The Wisconsin Investor
Each week, we bring you interviews with some of Wisconsin's top real estate investors who share their tips, tricks, and strategies that you can implement right away. This show is dedicated to helping Wisconsin real estate investors elevate their game. Along with interviews, I'll also dive into hot topics in solo episodes and feature experts from various real estate sectors across Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Investor
Turning Tragedy into Triumph: Real Estate Success with Mark Truckey
What if a personal tragedy could completely reshape your financial future? Join us on the Wisconsin Investor Podcast as we chat with Mark Truckey, who, alongside his wife Cara, turned a devastating loss into a driving force for real estate success. Starting their journey in Appleton by renting out their home in 2013-2014, they soon adopted the BRRRR strategy to build a substantial portfolio. The turning point came in 2016, when the loss of their child gave them a new perspective on time and financial freedom, prompting them to scale their investments aggressively. Today, they manage 83 units and have both transitioned to full-time real estate careers.
We dive deep into the mindset needed to conquer fears and achieve real estate goals. Mark emphasizes the importance of personal development, health, and family time as crucial pillars for success. He shares invaluable insights on the "faith over fear" approach, viewing challenges as opportunities, and the significance of mentorship and coaching in real estate investing. This episode is packed with practical advice on maintaining resilience and enjoying the journey, making it a must-listen for both aspiring and seasoned investors looking to elevate their game.
Ever wondered how converting an office building can yield massive returns? Mark reveals the details of his standout project, turning a $675,000 purchase into a property appraised at $5.9 million, thanks to a strategic partnership with MJI Construction and a community bank. We also highlight the critical role of networking, discussing how connections with property management companies, lenders, realtors, and wholesalers can make a significant difference. Mark's experience in Northeast Wisconsin and the appeal of Northern Wisconsin for short-term rentals are also explored, offering a comprehensive look at what it takes to succeed in real estate investing.
Welcome to the Wisconsin Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Raymont. Oh, hey, there guy. Each week, we bring you interviews with some of Wisconsin's top real estate investors, who share their tips, tricks and strategies that you can implement right away. Oh, crepes, this show is dedicated to helping Wisconsin real estate investors elevate their game. Along with interviews, I'll also dive into hot topics and solo episodes and feature experts from various real estate sectors across Wisconsin, you betcha. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Everybody, welcome back to the Wisconsin Investor Podcast Show. I am joined today by my good friend, Mr Mark the Magic man Truckee. I don't know why I just called you that. I've never called you Magic man before.
Mark Truckey:How are we doing, man, I'm doing well.
Corey Reyment:How are you?
Mark Truckey:doing.
Corey Reyment:I'm doing good, brother. I'm doing good Well. I'm excited to have you on, mark. We've got to know you and your wife really well and you guys are some of our best friends now. We met through real estate investing right, and I guess I want to just give the audience. Let you tell them a little background on you and Kara and how you guys got into real estate, when you got into real estate and what does it look like today for you.
Mark Truckey:We got into real estate and, like right around 2013, 2014, we had a house that we wanted to sell and we realized that if we're going to sell the house, we were going to break even on it. So we said screw it, let's rent it out. And we rented it out and then that's what kicked us off on our journey of it. Then I just went on Zillow, tried to find the cheapest houses I could find in Appleton, and just find them and fix them up and then refinance them and get my money back out and just keep doing that.
Corey Reyment:The old BRRRR strategy.
Mark Truckey:Yes, sir. Well, at first I was doing it with the first two properties I did with all of our own money, but then, once we kind of got hooked up with you guys, with you and Tony and everything like that, it really got us into our different avenues of investing and being more creative. It really helped us scale our business a lot faster.
Corey Reyment:Awesome, very cool. What is the portfolio or the activity? What does that look like today? So from 2013 to today and you could describe this in units uh, if it's flips, if it's a net worth number, whatever, wherever you want to take that but what does that look like from 2013, which is less than 10 years ago? Uh, to today.
Mark Truckey:Um, 2016,. We had like just really had like three rentals and that was a very traumatic year for us. We'd lost our 14 month old child and it's always hard to say lost a child and it really gave us a different perspective on life and how important our time is. And we really hit real estate hard then, knowing that it can free up our time and we can build a passive income. And we just started investing then a lot more, just buying everything we've seen, started fixing them up. We kept everything. We never, we, always we we bought them, fixed them up and then we refinance our money that we stuck into it. We never, we never pulled out up to 75, 80 percent ltv. We always stayed. We don't want to over leverage ourselves. So we just kept at that point.
