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 Foreclosed to Financially Free w/ Chris Charles
Is fear keeping you from building wealth through real estate?
In this episode of The Wisconsin Investor Podcast, we sit down with Chris Charles—a real estate investor and title company professional with over 40 years of experience—for a raw, honest conversation about what it really takes to build a portfolio and create lasting financial freedom.
Chris shares his full journey:
➡️ From renovating "handyman specials" with his dad as a kid
➡️ To acquiring multiple rental properties and navigating the ups and downs of the market
➡️ Including getting served foreclosure papers during the 2008 housing crash—and how that moment became a turning point in both his life and his investing mindset.
“The next day, the air still breathed the same.”That realization changed everything. It’s one of the most powerful moments we’ve ever captured on the show.
🔑 What You’ll Learn:
- How to push through fear and analysis paralysis
- Why some investors freeze while others thrive
- The rent-to-own strategy Chris used to maximize cash flow and eliminate realtor fees
- Must-know title insurance tips (shared driveways, easements, and more)
- A balanced take on Dave Ramsey’s debt-free philosophy vs. strategic leverage
- How to invest wisely even when your spouse or partner is more risk-averse
Whether you're stuck on your first deal or trying to scale, this episode delivers the emotional clarity and tactical knowledge you need to take your next step.
🎧 Who This Is For:
- New investors afraid to pull the trigger
- Experienced investors reflecting on risk, debt, and long-term strategy
- Anyone interested in rent-to-own, off-market real estate, or building generational wealth
This isn’t just another real estate highlight reel. It’s real talk about fear, failure, and building a future anyway.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Wisconsin Investor Podcast. As usual, I have a good buddy here today with me, who I'll introduce here in a second. But as usual I'm going to do a little commercial for Wisconsin Discount Properties, who sponsors today's show. But instead of doing really a FOMO thing which I tend to do for you guys tell you about a deal you missed out on, try to make you feel bad about it so that you buy more properties, that kind of thing Today, I'm just going to talk about real estate in general.
Speaker 1:Yesterday, at the time we're recording this, I kind of nerded out on my AI apps on Grok and ChatGPT and I was just curious what is the percentage of equity for people who are buying residential real estate when we're looking at getting, say, like a 4% annual appreciation rate with our current interest rates? You know that's one of the roadblocks I keep hearing as well. Rates are still too high. I can't get the numbers to work and that sort of thing. So I thought you know what? Let me just run some scenarios, do some math here and see what happens if you get off the bleachers and get in the game. And so what I did?
Speaker 1:I ran just a little scenario saying hey, what if you bought a property that was valued at, say, $375,000? Now, for some of you guys that may be way too high. Some of you guys that might be way too low. I just threw a random number out there and I said what if you bird that property? So that means buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat, and what that allows you to basically do is recycle cash, which there's plenty of episodes about, the BRRRR. Maybe my guests here today, chris and I, will get into BRRRR. I'm not really sure where the conversation will go. So essentially, you would have a $300,000 mortgage on a $375,000 property, so you gain $75,000 right out of the jump from doing this property. Now, some of you guys might say that's an impossible deal to do right now. I can't find anything like that.
Speaker 2:Let's just say so what.
Speaker 1:You got 20 grand stuck into this thing maybe, so you end up putting $20,000 into the property above the 300K.
Speaker 1:Anyway, running the scenario in three years, if you held this property with 4% appreciation and tenants let's say you're renting this thing, 4% appreciation and tenants let's say you're renting this thing, the tenants are paying your debt down every single year on a 20 year mortgage, which is a lot of commercial loans or 20 year amortization schedules In three years you would have $145,000 of equity on a deal that maybe look like a turd on the surface or maybe a base hit, but just by holding that thing for three years you now have $145,000 of equity. Now when you get into year five you're at $198,000. And by year 10, you have $356,000 of equity. Each year, besides just the equity gain, you're gaining a big percentage of equity. So if you have no money in this deal it's an infinite return.
Speaker 1:But let's say you have some money into this thing. By year three you have gained 14% equity on the deal, just from the loan pay down into the appreciation. So it keeps going up and up and up. Point of today's little commercial for Wisconsin discount properties Every week we're putting deals out in your inbox 6 am Monday morning. A lot of these deals can meet these type of criterias.
Speaker 1:The numbers are going to be different as far as purchase price, what it's going to appraise that, and that sort of thing, but we have case study after case study after case study of people who are doing these bird deals and getting numbers similar to these. With that, let's get into today's episode. I got my good buddy here, mr Chris Charles. Now Chris, he is with Town Country Title, or now Gowie Title, purchased by Gowie not that long ago, and Chris and I have been working together since what? 2019, chris.
Speaker 2:Something like that. The first deal we did was 2018, as far as what I could find on some of my old scans 2018.
Speaker 1:So Chris has been processing files for us for the last how many years is that? Seven years, chris. Seven years. Call it eight, we'll call it eight, and I mean we've done hundreds and hundreds of files. We typically do about 140 to 150 transactions a year, so you times that by eight.
Speaker 1:Now we weren't always doing that many, but we've done a lot of deals together, chris and I, and most of the title work has gone through Chris and his team and he's done an amazing job. So before you tune out today and you say, oh, chris, at Town, country, title, boring, titles, boring Chris Chris will be the first to tell you that for most of us it's boring for us but it's exciting for them. We're going to talk about Chris and his journey because not only is he just a title uh, rock star he is also an investor. So so, chris, welcome to the show man.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad to have you on, man, why don't we start out? Just tell everybody a little bit about how long you've been in this real estate game and how did you get started.
Speaker 2:You bet. So for me, I've been in this as long as I can remember. So one of the mentors in my life was actually my father. So to kind of date myself, I think, like Tony Breuer, we'll be the two guys turning 50 this year. I'm old enough to remember when my father would look through the white pages, the classifieds for houses that he would buy, and he was always looking for you know, in parentheses handyman, special needs, tlc, and instead of going hunting or fishing or working on the old Chevy, he would drag me along on the weekends to go work on houses. He had a full-time job for a department store called Montgomery Wards, but we were weekend warriors and he, you know the old cliche, he knows just enough to be dangerous. So basic plumbing, basic electrical, you know, I'd be the one maybe crawling in that basement or crawl space and really developed a love for real estate. In a large part of it was because it was something I did with my father, that's awesome man, very cool.
Speaker 1:So you've been in this literally what? 40 years-ish.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know the original goal when I went off to Eau Claire, you know, to get that four-year degree was to become a teacher, with the idea of having those three months off in summer so I would have the security of a full time job. We could debate that a little bit, but that was the game plan eight, nine months of income and then the three to four months of having the summers off to just work on a house. And unfortunately for me, eau Claire was a little bit too much fun. Those first two years GPA wasn't where it needed to be for the school of education but the school of business. Chuck Tomkovic was the professor at the time. He was one of the only guys that was working on a Friday afternoon in Eau Claire and he said Chris, I think you'd be great in business. You know sales, marketing and you know that's one of those hockey stick moments that you talk about where things are maybe flatlining for me. And that was a huge change.
