Small Town, Big Moves: How Otto Kinn Started from Zero to Grow His Real Estate Business

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

Otto Kinn: [0:38] A year and a half ago, everybody that I talked to in my market said that you can't wholesale. You can't do these cash buying this business. You can't operate that business.

Mike DeHaan: [0:52] What's going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast. On this episode of the Scale Show, we are with Otto Kinn, and I am super excited to have you on the show today, Otto. You are one of the OG Scale members at this point. I think you've been with us for probably over two years, and you're one of my favorite, I would say, success stories. Mostly because, like, we talked for so long before you jumped in, and then literally early on, you said, like, I just did what you said to do, and it worked. And now you're crushing it, and you've just gotten so good at, like, the fundamentals of this business. So, dude, thanks so much for coming on the show. Just so people kinda know who you are, give us a really quick rundown, two to three minutes, kind of who you are, where you're based, and what your team and business currently look like.

Otto Kinn: [1:43] Yeah, man. Appreciate you having me. I'm out of the Central North Dakota area, so not a whole lot of operators out here. Grew up in the area. I think like we mentioned before this, grew up on a ranch, you know, that kind of thing, raising cows. Was in rodeo for a while. Went from that into, I guess, network engineering, and halfway through that job took an interest in real estate. There's an old broker in our town. We have a little lake town that I live in, Garrison, North Dakota. And this broker's been in the business for a ton of years. He's a boomer, and we always joke about it, and he doesn't know anything about anything internet and technology. So I'd always go help him with his email and stuff, and we'd always talk real estate because I wanted to get into it. And there was actually a commercial property in Garrison on Main Street that was for sale. So he helped me get into that. He introduced me to some local economic buy down groups and programs and basically bought this 6,000 square foot building for one and a quarter interests over twenty years. And it's been an awesome deal. But it it was like kinda training wheels for getting into it. It's weird. Not a lot of people get into commercial first and then work back from there, but that was kinda my experience. And then after that deal, we did our first bur.

Otto Kinn: [3:01] My wife at the time was we weren't married yet, but she passed out in the hallway at three in the morning with a hammer while we were working on this house together. And Like, from exhaustion? Or you guys are just drinking whiskey, having a great time, by

Dylan Koch: [3:15] the way?

Otto Kinn: [3:16] By moonshine. No. Just it was like three in the morning. We've been working on it all day. And I was like, yep. That's that's the girl I'm gonna marry. The one that's Uh-oh.

Dylan Koch: [3:24] They need Starlink out there.

Otto Kinn: [3:25] But no, anyway, from there, actually the CFO of the company I worked out took interest in what I was doing, and we partnered on a couple deals. Wasn't the best at buying, so three out of the four were just kinda okay deals we broke even on. And then one was pretty much a wholesale transaction. We bought it and slipped it a couple months later for we made $30 on that one. And, yeah, somewhere in there I decided to make the jump, I really didn't have any kind of a plan. So, yeah, joined Scale, and ever since it's been, yeah, just building a business, and that's been just super cool ever since. So it sounds like at the beginning, you sourced a lot

Dylan Koch: [4:01] of these deals from just local relationships or brokers that you had in your small town, right?

Otto Kinn: [4:06] That's exactly it, yeah. You join a community that's like, get some of

Dylan Koch: [4:09] these deals for yourself. So I guess walk us through like, how you sourcing these deals now, and at the beginning were you doing all of it yourself, all the way up to, you know, what does that team look like now, and what is your role in that business?

Otto Kinn: [4:21] So everything right now is direct mail and referral. Referral, actually we closed that deal today. That was a referral from an agent. So that, as of anything, I know Dylan, you've noticed that too. It's like that organic referral based stuff just picks up over time. And especially, we're a really small market, so it's easy to to get those kinds of things. Yeah. Otherwise, it's purely direct mail. In the beginning, it was a lot of, like, watching the videos that Mike, you and Dan had put out, how to pull the lists, how to filter them, how to, you know, send them out. And because of either procrastination or however whatever excuse I didn't have budget constraints, I was never very consistent with the marketing. That was a big change this year. Actually outsourced it to REI PrintMail. And the greatest thing with that is, you know, they've been good. I know that there's been positive and negative to using firms like that. But the reason I've liked it is because it's kept the accountability. Like, I pay three months ahead of time and the mail's gonna hit regardless. And, you know, I've committed to paying that money upfront, so I know that I have to account for it. That in itself has been huge. It's forced a lot more consistency behind it. I will say their data is a lot better than mine, and I would overcomplicate it a lot of the times as well.

