Our Highs, Lows, and Wake-Up Calls of Real Estate in 2025

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] If you're a new entrepreneur and you're willing to hustle and you're willing to do a good job, it's awesome because you can now just take the remnants of what those people have left behind, and that can be your base for starting your own business. What's going on, guys? Welcome to collecting keys. I'm your host, Mike DeHaan here with Dan Austin and Dylan Cook. And this is our last episode for the year for 2025. And to round things out, you know, people typically do, like, a review of the year, talk about whatever. We're kinda doing that, but we're gonna mix it up a little bit because we are going to do what is called high low buffalo. And, basically, we are going to do round robin style. If you guys listened to our hot takes episode a couple months ago, which was super popular. It's number one episode of the year. You should go and check that out. But, basically, we each came with hot takes. We went around, basically, of our hot takes were had a discussion. With this, we're gonna do the similar format where we are going to have a high for the year, low for the year, and then a buffalo, which is a kind of unexpected thing for you for the year. And we will share those, and then we will have a discussion, and then we'll just sort of see where things go.

Mike DeHaan: [1:04] And so if you enjoy this format, hit me up at on Instagram at Mike underscore Invest. Let me know your high low buffalo. I always like to see what other people have queued into, and it's always a great way to sort of, like, wrap things up while keeping it a little bit more, I don't know, streamlined, right, instead of being, like, super, super broad. Cool. Are you guys ready?

Dylan Koch: [1:19] I'm ready.

Mike DeHaan: [1:20] So ready. Alright. So for, I guess, for simplicity, I will start, then we'll have Dan, then we'll have Dylan. Sound good? Sounds good. Alright. But for me, that's, like, left or right on the screen. I don't know how it is for you, but that'll keep it straight. Alright. To start off, I will say my high for the year 2025. And depending who you're talking to, this could be a high or a low, Dan. No. No. My high for the year is the consolidation of small business owners and the fact that the economy has shifted enough that all the people that are bad business owners, bad entrepreneurs are finally going away. Mhmm. Right? And for me, this is a high because I consider myself to be a decent business owner. We've had enough seasons now since I started being an entrepreneur in 2018 that I feel confident I know how to make money. And one of the things that has been the most, I don't say infuriating, most challenging things coming out of 2021 is so many people were propped up by the economy through that period of time that, like, any idiot could make money. Right? And there were so many businesses that were there that were taking market share, like, even if it was a little bit, that were doing bad business practices. They were making industries look generally poor. They were completely just surviving off of low interest rates the way that the economy currently was. And those people are finally starting to go away. And I think that if you're an established business owner, that's awesome because you can now just take up their scraps and you can add them to yours.

Mike DeHaan: [2:41] Or if you're a new entrepreneur and you're willing to hustle and you're willing to do a good job, it's awesome because you can now just take the remnants of what those people have left behind, and that can be your base for starting your own business. And you no longer are gonna have to compete with all the other newbies that don't quite have the hustle that you do. So for me, I was about the high for the year 2025. I was gonna say it's just for small business in general. And if you are a true small business owner and a hustler. Mike hates small business. Yeah. I like small business. I don't really like, like, corporations. But I think it was a great year in 2025 for those people, and that was definitely my high for the year.

Dan Austin: [3:15] Interesting take. Interesting point of view. So you you reveled in people's people's failure.

Mike DeHaan: [3:20] That's what I said. It might be controversial.

Dan Austin: [3:22] You're you're kicking them all down then.

Mike DeHaan: [3:24] Might be controversial. But here's here's the thing, like, about me just as a person. I like to win more than I hate losing. Mhmm. Does that make sense?

Dan Austin: [3:33] Yeah. Yeah. I get it.

Mike DeHaan: [3:34] So, like, if if other people, like, beat me by, like, legitimately being better, that's fine. I'm not like you know, when I grown up, I played sports, I like, that team was, like, just way better than us. They kicked their ass. Like, that never really bothered me. But in the case that I would, like, beat those people, are there people that are, like, better, right, or people that are worse that, like, think they can compete when we, like, overcome them? That gets me fired up. I like people to know their place and to win whenever I can.

Dylan Koch: [3:57] Wow. It's like perfectly the meme that's, like, perfectly sums this up is, like, the kid who's, like, trying to dunk a basketball. This is, like, me thinking I'm good at real estate investing, and then underneath the data that's holding him is just inflation. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [4:09] Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is is different groups and stuff that we've been involved in over the past couple of years, they have just been full of people that have no business being there. And the thing that's been so challenging is you're trying to network. You're trying to go into all these different things like to expand your business, expand your knowledge. And it was so hard to dig through the bullshit because there was so many people that were adamant that they were smart. Even though as soon as you got their story, you knew they were lucky. Right? Like, you know, just like you were an English teacher in Boise, Idaho who just happened to own four homes that quadrupled in value. And, yes, you are worth $3,000,000, but that doesn't make you an entrepreneur. Right? That was your Bitcoin that you bought for a thousand dollars, and now you're fucking rich. Good job.

Dan Austin: [4:51] The flip side of like that other piece too on the on the high side of like the positivity is you can really see it within GoBundance because when the last event I went to, the events are probably what? 400 people, not three fifty. So decently sized for a group that has what? A thousand members in it. It's really hard to not bump into very, very good operators.

Mike DeHaan: [5:10] Yeah. Because it's all that's left.

Dan Austin: [5:12] Yeah. I can't remember his name. I forgot. He's not a listener, so it doesn't matter. But I sat next to just randomly at dinner a guy that owns like a restaurant, like business empire kind of on the East Coast. And his goal is to get to a 100,000,000 a year. And I think he's at, I don't know, couple 10 to 20,000,000 a year in his restaurant. But, like, a what?

Mike DeHaan: [5:29] Like In a restaurant. In a restaurant.

