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
From Corporate Exec to $14 Million Real Estate Mogul: How Laura Ritchie Built an 85-Unit Portfolio with Creativity & Family Connections
Laura Ritchie's journey from corporate media executive to real estate mogul exemplifies the power of creativity and determination in building wealth. Starting in 2017 with a simple side hustle, Laura leveraged family connections, thrift store furniture, and a willingness to take calculated risks to rapidly build an 85-unit portfolio now worth approximately $14 million.
What makes Laura's approach remarkable is her innovative financing strategies. She shares how she transformed basic apartments into furnished rentals with nothing more than spray paint and thrift store finds, doubling her returns with minimal investment. Her most impressive feat? Purchasing a seven-unit property for $350,000, improving it over four months, then refinancing to not only pay back the seller but also pocket $90,000 at closing. That property, now worth $1.1 million, became the foundation for acquiring dozens more units.
Beyond personal wealth building, Laura has structured her business to create generational prosperity through four separate LLCs - one for herself and her husband, and three others benefiting her parents, son, and daughter. Her work with her parents demonstrates her compassionate approach to family finances: rather than watching their retirement savings deplete, she helped convert their 401(k) into a real estate portfolio generating $4,000 monthly with perpetual growth potential.
Laura doesn't shy away from challenges either. She candidly discusses her current church conversion project, "Operation Foxhole," designed to provide housing for veterans, and the regulatory hurdles that have complicated the process. She also shares how market shifts have impacted her once-lucrative midterm rental business, forcing adaptation in a saturated marketplace.
Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, Laura's story offers invaluable insights into scaling quickly, structuring family investments, and navigating market challenges with resilience and creativity. Looking to connect with Laura about furnished rentals or her projects? Email her at laura@apcoho.com and explore how her approach might transform your own real estate journey.
Hey everybody, we are back with another episode of the Wisconsin Investor and, as usual, I have another amazing guest I'm going to be bringing you guys today. We just had a great conversation. We almost forgot to start the podcast because we were talking about so many cool things that are going on that I'm excited to bring you guys today. But before we do, I want to give you guys a little bit of a commercial here for Wisconsin Discount Properties, who's sponsoring today's episode.
Speaker 1:One of the deals we're going to bring up, we had a deal out to our buyers list recently. It was between New London and Chiactin, kind of in the middle of nowhere, on about an acre of land, and nobody bought it on the first one. So I hear a lot of times where people they say, ah, you guys have too many buyers, I can never get a deal right, why even waste my time putting an offer in? Well, here's one that nobody bought. So we ended up talking to somebody who does quite a few flips. They're going to pick it up and they're going to do the flip and they're expecting to make about 20,000 on this thing and spend about 3,500 bucks in rehab on it. So their profit per hour is going to be through the roof on this thing.
Speaker 1:So if you're looking for deals like that, we have other ones too. There are big projects. Laura, our guest today, who I'm going to introduce in a second, knows all about the different range of properties and projects we bring up. But go to wisconsindiscountpropertiescom, put your information in and you'll start getting deals sent to your inbox every Monday morning. And with that, let's get into today's episode. Let's get into today's episode. I have one of my favorite people that we do business with here. We've done quite a few deals together Laura Ritchie, on the show today.
Speaker 2:Laura. What's cracking today? Well, just buying houses and have remodels going here and there and have a church multifamily on hold. Just kind of a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1:So many things we can dive into today Before we get too much into the weeds. You just closed down one yesterday with us at the time of this recording, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my husband's flying back from Belize so I have to tell him about that house yet, so spoiler.
Speaker 1:Well, this episode won't come out for a couple of weeks, so he'll hopefully know by then. That's good. There we go. How did you get into real estate? When did you get started? Give us a little bit of the quick background story on you, Laura, and how you got here today doing real estate full time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was like in media my whole life. I kind of ran media companies and did you know some sponsorships and monetization for publishers around the nation? So kind of like a whole different career, monetization for publishers around the nation, so kind of like a whole different career. My husband was like was the kind of the head of the state retention MCO for the army and was working like a gazillion hours a week and really, you know, like a job with a lot of responsibility and stress, and I didn't want him to have to work when he retired from the army. I wanted him to have choices and and so you know, to see what life would be like, you know, when we're not, you know grinding, and you know both of us working so many hours and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So I decided to like kind of start that little side hustle and, um, we, our first opportunity for a house was, um, my, his mom actually, you know, was in transition and she was getting older and she was going from one house to another and she, um, decided to put her house in our name, um, and so we actually, you know it was a hundred thousand dollar house, you know um, but we were able to then leverage, you know some of that um for a down payment on on also getting something Um. So we you know she got her exact house, her whole situation, you know um, but then she, her house, was protected from you know some of some of those things that that could have you know if she went got sick or something like that protected from hospital kind of kind of bills, um, so then she had that protection.
Speaker 2:You know she had her house so she could, you know, give that to her sons and stuff later, um, and then in the meanwhile we were able to have just a little more equity to, you know, buy our first unit, um, and you know, then I did a number of like you know tradition or you know kind of non-traditional financing pieces in order to grow really, really fast and, you know, get to where we are today.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what year was that that you got the house put in your name? So?