Mike DeHaan: [5:37] Sure. Yeah. And so in your business right now, Ro, you're doing mostly flips. Right? Because you're being a smaller market. I know we've talked about this a lot within the community.

Otto Kinn: [5:46] Yeah. So when I first started, the first two deals I ever did were wholesale assignments. And, like, shortly after that, North Dakota changed their laws to we have to be a licensed real estate agent. And so had to double close after that. This year, I've largely pivoted to wholesale, basically. So I'll take it down and, like, clean it up and either connect it with a buyer or just put it up on the market. That's been really beneficial. Tail end of last year, I had a key relationship with private lender that has, I guess, enabled me to do a lot of this. He's really enjoyed the relationship that we've built around it. It's kind of expensive as far as points and everything, but I can also call him, like, two days ahead of a deal that I wanna take down and it'll be funded and pretty beneficial. So those kinda relationships are one, they bring more value, did

Dylan Koch: [6:40] you think, just from that point of view. But I'm wondering, Otto, so you transferred the first couple of years from wholesales to now more flips or wholesales. Obviously those take more time to complete those cycle, but do you have any data around that? Or also, are your profits bigger now that you have control of the asset? You're maybe listing on the MLS, of that revenue generating.

Mike DeHaan: [7:03] Shaking his head.

Otto Kinn: [7:05] Yeah. No. I mean, that's a big thing. I feel like not to discredit myself, but there is as much as I feel like I'm doing a great job, I'm not crushing it by any means. With it being more wholesale transactions, yeah, it takes a lot more time to go to market. The buyers, that's the biggest issue because in the beginning, you know, I had one person that I could just keep them busy. This year, I had a big push to increase my acquisition volume. So but that has been super consistent. I mean, did ever since we made that decision, we did one deal, then two deals, then three deals, and now it's consistently been three deals a month since May. So not, you know, not a real long, but we're under contract for another three this month. The challenge has been exactly that, the disposition. I had mentioned a conversation I had the other day with a friend of mine or mentor or whatever you wanna call it, but he had talked about trying to relieve as much friction as possible, and that is what I'm facing. I ran the numbers based on average hold time. I'm holding these deals for, you know, about two months at a time before they sell. The average profit on them is 15 to 18,000. That's average. So it goes anywhere from like a $30,000 profit to $6 is the last one that we close out. Some of that is, you know, just getting the numbers dialed in, expectations, you know, what you're gonna net before closing the deal versus afterwards, not having that large buyer pool to choose from during the under contract due diligence period. But yeah. No.

Otto Kinn: [8:37] I mean, that the big idea now is we're gonna stay consistent with our two to three deals a month on the buy side and get to the same point where we can be dispoing two to three a month consistently as well. This month, we'll have a good three deals out. We should be anywhere from 50 to $70,000 in that this month, that's not gonna be super common, but I know it's kinda messy.

Mike DeHaan: [9:01] I mean, you say that, but, like, not really. I mean, you say you're not crushing it either. I bet there's a lot of people that would say that you're doing pretty damn well. Mhmm. I mean, if you're doing three deals a month right now and you're making $18 per, what's that? That's $540,000 a year. If my if my math's right, if you did that all yeah. If I did that over the course of the year. Is that right? No. That should be more than that. That would be more than That would a ten month year. Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [9:22] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [9:22] So but what's your actual operational

Otto Kinn: [9:25] cost

Mike DeHaan: [9:25] right now? Like, what's your cost per deal? And then I think in your business, you just have the one sales rep who comes to our sales training on Wednesdays.