Dan Austin: [5:32] Right? And then I I bumped into quite a few other guys where it used to be you're running into so many syndicators and people that were riding the wave, those guys have since left. And I think this not just GoBundance. I think this is probably a lot of groups like this. And you we also see a lot of those real estate groups just pittered out. They're gone. They don't exist anymore. And so it's kind of it makes masterminding a little bit better, a little bit more quality. So if you are operating or you are trying to aspire, there's no better time to do it now because all the bullshit's gone. And the guys that are out there and the gals that are out there are actually doing well, are actually doing well. It's not a Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [6:03] I think right now is the epitome of, you know, be greedy when there's blood in the streets. We are on that phase. From an investment standpoint, there's still some potential downside risk. But think from a business standpoint, it is absolutely the time to be pushing into small business because there's so much opportunity there. So that was my high is Cool. An opening up of opportunity. And I guess my highest, Dan, you would say it was the downfall of all the schmucks.

Dan Austin: [6:26] All the schmucks.

Mike DeHaan: [6:27] Oh, I like that word. I like that word too. It has a bunch of consonants right

Dan Austin: [6:31] in a row.

Mike DeHaan: [6:31] Yeah. It does. It's exhilarating. It's fun to say. I'm gonna teach my son that. There you go.

Dan Austin: [6:36] He comes up with some wild words. I'm like, that's a good word, dude. Nice.

Mike DeHaan: [6:40] Yeah. Where'd you come up with that? You know?

Dan Austin: [6:42] But you know what? Peppa big, because they have a lot more proper English too. He speaks probably better than I do. Probably.

Mike DeHaan: [6:48] Cool. Alright, Dan. Share it.

Dan Austin: [6:49] Okay. So mine's a little bit more personal, but it bleeds into the business. And the high is going to be a single point in time, but it's actually the whole year of what happened for that point in time. So I took a trip earlier in the year to Salt Lake with a couple of friends of mine who I met through GoBundance. If you are a GoBundance person and you're listening, it's my GoPod. And we've been together. Golly. What do think? By like two years now with this GoPod? It's been my best, most significant GoPod so far out of the five or so I've been on. But anyways, took a trip to Salt Lake City, put ourselves in an Airbnb down there. And I don't think we did anything else but mastermind it. We obviously left to eat and have some drinks and all that sort of stuff. And we talked about individual goals and things and really the result of that. And I'll give a shout out to my my guys, Brandon and Aaron, who are listening. I'm sure they're listening that this was a significant event. They know it was because they brought it up several times is all the things in my current life that I need to quit doing are fire, like get rid of. Right? Just being so busy with all sorts of other stuff. And at that point in time, we knew that the lending business was probably the business Mike and I were going to really shift into because we really started that approach, I would say, end of last year.

Dan Austin: [8:01] And so that being said, fast forwarding to now, having quit so many different things, fired so many different things. I mean, there's lots of we sold our wholesaling business, which is a big piece of that. Letting go of partners, letting go of employees, all sorts of things that we did and have really set us up for success. Like that point in time in Salt Lake was a pivotal moment. And honestly, I can look back and all the things that Aaron and Brandon gave me advice on have happened, have taken place. And I think a lot of that is having people behind you, like, rooting for you and and seeing the bullshit from the outside and telling you like, hey, you need to fucking look at that. Or you need to focus on that, pay attention. So that was a huge high. And I think it took our business from, know, where we were at, like, hey, this is our thing to now we're like, yeah, this is definitely our thing. We're going to 2026 with a really high capacity to double, if not triple our revenue in the business. We've already I don't even know what we've quadrupled, tripled how many times month over month with that business. So my high is having a group of dudes I go to Salt Lake City with and completely change our business.

Mike DeHaan: [9:06] So it's funny because I remember when you came back from that, and I could tell that you had, like, a new fire, which is pretty good because you were definitely pretty jaded Right. From the especially the wholesale stuff before that. But funnily enough, I still remember how hard of a decision it was for us to exit the wholesaling and flipping business because that had been our identity for five years.

Dan Austin: [9:25] 100%. You know?

Mike DeHaan: [9:26] And sometimes those changes, even though they're so obvious is what you need to do, you're if still kind of like holding on to like there's like some cost bias or like an identity bias, if that's the thing, I don't know what that is, then it's really, really hard to move away from it even though everyone is telling you that. Right. Right? But no, it was it was a good change. I'm glad I made the cut with your big life changes. Yeah. You did. You're still here.

Dan Austin: [9:47] But I mean, there was a lot. I mean, I don't wanna list all the things off. There's people involved in that. There's businesses involved in that. There's relationships, all that sort of stuff. And it's just like

Dylan Koch: [9:55] It sounds like, Dan, that you just had like a good version of clarity of what the next six, twelve, eighteen months look like.

Dan Austin: [10:02] Yeah. Yeah. A 100%. Yeah. And they helped peel it back because it's like, okay, this is what you're saying. Now these are things you need to start doing. And then to back it up with that too is this was reinforced from that point in time. I mean, we went to Scottsdale together. We went to Dallas. We went to Calgary together as like a group. And it was like this constant repeat of like, okay, where are you at checking in? Are these things working? Okay. Why haven't you done that yet? And I would just close this out with, as we go into the new year, if you're not happy with where you're at, if you don't have at least two to three people that you can talk to and set goals with, have fun with, not just business people, but also have fun with and be able to tell like your goals and talk through candidly about shit that sucks. And they're literally just there on the sidelines listening and like your wins are their wins, your losses are their losses, like you're missing out and you should definitely go seek that.

Mike DeHaan: [10:57] Totally. Great one.

Dan Austin: [10:58] Cool. Better than any paid mastermind you can be part of is somebody that you can likely two or three people advising you, think is helpful.

