Replace Your Income in 4 Months as a Solo Real Estate Operator w/ Dalyn Hazell

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] Really quick before the show starts, in case you haven't heard, we have a growing community of investors called the scale community, which is full of people learning to make massive income with their real estate businesses, so they can reach financial freedom a little bit faster than building a rental portfolio solely over time, because honestly, that takes decades and who has time for that. So if you're an investor who is serious about growing and creating a scalable business without needing to be a slave to it twenty four seven, then go to collectingkeys.com/scale and apply. And if you're a good fit, we would love to have you join the community. So again, collectingkeys.com/scale. Go ahead and apply, and we'll see if you're a good fit.

Dalyn Hazell: [0:38] I just try to keep everything as stupidly simple as possible. I have only wholesaled to, like, three or four different people.

Mike DeHaan: [0:45] What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. This is a Monday, and this is the scale show. And our goal with this show is for you all that are growing and scaling real estate businesses. You hear from other investors that are just like you, and kind of in like that build stage of the business process. Right? And so today, we have Dalen Hazel, who how long you been with us in scale for? You know, like, about a year maybe?

Dalyn Hazell: [1:14] October. So almost a year.

Mike DeHaan: [1:15] Yeah. So coming up on a year. But you are a really awesome investor that I'm super excited to dive into because you have done really, really well diving into like a singular market. And when we were on one of our community calls the other day, general KPIs came up, and you were dropping these numbers, like these cost per deals, like I've never heard before. And so you obviously have a good little, I would say, system figured out for you there. And so really quick before we dive in, maybe give us a super brief rundown, who you are, where you're based, and what your team currently looks like.

Dalyn Hazell: [1:49] Yeah. I appreciate being here, guys. So I'm in Springfield, Missouri. I'm a wholesaler, buy and hold, fix and flipper. Right now, I have got a full time cold caller on my team. I use CallPorter for my answering service for the direct mail. I know you guys are big fans of CallPorter. And I have an a lead manager from The Philippines, and I do all the acquisitions and all the dispositions. I've got 26 units, all single family homes with property management. It's completely outsourced there so that I can focus on just acquisitions, dispositions, and make a lot of massive income like we talk about on this show.

Dylan Koch: [2:24] I wanna interject real quick because I don't wanna lose this thought. Did you have property manager from the start, or did you get to a certain unit count before you outsourced that?

Dalyn Hazell: [2:31] So I hired out property management at 10 units. So long enough to know how bad it sucks, but I still know what goes into it.

Dylan Koch: [2:41] Yeah. That's that's good.

Mike DeHaan: [2:42] I think it's an important and people always talk about getting a property manager right away. I do think it's important to manage your own units at least for like a short time, because it forces you to, I don't know, learn the hard lessons even though that sucks. It is a valuable thing.

Dylan Koch: [2:54] Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [2:54] That's awesome, dude. So you're basically I mean, for all intents and purposes, you are like the sole worker for your business. So you have you said an admin, you have a cold caller. And so the lead gen stuff and stuff that's sort of like easy to outsource is outsource, but you're doing the entire soup to nuts acquisition through exit process on your own.

Dalyn Hazell: [3:14] Yep. I'm still going on appointments and making offers. I am on realtor too, so I I dispo and, you know, off market and on market. And that's how I like it. I mean, as opposed to a lot of people who just wanna scale for sales sake, I like doing it. I like being in the business. And, I mean, I make a lot of money in it, so it's like it's not it's not like I want to ditch that right away. But it's where I'm

Dylan Koch: [3:36] at.

Mike DeHaan: [3:36] After a while, it gets grindy, though. And so you said you kind of you do wholesale, you flips, you obviously an agent. What's like your primary x strategy? Like, if you have a choice about what you're gonna do when you look at a deal? What's your what's your preferred?

Dalyn Hazell: [3:47] So right now, I'm doing about a third wholesale, third flip, and a third rental. That's actually lately, it's gotten more away from rentals just because of interest rates. But third wholesale, third flip, and a third rental. That keeps the cash in the account, you know, short term, long term, and really long term, I guess, for the rentals.

Dylan Koch: [4:06] Are you because I'm also doing some wholesales and flips right now, and doing the whole soup to nuts that takes a lot of time, especially with a more in-depth flip. So do you have a GC that's doing some of these? Or are you kinda subbing out some of the projects as they're going along?