Speaker 2:that first one, when I was just dabbling, as you know, just a very light side hustle, was actually 2017.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, very cool. That's about when I got started. I got started in 2016. So we got started right around the same time, and that's pretty crazy. And then it didn't take you long to be doing this full time. I mean, you left corporate America in 2020, correct?
Speaker 2:Yep, january 1st 2020. So it was only a couple of years, and part of it was, like you know, people like in these groups, you know, giving me like really great opportunities where they, you know, took a chance on me and I, you know, I was able to do some creative things in order to get into properties that I, you know, like financially, banks would have, you know, like I had no business getting into. Yet you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about some of that. Let's unpack that a little bit. When you say you get, cause you you know. When we were talking a little bit earlier, one of the things that stood out to me, laura, is you've been just you've through your career it sounds like through pretty much your whole life. It sounds like you've used a lot of grit, determination, just kind of hard work like not taking no to get to where you are today. Right, just figuring out a way. Talk about some of the creative things you had to do Like what were some of those things to be able to grow that quickly, to be able to leave corporate America in three years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that you know the first one was, you know, more of a traditional play in some respects. You know we just we leveraged a little bit of equity and you know anyone can do that, of course.
Speaker 1:Was that a HELOC, or was that a refinance? Or how did you guys leverage that equity?
Speaker 2:exactly, I don't remember. We just, you know, used some of the equity in that house as the down payment. I don't remember the format of the loan, it was kind of a while ago. And then after that, the next one. There was a four unit apartment building, so that first property ended up being a nonconforming three unit. So it was a du unit apartment building, so that that first property ended up being a non-conforming three unit. So it was a duplex and a house together.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I think it was like $136,000. And what I ended up doing is like I was like I put it for rent, like normal, and I took people through. I'm like, oh, they all want it. And I'm like, no, this one's pretty nice. I'm like I think I'm going to do something else with it.
Speaker 2:And I, you know, went to the thrift stores and I, you know, like you know, we were like the hillbillies and we had, you know, harvested furniture.
Speaker 2:I spray painted it in the yard and, you know, filled, filled that unit, and you know, then we got was like, well, I think I'm going to do the same thing to the upstairs one you know so, little by little, and then, finally, then time went by a little bit and I did the house next door, so I had the three furnished rentals and then an apartment building came up and so, you know, I had my full time sales job with NBC and I had, I think what I did was we, my husband's a veteran and so he was able to get a hundred percent financing on our main family house.
Speaker 2:So we ended up cashing out on our main family house using that veteran program and then we use that like $90,000 of equity we had in our house for our down payment on a four unit apartment building. Then I was I needed to furnish and remodel it. So I took a loan against my 401k at that time while I was working and then between, like, cousins and brothers and myself spray painting cabinets, we, like you know, in the thrift storing and all that you know, we had our next four. You know, kind of lipstick on a pig furnished housing at that time.
Speaker 2:It was so much easier because no one was doing it, sure. And so now you know, I put like just so much money into these places and then it's like my lift is like nothing compared to where it was. Where. Then, you know, I put my little lipstick on it and I was like I can, you know, make double the money with spray paint you?
Speaker 1:know anymore.
Speaker 2:Like. That is not the state of affairs anymore. But, yeah, I was just thinking that I could like spray paint my way to like, you know, riches, and it was. It started out that way. Um, and then after that, I had a seven unit, um and uh, jason Lund, who you know does similar things to you with like the wholesaling he had gotten you know this, this unique seven unit property that's almost like condos together, you know like in its layout they had garages.
Speaker 1:It was an odd townhouse style.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was like a neat property and one of them, you know, was like almost like a garage, you know. One had like hole on the floor, one had like a hoarder situation, there was like all kinds of stuff. And then there was like four just kind of, but you know the it was like six $700 rents you know there at that time, and then some that were kind of just somewhat abandoned or whatever. And I was like I think I gave him $50,000 down which I got from, I think, maybe another loan from my home equity, and then also like a big commission that I got on like a sponsorship sale. So I put that money down with him and he's like I had four months basically to get it nice enough to refinance it, pay him the 350,000 he was selling it to me for. I ended up actually getting 90,000 back at the table and then that property is now worth like $1.1 million.
Speaker 2:And it has leveraged me into probably 50 units since then.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is crazy. So one of the things I want to unpack this for a second. There was a lot right there, laura, for the audience to hear. So that one you did like the ultimate burr right when you burred it, but then you also got a check for 90K at the refinance four months later. Wow, so you paid your. Think of those of us out there that do flips, right, I'm a big buy and hold person myself, but we flip properties from time to time, right, and I know a lot of people that listen to the show flip properties. We have a lot of buyers that flip properties, but the ultimate flip is the one that you flip to yourself and you collect a check for $90,000 tax-free unless you sell it. But in the moment, I did.
