June 3, 2025 • 32 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ed Mathews (00:49):
Greetings and salutations, real Estate
Undergrounders.
It is Ed Mathews with the RealEstate Underground.
Today is a really cool show.
I'm really excited to have aconversation with this guest.
Jessie Lang from UnlockedRentals is joining us and she
has built roughly and she maycorrect me, and that's okay $10
million plus portfolio in justthree and a half years, which is
mind boggling, especially givenhow difficult it is to find
(01:10):
deals these days.
Jessie, welcome to the show.
How's life in Columbus, Ohio?
Jessie Lang (01:15):
Oh, life in Columbus.
It's been raining, but it'sbeen good for my garden that we
just planted this past weekend,so I'm not complaining.
Thank, you so much for havingme.
Ed Mathews (01:23):
Truly my pleasure, maydows or flowers.
Jessie Lang (01:25):
We do wildflowers every year and they grow about
six feet tall and they make thisbeautiful path through our yard
.
Ed Mathews (01:30):
Awesome.
We have to send me pictures.
It'll give my wife ideas andthen we'll probably be doing it
next year.
Jessie Lang (01:35):
Yes, it will be.
Ed Mathews (01:37):
All right, hey, welcome to the show.
I've really enjoyed followingyou on LinkedIn and I enjoy your
podcast Unlocked as well Forthose folks out there who are
listening.
If you're not listening to it,you should, because it's highly
educational and I learnsomething with every episode.
If you are listening to theshow and when you get something
out of this, I would very muchappreciate if you could follow
us on the platforms.
It does help us grow and withthat, let's get into it.
(02:00):
Jessie, congratulations on allyour success and for those folks
who haven't discovered you yet,why don't you tell us a little
bit about you and your companies?
Jessie Lang (02:09):
Yeah, absolutely like you said.
My name is Jessie Lang.
I am investing here in Columbus, Ohio.
I was actually born and raisedin Austin, Texas, and moved to
Columbus around 2017.
They're actually really similarcities, so if anyone's like a
fan of Austin, maybe look atColumbus.
In the last three years January2021 is when I've hacked the
(02:30):
BRRR method, which is the methodI've used to acquire my
portfolio we have done aboutseven.
I have currently have about 75doors worth a little over $10
million, and it has been just anabsolute wild ride, filled with
every mistake that you canimagine, from wrong financing to
the SWAT team, to sellerswalking away at the buzzing
(02:53):
table.
I have kept my head above waterand gotten through most of it.
I manage everything in housewith a very small, lean,
efficient team, and we arelooking to keep growing as we
are.
Ed Mathews (03:05):
Congratulations.
Thank you, a lot jumped out atme, but I'm going to start with
the SWAT team.
Tell me.
Jessie Lang (03:11):
That's a crowd favorite.
So this is a huge lesson onscreening your residents
properly.
Because this is early in mycareer and I got the application
and she sent some pay receiptsfrom being a home cleaner.
I'm like, cool, great, okay,let's go.
The house next door to ourrental happened to be for sale.
(03:32):
The agent the listing agentcalled me somehow got my phone
number and called me and waslike hey, your property is
pretty much stopping us fromselling ours.
Every showing there has beencomplaints about activity and so
I'm like oh no, and I head downthere.
There's people everywhere andjust by the time we got it
(03:55):
sorted out and filed theeviction all that you can't do
anything right that moment.
So by the time everythinghappened and she got evicted,
swat team had raided the place,shot out all the windows in the
house.
Obviously it was trash.
And the lesson here, y'all, isactually screen your residents,
do what you're supposed to do.
I just I'm looking back now.
I wish I could find a pictureof these.
(04:16):
They were just handwrittenreceipts all in the same pen,
clearly written back to back,absolutely no proof of income
whatsoever.
And I was like move on in andcome on down.
Ed Mathews (04:26):
Hug this mirror.
Let's go, all right.
Jessie Lang (04:28):
Yeah, don't do that .
Ed Mathews (04:30):
Yeah, so you do manage in-house now.
So what's your process thesedays?
Jessie Lang (04:35):
As far as screening goes?
Ed Mathews (04:36):
How do you find ?
Jessie Lang (04:37):
We're really big on Zillow.
That is industry standard herein Columbus.
I know there's other marketsthat it's Facebook Marketplace
or apartments.
com, but we're big on Zillow.
We take Zillow applications.
Application comes in and wehave a very thorough screening
process, checking all of theemployer references, past
housing providers.
(04:58):
We've checked social media andthen we put it all into what we
call applicant scorecard andit's basically to remove any
fair housing violations, anyemotional personal judgments and
just look based on length ofhousing, length of time at job
credit score.
All that If they score above acertain amount and they are good
communicators and they havefunds to move in, we move in and
(05:21):
it has been much better, somuch better.
Ed Mathews (05:23):
It had to remove a massive amount of stress from
your life.
Jessie Lang (05:25):
Yes, and I this.
Now I say a lean team.
It's me and one employee,full-time employee, and so she
is handling all of this.
I do give the final check, butwhen it was just me, my excuse
for myself was I don't have thetime.
They're good communicators,they're doing what they say.
Let's just move them in, it'llbe fine.
(05:46):
Yeah, so now that I've beenable to outsource some of that
and really put a system ofprocess and checklist, we're not
making excuses and likeskipping corners.
Ed Mathews (05:56):
Yeah, that's phenomenal and yeah, it was one
of the things, when everyquarter, we go through a process
here and I refer to it aswhat's stressing Ed out or
what's stressing whoever we'retalking to out.
Jessie Lang (06:07):
I say something almost identical, really yeah.
Ed Mathews (06:11):
And when we identify those things, we either
automate them, we delegate them,we outsource them or we stop
doing them because it's just, ittakes energy away.
Jessie Lang (06:20):
And maybe this is TMI.
I took this sticky note.
I literally have it on mycomputer at all times.
Ed Mathews (06:26):
Yep, and then I've added one.
I had a guest on about a monthand a half ago and he was saying
don't add steps, and I lovethat.
That was his kind of mantra.
It's his sticky note on hislaptop or screen.
So when you find a new tenant,you mentioned a scorecard and
I'm curious is that somethingthat you developed in-house or
Jessie Lang (06:46):
I think I got like a very basic template somewhere
years ago on the internet and wehave built it out.
At this point it's pretty custombased on our specific
requirements.
We actually have a couplethings throughout the process
that are like little Easter eggsthat we asked someone to do and
there's two line items on thescorecard on did they do that
(07:07):
item?
And there are little thingsthat if you weren't paying
attention maybe you wouldoverlook.
We actually do give quite a bitof weight to episodes we're
done.
We built out over time, justmaking it exactly what we need
and what we're looking for.
Ed Mathews (07:20):
Can I get you to share the Easter eggs?
Jessie Lang (07:30):
Yeah.
So I'd say that we doself-showings.
We actually don't send anyoneout from our team to the
property.
We collect some backgroundinformation, we have an
application on file, we get acopy of the ID and we give
people a lockbox code so theycan go see it on their own time.
Knock on wood, I've doneliterally hundreds of these and
nothing has ever gone wrong.
We asked for a picture of thekey back in the lockbox and some
people will say I put it back.
It's a checkbox on theapplication.
Did they send a picture of thekey in the lockbox Because it
(07:52):
shows that they can followdirection.
Ed Mathews (07:54):
Yeah, Interesting.
