Signing 10 New Contracts, Dealing with Appraisers, and Balancing Ambition with Contentness

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] I think that as you sort of approach this and, you know, if you start to do well and you try to figure out what ambition versus being content and stuff looks like for you, it's important to sort of do a full life reflection and see what you want your life to look like. Kinda like Dan said, know, you wanna have options. But I think that having a list of what are like your bucket list items. What do you want your day to day life to look like? What do you want your vacations to look like? What do you want your house to look like? What do you want your family life to look like? And there's no right or wrong answer with that. Right? Because there are people that like, literally, if they can go and they can make, you know, $6,000 a month in passive income, or they make $100,000 a year, but they can do so in a way where they can go to all their kids basketball games, and they can like do the family trip down to the Snake River every year or whatever. And that's what makes them happy, then freaking shoot for that. Like, I think one of the things that becomes very toxic for people is there are people who are inclined to do that, but they feel like they need to be heavily pursuing the hustle culture, and trying to, you know, make, like, big money and do all these things when it's not actually their personality.

Dan Austin: [1:06] 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: [1:30] What is going on, guys? Welcome to the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast Mike and Dan Show, where myself, Mike DeHaan, and my cohost, Dan Austin, talk real estate, business, investing, and whatever the hell else we feel like because it's our show.

Dan Austin: [1:45] We can say whatever we want.

Mike DeHaan: [1:47] Say whatever reason. We we reason. I know we gotta make sure you don't get canceled, Dan. But that's your business. Yeah. This is true. But this is our first recording, I would say after a full week into the new year, where all of the sellers have come out and said, new year, new me, please take my property. Give me money.

Dan Austin: [2:07] Give me money. Give me money. Take my junky property.

Mike DeHaan: [2:10] Exactly. If you guys are new to the show, Dan and I, we run a real estate wholesaling investing business. We do it for ourselves here in a local market. We have a bunch of partners all around the country, where we are jointly helping them buy properties. We have a group coaching program. And within our own business, we had what looks to be like honestly, maybe our one of our biggest weeks that we've ever had. That seemed... And maybe this feels that way because it seemed to come from nothing. But like we had the deadest of dead Decembers, where like all of our staff was like, I'm gonna we're gonna quit like maybe, like, we're not making money. Yeah. When there's no money anywhere. And then January turns over and like, literally all the sellers were like, new year, new me. I'm gonna offload all these properties.

Dan Austin: [2:53] They were raising hands. They were raising hands.

Mike DeHaan: [2:55] They did.

Dan Austin: [2:55] Ready to go. Like, let's party

Mike DeHaan: [2:57] It was for crazy. Between like Wednesday and Friday, I think we we signed everything. We had 10 deals that got signed around and put into escrow.

Dan Austin: [3:06] We've definitely had more in escrow at the same time. But like, to have it all happen that quick, because I think we have 14 in escrow right now. Is that what I what I checked last like...

Mike DeHaan: [3:13] I think we're up to we're up to 15 because we got another one yesterday, not 14 because we were at less, and then we got another one yesterday. But it is off to a crazy start. Yeah. And not only that, but like, a lot of the sellers that we've been continuing to build relationships with over the holidays, as you're supposed to, have started to have more constructive conversations. You know, and like a lot of them are realizing that just because the New Year turns over doesn't mean that the property that they have been holding onto with a sort of sunk cost bias is going to suddenly be better.

Dan Austin: [3:43] Yeah. Nothing changes with the date.

Mike DeHaan: [3:45] I'm like,

Dan Austin: [3:47] the year 2022, 2023, your house still sucks, or it still has the problems, or you're still in debt, whatever it is. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [3:53] Well, not... And not only that, but a lot of people that had time sensitive issues, you know, it's like the government was trying to seize back their property or lenders were trying to seize their property. All that stuff turns over in the New Year, they and were able to be like, oh, everyone's at Christmas. I've heard from the bank for, you know, six months.

Dan Austin: [4:11] Right now the bank comes knocking. Get what you're Yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [4:13] Yeah. Because like literally, we had a deal yesterday that, you know, our our sales guy James did a killer job on this. He followed up with the guy because the guy had already signed with somebody else. Who? Was supposed to close yesterday. James followed up with him and was like, hey, how'd that closing go? And the guy's like, oh, yeah. Fell through. I'm losing the house tomorrow. I'm getting foreclosed on. And we were like, what? Well, we still wanna buy it. Yeah. You know? So jumped on, got our contact that's on the ground out in that market out there to figure out the details. Basically, we just have to pay like $5,400 to pay off this dude's taxes. And then in exchange, we're like, yeah, we'll do this and we're gonna get a sick deal. We're buying this house at

Dan Austin: [4:50] a nice discount. At a really good deal. So was the guy just doing like an MLS, like listing? There was another wholesaler involved. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [4:57] It was another investor that couldn't pull their shit together. Oh, really? So we had some Yeah.

Dan Austin: [5:01] Competition. We haven't had a lot of competition over there.

Mike DeHaan: [5:03] I know. It's been pretty rare in that particular market, but I'm not gonna say what it is because it's our rare market. It's our rare market.

Dan Austin: [5:11] It's our little diamond in the rough.

Mike DeHaan: [5:13] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it, fact that it was other investors were interesting, and then they couldn't get it together. This is one of the areas too that it's important to have more exit strategies. Because like, at the price that we're at, honestly, for a wholesale deal would be kinda tough. But when you're prepared to actually close on places and list them and, you know, do more than just strictly wholesaling assignments, it creates a lot more opportunity. And that's exactly what we're doing with this property. Like, it's not like a typical fix and flip property, but it'd be very desirable to a homeowner.

Dan Austin: [5:45] For sure. It doesn't need a ton of work, it sounds like.