Dalyn Hazell: [4:21] I do have a GC. So, yeah, hiring the GC, hiring the property manager, I mean, took away hour like, a dozens of hours a week of work Yeah. So that I can still be a solopreneur, so to speak, and really still not work that many hours a week because I'm just focusing on, like, making offers and selling the product.

Dylan Koch: [4:40] Yeah. If you have to drive out to your flip, it's in thirty minutes there, thirty minutes back, plus area, that's an hour and a half that could have been making calls. Right? And so what's the opportunity cost look like?

Dalyn Hazell: [4:48] Yeah. I make, like, two trips to each flip. Two or three tops.

Mike DeHaan: [4:52] Yeah. To be fair, I do feel like a lot of people, they are over present at the renovations mostly because they don't wanna be making the sales calls. I mean, I used to do that shit. I would, like, go out of my way to, like, go and visit a property just to for some reason because I wanted to procrastinate on all the calls I didn't wanna do.

Dylan Koch: [5:09] But you still felt like you're doing some work. Totally. I thought, okay. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [5:13] Absolutely. So nice. That's that's great, She got a good little team around you that are all, I would say, like, outsourced or, subcontractors. So as we kinda talked about as we we got into the show, your cost per deal is something that's really fascinating to me. And so you said you have a cold caller. What does your full, like, marketing pyramid look like? Like, how are you getting getting leads and deals for so cheap? And, also, what is that number, if you don't mind sharing too?

Dalyn Hazell: [5:36] So, yeah, cost per deal with direct mail since January 2023 is $1,952.

Mike DeHaan: [5:42] Okay. Under $2, which is killer. Yeah.

Dalyn Hazell: [5:45] Yeah. Cost per deal on cold calling is $1,448.

Mike DeHaan: [5:49] Yeah. See, that's crazy.

Dylan Koch: [5:51] So and what are you doing on a per month basis as far as deal flow?

Dalyn Hazell: [5:55] So deal flow, I'm only doing like three deals a month. Okay.

Mike DeHaan: [5:58] That's great, though. I only that's like, that's good.

Dylan Koch: [6:01] Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [6:02] So okay. So you have under 2,000 for both. So I mean, like averaging those what $1,700? Like, what do you think is, I would say the secret to keeping that low? Because I mean, harp on this a lot on on the Wednesday shows around typical in fact, the one that we recorded this past week, we talked about how to tell if somebody is is bullshitting their numbers. Right? And honestly, by the standard that we talked about on that Wednesday episode, you would be somebody that I will call bullshit on. But you being a scale member and me seeing how your business is going, know that's not true. So I guess how do you think you're you're so effective with your marketing or your sales? Or or, like, why is your cost per deal able to be so low?

Dalyn Hazell: [6:39] To be fair, I was I was kind of afraid to share these numbers because I I know you'd called me out on that. But, you know, after doing so many deals, it's like, oh, really? That is the cost per deal. The main factors that go into it is just being in a smaller Midwest market. My market's about a 150 to a 180,000 people, and so that helps. There's not really a lot of big institutional buyers here. The second being, I've just gotten really good at sales, like, converting people, knowing who's my ideal customer, and just being straight to it. Like, hey. This is what I can do. And then really getting granular on the marketing, knowing what works. So I switched over to open letter marketing with you guys back in July or no. January. And that's really helped get my cost per deal down even further because I can mail more people for fewer amount of dollars. I was using ballpoint marketing before, but just found that the cost per deal got a little bit too high. And what I've learned is that people just, especially with the ROS postcards, people just want an offer in their hands. And rather than, like, beat around the bush about all this stuff, like, which a lot of people talk about, like rapport building and stuff, which is still important. I mean, at the end of the day, people are most mostly focused on the money that you can give them, and I just wanna spit out as many offers as I can and talk to as many people as I can. On the cold calling side, I mean, that's pretty sub explanatory. It costs me a thousand bucks a month for a full time cold caller, So I can go two months without even getting a single deal still to be at a $2,000 cost per deal. And so when you're getting a lead a day, I mean, if you can't convert one out of 60 leads, then there's probably a bigger problem.

Dalyn Hazell: [8:20] And so that explains the cold calling.

Dylan Koch: [8:22] Well, Dalen, real quick. So a couple things. Are you still hitting, like, the niche list, like, the prop stream subset list, or are you doing any kind of different marketing, like, maybe that's directly from county or things that might be a little bit different from the general consensus nature list?

