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
College Rental to 700+ Units in 7 Years: Ryan Gray’s Real Estate Empire
From College Rental to 700+ Units: How Ryan Gray Built a Real Estate Empire in Just 7 Years
What happens when you take massive action, skip the fluff, and build powerful local relationships? You get Ryan Gray — a Wisconsin-based investor who scaled from a single college house to over 700 multifamily units and 15 group homes in just seven years.
In this episode, Ryan shares how he launched Stable Living, an assisted living company, while still attending UW-Eau Claire, and how attending one Wisco REIA meeting kickstarted his real estate journey. Within six months, he closed 10+ deals—no mentorship, no coaching, no script. Just hustle and implementation.
You’ll learn:
- How Ryan used creative seller financing to buy a $2M property with no money down
- Why community banks are his secret weapon for fast, flexible closings
- His unique approach to deal partnerships (he splits profits with people who bring him leads)
- How self-managing his entire portfolio gives him an edge on underwriting and scalability
- Why speed and simplicity beats over-planning every time
Now managing 100+ employees, Ryan continues to grow his portfolio while focusing on systematizing operations and finding the next big opportunity.
Whether you’re just starting or scaling, this conversation is packed with tactical advice, mindset gems, and proof that momentum beats perfection. Don’t miss this one — it might be the push you need to take action.
🎧 Listen now.
📍Want to meet investors like Ryan? Come to our next Wisco RIA meeting or grab our free BRRRR for Beginners course at wisconsindiscountproperties.com
Connect/partner with Ryan @ryangray on Facebook and Instagram.
If you have a deal, shoot it over to Ryan at 715homebuyersLLC.com
Hey everybody, we are back with another episode of the Wisconsin Investor Podcast, and for those of you guys watching on YouTube, you'll notice the background's a little different for me today. My internet went out today as Ryan and I my guests were about to start recording, so I had to drive and find some data. So if this one's a little choppy or the audio is a little off, you know, give us a little grace. Today we're doing our best. We can't, but I have an amazing guest he's taking some time out today, who I'll introduce in a second to drop some knowledge bombs on you guys and share a pretty incredible story with you guys of his success so far, and so I don't want you to miss that, and I wanted to get him in here because I know his time is valuable. Before we do that, though, I want to talk about the sponsor, as I always do Wisconsin Discount Properties.
Speaker 1:At Wisconsin Discount Properties. At Wisconsin Discount Properties, we're dropping off-market deals in your inbox every single week at 6 am, so if you're not on the buyer's list, you can get on the buyer's list by going to wisconsindiscountpropertiescom. You just plug your information in on the homepage and you get added to the buyer's list like that. And then what we're also doing now. I've mentioned this on the last few episodes, but we are offering our Burr for Beginners course for free. So we used to charge $3,000 back in the day for this thing and we were doing some one-on-one coaching with it, so that's why the price was up there. But now we sell it for 1900 bucks without the one-on-one coaching, and we're giving it away for free. So if you want to get that course, join the buyer's list and Connor or Reese from my team will be in touch with you and talk about your goals and what you're trying to accomplish and tell you a little bit about how our process works. But then also, if you're interested in that Burfer Beginners course, they'll get you the code to get you free access to that.
Speaker 1:With that, let's get into today's episode. So I just got introduced to Mr Ryan Gray, who's here with me today, and he is killing it out in Eau Claire Go Blue Golds. That's where I did my college days, and so I'm excited to have Ryan on the show. Ryan, how are you doing today, man?
Speaker 2:Doing good, dude? Yeah, doing good.
Speaker 1:Good, good. Well, I'm glad we got to connect. Mutual contact of ours reached out and said hey, man, you should have this Ryan guy on the show. He's killing it out in Eau Claire and he's doing some amazing things. So, ryan, tell everybody a little bit about the current state. You and I were talking just before we hit record and what you got going on as far as units and what you guys are into as far as doing a little bit of wholesale and that kind of thing. Just fill everybody in a little bit on your background and what you got going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I own a couple of different businesses, but my first business, uh, stable living, which is my primary time spend still um it's assisted living business. We have 15 group homes um in Eau Claire, wisconsin, uh, as well as two in superior as well as we do in-home care. So that's kind of like how my business journey started um with assisted living living. Right now we also have 700 units of mostly multifamily real estate in Eau Claire and, like surrounding our, have some partners don't do syndication but do have some 50-50 partners in those as well. As we have a 715 home buyers which we buy in flip houses as well as wholesale a little bit in Eau Claire, also involved in some adjacent businesses as well, but for the most part multifamily and assisted living. That's awesome man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're into quite a few things, man, and you grew pretty quick. So tell everybody, when did you start the assisted living business and then when did you transition over into more of the multifam uh, seven, one, five home buyers thing?
Speaker 2:Yep. So yeah, 2016, ish, 2017, I was actually working in a group home while I was going to college at UW Eau Claire um on tutor, and we started the assisted living company in 2016,. 2017. Had a bad boss I was working in a group home and decided, if he can do it, I can do it, and that's basically kind of how it happened. I ended up getting terminated, opened that business, started doing that for a few years, actually out of a college house that we were renting, ended up getting licensed by the state department of health, so it started doing that. That's how the business journey started. And then I actually got asked to go to wisco rio, which is a real estate group in eau claire by dan gearseth and went to that the first time.