Mark Truckey:Okay, we kept building our houses and duplexes and fourplexes up. We had I forget a number, it was just under 100 houses and duplex and everything that we had okay in like apartments and and you, totally you didn't count. And then, uh, we sold a lot in the last I'd say last like three or four years. We sold a lot of them and just started repositioning the equity. But we're starting to know very different sources for financing different types of projects up north and different areas and stuff like that. So we repositioned a lot and we have now we have our. Last time we counted, we have 83 units, uh, between apartments, mid-term rounds, short-term rounds. We kind of dabble in a little bit of everything.
Corey Reyment:That's awesome man going back to you know you mentioned your son passing away and you know with us we have four kids and we've obviously you and I've talked about you know being fathers and how important that is, but how did you said that that really you guys went from three units to a hundred units? Would you say that that event was the cause of that? That? That is what really propelled you guys to get going forward. And what? What did you have to overcome by going through that tough period of time to start taking those steps to go from basically one transaction a year prior to that to scaling that to a hundred units in a relatively short period of time?
Mark Truckey:I guess, yeah, it's. I don't know if it was something that we wanted to keep our minds occupied, but our main thing was just to free up our time so that we could do what we want, when we want, whenever we want, wherever we want. So that was our main focus and goal at that point. Were you guys still?
Corey Reyment:working full-time at this point, Because now you and your wife are real estate 100% correct.
Mark Truckey:Right yeah.
Corey Reyment:So I guess when?
Mark Truckey:we first started out, we set it up so that we were basically wanting to get enough rentals to supplement our house payment, and then we kept growing and then we're like, okay, I'm going to supplement Kira's income, and then it was my income. Once Kira quit her job, then it just snowballed, because once you can focus on the business fully and use your time to focus on your own stuff, it really started taking off fast then and then I got out of my job about four, three or four years, four years ago, I think I can't remember. But yeah, so we just kept using the different steps to just keep taking the baby steps and just having new goals and just trying to to get passive and just live off passive income.
Corey Reyment:Okay, so right now, you guys are living solely off of cashflow from your rentals, or do you? Are you repositioning a property a year or to you know use as your living income? Or you know, for those people who are maybe in a position where they started to real estate invest, they've got some properties going. Their goal is to be where you and Kara are right now right, Full-time, two people, a couple, doing this as a couple. What does that look like as far as how you guys are structuring your, you know, paying for the day-to-day things and your lifestyle?
Mark Truckey:Yeah. So how we structure our daily living is I don't know. I always say we're a minimalist, so we just basically pay ourselves enough just to get by, um, and we just we just keep reinvesting the money and just keep reinvesting that into different projects and then you know, when you sell something, you can take a little extra out and reposition equity is really fun. It's kind of just the the stage we got into recently and you can start to pay yourself a little bit more. But we also have a management company that we manage all of our properties with. So we use that for our source of income and I had also done my own maintenance and plumbing stuff as I quit my job and I was using that as supplemental income for that time being, but now it's just solely just repositioning, acquisitions and acquisition fees and different types of strategy now.
Mark Truckey:But to get to that point, that's basically what we did to supplement our income.
Corey Reyment:Okay. So a couple of things I heard there, mark, and correct me if I'm wrong. You're, you're not, you're, you're not living above your means. You didn't go, you know. Hey, we got, we sold this property, we took out a couple hundred thousand dollars of profit. Now we're going to go buy some beautiful new toy or house or something else. You kept your living expenses pretty consistent over the last 10 years, would you say.
Mark Truckey:Yeah, it's been really consistent. I just had a realization, like last week we were on our coaching call and I've been so focused and worried about building our net worth that I haven't been focusing on really enjoying and living our life. So it was just like a total light bulb realization, aha moment. But so I mean it's yeah, there's so many different factors and avenues that you know go into everything. So, yeah, now we're going to try to maybe just enjoy life a little bit more now. And and uh, I always wanted to get a pool, so we're finally going to put that pool in that we've been talking about.
Corey Reyment:Okay, yeah, Well, I think that's cool. I mean, you guys have probably, I would imagine, a pretty significant net worth compared to the majority of you know people here in this country, and you've been disciplined about delayed gratification, which I think is a key point for people to take away here. I see this a lot in people who are doing a lot of flips, as if they're having some success, they're taking the chips off the table right away. They're going and buying the latest greatest truck, the latest greatest toy, bigger houses, all that. So I've certainly been guilty of that myself. I got to this point in my life where I have this beautiful house, I've got a beautiful boat, all the things I dreamed about when I was setting my goals when I got started in real estate. It was all the things on my vision board. I got them all and then I was like, well, this isn't really what I thought it was going to be Right.