Speaker 2:And where my life took off was getting into business and I'm still again always had that love of real estate and wanting to do something real estate related. So I don't think it was more than a year or two after I graduated I bought my first house and before we knew about Burr it was find a property and back then I mean it was cheap. I might've paid 20, 25,000 for this little place in Kewaunee, stuck maybe 15 into it and that was a whole house rehab, put it on the market. Maybe it wasn't selling as quickly as I needed for my bills and the real estate agent said, hey, I got somebody that would want to maybe rent to own. So again that whole birth strategy. Inadvertently I rented to Tammy Gronke and maybe a year or two later, working again to help get her a loan, she was able to buy that flip from me and that was the first of a couple flips that we did. Nice man.
Speaker 1:So that was more of a long-term flip then for you, which has some tax benefits.
Speaker 2:That's the one thing. And my father, you know, there were no RIAs back then. There were no podcasts. I mean the resources that we have, the community is just, I mean, amazing. So we just kind of figured out on our own. I mean there was a lot of positive influences that my dad had passed on to me. You know motivational speakers like Zig Ziglar and I got these. You know CDs on how to negotiate Roger Dawson I still listen to him once in a while, but those were the resources we had back then.
Speaker 2:So I mean, again, people that are thinking about getting into real estate today you have so many opportunities for education and coaching and community. That's the reason I go to the RIAs is, again, I had a great mentor. I just hope that again, a little bit of those nuggets of knowledge you shared with me I can pass on to other people, because real estate is definitely how my wife and I were able to attain, I'd say, our financial freedom. We're not planning on retiring. I'm still hoping to close 100 deals with you for the next 10 to 15 years, but our life is dramatically different today because of what we did 20 years ago. That's amazing man, wow.
Speaker 1:So that's crazy, like you know, to think about. I got in in 2016 and so we had Google and we had bigger pockets and we had, you know, all of the different podcasts and all that kind of stuff, Like so, to think about trying to do this A with no. No, zillow Redfin, uh, realtorcom, no, it's what.
Speaker 2:Chad is talking about.
Speaker 1:Hey, yeah, you know I love Chad TPT man, like I just pulled something off Chad TPT while I was Grok, which is another one of my favorites too, but similar, similar thing. None of that stuff you had to do getting into this. So, like what are some of the biggest challenges you see today, chris, compared to like what you guys had to deal with, because back in the day you had different challenges than what investors today have. What do you see are like some of the you? You work with tons and tons of investors in this game. What do you see like as the biggest challenges for investors in?
Speaker 2:today's world, I just think the biggest. You know two big challenges. I think number one you know communication, like your job, your life, everything. You know your marriage. You know relationships. You know so much easier if there's just better communication. It just it is staggering to me. You know I'll get an email on the subject line. I'll say, you know, tomorrow, you know, or closing, or it's just again you know the communication for newer investors. You know. You know that's something that just kind of again always surprises me, like we all have time just to type in a little bit more detail in their email or a little bit different subject line. And then the other thing I think is just overcoming adversity.
Speaker 2:You know that first flip went according to plan, but we were pre-2008, 2009. I had a full-time job working for a company called the Force. That wasn't for me, went to Big Brothers, big Sisters, love Big Brothers, big Sisters. That was great. I was doing the marketing and volunteer recruitment. But all of a sudden my uncle Eddie calls me up. He owned a title company down in Milwaukee and, going back to your earlier point, when he asked me, do I want to go work for him, for the title company? I'm like what the heck is title insurance it sounds terrible and insurance, but it was the right time and I made that jump and through the title company, I was connected with a couple of mortgage guys and gals and we started buying properties and unfortunately, 08-09 hit in a portfolio that maybe I thought was worth a half a million dollars and I mean, it's no lie, I'm not saying overnight, but a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months. It was worth half that Like it was really, really, really tough and overcoming adversity and I'm not going to lie, I was in a position where I couldn't sell this property down in Dodge County.
Speaker 2:Number one, why did I buy a property in Dodge County? I mean, then we could go into a whole podcast about location, location, location. But I'm making the mortgage payment while this kid renting from me it was another rent to own was not paying me and the adversity, I just didn't want to deal with it. And finally my attorney buddy which again I'm fortunate to have a buddy who was an attorney said Chris, bank of America is not going to deal with you if you keep making those mortgage payments.
Speaker 2:And I thought to myself what about my credit? What am I going to? You know how am I going to ever, you know, get a loan again? And he said, dude, how long you been making the mortgage payment for this kid, like you need to, you know, face some adversity. So I did. I stopped making the mortgage payment because I really needed Bank of America to short sale this property. It wasn't worth, unfortunately, what I owed on it and I was served. I had a process server knock on my door and serve me foreclosure papers and you know what, the next day, the air still, you know, breathed in the same as it did the day before and my wife still loved me.
Speaker 2:You know, like I had two kids that I think that's the worst that you know I didn't want to disappoint them, but you know, facing adversity because that old cliche, this is not easy. Like I love real estate, but if this was easy, everybody would do what we're talking about. Sometimes, again, the adversity, you know, in the moment is tough, but again it'll make you, I think, stronger as a person, as a husband, as a father, just in general. And that's what happened my wife and I had to have a really tough conversation about. We were no longer going to be living on debt anymore, and we literally had an option file for bankruptcy or get our budget in as tight a belt as we could and we agreed $100 a week in cash. That's what we lived on. That was it. When the hundred bucks was gone, we had nothing else to live on, so it was beans and rice, rice and beans, with my old buddy, dave Ramsey, you know would say this little podcast.
Speaker 2:And because of it, though, like we came out of it such stronger as far as a marriage and, you know, as far as a family.
Speaker 2:And now, honestly, like I love what I do and I get paid a really good amount of money, like I am blessed to make the kind of money that I'm paid, but if something happened and I had to go to work at Bay Beach where my kid works getting 15 bucks an hour, our life would not change Because those earlier you know investments in real estate ended up paying out for us. And then we've pivoted a little bit out of now buying stuff. We've invested a lot of that money, I've done some self-lending myself on deals that were right for my risk tolerance and my wife's risk tolerance. But again that adversity and that communication. I had to communicate again with my wife what was going on. I to communicate with bank of america and then he had to fight through that adversity because I mean, again, I didn't buy wrong, it's just a market took a just nosedive for those two years, um, you know, but again we came out of it stronger, I think, because of it.
Speaker 1:So I think that's so important. Man like I, that's honestly like one of my fears is like, oh, it's just one day, it's just gonna all be. You know, it's almost like you got to keep building, keep building, keep building, because what if this one goes to crap or that one goes to crap or whatever. But I think that's so important to listen to you say that Like that's inspiring for me to listen to you, chris, to say, like man, I got foreclosed on, I went through this thing and I woke up the next day the sun still and I was still six feet above and everything was okay and now you're better because of it. So I think for people out there listening, I think that's a really uplifting important message here is that there's only sometimes two things that hold people back, chris, from doing this on a bigger scale. It's finding well, three things finding deals, finding money and fear. Those are the three things. They can eliminate the fear. You know where to find the money.
Speaker 2:You know where to find the deals. It's the fear I mean, and really sometimes fear is good, right, if it's a hot stove, your mind's telling you don't touch that hot stove Right, but I think, immersing yourself in this community, I was able to overcome fear.
