Retired at 35 As A Virtual Landlord with Kurt Buchert

Dan Austin: [0:00] So you're doing that virtually from Florida now?

Kurt Buchert: [0:02] Yeah, all the world stuff is from Florida. I live in the Panhandle. So I'm only four and a half hours away. So I can drive there. I can leave in the morning and be there at noon if I need to be. And then all the stuff here in Florida is very close to my house within within a mile or so some short term rentals here and some more lots here that I'm going build some short term rentals. We have 50 something units in New Orleans, and they're they're all in really nice duplexes average rents, you know, typically 1,300 to $2,000 a month. So they're, they're nicer places, you know, we're not doing Section A, we're not doing low income stuff. So, you know, life's too short, in my opinion, to do stuff like that.

Speaker 3: [0:42] Welcome to the collecting keys real estate investing podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [1:06] On this episode of the collecting keys podcast, we have Kurt Booker, and he is a fellow GoBundance member with Dan and myself. And he is the sort of I don't I don't know if he's like the epitome of a real estate investor. If you look at what he's done and what he sort of built out, he is like, if BiggerPockets was trying to craft someone, he's kind of done the thing that they wanted people to do initially.

Dan Austin: [1:28] I'll caveat that. So if they're trying to craft somebody that actually told the real life stories and told the real reality of things, this would be it. Yeah. I mean, he's done everything in this and he, he said, you know, from a, a residential standpoint, right? He's in flipping, he's done wholesaling, wholetailing kind of stuff. He's done spec builds, new builds. He's long term and short term. And now he is kind of focusing on a short term portfolio in Florida where he's at, but a lot of 50 plus units, all duplexes are in New Orleans. So it's really cool to hear him and he self manages does everything himself. So that part is to me is really incredible. He's also retired at 35. Now 45 for the last ten years, he retired himself. And I love at the end when he starts telling us some stories about New Orleans. I mean, I can imagine the kind of things you run into as an investor in New Orleans, especially because he owned properties back when Katrina happened.

Mike DeHaan: [2:19] Yeah. I know. He started way back when it was really weird down there. And even through, like, all the aftermath Katrina, he was doing work down there and having properties down there. Pretty cool. So, yeah, I've got some great stories. And, I mean, like I said, retired at 35. That was, know, you that's about ten years ago from now, 2012. That's way before, like, the retire early movement was cool. He just decided that was what he wanted to do, and that's what he did. So Yep. Tons of expiring stuff. So definitely go ahead and check that out, guys, and let us know what you think about this interview here. Anyway, guys, go ahead and subscribe to this podcast if you're listening to podcast and leave us a five star review. And also share this with anyone who might find this interesting. Seriously, the easiest way for us to go this podcast is for you to share it with people. You have no idea how much that helps us. Aside from that, you can go and follow us on Instagram. I'm at Mike underscore invest. Dan is at investor man Dan, and you can check out our website at collectingkeyspodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, guys. Enjoy the show. What's going on, guys? On this episode of the Collecting Keys Podcast, we have Kurt Bookert, who is the self proclaimed accumulator of crock pot wealth, but he is not a 75 year old man who bought a bunch of land by the freeway and then it happened to get sold out, which I feel like is well, you know, that that's like what they typically say about real estate is, you know, if you wanna make a million dollars, buy something fifty years ago. But, you know, you figured out how to do it and were able to retire by the time that you were 35, and you've been a career long real estate investor.

Mike DeHaan: [3:43] Right? So I think kind of where you're at is where all younger people and millennials kinda wanna be and where a lot of older people wish they had been. So, Kurt, welcome to the podcast. We'd love to hear your backstory and how you were able to do so much in, you know, relatively early part of your life.

Kurt Buchert: [4:00] Yeah. Thanks, guys. Happy to be here.

Dan Austin: [4:01] Before you start, how old were you? So twenty years. So did you start investing in real estate when you were 20? And I'll let you dive into your story, but that's kind of a

Kurt Buchert: [4:09] No. So So I'm 45. My I bought my first property. I was either 25 or 26. So

Mike DeHaan: [4:18] Oh, okay. Okay. So my twenties. Okay. About twenty years. So, yeah, 2002. So that's even, you know, before things got weird too because I feel like it's really hard to find real estate investors these days, this is us included, that have been around since before the crash. I think most people

Kurt Buchert: [4:33] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [4:34] After the 2008 crash, they either lost their stomach for it, moved on to something else, or they kinda, like, lost everything and then Never came back. Regot back into it in, 2015. Right? Mhmm. So but yeah. So I guess what's your kind of background? You started investing back then. I guess what's your strategy always sort of been and, you know, have you built that into a business?