You mentioned that multi.
It was plural.
Jessie Lang (07:57):
So there's just a couple of others that nothing's
super concrete.
Ed Mathews (08:01):
That's probably the biggest one but we just have a
couple other yeah I read a bookthe author, mike butler, had
talked about downloading onautopilot, I think is what he
talked about a similar scenariowhere he provides a lockbox and
exact same process.
I don't know if he makes themsend back a picture of the key,
although that's really clever,and I looked at that and went.
(08:22):
I don't know if I can that.
Jessie Lang (08:24):
Do you want me to talk you into it?
Ed Mathews (08:26):
Please.
Jessie Lang (08:27):
It's valuable if you don't have the resources to
go and do showings.
We are within an hour radius ofColumbus.
All of my properties From myemployees we all work from home,
so from her home office to aproperty could be a three hour
round trip, right, and that'sjust not something that makes
sense to do.
(08:47):
So it was somewhat by necessity,and so if you are in that same
position, what we do is weactually collect the application
first.
We don't even entertain aconversation with someone
without an application, right,and so once we have the
application, we know where theylive, we know where they work,
we know where they work.
We know a lot about them.
(09:07):
Plus, we asked for a picture ofthe driver's license and then
from there, no one has ever doneanything crazy, because we're
not sending it to people withcriminal backgrounds.
We're picking and choosing whowe send this to based on the
information that we have.
The only thing I could reallythink is someone would squat or
would steal the appliances orpotentially trash the house,
(09:29):
which, knock on wood, if yousold my appliances, I'd be out
1500 bucks and I saved two tothree hours per showing for the
last hundred showings which isthousands of dollars in value.
I'm self-insuring If somethinggoes wrong.
We're still coming out ahead.
Ed Mathews (09:45):
I'm intrigued.
Maybe we'll do a pilot programon one of our buildings See if
it works here.
Jessie Lang (09:50):
I just use a standard lockbox.
But I have quite a few studentswho have heard this and they're
like Jesse, you're crazy.
So they've installed more of asmart lock, maybe more for style
, or a keypad with Bluetooth, soyou can even do that.
It's going to cost a little bitmore, but then you can give a
single code to someone what timethey were there, all that.
So there's some like advancedtechnology to make it a little
(10:11):
more secure.
We just give people lockboxes.
Ed Mathews (10:12):
Yeah, so we use coded locks to eliminate the
lockouts.
The 2am hey, I'm just comingback, forgot my key.
Can you help me out?
I get that voicemail at 6am thenext morning that voicemail at
6 am the next morning.
Jessie Lang (10:23):
Office is closed.
I said office is closed.
Ed Mathews (10:25):
Yeah, so we were able to eliminate those.
But it would be easy to do ashowing code to be able to put
that in there and know whenpeople come in Interesting.
All right, so you mentionedstudents, so tell me all about
your curriculum.
Jessie Lang (10:38):
Absolutely.
The program that I startedthree years ago now which is
crazy to say, it's calledRentals Made Easy, and that is
the exact goal is I build myentire portfolio through the
BRRRR method.
There are so many differentsteps along the way that are
going to help you financiallywith long term management.
The goal is to set everythingup the right way from the
(11:02):
beginning to make your ongoingmanagement super easy, and so
that's the made easy part.
Ed Mathews (11:07):
Yeah.
Jessie Lang (11:07):
And it is.
It's a program.
We're super intimate.
We have a hundred-ish students,a little over a hundred, so I
know everyone's business Right.
And we're investing all overthe United States.
There are a lot investing inthe Midwest.
It's a hot place to be rightnow.
So we have a lot of California.
Ed Mathews (11:30):
We have some Vegas investors, arizona who are all
investing here in the Midwest.
Yep, yeah, we've been lookingat Indianapolis and I've fallen
in love with that market.
Jessie Lang (11:36):
It's hot.
We have some students investingthere that I, because we do
deal analysis every single weekand I look at student sales and
I'm like, yeah, indianapolis andNorthwest Indiana.
I have one student who'sliterally pulling money out of
every single burr and we'releaving money in every burr, and
so I'm like okay, yeah, let'slook.
Ed Mathews (11:56):
Let's talk about your book first.
Rental Made Easy is the name ofyour course and, as luck would
have it, it's also the name ofyour book, right Look?
Jessie Lang (12:03):
at that.
Ed Mathews (12:04):
That's brand unity.
Jessie Lang (12:05):
Yes and so this is unlock the proven step-by-step
system to build wealth throughrental properties.
And it's exactly what it is.
It is a system, it's a recipe,it's a plan Like.
It's a legitimate step-by-step.
There's no fluff in here.
It's a legitimate, step-by-stepthere's no fluff in here.
I talk you through every singlestep of the burn method by you.
(12:25):
Know how to pay for them, whereto find the deals, renovate
what contractors to use whatrenovations to do.
Don't get caught in the trap ofdoing way too much.
I see investors like doingadditions.
I'm like no go down, and so thenwe talked about renting a
little bit.
I talk all about self-showings,I talk all about the refinance
process.
(12:46):
The repeat is the fourth R thatpeople so often overlook, and
it's how do you make it scalable, how do you make it a business?
How are you not just doing one,two, three year, and so we
cover the whole burr and then italso goes into ongoing
management.
We cover the whole burr andthen it also goes into ongoing
management.
So exactly how I do ourmaintenance requests, proactive
inspections, collecting rent,like it is the whole shebang.
(13:09):
So we are on Amazon and Kindleversion or you can get that
paperback here.
Ed Mathews (13:16):
Excellent (no-transcript) when it's step
(13:39):
by step.
I want to hear the stories andthat's awesome.
That's great because it helpsfrom a context perspective.
But really what I want is dothis when this happens, then do
this, and at the end this iswhat it looks like, right.
Jessie Lang (13:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it, Everything that I
have learned over the last.
I know I said I started buyingwith the Burr Method in January
2021, but I've actually beeninvesting in real estate
accidentally is my start, andthat's since 2012.
So I have at least a decade ofmistakes under my belt that I
have worked around, figured outa better way to do it.
Ed Mathews (14:14):
Yeah, so you and I started right around the same
time.
I started in 11.
How do you get accidentallyinto the real estate business?
Jessie Lang (14:20):
Oh, like we all do.
Ed Mathews (14:21):
You're in a property or you'd move and decide you
don't want to sell it.
Jessie Lang (14:25):
So I bought a little condo in Austin, texas,
for $92,000, which I mean nowI'm just like obviously that's a
crazy deal, but at the time itwas an appropriate price and I
put my life savings down.
I could afford the mortgage onpaper, but I didn't want to pay
all my money.
I don't want to be house poor.
So I started renting out therooms and did that for a couple
(14:48):
of years.
My partner and I at the timewas one of the roommates we
split up.
I knew that it would be crazyto sell it.
I knew that I couldn't just payfor two mortgages.
Ed Mathews (15:00):
And.
Jessie Lang (15:01):
I knew that I emotionally, like probably
didn't want to live there.
So in the span of two weeks Iwas like living my everyday life
to having four college boysrenting out my condo.
Ed Mathews (15:12):
Perfect.
Jessie Lang (15:13):
What can go wrong?
Ed Mathews (15:15):
Because there was no beer involved in that
transaction.
Jessie Lang (15:17):
No, beer was had.
No, they were.
Yeah, they were great boys.
