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
Family, Business, and Real Estate Mastery With Josh and Katie Dalke
Can you imagine transforming a modest duplex into a diversified real estate empire within just a few years? Join us on this thrilling episode of the Wisconsin Investor Podcast as we sit down with Josh and Katie Dalke, who did exactly that. Starting with their first property purchase in 2017, they faced daunting challenges like evicting their first tenant and dealing with ongoing construction while raising young children. Yet, their unified vision and goals turned these hurdles into stepping stones, leading to substantial property appreciation and the embodiment of the "wealth cone" concept.
Discover the nuances of expanding into the storage unit business as Josh and Katie detail their experiences with high occupancy rates and the difficulties posed by unauthorized tenants and stiff competition. They share the strategic management practices that have helped them secure profitable deals and the crucial decision to hire an administrative assistant. This hire has been a game-changer, allowing them to balance their demanding careers, real estate ventures, and family responsibilities while maintaining their sanity and preventing burnout.
Finally, Josh and Katie peel back the layers of real estate partnerships and hiring, offering candid insights from their journey. They discuss the emotional and financial implications of bringing new team members into a closely-held business and the lessons learned from a particularly challenging short-term rental investment in Florida. Their story is a testament to the power of perseverance and a growth mindset. Tune in for valuable lessons in making deals work despite market conditions, and don't miss their light-hearted sharing of their favorite Wisconsin tradition or spot to visit.
Welcome to the Wisconsin Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Raymond. 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. Hey everybody, Welcome back to another episode of the Wisconsin Investor Podcast. I have Josh and Katie Dahlke here with me today. Guys, you're not going to want to miss this episode. I'm super excited to have them on here. Josh, Katie, what's going on over there, guys? How are you doing?
Katie Dalke:Good yeah, really good.
Corey Reyment:Doing great, Love it. Those of you that are listening you can't see them. Go to YouTube and check it out, but they are doing the call from their vehicle right now because of kids. Tell everybody a little bit about your family background, how you got started in real estate. Let's start there and dive right in.
Katie Dalke:Yeah, we have three kids. We have a five, three and one-year-old, so privacy in the house is nonexistent. So, yeah, we are in our car, so we aren't interrupted with a million different things, but we love it. So we got started in real estate in 2017. We were moving to the area and we couldn't afford a mortgage. We couldn't afford a mortgage, we had loans, we had everything. So we looked at no, josh looked at duplexes. Um, I was for it, that was fine. Uh, he put an offer in and we got a duplex, and the first time I saw it, um, was a day before it was the final walkthrough.
Katie Dalke:Yeah, the final walkthrough. I'm like so how much are we going to lose when we back out of this deal? It was rough. It was a rough piece of property.
:And in today's terms it wasn't rough at all.
Katie Dalke:No, it was, it wasn't.
Corey Reyment:Give us the numbers on that first one, take us through that. What did that look?
:like we bought it for $136,000 duplex. We stuck. I wouldn't even remember exactly how much we stuck. We probably stuck in the ballpark of like 15 grand into it. It was the side we were living on. The other side was updated. Um, at that time in 2017, it was within the 10 years prior to that um, it was a nice unit and everything, but we didn't really understand that much. We updated our side and then, uh, we rented it out initially. Well, the first tenant that was there was the original one, and that was like our first experience with having to try and get rid of somebody right away off the bat.
Katie Dalke:So we evicted her.
Corey Reyment:Welcome to real estate, right, yeah, and then so yeah so now, fast forward.
Katie Dalke:So now the duplex is worth. It's a two, one on each side.
:It's worth 900 square feet on each side.
Katie Dalke:It's worth like two 60, two 70, I think. We appraised for Um and we bought it for 130. So it was a great deal. We, um kind of our MO with real estate is that we would live in one. We would live in the chaos, so we would live in construction, we would live through it. We'd buy a duplex, live in one side, rent out the other, and just we'd live in the worst side. So we'd live in the bad side. We would make sure we renovate it. We'd live in that with young kids. It was seven years of tough but um our five-year-old has lived in seven houses.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, oh, my goodness, wow, what I mean. That has to be pretty challenging. I mean we have four kids, and just having four kids and trying to run a business is challenging enough, but then to be in construction, what was that experience like, or has been? I mean, you guys are probably still doing some of that, I would assume.