Dalyn Hazell: [8:38] I used to get down into like the nitty gritty and stuff and check my county records, but I've gotten away from that just because I haven't noticed a lot of fruit from that. I mean, sure, I got a deal here or there, but was it worth all the additional time and having, like, a part time assistant on to do all that? For me, it wasn't. And I also will say that if you're just targeting, like, absentee owners like I do, then you're gonna have the highest probability for success. And so I've really gone hard on targeting, like, absentee owners, people who are most likely to sell and who were kinda, like, not emotional with the property. That's again driven down my cost per deal.

Dylan Koch: [9:16] Totally. So your your main marketing license is absentee owners is what I'm hearing. Yep. Okay. I mean, it makes sense. That's probably 50% of our deal flow too.

Mike DeHaan: [9:24] Yeah. But it's funny because people are always hesitant to market to them because they're if you look at, like, the actual quantity versus the motivated individuals, they're less. But if you go back over the years, like, we have absolutely gotten the most deals from just, like, straight absentee owners with no other niche things that are showing up. Because the thing with, like, landlords, right, is they can have these burdens. Right? They can have these financial issues or things like that that are kind of on the back end, but they haven't gotten as far as to, like, have a publicly recorded problem yet just because they're the kind of people that have their shit together enough that they're able to afford rental properties.

Dylan Koch: [10:00] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [10:00] Right? And so people tend to forget that. But as, you know, all of us who own a decent number of units, expensive things happen. Yep. Right? And especially if you own stuff for a longer period of time, if you don't have a vertical income that kinda keeps up with the potential expense for a property, people do eventually get into hard spots. Right? And it's important to, like, sort of understand that and not be afraid to hit those, larger lists. Because the great thing about absentee owner standing, like you said, is they're not usually attached to the properties. Sometimes they're weirdly attached to tenants, which I've never understood, but they do that a lot. But also to the vast majority of the time, you're not having to worry about the security of the individual that is selling you the home because when it's a homeowner, right, they're always gonna have a lot of baggage on where are they gonna go next. Whereas the absentee owner, the landlord is like, well, where are the tenants gonna go? It's their problem. Right? Like, honestly. So

Dylan Koch: [10:53] Yeah. That's the truth of it. The logistics matter a lot to that kind of kind of conversation. And I don't know if Dale, if you do this, I'd like to touch on it. But I think I've gotten deals because I've been willing to buy places with tenants in place. Oh, yeah. Right? Whether it be for and like that, a lot of people won't do that. Because they're afraid they'll trash it for whatever reason, or it'll take them three months to get them out. But if the deal is there, you have to be willing to take on that burden.

Dalyn Hazell: [11:14] Yeah. And as the as a solopreneur, like, you can do those things pretty easily. And I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm stacking on all these things that keep driving down my cost per deal, like the friction it takes to get a deal. I do my own acquisitions. I don't have an employee doing that. Like, sure, I'm probably giving up scale, but if you're one, like a lot of listeners probably here, who don't have a lot of excess capital, who just wanna do deals, if you set the systems in place, kinda like I've explained, maybe you tweak it a little bit, but you can absolutely get deals for very cheap still in 2024.

Dylan Koch: [11:49] Yeah. No. And one thing that you said I wanted to hit on, you mentioned the ROS cards. I'm also a big fan of those. And the reason is just because more people call you. And like you get more at bats because even if your number's wrong by $50, a lot of the times that will still end up being a deal.

Dalyn Hazell: [12:06] Yeah. I signed two last week and I just, I'm like, where were these my whole life?

Mike DeHaan: [12:09] Yeah. Right.

Dalyn Hazell: [12:10] I wish they were around when I started, and they probably were. But you guys introduced me to them, and they've been a game changer for me.

Mike DeHaan: [12:17] Awesome. Yeah. And I think too that I really appreciate what you said there, Dalen, about, you know, the fact that you are doing a lot of the work yourself and, you know, you're giving up scale. I don't know when this started, but I feel like I talked to so many prospective business owners slash investors who approach the business with this way of, like, they feel like they need to pursue massive scale, like immediately. Like, they haven't even like done a deal yet. And they're already like asking me like, what my org chart looks like. And I don't know if this it's like the Cody Sanchez, like buy a business thing, or if it's like, they've listened to a lot of Alex Tremozi and his $100,000,000 net worth and all sort of stuff. But it is perfectly okay and also honestly expected to need to go into a business and work your ass off for the first, like, honestly, foreseeable future until you you will know when it's time to scale or if you wanna do it. And so, I guess, from your perspective, I mean, do you have ambitions to scale? Are you kinda just happy doing your thing and you have your lifestyle? Like, I how are you comfortable in that that grind mode, or are you just, like, kinda down to be that way?