Speaker 2:Because of my father, I still, to this day, I have very little fear for real estate. I think, though, my wife's risk tolerance is a little different, and because I want to be aligned with her, we've had conversations about you know what her goals were. So one of them was you know, let's be debt free, and for a lot of people, like, that's not a goal of theirs, but for my wife it was, and I said, you know what, for me to take that next step, if that's what we have to do, that's what we're going to do. So sell off. You know, some of the rentals we had finished, some of those flips that I was taking a long time to work on, you know our house, uh, you know, paid off completely, and then she said, well, most of the two kids, you know are kind of off to school. You know we'll probably drive each other crazy, so then you can.
Speaker 2:The kids were little, you know, I didn't mind working on the house, but now again, where I'm at an age where my daughter is 17 and my son's 14, you know I, like you know being able to spend some time with them and not, you know, running off to work on a house, which I do love doing, like I like working on the house.
Speaker 2:I'm probably not one of those guys that would want property management, you know. Again, it's like tinkering on a car or going hunting or fishing, like that's my flipping houses. That's what I love doing, although the last time my dad asked me he's doing a little home renovation down in Appleton, so I don't know. A couple of months ago he asked me to go down there and paint his new master bedroom, his new master bathroom and then the little hallway I mean I don't even know 600 square feet. I was aching and hurting my body. I'm like, my God, I could knock this out in a couple hours 20 years ago and I was hurting. So I might have to rethink that and start to invest in some maybe subs to do some of this work for a few years.
Speaker 2:That's right it might not be the spring chicken. I thought I was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at our company right now we're reading who, not how, as a team and you thought I was yeah. Yeah, at our company right now, we're reading who not how as a team and you need. You got a who problem right now. Chris, who is? You know that body nowadays, just it ain't as good as it once was, as old toby keith once said right, yeah, but yeah to your point too, though.
Speaker 2:You know like, again, my father is that role model. Like um, he's been through some adversity himself and I think you know again you look up to your parents and seeing again for him. You know we moved from Green Bay to Minnesota and then Minnesota back to Kewaunee and he bought a hotel in Kewaunee. It didn't go according to plan and there was a bankruptcy in my father's history, but again, you know I loved him just as much. And you know going off to college again, those first couple of years in Eau Claire, like I had nothing, I probably had less than a hundred bucks to live on. And I think again you know, when you're by yourself, you know you can do with less.
Speaker 2:It was the family. You know not wanting to disappoint the wife, not disappointing the kiddos, but I've reflected a lot back on that to say you know what I didn't love my father, or my mother any less, because you know they took a shot on something that they thought would be best. You know, for us and that's the one thing about both my parents my father multiple times has said it like he was willing to make sacrifices for me so that my sister and I could have opportunities that he didn't have. And that's, I think, where I just kind of find that peace is that I know my kids will have opportunities that I didn't have, not because my parents didn't want me to have them, but they just weren't there.
Speaker 2:And I think, having nothing and then growing into something, you know, and if I went back to nothing I wouldn't like it, you know, that's probably why I'm a little bit conservative with what I do. But you know, again, it's that old cliche Always somebody with more, always somebody with less. And you know you surround yourself with good people, good family, good friends. You know the rest will kind of work itself out. But I do agree that fear, that that's, that's a power, powerful, you know, I guess, emotion that keeps people from getting off the sidelines into this game of real estate.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, hopefully listening to your story today, chris, a little bit, we'll help people maybe just understand their fear a little bit and be willing to take that shot because your dad's still fine, you're fine, you know it didn't work out, but you learned a lot and you grew stronger because of that, because you took the shot. I just, you know, you think about like people on their deathbeds and what are their regrets, right, and sometimes it's the regret of not taking that shot, not you know, somebody else's life and they just didn't do it because they were feared and I think hopefully this podcast will get people some momentum past that fear a little bit.
Speaker 1:Maybe they'll be willing to take that shot, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the best thing I ever did. I remember you reached out to my boss again eight years ago, you know, interviewing title companies. I remember going to my boss who in the heck is Corey Raymond Ray Ray Property? Like what? Who is this guy? He wants to interview title companies.
Speaker 2:But again it was that fear. I mean, did I want to go to that RIA? Back then I, probably after a hard day at work, wanted to go fall asleep on my couch watching some TV show. And there was fear. I mean, truthfully, I am an introvert when I really get down to it and there was fear. I mean, truthfully, I am an introvert when I really get down to it. So there was fear of going to that meeting, fear of meeting whoever you were.
Speaker 2:Again, one of the hockey stick moments in my life overcoming that fear, just getting off the couch, going to that RIA, and maybe not just even going, but then going back and just again investing in something.
Speaker 2:And again it became really clear Guys like you, you know we were aligned and I think what we were trying to do for ourselves, for our family, you know, for the community. And then you know, sooner than later you start getting hanging out with guys like Tony and then your brother, and this community that we have developed. I was down in Sheboygan for one of your customers and we were talking about you go south into Milwaukee. You don't have that community that it seems like we do have up here in Green Bay and the Valley. So for people that again are on the sidelines, embrace this community, because again I do think it's rare you don't see this in Eau Claire, la Crosse. My daughter's going to be going to La Crosse in a year and that's probably the one thing I might push my wife into buying a little rental property that I could fix up for her.
Speaker 2:But, again, embrace the fear because you do have people that have overcome it and they'll share their stories and, like I said, the coaching you can get, the community you can get, but the consistency of making sure that you do go to these meetings and these opportunities that we do develop the Caffeine and Cashflow that Zach runs. Again, we've got some great people that are willing to share their stories and help people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think there's more and more happening, from what I hear, for some of these things like Caffeine and Cashflow starting to pop up in different spots around the state, which is great. Other people are taking it on. I think it's going to be. I think there's one happening.
Speaker 1:I don't know, claire, maybe I could be wrong, but you know we have people all over the state that listen to this podcast, and if you're in an area where you don't have this community like we have Northeast Wisconsin, where Chris and I are based you know, start it. That's what we did, I mean, when it was 2018, we went to another couple of RIAs. We didn't love them.
Speaker 1:We were like there was too much sales for me and I'm not knocking them, they're great to go to and go start. But there was too much of it. It was just people out there selling, in my opinion, and I wanted the networking and nobody was doing it. So we started with a Facebook post, a Facebook event, and I said, hey, come down too. There was a little bar downtown Green Bay. We just put a Facebook invite invite up it's free, come down.
Speaker 1:We had, we talked to the bar owners, we got name tags. So everybody that came in, we had a little sign that said real estate, beat up, come here. We signed everybody in, we give them name tags. And we got to meet a bunch of people. And it was crazy, as we would go to the Ria's and there was like 10 people at the Ria and we did this networking thing. We had like 30 or 40 people show up and I was like, okay, well, sign that people want more networking. Right, like let's build something and let's just do something regularly where we do a networking thing. And then we started our own branch of ARIA at that point. But we made the clause. We said it was part of another organization and we said we'll do it, but it's going to be on our terms Like we're going to.
Speaker 2:We will dictate the agenda and so now it's very similar to what we run with the REI Success Club.
Speaker 1:It was, you know, an hour of a presenter, maybe max. The rest of the time was networking or forced networking, and we've always had 40, 50, 60 people come out to these things.