Katie Dalke:Oh man, it was hard. I think so Josh and I have very similar goals and we're very aligned with our goals. I think if we weren't aligned with our goals and we didn't have that same mission in mind, it would be we. It would have been horrible. We wouldn't have made it work. So it's not for everyone. I don't. I it did. It helped us get to where we are, so it was a good decision. We made it through. It made our relationship much stronger, our marriage much stronger. However, like if you don't have the same goals and the same drive as your partner, it's, it could be a recipe for success, for not disaster. Yeah, it could be really bad.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, yeah for sure. Well, that's really cool. You know, one of the things I talk a lot about on this podcast is something I I'm kind of coining this phrase the wealth cone, right, and what I think about with real estate is when you buy it. You know, at the time it was probably worth one 50 or whatever. It was maybe one 70 when you bought it after it was fixed up and so you had maybe some equity in there, right, and so your equity and your debt are pretty close, right. There's not you don't have a lot of equity there what it's worth right. As time goes on and those tenants pay it down and market appreciates, typically on average about 5%, depending on where you are in the nation, but here in Wisconsin, 5% is pretty normal-ish. Every year, you just create this huge wealth cone and all of a sudden your net worth goes up just from owning one property like that. I mean, what is the debt on it now? Have you guys refinanced it all, or is it the same as where it was?
:yep, so that one we we refinanced it. I don't remember what year it was it was like 2020, maybe 2019 and we took out a line of credit at that time too. So in total, right now we owe like 160 to 165 on that one.
Corey Reyment:Nice, so you got roughly about 100,000. That's awesome.
Katie Dalke:And we're getting 1,300 on each side for rent. Like just easy numbers. I mean people love it, they're grateful, and I'm like, oh wow, that's a lot of rent.
Corey Reyment:So, yeah, rents have gone tremendously over the last six or seven years. That's fantastic. Well, you guys, not only do you have long-term duplexes, right, you guys own short-term rentals, you have storage units. You guys have cranes now, which is not necessarily the focus of our show here of Wisconsin Real Estate Investor, even though that is investing. Ours is more so focused on real estate investing. But one thing I love about you guys is you guys always just, you're always hustling, you're always grinding, you're always like figuring out what's the next way for us to take what we're really good at and parlay that into something that can help us in the future. Talk to us about the storage, though. I mean, you guys are unique in the sense that we don't interview a lot of people that are in the storage space. So what are the pros and cons of the storage world?
Katie Dalke:yeah um storage units. So, uh, big con, um, we've had people living in our storage units. Um, yeah, we had someone. So we have very, very nice storage units. We have gated entry, keyed entry. They're very nice. We have a lot of. It's not difficult. In that sense it's not difficult to get people to rent them. They're always filled. That's a very easy pro. So we had someone call us and they're like hey, the door's cracked open and there's light on in there and I'm like what is going on. So I had Josh go check it out and he opened the door. The person wasn't there, but like if someone was living there, it was like there's a makeshift bed set up. There were like, um, those big buddy cups from quick trip like of like urine it was disgusting it was so bad so I did go there
:it was so bad and now that I you had brought that up, I went there with the sheriff because the sheriff's office was nervous that it was like somebody that was like cooking meth or something so because you said that they've already had that happen in storage units.
:So when I got there they actually didn't let me get out of the vehicle. I just stayed like so far back and then they were the ones that like looked at and then they told me I could come in. But yeah, it was just. It was terrible and the fact I believe it was an earlier in the year, it was like february or march so it was colder out. I mean, there's no heat in those units they're not insulated so it was. It was just crazy it was terrible.
Katie Dalke:so, yeah, so you have like cons yeah.
