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
What It’s Really Like Doing Your First Real Estate Deal w/ Connor Derenne
The First Deal: How Connor Derenne Got $30K in Equity Right After College
🎙 The Wisconsin Investor Podcast — What It’s Really Like Doing Your First Real Estate Deal w/ Connor Derenne
In this episode of The Wisconsin Investor, we sit down with Connor Derenne, a young investor who landed his first real estate deal less than a year after graduating college—and walked away with $30,000 in instant equity.
Connor proves that you don’t need to be rich, experienced, or “ready” to invest in real estate. With student loans, limited savings, and zero prior experience, he took action anyway—and got creative with funding, partnerships, and mindset to make it happen.
🎧 What You'll Learn:
• How Connor structured a partnership with his dad that benefited both sides
• Why your “why” is key to setting real, measurable goals
• The snowball effect of real estate investing — and how small wins lead to big growth
• Smart strategies for using low-interest student debt to build assets
• How to overcome fear and self-doubt when your first offer gets accepted
• Why networking and volunteering are powerful tools to get educated (for free)
• Lessons on goal setting, funding, and deal analysis from a first-timer's lens
• Balancing fast growth vs. burnout in your investing journey
Whether you're just getting started or thinking about your first investment property, this episode is a must-listen. It’s honest, tactical, and packed with motivation to help you get in the game—even if you think you’re not ready.
✅ Subscribe now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite platform.
🔗 Visit wisconsindiscountproperties.com to join our buyers list, get access to off-market deals, or schedule a strategy call to map out your investing goals.
Everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Wisconsin Investor. Today, I have the honor of bringing on one of our teammates here at Wisconsin Discount Properties, connor Doreen. So we're going to get into our little commercial we always do for Wisconsin Discount Properties. Before we do today, though, we'll give you a little background on Connor Connor. Today's episode, guys, is going to be fire because Connor just got his first property and he's been out of college.
Speaker 1:They got it less than a year out of college, and so for you that are experienced listening to today's episode, don't turn it off, don't leave this episode, because you're like oh, I can't learn from a guy who just got his first deal Right. A lot of times when I talk to the younger folks, I learned so much from them, especially like new people. I learned a ton Like how did you get here? Sometimes we forget that as we get a little bit older. So those of you that have done a ton of deals and you're like, man, I can't learn from a rookie here, hang on, cause I think today's episode is going to be fire Now for our sponsor.
Speaker 1:Wisconsin Discount Properties is our sponsor of today's episode, and I'm going to let Connor do a little commercial for a deal that was out to our buyers list. And, connor, I believe nobody put an offering on this besides you, is that true?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, no one put an offering on it. Ended up throwing a bid out there for $245,000. I was all in on it after closing costs and anything about 19,000. Ended up, the appraisal came back at 290. So I had about 30K of equity day one, which was awesome.
Speaker 1:Wow. So just by buying it, basically you threw 30K of equity to your personal financial statement. Your net worth day one buying it, that's pretty cool, awesome Guys.
Speaker 1:We have deals like that every single week at Wisconsin Discount Properties. If you're not on the buyer's list and you're like man, I can't find any deals. There's no good deals out there. Get on our buyer's list, for God's sakes. Go to wisconsindiscountpropertiescom, put your information in. It's really simple. It's going to take less than two minutes.
Speaker 1:Our buyers list, where we send out an email and text a couple of times a week with updates on the deals. Offers are due by Thursday at one o'clock, so you get a little time to do your due diligence there. We have inspection reports in there. We have video walkthroughs. We've got all any other kind of information we can find out about the properties. A lot of times we'll get quotes on some bigger ticket items if that needs repairs, and you're welcome to use those vendors. We have lenders that we can connect you with. So there's a ton of resources that we have besides just sending you out deals. So I highly encourage you if you're not on the list, get on a buyer's list and quit missing out on 30K equity, your bottom line, yeah, and you get to talk to some cool people like me, shoot.
Speaker 1:You get to talk to cool people like Connor. So, connor, let's get into today's episode. We're going to break this deal down a little bit today. And Connor, let's get into today's episode. We're going to break this deal down a little bit today. And we, you know, we I don't know where this conversation is going to go.
Speaker 1:Folks, I never do and we do these, and so, with Connor being newer, we may turn this into more of like a coaching call as well, and this is something that Connor does with people every day. Even though he's newer, he gets I mean, he's around myself, reese, a bunch of other people in our office who are investors. He talks to investors literally every day about exactly this helping them get started in real estate or helping them grow where they're at and achieve their goals, and so I do this a lot with our team as well, internally for those that work here, and so, depending on where the conversation goes, we may end up letting Connor ask some questions about his own current position and get him going. But Connor, like I said earlier, just graduated college last year, from Milwaukee, I believe. Is that true? Yep, uwm maybe, and what like a week or two after that started with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a part-time job my senior year of college and I was working that graduated, put my two weeks in and I think it was right around this time it's actually my year today, so it's your one year Memorial day weekend, so I had a nice three day break from work and school and started right up with you guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the first day I took him golfing too for, uh, the RAS success meeting, he got to come golfing prior to that which was, which was a lot of fun, good of fun, good way to break them in right away.
Speaker 1:He had to show me up on the golf course, but just a little bit, just a little bit, corey. Well, let's talk a little bit about this kind of, because I think what these are always interesting to me. There's a lot of people who have limiting beliefs out there, right Of like oh, I can't do real estate because X, y, z, right. One of the excuses could be that I just graduated college and I don't have a bunch of money saved up. Right, I'm still paying off my student loans, or whatever the case is. How did you make this happen within a year of graduating from?
Speaker 2:college. Yeah, no, it's kind of funny because I, honestly, I didn't really find real estate until my last semester of college. So I was going to school, I started out wanting to be an accountant and then I was like, okay, numbers are cool, I need to talk to people. I can't sit by the desk and just crunch numbers all day. So that led me to finance, which then eventually I was like, okay, finance is cool, but it's a little too serious. I want to be a financial advisor. I'm like it's a little too serious for me. I want real people that have just as much effort and motivation to succeed and use their money.