Speaker 1:I think our first one, we had over 90 people show up at it, which was pretty incredible because the other one was getting 10. So if you're in an area and you are not happy with the current options you have for networking, be the thermostat, go start something and just throw something out there. It doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be extravagant, you don't have to know what the heck you're doing. Just take action and go start the community and then you become the leader of it.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry too, because my boss is in lacrosse and a couple of years ago she asked about one of these networking groups and same as you just offered. Like I said, nancy, if you need me, I will be in lacrosse, I will go to. Like I can't go there every single month. You know, my wife lets me out of the house one tuesday uh, you know a month and you know. But again, to help get the ball rolling because, like I said, it is, it is what changed. You know, you know the title company here, but also, again, some of the things that I get to do outside of, uh, of that near nine to five job. So you have anybody listening is got a desire to maybe get a group together but just needs a little help organizing it. There are people, including myself and you, that'd be more than happy to help get that foundation set for them.
Speaker 1:Well, the same with Zach. You know, running the caffeine and cash flows. You know, here was a thing where he didn't want to come out at night because he wants to be at home with his family when his kids are home and stuff. And so he's like, well, let's create something for during the middle of the day or in the morning. There it was, he just started it.
Speaker 1:And now it's starting to pop up all over the place and it's been a great, a great addition for a lot of different real estate investors and a different opportunity for people to come out and network. So again, we talk about it, probably, chris, every episode, if not every episode, at least almost every episode how important networking is. I don't know how much more we can stress it on this show. People are probably sick of listening to that if they've been listening to the show for a while.
Speaker 2:But if you're listening to it over and over again, and you're still on the sidelines.
Speaker 1:get your butt in the game and go to the meetings and so we run one every fourth Tuesday other than around Christmas and Thanksgiving called the REI Success Club and there's a Facebook group called REI Success. You can just go join that if you're not ready to come out and network or you're not in an area, necessarily, where you're listening to this, where you can attend, but you can still be part of that community and it's still a great community, even if it's just not on Facebook.
Speaker 1:So I encourage everybody to go check that out. But such an important thing, chris talk. I want to pivot real quick. One thing I want to get into rent to own real quick. You mentioned it twice. For those that don't know what rent to own is, can you just explain that type of strategy in real estate for people?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the mortgage guy that I was working with back again, I didn't know much about it, he was the one that kind of structured it, but I would buy the property. Again, I had the ability to purchase real estate, you know, whatever access to money, credit, but the person that was living in the property maybe didn't have that same opportunity. So we would get a purchase that I would own and then we would get a renter in that property with a rent-to-own contract, lease option, I mean, there's a couple different ways to call it, but they would make payments to me and that would help again, at the end, apply some of those payments as maybe a down payment, but also, again, part of the caveat, the most important thing that I did was I was working with a lender that would help that person get whatever they needed to purchase that home, whether it was a higher credit score, cash down, there's always reasons why people were not able to buy a property and we were talking subprime days. For the older folks like me, subprime basically meant bad credit and before 08, 09, you could get loans for people that had pretty bad credit. Now, again, they got to get their credit up. But there's some great guys out there. A little shout out for Aaron Kramer at Exec. I mean, again, these are the kind of guys that somebody can't get a loan today. What's the strategy or what's the plan of attack to be able to get a loan down the road?
Speaker 2:And I always like rent to own because I own the property. Those payments that were being made to me were going towards the mortgage and a little bit of profit in my pocket, and I wasn't necessarily a quote, unquote full-time landlord, even though it was a rental situation. You know, we structured it. We had good communication where they treated the house as their own. There were certain things that didn't necessarily want them doing, but there were certain things that you know if they wanted to do it. You know and I give them two thumbs up and in two of the properties one of them, the tenant ended up having some health issues and said, hey, I'm not going to be able to buy the property. Well, you know, a year later there was a little bit of equity built up in the property. I was able to sell that property. Other one the guy lost his job.
Speaker 2:And that was the one again where, eventually, 08, 09 and the value of that one went down so I ended up. That's the one I ended up doing a short sale on. At the end of the day nothing came out of my pocket. You know my credit was bashed for a couple of years. But again, I probably again in hindsight I probably should have kept that property, got a different renter in that property and I think over time that piece of real estate would have went up in value. You know the rents, what I was, what I was getting back then maybe I could have broke even, but rents always go up. That's the one thing on. The longest rental I had is about 10 years. It was down in Oshkosh by the university. $300 I was getting for that thing when I first bought it. When I sold it it was like 750.
Speaker 2:So this property in Climbing Wisconsin, I think the reason I dumped it was fear. Like we were talking about you know location, I want to go down there and you know I wasn't aware of property management back then and did I want to drive an hour plus to go show a property Like no, let's just sell it. And I think again, you know, every time I turned on the news you know, or open up some kind of article. You know real estate market was going to basically go to you know what. So again, you know, maybe not the best decision because I was letting emotion. But rent to own I've always enjoyed. But you do have to get to know your tenant a little better than you know Joe Schmo tenant. And then to me it was key to have a lender that I trusted to work with that tenant to be able to allow them to get a loan, uh, to buy that, that property down the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that strategy. I've done it multiple times. It's really the only one with a long-term tenant where I will self-manage it Because, like you said, chris, most of the time and the way I set it up with them is like this is your house, treat it like it's your house.
Speaker 1:Don't call me. If you have a hole in your screen, don't call me. If you got a little leak in the sink like it's your house, be a homeowner, fix it right now. If there's a bigger issue, call me. I'm still the owner, so I still have to fix bigger ticket items. But the little maintenance stuff around the house like take care of it, fix it. Be a homeowner. Landscaping take care of your. Take care of the landscaping right. Don't don't let it get out of control. Or like just sit back like a regular landlord or tenant and expect somebody else to come and take care of it. Do all that stuff. But the beautiful part, the way that I do them is I get an option fee on the front end.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And so, for those of you that don't know what an option fee is, it's non-refundable. So we've gotten as much as $100,000 as an option fee on a single family house, which was insane. Like I was like great. So I broke even on the rent every month, but I got a $100,000 option fee. I was like great, this is awesome.
Speaker 2:On the four that I did, that one in Kewaunee, the first burr, that was not the option, but the four with this mortgage guy, a $5,000 fee up front and now again back in 05, that was a lot of money, a lot of money.
Speaker 2:You can see in my garage right now the John Deere lawnmower the Walt Chop saw. You know the table Like that. $5,000 went a lot to my little inventory of equipment. You know today that probably wouldn't be enough to move the needle but, like I said, each one of those reminded me five grand up front to do all this fun stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the other benefit to it is you don't have to pay a realtor fee. So when you start getting into you know 200, 300, $400,000 houses and you don't have a realtor fee in there that adds up to be a lot of profit on you and you can generally charge a little bit above retail. Now, you typically can't go too high because when they go to get that loan it's still going to need appraise out, which can be an issue Again.
Speaker 1:You could always set it higher if they agree to it and you just put something in there that, hey, if it appraises lower, I'll go with the appraised value type of thing in your agreement, but you can generally charge a premium for this and people will pay because they just want to be homeowners and they just need that time and they don't care about a lot of the stuff that retail buyers care about and the reason I don't see it a lot.