Mike DeHaan: [5:47] Yeah. It doesn't need a ton ton of work. And, you know mean? But basically, it was like an extra house this guy like inherited or something. And he was looking at selling it for like an easy sale, because there's like a couple negligent issues on it, but nothing crazy. So we still got it, and we're just gonna go and list it. And I think top line should make 50 to $60.

Dan Austin: [6:05] Great deal.

Mike DeHaan: [6:06] It's a great deal. Certainly can't complain.

Dan Austin: [6:08] Great deal for just literally doing a 10¢ follow-up call. Mean, if the follow-up call cost 10¢, it was a free follow-up call. Yeah, mean... Just do it, just follow-up. Just because they said they're gonna close or they've got a sale locked in does not mean that they do. And I love that strategy of just putting a follow-up date. And if they did sell, it's like, hey, congratulations. Awesome.

Mike DeHaan: [6:27] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right? And that's the main learning experience I think there, is so many people... I mean, we've been through the same sort of zone as well, like, oh, I signed with somebody else, I wanted to get their direction. They just put it in their dead category of their CRM and they never follow-up with them. But we know, as you know, better than most people, I would say, that there's deals all the time, especially with like in the wholesale world, where there's so many amateurs out there who don't know what they're doing. They'll go and they'll sign a deal, They don't have an extra strategy in place. Yep. They didn't know how to price it appropriately. They drag the seller out for two months and get the seller all pissed off. And then their tactic is to go and try to price drop to sell like $50 on like the day before closing, because they, you know, think that they're gonna be able to find someone at that price now. But realistically, if you go in and you follow-up with those people on the time that they told you, you're like, hey, did this work? And they say no, and you can show that you have your shit together a little bit better. You're gonna do very well for yourself.

Mike DeHaan: [7:23] And we have done, I don't know, seven or eight deals like that over the past couple years.

Dan Austin: [7:28] Think so?

Mike DeHaan: [7:29] Yeah, probably.

Dan Austin: [7:30] I'm trying to I'm trying to add them up in my head and think of which ones would be like a great example of that.

Mike DeHaan: [7:35] Well, mean, like one of the ones that we bought, we have a Airbnb here here in Spokane, which is our main market. And like that was literally the situation was Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [7:44] That is a good example.

Mike DeHaan: [7:45] You know, the the seller was moving forward with somebody else. And it's funny, they actually called us because they were nervous about the other person because they were getting

Dan Austin: [7:54] a little wishy washy. I wonder why they're nervous about him.

Mike DeHaan: [7:57] Oh, weird. It's it's someone that does have a bad reputation here in town. And, you know, we we didn't really think much of it at the time. And then we had a lead manager who actually like remembered that conversation, like the seller calling saying like, hey, you know, I'm not sure if you're, you know, interested in this property, blah blah blah. And I remember... I literally remember the notes being like, already under contract with somebody else, just like exploring options. Then just sat for like two weeks. And then our lead manager was like, whatever happened to... I think her name was Jamie.

Dan Austin: [8:25] It was. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [8:26] Yeah. And he went and just like called her on on, you know, on a whim. And like, literally, she was like, oh, yeah. I actually canceled that contract with them today. Do you guys wanna buy it? And we were like, sure. And she was like, this is what they originally offered me. And then they tried to drop me down like 40,000. I was like, big quick math. I'm like, well, we can pay that original price. Like, it's pretty sweet house.

Dan Austin: [8:43] Price for, yeah, for a turnkey, pretty much. We did a little bit of work too, but...

Mike DeHaan: [8:46] A little bit. Yeah. A base turn... Yeah. Turnkey Airbnb, and, know, it's an old house. It's a little bit wonky, but, you know, it serves its purpose and gets us some cash flow, and we're able to pull most of our money out of it, so... Yeah. That was... Man, Ricardo was a

Dan Austin: [8:57] great lead manager when it came to stuff like that, especially old ladies, like, did a really good job. I know. Smooth talk. What he was, he was good... Just really good overall.

Mike DeHaan: [9:06] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ricardo was awesome. So Ricardo was our... We had a lead manager. He's based out of Central America, you know, real deep voice, just like little bit of like sexy Latin flavor on the way that he spoke. Yeah. And he used to crush it with those old ladies' man.

Dan Austin: [9:21] He did a great job. He was he was a sexy dude. He's always flexing on camera. Mean, he was a character. Dude was a character But, for you know, when he was dialed in, he was dialed in. And when he wasn't, he wasn't. He's like a very typical sales guy, a 100% sales guy.

Mike DeHaan: [9:35] All or nothing. But, yeah, know. He hit it off so well with so many of the elder women though, the point that it would be like a problem. Yeah. So I'd be like, they would be... People would be calling in just to talk to him. And in fact, There was got somebody a job to do. And he's like, well, there might be a deal. I'm like, no, man. No. She just wants to pretend that you're her long lost lover. God. That's great. Jeez. Anyways, but yeah, huge first week of of twenty twenty three. I am very pleased. And now now we're just facing the challenge of transaction coordination and disposition ourselves. So if if you're in any of our markets, and you talk to a seller that says they're under contract with our company, you should probably follow-up with them in thirty days. Right. Because we got a lot to figure out.

Dan Austin: [10:18] Yeah, exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [10:19] And it's highly possible that at least one or two of them might not come Might

Dan Austin: [10:22] out not come together. Well, for so many reasons, right? There's just so many possible reasons on the seller side too, or a potential buyer side that could fail when you have that many.

Mike DeHaan: [10:30] Yeah, exactly. And It is a logistical nightmare. Yeah. And then us being a pretty lean shop, you know, we're not typically accustomed to having this many deals in escrow. Well, I guess that's not true. We are, we're not we're not accustomed to having this many start at the exact same time.