Speaker 2:Um 2019, 2018. Walked out of that meeting like whoa, like holy man, this sounds awesome. Um started taking action. I would say like immediately right after that meeting, started sending letters and trying to find off market property which at the time I didn't know what the heck I was really doing I think houses and basically just jumped right into it, started kind of wholesaling and flipping and then started getting the creative finance and buying multifamily around 2019 and really grew really fast and I think a lot of that was attributed to kind of having that first four or five years of assisted living getting my feet wet with business. But yeah, so that's kind of how I went from assisted living to real estate. We have like a hundred employees right now in stable living, so I think a lot of that that's translated to the fast growth on the real estate side.
Speaker 1:Holy cow dude. That's so crazy, dude. I mean the amount of growth you went from 2019 to now just in the real estate sector is incredible. But then to have 100 employees too I mean we've got about 15 or so in our office and I mean it's a lot to manage 15 people and I'm sure you build people up to manage the people and all that kind of stuff, but that's still a big responsibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always say the hardest thing in business is employees and just learning how to handle all that. And, to be honest, I'm still learning day to day. But yeah, yeah. So right now I'll kind of spend like 20, 25 hours in that business, not really growing it super hard, but just trying to optimize it and make it the best we can.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, there's so many nuggets, though, in your story. Your your brief story there. So, audience, if you just heard Ryan just talk about some of that stuff, go back and play that sector of after. I asked him how did he get started in this until just now, because there's so many things in there. Number one, right? I'm guessing when you started after that Wisco RIA, you probably didn't go out and first create a website, get some business cards, set up your LLC or do any of that stuff, right? I'm guessing you just went out. You said you started sending letters and started taking action, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say that's like the biggest thing in business. My part is a lot of people sit there and try to figure every nitty gritty thing out and I would say the biggest thing that I found success in is just going and taking action. I would say my business partner this time, Sean, was kind of the behind the scenes and trying to make sure everything was. The boxes were checked, but I was always like gotta go, this makes sense, let's just take action. And it worked 10 or 11 deals in six months off, having no clue what we were doing. Oh my gosh, dude. Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 1:No scripts, no coaching, nothing. Just get after it and learn on the fly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I attribute a lot to Wiscory. I don't know if you guys have one down there, we do but I mean, yeah, they've done it, so you can do it too, in my opinion 100%.
Speaker 1:I think that it was another nugget. I'm glad you went back to that, ryan. I wanted to talk about was the networking opportunities. I think on every episode I talk about how important it is to get out to networking things, especially if you're just trying to get started. We run one in Green Bay called the REI Success Club. It's a little different format than a REIA, but same idea, right. It's all about building your network, seeing other people who are doing it, learning best practices, getting contacts, getting connections, all that kind of thing, and that happens. We have a Wisco Ria in Green Bay, we've got one in Appleton, I think. There's another Wisco Ria in Wausau, I believe. I think there's one down in Milwaukee now Milwaukee and yeah, eau Claire, I don't know.
Speaker 2:There's like seven, eight, nine, 10 of them now. So yeah, it's gross.
Speaker 1:I mean, the opportunities to network are there, right, and it's just getting out there. There's another group that started over by us I don't know if there's one out by you guys yet but it's called caffeine and cashflow. A guy who actually used to work for us, zach, started that and it's an opportunity for people who can't get out at night Like I think he started it because he's got young kids and didn't want to be out at networking events at night, so you started it for during the daytime. So another opportunity is get out and build your network. But you know what were some of the biggest takeaways for you? You know you said that first meeting you came out of there, was it just the belief and seeing other people do it? Was it the big vision? Was it tactics? Like what were the things?
Speaker 2:if you can remember back to that, I would say honestly it was more side of it, because I think a lot of people like they want to get into real estate but they generally don't know how and, like with scoria, like I don't know, at the beginning at least like they break it down very dumb and it's very easy and it's just like you know, if you send a letter and you find a property that's under, you know 70 percent of market value and you buy it, you can do this with that. Now you have money. No, it's very simple. Um, but I mean I would say there's a million different things on why I continue to go.
Speaker 2:I think the network is huge at the beginning. I think you can learn from people and I had a mentor, josh, and audrey borcharding, that taught me a lot. Oh yeah, I know josh. Yeah, so, like those guys have taught me a lot and just meeting people. But I think, like the network now, like I probably work with every single person in that room on something Wow, that's amazing. Partner on deals they send us deals but the referral fees, their contractor help, you know all kinds of different things so you know, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what it sounds like, ryan. It sounds like you're intentional when you go to these things, cause I I know that this is another important part. It's one thing to show up and that takes a lot of balls for some people you know that's just outside of a lot of people's comfort zone is to get in a room with a bunch of people you don't know who already know each other, and it can be a little intimidating, right. It's another thing, though, to go into these rooms and just say I need to be intentional and I need to meet this person, this person, this person, and that you might not know their name yet, but you know what type of person you need to get it going. Or you might be somebody who's like I don't know what I need yet. I'm going to show up, but I'm going to meet. I'm going to meet everybody in this room I can, and try to at least make a connection here before I leave. That could be beneficial, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I agree. I mean my thing now when I walked in that room is I just try to like build people up and like get them to grow, growing. They have a relationship with me and they're going to help me with something later down the road. So I think you know, I'm getting their first duplex. Maybe I don't make any money on that transaction, have no involvement, um, but they remember that and then when there's something that I want or they know that I want it, they call me and like I would say, well, on that end, it's super valuable for me as well as for them. So, um, I wouldn't say I'm super, super is for them. So, um, I wouldn't say I'm super, super intentional on there.