Speaker 2:So I ended up taking a real estate finance class and I was like, wow, there is a lot of money that you can make being an investor. And I was going to Milwaukee, like you said, and rent in Milwaukee is not cheap. So I was like I'm basically paying a mortgage here, paying rent, and that's kind of what got me into it. But yeah, so I guess, corey, what was the question? Again, I just got so excited about telling about how I got into real estate.
Speaker 1:How did you make this happen? Because your excuse could be like man, I don't have a lot of money, I don't have this, I just got out of college, I got student loans, whatever, how? Did you go from just graduating college discovering real estate was an area you wanted to be in to all of a sudden. Now, less than a year out of college, you've got your first investment property.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it all started with you know. You know you graduate, you don't have a lot of money. You have debt, right, it's kind of weighing those options too. So my student loans, you know, I'm paying, you know, two and a half to three and a half percent interest, which is, you know, it's not a lot. So you know, those are really good loans.
Speaker 2:But I kind of look at them and I'm thinking, you know, I could have paid them off right after college. I had enough money to pay off my student loans. But you know, I would rather, you know, put my money elsewhere where I can make, you know, 7%, 8%, and you know now I'm paying that 3% and I'm also making 5% on top of it. So that was kind of, you know, my mindset is, you know, I can make more money than I'd be paying in interest. So, you know, just making my minimum payments still doing that. But you know I'm still a broke college kid.
Speaker 2:So now it's about getting creative, putting yourself out there. And that's actually where you came in, corey. You know you told me about, you know, your first deal and how you went to your mom and, you know, used your resources and your connections. So I actually went to my dad, you know, told him my idea, my plan, and he was on board, which was awesome. You know, it's nice when you know you can go to someone, but, with that being said, you know there's gotta be a benefit to them. You know, it's not like hey can I borrow money and I'm just going to use it now.
Speaker 1:Now you gotta you know, you gotta sweeten the pot for both people. So yeah, yeah. So what was that? I think this is. You know, at the time we're recording this, we just had an RIS success club meeting last night. Great conversations I got to have with people afterwards and did some networking and some of the folks in there that's like where they're getting stuck right now is like how do you?
Speaker 1:have that conversation with your family and then, how do you educate them? Because a lot of these, a lot of people, they they think real estate's cool but also for them it's risky, like to go in their mind to go throw money into. You know, a lot of times when you're raising private money it's going to be from your, your immediate network. It's people who know like and trust you, that you have you've built a reputation over time with them, that sort of thing. But it's still like you're still asking them to throw a good chunk of cash probably at it. So, like, how do you educate somebody who's maybe not in it every day, like you or I, or it's got cash, they're interested in making a return, but they you got to overcome their fear of losing that money. What was that conversation like for you and your dad?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was. Uh, it was interesting because, honestly, he was just all in all in. You know, a lot of people are kind of like kind of a little hesitant, but for him he also had some goals. So goals, so you know he wanted some extra money for retirement and that's kind of where I came in. You know, I kind of found his need similar to like what you're doing, like what are your goals, where do you want to be? You can kind of do that with the people that you're trying to get money from, um, or, you know, help them invest too.
Speaker 2:You know there's a lot of people, a lot of family members, a lot of friends, that have a bunch of money just sitting in their house, sitting in their bank account. It's not working for them, it's just kind of sitting there. So just bringing that up and showing them the potential. But also back to what you said, they're going to be hesitant. Some people are going to be worried about losing their money. My favorite thing you showed me was that one chart of I think it was like the last 76 years of real estate. And what was it? The market only went down four years in the last 76 and two of those were 08, 09.
Speaker 1:Six total years, and four of them were 08 to 2020.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, yeah. So I love showing people that. I showed my dad that right away and then just getting them comfortable with the numbers and making them understand what you're looking at also helps a lot too. Being professional, coming in there prepared and not just asking for money and expecting it. You kind of have to have a game plan, goals, all that fun stuff. You can't just go in there and expect them to hand you $20,000 to go get your first deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good. Tony Breyer, who's been on the podcast before. A lot of folks in our network know Tony well. One of the things he talked about last night when this question came up was when they started out they had just.
Speaker 1:It's really about telling people, first of all, what you do. So when people like, if you're an accountant, you're a teacher, you're anything else, but people want to know what you do and you want to be in real estate, it's saying, well, yeah, I'm in real estate, I'm a landlord or I flip houses and I'm also a teacher on the side. So, letting people know that, or just by like we talk about, share this podcast on your social media, that lets people know, oh, this person's in real estate, and it starts that conversation. But then when it comes down to like, okay, cool, I got a fish on the hook, how do I reel them in? Right, it's what Tony talked about.
Speaker 1:What they used to do is they made up this cheesy? It was kind of cheesy now that they look back at it, but it was professional and it talked a little bit about them, their background, you know real estate, the numbers, that kind of thing, and they would bring in you know this pamphlet type of a thing or this booklet, and they would sit down and get coffee or you know a drink or two with whoever it was that was interested and go through a little bit of that information and just educating people a little bit on who, because really they're investing in you so they have to feel comfortable with you and that you know what you're doing. And I think you know coming in there and being serious even though it's your dad, you could just be casual about it, but coming in and being prepared and serious, I think is a huge, huge lesson for people to take away from this. They're trying to raise some private money.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And you know, especially when you're working with family, you know, defining your roles early is huge. You know, when I sat down with my dad it wasn't, you know, let's just do this. It was kind of it took a little bit. You saw it, corey. You know I there was a couple of deals that I wanted to me to. You know value my relationship with my father than you know jump into a deal and have it get messy on us. So, um, you know that was kind of the first step that you know, getting him on board with the money and then also, you know, defining the steps and making sure we're both comfortable.