Kurt Buchert: [4:52] Yeah. So a little bit of background. I grew up in New Orleans. I went to LSU, which is in Baton Rouge. That's about an hour and a half from New Orleans. Studied finance, minored in real estate and commercial banking. And out of college, I became a financial advisor. And then I also eventually became a CFP with certified financial planner. I was in the financial services business for about seven years. Towards the middle and end of that, I started buying properties, started buying duplexes. When Hurricane Katrina hit 2005, I own two duplexes. And my company had relocated me from New Orleans to Dallas. So I lived in Dallas for a year, kind of felt guilty about leaving New Orleans. And I also got an entrepreneur bug in me and I really wanted to move back and start a business. And I didn't know what to do. So I figured there'd be a lot of money made in construction, because of the rebuilding boom that was about to happen. So I ended up starting a spray foam insulation business. So I moved back to New Orleans, I did that it almost failed in the first ninety days, We were able to turn it around and made some good money doing that we insulated about 3,000 homes in New Orleans over the course of like six or seven years. Yeah, all the profits that I was taking from that business, I was buying real estate. So New Orleans is a big duplex town.

Kurt Buchert: [6:17] I think it has highest per capita amount of duplexes in the country of any city in the country.

Mike DeHaan: [6:22] Really?

Kurt Buchert: [6:23] New Orleans, we call them doubles. So I was buying duplexes as I had the spray foam business. And then about five or six years in, started getting really stressed out with that business. Was just balls to the wall for a long period of time. So one day I just decided I'm like, I'm totally done with this. I was driving around and my heart started beating like crazy and thought I was having a heart attack. I was like, I am done with this business. I'm like, I need to do something easier. So I ended up selling that business, kind of gave it away, didn't really sell it for too much money. And then I got married right after that. And my wife and I took a year off. So I said, I'm done. I basically retired, did an early retirement. And we took a year off. We traveled around the world. I was still managing my properties from different countries around the world. And then came back, we started having kids, and just started being a real estate investor ever since then. So age 35 is when I really stopped you know, running a business and having any type of w two job. And I just been a real estate investor ever since. So I decide how much I work, you know, I live by the beach now in Florida, moved here a couple years ago.

Mike DeHaan: [7:37] Nice.

Kurt Buchert: [7:38] And some days I don't work at all. Some days I work a lot depending on the weather, depending on the beach, and depending on what my kids are up to.

Dan Austin: [7:45] Sweet. That is awesome.

Kurt Buchert: [7:46] Just trying to live the life now.

Mike DeHaan: [7:48] When you sold that business and traveled, how old were you at that point?

Kurt Buchert: [7:51] So I sold it in 2011. So that was I was, what, 34?

Mike DeHaan: [7:57] Four. Okay. Nice. So so that was right before, I guess, you crossed that financially free threshold. So you're pretty much there when you were Yeah. Traveling.

Kurt Buchert: [8:04] Low expenses back then. So I didn't have any kids. I wasn't married yet. So my expenses were really low. So I was financially free. Yeah. In my in my early thirties.

Mike DeHaan: [8:14] Do you remember what your portfolio looked like at that point?

Kurt Buchert: [8:16] Yeah. At that point, I think I had about think I I had 18 units. So it was like nine doubles. And it was low leverage. So a couple of them are paid off. So I was making a lot of positive cash flow. And you know, I didn't need to work anymore.

Dan Austin: [8:34] Yeah, that's awesome.

Kurt Buchert: [8:35] Then I got married and I started having kids, my expenses rose a lot.

Mike DeHaan: [8:38] Oh, yeah.

Dan Austin: [8:39] Oh, yeah, definitely. That's fascinating. I want to go step back a little bit and talk more about the entrepreneurship for a second because it's interesting that spray foam became your thing. So I wanna know how how you picked that one because I think I think that's an interesting story for those that just like Mike and I, we always, you know, spitball about businesses and stuff like that. Like, so how did you select spray foam? And then fast forward to what was so stressful about it that you needed to sell it and get out of it?

Kurt Buchert: [9:04] At one point, I think it was 2,004 ish, I did a full gut renovation on a triplex in New Orleans. And my contractor at the time was like, we were about to insulate it. And I was like, Well, what should we do for insulation? He's like, Well, have you ever tried spray foam? And I was like, No, never heard of it. He showed me what it was and told me kind of the ins and outs of it. I was like, Well, that sounds awesome. So we got it done. And I just thought it was the coolest thing. It works so well. It was like the best insulation ever. The tenant's utility bills were super low. We got to buy like a smaller air conditioning unit for the house. And so I kind of had that in the back of my head when I was thinking about businesses to start after Katrina. And that's how it popped in. And I use it to this day. I mean, every single project I do, I spray foam every single house that I built for myself or for my tenants. And, you know, the tenants love it.

Dan Austin: [9:57] Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. I mean, that's just it's just such a novelty in the in the sense of that wasn't anything complex. It doesn't sound like you you liked the product. And you're like, I need something to sell at this point in time, because you knew there's a construction boom, which also is incredible that you survived through Katrina, through crash of 'eight and all these things. That's pretty incredible too as a side note. Yeah, and then so what about it? Was it just the crazy busyness of it? What was were their margins too thin for you? What was the problem with it when you wanted to sell? What pushed you to that?