Speaker 1:I think, chris, is just delayed gratification. Either somebody wants to flip a property, so they want the cash now, which again you can get with the option fee, but people don't see that. Or they want long-term rentals. They don't want somebody, they don't want to buy something, do the work and then sell it. But it's one of my favorite strategies in real estate. I think it's one of the most profitable strategies because you eliminate that realtor fee, you're able to charge a little bit of a premium, plus you're making some rent for a little while. So I personally love that strategy and I think it's one that we don't talk enough about in what we do. So anyway, I wanted to touch on that because, like I said, not a lot of people are aware of that strategy or understand the benefits of it. And when you look at capital gains tax again, I'm not an accountant, but now when it does sell, you're going to collect the rest of any profit as long-term capital gains most
Speaker 1:likely if you held it long enough. Sometimes they turn them quick, like we've had them nine months. The guy who had the $100,000, it was like nine months later they bought the house from us. So sometimes they can go fast, but most of them work out. Sometimes they don't. We had a couple where you know we had a couple that was they were engaged and they were about to purchase the house. They got their lender, they had the loan commitment, everything was ready to go. We were a week out and they split up and so we ended up just listing the house. We still made a profit on it and everything else. It was fine.
Speaker 1:We ended up selling to a retail buyer after that, but it was uh well that was a situation where they didn't end up buying it, and we had another one where a gentleman actually ended up in prison. It was a little mobile home on Shackton. Great thing is we went and got another person in there paid us another option fee and ended up working out just dandy.
Speaker 1:Ended up working out just dandy. So, but now people can do it predatorily, so we want to make sure people out there listening to this do it the right way. You're not sure how to do it? Talk to some attorneys. We've had a couple of attorneys on the podcast that I would highly recommend you go back and talk to If you are interested in the strategy.
Speaker 1:As far as making sure you're doing it the right ethical way because you can do it in a you kind of set somebody up for failure and that's not good. We don't want that. We don't want that reputation out there. Talk to me about the debt-free thing, Chris. So by the time this thing records, I'm going to have a little social media post out there of me burning some Dave Ramsey materials in a fire pit. So I think this will be interesting to talk about our differences in our belief system. But I want to hear your thoughts on the debt-free Dave Ramsey system.
Speaker 2:No, I think again it is just more of a like we're doing a conversation. Obviously, there was a time where I had too much debt. So I think what happens is that Dave Ramsey when I thought I was in a lot of debt and I'm like, oh, woe is me I found this podcast that I think the first one I listened to. It was some guy down, maybe in Texas that calls Dave to do his debt free, scream and like, well, how much did you owe? And I don't even remember you know 300,000 or something and restitution. And Dave's like restitution, what'd you do? Rob a bank. And the guy goes yeah, what you know? Again there's some guy that robbed the bank because he was trying to do right by his family and they put him in jail.
Speaker 2:So again it was that whole, again somebody doing better, somebody doing worse. And it put me in perspective to say, you know what? You know the $30,000 owe to the Home Depot and Chase or whatever two credit cards I had, and you know some of the real estate. Like you know, woe is me Like you know hey it's not that bad, you know.
Speaker 2:And then. But the problem with Dave is very black and white, you know. I think, almost like if you were maybe dealing with somebody that was an alcoholic, like you can't tell somebody that's an alcoholic, well, you can have a little sip, you know, every Friday. So in his world the way he teaches no debt you know no debt is is is good debt. So I think for certain people in certain times in their life, that is definitely something that that you know I need it and some other people might need it.
Speaker 2:But if we had an opportunity to go into debt, I guess the, the the difference would be like for our house. You know we would use the house, the line of credit. You know I wouldn't want to borrow anymore. We're just not in a position. We've done well with the real estate and then we've taken that money and we've invested it. So you know we do have money invested in the market, we've got money invested in some real estate. So I would use my own you know assets to borrow off of.
Speaker 2:But again, it's that cliche like, again, if I had a completely paid off home, would I go mortgage it at where interest rates are right now no, but our mortgage when we were paying it off was two and a quarter. Like you know, I think it was Tony that slapped me around because we were paying double payments on that because we want to get out of debt. Tony's like dude, you can stick that money in your savings account and do better than two and a quarter. So there's a mathematical part of it that I think you and I and a lot of people would agree with. But then I'll go back into my wife. She will sleep better at night knowing that we don't owe anything to anybody. Right, and I think our journey because we did owe a lot of money to a lot of different people that's right for us, but it might not be right for you and it might not be right for other people.
Speaker 2:I think, again, everybody walks a different path and for us, could I go back into debt tomorrow if the right opportunity presented itself? Absolutely, and again access to money. Absolutely. We'd use again the line of credit we have on our house and the equity that we have in this house. There's hard money lenders I could deal with. I could go to family members. I could go to a bank. I mean, there's options for us, but for right now again. You know she sleeps a little bit better at night, which makes me sleep a little bit better at night. Uh, but again, I love dave. Do I listen to him anymore? I, I do not. He's not one of the the you know 10.
Speaker 1:Not making the rotation. He's not making the rotation.
Speaker 2:But he was really, you know, influential when I needed somebody to again kind of reset. You know, where was I when I felt like I was in a lot of debt and I'm never going to get out of it. You know, and one of those little cliches is you don't get into debt overnight, you're not going to get out of it. He was the right thing for me at that right time in my life.
Speaker 2:But, I'm not against it. It's just again for us. Right now we're at a point where we don't necessarily need to go into a lot of debt. But, believe me, there was an opportunity for me to borrow some money out to somebody two years ago, maybe a year and a half, and again I had no problem becoming the bank. I mean, if I'm so against debt, why would I then borrow to somebody? But I just think again, at a different point in my life, I needed to call up the Ted Miller's and I needed to borrow money at you know whatever. He was charging me 12% and now I became, you know, the lender.
Speaker 1:because again, different, different part in our journey when it comes to real estate, yeah, no, I and I always think Dave's fun just to get a rise out of some people who are very, it's like, political right. If you really want to get a rise out of some people, you can. If you're left side, you can post something very left. If you're right, you can post something very right. For me, like throwing something out about Dave, it's just it'll get a big reaction, right.
Speaker 1:Some people and I think the consumer debt side of what Dave teaches phenomenal, Absolutely Like snowball. Your credit cards. Get out of the credit card debt as quickly as possible. You're paying 25, 26 right now. That's insane. You know you're, it's gonna, you're gonna, it's just gonna pile on and be a mountain you can never overcome. Like you said, get out of that stuff as quickly as possible. Then, when you start looking at things like real estate, you know something an appreciating asset where you can have a tenant paying down somebody. You know the debt necessary. Like you said, that just makes it just makes too much sense to not do and I think for a lot of people if they're underneath the Dave Ramsey mindset, it makes it really, really tough. They try to start buying real estate and really build anything of any significance. If they're trying to just use cash Like it's for us. We're talking big numbers here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, again, I can do that today. I could not have done that 25 years ago, absolutely. And then gets in that definition of what's good debt, what's bad debt. Again, you know, let's date myself. When I went to Eau Claire, I graduated again and I was on that five-year plan. I only owed only $10,000 for the entire five years. One might argue that that was a good debt. Because, again, the One might argue that that was a good debt because, again, the first job I got out of college, I think I was making $35,000.
Speaker 2:My daughter who wants to go to lacrosse for medicine, $20,000. $20,000 for her first year, and luckily we have the ability we put some money away. Her first year, not in doubt. Her second year, we'll see how. Your number one, you know.