Speaker 1:Because in my head, yeah, you guys, I think for a while it was really just a lot of back and forth and you guys just had to finally, if I remember correctly correct me if I'm wrong but you guys had to just like sit down and like hash it out one day and just come up with exactly what the expectation was, what his goals were, how you guys were going to structure that private money and what was the upside for him, what was the benefit to you, who was responsible for what kind of laid it all out so exactly I think that's so good.
Speaker 1:And what I love, gunnar, is what if you, if you don't mind sharing the agreement you guys have and how you guys structured this cause? There's a million different ways to do private money raising. So if you don't mind sharing the you know how you guys structured it.
Speaker 2:Maybe that'll be helpful for some of the audience. Yeah, I got a smoking deal from my dad, so this is very um. You know, nice part about this is with some family. Yes, so we agreed to. You know it was just, you know, basically 50, 50 um on everything, except he didn't want any of the equity so he just wanted to help me get started. And then, um, you know, once you know when that would be, I would basically um pay him out on what he had in on the business with, you know, interest on it. So we were looking at anywhere from you know, about 10, 12% Um, but that didn't start until you know he retired.
Speaker 2:Um but now that we are, you know, getting into it. I told him my goal is Corey and I don't even think I shared this with you yet. So you know we had our, my goals, um, I kind of share it with everyone as 50 doors in the next seven years, um, so I kind of walked him through the numbers and you know I was looking at, I think, $200, um per door, so about 120,000 of um. You know, passive income, quote, unquote um for the year.
Speaker 2:So I shared this with my dad and he's like why don't we just double it? Let's not worry about you know, why don't we just double this goal? And instead of you, you know, paying me out when I retire, you know we just double it. And then he still doesn't really want a lot of the equity, he just wants to at least have a couple of the properties go. I have six siblings, so you know he wants to at least help them out too. So we're still working on that part of it, but we're actually adjusting our goals, which is pretty cool considering we're one property in, and we're already looking to catapult it even more than we originally had.
Speaker 1:I love that. So you went from like let's get a reasonable goal of 50 doors in seven years to now we're doing a hundred doors in seven years. I love that, man, that's awesome. Well, that's the power of the, of getting around people who can push you too right, like your dad is is pushing you, but he's you know that also is probably instilling some confidence in you. That like, wow, he, he believes in me enough that he wants to double his goal.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's funny that you say that, corey, cause that was actually. I think that was one of my biggest hurdles. Working with my dad is, you know, when you're younger it's someone you go to for advice. You know everything, you know. It's like Dad, what do I do? And all of a sudden it turned to him being like dude. You got it Like I trust you and he was. I felt like he wasn't asking me enough questions, yeah, and he was like that was kind of my nitty gritty stuff. He's the money guy, right. So it was interesting for me to get over that hurdle of, okay, he trusts me, but I also wanted him to know what I was doing. So, finding that balance between okay, I'm glad you trust me, but let's reel it back a little bit and make sure you understand what I'm doing as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I think is helpful, because you don't want to get to a point where then there's resentment later if he didn't fully understand the attack plan or the you know what exactly you were doing. It's great that he's confident in you, but I think that's really smart and wise of you to sit down and go okay, thanks, dad, but let's just late, just so you understand what we're doing here and just fully disclose and I think that's also a really important point for, like when we're raising private money from people, a lot of times if people don't have a lot of cash maybe it's a smaller amount of $25,000 or $50,000, they can't cover the purchase price, but they can cover some rehab or down payment. I'm fully disclosing that but they're going to be in a junior lien position. So for those of you guys that don't know what that means, the bank is always going to want to be in first lien position, meaning if they have to foreclose, going to want to be in first lien position, meaning if they have to foreclose, they get first rights on that thing and they get paid first right. Any of their losses get taken care of if there's enough equity and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:But if you have a junior lien position, you get to then foreclose after the first lien position takes their chunk. So it's a riskier position and so I make sure when I'm telling people about this they fully understand hey, you're in a riskier position, you know you don't have enough capital to be in first lien position. I can get you a return, but you're going to be in second lien position. Now they're insured on the property so if it burns down they're covered there. Like again it comes back to the relationship, Like I'm never going to let, I'm never going to not pay somebody back, right, Like people who know me know that. But it's sitting down and making sure you're fully disclosing all of the risks, all of the things, because it is an investment. It's like any investment there's risk. It's not a guaranteed return on the money. Stuff happens in this world and they have to be okay, understanding there's a potential you may not get your money back.
Speaker 2:And so they have to know that stuff.
Speaker 1:Again, I think it's a very small percent, but that is something to make sure people understand.
Speaker 2:This is not some guarantee this is going to work out kind of a thing. If it was guaranteed, everyone would do it right, Corey, that's right.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 1:It's funny because Tony and I were talking about this last night and sometimes we talk about HELOCs all the time. He's a big proponent of Helox, I'm a big proponent of Helox and for those that don't know as a home equity line of credit it's a wonderful vehicle to use for real estate investing. And some people are like, oh, that's too risky, I don't want to risk my house, right. And then it's like, but then they'll go to a lender, like Tony, and say, hey, can I? So you're okay risking my money, but not your own money. Well, if it was so risky, why are you borrowing money from anybody, right? Apparently, you don't think it's so risky that you're not willing to borrow money from somebody, so it's to help. And again, there's a lot of factors that go into why people don't feel comfortable using HELOC. There's some PTSD from 08 for people, stuff like that. But ultimately, if you're comfortable enough taking a loan from a bank or a private lender, you should be comfortable enough to take a HELOC and put your own skin in the game on these investments.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of people, too, don't understand a HELOC as well as people like you and me and investors. I feel like they're safe. They're feeling safe with all the equity in that property. It feels less risky to them. But, going back to what I said earlier, there's people that have this money sitting there and it's not working for them. So find people with HELOCs, find people that are willing to talk about it and don't want their money just sitting there burning a hole in their pocket and not doing anything For sure.
