Why 2025’s Economy Could Be a Real Estate Turning Point

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] Real quick before we jump into the show, we created the collecting keys podcast to be a real estate investing podcast that is created by real estate operators for real estate operators, and we want operators everywhere to know what it really takes these days to be successful in this business rather than all the fluff that all the other content creators and podcasters out there make. And so one of the challenges with this is that it's challenging to grow because most operators are too busy out there working. Right? And they aren't always learning or actively seeking new learning material. And so if you could please share this show with any fellow operators you know, you know, you can text it to them. You can post it on your socials. You can leave us a good review that you then share somewhere. That would be amazing. But, really, whatever, it really helps us continue to get excited to create content, and it will also help you because everyone that you expose us to will get better as a real estate operator and close more deals. So if you could do that for us, you would really need a ton. And, otherwise, we appreciate you guys, and let's get into this episode.

Dylan Koch: [1:03] It's gonna go up tremendously, but that's why you have to underwrite for that on the front end, which is also why a lot of deals no longer make sense.

Mike DeHaan: [1:11] What is going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode, the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. It is 2025 at release of this episode. New year, new us. Dylan, how was your holiday?

Dylan Koch: [1:26] I mean, it was good, man. It was short and sweet kind of. You know, I was working most of the time, but we didn't even travel much for the holidays. We kinda stayed home and did our own thing with the with the newborn at home. So it was low key, but it's kinda what I wanted.

Mike DeHaan: [1:40] Yeah. There you go. I mean, I bet you're you appreciated the rest. Because how old's the kid now? Four months?

Dylan Koch: [1:45] 3.5?

Mike DeHaan: [1:46] Yeah. 3.5. Yeah. So super young. And then Dan is not joining us today. We're recording this before the New Year's, and he is still wrapping up some stuff for kids on Christmas break because, of course, he has the plague that all people with, like, youngish kids have where everyone gets sick in the family. So he's probably not. But right on, man. Yeah. Mine was pretty low key. I always kinda get itchy during the holidays because I don't have kids or hobbies or anything else that like to do. And so I just wanna keep grinding away and working. That's just not true. Most of my hobbies are, like, either traveling or, like, nice weather stuff. And usually, I'll go skiing, but, like, snow's kind of been iffy in the surrounding areas, so I haven't been super motivated, Joe. Do you

Dylan Koch: [2:26] seem to just get like a winter vortex the beginning of January?

Mike DeHaan: [2:29] Yeah. Over in Seattle area?

Dylan Koch: [2:31] No. Think like it's gonna be like country wide.

Mike DeHaan: [2:33] Like Oh, really?

Dylan Koch: [2:34] We even get negative like even here where I live, like in the minus twenties, I guess, like on the sixth or seventh of January.

Mike DeHaan: [2:39] Oh, really?

Dylan Koch: [2:40] Yeah. So if you own rental properties, make sure your tenants, you know, keep their water lines running and dripping.

Mike DeHaan: [2:45] Yeah. Have you had a pipe burst at a rental property yet?

Dylan Koch: [2:48] A couple times. Oh, yeah. And they always happen in like the middle of the night or some a very inconvenient time of day.

Mike DeHaan: [2:54] Absolutely. Yeah. Our probably one of my favorite ones is when we had that happen at our our lone Airbnb, and it had been empty for a little while, and the tenant showed up. And they're like, yeah, there's water everywhere. We're not staying here. Yeah. And of course, they're checking in at 11PM.

Dylan Koch: [3:10] One thing here's a quick side note just for the audience. If you learn from my mistakes, it was like the second rental that we ever bought, and they built the kitchen onto the back of the house like an addition. But so they ran all the piping and stuff, but they didn't insulate basically anything underneath this addition. And so of course, that's what burst as soon as, you know, that winter when we had it. So if you buy a house with a dish on the back, especially with plumbing, make sure you check underneath it.

Mike DeHaan: [3:34] Yeah. Yeah. We had one of those too. It was an older house, and it wasn't an addition, but all the plumbing was underneath the house similarly, and it wasn't insulated. And they burst, and basically, it all it, like, got up into the underneath the floating floor, like the LVP.

Dylan Koch: [3:49] Oh, yep.

