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
How Mike Boyea Lost It All—Then Built a Real Estate Empire
From first-time buyer at 18 to running a multi-million dollar real estate operation—Mike Boyea’s journey is packed with hard-earned lessons, practical insights, and real talk on what it takes to make it in this business. In this episode, Mike breaks down exactly how he went from buying a distressed duplex in 2003 to managing over 50 rental doors, flipping 60–70 properties a year, and building ground-up construction—all without a college degree.
Mike opens up about the reality of nearly losing it all during the 2008 market crash and how he rebuilt through persistence, networking, and strategic thinking. We dive deep into his financing game—how he leverages private money, portfolio-backed lines of credit, institutional capital, and local banks to move fast and stay competitive. He explains why he’s willing to pay higher rates for private money in exchange for speed, flexibility, and fewer headaches—and how that mindset helped him lock in deals others missed.
This episode is loaded with real estate gold for investors at every level. Mike shares how he saves thousands on commissions by running an in-house sales system, how he builds lender trust with detailed proposal folders and personal financial statements, and how he scaled from a solo operator to a team leader. We also talk about the importance of staying in touch with lenders, adapting to shifting bank appetites, and using multiple financing sources as tools—not crutches.
Whether you're a new investor trying to land your first deal or a seasoned pro looking to level up, Mike's story is proof that with the right mindset, strong relationships, and a willingness to learn from failure, you can build a business that lasts. This is one of the most practical, no-fluff real estate conversations we’ve had—don’t miss it.
.
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Wisconsin Investor, and today, as usual, I have another awesome guest for you guys. Today's guest is pretty special to me and I'll tell you why here in a few minutes, but before I do that, as I do always, I want to give you a little commercial for our sponsor, wisconsin Discount Properties. We put out deals every single week to your inbox 6 am, anywhere from one to six deals a week. And uh, these are not just deals that we're putting out there that you can't make money on. We don't put it out to the buyers. Listen to this. There's a way to make some money on this thing. And so if you're interested in getting off market deals and you're like, gosh, I can't find a deal where I, you know I want to do deals, I just cannot find a deal that works. Check out the list. And what I would encourage you to do is something we're doing with a lot of people now that are not able to make the numbers work on these is we are setting up free coaching calls to go through your numbers with you, because people are buying these deals and that means that if you're not buying these deals, they're making money, and you're not, and so let's figure out what are the things holding you back from being able to get deals. So if you want to get in on some deals, some off-market deals, go to wisconsindiscountpropertiescom. If you want to be on the buyers list and you're not yet, you just put your information in right on the homepage. If you're not ready to start getting deals yet, you just are in that beginning phase and you just want to talk to some, contact us and just fill out the form there and somebody from our team will reach out to you and have a conversation With that.
Speaker 1:Let's get into today's episode. So the gentleman that I'm bringing to you guys today was a key part of Carrie and I's journey of getting started in real estate investing. So Mike's got a special place in my heart for everything that the relationship that we've had over the years and continue to have to this day I think we got started in 2016 is when I met Mike and met him through a Craigslist ad, actually for a duplex that he was selling of his own at that point and that just blossomed into a friendship and to so many different things that we've done and Mike's got such a great depth of experience in the real estate industry and all facets. So I am super excited to be bringing you today Mike Boyer. Mike, what's going on, brother, how's?
Speaker 2:it going. I'm doing great.
Speaker 1:Good, good, good.
Speaker 2:Having a good little sun enjoying the Wisconsin weather.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, let's get into today's episode. So I wanted to bring you on. I guess first of all, you've been in real estate longer than I have, so I want you just to kind of tell everybody in the audience your background and how you got started in this game, how long you've been in it, and we'll start there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, background actually started fresh out of moving out of my parents' house after high school. Okay, I moved into an apartment building. I realized right off the bat that apartment living was not for me. Plus, being an 18-year-old and people telling me I have to be quiet and everything I was like well, maybe I should buy my own place. So my first journey it started off trying to buy a distressed mobile home.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was unable to get financing for a distressed mobile home. Okay, I was unable to get financing for a distressed mobile home. Yeah, 18 years old. Everybody's like that's actually basically the same as a car Tried all the institutions and finally my father said well, why don't you go meet with a realtor? And the realtor put me in touch with a lender to buy this mobile home. The lender's like you're not buying this mobile home, but why don't we pre-approve you for a house? So the first property I bought was actually a side-by-side duplex, distressed Porterhouse. It was a great investment, it was amazing and that helped launch my career into real estate. Okay, Was this in?
Speaker 1:08 when you bought it. 07? No, this was in 03. 03. Oh, that's right, we're like the same age, so I'm trying to figure out math-wise. But yes, college, and then before that, okay, so, wow, so you've been in this for over 20 years.