Mike DeHaan: [11:04] Yeah. But I think the key thing though, just on that really quick, and then we'll go to Dylan. You took action. I also think a lot of dudes end up in these, like, circle jerk groups where they sit around and they talk about ideas and they talk about, like, well, my life a bitter. I did this. And then they just go back to their everyday life and don't change anything. Right. But you took a lot of action when you came back from that. And so that's the most key part.

Dan Austin: [11:21] Yeah. It could be mental masturbation for a lot of people for sure. Alright, Dilly.

Dylan Koch: [11:25] Cool. Yeah. No. I also kept my high, I guess, a little bit more personal and, like, business related. And, you know, I I said publicly on the on the podcast that beginning of this year, the goal is a million dollars in top line revenue. And do we hit that this year? No. We did not. But I'm so happy with where the business is and where it's at. So we did increase revenue by 30%. And even better than that as we increased, like, the bottom line by about 40%. And so it was just I made a lot more money. I worked a lot less. And even on the rental side of things, like, we are technically at that tier one, like, financial freedom just from the rentals we bought over three years. Like, I've only done this for three years. And what my balance sheet looked like three years ago to what it looks today is a very, very different story. And was just like a combination of sitting down and reflecting, like, this is a lot of hard work, but at least I can see the fruits of that labor.

Dan Austin: [12:14] Yeah. That's awesome. That's amazing, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [12:16] It's funny. I always forget you've only been doing this for three years. I feel like you've been doing it for so much longer.

Dan Austin: [12:20] That's crazy.

Dylan Koch: [12:20] Now I left in November 2021 is when I left my job. So I guess technically, but I didn't do my first deal until 2022.

Mike DeHaan: [12:26] That's crazy. Really? Yeah. That's super quick turnaround.

Dan Austin: [12:29] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [12:29] You'll reach the I mean, because I started doing real estate in 2018, so this was like my seventh year. But I recently started wholesaling till 2020. So you'll start to reach the phase though now where you get that consistent big win. And that's when you get a lot more confidence. I would say it'll sort of take bigger risks and those sort of things. Because not only do you have the assets, but you also have the recurring income. Right? And the level one financial freedom is cool, but then you're like, but I also am confident that I can make $500,000 this year. So I don't care about that as much. And that's where it really starts to get fun.

Dylan Koch: [13:05] Yeah. And that's totally true.

Mike DeHaan: [13:07] It's more

Dylan Koch: [13:07] like a security blanket, you know, like anything. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [13:09] But nice, man. It's a good one.

Dan Austin: [13:10] That's incredible too. I would add to that is or actually ask to that is for people that have been doing it three years, what do you think made you different or unique compared to somebody who's doing it three years now or two years or even in their first year? They're just like, man, I'm hoping to pay my bills this year. Because there's a for every one of the Dillons, there's a 100 people like that.

Dylan Koch: [13:33] It's a loaded question. I would say I've I'm not and have never been afraid to work very long days in very long time. Yeah. And I wasn't afraid to ask like, I paid for CCF right when we first started. I paid for scale right when we first started. I didn't start with starting from scratch. I kinda started with a leg up because I paid for the people who are already successful to teach me what they were doing and just executed, you know. I guess I went to a whole time meetups, you know, at the beginning. I knew everybody in town. So I a combination of just it's cliche, hard work and and learning from people who are already successful and being a shameless cloner.

Mike DeHaan: [14:05] And I would say one thing that you've also got done is taking imperfect action. You're one of the few people that I've met. Like, you'll come on here and after the show, you'll ask us some questions. And next thing you know, you're doing like that day. Right? Like the next day.

Dylan Koch: [14:16] Yeah. Yeah. True.

Mike DeHaan: [14:17] Whereas I can't tell you how many people over the years have asked questions on stuff and I tell them very blankly what we do. Yeah. And then I see them like two months later posting on Facebook.

Dylan Koch: [14:27] Asking the same question.

Mike DeHaan: [14:29] Asking the same question to, like, general people. I'm like, why the fuck didn't you do it two months ago, dude? Like, that's why you're not successful.

Dylan Koch: [14:34] And that's a learned skill. Having a default to action is a learned skill. And actually, when we went to Scottsdale at the first KeysCon and you guys asked for feedback, that was my number one thing. That's different than a lot of stuff is the whole thing was a default to action. Like, you had to do shit. You can't just think about it. So

Dan Austin: [14:49] Yeah. I wanna summarize those three things too because it's in my head as far as it's actually quite simple. One is being willing to work and people want to get into be entrepreneurship because they think they don't have a boss and have to work very hard. It's like, no, you gotta work way harder, but it's way more fruitful, way more satisfying. Second is what I would've used to say is be willing to pay to go faster, which I think is still relevant. But I think it's in a different phrasing right now. I would put it as recognize you don't have to do it all yourself. You can go and learn it. You don't have to learn and build it yourself. Mhmm. You can go and have somebody and take their shit and replicate it. This is Matt King from GoBundt that says rip off and duplicate. I think you gotta be willing to do that. And then the last one is brand. And I think that's actually more relevant than anything right now. Mike and I were just talking about this about one of our one of the dudes here locally who left the company he worked for, a wholesale company, and has done extremely well for himself. And it's all because of brand. It's all because of the meetups. It's all because he was out there on social media. So however you become a known quantity in your real estate community, doesn't matter which way you do it, whether it's social media or in person or just calling people, like that is going to make you more successful than most anything.

Dan Austin: [15:57] Because if you pair that with hard work, you won't have an income issue.

Mike DeHaan: [16:01] Yeah. Totally. Alright. Right on. We're jumping to the lows. Alright. So my low for the year again, it's going kinda kinda macro. Sorry. I went with low on mine. My low for the 2025 in the space was the rise of co living as, like, the new fad.

Dan Austin: [16:16] I thought it's already dead, though.