Mike DeHaan: [3:49] And so we have this this video that a tenant sent us. And it's funny for two reasons. One, because the tenant's walking around and she's pressing on the floor, and you can see it, like, sliding to the cup. It's just like a classic, like, Lambo. Like, what a situation. But the second reason it's funny is because the tenant doesn't have her shoes on, and she has these, like, really chubby feet with bright red toes. And when Dan sent me the video, I was like, I can't stop looking at the feet, dude. Like, it's like a slightly disturbing thing. I was like, this problem we should sell this, but there's probably an audience.

Dylan Koch: [4:23] That's right.

Mike DeHaan: [4:24] We could monetize this picture, this

Dylan Koch: [4:26] video. That's the mind of a true entrepreneur. You're like, how could I sell my tenants' feet pictures? That's the that's the title to this one.

Mike DeHaan: [4:33] Oh my god. But, anyways, cool. So going into 2025, we have a slight restructure of the show. So we're going to have a couple different segments that we go through every single week with these. So the first, like, eight to ten minutes, we're gonna talk about kinda news and events. Then we're gonna talk about specific things with our business, and then we're gonna talk about a weekly lesson that we have learned, and then we'll send you this on your way for the week. So, Dylan, to kick us off, news and events for the week in the real estate or business or economic world. Got anything that is getting you excited right now?

Dylan Koch: [5:07] I don't know about excited is the right word, but I think something that kind of is synergistic, what we talk about frequently as far as the inflation and affordability issues, is the biggest thing is one is the Fed cut rates again, and mortgage rates went up again. So we're still seeing a widening of those two effects, which, you know, a lot of people did not expect. And then two, it's how taxes and insurance are now more and more of like your PITI payment than they ever have been before. So like a decade ago, your taxes and insurance were like, like there will be less than 50% of your payment. That was like but now that number is like 9% of single family mortgages, taxes, insurance are more than half of their mortgage payment, which is wild to me. That is crazy actually.

Mike DeHaan: [5:52] Do you think that's because let me think about that again. So the it's more than half of their mortgage payment period. How much of that do you think is people that have had properties for like a long time, and so their mortgage payment was low like twenty years ago? And so basically it's just grown and grown and grown and grown over that period of time.

Dylan Koch: [6:14] I don't know. I would actually almost go the opposite round, because the way I'm thinking about it is every time you buy a new property and it gets reassessed to that new amount, like, the property taxes least not gonna skyrocket, because they don't really reassess accurately until there's an actual sale in my experience. And then any like, anytime we buy a property now, and I always tell the seller like, like, my insurance is $50 a month. I'm like, okay, well, it's gonna be like $1.50 for me at a minimum. And so there's just like the I don't know if why, like, insurance companies I guess I understand why they would go to somebody else. But when you buy a place brand new, there's such a spike in premiums now that I think it almost has to be it. I don't know.

Mike DeHaan: [6:52] You think it's insurance for the most part or taxes? Taxes. The property taxes. It has Has

Dylan Koch: [6:56] to be taxes.

Mike DeHaan: [6:57] Yeah. Because I

Mike DeHaan: [6:58] think everywhere except California, California has the where property taxes don't have reassess. There's a change of ownership, whatever that process is called. I don't know if anywhere else does. But, like, up here, dude, like, the property tax increases have been insane. I've talked about this a handful of times over the past few weeks. But, I mean, I have, like, a triplex that I just got another tax increase for $200. So a month. So that will be since I bought that place in 2019, my total monthly tax increase now is going to be almost $800.

Dylan Koch: [7:29] Yeah. I literally just had friends of mine that bought a place in 2021 or 2022, and they got reassessed. And they texted me like, Dylan, our property taxes, our escrow payment went up $700 a month. Mhmm. Like, we don't cash flow. Like, how is this possible? And I'm like, your previous s like, assessment value is like 115. Now it's $2.60. Like, so of course, it's gonna, like, it's gonna go up tremendously. But that's why you have to underwrite for that on the front end and which is also why a lot of deals no longer make sense when you do that. Like Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [7:57] I mean, it sucks though too because, like, at least with things like CapEx and maintenance, that goes towards the property. Taxes are by how large the sunk cost. Same with insurance. I mean, that just goes into the sphere and your city and buzzes it or does whatever else they do with it.