Speaker 2:like you know that 90 has to pay for, like you know, my flooring and you know like that that's paying me back, so it's paying you back my revolving debt, because I use a lot of that as well.
Speaker 1:So this wasn't all 90 K coming in the just sitting in your bank account. This was to pay you back, but ultimately you were able to make these things way nicer, right and really improve the property to a point now where you took so you were all in for how much about four, four, 40 into that thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of feel like whatever I got back, I ultimately put back into it, but at the same time that thing just continued to like produce equity to be able to get into other things. So I mean that you know, a lot of my stuff have been refinanced a million times and, you know, I think people have different appetites for risk and I think my appetite for risk is like I think there's maybe something wrong with me that I I can't just like like let's just get life to the point that you're not having like an elephant on your chest and you're, you know, like you're able to just have like a normal amount of stress, like I'm not sure why I need like so much stress, that I have to have, you know, like four lions ready to rip my throat out at any given time, but I just must need that, because right about the time when I think like, oh I, I can see like stabilization, like you know, a year out, or whatever, I do like 10 things that are questionable.
Speaker 1:I know my wife's like that too. She's like when are we ever gonna just slow down? I'm like we will honey someday, I promise we'll slow down. And then I'm like oh, shiny object over here, let's go do that Right.
Speaker 2:Like my Amazon card, only their houses, which is like the worst.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Oh, that's amazing. So, but now let's look at the equity on that. So you went, let's say it's worth 1.1. Let's say you were all in for 500,000, just for easy math, right? You don't have six hundred thousand dollars of equity. You created that you were then able to leverage into 50 units, right, which is the total portfolio of. That's got to be worth over five million, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, so I'm at. I'm at eighty five units overall.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:Across the four businesses, not that that one property you know got into all those, but it and I think it's about like thirteen, fourteen million.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing. So what we're what I want to unpack there, laura, cause we talked you just mentioned it People have different risk tolerance levels, right, and one of the things when I'm talking to a potential new buyer for us or somebody who just needs some coaching or something like that, that's one of the first things that we need to talk about is like, how aggressively do you want to grow? Like, how intense is your desire to get from A to B? Because you're going to do some things like what Laura's talking about here. You're going to get scrappy, you're going to leverage things, you're leveraging 401ks, you're leveraging houses, you're 100% financed on a house. I mean, for some people that would make them just keel over and you're just like, yeah, bring it on, let's get as much leverage as possible.
Speaker 1:I'm very similar. I'm like leverage the heck out of this and let's keep growing. Because to me, the way I look at it is as soon as I can buy that property, the sooner I can buy that property and get tenants in there, the clock starts ticking for me on building equity right, the appreciation goes up, the tenant pay down goes this way and I start to create I don't know how to do it on the camera backwards. But you create I call it the wealth cone, right? You just start here and eventually your spread just becomes like this and you, you can really not know what you're doing in this industry. That well and over time, time makes you look like a genius, as if, and the buying whole thing Right, and so I think what you're doing, I'm more probably sided with you, but I know there's people that listen to this that are like I just want one duplex a year. I'm going to put my 20, 25% down. I want to. I want a turnkey type thing, side-by-side duplex, and that's all they want and that's great. That's just maybe a little bit slower path to the goal, and that's okay If their risk tolerance is not where your eyes probably is on the spectrum and I think I may have met my match here for risk tolerance, I think you're out even further than I am tolerance scale, which is awesome, so I love that I want to talk about now.
Speaker 1:Earlier you mentioned that you have four different businesses and the way that you categorized it, uh, I'm assuming, means like you have four different entities that do different things but are kind of aligned Right and talk about those and what the goal with those is, because I think this is a really cool thing for people to be thinking about, like just how big can you? For those of you that are like gosh, I just got to get my first property Right it's like, ok, cool, yes, let's get from zero to one. But then think bigger picture of, like, what real estate can do for not just yourself but for your family.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk about what you've done now with these different businesses and how you've used that to help your family. Yeah, so my front facing business is Appleton Corporate Housing, and so that's kind of just like my DBA. And then I have four, like you said, llcs. The one LLC is, you know, my husband and I's and we have, you know, maybe like 75 units in that one. And then I also do businesses for my parents and my son and my daughter, and so with my parents, they, you know, we were looking at kind of like their. Some salespeople came to their door about, you know, investing and like getting some more insurance policies and something that you know financial advising and all that kind of stuff. And my mom called me. She's like what do you think? And I'm like well, I basically made her like a little story, um, about splitting hostas because she likes to garden.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Um and I, I explained to her what I wanted to do for her retirement by basically splitting her hostas, and so she had a little. She had a little rental that was paid off, that was down the street. So they had this one little dabble that they had done. But their 401k. If they would have continued their rate of spending, I think they would have been out, I don't know, maybe seven, eight years. They probably would have like tightened their belts and had to, you know, just live differently and whatever.
