on in.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
That's awesome, man.
Well, what's crazy, man?
God's perfect timing, rightLike?
You've been looking at this fora long time, you've been
educating yourself in some ways,right Like?
I mean, just, even if you thinkyou're not watching some of
these flip shows and stuff,you're learning stuff, you're
getting ideas.
There's always stuff thatyou're you're not just watching.
You know, I don't know someNetflix show, that's whatever, I
(07:13):
forget what the what the crazyKorean one is that everybody's
all goes nuts about, but I don'tknow that you're learning too
many lessons.
They're watching something likethat, so you're learning things
in there.
And then 2022 comes and you'vegot six kids that you're worried
about making sure are takencare of, and it's hard to give
up that, that income Plus, youknow.
The other thing we see a lot ofpeople do and that's one of the
(07:34):
things I advise is, if you arein one of those roles, you know,
do it on the side, start slow.
But when you got six kids, man,maybe it was a time.
Was it like time was an issue?
Is that why you weren't lookingat starting it on the side, or
was it just attention that youdidn't have to be able to give
to it, or what?
For sure, for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Time time was definitely a big part of it.
Our kids are all very active.
They're, they're older now, soagain, that's, that's a piece of
it where, you know, my youngestdaughter is a senior in high
school and so we're I don't wantto say we're empty masters, but
we're, you know, we're gettingthere.
The other kids have beenthrough college or in college.
Um, so that was a piece of it.
They're all very active.
(08:10):
You know you got sports, yougot travel ball, you got au, you
got summer vacations, you gotto get the boat out.
You know there's, so there'sall kinds of all kinds of
distractions.
If you were worried, it didn'tseem like you know that it was
the perfect time to try to do iton the side.
And I'm not really a half inkind of guy.
I'm like if I'm going to dothis, I'm going to go all in and
(08:30):
I'm going to do it right.
And yeah, I just, you know Idid read some books, did you
know?
Did some?
You know, talking to a lot ofthe people that that do work,
work for you Kind of like allright, so like no bs, what's
what's?
Break this down for me how?
You know, how does it work andI'm a numbers guy, you know.
I come from my operationalbackground and finance
(08:51):
background and that sort ofthing, so that helps, um.
So I was like all right, youknow I, there's always going to
be some risk involved, right?
But, um, I think if you do, doyour homework enough, run your
numbers enough, keep yournumbers modest.
You mentioned ARVs early on.
I think, from what I've seen,the ARVs have been really spot
(09:15):
on.
That can be the finishedproducts that you're putting in
the properties, as well as your,what your finished products are
going to look like.
But yeah, I think it was anumber of those things.
You know it's, it can.
There's a, there's a fear outthere.
Like, I think, if you, if yougo into something like this and
you don't have a little bit offear, I think you're crazy,
(09:36):
right, I think you gotta, yougotta be probably also a serial
killer right yeah, yeah, there'sa good chance.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
If you're not scared a little bit, you're, you're
definitely you should be on awatch list somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, dude, that's,that's great insight, man, and I
that's kind of what Ianticipated was, you know, I
think that is something you know.
It's easy, uh, uh, from the,from the bleachers, to say, dude
, everybody should do realestate and you should do this,
but, man, your kids are onlylittle, so long Right, and you
(10:05):
know that time you don't getthat time back, you hear one of
the biggest regrets from anybodywho's had kids is like I wish I
would've had more time with mykids, you know kind of a thing.
So you know, sometimes it'sjust a timing thing, man, and it
sounds like when the time wasright, you struck.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So that's pretty sweet, didn't take you long?
No, no, we got after it prettyquick.
And, you know, obviously thegoal here is to build something
that can be passed down to thekids too.
Some of the kids have a passionfor, you know, real estate
already, whether it's gettingtheir hands dirty helping me
with demo or whether it's, youknow, my daughter and you know,
getting into the business sideof things and eventually getting
her real estate license to beable to sell some of these
(10:47):
properties or helping us stagethem and getting it getting it
ready.
And same with my wife.
You know, like I said, my wifeworks a demanding job and has a
demanding career, but she lovesto be involved in the process of
picking out pink colors or ifwe're gonna, you know, do some
staging or, you know,landscaping or whatever, I would
still run some stuff, somestuff faster, but I found out
real quick that she eventuallywas like, you know, maybe you
(11:08):
should just handle this.
I have my own, my own thing,okay.
Well, I guess it was fun for ahot minute now, I'm, yeah, you
got it like.
I trust you.
Just just maybe let me know.
If we buy a house like that'dbe, that's my thing.
But when it comes to like youknow, if you want to pick out a
vanity for that bathroom, goahead.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, okay, good, she's, she's, she's, she's
resigned herself.
Her pet project is over.
She's, she's got her, she gother fix.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
She's letting you handle it now, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Very nice.
What were?
Um.
So when you got started, youwent quick, right, like you.
You got this little severancething and then boom you're
you're buying deals shortlythereafter, like what were some
things that maybe you didn'tanticipate, uh, when you started
this, this journey I would say,uh, probably like the
(11:58):
permitting side of thingsprobably just jumps out to me
just because it's something thatI'm dealing with currently.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Right now, right is just making sure you have proper
permitting for the projects,right that you're getting your
permits pulled from the cities.
You know, I anticipated findingquality contractors to be a
challenge.
(12:22):
I would say that I'm prettyfortunate in that standpoint
that I have found a couple guysthat I work well together.
I do some of the stuff myself.
To a point I found aelectrician Really just building
your team.
I anticipated that being achallenge.
(12:44):
It's been a little bit of achallenge but honestly you know
not to call that seamlesslyplugging WDP here.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
But I'm getting paid, you can.
I'm not going to stop you here.
Keep going, buddy.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
This is great, and obviously, like I said, I had
some connections there, but it'sbeen great to.
When I need something, I havenbeen great to when I need
something.
I have reached out to.
Those guys are like hey, who's,who's your electrician right or
?
Um, you know, I know tony is abig part of a lot of things you
guys do there from a great guy.
(13:15):
His brain and chain is a greattalk with him.
He's been great.
You know, picking your brain onsome things has been, has been
awesome too.
Those would be probably some ofthe challenges.
I'm a big proponent of havingsystems in place right, like
having a, you know, just a good,not only a good plan, but just
(13:37):
a repeatable system in place,right.
I think I'm still building thatand and taking pieces of some
of the things that you guys havedone, I guess, and other people
do, kind of you know, maybemake it my own a little bit, um,
and I like to keep it simple,right, so just, um you know,
getting that nice simple plan inplace and planning your work
(13:58):
and working your planning, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, no, that's such a good piece of advice, Cause
if you're just out there flyingaround like a like a loose
cannon, everything's going tofeel chaotic in your day to day.
You're probably your stresslevel is going to be much higher
than it probably needs to be.
Where, if you just have, likeyou're saying, if you can create
a plan and you can stick tothat plan and you can just and
(14:23):
again, again you're gonna haveto alter as you learn new things
, but for the most part, as longas you continue to go down a
certain path, it's not going tofeel so chaotic.
It's going to feel like you'reyou're working a system and
you're working a process, versusjust like I don't know what I'm
doing, I'm crazy, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
yeah, you and I were talking a little bit about save
your menards receipts, send inthose rebates.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
They add up yeah yeah , buddy, I got an ards envelope,
right here it's put.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Put all my, all my receipts in that envelope and
then, like once a month or so,send those babies in and you get
those rebates.
Now you get, you know, five,six, seven hundred bucks to buy
a vanity.
Buy some, whatever you need,right yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
hey, if you got a business credit card or a
separate credit card too, oryou're earning some cash for
back rewards or something likethat man, that stuff adds up to
pretty soon.
You got, you're spending 40 G'son a flip or something and,
like you, you just bought a bigproject which we can get into in
a second.
But you know, with all the, allthe material and stuff that
you're gonna have to buy forthat bad boy, you put that all
on a little rebate card.
You're getting some, so that'sthat's how it adds up.
(15:18):
pretty quick, man, and we dothat with our businesses.
We spend a ton of money everymonth and on advertising or
whatever anything I can put onthe card where I'm not getting
charged you know some littleservice fee or whatever put it
on there.
I'm throwing it on the card andgetting those getting those
little rebates or those cashbackers adds up every little bit
helps yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, I did want to talk aboutreal quick, cause you're in an
(15:39):
interesting thing.
You went from corporate worldfor 20 years to now you're doing
real estate full time right,like there's enough.
Yeah, this is your, this isyour gig, right?
Yep, what's that transitionbeen like, eric, have there been
challenges with making thattransition, as?
Have you found kind of a system, like you mentioned, that's
worked pretty well for how youmanage your time?
And then, what is your that'sworked?
(16:02):
Pretty well for how you manageyour time.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
And then what is your ?
What makes up your time rightnow on a day-to-day basis?
Yeah, yeah, so I started withum usd really kind of an agent
of usd, if you will in a little10 by 10 kiosk outside of food
court back in, uh, 2004.
Okay with that, yeah, you know.
But and no, I wasn't one ofthose guys that would yell at
you when you're walking by thephone counter.
(16:26):
Okay, that was a differentcompany, but I was.
I was, I was in the in the mallkiosk selling some you know
motorola razor, face plates andyou know kind of stuff back in
the flip phone days.
But yeah, so I started thereand kind of worked my way up
from one position to the otherand you know, my last position I
(16:46):
had with US Cellular was asenior manager of our basically
the business channel, right, theB2B teams and the support teams
that service the largerbusinesses throughout the state
of Wisconsin, right?
So like Green Bay Packerspurchased 50 iPads, like I came
and set them up, service thelarger businesses throughout the
state of wisconsin, right.
So like green bay packerspurchased 50 ipads, like I can't
implement them, set them up,set it all up, good stuff.
But um had.
(17:07):
You know, had a great, greatcareer there, learned a lot.
Um, had a lot of really goodmentors it was, it was a good,
really good company to work forand, um, you know, they took
care of me on the way out.
And now I'm putting that moneyinto into into flipping houses
right From flip flip phones toflipping houses, I guess.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Oh, dude, I love that it's going to be.
It's going to be our taglinefor this episode.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Right, yeah, hashtag it no.
So, um, yeah, I mean a lot ofthought went into it, right, and
um, like we said before, youknow, it's just time to pull the
trigger and get into this thing.
So I have been had a bug in myreal estate agency here I guess
for a while too.
That sold me this house that welive in now.
(17:48):
Gosh, almost 10 years now Ithink we've been here, but you
know, to look for some differentproperties.
She, you know, after I told herwe went all in, she let me know
she had what what she called, Iguess, an in-house listing which
was just with her agency there,that um hadn't necessarily hit
the mls yet, that you know,needed some work.
It had some foundation stuffwhich is a little scary if you
(18:10):
don't really know, know muchabout right, and I could tell
that this is going to besomething that people probably
be, you know, afraid of.
But there again I reached outto the resources.
That that I knew.
Um joey, actually, I think,referred me to um, the
foundation guy that you guysnormally use a couple different
ones brad probably brad at deerview, I think.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, he's our go-to guy usually yeah, yep.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So those guys came out and gave me some quotes and
I was like, all right, well,that's about about what I
figured.
But you know, there again, whenyou know they show up and they
got, uh, they start digging outthe side of your house and
they're drilling anchors intoyour foundation of uh you know
floor of the house.
You're kind of like man, whatdid I get into here?
(18:58):
But yeah, um, yeah, the firstone turned out really good.
You know they, we, the house.
You're kind of like man, whatdid I get into here?
But yeah, um, yeah, the firstone turned out really good.
You know they, we ended up, Ithink, sticking probably close
to 60 grand into it by the timewe were done, which is a lot of
money.
On the first one, um, you know,we ended up okay on it at the
end of the day.
I think all in constructionthere we were probably 70 days
(19:20):
from close to finish turningaround for basically me and one
to two other guys kind of doingthe, doing the work.