:Yeah, and I think ultimately it's, in today's world, like it is a lot harder. I mean, it's harder to find real estate deals with houses as well, but with the storage, I feel like it's just kind of gone bonkers with trying to find ones that you can actually, you know, have a good ROI and everything on it.
Corey Reyment:You have a good ROI and everything. On that. It seems like institutional guys kind of came in and started buying them up at really low cap rates and it's just like there's just no money to be made and in a lot of cases it seems like anymore or you know, any of the value add ones have been sort of scooped up. It seems like for the most part, at least from my I mean, there's always deals to be had.
Katie Dalke:Well, yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
Corey Reyment:The reason that we got the storage units is because I cold called. I did a lot of cold calling, that's how. And I just kind of keep calling like, oh hey, I'll follow up in three months. So I just keep at it. And that determination sometimes pays off. So yeah, was this a value add situation? You said they're really nice. So was this already really nice? Was there some seller financing in here? Like, talk about the deal structure here. How'd you guys make this thing work? To make the number of work.
Katie Dalke:This one. We had a partner come in who financed um and we we got it for 1.4 and I believe it appraised at like 1.8. So, yeah, so it had some good value.
Corey Reyment:The person selling.
Katie Dalke:Yeah, the person selling had a different, different business that he just wanted to get rid of. The storage units were a side business for him where it wasn't a big deal. He just wanted to get rid of them. And I'm like, oh, this is great, I'll take it. The rents were super, super low, like for a 10 by 20, we rent at like $95. They were at 50. So we had such a spread we could make, um, and we kind of we ran them for a couple of months and then we raised all the rents, like 40%, and three people left. So they were under rented quite a bit, um, yeah.
Corey Reyment:So then we knew they were getting a deal. They're like looking around, yeah, I like going anywhere else. Yeah, now you guys self-manage those, or do you guys have somebody else do the management?
Katie Dalke:We have a partner manage them. Now he manages a few others as well. It was really hard to self-manage. You're getting called all the time and then, if you look at doing a management company, there just aren't management companies that do storage in the area. Yeah, We've talked to a few different managers and they just they either only manage their own or they don't. They just don't manage storage.
Corey Reyment:So that would be one of the big cons. Then if you're looking at getting into the storage space, you better be prepared to manage your own.
Katie Dalke:Yes, and it's a lot of calls. It's a lot, a lot of calls.
:We have been told that ours are a little bit more needy and I think it is because it's more of like an upper class higher. It's a nicer storage, like katie was saying. So I feel like a lot of our clientele are you know better in that aspect where you that there's not as many that aren't on time with their payments. But they also expect more in in honestly. I could say like when her and I and it was mostly her, but when we were self-managing them to get seven calls a day was pretty common.
Corey Reyment:Wow, what are these calls? What are they calling for?
Katie Dalke:It was just either people looking for storage, lots of looking for storage, and I don't want to just ignore those calls because you want to be a good base for the business and everything, and we even looked at doing a VA for it but it just cost-wise it didn't make sense. So then it was calls about hey, I'm going to be late on rent for this one, hey, the gate isn't opening for me, my lock is stuck, all kinds of stuff, because you're dealing with 120 people, it's not just one renter in one unit, it's 120 people at any given time. So, yeah, it was, it's just a lot from. Yeah, yeah the gate.
:The gate was the worst. The gate was like the best thing and the worst thing, because if somebody, it was all set up online in the, the app where if somebody didn't pay, then their code was erased so they couldn't get in. Oh, and there were times where the gate just didn't work at all and they're like yeah, yeah so then, I would have to drive out there and manually open it.
:And then for a while we just left it manually opened all the time because it just we were having so many headaches with it. And and then some people were like, well, we like the gate, because we felt our stuff was more secure. It's like, well, just keep a lock on your unit and you're fine. But ultimately, yeah, we have someone else managing it. It makes it a lot easier now.
Corey Reyment:Okay, nice, but their partner is not a third party company, correct? Yep, okay, got it. Now you guys do. You guys do short-term as well, right, and then you do manage for other people on the short-term side of things, or just your own other people on the short-term side of things, or just your own.
