Not All Realtors are Created Equal

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] Hey, guys, before the show, I wanted to take a second to talk to you about our instant investor program. The instant investor program is our group coaching program. And it is an eight week program with the goal being to have you talking to motivated sellers within the first two weeks. Believe it or not, you don't have to be the person that's out there overpaying for investment properties and competing with everybody else on the MLS. You also don't have to be one of those investors that flushes 1000s of dollars down the toilet on ineffective marketing methods. To talk to motivated sellers on regular basis, all you need is an effective marketing system. And we will give you the system that we have been using for the last two years, as well as a weekly call, where you can sit in with us and other investors and just be a part of a group discussion while everyone works to optimize and grow their businesses. At the end of the day, our goal is to create a like minded community of people who not only are trying to grow as real estate investors, but as people and as business owners, so they can go and take the knowledge they learn from us and use that to change their lives just like Dan and I have been able to do. So the question I have for you is, do you really want to keep sort of standing by and waiting for these opportunities to land in your lap? Or do you want to get started right now?

Mike DeHaan: [1:15] And if you're ready to jump in and start changing your life for the better, go to instantinvestorprogram.com and book a call with me, and we can hop on a call and see if the program's right for you.

Speaker 2: [1:26] 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: [1:50] What's going on, guys? Welcome to episode 21 of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. And I gotta say, we are in the presence of royalty right now as Dan is probably, like, the top realtor in Spokane.

Dan Austin: [2:09] With them all. The top. I'm definitely at the top right now. I'm gonna make the realtor magazine this year.

Mike DeHaan: [2:14] Yeah. Right? You could have one of those ridiculous mattresses they have. It's like, oh, $2,500,000 worth of transactions. Like so that's, like, four properties?

Dan Austin: [2:23] Right. Yeah. Hey. I did sell two today, which was cool. Two of the listings. What do we have? Like, we have what do have right now? Six listings and then which is not, like, our MO, but six listings. And then, technically, we have, like, one, two, three, four, like, five, like, in the, like, going to be listed area, like, soon.

Mike DeHaan: [2:47] Yeah. Like like, you know, half of them are our own deals, and half of them are ones that we basically decided to list for sellers because our cash offers didn't make sense for them. And, I mean, I don't know if we talked about that whole sort of deal yet, but basically, we were competing with another company here in town. They were offering a price that we couldn't pay because we don't have the financial resources they do. So we decided basically just to burn the boat and offer to list it for them and go down that whole route. So we'll make a little bit, but at the end of the day, they didn't make any money. So that's that's all I really care about, if I'm being completely honest.

Dan Austin: [3:26] Yeah. And and it it reinforces that I don't want to be a full time list agent or a full time real estate agent at all because it's just so much work in this in this market. Right? Like, I think we listed one and for three days straight, we had showings from 8AM till 08:15PM, like, for three days straight and then getting wild ass offers coming in. When the one went 65 over asking. What is that? That's 25%.

Mike DeHaan: [3:55] Yeah. I mean, like, maybe we underpriced the house. We went through it. But at the same time, it's like it's it's a 700 square foot house.

Dan Austin: [4:02] Yeah. That's not nice. That's not I mean, it's nice, but it's, like, not upgraded at all.

Mike DeHaan: [4:08] I mean, maybe that's the strategy. We just severely underpriced any everything. So a bunch of idiots coming, like

Dan Austin: [4:15] Well, I mean, that's kinda what they're doing a lot lot last summer. Right? Hey. Underprice is just next to your competitors' prices, and then you're gonna get a frenzy because then people get emotionally attached to it. And they're like, what's another $10.20? What's another 30,000? Well, when you're talking about buying a $250,000 house is actually a huge jump.

Mike DeHaan: [4:31] Yeah. Right. I know. Yeah. But but but that that's the thing with that's always interesting with buyers, though, is they don't look at the actual price. All they look is at the monthly payment.

Dan Austin: [4:40] Yeah. Yeah. Which is fit which is fair.

Mike DeHaan: [4:43] Which makes sense. Right? But then, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of people too that are probably have more ability to put money down. So they're like, what's $2.80? I have to put an extra $8,000 down to keep the monthly payment that I want. That's true. Yep. Maybe. But then at the same time, I'm sure that most of those offers are probably also, like, three and a half or 5% down. They all were. Yeah. They all were. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. So interesting. But yeah. I know it's it's just so funny that these yeah. Because we you're gonna have potentially between this past week and, yeah, next week, like, 10 or 11 listings that you did not sign up to be a realtor at all. I'm like, think about how many realtors would kill for that, but you're just, like, just a giant burden.

Dan Austin: [5:28] It's nine 9PM on a Sunday night, and we're dedicated to recording the show. My daughter's dedicated to staying awake as long as she can on a school night.