We didn't have to do too muchon the outside, but otherwise
the inside was complete gutter,kitchen, all that good stuff.
So you know, good learningprocess, use some resources at
home depot, right, kind of letthem do the layout Okay, um, let
(19:43):
them do the countertop and kindof some of that stuff.
But yeah, so that was a goodlearning process going through
the kitchen design and all that.
I hadn't done that before butokay, pretty smooth overall.
Uh, but yeah, that was the.
That was the first one.
I think from beginning to end,that project, from close to sale
was, I would say, probably fivemonths.
(20:05):
Okay, we closed in February,sold in June.
Okay, that makes probably lessthan five.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Did you make some money?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, that one we probably walked away netted
probably about 35 nice one.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, not bad dude.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
If you make anything in your first one, you're doing
good that's, yeah, that's kindof what I, kind of what I was
telling you, let alone make 35g's dude, that's pretty awesome
man.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Wow, that's incredible dude.
And the time frame that that'sa quick, quick turnaround time
with that big of a project.
The other thing I think isinteresting here, cause you took
on a big project for your firstone.
Yeah Right, that's prettyimpressive.
Most, most people I advise I'mlike man, just you know, start
with some cosmetic stuff, get anice one under your belt.
But you're like rip the bandaidbaby, let's get it all done.
(21:01):
Huh yeah, what was your thoughtprocess behind that?
I mean, we talked about fearbefore.
Talk about that a little bit.
How did you as a first-timedeal, was it just confidence in
your numbers?
You had enough spread therethat you felt pretty confident
in going into a big project likethat.
What was your thought processwhen you were evaluating that
deal?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
if can remember back, yeah, I mean the numbers look
good on it.
Um, I think, like I said before, I'm just kind of an all-in guy
and I knew that I didn't wantto just come in and put some new
paint and patch this and patchthat, right, I knew I wanted to
have a really good finishedproject.
So, um, kind of just had avision of what I wanted the
(21:40):
house to look like when we wereall all done.
And you know, we just we justmade it happen.
It doesn't mean that therewasn't some, you know, some fear
second guessing along the way.
But you know, I think to me, Iguess I'm in the mindset, as I'm
working on these projects, ifthe numbers start to get, I
(22:00):
don't know less where I wantthem to be essentially right.
I'm just from the mindset thatI'm just going to work harder on
my own, then right.
So, instead of you know, payingmr sam list to come in and redo
the floors like I rent theequipment myself, right.
So okay, having you know propainters, come and paint the
house like you got to get inthere, roll up your sleeves and
(22:22):
paint it yourself.
I think it's a healthy balance,right Of subbing out some of
this stuff to like thefoundation.
Obviously I'm not going to domyself, but you know, when it
comes to spreading some mulch ormowing the lawn or whatever, it
is right Like you got tosometimes just roll up your
sleeves and and do it yourself,so you know you can make some
(22:43):
money.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, for sure.
I love that, especially onthose first, those early ones,
right?
Like you know, one of thethings I'm a big proponent of is
it depends on your goals, right, but if you're looking to scale
and grow and create more of abusiness out of it, versus you
know, just something you enjoydoing, like that's the other
balance too.
Like I hear some guys that arelike, um, if you mow your own
lawn you're an idiot, right, andI'm like you know I'm.
(23:05):
I see the point, I get thepoint of what we're trying to
make, but some people lovemowing their lawn.
So it's like, if you enjoydoing it and do it right, you
know, not everything has to benecessarily about the monetary
component to it.
If you enjoy doing it, itbrings you joy and happiness and
you love getting your hand.
You know some guys like workingwith their hands.
Yeah, there's nothing wrongwith that, right?
Um, yeah, but for you.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
What does that look like?
I do pay someone to mow my ownlawn because I think I'm too
busy doing doing other stuff.
I gotta pay someone.
I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
We moved it.
We moved to pulaski back inlike 2014 I think that's where
20 yeah, it's like no, 2016, Ithink that's where I grew up and
, um, we had three acres outthere, basically just like grass
right, it was like three acresof grass.
So I bought like the zero turnthing.
I was like, yeah, I'm gonna getout of the zero turn every all
(23:57):
the time.
This would be awesome.
I love it.
I love driving this thing, andafter like my third time mowing
the lawn and it took like two orthree hours I was like this is
so stupid.
What am I doing?
I want to sell this thing rightnow and hire somebody to come
out here and do this lawn fortwo or three hours every couple
weeks.
I'm not doing this, but somepeople love it.
You Right, you know, let them.
Let them do it.
(24:18):
I guess.
The day-to-day though, for you,eric, let's go into that real
quick.
I want to go circle back tothat.
What cause?
I think there's people outthere that are either already
doing real estate andconsidering going full time, or
they're like you and they'regoing to have some kind of life
event happen and they're justgoing to rip the bandaid and go
full bore without you know,maybe easing into it first, like
(24:38):
you're doing.
I think one of the fears when Iwas leaving corporate America
was what am I going to do withmy day?
How am I going to keep myselfbusy?
I've been doing this in thepockets of my life right For
those people who started itearly.
How am I going to structure mydays?
What am I going to do?
We're so used to in corporateAmerica.
You show up at this time, youdo this, you do this, you got a
meeting here, you got lunch.
(24:58):
That boom, boom, boom, boom.
It's very structured.
You don't have to think aboutit when you're on your own.
That can be a fear for people.
It's like how do I manage mytime?
What does that look like foryou, and has that been a
challenge at all?
Have you had to kind of feelthat out, or was it?
Has it been pretty easy totransition into the full-time
work for yourself thing?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
um, no, I.
I think it took a little bit oftime to, yeah, adjust right and
and again like, kind of getinto your new life, kind of new
workflow, right I'm.
I'm the type of person that Iprobably have the the opposite
problem.
My wife tells me all the timeof like, can you just sit still,
can you just not do something?
Like I'm to the point whereit's like oh, I got a free
(25:38):
sunday, might as well clean outthe garage and yeah, florida
right, so.
So I never really have a problemstaying busy, um, but it but it
does take a little bit to belike, okay, I'm used to sitting
at my desk here and having, youknow, six zoom calls I don't
want to be on to.
Now I got to figure out whatmaterials I got to go buy, right
(25:59):
, or what's the scope of work onthis next project.
Or I got to review thedifferent deals that we have.
This week when I was because Iwas really in, as you know,
because I'm up to fourproperties now I think that I
purchased from you guys I wasinto, like I got to start buying
stuff here.
I got to start stacking thesethings up because you do want to
find a way to replace that W-2income, right.
(26:23):
Like my wife and I have ahealthy competition that we did
about like who was going to makemore money this year, right, so
I thought she was the only onewith a W-2.
I'm like, well, I got a talltask here to make sure I'm
matching that or beating thathere by the end of the year.
So, yeah, just you know,analyzing the deals, checking on
the projects that are going on,as much as you know you want to
(26:49):
trust your contractors and youthink you have good people
working for you and all thatstuff.
I mean I think you have to stayon path and you have to stay in
the deadlines, stick to theplan, right, and and then that's
laid out there.
I did kind of learn that real,real quick in the.
The first person I hired for myfirst clip I thought it was
(27:10):
someone you know, I had knownfor for a while met him at a
church basketball league type ofthing.
It was always one of thosethings that, hey, if I ever do
this, I'll give you a chance.
Man, you know why don't youcome and do this first one with
me and learned real quick?
I should have probably done alittle bit more, um, you know,
background work on on board andwe had to.
(27:31):
You know I had to pivot kind ofmid project, which is, uh, you
know, also something that couldhave sent me back there, but we
just probably do so.
Yeah, I mean again, I thinkI've always tried to have a
healthy work-life, uh, balance,but yeah, it was an adjustment,
you know you have.
Yeah, like I said, I I'm prettyself-motivated, self-starter
(27:53):
type of guy, so I'll keep myself, you know, busy as much as you
want to.
You know watch espn until 10,30, 11 am, maybe every day, or
you know, march madness.
It probably splits up a littlebit cory, I'm not gonna lie yeah
, yeah I watched a little bit ofyeah march madness, but that
that probably wasn't that muchdifferent than than when I was
in corporal.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I was gonna say that I get it too, like guys are
gonna check their phone 90 900times during the day during
march madness to see what'sgoing on with those games.
It's just part of our culture,you know.
You just got to basically chalkthat up.
Like you said, it doesn'tmatter if you're working
corporate America for yourself,it's you know you're going to
have those days.
It's healthy too.
You got to have that time tojust sometimes you got to have a
(28:34):
little time for yourself anddecompress a little bit, and I
think that is actually probablyone of the things I see from
people who go out on their own.
It's it's the opposite.
Like they have so much, theyput so much pressure on
themselves, like if they're thetype of person who's considering
going out on their own andrunning their own business.
They're probably pretty driven.
If you took a personality test,their disc profile, their D is
going to be pretty high.
(28:55):
They're going to have a prettydominant personality type and
they're going to put morepressure on themselves than
probably anybody else would tobe successful.
In most cases Right.
And so part of the issuesometimes isn't necessarily that
they're they're taking theirtime.
You know watching some ESPN.
It's the opposite.
Like they're not taking anytime for themselves and it just
(29:15):
consumes their life.
So it's almost like theopposite.
Like for me, I had to, I and Istill have to work on this their
life.
So it's almost like theopposite.
Like for me, I had to, I and Istill have to work on this.
I have to put boundaries aroundwhen I'm working and when I'm
with family, and it gets reallytough with with cell phones and
internet and all that stuff.
Now the lines get very blurredof of what what's acceptable
necessarily as a business ownerand what should be acceptable as
(29:37):
a family man and a businessowner.
It can be a struggle on theopposite side of things.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
For sure.
Yeah, I've definitely been onthat side of it as well and been
checked at 8.30 at night whenI'm seeing what floorings on
sale, menards or something, orwatching a video of the new
listings you guys have rolledout or something.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, yeah, has that been a challenge for you, eric,
in your life.
As far as setting someboundaries with family now that
you're out on your own or like,is it kind of consistent with
what you had previously in thecorporate world?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I mean, I like to think that I have more
flexibility now.
Right, then, what I have before, you know, especially
especially during the day forthe additional flexibility has
been, has been, nice, right, butto your point too, it's like,
I'm sure the flexibility is nice, but there's still that, um,
(30:31):
you know, I don't want to sayhow many over your head, but
really they're like, okay, Ineed to be, I also need to be
working right, I need to bedoing something to make sure I'm
, you know, turning around thebacon and helping support the
family too, right, so it's been,it's been nice to have the
flexibility.
I don't miss constant callsfrom corporate world, that's for
sure.
(30:53):
I had a really good team,especially this last time when I
was there.
I missed, I missed the peoplefrom from that.
But you know, I was definitelygetting to a point where I
didn't like answering to anybody.
Uh, I've been there forprobably a while.
Um, you know, you know yougotta answer to yourself, so
that's a bit of an adjustmentyeah, going out on your own
(31:16):
talking about that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
for the people out there that are social, like, how
are you and maybe you haven'tfound this yet.
If you were, you know youmentioned the team piece of it.
I think that that also could bekind of jarring.
You're all all of a suddenyou're around a team, you're all
on a on a mission together,you're all in the same struggles
you have you can complain aboutthe conference calls together.
You got that common bond andthen you're out on your own and
(31:40):
now you're kind of on an islandin some aspects.
Like, have you been able to tofind some way to still have that
kind of cohesive like get yourpeople bucket filled and and how
are you doing that now as asolo, solopreneur here?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
yeah, I'd say that's still a work in progress, right?
So, like I mentioned before, Ihave the connections there with
you know, with you guys, whetherit's Joey or even even page
page, and I have good friends,we talk quite often, so that's
been nice for him and I.
He's just kind of getting, um,you know, dipping into this as
well, and so you know, a lot ofideas off of each other, share
(32:17):
struggles, share successes,right?
We celebrate when we both,actually, I think, closed on our
first flip on the same day.