Dalyn Hazell: [13:22] So to me, it's not really a grind. I mean, I work four to six hours a day. I love what I do. I talk to people that really wanna sell their property because I've built those systems to screen them. Yeah. And I've amassed a decent little portfolio. It's like, I don't really desire to have, you know, a huge team, and I I just wanna stay in one market. I have ambitions of quitting real estate eventually to take my hands off and just enjoy financial freedom. But for now, I I just I'm really fine with what I do. And this may be, like, some scars from corporate America, but I really don't like being told what to do. And so for me to have employees, I just I don't want that responsibility, at least right now. So maybe that makes me leave some money on the table, but I like having the flexibility to scale up and down the business as I choose rather than having to do deals to do deals. And so to do that, I have contractors rather than employees. I have rentals that pay me income whether or not I'm working. So I don't know. It's kind of an anti what maybe you guys talk about, but I'm having a blast in your community, and we're making a lot of money too.

Mike DeHaan: [14:28] Yeah. And let me say it's not necessarily anti what we talk about or what we believe in. I would say that a lot of the stuff that we do on, like, social media and then around the scale and those sort of things, honestly, because that's what people wanna hear. I work twelve hours a day in my business most days, and I'm happy doing that. Like, I enjoy that. And then going back in time and, I mean, I know Dylan, you were the same. We spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours, you know, weeks, months working, making nothing for a long time. But that's how you build, like, that foundation. And then as you start to grow, you can figure out what you wanna do. Honestly, I'm not against hard work. I promote a lot of like the scaling out stuff, because it's what gets people to reach out to me to potentially join scale and be a part of our bigger picture stuff.

Dylan Koch: [15:09] But like, Dalen's a member, and he's perfectly content with where he's at. And he still gets valuable nuggets. Like, how many did you point out already? Open letter, driving down your cost per deal. Like, all these other things that are just you don't get these unless you talk with other operators. Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [15:23] And the scale of the operators, I've come to find as I've grown in entrepreneurship, and I'd curious if you guys found the same thing. But when you're a business owner, and you're, like, doing the thing that's, like, against sort of the societal norm, there's, like, this game recognizes game sort of effect regardless of how big your business is. Like, you can talk to a wholesaler that does 20 deals a month and have a great conversation, you know, you're doing three deals a month because you you fight kinda like the same battles. Right? And you've gone through, like, the same growing pains and everything else. It's just at a different level of volume. Communities as a whole, I think, really important to to sort of find that.

Dylan Koch: [15:58] Well, I wanna touch on that. There's actually a local guy, two guys here that I know, that they're all about scale and they did it. They they scaled up, they're doing 20 deals a month. He shared with me, they make less money than what he was with a single operator. Just because of all the overhead and stuff that goes into that. And you're probably working not if as hard, but maybe twice as hard for that too.

Mike DeHaan: [16:17] It gives you flexibility as a trade off. Because I I never made more money than it was me and Dan and two team members. Like, that was the highest personal income I've ever had. But now I can screw off to Japan for three and a half weeks and nothing stops. Right? And so that's the that's the trade off that

Dylan Koch: [16:32] you can. Yeah. Totally.

Dalyn Hazell: [16:33] Yeah. It's like what Brandon Turner says. Like, I know how to get a six pack, but do I wanna go through that hurdle to get a six pack and all the work and maintenance? And I don't know about you. I mean, I don't really wanna go through all that, those twelve hour days that you went through, Mike, to to build the team you've gotten. I mean, you you're probably glad you did, but it's like for people who haven't gone through that yet, it's a big trade off.

Dylan Koch: [16:54] Dalen, when did you when did you start in off market real estate?

Dalyn Hazell: [16:58] So I bought my first rental in July 2020, but I took off market real estate seriously in April 2021, and I replaced my corporate income at the time in four months.

Dylan Koch: [17:10] Yeah. That's great. And did the amass I'm assuming the net worth with this 23 units has gone like a hockey stick as well for that too.

Dalyn Hazell: [17:18] Right? Yeah. It's absolutely been incredible.

Dylan Koch: [17:20] I'd say that for the audience to hear like, it took him, Dylan, three, maybe four years with probably a, you know, a very significant increase in net worth just from now he works four to six hours a day and can continue that machine.

