Hustling your way to Millions with Lars Anderson

Lars Anderson: [0:00] So it's just like hustling, like, five open houses a weekend to meet new people, doing social media, cold calling people that own investment properties, cold calling expired listings, doing all of the things that was like, I'm seven days a week. I'm always available. I'm gonna work as many hours as it takes.

Speaker 2: [0:19] Welcome to the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [0:42] What's going on, guys? This episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast, we have Lars, also known as Larzy Anderson. Now Larzy. No. He just Lars Anderson, he is an investor out of Minnesota who is a super awesome guy that is probably one of the most relatable investors that we've had on this show. Called him Larsy because that's what he told us his nickname was at the end. And I was like, probably good you say that to the

Dan Austin: [1:07] end or you would have heard that the entire time. Just a sweet, wholesome guy out there. He calls himself simple, but really what that means is like, he's not overcomplicating anything No. But he's just out there kicking ass, buying rental properties just like we all wanted to do when we started out. He runs an awesome, very successful brokerage, and he's not doing anything that you don't already know you need to do.

Mike DeHaan: [1:26] Exactly, and he's 28 years old, he's a family person, you know, takes care of his health. He kinda does everything right in the most simple way possible, and surprise, the core of all that is just being disciplined about what you do.

Dan Austin: [1:39] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [1:39] So we talk about discipline a lot in this episode. We go into all the details about how he runs his business, how he's built up his pretty impressive portfolio for the short time that he's been active in real estate, which is only four years, and someone that you could definitely aspire to be like. He what he is doing is super achievable for literally every single person that listens to this show. Any excuse that you might have around, you know, kids not knowing what to do, you're not having the time. He has all those same problems, and he conquered them just fine. He figured it out. You know, really, really great actionable stuff here today. But anyways, guys, enjoy the show with Lars, you should absolutely reach out to him on his social media handles at the end of the show. Really, really nice guy will be more than happy to chat with you about whatever you have going on. You should also share this with anyone who's interested in real estate investing business, or whatever else because this has this episode has something for whatever your interests are in that realm. Anyways, guys, enjoy the show with Lars Anderson. Alright, guys, we are here today with Lars Anderson, who is a real estate investor and all around great guy from the Minneapolis, Minnesota area.

Dan Austin: [2:44] You would never know talking to him.

Mike DeHaan: [2:46] Yeah. Right. You're going against the brand though of of everybody in the real estate business, man. You're supposed to, like, move down to Arizona or Florida or Texas or wherever it's bought.

Lars Anderson: [2:55] Yeah. Buy in use. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're born and raised here in Minnesota, so we're sticking we're sticking here for right now.

Mike DeHaan: [3:04] But the winter sort of. Dude, you're supposed to talk about the seasonality. I'm like, oh, you're gonna lose out on, you know, all this money because you have to actually upkeep your houses. What are you thinking? Why why haven't you moved down yet?

Lars Anderson: [3:15] Yeah. That's a good question. We'll we'll find someone that knows what's going on in those markets, and I'll just buy stuff while I stick here in the negative 40 degree winters. Right.

Mike DeHaan: [3:24] I mean

Lars Anderson: [3:25] That's so cold. It builds character.

Dan Austin: [3:27] Yeah. Pose hairy your chest.

Mike DeHaan: [3:28] It does. And you just identify the opportunity. Right? Everyone's moving away. Everyone's moving

Dan Austin: [3:32] to Florida, man. Just keep buying.

Lars Anderson: [3:33] Yeah. Right.

Mike DeHaan: [3:35] But anyway, Lars, man, super good to have you on the show. I know we've been connecting for a little bit through GoBundance. You're also in a in a GoPod with Dylan, I believe, who's Yes. One of our

Dan Austin: [3:45] Dilpill. Let him know that's his nickname.

Lars Anderson: [3:47] Dilpill. I like that.

Mike DeHaan: [3:48] Terrible nickname. He's made a friend of Yeah. He's one of our top in state investor members who's part of our group coaching program, but he had a lot of great things to say about the stuff that you work on. So love to hear about your background, how you got into real estate, and all the stuff that you're working on right now, because it is a lot. Yes, absolutely. Thanks for having me on the show. Excited to be here. Absolutely, man.

Lars Anderson: [4:09] Yeah. So born and raised in Minnesota. I guess a few things about me. I am married, have two little kids. Little boy, that's two named Cruz. Little girl, that's one. I love my family. I'm a follower of Jesus, so that plays into a lot of kind of my day to day and how I look at life, just where I find my identity. So I love real estate. I love that my relationship with the Lord, that's where I find my identity, so it allows me to have the freedom to explore things that I wanna explore, and gives me kind of a mindset of like, Hey, I'm here, it's a gift, I'm on borrowed time, and I'm not promised another day, and yeah, just enjoy things. Last thing, I got what is called the Yips in college. I played baseball in college, just a small university here in Minnesota, and the YIPS is like, if anyone knows what the YIPS is, the YIPS is like in golf, when all of a sudden you shanked every shot, or you can't putt, Your wrists go do weird stuff. So in baseball, I had where one day I woke up, and it felt like I had never thrown a baseball before. It was like I was throwing with my left hand, like I lost all control over what was going on with my arm. I went from throwing the ball wherever I wanted and enjoying it to I couldn't even play a simple game of catch with someone because my wrist would do weird stuff.

Lars Anderson: [5:36] Wow.