Speaker 2:But can I look at that and can I say that you know again, if she becomes, you know, in medicine, doctor or whatever she wants to get into, maybe with that $80,000, let's just say $100,000. Can you justify that? If she was going to go get a job like me making $35,000 a year, absolutely not. That'd be terrible debt, even if we can cash flow. It is that a good investment. So, again, for her, she would not be an ideal person to go buy a house and fix it up and flip it. Her road to financial freedom might not be the same as you or me or some of the people listening to this podcast, but I do think again. I don't know if it's as black and white as what Dave makes it. It is different each one of us. You know different times in our lives where college debt for me was a great investment. College debt today, I don't know.
Speaker 1:My friend, yeah, I lose sleep over that, yeah, yeah the value there, unless you're going to be a medical professional attorney, some kind of specialized thing, is. It's getting tougher and tougher to justify that investment, in my opinion I agree with you, you. I'm not a big higher education fan over here with today's current world, and even I look at mine like I went for kinesiology and now I do real estate. You know I mean cool that I got a four-year degree, but I literally never used it.
Speaker 2:And again, I used to say, you know you learn a lot more about yourself outside of the classroom than you do inside the classroom, you know, and that was my thought of college. But again, you know, at about $2,000 a year. Okay, you know I might be right, I might be wrong on that, you know, but if I was wrong, okay, it was two grand, you know, it's pretty expensive to say, add a zero to that, my daughter is going to learn a lot about herself outside the classroom for 20,000 a year. Like, yeah, I can have her go get a job again and stick in that Bay Beach. She'd learn a lot about herself, you know, for a lot less money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, throw her an apartment downtown and have her go get a job. She'll learn just as much. Yeah, fellow Blue Gold, by the way, chris, I know we've talked about that, I know, I know, I know that's why. Maybe why we always got along so well is because of Blue Gold People on the podcast are probably like that would be a different podcast.
Speaker 2:That's a different one.
Speaker 1:We'll do a whole episode on that. Yeah, what was that? Where was I going with that, Chris? I had another question for you about the debt oh, the debt thing. I just wanted to make a comment too. You mentioned your personal house being paid off. That is one area where I think I I I'm starting, as I get older, to agree with Dave a little bit. It's like just paying off the person. It's not a good financial decision at all when you look at the math on it, especially if you, if you're locked into a low rate right.
Speaker 1:It's terrible decision financially speaking, but it's like that mental, the mental piece right when I don't have another, I don't have anybody else paying my personal house down. It's me paying the personal house down, now my tenants. I guess I could say the cashflow for my rentals pays for my house. But anyway, there's a whole debate on that of some people think it's a terrible idea and mathematically it is, but mentally maybe it gives you that extra breath of fresh air, that confidence, and then you can always pull a line of credit on it, like you and lend out the line of credit or use it for your own investments or whatever the case is.
Speaker 1:So it's not like it's going to be terrible if you pay it off and you can't ever use that equity. Now you can tap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, dylan Cachet, you can't eat your house. You know, I do agree with that. And that's again. We maybe six months to live on, but again, once you get to that point, you know I'm with you. A hundred percent. Consumer debt, bad real estate Again. We would not be where we were today without, you know, swinging and missing on a couple. But we hit a lot of, you know, doubles and triples that have got us to the point where you know again, financially should not have paid that house off. But you know, you know again, financially should not have paid that house off. But you know, for again, a happier life, absolutely it just it was the right thing at where we were in our journey.
Speaker 1:And one thing we've done to kind of compensate for this whole thing is we've started our own little fund. So the way that we do our banking is we use sort of a profit first methodology. So if anybody's not heard of Profit First great book, mike Michalowicz got a couple of really good books out there. Anyway, the whole idea is in business, a lot of times what you do is you do sales minus expenses equals profit, right, and what he says is sales minus profit equals expenses. And so it allows you to put more stress on your expense line.
Speaker 1:And if you're not taking profit off the table, everybody else says I'm shoving money back into my business, right? Oh, I took the profits, I put it back in the business to help it grow. If you never take profit, then you're just a slave to your business. You don't make any money, right. And so we kind of took that methodology and we created different bank accounts for our own personal life, and so we have vacation funds, we have a personal profit account, we have an extra house payment account, all these different accounts that we do and then every so often, once we start to collect a decent chunk in those, I take them out of there and I put them into some kind of investment.
Speaker 1:And so what I do is I keep a little chart of how much we have, on which I took out of each of those accounts, and what we've done is we're starting to save up to pay the house off, but we're investing it right now instead of just paying it towards the mortgage quick and getting that 4% return on it, if you will. We're getting a higher return 10%, 12%, sometimes 15% return while it's growing and it's growing and it's growing and maybe someday we'll actually pay the house off or we may just make sure we have enough there and that that money is growing and we know it's allocated for the house if we ever wanted to actually just pay it off.
Speaker 2:So there's different ways to do it. Yeah, and I think that's a good point because, like I said, for me, you know it was if something were to happen to me, you know, would we have the ability? Because that was again when Tony was talking to me like making a double payment on a mortgage. He's like, dude, put that money in the check, in your savings account, you'll do better financially. And you wake up and you just want to pay it off. You know you got the money just to pay the balance off. So you know there was actually having that kind of cash flow.
Speaker 2:And then one other thing I probably forgot about it, but again, anybody that does not have life insurance. When I had all that real estate, I had, I think, a million and a half of life insurance on me and that would have paid off every single piece of property that we had back. You know, 15, 20 years ago, paid off the primary home and left my wife with enough, and I think it was like a 15 or 20 year term. Kids again would have been, at least, you know, 18. So that's the other thing that again, there was peace of mind back then, even though we were in debt, that if something were to happen to me, as far as if I were to pass, it all would have been paid off and I wasn't going to leave that kind of debt to my wife.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's some pretty cool life insurance.
Speaker 2:Think about that with. Again, we had the money to pay that mortgage off instead of just making the minimum monthly payment. Eventually, it was paid off on its own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's some pretty cool life insurance policies out there. Nowadays we use a couple of different ones. We're actually starting up a different one that we pay a large chunk for five years and they have a bank that matches it for five years and then the bank pays another five years of the premium and then in 15 years we can start taking a draw and we get a draw from it. It'll be six figures for the rest of our life and it's tax free and all this sort of stuff. So there's some in it and you get a death benefit with it and you know, creditors ever want to come after you. They can't come after your life insurance.
Speaker 1:There's some really cool stuff. We have another one where it builds up a lot of cash value. You overfund it, it's called, and you build up some cash value and then you can borrow, you can take loans against the policy. So it still creates a dividend and you're still earning interest. You're paying interest when you use it, but it's a small amount and you can kind of use it as your own bank as well. Plus, you're getting the life insurance benefit and all that sort of stuff. So there's cool programs out there. And then term, you just want a basic term one. They're pretty cheap, especially if you're younger.
Speaker 2:If you're young. I'm shopping for one right now, and that's where my my buddy, eric, he's like you're not young anymore.
Speaker 1:Policy's going up. Baby, it season going up. Baby, it's going through the room.
Speaker 2:I might be at the gym twice a week. Now, there you go, there you go.
Speaker 1:Well, chris, let's talk quick about title as we start to wrap this up again. No, don't tune out. People were just about to turn podcast up. Don't tune out, because there's some really important stuff here. There's important things to know in the title world that, as an investor, even a beginner what are some of those things, chris, that you would advise somebody getting started to at least know some basics about title, what they're looking for, and obviously, hopefully they're working with a reputable title company, like you guys do a lot of this stuff but what should they know as the investor, versus just relying on you guys at the title company for I think the biggest thing again is why are you getting title insurance?