Mike DeHaan: [5:37] Your four your four year

Dan Austin: [5:38] old daughter. Yeah. Exactly. Anyhow, yeah, you know, they text me, and then I'm like, oh, sorry. You didn't get this one. I got these other five right now if you wanna, you know, put pre listing offers on it. And they're and they're probably just like, oh god. What what's going on there? Yeah. Yeah. But the funny thing is about that, though, with a lot of these agents is, like, I don't feel like they have the guts to do that. Like, it needs to be on the market because a a couple of them have bitten like, heck yeah. When can I get in? Like, know, really savvy agents understanding that value. But with some of them, they're like, I don't know. My my my buyer didn't send it to me from a Zillow link.

Mike DeHaan: [6:10] And that am I honestly, that's the whole thing why I mean, realtors are kind of a joke in general, and why it's it's so insane that they get as much credibility as they do because they have a license that you can go and get in, like, three weeks. You know? Yeah. The savvy the savvy ones, you know, when you're working on

Dan Austin: [6:26] the savvy one, like, they're good and they know how to do it really well and you it's an enjoyable process, but some that aren't as savvy or just are, like, I don't know, they're just out of their element in some situations. There it's just a painful process.

Mike DeHaan: [6:37] Yeah. Well and the crazy thing is too is it isn't even necessarily tied to their experience level. No. You know, like, like, there can be realtors that have been a successful, quote, unquote, successful realtor for, like, twenty years. And still as soon as something is outside of their little MLS box, they're completely screwed. Like, they just can't figure it out, and it makes no sense. But yeah. But then the savvy ones, I mean so we we had our condo that was our hoarder house that we fixed up and listed, sold that in two days. And the people that are the buyer's agents for that are very well respected agent team here in town. I've only been agent team for, like, three years, but they're, like, the most probably knowledgeable group in town for the most part.

Dan Austin: [7:19] Well, they're they're also investors too. Right? Exactly. And they were investors prior to being agents. And so they're pretty savvy on that. Yeah. They came in with one of those offers that they knew what they're doing. Oh, yeah. For They're it's like a defensive, but an offensive offer. They're like, come at me, bro. It's like, okay.

Mike DeHaan: [7:33] Yeah. We'll we'll go with you.

Dan Austin: [7:34] Plus knowing that it's you have confidence when you work with an agent like that, that they're going to close. They're not going to let little things deter it. Like I had, I had one where the agent screwed up the inspection, and he was a newer newer agent. He screwed up the inspection contingency. This was last year. And he tried everything he could to back out of the offer, because it was because his buyers didn't want it after they did the inspection. And so he pulled out like, some crazy requests, like rewire the whole house, Right? And then when we're like, we're not doing that. And then he's like, okay, well, he just got some real estate or some insurance agent, which you can do, go write an offer that says they won't insure. I mean, you can call any insurance agent and be like, hey, I need an offer for you to not insure this thing. Okay.

Mike DeHaan: [8:13] Yeah. Well, that's why the whole the whole process joke anyway. I mean, it's like when we we sold this seven unit apartment complex last year, and we got an offer that basically, the guy came in super high and then asked for an insane price reduction after an inspection. For nothing.

Dan Austin: [8:29] For nothing. Asked for it. It was a $100,000 price reduction. He's just like with nothing on it. He's just like, 100,000. And it's like, you can't negotiate the price on that form, bro. That's so crazy. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [8:40] But but then but then what happened is we rejected it, and his agent didn't get the whatever form in in time to, like, recollect the earnest money. Yeah. So we were technically supposed to get it. And then I forget what they found, like, some random clause buried in like nothing that allowed them to get the money back anyway, even though they just wasted a bunch of time for no reason. I don't even remember what the actual reason was them getting it back. I don't remember.

Dan Austin: [9:08] Who cares? It didn't matter. We still sold it to somebody else that was actually more qualified. I think

Mike DeHaan: [9:13] I think

Dan Austin: [9:13] the the good point though in this whole conversation is why it is why investors are good to work with, because an investor just as much of like, what you're doing is important is your reputation. So if you go and like screw somebody, because like you using some clause to basically screw them, even though it's contractual, whatever, like you're going to lose, you know, people are gonna lose faith in you and not want to do business with you. When you're just hiding behind the veil of, you know, some broker realtor, and just like that guy is doing his job protecting you and trying to get all your money back or whatever you're doing. Like that that it just you don't build relationships that way. But in the investor community, your relationships are super important. And if you're going around screwing people up, and spending crappy offers, can't follow through on, like, you're never going to make it.

Mike DeHaan: [9:56] Yeah. Exactly. And well, and that's why as an investor, it's important, yeah, to work with an investor friendly realtor that kinda understands it. And even if they're not necessarily an investor themselves, they understand the process. Right. You know, a, when you're using them to look for deals, but also two, if you're listing your flips, and you have a bunch of good realtors that are in your network, that also, you know, understand the investor process. I mean, that's that's kind of how we sold this one. You know, our condo, I posted on my Instagram. And, you know, we happen to follow that realtor group, they follow us back. You know, the wife hit me up and was like, hey, you know, what's the address? Send it to them. They went and checked it out, put it gave us an offer, like, three hours later.