Ed Mathews (15:20):
I'm sure they were fine.
Couldn't fix afterwards.
Jessie Lang (15:23):
Yeah, exactly they were actually, if I look back,
were probably top 10% ofresidents I've ever had and they
did everything.
I joke that they could haveended my career before I ever
got started, but it worked out.
And so the next couple of yearsI actually did that process
twice more.
I had roommates where I wasliving in an owner-occupied
(15:44):
finance property.
I had two long-term rentals,also with owner-occupied
financing, and I had my W-2 andI was 24, 25 and was feeling
pretty good about myself.
Ed Mathews (15:57):
Yeah, absolutely.
I regret every house I've eversold, and exact reason.
Jessie Lang (16:01):
I hear you, but if you regret it like the money
went to something, right?
Ed Mathews (16:05):
Oh, we bought the next house.
Jessie Lang (16:06):
Yeah, it went to something better.
So I do, I look back andsometimes I am like sad and hard
.
But Right, but they had itspurpose.
Ed Mathews (16:14):
Yeah, no.
So we my wife and I did theexact same thing.
We bought a place in just southof Boston when we were living
up there and when we decided tohave kids, we moved to a house
and then sold the condo.
I think we bought it for asimilar price, like $95,000,
$99,000.
I think we sold it for $180,000and thought we hit the lottery
Similar, yeah, I sold it for$200,000.
Yeah, and then I looked back onit a couple three years ago and
(16:38):
it's $400,000 or $500,000.
And I'm like, oh yeah, thislittle dinky eleven hundred
square foot two bedroom, onebath condo is now four hundred
grand plus it's like I have madethe mistake to look it up a
couple times and I just can'tyeah, I stopped doing it too,
because when I get into the whatifs- yeah, exactly right.
Jessie Lang (16:55):
my takeaway from it , though, is, anytime you
mention what's stressing it out,mine is I always.
What are my headaches?
And my whole team knows that.
Is it a headache for Dusty?
And people always ask how doyou know when you're going to
sell a property?
And that's my answer Is it aheadache?
It's bothering me, and if it is, then we'll maybe sell.
But I have taken some of myprevious sale lessons and tried
(17:20):
to apply them.
Is it something I can refinanceversus selling?
Is it something that maybe it'sjust the resident and it's the
issue, and we can give noticeand have it resolved in three
months from now without havingto sell.
So our strategy is keep.
I am keeping as much as humanlypossible.
You guys all know that is thetrue key to wealth.
The flipping and thewholesaling have done it all,
(17:42):
and that's icing on the cake.
You need money to live Like.
We do a couple of flips a yearand that it's great, but it's
really the holding.
Ed Mathews (17:50):
Yeah, that's the holding in the cashflow.
The results is what sets youfree.
Yeah, I enjoy flipping, I loveeverything about it.
I was telling somebody not thatlong ago.
I was like I don't drink, Idon't do drugs.
Flipping is my cocaine.
I love finding them, I lovefiguring out the project, I love
fixing them, I love sellingthem, but it's empty calories.
Right, it's okay.
I got to go do it again If Iwant another X amount of dollars
(18:11):
, I got to go do it again, andthat's actually what pushed me
to really expand our portfolioin terms of rental properties.
This is that exact reason, youmean, I got to do this again and
again.
Jessie Lang (18:20):
Yeah, I always tell people the kind of difference
between flipping and renting isyou get.
If you flip, you're going toget paid once.
You're going to get a bigpayday and that's hard to walk
away from.
Sometimes you get the bigpayday or you can keep it and
you get a hundred paydays whenyou finally sell it.
So you're still getting yourpayday.
It's just small, double, triple, quadruple what it maybe would
(18:43):
have been.
Ed Mathews (18:44):
Exactly, and you mentioned earlier the real key.
Jessie Lang (18:46):
there is refinancing right, because once
you tell everybody why you wantto refinance as opposed to sell,
so if your goal is to pull cashout and you have enough equity
in the property, you canrefinance, keep the asset and
you may not get as much as ifyou were going to sell outright,
but you're going to get a goodpercentage of that equity back
(19:09):
in your pocket.
So you get.
It's a win-win.
Ed Mathews (19:12):
And it's not income, it's debts.
So you get to keep all of it,which is a basic thing.
Jessie Lang (19:18):
No, I see where you're going with that.
Ed Mathews (19:20):
It's a phenomenal thing in that when you sell
something, you have a ghostlypartner in the background, and
that is Uncle Sam and he's goingto be holding his hand out, and
that also the governor of thestate you live in is also going
to want a little slice too.
Jessie Lang (19:32):
Maybe your city and maybe your county, and maybe
where your highlight acts.
Ed Mathews (19:37):
Yeah, yeah, we do too.
I live in the Northeast so youknow everybody's got their hand
out governmentally here.
Jessie, I think the businessyou built is super impressive
and obviously you're doingreally well.
Nevertheless, you get up onMonday morning, you go to work.
I'm curious what your purposeis.
What drives you hop out of bedon Monday, hair on fire, ready
to go?
Jessie Lang (19:56):
Okay, Ed, I've thought about this and I'm going
to tell you my absolute, mosttruthful answer, and it may not
be the answer you hear veryoften it's fear.
It is fear of not having thelife that they have.
It started as fear-driven and Ithink it really still is.
I probably should talk to mytherapist a little bit, but
(20:18):
we're finally getting out ofthat phase and moving more
towards the bigger purpose.
But I'm truthfully juststarting to figure that out.
In the last year or so and ithas been do everything I can to
have the life that I want, thatI can give to others, but I'm
just getting out of the cover,my bases and make sure that I'm
(20:41):
taken care of and my family'staken care of.
Ed Mathews (20:44):
We're all reading the same book and some people
are a few chapters ahead andsome people are a few chapters
behind.
That whole process of realizinghey, I actually have it covered
now comes.
Okay, what can we do with this?
Cool, fun time to be in thisbusiness.
Jessie Lang (21:00):
Yeah, no, definitely, and I love it, but
it's also a little bitoverwhelming because there's so
many options.
Ed Mathews (21:06):
My whole goal was to have as many options as I can,
and now I have them all and I'mlike yeah, obviously you've got
your head on straight, and Ithink a lot of that has to do
with excellent parents andprobably mentors along the way.
So I'm curious about the peoplewho have had influence in your
life from a mentorshipperspective.
What is the best advice youever got and who gave it to you?
Jessie Lang (21:27):
Yes.
So Brad Clarizio was my mentor.
That really helped me figureout Burr.
He wrote the foreword to thebook.
He's my real estate agent tothis day.
He told me January 2021, I keepbringing up that day because it
was literally just everythingswitched.
I was buying everything thewrong way, I was doing
(21:48):
conventional 20% down or justbuying one a year with my house
hacking and it was slow, it waspainful and I also got my real
estate license, which I let go.
I was dabbling in Airbnb and Iwas looking at self-storage, I
was wholesaling and doing allthese things and he sat me down.
We worked together all of 2021.
(22:09):
He sat me down on our Januarymeeting and was like pick one.
So that is my advice foreveryone is.
There's so much information outthere to the point that it's
overwhelming, and if you don'treally figure out what you like,
what works for you and yourfamily is financially
responsible, you know that youhave the resources for.
(22:30):
Find what that is and stick toit and do not pull your head out
of the sand until you're anexpert in that.