Mike DeHaan: [5:36] Is this like a like a medical condition or is this like a mental thing?

Lars Anderson: [5:40] This is a mental thing. So it's a mental block.

Mike DeHaan: [5:42] Oh, okay. That's wild. Oh, okay. I thought, like, you have, like, some sort of crazy, like, nervous system thing that just, like, you're just, like, woke up and were broken. Your wrist is all bent.

Dan Austin: [5:53] Yeah. It was a good visual.

Lars Anderson: [5:55] So it's just like a, you have a nice visual. So it's just like a mental block. Like as if you, every time you sat down to take a test, you just like, your mind blacked out and you couldn't think of what to write, or someone that gets extreme anxiety in certain situations. But that opened me to this world of the mind, because I was always like, That's weird that people have mind things, or they see a counselor, this sort of thing. Then it was like, Woah, this is something that I can't just necessarily control. I actually need to learn how my mind works and do that. So that has kind of put me down this, I love talking about mentality and mindset. Mindset gets tossed around all the time, but my day is structured so that I can work on my mindset each day, get a stronger body each day, and have a house of love. So those are kind of, that sums up a little bit about me and what I'm passionate about. And I'm a simple guy. I like to say I'm not usually the smartest person in the room. I'm fairly simple. I just, I try hard and listen to people that have gone before me. Here we go. Wow. That's kind of background. As far as the real estate thing goes, I got into real estate a year out of college. So I ran a landscaping company, and fell in love with entrepreneurship in high school and college. Then I worked a W-two job, like a sales job, where you're sitting and refreshing your email, like you don't have a lot of stuff to do. And I wanted to get out and run.

Lars Anderson: [7:29] Similar story to 99.9% of people in real estate now. And then I wanted to get out and run, so I met with a buddy from college that was in real estate. I'm like, what does your day look like? He told me about it. Long story short, I put in my notice at my job and jumped into real estate. I'm like, I gotta try this. It's just a good avenue for running my own business and selling things that are higher priced compared to mowing lawns kind of thing. So I got into real estate and have been in it for five years now as a residential and some doing a couple more commercial deals as just like a brokering deals kind of thing.

Mike DeHaan: [8:08] There we go. Man, so your buddy got you with the Instagram post about him on a boat signing deals, Feel like that looks way better

Dan Austin: [8:14] than this office. That's what I gotta do. I gotta be there.

Lars Anderson: [8:17] It was like a 30 meeting, and he's like, hey, this is what my day looks like. I gotta go.

Mike DeHaan: [8:22] Yes. He's like, yeah, this is this is my only appointment today. I have a tee time, my second one for the day here in forty five minutes.

Dan Austin: [8:30] Real pressed.

Mike DeHaan: [8:31] Yeah. Right? So, no, that's cool. So so that took you into the real estate realm route. But you're kind of underselling yourself, because I know that you are running a successful operation up there. Mhmm. So I guess, how long have you been in real estate, and what does your team look like? How many deals do you

Lars Anderson: [8:45] guys do in a year right now? Yep. So I I joined a team, it was a guy named Sam, and Taylor's brother-in-law. They're like, Hey, this is what we've done. Come and copy it, and we'll see if we can repeat it, because they were like, Rookie of the Year at REMAX, Rookie of the Year and at then I was like the third person to kinda like, Let's try this out. So I was just hustling five open houses a weekend to meet new people, doing social media, cold calling people that own investment properties, cold calling expired listings, doing all of the things that was like, I was kind of like, I'm seven days a week, I'm always available, I'm gonna work as many hours as it takes, and I quickly fell in love with bigger pockets, all that. I was just drinking through a fire hose. So then I was rookie of the year, because I just had great teachers, and I was running with the tribe I was running with and still run with was just like, it's normal to sell 40 homes your first year, it's not normal to sell 10. So I was thankful to join them. So I would have sold like forty, seventy, and then the last couple years, 100 homes each year, and with guys we now have, it's us three as the team leads, and then there's, I think, 15 total people on the team, just slowly, organically have grown with highly motivated people that are teachable and stuff.

Lars Anderson: [10:06] So I bet our team will do, like, four to 500 deals this year. That's

Mike DeHaan: [10:12] awesome. Wow.

Lars Anderson: [10:13] And starting to get into some larger apartment deals too and stuff like that.

Dan Austin: [10:17] That's legit. That's a lot of transactions. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [10:21] So what do you attribute that? So obviously you have the hustle nature of it. Right? Which is a a common story you hear with a lot of realtors that have grown and become successful as they I hear that same thing. It's like, oh, I cold called all these people. I did that for four hours a day. Had at least open houses on the weekend. I was doing showings in the evenings. I was doing all that sort of stuff. But, obviously, there's more to it than that because there's also a lot of people that hustle like that, and they're not successful because there's no organization and structure behind it.

Lars Anderson: [10:48] Yeah. So I know you're

Mike DeHaan: [10:50] a big mindset guy. So what was your your mindset like to do those things in a productive way so that you actually led to growth, and didn't just pinhole yourself into an endless hamster wheel?