Dylan Koch: [8:13] I think the the my frustration, so like in the in my Hamilton County, you can go into the tax summary. Mhmm. And you can they'll give you a pie chart of where that tax money is going. 75% of it goes to like the school system.

Mike DeHaan: [8:24] Nice.

Dylan Koch: [8:25] And Cincinnati schools public schools is very poorly rated. Yeah. And so it's like, okay, you have a very large chunk of money that is not being allocated correctly. So, like, that's kind of the biggest headache for me as as a, you know, property owner.

Mike DeHaan: [8:39] What are talking about, dude? The school police definitely needs that tank that they bought

Dylan Koch: [8:43] for for the commission. Just like shit like that. And then are they adding more admin? Are the teachers just increasing salaries? Like, there has to be some objectifiable way of like, you know, how is this money is getting used?

Mike DeHaan: [8:54] But Yeah. You'd think so. I mean, I do think that going into this next year, there are a ton of lead indicators leading towards general seller distress. I mean, monthly payments getting really weird like that. Like, it's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna suddenly be in homes that they can't actually afford anymore because they're not making any more money. You have all these balloon payments. Everyone that was getting these rock bottom loans in 2020 and 2021 from these commercial lenders that had three year, five year adjustments.

Dylan Koch: [9:26] Uh-huh.

Mike DeHaan: [9:27] Those are all gonna be coming up this next year, and there's gonna be people getting absolutely rocked by that when all of a sudden their cap rates and rents are down, but their mortgages increased to seven or 8% from their commercial lenders. Right? Like, the general cost of living. People think that Trump's gonna make eggs cheaper. No. He's not, bro. It's already come out. He doesn't give a shit. Like, everything's getting more expensive. Not only that, they're outsourcing all the good jobs to people with h b ones now. So

Dylan Koch: [9:53] Oh, going straight for the clonchofercy. Like

Mike DeHaan: [9:55] yeah. I mean, like, there's so many things that are gonna indicate people not being able to afford their homes anymore. And from an investor standpoint, that's weirdly an opportunity.

Dylan Koch: [10:05] Yeah. But one thing that you you touched on Trump, he actually tweeted this today or yesterday. I don't know which one. And today is the December 30. But basically, it's like, he feels like there's a nineteen twenty nine type euphoria in the stock market and general economy. And for any history, people, they call it like roaring twenties, but ended in, like, the September, October time frame of 1929, then you have the thirties, which was the great depression. Mhmm. Right? So I don't know, you know, if he knows he's taking office and they are expecting some kind of downward in the economy, you know, or recession of some kind, and he's just forecasting like, this isn't my fault. Probably. Or what kind of the plan is there? But it sounds like they're already setting the stage to say, hey, there's gonna be some economic turmoil, you know, maybe beginning of twenty twenty five.

Mike DeHaan: [10:48] Yeah. Which is an interesting position because I feel like politicians, they always try to lead with opportunity. Right? And and in my mind, if they're coming out with that, they're basically trying to set the expectations low. Because happiness is, was it, expectations minus reality or reality minus expectations. Right? Yeah. And so if your reality ends up being better than your expectations, then you look awesome. So is it reverse psychology, or are they just foreshadowing? Who knows? But I do think that if you're trying to buy discounted assets, it's going to be very, very, you know, abundant in 2025.

Dylan Koch: [11:21] One thing, and then we can go on to the next segment that this to keep where a lot of people I follow are keeping a close on is the labor market. So like, they the report will come out in January. They'll basically run from like 3.5 at the low to 4.3 at the latest reading, and it's gone up incrementally. And I think around that 4.5, 4.6 range is where a lot of economists are like, hey, like, we need to really watch this. And they're basically looking at the supply and demand for housing as, okay, we know there's a limited supply and there's a lack of housing. But the demand side has been kind of propped up a little bit, I guess. But they're saying if people start losing their jobs, you're gonna lose all of that. And so that's just maybe another factor to keep eyes on.