Speaker 2:Instead of college, I had a party house. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, it worked out pretty well for you, I think. I think that was probably a good decision. So you mean, you got into real estate investing and you didn't go to college for this, mike, you, yes, oh, wow, okay, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:It started off. I just started reading books. I went to Barnes Noble and real estate really piqued my interest. So I picked up a book I can't even remember the name of it like how to Get Rich with Real Estate Investing Rich Dad, poor Dad. And I just started going through books and kind of I don't want to say fantasizing, but imagining houses, like I would look at these houses in magazines and I'm like God, I you know one day, and I just started trying to trying to learn how how to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you? You put the big vision out in front of yourself and then you started to like work it backwards into steps that you need to go through today.
Speaker 1:I think that's such a good point for the audience out there. A lot of times if I'm doing a coaching call with somebody on our team or somebody who's interested in getting into real estate, that's one of the things I want to know. It's like why do you want to do this? Because it's not easy, right, mike? I mean, it looks easy after you do it all. Once you're in it for two decades, like yourself, you kind of forget maybe some of the stuff that you had to go through to get yourself in a position where you are now where you can just turn and burn deals not having to think about it. But you had to have that big vision originally to to push through all that tough stuff, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of pushing, I remember one of my my visions was never to work for anybody and to push a lawnmower around at my properties.
Speaker 1:To this day I do not push a lawnmower around, but I was going to say how, yeah, how, how, how many lawns did you push that lawnmower around at At when I was younger? All of them, okay. So you did do it for a while, okay, okay. Yeah, you were in the hustle grind phase, right? Yeah, originally. Yeah, that's interesting. So over the two decades, you also became a real estate agent. When did that happen?
Speaker 2:Yes, I actually became a real estate agent shortly after buying my first couple of properties. I looked at that as an opportunity to come across more properties and to meet other individuals in the industry that were doing it, and that's if I give any advice to anybody. It's not necessarily get a real estate license, it's surround yourself with people that are in the industry, whatever industry that may be real estate or otherwise, or whatever facet of real estate that you want to be in. Surround yourself with people that are doing it, because they're going to give you more advice and they're going to shorten your knowledge, the time gap for your knowledge.
Speaker 1:For sure, yeah, and we talk about that pretty much every episode. So those of you that listen to every episode, network, right, your net worth is your network or your net? I always get it mixed up. I really should figure out which way it's supposed to be said, because I always mix it up, but you get the idea. Surround yourself with a lot of people. But I guess I want to ask you that question, mike, in your opinion now? So if I'm new to the real estate industry or I've done a few deals, do you think it's helpful to get your real estate license for some people, or do you think it's more of a distraction? What is your viewpoint? If their goal is, if their goal is investing, let me, let me paraphrase, let me preference that I?
Speaker 2:I'm really indifferent. Um, in the beginning of my career I utilized my real estate license a lot more. It allowed me the opportunity to access individuals and talk about real estate. It wasn't like I was making a lot of money doing it, but I got to meet a lot of people Going back to Rich Dad, poor Dad, you go get a job where you're the intern somewhere, just so you can gain knowledge. I look at the real estate license similar to that, but that doesn't mean you need a real estate license to surround yourself with other individuals.
Speaker 2:Good distinction Early in the career. Yes, I utilized it quite a bit. Now later, you know, after doing it for so many years, I don't really utilize my real estate license in a traditional manner.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it. Yeah, and I think your answer is spot on, because I get asked that a lot and I always tell them well, it depends, what do you want to do?
Speaker 1:You know and I've seen it, I've seen it work really slow people down who were really hot on investing and then they get caught up in becoming a buyer's agent or trying to understand all the laws and the rules and all this kind of stuff, where if they would have just stayed in the investing lane and just focused on investing and became really good at that, they probably would have been able to get to the goal a lot faster. But then again, who knows, Everybody's journey is a little bit different right.
Speaker 2:Maybe they had to go that way in order to learn something that was going to help them down the road. I don't know. And I will say this I lost almost everything during the market crash and some of it was due to my fault.
Speaker 2:Some of it was due to just bad timing, just bad. I made poor decisionsing a guy on land contract and he foreclosed on it. I'm like, oh, what do I do with this property? I had arson, I had a couple of things that had happened, and having a real estate license allowed me to generate income while still working on something that I really enjoyed yet. So for me that was part of it as well. I wasn't going to go get a job as like a handyman or anything like that. I was like, well, what can I do that? Still, it still allows me to to, you know, run deals. It might be for other people, but at least then I can still run numbers, I can still run deals, I can still look at these properties. Um, even though I wasn't able to purchase them at the time, and that was also a limiting belief I probably could have bought more houses than I ever could use or turn at that time, but that was a limiting belief I had at that time. But I still worked in real estate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what's interesting, I don't know if I knew you at this point. I wanted to get into real estate investing and I don't remember if we had already started or not. I think it was before we really got into it. It was it was before we got into real estate investing, but I was hanging out with Tony Breuer from good faith funding.