Otto Kinn: [9:32] Mhmm. Yeah. Operational costs, I would say that they're low. I think a big reason things aren't, like, revenue numbers aren't better. Our costs have been really high because we took on really stupid flip last year. Dylan, I know you had a similar one that you threw in the hard lessons. Mhmm. We're gonna lose, like, $50 on this deal when it is all said and done. Just dumb. But it's been costing the holding costs have been just eating me alive. So somewhere in the ballpark of $3,500 a month just goes to that deal. That's a lot of what has been hurting us. But as far as the, you know, wholesale cash buyer business, that's not too heavy to operate. It's, you know, I pay our lead manager $1,200 a month, and she now that she's been stepping into the acquisition role, she gets 10% of every deal that she closes on the acquisition side, but she gets paid the net proceeds once we've disloved.

Mike DeHaan: [10:30] Nice.

Otto Kinn: [10:30] So she understands that. That's been them. And that's a virtual assistant, Ada? Yeah. Yep. Sure.

Dylan Koch: [10:36] That's great money for for someone in that role.

Mike DeHaan: [10:39] She's American, though.

Otto Kinn: [10:40] Yeah. She's she's homegrown.

Mike DeHaan: [10:42] She's in, like, Missouri or something because she's pretty sharp too. Like, she's been come on the sales training and stuff, and she does a good job. Like, she has a lot of good stuff to say on the sales training.

Otto Kinn: [10:52] Yeah. I could dissect that a little bit. It it's been a super beneficial relationship. Honestly, last year or last summer, I brought her on as lead manager to replace somebody that I had out of The Philippines. That was the wrong hire. That was somebody who was not good at talking to people and I put her in that role. And so it wasn't really fair to that person. I kept them on for way too long. And since then, it's been growing more so just in our relationship. It's looking like it's just gonna be us and one other person that I've met there. Another good operator. I guess when we went to KeyesCon this last year, I know my big takeaway was I needed to put somebody in the acquisition seat. So Otto, real

Dylan Koch: [11:37] quick with that, because I was gonna bring that up. We actually had a conversation at KeysCon, and I remember we were basically like opposites, where I'm like, I get at the phones a lot of days and talk to sellers, and you're like, well, I can sit and write a word document and bullet points for my operations all day. One, I thought you were crazy, but two, it just shows that you could have different skill sets in this business being the owner operator and still be successful, and it's just managing who you put in that seat and in that organizational chart.

Otto Kinn: [12:04] Yeah, for sure. And and I knew that was something that I needed. I needed to have somebody in that acquisition role. I actually, early in January, I found a local guy who was like boots on the ground, would go shake hands, did a good job but wasn't like super aggressive. And few months in, I mean, this was, like, April, Becky as the lead manager kept setting up with the appointments and things were getting dropped. And she's like she's like, I don't know. It's it's just not following up. Like, these things aren't happening. And I was like, well, you can get the offer out. You don't have to be there. You don't have to physically walk it. So if you feel confident in the deal, Becky, like, let's talk about the numbers. You can just do the offer. And it was like, just like that finger snap. Like, just in that moment, she went out. She locked up. Like, she started calling people that the other person hadn't heard back from, was immediately getting through to them, immediately was getting responses from all these leads that were supposedly dead. And yeah, right away, mean, she she got three deals under contract for June. She's got another two for July, and she's just got a lot more in the ranks. It it's been awesome.

Mike DeHaan: [13:14] That's awesome. It's nice. It's like how our, I'd say promotion of our our lead manager happened to to our it's like our Filipino that closes right now, who's our top closer. I was actually looking earlier today, we're doing a little CRM edit. We currently have 19 deals in escrow. Our company does. And our Filipino has 10 of those.

Otto Kinn: [13:32] Okay.

Mike DeHaan: [13:32] So she's just crushing it. But the funny thing is is, like, that evolution was exactly the same where you had an a player that was super involved, and they would, like, see all these missed opportunities. Then finally, messaged me one day, and she was like, Hey, I see that, you know, one of the guys isn't responding to my notes that this person's ready for an offer. So can I just make the offer based on the notes that are there? And I was like, absolutely. She goes and gets the offer. And she goes, they accept it. How do I send a contract? And, like, immediately, I got on. I was, like, showing her how to send a contract. She got it signed. And then she was like, congrats to the acquisition manager. I got this this contract signed for you. And I was like

Dylan Koch: [14:09] Oh, that is hilarious.