I'm four years into fur and I'mbarely pulling my head out of
the sand to look at otherstrategies.
Ed Mathews (22:43):
So I'm 11, 12, almost 13 years into this and
I'm I think my head is still inthe sand in some ways.
Good, right, yeah.
Yeah, I hear you on that.
I think it's a process.
This business demands that youkeep learning, right, yeah?
And focus is such a huge thing,right?
No-transcript in place just tokeep me from making people crazy
(23:26):
.
That work for us.
Jessie Lang (23:27):
I'm so guilty myself.
I wasn't seeing results liketrue results for so many years
and then I started seeingresults and I'm like that really
helps you when you start seeingthat something's working.
If you're doing a workout planand a diet and exercise and it's
not working, it's going to behard to stick to.
But once you walk past a mirrorand catch yourself you're like,
(23:48):
oh, that may be working andthen it's going to be so much
easier to stick to.
If he starts seeing resultsfrom something like that's your
thing.
Ed Mathews (23:54):
Yeah, right on, I agree.
I fundamentally believe, bothfrom my corporate days and even
now running our business here,that and the folks that work
here learn so much from ourmistakes, and I encourage people
to make mistakes break glassright Because I think you learn
so much from those rather thanyou don't learn as much from
your successes.
So I'm curious about,professionally, what's a mistake
(24:17):
that you'd love to have back?
And if you recovered, how didyou recover?
Jessie Lang (24:22):
I have recovered.
I will pridefully say I'verecovered from every mistake.
I'm still here standing.
Ed Mathews (24:28):
Yeah.
Jessie Lang (24:28):
Things have taken me down for a day, a week, a
month, but you know we got backup.
I am yeah, exactly right.
I wouldn't be here if somethingtook me down.
So I would say I had the SWATteam story, for example.
Like, I have a lot of tangiblemistakes like that, but really
the biggest one I would say ishow long it took me to hire.
(24:49):
I needed help and supportliterally years before I got the
courage to take that job and Ihave had someone working for me
either heavy part-time orfull-time for the last three
years on the rental portfolio.
I probably needed it two yearsbefore that.
Ed Mathews (25:08):
Sure.
Jessie Lang (25:09):
I just didn't.
It took so long to get out ofthat.
Like DIY, it was such a DIYmindset and I just did.
It took so long to get out ofthat.
Like DIY, it was such a DIYmindset.
And I still catch myself beinglike, oh, I could do that faster
.
And then I'm like no.
It should be on team building,it should be on raising money
(25:31):
and it shouldn't be on theday-to-day deliver like
appliance delivery.
I don't need to be involved inthat to use of your time right
no, took me way too long to getout of that diy and I don't know
where I'd be now if I'm kind ofwhat we've done had you not
done it, you'd still be buyingthem one at a time, right I
would be in big troubles.
Ed Mathews (25:51):
I didn't have help and so I'm curious, now that
you're beginning to really scaleactually, you already have
scale, but now you're continuingto grow beyond that.
How many properties are youacquiring a year these days?
Jessie Lang (26:02):
So the first three that I was buying heavy with a
burr method, we were like 20, 25a year and yeah, so a couple of
months.
I will say this last 18, 24months, I'm closer to one a
month, so still, we had 12 to 15a year.
We have come down a little bit.
The numbers just don't pencilquite like they used to.
(26:23):
We were talking briefly beforethis that we're starting to see
sellers come around the COVIDdays of what's in their head on
their values have.
Maybe they've come around, sowe're seeing more.
I'm getting a lot of referralsrecently, which is awesome, and
I'm doing sports flipping too.
So the rental 12 to 15.
(26:45):
Okay, very slow and verymanageable.
Ed Mathews (26:48):
It's amazing how your systems allow you to get
into that mindset and be able tonot be intimidated by 12 to 15
properties a year Going slowright now.
Jessie Lang (26:59):
I do the same thing every single time.
It is the identical rehab withthe same team people I've been
with for years.
I know the prices, I know whatit will be worth.
We're buying the sameneighborhoods Like I am not
(27:19):
reinventing the wheel.
That would be impossible if allthese were wanted.
We just didn't sell our finance.
But it's because it's literallyidentical.
I don't even walk a propertyuntil the final punch list.
That's the only time I visit.
Just I want to see what it'slike.
I want to see what we'readvertising.
But my GC, they know everything.
They know exactly what I'mdoing.
Ed Mathews (27:34):
Yeah, that's awesome .
They have their own businessand then you just hire them.
Those guys are worth weight ingold.
Jessie Lang (27:39):
I hope they're not listening, but that is something
I have considered bringingin-house.
But they're just such a goodpartner and like is the time and
cost savings worth it.
Ed Mathews (27:49):
Yeah, the 10 to 18% that you're going to save on
cost, is that really?
Is that worth the headache?
Yeah, so usually I, when I meetowners and executive investors
like yourself, they have apretty clear vision around what
success means.
And I'm not necessarily talkingenough right, that concept I'm
just talking about when you lookaround in certain aspects and
(28:12):
characteristics in your life,you were like OK, I'm good, I'm
succeeding.
How do you define success inyour own life?
Jessie Lang (28:17):
Success in my own life.
I would say it's very relatable.
It's what we're all looking for, and it is time freedom.
I don't work on Fridays.
This is a special occasion.
Ed Mathews (28:28):
Carving out time then.
Jessie Lang (28:30):
I don't work on Fridays.
We travel a lot somewhere everymonth, if not more.
We have super active sociallife.
We foster animals, we havepeople come in tonight to look
at a cat we have, and so justthe ability to do that, to be
able to pay for all these thingsand not really think too hard
(28:51):
about it.
Of course I look at my accountbut I'm not stressed over it.
It's just to do what I wantwhen I want, with who I want to.
Ed Mathews (28:59):
Yeah, time success is something that I really value
myself, so I've really enjoyedthis conversation and
congratulations again on allyour success.
I can't wait to keep in touchand see three years from now.
It's going to be an explosionof your portfolios.
I appreciate it when nottalking about real estate?
What do you like to do?
(29:20):
How do you spend?
Jessie Lang (29:21):
your time, a lot of travel.
That's a big one.
Like I said, we foster animalsand then we also have side of
our own pets.
So no kids, but tons of furrykids.
Yeah, they keep us busy andlike in a good way and then keep
us laughing all day.
I'm running a 10K tomorrow.
I don't know why, I signed upfor it, like months ago, with
(29:43):
these aspirations that I wouldtrain, and of course I haven't,
so we'll see Good luck.
Ed Mathews (29:55):
So, Jessie, if somebody wants to learn more
about you or get your book oryour, company or your course.
What's the best way to get intouch?
Jessie Lang (29:59):
Yeah, so the book is on amazon.
Like I said, it's Rentals MadeEasy by Jessie Lang.
And then I have a free Facebookgroup where I go live every
single week with guests,trainings and, yeah, just a
really great community.
There's a couple thousandpeople in there, but if you have
any questions about property,anything like that, I'll answer
for you.
And then we also have a littlefree mini course that we touched
(30:22):
briefly on the BRRR Method, butI go much deeper into the
method, what to look at eachpoint of the process, and so
that's a free mini course thatwe offer.
Offer anyone interested.
Ed Mathews (30:33):
Awesome.
Jessie Lang from Unlocked.
Thank you so much for your timetoday.
It was really a pleasure tospeak with you and continued
good fortune.