Speaker 1:And HELOCs. There's a lot of great rates out there for HELOCs. Another thing I think this is interesting. I love having conversations with buyers or investors out there because I learn a lot of what people I assume everybody knows all this stuff right and a lot of people just don't know things.
Speaker 1:Well, helocs there's a lot of lenders out there that will take a junior lien position, a second lien position, on a HELOC, and they don't need to have first position on the mortgage. So sometimes when you go to a lender they're going to say, oh great, I'll give you a HELOC, but I want that first loan. They want the big chunk of collateral. But there's a lot of them. When it comes to primary residence HELOCs, they'll take second position and they don't need to have the mortgage on it. So if you have a 3% rate or three and a half or whatever and you don't want to mess with it, you can still go get a HELOC from a different bank if your bank is not willing to Like.
Speaker 1:If you're with Mr Cooper or some of these big boys out there, your mortgage got sold off on the secondary market and you don't have a relationship with the bank. There's still other banks out there that are doing this, like I have one. I have a HELOC on our house. I just lend it out, so I arbitrage it. And what I'm doing, basically, connor, is like, what you're doing is you're saying, hey, instead of paying my student loan off at 3%, I'm going to arbitrage that. I'm going to, I'm going to just keep making the minimum payment over here and I'm going to take that other chunk I'm not using to pay off that loan and I'm going to go make seven, eight, nine, 10, 12% life-changing money.
Speaker 1:Right, but it's it's money that's just dead in my house. It's just sitting there in my house. I can't use it if I don't use it. So you can do that with real estate. You can lock it in at six and a half percent. You can go lend it out as a private money lender for 12% to Connor and you're going to make that little spread right.
Speaker 1:So, um, so, it's not. You know, the risk is Connor flies to Tijuana and blows it all on cocaines and strippers. You're stuck with whatever but then you get a house. You get a house, so that's the other thing. You get the foreclose on it and you get that property. So really the risk is pretty minimal when you're looking at private lenders and this is all stuff to make sure you're educating your private lenders on.
Speaker 1:If I fly to Tijuana and blow it on cocaine and strippers, you get this property and I'm going to, I've already put money into it, You're not lent. You know you've got some equity here, all that kind of stuff, so I think that's a really wise thing you're doing and, connor, educating your dad on everything with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. So going back to the thing for you, what was it about the 50 doors or now the 100 doors? Why was that important to you when you were starting to think about the future? Because you have one door or two doors now. Yeah, two doors technically, yeah. So for some people that could seem like an impossible goal to go from two doors to 50, now 100. Why is that important to you and how do you then make sense of that as you work backwards and start to build a plan of?
Speaker 2:the future Absolutely Well. It's all come back to time for me. So you know I'm a big family guy for anyone that knows me. I just don't spend time with my family. I like doing my own thing too. You know I love working for you, cory, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:But, um, you know, when I'm, you know, 40, 30, 30 to 40 years old, if I don't have to work, I'm kind of the guy that's always going to want to work or at least do something. Um, but I want to have that option and and that uh capability to kind of decide, you know, where I want to be and when I want to be there. That's kind of what what started it is. You know I want that freedom one day. You know my dad had a good job where his, his bosses kind of let him, you know, didn't miss our games, didn't miss all our sporting events. He was able to be there for us. And you know I want something like that and not that I can't do that here. I 100 percent can. It's just nice knowing that it's my time and I get to decide when and where I want to want to use that time. So that's kind of where it all started for me was just getting that time.
Speaker 2:Um, as for goals, um, that actually helps you.
Speaker 2:Help me a lot with that, corey, because you know, when I first started I think, even probably back in December, when we were making our yearly goals at our annual meeting I think my goal was to be in a position to put an offer in by June.
Speaker 2:That was my goal, just to be in a position to put an offer in. And here I am, almost closed on my property for a month now and it's May. So I didn't even think getting a duplex this year was possible, which is crazy because I work here and I know it and just getting past that fear, I guess I kind of circle back to a big part of being able to get where I am and out of college less than one year out of college, getting a property. It all comes to networking, talking to people and just building that confidence and learning from their mistakes. And the one thing I think that really motivated me too is is, if you talk to anyone that's been investing for for the longest amount of time, you know it doesn't matter how long. What do they always say?
Speaker 1:Best time to plan a truth 20 years ago. Next best day.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Everyone's always saying you did.
Speaker 2:Everyone's always saying I wish I would have started when I was younger. I wish I was starting when I was your age. So you know, that kind of sits in the back of your head too. Like I am my age, I can start now. You know, you don't just go for it, and I think I was telling you this earlier too, corey is you know, when my offer got accepted, there was about, you know, a two hour, three hour window where you just kind of get a little nervous. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:You want to sabotage yourself? For sure, yes, you do.
Speaker 2:You want to just kind of fall back and be like all right, someone else can have this deal, you know take it over you sure nobody else wanted it more than me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you sure I was. But you kind of just all of a sudden get that mindset, you know, when you're surrounded by people, especially that you know, you feel, have your back, or at least know someone able to help you out. And I just finally told myself like I'm going to figure it out. No matter what, no matter what happens, I'm going to figure it out. So you know and I think Tony said this yesterday it's all about, you know, falling forward, failing forward. So the biggest mistake you can make is honestly just not taking that first step For sure.
Speaker 1:Just sitting on your heels, 100%, and you know. Going back to the networking thing, you know I talk about this for all you guys that listen to all these episodes. Thank you, by the way. I think every episode we talk about key locks, probably, and we talk about networking, and sorry if we just keep being a dead drum, but that is just so, so important, like the networking piece of it. And again, I remember my first deal. I shared this on a few episodes. I got the seller, I was working direct to seller and the seller accepted my offer and I was like I called Tony actually and I was like dude and I was like I called Tony actually and I was like dude and I was trying to do the birth strategy, cause I didn't, I had like $8,000 to my name. I was like man, what, what happens if this appraisal comes in low afterwards? Like how am I going to what?