Katie Dalke:I just manage for a couple people, not anything, that's not. That's not where I like to be, just a few people that I kind of started with, and it goes really well. It's easy to manage for them because my properties are on those platforms anyway. So I'm just kind of checking my properties, answering my messages, and then I'll answer for them as well.
Corey Reyment:So what, what areas are you guys invested in? So here in Wisconsin? Obviously you know the focus for our audience is investing in Wisconsin. Like what markets are you in and what are some pros and cons of the markets?
Katie Dalke:you're in Sure. So we have the Valley, we have a bunch in the Valley, the majority of our properties are in the Valley, and then we have some by for those of you that are not familiar. Yes, yeah, thank you. The Fox Valley. And then we have some in the La Crosse. We have an apartment unit in the La Crosse area in Southwest Wisconsin, southwest Wisconsin. Yeah.
Corey Reyment:OK, cool, very cool, and that. Let's talk about that one for a second. Now, that one I assume you guys have management for, yes, okay, and are the long-term rentals that you guys have? As far as does that go? Are you guys using management for that or do you self-manage those that are more local to you guys in the Valley?
:So we manage all of like the single family duplexes, all those, any of our apartment complexes. Those are all managed by a third party.
Corey Reyment:Talk about that for a second. What? What has you guys keeping the short or the single family duplexes and then outsourcing the apartments?
Katie Dalke:Well it just it works well because our apartments we have partners, the partners that we have with them, own management companies. So it's easy. Yeah, that's like a easy easy.
:I think yeah, ultimately, for the ones that, like all the single family, duplex, triplex, all those that Katie and I own, those we just own on our own Um, those we've kind of gotten to a spot with all the tenants that we have, that is, they kind of manage themselves for the most part, and when it comes to anything like updates you know, this broke or whatever we have people that work for us now that we can just send them to fix it, which is just going to be a lot cheaper than, you know, having a property management company. There will be a point where we want to, you know, have someone else come in. But at this we know all of our tenants and they know us, because there's the ones that we manage. We we have like 30, 31 that we self-manage. So it's, I mean, those ones are easy enough to handle.
Corey Reyment:Did you guys always manage your own or did you start out using third party? We always manage our own, always manage your own. Wow, so you guys are different. You guys are a different breed than me. I always joke and people that are listening to the podcast will hear me adamantly against self-managing properties, but I will use the caveat that there are a special breed of people that can do it and do it well, and I found them. They're the dog, they're the unicorns folks.
Corey Reyment:I do think there's a breaking point though. Like you know, for long-term rentals, I see people they get to that 150 unit mark and it makes sense to start hiring your own staff and bring in one. You guys, with a mix of everything you have going on between the long-terms, the short-terms, that sort of stuff, like you found this kind of spot where you have the contractors and the people and everything else, and it sounds like you know, single families are typically a little easier to manage. If you have nice side-by-side duplexes, those are a little bit easier to manage. You typically get better tenants in those, like you see in the apartments those can sometimes feel like a storage unit maybe.
Katie Dalke:Yeah, I don't think I would ever self-manage an apartment building. I don't think I could do that. That would be tough.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, yeah, there's definitely some challenges. I can see there. What is the? What is the dynamic for you guys as far as so? Josh, you used to work full-time, right, and now you do real estate in the crane business full-time, yep. And Katie, you're still working full-time, yep. How do you guys juggle all that with the kids? How do you keep your marriage strong, or is it, I don't know? Talk about the challenges that come along with everything you guys have going on and then still trying to keep some sort of romantic marriage happening as well.
Katie Dalke:Yeah, no, like I said in the beginning, like we have very similar goals and we have we have that similar drive where, if it was mismatched, it would not work out. We just both grind all the time. Um, we are getting tired, though we are, we are getting tired on that, so we're hiring an administrative assistant. We just hired an admin to work for us, to do all of our invoicing, all of our everything, because sometimes yes, just all the stuff that we shouldn't be doing Yep.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, the what's your time worth activity, right, that's always a good one for folks that aren't familiar with that.