Mike DeHaan: [17:31] Yeah. You know? And and the funny thing is is that's very quick, honestly. But I think when you're starting out, like, it feels impossible. And looking back in time, it's always crazy how fast that can actually happen when you put your nose down. I hope you guys are enjoying this episode. We are seriously trying to grow this podcast so that the voice of what it really takes to grow a real estate business becomes kind of the norm versus the guru get rich quick b s that everyone is fed on a daily basis. With so many podcasts out there, it is hard for us to get discovered on our own. So a quick ask, please share this episode on your social media accounts. Be that a real story, whatever. And if you tag me at Mike underscore invest, then I will give you a follow and I will also send you a DM so that we can have a little chat about your business and any ways I could potentially help you grow. So again, please share it on your socials. Tag me at Mike underscore invests, that's with an s at the end, and I'll follow you and we can have a little DM and convo about your business. And maybe I can help you grow a little bit. Or you could just say what's up to you. That'd be awesome. But appreciate everyone, and thanks so much for helping us grow. So going back to your cost per deal and and your sales process, do you mind kind of going through like what exactly your sales pipeline and process looks like as a sole operator? So you said that you have Call Porter takes your leads. From there, like, it's what's your daily cadence?

Mike DeHaan: [18:54] How you balancing, like, the new leads versus following up with the older ones? How you're balancing that with going on appointments and time management, you know, to disposition. Like, that's a whole other process. What does your, like, full pipeline look like right now?

Dalyn Hazell: [19:08] Yeah. So leads come in either from direct mailing, cold call. I do SEO, and I do a little bit of referrals. But the lion's share of actual deals is direct mail. Cold calling, just use to kinda, like, fill the time when direct mail is up and down. But, essentially, it's the same way. You know, we I always shoot for an in person appointment, and that's really gone well for me. And I know a lot of people do this nowadays, but I go for the contract at the appointment. That's really helped my conversion rate. And me being the owner and not having to go through, like, a middleman or an acquisition manager, I can underwrite it before I get to the appointment, make the appointment, and hopefully get the deal on the spot.

Mike DeHaan: [19:48] Yeah. How quick are you usually pushing for that appointment? Are you doing it like first call? Are you building rapport and doing setting up a time like so like I say, you get a lead that came in on Monday. Are you trying to go to that appointment Monday, Tuesday? You push out to the of the week? Like, how how aggressive are you on that first in person?

Dalyn Hazell: [20:06] As soon as possible. But if somebody's not looking to sell for six months, then I'm not going to, like, waste my time to go there because a lot could change in six months. I really try to work with the people that are looking to sell in the next sixty days. And then I always wanna meet with the decision maker. Obviously, you don't want a meeting with, like, the sister, and she's not even on the deed. So it's all sales.

Mike DeHaan: [20:27] Totally. And then on the dispo and TC process, so how do you balance doing all of that with all your acquisitions? Like, are you selling it to the same couple of buyers every time on your wholesale stuff? Are you doing, like, walk throughs at your properties where you're trying to wholesale?

Dalyn Hazell: [20:44] So this is where and I hope you get the drift. I just try to keep everything as stupidly simple as possible. I have only wholesaled to, like, three or four different people. I probably left money on the table, but it also means I don't have to do, like, mass showings. I send one text, and I know they're gonna buy it. I sell to a couple turnkey providers and then a couple people that are, like, just hardcore flippers. So I don't have hundreds of people on my buyers list. I think I have, like, 50, but I end up just texting the same five people each time. And that's just kept it simple for me. I don't spend a whole lot of time on dispositions. I'll list my own stuff as a realtor. So I don't know. I just I just try to keep everything as smooth as possible. And it's probably costs me less money on the table. But then again, maybe not because I don't have to, like, I don't know, hassle with a bunch, like, hire a dispo manager.

Dylan Koch: [21:35] Yeah. The opportunity cost of of what you're doing.

Dalyn Hazell: [21:38] Sign up for investor lift and all this stuff. Know, I just keep it simple.

Dylan Koch: [21:42] Dylan, when you get a deal like that, and let's say one of your top people don't want it, would you then take it down yourself and wholesale it? Has that been any part of your strategy?

Dalyn Hazell: [21:51] Yeah. I've done a ton of wholesaling. I actually do more than that than wholesaling anymore, which with that, the biggest biggest thing that kinda changed for me is when I started getting lines of credit to take down properties. And this just comes with being in one market and just building relationships. So there was at one point, I called every bank in town, and I said, hey.