Lars Anderson: [11:01] Yeah. So I think there's the my mindset at first was I'm gonna copy what they're doing, and I'm gonna do it even better, put my spin on it, work harder kind of thing, and I tried to not let myself get to like, I wanted to not compare to like, hey, I can already hire an assistant and do those things, like I just, Someone gave me the advice of, You just gotta go do the hard work. There's no way So to get around my mindset at first was just head down, helping as many people buy and sell homes, getting connected to as many people as possible. And then it goes, because then it's like, now I have these people referring me to others, there's only so many hours in the day, how do I kind of create more of a business? A couple years ago, hired an assistant, and then last year, a full time assistant, which is learning you gotta delegate stuff, and you gotta start to focus on the things that are truly bringing income and really moving the needle sort of thing. And that was like getting connected with going, investing in yourself is so massive. So getting connected with GoBundance, seeing how top agents and top team leaders and brokers from around the country are doing things, and literally implementing what they're doing. So I would say, last year selling 100 homes, I worked far less. My life, just balance of everything, I think work is part of, like, I don't necessarily believe in work life balance. I think work is a big part of our life, and that's okay.

Lars Anderson: [12:31] It's part of our mission. But my work life balance was much better last year. I worked far less and far less days last year, and my income was obviously different.

Mike DeHaan: [12:42] Yeah.

Lars Anderson: [12:42] Right. Know, helping 100 people versus 40. Yeah. Well, no, I

Dan Austin: [12:46] was just gonna make an observation you talked about earlier, is that you just said somebody told you how to get out and do the hard work. And it's kinda funny because there's this balance between like mindset and hard work, and how do you get there? Like, what are you why are you doing things? And like, what motivates you? But I I think it was like funny enough, like Joe Rogan said this, like, I don't know when he said it, but like, there's just no discipline is what gets you there. It's the hard work, because like, motivation like fades really quickly. So when you wake up in the morning, you might not be motivated to do the hard work. You're not you're like, oh, don't wanna do this. Yep. But like that discipline and actually getting after the hard work is what gets you there. Right? And then building those systems, and then you you also said, I can't remember. I'm gonna somebody said this, Mike, you might know, but there's like this this fifty five and five rule that you can do where you work for fifty five minutes, and then you take five minutes to look at what you actually did, and then finding those dollar productive activities within that fifty five minutes, so that you're not wasting your time doing bullshit. That's all lines up into how you become successful.

Lars Anderson: [13:45] Yeah. Yeah. So I hired a coach named Trevor McGregor, like a high performance coach, through suggestions of guys at GoBundance Networking Group, and paid a lot of money to work with them for six months, and part of it was determining your gold activities, like a pyramid, a time pyramid. Your gold activities are the, there's no price to put on that. That's like a date night with my wife, or for me coaching baseball, or things that it's like, that fills up my schedule first, and then you got the dark green activities that are like whatever you determine as your dollar per hour. It could be $500 per hour, what are those activities? And then you have the light green activities that are $20 an hour activities, and then you have the brown activities scrolling through Instagram or stuff like that, and how do we just start to play above the line dark green and gold more than which is like naturally what high performers do, but to put like a pure, you know, language to it was was powerful for me. Yeah. And those those little things too, they I

Mike DeHaan: [14:49] mean, that's discipline. Right? Is people hear that sort of stuff and like, that sounds like a lot of work. It's like, it is. That's where the discipline part comes in.

Dan Austin: [14:55] Right? The discipline and hard work.

Mike DeHaan: [14:57] And it's and it's learning to do those exercises over and over and over again. And, like, I think something else too with, like, you said the fifty five zero five rule or, you know, like, doing the time tracking things like that. It doesn't need to be like a permanent fix. It's purely to just reframe your brain so that you naturally are now being more productive because you went through the process of learning how to be more productive. You know, it's kinda like how with fitness and nutrition. Right? This is always a big parallel between these two things by business and and nutrition because they require similar discipline. When people get into, counting calories or counting macros and things like that, you don't necessarily need to get into that thing. You're gonna do it forever. You get into it, and it's gonna give you a framework. It gives you a frame of a reference for Yeah. What works, what doesn't, what appropriate amounts of, you know, calories to consume are. It's just like, you know, with business, gives you a frame of reference, what's an appropriate amount of time to spend on stuff, where your money is being made, how much time you are actually wasting, you don't realize that you're wasting. Right? Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [15:57] And it just, you do that for, you know, a couple weeks, a couple months, whatever, and it can redirect the entire direction of the rest of your life, honestly. Yeah. Totally.

Dan Austin: [16:07] Very much so.

Lars Anderson: [16:08] Those habits, you start to just become a different and new person. Yeah, it's great.

Dan Austin: [16:12] Yeah. What are you doing? You said in the morning, said you had the get your body strong, I'm assuming you're talking about physical work and getting your mind right. Do you do certain things to set your day up, or have you done certain things in the past, maybe your coach showed you, or what are you doing there? I'm kinda curious.

Lars Anderson: [16:29] Yeah, so I, being in real estate, being a realtor, it took me a while to understand, because I'd be like, Hey, I'll go work out at 02:00. Then it's like 02:00, a fire comes up every day. Yeah. Or you're taking a phone call, you're like, Yeah, this could turn into like a sale or something, I'll take it. So I have now realized after the first year, my only protected time is the time before my family wakes up and before the rest of the world wakes up. So I'm not like a crazy 3AM guy, but I get up at 05:20, work out at six, six to 07:15, then I get home. Getting into the Bible is huge for me, and having time for prayer. So I get home, actually before that, I do a sauna. I bought a barrel sauna, which I've fallen in love with. That's outside. I do a sauna, and then at least a couple times a week, I try to follow some sort of meditation in the sauna, or I just listen to some music, or sit in silence, or something like that. So that's like creating a calmer mind, and then I read some scripture and pray and try to become a better journaler this year, because I just forget stuff, and so that's been good. So I do ten, ten, 10, pray for ten minutes, read the Bible for ten minutes, and then journal for ten minutes, and then my family's getting up. Luckily, our two little people are good sleepers.