Dan Austin: [10:44] Yeah. Yeah. Because like, if you can stagger the dates, that's fine. Or like, you might have a tenant escrow, 15 in escrow, but one, know, there might be five of them next month, five this month Is it? Spread across the beginning and end of the month. They all happen at the same time, you're kind of timing thirty day closings. Yeah, things can happen pretty fast.

Mike DeHaan: [10:59] Exactly.

Dan Austin: [11:00] Yeah. Because it's a bunch

Mike DeHaan: [11:01] of different buyers, bunch of different sellers, you gotta negotiate a bunch of different escrow communications. Yeah, it just gets pretty wild pretty quick. But anyway, man. So I'm excited though. Good stuff. And on top of that, we are looking good to finally sell our last scab of 2022. I don't wanna speak too early, but we clear the 35 r. Fingers crossed. Right? Which is the inspection. So we've gotten past that.

Dan Austin: [11:25] I mean We signed that. Yeah. We got through that. We got through that process, which we knew was gonna be easy because I did a great job making sure it was renovated nicely. Was just the roof was in question.

Mike DeHaan: [11:34] We knew it was gonna happen though. So, yes, we're having to give some some pretty decent concessions on the roof. Yeah. Which, I mean, to be fair, when we initially bought it, it was hard to know how bad it was. And then also to the previous owners, they did a lot to try and conceal how bad it was.

Dan Austin: [11:48] Yeah. They were such dirtbags. And not that we can expect that from like sellers to hide things, because we do. But that was a large house, so anything that you hid was kind of hard to Yeah. Hard to fix all of it. Right? Because there's just so much. And generally speaking, I swear though that the house was in better condition when we walked it from when

Mike DeHaan: [12:07] they moved out. Absolutely. Positive they did things to it. They did some heinous stuff in there, like, no doubt about it. I mean, and like I I think too what what's easy to happen is we're used to buying such c class properties doing a lot of, you know, deals in bad areas. Just the nature of, you know, the wholesale business. And this is like in like a nice neighborhood. And I think it's easy to sort of look at the age of the house, you know, the neighborhood that it's in, like the general exterior and source... You know, even like just basic vibe of the area Yeah. And overlook things because you're like, oh, this can't be nearly as bad as the crack house that we did a half mile from here.

Dan Austin: [12:47] Well, guess what it can, and your neighbors will steal your trampoline. Doesn't matter. It does not matter.

Mike DeHaan: [12:54] Still bitter about that. Still bitter about it.

Dan Austin: [12:56] Only because she reported us to the city like five times to the point where the fire department showed up. I mean, come on. And they were like, by the way, your back doors kicked in. So I was kinda thankful for that. But...

Mike DeHaan: [13:06] Yeah. Yeah. That's funny.

Dan Austin: [13:08] We did have somebody living there for a while.

Mike DeHaan: [13:09] Yeah. Like in the house?

Dan Austin: [13:11] Mhmm. Like a home...

Mike DeHaan: [13:12] I told

Dan Austin: [13:12] you about that.

Mike DeHaan: [13:13] Yeah. I told you about that. No.

Dan Austin: [13:15] Fire department showed up because like the lady just kept calling and calling and said... Because the grass was growing and I was like, dude, we're gonna cut it, like, me a break, you know. And the fire... The fireman showed up and I was gonna try to sell it to him. He's like, oh, I'm gonna be interested in buying this place. I was like, really? This is before we renovated it. So I tried selling it to him, but he's like, yeah, somebody's definitely been living in here. I was like, damn And That's fun. I didn't... Yeah. We didn't have a problem. Like, they were clean people. They... Whoever the homeless person was that was living in. It probably wasn't homeless. It's probably the previous owners coming back just to use a toilet.

Mike DeHaan: [13:42] I wanna say it

Dan Austin: [13:43] probably Who knows?

Mike DeHaan: [13:44] No. That that's crazy. I didn't I didn't realize that.

Dan Austin: [13:46] We had a whole fun time with that property. Yeah. We're almost done. Hopefully. I think the close date was like February. It's still a ways out though.

Mike DeHaan: [13:53] So anything anything could happen in that time. I know. Yeah. We saw it was a little ways out and it was like as a VA loans, there's some weird stuff going on with it. But I think the buyer is pretty motivated at this point to get it done.

Dan Austin: [14:03] And it'll just be a matter of getting through that VA appraisal to get that to get them because our purchase price... Yeah, it's funny because we were in the middle of refinancing because we're just committed to keeping it through this through the rest of the spring and all that. We're refinancing. We got an appraisal back for the refinance that is less than what we signed the deal for. So we'll see just how much the appraiser uses that sale price. Yeah. You know, as opposed to... It's not gonna be the same appraiser because this will be a VA appraiser, so it'll be a totally different appraiser. But like, it'll be interesting to see how that how that skews it.

Mike DeHaan: [14:36] I mean, we know as well as any that, like, the appraisers, they're just like the terrible referee of the real estate world, man. Did we... I mean, we had that deal. In fact, that Airbnb that I was talking about a minute ago. I remember when we went to Cash App Refinance. And the first lender that we went to to refinance it, they came back with like, yeah, it's gonna be like appraised at 02:30. Because they didn't look at actual like kind properties in the area. They looked at like Right. The fixer upper flipper houses that have been selling on the market. And they were like, you know, I don't even know if they walked the house.

Dan Austin: [15:07] No. That... I remember that one. That appraiser was a dork too. Like, it was just such a it was a challenge to get in there and do all that stuff with him. He was just kind of a dummy. We we've had it before where like appraisers like, well, I just don't see how you can get that value out of it. I'm like, you're right. You guys just bought that three months ago for this price. It's like, yeah, and look at it now. And who cares what we paid for it at that price because it did not sell on the market.