Corey Reyment:In our mastermind, josh and Katie were a part of, we take you through an exercise called what's your time worth and really we boil down like how much are you worth if in your highest and best use in your income, producing activities and mowing your own lawn typically is on the bottom of that, doing your own laundry is on the bottom of that list and basically the exercise. Once you figure out what your time is worth, anything under that dollar amount per hour that you can outsource, you should try to outsource unless you love it, like some people I talked to are like I love mowing my grass, okay cool. Well then keep mowing your grass, but outsource it and give yourself buyback some of your time, right? So so it sounds like you guys are doing that with the administrative assistant. And then where is the time going to go? So, now that you're going to have all this extra time once they're trained up, what's the future look like for you guys? What's the big goals going forward?
Katie Dalke:We were actually talking about that we need. We're really good at growing our businesses. We are really good at that. We don't have a goal for when we can just take a step back, like sometimes I feel like, as investors, you just keep rolling and you keep going and it's just it's great You're making growth, things are going well, but like you don't have that life and you don't even know what you're striving for. So Josh and I actually were just talking about how we need goals, not for business, not for anything like that, but just for us to, to keep us motivated and keep us going, cause when you have those really hard times, you need to have that to look at.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, yeah, I, I've been going through that as well. It's the same spot you guys are at. Is you just keep buying and growing and growing and you're like, well, when is enough enough? Uh, and when am I actually going to enjoy? You know the reasons I said I was going to start this business. You know, for us it was like I want to spend and I I ask a lot of people this what's your why? Everybody says, oh, it's my family and my kids. Right, that's like the classic and I believe in our heart we want it to be that. But for me, if I'm being honest, a lot of it was around ego and about not that I had to have like the big, the big, you know big, you know.
Corey Reyment:You know what I'm talking about measuring stick, competition. It was more self Like. I just want to keep growing because I want to challenge myself and I feel like I have the potential to grow. It wasn't because I want to be better than this person or outgrow this person. It was more internal for me.
Corey Reyment:But then I got to a point where I'm like you know, like we homeschool our kids, and I was like you know what? Why do we do this? We did this because we wanted freedom, so that we could have the choice to homeschool and travel. And then it's like but then I'm working all the time instead of like spending time with the kids. I'm like Nope, I got to go grind some more and then like travel, ooh, you know, we got work. We got to keep growing. Can't't really try, you know, and it's not like we haven't sacrificed a lot, but at some point I had to have this wake up of like. You know, there can be a balance. Now, like, and I had to figure out what is that? What is that Target to shoot for? One of our, one of my mentors, always told me like, set a bar and then don't keep pushing the bar out set the bar and when you get there, relax and enjoy it.
Corey Reyment:And, and I think social media culture nowadays we see hustle, grind forever, yeah, and then you know you can always do more. There's always somebody else out there that's doing more than you, so you can keep going. And I think there's some I don't know stoicism if that's the right word or something that says, like the person who can grow it to a level and then kick back and enjoy the fruits of the labor, there's almost there should be a shift, hopefully, in the culture of seeing like, wow, these people are actually just enjoying things now. Yeah, not living it. But it sounds like you guys are maybe in that same path where you've got a good amount of things going and you're building some systems and hiring some people to be able to enjoy it.
:Yeah, and ultimately there's a certain dollar amount that we want to hit.
:And once we hit that revenue monthly, and that's like what you're saying and um, I just read the gap in the game Um, and we talk about you you can't, you know, pursue happiness and you set this bar where it's like I'm going to be happy once I hit this and get this.
:And then you, you can't, you know, pursue happiness and you set this bar where it's like I'm gonna be happy once I hit this and get this, and then you hit it, you're not happy now, you keep moving, just like you said, you can't keep moving that bar higher and higher, and ultimately, that's why we said, you know, once we this is what we have to figure out yet but is, once we hit that, that that goal and revenue, which it is, is a lofty goal, but ultimately it's, it's one that is going to make you know everything, incredibly, you know, easier, if you want to call that is is that we, we want that to be the goal in the end, to where we can, you know, take a step back and enjoy a lot more of their family?