Mike DeHaan: [12:01] Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that the lesson, just looking at everything, what people can take is actionable about it, is try to get a strong cash position so you can make moves quickly if you need to. Make sure that you have your lead generation going, and make sure that your brand is positioned so it's actually findable and people actually trust you when they do need to make decisions. Because if you're kinda like the under the radar person or people can't find you or you are now you have these super motivated sellers that are coming out and they're trying to decide between six different companies, they're gonna go to the one that looks the most legit and you can move the fastest. You're gonna wanna be that person.

Dylan Koch: [12:37] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [12:38] Cool. Alright. We can wrap that up. Let's dive into our businesses for the week. If I can get, like, a sound effect. Like a

Dylan Koch: [12:45] Yeah. Like, kinda like a bigger pockets of, the deep dive thing.

Mike DeHaan: [12:48] Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [12:48] Like, a submarine, like, thing, I think, if I remember right. Like No. Yeah. So that's funny.

Mike DeHaan: [12:54] So, alright. How is what are the updates from your business this week, Dylan? I know you're crushing it because you gave me a little preview before we hopped on.

Dylan Koch: [13:01] Yeah. So well, December was decent for us. Like, it wasn't anything spectacular. It was kinda normal. I did have two deals that pretty much fell apart at the last second.

Mike DeHaan: [13:11] That's fine.

Dylan Koch: [13:11] One seller just plain didn't show up and has been ghosting us ever since. So that's fun. And then the second one, there's gonna be a decent spread. And then title search came back, there was a $19,000 lien, like in a second position that kind of kills the deal. So that, you know, that's just part of the business though, that kind of goes on. Mhmm. But on top of that, right now, I mean, q one, we have, I think, 11 in escrow. And some of those are already assigned, some of those still working with buyers a couple more offers out. And I will tell you, a lot of this came from working my ass off the past couple weeks. And also, said this on the podcast, I reached back to basically every seller that I talked to the past couple years and said, hey, do you got another property you wanna I bet half of those come from

Mike DeHaan: [13:49] That's awesome.

Dylan Koch: [13:50] Right? Because they wanna start off 2025 with another sale.

Mike DeHaan: [13:53] Yeah. I mean, that is our industry's version of a referral. Yeah. Right? Like people always talk about getting referrals for service businesses or trades businesses. Having someone that, you know, you just bought their house for 50¢ on the dollar that's gonna, like, refer another seller, that's a weird thing. Like, I think we've had that happen maybe once. But following up with people that you bought their property, especially, obviously, landlords who have inherited things and ask if if they have any others they wanna sell. That happens a lot. Yeah. Like a lot more than you would expect.

Dylan Koch: [14:23] Especially the multi the multi landlord who honestly is just older and they're done with it. The only reason they didn't sell them all the past couple years is because of taxes.

Mike DeHaan: [14:32] Exactly. Or we've had like inherited ones too where they're like, hey, so grandma gave us 10 properties. They're all empty and they're all trash, but we basically wanna sell one a year Yep. Going forward, and we just maintain that relationship year over year. Right? Yep.

Dylan Koch: [14:45] So that's awesome. Secrets. Mean, and then I mean, I guess on the business aspect of that, like, I cannot do that much volume probably in like, you know, one or two months without my assistant now who does all the transaction coordination. Because now I can go back to one, trying to dispo them, find it like, you know, working with the buyers. But two, getting more deals, sending out more contracts. That time would other have to be spent doing miscellaneous transaction coordinator stuff, which I'm not saying is not important, but it's not gonna drive any more revenue.

Mike DeHaan: [15:13] Yeah. Yeah. And that's you know, you also have new responsibilities at home too,

Dylan Koch: [15:17] which Right.

Mike DeHaan: [15:17] Would make that even more challenging.

Dylan Koch: [15:19] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [15:19] But So

Dylan Koch: [15:20] But how's it going with you guys?

Mike DeHaan: [15:21] It's been you know, coming out of the holidays, it's always tricky. So, like, with how our business has gone over the past six months, we had this big national team. I unfortunately released most of them at the beginning of December. And so we're down to basically our local Spokane group. We have a couple of VAs, and we're doing a couple virtual markets. But those are, like, honestly, just like clean up. We're not necessarily advertising. We're just getting the opportunities that we still have. And so over the last, like, couple of weeks, it's been quiet, especially for me because we now have this little four person partnership here in Spokane, and they all have kids and stuff. And so it was real quiet. And so it was basically me and my rock star sales VA, Jesse, just going through it's taking down deals. And she actually got two signed around, which is pretty cool, which were, like, just right out of the the trenches, like ones that we kinda forgotten about. But going into January, we have nine closings lined up right now, which are all things that we got signed around over November, December. Like, a lot of the stuff that we've actually, I should say eight because one of them we actually found out is gonna fall out. So you said you have, like, your property lien.