Speaker 2:But what I was like, you know like, if we cash this out and we leverage this little, you know, $100,000 or whatever rental that you have, I can get an apartment building in Appleton and then I will do my furnished rentals there for you. So basically we did, you know, we bought a building, you know I completely remodeled it with my team my team takes all the credit, of course, not me and so we remodeled it, we furnished it, we did all that stuff. And now you know they have this you know little five unit portfolio, but you know they get a $4,000 check from their. You know little five unit portfolio, but you know they get a $4,000 check from their you know respective businesses every month and that is, you know, just a little more than what they would have were you know would have had before between like what they would get with their 401k per month and then the rental that they had and so. But instead you know that now it's and so, but instead you know that now it's and we started that in 2021.
Speaker 2:And now they've gained back that house equity that was leveraged.
Speaker 2:They haven't gained back the whole 401k that was kind of cashed out but that you know will be caught up in you know, a couple of years. They'll have gained back the equity that they cashed out on the 401k. They'll have gained back the equity that they cashed out on the 401k, but instead of it emptying, you know, like we look ahead three years where it would have been like if they had that same rate of spending, they would have been out. Instead they have this perpetual, you know, check that they're getting, and you know I'm not making any money off this business, so it's just kind of like extra work, but then, at the same time, you know it is providing for my family's future too, because you know, as your parents get older and eventually, sadly, you know, aren't with us anymore, then you know that's also, you know, inheritance that my brother and I will have. That has been, you know, an increase in equity for for all of our family in the generations, rather than a depletion that would have been happening.
Speaker 1:That is so awesome and I think, what's important for people to realize here. Laura, as you're talking, I'm thinking about my parents, right, and I don't know their full financial picture. They do some real estate investing as well. We've gotten them started with some things. They do some passive stuff with some real estate investing or other people that do real estate investing and that kind of thing. But what you're talking about is so important. With a lot of the technology and medical advances and AI and all this other stuff.
Speaker 1:You know there's a lot of people depending who you listen to that talk about our lifespan and how it's going to increase dramatically uh, soon, right, with all the advances, and people who are planning for retirement 10 years ago. They may have to plan much longer now than what they had anticipated, even late later in life, if there's fortunate enough to not have any major issues at this point. And what you're doing is you're using the leverage and equity that they built and helping them just split the hostas. I love that. You're helping them multiply.
Speaker 1:You took one, turned it to five, right? I mean, that's amazing. And now that thing doesn't matter what happens in their four-year-old, like you were saying, they can just spend the same amount of money every month that they were spending. But that nest egg isn't depleting to the point, it's just continuing. It's probably it's increasing because of what we talked about with the wealth cone. Eventually you could probably re-leverage that property again if you needed to pull some more equity back out and go split some more hostas or just give them a nice little nest egg to hang on, go play with right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, their portfolio now is at a place that we could do that again.
Speaker 2:Like you know, it's definitely ready that we could do that again.
Speaker 2:And you know, that's kind of a neat one in that, like you don't have to have gotten to that point that you have built your own equity yet.
Speaker 2:If you're, like, you know, an investor, you know 30s or you know however old, and you're like, geez, you know I want to help my parents and I want to help myself, like how can we work together where we take some of my willingness to you know, do the work and be scrappy and hustle and then use what my parents bring to the table or your parents bring to the table, this equity that you know maybe a younger person hasn't built up yet and then you guys can, you can win together. And I think you know that can be tricky with families, sometimes Like, well, I have a really nice dynamic you know and trust with and they've also, they've also gotten to see what I was building for so long that there was a comfort level there. It might be a little more difficult if you're just starting, but at the same time, I think it's like a conversation really worth having and thinking about with, like looking at your parents' retirement.
Speaker 1:Totally, and my mom was my first investor in property, so my first duplex I ever bought I had. I got fired from a job, surprise, surprise, and I had a I think it was like a profit share thing that was sitting in an IRA, so I just pulled that out. I didn't have hardly any gains, so there was really no penalty to pull it out. And then my mom had the rest of it and she put the money in and I gave her, I think, 12% interest on her cash or something like that while we were remodeling it until we could refinance and pay her back. And then I think it's like three or four other deals she ended up investing with me and while I was growing the portfolio so it was great she got to get a 12% return on her cash that she was maybe earning at the time, like three or 4% on. Oh, that's great, a win-win for both of you. Yeah, everybody wins and all that and that's one Hard money.
Speaker 1:Lenders are an awesome resource, but I tell people like have as many buckets of money as possible that you can tap into and use them strategically depending on what you got going on, and you never want to miss a good deal just because you didn't have financing set up or an option to fund the deal, right. So that's some of the things, and friends and family are some of the best. I know people get weird about asking their friends or family, but really you're giving them an opportunity to grow their cash. You know, as long as you feel comfortable, you're going to pay it back, right? That's Thanksgiving. Could get weird.