Dan Austin: [10:36] Yep. It was good offer, a clean offer, and we know they'll close. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [10:39] Mhmm. Exactly. And and we're still taking from them because, you know, they're gonna be easy to work with. And they're happy to bring their client to us because they know that we do good work. Right. So easy all around, and everyone's looking forward to an easy transaction. So yeah, it's it's just always just so interesting. Well, the thing that's always crazy to me, though, too, I know you've been running around in, like, an insane person for the last few days and with all that, but, like, the income potential on that versus, like, a wholesale deal or a flip, you know, which feel like which, I mean, has its own amount of work. Right? It's a little bit different, but it's just like, oh my god.

Dan Austin: [11:14] Yeah. There's a lot of non dollar productive tasks as, like, a broker or real estate agent. So many. And there's a lot of minutiae. I mean, and there's ways to optimize it, right? We're not running a full broker team. So we could optimize it. You could have transaction coordinators, you could have some of the services you pay for to help, but it's still you're running and gun in in the evenings and weekends on top of all the stuff you're doing during the during the business week to build your business as a broker. So the value I I mean, the wholesale, yeah, you're still working hard on what we're doing, but the fees are just so much better. There's So much more opportunity for your efforts, your dollar productive efforts that go into that. Actually, it's like a, you know, 10 x or 100 x or whatever you want to put on it, you know.

Mike DeHaan: [11:55] Yeah. Well, and the thing that's nice about the investor world too is your income isn't necessarily tied to the value of the property. You know? Because, like, when you're a realtor, you're gonna be getting, you know, 3%, I guess, split with your broker. Let's say, know, one and a half percent for the average realtor that has a brokerage on property sales. That means if you're selling a million dollar house, you're gonna get was that $15? Yeah. But, like, like, from you know, unless you're in a large market, how many million dollar houses are there? You know? And if you and if you're a new realtor, how many million dollar listings are you getting? Probably nothing. Yep. You know? Where we can we can go and I mean, we've made a $23,000 fee on a $40,000 house. Yeah. Totally. You know? Or or like this this flip that we're closing, you know, if it all closes, we'll make 70 or something thousand now on a $150,000 purchase. Mhmm. But it's like, know, if you were the realtor and you went and you found that $150,000 purchase and you listed it, you would make would that be, like, $2,200? Yeah. So I get that sucks, man. That sucks.

Dan Austin: [12:57] That sucks. And so it's the same amount. It's the same amount of work on the, you know, the realtor side for, know, the million dollar commission too versus that commission. So it's just and the tough thing about like the high end commissions is those those those sellers are savvy and they want to negotiate, right on what they're even paying you on their commission. So it might be only like, you know, a best case, a million dollar listing, like, like 5% or all around,

Mike DeHaan: [13:17] you know? Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, point being, when you're finding a realtor, you know, take it more seriously than you think. Do find someone that actually knows what they're doing. And don't just find like your neighbor's sister's kid or whatever the people always seem to do. And, you know, it's one of those positions that can bring you a lot of value, or it can just be a giant waste of your time if you don't pick the right person.

Dan Austin: [13:42] Yeah. If you need a if you need a realtor, call me and I'll refer you to one. You you get a kickback. I technically don't know if you do that. Yeah. Just don't wanna yeah. I just don't wanna

Mike DeHaan: [13:51] do it. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [13:52] There you go.

Mike DeHaan: [13:53] But, yeah, so besides that, we had another killer week this week. We've just been freaking jamming, and it's it's like, I don't know what happened in February, but I feel like it just turned on for a lot of people. You know? Like, I know a lot of our competitors had huge Februaries as well. I don't know if it's, like, signs of the market. Like, you know, people are starting to get sort of wary about it and trying to move all they can. But at the same time, I mean, you're still having you know, people are saying the real estate market might be stabilized, but you still have this house that you listed that had three days worth of showings. It's not obviously slowing down that much.

Dan Austin: [14:32] I yeah. I didn't feel like it this week or, you know, I and maybe people are just trying to compress it all. There's not a lot on the market yet here in our local in Spokane, but maybe they are, you know, nervous about rates or that conversations back on it. You know what I mean? Oh, if rates go up this because it goes back to that monthly payment. Right? You can only afford so much. Mhmm. And people are seeing the prices and they're doing the math in their head and they're like, well, I have to get that price then. So I gotta buy now. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [14:55] I mean, maybe or yeah. They're they're sort of calculating their payments. Right? And they're trying to, like, jump in ahead before their their payments get too affected.

Dan Austin: [15:03] And that's what I mean. Yeah. Exactly what I mean.