Mike DeHaan: [16:32] This one's an interesting situation where the seller like the price. We have a buyer assigned, and now the seller is wanting to back out because there was a property that they had their hearts set on buying that they lost the bid on. So somebody else buy the house. They're saying, we can't we're not getting the house. We don't wanna move anymore. Right? And the question is always, well, how do you handle that situation? Do you let them walk? Do you try to get them signed a first right of refusal? Do you try to force them to sell, which isn't the direction I would go? I don't know. What are you are your thoughts on those types of deals? Because they're not necessarily distressed. The house that they live in is kinda like mad, and they just wanted a guaranteed sale to buy their new property. That was their motivation for calling us was they wanted to be able to get that new homeowner contract and then have us execute when it made sense for them so they wouldn't have a gap.

Dylan Koch: [17:22] Yeah. In my experience, usually, like, you just be very transparent and up for the seller like, hey, we're a business. We thought we were going to, you know, buy this property with money set aside, you know, allocated for this. You know, would it be okay if we signed a first right refusal or something like that to go move forward? And honestly, nine times out of 10, they're like, yeah, know, like working with you. When the time is right, we'll go ahead and sell it to you. But that you just have to make sure you're following up with that, and you have yourself protected with, you know, whatever you get recorded at the county. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [17:49] Then if they say no, you break their kneecaps.

Dylan Koch: [17:51] Yeah. No. I mean, the biggest actually, I'll ask you this, kind of reverse, is I always like to get it the first right refusal for the the price that I have, you know, at that point in time. But a lot of the sellers like, well, what if the price changes? You know, we sell this thing three years from now. Mhmm. So it's like, okay. So get the first right refusal at mark you know, what is deemed market price at that point in time, which might change.

Mike DeHaan: [18:11] You can give me about thirty six seconds. I just wanna share our scale community with you. So scale stands for scaling cash flow, assets, leverage, and equity. It is our exclusive community for real estate operators looking to take this game seriously. In the community, you get to hang out with myself, Dan, Dylan, and other operators around the country who are all working to be the best in their market. We really did a survey, and every single member said that the community had directly contributed to major growth they experienced in the last twelve months. On top of that, you get all of our processes around marketing, sales, building a CRM, and you even get preferred relationships with Lowe's and different financing slash lenders so that you can get your deals 100% paid for without a headache. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, go to collectingkeys.com/scale. Let's see if

Mike DeHaan: [18:53] you're a good fit. Yeah. So we've done one deal like that where it actually came to fruition, and we ended up getting paid. And that one, it was interesting because we had our first rider refusal at our price, That was in, like, early mid twenty twenty. And then when it finally came to fruition, it was twenty twenty two, twenty three, and the house was worth a hell of a lot more. And so what we did is we offered them to buy us out of our first ride of refusal instead of exercising.

Dylan Koch: [19:23] Oh, okay.

Mike DeHaan: [19:24] And it worked out fine. They they walked away with, an extra 150 k versus if they had done with our first ride of refusal, and then we made $40 on it. Yeah. So, like, there are things you can do. You can structure the language of it where it'll be at your current contract price or at a new assessed value, whichever is higher, right, or whichever is I can't say that, whichever is lower. People aren't gonna agree to that.

Dylan Koch: [19:47] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [19:48] Yeah. You know, or you can set it up where you get to exercise your contract price or you get to make a first offer on it. The challenge becomes is if you go out route, they don't always have to accept it. Right? Because the first rider refusal doesn't necessarily give you the right to buy the property. It gives you the right to make an offer.

Dylan Koch: [20:04] Correct.

Mike DeHaan: [20:04] And so they cannot sell it to somebody else without notifying you. So it always kinda leaves you open, right, if things change with their circumstances, But it is a way to lay at least make sure you get another shot on goal.