Dylan Koch: [22:14] All three of them?

Dalyn Hazell: [22:15] Yeah. Patch me into your commercial department. And I took them to lunch, told them what I'm trying to do. And, like, I was shocked at unsecured secured lines of credit that I would just get. And this made me no longer, like, a slave to a couple buyers. I could take it down and relist it if that's what the deal warranted.

Dylan Koch: [22:35] What's kinda like the price point that you're buying at?

Dalyn Hazell: [22:37] So my typical deal, yeah, I buy it for sub 100 and maybe put like 30 in it and sell it for like $1.80. But it's been all over the board. My first deal I bought for $6,000 and wholesale it for $36,000.

Mike DeHaan: [22:53] That's like less than they can't do anything $6,000 in my market.

Dylan Koch: [22:58] No, that's like a that's like a tiny roof. But my first deal was actually pretty good too, but that was almost because I was ignorant, and I was I underwrote it as like worst case scenario. So I wonder if you had a similar experience where I just kinda got lucky, and then ended up, you know, pocketed like $20, but.

Dalyn Hazell: [23:14] Yeah. And that kinda goes back to, like, when I knew that real estate investing was for me is I had I was still at my corporate job, and I got a call from this homeowner, and they wanted $6,000. I'm like, what the crap? Is this just an info lot or something? Then I looked on Google Maps. I'm like, no. It's a house. And ended up taking it down. I didn't have, like, DocuSign or anything. I made him, like, print out the contract and send it back to me. Had no clue what I was doing. Took it down. Immediately listed on the MLS for 30 and got an offer that day. So The rest is history. The rest is history.

Mike DeHaan: [23:50] Yeah. And so if you look at everything from, like, a higher level view as a solopreneur, what do you think has, like, been the most valuable, like, system that you've integrated that's been the most, like, pivotal to your success so far?

Dalyn Hazell: [24:03] The most valuable system, I'd say, is CallPorter just because they can take all those calls inbound while I'm out on appointments, you know, with family, whatever. And it's just so easy to plug and play. I try to look for those things that don't require a w two employee, but that have immense benefits to me, like time saving. So that's Culp Porter. That's a property manager. That's a GC. Like, I don't have to have them on salary, but they do so much good for my business. And they're incentivized to get the job done because they're paid on the results. And so I just try to do that as much as possible.

Mike DeHaan: [24:40] Yeah. It's so funny to me, though, with Call Porter because we've used them for years, and we always try to get people to use them. People will be so resistant. People will go and, like, hire, like, their mother-in-law to, like, work with them full time to answer the phone instead of having call porter. Because, like, there's always things like, well, how do I know that they're gonna do a good job? Or they'll have, like the call porter rep takes, like, one port intake call. Right? I'm like, well, I need to cancel. I'm gonna go find my own VA that's gonna answer the calls instead. I'm just like, why? Realistically, a bad first call is better than no first call at all. And, you know, everyone makes a mistake. You think this random VA from The Philippines is gonna be perfect on every single intake call? No. And you're gonna have to manage that person. Doesn't make any sense. I feel you though. I fully I that's been a great one for us too.

Dalyn Hazell: [25:26] Yeah. That has never been an issue. I've never had a seller say, man, that person on the phone was terrible. I mean, it's almost like sellers expect that first call to be bad because you're just talking to a secretary or you're just talking to yeah. And you go to any other business, you're not expecting to get the homeowner on the first call. So people need to not believe that anymore.

Mike DeHaan: [25:47] Yeah. The only issues we would have with them in the past, you know, not just a full show for Call Porter, but we do use them a lot. They're American based call reps. And, you know, my business in is in Spokane, Washington, and we were early. And so what they would do for a long time is they would like pretend to be local. And they would say things like, oh, hello, this is, you know, Becky from Spokane, you know, and they would like say the name of the town wrong. And then immediately, that's a red flag, and that would turn sellers off. And so we ultimately had to train, like, stop pretend like you're local and just say that you're with, like, a call center and that the business is gonna call you back later. And that solved all of our issues, like, right away. You know, I think they were learning that themselves as they were building out their business.

Dalyn Hazell: [26:28] The worst part for me is when Call Porter kept mispronouncing my name. Mhmm. And it's like, is it Dalen or Dalen? And I'm like, I just had to keep telling him, it's Dalen, because if you don't even know my name, then how sketchy does that seem to a seller?

