Drew Wiard
Drew Wiard has been a guest on Collecting Keys, the real estate investing podcast hosted by Mike DeHaan, Dan Austin and Dylan Koch, 4 times.
Where The Smart Money Is Quietly Moving Right Now w/ Drew Wiard
Drew Wiard returns for a fourth appearance to explain how he structured his $25 million industrial real estate fund with zero acquisition or management fees and full-recourse loans he personally guarantees. The conversation covers why industrial properties require minimal tenant improvements, how lease restructuring can double a building's value overnight, and the limits of chasing depreciation as an investment motive. The hosts also discuss lending fraud they see on the underwriting side and the tradeoff between investing in your own business versus placing capital passively.
Key takeaways
- Drew's fund charges no acquisition or management fees and uses full-recourse loans on $1–3M assets that he and his partner personally guarantee, so misalignment risk shifts onto the operators rather than the LPs.
- Preferred returns can become a trap: if an operator falls behind on an accruing pref, their incentive shifts to transacting another deal for fees rather than making the existing asset perform.
- In commercial, you're buying the lease, not the building. Drew described a $650K purchase where signing a new lease takes the value to roughly $1.1M, and a Cincinnati deal bought at a 7.2 cap that lease changes could push toward 11.5–12 over 18–24 months.
- Industrial has the lowest tenant improvement burden of the major commercial classes — retail can cost $100K–$150K per turnover, while industrial tenants bring their own machines into what is essentially a clean metal box.
The Debt Trap Impacting Real Estate Investors w/ Drew Wiard
Mike, Dan and Dylan talk with commercial investor Drew Wiard about rising consumer debt, a 17% quarter-over-quarter jump in foreclosures, and the shift toward all-cash home purchases. They cover proposed changes to credit scoring that would count utility and rent payments, why cash-flowing hard assets are the hedge in a debt-based economy, and how Midwest industrial markets are performing.
Key takeaways
- Foreclosures rose 17% quarter over quarter and roughly one in three home sales this year have been all cash, concentrated at the high and low ends of the market — signs of stress even without a crash.
- New credit score models may factor in utility payments and landlord-reported rent data, which widens the pool of people who qualify for debt and echoes the rule changes that preceded 2008.
- Buy-now-pay-later products like Affirm and Klarna are being used for everyday purchases (roughly 30% of transactions in one holiday sales event) and build no credit for mostly younger users.
- Drew's commercial portfolio runs at about a 13–14 cap, with acquisitions at 9.5–11.5 caps that cash flow on day one — deliberately avoiding the forced-appreciation syndication model that got crushed in 2022–23.
How To Buy A Business That Builds Massive Wealth w/ Real Estate Investor Drew Wiard
Drew Wiard returns to describe how he moved from buy-and-hold real estate into buying and merging three businesses in eighteen months, including a print and binding manufacturer in Detroit. He walks through his acquisition criteria, the SBA loan structure and its personal guarantees, and the work of merging three companies and cultures into one building. He also argues that most people underestimate the risk and difficulty, and that struggling in a real estate business is a bad sign for running any other business.
Key takeaways
- Drew's buy box was defined by what he didn't want (no SaaS/tech) plus revenue above roughly $4M and EBITDA of at least $750K, so the business could already afford front office, bookkeeping and HR staff.
- The first deal was about $2.7M funded with an 80% SBA loan, 10% seller carry and 10% from the buyers — Drew personally put in about $127K.
- SBA debt is a floating rate (currently around 11%) amortized over ten years and personally guaranteed, so a failed business can put your house and other assets at risk.
- Buying small can backfire: a $1M business throwing off $200K usually buys you a job, not ownership. Drew says he'll only buy bigger going forward.
Becoming a Cash Flow Master with Drew Wiard
Drew Wiard, a former pharmacist and hospital leader in Fort Wayne, Indiana, explains how he built 40-50 residential rentals, three commercial buildings and apartment syndication positions in about seven years while working a W-2 job, and left that job in 2022. He walks through how land contracts work in Indiana, why he cherry-picks keepers from his direct-to-seller marketing business, how he raised private money as simple business loans with personal guarantees to buy commercial property with none of his own cash, and why he now optimizes for time rather than maximum ROI.
Key takeaways
- A land contract (contract for deed) lets the seller act as the bank while keeping title, so recovering the property after default is easier than foreclosure and maintenance stays with the buyer; Drew requires 10% down, prices at market value, and sets rates around current rates plus about three points amortized over 30 years with a balloon.
- The downside of land contracts showed up during inflation: a house he sold on contract at $130,000 is now worth about $200,000, and that equity belongs to the contract buyer, while an identical house he kept as a rental captured the appreciation.
- You can sell on land contract with a loan behind it - Drew buys with cash or private money, locks in the buyer, then places bank debt and has the buyer sign a subordination agreement.
- For his three commercial deals (a triple-net warehouse, a medical office park bought for about $600,000, and a mixed-use building in downtown South Bend), he raised all the down payment money as unsecured loans to his LLC at 8% interest-only for five years, with personal guarantees from both partners instead of junior lien positions.