Speaker 2:That's an area I do struggle with a little is because, like a lot of times there, there are really good opportunities where I'm like you know, I know this person, you know this aunt or this friend or you know this neighbor, what you know, whoever it might be, I'm like this is a great opportunity where it's like you could make more than what you are and I can get. I can turn it back out to you pretty quickly. But there is like an awkwardness, you know, like I don't like to sell products you know, and on, you know, to my friends and family and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Not against anyone who's doing that, but you know, I've had to do so much sales in my life for other things that I've tried to like not do so much with my friends and family, but it's like, at the same time, if you're like they can just have $5,000 they didn't have two months from now, it's like, you know, once in a while I'll, I'll ask, like I'll throw that out there to someone. And I was talking to one of my girlfriends the other day and I'm like, I'm like this is how I asked this but I'm like, but I feel like such a bottom feeder you know just because you know you have that.
Speaker 2:Like you know, are you this worthy investor that's you know. So that is. That is something that I struggle with when it's people that I know because also like the personality of you know, your like fun Island self isn't always the business person.
Speaker 1:Well, they know your history right. They know, they know. They know. They know all the good and the bad if they know you well enough. It's reminding me of a story for those, for those of you out there, who read the Bible. There's a good story in there where Jesus comes back to Nazareth and he's trying to preach and he says you know, no, no, prof. I don't remember what the line is, but basically no prophets worthy in his own town, in his own town, or he can't do miracles in his own town because you know they're like wait, aren't you the carpenter?
Speaker 2:Yeah, buffett, right? It's kind of a similar thing for for some of us with with family, right, that's that actually there's a lot of truth to that.
Speaker 1:Because you wouldn't want to be a prophet, like where you went to high school, or, you know, like I just feel like, if you know I I couldn't be trying to like sell investments to like my old high school class, like you know, like the messiest locker and late for one thing I have found, laura and I don't know if this is helpful for you, the audience, but one thing I have found that has been really helpful is again kind of that mindset shift right Of like, wait a minute, I'm actually doing them a favor by bringing them into this. So like, instead of me chasing them and saying like, ooh, I'm going to go sell them something, I'm like, wait a minute, I have an amazing opportunity over here for them to help grow their cash. They're getting 3% over here. I can give them 10% or 12% or whatever it is. Or if you're going to give them some equity in the deal or whatever, the case is right, whatever you work out with them.
Speaker 1:The other thing I've done is the kind of the old third party ask right. So when you go up to somebody no-transcript, and inevitably if that person you're talking to your aunt or your friend or whatever has cash sitting on the sideline, they're going to be like, ah, yeah, hey, right here. And you're like, oh, really, okay, cool, I didn't want to, you know, with family and stuff, but now I would love to work with you if you want, want to get involved, and inevitably if they have cash sitting on the sidelines. It's like shooting fish in a barrel it works every time and you feel good about it too, like I don't feel ever bad about asking a fan or saying it that way to a family member.
Speaker 1:It's the indirect ask and takes a little bit of the pressure off and a little bit of the steam off of like asking somebody. It's more of like, hey, it's opportunity. Do you know anybody that would want to get involved in it? And then boom, they're. Usually, if they have cash sitting there, they're, they're going to raise it and if not, they'll go. Oh, I don't know. Let me actually yeah, my buddy over here that I know he's always talking about investing. You know, one way or another, either get a referral to somebody else or they'll inevitably want to invest with you.
Speaker 2:So no, that's that's, that's good advice, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:I've seen it work with some of the other people. That's worked for me, but anyway, well, so okay, what does the future look like for you, laura? So you've got 85 units, you have a church you're working on right now. Talk to us a little bit about the church project and I know this is this is for some of you out there A lot of times you talk about all the successes. This one is one of those elephants Laura's chest. Let's talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we bought. So I bought a church and it was one of my marketplace impulse buys and I have. So I was like not looking at real estate listings. I'm like I'm stabilizing, I will not allow myself to open any emails or anything related to real estate listings.
Speaker 2:Well, my daughter sent me a link from marketplace on this church and so I opened it and then it was like, and it was like, oh, seller financing. And I was like, anytime I can just like not have to call a bank and just like own something. I have trouble not just doing that, regardless of what it is. And this church was, you know it has, you know it's great. You know it's a great huge building. It's 10,000 square feet. It's actually 12,000 square feet.
Speaker 2:you add that third, you know you take the balcony across part of the way and add that that level, because we're doing, um, like three full levels okay um, and then we are going to take some of the parking lot and make a bank of garages and do a few little penthouses over those, so it's a 16 unit project, um, and you know, like, just the demo on it, um, ended up just being like way more than you know, invasive than what I thought Like originally.
Speaker 2:I just thought we could just like rough in some units and you know, and, and if I would have just rented it to the group of people I had and just let them use that little kitchen and just spend, like, just use the space, kind of like I thought I could just right out of the gates. But instead we, we dug in and we started demoing and we had this, you know, big vision for what we wanted to do, um, and the vision of it is it's uh, my husband came up with the idea of operation foxhole because he's um, he's a veteran, um, um, and we want to have this, this building, this multi-unit um, to have first priority to um, veterans and, and then you know, the floors that are handicap accessible, disabled veterans, um, and you know, have like a kind of a flight of placements where, you know, first of all we serve, you know, that population and try to you know anyone who's looking for housing and those groups and then you know kind of open the remaining ones to to the public.