Jessie Lang (30:42):
I appreciate it.
Greetings and salutations, real Estate
Undergrounders.
It is Ed Mathews with the RealEstate Underground.
Today is a really cool show.
I'm really excited to have aconversation with this guest.
Jessie Lang from UnlockedRentals is joining us and she
has built roughly and she maycorrect me, and that's okay $10
million plus portfolio in justthree and a half years, which is
mind boggling, especially givenhow difficult it is to find
(01:10):
deals these days.
Jessie, welcome to the show.
How's life in Columbus, Ohio?
Jessie Lang (01:15):
Oh, life in Columbus.
It's been raining, but it'sbeen good for my garden that we
just planted this past weekend,so I'm not complaining.
Thank, you so much for havingme.
Ed Mathews (01:23):
Truly my pleasure, maydows or flowers.
Jessie Lang (01:25):
We do wildflowers every year and they grow about
six feet tall and they make thisbeautiful path through our yard
.
Ed Mathews (01:30):
Awesome.
We have to send me pictures.
It'll give my wife ideas andthen we'll probably be doing it
next year.
Jessie Lang (01:35):
Yes, it will be.
Ed Mathews (01:37):
All right, hey, welcome to the show.
I've really enjoyed followingyou on LinkedIn and I enjoy your
podcast Unlocked as well Forthose folks out there who are
listening.
If you're not listening to it,you should, because it's highly
educational and I learnsomething with every episode.
If you are listening to theshow and when you get something
out of this, I would very muchappreciate if you could follow
us on the platforms.
It does help us grow and withthat, let's get into it.
(02:00):
Jessie, congratulations on allyour success and for those folks
who haven't discovered you yet,why don't you tell us a little
bit about you and your companies?
Jessie Lang (02:09):
Yeah, absolutely like you said.
My name is Jessie Lang.
I am investing here in Columbus, Ohio.
I was actually born and raisedin Austin, Texas, and moved to
Columbus around 2017.
They're actually really similarcities, so if anyone's like a
fan of Austin, maybe look atColumbus.
In the last three years January2021 is when I've hacked the
(02:30):
BRRR method, which is the methodI've used to acquire my
portfolio we have done aboutseven.
I have currently have about 75doors worth a little over $10
million, and it has been just anabsolute wild ride, filled with
every mistake that you canimagine, from wrong financing to
the SWAT team, to sellerswalking away at the buzzing
(02:53):
table.
I have kept my head above waterand gotten through most of it.
I manage everything in housewith a very small, lean,
efficient team, and we arelooking to keep growing as we
are.
Ed Mathews (03:05):
Congratulations.
Thank you, a lot jumped out atme, but I'm going to start with
the SWAT team.
Tell me.
Jessie Lang (03:11):
That's a crowd favorite.
So this is a huge lesson onscreening your residents
properly.
Because this is early in mycareer and I got the application
and she sent some pay receiptsfrom being a home cleaner.
I'm like, cool, great, okay,let's go.
The house next door to ourrental happened to be for sale.
(03:32):
The agent the listing agentcalled me somehow got my phone
number and called me and waslike hey, your property is
pretty much stopping us fromselling ours.
Every showing there has beencomplaints about activity and so
I'm like oh no, and I head downthere.
There's people everywhere andjust by the time we got it
(03:55):
sorted out and filed theeviction all that you can't do
anything right that moment.
So by the time everythinghappened and she got evicted,
swat team had raided the place,shot out all the windows in the
house.
Obviously it was trash.
And the lesson here, y'all, isactually screen your residents,
do what you're supposed to do.
I just I'm looking back now.
I wish I could find a pictureof these.
(04:16):
They were just handwrittenreceipts all in the same pen,
clearly written back to back,absolutely no proof of income
whatsoever.
And I was like move on in andcome on down.
Ed Mathews (04:26):
Hug this mirror.
Let's go, all right.
Jessie Lang (04:28):
Yeah, don't do that .
Ed Mathews (04:30):
Yeah, so you do manage in-house now.
So what's your process thesedays?
Jessie Lang (04:35):
As far as screening goes?
Ed Mathews (04:36):
How do you find ?
Jessie Lang (04:37):
We're really big on Zillow.
That is industry standard herein Columbus.
I know there's other marketsthat it's Facebook Marketplace
or apartments.
com, but we're big on Zillow.
We take Zillow applications.
Application comes in and wehave a very thorough screening
process, checking all of theemployer references, past
housing providers.
(04:58):
We've checked social media andthen we put it all into what we
call applicant scorecard andit's basically to remove any
fair housing violations, anyemotional personal judgments and
just look based on length ofhousing, length of time at job
credit score.
All that If they score above acertain amount and they are good
communicators and they havefunds to move in, we move in and
(05:21):
it has been much better, somuch better.
Ed Mathews (05:23):
It had to remove a massive amount of stress from
your life.
Jessie Lang (05:25):
Yes, and I this.
Now I say a lean team.
It's me and one employee,full-time employee, and so she
is handling all of this.
I do give the final check, butwhen it was just me, my excuse
for myself was I don't have thetime.
They're good communicators,they're doing what they say.
Let's just move them in, it'llbe fine.
(05:46):
Yeah, so now that I've beenable to outsource some of that
and really put a system ofprocess and checklist, we're not
making excuses and likeskipping corners.
Ed Mathews (05:56):
Yeah, that's phenomenal and yeah, it was one
of the things, when everyquarter, we go through a process
here and I refer to it aswhat's stressing Ed out or
what's stressing whoever we'retalking to out.
Jessie Lang (06:07):
I say something almost identical, really yeah.
Ed Mathews (06:11):
And when we identify those things, we either
automate them, we delegate them,we outsource them or we stop
doing them because it's just, ittakes energy away.
Jessie Lang (06:20):
And maybe this is TMI.
I took this sticky note.
I literally have it on mycomputer at all times.
Ed Mathews (06:26):
Yep, and then I've added one.
I had a guest on about a monthand a half ago and he was saying
don't add steps, and I lovethat.
That was his kind of mantra.
It's his sticky note on hislaptop or screen.
So when you find a new tenant,you mentioned a scorecard and
I'm curious is that somethingthat you developed in-house or
Jessie Lang (06:46):
I think I got like a very basic template somewhere
years ago on the internet and wehave built it out.
At this point it's pretty custombased on our specific
requirements.
We actually have a couplethings throughout the process
that are like little Easter eggsthat we asked someone to do and
there's two line items on thescorecard on did they do that
(07:07):
item?
And there are little thingsthat if you weren't paying
attention maybe you wouldoverlook.
We actually do give quite a bitof weight to episodes we're
done.
We built out over time, justmaking it exactly what we need
and what we're looking for.
Ed Mathews (07:20):
Can I get you to share the Easter eggs?
Jessie Lang (07:30):
Yeah.
So I'd say that we doself-showings.
We actually don't send anyoneout from our team to the
property.
We collect some backgroundinformation, we have an
application on file, we get acopy of the ID and we give
people a lockbox code so theycan go see it on their own time.
Knock on wood, I've doneliterally hundreds of these and
nothing has ever gone wrong.
We asked for a picture of thekey back in the lockbox and some
people will say I put it back.
It's a checkbox on theapplication.
Did they send a picture of thekey in the lockbox Because it
(07:52):
shows that they can followdirection.
Ed Mathews (07:54):
Yeah, Interesting.
You mentioned that multi.