Kurt Buchert: [10:27] So the problem with just like a lot of businesses, you have employees, you have crews, guys that do construction work aren't, sometimes they're pretty shady and so you gotta watch them like a hawk. So you have to deal with them. Sometimes they try to cut corners, get off the job early and you gotta check on everything. And then also just having all the, a lot of customers, dealing with customers. I liked it overall, just about five or six years in and I was just kind of mentally drained, I was probably doing too much myself. I was doing the bookkeeping, I was doing a lot of the estimates myself, had to go check on the jobs myself, I probably could have hired somebody to run it or it but it was hard for me to relinquish control. So I was like, I just got to kind of get rid of this business and be free of it. Knew I wanted to be a real estate investor full time in the future. So by the time I figured I was financially free, I was just like, I'm done. And I was getting married, we wanted to take a year off. Was like, this is the perfect time. Let's do it now. So we cut I cut the rip cord.

Mike DeHaan: [11:27] Awesome. I love it. That makes sense. That boring business sort of MO is coming back, becoming more and more popular. I think there was this period of time that should be like the early two thousands, they're like, even like the last few years, Everyone who wanted to get into business, they're like, I need, like, the next greatest thing. Yeah. But you're proving, you know, you can make good money just doing spray foam. Right? Like, you know, we've talked about, like, all sorts of random ideas. Like, if you had a what if you had a professional, like, door hanging business? Mhmm. That was one that got thrown around Instagram. Instagram. Right? Or if you're

Kurt Buchert: [11:55] Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [11:56] Installing decks.

Kurt Buchert: [11:57] Yeah. There's tons of money, blue collar A lot of blue collar businesses, they're good at doing what they do, but they don't know how to run a business. My MO was bringing a white collar business model to a blue collar business, and it worked very well. Most of my competition, they were very unorganized, were a mess, they just couldn't get things done. And most of the time we were able to charge a little bit of a premium and a price just because we got the job done well and we were timely. We showed up when we said we were going to show up, we contacted the customers, we took credit cards. So we were just easy to deal with compared to our competitors. And there's a lot of opportunity out there still in air conditioning business, plumbing, like electrical. There's all types of opportunity out there if you will. A lot of Americans are kind of, especially younger Americans are kind of a snooty thing that they look down blue collar businesses, but there's a lot of money in those businesses. And those services, you'll always need those services.

Mike DeHaan: [12:59] Yep. Yeah. I it's I mean, I remember being in high school and, you know, they're trying to get everyone to go to college, like 2008, 2009. And there was one kid that was gonna go and be a plumber. And I remember people made fun of him. That dude is not gonna be the best. All day, man. He's $50 an hour. Yeah. Probably. Yeah.

Kurt Buchert: [13:21] Yeah. It opened my eyes. When I was a financial adviser, had a client that owned he was man, he was like 25 years old. And he owned a plumbing company. And he was just killing it. Yeah. And I had no idea that that was I just I just assumed plumbers made like 20 or $30,000 a year, I had no idea how much money you could make as a plumber when you own the business. And that really opened my eyes to something.

Mike DeHaan: [13:49] Yep. That's cool. That's awesome. That's very cool. So awesome. So I guess you you came back from your trip, You, you know, pretty much retired at that point, and you became a professional investor as as you said it. So I guess what has that looked like for you to be a professional investor at that point? Like, I guess, in the last ten years, are you, like, flipping houses? Are you burning houses, you know, adding value? Are you doing new builds? There's so many different ways that, you know, people do that. So what's what's your MO?

Kurt Buchert: [14:18] Yeah. So like a lot of people, I've tried a bunch of different things. You know, we did flips. We did wholesaling, where we bought from wholesalers and then put it on the MLS and made a profit off of that. I've done spec houses. I've done short term rentals. I've done burs with duplexes, buy and hold and just keep those as rental. And I've kind of come to the conclusion, my two main things, which I love doing and I've been concentrating on. I like Airbnb and I like buy and hold long term rentals with mostly duplexes. Try to stay away from single family housing. You know, it could work for some people, it's just not my cup of tea. Those are the two things I do now. So long term buy and hold duplexes, and then short term rental. A lot of the duplexes that we've done, we've actually built. So we build them, you know, build them very nice, well made, well constructed, you know, spray foam. So their utility bills are low. And we're able to charge a premium in the in the rental market because they look so good and

Mike DeHaan: [15:21] awesome. Do you have a crew that works for you to do that? Or you just like all subbing out everyone to do this?

Kurt Buchert: [15:27] One of my life goals is never have an employee again. So now it's all it's all subbed out stuff. So you know, we've got some guys that we've used for a long period of time. So whenever we have a project going, we will we will typically use them got a bunch of Brazilian guys in New Orleans that I've used for years, great guys, and they do good work. And they, they kind of know how, you know, how picky I am about things. They, they've learned their lesson so many times with me.

Dan Austin: [15:54] And so you're doing that virtually from Florida.

