Deal Case Study - Sometimes Deals Are Just Easy Money

Mike DeHaan: [0:01] Welcome to the collecting keys Friday focus. What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's collecting keys podcast deal case study. My name is Mike DeHaan, and I am here with one of our instant investor Program members, Brennan Cheddick. I even said the name right, I think. Yep. Because that's that's some infamous for screwing up names. But he is one of our Instant Investor members who's been with us since late March two thousand twenty three, filming this in August. So he's been around for a little while, and he has volunteered to come and talk about some of the real deals that he is doing in this business. So getting away from kind of the fluff and the over exaggerated nonsense for everyone else, this is what it looks like to actually be a full time investor, guys. And he is coming to share his experiences. So what this will look like is we will have a breakdown of the deal that he's gonna talk about today. We have the same group of questions that we ask in every show, and you will be able to see what a real real estate deal looks like from someone who's making real money and not just, you know, making out stuff up to be on bigger pockets. So cool. Brandon, man, thanks for coming on the show.

Mike DeHaan: [1:07] Super excited to have you.

Brenden Chetuck: [1:08] Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Mike DeHaan: [1:09] I'm excited to be here. I'm excited for this one, and we have dubbed this one easy money because even though we do talk about how real these deals are, every now and then, there are ones that are a little bit easier. So let's dive into this deal today. So first off, what kind of property was this deal?

Brenden Chetuck: [1:25] This was a property with a utility lien on it. So I had a utility lien that he did actually pay it off, but he had it for a little bit while. That's, you know, that's the list that we pulled this property from.

Mike DeHaan: [1:38] Okay. Cool. So it was a utility was like a single family home? Is it like a

Brenden Chetuck: [1:43] Yep. Yeah. Single family home, you know, right across the street from the lake. Decent condition, everything. Perfect.

Mike DeHaan: [1:48] So it's even say, like, across from the lake is like a a class neighborhood?

Brenden Chetuck: [1:51] Yeah. Yeah. B b plus a class. Yeah. Would say I saw them.

Mike DeHaan: [1:54] Yep. Man, you live in the area where lake houses are b plus. Must be nice to be so affluent. And now, Austin, that sounds great. So how did you find this deal? You said it was off of a lean list, but was this direct mail? Was it an SMS lead? Yeah. So this was actually an SMS lead,

Brenden Chetuck: [2:10] and I do have some dates pulled here, but I actually reached out to them first in September of last year, so quite a while ago. Took him a little while to answer it, and then he he finally responded to our messages after about nine texts in June. So, yeah, text message took a little while to, you know, follow-up with him, but finally contacted us back in June this year.

Mike DeHaan: [2:30] Perfect. I love it. It's all about the follow-up there. That's huge. And so what kind of seller was this person? Was it like an absentee owner? Is it an old guy? Was it owner occupant?

Brenden Chetuck: [2:41] Yeah. So he he did live there. He was middle aged gentleman. Really nice guy. He was actually a truck driver and his wife just passed away earlier this year. So he was living in the property with a few of his daughters, but, you know, he was rarely home. I think his daughters were rarely home. He had some some family in Georgia. Yeah. And he essentially just wanted to get rid of the property and kind of move on, close that chapter in his life and and move back to to Georgia with some of his family there. Perfect. Easy. And I I imagine a big part

Mike DeHaan: [3:14] of this deal as well was because of them being a truck driver, wife passing away. This is why that follow-up is so important because you need to be there at the time in their life where it makes sense for them to make a decision, you know, and that's where most people tend to miss out. Awesome. That makes perfect sense. And so give us the full story of the deal. So you said you followed up with them for a while. What did the transaction actually look like once you finally were able to get them to come in?

Brenden Chetuck: [3:37] Yeah. So like I said, I followed up with him for a few months. He finally responded around June. One of the tough things with him being a truck driver was his you know, he would be kind of absent, ghost me for a little while here and there just because he was on the road so frequently. So first contact was in June. Pretty much him saying that he was interested in selling. So you know immediately I got on the phone with him. He pretty much described his whole situation with his wife and really he just wanted to break even with the property, not come out of money at all, but he didn't wanna make any money, which, you know, music to our ears there.

Mike DeHaan: [4:13] Yeah.

Brenden Chetuck: [4:14] So I did a quick little Zillow search and he was asking $1.18 for it. He said that's how much you owed on the property and comps were about $2.60 in the area.

Mike DeHaan: [4:24] Oh, wow.

Brenden Chetuck: [4:24] Yeah. So we had we had a good spread there. And he said, for the most part, you know, there wasn't really any issues. Maybe we could use a little bit of updating, but no immediate issues that needed fixing or anything like that. And like I said, we cut that was June. He ghosted me for probably about two weeks just while he was on the road, you know, constantly text call, no answers. And then, you know, two weeks later, he would respond back, and then he'd leave me for another week and then finally get back to me. We finally locked it up in early July and we got it under contract for 123 was the final number to actually call his mortgage company and that's what they said that that he needed. Cool. So locked it up early July, immediately started to, you know, kind of blast it out to my list, even put on some Facebook investor groups, and immediately got bombarded with messages. So eventually set up some showings, got it under contract with a buyer a week later. So I got it under contract at $1.56 and then you know honestly the transaction from there was pretty simple with you know a little bit of lack of communication from him here and there but we closed August 2. So a few weeks after that, after we got under contract with the buyer, we closed. And, honestly, it was probably one of the smoothest processes I've had wholesaling so far.

Mike DeHaan: [5:41] So it was pretty nice. That's awesome. So 30 something thousand profit on that assignment fee?