Mark Truckey:It's all about. I really, really have to. I'd have to say it's all goal oriented. So, like you know, basically if you don't have a goal, you don't know where you're going to go. So that's you know. I think it's one of the things I learned from one of our masterminds and is, uh, you know, ultimately just setting a goal, um, of where you want to be, and then just reverse engineer the whole process and just start taking the baby steps to actually getting there, because you're not just going to be able to get to there overnight.
Corey Reyment:Right, yeah, and I think for us it was the boat was a vehicle or the house was the vehicle to set the goal Right. And then we reverse, engineered and built a business to hit those goals Right. But then once I achieved the material object, I realized it's not really what I. You know it's great I mean I love our house, love all these things but it's more about the process, and the journey for us is what we found of building the system and getting the getting the company to where it needs to be, getting the units that we need to get, getting the people in place. That's the fun part to me. The final goal is like eh, okay, cool. But it's more about the journey for me and the growth and you guys have been growing.
Corey Reyment:I want to talk about that for a second and what real estate investing here in Wisconsin has allowed you guys to do from a personal standpoint, because you guys have invested a lot of money in personal growth. But how has this journey? I think there's a tipping point for anybody in this journey. So if you're brand new and you're listening to this, mark and Kara's may seem so unreachable to you at this point because you haven't even done your first deal yet, but you had to start right and there's a tipping point I've noticed with you guys where you got to a certain level of success, it seems like, and now you're able to invest in your health, now you're able to invest in your personal growth, those sorts of things. Talk about what that was like, because you had to do things, maybe on a shoestring budget, before you got there. But how has real estate investing affected your overall whole life, your family life, your marriage, your health, all of that? How has that happened?
Mark Truckey:That's a great question. Um, it's been once you can really focus on the things that you want to focus on in life. It's it makes, it really helps you excel and succeed. It helps your personal growth and your personal development. And when you can focus on your own personal development, you, just you that just snowballs too.
Mark Truckey:I mean, like you know, just starting to worry about, like not to get too deep into it, but, you know, start worrying about your health. I mean, I was super unhealthy about just like three, four years ago after my son passed away. I was on all these anxiety medicines and just drinking a lot and feeling like crap and I just decided to quit drinking and I was sick of being unhealthy, feeling like crap. And, uh, it's the last like two years I've really focused on my health and I never felt better. Um, the, the mental clarity that comes with that is insane. With the working out every day, just figuring it in your daily routine, it just helps you, helps you all around. It's kind of unexplainable, it's just, it's. It's all good stuff. So I mean our family time, we can spend our time with our kids, you know, during the day we can bring them to their activities, we can, and there's plenty that go on right now, but uh, it's, I don't. You can do you can, you don't? I don't know it's.
Corey Reyment:It's like the freedom. It's like you have the freedom to to take care of yourself now, because you're not having to grind every day all day and you have the freedom to be able to spend time with your kids and to do those things. And I think that's that to me. Is is one of the things I look up to you guys at and I say, man, these guys are doing it right. You know, your health journey inspired me this year. I was like man, Mark looks sexy. I got to start looking like Mark. Yeah, Sorry, getting more on that journey, I still got a ways to go to catch up to you, but, uh, like you're looking good. Those of you that are listening to the podcast, you'll have to go check out the YouTube channel and take a look at the sexy stud on the other side of the screen here with me.
Corey Reyment:He looks good. Uh, we'll be. Well, I'm going to try to get him shirtless by the end of this podcast.
Corey Reyment:Um let's talk about a little statement. I think that you know, I know you guys live by faith over fear. Tell me, talk to me a little bit about that, because I've talked to a lot of people who are interested in investing in real estate. They want to buy some deals in our area. They're they're looking at it, but some people I've talked to literally been talking about getting into real estate for years and the one contributing factor is fear. So talk to me about that statement for you, what does that mean to you and how could that maybe help somebody who's sitting on the sidelines right now?
Mark Truckey:Yeah, that's there's, you know, when you're first getting into it there's. There's all that fear of all the unknowns and everybody's never like you can do whatever you want, to sit here and just you can talk yourself out of a deal, like you can overanalyze it until you're you're blue in the face and and you'll never end up getting a good deal deal. So I mean, if you, just if you, just if you change your mindset on the faith and the fear, like because you're letting fear take over at that point and fear is going to win every time. But if you have the faith and making a good decision and just moving forward with with, you know, with your goals, like not how do I say this?
Corey Reyment:like moving forward with your goals and, um, like I'm like totally locked up right now well, you're going down the path there, mark of not letting the fear take over, right like yeah right yeah, not letting fear take over.