Kurt Buchert: [15:56] All the world stuff is from Florida. I live in the Panhandle. So I'm only four and a half hours away. So I can drive there. I can leave in the morning and be there at noon if I need to be. And then all the stuff here in Florida is very close to my house within a mile or so. Some short term rentals here, I own some more lots here that I'm gonna build some short term rentals. I'm very bullish on this part of Florida. I'm bullish on Florida in general, but especially this part, it's just an amazing place to live. You know, our beaches are amazing. People are super nice. There's zero crime. It's a great place to raise a family. And I just think it's going to keep growing.

Mike DeHaan: [16:30] Yeah, that part of Florida is great. I've been to Destin a few times.

Kurt Buchert: [16:33] Yeah. Yeah, we're about 15 miles East of Destin.

Mike DeHaan: [16:35] Oh, Oh, East of Destin. Okay, interesting. What's the town?

Kurt Buchert: [16:40] It's called Santa Rosa Beach. It's between you ever heard of the little community called Seaside or Rosemary It's around those. So it's like, it's it's equidistant between Destin and Panama City.

Mike DeHaan: [16:52] Yeah. Okay. Beautiful. Yeah. It's a wonderful area down there. I love it. Although last time Dan and I went down there for a conference last November, dude, and it was freaking cold. I came in shorts. The tank top. And I was like, dude, this is cold. It was, like, windy and 50 degrees. Yeah. It was horrible.

Kurt Buchert: [17:05] Yeah. People think just because it's Florida that it's gonna, you know, we're gonna have warm water in the in the wintertime. But like, you're not going in the water in January and February here, the water will be freezing. And, you know, if we get a cold front through the weather will be can be cold too. I mean, typically, in January, the average high is probably 58. So it's not it doesn't really get that cold, but it can get really cold.

Mike DeHaan: [17:30] Yeah, I had to go into Pensacola and buy a jacket because I brought like clothes like I was going to Hawaii because I had no idea how I was doing.

Kurt Buchert: [17:37] Yeah. I mean, my wife put on the heat this morning. And, you know, I think it was like 58 degrees this morning, which is which is cold

Mike DeHaan: [17:45] for here.

Kurt Buchert: [17:46] And she had the heat on. It was up to me. I would never turn it.

Mike DeHaan: [17:49] Yeah. Yeah. Right. That that's funny. So that's cool. So you're doing all that virtually over in New Orleans. So I guess what does that system look like for you? I mean, obviously, you're doing new builds. I know this is something that Dan has a really big interest in, especially because we've gotten a lot of lot stuff recently here in Spokane. Uh-huh. And the new build process I mean, a, one problem is we're in Washington state where the wages are just outrageous. Real high. You pay Right. I mean, you pay $18.50 for a burger flipper right now. Wow. But that whole process of doing it with just subs and, like, systematizing that, like, do you kinda have, like, a key operator that keeps all your people on track, or do are you actually the ones cracking the way up on all these guys?

Kurt Buchert: [18:29] Yeah. Well, I own some properties with a buddy of mine. So we we, you know, we kind of team up and the guy like I said, the guys we've used before, they know how we operate and they know they're not gonna be able to cut corners with us. So we've kind of got that down. We use a lot of video pictures with the iPhone and stuff. And for the rentals, I'd love to say I have all these fancy systems, but what I've recently been doing is I just put ads on Zillow. And then typically I don't show the apartment until they're ready to sign the lease and give the deposit. So what I do is I get the existing tenant to do a walk around video of the unit with their iPhone, just ask them to walk through the unit, do a video walk through with their iPhone. They upload that to my Dropbox, and then I put that on YouTube. And then I just send the YouTube link to prospective tenants. So the tenants have, you know, I tell them to drive by the property, so they can look at the neighborhood, look at the outside, you know, I give them the video walkthrough to look at. And a lot of them asked to see the apartment. I'm like, I'm just honest with them, Hey, I'm not going to show it to you until you see the video walkthrough drive by. And then you tell me you're ready to sign the lease. I go, I'm not going to accept money from you until you walk through it.

Kurt Buchert: [19:49] So I'm not trying to scam you. But until you tell me you're ready to sign a lease and pay the deposit, I'm not getting you in that unit. And people are cool with it. I think it's from COVID. People are just kind of used to that. And I don't have any problems with it. So originally, I was going to maybe hire a property manager when I moved here. But I don't trust anybody with my properties. Like I said, I don't like to give up that control. And I just don't want to pay 10% to somebody that's going to do a bad job. So it's worked out well.

Mike DeHaan: [20:16] I didn't realize you self manage. That's awesome. I mean, we don't need we can't even manage that locally here. And I think I mean, I think part of it trust me if I'm wrong, but there's probably a bit of a rental culture down there. Like, a lot of people are lifelong renters in Southern States or so I've heard.

Kurt Buchert: [20:31] Yeah. There is. And we have pretty nice units. I mean, we have 50 something units in New Orleans, and they're they're all in really nice duplexes average rents, you know, typically 1,300 to $2,000 a month.

Dan Austin: [20:45] Pretty good.