Mike DeHaan: [15:30] Yeah, you're right. And that that was situation that one was because we bought it for 200. Like $1.95 or it was and we hadn't done a ton of renovation. So pretty much turnkey, just basic stuff. And he was like, I don't understand how why you think it's worth 300 when you bought it for 200. Like, how did you buy it for $200 if it's worth $300,000? I'm like, well, we talked to the lady. She was going into foreclosure. She like had all these issues that was going on, and we said, here's what we can buy for if it makes sense for us. Mhmm. And we did. And he's like, I don't believe you. And so he gave us a two thirty appraisal, and then I challenged the lender, and they were like, no, we're not gonna let you do a reappraisal. So we had to start over with a different lender, another thirty, forty five days, whatever the hell it was, and got a new appraisal, came back two ninety five, no questions.

Dan Austin: [16:12] Such a mess. And that's funny, just how it is like, we've had both good and bad. And I'll say the best appraisers are always the ones that call and say, hey, how did you like, what do you think? Like, how did you get to that number? Like, I've like, I get... You know what I mean? Like, because they gotta call you anyways, the schedule usually, right? And so they'll be like, well, what are you thinking like you're expecting? And yeah, maybe they shouldn't say that. I don't know what their ethical standards are and like like there's one that we did on on the one on twentieth or Airbnb up there. And I can't remember talking to you, but I was like, yeah, think we need to be above 400 on this thing. And I think we ended up getting at like four fifty, four sixty.

Mike DeHaan: [16:46] Four fifty.

Dan Austin: [16:47] Yep. Yeah. And and he's like, well, how do you get to that number? He's like, see you guys only paid $1.98 for it, and I was like, or $1.89 for it. I was like, well, go inside and you'll find out. Like, it's top and It's nice. And he's like, okay, and we talked about it. Like, I didn't give him comps or anything like that. I just told him where I thought we would be. We've definitely have a... I've definitely had appraisers call and I've given them the three comps and they came in... The appraiser came in with those three comps and it was Montgomery when we did that. That was a very favorable appraisal.

Mike DeHaan: [17:12] Yeah. That's that was super favorable. That was that was... I think that might be our biggest deal we've

Dan Austin: [17:16] ever done Because... Yeah. That was a sick deal.

Mike DeHaan: [17:20] Yeah. Because we bought that one for... I think we bought that one for what, $1.95. It appraised for what, $4.50?

Dan Austin: [17:25] $4.60 or $4.70.

Mike DeHaan: [17:26] $4.60? Yeah. We pulled out an insane amount of cash. It was like a 160,000 or 70,000.

Dan Austin: [17:31] We netted above our rehab cost a $100 on the refi. Was like 90 it was like 96,000 above our rehab cost.

Mike DeHaan: [17:39] Debt free income right there, man. That's the power of

Dan Austin: [17:41] the the BRRRR method. Tax free. It was not debt free. It was definitely adding debt. Yeah. It was that was that was fun. That was cool. When you when you can cash out more than you have into the property, that's like the cool burs. The fun burs.

Mike DeHaan: [17:55] That's a cool story too because I remember when we got that appraisal in. Do you remember when we got that appraisal in?

Dan Austin: [17:59] Or no. I'm trying to... Where were we? Oh, were we at my house?

Mike DeHaan: [18:01] We were getting toasty in Maui, bro. Was it Maui? You're sitting on the beach drinking. That was... But that was

Dan Austin: [18:06] the appraisal when we got the check. Well, we we got a check for it and and we're... I think we were sitting at my house and we're like... Would show my wife and she was like, whatever.

Mike DeHaan: [18:16] Yeah. $100, perhaps. Was like a $100.

Dan Austin: [18:18] Was like, no, was a $160 or whatever, and she's like Yeah. Yeah, that's cool, whatever.

Mike DeHaan: [18:22] I'm like, what the hell?

Dan Austin: [18:23] Like, the whole process that we went through on this whole thing to get that money.

Mike DeHaan: [18:26] Yeah. You just bring in a big damn energy, dude. Gotta get it. How to get it?

Dan Austin: [18:30] How's my BDE shirt? You get that design? Madison got it going?

Mike DeHaan: [18:33] Yeah. You go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/bde, and you can you can find out the status on that shirt. I put a little video up there, so you can know the true situation about why it's not done from when Dan started running his mouth three weeks ago.

Dan Austin: [18:45] There's some there's some corruption going on in that video. I'm sure it's not true. It's... There there's... We've got some we've got some problems. Mike and I are disagreeing on some design on the back end of it.

Mike DeHaan: [18:56] If anyone really wants to see the stuff that Dan came

Dan Austin: [18:58] up I didn't come up with a... I will say this, I did not come up with them. I tried to take what was in my head and give it to a person that was gonna do it for $20 in India.

Mike DeHaan: [19:07] Exactly. Yeah. And then I think language barrier. Yeah. The language barrier, and then they went on like some sort of font software and just typed in BDE, and we're like, here you go. That'll be $20,

Dan Austin: [19:17] please. But you do have like 4,000 purchases on there though. You think that they would be like legit? And like 4.9 stars.

Mike DeHaan: [19:24] Well, no. Because here's the thing, when it comes to stuff like that in general, most other people also have terrible taste in that. Like, how many freaking real estate investment companies have that same fucking logo with like the little roof with the window Right.

Dan Austin: [19:35] With like

Mike DeHaan: [19:35] the half roof on either side. Like, there's litter... There is a massive con going on in India where they just like, they go and they just find all of the real estate people, and they take that same logo, and they just change the color, and they sell it to people for like $30. And people are like Exactly. Wow. I had zero expectations for someone from a third world country, so this just blew my mind.