Mark Truckey:Um, yeah, so I mean the faith over fear, like you know, and then the faith of like that's what I was going to say is having the mindset of, instead of saying, well, what if it doesn't work? Instead you're saying, well, what if it does work? And a lot of the stuff you worry about, like 80, 90% of the time it doesn't even come true. So I mean, if you just have the mindset of you know if it is going to work, and then having a faith in yourself and putting and having the resources setting yourself up so you don't make a bad decision, which coaching and mentoring mentorships help a ton. We would never be at where we're at without the coaching mentorships of other people. You just sit there and spin your wheels, it doesn't matter. I read probably 20, 30 books a year and I mean mean even you can read books all day long, just never take any action. But having faith and taking them steps, those action, steps, that actually doing it, yeah is definitely what.
Mark Truckey:What takes over and oh, go ahead I was just gonna say too is, like you know, and like you know, you're talking about the journey too and, like a lot of people, like they'll be like well, what if the market crashes? And what if this happens and that happens, and and it's like like yeah, all that all that stuff.
Mark Truckey:It could happen, but the you know, if you don't ever take any action, you're never going to get anywhere and you need to enjoy the journey along. You know as you're doing it and don't be fearful the whole entire time. And you know as you're doing it and don't be fearful the whole entire time, and even the skill set that you build up along the venture and the journey of it. If I was to lose everything tomorrow, it would suck, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't matter. I could probably build it twice as fast as I build it now just because of everything that we've learned For sure.
Corey Reyment:Yeah.
Mark Truckey:It's just yeah.
Corey Reyment:I think that's such a great point. And, uh, I I see this so many times with people and I think back when I was getting into real estate, you know, we had several deals going. Uh, we were doing flips, wholesales, rentals, kind of do the buffet of real estate a little bit, and I remember I was working a full-time job as well and I was going to quit my job and I was so freaked out about like, well, what if all of a sudden, real estate goes away and I have no more deals, and yada, yada. And then a mentor told me they said, Corey, what's the worst thing that could happen? Let's say that all happens. What's the worst thing that could happen? Could you go back to your job? Would they rehire you? Yeah, they would, Okay. So what are you worried about?
Mark Truckey:Right.
Corey Reyment:You know, and it really helped me kind of go. Oh yeah, it's not so bad. Worst case, I feel like you know everybody goes through that in in our entrepreneurial journey.
Mark Truckey:You know, like you always, I don't know, I don't think I don't know if everybody does, but I'm pretty sure we kind of both were kind of going through that at one point and it's like I don't know it's you know, after you, I was in like a funk for like a year where I was just like you know, like really fearful of like all that.
Mark Truckey:And then it's all of a sudden, it's like you know, a light bulb catches and it's like all right, well, yeah, I can totally. You know, you'd totally be able to rebuild everything.
Corey Reyment:So go back to the first one, that when you guys were going to move out and rent it out, what were some of the fears you had around that? I mean, can you remember back to 2013 when that happened and what was going through your guy's head of any, maybe any fears or any kind of hesitations you had about not selling it and keeping the property?
Mark Truckey:So I probably never would have done it Like I wouldn't have done it, it was more Kara's idea. I'm like uh it's just whatever it was, just I'd rather take a loss. Like that just seems like a big liability, big risk. And then we're like here's like just kind of pushing me to do it, like she was more of the risk. She's she's the gas and I'm the brake and whatever it's everything she's, she's always go, go, go.
Corey Reyment:So yeah, basically it was it was scary, but then I don't know it works Like the numbers don't lie. If you can make, the numbers.
Mark Truckey:You know if the numbers work and you know you obviously don't overanalyze it. And when you're starting out at single family housing and whatnot, like that it's there's not too many numbers to figure on. I guess there is, but I don't you know what I'm saying?
Mark Truckey:yeah, so it was. That was the initial jump. But then you get to the next level and then you're buying a house and you're fixing it up and doing the value-add property. That's freaky. And you're doing all the work yourself and like just stressing out, like just trying to get everything done, and just I don't know and I'm just thinking of something like right after Ronan passed away is like I was doing a flip in Appleton and it was like I had no other mindset other than nobody can do this except for me. Like I got to get this done. So obviously we didn't do anything with it for like two or three months, because he passed away right when we were purchasing this property. And then after you know, after fighting, fighting, trudging through that that was absolutely miserable, but that was like two or three months after you know and and uh, just like if I would have had the knowledge of what I have now, like I would have never like done all that work you know, so you're gonna hire it.
Corey Reyment:Now you're saying you would have had, oh yeah, yeah, so, but yeah, it's just. It's just the different stages and you're never gonna figure all that stuff out, unless you're saying you would have had some.