Mike DeHaan: [14:10] No. That's ridiculous. I was like, why the hell would I pay them money when you did the work? And they're like, oh, well, they called them before. I'm like, that doesn't matter.

Dylan Koch: [14:17] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [14:18] Like, now it's your deal.

Dylan Koch: [14:19] Now I got a question related to that, and this would go for both of you. When you guys could put these people in these seats, because I still make all

Otto Kinn: [14:25] these calls myself, did you see a change in dropout rates or price reductions or anything along those lines when you start to implement new people into that role? When in my experience, when when Becky, who I can, I would consider the right person was in that seat, the response was just better? It was better than when I did it. Okay. But I'm not the right person to be there. So Yeah. With us, when

Mike DeHaan: [14:47] we first started bringing in closures, we definitely did.

Dylan Koch: [14:50] Mhmm. It's a learning curve.

Mike DeHaan: [14:51] Yeah. Especially when we started allowing AM to have a little more free range on their offers. When Dan and I've hired our first one years ago, because we were, like, super diligent on underwriting everything, our dropout rates stayed the same. Like, it took us almost a year to have our first contract drop because we were very intentional about not doing that. But then Right. As we scaled, like, we can't underwrite everything. And so once the AMs allowed to start making a little bit more offers because here's the thing is as you as you're you'll probably learn this already. Your sales reps get paid a commission. They are incentivized for the deal to close. Yep. They aren't necessarily incentivized for you to get the best deal. Because for them, the difference between making $3,000 on a $30,000 deal for you or $10,000, but they're gonna make 1,000. Right? That difference doesn't matter them too much. I show the extra $2,000 they'd make is great, but the extra $20,000 for you is significantly more and is much harder for them to get on the offer. And so what we would always find is they would get leaner and leaner deals. And then if they were getting too thirsty, they would start crossing that threshold where there's no longer any meat on the bone. It'd be super problematic.

Otto Kinn: [15:59] But makes sense.

Mike DeHaan: [16:01] Yo. If you don't follow me on Instagram, which is at mike underscore invests, by the way, then you might not know that we officially have a new mission as a brand, and that is to help 2,000 real estate investors build million dollar businesses. Obviously, to do that, we need to get in front of as many people as possible. So quick little ask to help us reach that goal. First, shoot me a follow on Instagram at Mike underscore invests. Second, follow collecting keys podcast on Instagram. That's at collecting keys podcast all written out. And third, every time the algorithm is kind enough to show you a post from either of us, share it on your story or in your post and tag us. If you do that, I'll DM you and we can have a little DM conversation about what is preventing you from having that million dollar business that everyone is seeking. And we can see if we can come up with a plan to help you make that massive income, not just passive income. So again, if you see any of our posts, just go ahead, reshare them, tag us, and let everyone know that you enjoy the content we produce. It will help us a ton, and then I'll be happy to help you as well.

Dylan Koch: [17:06] Well, Otto, I mean, now that you have these people in place, I guess, what is your day to day look like in the business? Are you managing these flips, or what what's kinda your day

Otto Kinn: [17:13] to day look like? Yeah. So right now, it's a lot of dispo. So it's just calling people, getting in contact with new people, getting them in and out of the deals that we have. And when we say flips, it's like junk out, cleaning, it's not it's sort of the as is.

Dylan Koch: [17:29] So you're selling these two flippers? Like, you're not selling these retail?

Otto Kinn: [17:32] Yeah. And some we've done retail. I mean, one, we closed it and we even told the guy, we're like, this was a condo, and we said, we closed it Friday, and we said, there's nothing that we really need to do to the property. We're gonna list it right away on Monday, and we're gonna list it for a really high number. And I you know, I'm not saying we're gonna get that, but that's something that we're gonna do while we figure out what our plan is. Maybe we're gonna rent it out. Whatever. We went in there that Saturday, took photos, did virtual staging, had it listed, and we sold it within the month or two months. It was closed out. We net, like, $20 on that one.