Dan Austin: [19:56] This blew my mind. It's weird. It looks like all the other competitors' logos.

Mike DeHaan: [19:59] But they don't even see it. No, because mine has a square window and theirs is a circle. I'm like, yeah, it's the same fucking thing.

Dan Austin: [20:05] It's the same thing. What? And they all look like trash.

Mike DeHaan: [20:08] They all look like

Dan Austin: [20:08] I feel like we we have the originals. I think Madison did ours before your wife did our logo originally. Ours has always been tip top.

Mike DeHaan: [20:15] Yeah. It has been. It's been it's been super unique. Our original one. Yeah. Yeah. Original one. Yeah. The I and W properties was always good. And then, I mean, I don't know. Feel like Daniel that's doing our our new brand that we're building out

Dan Austin: [20:27] Collecting keys is great.

Mike DeHaan: [20:28] Yeah. Collecting keys has been good. But anyway...

Dan Austin: [20:30] Backyard home buyers.

Mike DeHaan: [20:32] Yeah. But I I wanted to talk about something today though that was a really good topic that came up from our instant investor program, actually. So our group coaching program, the instant investor program, one of the things that we have started to do this year was basically we have a channel in our Slack group for the community, which is content requests. And people can go and they can request specific stuff that will either turn into group course material for the course that comes with the instant investor program. We'll turn it into a podcast episode, whether it's this one, or it is like a one of our Friday focus shorts, turn into a YouTube video, turn social media content, whatever kind of makes sense for the question, is it, you know, we're gonna turn it into content. So that way, the people that have opted to join our community, which you should as well, do they get exactly what they want? And it's not just because like, one of the things that I hate in all the different groups and stuff that we've been involved in is, ultimately, I find what it turns into is it's kinda like their way or the highway in the way of

Dan Austin: [21:32] doing stuff. Right. You get also... You also get stuck in this thing where they're constantly pumping in new people, so then everything starts to stay the basic, Yeah. For the new people. Like, it just stays at the basic level, so you never can really... It's hard to get rid of that that deep level of content on certain things or dive deep into specific topics.

Mike DeHaan: [21:49] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and in my mind, if you are paying someone for expertise, you're paying to be a part of a group, you should be able to get the questions and stuff that you want answered in like a long form formal format. Right? So that's just my opinion on it. Yeah, you're interested in go to collectingkeyspodcast.com, become an instant investor at the top, and that will give you all the options that we have there. But anyway, so Dylan, who's one of our instant investor members, he had a great discussion topic, which I think is trying to figure out the difference between, like, appropriate level of ambition and being content, and like, when exactly is enough enough and why. And I think that's a great question, because Dylan, has been crushing it. Yeah. Over this past year, he's... He made more money this year than he used to make at his salary as a pharmacist. You know, he's doing some huge deals. He's bought like the six seller finance deals, like a 12 unit that he's gonna make That's a cool deal. Insane money on. And it's funny, he's kind of crossed this threshold now where I remember when I personally kinda got here of like, okay, like, we're starting to do well, like better than most people. Mhmm. And at what point do you just like say, I'm cool with this? And at what point do you say, I'm gonna just like go for it and see if I can make like, you know, fuck you money at the end of it. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [23:12] And I think that that's a very personal question that you kinda have to do some multiple internal reflection. But I don't know, Dan, like, what's your immediate thought when someone asks us your question?

Dan Austin: [23:20] My immediate thought is, yeah, it's definitely a personal question. And it can probably change over time.

Mike DeHaan: [23:25] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [23:26] Because... And here's some some context around it too. When you're talking about specifically to like our wholesale business, you get to this point to where you're like, okay, so like we're doing pretty good like just us, like, you know, just me as a solopreneur, do I really wanna take on the headache of five or six people, and what is that going to gain me? And is the is the juice worth the squeeze at that point? So say, I'm making, hey, I'm making 250,300 thousand dollars a year wholesale fees, and then I'm adding like, you know, four or five properties to my portfolio every year. Like, that's pretty solid. If you can do that by yourself, a guy might say like, man, I'm able to do this in like thirty hours a week, I'm loving it. But I think I can do a million. Should I go for a million? Mhmm. But I gotta add all these staff and I'm gonna be working sixty hours a week maybe, until you can systematize it to get to that and then do you go to the next level. So my immediate thought is, all that aside is like, that can change and that should probably change over time as you're... Especially as you age, you kind of start seeing things differently. Like, for me, I I'm trying to scale super fast because I wanna have the options. I should say try to scale super fast because I've been in this game since 2016 and like real estate's been kind of like my like, endgame like, okay, this is what I'm going to do.

Dan Austin: [24:34] But the ways it's become my endgame has changed vastly in the last seven years. But I will say like, for me, my goal would be like, okay, I want this to be like, I want to create enough wealth that like, have options in life and not options to spend money, but options of what to do in life. Options to work like job optional. So one could say, well, if I just did this as a solopreneur for ten years, and I could do this forever. It's like, I don't wanna do forever. Yeah, I don't wanna have to do it forever. I should say rather, you know, I want that I want the scale to get there and see how big I can go.

Mike DeHaan: [25:08] Mhmm. Yeah. For sure. And I think that as you sort of approach this and, you know, if you start to do well and you try to figure out, you know, what ambition versus being content and stuff looks like for you, it's important to sort of do a full life reflection and see what you want your life to look like. Kinda like Dan said, you know, you wanna have options. But I think that having a list of what are like your bucket list items. What do you want your day to day life to look like? What do you want your vacations to look like? What do you want your house to look like? What do you want your family life to look like? And there's no right or wrong answer with that. Right? Because there are people that like, literally, if they can go and they can make, you know, $6,000 a month in passive income, or they make $100,000 a year, but they can do so in a way where they can go to all their kids basketball games, and they can like do the family trip down to the Snake River every year, whatever. And that's what makes them happy, then freaking shoot for that. Like Yeah. I think one of the things that becomes very toxic for people is there are people who are inclined to do that, but they feel like they need to be heavily pursuing the hustle culture, and trying to, you know, make like big money and do all these things when it's not actually their personality. Yep. Right? And I would say, vice versa, you know, there's a lot of people who, you know, wanna do bigger things. And if they just only get to that $6,000 a month in passive income, and they're a $150,000 a year in revenue from their business, like, that's gonna feel like a, you know, missed opportunity to them.