Dan Austin: [17:53] Good for you.

Lars Anderson: [17:54] So 07:45, eight time, I get to be with them a little bit, and I used to rush out of the house and try to get out of the house before eight, but now I kind of take my time and shower and get ready. If I'm out of the house by 08:45 and to the office by nine, I've accomplished, I've spent time with my family, I've worked on my body, and I've created kind of a calmer mind, and it's not over time, but I feel like my mind is getting calmer from being diligent with it for six months now, kinda thing.

Mike DeHaan: [18:28] Yeah. So I got a question regarding that. So you have this morning routine. When you started doing all this stuff, what did your business look like?

Lars Anderson: [18:37] I was always, for whatever reason, just I always loved working out. I was youngest of five with three brothers, and loved playing sports. So that was like before I was even in real estate, I would be working my W2 job. I would try to do six a. M. Workouts. And then when I got into real estate, that's always been a part of the meditation is new for me, the sauna is new, the journaling is new, But as far as having quiet time and working out, that's been from when my business was just starting out too. Because I was like, if I can't get myself to do that in the morning and work out, then I'm not going to cold call. I'm I'm already

Mike DeHaan: [19:22] For sure.

Lars Anderson: [19:22] It's a way for me to tell my body, like, you serve me, I don't serve you. Right. Sort

Mike DeHaan: [19:29] of Where I'm going with that is I like to rip on morning routines a lot. Yeah. Mostly because I find that most people that do them, they're like also people that work like a kind of basic job that have ambitions, but they don't spend any of their times actually doing the stuff that's gonna move them forward. But they still have a four hour morning routine to just go to their their job that they don't like, that isn't getting them where they wanna be. Yeah. And they wonder why they're not getting anywhere. Yeah. So my point being though is you were already successful when you started doing these things, and now it enhances your ability to be more successful. Because you know what to do. You know what to do. I think that is a very, very important thing that people that are drawn to these sort of morning routines to understand is that you are not successful because you did those things.

Dan Austin: [20:14] The sauna's not gonna get you there. That's the 1% tool.

Mike DeHaan: [20:17] Yeah. Exactly. The discipline has made you successful, and now it's going to take you from the 2% to the 1%, and the 1% to the point 1% is further establishing that discipline in those habits.

Lars Anderson: [20:28] Yeah. That's a great point. Yep. So But I

Dan Austin: [20:30] think you got his key in when it talks to this. You gotta do what's right for you. Right? Because a lot of folks, they do certain things because they heard it on a podcast, for example. Yeah. They listen to Lars who'd Yeah. This is his part of journey. I'm gonna try it. If it doesn't work for you, it's not gonna work for you. Yeah. You can't have a big morning routine if you're not a morning person, and then all of a sudden, you're you're just dragging ass the rest of the day, and you end your day at 03:30, but you didn't start till ten. Yeah. Like, that's not gonna be productive. So you gotta find something that works for you and fits into actually helping you perform. Because, like, there's certain things that I do that doesn't work for other people. Like, I would love to work out in the morning. My body just doesn't let me do it anymore. Mhmm. Yeah. Like, this morning, was like, you know, I was up at, 5AM or whatever time, and I was like, I should work out right now. But I was like, dude, my body hurts so bad. I need, like, thirty minutes to warm up before I even start this thing. And so, like, it just doesn't work out for me anymore. Yeah. Wish I

Lars Anderson: [21:21] could. Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [21:21] I'm the same way. I tried to force myself to be a morning workout person for like three three and a half years. I hated it every single day for three and a half years. But you know what? I still did it every day. Right? And that's the discipline that was established, and it's allowed me to have, you know, allowed me to have the time during the day to focus on the business, focus on doing all the things, and now I can work out whenever the hell I want. You know? Because I have that flexibility because the discipline was right, to build the business. Yeah. Yeah. So let's let's dive into your your investments. I know you have a decent little portfolio. The kind of stuff that you're buying, are they fixed or uppers? Are they single families? Like, what's your specialty? Yeah. So looked four years ago, was looking for a duplex to house hack with my wife. I wish I would have known what real estate was when I

Lars Anderson: [22:12] was in college. I would have borrowed money from anyone to try to get in. Looking for a duplex, lost out. It was just a tough market. Saw the low hanging fruit was a single family home that was beat up and crappy cell phone pictures right by the college that I went to. So we bought that, fixed it up. As I was there, I think homeownership, just literally knowing how much stuff costs, knowing what maintenance goes into it was great. We moved out after a year, rented that, cash flowed like a thousand bucks on it. In the meantime, real estate was going well, so picked up a couple other duplexes. I feel like everything that I've bought has been buy cosmetically facelift, put in 30 to $50,000 into it, maybe add a bedroom in the basement, a bathroom, projects like that that are single family, duplexed, really in that realm for the first couple years, that's what I was buying, and then added a bunch of equity and refinanced or put a second lien on it or something like that, and then take out a bunch of tax free money and buy more stuff. So the last four years, we now have 15 buildings. There's like 35 total units, all just owned by We haven't done partnering on anything yet. I say yet just because I'm not close to it. I just have gone I wanna feel really comfortable with someone that I partner with, and kind of be a little bit more like I can sell something if we quickly wanna sell it and go into something bigger. I have a few four plexes and a six unit.