Kurt Buchert: [20:46] So they're, they're nicer places, you know, we're not doing Section A, we're not doing low income stuff, which we've done before. And we've just had a really bad experience. You know, life's too short, in my opinion, to do stuff like that. So the people we deal with are usually white collar people, educated, they're used to the technology stuff, they don't mind it.

Mike DeHaan: [21:05] Gotcha. Yeah, I think that's a cultural difference because here, Eastern Washington, you don't find a lot of lifelong renters unless they have problems, if I'm being honest.

Dan Austin: [21:15] Yeah. Unless they come with problems. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [21:16] Yeah. You know, like or, like, they've gotten divorced and they have child payments, but they're, like, you know, a good person besides that. Like, that's fine. But we got, like, a lot of the tenants that we get up here are low income, you know, criminals. Like, what other weird stuff do we have, Dan? Like, most of the tenants that we have that are good, they're super temporary because they're looking to get into a house as quickly as possible. You know, whether they're younger people or they're white collar and they just moved here or whatever. It's

Dan Austin: [21:43] And it doesn't mean, like, our our tenants are necessarily bad, but it's just a little bit harder to manage sometimes. But the difference is it sounds like, Kurt, as well as you're pretty niched down. Like you said, I'm doing duplexes. You're probably especially if they're the new builds, you've got the same floor, the same footprint. Yep. I really liked your your strategy here because, like, this weekend, even I've got quite a few different showings I gotta do that I'm trying to figure out how to get out of so I don't have to do them. And I definitely obviously do the Zillow, the photos and all that sort of stuff and vet them as best as possible within our legal rights. But the video walkthrough is key. I think that's an important one so that you're not wasting your time walking through three or four people.

Kurt Buchert: [22:20] Yeah. And then, I mean, eventually I'm probably gonna do like a professional video walkthrough with a professional photographer and all that stuff. But typically when you're doing that, it's not even furnished. So it's sometimes better just to say, Hey, this is what it looks like right now. Like, this is what it looks like with my tenant's furniture and all this kind of stuff. It just eliminates all the tire kickers. I mean, you get so many tire kickers. It's crazy how many people will email me from Zillow and I'll respond to them and they just don't respond. Like, Eric, like, I'm like, why did you even send me an email? Like, you're just not gonna respond. It's there's so many tire kickers out there and it's this way gets rid of all the tire kickers.

Mike DeHaan: [22:57] Yeah. That that issue alone was big enough for us to wanna find a property manager because like we would post a property on Facebook and we would literally have 50 people message about it within, like We

Dan Austin: [23:07] get hundreds hundreds of inquiries.

Mike DeHaan: [23:08] In the first day. It was ridiculous.

Kurt Buchert: [23:11] And I get it.

Mike DeHaan: [23:11] You know? And, like, exactly, all tire kickers, like, they're not even remotely qualified for the unit. Like, you would like, we when I remember when I used to do it, would have a copy and paste of, like, here's the basic qualifications. If you don't meet any of these, then don't bother applying more. And I would just send those to everyone, and I would have it go from, like, 100 to, like, 7. From seven, you would have one that would actually show up. Right. Yep. Exactly. But, yeah, it was always challenging. But no. Nice. That's awesome. So you've built you know, grew your portfolio, you're doing the new builds. Pretty much everything that you've done held for the most part. Like, I guess now, are you still actively doing any flips or any transactional sort of stuff? Are you just trying to build this empire?

Kurt Buchert: [23:53] So right now, we're not really investing much in New Orleans right now unless we just let's just saw see a steal. Not too bullish on the city right now. It's run like a banana republic down there and the crime's out of control. It's the murder capital of the country right now. But it's still a great rental market. Mean, you'd be surprised how much money you can get for rentals. And I mean, it's sad because it really is a great city and what it could the potential because it's just such a cultural town. You know, it's got an awesome history. It's got you know, it's so much fun for you to go visit. But the quality of life to live there, like if you're married with kids, it's just not a great quality of life with married with kids. When you're young and single, yeah, quality of life's great. And you're partying all the time and stuff. And I did that, I'm kind of over it. That was one of the reasons we moved. And so this really stuff I'm concentrating on now is building my Airbnb portfolio here in Florida. I have one in Colorado as well, but I really want to concentrate here at the beach. I really liked the business. It's the guests you have, they're great people, they're always happy, having fun. And I think I'm gonna see a lot of capital appreciation, well as good cash flow. I was lucky, I'd love to say I predicted it, but I was lucky that I bought most of the stuff that I have here before COVID.

Kurt Buchert: [25:15] So there was a huge run up after COVID. So all my stuff here is appreciated like Oh,

Mike DeHaan: [25:20] I like that.

Dan Austin: [25:20] So you talk about managing your personal or your long term rentals. So do you self manage the short terms as well? And how do you balance that if so?

Kurt Buchert: [25:30] Yeah, absolutely. Same thing. I mean, I don't I don't trust anybody else to manage my property. So yes, I I'm actually probably two hands on with my short term rentals here. There's, I have one tiny house, which is seven fifty square feet. It's it's actually the best investment I've ever made. And I actually clean it myself.