Corey Reyment:yeah, you're not keep extending the goalposts further and further. Yeah, it's an easy trap to get into. We definitely did. I remember when we first started we had $8,000 a month was our goal. We're like we can get $8,000 a month coming in, we are set for life. And then we got there and we're like, oh no, we're not. Like we bought this and then we have this and then, like, the lifestyle started to expand. So it's a pretty easy trap to to fall into if you're not aware. So I'm going back to getting started here. Guys, what was the biggest challenge? Do you remember the biggest challenge of just getting started in real estate? I mean, it's been. You guys have been in what since when did you start? Seven?
:years. Um, I mean, back then it I don't. We know so much more now. So it's like I mean you know it would have been what we know now would have been 10 times easier back then. But I think is just like trying to figure out you know your your lease agreements and how do you, you know, do background checks and you know, go through tenants and do I want to live next to this person and all that kind of stuff. So like that was the most challenging in the beginning is just you're living because you're going to be living there correct.
:Yeah, it's just like. Figuring that out is the financing aspect wasn't difficult because I worked in banking and I did more alone, so I understood how that process worked on the residential side. Um, obviously then a few years later we expanded our knowledge on the commercial side and how that all works, but that it was more so of just understanding the tenants and finding them, doing our due diligence and all that good stuff.
Corey Reyment:Okay, Got it Very cool. So is this this? I want to go back to the hire that you guys are making this executive assistant. Is this the first hire for you guys as like a full-time employee, or have you hired full-time people before for the real estate side of things?
Katie Dalke:Nope, this is this is the first one. We have people who work for us, but they do other things. They're just contractors that we really know and have good relationships with, so we can call them our electrician, our plumber. We have all the people we need, but this is someone that we're hiring to really oversee what we're doing and just work for us.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, Got it. What was the breaking point for you to decide to make this hire? And then, with this hire, what would you say to somebody who's maybe in a similar spot looking to make that first hire? I remember for us that was scary. Are we going to put somebody on payroll and pay them every month? What is the challenge for you guys and what was the breaking point where you said, yeah, we got to do this?
:I think, ultimately, there's been so many times where Katie's you're on her phone like responding to email or a message or or whatever it might be. She's just doing one of those things that in my mind, going back to the mastermind, and you know what's my time worth worth, and then I would be doing the same thing. I'm like why are we doing this? Why are we doing these low-level tasks and not delegating and having someone else do it? I think it just became a point where it's like we've said it to each other so many times that we're like we have to do it.
Katie Dalke:Well, for me, I really started to notice when I'd be on the phone, answering emails, doing different things, like I was not a good mom, like I I wasn't the mom. I was more short with my kids. I was just not I. I wasn't the mom that I knew, that I wanted to be for my kids and I'm like, well, this is not worth it. Like if we're building business for our family and like in doing so, I'm just more stressed and more agitated. And then when you have mom, mom, mom and like a kid crying, like it just is so overstimulating that you're like, oh my gosh, I can't do this because you're trying to focus on a business email or something like that. So that was my breaking point, especially this year we had our third and I'm like, what are we doing? Like this is, this is our family, this is what we want to be working towards and we're just not appreciating it or enjoying it because we only get so much time with our kids when they're young and I don't want to work that away.
Corey Reyment:So For sure, 18 summers is all you get.
Katie Dalke:Yes, yeah, so, um, yeah, so it. It fit in where there was someone that we know, who used to be in banking, and she wants side work and we trust her wholly, so that is making it an easier transition. I do definitely get the fear of hiring someone, bringing someone into your circle. It's very difficult because our businesses as investors. You put your heart and soul and blood and sweat and everything into these companies that you're building and it's very scary to let someone in.