Mike DeHaan: [15:05] Yeah. So yeah. It'll be interesting to see what happens over this next little bit. But yeah. We because you got those listings. We got a couple fresh contracts this week. We got a pretty sweet one out in Coeur D'Alene that comes with a lot of personal bags with the seller, so we'll see how that one goes.

Dan Austin: [15:21] What's the what's baggage? Is it just because it's going into foreclosure or what?

Mike DeHaan: [15:25] Well, there's so many things with it. So, like, this is this is why this business is so challenging because this lead, he called us, and he's like, I just found out that my house is getting foreclosed on. I need to be out before, you know, March 22 or whatever it is. We're like, oh, no problem. We can do that.

Dan Austin: [15:43] Hey. We specialize in that.

Mike DeHaan: [15:44] Yeah. We specialize in that. Like, I honestly right? That's that's why we exist is there's no way this person can go through a traditional sales process. But then, you know, our guy shows up out there. And, well, hey. As we start doing home frame, we go out there, we're like, this guy's name isn't on title for the house. So it's like so who so what is this situation? Is it like a crazy tenant trying to, like, scam a letter because they got the We've had that before. They got the letter. Oh, yeah. We've had tenants call us trying to, like, sell their landlord's house. So, you know, we're go out and meet him. Turns out you swung to his wife. K? Wife passed away. That's totally fine. Well, it's not fine. It's tragic. But, you know, it's a situation we see a lot. But no probate's been filed. K? There's no will. Their wife hasn't kept her maiden name. Is this dude actually the husband, or is it, like, some estranged person who's claiming to be her wife? You know? Apparently, there's, like, a lawyer involved and a tax person involved, and it's getting put together. But also how many times have we heard that? And then some insane thing comes down the line. Like, these are, like, the kind of deals that you're think it's gonna go, and then, like, two days before, like, someone disappears or, like, some insane thing happened.

Dan Austin: [16:59] I know. And it's such a big deal too. Like, it's hard to not count the count the chickens before they hashed on something like Right? Because it is a great deal. It's like, oh, man. That is a perfect everything. And then you hear all this stuff

Mike DeHaan: [17:09] and you're like, oh, crap.

Dan Austin: [17:10] We know better to get too excited.

Mike DeHaan: [17:12] Yeah. But but that's why it's a great deal. You know? Like like, all of the big deals always come from those situations and overcoming them. You know? Because if they're easy deals, they would have been snapped up by somebody already. Very true. You know, honestly. Like like, a lot of the the the bigger deals we've got, they've it's they really seem to be tied with probate situations a lot. I think it's because they're complicated for the seller to navigate, so they kind of procrastinate on them. And then they end up in some kind of crunch either financially or, you know, they have, like, some sort of timeline that pushes them to need to make a very quick decision they're not able to do.

Dan Austin: [17:49] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [17:49] But, yeah, I know it's it'll be interesting. I mean, because, like, the last one that we have like this, I don't even know if you've even heard about this deal, but it was a similar thing. It was a probate sort of situation. The guy allegedly had gotten the like, all the legal stuff figured out, and then James scheduled a time to come and, like, sign a contract with this guy the next morning. And there was, like, some same same sort of crazy situation. There's, a daughter that lives in the house, and there's, like, a aunt that's, like, owns it for the daughter. We're talking to the son and blah blah blah blah, all this BS. And then James goes to sign it, and the house is gone. It's just been burned to the ground, like, literally overnight. Like, James had gone

Dan Austin: [18:31] to that state before. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [18:33] Oh, wow. And it's like you and then and, you know, the the person's not answering. It was obviously like a burner phone. But, like, the the deal was great. Like, we're like, yeah. This is awesome. You know, the numbers all make sense. The guy's like, yeah. Sounds great. Come meet us tomorrow. We'll sign it. The thing's burned to the ground. No idea where anybody went.

Dan Austin: [18:52] I wonder, like, what happened? Like, how the cop burned?

Mike DeHaan: [18:55] I don't know. I have arson.

Dan Austin: [18:57] Coincidental. 100%. It's arson. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [19:00] It has to be. You know, that that doesn't just happen, and then those people disappear. But not only they disappear, but they're not answering their phone, their phone no longer works. It was a, like, a burner, like, drug dealer phone that they were using, and now now they're gone. So yeah. Fascinating. Anyway, these these the people that you deal within this, you can't make it up. I still I still now that we're getting into the content space, I wanna you know, we're doing a lot more content. We're doing some more YouTube videos. We'll have a lot of stuff coming out here in the next little bit. They're gonna be super cheesy to start. Bear with us. We're figuring it out. We're we're a couple, like, you know, older millennials trying to ride into the content band bandwagon. So like the podcast coming along with the video stuff. We both are.

Dan Austin: [19:47] Yeah. We gotta work on our camera faces and all that.