Speaker 1:but I just I mean, as long as you build people up, I think it comes back to you, to be honest but yeah, well, you're not just sitting in the back of the room is my point, and just, uh, you know, just sipping on a cocktail, not talking to anybody, yeah no yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's. I think that's such an important point. Talk about the multi transition. So it sounded like you started out like flipping and wholesaling. When did the when did the multifamily transition happen and how did that go down?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I would say it was like 2020, 2021, probably like right post COVID. I mean I had a triplex and like a couple of deals, but I think a creative finance kind of changed my life. I'm trying to listen to like Pace Morby and those people on YouTube and I made good money at the time, but like 20% down, if you do 20% down on every deal, it's very hard to grow, no matter how much money you're making, even if you're making, you know, a few six figures a year. Very, very, very difficult For sure. Yeah, I mean I was off market sending stuff to find bigger deals and just kind of looking at them, but I was always like, how do I do this?
Speaker 2:But the first big deal that changed my life it was a 40 unit kind of like yours, from the sounds of it, under valued, it was around 50K, you know a little bit less. And I walked like you know I could come up with 20% barely like, but I would be stretching myself so thin and I remember kind of walking out of the deal like kind of frustrated and I was talking to the seller and what did they say? They're just like, well, you know, like we probably could carry some money back and I was like huh, I'm like what does that mean? And I ended up stuff up and basically the seller ended up carrying back like 30% or 40% of the purchase price and I bought it for $2 million and I appraised for $3. So I ended up coming into that deal with no money down. I think I even got a check at closing and I was like poof.
Speaker 2:I was like if I can find good deals, I don't necessarily need 20% down, but two. I think a lot of big commercial sellers are more, they're more open to do creative finance or do creative things than smaller, you know, the single home person or a duplex owner. Like they want their money now, they have one or two, they want to cash over retirement. But like when somebody has a 40 unit, you know if they get 1.4 million right now and 600,000 over five, 10 years, like sounds that doesn't. You know, it's not a big deal. So yeah, that's yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:No, that's. I love that you're talking about that and that's such a great point that. So Ryan and I were talking before we hit record today and I was telling him about a 40 unit that I sold in Fond du Lac and I got I got. I thought I had a deal of a lifetime when I bought. It Turns out there's an elevator in there that went to kaputs and it was the only elevator that was still functional and so I had to replace it, and it was like over 300 grand to replace this elevator.
Speaker 1:But to that point I ended up selling it and I sold it to another investor in my network Guy I'd done several deals with and did it all no brokers, nothing else and I ended up carrying back 300 grand on that deal, and so for me the benefit was I got to offset some taxes, so it didn't bump my tax bracket up very much and I got a check. So it was kind of like I still had the property in a sense right, but now I didn't have to deal with the tenants and I didn't have to deal with this stuff. I just got my. I get my check every month. He still pays me to this day.
Speaker 1:I still get my check every month and it's great and I don't ever have to hunt them down, I don't have to think about it, and if he stops paying me, I get the property back and it's a great thing. So it worked out great for me and we've done several deals on the opposite side as the buyers right when you're, they want you to have skin in the game, right, they don't want you to get these free lunches, so to speak. So how are you navigating that with some of the lenders out there? Like, what's that conversation like? Is that just a relationship that you have, or how has that worked out for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say 90% of the time they do want to see some skin in the game. So a lot of the times I'm coming with 3%, 5% down. Still, I would say that was an anomaly and I that doesn't happen very often, not saying it can't, um, but I would say having good community lenders is huge. Um lenders that'll probably do things that most people couldn't get, just due to the relationship, how long we've been doing it. Um, but for the most part I would say they do want skin in the game. I think if you can get that second mortgage, you know a lot more than just the down payment, like 40%, 50% to them it's like okay, you know, as long as it hits debt service coverage ratio, like they're happy, you know. So for the it's still possible, but it is difficult. Most of them want to see something, at least in my experience.
Speaker 1:But so yeah, no, that's a great point that you brought up with the higher equity.
Speaker 1:We did one in here I live in Door County and we did one on a single family house and the seller had it as an Airbnb and he just didn't want to have to manage it anymore.