Dylan Koch: [20:17] It's just part of this business. And like, the two deals that we fall out, you had one fall out. You just can never count the money before it's in your account because things Totally. Will fall out. You know? It sucks if you're like, oh, I'm getting paid 15 k next month. I can go and start my marketing spend. Like, just be careful with that. Make sure you have

Mike DeHaan: [20:31] ample reserves. And it's also why it's important to make sure that you're constantly balancing your acquisitions with your TC and dispo. Because if you are like I said, if you're relying on that one deal to close and it doesn't, and you've now been skipping on your acquisitions for the last three weeks, cool. Now you're at towards zero. Right? Which is a really tough place to be.

Dylan Koch: [20:51] Yeah. We actually had one as a similar but different situation. Four unit, walked it, got a decent price. And this lady, she signed the agreement, and she actually had her son living in at, $300 a month. But in our agreement, I was very sure. I was like, he's gonna be you know, have to be gone, you know, prior to just closing. And she's like, no problem. We actually have another house, you know, for him to go to. And she owns like five or six properties around Cincinnati that aren't honestly like good parts of town. So she signs it literally like an hour later. She calls me and she's like, hey, I don't want to move forward anymore because my son doesn't want to move. I'm like, okay, well, can I look at the place that he was going to go to? Like, you're right. Like, you said it was vacant. I went to that one, and I and now we're under contract to buy that house from her. Like, it kind of worked out in the end. Maybe I don't have a sure refusal for anything for this other house, but I just feel like the rapport is there where when the time is right, that'll be another opportunity for us.

Mike DeHaan: [21:45] Yeah. Well, and there's also a psychological piece of that. Right? Like, where the seller acknowledges that there was something that they took from you. Right? And they are going to be more inclined to accept your offer at other house because it's like a this for that sort of scenario.

Dylan Koch: [22:00] Honestly, you know, with the negotiating part of that, that definitely played a factor, and we got it at a great price.

Mike DeHaan: [22:05] So Yeah. That's awesome. But Yeah. So, you know, besides that one, though, like, we have some cleanup to start doing going into New Year because despite the team being pretty quiet, we still had a handful of leads come in. Direct mail was, like, relatively quiet overall, but we got, like we always get random, like, online leads and things like that that come in over the holidays.

Dylan Koch: [22:26] Are you doing any kind of different marketing than you have been? We're gonna be leaning a lot

Mike DeHaan: [22:31] more on growing our brand going into next year. So we're in the process of kind of revamping our website and getting, like, our online reviews and stuff all kind of queued up and sort of figuring out what that looks like. But I do think that going into, like, the future of this industry, having a strong local brand that appears professional and is findable, searchable, has reviews, things like that is going to pay even more dividends than it has in the past. Just because there's so many people that have either built bad reputations for themselves or they are like, have maintained these, like, really small, hard to find businesses. And we've found that we've started to lose business to more established brands. And so, you know, you can always say like, well, they're bigger. Whatever. My goal is, well, why don't we just get bigger than them? Yeah. That's what we're gonna be trying to do here going next year.

Dylan Koch: [23:25] The thing that surprises me of this off market real estate stuff is they're like, okay, you know, I'm good. The price sounds good. How does the process work? And I'm like, you bought a house. Like, I thought some of this would be second nature, but a lot of them don't understand. It's shocking. And so you either have to walk them through that process so they feel comfortable, which is fine. I actually made a a very short YouTube video of myself, and then like kind of explaining the whole process with the little anime from like Fiverr and stuff. And now I just copy and paste that and say, hey, watch this. If you have any questions, like, just let me know.

Mike DeHaan: [23:56] There you go. That's what I guess then the Internet it VSL. You know what that is?

Dylan Koch: [24:00] I have no idea what that is.