Oh, that's crazy dude.
Yeah, yeah, and we have the samelast name, so that's even more
that's even more crazy.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Things are getting weird.
Yeah, so that's even more crazy.
That's even more crazy, thingsare getting weird.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, I think that'ssomething I'm continuing to grow
Right and I know I need to getto some of the REI meetings that
you guys have even justwatching, you know, in
preparation for this.
Watching some of these podcasts, like reviewing some of that,
(32:57):
I'm like man, there's so much Ihave left to learn with this and
so much good information outthere.
So I would say that's somethingI'm continuing to work on and
want to continue to grow.
My network my team you knowjust be around like-minded
people right To have thatentrepreneurial experience that
had that passion for real estateand you know, for me that goes
(33:18):
all the way back to my dad wasin real estate.
Um, I can not help them mailenvelopes out for, like, you
know, like for email, right,they were sending out mail, mail
letters for um.
People to to um get a freemarket analysis done on their
home.
People to to um get a freemarket analysis done on their
home Right, an OG there, yeah,so that I think I need I I want
(33:42):
to continue to to expand, um,you know, that kind of social
setting of who were bouncingideas off of all that good stuff
, you know, cause it is a lot oftimes, you know just who.
You know too.
Like I said, I've been able toin a short period of time, get a
lot of times.
You know just who.
You know too.
Like I said, I've been able to,in a short period of time, get
a lot of connections.
And, um, you know, just justthe other day I was talking to a
(34:02):
contractor and I'm like, oh, Ihave this project where we're
looking at maybe vaulting theceilings.
You know, I know I need anengineer out here.
I'm sure that's going to takeforever.
And it's like well, I know thisguy.
Actually, why don't you givehim a call him up?
He happened to be at theMenards in Oshkosh.
I'm like well, I'm just downthe road.
You think you could stop in.
Oh, yeah, I can stop.
So you just stopped in.
So you just start saving thosepeople in your phone.
(34:24):
I got Joel the builder, davidthe scrap metal guy.
You just start junk clean out,jerry, whatever it is right, you
just start building a networkof people.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
So, yeah, the guys on our team always give me crap
because that's how I literallysave people in my phone since
their contact.
So, like I have like this guy,mike the mud jacker I don't even
know his last name, I just knowhe's mike the mud jacker and
that's how he saved my phone.
If I need mud jacking, that'sthe guy I call.
You know, you got I got junkguy.
Yeah, that's that's just how mycontacts look now.
So if you ever need a contactand you get one from me, usually
(35:00):
their last name is going to bewhatever I remember about that
person or their, their role orwhatever the case is.
But the networking piece, man, II swear we talk about this on
every single episode because itis so important and I think not
necessarily even like as you andI are talking, eric, I'm kind
of thinking through thenetworking piece of it and it
can be a lonely island if you'reout on your own.
(35:22):
Like you know, for people incorporate America and stuff like
that, you still have that teamconnection a lot of times, so
it's not as impactful.
But I think, like for guys likeyou've gone out on your own,
especially if you're more of asocial person type.
When you go out on your own itcan be really lonely and like
almost depressing at pointsbecause you're so used to that
back-and-forth human interaction, like in your face, eight hours
(35:44):
a day for 40 hours a week, andthen you go out on your own and
like it's just crickets and youlike all your friends were your
work friends because you spendall your time with them and like
, oh, now they're all out doingsomething else or you're not in
their little sphere.
If you left a job, thatnecessarily wasn't by choice.
And so getting to some of theseevents for the information is
great, but it's more sosometimes even just for your own
(36:07):
mental health, to be aroundother people with the same
struggles and that you can buildsome connections with and
relationships with and and talkthrough some things, joke, you
know, make the real estate humorif you will, and those types of
things that can.
It can really help mentally alot of times if you're out on
your own.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
For sure, for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, well, man, this is awesome, eric.
One last thing I want to askyou about.
I want to go to something alittle tactical, because this
was some, some little nugget youthrew out there a little
earlier that I've never even Ididn't even know it was possible
.
So we've, we do, we do flips.
We're doing more flips than wehave in the past because our
team's doing a great job lockingup a lot of deals and sometimes
we have more deals than what wewant to put out to you guys.
(36:45):
But but I don't get a ton intolike the rehab.
I've never been great at doingrehab.
I don't like it.
I'm not a detail guy.
I don't like.
I'm like I'm.
I keep talking about this onein Jackson port that I'm doing.
You and I were talking a littlebit before this like I hate
this.
I hate general contracting thisthing right now, and I don't
have to have the generalcontract anything inside the
(37:06):
house, I just have to get thehouse there on a new slab and I
hate it Like I hate it.
I'm learning a ton, though Iput the second one probably
would be much easier because nowI've learned a lot.
Everything wouldn't be such ashock to me.
But, that being said, you knowyou mentioned something a little
earlier.
You went into Home Depot andthey helped you lay out and
design the kitchen.
I didn't know this was.
I didn't know you could do this.
So can you tell?
(37:26):
Tell us a little bit.
How did you?
Who did you talk to?
How did you set that up?
What was that process like?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Tell me a little bit more about that.
Sure, uh, you know, I don'tknow how I necessarily stumbled
across it.
I think I just started talkingto somebody in their uh
department there back by thekitchen cabinets, and, uh, I
started asking questions aboutthe kitchen cabinets.
You know what are the mostpopular ones for contractors?
What do you recommend?
What's?
You know what's the mid-gradecabinet, what's the higher end
cabinet?
You know you start to learnabout what comes with soft
(38:00):
closed doors, right, and thenwhat's the price difference for
those types of things?
Um, but then, yeah, then I juststarted talking to somebody
there and they out, uh, kind ofoutlead their program that they
have, where, essentially, if yougive them the rough dimensions
right of the kitchen, they firstset up a consultative call with
(38:23):
you to start to lay it out,right, you give them the
dimensions kind of where youthink you want things.
Do you want an island, you know,do you want, you know, an
in-cabinet fridge, whateverright?
Um, you know, do you want?
You know, uh, in cabinet fridgeor whatever Right?
Um, and then then they then youset up another appointment
after that, actually, sorry, sothey sent, then they send out
(38:44):
their own measurement team,right, so they send out to take?
Take the measurementsthemselves just to, I think,
confirm you know to use the tapemeasure.
I guess, I don't know, maybeI'm so new, maybe they just did
that with me, I don't know, yeah, I would, I would need that if
that was me for sure I would.
I would even trust mine for sureyeah, but they, you know, and
that that's mainly for thecountertops, I think, right,
(39:06):
they want to make sure they getthe countertops right, okay, um,
so yeah, they.
And then you have um anothermeeting where where they
actually will lay out thekitchen um with you and I went
in person for that actually,where it's kind of, you know,
you get to see a nice little 3dimage of the kitchen and you can
(39:27):
um tell them, you know theheight of the cabinets that you
want, you know you want standardheights, you need elongated
cabinets, because which I neededin this particular flip,
because I took a sledgehammer tothe fake like soffit, that oh
yeah, kitchen um yeah, and thenthey, um, they do the
countertops as well, and it wasa pretty easy for you to pick
(39:48):
out your appliances while you'reall there, um, but it was a
nice, it was a pretty easyprocess.
And then they had somebody comein and install the quartz
countertops, because again, Iknow that was over my head.
I didn't know my contractorswell enough then to really trust
if that was something theyspecialized in and I just
(40:10):
figured if.
I'm going to invest in quartzcountertops.
I'm going to pay a quartzcountertop company to put it in.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, that's awesome, would they?
Would they hang the counter?
Would they hang the cabinetstoo for you, if you want, if you
need them to?
Speaker 2 (40:23):
yep, yeah, they'll install it.
I mean for a fee, obviously,but yeah, they'll, they'll
install everything.
But I think, like, I think thedesign and the layout portion
was maybe 150 bucks for theconsultation.
It wasn't, wasn't, wasn't muchat all.
And then this, this last clipthat I just started actually um
(40:44):
in in Oshkosh.
Uh, it's a prettystraightforward kitchen, but I
went to Lowe's for that and Ijust sat down with a guy right
there and he, he did the imagingright there no appointment, no
there.
And he, he did the imagingright there no appointment, no
anything.
And uh, that was really smoothtoo.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Wow, dude, that's such a good nugget right there
for people, cause I think, eric,even for me I'm like it's one
of the struggles you talkedabout getting into this, or
things you anticipated maybebeing a challenge.
Luckily for you have not beenas big of a challenge as they
can be.
It's finding good people to dothe work Right and you outsource
it to some of these big boxstores.
If they have people that arevetted, you know you're probably
(41:21):
, if they don't do it right,you're probably going to have a
good chance of getting somebodyto come back and fix it because
it's through a big box store.
Right, and as long as it canmeet timelines and the cost is
comparable, I guess you wouldsay, to what you could get
elsewhere, it's an easy it'salmost like a cheat code to get
get some of these flips donewithout having to go and find
all these different people tohelp you go do it and then you
(41:43):
got to come up with the designand do all this stuff Like man.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
That might be the way to go for some people out there
listening to this yeah, I meanI, I just looked at it as a
learning opportunity is worst,worst case case scenario.
Even if I don't do it again, atleast I'm learning something
about the process here as we, aswe went through it.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
yeah, I think the cabinets.
I think like another keylearning would be, like cabinets
and windows, order them quick,because those are the things
that can take the longest,especially if you have special
sizes for your windows.
You know, if you custom windows, that could take a little bit.
Yeah, you know some in-stockwindows from Menard or something
you know, not as long, butcabinets I think these last
(42:24):
cabinets that I just orderedtook two to three weeks, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yep, yep, definitely that's.
I mean we've been pushed backbefore when we've had to do new
cabinets and we had onesituation also make sure you
know when your cabinets arecoming in, if you're not having
home depot install it.
We had home depot one time.
Drop them off on a friday,didn't ever send us anything and
they sat out outside allweekend and it rained all
(42:48):
weekend and so the cabinets gotruined and they took them back.
They were good about it, butnow we were another three weeks
out from getting new ones again.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
So yeah, anyway, and look them over, look over your
finances, look over yourcabinets right away when they
get delivered, because a lot oftimes you do only have a small
window to return.
When you're surprised you knowyou don't want a brand new
anything getting delivered withdamage, right?
Speaker 1 (43:14):
yeah, exactly what does the future look like for
you, Eric?
What's the big goals?
I mean, take us, what's fiveyears?
We talked to Eric.
We bring them back on.
What's that going to look like?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
I mean five years from now.
Uh, I would hope that I have ahealthy portfolio right?
I think, uh, my goal is to havediversified portfolio of
long-term rentals, short-termrentals.
Uh, just starting this four plexis going to be a big, big
project that we just closed onand we're doing that on monday
already with, uh, you know,clean out and all that good
(43:46):
stuff, um, but yeah, I just wantto have a good portfolio right
of long-term, short-term uh.
Um, you know, maybe get intothe commercial side of things to
see Makes dollars.
It makes sense, right.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
All that good old tagline.
So right now the goal isflipping some to get some cash
and then start converting thatinto rentals.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Nice Awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
And continue to.
Just I'm sure I'll still belearning five years from now.
Oh yeah, Just a sponge tryingto suck up as much information
as possible and continue to,just, I'm sure.
I'll still be learning fiveyears from now.
But you know right, just asponge trying to suck suck up as
much information as possible.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, that's awesome dude.
Yeah, as at the time we'rerecording this, eric closed on a
big project that we had out tothe list.
Uh, yesterday he closed.
Oh, you say mold, mold is goldbaby.
Oh say mold, mold is gold baby.
Mold is you got the mold isgold four unit dude?
Speaker 2 (44:42):
so yeah it turned, turned some people away, so you
got it now right.
Uh, yeah, that's, but that's anexciting one.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Unique, unique building is, butit's got in the in-unit laundry
and each of the units, nicefour-car garage, a lot, of, a
lot of room there.