Speaker 1:He was self-managing it and all that stuff and his biggest thing was selling it was he didn't want to clean out the property and get rid of the stuff and he just wanted his mortgage paid off and he owed like 230 grand on his mortgage and so he didn't really need the cash or whatever. And so we structured it. We gave him 550 for the house and we got it so he would take a second lien on it, and we got a bank to fund I think they funded the whole mortgage plus all of our furniture and everything else. So we got into this deal with no money out of pocket probably 100 grand of equity and now I pay him every month. He loves it because he gets his monthly check and same kind of thing. But on that one the bank was like, uh, yeah, we'll do that deal all day long, because they were like under 50. You know ltv on it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it was good for him. But I would tell people to like, don't get stuck on like one or two banks. You know like you're gonna have to go around and you know, meet people and make those relationships Cause like, yeah, sometimes they're not going to fit the box or what you need, so just keep, you know, keep looking.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and their appetite changes too. You know, that's another thing to your point, ryan. That we talk about over here is, uh, you know, one one year I'll have one bank who's great. They're very aggressive. They really want real estate in their portfolio, and then that silo gets full for them and they're like, okay, now we got to diversify a little bit. We need more manufacturing or industrial or something else in their loan packages that they want to fill their other silos up with, and so they'll get less aggressive on real estate. They're less willing to do some of the creative things. They're less willing to be aggressive on rates and terms and things like that, and so we preach the same thing.
Speaker 1:In fact, in the Burfer Beginners course that I was talking about at the start of this, that's one of the main things that we talk about. They got to go out and do is build relationships with a bunch of community banks, and then you're just shopping with the banks and they get it. They understand it's a business You're going to go with. Whoever is going to give you the best deal for that deal. I'll hold that against you on the next one, correct, yeah? So what are some of the other things? How are you guys getting these deals? So you mentioned now you guys have like 700 plus units in the multifamily stuff. What's the acquisition strategy for you guys? Is it still sending letters or how are you guys going about finding these deals?
Speaker 2:We do a lot of different things.
Speaker 2:So I guess the other business is kind of fresh, but we've been doing it for a while 715 homebuyers, which is kind of like our lead acquisition business plus flipping business, but, um, I mean, we do all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2:I think letters is one of the biggest ones we still do, um, but to be honest, I would say most of our leads now come from relationships um realtors, brokers, people from wiscoria, um, a weird thing that we do, which I don't think anybody or not a lot of people are doing, is we'll partner on a deal with somebody that we've never met before. That might not be, we're both on the deed of the property together, but if we buy it, we'll run the deal and walk them through the entire process and then split the proceeds at the end based on how good the deal is, sometimes even up to 50-50. We've had a lot of people bring deals in that scenario and I would say the reason we do that as me and Brandon that own that business, like we don't operate day to day, we have an operator. So like, as long as we pay for them and pay for everything and pay for the contractors and we split it. Well, that's still money that we never would have seen if they wouldn't have brought the deal.
Speaker 1:So that's such a great way to look at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like that's, that's something we do. That's weird, but I mean, we do all the same stuff, put stuff in the yards in front of our properties and we're looking for more uh messaging for rent ads that are really, you know, nasty property Uh. So I know all the off market stuff that you can do. But yeah, uh, we're doing Facebook ads and stuff right now and we're not doing the best with that, but we always try something new all the time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, for sure, we ran into that too. We're doing. We're doing some PPC stuff and some SEO and other other social media ads. We found the social media stuff does tough in this industry for some reason. I mean, some guys I know that are doing really well. That's like their main strategy. We just haven't cracked the code or maybe put enough content out or whatever that's speaking to the sellers per se. You know it helps with dispositions on the buyer side. We put a lot of content out to educate investors and all that kind of stuff. But when it comes to sellers, we just haven't cracked the code on the Facebook social media thing yet.
Speaker 2:Oh, how about PPC? How's that one for you? Yeah, it's pretty good yeah yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 1:We use an outside service. They're pretty expensive. I think we pay them like $2,000 a month just for managing the PPC, yeah, and then we spend about I think like $10,000 a month on PPC ads, the actual ad spend. So it's a pretty hefty. I mean, we're paying 20% management fee basically on this stuff, but, uh, but it brings as long as the ROI is there. You know, that's the, you know that's it.
Speaker 1:The biggest issue we have in our with PPC. We also do TV ads, uh, and then direct mail and those are our three main marketing channels. And, um, if our team, we, they're doing a great job now, but if they don't ask the lead, where did they hear about us? It comes in PPC quote, unquote in our system and to Salesforce, but if they don't ask, we can't attribute it. Oh, I saw you on TV and then I Googled you. Well, we got to give TV some credit for that contract. Then too, right. Well, we got to give TV some credit for that contract. Then too Right.
Speaker 1:So that's the hardest part with a PPC. Could look like a great return on ad spend. But if you really boil it down sometimes it's oh, I got your postcard and I Googled you, you know. So it's gotta you gotta kind of make sure they're asking so you can attribute it to all the marketing channels. That's just what we found. Okay, yeah, yeah. Are you guys doing? Are you guys self-managing? Did you create a management company? How are you guys, uh, handling all these units? Right?
Speaker 2:yeah, we self-manage everything, so, which is a lot of fun, but, um, that's probably, I mean, one of the most difficult things that I've done. I would say, is managing um, but, yeah, we manage everything. We have a head, pm and four admins and we have five maintenance guys and we do all our own time. Um, I got burned by third party management a few times and I'm just like I can't do it again. And with how big we are, I think if, um, I got my off the ball with third party management, it would just blow up pretty quick. So for sure, yeah, that's always done it and I actually went to I don't know if you know who logan raken is I went to, yeah off and have talked to him about it in links and, to be honest, um, I think that's the only way if you want to get big, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, logan and I are good friends and he's such a unicorn. I've been trying to get him on the podcast but he's so, he's so focused on his uh time and energy he's. He's tough Even for even for a good friend like me. He will. He won't pop on the podcast without me scheduling it, like a year in advance, probably, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's definitely a unicorn, so I agree there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was the? What was the breaking point for you guys, Ryan? Was there a unit count? I know you said the third party management, but was there also kind of this climax that happened where you got to a certain amount of units and it became hard to manage the manager? Or was it just a? You know what was that?