Mike DeHaan: [25:48] No way. Really? No. Come on, man. Do not even expensive thing to hire out like.

Kurt Buchert: [25:54] No, it's it makes zero sense. But like I said, I'm retired. I like to get my hands dirty sometimes, but it's a block away. It takes me ninety minutes. I make $215 I check on the house, I check all the supplies, and kind of gets me out of the house, you know, my kids are driving me crazy or something. And it gives me a couple hours, I just put on my headphones and listen to podcasts or listen to books or something.

Dan Austin: [26:20] That's awesome. I'm just imagining you with like a little duster and like a little apron. That's great.

Kurt Buchert: [26:28] I mean, my average, like rental over there is typically just like a three night stay.

Mike DeHaan: [26:34] Nice.

Kurt Buchert: [26:34] So it's a I'm probably making like over $20 a year just from the cleaning. Yeah. Right.

Dan Austin: [26:42] Honestly, that's awesome. Do that on it. That's that's really cool. Yeah, if you like doing it, nobody's telling you

Mike DeHaan: [26:47] you shouldn't do it, you know? Yeah.

Kurt Buchert: [26:49] And I don't like I said, I don't mind doing I mean, I'm not going to do it eventually. But it's something it's something I do right now. But so yeah, I'm very hands on, you know, mother of another short term rental two doors over, we've got a couple more. So they, you know, I like I like dealing with it, I'll go fix something if something comes up, you know, I'm not like a plumber, electrician or air conditioner guy, I'm not that hands on. But those things I sub out. But I don't trust the property manager. See like the house across the street from me, the guy rents it. Their property manager sucks. And I know they're charging them a ton of money. I'm like, No, not doing that. I'm keeping that money in house. Some of these people charge 20 to 30%. And I think they under rent the place. I don't think they even charge the proper amount. Have a friend who's like, Man, I'm all booked up for the next three months. I'm like, That's bad. That means under rented your place. He's like, Oh, I never thought of it like that. I'm like, Yeah, let me see your rates. And his rates were like 40 percent lower than what So it could have it's like anything in life, nobody's gonna watch your stuff like you are.

Kurt Buchert: [27:56] Nobody's gonna take care of your kids like you are. Nobody's gonna take care of your property like

Dan Austin: [27:59] you Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [28:00] It is so true. True. Awesome. So, I mean, you're you're doing it all. Right? Like, I love it. Like and those are things that I'm sitting here thinking, Dana, we gotta take some notes from you. Definitely trust people with a lot of shit. But I guess we do say with our our active business does take a lot of time. And, realistically, our our rental income is dwarfed by what we do with our wholesaling. But

Dan Austin: [28:21] But we also aren't happy with anybody we ever pay to do things. We're like, goddamn it. We're We're paying them to do that.

Mike DeHaan: [28:26] I know. And it always sucks every time.

Kurt Buchert: [28:29] It is crazy. You got to find you got to find good people and you got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find the good people.

Dan Austin: [28:35] Then when you

Kurt Buchert: [28:36] find and when in construction, when you find a good person, he might only be a good person for two years.

Mike DeHaan: [28:41] I know.

Kurt Buchert: [28:41] And then he might feel like, I can either I can charge double or I can, you know, cut a few corners now.

Dan Austin: [28:50] Or I can have a drinking problem now.

Kurt Buchert: [28:52] Yeah. Just because they're good now doesn't mean they're gonna be good a year year or two from now. You know?

Mike DeHaan: [28:58] Why is that so true? Yeah. Like, when I I first started flipping houses by myself before I partnered up with Dan, and I had this guy, it was him and his son, that I used for several projects, and they were great. Like, him and his son would show up. They did good craftsmanship. They were affordable. I mean, they were, like, a little bit expensive, but they weren't, like, outrageous. And then Dan and I bought our first house together, and we plugged him into it thinking it was gonna be the same. Charged the same amount of rate that we're expecting, but all of a sudden, we have his, like, you know, like, his employees that are fresh out of jail, that are there, like, smoking ciggies in the house. Like, they're not doing anything, but he's still charging us the rate for him and his son. And we're like, come on, bro.

Kurt Buchert: [29:35] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [29:35] You know? And there's just so much bullshit going on. I'm like, you're burning the whole relationship. Like, we'll give you enough business. You don't need another client for like the next like several years. But over that, I just fucked up the whole thing.

Kurt Buchert: [29:47] Yeah. Tell people all the time, especially around here, you know, everybody shops, builders, and all this kind of stuff. And I tell them, on most of your house, at the end of the day, the person doing the work, putting the nail in the wood is a dude from Nicaragua or Honduras. And you got to watch them. They might have just got here two weeks ago, they're not trained. They don't speak English. I speak Spanish, so that's fine with me. But you got to watch everybody. Watch got the watchers. You got to watch the contractor. The contractor's got to watch his foreman. The foreman's got to watch the guy doing the work. Yeah. And if all those people aren't doing their job properly, your job's gonna get screwed up.