Mark Truckey:Oh yeah, 100, yeah, so but yeah, it's just it's just the different stages and you're never going to figure all that stuff out unless you're doing it. You take the stages of doing it like I mean some of the conferences and seminars you go to.
Mark Truckey:I remember I was at a rod play thing and somebody's like I would start I wouldn't start with anything less than like 88 unit and I'm like there's no way, like people can't just go and buy an 88 unit Like like your stress, resilience at that point would just like you have to build up your, your, your avatar or whatever you know. You have to build up, you know your your muscle.
Corey Reyment:You got to flex that muscle a little bit and your knowledge base and your connections and all of that stuff has to grow and it doesn't happen overnight For sure.
Corey Reyment:I know we we talked to you, know we have some friends that are you and I have mutual friend who's really successful in the multifamily space and his story.
Corey Reyment:What I love about his story is he started out similar to you and I have a couple of units, a couple of units, a couple of units, and then he just kept taking bigger steps and getting into bigger properties and bigger properties, bigger properties, bigger properties, and now he's up to I don't even know 4,000 units or something crazy at the time of recording this. But if he never bought the first one, he would never be there. So I think it's such an important point to just you got to just take faith. The worst thing that could happen is you sell the house and you get out of it and maybe you take a bath, but people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a college degree they never use, but they won't take the risk of possibly losing $5,000 to $20,000 on an experience that's going to teach them some skills and give them connections that are going to pay them much higher than most college degrees pay.
Mark Truckey:Absolutely. And I got to just touch on one more thing with. That is like truly understanding the meaning of faith over fear. I mean, yeah, everybody, yeah, you hear that all the time. But truly knowing and understanding what that means will get you to go anywhere that you want to go, Anything's possible. I grew up with nothing. I mean we built everything up ourselves. And the entrepreneurial journey. It's a really fun journey because you're always self-building and, like I say, you need to enjoy the journey.
Corey Reyment:You mean, what about that trust fund that you got, Mark Didn't? You don't want to talk about that.
Corey Reyment:Trust fund I'm just kidding, I'm messing with you, man. No, yeah, yeah, you and I are very similar. We didn't. We didn't grow up with money. We didn't have tons of money growing up. It was we got to make our own luck, right, yeah, yeah, tell me about. Let's do a deal breakdown. Tell me about what's one of your favorite deals you've ever done Maybe the craziest deal you've ever done, or maybe just like the best deal you've ever done. Take us through the acquisitions process numbers.
Mark Truckey:Give us some juicy details here um, I love every one of my deals. We're moving into the bigger space now, um, commercial stuff. Um, just recently it was a deal we actually had bought from you. Um, it was an office building conversion, that we converted an office building into 28 rental units and so we bought that building from you for 675 000 we, and then, uh, we ended up getting financing for it and I'll dig into that more here in a minute. We got financing for that and we got it was like two and a half I'm trying to think of numbers. I think we had we figured two and a half million for the renovation cost, but it ended. I think we had we had figured two and a half million for the renovation costs, but it ended up being we're an all in on the project and three and a half million, and it ended up praising for for 5.9 million.
Mark Truckey:So, yeah, we, we gained. We ended up getting like two and a half million dollars in equity.
Corey Reyment:Oh my goodness, if I had my little bell over over here, I would be ringing that bell right now, because that is uh, that's incredible deal so even more incredible part about it is the financing that we got for it.
Mark Truckey:We ended up not even having to bring currently we don't have. We didn't have to bring any any of our own money to the table. We went a little bit over on budget, so we're still trying to figure all that out, but um, it's, uh, but ultimately it's. It was the bank finance everything.
Corey Reyment:Um, it was so you didn't have to bring in syndication partners or anything like that. This is just bank financing the 100 of this we partnered with uh mji construction on it.
Mark Truckey:Um, they had all the pieces lined up, um, all the puzzle pieces, when we were putting this thing together and we joined up with mj earth, with mark and uh brian over there and it's been. The partnership with them has been absolutely amazing. They took the project, knocked everything out. I didn't do any of it. It it was awesome and uh, but yeah, we, we just we split the partnership up 50, 50 and uh, yeah, and then the the bank financing.
Corey Reyment:So going back to that, so this is this a local community bank, or what kind of bank did you guys utilize for this?
Mark Truckey:It was a community bank and uh, and that's a lot of the stuff, a lot of our properties and financing that we do, we'll do in different areas of Wisconsin and we usually like to stick with community banks because they like to for stimulating the economy and the community banks like to fund projects that are closer to their stuff and they obviously know the demographics and everything like that that goes along with that.