Corey Reyment:Yeah, well, and the risk too. I mean you got risk involved with it. Like your name's, at the end of the day, on that note mortgage, right, like you're responsible for it. And I think sometimes, like we've seen this with some, some past employees, it's like they see the glory. They don't know the story is what I always say, right, and they just they see, well, wow, you guys are doing really well, I want my piece of that, or whatever it's like. Well, you don't understand. We have all the risk here, folks. We have everything. You just you get to punch the clock and get your check. We still have to. We still bank is going to be okay with us when our balloon comes up in three years or whatever it is.
Corey Reyment:And all the other things that come along with the marketing, whatever else we got going on. Right, there's a lot that goes into it. So, yeah, yeah for sure, talk about partnerships. You guys have a lot of partnerships, it sounds like where you've used other people's strengths, maybe that they have, that you don't. What are some do's and don'ts with partnerships? Because I know you guys have also had some, maybe for whatever reason, maybe didn't work out or whatever the case is.
Corey Reyment:But talk about that. What are the do's and don'ts of partnerships for those people? Because I get this a lot. I get people that are brand new to real estate and they're not confident, so it's almost like they're blanky, as I call it. They want to find a partner because they just don't have the confidence to do it. So they're like, well, let's just split up the risk and then I'm more comfortable. But a lot of times in those cases it's more for a financial partner they need or something, and there's hard money lenders that could fill that gap and then they're not stuck giving up equity in the deal, right?
:What do you guys see those the benefits of some of the partnerships you've had and what are some things somebody looking at, maybe doing a partnership need to make sure on the front end that they're buttoning up before they dive into that partnership I think the biggest thing right off the bat is I wouldn't jump into any partnership that you don't you haven't personally known the individual or the couple for at least two to three years, okay, you haven't an understanding of their, their background, what their goals are, what their beliefs are, and that you have the same vision as they do. That's one of the most important aspects, I truly feel, because you could. You know, it's kind of like it's like dating in the beginning you're excited, you got this new property, things are good, and all of a sudden, you know six, nine, 12 months later, it's like things start kind of, you know, getting a little bit shaky. It's like I never saw this coming out of this person and that's. That's just one of those things that I think is is crucial.
Corey Reyment:That's really good. That's really good, katie, what do you think front end, before you dive Anything you want to add to what Josh just mentioned there?
Katie Dalke:No, I think he put a very. That was a good analogy. It's just just know what you're getting into. Honestly. We've. Our partnerships have been really good for us. It's been very strong. We've been able able to propel ourselves forward. Um, through people, you meet other people and you just grow like um, we would have never, we would have never met you, corey, if it wasn't for a different partnership. Um, we just we. You learn people, especially in real estate. It is such a small world, um, so just growing and expanding your bubble is good. Um, josh and I are very picky with our partnerships at this point, but, um, but yeah, we've had, we've grown. Initially, what we wanted. We wanted five duplexes and we're like this is going to be great, this is all we need. Um, and then, through different partnerships, we grew our mindset we would never be where we are without, so what is the, what is the portfolio?
Corey Reyment:look like now today, tell, tell the audience what are you guys overall, that you know. What does the whole thing look like?
:So we have um, I wrote it down and sent it to you. I don't remember all the time we have. I wrote it down and sent it to you. I don't remember off the top of my head, so I apologize. I have it right here so I don't want to. So we've got 122 storage units, three short-term rentals, we've got 90 long-term doors and the two cranes.
Corey Reyment:Wow, that's awesome. And that's in seven years. I mean that's incredible. That's awesome. You guys are. You guys are rock stars. I love it. Before we dive into one last final question for you guys it's a little more fun question Is there anything I didn't ask you today that you think the audience would want?
Katie Dalke:me to ask you or that you want me to ask you. No, I mean, I I just I think, if the deal makes sense, find a way to make it work. That's kind of what we've done. We've never. We've sold some properties, and not often, but we have sold and we've had some mistakes that we've made where we're like, oh, we're going to lose so much on this.