Speaker 2:Because you're acquiring an asset and if you're acquiring an asset you want to make sure you get it no strings attached. So if you're buying a property and you know you're going to be paying cash for it, you want to make sure there's no other liens or problems with it. The thing about title insurance and probably why it's less than exciting as an industry we do a ton of things before you even get to the closing table, that curative research, that we are going back 40 years in time and we're looking at stuff, and the kicker on it is what we do is you put together a title commitment and we send that out to your real estate agent if you have a realtor, or you if it's a for sale by owner. And the only advice I would give to people is take a look at that. You know page one, who owns it, who's buying it. You know, make sure again. You know if you're buying it, you know your name is or your LLC is correct. And then look at those next two pages requirements, what needs to be paid off and then the third page or the third section is exceptions. And it's so important again to look at that last exception page, because if we found easements, we're listing it and there's no coverage for that If there's a shared driveway.
Speaker 2:It blows my mind how often we'll get a call from a buyer after they bought it and now they want to sell it and there's a shared driveway. Well, you never told me about it. Yes, we did. It was on that title commitment and as a title company you can buy a property and sell a property with a shared driveway and who cares? But if you're a buyer, you're now the seller and you want to have that buyer come and they're working with a lender that might be FHA government loan. They don't like shared drives in order to record an agreement. So look at that stuff. If there's any kind of special assessment, you've got to look at that stuff. It only takes a second. And then probably the big, big, big reason to make sure you're looking at that title commitment, you're saving it somewhere If you sell that property down the road. Guess what that title company will do if you send us that paperwork. If we didn't do the title work, you know somebody else did. You get that title paperwork and you send it to the title company. When you sell it, we're going to knock about 20% off of your closing costs. So get it, look at it and then make sure you put it somewhere so you can forward it to that title company when you go to sell it. But that's really it. I mean title companies. Again, we're doing that research on the backside. We're putting those closing statements together. Our fees are set by the state of Wisconsin. So really, if you shop around for title companies, give or take a hundred bucks, I mean we really should be within the same price.
Speaker 2:So again, service. You know, work with someone that you enjoy working with, that's going to be part of your team. You know, again, communication, if there's a problem reaching out to you. Again that goes back to our growth, where I don't remember when it was. But you're like, chris, you know we can't get these payoffs in time. Like you know we're not closing on time. Like what do we got to do to get these payoffs back? And then I think my conversation to you was we're reaching out to your seller but they're not filling out our form, and you know. So then you're like why don't we get the form signed when we're having the offer to purchase signed?
Speaker 2:You know our team is there, and it was that little bit of growth. I think that we you, I mean really you said, hey, what can we do to make this process that much smoother for the customer, ensure that we can get to the closing table on time, and again that was impactful for me too Like, well, let's not just rest on, you know, okay, everything's going okay. Like, what can we do to do a little bit more, do a little bit better? And that's always again been my, you know, enjoyment of working with you. You know, the growth that I've experienced has normally been because you're like, hey, what can we do a little bit better to better serve our customers, our buyers, our sellers, our lenders? And again you should be aligning yourself, I think, with the title company that has that same mindset. What can we do to maybe together try to make that experience that much more enjoyable for customers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, for sure. No, that's all really good stuff and I think that that is really important, guys, when you are shopping title companies that you know, Chris mentioned we were interviewing title companies back in 2018. Back then we weren't doing nearly the volume we were doing, so now I'm looking back and I'm like I can't believe you were nervous for that.
Speaker 1:We were hardly doing nearly as many deals as we do now to us because we had been working with another title company who had an attorney on staff and it seemed like every time we were getting we were trying to get something closed. It would be like the day before closing and then there'd be some other thing that would come up and they would be like oh, we got to push closing now and we got to push closing and I'm like you guys, like we give you enough notice on this stuff, Like we need to find and they just didn't seem like they were very willing to like change anything in their process and all that kind of stuff. And so we needed somebody like you. We, when we found you, we were like this is great, Somebody who wants to learn and grow with us and is willing to adapt or do things maybe a little differently than they used to do and knows the investment world and all those things. It can make a big, big difference in the quality of your reputation. Like for me, our reputation with our sellers and our buyers is so important, right, and we do everything we can to try to make the process as smoothly as possible on both sides of the coin. And then we have to insert third parties, which is a title company, and so they're a reflection of our brand, right Like they're an extension of us, to make sure that they're representing and they're giving that seller or buyer a great experience as well.
Speaker 1:And now real estate gets messy. Not every time we can do the best we can, and sometimes we're still going to have sellers walk away from the table mad, buyers walk away from the table mad. Something didn't go right. Whatever the case is, it is what it is. But we also then we incorporate sometimes people are using commercial lenders, so now we've got appraisers that we've got to fill in there. We just had one where the appraiser on a Saturday scheduled it for a Saturday at five o'clock with a rental property. It didn't show up till like six, 30 or seven, Didn't call, didn't text, just decided to show up late and they were like no, you're not coming here. You said five o'clock.
Speaker 1:Now the seller's mad at us and we're like, hey, it's the third part, like we told them five. They told us five, we set it up. They didn't show up, like we're sorry, you know. So you need those third parties that you can rely on and you can have good relationships with and understand. This is the experience they're going to give to my customers and this is the standard I want.
Speaker 1:And if somebody who's aligned with that and is willing to work with you and provide that experience. I think that's so important for people out there that are looking for, you know, not just title companies, but everybody who touches your, your brand, along the process. So we appreciate that with working with you guys, chris, at the title company, and it's been a great experience and we still are tweaking stuff. I mean, you and I in the last two weeks we're like, hey, what about this stuff? How do we get? How do we get better with our teams on these kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just want to take again I, I, you know you guys great Google reviews because again you do that customer, that seller, that buyer. We try to again take that mindset to with our customers and try to get that positive feedback. And you know, as a title company, probably my one of my lesser moments and again, believe me, I've had an IRS agent walk in the door, we've been subpoenaed. You know again like we're dealing again borderline attorney stuff, but again adversity deal with it. This is what they want. Normally it has nothing to do with us, it's that buyer and that seller. But my worst moment, I think, was a Zoom call like this. I think it was like a manager meeting. I go on our Google reviews because again we want our customers to feel we're doing the best for them.
Speaker 2:One-star review. The guy's name was Gary. One-star review the guy's name was Gary and I was so mad he had reached out to our main order department about looking for an easement up in Door County and you're up in Door County, corey, you know, looking for an easement up in those unplanted lands. That's not going to take me two minutes, but I didn't get back to him. Communication. I dragged my feet and he had every right to leave that one star review. Like.
Speaker 2:My wife disagreed. She's like wow, come on, you're a customer, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I didn't get back to him and that's not me. So I reached out to him, I apologized and I said Gary, I'm sorry, you know, if you're still interested, I would love to look for that easement up in Door County, no-transcript to absorb it. It is hard. It's hard to take criticism, it's hard not to think you're given everything you possibly can. But at the end of the day I remember trying to remind myself about that, the job that I do. I love doing it. I'm lucky to have people I get to work with. But again, that's that self-reflection. Who are we there for the customer? And without the customer I don't have a job to come to.