Lars Anderson: [23:49] Those are my biggest things as of now. Again, those have been buying them at a price that I like, putting money into it, and then hopefully seeing good cash flow, and then also seeing equity, you know, lot of equity in them.

Mike DeHaan: [24:04] There you go. How are you finding these deals?

Lars Anderson: [24:06] Some is just seeing them on the market, seeing other people just market them poorly, seeing opportunity there, seeing basements that aren't finished. I really focused in on one small market. It was a city that's a suburb that is, I'd call it like a B class area. Like there's always gonna be good renters there, close to a university, you have that as an option. Literally seeing anything that's like, if something pops on, a single family home at this price, it's gonna make sense. Don't overthink it, just buy it. And then, from cold calling investors that own stuff in St. Paul and Minneapolis, have gotten, that's how I ran into a portfolio of three four plexes and a six unit, was just talking to a seven year old dude that's like, I sold these buildings to this guy thirty years ago, and I know he's running into tax issues on a business that he owns, and I know he wants to sell them, or he would sell them, and you know, just like running into stuff like that, that it and if it makes sense at the time, and I feel like I don't have someone that wants to to buy it, then, you know, I feel good buying it.

Dan Austin: [25:17] Right. So are you doing like a certain portion of your day that you're actually doing like prospecting just for your own investments? Or is it like, hey, I'm prospecting for the brokerage, and I've came across this. Let me pull the thread a little bit deeper. How are you doing that?

Lars Anderson: [25:30] Yeah. It'll be prospecting. It's nice prospecting. So now it's like I'm looking for apartment deals or stuff, just more units, so it's kind of nice because I have, I'm calling people, or emailing, or any way that, or I connect with this guy who then connects me with other people, and just grabbing coffee with people that own these buildings, and going, One, I'm like, I'm looking for myself. If it makes sense, and feels like it's a good opportunity, I would buy it. I don't have endless amounts of cash, and without partnering, I can only buy so many things. Otherwise, have people that wanna buy those things, and if they say, you know, basically no pound sand, then I go, Hey, well, are you a buyer, and what are you looking for? And start to build a list of people who are looking in the, you know, Twin City area. And so then you could start to facilitate like, hey, this guy wants to buy a 20 unit, and this guy wants to sell it, and I can't buy it, and that sort of thing. I'd say just emailing if people respond, calling, doing anything like that.

Dan Austin: [26:35] It's so surprising that more agents don't do what you're doing. It's so simple. Yeah, you're going in there as the agent and Lars the investor, so if the opportunity is there for you to acquire it, you can be there and be the buyer, but if not, you can go and use your network to find that buyer or to find the seller and connect the seller and the buyer, and now you've got a double sided commission where so many agents just go out there and they're prospecting and they're thinking one thing, I am looking for a listing. I am looking for a listing. Yep. They don't even become investors, even though they're becoming experts in their own market for whatever reason. So it's a pretty simple process, and you're just executing on it.

Mike DeHaan: [27:12] Yeah. Yeah. What do you think is the key to so, like, I hear a lot of people that they give this advice, right, of, go and, like, find the old guys that have all these properties convince them to sell to you. There a ton of strapping young 20 girls like yourself that wanna do the same thing. How, when you're having those conversations, do you show that you actually are the right person to sell the property to? Because a lot of people try, but there's only one property, right? So how do you give off that sort of energy that you should be the right guy?

Lars Anderson: [27:46] Yeah, I think being a people like to talk about themselves. People feel like it's the best conversation they've ever had when usually they're talking about themselves. And I've had where it's like, am just asking questions, and I go in with more of a, if I get the sense that, hey, I need to prove myself to this person, and tell them that I do own stuff, and this is what I own, or that sort of thing, I'll do that. But I more go on the side of like, Hey, I'm looking to learn, I would love to learn from your journey, from successes, also failures. People love talking about their failures, and going like, I'm just starting, this is what I do own, but I'm just starting to acquire more and more stuff. I'm very easy to work with if the numbers make sense. I'm happy if they make great money and I make great money. I should say if they make great money and it means that it's still a good deal, there's that. So I would say trying to just be more about not being a of a douche in how I go in and go like, Hey, I'm the best, and I own the most stuff, because there's always the bigger fish that owns more stuff, but more going like, hey, this is awesome that you've created this business, and how have you done it, and what have you learned, and like, I would just love to run with this one and and do that. Does that make Yeah.

Dan Austin: [29:08] Number one tip, don't be a douche.

Mike DeHaan: [29:10] Yeah. Right. Yeah. You heard it here first.

Lars Anderson: [29:13] Or just being like prideful and Yeah. In that is like

Dan Austin: [29:16] Too much ego. You're right.

Lars Anderson: [29:18] Yeah, if you go in and you're like, hey, would be open to selling that property? Do you own it?

Mike DeHaan: [29:23] Mhmm.

Lars Anderson: [29:23] More than like, hey, are you you need to sell it now. It's, you know, you're selling.

Mike DeHaan: [29:29] So, yeah. Yeah, right. Treating sellers like people. Like, it's such an important thing that for some reason gets overlooked a lot of the time because it's real estate's kind of a shallow business that way. Everyone kinda looks at each other like a transaction.