Mike DeHaan: [18:09] Are there opportunities there, you think, to go that more retail side with some of those? I don't know what your market's like. So I guess in a appreciating market or, like, a hot market, which I'm assuming North Dakota might not be. I don't I don't fully know. But, like, we did very, very well for ourselves just, like, basically, wholetailing it, but making it, like, the ugly home and, like, the decent neighborhood. And then the DIYers that were okay buying something at, like, a five or 8% discount off market value, but they were gonna install their own kitchen. We were making money like that for a long time. I'm not sure if that's something that exists where because your prices are also pretty low. Know you've done something like 60 k acquisitions and stuff.

Otto Kinn: [18:49] Our average deal size is, like, 80,000.

Mike DeHaan: [18:52] That's crazy. That's so low compared to a lot of places. Yeah. But and that's, like, your exit price, though?

Otto Kinn: [18:59] No. I suppose not. So if we're buying at 80, I guess we'd be selling at 90 to 95.

Mike DeHaan: [19:05] Yeah. That's that's still real low.

Dylan Koch: [19:07] Yeah. That's nuts. I I mean, I'm not even an expensive market, and that's way less than us.

Mike DeHaan: [19:11] Yeah. So but awesome, man. And then on the so I guess with all the stuff that you're doing, so you I guess just to to go through it. We have the marketing that you have mostly outsourced to that mail company. You spent a lot of time networking, building the disc, building all that sort of stuff. You have a American based lead manager slash slash acquisition manager. What are kind of your your goals, or what do you think is is stopping you primarily from scaling more? Like, do you have ambitions to scale more? Are you just gonna keep doing your thing?

Otto Kinn: [19:42] Yeah. Well, like I said, so in the beginning of the year, the big push was a, getting an acquisition manager, and and b, getting out of the fee settlement cycle. So we've accomplished both both of those things. Where we're at now, consistent lead flow, consistent acquisitions. The big thing is dispo. Now that we're at three deals in a month in a 50,000 population market, how do I keep up with selling all these? So what is the exit? So then if I can't plug and match, you know, individual buyers for these deals, at what point am I gonna have to systemize the the exit strategy of get it cleaned up, do the FHA VA fix ups, and just put on the market instead of so that that's the big thing is getting this position consistent. So that'll be my next big push. The other thing for me is gonna be less friction. So there's another market that we can enter that's gonna be more similar to, like, yours, Dylan. That's Bismarck for us. The median property price up there is, like, $2.50 to 300. That's a good one, but there's there's more competition. So before we get into that market, my plan for the rest of this year is stay consistent at our acquisition, get consistent for our disposition, and remove as much friction as possible.

Otto Kinn: [21:02] So if we can do more double closings if we can consistently do double close, I'm probably just gonna get my license and then just do assignments. And once we can get there, my hard money cost, like I said, we're paying like 22% annualized when you actually look at it because of all the origination. So getting those costs down. Yeah. That's a and that's expensive, bro.

Mike DeHaan: [21:25] You want some cheaper money, dude? Let's have a You know, we have a lending company. I'll give you money for less than that.

Dylan Koch: [21:32] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [21:32] I only think you're allowed to technically lend for that much.

Dylan Koch: [21:35] It's North Dakota, man. They don't care. Yeah. They don't care.

Otto Kinn: [21:38] No. Like I said, it's three points origination, 1% a month. But average hold time is two months. I'll give

Dylan Koch: [21:46] you 2%. I'll give you two points. I'll just beat them by one.

Mike DeHaan: [21:50] Yeah. Well, mean, that's twelve and three, what you just described, which isn't out of hand. Just if you're holding them for incredibly long. But you said, where did 22% come from then? That'd be 15.