Mike DeHaan: [19:50] I feel like we're constantly like Ricky Bobby, you know, where he like he's like, what do I do with my hands? Yeah. Totally. Totally. They're getting better though. But I do wanna bring back this concept that I've had for a while. And if anybody hears this and this sounds like a good idea, shoot me a message. But, basically, we tell the crazy story like the one I just told about the house burning to the ground, and then we find, like, an animator to make it into, like, a little cartoon. Yeah. I love that idea. Like, that would be so dope. And it's you know, I'm okay throwing it out there because I'm quite confident that a, no real estate investor cares enough to do that as much as I do. It'll be unique. Yeah. And b, as I've come to find, so few real estate investors actually do deals, investors out there, that no one else has these stories.

Dan Austin: [20:41] I know. I know. Like When you don't even have to write a script for this because we already have the script and it's so crazy, you would have thought somebody created it.

Mike DeHaan: [20:50] Yeah. You know, from stuff just like that to, like, you know, we've had tenants and landlords get in fights, but it's not, like, even what you'd think. Like, it's, like, old ladies, and it's just, Jerry Springer stuff. You know, we've had our seller get kidnapped, you know. I mean, we see we could even get some friends coming in. Like, we have our friend Aaron that found a briefcase full of DIY sex toys.

Dan Austin: [21:12] Oh, I

Mike DeHaan: [21:12] forgot about that. From my It's made out of, like, Home Depot products. Sexy, you know.

Dan Austin: [21:16] Key traps and, like, wooden dowels and stuff. Oh, man.

Mike DeHaan: [21:20] Like, what what is this? You know? I don't oh my god. You just can't You can't even.

Dan Austin: [21:25] Yeah. You get to go behind, like, the veil of people's lives, and most people aren't what they've seen.

Mike DeHaan: [21:31] I I know. And even, like, nice neighborhoods too sometimes. Mhmm. You know? Like, we walked into houses. Like, you you remember the one down on freaking Farmdale?

Dan Austin: [21:40] I know I know exactly what you're talking about.

Mike DeHaan: [21:42] I've never felt such bad juju in a house as, like, walking into there. And, you know, her story was actually quite tragic, but just, like, the weirdness of because, like, basically, basically, what had happened, yeah, is her husband had, like, gone crazy and basically, like, tried to break into the her house. I don't know if she, like, kicked him out or something. Well, I guess he had broken into the house and basically held, like, her and her daughter hostage and had, like, trashed the house and needed to and she, like, just wanted to get out of here. But they had, like, left, like, the situation where they had been held hostage in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, with, like, the weird, like, little time out chair that was, like, down in the corner with all the car ripped

Dan Austin: [22:23] Cigarettes, like, burned into the ground and shit. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [22:27] Yeah. The worst part

Dan Austin: [22:27] about that is is she took her fat check to move in the apartment building next door, though.

Mike DeHaan: [22:31] Did she really? Yeah. Remember that?

Dan Austin: [22:33] She was like, oh, I got to that, but only that's what was her plan. Was the move in the apartment building literally, like, what, two blocks away.

Mike DeHaan: [22:40] I mean, like, probably wanted to keep the same commute to work, but not be in the house. But but that house was in, like, as a class as it gets pretty much or

Dan Austin: [22:47] Yeah. That was fantastic.

Mike DeHaan: [22:49] Yeah. You you read

Dan Austin: [22:50] out that neighborhood and people like, oh, dang. Really?

Mike DeHaan: [22:53] Yeah. You know, it's super odd. But, you know, it's it's such a weird business. One of my pitches I tell to, like, new employees though is, you know, because it's always interesting to me where people think that being an investor is, like, a cushy job or, like, an easy job. And, you know, working for an investment company is not an easy job if they're actually doing deals. Owning an investment company is absolutely not an easy job if you're doing deals. You know, it's funny. I think a lot of people look at the money and stuff we make, and they're like, oh, this is you know, it must be nice, pretty cushy. It's like, here we are. You know mean? We're doing this for content reasons. But up until we started filming this, I was still working on stuff, and I have been doing all weekend So as well as all the definition of work yeah. The definition of working eighty hours to avoid working forty. You know? It's held recently. That's for dang sure.

Dan Austin: [23:46] Yeah. Exactly. But,

Mike DeHaan: [23:48] yeah, what I always, tell people when I'm, you know, they're, like, looking for jobs is I'm like, well, it is a lot of work, but, like, you can make really good money. And I guarantee that you will have stories that will instantly make you the most interesting person wherever you go. You know? Yeah. I guarantee it. Yep.

Dan Austin: [24:05] Yeah. We could rattle them off

Mike DeHaan: [24:06] for hours, it feels like. Oh, yeah. It's nonstop. But, you know, so it makes it fun. It's what

Dan Austin: [24:11] makes it

Mike DeHaan: [24:12] extremely challenging and, you know, unpredictable. But, you know, without that, it would just be like a I don't know. It'd be kind of boring, honestly.