We, you know, we, we think to,um, you know, make some money on
it after we get.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (45:01):
in the numbers on that thing are going to look
like eric.
So tell everybody what'd youget it for?
What do you think you're goingto stick into it?
What do you hope it's going toappraise for?
Speaker 2 (45:08):
yeah, I mean roughly, we got it for 100.
I think it's going to take 100to get it right, probably 60 on
the the outside, 40 on theinside.
You know if you're thinking 10grand a unit, you know, but it
could go over that.
You know there's some unknownsthere where I think electrical
is going to be a pretty bigexpense there as we work through
it.
But you know, again, I'm notgetting paid for this but WDP
(45:33):
and my you know your boy Reeseover there did a really good job
putting together some.
You know your boy Reese overthere did did a really good job
putting together some.
You know some numbers there with, uh, even the rental meter and
you know what the building'sgonna, you know, be worth after
a certain span of time.
But you know, so if we're allin with rehab, even at 200, 225,
I think your ARV on that onewas 325.
(45:57):
The lender that I was initiallyworking with did their own kind
of independent appraisal of theproperty and it came in right
at like 320, 325.
So it came in right in linewith what you guys came up with.
And again, you mentioned thatthat earlier.
So you know that was spot on.
So even if you go for,mentioned that that earlier.
So, um, you know that was yeah.
So even if you go for that,even if, at you know, at 320, um
(46:22):
, you know most hundreds will be80, 80 percent of that, if
you're in a mortgage.
Hopefully you can cash out, youknow cash out 60 on it.
And when you refinance and getsome good renters on there and
should cash flow, you know,pretty decent.
I'm thinking 1,000, 1,200 andhopefully more, you know, per
month.
But yeah, it should be a goodproject.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
I'm looking forward to it, dude.
That's awesome man.
And 320 might even be low rightby the time you get it done and
you start getting it rented up.
Right, that's one thing I thinkthat helps when we put these
ARVs out this is just ahypothesis I have is, by the
time you flip it so you buy theproperty today, the market is at
what it is right.
(47:05):
By the time you get it outthere, say, it's six months now
and you're listing this property.
Or when you go to refinancethis thing, let's just say
you've got them all rented now.
It took six months, maybe eightmonths, to get it stabilized
and rented, or whatever themarket consistently appreciates
over time.
Right, I just did a podcast, asolo episode, where I broke down
a bunch of numbers, and thisone it'll probably get released
(47:31):
right before yours, like theweek before your episode, eric.
And what's interesting is likewhere this is in Manitowoc, you
bought it, right.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yep Just outside of Manitowoc and a Francis Creek
area.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Yeah, so I had, I had my good friends over at chat
GPT do some deep research onmarket appreciation on rental
properties and I did it for,like all of Northeast Wisconsin,
manitowoc, over the last twoyears has appreciated like 17 to
20% or something like that,like just insane growth.
Not saying that's going tohappen to you, but that's where
(48:02):
I think we see some of theseARVs maybe down the road coming
in higher.
It's just time is just workingand the market's just
consistently appreciating.
So you're going to get thoselittle bumps.
So, like, if you're looking atan ARV today and your appraisers
this is one of my struggles Ihave with some of these ARV
appraisals or appraisersSometimes they're looking six
months to 12 months in the rear.
(48:22):
Right, we're looking especiallyfor a flip.
So if you're buying it using acommunity bank and you're going
to use a flip, right, we'retrying to predict what's the
market going to be in six months, not 12 months ago.
What's it going to be in sixmonths from now?
And so a lot of times it's kindof lost in that translation.
(48:43):
Again, it's not a hugedifference.
Four or 5% is pretty commonover time, but it's still a
factor.
Right, you put 4% on 300,000,that's a $12,000 difference in a
year in a year's time so itmakes it-.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Even looking back on my first flip that I did, the
appraisal that was done that byby the lender um came in at like
arv or they don't necessarilycall it arv.
I think it's kind of like ahybrid of arv and kind of
current current value, becausethey'll end up at 80 of that
number.
So that came in yeah, I mean260, right is what their
(49:19):
appraised value was for that.
So they lent up to 80% of that,but that house sold for 3.1.
So when you think about wherethey put that number and where
it ended up actually selling andagain that's where I think it
depends on the finishes you putin them.
We put nice elements, you putquartz countertops, you put some
good LGP in there.
(49:41):
But, that's what those can paysome dividends in the end.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Yeah for sure.
Wow, that's crazy.
So one thing I just heard therewe have a couple right now, one
that I just did a refi on andwe have a buyer of ours who
actually works for us.
They have a higher end one thatthey've bought and the
appraisal came in super low.
Right Point is if you can getthrough that and figure out a
way to still finance it or rebutthat appraisal and get your
(50:07):
appraisal up.
But if you can't appraiserssometimes they don't like to
change their appraisals.
They're a little bit like theyknow what they're doing.
They got a little ego right, ifyou just gave, I think, some
people some hope.
Right Like, you know yournumbers and you you know you're
solid on your numbers and theappraisal comes in low, don't,
don't count yourself out here.
Right Like, there's still agood shot.
(50:28):
You're going to, you're goingto be able to get your number.
If you do the, do the propertyright Like, rewrite, like, fix
it up the way it should be right.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yeah for sure, I think, the more that's great
yeah, the other thing about that, I just sorry we might have
some offering going on oh, goahead, eric.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
I think we had a little delay there.
Yeah, I think we had a littledelay there.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Go on, go ahead okay no, I think the more you get
under your belt too, right, youcan show your lenders of like,
hey, I, I know, you know this iswhat you're thinking, but these
are the last two or three.
We did that, here's what theysold for, right?
So you just get more, the moreexperience I think can show them
what you're capable of doing.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yep, yep, and I just had one on a on a duplex.
So we re, we renovated bothunits of this upper lower duplex
.
We had an ARV on it of 240 thatwe put out to the buyers list.
My appraisal came.
Them were actually decent.
I was kind of like, oh crap,this isn't cool, cause some of
(51:38):
them looked pretty nice from thepictures on the previous
listings.
Uh, but then I went and Ipulled actual.
I just pulled my own comps and,like again, he used the three
lowest comps.
So I'm rebuttaling it right now.
I wish I had an update of howthat rebuttal went.
But I did use my good friendsagain over at chat GPT.
So we got a couple of shamelessplugs today.
(51:59):
Wisconsin discount propertiesand chat GPT hook up here.
But I had it I.
It was really cool.
I put in all the comps that Ifound, I uploaded those and I I
put in the appraisal and Iuploaded that and I had it.
Basically pick apart theappraisal and talk about why my
comps were more relevant thanwhat the appraisal was and it
put together like a nicelyworded rebuttal, cause otherwise
(52:20):
I'd be like this appraiser isan idiot, you know I probably
wouldn't get very far.
So I had to put a nice littlerebuttal and the lender called
me like right after I sent itover to him.
He's like thank you so much forputting all the data you gave
me.
This is incredible.
Like wow, I'm going to sendthis off to the appraiser and
hopefully we can.
I think you got a great casehere, you know, with all the
(52:46):
data.
I'm like thank you, chad GPT.
You are amazing.
So you know there is thatpossibility.
So that is the risk.
When you're going to do theserefinances, you're going to get
a low appraisal, but, um, butyou don't have to close on it
either, which is nice, unlessyou have a hard money loan and
you've got to close that thingout.
You've got some time if you'vegot to get a different bank or a
different appraisal if youdon't like the way your
appraisal came in.
So it happens.
Well, eric, appreciate you beingon man.
This has been awesome.
(53:07):
I loved everything we talkedabout today.
There's tons of good nuggets inhere, so this is one I think
people will go back andre-listen to Again, especially
if there's somebody that canrelate to your current state or
they're thinking about maybegoing out on their own.
There's a lot of good stuff inhere, but for those of you guys
listening I say it on everyepisode go share this stuff on
your social platforms.
Not only does it help uscontinue to get the word out and
(53:30):
put this in more people'searbuds, but it's going to help
you guys as well.
You're going to have morepeople, more lenders that, that
know about your private money.
Possibly some deal flow comingin from people who see you're
doing these types of things,especially people like Eric, who
are in you know doing, doingsome of the dirty work sharing
some of that stuff.
Now they're sharing some of thethese episodes of education for
other people.
It's only going to help you.
So, if you guys do want to geton that buyer's list, eric did a
(53:53):
great job promoting today.
I'll send him a check afterthis for that commercial today,
but you can go towisconsindiscountpropertiescom.
Put your information in onthere to get added to the
buyer's list and then Reese orConnor from my team will reach
out to you and have aconversation, figure out your
goals, talk to you a little bitabout getting you connected up
with some of the people youmight need to help you in your
(54:14):
real estate journey, whetheryou're here, local or you're
somebody outside the state thatwants to invest in our markets.
We would love to have thatconversation with you and we
will see you guys on the nextepisode.
Hey guys, you're listening to another episode of
the Wisconsin Investor Podcast.
I'm your host, corey Raymond,and as usual, I am bringing you
guys another rockstar guesttoday.
I'm super excited about today'sepisode.
I'm going to introduce him herein a second, but I did want to
talk about something I've beentalking about recently was our
Burfer Beginners Course.
You guys have heard that on alot of the episodes, but what
(00:22):
I'm going to talk about today isrecently we put some data
together at Wisconsin DiscountProperties of our ARVs, and so a
lot of times I've been in thisbusiness now almost a decade One
of the things I hear from youguys out there when you're
looking at some of theoff-market deals is that the
ARVs are inflated.
I hear that all the time.
You guys, you're putting theseARVs out way too high.
(00:42):
So we said, well, let's seewhat are we putting the ARVs out
at.
And so we look back at over 50different flips in a time span.
We didn't hold back anything.
It's on our website.
You can go check it out undercase studies and in that the
(01:06):
data came back and showed thatof 50 different flips that you
guys out there have bought fromus in this time span, the
average ARV of what it sold forwas five grand higher than the
ARV that we advertised when wewere marketing it at Wisconsin
Discount Properties.
So that also included somedeals that had sold way less.
And those were folks who wetalked to that just basically
cleaned it and listed it.
They didn't bring it to thefull ARV but guess what?
(01:26):
We included those anyway.
So our ARV is probably evenmore conservative than what we
have been advertising.
So you can have confidence ifyou go to
wisconsindiscountpropertiescom,join the buyers list, start
getting these off-market dealsin your inbox every week 6 am if
you're Central Time, week 6 amif you're central time, and you
(01:47):
can have confidence that theseARVs are to the best of our
knowledge and we are doing ourbest to be as transparent as
possible here.
All right, with that, let's getinto today's episode.
I have Mr Eric Nelson with uswho, for those of you guys out
there that don't know, is prettydarn new to this space, and so
I love bringing people like Ericon because a lot of times they
have so many good nuggets and somany good things that we can
(02:09):
all learn from, no matter whatexperience level we have, and so
we're going to dive into thattoday.
But Eric is one of those guyswho's been buying a lot of deals
from WDP, so we appreciate thatman.
That helps all of us out overhere on this side of the coin.
But, eric, tell everybody alittle bit about yourself, man
and um, how'd you get into thisreal estate thing, man?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
sure thanks, cory, appreciate you having me on uh,
yeah, man one of those thingswhere I've I've really been
wanting to dive into this forfor a long time.
I mean, I've been wanting to dothis.
I was thinking back I don'tknow if you remember uh, because
armando montelongo or somethinglike that.
He started to flip this houseback in 2003 on HUTV, before
(02:51):
there was that.
I've been watching the old realestate shows for 20 plus years,
and even as most recently as Ilook back at my text with Joey,
who I know everyone there,probably everyone watching this
podcast knows podcast knows thatworks for you guys over there
at WDP.
He and I worked together at USCellular and we had some texts
(03:13):
back in 2022 where I was likeall right.
I'm ready.