Otto Kinn: [21:59] It's because we only hold them for two months. So think 3% every two months on the origination. That's

Dylan Koch: [22:05] fast. Yeah. Analyze it out. That's the same way investors tell them that they're gonna get a 50% IRR. Yeah. I think just from how I know you, think once you get that down, honestly, into another market, because there's a lot of people who enter this business, they're like, my talent's used to offer for this to work, right? And I think you've proven that that's not true. You just, honestly, it's more who you know in those kind of markets. But going into the other market, even if it's competitive, if you have the systems down, you're gonna get deals. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [22:33] And I bet too when you start doing that, you'll probably kick yourself into it sooner. One of the big things that that we found with, like, marketing and sales systems, when you go and you drop into a new market, because honestly, most people don't have good systems at all. All of sudden, you can just start, like, popping off deals, and they're, like, easier to sell, and they're larger. And you're like, well, shit. I should've done this six months ago because I would probably be a lot further ahead now. But, you know, like, there's there's so much to be said about having even, like, the smallest amount of organization as a wholesaler slash flipper or just, like, team structure. Because so many people have nothing. It's crazy. You know? And, like, we even have people that, like, applied to be in the scale community or even have joined, and they'll say they're doing, like, x amount of flips per year, and they're super, like, into themselves. And they come in and they're just like, so wait. Do you guys offer that low of a price on your on your on your properties? I'm like, yeah. All the time. Like, why would anyone sell to you like that? I'm like, I don't know. They do it 10 times a month. Like because they all they've ever done is network or just treat it like a retail buyer. Right? Or or like an amateur.

Mike DeHaan: [23:39] Yeah. When you get there, you'll crush it.

Otto Kinn: [23:42] Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. And that that really speaks more to the scale community in general because it's like any time I spend an extended amount of time with all of you guys and seeing everything that's happening, it makes me just anxious because I'm like, I am I'm not doing anything compared to what these guys are doing. And when I look at, like, the gap and the gain so then when I look at where I am in my market and I realize that I'm on pace to do thirty, thirty six deals in a year, yeah. And a year ago or a year and a half ago, everybody that I talked to in my market said that you can't wholesale. You can't do these cash buying this business, you can't operate that business. And just like we talked about, I know based on the numbers, you know, maybe I'm not there right now, but based on the numbers and based on what this acquisition trend has been, it'll be a $305,100,000 dollar business just in this market. And that's before we get into this market, and we can scale it up to eight to 10 deals a month. Start doing

Mike DeHaan: [24:38] I mean, that's not bad. And, like, just real talk on that. What kind of lifestyle can you live in your town with a $500,000 a year income?

Otto Kinn: [24:46] Better than most.

Mike DeHaan: [24:48] Yeah. That was a modest way

Otto Kinn: [24:50] to put that, for sure. Man, my wife and I, she stays at home. We only made $90 this year. She stays at home and, like, we're pretty healthy. We've got a two year old and a four month old and we've, like, we spend like, I don't know, 3,300 a month and live in a little Hallmark movie town. I have

Dylan Koch: [25:16] a quick question. You bought a commercial place.

Otto Kinn: [25:19] I think

Dylan Koch: [25:19] you still own this. So are

Otto Kinn: [25:20] you doing any of this marketing for acquisition, buy and holds versus just the transactional side of the business? I have changed so much in that. So the commercial deal that I mentioned has been so phenomenal. We tried to do another one like that. We bought 15,000 square foot auto body building in this town. It's been nothing but a mess. We're selling it now. And I don't wanna do buy and hold in Minot. If I do, maybe it would be in Bismarck, but it's just not the right place for it. It's not, you know, I wanna find somewhere that's gonna appreciate more. Ton of opportunity. All these deals that I have on inventory, I can very easily convert in cash flow, but they're not something that's gonna go

Dylan Koch: [26:00] up in value. Yeah. So multiple exit strategies. That's why I want people to deal with that too. Not it doesn't work, you can refi and at least break even. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [26:09] And I think that's the way to look at real estate in 2024. During the the Wednesday show, the Mike Dan and Dylan show. Need to come up a name for that Dylan too.

Dylan Koch: [26:17] Hey. No. We'll work on it.