Lars Anderson: [29:40] Yep. Mhmm. And

Mike DeHaan: [29:42] I think that where a lot of people get bit is they go into those conversations with those people, and they think that the root of the conversation is gonna be around price, when it's not ultimately. Like, I guarantee you that you've bought properties where somebody probably would have paid more for it, but they liked you better. You know, just like we do on the wholesale side all the time, people choose to sell us their properties at a discount when they know that they could go and list it on the market and sell more money because we have trust, because we've showed that we care about their situation, and we're willing to, you know, give some flexibility, get some leniences, make things easy. It's exactly the same when you're talking to sophisticated investors like you are in trying to buy larger assets. But for some reason, that gets lost sometimes. I don't know why. Just basic, you know, human condition and and sales. People do business with people that they like.

Lars Anderson: [30:27] Yeah, and then they'll continue to do business.

Mike DeHaan: [30:29] Mean, I'm

Lars Anderson: [30:29] sure you guys know, it's like, you show them that you make it easy on them, and you do a good job, and you say what you're gonna do, and sometimes it's like, hey, the deal's okay, but I'm just gonna still, I've had ones where it's like, it's a solid deal. I'll still buy it just because it's gonna open up this realm of like, where they just have trust.

Mike DeHaan: [30:47] Right. Yeah. And I love what you said there. Sometimes the deal's still okay just okay, but you still do it. Is such important point. Right? That this is the just the current phase of like Instagram and you know, bigger pockets only showing wins and all this sort of stuff that drives me crazy. As I feel like so many people, they are only willing to invest in home runs. Right? And they they just completely overlook the base hits, but base hits are where wealth is made. Yep. Right? That is where like we were talking about earlier, if you were disciplined in buying base hits and doing things over and over and over again, you will be wealthy. You will make money. So back to that disciplined conversation, like

Dan Austin: [31:24] doing something consistently over and over again?

Mike DeHaan: [31:26] Right. Crazy. Wow. Good point.

Lars Anderson: [31:29] I know you guys have two, but it's like the deals that you think are just a base hit turn into triples. Recently, bought a couple fourplexes that I'm like, these are home run deals that turned into not a strikeout. Yeah. And that will happen. So I like what you said about not overlooking the base hit deals, whereas, like, hey. The the pro of this deal is this. It's not gonna all of sudden be a money pit or something like that, and there's there's value in in that because you just stack those, and some are gonna turn into home runs. Exactly. Absolutely.

Dan Austin: [32:05] And so many new investors make that mistake to Mike's earlier point is, like, they've been watching BiggerPockets or whoever the name the guru that they've been watching on Instagram. They're like, oh, this isn't a good enough deal. But experienced investors like us are gonna be like, I'm taking that down every day of the week, because it it is a good base hit, maybe a double, and we're going to take it down. It doesn't have to be the grand slam, the home run, or whatever. And the only reason we have those home runs deals, is because we bought a base hit that turned into that home run. You know, very rarely is there that one where you know it's a home run and you buy it and it actually turns out to be a grand slam or or whatever.

Mike DeHaan: [32:37] Yeah. And ultimately, you gotta swing the bat.

Lars Anderson: [32:40] Otherwise, never hit anything.

Mike DeHaan: [32:41] If you just wait for the 90 an hour 90 mile an hour fastball down the middle, I mean

Dan Austin: [32:46] All these baseball references were were coming up with.

Mike DeHaan: [32:48] I was trying to bring it around for Lars' sake.

Lars Anderson: [32:50] I I

Mike DeHaan: [32:50] don't know anything about baseball. But

Lars Anderson: [32:52] You know, I'm simple, and it's just like you gotta relate it to baseball. Otherwise, it's just over my head. I appreciate that.

Mike DeHaan: [32:58] Yeah. Of course. Right?

Lars Anderson: [32:59] Yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [33:00] Because, I mean, it's a Midwest stereotype. Right? You guys

Lars Anderson: [33:03] are Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [33:03] You got your direction. Yeah. Apple pie, baseball, you know, relationship based. It's that's the whole that's the whole area. Hot dish, yeah, right. Yeah, hot dish versus a casserole, that's a great way to cause an issue there.

Lars Anderson: [33:15] One thing I wanna say, going back, because this is like, I even tell people that I work with, whereas, you're like, How do you source some of these deals? A couple of them have come because I've just told other agents too, I've reached out, and I'm like, I'm a buyer, if you bring me something, you get my side too. I do not need to get paid. The value is in actually owning the the asset and and buying it at a discount. It's like, if it makes sense, like, bring it. I don't need to get paid because I still see a sense of like, I gotta get that 2.7% on it if I buy it in order to make make it make sense. And it's like, that's just, I feel like, very shortsighted. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [33:56] Oh, very much so. That's a great idea.

Mike DeHaan: [33:58] That's a great idea. And it's funny. I've I've met agents that will have this they'll say these sort of things, and they'll say, I won't give you the commission. They'll say, I'll only take 1% of it. Right? So, like, this they're trying to say, I'll only take, you know, $2, but they're missing out on, like, huge deals because there is an incentive. They're saying that they will take less money to try and incentivize the seller to work with them, but you're actually saying to I will give the money to the agent. Yeah. Right? So you will pay them additional money. Right? So you're providing them an incentive instead of just like a, I don't know, like a like a discount, but you're actually gonna line their pockets a little bit. And that's gonna go a lot farther. That's a great tip right there. For sure.