Speaker 2:we were kind of like half managing it ourselves. And then we had some units like a trailer park and some other things. We had a management company doing that me and another partner owned um, and it wasn't like they were like dropping the ball. But I think the hardest part is like there'd just be a lot of dollars that I know we could have gotten by us doing it ourselves. But climax moment, um, I think having the experience and like just living with all the employees and all the customers, like I knew that I could probably do a decent job at it maybe not logan, but um, yeah, it wasn't really a climax moment, to be honest. But I think, knowing what I know now, I think that's the only way if you want to own this many units, especially in the environment we have, with what stuff is priced at.
Speaker 1:So right, yeah, it's like that's the one factor that we run into with growth. Right, I'm actually hiring right now a commercial acquisitions agent, so we have an ad out for it right now to kind of grow that portfolio again and start getting back into some multifamily acquisitions. But it is tough because they get to run your expense ratios higher and all this other stuff. When you're competing against guys like you or Logan who are self-managing, your expense ratios can be quite a bit lower and that helps obviously drive up your NOI but also can help you drive up that offer price. It's the same thing we talk about with people in the single family or smaller space. It's like if you're using hard money to buy your properties, it's awesome, it's a great place to start if you can get deals, but you're going to miss out on deals because you can't be competitive enough on your offer, because your financing cost is going to be too high.
Speaker 2:And this is where we talk about getting community banks or private money going. That's a better option, right? Yeah, yeah, no 100. Yeah, our community bank, I mean I would say it's probably just. I mean we can close in like five to seven days um with a community bank oh yeah, five to seven days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's some things that are like community banks, at least the one we have. I don't want to necessarily shout them out. It's unbelievable some of the stuff they will do, like fund the whole construction up to 85 percent, like on the purchase, you know. I mean we're sending, you know, text messages with photos of completion, no escrow company, none of that stuff. I mean it's pretty awesome once you can wow so yeah, that's amazing, that's like the best part.
Speaker 1:You're talking about partnerships and I'm like man that. That sounds to me like the best partnership I've heard of yet. Is that community?
Speaker 2:bank right there. Yeah, I mean, I've had hard money lenders reach out to me a million times. I'm like you don't understand. Like it's already, I already have one, but it's a bank, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you can't compete with that buddy. No for sure, For sure, that's it. That's incredible. Lot of partnerships. It sounds like right. Whether that's somebody bringing you a deal or you have a couple, it sounds like within a couple of the different businesses that you're running, you've got different partners in there. How do you manage all the partner relationships? Talk a little bit about that, Cause I know this is one of the things I hear from people who are starting out. A lot is they say well, I'm going to, I'm just going to get a partner and we'll split it 50, 50. Not be the best thing, because you know, especially in the long-term game, that can end really ugly and nobody likes to talk about how it's going to end. It's going to end at some point. Somebody's going to die, Somebody's going to want out, so at some point it ends so like nobody wants to talk about that up front and that ends up leading to problems later. How are you setting these up on the front end? How are you managing these partner relationships? Does all that go down?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean for the most part I've taken on probably too many, but I haven't had many blow up yet, so I wouldn't say I'm an expert at it. I think a lot of it is just talking about stuff and getting it on paper and your operating agreement, kind of like what the expectations are from the two roles. But for the most part, all my partnerships besides one are all in real estate and the biggest thing is we manage all the property and that's kind of how it works. We get a percentage 7% on all the stuff we manage. It's all ran one way. There's like we have nine different owners that we managed for and they're all. Some of them are 50, 50 with me and the biggest thing is we run it our way. So like we're not going to call them because you want your property ran this way or that way. It's just it is what it is. Um, a lot of them, I guess.
Speaker 2:On that end, the main reason I partnered at the beginning was either I didn't have the capital to buy something or, um, you know, they had a really good deal that I wanted to be a part of. So but there were people that I was already working with. For the most part. I have two partners on Stable Living, which is the operating business, the assisted living business that I'm partners with, real estate and that business. We work pretty well together. I think I started that and they kind of came on later so and they worked for me. So it's just, it's always went well. But to be honest, I don't know what the answer is for that Cause I think a lot of people I think a lot of people also like they're very stringent on what they want and I'm pretty I'm willing to bend as long as it makes sense.
Speaker 1:So and yeah, yeah, no, that's good, that's good stuff we had. I had one same thing I. I got brought me a multifamily a few years ago and he wanted to be you know, for his compensation you want to be like a minority owner in the deal. And that was the same thing. Up front I just said, hey, look, happy to do that with you, no-transcript. But ultimately, uh, I don't need to be having somebody coming in and telling me how to how to run it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think buy, sell agreements too, and just like, if somebody wants to sell, how does that look? How do you know? That type of stuff is huge. But I mean, yeah, for the most part I would say management-wise, and that's where the majority of the partnerships are. It's all set up that we are managed by this company. This is how it looks, Cool.