Speaker 1:am I going to do, you know whatever, and he just kind of talked me off the ledge a little bit and call me down. I was like dude, so what right, I'll figure it out. But it's, it is interesting. Like after that first offer, even to this day, when I get some, I'm still like, oh, now I got another. Work starts Like it's fun making the offer and getting the adrenaline rush, but then it's like now I got to, now I have to do more work. So anyway, yeah, that's an interesting, interesting fact.
Speaker 1:Last night we had some folks at the at the meeting, and I think what another piece of the networking thing, connor, that's so important for you guys to make sure you're getting out to. There's caffeine cashflow around the around the state. There's RIA meetings, there's uh, there's our, our success meeting. Get to these things, cause there's people there that are they're buying properties, they're doing it, but they're all doing it on their own and when they come there, there's so many different strategies, like the BRRRR strategy you can grow from. That's how we went from zero to a hundred doors in three years.
Speaker 1:We use the BRRRR strategy and if I never would have known about the BRRRR strategy, I would still be trying to find properties, put 20% down and trudging along, I'd probably have like 10 doors, maybe 20 doors, at this point. Not that that could be a bad thing I'd have a good amount of equity but it would just take forever to accumulate that amount of cash right To be able to grow as quickly as I wanted to grow. So for you, connor, is that what you're looking at when you say 100 doors? You know, is that the strategy for you? You're going to utilize the burst strategy and try to accelerate the growth, utilize leverage that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Yep, utilize leverage. I'm going to mix some flips in there obviously as well, to build some capital, um, just to kind of grow as fast as I can and keep it rolling. Um, that's I guess you know. Good question for you is, corey, this is, I think, my new hurdle is, you know, I want to grow fast, but how fast is too fast? And where do you fit that comfortability point in? Because, uh, you know, obviously you know, if I don't grow fast enough I'm gonna be nice and comfortable, if I grow too fast, I'm gonna be, you know, overwhelmed. It's not gonna be fun anymore. But obviously you want to be nervous, you want to. You know, you want to have that feeling that you need to keep working. So where is that, that sweet spot of all right? Am I, am I working too hard or am I not working hard enough?
Speaker 1:Yeah too hard or am I not working hard enough? Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think that's an individual question for every single person out there, right? Like you have to ask yourself. Like for me, one of the things I looked at it was like what was my reason for doing real estate, you know, and so I think for everybody out there, if you're like man, I really want to do real estate, like it seems fun, but then really get to the core and it's it's kind of stuff, but it really is true.
Speaker 1:Like if you really think about your why, your why is pretty strong. You want to have time, freedom and you're envisioning a future family and you want to be able to go to the kids ball games and have freedom of choice right, like you could still work, but you want to be able to have that choice of like where you work, right, I think that's really important, that you clearly define that. I think you've been that way since you started. You've been really clear on that goal. So, for those of you out there listening, if you haven't really sat down and clearly defined why you want to do real estate, it's going to be really tough for you to accelerate your growth at a fast rate.
Speaker 1:You're going to just be comfortable I don't want to say complacent because, if you're buying deals, you're not really complacent or you wouldn't do real estate, but you're not going to have the intensity level to grow quickly. For me, I I liked what I did at my, at my previous job. I enjoyed, I enjoyed the people I worked with, I enjoyed the company. It was good company. But my daughter was uh, I think she was three when I started, maybe started sniffing around, maybe she was four and she was into um, she was doing like ballet, dance stuff and my job at the time.
Speaker 1:I worked nights and weekends and holidays, so I had to like call families when they were home and that's nights, weekends and holidays, and I was like this kind of the schedule stinks Like. I don't like this, because I can't like my daughter's now in stuff and I can't. I can't go watch her do her dance thing, or I have to ask off for it which was always annoying.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm very unemployable, so when I have to ask permission from people to do stuff, it's really hard for me to justify that. So what I, I realized, was like I need to get out of this career and into my own thing as quickly as possible. We'd been doing network marketing for several years, but I was like this is not going to get me out of my job fast enough. I started looking into doing real estate investing.
Speaker 1:I was like I need to get 100 doors cash flowing 200 bucks a month, as quickly as humanly possible so that I can be free and be able to be at my daughter's stuff.
Speaker 1:So that was really the key motivator for me was like I know I've only got 18 years with this girl and at some point she's going to fly the coop Maybe. Maybe not even 18, like by the time she's 15 or 16, she might not think dad's cool anymore. So she might yeah, she's 12 now and you know she's already kind of getting that way, but no, she's great. Um, so like for me I think that's really important for anybody listening out there is make sure you get really clearly defined on the goals and then, if it's intense enough like my intensity level to get out of my job was like an eight or nine, meaning like I'm willing to do just about anything and work as many hours as I have to work and sacrifice in the short term so that I can have the long-term freedom.
Speaker 1:Um, that's what helped me determine really like getting there and that. And then how much leverage was I willing to take on to get there? Like I was like I'll risk it all. I don't really give a crap, right, I need to get out of this, this job. So if your intensity level for you, Connor, like I put, I probably peg you at like a six, maybe a seven, like you're doing good, You're not going to go risk your whole life you know, and everything else Not quite yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's me in a year. That's me in a year in my change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I keep bugging you every day to do more stuff, I need to get out of this job quicker. But but I think, like for somebody out there, like that's really the important part is like how, how intense is, how important is that timeline for? You and how intense do you want to go after? It will determine how far outside of your comfort zone you're willing to. You're willing to go and how much? Time you're willing to put into it. So does that answer the question?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. It kind of leads me into another question, kind of similar to kind of the same thing, but you know you were talking about people having these big goals and being ambitious. On my call with people, you know you got to take this big vision, this big goal and kind of bring it back. So what does this look like? You know, day got to take this big vision, this big goal and kind of bring it back. So what does this look like? You know, day one today, what can I do to get this goal? So, you know, walking that goal backwards, um, and making it actually, you know, seem realistic. You know, when you say a hundred doors and seven years, you know that just sounds absurd, right, but yeah, you know, backing it down, uh, that's about 14 doors a year, give or take 15 doors a year.