Katie Dalke:Real estate is just, it's incredible the power that it has and what it can propel you for. So we had a short term in Florida. That was not a great decision. It was a very shiny, bright object. It was by Disney Awesome. It was so much work and so much effort and we made a lot of money. But we broke even and I'm like, what am I doing? Like it just was, it was really hard and it was so volatile and the market. I almost felt like I was looking for people to rent and I was searching and I could have just stayed within our bubble in what we know. So we expanded, we got excited about something, but we took the chance on it. We backed out of it and we didn't. We didn't lose ourselves from it, but, like I'm happy we took that chance. We learned a lot from it. Yeah.
Corey Reyment:Well, that's always the biggest thing. Even if you make a quote, unquote mistake in real estate, as long as you learn from it and you grow from it, that's then. It's not a loss, right? I use the analogy a lot of like people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a four year degree that they never use and they and we all celebrate them and we go to their graduation parties and we do. Yeah, you're $200,000 in debt now and you're going to make $30,000 a year as a librarian.
Katie Dalke:Good job.
Corey Reyment:Hey, you're $200,000 in debt now and you're going to make about $30,000 a year as a librarian Good job In real estate. We don't celebrate when somebody has a quote, unquote loss, but learn from it and grow their next one. Now they make it up times two or three, right, everybody's just views it as a failure, when it's only a failure if you stop and you don't learn from it. I think something else you mentioned, katie, that I think is really important to know and this has been a theme with several podcast guests so far is find a way to make the deal work.
Corey Reyment:Right now, there's a lot of people. At the time we're recording this, interest rates are elevated compared to what they were in the last few years and we see a lot of people sit on the sidelines waiting for the next crash. And what you're saying don't wait for that crash, get after it, right, yeah, cool, all right. Before we end this thing, let's dive into a little fun question here. What is your favorite either Wisconsin tradition or favorite place in Wisconsin to visit? Like restaurant, lake something? What is it?
:I apologize. It is raining very hard. We can't even hear you. Okay, that's why I hit mute before.
Corey Reyment:We can't hear it too much here, you're good.
:Oh, thank you, that's good, because I don't want to see if I close the sunroof, it kind of blocks any of this noise out. I apologize, I don't want to see if I close the sunroof because it kind of blocks me and there's noise. I apologize, I didn't mean to add that in there, it was just super hard to hear you, that's okay. Okay, what was your question, Al?
Corey Reyment:Favorite Wisconsin tradition or favorite place to visit in Wisconsin.
:Favorite Wisconsin tradition. I mean, I grew up always with the Friday Night Fish Fry and not that we've necessarily continued that tradition, but there's so many good, uh, fish fry joints If you would have thought that from Wisconsin, that the supper clubs, that uh, I mean, that's just kind of a staple for me. Yeah.
Katie Dalke:We'll get back to that when we don't have a five, three and one year old.
:Yeah.
Corey Reyment:That's why you need that assistant. You need the assistant to also be a babysitter, so you guys can go to the that would be great yeah, very good. Um, lastly, guys, if somebody wanted to reach out to you guys and just connect, where's the best place for them to go and how do they find you?
:um, good question. Yeah, we really do not do that much on social media. I mean, they're absolutely welcome to always email us. Yep and jkdinvestmentsllc at gmailcom that's. That's going to be one of the easiest ways awesome guys.
Corey Reyment:Well, thanks so much for joining us today, guys, this has been an awesome episode. There's so much to unpack here and we could probably go for hours and hours and hours talking, but you guys have three kids and a family that you have to get back to, so we're going to wrap this thing up. Thanks everybody for listening to this. If you've got some good nuggets out of this, you're enjoying the podcast, as always. Subscribe, share it with your friends. Help us get the word out. The more people that listen to this, the bigger and badder guests we can get here and the more value we can continue to bring to you guys. So shameless plug here.
Corey Reyment:If you are looking for off-market deals, go to wisconsindiscountpropertiescom and join the buyers list to get some off-market deals sent to your inbox every single Monday morning and this has been another episode Check us out. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next one, guys, 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.