Dan Austin: [24:22] Yeah. You gotta have something to laugh at. Otherwise, yeah, it'd be super transactional. It wouldn't be fun at all. It'd be like being a real estate agent, honestly.

Mike DeHaan: [24:29] Yeah. Well, and that that's how you know you're starting to make it too is when it no longer becomes like a frustration. It's just like hilarious. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [24:37] You're like, oh, yeah. That reminds me of this one time. Whatever.

Mike DeHaan: [24:40] I know. Like, I I remember back when we got started, you know, and we have some of these things come up and like a deal would go sideways and it would be like heartbreaking.

Dan Austin: [24:48] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [24:48] Yeah. You know? And so marketing money. Yeah. Exactly. Right? Or, like, you know, they would reject something because you didn't know what you were doing. You didn't know how to negotiate. But now it's just like, oh, well, you know, who who would have known that, you know, they they had actually been hiding the landlord in the basement and were posing with them with a fake ID? You know, who would who would have guessed that? Nobody. But that's exactly what happened.

Dan Austin: [25:16] Oh, boy. Well, yeah. And better news, I think we're moving along nicely. We we with our our negotiated innovation agreement. Oh, yeah. It was kinda cool, actually, the way this worked out. I mean, you know, I feel like we're actually, like, in our groove on stuff. So Friday so Friday, we finished some final touches that we end up having to do on our flip. Like, no. Yeah. Friday at 9PM. In between that, for two hours, our contractor walked the property we're doing an innovation agreement on, and he's moving out there Monday. I mean, I don't think it gets any better than that. You know what I mean?

Mike DeHaan: [25:51] Yeah. That's perfect.

Dan Austin: [25:52] Really, you know, we were able to start that one because there's no real closing process with innovation agreement. There's there's some documentation, but it's not like thirty day close type stuff. So, I mean, that's tight, you know, lot like, it's so much better than having, like, this two week lag between projects or, you know, you're fine you're waiting to find a deal, but or you're worried about having deals and you're stacking them up and just paying on them, you know, and not being able to get to them.

Mike DeHaan: [26:14] So he's starting out there tomorrow?

Dan Austin: [26:16] Oh, yeah, tomorrow's Monday. Yeah, he's going to move out there and get all this stuff lined out. So what he likes to do on a lot of these, which I enjoy, I think it's a good process is he likes to get out there. And he spends his first day just kind of cleaning up the site and making it safe to work and kind of just like getting everything. Because, you know, a lot of these places are pretty gross. Right? You know, Glenn was pretty freaking gross. Glenn was Beyond gross. So this one won't be bad, but he'll probably be kind of pulling things little little things apart, getting his tools all laid out, getting everything he needs, kind of finalizing his punch list of stuff, and then he'll go gangbusters on it.

Mike DeHaan: [26:47] Yeah. Does the seller know this?

Dan Austin: [26:49] Yeah. Yeah. Actually, gotta text him.

Mike DeHaan: [26:51] Okay. Yeah. I should probably do that.

Dan Austin: [26:53] Well, I gotta text him.

Mike DeHaan: [26:54] I we haven't closed yet because our innovation agreement isn't recorded.

Dan Austin: [26:58] Oh, that's okay.

Mike DeHaan: [26:58] Which I which I mean, the guy's the guy's a straight shooter. Like, I'm not worried

Dan Austin: [27:02] about him. It's in everybody's best interest. We're not actually, like, doing anything crazy tomorrow, but I do need to text him to meet him with the keys there. So, like, I I would imagine probably the second half of week the is when we're really gonna start doing things, so you better get that thing recorded quick so we're not spending so we're not spending money.

Mike DeHaan: [27:18] I mean, we've been freaking waiting for Kootenai County to get their like, the documents in for escrow. Like, apparent like, this is, you know, Idaho, man. It's like the the dark ages of The United States sometimes. You know? Not only in terms of, like, their their hill people with their, you know, white hoods that live out in the forest.

Dan Austin: [27:42] Yeah. Those shoes guys are gone.

Mike DeHaan: [27:44] Right? I mean, they're still there. But, you know, just in terms of, like, all there. Yeah. The processes The city processes and everything are just a joke.

Dan Austin: [27:53] Yeah. Well, then I will I will retract my statement. We're gonna take a calculated risk.

Mike DeHaan: [27:58] Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's fair. Yeah. Like like said, the guy the guy is fine, so I'll be good. And, I mean, and we gotta get him through that because we're we got the two lake cabins coming up, which will probably close the end of this next week. We wanna burn through those and get those things freaking up for sale in, like, April or May. That'd be prime.

Dan Austin: [28:15] Get everybody that wants a little lake house. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [28:18] Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. We got our timings pretty dialed in right now, though, with all that sort of stuff, which is generally one of the biggest challenges. I mean, and then after that and actually could work perfect because I'm thinking about right now, we do have under contract. We have several that are gonna be closing sort of, like, later April, And then we got a six unit that we're gonna be buying at the beginning of June. So it could actually work out, like, extremely ideal.