Mike DeHaan: [26:18] But with that we were we recorded yesterday. We spent a good portion of it talking literally about that of, like, new way to view real estate is, like, learn to make a lot of money and to buy those properties that are actually gonna appreciate, you know, and and getting away from, like, the low interest rate, like, buy for cash flow and build these huge portfolios. Because as we've all learned, it just gets throttled by increasing maintenance costs, increasing property taxes, increasing insurance costs. Then all of a sudden, you have no cash flow, and you have no appreciation. What the hell's the point? Tax benefits? But if not making any money, who fucking cares about that? Like, honestly.

Dylan Koch: [26:50] The only thing to be said for that is it's like an automatic savings account because the tenant might be paying down your principal. That's like only, like, plus one I can put into that.

Mike DeHaan: [26:58] I'd say it's an automatic savings account that gets throttled with massive fees every time you have to turn the property.

Otto Kinn: [27:05] True.

Mike DeHaan: [27:05] Right? Like argue that. Yeah. Yeah. So awesome, man. Well well, good stuff, dude. And and, you know, it's fun to see how you built out. And the fact that you're gonna be doing, you know, like I said, 36, 39 deals this year is crazy. Because I remember we did your first one, which was, what, like, eighteen months ago. Yeah. Alright. We're going to dive into our end of show questions here. So first off, we always have the classic, which has been a staple since day one. But what is your craziest real estate investing story?

Otto Kinn: [27:34] So mine was actually the first deal that I ever did, or the first wholesale deal I ever did. So it was this house, and I was super nervous. This was my first go in and take pictures. Occupants were super cool. They were like, hey. We're gonna go out, run some errands, you just do your thing. So, you know, I'm walking around, taking pictures of this house, and pretty soon I just hear this yelling, and I look at the end of the driveway, and there's this this, like, short, unhinged guy just screaming at me. And he's like, you he's like, you gotta clean that up. And the the yard was just full of shit. And he's like, you gotta get rid of that. And I was like, I don't live here. I don't I have no control over that. And he just, like, went into it and just had this, like, just this long conversation about how horrible these homeowners were. And I'm, like, I'm trying to just get away from him and just go finish taking my pictures. And it's, like, every time I take a step back, he'll, like, come closer and just, like, tell me all these things. And as I'm trying to taper off and, like, go and just finish my pictures, he was like, you know, you're really nice. Next time you're in town, can I get your number? And I was like, how about you give me your number thinking that I'll never call you, dude. And so he gave it to me. I pretended to type it in my phone, and I was like, alright, I gotta go.

Otto Kinn: [28:54] And this whole time he's, oh, next time you're in town, could you take me out to lunch? I'd like that. I'd like that if you'd take me out to lunch. I was like, hell is in

Dylan Koch: [29:03] the water over there. Yeah.

Otto Kinn: [29:06] Yeah, no. And so that's just it. I thought the exchange was done. And so I went, I did the thing. Homeowners came in. I was like, I'm sorry. I'm still here. This crazy guy started talking to me, and they're like, oh, that's just crazy, Aaron. The mailman avoid him. And I was like, okay. And I'm, like, finished up. I'm leaving, and he's standing in front of my car at the end of the driveway with a can of mixed nuts. And he was like, hey. I have a present for these are for you. I want you to take these. I want you to eat these. It's like, okay. Thank you. And I'm, like, trying to get into my car, but he's, like, between me. And he's like, when you get home are you I see you're wearing boots. Did you ever take those off? I was like, yeah. I guess so. But he's like, oh, do you do you wear socks in the house? I was like, mad at, yeah, I wear socks in the house. He's like, you ever take them off? And I was like What the hell? I was like, I mean, at this moment, was like, okay. He he asked my number. He wanted me to take them out. He's just coming on to me. So I was like I thought it'd make it obvious that I'm married and I'm straight. And I was like, hey. I was like, yeah. I'd take him off for my wife and kinda like shimmied around him like that was it.

Otto Kinn: [30:16] That was the end of the conversation. And he just leaned in. He's like, she like that? I was like, nope.

Dylan Koch: [30:23] Fuck. Fuck. Oh, man.