He started sharing someinformation on WDP, how it all
works, and I'm like man, thatsounds too good to be true.
He's like no, he's like youjust got, you just gotta.
You know, you gotta, gotta getin.
Man, you gotta get in.
I'm like, all right, we'll see,we'll see.
So, fast forward to 2025, Ifinally, you know, finally, you
(03:35):
know, not only dipped the toesbut jumped fully in, fully into
the real estate investment worldand had some shifts in my
corporate career my nine to five, so I mentioned us cellular.
Worked for them for, uh, really20 plus years and, um, you know
, they have a merger coming in,where t-mobile is is purchasing
them.
They threw a nice littleseverance package in front of me
(03:57):
and, um, you know so well, nobetter time than now to jump
into this real estate thing.
I guess, yeah, I started Ifound out about that in November
of 2024.
Started LLC basically the nextday in January 1st, september
2nd was my last day there in2025 and started full goal in
(04:20):
the real estate world in 2025.
Purchased my first property, Ithink by end of February.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Oh my gosh, dude.
So you had this on your mind in2022 and you said there was
some exchange.
So those of you guys that don'tknow, Joey is one of my
acquisition specialists.
Been with me, he's one of mylongest tenured guys and he's an
absolute rockstar for us, so hedoes a great job.
There's a whole what's funny,Eric there's this whole US
cellular network of people.
(04:48):
I think all three of myacquisitions guys have all come
from US cellular backgrounds, somaybe I just need to start
recruiting US cellular people,maybe to work for me.
I don't know, I've got aproblem over there.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, it's been a great connection, you know,
getting reacquainted with you,know those other guys that work
there, and the partnership hasbeen great with all of you guys
there.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Quite honestly, that's awesome, man.
What was the?
You know you've been watching.
You watched for 20 years HGTVroughly right.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Didn't take any action 2022,.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
You said it was too good to be true.
Tell me a little bit about that.
What was the holdback?
What were the things that youwere thinking like, man, this is
too good to be true.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I, I, I can't, I'm not ready yet I think I think
the risk right.
Um, I have, I have four kids.
Um, you know just well, notrecently, more than six years,
here come, come november, but mywife and I, you know, blended
families.
We had six kids.
You know, together, so together.
So we've been going through allthat stuff and it's not always
(05:49):
the easiest sell right To belike.
I'm going to quit my nine tofive and go flip some houses
right, it's not the easiest sellright?
So I would consider myself a,you know, conservative person
when it comes to just makingsure my finances are in a good
place.
Right, especially when you havekids that depend on you.
(06:09):
You need health insurance.
You need, um, you know, stableincomes, all all those, all
those things right, we all havebills to pay.
So that was probably whatdeterred me the most, um, and
you know it's.
I'm fortunate enough to have,um, you know, a, a very good
partner and a great, great wifethat has a steady W-2 job.
(06:29):
Right, that we can have theinsurance and the stable income,
if you will.
Right, and it was just one ofthose things where timing I felt
like it was really, you know, Igot the push that I needed to
say you know what I think now isthe time, and she was
supportive of it, family wassupportive of it and, um, you
know, just just jumped on in.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
That's awesome, man.
Well, what's crazy, man?
God's perfect timing, rightLike?
You've been looking at this fora long time, you've been
educating yourself in some ways,right Like?
I mean, just, even if you thinkyou're not watching some of
these flip shows and stuff,you're learning stuff, you're
getting ideas.
There's always stuff thatyou're you're not just watching.
You know, I don't know someNetflix show, that's whatever, I
(07:13):
forget what the what the crazyKorean one is that everybody's
all goes nuts about, but I don'tknow that you're learning too
many lessons.
They're watching something likethat, so you're learning things
in there.
And then 2022 comes and you'vegot six kids that you're worried
about making sure are takencare of, and it's hard to give
up that, that income Plus, youknow.
The other thing we see a lot ofpeople do and that's one of the
(07:34):
things I advise is, if you arein one of those roles, you know,
do it on the side, start slow.
But when you got six kids, man,maybe it was a time.
Was it like time was an issue?
Is that why you weren't lookingat starting it on the side, or
was it just attention that youdidn't have to be able to give
to it, or what?
For sure, for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Time time was definitely a big part of it.
Our kids are all very active.
They're, they're older now, soagain, that's, that's a piece of
it where, you know, my youngestdaughter is a senior in high
school and so we're I don't wantto say we're empty masters, but
we're, you know, we're gettingthere.
The other kids have beenthrough college or in college.
Um, so that was a piece of it.
They're all very active.
(08:10):
You know you got sports, yougot travel ball, you got au, you
got summer vacations, you gotto get the boat out.
You know there's, so there'sall kinds of all kinds of
distractions.
If you were worried, it didn'tseem like you know that it was
the perfect time to try to do iton the side.
And I'm not really a half inkind of guy.
I'm like if I'm going to dothis, I'm going to go all in and
(08:30):
I'm going to do it right.
And yeah, I just, you know Idid read some books, did you
know?
Did some?
You know, talking to a lot ofthe people that that do work,
work for you Kind of like allright, so like no bs, what's
what's?
Break this down for me how?
You know, how does it work andI'm a numbers guy, you know.
I come from my operationalbackground and finance
(08:51):
background and that sort ofthing, so that helps, um.
So I was like all right, youknow I, there's always going to
be some risk involved, right?
But, um, I think if you do, doyour homework enough, run your
numbers enough, keep yournumbers modest.
You mentioned ARVs early on.
I think, from what I've seen,the ARVs have been really spot
(09:15):
on.
That can be the finishedproducts that you're putting in
the properties, as well as your,what your finished products are
going to look like.
But yeah, I think it was anumber of those things.
You know it's, it can.
There's a, there's a fear outthere.
Like, I think, if you, if yougo into something like this and
you don't have a little bit offear, I think you're crazy,
(09:36):
right, I think you gotta, yougotta be probably also a serial
killer right yeah, yeah, there'sa good chance.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
If you're not scared a little bit, you're, you're
definitely you should be on awatch list somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, dude, that's,that's great insight, man, and I
that's kind of what Ianticipated was, you know, I
think that is something you know.
It's easy, uh, uh, from the,from the bleachers, to say, dude
, everybody should do realestate and you should do this,
but, man, your kids are onlylittle, so long Right, and you
(10:05):
know that time you don't getthat time back, you hear one of
the biggest regrets from anybodywho's had kids is like I wish I
would've had more time with mykids, you know kind of a thing.
So you know, sometimes it'sjust a timing thing, man, and it
sounds like when the time wasright, you struck.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So that's pretty sweet, didn't take you long?
No, no, we got after it prettyquick.
And, you know, obviously thegoal here is to build something
that can be passed down to thekids too.
Some of the kids have a passionfor, you know, real estate
already, whether it's gettingtheir hands dirty helping me
with demo or whether it's, youknow, my daughter and you know,
getting into the business sideof things and eventually getting
her real estate license to beable to sell some of these
(10:47):
properties or helping us stagethem and getting it getting it
ready.
And same with my wife.
You know, like I said, my wifeworks a demanding job and has a
demanding career, but she lovesto be involved in the process of
picking out pink colors or ifwe're gonna, you know, do some
staging or, you know,landscaping or whatever, I would
still run some stuff, somestuff faster, but I found out
real quick that she eventuallywas like, you know, maybe you
(11:08):
should just handle this.
I have my own, my own thing,okay.
Well, I guess it was fun for ahot minute now, I'm, yeah, you
got it like.
I trust you.
Just just maybe let me know.
If we buy a house like that'dbe, that's my thing.
But when it comes to like youknow, if you want to pick out a
vanity for that bathroom, goahead.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, okay, good, she's, she's, she's, she's
resigned herself.
Her pet project is over.
She's, she's got her, she gother fix.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
She's letting you handle it now, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Very nice.
What were?
Um.
So when you got started, youwent quick, right, like you.
You got this little severancething and then boom you're
you're buying deals shortlythereafter, like what were some
things that maybe you didn'tanticipate, uh, when you started
this, this journey I would say,uh, probably like the
(11:58):
permitting side of thingsprobably just jumps out to me
just because it's something thatI'm dealing with currently.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Right now, right is just making sure you have proper
permitting for the projects,right that you're getting your
permits pulled from the cities.
You know, I anticipated findingquality contractors to be a
challenge.
(12:22):
I would say that I'm prettyfortunate in that standpoint
that I have found a couple guysthat I work well together.
I do some of the stuff myself.
To a point I found aelectrician Really just building
your team.
I anticipated that being achallenge.
(12:44):
It's been a little bit of achallenge but honestly you know
not to call that seamlesslyplugging WDP here.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
But I'm getting paid, you can.
I'm not going to stop you here.
Keep going, buddy.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
This is great, and obviously, like I said, I had
some connections there, but it'sbeen great to.
When I need something, I havenbeen great to when I need
something.
I have reached out to.
Those guys are like hey, who's,who's your electrician right or
?
Um, you know, I know tony is abig part of a lot of things you
guys do there from a great guy.
(13:15):
His brain and chain is a greattalk with him.
He's been great.
You know, picking your brain onsome things has been, has been
awesome too.
Those would be probably some ofthe challenges.
I'm a big proponent of havingsystems in place right, like
having a, you know, just a good,not only a good plan, but just
(13:37):
a repeatable system in place,right.
I think I'm still building thatand and taking pieces of some
of the things that you guys havedone, I guess, and other people
do, kind of you know, maybemake it my own a little bit, um,
and I like to keep it simple,right, so just, um you know,
getting that nice simple plan inplace and planning your work
(13:58):
and working your planning, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, no, that's such a good piece of advice, Cause
if you're just out there flyingaround like a like a loose
cannon, everything's going tofeel chaotic in your day to day.
You're probably your stresslevel is going to be much higher
than it probably needs to be.
Where, if you just have, likeyou're saying, if you can create
a plan and you can stick tothat plan and you can just and
(14:23):
again, again you're gonna haveto alter as you learn new things
, but for the most part, as longas you continue to go down a
certain path, it's not going tofeel so chaotic.
It's going to feel like you'reyou're working a system and
you're working a process, versusjust like I don't know what I'm
doing, I'm crazy, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
yeah, you and I were talking a little bit about save
your menards receipts, send inthose rebates.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
They add up yeah yeah , buddy, I got an ards envelope,
right here it's put.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Put all my, all my receipts in that envelope and
then, like once a month or so,send those babies in and you get
those rebates.
Now you get, you know, five,six, seven hundred bucks to buy
a vanity.
Buy some, whatever you need,right yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
hey, if you got a business credit card or a
separate credit card too, oryou're earning some cash for
back rewards or something likethat man, that stuff adds up to
pretty soon.
You got, you're spending 40 G'son a flip or something and,
like you, you just bought a bigproject which we can get into in
a second.
But you know, with all the, allthe material and stuff that
you're gonna have to buy forthat bad boy, you put that all
on a little rebate card.
You're getting some, so that'sthat's how it adds up.
(15:18):
pretty quick, man, and we dothat with our businesses.
We spend a ton of money everymonth and on advertising or
whatever anything I can put onthe card where I'm not getting
charged you know some littleservice fee or whatever put it
on there.
I'm throwing it on the card andgetting those getting those
little rebates or those cashbackers adds up every little bit
helps yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, I did want to talk aboutreal quick, cause you're in an
(15:39):
interesting thing.
You went from corporate worldfor 20 years to now you're doing
real estate full time right,like there's enough.
Yeah, this is your, this isyour gig, right?
Yep, what's that transitionbeen like, eric, have there been
challenges with making thattransition, as?
Have you found kind of a system, like you mentioned, that's
worked pretty well for how youmanage your time?
And then, what is your that'sworked?
(16:02):
Pretty well for how you manageyour time.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
And then what is your ?
What makes up your time rightnow on a day-to-day basis?
Yeah, yeah, so I started withum usd really kind of an agent
of usd, if you will in a little10 by 10 kiosk outside of food
court back in, uh, 2004.