Speaker 1:Uh, I got to know him through a networking group that I belong to for a fitness company that I had started and, uh, I remember like I was just exactly what you said. I'm like I need to be around people who are doing this, Like I need to just suck their knowledge in and just sponge it in and I don't care what I'm doing as long as I'm around these people all day long. And he was like my idol at the time. He had like 50 doors or something. I was like, oh my gosh, I could I can't even imagine 50 doors. But I got to figure out how do you do this?
Speaker 1:I got licensed to be a mortgage broker so I went through part time, like I was working full time and I was doing this like part time getting licensed. And then I remember I went out with him and the company he worked for at the time doing standard mortgages before he went big into the hard money stuff and I went through this whole training thing, this weekend thing, it was great. Came back I got like officially licensed and I went in for like my first day of like being like a mortgage broker and I remember like I put somebody's you know information in to fill out their app and stuff like that and it like denied them and I was like I just spent how much time getting this person to fill this stuff out. And I can't even get them alone. And they're like, yeah, and I was like how much would I have made on this? And I don't remember what the amount was, but it wasn't enough for the amount of work that I had to go through to try to get this person approved.
Speaker 1:And I'm like you know what, Tony, I don't think this is for me. So literally I worked with them for like three hours and I was like, all right, I'm out of here, I got to go, I got to do something else. So I was I went through the whole licensing thing and everything else to use it for three hours. So, but the idea is the same. I want, I wanted so badly to be in this that I was willing to go through and get licensed as a mortgage broker just to be able to sit next to him to learn from him anything I could about real estate. So, even though it didn't work out the way we thought, I still learned a lot of stuff from him after that it actually worked out better.
Speaker 2:You realized what you didn't want to do Exactly.
Speaker 1:I also did the same thing in commercial insurance too. Just a year prior to that, I went and got licensed for commercial insurance.
Speaker 2:So I was just getting licensed for all this crap and never used it. But anyway I was licensed for prime America selling insurance. There you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, classic. What is the? What does the real estate business look like now? Like it? Do you have a rental portfolio? How many units you know how many, how many flips you do in a year? Like, tell us a little bit about new construction. You're kind of in a lot of different things, so tell the audience a little bit about what is Mike, two decades after that first side-by-side duplex, look like at his business.
Speaker 2:So currently the rental portfolio consists of just over 50 doors. It's a mixture of midterm, short-term and long-term rentals. Mixture of midterm, short-term and long-term rentals. A couple small apartment buildings and then with the fix and flip, we did 43 fix and flips last year Wow. This year we're probably going to do north of 60, probably 70 fix and flips this year Wow. And then for the new construction, the goal is eight new construction. So I'm going to try for 10, but the goal is eight Wow.
Speaker 1:That's incredible, dude. You're killing it. That's more than I realize you've been doing, so that's awesome. How do you go from buying a side-by-side duplex to doing 60 flips a year and new construction and 50 doors like, how does somebody listen to this? That's just getting started. How do they? What are the steps or what are the things that had to happen in order for you to be able to get to this point?
Speaker 2:um early on a lot of mistakes. Yeah, I had to. I had to fail myself forward. Uh quite often humble myself quite often um lights turned off, uh, not due to like not paying wps, just just, yeah, just uh very.
Speaker 2:Look back very uh uh poor decisions okay okay but what that did was it taught me what I didn't want to do anymore. It taught me a lot of valuable life lessons. It taught me what type of tenants do I want. It taught me what type of properties do I want to buy. What type of people do I want to hang out with that are going to help grow your mind and grow you as a person, that are going to help grow your mind and grow you as a person.
Speaker 2:I attribute quite a bit of my real estate career to actually working with you and watching what you had done and being by your side during a lot of the beginning phases of your business. I think it was just you myself and Carrie I don't even know if Jessica was on the team yet yeah, when we started working together. So like watching that grow over the course of years and you really forced me to mature as a person. Mm-hmm, in that regard, that tough love, that tough love and the. It wasn't necessarily forcing. I wanted.
Speaker 2:I was very open to to everything and it was. It was just like okay, how much time are you spending to better yourself? How much time are you spending to better your business? How much time are you spending? And it's allotting that time and then also making sure you're nurturing friendships and doing uh, nurturing family friends and and a lot of that. With that. That taught me was that I could because I was very scared to to uh to get back deep into real estate investing after losing everything okay and what that did was that actually pushed me to be successful, because I'm like, well, you know, corey's right here.
Speaker 2:I don't want to say holding my hand, but holding my hand and getting ready to push me off a bridge, let's go, let's go. And and uh, like I, I had faith in what, what we were doing and what that did with that. That allowed me to take the leap. Maybe it was on my own, maybe not, but I know there was definitely a healthy, healthy shove.
Speaker 1:I see, and I don't even remember shoving you any to at any point, but I know we had good conversations, but because you told me you're like what the hell, why are you not?