Brenden Chetuck: [5:46] Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So the the final numbers are $1.23 is what we got locked up for, and then we assigned it for $156.05. So it was, yeah, just under 34,000. Nice. And to be honest, I probably left a little bit of money on the table. There were people who were Yeah. Coming in even higher. But just out of trying to keep a good relationship with the buyer, you know, I wanted to stick with them and stuff like that. So probably could have been a little more, but

Mike DeHaan: [6:09] Yeah. That's always a tough thing. We've been there as well. I remember one deal in particular in the past where we floated it to kinda like some of our main buyers, and no one really got back to us very quickly. And then finally, one of our buyers did like the next day, and they gave us their number. I'm like, okay. So we assigned it to them. And then, like the next day, like twenty four hours after we had assigned it, one of our other key buyers reached out and told us that they were just doing a bunch of extra homework. They didn't tell us this. So we were waiting for them. And they gave us an offer 20,000 more, because they wanted to develop the land. And I was like, dude, you should have just freaking said something. I mean, he could have sold it to you. We would have been happier. You would have gotten the deal. But, you know, it's just that it's an important to make sure that that was actually a big lesson to us to make sure that you are following up with people going through that process on the, you know, disposition side as much as the acquisition side. No. That's cool. So I guess on your disposition, you said you sent it out to the list. You posted it on the Facebook groups.

Mike DeHaan: [7:08] Did you end up signing it to somebody that you'd worked with before, or was it a new buyer for you?

Brenden Chetuck: [7:12] Yeah. So this was actually a completely new market for me. Oh, wow. So I originally started marketing to this area and another area when I first started wholesaling, and this just happened to be one of those those texts that continued to go out. So this is actually the first deal in this area. First time I've worked with the buyer, but the title company that I typically use has worked with this buyer. So that was one of the reasons why I decided to go with them. I knew he would close. They're all cash. They are very reputable. And like I said, my title agent knows them and stuff like that. So it it kinda just, you know, went hand in hand. I I would honestly take a few thousand dollars left less to know that the transaction is definitely gonna close, and they're not gonna try and, you know, pull a fast one at the last minute or anything.

Mike DeHaan: [7:57] Yeah. That's so huge. You know? And it's especially when you're in this business for the long haul, it's so important to have that abundance mindset and understand the value of an easy transaction, especially because, like, this stuff can go sideways at the last minute. You know, we've had deals that have fallen through, like, the day of closing. I mean, we had our our most infamous one. We the buyer had already signed documents, and then the seller got abducted during his closing by a crazy Russian guy. You know, like, you can never make this stuff up, so you wanna keep the transactions as simple as possible. No. That's awesome. So this is also a different market. So this was completely virtual. I guess, any major lessons or tips for people that would be trying to do their first deal in a new market at a distance like that?

Brenden Chetuck: [8:42] Honestly, one of the major ones with the disposition is maybe try and give yourself a little bit of time. I think I got so trigger happy because I saw the large number that I was like, you know, if they're willing to do it, you know, I'll I'll do it. But I think once again, if I would have waited a few more days, I probably could have gotten a little bit more and even from the same buyer.

Mike DeHaan: [9:00] Mhmm.

Brenden Chetuck: [9:01] So I I would say that, you know, don't be too greedy, but also, like, know what you have. Right? If it's a deal.

Mike DeHaan: [9:07] And other than that, yeah, I

Brenden Chetuck: [9:08] mean, I personally think virtual is just as easy as being in person, if not a little bit easier because you don't stress yourself out with, you know, the the small stuff and trying to do everything yourself. So

Mike DeHaan: [9:20] Yeah. True that. I mean, you know, look at the guys in our group that complain about having to drive an hour each way to some of these properties. It's like, you don't have to do that. You can treat your local market as a virtual market as well if you wanna work there. You just have to establish the basic framework for it. But awesome. So as a sick deal, Brandon, it's easy. 30 was a 34.5, $33,500. Yep. And I guess just for context, you posted in our RS investor Slack that between that deal and another deal you did, you made the same amount of money in that week that you made in your w two. So last year or a couple years ago?

Brenden Chetuck: [9:55] Yeah, last year.

Mike DeHaan: [9:56] Yep. Last year. There we go. One week. And you know, and we have a lot more room to make even more money. So that's an awesome place to be. Awesome, guys. Well, Brandon, if you wouldn't mind, would you have some socials or anything you want to share with people if they want to reach out to you and ask us more information or maybe get on your buyers list in your market?

Brenden Chetuck: [10:14] Yeah, I think Instagram is probably the best place to find me. B chetuk. That's b c h e t u c k. Or you could just look up Brendan Chetuck. I'm sure it'll

Mike DeHaan: [10:24] come up. Perfect. And so people know if they did reach out, what what markets do you work in right now?

Brenden Chetuck: [10:29] Yeah. So I'm in Florida. So, like, Central Florida area, like Orlando, Polk County, and then I also do the the Panhandle, Florida.

Mike DeHaan: [10:37] Perfect. If you guys are in Florida or you're looking to buy in Florida, you guys should absolutely reach out to Brennan. He is crushing deals down there, and I can personally vouch for the success and the quality of stuff that he finds because I get to hear about it every single day and every single week with him being a part of our instant investor program. So Brandon Mann, thanks so much for coming on the show. And you guys should absolutely reach out to him and give him a follow, see the stuff that he has going on. And hopefully, you enjoyed this deal case study. Please go and share this with any of your friends who might be interested in real estate or hearing wanting to hear about what real deals look like. And if you have a deal of your own that you wanna talk about on the show, you should hit me up on Instagram at Mike underscore Invest, and we'd see if you'd a good candidate for it. So thanks for listening, everybody, and we'll talk to y'all next week. Thanks for listening to this collecting keys Friday focus. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.