Corey Reyment:You know one interesting fact. I learned Mark a couple of weeks ago from a gentleman who's an attorney, does a lot of creative finance stuff. We'll probably have him on the show here soon. He has an office in Wisconsin and in Arizona. And one thing he brought up and I didn't realize this but Wisconsin. One of the benefits we have as investors in Wisconsin is we have a lot of community banks that want to invest in local projects and Arizona said, no, you go to a mortgage broker if you want to.
Mark Truckey:Right, yeah, cause we're part of a mastermind group and it's a national mastermind group for investors and I was telling them about some of our like, like our banking operations, and they're like, they're like there is no way, because they have, they're way more like in the raising private capital and stuff like that. And and they were just there they can't believe that, like the banks, they funded the, the projects, the way they do the construction loans and stuff like that.
Corey Reyment:That's awesome what so this deal? Two, two, how much million. 2.1, two and a half, two and a half million dollars, with none of your own money into it.
Mark Truckey:Yeah, I mean, it's not like I have it sitting in my pocket, but I mean we have the property but if you liquidated it you'd be pretty darn close probably to having it.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, costs and fees and stuff. Dude, that's incredible. Man, I'm so excited for you guys and, um, you know that we go back to the faith over fear. Taking an office building and repositioning it to residential. To me, I'm going, oh, I don't know anything about that. That's scary, right, but the reward on the other side, I mean, is incredible. So the bigger the risk it seems like a little bit, you know the bigger.
Mark Truckey:So I got it, yeah, and I got a background in plumbing and I was fortunate enough that my boss that I um, that I did plumbing, for he's an investor too. So I was always kind of standing back and you know, watching what they were doing and stuff like that, and we were part of, you know, doing the plumbing, obviously as a part of these big projects and stuff like that that they were doing. So when this deal first came across like like the average, just just from the, from what I built up over the years, you know, like I know how to read blueprints and and uh, you know figure out like how everything's going to be, and like when you look at that project it looks like it's a huge project. But I mean, I was on you know bigger hundreds of you know apartment complex buildings and stuff like that. So I made a 28 unit. But then so when kevin had with they had it all put together with mji, and when, when you guys were selling it. So when I seen that the structure of it, everything was pretty much done already, I'm like this is a total slam dunk. I brought it to mark and them and they're like, yeah, they felt the same way.
Mark Truckey:And so after we got it and we're like and then after I had the financing sealed up, like I was like like, oh man, this is crazy. Like it was a different level of like it wasn't stress, it was just like I can't believe this is actually happening. Like now I get a follow-up, so like and uh, I mean we, the project went awesome, um, yeah, so that's awesome. And then so our biggest thing is we're worried about getting it filled up right away. And we just did it in phases and it filled up and now we got we're 90 days out and we're actually going to add an addition on to it. We're buying a. We're buying a office right next to it, so it's like a square and there's like a quarter of the square that there's just some random office building sitting there and they came, reached out to us and wanted to sell us that. So we're buying that and we're gonna we're gonna add on 15 more units. Wow, that's awesome man.
Corey Reyment:Congratulations, dude. That's great, we're so speaking. So this podcast is called the Wisconsin investor. We want to focus on Wisconsin and why it's such a great place to invest. Pros and cons, what do you like, cause you also invest a little bit in Florida. So, pros and cons, what do you love about investing in Wisconsin? And what are some things maybe for somebody who's maybe looking at a market. You know, maybe they're out of state and they say, hey, man, I've been looking at maybe getting into wisconsin, what are some things to not like well, first thing that comes to mind is I would actually I actually like investing in florida better.
Mark Truckey:Only the only reason is because I can't be there to do everything. Like I have a mindset stuck like where I got I have to do this. I Like I have a mindset stuck like where I got I have to do this. I gotta do the plumbing, I gotta coordinate all this contract, all that Like when it's down there it's like you can't do it, you have to do it from here and then you get way more done just by having that. But so that's just kind of the reverse of the question that you asked.
Mark Truckey:Yeah, that's a great point but uh, so I mean that really helps. That really actually helped us learn how to scale more because, um, you know whatever but the the thing in wisconsin that I like investing the most is, um, there's a lot of good local contractors and stuff like that you can get. You can get a hold of um, it's not, I don't know, it's, I don't know. Uh, I guess you know it's close. Yeah, there's, there's, there's a bunch of you know, vacation spots in Wisconsin and yeah, I don't know really.