Mike DeHaan: [26:32] And like I said, I think that does change over time, because I will say that most people, this is the most common why I hear from investors when they inquire about our group coaching program, or they, you know, even just talk to people just day to day. Everyone says, if I could make $5,000 a month, my life would look completely different. Right? For some reason, that $5,000 is like a very round number. I think a lot of people, if they live a modest life lifestyle, that sort of would cover their their monthly expenses, right, in a lot of markets. And so that's what they shoot for. And I mean, yeah, was even my goal when I first started. Or when I moved into my... 5,000? Yeah. $5,000

Dan Austin: [27:09] Mine a was 10 mine was 10,000...

Mike DeHaan: [27:11] Yeah. But you already had like the Bay House and like you were you're Knocked

Dan Austin: [27:15] at it.

Mike DeHaan: [27:16] Quarter line c suite at your job, you know. You're making... Like, I wasn't, dude. I was a bum. I was homeless. Not really.

Dan Austin: [27:22] You're like, man, if I could if I could make $800 a month.

Mike DeHaan: [27:25] Yeah. Yeah. No. No. My wife and I, we lived a super simple lifestyle. So when I quit my w...

Dan Austin: [27:29] You guys live pretty lean most of the time anyways.

Mike DeHaan: [27:32] Yeah. So yeah. So when when I left my w two and I quit my engineering job, you know, we pulled back our expenses. And we lived a very solid life on my wife's income, which after taxes was like $4,100 a month. And we like, we did that just fine. And we enjoyed it. So like, my view was if I can get to $5 a month

Dan Austin: [27:48] It'll be good.

Mike DeHaan: [27:48] We'll be able to do that. And I will have the freedom to go and make more money somewhere else. Right? I like to do whatever I want. But then the crazy thing that happens is you start to pursue different, you know, business ventures, you start to buy assets, all of a sudden, $5,000 a month can come very quickly, whether it's passive or active, you know, and like the eye opening thing to me was when we started the, you know, the wholesale business rating traction, All of a sudden, we had a month where we made $50,000. And I was like, shit. That's like way more than 5,000. That's like 5,000 for ten months, you know. Then two months after that, we made a $100,000. And that completely spun my goals and expectations, and like my view of content versus ambition on its head. Like, literally overnight, that happened. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [28:33] You get to see what's possible.

Mike DeHaan: [28:35] Yeah. Remember when that deal in October of that year closed with that that lady that was, like, on drugs that, like, ghost us, and we had to, like, JV it and all that sort Yeah. Of Yeah. When that deal closed, it was on my birthday in October 2020, and that pushes over a $100,000 for the month. And I literally... Because we had a deal closed in before we had that deal closed, and I was up in Sandpoint with my parents for my thirtieth birthday. And I remember sitting there thinking like, no one else realizes this right now, but my life literally just changed. Like, 100%.

Dan Austin: [29:07] Yeah. You you're like, I'm an old piece of shit now.

Mike DeHaan: [29:10] That's what you thought. I was like, my views on finance success literally just changed forever this afternoon. And like, I couldn't explain that to anyone because it's like a weird thing, you know?

Dan Austin: [29:20] Yeah. It's hard to... Yeah. Exactly. It's hard to explain that.

Mike DeHaan: [29:23] But like, that is like a pinnacle point in my life that I will always remember that Mhmm. That evening, that afternoon, because my views on what I was gonna be content with changed forever. Yeah. And, you know, from that standpoint, I... Like, from from that point on, I made the decision that I wanna do bigger things. I wanna have Right. A larger income. I wanna have a larger lifestyle. And that's what, you know, took us into scaling very heavily in 2021, got me into joining GoBundance, where I'm around people that are trying to do bigger stuff, got you and me talking a lot more openly about finances and the different things that we were gonna be pursuing. Yep. And, you know, that was like the personal adaptation that I had at that point.

Dan Austin: [30:04] And I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive. Right? Like, we interviewed, which I don't know if that when that episode's gonna drop versus this, but we interviewed Drew Wiard, investor from Fort Wayne. Uh-huh. And he made a great comment that he said, I have what most investors don't have and that's enough.

Mike DeHaan: [30:19] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [30:19] He's content. He's content. But dude is still out there slinging deals, he's still buying things and he's still like driving himself to do better. But he's like, at the end of the day, he's content with what he has, he doesn't need a lot. But unfortunately, for the people that think, you know, if you're focused on money, unfortunately, for them, that's how you see that's how you keep score in this game is the dollars and cents. I love the concept of die with zero or, you know, like from that book, like, I like that idea, because really, the end of the day, like, you shouldn't live a full life. And if that takes you spending money to do that, do it, because you can't live your life after you're gone, and nobody can live your life for you. So like, you should keep score with the dollars and cents, and try to fulfill your life until you're content. If you have a problem with being content, because you're ambitious, which is where I think like a person like Dylan can come in, because he's obviously ambitious, he's always kicking ass, you definitely have to balance that. You and you have to, I have to do it, I have to find balance, because otherwise, you can leave those around you, like, of in the dust, you cannot have relationship, you could burn relationships or just let relationships die, because all you're doing is is going after like whatever you're ambitious about, like whatever you're focused on and and again, that may appear to be just the dollars and cents, but it's actually probably dollars and cents all in parallel with the success of doing things well and doing them, you know, really well.