Speaker 2:You know I would go on acquisition appointments for you and then I wouldn't even been on the property and I know the most about the property, more than anybody else. Yeah, been on the property, I know everything about it. And you're like you're in real estate. You know all the contractors, right, like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1:And I contractors right, like what are you doing? And uh, yeah, it was. It was like what are you doing? Yeah, I get it. Yeah, and I think to to kind of go back to the networking piece of this. Right, it's like get around people who are are pushing you right and are gonna gonna force you to be better, because there's you can get in your own head real easy in this game. You know, you start looking at some of the numbers and it can become overwhelming.
Speaker 1:And I remember my first deal, mike, uh it was I think we got it off market. So it was before we got involved with you. But you kind of you kind of spurred us into it. Like you started looking at stuff right around that same timeframe. We went and looked at your duplex and all that. But we, uh, we had an off market deal and I remember I like market deal and I remember like I wanted to close in like two weeks and I was like, oh my gosh, like I wanted to like sabotage the deal because I I was, I was freaking out like I'm like what if the numbers don't work, I'm gonna be poor, I'm gonna be living under a bridge, like, oh my gosh, my kids are gonna be, they're not gonna be able to eat, and I mean just the amount of negative chatter that can enter your brain.
Speaker 1:But being around people who have done it, like then going back to tony, I'm like I call tony up and who cares? Like then go do another deal and make, make the money up, it's easy. And I'm like, oh okay, thanks, tony, you know. Then I go back.
Speaker 2:Go back to go back to do it. Okay, I'm off the ledge now. All right, I can, I can move forward with this thing but it's easy to talk yourself out of this game too Real. I thought you made like five grand on it and it was like I think it's if it's that same one that I'm thinking of. Well, we did a couple right in a row.
Speaker 1:So we it went like we did no deal, no deal, no deal for like four months like nothing crickets. And then all of a sudden we did we bought a duplex wholesale. The deal did a seller did our old house as a land contract or a rent to own with a dude and then I think we did a JV. We did some kind of JV like seller financing thing with somebody else that was in one of the RIA groups and yeah, it was kind of like we started doing the buffet of real estate within like two months. And then all of a sudden, like you were in the mix, like helping us find our next deal, and that's when we found we found a fourplex. You found us a fourplex that was in foreclosure, which that doesn't happen very much anymore, and then we flipped that one and I think we made like $25,000 on that thing, and then we kind of were like why aren't we flipping more properties?
Speaker 1:I could get out of my job way quicker. You know, that was my goal when I started, was to get out of my job, so yeah. So it was kind of a wild first year in real estate. We just kind of did a whole bunch of stuff Got to taste, test, everything you know in that.
Speaker 1:Dope right in, dope right in man, dope right in. What are some of the challenges now? You're running a pretty big operation now, doing 60 flips a year, some new construction. You got a lot of different things happening. How are you managing all that stuff and like what are some of the biggest challenges as you try to continue to grow and scale in this current environment that we're in?
Speaker 2:I'd say the biggest challenge currently is people. Um, whether it's staff, whether it's contractors, uh, that, I find, is the biggest challenge and optical obstacle to overcome, along with um staying energized, I know sometimes there's like weeks where you just grind real hard and it's like you have to turn yourself off for a little bit to get away and like you have to recharge because it's like it is. It is very extensive and there's a lot going on. But by putting right people in place, what I'm learning is the more right people I put in place, the more that they can do it better than I can, yeah, and even if they did it at 75%, they're 100% of their efforts going to it, whereas a smaller portion of my efforts able to go to that, yeah. So, when it comes to the people, it's surrounding yourself with really good people once again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when did you make your first hire, mike? Do you remember when that was my?
Speaker 2:first hire was Haley and that was 20. My first hire in real estate. I had other employees in other businesses, I had ran, but my first employee in real estate, I believe, was 2018. Okay, 2017. 2017. Okay, I think.
Speaker 1:I remember that. Yeah, what was, what was some of the things that pushed you to make that first hire, and then what were some of the things that held you from hiring anybody in real estate until gosh that's 15 years after you started, pretty much.
Speaker 2:What had held me back was just the mindset, the limiting belief of do I have enough work for this person? What can this person do? Belief of do I have enough work for this person? What can this person do? And after hiring, I realized that I probably should have done it years prior, because then what that allows you to do is to do what you enjoy Right and, and even to this day, you know, as you grow, you start learning, like you get into real estate investing because you're like oh, I want to be a real estate investor.