Mike DeHaan: [24:01] Video sales letter. So, basically, the whole concept is that when you are pitching somebody on something or somebody has just done like an initial purchase, you send them a VSL. Alex Ramosy's team does this a lot. And I've actually seen a lot of different ads from influencers that are now stealing this from him. Like, well, I'm the best at this. Here's how you use VSLs to sell your bullshit. Yeah. But it's a prerecorded thing that sets expectations for what happens next. And I've actually thought about doing these on the the real estate realm, like, when it comes to making offers of having different VSLs for people on your team that you can essentially text sellers so they know who they're meeting before someone comes out. Yeah. Kinda like how how have you ever had, like, a plumber or, like, a HVAC company from those beer companies? Here's Tim. He's who you're working with today. And that way they know kind of who the person is, what they look like, alleviates a lot of the stress around it. But with us scaling down, I haven't dealt into that as much. But

Dylan Koch: [24:59] I think those are great ideas though. I mean Mhmm. A lot of people are like, their first barrier, their first like, am I getting ripped off? Am I getting screwed? And that's what you have to like, build that trust through first. Anything you can do to minimize that, even with the VSO, I think it's great. Yeah. Even when I go on appointments, like, hey, my name's Dylan. I'll send a picture. Like, I have sent a picture of my photo ID. I'm driving a black, you know, sedan. I'll tell them the name of the car so that way everything they know when they show up is not a surprise.

Mike DeHaan: [25:23] Totally. And I I think that that's why having that strong company image going to the future is gonna be so much more important because you're right. People are gonna look for that. And I think the core reason behind it is if you go back to wholesale in like 2018, 2017, I wasn't wholesaling back then, but I was looking at wholesale deals and buying from wholesalers. The whole industry honestly was based off of people not knowing what their properties were worth. Right? You like, you were ripping people off for the most

Mike DeHaan: [25:48] I'd like to be honest.

Dylan Koch: [25:49] I will say a lot of that too is people I feel like were over buying shit, but they they were right. They were right. I was wrong. But, you know Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [25:55] Totally. But going into now, especially after the the real estate boom in '21 and '22, everyone knows that their property is worth a lot more than they bought it for. Right? The people have a lot more capabilities to see what their property is worth in general. Zestimates are getting more accurate. It's so easy to see what comps sold for in your neighborhood, things like that. Until very rarely are you talking to a seller that is uninformed, but you are spending a lot more time talking to sellers that full on understand they're be selling for a discount. What they're looking for is service and trust in the transaction. Right? And if you're unable to provide that or you don't feel like you're gonna provide that, you're going to miss out. Totally. So those little things are gonna make a huge difference.

Dylan Koch: [26:38] Part of the sales pitch, Mike, is, hey. You could take it on market. You will get a higher price, and I'm gonna offer you, but then you have inspections, appraisals Mhmm. Realtor fees. Like, you have all this stuff. You're basically trading price for convenience. This is what I can

Mike DeHaan: [26:50] Yeah. Tell Totally.

Dylan Koch: [26:52] Like I said, I feel like a lot of times intent matters in this business. And if you are just straightforward, they're like, cool. I can make an informed decision around that, and let's go forward.

Mike DeHaan: [26:59] Yeah. And as a perfect example, one of the ones that Jesse and I team met center on this weekend, the seller talked to an agent on Friday. K? The agent said, you can probably sell there's a major fixed rep, So you can probably sell this thing on market as is for $300. K? And so the seller came back and was like, well, you know, we offered 200 initially. And it's like, well, this hey. Just leaving at 300. And so we had some back and forth, and we said, I understand your agent said that. You still need all this work needs to be done. If you do that, it's gonna go on market. You're gonna have to, like, clean all this stuff out, whatever. That's gonna be the typical expectation of a retail buyer or a market buyer. So we're willing to buy it with all that stuff, but we're gonna be at $2.25, and that's our highest and best. Mhmm. And after a couple days of going back and forth, they decided to sign with us.

Dylan Koch: [27:43] Or my favorite part of those is they end up going with the realtor. It sits. Or it goes under contract and it falls out twice. And now it's six months down the line and they revisit the conversation. They're like, we could have saved so much time, man.

Mike DeHaan: [27:55] Yeah. I know. Right? And now that everything's getting different, now, of course, it's always like they do that over the summer, and now they're trying to call you in November. I'm like, why? Like, why couldn't we do this six months ago? Cool. Yeah. So either way, I think both of us are teeing up for a pretty solid January. Right on. And then last little segment, any good lessons from this past week, Dylan? This can be something big business wise. These can be small. These can be, you know, just like a little, like, I learned that have I have a conversation this way, or I call sellers this way, it heals me something a little bit better.