Mike DeHaan: [26:41] Yeah. Totally.

Dylan Koch: [26:42] They need like the pronunciation Yeah. Spelling, like d a y. Yeah. Right. You know, l o I n.

Mike DeHaan: [26:47] Awesome. Cool, man. Well, good stuff. Any other question you wanna ask, Daylan, before we dive into our end of show?

Dylan Koch: [26:53] No. I think we've covered a lot, and I think it's been good episode.

Mike DeHaan: [26:56] Awesome. So cool. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate you hopping on and sharing all these little nuggets, and congrats on success you've had so far. It's always cool to see the, I would say, like, the the one person operations and how they kinda build it out because it's like a it's a such a different beast, you know, and I feel like it's an underappreciated part of entrepreneurship that a lot of people try to skip, and you just can't do that. So cool. So we have the same three questions that we ask every single person that comes on the show. And the first one, which is always the crowd favorite, is what is your craziest real estate investing story?

Dalyn Hazell: [27:29] So I thought about this question, and a lot of your guests, like, mention horror stories or bad stories. I actually wanna mention a good one because I had a buddy that was wholesaling a package of 13 houses, and he didn't have a buyer. And I knew a turnkey shop in town was looking for a portfolio. So and I had already wholesaled them a ton of houses at this point, so we were we were on good terms. So I made one phone call, connected the wholesaler with the buyer, and I got paid out a 35 k, like, finder's fee.

Mike DeHaan: [28:02] Nice. For like like five minutes of work, probably.

Dalyn Hazell: [28:05] One phone call, yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [28:06] Yeah. That's great. Yeah. That's

Dylan Koch: [28:07] That all goes back because you built that relationship however long ago. Right? Yeah. So that's important to that.

Mike DeHaan: [28:13] Very cool.

Dylan Koch: [28:13] That is awesome. What's that

Mike DeHaan: [28:14] per hour? Was 35,000

Dylan Koch: [28:16] times 12?

Mike DeHaan: [28:18] A lot. Like $500, almost not quite, like 400 and what, $25,000.

Dalyn Hazell: [28:24] It's like mosey money right there.

Mike DeHaan: [28:25] Totally. Yeah. Right? Very, cool. Alright. Second question. If you could go back to the very beginning, what's the one thing that you would do differently?

Dalyn Hazell: [28:33] Differently? I mean, I would talk to more people and share what I'm doing, but specifically, would talk to more banks. I was trying to look for answers that you guys hadn't heard before. Banks really have been my best friend in real estate, being able to give me tons of like, hundreds of thousand dollars in line of credit that I didn't even think I deserved and just be unwilling to be flexible. Hey. Can I close this property next week? And they're like, sure. You know, just having those relationships have been tantamount to my success. So talking to more banks really is what I would do differently.

Dylan Koch: [29:06] On top of that, this has just popped in my head. When's the last time you bought a rental?

Dalyn Hazell: [29:10] A rental I'm under contract on one, but the last one was, like, February. I mean, it's it's been a while.

Dylan Koch: [29:17] I'm just curious what kind of rate in terms you're seeing right now from maybe one of your local lenders?

Dalyn Hazell: [29:24] Local lenders, right now, it's prime rate. So eight and a half, eight and a quarter, 8 and a half, which is kind of painful, but they have, like, little to no fees. So they have a very low there it's not like a like a KIAV or

Dylan Koch: [29:37] a Yeah.

Dalyn Hazell: [29:37] One of those where they charge you thousands in fees.

Dylan Koch: [29:40] Is that so, like, a 75% LTV? Is it an arm? Is it fixed?

Dalyn Hazell: [29:44] Well, usually I can negotiate that. So I've been fixing them for one year just because I think rates will go down, hopefully. I know there's another product where they they let you track with prime, or you could just go like three years, five years.

Dylan Koch: [29:58] Okay. Yeah. Just curious.

Mike DeHaan: [30:00] The funny thing is is, like, what you guys are talking about there's probably people that are listening that don't even know what that means. But, like, back when I started in in real estate 2008, 2019, banks were what you you know, that's like what you did to get money is you went to banks, you went to lenders, you know, you got lines of credit, and you figure that out. But for some reason, over the past couple years, I don't know if it's like the pace Morby thing or what, but everyone started getting obsessed with this. Like, I need to raise money from people or I need to use OPM or whatever. And, like, it's amazing to me how many, I would say, like, newbie idiots that I've met that refuse to go to a bank because they don't wanna have debt on their personal name. That's how this business has worked for, like, a hundred years.