Speaker 1:I might be bagging popcorn at Bay Beach if I start getting a couple more of those one-star reviews.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, hey, your wife would still love you and your kids would still love you, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you get a couple more, yeah, that's right. Going back to real quick, I want to touch on this before we wrap here. Chris, uh, you mentioned the shared driveway thing before. So a couple things that we've seen shared driveways, shared wells that's another one that's common. Uh, we see that more than I ever thought I would ever see. I didn't even know it was a thing when I when I was growing up, that people could share wells.
Speaker 1:Uh, what we've done, and you tell me if this is the right thing, what we try to do when we're negotiating with the seller or after we've locked up a contract, and when you come back to us and you say, hey, cory, I can't find a shared driveway agreement, you know. So we rely on you, chris. We We'll call you and say, hey, is there anything recorded that would show a shared driveway agreement or a shared well or any weird stuff that would come up? Driveway easements are just like to get access to property. Sometimes You've got to have an easement to get to certain properties. Anything recorded, you come back saying you couldn't find it, we'll just draft something up or work with an attorney to draft something up. We'll have each neighbor sign it, if we can, and then you go ahead and record that. So then in the future it's not an issue.
Speaker 2:Yep, and that's it. These agreements may or may not have been recorded. I think right now I got to double check my state statutes. But these used to be good forever. Then I think it was 60 years, then it was 40, then it was back to a certain date if it was platted. But you hit the nail on the head If we can't find it. It's just as simple as whoever owns the property. If you haven't closed yet, it would be the current owner. And then whatever neighbor shares that driveway, shares that.
Speaker 2:Well, get something on paper, get it recorded. Attorney, would be a good idea because if there's any kind of maintenance, who's going to fix the road down the road? Who's going to fix the well in the future? Having you draft some of those documents, eh, but again, do your own due diligence, depending on who you know. Like I said, I got a good buddy who is no longer my attorney. He's now a judge in Wood County. So I'm looking for a new attorney. So Christine might be hearing from me a little more now, but again, that's simple Document, little more you know now. But again, that's simple document signatures, notarize it, get it recorded. It's a public record, move on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, good stuff. Well, chris, as we wrap here, we always ask a little fun question. Part of this is because we have people outside of Wisconsin who are wanting to invest or do invest here, but don't get here very often, and so we'd like to tell them a little bit about this wonderful state that we love to call home of Wisconsin. So give me your favorite Wisconsin tradition or place to visit.
Speaker 2:I put probably more thought into this question than anything else you're going to ask me. So, as a Packer season ticket holder, I mean the Packers were up there, you know. Again we joke about Bay Beach but honestly I don't know. I lived in Minnesota for a little bit but I think the supper club vibe that we get going here Again fortunate enough that, being the introvert I am, my wife drags me out probably once every two months. We have a supper club group, some of her high school friends, and we travel all over Northeast Wisconsin trying to find supper clubs that we have not been to. My favorite, although probably it was the one that I disappointed everybody, was the Black Otter. They have a prime rib as big as my head and anybody who knows me. I got a big old round head. I could not put that thing down and I mean that was my mission, I had geared up for that thing. So again, black Otter, highly recommend it, that's in Seymour In general just the vibe of a supper club.
Speaker 2:The two guys that we go out with, Tim and Mike, they always get the fish. I'm a Prime River Estate guy. My wife will get weird and get the fish, or something.
Speaker 1:Throw a shrimp ball.
Speaker 2:But not deep fried fish. She'll get the healthy fish, the salmon or whatever. Yeah, but I just think it's such a fun vibe, atmosphere. Um, you know, bar slash restaurant, the salad bar, you know, like they're just so unique. So I mean I, I really when, when I see that on our calendar, always looking forward to wherever we're going to be going to yeah, now blackout.
Speaker 1:Or is that seymour, chris seymour? Yep, seymour. Great reason you couldn't do. They probably filled you up too much with old fashions in salad bars before you got it.
Speaker 2:I had my game face. Okay, there were no carbs in my body, no breadsticks, no dinner rolls. I was ready to go to town on that. You had been training for months for that. Oh yeah, unbelievable. I'm disappointed, you know me, I wasn't looking so hot.
Speaker 1:Had the meat sweats for days.
Speaker 2:That was not my finest moment.
Speaker 1:Well, chris, I appreciate you being on here. Man, hey, if anybody wants to get in contact with you they have questions about title easements, some weird divorce thing on their title commitment, something, anything they want to talk to you about. What's the best way for them to get in touch with?
Speaker 2:you. Yeah, I'm going to say email. I mean again, you know I'm not too much on the social media, although your brother, Monte, is trying to get me with that ex-Twitter account emailing me. You know, chrischarles. And then it's at Gowie Group, so G-O-W-E-Y-G-R-O-U-Pcom, so Town, Country, O-U-P dot com, so town and country. Again, that's who I work for, but we are part of the Gowie group of title companies. So, chrischarles, at gowiegroupcom. You know website. You know you could try to shoot me a phone call or a text message, but I'm one of those old farts that I put my phone on the charger when I get to the office and I look at it at five o'clock and see the 14 people that tried to call and text me.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Now, last question for you Do you do title all over Wisconsin, or is there a certain geographical area? If somebody reached out to you that, you'd be better equipped to help them, yeah, we're licensed any place in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:We're also licensed in Minnesota.
Speaker 2:We're going to be getting into the UP. That's one of our goals for 2026. But I'll cover anywhere in Wisconsin what, honestly though, I would do. Though, if you're down, like in Kinosha, we have offices down there. We have an office down in the Madison Janesville office Like I might, depending on the situation, put you in contact with one of our managers down there, because, again, I just think it's just a little better communication.
Speaker 2:They know the market, they know the area, but, again, you know, if they need me to get involved with any of the questions, they'll reach out to me.
Speaker 2:Because, again, like, like you know, but subject to, you know, double closings, no patient, wholesale, like there probably hasn't been anything that hasn't come across our plate and that's the nice thing, you know, when I was at the just town and country, uh, old Republic or underwriter, like I have this amazing rep, uh, kate Marlin, and, if you know, kate would look at it and we can get it figured out like some of those complex things that you were talking about earlier with the other title company, like she'd find a way and, uh, the merger with Gowey, I was a little nervous. But our attorney now we have an in-house attorney, sarah Hetke, and I mean again just the most like customer focused, like what can we do to get this closed? So again, as a title company, like I actually see more opportunity to be able to be, you know, investor friendly as we move forward. And if they get into the UP, you know again, we might be doing 200 a year if we get into that Michigan market there we go Beautiful, sir.
Speaker 1:Well, chris, this has been awesome. Thank you guys all for tuning into another episode here. I say this on a lot of the episodes Now please share this. I know this is this is the common ask here, but if you guys are still listening after getting through the title stuff, that means you're invested in this podcast. You got some value out of it. If you're still here, please share it. Put it on your social media, text it to a friend, somebody else who's looking to get into real estate potentially.
Speaker 1:Not only does it benefit our community.
Speaker 1:Get more people at your listening to this but it also benefits you as the person sharing, because now people know you're in real estate, they know that you're getting information in. That's beneficial. They want to maybe partner with you on a deal, maybe they want to JV something, maybe they want to lend you money, maybe that you want to lend them money, like. There's a lot of things that can happen just by sharing this and letting people know that you're involved in Wisconsin real estate. So please share this episode and until next time, we'll see you on the next episode.