Speaker 2:At this stage in my career, I'm empowering others and teaching others and trying to help others. It's a lot less of doing the actual. I don't even go to a lot of these properties. I'm not involved at all in the properties, but what I am doing is I'm empowering people, or even if it's individuals that are coming to me that are asking questions and want to learn. I'm an open book. I'd rather help people and help them succeed in real estate or in any type of business. I mean, people come to me for advice and a lot of things, and however I can help them, I I want to give back as much as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think that's something you see across some of the people who, in the eyes of somebody just starting, are maybe the most successful in this business or any business. So people who are constantly just giving right. And it's you got to protect your time. So there's a balance right. As you get, as you start to get your name out there, more people start to find out more like, oh my gosh, this person's doing this, this, this. Everybody wants to pick your brain or take you to lunch or do these types of things, which is great, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:And we, when I started, I did the same thing. I was. It's not that they don't want to help, it's just they got to protect their time. But you're always finding ways to give and I think that's what's made you so successful. I mean, I remember that was the thing when we started with you. It was always like Mike, what do you think of this? Like, what do we do about this? Like we're always leaning on you because you had all this experience and we learned so as we got started in it. And again, it's kind of going back. We just keep beating this drum of that network. Find people who are willing to give back. I remember Caleb Hayes, another one who runs the Keller Williams branch that you're at. Huge giver, I mean, gave us we would meet with him monthly for like a year, and he never asked for anything.
Speaker 1:He didn't ask us to join his nothing, just coached us for free. I was like this is insane. I don't think he's still doing that, but who knows, I don't know it was. It was wild to me, but it always came back around Like I was always thinking if he'd like. When we come up with the, I'm like, oh my gosh, I wonder if Caleb would want this deal.
Speaker 1:No-transcript on here. That's one that we run in green Bay. There's caffeine and cashflow across the across the state. There's a RIA groups across the state. Like, get involved in those If you, if you're looking for a network, and be intentional when you go to those and find some people that you can learn from and grow with and that are willing to help you out. And in real estate it's a small world man, everybody knows everybody and deals get done all the time from just networking. I might have money that I want to lend right now. You might call me and say, corey, I'm strapped. I got 60 flips going. You got some cash you can lend me on the 61st one I need. And because of the relationship, no problem, mike, here you go. Right, let's go to a bank, let's deal with that? Hey, I need an electrician. Who do you work with? We always pass stuff back and forth, and we've done that for years, so I think that's a important point to get across here. Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2:How is?
Speaker 1:speaking of financing stuff, mike, how are you financing all these deals? What's the cause? I imagine you got to have some pretty good relationships, either some private money or some banks, or how is that happening that you're able to keep, you know, have all of these properties kind of going simultaneously and be able to fund them?
Speaker 2:So a couple of things. Having the rental portfolio allowed me to open up a line of credit, so that's my first line that I will use when the line of credit is is exhausted. Then I have I have about a handful of of hard money, lenders, private private funding, and then after that I still have some local banks that I deal with. I actually for all the banks out there. Sorry, but I usually like to go private before I go to a bank. Oh, they understand the bank's at seven, seven and a half, maybe eight, whereas I'd rather pay a little bit more and not deal with the appraisals and I'd rather a quick, close and easy, yes, the easy button. Just let me have. Smack that, yeah, yeah, then I'll go to the banks and then after that I have some institutional money that's right around the same price as, uh, the hard money, but it's going through the same hoops as the banks essentially Okay.
Speaker 1:When you say institutional money, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:There's larger funds out there, like one of them that I use, is dominion. What they do is they'll it's hard money pricing with the BS fees, that that the banks charge. Yeah, yeah, so it's. I mean, I'll use it in a pinch if you get a good enough deal. It doesn't matter what you're paying for your money, right, exactly?
Speaker 1:yeah, there's several out there, and that's something I always talk about too is having different buckets of money, right. So you, what you've done, has done the same thing. You've got your private money. You've got your commercial banks or community banks is this is what I sometimes refer to them as your private money, hard money, community bank You've got the institutional or the national lenders, so you've got several options, one of the things I talk to people about all the time. You never want to pass on a good deal just because you don't have financing set up. So get a bunch of different options, get a bunch of lines in the water, be ready to pull from whatever bucket you can or need to.
Speaker 1:The HELOC is my favorite tool in real estate, and being able to use it on investment properties is just such a powerful, powerful tool. I mean it's incredible how much that can unlock for people to be able to use it. What you could do is you could take that HELOC. You could pair that with community banks right, and they might want 20% down. Well, there you go. You take the 20% from your HELOC. Boom, there's your 20% down, plus, you got your rehab from your HELOC. There you go, you're covered and off you go Right.
Speaker 2:And there's friends, and families, helocs also. Friends and families, helocs, friends and families that have paid off properties and they're not accruing any wealth from their properties. Would you like to make anywhere from 8% to 12% on this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are you typically paying? What do you find in private lenders are willing to take right now? What is their Between 8% and?