Corey Reyment:Well, I think you brought up an interesting point, because people who are out of state, like I said, who listened to this, who are like man I'm thinking of investing in Wisconsin I'm not really sure your Florida point is actually really relevant for them, right, it's like like, if you can't, like you're living in California and you can't get a return on your on your money out there because of prices, wisconsin's a pretty affordable market, right, and if you can get good help contractors, like you said, people like that and you don't have to worry about physically being there, that allows you to scale a portfolio to however big you want to make it right, then it just comes down to finding the deals, finding the money, building your network, right.
Corey Reyment:So, instead of you and swinging hammers, going back to that, you know you were in a mastermind that we ran a few years ago and I always tell this story to people who want to invest. Tell me what happened during that event. We did an exercise called what's your time worth, and this is very relevant to uh this, this previous point we were making about being out of state. What was the extra? Take people through.
Mark Truckey:What the exercise was what you did and what was your big takeaway from that. So it was, we were doing a bunch of flips in in new London and at this point we were, there was two projects, and then I forgot how the exercise was. I we had to, I forgot exactly how it was, but ultimately there was a project that I did, I did all the work on and then you know, I figured out how many hours I had into it and I mean we made good on it but like I had a lot of time into it and you know, I thought I was using the best use of my time until, like we had another we ended up hiring.
Mark Truckey:I think it was right when we hired a management company and we had them renovate of the time that I had stuck into the house that I flipped and rented out, it was like my time per hour was like it was. It was crazy. I want to say it was, like you know, like 100 bucks an hour compared to like a couple, like it was. I think I figured like it was 1500 bucks an hour that I that I made you know you know figuring out.
Mark Truckey:I forgot exactly the numbers, but it was it was it was really yeah and uh yeah, cause I mean, like I said, I struggled so much with wanting to do everything and yeah, yeah, I think that's one of the things that helped.
Corey Reyment:that's helped our family build a pretty solid portfolio ourselves and be focused on the things that we're focused on is. I'm not that handy. I got soft office hands, as I always joke. So I we had one flip early on that I tried to go over and our contractor was there and I was like I'm going to go just try to just try to be a man and go help this guy out, get my drill and do some man things.
Corey Reyment:And so I took the shutters off of the house and it was in November and it was really cold and Carrie and I went back home and we spray painted them, make them look really nice, came back and it was like probably 15 degrees out and I had the drill first, first screw going back in, cracked, cracked the plastic on the on the shutter, and I just went in and I'm like I'm done. I went in, I handed the shutter to the contract with my head down. I said said Andy, can you please fix this and put it back on? I'm going home now. He said, yeah, please just get out of here, let me do my work.
Mark Truckey:And so you're just wired Like a dude's. A guy is wired Like you know I can do that, I'm going to do it. I don't need that person to help me Like I can do this. You know, in getting past that, you know mentally like that you can. You're better together than you are trying to do everything yourself, Especially in real estate, for sure you know.
Mark Truckey:And that's the beauty of real estate is like when you the networking aspect of it like another thing. I was at a at a event and it was like the first event I went to and they're like, yeah, you're gonna spend them. You gotta spend like an hour networking after the show and I'm like that sucks, like I'm a total introvert, like I I like to whatever I just do press, I don't need like my I recharge by, you know, just having sitting with myself and by the end of those events you don't even feel like it. But then networking with all those people and then the continuation of networking throughout all of this real estate journey and just realizing that like the networking aspect of it is everybody's winning together and really figuring that out and it's crazy how networking is and how important it is in real estate, like you wouldn't think it would matter, but it kind of goes back to. It does go back to like you're stronger together with everybody than trying to do everything yourself.
Corey Reyment:Well, building a good portfolio is really all about networking, right, like I talk about, if you have a good property management company, you can handle the rehab for you and do everything else and it's like, cool, I got that piece in place. That's my network of of that. And it's like who are my lenders? Okay, I'm going to get this lender for this purpose. I'm going to have a hard money lender for this type of position. I'm going to have this, this private lender, to come in and help out with some of the other financing and then you've got the deals right. That's networking. That's realtors, that's wholesalers, that's just your own personal network of people who know what you do.
Corey Reyment:Like you said, now you're adding on an office building because you networked with the office building people next to you and now they're coming to you wanting to sell. So you bring up a great point. I mean, networking is so important in this game. You can't do everything yourself, or if you do, you're going to be really limited on how significant of a portfolio you can make, which ultimately impacts the impact you can make on this world and on your family and on your own personal life. So I think that's a fantastic point as far as a couple last questions here, mark for you where do you guys invest in Wisconsin? So what markets are you in or what areas are you guys invested?
Mark Truckey:in. We're just in Northeast Wisconsin for the most part, so we have midterms and longterms around here and then our short-term rentals we have in Northern Wisconsin.