Mike DeHaan: [16:17] No, dude. It's going to be soon because now Pace is talking about it. Right? And as soon as, like, the big gurus start promoting, you know it's too late. So it's funny. I was really trying to think about the different stuff, and every year is like a new fad. This fad in particular, I really, really hate for two reasons. And it's kinda funny because on the show from last week, we talked about, like, the density piece and I how I think that's really important. And co living is like an answer to that at some level. Right? And so the reason I hate coliving as, like, this new fan, I think it's the low for the year, is basically two parts. So the first is because, basically, I think the rise of coliving is like society's acceptance or like like the real estate investor like, small real estate investors' acceptance of how challenging density is. And so they are now doing what a capitalistic society does is they are finding a way to monetize solving the problem. K? And so instead of the cities and, like, the infrastructure being built to have this density, you now have all these capitalist entrepreneurs, which is great, go out and buy these oversized houses and hack them up into these weird nine, ten bedroom monstrosities with eight by eight bedrooms that are built into the garages and the basements and the attics and the fucking shed and wherever else.

Mike DeHaan: [17:27] Right? And that's where they're gonna have is density. And so I hate the fact that that has been the result of the systemic issue that we've had with density. Right? Mhmm. The second reason, this is probably my least favorite real estate fad that's come around since we've been discussing these kind of things, is because not only is it like I don't think it's viable over like a long term strategy. The problem is it also leaves the asset in a state that I think is now majorly less valuable than it was before. Right? And so if you look at, like, the sub twos and the Airbnbs and the midterm rentals, all the other stuff that people have had is, like, their current get rich scheme, None of them have affected the hard asset as much as co living. And so I guarantee you, if you fast forward five years from now, just like we're seeing the purge of all the Airbnb owners rapidly trying to sell their properties at like a massive loss, Right? Because they overpaid for them. They traded them on cap rates, all sorts of stuff because of Airbnb potential. We're gonna see the same thing with the co living investors. The problem is is that nice house on a cul de sac that they cut up and put 11 bedrooms in, right, that they had a mix of battered women living in there with, like, their their children and crackheads. And then, like, the one college student who couldn't afford to go anywhere who had this weird community.

Mike DeHaan: [18:42] Right? And they all just did, like, janky stuff in the property. No one is gonna wanna buy that house anymore. And And then when you go into it, it's gonna be full of unpermitted work. It's gonna be full of, like, a bunch of, like, weird damage and stuff that was set up in a way that doesn't make it conducive to pivot back to an actual usable structure for where it's located. Right? And I think that just long term, it will have a pretty major detriment on the neighborhoods where that's common. You know? And every time you talk to these people, they always have like this, I don't know, illusion of grandeur of what these tenant structures look like. They're like, oh, yeah. It's they always describe it like a tech incubator, you know, where you have, like, all these, like, young buck entrepreneurs who don't mind. They have to share a kitchen.

Dan Austin: [19:17] Or a fun hostel.

Mike DeHaan: [19:19] A fun hostel. I'm like, yeah. Maybe if you're, like, in San Francisco or Yeah. Austin. When you're in most metros in United States, that's not what it is. It is a halfway house that is full of people that cannot afford to pay rent anywhere else. Right? And then you're putting them in communities that are surrounded by families, and then you're completely screwing up the asset in the meantime. So my big low.

Dan Austin: [19:38] Let me ask you this. Great low, by the way. I can't agree more. I think the idea of co living is garbage, and I just think it it's terrible for the community. Now from a real estate investor standpoint, because I also think that co living as it's typically described is a poor investment. It's a way for non deal finders to somehow buy a deal that cash flows. But by the way, if you try to do that at scale, you're not gonna be able to get the great financing you want because they're gonna go off market rents. Yeah. It's neither here nor there. My question is about these actual halfway houses that are like for people coming out of rehab, and they have court ordered, you gotta go to a halfway house or like development disabled adults. Like, we have some of these similar. I'm not gonna say it's the same, but you have these scenarios where they are placing adults in homes for whatever reason. Would you consider that the same as co living on a like more of a commercial lease setup?

Mike DeHaan: [20:32] I would say it depends. Right. Right? Like, it fully depends on the scenario and how legit it's being operated.

Dylan Koch: [20:39] And the location. Right? Like, that's not gonna be in a suburb.

Dan Austin: [20:42] For

Mike DeHaan: [20:42] sure. Well, I mean, you will sometimes. You'll see people that, like, have these attic houses they're putting in, like, nice neighborhoods because it's the one that hit their square footage requirement. Right? I don't think that you should necessarily be doing things like that. I do acknowledge that those situations do need to exist. I think it just needs to be run by a legitimate operator. Because also what you will see is you will see some of these people that have these halfway houses, sober living houses, whatever. And they always have like, oh, well, I So and so has a company that does this. He makes so much money from insurance. So yeah. But that guy's a fucking crook, and those houses all turn into meth houses. Is that the reality, or is he actually run like a clean business where they make sure that these dudes could be women too, I guess. Probably not. That would be weird. I feel like they would be gender specific. Maybe. But like the people that go into these houses are actually following the rules and to have they make sure they're clean. They make sure they're safe. Yeah. The neighborhood knows what's going on. Generally, when it comes to real estate, I think if you are having to do things with some sort of, like, secrecy. Right?

Dan Austin: [21:39] Right. Loophole leases with 1% LLC ownerships.

Mike DeHaan: [21:42] Exactly. Yeah. When you're doing stuff like that because you know it's hokey. Yeah. Right? That means you shouldn't be doing it in general.

Dylan Koch: [21:49] Yeah. So that's a just great rule of thumb.

Dan Austin: [21:51] Yes. That's a great rule of If you're having to make loopholes because you can't do what the the city or the local zoning says. Yeah. And I asked that question too because it seems like there is a use case for affordable housing and for affordable living, but within the confines of the actual zoning of the city. Because if you are running a business, you need to get a business license. That's what's happened to a lot of Airbnb owners. They had to get a business license. Then the city can control it. Right? With these, you're trying to do these weird things. I mean, you might be putting a child molester in a home a block away from a school. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [22:23] Right? Yeah.