Speaker 2:12%.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's like a sweetheart deal that they don't have very much that they can borrow, but when they do, it's at 8%.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah. So somebody who's got a little bit more capital, you're willing to pay a little bit more for that ease of not having to just use a little chunk of it, kind of a thing. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And what I found too, mike, I just started to realize this because we don't do a ton of flips. We're starting to do a lot more that we're taking down and enlisting now. But what I found is, like some of the commercial banks that I love working with them because we have great relationships. But when I look at the closing statement, all of a sudden I've got a $1,500 origination fee, I've got this fee, I've got a lender policy, I've got all this other stuff, and when I add it up, I'm like it's about the same as if I just paid somebody 10% or 12% flat, or even if you pay points on top of it.
Speaker 2:When you run the numbers for the ease, what's that ease worth? Is it? You're buying a $200,000 property. Let's just say you have to pay a couple of points. Well, you're going to pay the points to the community bank anyway. The community bank ended up pushing your closing out 45, maybe 60 days. So now you lost that opportunity potentially to do the property during prime real estate. Right now is a prime time to get a property listed. Property during prime real estate. Like, right now is a prime time to get a property listed. Yep, and now you could, potentially you could miss out on the market that you want to be in. Yeah, and you could. Just because you're trying to save a couple thousand dollars, it doesn't, you know, at the end of the day it doesn't make any sense Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as you're talking about this I have a deal right now that.
Speaker 1:I'm like I should just talk to some of the private lender people I know and just instead of I would keep going through these community banks. But they want to do exactly that. They want to move the closing back 15 days. They got to get appraisal, they got to do all this other stuff and it's a smoking deal. It's like this should just be common sense Yep, here's your money, you know, there you go. So that's, that's so good, big struggles. Now you said people, okay, what, what about you as a leader? How's that become? Because when you started out you were a one-man band running, just running, running and gunning. Classic entrepreneur, maverick style sales guy yeah, just nobody to answer to, nobody to worry about, just going out and making stuff happen. Right now you start bringing people on your team and now you have to grow as a leader. Like, what are some of the challenges with that? Because I think that could be another limiting belief.
Speaker 1:I know for me, I still struggle with that, sometimes with our team, is like am I really worthy enough to? Be running a team of 15, 20 people, like you know all that kind of stuff. So how, how have you juggled that?
Speaker 2:And what are what have been some of the challenges as you've kind of grown into being the leader of this organization now A lot of reading and going back to the networking, talking to other people that are doing it at a high level. What should I do? Asking questions, what do you do about this situation? What do you do about that situation? And some of the people in my sphere they might not run their own business. Maybe they're. They're a manager of another, of a division at another company, but they still they have leadership training and since I, I, I pay for some training which helps me, but some of their training, you know, they might go to spend a week at disney on management training and I'm like I don't know what that costs, but I hear it's one of the best training for for employees as a manager that you can go to.
Speaker 2:Okay, so like I can pick their brain and they went to the, to these events and then picking their brains, yeah, it's also it's leaning on friends and family and hey, what would you do in this situation? Am I, am I being unreasonable, unfair? Am I in the right? Am I in the wrong? And then also trying to maintain a level of they won't. They don't see what's happening on the background, in the background. They don't see, you know, me running deals at night when they're getting dinner. They don't see me running deals at night when they're getting dinner. They don't see me getting up early so I can do stuff. So it's like trying to create enough of a presence to keep it motivating, then also trying to take time for myself, so juggling.
Speaker 1:So you're trying to be the leader out there and lead by example, but then also you're trying to, like you said, it can be an energy suck after a while, right, so you got to unplug a little bit and reground and re-energize and, yeah, I think what's interesting like Carrie and I go on, we try to travel quite a bit and we try to travel without the kids at least a few times a year, just her and I, and it's always interesting. Like we go on these little getaways. Or like we went to Kohler a couple a couple of months ago and just did like a weekend at Kohler and you know totally, just you know, like relaxing spa dinners, that kind of thing. But we had so much clarity, like just being able to step away once in a while and just be able to talk without kids interrupting every five seconds, and you know we get such clarity goes back to again. You get re-energized by that big vision. Again. You go back to like, hey, why are we doing this? What are we looking for? What's that struggles, what? Let's look at the big vision and then you can push through some of those day-to-day challenges.
Speaker 1:I feel like once you've had that reset and you go, oh yeah, that's why I'm doing this. You gotta get back to your your why again? Yeah, right that unplugging, and you get to do that now too. So you, you and I both spent some time down in Florida. Mike, talk a little bit about that. How's that? How's that snowboarding thing been for you?