Lars Anderson: [34:37] Yeah. And then they're and then they're motivated to have their person sell it off market instead of bringing it

Mike DeHaan: [34:42] to the market. Yeah. Absolutely. For sure. Cool. Lars, it's good stuff. I wanna dive into the end of the show here. I know you also have a story that you wanna talk about on a deal, but we're gonna work this into the end of end of show questions here because that's always our first question. Yes. Yeah. The same three questions that we ask everybody that comes on this show. So the first question is, what is your craziest real estate investing story?

Lars Anderson: [35:05] I'll give you one quick positive one and then one negative one. K. Positive, like three years ago, this lake home that was by where I grew up, I had noticed, I wasn't an agent, but a couple summers in a row, they tried to sell the property. I became an agent, I went and knocked on their door, probably looking like an idiot with my card, and like, Hey, I'm Lars, I've always wanted to get a chance to sell this property, and I've noticed you've tried to sell it. The last couple times, love to interview. If you reach out to realtors to try to sell it, would love to just sit down and interview with you for the opportunity. That one turned into, so from our area, it was 1,500,000, which is, that's high for my area for a lake home. But I represented them. They took a chance on me listing it. Someone called my sign, showed up, so it turned into a sell and buy. Nice. And then the person that bought it never moved in. They were like a Silicon Valley attorney that decided to go to Europe instead of come to Minnesota for the summer. So then listed it the next spring, and staged it, and then an agent from Wisconsin called me and is like, Hey, show my person that thing. So then I represented them too, so it turned into a buy, sell, buy, sell from a door knock.

Lars Anderson: [36:28] On a 1,500,000, that's

Mike DeHaan: [36:30] a good deal. That's crazy.

Lars Anderson: [36:32] Yeah. So Tuesday at two in the afternoon, whereas you're driving home, and a door knock turned into a pretty good deal.

Dan Austin: [36:42] That could be like a $100,150 grand commission.

Mike DeHaan: [36:44] Yeah. Was that $60,000 commission? No. Probably more than that across that whole thing.

Dan Austin: [36:49] If you're doing a buy sell on a one point if you're assuming 3%, but

Lars Anderson: [36:53] Yeah. And they were both, I think, like, this full 6%. So it's like Yeah. Turned into a good it turned into, like, paying for someone's college if So Yeah. Good deal. Worth the door knock. They don't always turn out like that, but but worth kind

Mike DeHaan: [37:09] of Negative. The little bit of

Lars Anderson: [37:11] I currently have a fourplex that we are finally listing for rent, and it's just was it was one that I I bought at a price that it

Mike DeHaan: [37:21] was

Lars Anderson: [37:21] a guy who managed it for thirty years, did a horrible job of managing it, super beat up, but like a brick structure, and he said the roof was five years old, just like kinda sweet talked me. We went and walked through it. It was like I just didn't do my due diligence on it, not even on the roof, not doing a full inspection, and it just turned into, I then hired a contractor, and things didn't work out, things were mismanaged a little bit, and I take responsibility of all of it, but it's just turned into every piece of plumbing in the whole building redone. The roof was shocked. The window, I mean, literally a gut job that has turned into 300 or $400,000 job. Wow. Putting the thing back together, that was like, Hey, I'll put $100,000 into it. And so that's been like, yeah, I feel like I go from like, Dang, this stinks, to realizing that it's a really good, it's gonna turn into this education in my mind that is worth several million dollars. And I'd rather have it be a four unit rather than a 50 unit or a 100 unit or something like that. So it'll be Right. It'll be great. It's a challenging thing to be, because you get a phone call that it's like, hey, the boiler's also shot. All four water heaters are also, those should be replaced as long as we're in there, and doing everything, so it just has been a total nightmare that's like, you live and you learn, and those things make you better. Yeah, yeah. Also just learning that I can find my happiness, and like that a project always has to go perfect, but I'm not gonna let that happen again.

Dan Austin: [39:06] Yeah. I enjoy your positive attitude, because every once in a while, like something will happen, I'm like, you know what? At least I know what that cost now. It's like, there's there's something to learn there.

Mike DeHaan: [39:16] It's funny, Dan. I mean, so Dan, Dan started getting into real estate before I did. I actually lived in Dan's first investment property while he was kind of renovating it. When I moved back here, he let me and my wife live there for cheap. Basically, the condition being we would cover his mortgage cost, and he could like work on it whenever he wanted. So worked out great for us. And one of the things that's always stuck with me, Dan, was when you were doing all this stuff, and I didn't know anything about real estate, and I was like, what happens if you do this stuff wrong? He's DIY ing the work, and he was like, I don't know, worst case scenario, just have to spend more money. Yeah, well, I

Dan Austin: [39:49] guess that's true. That's my motto.

Lars Anderson: [39:51] That's that if you make more money, it doesn't necessarily always, to a certain extent, it doesn't turn into more happiness, but it's like to have that stuff happen and to go like it's not going to sink us, real estate will come back. So to basically get to put some money towards something to have it not be a huge problem is like, that's priceless. So I feel like money does buy you some less. I'd rather worry about my buddy who's going through a hard thing and have my thoughts go towards that more than like my boiler, how am I gonna pay for it? So it just it kinda pays for taking away stupid problems. Right. Yeah. If that makes sense.