Dan Austin: [28:46] Closing date on that six

Mike DeHaan: [28:47] that far out? Yeah. It's June 1 because the guy so, I mean, it's gonna be another tenant situation. We're gonna have some stories. I guarantee it because I

Dan Austin: [28:57] thought these are all long standing tenants like old people.

Mike DeHaan: [29:00] So was the last one, though.

Dan Austin: [29:02] That is true. Is true.

Mike DeHaan: [29:04] Know, just because they're long standing doesn't mean anything. But, basically, the guy there's some tenants that are on rent relief, and the guy's like, oh, I'm not selling it until I collect all my rent relief. God. So they're they're getting they're getting the rent paid for by the city or the state or whoever the hell is paying it until May. And then as soon as that's done, the guy's ready to sell it. Which is the fascinating thing is too with this. The guy knows that we are buying the property for him at a huge discount. He knows it. He's he's 100% said, I know there's probably worth more than that, but he doesn't wanna deal with the tenants. He is so afraid of having a difficult conversation with these freeloading tenants that he's willing to sell the property

Dan Austin: [29:45] to us for, like, a $250,000 discount. Nice. Well, that's on him then. That's on him if he doesn't wanna have the conversation.

Mike DeHaan: [29:52] People are ridiculous. But, I mean, that's just how it always is though. Right?

Dan Austin: [29:56] Well, we should at least talk him into, like, issuing, like, sixty day nonrenewal or something before that. So at least we have some teeth, right, to do.

Mike DeHaan: [30:04] Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I think as soon as we get through the inspection, which we're doing in beginning of April, and we because we we offered to basically 10 x our earnest money on it after that. As soon as he does that, I mean, I'm sure we can push that with him. He'll be

Dan Austin: [30:19] Yeah. That would be huge to have that because, I mean, we'll be able to find people to backfill them. You know? It's kinda like we did with our eight unit. We were like, okay. Let's trickle it out. We did two, like, you know, not or two rent increases, like, okay, let's just kinda trickle it out. And then we're like, let's pull the band aid off, then next month, we did all of them. And right now, so far, only one person is choosing to leave.

Mike DeHaan: [30:41] Oh, really? That's that's news to me. I had no idea. Have have we have we gotten a check for that yet? Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [30:48] Yeah. Yeah. Got a written check.

Mike DeHaan: [30:49] That's cool. Yeah. Nice.

Dan Austin: [30:51] Yeah. That's it's a a little old school. It's mail. You know? But we you know, I was able to deposit, I think, mobile deposits. So that's at least some technology to make it a little easier. But yeah, we got that. I mean, we we could potentially set up rent collection through our own system if we want. But right now, I'm just kind of I like having this guy kind of do it all because he's super good property manager. Actually, I'm very impressed with him and super cut into it and really good, honest guy too. I like it.

Mike DeHaan: [31:15] Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. Let's just ride that out as long as we can. And who cares for getting a check if he's gonna handle all that? Well, I know, like, the turn process was so simple too. Yeah. And she just went in and, like, gave you the straight shooting report on everything and just handled it all. I mean, that's gonna be a sick deal for us and sufficiently, I think, the easiest deal we've ever done so far.

Dan Austin: [31:37] Yeah. Yeah. That is a almost as true no money down investment for us. Like, no other people's money type situation where they always sell these, like, gurus to you. We didn't start by doing that. That's for damn sure. But, you know, we are able to we are able to leverage that leverage our our network of private investors, leverage our network with banks, and get that thing under contract. And we had no money out of pocket.

Mike DeHaan: [32:05] Yeah. Exactly. And and it will so we have a private investor that basically gave us a down payment. And, you know, I think we had some money that we had to pay in fees at the end of the day because we had to, like, close the hard money loan because of the long term weather. We couldn't get an appraiser in time to meet the deadline the seller needed. But even then, now with the value the rental increase, with the cap rates on, the value increase, we should be able to do a cash out refinance in the next six months, pay off our private investor, and actually take out a good chunk of change if we want to. Or I mean, honestly, the better is probably just to pay him off and then, you know, just sort of maximize our cash on and have a little bit of an equity position and just let it roll for a while.

Dan Austin: [32:46] Yeah. No. I agree. Or or cash out the private investor with an equity position and keep his money.

Mike DeHaan: [32:53] Oh, like like, give him, like, upside? Yeah. It's not a bad idea.

Dan Austin: [32:57] Yeah. A little. Yeah. We could if we if we if we needed the cash or something else. But, I mean, there's no no reason to give up equity in it now. But, you know, it could be an option.

Mike DeHaan: [33:04] Yeah. Yeah. It's not it's not a bad idea.