Dan Austin: [22:23] You know what I mean? And you're doing it under a weird LLC, so their name doesn't even pop up on the registry. Like just weird stuff. That's just not okay. Same thing goes with like these I don't know. I'm just gonna use halfway house. But houses where, you know, people come out of prison or rehab and they have to be state mandated to be here. Like, you're putting in a neighborhood where there's kids and maybe there's there's violent crimes and issues. Like, come on, dude. The government's not gonna want that. So you're skidding around the rules and allowing it. You're making it it's a bad business.

Dylan Koch: [22:49] A lot of city ordinances around here have made Airbnbs get hotel licenses, which is like 15% off top line revenue. And that killed a lot of, you know, profitability.

Dan Austin: [22:58] Resort fees.

Dylan Koch: [22:59] I'm surprised Mike's wasn't gonna be the downfall of gurus, but there's I guess they're still kinda round.

Dan Austin: [23:04] That already happened.

Mike DeHaan: [23:05] Yeah. Well so I I actually thought about making that my high. But the problem is is most of the gurus that I really don't like are still running strong. They just have their new grift.

Dan Austin: [23:13] Yeah. They they do. Yeah. That's funny. Okay. So I didn't realize it, but my my low starts out as somewhat more personal. I've intended it more macro. And you know when you when you get interviewed and they ask you what your strengths and weaknesses are, you're like, well, my weakness is actually my strength. This is kind

Mike DeHaan: [23:28] of that. Great.

Dylan Koch: [23:31] That's good.

Mike DeHaan: [23:31] It's kind of that.

Dan Austin: [23:32] So I was thinking about this because I actually am pretty optimistic. I I was like struggling to be like, what was a no like an actual low that's like worth talking about? And this is what I think a lot of people can identify with. So in the beginning of year, so say the first half of the year, watching my net worth go down, if you actually like mark down your assets and things like that

Dylan Koch: [23:51] Are honest about it. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [23:52] Are honest about it. Right? Watching that go down and struggling to be like, why the hell can't I make it go up? Because there was no clear path to adding assets with real estate. Dylan, you've obviously added quite a few assets. But for Mike and I, it just in our market, it just Different market. It wasn't adding up. And part of this, I think, is it helped me realize how bad actually 2024 was as a year from a financial standpoint than a real estate standpoint. Real estate more than like the macro market. I'm not talking, you know, S and P 500. I'm talking just generally speaking in it. Helped me recognize how much of my net worth was wrapped up in real estate to be able to say, oh, man, it's going down. And if then if I have to sell it, I'm really down 10% more. Like, there's also recognition that the paper net worth doesn't matter that much, but it is a flywheel that helps you get more money. Let's be honest. The more net worth you have, the easier it is to do things because you could have banks, you can do other things. The flip side of this is, but this year, 2025, which most people I think would say from a headline standpoint is like a much more difficult year, has been a huge increase in cash flow to my personal growth. And I have wanted to add cash reserves, but cash flow has gone up significantly this year for 2024. I'm guessing my taxes will be significantly higher this year than they were next year, which is honestly a little bit of the counter argument I would expect to hear. And it actually goes a little bit ties into your high a little bit, Mike, of seeing these small businesses and things like that kind of going away.

Dan Austin: [25:20] And I think being able to operate a business with quality in this environment, this is where you get to be greedy. And so cash flow has gone way up significantly. Real estate is just there and it's existing, and it's not adding to to my wealth. And I guarantee a lot of people can identify with this. And I bring it up too because you need to be balanced still. Like if you're one of those dudes that is like a 100% real estate, it's just not valuable. Like you shouldn't do that. Like you don't wanna diversify to, like, the nth degree because I think you lose a lot by not being an expert in one area. But we've talked about this a lot a lot on the show. If you're just paper net worth real estate guy, no cash flow, that sucks. It sucks for you. I'm not sorry because you did that to yourself.

Mike DeHaan: [26:02] Yeah. That's why we used to have the whole saying massive income before passive income. Right? Because that's the one thing that will allow you to actually grow. It's not holding assets. It's having the ability to buy more assets.

Dan Austin: [26:12] Yes. And the ability to be flexible when the market when so you can be greedy. Because if you just have no cash flow, if you're the the fire person that is using real estate as your financial independence, retire early, and that's your cash flow, we all know it's not that great of cash flow if you have one event. Now the market's kinda sinking, so you can't get leverage easily on your assets when it's real estate specifically. And you Dylan said it earlier in the show, his bottom line went up 40%. He's increasing cash flow. And fortunately, while you're doing it, you're able to increase your assets too, Dylan. But not everybody gets to be the doubleheader like that. But either way, gotta have cash flow.

Mike DeHaan: [26:46] I guess you're you went from a low to like a high. Zach, I told you. Yeah. You said you were going to

Dan Austin: [26:51] My weakness is my strength.

Mike DeHaan: [26:52] Yeah. So I'm saying just to put it into words, your low for you for the year was the good portion of the year where you were struggling with the decline in your portfolio. You didn't really know how to overcome it. But since then, it's recovered.

Dylan Koch: [27:05] Yeah. It's recovered in another bucket. In another bucket.

Dan Austin: [27:07] Yeah. The low was like the struggle at the beginning of the year recognizing, which was honestly, I think more of a 2024, byproducts 2024 market being so bad for real estate, bleeding into 2025. Because I actually don't think the real estate market is that bad. I don't think it's as plentiful. But I think and we're seeing in the lending business, there's still people out there doing deals. They're just different deals. Yeah. And they're different people.

Mike DeHaan: [27:28] Yeah. A lot of different people. Honestly, it's pretty wild. But Cool. Alright. Good one. Let's hear it, Dylan.