Speaker 2:So then you're looking at, you know, seven, seven duplexes. If you're doing the duplex route, if you're going to four units, six units, you know it can make that, you know, a little bit more attainable. Uh, so I guess where I'm getting that too is you know when you first started, obviously, your intensity level was a nine and a 10. Did you just go diving in head first or did you kind of, you know, pick up one, two deals and then all of a sudden that it starts snowballing, or did you just hit the ground running, or when did you see that snowball effect? I guess.
Speaker 1:No, that's such a great question Cause it sounds like man, you went zero to 103 years like as fast for a lot of people. But it was the first year was slower, right, like we did, we did. We did our first wholesale deal, we did. We bought that duplex and we did, we did rent to own our primary residence, like all within like a three week period and it took four months leading up to that before we got there. So it's like, oh wow, you did all that within three weeks.
Speaker 1:Well, it was four, four months of conversations and looking at properties and learning and going to RIAs and going to meetups before we ever got to that point where we had the first one and there was, prior to that, four months. There was about four or five months before that. That was pretty much just us listening to podcasts, education again, going to the meetups, going to the networking stuff. I did all that before I really started taking action. I took action in August of 2016. We got our first deal, or those three kind of mixed bag deals, in December and early January of 2017. So it was almost a year of just kind of working at it and then taking action for about four months before we got really some success rolling and some traction.
Speaker 1:So there was a lot of times when I was like man am I ever going to get a deal that I actually feel comfortable with? Is this ever going to work for me?
Speaker 2:Maybe I'm not cut out for this.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of self-doubt, a lot of negative talk going on, and then all of a sudden it was just like boom, boom, boom, boom. And then we did another wholesale deal, I think in February of that year, on a duplex, and then we bought a four unit we were planning to burr. And again I went back to my original goal at this point and Carrie, my wife, she was doing our property management at the time she did not want to manage four one bedroom apartments.
Speaker 1:We had two kids, you know, leo and Kaylee at the time and they were little and she didn't want to be worried about that, plus the duplex that we owned. So she's like let's just try to sell it. And I still, to this day, I wish we would have ever sold it, but it helped us propel. We sold it for sale by owner.
Speaker 1:We made 25,000 on it and I was like, hey, wait a minute, I'm making six figures at my job. I need to be making six figures to be able to leave. If I just did like four of these a year, oh my gosh, that'll be a lot quicker than getting to a hundred doors at 200 bucks Like let's do that.
Speaker 1:So then we ended up buying a bunch of flips Some of them were MLS on the MLS deals and and you can still get deals on the MLS Like you just got to offer the right price. It's the same thing. So we did a bunch of flips and that kind of thing and then once we started getting the flips and the wholesale going kind of like what you're seeing like then, once the cash was there, then I left my job, my full-time job, and then it was just like real estate a hundred percent, and then we were picking up rental properties. People were bringing us some apartment deals back then, like there was kind of just a flurry of activity but it took. Probably it was. It wasn't until two years in where we were really humming along at a pretty good clip. First year was a lot of get one, rehab it either sell it or keep it.
Speaker 1:next one you know it was one at a time for the first three or four properties, and then after that it was like, okay, we got, we've got our who's now, as we say, and who not how, we've got the who's that we built the relationship with and the connections with.
Speaker 1:Now we can just start kind of rolling and move them over in the right buckets of the people that need to start working on these things or do whatever we need to do property, manage them or whatever and and we felt like we were, we were able to clip along after that.
Speaker 2:So yeah. So it took a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's you know, something that I'm still wrapping my head around is, you know, like I said, a hundred doors seven years, it's about 14, 15 doors a year. Um, yeah, but that doesn't mean this year I have to go out and get, you know, seven duplexes. You know it's that's the average. So you know, my first couple of years might be a little bit more slow rolling, but you know, once, once that snowball starts rolling down the Hill, now all of a sudden I might get 20 units. One year I might get 30. Like, you just gotta keep taking that first step. I feel like and I feel like that's where I'm still working on it. You know, I finally got my first duplex, but now I'm ready, I want to get a foot next and then I want to get another duplex this year. So just failing forward and just going forward and moving forward, I feel like it's huge in this industry A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And I don't think you know like. I think this is such a good conversation because if I was in your shoes, it can seem really overwhelming to try to go from one duplex to 100 doors. Like you said, like you start putting that pressure on yourself where you're like man, I got to get seven duplexes this year and at the time we're recording this it's almost June. You're like man, I'm halfway through the year. I've got one. I got to get six. I got to get one a month. Now, how am I going to finance this thing? How am I? Who's going to fix it up?
Speaker 1:What if the appraisal comes in low, like there's a lot of stuff getting the chatter and it can really actually work in the opposite direction for some people, as it can shut them down and it can make them just do nothing. At that point, exactly, give up on it. So this is such a good conversation for people out there listening to this. Don't let the big goal scare you or if scare you or if you feel like you're behind pace. Just know that, like you said, if you've given yourself some runway of time, that's perfect, because now it can be an average right Now. Maybe next year you get nine duplexes, and the year after that you're doing one a month or something and you're kind of catching up over time. Once you get your who's all put around you the lenders, the contractors, the property managers, all that kind of stuff, some cash from some flips you know you can. You can then start to accelerate and let that snowball start to go downhill.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Back up on the goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. That's the other I know you mentioned. You know who's. That's. Another thing about networking, too, is learning from other people's mistakes as well. I feel like that's helped me a lot too. You know, you hear the story. Obviously I'm still going to, you know, run into something one day here, um, but you hear the stories and I think that's my favorite part about networking is I like to call learning the easier way, instead of, you know, taking a big hit on a flip, or you know, buying something that you didn't see, or you know, surround yourself with people that have done it, have seen it, so you can ask them questions and they can tell you their stories and give you their advice, because they've had to learn the hard way, so now they're willing to help other people out. That's what I love about real estate, too, is there's enough deals to go around. Everyone's willing to help, everyone's willing to share. No one's really selfish especially if they are. You'll know that they're selfish and they'll have a bad name for themselves. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think what's interesting, connor, about that is this is the feedback I hear from people who are doing networking events in other parts of the state. So we're based in Northeast Wisconsin. So if you're listening to this, in Milwaukee, madison, eau Claire, somewhere else around the state, I can't speak for that. I haven't gone to a lot of networking events there recently. I went to a few Milwaukee ones a few years ago and a good experience. But from what I hear is we have a pretty unique thing in Northeast Wisconsin that everybody's willing to help and share might not be the case If you're listening to this. Those are other areas where the people that you have to go to are maybe, maybe they got they're keeping the cards to the chest a little bit more than maybe you have. I talked about this on another episode. Maybe you have to be the thermostat, maybe you have to be the one to start the group, start the meetup, start the, whatever it is. It can be as easy.