Speaker 2:So so there's like some, you know positive, you know there too, but we've actually gotten. You know I owe. It was so much on this building, it's like very stressful. So it's a situation where I can't sell it for what I owe right now and so I have to get the financing to get the project done. And you know, the cashflow is there, the end project's there, the plan is all there, but it's just a matter of then. You know they see that kind of wreck hulk of a interior, because you're at that phase where it gets worse before it gets better.
Speaker 2:For sure you know, you have like. You know, you scrape the bones and you're ready to. You know, just stack your units.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And you've done a lot of like infrastructure kind of stuff and bought.
Speaker 2:You know, like, we bought the AC and you know heating, cooling and all this, spoilers and just we have all this stuff, um, but we just need to like get to that next place.
Speaker 2:So I, you know, working on SBA loans and grants and stuff like that, and, um, I also have been enjoying my life, so that has also slowed things down. So, um, you know, my, so my church right now is just kind of in a holding pattern. Um, while I get long-term financing so I can pay my hard money, lender back the initial investment, and right now I'm just kind of paying her monthly interest, um, so that's kind of sucking some money out of my pocket in the short term. But but we will get there. It's just, you know, going to take longer than I thought and there's there's definitely more hurdles with having to get like architects and structural engineers and a bunch of things that we weren't aware that we would have to do. But as it got kicked up to a state level, from two units to 13 units, like, everything changes and there's just a lot more involved.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, is do you have to get an elevator and sprinkler system in, or is it not?
Speaker 2:so that's that's.
Speaker 2:One of the other things is like um, not an elevator okay god, I hope not an elevator, um, but uh, sprinkler systems or something. You know the sprinkler system, the architect and one of the things that I'm looking for. So maybe this will go in the universe. And so the architectural quote that I have is higher than what I want to pay for what I kind of need, because I basically need someone to work with a state that's got that architectural stamp to just kind of sign off, because we know what we want to do and we've had the structural engineer already.
Speaker 2:You know, kind of tell us what we can do, ok, but we need the architect basically just to draw what we already know we're going to do. Ok, but then work hand in hand with the state to make sure everything's compliant. And we have those like little code things all the way through with the state to make sure everything's compliant. And we have those like little code things all the way through. And it is a lot of hours and the size of the facility. But I kind of need someone who, like, has that stamp that maybe worked for a firm but is maybe independent or between projects, that wants to take something on, that can do it for, you know, still a nice price but a lot less than when you're working with the whole firm.
Speaker 1:For sure. Yeah, cool, well, this will go out. So, yeah, if you share the podcast or you know our audience, hopefully we'll share this episode with their, with their folks, and hopefully get the word out. Or if they know somebody, let us know, we'll get. We'll drop your contact info at the end, laura, and we'll put it in the show notes too. So if anybody gets anything or knows anybody, we can reach out directly to you, and that'd be awesome to make a little connection here through the show for you. So what are some things so you mentioned? Is this the first time you've done one of these? You know, kind of bigger conversion type projects?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like it's been like a negative learning process for me.
Speaker 2:I don't know that I want to do any more of these Um, I don't know that I want to do any more of these Um. I just, I like I kind of like the quick hit of like it's sort of like my drug, where I like, you know, like I can go on your site or I can, you know, one of my other wholesalers can call me and be like Laura, I got this great deal, and then I can like have that impulse buy, like my Amazon card, I can buy the house and then, you know, we can send our guys in and we can pick out some fancy tile and we can, you know, you know, do a few things to upgrade it and then get it out there and so, like those are fun. Like I like kind of like that fast, little you know, hit of adrenaline and you know, having a new, new thing that's starting to build equity, like this, this long process, like I don't I want to build my empire, like you know, with one trailer of old furniture at a time.
Speaker 2:I don't think I want to do like the whole, like actually building it.
Speaker 1:For sure you and I were talking about that. I think you and I are more similar the longer we talk, laura, because I'm like that too. I'm like ooh. That's why I love wholesaling, because for me it's just got the deal, sell the deal, got the deal, sell the deal, got the deal, sell the deal. Now, I'm not building any wealth doing that, but it's fun and I enjoy doing it. Same thing with rentals I love it, I can buy it, I can send've got a tenant in there. I didn't have to go in and swing any hammers because I'm terrible at that, so I let them do it all and boom, I go find the next one.
Speaker 1:I find deals, I find money, easy peasy. I have a project right now where we might have to demo the house because it's pretty rough and we might have to build a new one. Well, now we're dealing withback issues and so now we might have to move the whole new house to a new slab and all this other stuff. So the costs are just like racking up. Now I'm okay with it, because I do have interest in new construction and thinking about like what if I just started building new houses? Right, it's just another avenue. This is my shiny object kicking in. So I'm learning and it's not gonna like kill me, but I hate the process of it, like I just don't like. I don't like rules and dealing with it. I'm like why do we have a 40 foot setback? Why, who made that rule? This is dumb.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to replace the house that was there with a better house. Just let me do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't, so I don't play well with rules. Yeah, I think it's the same, exact that personality profile for sure For sure, 100%.