Mike DeHaan: [30:29] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're so right. And it's always think it's funny. I hear this a lot with people that are I would say, you do this business. They're like, yeah. You just find, like, the Hispanic guy, and he'll, like, have his brother and stuff to do everything. And, you know, it's it's just so great. And in my mind, that's the most, like, accidental racist thing because you're, a, assuming that all the Mexicans that show up are gonna be good at all the work. And they're not backtracking them at all because, like, we we've literally experienced this where we've had

Kurt Buchert: [30:53] a a GC. He was a

Mike DeHaan: [30:55] Mexican guy, and he was fine. But but then all of a sudden, he brings, like, his brother. He's like, oh, my brother does drywall. And you go up and you're like, your brother has never hung drywall in his life. Like, what are you talking about right now? And it was so obvious the guy had no idea what the hell he was doing, but he was just going on, you guys are white, and you guys just are gonna believe that we all know how to fix houses. And like, I'm just like, it's just like everything else.

Kurt Buchert: [31:19] That reminds me of a story I had, was I was trying to compliment an Indian friend of mine. And I was like, man, y'all are like, all really smart. Come here, get all doctors and engineers and just really smart people. He's like, Dude, he's like, In India, there are so many dumb people. Because all the smart ones just come to The United States. Yeah. I never thought of that.

Mike DeHaan: [31:43] Yeah. It's it's funny. We we have a a guy on staff who sees sees lives in India. He's a virtual employee, and he's literally said the exact same thing. You know? And it's like he's like, everyone has these views of what it's like here. He's like, it's not. I mean, it's just like it's just like everywhere else. You know, there's people that are top of the totem pole, bottom of the totem pole, the people that are up top, they seek those opportunities to make their lives better. They develop skills. They do everything else. And just because someone comes from a certain nationality or certain demographic doesn't mean that they're magically good at it just because, you know, that's why it was it was on all the movies or whatever. Anyway, so awesome, Curt. So I guess what does your total portfolio look like now?

Kurt Buchert: [32:20] So the 50 something units in New Orleans, then four active short term rentals, and then three more lots I've got to develop here. And then I'm a limited partner on some apartment complex is in San Antonio, one in Fort Walton Beach, and then a couple other like development projects that I'm a limited partner on one in Austin, in that's out of Tampa. So I do some like syndication investments and stuff like that as well. I'm trying to become a little bit more passive on things as life moves me forward. But right now, I'm trying to hold some capital. I'm building a new house for my family and I. And then I think it's just kind of a touchy time to invest in in some syndication stuff with the cost of capital going up. So

Mike DeHaan: [33:13] Yeah. Exactly. So awesome. So while we go into the final section here, we always have a few questions that we like to ask. So first off, I'm excited for this. I'm sure you have several. I'm so excited. But what is your craziest real estate investing story? And it can be a positive story. It can be a negative story. Like, you know, one of our go tos is we had a seller that was abducted from a closing once. You know, we've had people talk about big wins that they've had. You know? What's your craziest real estate story?

Kurt Buchert: [33:44] So I'll tell I'll tell a negative and a positive one.

Mike DeHaan: [33:46] Perfect. I

Kurt Buchert: [33:47] like to keep it a little positive. My negative one was we found a dead body and a porta potty in front of a duplex we were building. Okay. That was two years ago. The guy, we didn't know the guy, he he went in there and was doing I think he was doing heroin or something.

Mike DeHaan: [34:02] Okay.

Kurt Buchert: [34:03] And he OD.

Mike DeHaan: [34:03] He died. Yeah.

Kurt Buchert: [34:04] So, yeah, he found a dead body in there. So that was that was sad.

Mike DeHaan: [34:07] Yeah. So I was gonna ask what did he, like, die in there or did you just, find a body that was placed in there? Because those are two very different stories. No. He I think he OD.

Kurt Buchert: [34:15] Okay. He OD'd in there. So What

Dan Austin: [34:17] a place to go to heroin.

Mike DeHaan: [34:18] Porta Potty. I know. That's like Dan that's like Danny used to jerk off in Porta Potty when he was in the military.

Kurt Buchert: [34:26] Kidding. New Orleans is crazy, man. I've had to I've had to I've had to pull my gun four times in New Orleans on people. Yeah. It's not. My positive story is on one project, the framers that were out there, I think they were all from like Nicaragua or something. One of the guys was missing a lake. Oh, shit. He was framing a house. And I was just like, man, that is like really inspiring. Guy first of all, the guy walked across the border without a lake and somehow got to New Orleans. And he's working on a job site without a leg, framing a house. I just thought that is the coolest thing ever. And the fact that we have so many people in this country that if they break a nail, they're not going to work.

Dan Austin: [35:13] Oh, goodness.

Mike DeHaan: [35:14] Yeah, right.

Kurt Buchert: [35:14] This dude is missing the legs walking around with his crutches. And he didn't have a prosthetic and he's helping frame a house. Was nuts.