Dan Austin: [31:42] Yeah. I think that's very very

Mike DeHaan: [31:43] well stated. And yeah, that that comment from Drew, I don't know. What do you think? Is that is that like the best quote that we've had from any guests on this show? It might be up there, man.

Dan Austin: [31:51] I think it's the most genuine quote.

Mike DeHaan: [31:52] Most genuine quote. Honestly. So good. Yeah. And, you know, I think what you said there is absolutely right. And one of the ways that I've heard to sort of view it as well, which I really liked, I think it from Brandon Turner from, you know, ex BiggerPockets host. And he said that there's basically three levels to wealth that he's discovered. And because like, when you start to get going in business, start to buy assets, like, general financial freedom can come relatively easily, like, honestly. You know, like, 100% pass financially free for the rest of your life is a myth. That's not a real thing that happens. You're always gonna kinda have to do something unless you get, like, legit big big money, you know? Right. Even if you get, a $10,000,000 windfall and you're like in your thirties, realistically, you're gonna use that by the time you're old, unless you just live like a super frugal life. Right? If you don't like investing, you don't do anything. But, you know, you start a business, you can start generating decent amount of wealth relatively quickly. But his... He said there's three stages of wealth, you just kinda have to find which one fits your, I guess, like mission objective in life and your lifestyle. So he say, first phase of wealth is, you know, you can kinda buy whatever you want, You know, you can... You don't have to like worry about budgets.

Mike DeHaan: [33:05] You can take the vacations. You know, your kids can go to private school. You can buy the nice house. You can have nice cars. You can do all that sort of stuff. That's like level one. Okay? Level two is basically, you can do all of those things, but you can, you know, do like the next level up version. So like, maybe you can like fly private, right? Or you can like, you like exclusively fly first class and stay in five star resorts. You can bring your extended family with you, you know, like like the home alone dad who takes a whole freaking family He to

Dan Austin: [33:36] balling. He balling. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [33:38] But that's like the second level of wealth. Right? And you now have a total influence on your social group and your family and all that sort of stuff. Right? Your wealth can affect those without it necessarily affecting you in a negative way. And then the third level of wealth is you have enough wealth that you can do things that benefit and affect communities. Right? That's great. So this is like where you can start foundations, you know, you can start like philanthropic companies, you can do all these sort of things that you now have the freedom to make that your focus. And not only do you have the freedom to make that your focus, but you have the financial ability to, you know, make that effective. Right? And you're not trying to like, bootstrap an orphanage, which is gonna lead to a really difficult life for you. But you can actually do like philanthropic capitalism, where you're taking the money you have earned and you're using it to do good things. And that is, like, the third level of wealth. And I would say the fourth level of wealth, which you didn't talk to because it's out there for most people, is where you're able to do that, but you're able to influence, like, countries.

Mike DeHaan: [34:41] Right?

Dan Austin: [34:41] Geopolitical politics. Geopolitical politics, but that's like Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [34:44] Reserved for, like, the billionaires. And usually, that's where it starts to get a little bit evil too. So we'll we'll ignore that one.

Dan Austin: [34:49] You gotta be careful. You gotta be careful there. Yeah. No. That's a great perspective. And I think a lot of people would wanna do the number three.

Mike DeHaan: [34:55] Uh-huh.

Dan Austin: [34:56] Oh, boy, that's challenging. It is. And a lot of people aren't willing to... Wouldn't be willing to sacrifice to get to either one, two, or three, and could potentially, you know, look negatively upon the ambitious person, which which sometimes will help but pull people back from being ambitious and make them force them to be a little bit more content, especially if it's people they respect around them, asking them to pull back. So I think if you're ambitious, you should always focus that effort. Because if you could be ambitious in a lot of different ways, bad ways included, But being ambitious and being healthy about it is is a key to success in life, regardless of however you're keeping score.

Mike DeHaan: [35:31] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [35:32] Dollars and cents or not. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [35:33] And I think what you said there too about being healthy about it is kind of the key role. Right? Like, regardless of what you do, you know, whatever your view of being ambitious or being condemned with what you have, like, that looks like, ultimately, you have to do it from a standpoint where you're working on yourself regardless, and you are doing things that ultimately make you happy and give you some level of, you know, satisfaction. Because otherwise, you're gonna be a miserable prick. And the thing is, more money isn't gonna make that better. More freedom isn't necessarily gonna make that better. You know, if you have more freedom, you're gonna get bored. If you have more money, you're gonna work harder, or you're still gonna be upset because a lot of your life circumstances aren't gonna change. And so, like, when you're looking at it, ultimately, doing so in a healthy way where you have that balance is gonna be super super important for sustainability.

Dan Austin: [36:21] What would you say to this though, like, so there's kind of this idea that you hear some people say like, well, if they don't believe in you or they're a hater or whatever, just leave them behind. You don't need those relationships because they're dragging you down. Like, is there a balance? Because of the other thing we, you and I talked about is like, always associate yourself with people that you wanna be like or people that are doing things you wanna do,

Mike DeHaan: [36:41] right? Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [36:41] So potentially, you're like leaving some of these existing relationships that might be important relationships to you behind. How do you balance that where you have highly ambitious friends and network of people you hang out with with other people in your life that are not ambitious and just are content? Do you still keep them in your circle? Or would you say you kinda cut them out?

Mike DeHaan: [37:02] So I I will say what's happened in my personal life. I mean, first, I've I've usually been that ambitious friend in pretty much every friend group that I've ever had. Sure. And I will say I didn't cut people out, they just kinda fell off.