Speaker 1:But yeah, Do you know roughly, Ryan, what your cost to manage is your percentage-wise?
Speaker 2:Less than 7%. Right now we're around, I would say 6%, yeah, so we're not saving a ton. The hard part for us is we're, I would say, more affordable housing C-class apartments for the most part, so our rents are lower. Well, to operate a C apartment or operate a B-plus apartments, it's kind of the same. So I think that's a big thing that I didn't really think about either.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point. I've never thought of that about either. So, but that's a really good point I've never thought of that factor either. As you talk about it, I'm like you know what. That's true, it's a percentage based thing, but you're going to get higher rents on a on a higher class property with probably less problems and less management.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. Yeah, I think that's the hard part about the percentage game.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's like well, if you're running a, you know a D class place and you're going off a percentage, you're kind of getting screwed. So, but I don't know. But if you, if you're outsourcing it, maybe not as bad for you as the investor, right, but if you're trying to do it in-house, then you're getting screwed. Yeah, A hundred percent, yeah, yeah for sure. What would you say to somebody out there, ryan, that is trying to get into multifamily game, cause I know by us it's tough sledding on any kind of deals that make sense right now with where interest rates are at and all that other kind of stuff. And I know I've had.
Speaker 1:We used to run a mastermind ourself, a small group. I think we had like 10 different businesses in it that we led into the mastermind group and I remember specifically there was this couple. They were doing great. They were picking up base hits on single families, duplexes, triplexes, either burn them or flipping them for cash and building up a nice little portfolio. And then they got sidetracked with multifamily and it threw them completely off, stopped all their momentum, and then I don't even know if they've bought anything in the last few years now, because they just kind of went off the rails there and I don't want to see that happen to other people that listen to this episode, where they're like I'm going for the elephants now. Right, I want to be like Ryan Gray, how do I get there this quickly? Right, like what would you say to somebody who's trying to get that first one right now?
Speaker 2:I mean I think you do the same stuff you're doing with single family, the triplexes. I mean same kind of strategies to find them. I think the biggest thing is being prepared to close them when you get the opportunity, just having the right strategies in your toolbox for how to offer a second mortgage or carry back or owner finance or if you got to put 20% down, having that money and be ready to go, because I think a lot of big sellers they can kind of feel out if you're not ready to buy something that big. And honestly, I think a couple of my times I wasn't probably ready but I figured it out. So I think that's the big thing.
Speaker 2:I mean the thing about us like I'll still buy a single family house and keep it as a rental or flip it. I mean I'll try to land a 90 unit. Like it doesn't really to me a good deal is a good deal. I know a lot of people are like have a little strict buy box or do I know it's way under value and I can cash flow, to be honest, right, so I'm different that way. So you bring me a box in Eau Claire from Wisconsin discount properties. I probably would buy it.
Speaker 1:So nice, that's awesome. I'm going to start trying to get some deals out there, ryan, so I can start selling you some stuff, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's not many good wholesalers here.
Speaker 1:So I think that's a big advantageous thing about us too is like there's not much competition, but also there's a lot less units. So, yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true, yeah, we, we get. I think eau claire is probably similar to oshkosh college town, similar population size, I would guess something like similar to that, and it's there's deals there, but they're they're fewer deals for sure and we yeah, you don't have people spending tens of thousands of dollars trying to find them, so that's the nice thing.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, for sure. Are there any multifamily deals left in Eau Claire, because I think it sounds like you bought them all, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a lot, there's a ton, there's a ton. Honestly, most of my units, I would say, are in the rural towns too, like, say, are in the rural towns too, like around eau claire, so, like a lot of the stuff in eau claire, pricing is, I mean even for a b class kind of cruddy apartments 100 110 000 in an apartment and it's just like the lab doesn't.
Speaker 1:so, yeah, but yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. You and I are very similar, though it sounds like right as we talk. I'm the same way. I just bought a mobile home on like an acre of land and it's, I think it's. I think it was a fantastic deal. I bought it for 50. I put 5,000 into it and I got it rented for 1300. Home run that's a home run deal and we had it out to our buyers list. Everybody in our buyers list passed on it. So that's how I typically buy my deals is? It's like, when everybody passes on the deal that I I'm like, well, fine, I'll buy it and Nobody else wants it. So I usually put it out to the buyers list first. But that was an interesting one that I like to give people FOMO on. But then I'm the same as you. I'm like, okay, I also would like 100 units right now, but I don't care. I bought a duplex upper, lower duplex this year Same thing, it was a great deal no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Like I, I care that my properties are quality and people want to live there, but for the most part, I don't care what neighborhood they're in. I mean, they could be in the middle of nowhere, as long as it's doing its job like I. Just don't. It's. That's not what it's about. In my opinion, a lot of people get stuck on like well, I want a side-by-side duplex that looks like this, that fits this like well, as if it's an upper lower and it makes more money.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 1:I don't know, you know, yeah, yeah, I'm actually going to take this clip, ryan, and I'm going to have Reese from our team listen to this right now because I'm giving him a shout out. But he loves side-by-side duplexes and I've been trying to convince him like upper lowers are great too and they appreciate too. Uh, his biggest thing is he thinks side-by-sides are going to appreciate way more. I've actually seen our upper lower duplexes probably appreciate at a higher rate because they're more affordable, and so that number just keeps climbing and it's almost like but it's like getting really close to some of the I would would say, older side-by-sides.