Dan Austin: [33:07] Yeah. I mean, get, like, $180 Yeah. Cash Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [33:12] Gold money. Like, go and, like, flip some properties without having to pay fees.

Dan Austin: [33:16] Oh, I was thinking we're gonna go, like, Vegas or something.

Mike DeHaan: [33:18] We could, man. Just go go put it all on black.

Dan Austin: [33:23] Right. I mean, your idea is better, but I mean, I thought I thought we were on the same page here.

Mike DeHaan: [33:28] Yeah. Right. Well, technically, know, blackjack, you keep doubling up your bet. Eventually, you'll win and you'll

Dan Austin: [33:33] I tried that this year, man. And who was down the most? You were.

Mike DeHaan: [33:37] But you kept but you say that. We kept doing the sucker bets, though, too.

Dan Austin: [33:40] Yeah. I did do the sucker bets, but I love to win big. But if I'm gonna win, I gotta win big.

Mike DeHaan: [33:44] I mean, the one was it James that you got to put all his money on the sucker bet and then you hit? Yeah. Hit it, dude.

Dan Austin: [33:49] I told him, I was like, I'll buy your back from you. And he hit it, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [33:52] Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [33:53] Put all of his chips in. All of his chips, I think, that he had.

Mike DeHaan: [33:56] Yeah. That's that's an that's funny. That's another thing that I found is very common with real estate investors is a massive joy of gambling, you know, like all over the place. I mean, like, at the hard money company I used to work at, they'd be walking down. They have, a little putting green in the hallway, and they'd be like, $20. I'm gonna sink this putt. You know? People would like to say, oh, I'll take it. And they miss it. Be like, yep. $20. They freaking pay up every time. I love it. Yep. So funny. Anyways, that was a quick thirty three minutes right there.

Dan Austin: [34:29] It was. Yeah. I gotta go record some content for our instant investor stuff.

Mike DeHaan: [34:35] You do. Thank you for that transition. Yeah. So actually, as when this episode comes out, the instant investor program will have officially launched. We have just a small group joining in with the first little batch here. So we had the pre launch up until March 1. As of 03/01/2022, the instant investor program is officially launched. But don't fret if you're interested in joining in to our group coaching program and learning the exact process of how we market for market for off market leads, we negotiate with sellers, we close deals, we go through the full sales process, everything you need to know, to basically take a business exactly like ours, and build it for yourself, whether you want to do it full time, or you want to do as a side hustle. Literally, the only difference is scale and marketing, which you can completely control. So if you're interested in that, go to instantinvestorprogram.com and schedule a free call with me. And we can hop on a little phone call and see if you're a good fit. We're looking for, you know, whether you're newer, or you are established and looking to take your systems to the next level, it'd be a good fit. If you're someone that's like running a business, you're already doing 100 deals a year, we might be a little not quite advanced enough for you. But you should still reach out to me anyway, because I'd love to just talk business in general. But, yeah, instantinvestorprogram.com, set up that call.

Mike DeHaan: [36:03] And then anything else from you, Dan?

Dan Austin: [36:06] No. I just love it. Your line. You I've never heard you say don't fret. That was a great line in your pitch there. So

Mike DeHaan: [36:12] Oh, y'all start adding that in. Don't fret. Now that I about it, I'm gonna be saying that too much. Just like I It's

Dan Austin: [36:19] only three monthly payments of $9.99. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [36:24] It is significantly more than that. So now I'm just kidding. But it is more than that. So don't don't listen to what Dan just said.

Dan Austin: [36:31] But do I mean, like, seriously, out to us on that. I'm I'm I'm jacked. We're starting this week. And like Mike said, don't fret, you can give us a call. We're getting set up to where you can join anytime. And it's gonna be pretty pretty good content. But I just think having the network of folks that we're bringing in is gonna be also super beneficial to all these investors coming in. I'm excited for the group we got right now.

Mike DeHaan: [36:53] Exactly. Yeah. And it's not just like a course, but it's actual q and a's with us working through it. It's a community with other investors, you guys can work with each other, sort of see what's working and what's not, it should be a good time. So cool. Alright. Well, go ahead and follow us on Instagram at collecting keys podcast. You can follow me at Mike underscore invests. You can follow Dan at investor man Dan. And besides that, sound it off, Dan. I know you've working on your catchphrase.

Dan Austin: [37:20] Oh, see you next week.

Mike DeHaan: [37:23] That's terrible. Give me more. Give more.

Dan Austin: [37:25] I don't know. I I tried to go collect some keys, what what, like, episode one, but that didn't catch. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [37:30] I mean, we only said it once, and you you you weren't convinced. So

Dan Austin: [37:33] wasn't convinced. Dang it. Okay. I'll sign us off next time. Way better.

Mike DeHaan: [37:38] Alright. Alright. Hear that hear that here first. Next one's gonna better. See you, guys. See y'all.

Speaker 2: [37:43] 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.