Speaker 1:Let's go back to when you got started. We talked a little bit about this, and when we were talking about having you on the show, one of the things you brought up was the midterm rental environment right now, and so I think this is important for everybody. You know again, not everything we do in real estate is roses and rainbows and everything's up, up, up, up up all the time, right, we're seeing this in the short-term rental space too, with a lot of our short-term rentals. Those have been down the last couple of years. What are you seeing in the midterm? And maybe can you just define what midterm is for those out there that don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we were kind of leaders in the area in that, with Appleton Corporate Housing, the midterm rental space which usually the leases are an average of, you know, just like a couple months, and people are here. You know, during COVID that was a really big thing because you had so many of the travel nurses and you know there's also contract workers and there's, you know, construction groups. You know, when a bunch of guys come up from Mexico and they're doing roofs, they need a place to stay and you know that motel environment isn't as nice for them as a big house or like a whole apartment building. So there's all different kinds of groups. You've got, you know, assisted living. You've got, you know, all these different people who are in transition that need a furnished place for a certain period of time and for a long time.
Speaker 2:When I first started out, since there was no competition, you know people were either doing Airbnbs or they were doing long-term rentals. Like I said, I was able to. You know, like I could spray paint something and now it's, like, you know, making three times more money, but now I have it's the opposite. So now you know I have, like I bought that 16 unit property from from you guys and had I just kept it like it, you know, because it was a nice property, yeah, and I kind of kept it where it was and just like, nudge the rents up, I would actually be in a better space with that building. Then I spent another million dollars on it and there's, like you know, waterfall granite countertops and built in. You know, like, if you've not been to my website, like those units are just insane how beautiful they are and they were great for a corporate client when there was that business.
Speaker 2:But it got oversaturated because other people you know the long term people saw like, oh, they're making that much money, let's move some of our places into that. The Airbnb people said it's a pain in the ass to do three days and then have to turn it and turn it and turn it and turn it. Let's rent to travel nurses. Well, so everybody got in that space and now it's to the point that you know I'm including the furniture and I, you know it's like I probably could get almost the same exact amount on just an empty rental.
Speaker 2:So I'm actually trying to get as many long-term leases as I can at a lower rate than what I was getting in 2017 with my first corporate rentals that were not this huge investment, that were my spray painting years, were my spray painting years. So, like the difference and where that's gone down to and my lift is you know not where it is now. You know you're also talking to me in spring. So spring, laura, is much sadder state of affairs. I'm like a little more humble, which I'm not that humble, um, and just like a little more like beaten down. But then end of summer, laura is, like you know, rags to riches.
Speaker 2:So it kind of depends on what time of the year that you talk to me.
Speaker 1:So at the time we're recording this again, we have 12 Airbnbs and most I think 10 are in Wisconsin and yeah, it's the same. We're like, oh my gosh, I got to put more money back in that account. I have to fund this LLC again. Dang it, this is terrible. And then at the end of summer fall, I'm like, wow, airbnb is the best thing ever. I love it 100%. We're very similar. The longer this goes on, we're like twins, just opposite gender here. That's awesome. So I think that's important.
Speaker 1:What was really smart when, when it was going really well, is you bought a 16 unit, which those are valued based off of an income approach, and so when you were talking about leverage right. What's great about that is you can create a ton of equity by juicing up that income approach, right, if you can get the appraiser to base it off of what you're either projecting you're going to do with the midterm rental rent, which is going something like that, and then that juices up your income, and so in the appraiser values that, you're getting a much, much higher appraisal. During the heyday of the midterm that you were doing. But the downside is now, if you don't have those things filled, you step all this money into them and made them awesome probably best long-term apartments in town. Yeah, not going to get quite the return that you were getting before, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know I've got, you know, five construction workers from down South that are, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm taking everybody you know, like, just like five individual people that are doing roofs. Are, you know, going into, um, you know, a place with granite waterfall countertops and it's like, well, I gotta, you know I'm thinking of actually going around town with flyers and everyone who's on a roof being like, hey, I've got some furnished housing for you, let's get you guys out of these motels. And, um, you know, fill my, fill my open doors. So I think that's my, my next um feet, feet on the ground campaign.
Speaker 1:So I love it, I love it. Well, let's get where. I know you got a busy day today too, probably, and we got to get wrapping here. We always like to end with a kind of a fun question, laura. So we always ask and this is why we do this, by the way is you know? We have people outside of Wisconsin that are looking to invest in Wisconsin, that listen to the show, invest in Wisconsin, listen to the show and you know, just for all of us Wisconsinites, we like to hear different spots, so we like to kind of tell people a little bit more about this great state that we invest in if they aren't as familiar. Do you have? Or what is your favorite Wisconsin tradition or place to visit?