Speaker 2:Well, to me, side-by-sides appreciated a ton in the last five years like way too much. So can they? I don't know maybe, but I haven't bought a side-by-side in a couple of years because I'm like, oh, this doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty much all owner-occupied house hackers now that can buy those when you can build it prices you can buy it. Why wouldn't you build it, Right? Yeah, I agree, I agree. What does the future look like, Ryan? So you guys are at a pretty, pretty awesome point. You've grown really fast. Is it now stabilized what you've got? Does it continue to grow at a certain number? What does that look like for you guys?
Speaker 2:No, I don't have a number in my head or anything like that. I'm enjoying the process right now. I would say our big goals right now is to get into the property management more and try to systemize it more, make it more self-running. We have somebody that manages it and runs it for us, but I can't leave for a month and be excited about coming back and how things are going. I think that's the biggest thing. But stable living, maybe a group home or two a year, so not big, massive growth. And then multifamily, just whatever comes across the table that I can take down for the most part, not trying to double or anything, so just whatever. Nice, yes.
Speaker 1:But that's awesome, man. Yeah, that's awesome. What is what is the why behind it for you, ryan? What? What keeps you moving, besides just the thought of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, and besides just the thought of it. Yeah, I mean, I have two kids and stuff that I care about and want to spend more time with, but I don't know if that's the right answer. Honestly, I would say I enjoy business. I enjoy coming to work every day. I do work hard, I would say, when I'm at work, but I'm very much at 8 am to 4.30. I go home, I'm done. I'm not going to continue to work 50, 60 hour weeks anymore. Um, I will take phone calls after work too much, but for the most part um to me like, if you're at work, why not give it your all while you're here? You know you're gonna come and why not give it everything you got? So, yeah, that's my thing. Once I'm done with the office, I don't, you know, I want to go, enjoy life and vacate, go to europe more and do all that stuff. So that's awesome, man, europe, did you?
Speaker 1:say europe, you say Europe, you'd like to go to.
Speaker 2:I've been to Europe a few times and, to be honest, I, if I could, I'd probably live there all summer.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I love it, but, yeah, that's awesome. We've been to France and Italy and both of those places were great. I love Italy, it'll favorite. So, yeah, awesome man, that's cool. Go back. I want to go back. Before we wrap, ryan, just to talk more about the commercial bank relationships that you had. Are there any keys that you found when you were starting out to start those relationships? Was there credibility that you had to build? What was it that got the relationships going? That seemed to open up Pandora's box for you here a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if I have the answer, but I mean, at the beginning the bank that I work with the most actually approached us and they were from a smaller town and they came to Eau Claire and they're like hey, we want to grow with you, we're trying to meet more young investors to grow with. I don't know if that's the right answer, but I would say trying to find banks that have a smaller lending limit I would say is a big thing, and trying to get in with those banks the smaller the better, somebody that where you can walk in and meet the president the next day and just talk to them and meet them and you know, not necessarily their friend, but build a true relationship. I think, especially when you're starting out, it's just massive. I think a big thing with us that got us to Pandora's box or whatever was having business experience beforehand. Having a thriving that was cash flowing, I think helped us a lot.
Speaker 2:I think trying to do all the things we would have done without that probably wouldn't have happened. But I would say I think big thing is doing what you say you're going to do. I think we always kind of said you know what we were going to do, like our goal is to buy a hundred units the next couple of years. You know and kind of explained it out. So I would say another thing.
Speaker 2:I mean this is a raking thing, but having like really good financials and being really organized, like with what you're giving them, having your three years of tax returns, your pfs, your debt schedule, you know all that stuff when you walk in a bank makes you incredible and most investors, I would say, are super disorganized and cowboy everything. So they walk in and they're like I want to get approved and they ask for a bunch of stuff that it takes them three months to get it to them. You know, like, if you walk in and you're like here's my book with all my units and what I'm doing and my goals and my family, you know like you're going to get a different experience.
Speaker 1:in my opinion, 100% right and I I'm as guilty as I am. I'm not as good at keeping up with my stuff until the bank asked for it. But then, as soon as they asked for it, I just had to get a PFS over to a banker yesterday who we're working on a nice little line of credit with, like, okay, I need the PFS, I need your rent rolls and I need your debt schedule. So I had my assistant pull all the rent rolls. I started getting back on the PFS to get all that stuff like up to date and organized. I usually do it once a quarter at least, but I was a couple of months behind and and then that schedules over to them and it's just super easy and they appreciate that speed of like. They don't have to. They don't have to chase you down for it or hunt you down or remind you.