Dylan Koch: [27:34] Yeah. I'll do two. One, I'll keep the personal side is even though it's been a great three years, the past, like, quarter has been one of the toughest that I've had since business started, both from this deal flow and contractor problems, building problems, a lot of CapEx stuff. Like, just this like, a kick in the nuts again and again and again without a lot of wins. But the second thing that's probably more important out of, you know, all the stuff I read and listen to about, like, the macro economy, where I think it's going forward is I still kinda resonate with, like, the blue collar middle class guy. That's how I grew up. That's where, like, the town I'm from. And I don't see a path that's good for that general population, like, in the next five to ten years. That just kinda makes me sad. Don't know how to fix it.

Mike DeHaan: [28:13] You mean, like, for the middle class, like, in general?

Dylan Koch: [28:16] Yeah. One affordability is going to continue to be a problem, and I think that there will be still a reduction in the middle class. I still think we have this k shaped economy. I just don't see how that changes with any kind of volatile event or volatile events, plural.

Dan Austin: [28:29] You know who can change that?

Dylan Koch: [28:30] What's

Dan Austin: [28:31] that? Whoever the next presidential candidate is, they'll be able to fix that.

Dylan Koch: [28:34] I would disagree with that statement.

Mike DeHaan: [28:36] That's that's what their platform's gonna be for sure.

Dan Austin: [28:38] Whatever they say, affordability is gonna be talked about a lot. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [28:42] I'll pick a kalshi bet on that. Yeah. Like, how many times I guess the affordability?

Dylan Koch: [28:45] Yeah. My timeline, I think, is just filled with, like I don't know. Like, I see people by age who I with high school with maybe that blame the system, which sure there's some truth to that. But, again, it's not the past four years. It's not the past eight years. It's past three decades, four decades of decisions that are coming to a head. And I this kinda if you just sit down and think about it, it's like, well, this isn't really good for anybody besides with people who already have money, even though I am probably in that that class.

Dan Austin: [29:10] So That's a good one. So are you short on mankind? Are you short on America? What are you short on here?

Dylan Koch: [29:14] No. I'm not, I guess, short on on that. I guess if I had to put it in word, it's gonna be short term volatile. We'll probably see an increase in populism and increase in, like, you know, this infighting. But eventually, there will be a turn. You know, the I don't know if anyone's familiar with, like, the fourth turning concept. It's a book by a demographer that a lot of people use. But, basically, you go from the fourth turning is a bad part that happened every eighty to a hundred years. But after that, you have the first turning, and that is, like, usually a time of prosperity.

Dan Austin: [29:40] So So we gotta lose some to make some.

Dylan Koch: [29:43] Pretty much.

Dan Austin: [29:43] So that means you probably wanna have productive assets. Would that make sense?

Dylan Koch: [29:48] Productive assets, hard assets. I mean, there's no you're thinking 50,000 foot view. With our current debt situation getting off track. It's like there's no way they don't inflate away the debt. Meaning, they don't, like, discontinue your print money. And what do you do when you print money? You really don't wanna own fixed income. You don't wanna own thirty year treasuries, twenty year treasuries because your purchasing power is just going down. You wanna own things like real estate, high value, private dividend stocks. In fact, fun fact is value foreign entities. So, like, the stocks in other countries, Brazil, Argentina, have outperformed the S and P, like, by 40% in 2025.

Mike DeHaan: [30:20] Alright. Last round. Buffalo. And this one was the hardest one because nothing really surprises me anymore. Just how You're jaded. Dude, I'm so jaded. Like, it's fucking nuts. But so my my Buffalo for this year thing that I really did not expect was I was trying to think of the way to do this. The I thought collapse is like a a hard a little bit of a harsh word. I would say, like, the massive consolidation of the effectiveness of marketing for finding deals, like off market deals. So if you go back to the past, basically for as long as we've been trying to find off market real estate deals, right, there was always different marketing channels that you could pull. You could call, you could text, you could run ads, you could send mail, you could door knocking, whatever. It's been getting tighter and tighter the past couple of years. I feel like this year in particular, we've reached a phase where in so many markets, almost every option seems to either not work that effectively anymore or you have to do it such a mass scale that it's no longer really effective for people that aren't already established. And the buffalo for me with that is if I was to look at a year ago, I would have figured this stuff would have been more effective because we have more financial hardship.

Mike DeHaan: [31:34] We have more people that are running out of cash in these other homes. But I think that there is this sort of crash that we've had where we've had the people with no money who also have nowhere to go, also combined with this, I would say, mass rejection of home buyers or hedge funds or whatever. So people are so resistant to selling their homes to investors. They're resistant to responding to marketing from companies. Right? They don't really know what their next steps are going to be. And if you'd asked me a year ago, if I looked forward, if I thought that pretty much every marketing channel was going to be majorly suffering, I would have not believed you. Because I've always been of the opinion that in that sort of space that you could especially spend your way out of anything if you got more lead gen. But just a couple weeks ago, we had somebody on our scale weekly call that said that they had in the last two months, they had spent two $17,000 drops on direct mail and had had zero calls. Unheard of. Unbelievable that that happened. Right? But we're starting to see that more. Right? And that's just the that's just the situation. And so I would say, like, the Buffalo is that we know there's the blood in the streets. It's not responding Yeah. To the opportunity that would have expected to be there for real estate people.

Dylan Koch: [32:47] The return on ad spend after talking to dozens of operators has I feel like maybe the past two years has been anywhere from five to seven. Maybe a little bit lower than that, but I know what I talked to lately, two to four. Yeah. You know? So that just kinda puts data to what you're just saying.

Dan Austin: [33:00] Yeah. It's gotta be more than two if you're gonna Oh,

Mike DeHaan: [33:03] it has to be.