Speaker 1:Our first meetup we ever started was a Facebook event that we put. We just put it out there and invited a bunch of people to come and talk about real estate at a bar. That was it, and we got name tags. People came in. We had a little sign that said real estate meetup come here. They came over, we got their name, their information, we gave them a name tag and there was no pressure, there was nothing for sale, it was literally just being the person to start the event. And now we've built a culture of sharing and abundance and people aren't going to give away their trade secrets at these things, but they're going to help you.
Speaker 1:You come up and you ask them questions about certain things and you're genuinely curious and you're trying to learn from them. People love talking about themselves, so they'll tell you everything, for the most part as much as they feel comfortable. But most people are willing to help and share and everybody started where you are, connor, maybe not as young like you said. We all wish we started earlier, but everybody was once somebody who had no properties, so I think that's really important. Sometimes people can get a pretty big head. They can get out and think that their stuff doesn't stink.
Speaker 2:They have to remember at one point they didn't know anything. They were a baby in this game and somebody helped them.
Speaker 1:Somebody gave them some education, somebody gave them a nugget that got them started. Nobody can be out there and say I'm self-made. Nobody helped me get my real estate portfolio. You had help along the way. I don't care what you say. Maybe it was a lender that you were working with that was giving you feedback on your deals, or something. Somebody was helping you so yeah.
Speaker 1:I think in our area it's a pretty common thing to get people that are willing to help and love talking real estate and just want to see people succeed. It may not be as common in other parts, but then you just have to be the person to go, do it and start it out and I feel, like a lot of people my age, to sometimes feel like they don't bring value to.
Speaker 2:You know conversations, but you know putting yourself out there, just, you know, offer to buy someone lunch, offer to you know, help them on on a flip, you know just putting it, build a reputation. It doesn't have to be, you know, necessarily helping them out knowledge-wise, but buy them a lunch, take them out for a drink, take them golfing, do the little things that just kind of you know, put you in the same areas with them and you know you're still helping them out. Then I think I helped Reese with one of his rentals and all I asked for was a six pack of beer when I was there helping them. So you know, didn't ask for money, just wanted to. You know, get into the nitty gritty of it. All we did was hang doors and do some little things. But it's still nice to get your foot out there and see projects that you're not invested in. But it builds that knowledge without having to buy one right away. So if you're not ready to buy one or you're still working on getting your lending, it doesn't hurt to start.
Speaker 2:I always hear people are like, oh, I'm not ready yet. I need to wait a year. Well, maybe that's the case for buying something, but at least put a foot forward. Go to networking events. Still Go help people out, get lending set up, because you never know when that deal is going to come across the table. And also you're like you know what, I can't pass that one on. So I think that's something that I just wanted to throw out there. It's like, even though you're young, maybe you don't have anything to offer, there's still a way to you know make yourself valuable and still, you know, be productive in some way shape or form.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, so good, you never. First of all, one point you said you never want to pass a good deal just because you don't have financing set up. That is a huge mistake. I see people especially when you're in your shoes counter. The easy thing to do would be like oh, dude, be like. Oh, I got my one, all my money's tied up over here. I'm out of the game for a while, right, all of a sudden, because you were networking, because you were putting stuff out on your social media. People are like oh man, kate Conner, I got my. My grandma had to go to assisted living and her house needs a lot of work. Would you want to buy it? And you're like ah, yeah, but I don't have any money lined up, all my money's tied up. Never want to be in that position.
Speaker 1:So we talk a lot about we have a course called Burr for Beginners. In that course we talk about having multiple buckets of money. You want to have multiple options to be able to dip into at any point, whether that's a hard money lender, private lender, helocs, commercial lenders, community banks, all that stuff. You want to have a bunch of different options to be able to pull from the other thing. I think, connor, that I think, as you were talking, I'm like man that is such a that is such good advice for, especially for younger people wanting to get in the game.
Speaker 1:You know, we you know we obviously are consistently hiring people, and with younger people, one of the things I think that I noticed is sometimes, if they have an interest in being in real estate but they want a job, they get short-sighted on the salary or on the hourly rate.
Speaker 1:We're hiring some young people. We've been interviewing some young people for our rental portfolio business and one of the things is like hey, we're going to help you build your own real estate portfolio and you're going to learn a ton. And, just like you said, conor, think about this you gave yourself a $30,000 bonus in equity, probably a lot faster than you ever would have if you were trying to do it on your own versus working in the industry every single day. So there's a lot of other benefits that hopefully young people can see by just hey, maybe I'll work for free for a while for you, just to show I can do this and I want to learn and I want to do this stuff. Hey, down the road, maybe you can help me build my portfolio, something like that and then I look at it this way too.
Speaker 2:I went to college. I paid my nice little check for my piece of paper. You're paying for an education If you can get an education and get paid. Maybe it's not as much as you want, but you're learning a lot and it's going to put you in a better position a year from now. Two years from now. You've got to factor that into your quote-unquote income, for sure, but at least that's the way I look at it.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of people. Knowledge is just as important as money. If you have all the money in the world but you don't know what to do with it, it's not very helpful. It's just pieces of paper. I mean, obviously you can buy stuff, you can do stuff, but being able to pair your money with knowledge is huge. So if you're making more money but you have nowhere to put it, if I was 24 and didn't work here and I was making more money and I was, but I had nowhere to put it, it's just not the same.