Speaker 1:It's like again, think about the, the power, ryan, that you unlocked with these relationships, and like how much wealth you've built in seven years. It's incredible to like to how much you've built and it's because you're treated like a business. If you're an amateur hour out there, you're going to be doing base hits for the rest of your life. You know you got to treat it like a business and put the big boy pants on, so to speak, and and present yourself like you're presenting, like, like a business, like you're trying to you're, you're, it's a business plan that you're essentially giving the bank.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, I think I mean that's huge. I mean it didn't start that way. But I think you know learning from mistakes and you know when they're asking for you that stuff like be ready to go. So but I mean, I think the action part is more important than all that stuff, cause you can figure that out later. But if someone's telling you to do it, do it. You know you're ready.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it's like like what, what? What you're saying is just like you don't have to sit here before you go get a deal on your belt and create a PFS, which is a personal financial statement. If you if you're not familiar with what that is, that's every bank's going to ask you for that. It's basically you list out all of your assets against all your liabilities, and it shows your net worth, and so the bank kind of gets an idea of how bankable you are at this point, and then the debt schedule. What Ryan's talking about is like who do you owe and what's your monthly payments, and you kind of spell all that out on a little sheet for them so they can kind of get a grasp of your whole global picture of what you got going on. But you don't have to necessarily sit and create that, especially if you're just starting out. You probably don't have much to put on there anyway. It's going to take you two hours maybe max, to put something like that together. So just go take action and go get a freaking deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of them too. Hey, you want to go get coffee and stuff? They'll do that type of stuff too and meet. Connecting with them is huge, so yeah.
Speaker 1:For sure, For sure. Before we wrap Ryan, any last word that you would have for the Wisconsin investor audience out here from anything that you've learned in these last seven years and in your years previous to that in business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, not really. I would say the biggest thing is get into West Korea, get into those groups, because I think those I mean you can do it on your own. But I think when you have people there that are willing to help you and meet with you and a lot of them are so open they'll have coffee with you and talk to you or you're off. So just go do it. Um, I think that's kind of the life changing thing. And then, uh, just take actions, surround yourself with good people.
Speaker 1:So yeah, no, that's great. That's great, I think. The networking piece too. You mentioned one of the things. Some, some places I've learned in Wisconsin or some of these groups. They're not as open as like sounds like what you guys are out in Eau Claire, what Northeast Wisconsin investors are. We're very open, like we all had somebody help us so and so I think we all feel and that's why we do the birth for beginners course now for free it's just a give back. It's like hey, go learn this stuff, and if we can help you, you know great. But you know I'm sure at some point we'll do a deal with you. If we don't, that's fine too. It's not a go do it. So when we get a deal out of it, it's just a give back, like somebody helped me learn this stuff and it helped me tremendously and help my family. I'll be able to offer that back to people locally that can do the same thing. And the networking side of things for the audience out there what Ryan's talking about Wisco, ria they have multiple locations throughout the state. They also have a lot of Facebook groups too for each location. So that's another great place to connect online with people.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of great discussions that happen in these groups and people who have questions, and you can just search in the group. If you have a question, you can probably search in one of these groups and they'll find it. We also run one called the REI Success Group or Success Club. It's on Facebook and then you can come to the events for that. It's the fourth Tuesday of every month in Green Bay, so come on out.
Speaker 1:I think this month I don't know when this will drop, necessarily, ryan, but if this drops before the next one, we have talking about AI and investing coming up, so that'll be a good one. We change the topic every month, obviously, like all the groups do. But get involved in these groups, like Ryan's talking about guys, and that's that's build your network up, whether that's lenders you're looking for, whether that's, you know, just a handyman you need. Whatever the case is, it's in the group. Somebody's already got it, so go get it, ryan. Last question we always wrap with this kind of a fun one what is your favorite wisconsin tradition or place to visit in wisconsin?
Speaker 2:that's tough, um, I mean for me, I go camping in o'neill creek, so that'd be my top spot, but I would say hayward, wisconsin, um and hayward, um. Actually we're going september 10th to the 12th. We're going uh, we have a retreat that's through Wiscoria, so if anybody wanted to do this, honestly they could. But we're going out on a cabin and doing some real estate stuff and then musky fish and hang out in the lake, all that stuff. So I would say that's probably my favorite place in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1:Dude, I love that area Hayward, minocqua, eagle River, that whole Northern Wisconsin. Well, ryan, if you have a link for that or anything, feel free to shoot it over. We'll get it in the show notes as well for the audience. So if you want to want us to put that in, we're happy to do so. If anybody wants to connect with you, ryan, or has questions or has a deal for you that they want to talk about partnering with you on what's the best way for them to connect with you, yeah, to connect with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just Ryan Gray, G-R-A-Y on Facebook or 715homebuyersllccom, If you guys have a deal and shoot it over. But Facebook, Instagram, they're the two I do use.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, awesome, very cool, well, and everybody, thanks for tuning in again. If you guys got some value out of this episode, please share it on whatever socials you guys have. Help us, continue to get the word out about investing here in Wisconsin. Get some other people in here. It's that ripple effect, right? Somebody else could hear this episode and this could be the absolute thing that changes their life for the future. It also can help you as well, as we talk about on every episode. If you're sharing this, you're going to let people in your network know that you're into real estate investing and you're going to attract lenders. You're going to attract contractors. You're going to attract employees. If you're hiring All these different deals, like what Ryan's talking about you're going to get some deal flow from it. So, share the episode, help yourself, help us and until then, guys, we'll see you on the next episode.