Dan Austin: [37:15] What about... Are there anybody that you would care about or relationships that you'd wanna maintain? Like, being like super specifically? Because it's like easy to say. It's like, I'm not... Yeah. You don't have to tell me like, yeah, me and my dad, we hate each other now. No. Definitely not true. But like, no, I know that. But like, know, of course, there's friends that maybe you were in high school with or college with or that you had met that you just weren't like quality friends. I guess I'm talking about people that you genuinely have at a point in time had really strong relationships. This could be family, this could be extended family, cousins and people like that, or somebody that... But people that just didn't have the same ambition as you or the same goals as you, and because of that, you just had to stop being around them. Gotcha. It would be like if I just like, if I was just like, no, I'm good dude, see you later. I'm just gonna kinda do my thing and chill and not work and be ambitious.

Mike DeHaan: [37:59] Yeah. So I'll say... Yeah. Like I said, they they kind of organically fell off for the most part. The the people that weren't super aligned with that. And I guess, like, I'll say that if people that are in different situations, if you're looking at that, if they are toxic to you, and they are like dragging you backwards, then you should probably cut them off. But if they're just not mutually aligned, here's what I'll say is, don't be that asshole that tries to like force people to be aligned with you. Like, if they wanna just be do their thing, leave them alone. Yeah. They don't need to be content. Like, if they're Yeah. If they're, like, completely neutral to you, they're not necessarily supporting you, or they're not dragging you down, fucking let them live their life. Who cares?

Dan Austin: [38:33] Yeah. I... Here's why I asked that question, because I I know some very successful people, very, like, you know, wildly successful that still, have great strong relationships with people that are not in their new friend circle. They don't get to go to the country club because, you know, that's just not where they're at, but they're still have strong relationships with them. I think you you should value that. Totally. And still maintain those relationships and not just try to do what some people say, which is cut everybody out of your life, go over here because that's where you wanna be. Because I still think I think you're losing part of life, I think that's part of being healthy when you talk about being ambitious. And and for me, thinking in the back of my head is like, how do you maintain and work on those relationships around you while you're being ambitious?

Mike DeHaan: [39:12] Mhmm. Yeah. Why I think that that... I mean, that is a valid point in it. I think that maintaining those relationships like that, again, as long as they're not toxic, does keep you grounded, for sure. Especially if you knew them through like your rise up, like your rise up to success, and they're still in like the same spot, that should always be a reminder kind of of where you came from. And it should also be a mutual level of respect. And I will say, even though that I've had, you know, more financial success than, as far as I know, all of my my college friends. Tell you what, like when we hang out, because they are all legitimately good friends, they're not toxic towards me at all, they're not toxic towards each other, They don't give shit. Yeah. And we still have just as much fun going to a crappy dive bar in San Diego.

Dan Austin: [39:51] You still act like degenerates.

Mike DeHaan: [39:52] Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [39:55] No. I like that. That's awesome.

Mike DeHaan: [39:56] But I will say, like, counter your point, like, people that look at those relationships, they're like, no, I don't hang out with them anymore. They just like to party, whatever. It's like, just do it in moderation. Like, you don't need to Right. Be a dick to your friend just because they don't have the same ambitions to you and write them off. Because they might still wanna be your friend. I think that's fine. Anyway, so that we got into a whole different wormhole there. But...

Dan Austin: [40:16] So deep there.

Mike DeHaan: [40:17] Anyway, when it comes down to monitoring your ambition versus deciding when to be content, I think like the main tip I would get is, you know, write down your ideal life, once you want your days look like your work life to look like your vacations look like your family look like all that sort of stuff. And then reverse engineer what that's gonna take, like in terms of costs associated to live that lifestyle. And then decide if, you know, you can kinda be content with your goals, or if you do wanna be more ambitious. And then also too, as you are working on growing yourself, be willing to evolve and adapt and change that, and realize that life is always a moving target. You're never going to just like, reach a point where you're like, yep. I think I'm done. I have, you know, the rest of my life to live, I'm just not gonna do anything anymore. And if you do do stuff like... If you do reach that point, then, yeah, we can't be friends. I do have to cut you out because like, people always have to have something that they're going towards. Otherwise, I'm like, what are you doing, man?

Dan Austin: [41:10] Yeah. You gotta you gotta have something. And I I would just... I would only add to what you're saying, there is like, as you chart your goals, as you chart where you wanna be, what ideal... What your ideal life is, and as you said, working backwards, what are you willing to sacrifice, what are you not willing to sacrifice in that process? I think that's massive.

Mike DeHaan: [41:25] Exactly. Yeah. And that's a whole other conversation too, because you need to have that balance. Awesome, guys. Hopefully, I didn't get too meta for all of you. But, Dylan, thanks so much for that question, man. I think that that is a super good topic and is extremely relevant for people, like such as many of the members in our instant investor program, our group coaching program, who start to have success. Right? And you start to realize, what do I want this to look like? So do this exercise. It's very, important. Anyways, guys, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please share with anybody who might find it interesting or entertaining. Also, if you go and you leave us a five star review, wherever you listen to your podcast, and you send me a DM, I will send you a free collecting keys t shirt. Send me a DM at mike underscore invest. I'll send you a collecting key shirt. Actually, I'm on the way... On my way to the post office afternoon to send out three free for people that left us left us a five star review and sent me a DM. So definitely do that. I'm gonna be happy to get you a shirt. Top of that, guys, if you wanna start finding off market properties, you can also sign 10 deals in three days like we just did. Go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free, and you get your free five step guide to start generating off market leads, and that will at least give you the base. And then if you really wanna start signing deals, go to collectingkeyspodcast.com, and look at our 7 figure investor programs, if you'd be a good fit. Anyway, guys, thanks so much for listening, and talk to y'all next week.

Dan Austin: [42:47] See you. Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.