Speaker 2:Because now I'm looking in the long run of appreciation, building equity, about one duplex that I got. I got 30k equity day one, but what's that duplex going to look like you know, 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road, 30 years down the road. So I guess just changing your mindset is huge. Maybe I look at it differently than most people, but I would encourage you. Know, especially when you're young. You have time to you have time. You have your whole life to make money. You know, learn now, cause the sooner you learn the better?
Speaker 1:yeah for sure. When I was 24 dude, I went out and I bought or 22, I graduated college, got my first big boy job, I went out and I bought a new, a new vehicle. Stupid, like really dumb idea. I wish. I wish I would have bought a rental at that time instead of some car that just appreciated. You know it's a dumb idea, but that's what I think. You see this a lot with professional athletes. Right, these young guys 22 years old, they go get paid all this money. They go buy some rolls royce bang or whatever. Instead of like, man, I'm gonna take this paycheck, I'm gonna go buy a big old thing of real estate and just let that baby pay me.
Speaker 1:That takes all the pressure off their nfl career or their nba career, that tanks or they're only in for a couple years. Well, they used all that cash. Now, you know, but they, they don't think like that. You know, when you're young, yes, but I probably would have done the same damn thing when I was yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's two types of people though too, you know, not everyone, I'll be honest, not everyone is built for real estate. Very true, if you're listening to this, I mean, you're already taking a step, so I'd assume. But you know, just, not ever it's not cut out for everyone. If you're not motivated, you know, if you're, if you're comfortable, you know, working your 40 hours until you're 65, 70, um, you know, then maybe real estate's not for you. If you, if there's no fire under you and no goal behind it, um, you know, it's not easy. I mean, I just started and you know I haven't seen half the stuff that people have, but I can already tell you it's not easy, it's going to be a grind. So I guess also, you have to have that, why, behind your goals, you can't just have a goal of 100 doors just because I want to be rich. You can be rich doing a lot of other things, so there's got to be a goal behind it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100% dude. Well, connor, this has been awesome dude. You got to get back to work. That's what I'm. We could talk all day, corey, that's true. Before we go, though, we always ask, as you know, the question and reason we ask this. We have people outside of the state that are thinking of investing in Wisconsin or want to learn more about Wisconsin, so we love talking about the great state.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about our favorite wisconsin tradition or place to visit here in this great state. Oh, that's tough. My favorite, no, I don't think I have a favorite wisconsin tradition, but my favorite part about living in wisconsin is I'm from green bay, so, uh, going to lambeau field. I try to go to three, four games a year, so that's gonna be one of my favorite, uh favorite things to do, um, and then also going up north fishing there's good muskie fishing here. So you know that's going to be one of my favorite things to do. And then also going up north fishing there's good muskie fishing here. So you know that's got to be. You know, up there too. And cheese curds you can never complain about cheese curds. No, you can't. No, you can't. Cheese curds are phenomenal here.
Speaker 1:What are your favorite things, corey man? You just named them all. I think you pretty much just knocked them out of the park. I think I just named Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically anyone that doesn't live in Wisconsin. They think of Packers and musky and cheese curds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one other thing I think is a favorite tradition of mine cribbage, at least our family cribbage.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's actually sheephead and cribbage. I'll throw a little word to my grandma here. She taught me how to put cribbage in sheephead when I was little Keeping the Wisconsin tradition alive.
Speaker 1:I still don't understand sheephead, but I do understand cribbage A lot of variations that I've learned over the few years. There's Canadian cribbage, there's cross cribbage. I've played a couple of them Regular cribbage.
Speaker 2:We talked about this one day I think that was almost a year ago when I first started we talked about cribbage. I think you're ducking Cause. We still haven't played. We got a dude.
Speaker 1:I will crush it and we'll we'll live stream it for everybody.
Speaker 2:I'll live stream it for everyone. I'll stream that cribbage crush.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it'll be just really edge of the seat type of things. Watching two guys play an old man's. You're going to bust it out. But we also have a game we invented Carrie and I called Raymond's Rules Cribbage. So you know how your jack normally is a one-pointer.
Speaker 1:We really twist it up. We make it worth four points if you get down to it, but it makes you think what you're going to toss away and what you're going to keep in your hand and what you're going to throw at your partner's crib. If you have no idea what we're talking about, you probably need to be investing in Wisconsin. That's all there is to it. You just got to get here more and invest here.
Speaker 1:So all seriousness, guys, thanks for tuning in to another episode here. This has been awesome, Connor. I think it's been great, for hopefully a lot of people knew or experienced. I think everybody could take away a lot of things. I know I certainly did.
Speaker 1:If you guys are looking to get deals we talked about getting on the buyer's list at the start of this you can go to the website and put your information in on the homepage. If you're not ready to get deals and you're just kind of like, hey man, what is this real estate thing? I'm starting to listen to podcasts. It sounds interesting. Can you help me with my goals and figure that out? Just go on the site and put in a contact form and either myself, Connor or Reese from our team we'll give you a call. We'll have a conversation with you, We'll figure out, you know, if, if going down this path makes sense for you and how to get you started, and we'd love to have that conversation with you and help you move into this fun game of real estate. And if you have cribbage questions too, we can answer those as well.
Speaker 2:Happy to answer those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as we said earlier, guys, share the episode. Again, we love getting more people to listen to this. It helps us get on more guests and bring more content for you guys, but it also really helps you guys. As we said, you're sharing this A you're helping somebody else out there who maybe is not familiar with real estate investing or has thought about it forever. You might be the catalyst to change their life and it's going to let people know what you do and should bring you more deals, lenders, all that sort of thing. So share the episode, guys, and keep tuning in. We'll see you on the next episode.