Okay with that, yeah, you know.
But and no, I wasn't one ofthose guys that would yell at
you when you're walking by thephone counter.
(16:26):
Okay, that was a differentcompany, but I was.
I was, I was in the in the mallkiosk selling some you know
motorola razor, face plates andyou know kind of stuff back in
the flip phone days.
But yeah, so I started thereand kind of worked my way up
from one position to the otherand you know, my last position I
(16:46):
had with US Cellular was asenior manager of our basically
the business channel, right, theB2B teams and the support teams
that service the largerbusinesses throughout the state
of Wisconsin, right?
So like Green Bay Packerspurchased 50 iPads, like I came
and set them up, service thelarger businesses throughout the
state of wisconsin, right.
So like green bay packerspurchased 50 ipads, like I can't
implement them, set them up,set it all up, good stuff.
But um had.
(17:07):
You know, had a great, greatcareer there, learned a lot.
Um, had a lot of really goodmentors it was, it was a good,
really good company to work forand, um, you know, they took
care of me on the way out.
And now I'm putting that moneyinto into into flipping houses
right From flip flip phones toflipping houses, I guess.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Oh, dude, I love that it's going to be.
It's going to be our taglinefor this episode.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Right, yeah, hashtag it no.
So, um, yeah, I mean a lot ofthought went into it, right, and
um, like we said before, youknow, it's just time to pull the
trigger and get into this thing.
So I have been had a bug in myreal estate agency here I guess
for a while too.
That sold me this house that welive in now.
(17:48):
Gosh, almost 10 years now Ithink we've been here, but you
know, to look for some differentproperties.
She, you know, after I told herwe went all in, she let me know
she had what what she called, Iguess, an in-house listing which
was just with her agency there,that um hadn't necessarily hit
the mls yet, that you know,needed some work.
It had some foundation stuffwhich is a little scary if you
(18:10):
don't really know, know muchabout right, and I could tell
that this is going to besomething that people probably
be, you know, afraid of.
But there again I reached outto the resources.
That that I knew.
Um joey, actually, I think,referred me to um, the
foundation guy that you guysnormally use a couple different
ones brad probably brad at deerview, I think.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, he's our go-to guy usually yeah, yep.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So those guys came out and gave me some quotes and
I was like, all right, well,that's about about what I
figured.
But you know, there again, whenyou know they show up and they
got, uh, they start digging outthe side of your house and
they're drilling anchors intoyour foundation of uh you know
floor of the house.
You're kind of like man, whatdid I get into here?
(18:58):
But yeah, um, yeah, the firstone turned out really good.
You know they, we, the house.
You're kind of like man, whatdid I get into here?
But yeah, um, yeah, the firstone turned out really good.
You know they, we ended up, Ithink, sticking probably close
to 60 grand into it by the timewe were done, which is a lot of
money.
On the first one, um, you know,we ended up okay on it at the
end of the day.
I think all in constructionthere we were probably 70 days
(19:20):
from close to finish turningaround for basically me and one
to two other guys kind of doingthe, doing the work.
We didn't have to do too muchon the outside, but otherwise
the inside was complete gutter,kitchen, all that good stuff.
So you know, good learningprocess, use some resources at
home depot, right, kind of letthem do the layout Okay, um, let
(19:43):
them do the countertop and kindof some of that stuff.
But yeah, so that was a goodlearning process going through
the kitchen design and all that.
I hadn't done that before butokay, pretty smooth overall.
Uh, but yeah, that was the.
That was the first one.
I think from beginning to end,that project, from close to sale
was, I would say, probably fivemonths.
(20:05):
Okay, we closed in February,sold in June.
Okay, that makes probably lessthan five.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Did you make some money?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, that one we probably walked away netted
probably about 35 nice one.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, not bad dude.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
If you make anything in your first one, you're doing
good that's, yeah, that's kindof what I, kind of what I was
telling you, let alone make 35g's dude, that's pretty awesome
man.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Wow, that's incredible dude.
And the time frame that that'sa quick, quick turnaround time
with that big of a project.
The other thing I think isinteresting here, cause you took
on a big project for your firstone.
Yeah Right, that's prettyimpressive.
Most, most people I advise I'mlike man, just you know, start
with some cosmetic stuff, get anice one under your belt.
But you're like rip the bandaidbaby, let's get it all done.
(21:01):
Huh yeah, what was your thoughtprocess behind that?
I mean, we talked about fearbefore.
Talk about that a little bit.
How did you as a first-timedeal, was it just confidence in
your numbers?
You had enough spread therethat you felt pretty confident
in going into a big project likethat.
What was your thought processwhen you were evaluating that
deal?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
if can remember back, yeah, I mean the numbers look
good on it.
Um, I think, like I said before, I'm just kind of an all-in guy
and I knew that I didn't wantto just come in and put some new
paint and patch this and patchthat, right, I knew I wanted to
have a really good finishedproject.
So, um, kind of just had avision of what I wanted the
(21:40):
house to look like when we wereall all done.
And you know, we just we justmade it happen.
It doesn't mean that therewasn't some, you know, some fear
second guessing along the way.
But you know, I think to me, Iguess I'm in the mindset, as I'm
working on these projects, ifthe numbers start to get, I
(22:00):
don't know less where I wantthem to be essentially right.
I'm just from the mindset thatI'm just going to work harder on
my own, then right.
So, instead of you know, payingmr sam list to come in and redo
the floors like I rent theequipment myself, right.
So okay, having you know propainters, come and paint the
house like you got to get inthere, roll up your sleeves and
(22:22):
paint it yourself.
I think it's a healthy balance,right Of subbing out some of
this stuff to like thefoundation.
Obviously I'm not going to domyself, but you know, when it
comes to spreading some mulch ormowing the lawn or whatever, it
is right Like you got tosometimes just roll up your
sleeves and and do it yourself,so you know you can make some
(22:43):
money.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, for sure.
I love that, especially onthose first, those early ones,
right?
Like you know, one of thethings I'm a big proponent of is
it depends on your goals, right, but if you're looking to scale
and grow and create more of abusiness out of it, versus you
know, just something you enjoydoing, like that's the other
balance too.
Like I hear some guys that arelike, um, if you mow your own
lawn you're an idiot, right, andI'm like you know I'm.
(23:05):
I see the point, I get thepoint of what we're trying to
make, but some people lovemowing their lawn.
So it's like, if you enjoydoing it and do it right, you
know, not everything has to benecessarily about the monetary
component to it.
If you enjoy doing it, itbrings you joy and happiness and
you love getting your hand.
You know some guys like workingwith their hands.
Yeah, there's nothing wrongwith that, right?
Um, yeah, but for you.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
What does that look like?
I do pay someone to mow my ownlawn because I think I'm too
busy doing doing other stuff.
I gotta pay someone.
I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
We moved it.
We moved to pulaski back inlike 2014 I think that's where
20 yeah, it's like no, 2016, Ithink that's where I grew up and
, um, we had three acres outthere, basically just like grass
right, it was like three acresof grass.
So I bought like the zero turnthing.
I was like, yeah, I'm gonna getout of the zero turn every all
(23:57):
the time.
This would be awesome.
I love it.
I love driving this thing, andafter like my third time mowing
the lawn and it took like two orthree hours I was like this is
so stupid.
What am I doing?
I want to sell this thing rightnow and hire somebody to come
out here and do this lawn fortwo or three hours every couple
weeks.
I'm not doing this, but somepeople love it.
You Right, you know, let them.
Let them do it.
(24:18):
I guess.
The day-to-day though, for you,eric, let's go into that real
quick.
I want to go circle back tothat.
What cause?
I think there's people outthere that are either already
doing real estate andconsidering going full time, or
they're like you and they'regoing to have some kind of life
event happen and they're justgoing to rip the bandaid and go
full bore without you know,maybe easing into it first, like
(24:38):
you're doing.
I think one of the fears when Iwas leaving corporate America
was what am I going to do withmy day?
How am I going to keep myselfbusy?
I've been doing this in thepockets of my life right For
those people who started itearly.
How am I going to structure mydays?
What am I going to do?
We're so used to in corporateAmerica.
You show up at this time, youdo this, you do this, you got a
meeting here, you got lunch.
(24:58):
That boom, boom, boom, boom.
It's very structured.
You don't have to think aboutit when you're on your own.
That can be a fear for people.
It's like how do I manage mytime?
What does that look like foryou, and has that been a
challenge at all?
Have you had to kind of feelthat out, or was it?
Has it been pretty easy totransition into the full-time
work for yourself thing?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
um, no, I.
I think it took a little bit oftime to, yeah, adjust right and
and again like, kind of getinto your new life, kind of new
workflow, right I'm.
I'm the type of person that Iprobably have the the opposite
problem.
My wife tells me all the timeof like, can you just sit still,
can you just not do something?
Like I'm to the point whereit's like oh, I got a free
(25:38):
sunday, might as well clean outthe garage and yeah, florida
right, so.
So I never really have a problemstaying busy, um, but it but it
does take a little bit to belike, okay, I'm used to sitting
at my desk here and having, youknow, six zoom calls I don't
want to be on to.
Now I got to figure out whatmaterials I got to go buy, right
(25:59):
, or what's the scope of work onthis next project.
Or I got to review thedifferent deals that we have.
This week when I was because Iwas really in, as you know,
because I'm up to fourproperties now I think that I
purchased from you guys I wasinto, like I got to start buying
stuff here.
I got to start stacking thesethings up because you do want to
find a way to replace that W-2income, right.
(26:23):
Like my wife and I have ahealthy competition that we did
about like who was going to makemore money this year, right, so
I thought she was the only onewith a W-2.
I'm like, well, I got a talltask here to make sure I'm
matching that or beating thathere by the end of the year.
So, yeah, just you know,analyzing the deals, checking on
the projects that are going on,as much as you know you want to
(26:49):
trust your contractors and youthink you have good people
working for you and all thatstuff.
I mean I think you have to stayon path and you have to stay in
the deadlines, stick to theplan, right, and and then that's
laid out there.
I did kind of learn that real,real quick in the.
The first person I hired for myfirst clip I thought it was
(27:10):
someone you know, I had knownfor for a while met him at a
church basketball league type ofthing.
It was always one of thosethings that, hey, if I ever do
this, I'll give you a chance.
Man, you know why don't youcome and do this first one with
me and learned real quick?
I should have probably done alittle bit more, um, you know,
background work on on board andwe had to.
(27:31):
You know I had to pivot kind ofmid project, which is, uh, you
know, also something that couldhave sent me back there, but we
just probably do so.
Yeah, I mean again, I thinkI've always tried to have a
healthy work-life, uh, balance,but yeah, it was an adjustment,
you know you have.
Yeah, like I said, I I'm prettyself-motivated, self-starter
(27:53):
type of guy, so I'll keep myself, you know, busy as much as you
want to.
You know watch espn until 10,30, 11 am, maybe every day, or
you know, march madness.
It probably splits up a littlebit cory, I'm not gonna lie yeah
, yeah I watched a little bit ofyeah march madness, but that
that probably wasn't that muchdifferent than than when I was
in corporal.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I was gonna say that I get it too, like guys are
gonna check their phone 90 900times during the day during
march madness to see what'sgoing on with those games.
It's just part of our culture,you know.
You just got to basically chalkthat up.
Like you said, it doesn'tmatter if you're working
corporate America for yourself,it's you know you're going to
have those days.
It's healthy too.
You got to have that time tojust sometimes you got to have a
(28:34):
little time for yourself anddecompress a little bit, and I
think that is actually probablyone of the things I see from
people who go out on their own.
It's it's the opposite.
Like they have so much, theyput so much pressure on
themselves, like if they're thetype of person who's considering
going out on their own andrunning their own business.
They're probably pretty driven.
If you took a personality test,their disc profile, their D is
going to be pretty high.