It was plural.
Jessie Lang (07:57):
So there's just a couple of others that nothing's
super concrete.
Ed Mathews (08:01):
That's probably the biggest one but we just have a
couple other yeah I read a bookthe author, mike butler, had
talked about downloading onautopilot, I think is what he
talked about a similar scenariowhere he provides a lockbox and
exact same process.
I don't know if he makes themsend back a picture of the key,
although that's really clever,and I looked at that and went.
(08:22):
I don't know if I can that.
Jessie Lang (08:24):
Do you want me to talk you into it?
Ed Mathews (08:26):
Please.
Jessie Lang (08:27):
It's valuable if you don't have the resources to
go and do showings.
We are within an hour radius ofColumbus.
All of my properties From myemployees we all work from home,
so from her home office to aproperty could be a three hour
round trip, right, and that'sjust not something that makes
sense to do.
(08:47):
So it was somewhat by necessity,and so if you are in that same
position, what we do is weactually collect the application
first.
We don't even entertain aconversation with someone
without an application, right,and so once we have the
application, we know where theylive, we know where they work,
we know where they work.
We know a lot about them.
(09:07):
Plus, we asked for a picture ofthe driver's license and then
from there, no one has ever doneanything crazy, because we're
not sending it to people withcriminal backgrounds.
We're picking and choosing whowe send this to based on the
information that we have.
The only thing I could reallythink is someone would squat or
would steal the appliances orpotentially trash the house,
(09:29):
which, knock on wood, if yousold my appliances, I'd be out
1500 bucks and I saved two tothree hours per showing for the
last hundred showings which isthousands of dollars in value.
I'm self-insuring If somethinggoes wrong.
We're still coming out ahead.
Ed Mathews (09:45):
I'm intrigued.
Maybe we'll do a pilot programon one of our buildings See if
it works here.
Jessie Lang (09:50):
I just use a standard lockbox.
But I have quite a few studentswho have heard this and they're
like Jesse, you're crazy.
So they've installed more of asmart lock, maybe more for style
, or a keypad with Bluetooth, soyou can even do that.
It's going to cost a little bitmore, but then you can give a
single code to someone what timethey were there, all that.
So there's some like advancedtechnology to make it a little
(10:11):
more secure.
We just give people lockboxes.
Ed Mathews (10:12):
Yeah, so we use coded locks to eliminate the
lockouts.
The 2am hey, I'm just comingback, forgot my key.
Can you help me out?
I get that voicemail at 6am thenext morning that voicemail at
6 am the next morning.
Jessie Lang (10:23):
Office is closed.
I said office is closed.
Ed Mathews (10:25):
Yeah, so we were able to eliminate those.
But it would be easy to do ashowing code to be able to put
that in there and know whenpeople come in Interesting.
All right, so you mentionedstudents, so tell me all about
your curriculum.
Jessie Lang (10:38):
Absolutely.
The program that I startedthree years ago now which is
crazy to say, it's calledRentals Made Easy, and that is
the exact goal is I build myentire portfolio through the
BRRRR method.
There are so many differentsteps along the way that are
going to help you financiallywith long term management.
The goal is to set everythingup the right way from the
(11:02):
beginning to make your ongoingmanagement super easy, and so
that's the made easy part.
Ed Mathews (11:07):
Yeah.
Jessie Lang (11:07):
And it is.
It's a program.
We're super intimate.
We have a hundred-ish students,a little over a hundred, so I
know everyone's business Right.
And we're investing all overthe United States.
There are a lot investing inthe Midwest.
It's a hot place to be rightnow.
So we have a lot of California.
Ed Mathews (11:30):
We have some Vegas investors, arizona who are all
investing here in the Midwest.
Yep, yeah, we've been lookingat Indianapolis and I've fallen
in love with that market.
Jessie Lang (11:36):
It's hot.
We have some students investingthere that I, because we do
deal analysis every single weekand I look at student sales and
I'm like, yeah, indianapolis andNorthwest Indiana.
I have one student who'sliterally pulling money out of
every single burr and we'releaving money in every burr, and
so I'm like okay, yeah, let'slook.
Ed Mathews (11:56):
Let's talk about your book first.
Rental Made Easy is the name ofyour course and, as luck would
have it, it's also the name ofyour book, right Look?
Jessie Lang (12:03):
at that.
Ed Mathews (12:04):
That's brand unity.
Jessie Lang (12:05):
Yes and so this is unlock the proven step-by-step
system to build wealth throughrental properties.
And it's exactly what it is.
It is a system, it's a recipe,it's a plan Like.
It's a legitimate step-by-step.
There's no fluff in here.
It's a legitimate, step-by-stepthere's no fluff in here.
I talk you through every singlestep of the burn method by you.
(12:25):
Know how to pay for them, whereto find the deals, renovate
what contractors to use whatrenovations to do.
Don't get caught in the trap ofdoing way too much.
I see investors like doingadditions.
I'm like no go down, and so thenwe talked about renting a
little bit.
I talk all about self-showings,I talk all about the refinance
process.
(12:46):
The repeat is the fourth R thatpeople so often overlook, and
it's how do you make it scalable, how do you make it a business?
How are you not just doing one,two, three year, and so we
cover the whole burr and then italso goes into ongoing
management.
We cover the whole burr andthen it also goes into ongoing
management.
So exactly how I do ourmaintenance requests, proactive
inspections, collecting rent,like it is the whole shebang.
(13:09):
So we are on Amazon and Kindleversion or you can get that
paperback here.
Ed Mathews (13:16):
Excellent (no-transcript) when it's step
(13:39):
by step.
I want to hear the stories andthat's awesome.
That's great because it helpsfrom a context perspective.
But really what I want is dothis when this happens, then do
this, and at the end this iswhat it looks like, right.
Jessie Lang (13:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it, Everything that I
have learned over the last.
I know I said I started buyingwith the Burr Method in January
2021, but I've actually beeninvesting in real estate
accidentally is my start, andthat's since 2012.
So I have at least a decade ofmistakes under my belt that I
have worked around, figured outa better way to do it.
Ed Mathews (14:14):
Yeah, so you and I started right around the same
time.
I started in 11.
How do you get accidentallyinto the real estate business?
Jessie Lang (14:20):
Oh, like we all do.
Ed Mathews (14:21):
You're in a property or you'd move and decide you
don't want to sell it.
Jessie Lang (14:25):
So I bought a little condo in Austin, texas,
for $92,000, which I mean nowI'm just like obviously that's a
crazy deal, but at the time itwas an appropriate price and I
put my life savings down.
I could afford the mortgage onpaper, but I didn't want to pay
all my money.
I don't want to be house poor.
So I started renting out therooms and did that for a couple
(14:48):
of years.
My partner and I at the timewas one of the roommates we
split up.
I knew that it would be crazyto sell it.
I knew that I couldn't just payfor two mortgages.
Ed Mathews (15:00):
And.
Jessie Lang (15:01):
I knew that I emotionally, like probably
didn't want to live there.
So in the span of two weeks Iwas like living my everyday life
to having four college boysrenting out my condo.
Ed Mathews (15:12):
Perfect.
Jessie Lang (15:13):
What can go wrong?
Ed Mathews (15:15):
Because there was no beer involved in that
transaction.
Jessie Lang (15:17):
No, beer was had.
No, they were.
Yeah, they were great boys.
Ed Mathews (15:20):
I'm sure they were fine.