Mike DeHaan: [35:24] That's crazy.

Dan Austin: [35:24] And after that is crazy. Holy smokes.

Kurt Buchert: [35:26] And he wasn't a slacker. He was rock and rolling.

Mike DeHaan: [35:31] That's insane. I don't hear someone twist an ankle and then they like go, oh, I have arthritis now. Need disability from whatever company Yeah. I Right. Yeah. Yeah. Disability. Going disability. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty Yeah. Much. What you don't know about that guy, though, is, you know, he probably, you know, lost his leg while framing a house. Like, you know, a wall fell on him or something. Sawed it off on He's just trying to get back into his roots, man. That's all he knows. Yeah. Jesus.

Kurt Buchert: [35:58] Yeah. He had a giant, you know, giant piece of lumber fall on him and it destroyed his leg. Exactly. Oh,

Mike DeHaan: [36:07] man. We're off the deep end. Cool. Those are both those are both solid. Alright. So what was a number of piece of advice you would give to an investor that's either looking to get started or to take their investing in business to the next level?

Kurt Buchert: [36:20] Two pieces of advice. Just read, read, read, you know, I probably read, I read or listen to audio books or podcasts, I'd say four hours a day. And then also, you got to do your first deal. If you haven't done a deal yet, you just got to get out there and do a deal. Even if you don't make money, even if you lose a little money, you just have to do it, you just got to build, you know, that muscle memory and just do a deal. So just get off the sidelines and just do it because you can, you can procrastinate, you know, forever before doing your first deal. And I know it's scary, but you just gotta get out there and do it.

Mike DeHaan: [36:58] Yeah. I mean, that's just so true. Can't be stated enough. That's a big thing we always say to our people, our instant investor program too is, you know, even though everyone always wants their first to be a slam dunk, they all know that investor that made like a $100 in their first deal. That's not the way that it goes. You know, you kinda just gotta jump into it. Like, make sure you're not gonna lose your ass. Right. But if you go through this whole thing and you spend six months and you make, like, no money or you lose a little bit, that education is gonna be a lot more valuable than,

Dan Austin: [37:24] you know, so much more valuable,

Mike DeHaan: [37:26] you know, not doing anything at all.

Kurt Buchert: [37:27] Yeah, first house ever bought, I had to replace the roof like a month later. It was I had no money. And I didn't know what to do. And it was New Orleans, it's raining like crazy. And water is getting in, was freaking out. But you know what? You just now you just roll with the punches. Like I've had property for so long. I've had everything happen. So I don't even get upset when something happens. The house.

Dan Austin: [37:48] Just know it. Yep.

Kurt Buchert: [37:49] The roof flew off. The roof got blown off in a storm. Like, okay, whatever. We'll just deal with it. Yeah,

Mike DeHaan: [37:54] Yeah. Exactly. I mean, you're completely right. That's how I knew I was a seasoned investor was we had a oil furnace that leaked, like, all over. Yeah. Leaked all over one of our properties that we just renovated. It was literally, like, a month after being renovated. And we had on Airbnb, and I got the, like, Airbnb notification, and it was from a guest, and it said, your whole house smells like propane. I'm checking into a hotel. This is, like, 10:30 at night, and I go, I guess we'll deal with that tomorrow. I just went to

Kurt Buchert: [38:24] bed. Yeah. You're in the

Dan Austin: [38:28] game long enough. Things just you just it's gonna happen. Murphy's law comes in in play all the

Mike DeHaan: [38:32] time. Totally. So awesome. Well, thanks so much, Kurt. If anyone did wanna connect to you, I know you don't have anything to plug, but do you have a way people can reach out to you or follow along and see what you're doing?

Kurt Buchert: [38:42] Yeah. Instagram's probably the easiest at kurt b u c. At At k u r t b u c.

Mike DeHaan: [38:50] Perfect.

Kurt Buchert: [38:50] That's my Instagram handle.

Mike DeHaan: [38:51] Awesome. Sweet. Well, thanks, Kurt. And, yeah, if anybody has any deals that are in New Orleans or in Florida that you might wanna be moving, Kurt could be a very strong buyer. I know we do actually have quite a few listeners in those areas because I can see the metrics where they're from. So seriously, guys, you should follow Kurt. Hit him up. Besides that, guys, thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you guys next week. See you.

Kurt Buchert: [39:13] Thank you.

Mike DeHaan: [39:14] Thanks for listening, everybody. Please make sure you subscribe and leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, please make sure you go and you share this with other people within your network. We are really trying to grow this thing, and the best way for us to do so is by you telling other people to come and check us out. You can also follow us on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore invest. Dan is at investor man Dan. You can follow the podcast at collecting keys podcast. And if you wanna learn how to make real money as a real estate investor or you want to grow your already existing real estate investing business, please go and check out instantinvestorprogram.com and book a call with either Dan or myself, and we will see if you'll be a good fit. Thanks for listening everybody, and talk to you next week.

Speaker 3: [40:01] Podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.