Dan Austin: [40:32] Absolutely. It does. A 100%.

Mike DeHaan: [40:34] Cool. Alright. Next question. What is the number one tip you would give to a new investor looking to get started, or to a small time investor looking to take their business to the next level?

Lars Anderson: [40:45] Small time investor looking to take things to the next level. Not that I'm like, you know, I feel like I've taken some steps to the next level, but just talk to people that have been there and done that, and that you feel like have put together good systems, and literally build a little relationship, and then ask them if you can see their systems, and just kind of be, I feel like people in the real estate world do, it's pretty rare that I come across, you guys would probably agree, someone who they just don't wanna like, they feel like everything they need to hold to themselves. Usually people are wanting to share, so for someone that is small and looking to scale, I would say just learn from people that have gone before you and bring them out to lunch, pay for them, and that goes a long way, they'll kind of spill the beans to how you do it. So that's that's been important for my real estate business, and then also buying stuff, and thinking about buying commercial buildings, and stuff like that.

Mike DeHaan: [41:45] Yeah. I think that's great advice. And and something too on that, there's a lot of people that they get into, like sort of seeking out those people, and they think of like, oh, I wanna be like Brandon Turner. Right? But like, can never chat with him, so that means that I'm never gonna be able to get a mentor. There are literally thousands of us between Brandon Turner and the newbie that are more than happy to chat with you.

Lars Anderson: [42:06] You just have to find the

Mike DeHaan: [42:08] right person, right, and be willing to have a productive conversation. And I think as well, be willing to show them that you are actually going to put in the work and the practice because I can tell you from my own experience, you know, having this podcast, you know, and trying to teach people things, talk to people on social media. There's nothing that upsets me more than when someone takes thirty minutes of my time and then proceeds to not use any of the stuff that we chatted about. Yeah. Waste of your time. Especially when like, it's a waste of my time. It's a waste of their time. I know they're wasting other people's time at that point. So, yeah, I think that's a great it's a great request. But going into it with an open mind, and being willing to do the little things, like buying lunch, if they are hesitant, offer to pay them for an hour. Even if costs you $500, who cares? That can lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of knowledge. A 100%.

Lars Anderson: [42:56] Cool. I've offered people big money to just sit down, and it usually is then like, hey, let's just sit down if you don't need to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Right? And the thing

Mike DeHaan: [43:07] is too that's funny is as you start to grow, people are gonna be more willing to chat with you for lower cost because it becomes more mutually beneficial.

Dan Austin: [43:15] So you bring value to them.

Mike DeHaan: [43:17] Yeah. Absolutely. So cool. Alright. Last question, Lars. Where can people find you, follow you, and reach out to you if you'd like them to do so?

Lars Anderson: [43:24] Facebook. Can just Lars Anderson in Minnesota. Got

Mike DeHaan: [43:29] a

Lars Anderson: [43:29] bunch of good selfies and The one and only. The one and only. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [43:33] The only Lars Anderson in all of Minnesota. You'll find And

Lars Anderson: [43:36] then Instagram, larcy dot anderson. You can find me there too.

Mike DeHaan: [43:42] Yeah. Cool. Is that is that your nickname, Larzy? Larzy.

Lars Anderson: [43:46] I feel like larcy dot anderson was already taken. And if people call me Okay. Larcy, I'm I'm fine with that. I kinda like it.

Mike DeHaan: [43:52] It's endearing. Yeah. It's endearing? Alright. Well, I see you at the next GoBundance event, that's what

Lars Anderson: [43:58] I'm going for. I like it. That way I

Mike DeHaan: [44:00] can be friends. I can be less formal in trying to, you know, address you like your mom does. Oh, it's

Dan Austin: [44:04] just kinda like your buddy in your GoPod Dil Pill.

Lars Anderson: [44:07] The benefit of looking like I'm 15 years old is people are usually and then I try to smile, and usually then people don't feel intimidated to walk up. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [44:18] There you go.

Lars Anderson: [44:18] Yeah. When they can call you Larcie too, then it's like, hey,

Mike DeHaan: [44:22] I'm just a buddy. Then it also really makes you sound 15 though. Not gonna lie.

Lars Anderson: [44:25] Yeah. Then Larcie's 15.

Mike DeHaan: [44:28] Nah. I I struggle with the same affliction of the the baby face. What you gotta do is you just gotta grow out some really mangy facial hair, and then people treat you with a little bit more respect. Then like,

Dan Austin: [44:38] you're definitely at least 21 or a crackhead.

Mike DeHaan: [44:40] Exactly. Yeah. It was down between. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for going on the show, Lars, man. It's been great to chat with you and congrats on all the success that you've had. And I'm sure that you're gonna be doing a lot more here in the near future. Anyways, guys, if you enjoyed that show with Lars, you should please share this with everyone that you know. You should also hit up Lars on Facebook and Instagram. He's a very happy guy, and more than happy to chat with you. So, you know, if he didn't sound approachable from this, then you have a weird judge of character, because he's probably one of the most approachable guys that we've had on here. So definitely hit him up and see what he has going on. Aside from that, we appreciate you all for listening, you should leave us a five star review, wherever your podcast really helps us grow. And you should also go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free. Get your free five step guide, start generating off market leads so that you can start building a little rental portfolio with discounted properties just like me, Dan and Lars do every single month. So anyways, guys, thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you all next week.

Speaker 2: [45:35] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.