Couldn't fix afterwards.
Jessie Lang (15:23):
Yeah, exactly they were actually, if I look back,
were probably top 10% ofresidents I've ever had and they
did everything.
I joke that they could haveended my career before I ever
got started, but it worked out.
And so the next couple of yearsI actually did that process
twice more.
I had roommates where I wasliving in an owner-occupied
(15:44):
finance property.
I had two long-term rentals,also with owner-occupied
financing, and I had my W-2 andI was 24, 25 and was feeling
pretty good about myself.
Ed Mathews (15:57):
Yeah, absolutely.
I regret every house I've eversold, and exact reason.
Jessie Lang (16:01):
I hear you, but if you regret it like the money
went to something, right?
Ed Mathews (16:05):
Oh, we bought the next house.
Jessie Lang (16:06):
Yeah, it went to something better.
So I do, I look back andsometimes I am like sad and hard
.
But Right, but they had itspurpose.
Ed Mathews (16:14):
Yeah, no.
So we my wife and I did theexact same thing.
We bought a place in just southof Boston when we were living
up there and when we decided tohave kids, we moved to a house
and then sold the condo.
I think we bought it for asimilar price, like $95,000,
$99,000.
I think we sold it for $180,000and thought we hit the lottery
Similar, yeah, I sold it for$200,000.
Yeah, and then I looked back onit a couple three years ago and
(16:38):
it's $400,000 or $500,000.
And I'm like, oh yeah, thislittle dinky eleven hundred
square foot two bedroom, onebath condo is now four hundred
grand plus it's like I have madethe mistake to look it up a
couple times and I just can'tyeah, I stopped doing it too,
because when I get into the whatifs- yeah, exactly right.
Jessie Lang (16:55):
my takeaway from it , though, is, anytime you
mention what's stressing it out,mine is I always.
What are my headaches?
And my whole team knows that.
Is it a headache for Dusty?
And people always ask how doyou know when you're going to
sell a property?
And that's my answer Is it aheadache?
It's bothering me, and if it is, then we'll maybe sell.
But I have taken some of myprevious sale lessons and tried
(17:20):
to apply them.
Is it something I can refinanceversus selling?
Is it something that maybe it'sjust the resident and it's the
issue, and we can give noticeand have it resolved in three
months from now without havingto sell.
So our strategy is keep.
I am keeping as much as humanlypossible.
You guys all know that is thetrue key to wealth.
The flipping and thewholesaling have done it all,
(17:42):
and that's icing on the cake.
You need money to live Like.
We do a couple of flips a yearand that it's great, but it's
really the holding.
Ed Mathews (17:50):
Yeah, that's the holding in the cashflow.
The results is what sets youfree.
Yeah, I enjoy flipping, I loveeverything about it.
I was telling somebody not thatlong ago.
I was like I don't drink, Idon't do drugs.
Flipping is my cocaine.
I love finding them, I lovefiguring out the project, I love
fixing them, I love sellingthem, but it's empty calories.
Right, it's okay.
I got to go do it again If Iwant another X amount of dollars
(18:11):
, I got to go do it again, andthat's actually what pushed me
to really expand our portfolioin terms of rental properties.
This is that exact reason, youmean, I got to do this again and
again.
Jessie Lang (18:20):
Yeah, I always tell people the kind of difference
between flipping and renting isyou get.
If you flip, you're going toget paid once.
You're going to get a bigpayday and that's hard to walk
away from.
Sometimes you get the bigpayday or you can keep it and
you get a hundred paydays whenyou finally sell it.
So you're still getting yourpayday.
It's just small, double, triple, quadruple what it maybe would
(18:43):
have been.
Ed Mathews (18:44):
Exactly, and you mentioned earlier the real key.
Jessie Lang (18:46):
there is refinancing right, because once
you tell everybody why you wantto refinance as opposed to sell,
so if your goal is to pull cashout and you have enough equity
in the property, you canrefinance, keep the asset and
you may not get as much as ifyou were going to sell outright,
but you're going to get a goodpercentage of that equity back
(19:09):
in your pocket.
So you get.
It's a win-win.
Ed Mathews (19:12):
And it's not income, it's debts.
So you get to keep all of it,which is a basic thing.
Jessie Lang (19:18):
No, I see where you're going with that.
Ed Mathews (19:20):
It's a phenomenal thing in that when you sell
something, you have a ghostlypartner in the background, and
that is Uncle Sam and he's goingto be holding his hand out, and
that also the governor of thestate you live in is also going
to want a little slice too.
Jessie Lang (19:32):
Maybe your city and maybe your county, and maybe
where your highlight acts.
Ed Mathews (19:37):
Yeah, yeah, we do too.
I live in the Northeast so youknow everybody's got their hand
out governmentally here.
Jessie, I think the businessyou built is super impressive
and obviously you're doingreally well.
Nevertheless, you get up onMonday morning, you go to work.
I'm curious what your purposeis.
What drives you hop out of bedon Monday, hair on fire, ready
to go?
Jessie Lang (19:56):
Okay, Ed, I've thought about this and I'm going
to tell you my absolute, mosttruthful answer, and it may not
be the answer you hear veryoften it's fear.
It is fear of not having thelife that they have.
It started as fear-driven and Ithink it really still is.
I probably should talk to mytherapist a little bit, but
(20:18):
we're finally getting out ofthat phase and moving more
towards the bigger purpose.
But I'm truthfully juststarting to figure that out.
In the last year or so and ithas been do everything I can to
have the life that I want, thatI can give to others, but I'm
just getting out of the cover,my bases and make sure that I'm
(20:41):
taken care of and my family'staken care of.
Ed Mathews (20:44):
We're all reading the same book and some people
are a few chapters ahead andsome people are a few chapters
behind.
That whole process of realizinghey, I actually have it covered
now comes.
Okay, what can we do with this?
Cool, fun time to be in thisbusiness.
Jessie Lang (21:00):
Yeah, no, definitely, and I love it, but
it's also a little bitoverwhelming because there's so
many options.
Ed Mathews (21:06):
My whole goal was to have as many options as I can,
and now I have them all and I'mlike yeah, obviously you've got
your head on straight, and Ithink a lot of that has to do
with excellent parents andprobably mentors along the way.
So I'm curious about the peoplewho have had influence in your
life from a mentorshipperspective.
What is the best advice youever got and who gave it to you?
Jessie Lang (21:27):
Yes.
So Brad Clarizio was my mentor.
That really helped me figureout Burr.
He wrote the foreword to thebook.
He's my real estate agent tothis day.
He told me January 2021, I keepbringing up that day because it
was literally just everythingswitched.
I was buying everything thewrong way, I was doing
(21:48):
conventional 20% down or justbuying one a year with my house
hacking and it was slow, it waspainful and I also got my real
estate license, which I let go.
I was dabbling in Airbnb and Iwas looking at self-storage, I
was wholesaling and doing allthese things and he sat me down.
We worked together all of 2021.
(22:09):
He sat me down on our Januarymeeting and was like pick one.
So that is my advice foreveryone is.
There's so much information outthere to the point that it's
overwhelming, and if you don'treally figure out what you like,
what works for you and yourfamily is financially
responsible, you know that youhave the resources for.
(22:30):
Find what that is and stick toit and do not pull your head out
of the sand until you're anexpert in that.
I'm four years into fur and I'mbarely pulling my head out of
the sand to look at otherstrategies.