(28:55):
They're going to have a prettydominant personality type and
they're going to put morepressure on themselves than
probably anybody else would tobe successful.
In most cases Right.
And so part of the issuesometimes isn't necessarily that
they're they're taking theirtime.
You know watching some ESPN.
It's the opposite.
Like they're not taking anytime for themselves and it just
(29:15):
consumes their life.
So it's almost like theopposite.
Like for me, I had to, I and Istill have to work on this their
life.
So it's almost like theopposite.
Like for me, I had to, I and Istill have to work on this.
I have to put boundaries aroundwhen I'm working and when I'm
with family, and it gets reallytough with with cell phones and
internet and all that stuff.
Now the lines get very blurredof of what what's acceptable
necessarily as a business ownerand what should be acceptable as
(29:37):
a family man and a businessowner.
It can be a struggle on theopposite side of things.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
For sure.
Yeah, I've definitely been onthat side of it as well and been
checked at 8.30 at night whenI'm seeing what floorings on
sale, menards or something, orwatching a video of the new
listings you guys have rolledout or something.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, yeah, has that been a challenge for you, eric,
in your life.
As far as setting someboundaries with family now that
you're out on your own or like,is it kind of consistent with
what you had previously in thecorporate world?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I mean, I like to think that I have more
flexibility now.
Right, then, what I have before, you know, especially
especially during the day forthe additional flexibility has
been, has been, nice, right, butto your point too, it's like,
I'm sure the flexibility is nice, but there's still that, um,
(30:31):
you know, I don't want to sayhow many over your head, but
really they're like, okay, Ineed to be, I also need to be
working right, I need to bedoing something to make sure I'm
, you know, turning around thebacon and helping support the
family too, right, so it's been,it's been nice to have the
flexibility.
I don't miss constant callsfrom corporate world, that's for
sure.
(30:53):
I had a really good team,especially this last time when I
was there.
I missed, I missed the peoplefrom from that.
But you know, I was definitelygetting to a point where I
didn't like answering to anybody.
Uh, I've been there forprobably a while.
Um, you know, you know yougotta answer to yourself, so
that's a bit of an adjustmentyeah, going out on your own
(31:16):
talking about that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
for the people out there that are social, like, how
are you and maybe you haven'tfound this yet.
If you were, you know youmentioned the team piece of it.
I think that that also could bekind of jarring.
You're all all of a suddenyou're around a team, you're all
on a on a mission together,you're all in the same struggles
you have you can complain aboutthe conference calls together.
You got that common bond andthen you're out on your own and
(31:40):
now you're kind of on an islandin some aspects.
Like, have you been able to tofind some way to still have that
kind of cohesive like get yourpeople bucket filled and and how
are you doing that now as asolo, solopreneur here?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
yeah, I'd say that's still a work in progress, right?
So, like I mentioned before, Ihave the connections there with
you know, with you guys, whetherit's Joey or even even page
page, and I have good friends,we talk quite often, so that's
been nice for him and I.
He's just kind of getting, um,you know, dipping into this as
well, and so you know, a lot ofideas off of each other, share
(32:17):
struggles, share successes,right?
We celebrate when we both,actually, I think, closed on our
first flip on the same day.
Oh, that's crazy dude.
Yeah, yeah, and we have the samelast name, so that's even more
that's even more crazy.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Things are getting weird.
Yeah, so that's even more crazy.
That's even more crazy, thingsare getting weird.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, I think that'ssomething I'm continuing to grow
Right and I know I need to getto some of the REI meetings that
you guys have even justwatching, you know, in
preparation for this.
Watching some of these podcasts, like reviewing some of that,
(32:57):
I'm like man, there's so much Ihave left to learn with this and
so much good information outthere.
So I would say that's somethingI'm continuing to work on and
want to continue to grow.
My network my team you knowjust be around like-minded
people right To have thatentrepreneurial experience that
had that passion for real estateand you know, for me that goes
(33:18):
all the way back to my dad wasin real estate.
Um, I can not help them mailenvelopes out for, like, you
know, like for email, right,they were sending out mail, mail
letters for um.
People to to um get a freemarket analysis done on their
home.
People to to um get a freemarket analysis done on their
home Right, an OG there, yeah,so that I think I need I I want
(33:42):
to continue to to expand, um,you know, that kind of social
setting of who were bouncingideas off of all that good stuff
, you know, cause it is a lot oftimes, you know just who.
You know too.
Like I said, I've been able toin a short period of time, get a
lot of times.
You know just who.
You know too.
Like I said, I've been able to,in a short period of time, get
a lot of connections.
And, um, you know, just justthe other day I was talking to a
(34:02):
contractor and I'm like, oh, Ihave this project where we're
looking at maybe vaulting theceilings.
You know, I know I need anengineer out here.
I'm sure that's going to takeforever.
And it's like well, I know thisguy.
Actually, why don't you givehim a call him up?
He happened to be at theMenards in Oshkosh.
I'm like well, I'm just downthe road.
You think you could stop in.
Oh, yeah, I can stop.
So you just stopped in.
So you just start saving thosepeople in your phone.
(34:24):
I got Joel the builder, davidthe scrap metal guy.
You just start junk clean out,jerry, whatever it is right, you
just start building a networkof people.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
So, yeah, the guys on our team always give me crap
because that's how I literallysave people in my phone since
their contact.
So, like I have like this guy,mike the mud jacker I don't even
know his last name, I just knowhe's mike the mud jacker and
that's how he saved my phone.
If I need mud jacking, that'sthe guy I call.
You know, you got I got junkguy.
Yeah, that's that's just how mycontacts look now.
So if you ever need a contactand you get one from me, usually
(35:00):
their last name is going to bewhatever I remember about that
person or their, their role orwhatever the case is.
But the networking piece, man, II swear we talk about this on
every single episode because itis so important and I think not
necessarily even like as you andI are talking, eric, I'm kind
of thinking through thenetworking piece of it and it
can be a lonely island if you'reout on your own.
(35:22):
Like you know, for people incorporate America and stuff like
that, you still have that teamconnection a lot of times, so
it's not as impactful.
But I think, like for guys likeyou've gone out on your own,
especially if you're more of asocial person type.
When you go out on your own itcan be really lonely and like
almost depressing at pointsbecause you're so used to that
back-and-forth human interaction, like in your face, eight hours
(35:44):
a day for 40 hours a week, andthen you go out on your own and
like it's just crickets and youlike all your friends were your
work friends because you spendall your time with them and like
, oh, now they're all out doingsomething else or you're not in
their little sphere.
If you left a job, thatnecessarily wasn't by choice.
And so getting to some of theseevents for the information is
great, but it's more sosometimes even just for your own
(36:07):
mental health, to be aroundother people with the same
struggles and that you can buildsome connections with and
relationships with and and talkthrough some things, joke, you
know, make the real estate humorif you will, and those types of
things that can.
It can really help mentally alot of times if you're out on
your own.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
For sure, for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, well, man, this is awesome, eric.
One last thing I want to askyou about.
I want to go to something alittle tactical, because this
was some, some little nugget youthrew out there a little
earlier that I've never even Ididn't even know it was possible
.
So we've, we do, we do flips.
We're doing more flips than wehave in the past because our
team's doing a great job lockingup a lot of deals and sometimes
we have more deals than what wewant to put out to you guys.
(36:45):
But but I don't get a ton intolike the rehab.
I've never been great at doingrehab.
I don't like it.
I'm not a detail guy.
I don't like.
I'm like I'm.
I keep talking about this onein Jackson port that I'm doing.
You and I were talking a littlebit before this like I hate
this.
I hate general contracting thisthing right now, and I don't
have to have the generalcontract anything inside the
(37:06):
house, I just have to get thehouse there on a new slab and I
hate it Like I hate it.
I'm learning a ton, though Iput the second one probably
would be much easier because nowI've learned a lot.
Everything wouldn't be such ashock to me.
But, that being said, you knowyou mentioned something a little
earlier.
You went into Home Depot andthey helped you lay out and
design the kitchen.
I didn't know this was.
I didn't know you could do this.
So can you tell?
(37:26):
Tell us a little bit.
How did you?
Who did you talk to?
How did you set that up?
What was that process like?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Tell me a little bit more about that.
Sure, uh, you know, I don'tknow how I necessarily stumbled
across it.
I think I just started talkingto somebody in their uh
department there back by thekitchen cabinets, and, uh, I
started asking questions aboutthe kitchen cabinets.
You know what are the mostpopular ones for contractors?
What do you recommend?
What's?
You know what's the mid-gradecabinet, what's the higher end
cabinet?
You know you start to learnabout what comes with soft
(38:00):
closed doors, right, and thenwhat's the price difference for
those types of things?
Um, but then, yeah, then I juststarted talking to somebody
there and they out, uh, kind ofoutlead their program that they
have, where, essentially, if yougive them the rough dimensions
right of the kitchen, they firstset up a consultative call with
(38:23):
you to start to lay it out,right, you give them the
dimensions kind of where youthink you want things.
Do you want an island, you know,do you want, you know, an
in-cabinet fridge, whateverright?
Um, you know, do you want?
You know, uh, in cabinet fridgeor whatever Right?
Um, and then then they then youset up another appointment
after that, actually, sorry, sothey sent, then they send out
(38:44):
their own measurement team,right, so they send out to take?
Take the measurementsthemselves just to, I think,
confirm you know to use the tapemeasure.
I guess, I don't know, maybeI'm so new, maybe they just did
that with me, I don't know, yeah, I would, I would need that if
that was me for sure I would.
I would even trust mine for sureyeah, but they, you know, and
that that's mainly for thecountertops, I think, right,
(39:06):
they want to make sure they getthe countertops right, okay, um,
so yeah, they.
And then you have um anothermeeting where where they
actually will lay out thekitchen um with you and I went
in person for that actually,where it's kind of, you know,
you get to see a nice little 3dimage of the kitchen and you can
(39:27):
um tell them, you know theheight of the cabinets that you
want, you know you want standardheights, you need elongated
cabinets, because which I neededin this particular flip,
because I took a sledgehammer tothe fake like soffit, that oh
yeah, kitchen um yeah, and thenthey, um, they do the
countertops as well, and it wasa pretty easy for you to pick
(39:48):
out your appliances while you'reall there, um, but it was a
nice, it was a pretty easyprocess.
And then they had somebody comein and install the quartz
countertops, because again, Iknow that was over my head.
I didn't know my contractorswell enough then to really trust
if that was something theyspecialized in and I just
(40:10):
figured if.
I'm going to invest in quartzcountertops.
I'm going to pay a quartzcountertop company to put it in.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, that's awesome, would they?
Would they hang the counter?
Would they hang the cabinetstoo for you, if you want, if you
need them to?
Speaker 2 (40:23):
yep, yeah, they'll install it.
I mean for a fee, obviously,but yeah, they'll, they'll
install everything.
But I think, like, I think thedesign and the layout portion
was maybe 150 bucks for theconsultation.
It wasn't, wasn't, wasn't muchat all.
And then this, this last clipthat I just started actually um
(40:44):
in in Oshkosh.
Uh, it's a prettystraightforward kitchen, but I
went to Lowe's for that and Ijust sat down with a guy right
there and he, he did the imagingright there no appointment, no
there.
And he, he did the imagingright there no appointment, no
anything.
And uh, that was really smoothtoo.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Wow, dude, that's such a good nugget right there
for people, cause I think, eric,even for me I'm like it's one
of the struggles you talkedabout getting into this, or
things you anticipated maybebeing a challenge.
Luckily for you have not beenas big of a challenge as they
can be.
It's finding good people to dothe work Right and you outsource
it to some of these big boxstores.
If they have people that arevetted, you know you're probably
(41:21):
, if they don't do it right,you're probably going to have a
good chance of getting somebodyto come back and fix it because
it's through a big box store.