Mike DeHaan: [30:26] God. It's making me uncomfortable. You just

Otto Kinn: [30:28] like telling the story. And so I just, like I was just, like I had no response for that. I I just locked I just, like, jumped in the door and locked it and took on that. Today, Otto's like, wholesaling is for me.

Dylan Koch: [30:42] Yeah. Right? Oh, man. Okay. That's a good one. That is I feel awkward already.

Mike DeHaan: [30:48] Did you guys watch that that baby reindeer show on Netflix?

Dylan Koch: [30:53] I don't think so.

Mike DeHaan: [30:54] You watch that? No. It's worth a watch, but it's basically it's about a stalker. And the behavior you you just described is basically, like, what the stalker lady does in that show. And he just like They

Otto Kinn: [31:02] had to

Dylan Koch: [31:02] be on drugs. This guy had to be

Otto Kinn: [31:04] on drugs. That's my first thought.

Mike DeHaan: [31:05] Or I would guess he honestly has, like, a disability. Because it's funny, like, the sexual connotations aside so, like, I have a younger brother that has mental disabilities. And the way that, like, they insistently ask questions, like, that is, like, very much like what he does. But it'll it'll ask, like, things that are interesting, but, what's your dog's name? You know? And, like, like, shit like that. He's not asking you, like, what how big are your toes? Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [31:27] Okay. I have a different question for you that's a little less weird. So real talk, if you could go back to the very beginning of your business, going through everything that you've already gone through, what's one thing that you would do differently from the start?

Otto Kinn: [31:40] It's cool that you asked me that because this actually is something I learned when you and I talked at KeyesCon. I spent way too much time trying to figure out systems and team and all the things that really don't matter. If I would have gone back to the beginning and just talked to more people, I'd be so much further ahead already. It's funny you

Dylan Koch: [31:57] say that because our

Otto Kinn: [31:58] audience is listening to our

Dylan Koch: [32:00] previous episode with Drake, said the exact same thing.

Mike DeHaan: [32:03] Yeah. Weird. I said to Drake, I'm like, I'm so happy you said that, Drake, because I'm being honest. I kind of have this position this question positioned in a way where I'm hoping that like 90% of the people that come on here say that. Because I think that that's the biggest realization that most people that get into this industry, as they start to build it out, they're like, goddamn. Why wasn't I just, like, calling people, like, six months ago? Like, I would be so much farther along now.

Dylan Koch: [32:25] On our Slack channel, people would be like, Hey, send out my mail. Do I just wait for the phones to come ringing? I'm like, No. Get on the phone and start dialing people, man. Just figure it out. That's literally advice all the time.

Mike DeHaan: [32:37] Or all the time people will say, Man, I've been in a really slow month. I'm like, why haven't you been marketing for six months? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, well, what about all those other people that called? Just start calling them. Yeah. You know? And they they never do. And it so if you're listening to this and trying to figure out why the hell you're not getting more opportunities, you've been marketing, doing everything else, You're probably not talking to enough people, like, flat out, and that is gonna be the number one thing that changes your business. And if you don't wanna do it, hire someone to do it for you. And I can't afford to hire anybody. Just fucking go get a 0% credit card, and I pay them with that. And then just accept you're gonna have debt if they can't figure it out. Like, honestly. So cool. That's great, though. Alright. Where can people find you, follow, and you reach out to your auto?

Otto Kinn: [33:18] Yeah. You can find me on Instagram and find a super incomplete fifty two week challenge at at autokin, ottokinn. And then or you can go to ND Investors, like North Dakota, ndinvestor.com. I post all my deals there. Awesome, man. I appreciate you coming on.

Mike DeHaan: [33:35] Cool.

Otto Kinn: [33:36] Yeah. Appreciate you guys having me.

Mike DeHaan: [33:37] Yeah. Really appreciate the time, buddy. Go shoot Otto a follow. And if you got anything from this episode today, shoot him a quick note. Let him know that you appreciate it. And if you have any struggles that are similar to what he's dealing with, I'm sure he would have some great guidance for you as well. So don't be afraid to reach out. And besides that, guys, we appreciate you all listening, and we'll talk to you guys next week.