Speaker 2:Well, I grew up in Portage at least like my high school and stuff years and so my home, like where my heart is, is actually the Wisconsin River. So we have in Portage, which is like 15 minutes from Wisconsin Dells, you know we've got like sandbars and you know we always played a lot of like home run derby on the sandbars and stuff like that. And so we have a cottage in Wisconsin Dells at, and so we have a cottage in Wisconsin Dells and so just you know, like taking a pontoon boat out, you know, or taking one of the Dells boat tours and going into like those majestic cliffs, you know that is like one of only about three places in the world that has like those kind of like rock formations, and you know Wisconsin.
Speaker 1:Dells. Sometimes people think oh, wisconsin dells.
Speaker 2:You know the water parks and tourism and you know crap downtown or whatever. But um, there is like the reason that the dells became the dells is because of the majestic beauty of the wisconsin river and, um, you know, I go home fishing with my dad all the time, so, you know, catch a lot of walleyes out of that river and then eat them, which is wonderful.
Speaker 2:And so, uh, yeah, just being on the sandbars and, you know, throwing something that floats down the river for a few hours, that's kind of, I think, my Wisconsin recommendation you know you're the first one I think you're going to be like episode 30 ish somewhere in there.
Speaker 1:First one to bring up the Wisconsin river. Oh, okay, we've had the dells. I think we've had the dells maybe once, but not in the same light they had. You know, they're a water perky. Uh, recommendation where I like I forgot about, like we love the dells and I love doing the boat tour and it is, it's like amazing the different rock formations. We live in door county, which has some pretty cool rocks but totally different than what you see on the river, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah there's, there's a really good. You probably have done that one that like the cave, that cave kayaking trap up in Door County, Like that's a really, really beautiful one.
Speaker 1:We had one scheduled and it was like really wavy and rainy that day and then we just never rescheduled. They canceled it. We never rescheduled it. Sad, I know.
Speaker 2:I needed it. I took my daughter and her niece on that, or my daughter and like my husband, which is a other family relative, and yeah, that was like such an amazing day, so you have to schedule that this summer.
Speaker 1:I got to be more of a tourist this summer. Yeah Well, laura, thank you so much for being on today. There was so much in here. I think our audience is going to love this episode, but if somebody wants to get you that connection to the architect, or they want to connect with you about anything that you're willing to share with them, what's the best way for them to reach you?
Speaker 2:So you can email me. Okay, email me, and my email is Laura L-A-U-R-A at my website address, which is apcohocom. It's A-P as in Peter C-O-H-Ocom. So, Laura, at apcohocom, and I will say I do have a lot of furnished rentals available and we serve, you know, Oshkosh, um, most of Northeast Wisconsin. You know we've got a lot in green Bay, tons and tons of Appleton and even individual like Kimberly, Hakana and some of these like smaller communities around here. Um, so, and we do work with you know, if you're a construction company, we will actually house your whole work crew for you. Um, and you know, take some of those risks. We will accept your pets if you're in transition, trying to find your forever home. So we take risks on a lot of those things that a lot of people don't do, and that's why we kind of we kind of play in the middle of what other people are doing.
Speaker 1:So that is awesome. You know, one other thing I just thought of Laura that our audience can really benefit from for those we run into this a lot with our deals. So, knowing now that you just said this, you're in my brain now and the next time one of these situation comes up for us. But we have sellers right, we're dealing direct to seller and one of the reasons they don't list with a real estate agent is because they don't. They don't know their timeline Right and they don't know what their next step is. They want to buy a new house but they haven't found their next house yet, or whatever the case is.
Speaker 1:Those would be great people to connect with Laura about and say, hey, let's put you in one of these furnished, nice places for a couple months and so you can transition, either find another place to rent or another place. You know longer term rent or something. So you know you're going to pay a little bit more than what you'd like, probably on a long-term rental, but you're not locked in for a year. You got a short-term rental, you're in transition. I mean it's a great opportunity to kind of bridge that gap with some of your sellers out there that need that next step, but don't want to commit to something long-term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wish every realtor would know who I was, so they could be like oh yeah, we're friends, we'll put you in there for a month and no worries at all, you're totally covered For sure.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, if you guys got value out of the show, share this episode, because there's a lot of nuggets in here Like Laura's talking about. If you guys know some realtors, put this in the earbuds. If you guys know some architects, let's help Laura get that architect here. Let's use the audience here to help her get that person. And let's help some of our sellers out there that need a place to go and transition and they're going to get that by listening to the episodes.
Speaker 1:I had a conversation a few episodes ago with a family. They were one conversation that sparked their real estate journey and now they're able to quit their jobs, stay at home, homeschool their kids and do real estate full-time because of one conversation and I think that's what's important about sharing these episodes is you guys, by sharing this, could be the spark that changes another family in your network's life forever, just because they heard one of these episodes and it sparked an idea that then got the wheels turning, and we all have that in real estate. We all had a conversation with somebody that got our wheels turning and then, boom, we started this. And you guys, by sharing the episode, could do that for somebody else. So, if you liked today's episode, share it. If you didn't like it, share it anyway, because just because you don't like it doesn't mean somebody else will right, right, laura, get them out there. Awesome guys. Well, we'll put Laura's contact info in the show notes. No-transcript.