Corey Reyment:Okay.
Mark Truckey:Central and Northern Wisconsin area.
Corey Reyment:And why those areas Northeast Wisconsin? Is it just because it was close proximity to where you lived or is there a certain reason you chose to invest in that market and continue to invest in that market?
Mark Truckey:Yeah, we just live in that area for the most part. That's why we invest around here and I mean there's opportunities. I mean you can find opportunities. I guess I wanted to expand on this before is, like you know, um, office building conversions, stuff like that. Like we plan on doing more of those, uh, the office buildings are going to be in, and that's like the area that I'm really targeting folks and that now is um renovating the office buildings into residential housing. There's can get office buildings now for pennies on the dollar because after COVID it just got crazy. There's a ton of value out there. You can buy a huge shell and office buildings don't have anything in it.
Mark Truckey:I just think that's a really good avenue to go down and obviously there's a lot of in northeast wisconsin. There's a lot of that um and then that like our we go up north because it's all lakes and woods and the the north woods of wisconsin. It's where everybody wants to be. It's just absolutely peaceful and I mean mean it's this whole Wisconsin compared to, like Boston or Florida or whatever anywhere else around the country. Like it's such a different culture. Like everybody from Milwaukee Chicago area comes up to, you know, the northern Wisconsin. They're always traveling up there. So I guess there's three different avenues of investing that we do to the northern Wisconsin. They're always traveling up there. So I guess there's three different avenues of investing that we do. So I guess it kind of specifically talks about which one we're in or which one we're doing.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, Well, it's not that you've got a purpose for each piece of it which is cool and proximity. I think for people who are local that makes sense to invest in your backyard first before you start trying to expand, unless you're like Mark and you want to get in there and start swinging hammers and it's going to hinder you. Then maybe be better off invested in the market, maybe a few hours away, so it's not as tempting maybe to get in there and swing the hammer and force you to grow and build your network a little bit. Last question Mark, weirdest or favorite Wisconsin tradition or place you like to travel?
Mark Truckey:Probably traditionally. I guess we always go to the Dells every year, or Door County. I guess we always go to the Dells every year, or Door County, I guess. And yeah, I guess for traveling-wise, I guess that tradition, just, I don't know, the Packers, cheeseheads, oh yeah, so I don't know. Pretty lame at that.
Corey Reyment:Love them Packers eh.
Mark Truckey:Yeah, got to love those Packers. Go, pack, go hey.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, got to love those backers. Go back, go. You know, if you are out of state and you do come to a game, you will start talking like that by the time you leave on a Monday morning. What's?
Mark Truckey:that Just ask Jeff White.
Corey Reyment:He left, talking like a youper, one of our buddies from Florida. We brought him up for a game and he left talking like a youper. If you don't know what a youper is, you'll learn if you start investing here in Wisconsin. We love our youpers, but they're not as cool as us Wisconsinites. So, mark, hey man, it's been great. I had a great conversation. I had a great time with you. I appreciate you hopping on here and bringing some value and bringing a lot of you know, sharing your story and really I think this is going to be impactful for a lot of people.
Mark Truckey:So how can people find you, mark, or get in touch with you if they want to reach out? Um, I do have an Instagram. I just got one of those recently kind of get like I, I. I got rid of my AOL account that you were. I no longer have a AOL email, um, but you can just reach me on Facebook or on Instagram.
Corey Reyment:Awesome guys. Well, appreciate it, mark. This has been another episode of the Wisconsin Investor Podcast Show. If you are looking for deals off-market deals go to wisconsindiscountpropertiescom, sign up to be on the list and start getting deals sent directly to your inbox every week. Getting deals sent directly to your inbox every week and until next time, guys, thanks for listening. If you like this show, share it, subscribe, tell your friends, help us get the word out.
Corey Reyment:We want to bring a ton of value to the Wisconsin investing market and the more people that listen to this podcast or YouTube channel, the more guests we'll be able to get on here and the bigger guests we'll be able to get. So appreciate you guys taking a listen and we'll catch you in the next episode. Hey, this has been another episode of the Wisconsin Investor. Thanks for tuning in. If you got some value out of the show, please go like, rate, subscribe, share, do all that fun stuff. And if you're new to investing in Wisconsin and you want to have a conversation with somebody from our team, we would love to have that conversation with you. To do that, just go to our website, wisconsindiscountpropertiescom, hit the contact us form, put a little bit of your info in there and somebody from our team will reach out and have a conversation, hopefully help you start moving forward in your investing journey here in Wisconsin. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you on the next episode.