Dylan Koch: [28:28] Well, I'd say one of the biggest lessons kind of what we alluded to earlier is work in the kind of the off signs when everyone else isn't working, because that's a lot of where this revenue is gonna come from. But I think we just dropped a little bit of nuggets. But actually, one thing I will leave the the crowd to, I listened to not to pitch another person's podcast that we do, but Hormozi just said like a ninety minute, like, end of year podcast. Mhmm. It was ninety minutes of pure gold. It was basically like it was like, you're not you're probably not working as much as you should. It's probably taking longer than you think it will. And the great things are built over, like, consistency and time. And now that I've been doing this for, like, three to four years full time almost, like, you know, my financial picture is a lot better, but it's definitely taking longer than I've, you know, hoped. And actually, was just having a conversation with another investor, and you look at our lifetime sales. Right? It's like low 7 figures at this point. And I look at the bank account, like, where the fuck does all the money go?

Mike DeHaan: [29:17] Yeah. Totally.

Dylan Koch: [29:18] And so that's another thing. Like, capital management is another piece to work on this business, think every off market investor, especially ones you've fled struggles with. And I don't know. I I'd say other lessons are just as cliche as it is, if you just keep going and don't give up, you will eventually find success in this business.

Mike DeHaan: [29:34] Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I think a good realization that I had this past week as I had some some downtime and I was trying to sort of plan what this next year was going to look like both I was, both. Like, with our real estate company as well as with our scale community as well as with this lending company that we have, I was really trying to, like, forecast what growth looks like for these things. And it sounds so silly, but the realization that I had is that if you're even a slightly seasoned entrepreneur, you know exactly what you need to do, but for some reason, you don't do it. Right? Like, so often. And, like, I was really trying to, like, figure out strategy, those are things. And I was like, I already know the strategy. It's just not being executed. And it sounds like a silly lesson, but what I realized is so many people, they spend way too much time trying to find the secret or the perfect way to do things, and you should really just, you know, get to work and just try stuff out.

Dylan Koch: [30:38] Yeah. Brute force and then leverage. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [30:41] Totally. And then people always want perfection. And something that I've realized is that, like, people that have successful businesses, like very successful, like talking tens, hundreds, millions of dollars, they're still weighing it like everybody else. They just have a better image. Right? Or they've been doing it for longer or they have better leverage through teams and people and experience. And so, like, when you're making decisions that are realistically, like, or thousands of dollar decisions, sorry, guys. That's not a lot of money, just big picture, You kinda need to just go into the trenches and be willing to make mistakes. And if you do that, you will have a much better growth trajectory over the next twelve months.

Dylan Koch: [31:18] Yeah. Yeah. And I'm I'm gonna rip from that and that podcast again is like, the longer the harder and longer you work, your expectations and reality of what hard work actually is just changes.

Mike DeHaan: [31:28] So different, dude.

Dylan Koch: [31:29] And Yeah. You know, I even through pharmacy school and working during that, like and now doing this business, like, you just have to be willing to do those eight to twelve to plus hour days at a time. And if you can do that even for a month straight, like you'd be surprised at like what you can actually accomplish. And there's just no getting around it. Like you said, people are trying to do this with a nine to five. Like, oh, I wanna make 10 phone calls a day or send off 400 postcards, then do what you're doing. I'm like, good luck.

Mike DeHaan: [31:55] Good luck, dude. Yeah. You're you're competing with, you know, me working twelve hours a day with my team is doing it full time. You know? So not only am I working harder, but I have leverage in terms of multiple people that are doing it forty, fifty hours a week. Like, you're just never gonna compete with that. Cool. Awesome. We'll just have to wrap up. Right on. Anything else, Dylan, before we head out of here?

Dylan Koch: [32:15] Nothing. Nothing to report. I think I'm looking forward to a great 2025. I think both on personal and business, there'll be a lot of growth this year, so I'm looking forward to it.

Mike DeHaan: [32:22] Yeah. Same. Awesome, man. Alright. Well, thanks for listening everybody. And we'll talk to you guys next week.

Dylan Koch: [32:27] See you.

Mike DeHaan: [32:28] If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at Investor Man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore Does underscore Deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to

Mike DeHaan: [32:40] let us know what you think of the show.