Speaker 2:okay, um, it's just getting down there, it's getting away, it's uh, just turning the brain off and being able to just just relax. Yeah, which is really big for me. Um, yeah, I love having a place down in florida. It's, it's so, so convenient. I basically have a private jet at allegiant airport. I mean, I just fly with a bunch of random people, I don't know, but it's, you know, it's a direct flight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, pretty much, pretty much the same thing. If they had a point system there, I mean, good Lord, you'd be a, you'd be number one medallion, or whatever. It is right, yes. Gold, platinum, silver, all wrapped up in one, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's, it's really nice. Um, bring my son down there or I'll go down there just to relax myself, and I use that as a way to recharge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome, man, and what Mike's describing. So we bought a place down near uh, down by Tampa area a few, probably back in 2020, I think we bought it right before COVID happened and then it was like all of all of these other people saw what we were doing. They're like wait a minute, I can Airbnb this thing when I'm not there and it pays for itself, and then when I want to use it, I can use it. And now we have like I was just joking because somebody else was texting me this morning about how they're looking for a place right by us, mike, and I'm like well, you're going to join the Wisconsin real estate investor little hub down in Florida now, because we've got a nice little tribe of people that have all either bought one or some people bought multiple places down there now and it's pretty fun to get down there and sometimes, sometimes I see you more in Florida than I do in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's great, man, and that's what real estate can do, guys. It's so much fun. There's so many different tools that you can. You can pull, so many levers you can pull and all that sort of stuff. So that's super exciting. Mike, before we wrap here. Tell us I'm interested to hear your best deal ever and your worst deal ever. I know I didn't prepare you. I should have prepared you for this.
Speaker 2:No, I don't need to. I didn't know. I was going to ask you this, mike, my best deal ever, the easiest deal that I consider my best deal was it was a six unit that I talked to. He was a wishy washy and then finally he evicted a tenant and I turned around, I bought it for 400 and sold it for 550. Um, and I did owner financing when I sold it to somebody for 75,000 with interest, and so that deal is still paying me to this day. Oh, I love that. Um, the worst deal I did I bought a property. Um, the worst deal I did. I bought a property, big property, indian trails, just real nice property flipped it made it beautiful yeah, beautiful property.
Speaker 2:I didn't have all my numbers in the project manager or the gentleman that was helping me out manage the project didn't have all the invoices submitted. So when we went to list it we're like, oh, we only have this much in it in a bigger project. You know it's, it's, we still had enough in it, it. I think the sheet said we had like 60 in it and it ended up being I don't know 80 or 90 okay, well, and then it was.
Speaker 2:Just there was yeah, there was a lot of stuff. The tree trimmer went there and cut down all the trees after we had sold the property, so I ended up having to pay for tree removal and all this stuff. But I ended up losing close to $20,000 on that deal by not having all my paperwork together.
Speaker 1:Well, dude, if $20,000 is your worst deal ever, good Lord, Mike, you're doing something right. That's amazing. After two decades, totally lose 20 Gs in one deal, that's pretty good. If that's your worst one man, yeah, that's the worst one. Oh, that's amazing. How do you keep hitting base hits and home runs and not have these monster losses?
Speaker 2:To all the realtors out there I don't pay very much for commission. Okay, I don't pay very much for commission. Okay, I am a very yeah, realtors aren't going to like to hear this, but I don't pay much for commission. I have a real estate license, so that saves me on the sales side and then on the buy side, if I can sell it myself, I don't charge myself commission either, or I do a reduced, I do reduced on the side, like if it's my team selling it. Um, I work my split back into the deal. So that helps out tremendously and that goes back to like the new constructions. You, if you, if you're paying four percent to sell a property, that's $600,000, that's $24,000. Me, as an investor, I'm typically only making between $50,000 and $75,000.
Speaker 2:I mean I've done better deals, but so it's like well to know. Half the money that I would make I have to pay a realtor to open a door on a new house that we're not really even negotiating with. It's just literally. You know, the realtors out there are probably going to get mad at me, but Well, they probably don't listen to this podcast.
Speaker 2:It. Uh, that's one of the ways that I've been able to not lose a lot of money and a lot of deals. Okay, so eliminate the commission. Even if I did not have a real estate license, I would recommend talking to people. If you're doing volume, what can you negotiate?
Speaker 2:This is no different than meeting with a seller or meeting with anybody else. You should be doing this with your bank. You should be doing this with your insurance agency. You should be doing this when you book a flight. Maybe not if it's online, but you should always be asking what can you do? And when you do volume, you should be able to get a discount. You should be able to negotiate hey, if you find me this house, I'll list it with you. You know to reduce price, or I mean just, you want to give back. You don't want to be cheap. You don't want to be to the point where you're not, um, providing value for them or being a pain in their butt. But it's that you know what can you do, like, if you're doing five deals a year, the average real estate agent probably only sells 20. That would be 25% of their entire business, so they should take a discount on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and that's such a great point, mike, for investors out there. Again, agents aren't going to love it. But again, you should love it if you're an agent, because you're getting volume and you don't have to do anything. You don't have no marketing dollars into it, you have nothing into it, you're just getting spoon-fed a listing like this here's a fixed up property, can you please go list this for me? Or a brand new construction. Please go put this on the market for me.