Dylan Koch: [30:40] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [30:40] And now because there's affluent baby boomers, you know, that have HELOCs, you think you should just go and con them into giving you money because you don't wanna take personal responsibility for your project. It doesn't make any sense.

Dylan Koch: [30:51] And I bet Dalen's lines of credits are better than twelve and two.

Mike DeHaan: [30:54] Totally. Right?

Dylan Koch: [30:56] So, you know, with your raising money, is there really that much savings?

Dalyn Hazell: [30:59] I mean, when you're getting zero points and 8% interest, I mean, that's almost like going to a Oh, dude. That's perfect. A boomer. I mean, and that's that's a line of credit. So I haven't used hard money in years because I haven't needed to. Mhmm. You know, I'm I got sick of paying three points a long time ago.

Dylan Koch: [31:17] Yeah. For people who who flip, you'll understand the hidden costs of some of this stuff at the back end of a deal. Like it is 15 to $20,000 a lot of times just on interest and fees.

Mike DeHaan: [31:26] Yeah. One understand too, if you're new, and you have a lender that says they're gonna fund something 100% or, you know, they're gonna, like, give you this, like, lower rates and, like, it's a loan that sounds, like, way better than all the competition. There's always gonna be a catch 22 on that. So I I think that I've seen really, really common right now is you'll have these hard money lenders that will do 0% down hard money loans at, like, you know, 9% or 8%. That sounds great to a newbie. Like, hell, yeah. I don't have come out with this money. I don't have come out with a down payment. But then you go and you look at the HUD, they're charging, like, five or six points.

Dylan Koch: [31:57] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [31:57] And the thing is is like, sure, that's less than a down payment, but that's literally just fees. If you put a down payment, you get that money back when you refinance or you sell the property. If it's fees, that just goes away forever. And sure, you're only putting 5% or 6% down instead of the 10 plus points that they want, but now it's gone.

Dylan Koch: [32:14] Yeah. It's a sunk cost at that point.

Mike DeHaan: [32:16] The sunk cost. Yeah. And people ignore that for some reason. You know? And then same with, like, we our our local bank that we work with daily is the same. We can go and like, literally now if we're gonna get a long term loan, we just text them. They do a drive by appraisal. You know, we softly usually have a down payment or stake in the game. We don't get a 100% financing, which I think you do sometimes. But we'll have like a doc fee, which is like $900, no points. And then our interest is usually, you know, prime in a bit, whatever it is. So it's pretty dang good, like all intents and purposes. So yeah. Very awesome. Great great advice.

Dylan Koch: [32:48] Well, think this has been a a great conversation. Dalen, where can people find you, follow you, and reach out?

Dalyn Hazell: [32:53] So just to add to more of my going against the grain, I'm on LinkedIn.

Dylan Koch: [32:59] What? Alright. Well, no one's gonna find you. Right?

Dalyn Hazell: [33:02] No. Yeah. But I am pretty active on LinkedIn and Instagram. So it's just my full name, dalyn hazel, d a l y n h a z e l l. And I'm also in the scale community.

Mike DeHaan: [33:14] Cool. Awesome. So if you are a random white guy in an ill fitting, like button up shirt and you want to go wish Dalen happy birthday, go on LinkedIn. Or you have your your your bot or VA or whoever does your LinkedIn for you go get go wish me congratulations on his job anniversary that he hasn't updated in six years.

Dalyn Hazell: [33:37] So it's coming back, man.

Mike DeHaan: [33:39] Gary's he said it's coming back. I sometimes I think he says stuff like that, because he's trying to like force his own, like, opportunity, right? Like, like, when he was super into NFT is a while back, because he was selling NFT is mean, I don't know. He's a sales guy. But anyways, Dylan, dude, thanks much for coming on the show. Really appreciate the time, man. And you guys definitely go and reach out to tailing on LinkedIn. And tell him that you enjoyed the show today. Remember, people do come on these shows because they want to engage with you. They want to share knowledge. And if you can't tell, Dylan's very nice guy and is more than happy to help any of you guys out. Also, please share the show with anyone that's trying to grow or scale a real estate investing business. I'm sure there were some great tidbits for your friends of all different real estate levels that were on the show today. So appreciate you guys listening, and we'll talk to you guys next week.

Dalyn Hazell: [34:23] See you.

Dylan Koch: [34:23] See you.