Ed Mathews (22:43):
So I'm 11, 12, almost 13 years into this and
I'm I think my head is still inthe sand in some ways.
Good, right, yeah.
Yeah, I hear you on that.
I think it's a process.
This business demands that youkeep learning, right, yeah?
And focus is such a huge thing,right?
No-transcript in place just tokeep me from making people crazy
(23:26):
.
That work for us.
Jessie Lang (23:27):
I'm so guilty myself.
I wasn't seeing results liketrue results for so many years
and then I started seeingresults and I'm like that really
helps you when you start seeingthat something's working.
If you're doing a workout planand a diet and exercise and it's
not working, it's going to behard to stick to.
But once you walk past a mirrorand catch yourself you're like,
(23:48):
oh, that may be working andthen it's going to be so much
easier to stick to.
If he starts seeing resultsfrom something like that's your
thing.
Ed Mathews (23:54):
Yeah, right on, I agree.
I fundamentally believe, bothfrom my corporate days and even
now running our business here,that and the folks that work
here learn so much from ourmistakes, and I encourage people
to make mistakes break glassright Because I think you learn
so much from those rather thanyou don't learn as much from
your successes.
So I'm curious about,professionally, what's a mistake
(24:17):
that you'd love to have back?
And if you recovered, how didyou recover?
Jessie Lang (24:22):
I have recovered.
I will pridefully say I'verecovered from every mistake.
I'm still here standing.
Ed Mathews (24:28):
Yeah.
Jessie Lang (24:28):
Things have taken me down for a day, a week, a
month, but you know we got backup.
I am yeah, exactly right.
I wouldn't be here if somethingtook me down.
So I would say I had the SWATteam story, for example.
Like, I have a lot of tangiblemistakes like that, but really
the biggest one I would say ishow long it took me to hire.
(24:49):
I needed help and supportliterally years before I got the
courage to take that job and Ihave had someone working for me
either heavy part-time orfull-time for the last three
years on the rental portfolio.
I probably needed it two yearsbefore that.
Ed Mathews (25:08):
Sure.
Jessie Lang (25:09):
I just didn't.
It took so long to get out ofthat.
Like DIY, it was such a DIYmindset and I just did.
It took so long to get out ofthat.
Like DIY, it was such a DIYmindset.
And I still catch myself beinglike, oh, I could do that faster
.
And then I'm like no.
It should be on team building,it should be on raising money
(25:31):
and it shouldn't be on theday-to-day deliver like
appliance delivery.
I don't need to be involved inthat to use of your time right
no, took me way too long to getout of that diy and I don't know
where I'd be now if I'm kind ofwhat we've done had you not
done it, you'd still be buyingthem one at a time, right I
would be in big troubles.
Ed Mathews (25:51):
I didn't have help and so I'm curious, now that
you're beginning to really scaleactually, you already have
scale, but now you're continuingto grow beyond that.
How many properties are youacquiring a year these days?
Jessie Lang (26:02):
So the first three that I was buying heavy with a
burr method, we were like 20, 25a year and yeah, so a couple of
months.
I will say this last 18, 24months, I'm closer to one a
month, so still, we had 12 to 15a year.
We have come down a little bit.
The numbers just don't pencilquite like they used to.
(26:23):
We were talking briefly beforethis that we're starting to see
sellers come around the COVIDdays of what's in their head on
their values have.
Maybe they've come around, sowe're seeing more.
I'm getting a lot of referralsrecently, which is awesome, and
I'm doing sports flipping too.
So the rental 12 to 15.
(26:45):
Okay, very slow and verymanageable.
Ed Mathews (26:48):
It's amazing how your systems allow you to get
into that mindset and be able tonot be intimidated by 12 to 15
properties a year Going slowright now.
Jessie Lang (26:59):
I do the same thing every single time.
It is the identical rehab withthe same team people I've been
with for years.
I know the prices, I know whatit will be worth.
We're buying the sameneighborhoods Like I am not
(27:19):
reinventing the wheel.
That would be impossible if allthese were wanted.
We just didn't sell our finance.
But it's because it's literallyidentical.
I don't even walk a propertyuntil the final punch list.
That's the only time I visit.
Just I want to see what it'slike.
I want to see what we'readvertising.
But my GC, they know everything.
They know exactly what I'mdoing.
Ed Mathews (27:34):
Yeah, that's awesome .
They have their own businessand then you just hire them.
Those guys are worth weight ingold.
Jessie Lang (27:39):
I hope they're not listening, but that is something
I have considered bringingin-house.
But they're just such a goodpartner and like is the time and
cost savings worth it.
Ed Mathews (27:49):
Yeah, the 10 to 18% that you're going to save on
cost, is that really?
Is that worth the headache?
Yeah, so usually I, when I meetowners and executive investors
like yourself, they have apretty clear vision around what
success means.
And I'm not necessarily talkingenough right, that concept I'm
just talking about when you lookaround in certain aspects and
(28:12):
characteristics in your life,you were like OK, I'm good, I'm
succeeding.
How do you define success inyour own life?
Jessie Lang (28:17):
Success in my own life.
I would say it's very relatable.
It's what we're all looking for, and it is time freedom.
I don't work on Fridays.
This is a special occasion.
Ed Mathews (28:28):
Carving out time then.
Jessie Lang (28:30):
I don't work on Fridays.
We travel a lot somewhere everymonth, if not more.
We have super active sociallife.
We foster animals, we havepeople come in tonight to look
at a cat we have, and so justthe ability to do that, to be
able to pay for all these thingsand not really think too hard
(28:51):
about it.
Of course I look at my accountbut I'm not stressed over it.
It's just to do what I wantwhen I want, with who I want to.
Ed Mathews (28:59):
Yeah, time success is something that I really value
myself, so I've really enjoyedthis conversation and
congratulations again on allyour success.
I can't wait to keep in touchand see three years from now.
It's going to be an explosionof your portfolios.
I appreciate it when nottalking about real estate?
What do you like to do?
(29:20):
How do you spend?
Jessie Lang (29:21):
your time, a lot of travel.
That's a big one.
Like I said, we foster animalsand then we also have side of
our own pets.
So no kids, but tons of furrykids.
Yeah, they keep us busy andlike in a good way and then keep
us laughing all day.
I'm running a 10K tomorrow.
I don't know why, I signed upfor it, like months ago, with
(29:43):
these aspirations that I wouldtrain, and of course I haven't,
so we'll see Good luck.
Ed Mathews (29:55):
So, Jessie, if somebody wants to learn more
about you or get your book oryour, company or your course.
What's the best way to get intouch?
Jessie Lang (29:59):
Yeah, so the book is on amazon.
Like I said, it's Rentals MadeEasy by Jessie Lang.
And then I have a free Facebookgroup where I go live every
single week with guests,trainings and, yeah, just a
really great community.
There's a couple thousandpeople in there, but if you have
any questions about property,anything like that, I'll answer
for you.
And then we also have a littlefree mini course that we touched
(30:22):
briefly on the BRRR Method, butI go much deeper into the
method, what to look at eachpoint of the process, and so
that's a free mini course thatwe offer.
Offer anyone interested.
Ed Mathews (30:33):
Awesome.
Jessie Lang from Unlocked.
Thank you so much for your timetoday.
It was really a pleasure tospeak with you and continued
good fortune.
Jessie Lang (30:42):
I appreciate it.
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