Right, and as long as it canmeet timelines and the cost is
comparable, I guess you wouldsay, to what you could get
elsewhere, it's an easy it'salmost like a cheat code to get
get some of these flips donewithout having to go and find
all these different people tohelp you go do it and then you
(41:43):
got to come up with the designand do all this stuff Like man.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
That might be the way to go for some people out there
listening to this yeah, I meanI, I just looked at it as a
learning opportunity is worst,worst case case scenario.
Even if I don't do it again, atleast I'm learning something
about the process here as we, aswe went through it.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
yeah, I think the cabinets.
I think like another keylearning would be, like cabinets
and windows, order them quick,because those are the things
that can take the longest,especially if you have special
sizes for your windows.
You know, if you custom windows, that could take a little bit.
Yeah, you know some in-stockwindows from Menard or something
you know, not as long, butcabinets I think these last
(42:24):
cabinets that I just orderedtook two to three weeks, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yep, yep, definitely that's.
I mean we've been pushed backbefore when we've had to do new
cabinets and we had onesituation also make sure you
know when your cabinets arecoming in, if you're not having
home depot install it.
We had home depot one time.
Drop them off on a friday,didn't ever send us anything and
they sat out outside allweekend and it rained all
(42:48):
weekend and so the cabinets gotruined and they took them back.
They were good about it, butnow we were another three weeks
out from getting new ones again.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
So yeah, anyway, and look them over, look over your
finances, look over yourcabinets right away when they
get delivered, because a lot oftimes you do only have a small
window to return.
When you're surprised you knowyou don't want a brand new
anything getting delivered withdamage, right?
Speaker 1 (43:14):
yeah, exactly what does the future look like for
you, Eric?
What's the big goals?
I mean, take us, what's fiveyears?
We talked to Eric.
We bring them back on.
What's that going to look like?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
I mean five years from now.
Uh, I would hope that I have ahealthy portfolio right?
I think, uh, my goal is to havediversified portfolio of
long-term rentals, short-termrentals.
Uh, just starting this four plexis going to be a big, big
project that we just closed onand we're doing that on monday
already with, uh, you know,clean out and all that good
(43:46):
stuff, um, but yeah, I just wantto have a good portfolio right
of long-term, short-term uh.
Um, you know, maybe get intothe commercial side of things to
see Makes dollars.
It makes sense, right.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
All that good old tagline.
So right now the goal isflipping some to get some cash
and then start converting thatinto rentals.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Nice Awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
And continue to.
Just I'm sure I'll still belearning five years from now.
Oh yeah, Just a sponge tryingto suck up as much information
as possible and continue to,just, I'm sure.
I'll still be learning fiveyears from now.
But you know right, just asponge trying to suck suck up as
much information as possible.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, that's awesome dude.
Yeah, as at the time we'rerecording this, eric closed on a
big project that we had out tothe list.
Uh, yesterday he closed.
Oh, you say mold, mold is goldbaby.
Oh say mold, mold is gold baby.
Mold is you got the mold isgold four unit dude?
Speaker 2 (44:42):
so yeah it turned, turned some people away, so you
got it now right.
Uh, yeah, that's, but that's anexciting one.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Unique, unique building is, butit's got in the in-unit laundry
and each of the units, nicefour-car garage, a lot, of, a
lot of room there.
We, you know, we, we think to,um, you know, make some money on
it after we get.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (45:01):
in the numbers on that thing are going to look
like eric.
So tell everybody what'd youget it for?
What do you think you're goingto stick into it?
What do you hope it's going toappraise for?
Speaker 2 (45:08):
yeah, I mean roughly, we got it for 100.
I think it's going to take 100to get it right, probably 60 on
the the outside, 40 on theinside.
You know if you're thinking 10grand a unit, you know, but it
could go over that.
You know there's some unknownsthere where I think electrical
is going to be a pretty bigexpense there as we work through
it.
But you know, again, I'm notgetting paid for this but WDP
(45:33):
and my you know your boy Reeseover there did a really good job
putting together some.
You know your boy Reese overthere did did a really good job
putting together some.
You know some numbers there with, uh, even the rental meter and
you know what the building'sgonna, you know, be worth after
a certain span of time.
But you know, so if we're allin with rehab, even at 200, 225,
I think your ARV on that onewas 325.
(45:57):
The lender that I was initiallyworking with did their own kind
of independent appraisal of theproperty and it came in right
at like 320, 325.
So it came in right in linewith what you guys came up with.
And again, you mentioned thatthat earlier.
So you know that was spot on.
So even if you go for,mentioned that that earlier.
So, um, you know that was yeah.
So even if you go for that,even if, at you know, at 320, um
(46:22):
, you know most hundreds will be80, 80 percent of that, if
you're in a mortgage.
Hopefully you can cash out, youknow cash out 60 on it.
And when you refinance and getsome good renters on there and
should cash flow, you know,pretty decent.
I'm thinking 1,000, 1,200 andhopefully more, you know, per
month.
But yeah, it should be a goodproject.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
I'm looking forward to it, dude.
That's awesome man.
And 320 might even be low rightby the time you get it done and
you start getting it rented up.
Right, that's one thing I thinkthat helps when we put these
ARVs out this is just ahypothesis I have is, by the
time you flip it so you buy theproperty today, the market is at
what it is right.
(47:05):
By the time you get it outthere, say, it's six months now
and you're listing this property.
Or when you go to refinancethis thing, let's just say
you've got them all rented now.
It took six months, maybe eightmonths, to get it stabilized
and rented, or whatever themarket consistently appreciates
over time.
Right, I just did a podcast, asolo episode, where I broke down
a bunch of numbers, and thisone it'll probably get released
(47:31):
right before yours, like theweek before your episode, eric.
And what's interesting is likewhere this is in Manitowoc, you
bought it, right.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yep Just outside of Manitowoc and a Francis Creek
area.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Yeah, so I had, I had my good friends over at chat
GPT do some deep research onmarket appreciation on rental
properties and I did it for,like all of Northeast Wisconsin,
manitowoc, over the last twoyears has appreciated like 17 to
20% or something like that,like just insane growth.
Not saying that's going tohappen to you, but that's where
(48:02):
I think we see some of theseARVs maybe down the road coming
in higher.
It's just time is just workingand the market's just
consistently appreciating.
So you're going to get thoselittle bumps.
So, like, if you're looking atan ARV today and your appraisers
this is one of my struggles Ihave with some of these ARV
appraisals or appraisersSometimes they're looking six
months to 12 months in the rear.
(48:22):
Right, we're looking especiallyfor a flip.
So if you're buying it using acommunity bank and you're going
to use a flip, right, we'retrying to predict what's the
market going to be in six months, not 12 months ago.
What's it going to be in sixmonths from now?
And so a lot of times it's kindof lost in that translation.
(48:43):
Again, it's not a hugedifference.
Four or 5% is pretty commonover time, but it's still a
factor.
Right, you put 4% on 300,000,that's a $12,000 difference in a
year in a year's time so itmakes it-.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Even looking back on my first flip that I did, the
appraisal that was done that byby the lender um came in at like
arv or they don't necessarilycall it arv.
I think it's kind of like ahybrid of arv and kind of
current current value, becausethey'll end up at 80 of that
number.
So that came in yeah, I mean260, right is what their
(49:19):
appraised value was for that.
So they lent up to 80% of that,but that house sold for 3.1.
So when you think about wherethey put that number and where
it ended up actually selling andagain that's where I think it
depends on the finishes you putin them.
We put nice elements, you putquartz countertops, you put some
good LGP in there.
(49:41):
But, that's what those can paysome dividends in the end.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Yeah for sure.
Wow, that's crazy.
So one thing I just heard therewe have a couple right now, one
that I just did a refi on andwe have a buyer of ours who
actually works for us.
They have a higher end one thatthey've bought and the
appraisal came in super low.
Right Point is if you can getthrough that and figure out a
way to still finance it or rebutthat appraisal and get your
(50:07):
appraisal up.
But if you can't appraiserssometimes they don't like to
change their appraisals.
They're a little bit like theyknow what they're doing.
They got a little ego right, ifyou just gave, I think, some
people some hope.
Right Like, you know yournumbers and you you know you're
solid on your numbers and theappraisal comes in low, don't,
don't count yourself out here.
Right Like, there's still agood shot.
(50:28):
You're going to, you're goingto be able to get your number.
If you do the, do the propertyright Like, rewrite, like, fix
it up the way it should be right.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yeah for sure, I think, the more that's great
yeah, the other thing about that, I just sorry we might have
some offering going on oh, goahead, eric.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
I think we had a little delay there.
Yeah, I think we had a littledelay there.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Go on, go ahead okay no, I think the more you get
under your belt too, right, youcan show your lenders of like,
hey, I, I know, you know this iswhat you're thinking, but these
are the last two or three.
We did that, here's what theysold for, right?
So you just get more, the moreexperience I think can show them
what you're capable of doing.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yep, yep, and I just had one on a on a duplex.
So we re, we renovated bothunits of this upper lower duplex
.
We had an ARV on it of 240 thatwe put out to the buyers list.
My appraisal came.
Them were actually decent.
I was kind of like, oh crap,this isn't cool, cause some of
(51:38):
them looked pretty nice from thepictures on the previous
listings.
Uh, but then I went and Ipulled actual.
I just pulled my own comps and,like again, he used the three
lowest comps.
So I'm rebuttaling it right now.
I wish I had an update of howthat rebuttal went.
But I did use my good friendsagain over at chat GPT.
So we got a couple of shamelessplugs today.
(51:59):
Wisconsin discount propertiesand chat GPT hook up here.
But I had it I.
It was really cool.
I put in all the comps that Ifound, I uploaded those and I I
put in the appraisal and Iuploaded that and I had it.
Basically pick apart theappraisal and talk about why my
comps were more relevant thanwhat the appraisal was and it
put together like a nicelyworded rebuttal, cause otherwise
(52:20):
I'd be like this appraiser isan idiot, you know I probably
wouldn't get very far.
So I had to put a nice littlerebuttal and the lender called
me like right after I sent itover to him.
He's like thank you so much forputting all the data you gave
me.
This is incredible.
Like wow, I'm going to sendthis off to the appraiser and
hopefully we can.
I think you got a great casehere, you know, with all the
(52:46):
data.
I'm like thank you, chad GPT.
You are amazing.
So you know there is thatpossibility.
So that is the risk.
When you're going to do theserefinances, you're going to get
a low appraisal, but, um, butyou don't have to close on it
either, which is nice, unlessyou have a hard money loan and
you've got to close that thingout.
You've got some time if you'vegot to get a different bank or a
different appraisal if youdon't like the way your
appraisal came in.
So it happens.
Well, eric, appreciate you beingon man.
This has been awesome.
(53:07):
I loved everything we talkedabout today.
There's tons of good nuggets inhere, so this is one I think
people will go back andre-listen to Again, especially
if there's somebody that canrelate to your current state or
they're thinking about maybegoing out on their own.
There's a lot of good stuff inhere, but for those of you guys
listening I say it on everyepisode go share this stuff on
your social platforms.
Not only does it help uscontinue to get the word out and
(53:30):
put this in more people'searbuds, but it's going to help
you guys as well.
You're going to have morepeople, more lenders that, that
know about your private money.
Possibly some deal flow comingin from people who see you're
doing these types of things,especially people like Eric, who
are in you know doing, doingsome of the dirty work sharing
some of that stuff.
Now they're sharing some of thethese episodes of education for
other people.
It's only going to help you.
So, if you guys do want to geton that buyer's list, eric did a
(53:53):
great job promoting today.
I'll send him a check afterthis for that commercial today,
but you can go towisconsindiscountpropertiescom.
Put your information in onthere to get added to the
buyer's list and then Reese orConnor from my team will reach
out to you and have aconversation, figure out your
goals, talk to you a little bitabout getting you connected up
with some of the people youmight need to help you in your
(54:14):
real estate journey, whetheryou're here, local or you're
somebody outside the state thatwants to invest in our markets.
We would love to have thatconversation with you and we
will see you guys on the nextepisode.
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