Shane Schrader
Shane Schrader has been a guest on Collecting Keys, the real estate investing podcast hosted by Mike DeHaan, Dan Austin and Dylan Koch, 3 times.
The Benefits of Boring Assets, is Bitcoin Dead?, and The Newest Biz for Major Cashflow w/ Shane Schrader
Shane Schrader joins Dan and Dylan to walk through the ground-up self-storage project he's developing in Yakima, Washington — how he found the land through his direct mail wholesaling, how he financed it with cash, a HELOC and private money, and what the numbers look like. He also explains a tote rental and storage business he's building as recurring revenue, and Dylan lays out his macro thesis on debt, dollar debasement and hard assets, including the public Bitcoin bets he took with Scott Trench and Jay Scott.
Key takeaways
- Shane bought two dilapidated houses on ~0.9-acre parcels in an M1 light-industrial area (for roughly $220K and $180K) after a seller called about an estate sale — he knew the area well enough to meet in fifteen minutes and had already built a development 'buy box' before the call.
- The deal had a built-in fallback: the homes were grandfathered under residential rules, so if the storage development didn't pencil he could have resold them as residential and still made money. He's since been offered $700K for the larger lot.
- The facility will be about 120 basic concrete-and-steel units, 10x10 up to 10x20, no climate control and no electrical. Shane deliberately avoids small units because larger units attract stickier tenants and fewer turnovers.
- Local banks told Shane they won't do construction loans on self-storage but would compete to refinance it once it's built and operating. He estimates it should appraise around $1.5M to $1.7M.
Turning $35K Into $267K: How to Replace Your W2 as a Wholesaler w/ Shane Schrader
Former journeyman lineman Shane Schrader talks through his first year of full-time wholesaling in Central Washington's Yakima Valley, where about $35,500 in direct mail spend has produced eight deals and roughly $267,000 in revenue. He breaks down his deal mix (wholesale, flips, owner-financed holds), why his first deal took about five months, and the hiring and SOP gaps keeping him from scaling marketing further.
Key takeaways
- Shane spent roughly $35,500 on marketing (about $4,000/month in direct mail) and generated about $267,000 in revenue across eight deals — roughly an 8x return on ad spend.
- His first closed deal came about five months after he started marketing; he doubled mail volume in month two and again in month three rather than pulling back during the dry spell.
- Having rehab experience was a double-edged sword: flipping paid better on individual deals (netting $80K where a wholesale would have been $25K) but slowed his progress on building the wholesale side.
- With ~570 warm leads sitting in the CRM and no lead manager, the hosts argue he could get to two deals a month by hiring for follow-up alone — Mike says a good lead manager was the second big jump in his own business.
Deal Case Study: $25K Wholesale Win in a D-Class Neighborhood
SCALE member Shane walks through a wholesale deal on an 820-square-foot, two-bed home in a rough part of Yakima, Washington, that he found off a plain absentee-owner mailer and locked up at $60,900 in the seller's driveway. He explains why he chose to wholesale rather than flip a house with a failing foundation, how he marketed it on InvestorLift to reach out-of-area buyers, and how he salvaged a messy two-and-a-half-month escrow to collect a $25,000 fee.
Key takeaways
- Speed to lead mattered: the call came in Friday, Shane called back the same day and met the sellers Monday, signing the contract on the spot with a $100 earnest money deposit.
- He passed on flipping because the foundation was falling apart and he had no contractor for that work — ARV was $250K–$260K with $90K–$100K in rehab, meaning six months and heavy capital tied up.
- Listing on InvestorLift produced four offers in two to three days, and the best one came from a West Side Washington buyer he never would have reached through his local list.
- When the seller lost a month of rent waiting on the delayed closing, Shane cut her a $600 check to keep the relationship and the deal intact.