Brendan Chetuck
Brendan Chetuck has been a guest on Collecting Keys, the real estate investing podcast hosted by Mike DeHaan, Dan Austin and Dylan Koch, 3 times.
Balancing Virtual Wholesaling and a W2 Job, w/ Brendan Chetuck
Brendan Chetuck runs a virtual wholesaling business in Pensacola, Florida — about six hours from his home in Orlando — while working a full-time W2 job and raising a young family. He walks through how he started with a sub-$1,000 monthly texting budget, why he abandoned student rentals in Upstate New York for active income, and the VAs, lead-manager KPIs and follow-up cadences that let him average two deals a month at roughly $8,500 revenue per deal.
Key takeaways
- Picking a virtual market doesn't require heavy analysis — Brendan chose Pensacola simply because he heard an investor he respected mention it, got his first deal there, and never went back to Orlando.
- A tiny marketing budget still works if you stay consistent: about 100 texts a day and under $1,000/month took six to eight months to produce a first deal, but the pipeline snowballed from there.
- The highest-leverage hire was a lead manager (found through a job posting at KeysCon) who now makes 140–150 calls a day, gathers details, and even delivers offers at a price Brendan sets.
- Follow-up cadence matters more than tight qualification: anyone who raises their hand goes in the CRM, with hot leads called daily, warm weekly and cold monthly; leads are only dropped if the house sold or they ask off the list.
Deal Case Study - Buying A Crack House
Florida investor Brendan Chetuck walks Mike DeHaan through his first wholesale deal: a single-family house found via an SMS blast to a PropStream high-equity list, with a seller who had substance abuse issues, extended family living in the home, an unpaid roofer, utility liens, an expired ID and three separate signing attempts. He got it under contract at $95,000, assigned it for $102,500 and netted about $7,500.
Key takeaways
- Off-market sellers ghost. Brendan's seller disappeared for two weeks, then a month, before finally signing a DocuSign two months after first contact — persistent follow-up is what got the deal.
- Verify a JV partner has actually closed deals before signing anything. Brendan's first 'experienced wholesaler' partner had never done a deal, botched showings (showing up 8am Sunday while the seller slept), and was cut loose.
- Title problems are where truth comes out: an unpaid roof permit, the roofer revealing the seller had pocketed the insurance money, plus utility liens — all handled by paying off at escrow.
- Closing logistics can kill a deal: an ID expired five years, a mobile notary who missed a witness signature, and a third signing done in a hospital room. Brendan called the DMV for the seller to get an appointment scheduled.
Deal Case Study - Sometimes Deals Are Just Easy Money
Instant Investor member Brenden Chetuck walks Mike DeHaan through a straightforward wholesale deal in a new Florida market: an SMS lead from a utility lien list that went quiet for nine months, then came together in weeks. He locked the house up at $123,000 against roughly $260,000 in comps and assigned it for about $156,500, netting just under $34,000, all done virtually.
Key takeaways
- Follow-up wins deals: the first text went out in September, and the seller only replied in June after about nine messages — timing matters more than the first contact.
- Motivation can be non-financial. This seller, a truck driver whose wife had recently passed, only wanted to break even and cover the $123,000 mortgage payoff so he could move to Georgia.
- Verify the payoff directly — Brenden called the mortgage company to get the exact number the seller needed, which became the contract price.
- On disposition, don't get trigger happy. He assigned to the first strong buyer and admits waiting a few more days could have brought a higher price, even from that same buyer.