Dan Austin: [33:03] Sizable operation of any size. Yeah. Sure. If you're popping one or two off a month and you don't need a lot of income, you can get away with that. But that's like newbie startup phase, what you want. You gotta have more than that. Yeah. So part of it, I would think, is caused by the recognition of wholesalers and off market buyers by these sellers, paired with so many jackasses out there, gurus included, that are out there preaching unethical ways to do things because there hasn't been regulation on the industry. And now they everybody, almost not everybody, most people have a story of how their friend sold to somebody, a home buyer, and got price dropped at the last second, or something happened, the contract got dropped, or they wanted an inspection even though they said they wouldn't need an inspection. All the things that we all know happen out there. I think that's probably one of the big reasons for the resistance to sell.

Mike DeHaan: [33:58] I would think so. Yeah. And the resistance to respond to just any sort of inquiry. One of

Dylan Koch: [34:02] the things I've seen locally too is I feel like a lot of the new people have kinda got or, like, the people who are just, like, fly by night got washed out the past twelve to eighteen months. All the people left now, I mean, they're top competition. I mean, my competition here is fierce. So everyone is doing the multiple channels. Everyone's talking to the same people. Everyone has the same scripts. Everyone has the same data. So, like, you just gotta hit people at the right time seems like the most important factor right now.

Mike DeHaan: [34:25] Yeah. It's funny. That that's the the downside of my win with the impression of all of all the small newbies is the people that are doing well.

Dylan Koch: [34:32] Yeah. Right.

Mike DeHaan: [34:33] They are much more fierce competitors than they were coming in.

Dan Austin: [34:36] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [34:36] Yep. Cool. Let's hear it, Dan.

Dan Austin: [34:38] Alright. My Buffalo is not personal, and it's even more macro than that. My Buffalo is I did not expect Silicon Valley to all get on TRT at the same time.

Mike DeHaan: [34:50] There we go.

Dan Austin: [34:51] Now you're gonna

Dylan Koch: [34:51] be happier.

Mike DeHaan: [34:52] I love this.

Dan Austin: [34:53] This is intense. Okay. It all started with Zuck. Right? He did jujitsu. Right? He got on the Joe Rogan bandwagon, did jujitsu. He became friends with Trump, doing all the manless shit. Right? But if you look this last year, it's kind of intense how many of the tech companies are now getting people to come work for them. And when I say tech companies, it's all of them, but there's a rise of the new tech company, the defense tech companies, Where historically tech companies have always been like, we're we're not about war. We don't wanna participate. And the the people that worked for the tech companies were that way. Like a year ago, two years ago, you would have never thought that Meta would be involved in like building shit to go kill other people. Like that just wouldn't have been a core value you would have thought of. Even if they maybe were, wouldn't have been a core value. But if you look at it, you've got like Palmer Lucky. I've already seen him with Andrew. And I can't remember what's the the Eagle Eye headset. Like they're basically these nerds are taking video games and making that shit into real life. Like, now war is gonna be fought in a totally different way. We're truly at the phase where people are using goggles. And I've seen it in person what these guys are using to fly drones and kill people with them. Right? Like, we're at that phase.

Dan Austin: [35:59] It's wild though. And I'm gonna give you some more data points on this. Because I I went down the rabbit hole on this. There's been like beta and OpenAI, and it's like Palantir and some others that you would expect because they're defense contractors. But like beta and OpenAI had executives get brought into the army. Like, they were just like, now you're a lieutenant colonel in the army. Like and they have fucking uniforms, dude. Like, an executive, like a senior executive at Made it. Like, that's wild. Right? I mean, they even went through like a PowerPoint basic training. Like, I'm not kidding you. Like, this is wild. But it's interesting because the way we're gonna fight wars is gonna be different. And I think it does I think it does affect the American economy and all the economies because it goes back to the whole AI race and what's important. And I don't really know how that will tie into this. But you look at the the prime contractors, General Dynamics, who's another one, Raytheon, Boeing, these big companies that have basically just been raping the government for decades and decades

Mike DeHaan: [36:54] Yep.

Dan Austin: [36:54] As part of the military industrial complex. I think that will still continue, and it always will. However, it might be these new guys like like the Andros, the Palantirs that take over, or they are going to partner with these big prime contractors. The big prime contractor is gonna be even more mega, mega, mega powerful. So I don't know where it's gonna go, but it's wild, dude, if you actually look at it.

Mike DeHaan: [37:15] So you're saying that this is a result of all of them getting on TRT?

Dan Austin: [37:18] Why? They started doing jujitsu and building bombs, dude. It's wild. It's like it's a it's an overnight change.

Mike DeHaan: [37:24] Yeah. It was very abrupt.

Dan Austin: [37:26] Like, within a twelve month period. Like, it didn't seem like that way. Like, Zuckerberg, you know, during the Trump campaign was doing his jujitsu, and and then, you know, Trump got elected, all these guys went to

Dylan Koch: [37:35] He got the American flag while he's, like, wakeboarding behind a boat. Yeah. Remember that? Yeah. There's some wild

Dan Austin: [37:40] shit going on. And I don't know what it ties to internationally and how things are gonna change, but it's definitely gonna change how we fight wars, which I think will completely change the geopolitical space. It's like a new cold war almost of some source potentially of like, now we don't actually have to send people. America's been bombing people forever. It's like, that's our thing. Right? But now you're gonna have like these these ground forces that can just go in and virtually kill people.

Mike DeHaan: [38:05] Yeah. I just feel a lot safer as an American knowing that we're prepared for this all out conflict with Venezuela. You know, I've really been concerned about that.

Dan Austin: [38:13] We need that we need that crude oil, dog. We gotta get that oil.

Mike DeHaan: [38:17] Hey. It was it was our oil. They stole it. It was ours.

Dylan Koch: [38:20] Oil's less than 55 a barrel

Mike DeHaan: [38:21] right now.

Dylan Koch: [38:22] So, like, you'd actually think we you would want a less supply of oil. More oil means the price would go down even more.