Speaker 2:That's like cake, right, it's actually a gift and one of the things with having extensive retail real estate background. Every listing should give you two deals. It should give you the listing itself and it should also give you another deal. Whether it's a neighbor that you door knock, whether it's somebody drove by and got your information from the sign Minimum, you should get another deal from that. So, yeah, yeah, you might take a reduced commission on a house that's two, three hundred thousand dollars, but maybe you turn around and you tack on the neighbor wants to sell their house and you pick up a buyer. Well, now you just picked up two more deals and now those two deals are going to blossom into more deals right so essentially that one listing could catapult you.
Speaker 2:You know a business for an entire quarter or a year for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such a good point. What do you? So you said you don't when you list them, are you not listing them yourself, the new constructions or the flips that you're doing?
Speaker 2:My team lists them, but I don't charge myself. I'll be honest I charge myself $1,500, which is roughly the cost of doing business paying for the professional photos, paying a transaction coordinator, paying fees and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:And then are you offering a buyer side commission? Then yes, so is the buyer side getting usually 2%-ish? Yes, I do. Okay, all right. Yeah, that makes a big difference, especially you start getting up in, like you said, a $600,000 house, you imagine. Now, instead of paying, you're paying 2%, really, plus 1500 bucks.
Speaker 2:And even that I actually pay less money on the new constructions.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow. To the buyer side you mean yes, okay, wow. So there's even bigger spread there than what you can. So, guys, if you're running your numbers and you're using a full 6% this is what I was talking about in the commercial at the start of this thing. I see this all the time. People will come to us and, like man, I can't make the numbers work. And we look at the numbers and we see, like their closing costs there they got $8,000 in for closing costs. They got, you know, the full 6% in for realtor commissions for when they sell it, you know, and it's like just overinflated.
Speaker 1:And I understand, I'm, I'm a hey, be conservative, you're not comfortable, but don't be, don't be foolish, right, and so if you're paying over 4% I'm seeing now you're paying over 4% and you're an investor and you're doing some volume, that's probably you're paying too much, most likely for these flips. So, and what Mike's just talking about here, you know, negotiate. There's people, I know there's agents out there that'll do it for less because they get it. Like mike's saying, you're getting, they're getting the volume game, they're going to get other business from that. So such good stuff in here today, mike, we always end with one question here. I know you got to get out of here, go do some deals around the team, so favorite wisconsin tradition or place to visit. And the reason that we ask this question is we have people out of state that listen to this, and so so we're. They might want to invest here in Wisconsin, and so we just got to let them know a little bit about the state and what this place is all about. Man.
Speaker 2:I would say my favorite thing to do in Wisconsin is to be on the water. Oh yeah, in the summer, summer in Wisconsin, on the water is it's a, it's wonderful, it is Florida is beautiful, but it it's different.
Speaker 1:Not in the summer. It's not beautiful. It is Florida's beautiful, but it's different. The summer is not beautiful. The summer is awful. It's so hot. It is so hot. Yeah, I guess I took it for granted. I didn't travel at all as a kid. We went up north once a year. That was like our travel. And then when we guys started going out of Florida and stuff, we have some neighbors from Georgia and I'm like, oh, do you guys ever go out like on the boat, wakeboard and ski and all that kind of stuff to like, yeah, if you want snake bites and alligators, then you do. And I'm like you guys like they're everywhere, they're everywhere. Dude, you don't swim or do any of that stuff down there. I'm like, oh, that's crazy up here.
Speaker 2:We just jumpech.
Speaker 1:Maybe a leech Might get a leech on you at the end of the world, right, yeah, we're pretty fortunate here in Wisco, so I agree with you it's becoming that time of year to start getting back on the water and get out there, so it's a great time to be in Wisconsin. So, guys, this has been an awesome episode If you guys got some value out of this. Again, this is the conversation for people that could get them started in this game and change them and their family's trajectory forever. So please share the episode. Let's help people get the word out there. And not only that. This can also benefit you.
Speaker 1:If you're sharing this, people are going to know you're into real estate. So, as Mike talked about this, you sharing this, you could care less about anybody else getting value out of this, but for you, selfishly, you can get a couple deals from this, from people knowing that you're into the real estate investing game. So please share this episode. Mike. If anybody wants to get in touch with you and talk to you about any of this stuff related to real estate and they need a hand up, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you? Man?
Speaker 2:Best way would be reaching out to me at mikeateasyhomesalecom that's. I have somebody that my assistant goes through my emails. You might try to call me, you might try to text me. I might get to it. I might not see it, it might go through, whereas the email it's got another set of eyes actually looking at it. Yeah perfect.
Speaker 1:Awesome, so we'll get that added in the show notes. Mike at EasySalecom. Easy Homesale EasyH. Awesome, so we'll get that added in the show notes. Mike at easy salecom. Easy home sale. Easy home salecom. I am sorry about that, mike. Good thing you corrected me there. Ai will pick that up and put the wrong thing in the show notes here. No-transcript.