Dan Austin: [38:27] Well, so the difference is, let me

Mike DeHaan: [38:28] inform you

Dan Austin: [38:29] here, that they that they have a different type of oil as I found out. It's a Okay. They call it the the sweet crude, which is used for gasoline. This is used for ships and diesel, like big diesel ships.

Mike DeHaan: [38:41] Is that because it's in the Southern Hemisphere? So, like, it, like, all, like, drips down different because we have a flat earth. Because the earth is a disc, and so, like, it's all just, like, going that way.

Dan Austin: [38:50] It goes, like, right there, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [38:52] It's the

Dan Austin: [38:52] thick part of the oil. Yeah. That's that's where it also they make baby oil.

Dylan Koch: [38:56] Their gravity changes. They gotta spin it around. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [38:58] Yeah. Exactly. I

Dan Austin: [39:02] mean, speaking of baby oil, could have said P Diddy was my buffalo, but everybody expected that.

Mike DeHaan: [39:06] So Yeah. I don't know. I was surprised by that either. Yeah. Anyways. Alright. Cool. Take care, John.

Dylan Koch: [39:11] I guess my buffalo is kinda like I said earlier, I've I've never been afraid of hard work and, like, we're doing it. But I if I sit down, I actually think I might be experiencing some level of burnout in this business.

Dan Austin: [39:23] Burning. You're burning.

Dylan Koch: [39:24] Yeah. And so I guess my buffalo is the realization that if if I'm still doing this five years from now, I would probably consider that a failure.

Dan Austin: [39:32] Doing it the way you're doing it or doing it period?

Dylan Koch: [39:34] Probably doing it period, to be honest. Yeah. But, you know, my business is twofold. It's it's the active income, but I wanna get the portfolio to a size where I'm still making the same amount of money, but through investments, not through active income.

Mike DeHaan: [39:45] I will say, think there's a reason that you don't see a lot of people that have been flipping slash wholesaling houses for, like, ten years. Right?

Dylan Koch: [39:53] Yeah. I mean, it's a grind.

Mike DeHaan: [39:55] There will be people that have done that in the past, but and I think it's an amazing business to make your first batch of money, build your first little bit of wealth, and give you that financial freedom, that security. But it is a very emotionally and just mentally draining business. Right? Because you're constantly dealing with the dredges of society, the motivated sellers. And honestly, like flippers, the ones that you're buying your deals are no easier to work with than the sellers half

Dan Austin: [40:19] the time. Yeah. They're assholes.

Mike DeHaan: [40:20] Right? Especially the ones that are so stubborn. They're not willing to find their own deals, but they wanna own you because you're the deal finder. Right? So you have a lot of hard conversations back and forth. It has huge wins. It has massive losses. Right? But there's a reason that people tend to get burned out and exit. And I think it's just because it's a challenging business to run. And I think as you learn more about creating value and marketing and, like, actually what business looks like, you realize that there's easier ways to make the same amount of money plus more. Right? I mean, that's a big reason that we've shifted towards the lending business.

Dylan Koch: [40:52] With the higher ceiling, I think.

Mike DeHaan: [40:54] With the higher ceiling. Totally. That's

Dylan Koch: [40:55] yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [40:55] That was the thing with us, the lending business is the ceiling is so, so, so much higher. It's an established industry. Right? You're not, like, having to pick and choose the random people that come work for you because no one's ever worked in this kind of company before. Right? There's, like, actual infrastructure behind it. It's just different. You know? And I think that's why you see a lot of people make those changes.

Dylan Koch: [41:15] I think a good example, just to put a earmark on this, is like a lead came in last night at, like, 8PM. And normally, be like, cool. Let's check it out. Like, let's see what it is. Like and I was just like, I'll get in the morning. Yeah. You know? Like, that's just a different approach to the same same input that I would have had, you know, a year, two years ago.

Mike DeHaan: [41:31] So Yeah. It's tough. I think it's a good one though. Wouldn't have expect you either because you always come in and you're always so happy, good luck, you're ready to talk about the ways you're growing.

Dan Austin: [41:40] That is a good Buffalo though. I think it's a good realization that

Mike DeHaan: [41:42] Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [41:42] Lot of people So

Mike DeHaan: [41:44] Cool. Cool. Well, hope you join that everybody. If you didn't, I don't know. Don't tune in next year. Go away. Yeah. Go away. No. If you did though, you should let me let us know. We always like to hear from fans. People do to store our stuff. So send me a DM on Instagram at mike underscore invests. And just let us know what you thought. Let me let me know what your high low buffalo was for 2025. And if you have any good ones, I won't share your name, but we can talk about it next time on the show. And you guys all have a, I guess, a great New Year at this point because it'll be after Christmas. And we'll talk to you guys next year. Dad joke.

Dan Austin: [42:16] Nice. Nice, dude. That was a good joke, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [42:20] Thanks. I saved that one. Take that right out your book. This episode is sponsored by Sir Lenzelot LLC, also known as SLA Capital, which, if you didn't know, is Dan and I's private lending company. So, yes, we are sponsoring our own show, but what you're do about it? It is our private lending company that offers hard money and DSCR loans to real estate investors of all types. So you can be a new investor, an experienced investor. You can be buying flips. You can be buying rentals, whatever. We can do everything. And not only that, but the rates that we offer are just as competitive, if not cheaper, than pretty much every other company out there. So whatever big company you've been working with, bring us their term sheets, and I guarantee that we can probably beat it. We have the same connections they do. We just don't have all the overhead and middlemen. So if you wanna come and check us out, go to slacapital.com/keys, and I will know that you came from the show. And by seeing that you came from here, when you get the closing, you will save $500 on your first loan with us. So slacapital.com/keys, we would love to fund your next deal. Thanks for listening, everyone. If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest.

Mike DeHaan: [43:24] Dan is at investor man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore does underscore deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to let us know what you think of the show.