The Wisconsin Investor

From Market Crash to Multi-Million Dollar Wisconsin Portfolio: Secrets & Strategies

• Corey Reyment

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In this episode of The Wisconsin Investor Podcast, Corey sits down with seasoned investor Ben Keleny, who built a multi-million-dollar portfolio with long-term rentals, short-term rentals, boutique hotels, and even a church renovation. Ben shares how he capitalized on the 2008 market crash and expanded his investments across Wisconsin and South Carolina.

Learn about Ben’s strategies for navigating market changes, using the BRRRR method, and leveraging creative financing. He also discusses the power of mid-term rentals, the challenges of self-management, and tips for new investors looking to scale their portfolios.

Don't miss out on this episode packed with real-world advice and strategies to help you succeed in Wisconsin real estate!

Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro and Giveaway Announcement
05:00 – Ben's Journey into Real Estate
15:00 – How Market Timing Changed Everything for Ben
22:00 – Managing Different Property Types (Short-Term, Long-Term, and More)
30:00 – Financing Deals: BRRRR, Private Money, and Lines of Credit
40:00 – Tips for New Investors & How to Make Your First Deal Happen
48:00 – Pivoting in Today’s Real Estate Market and Staying Opportunistic
54:00 – Final Words and How to Get Involved in Real Estate Today

🔑 Key Takeaways:

  • How to use the BRRRR method and creative financing to grow your portfolio
  • The difference between short-term and mid-term rentals in today’s market
  • How AI and technology are changing property management
  • The importance of having multiple exit strategies for each property

✨ Giveaway Details:
We're giving away some amazing prizes to our loyal listeners! Three winners will receive:

  • A 1-hour Real Deal Strategy Call with Corey
  • A $250 Amazon or Visa Gift Card
  • A Wisconsin Investor Starter Kit (merch, books, coffee!)

How to Enter:

  1. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
  2. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook
  3. Comment "DONE" on our pinned giveaway post on Facebook or Instagram and tag two friends!

Bonus entry: Share the pinned giveaway post on your social media and tag @TheWisconsinInvestor!

If you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by leaving a review and subscribing. It helps us reach more listeners like you and keep bringing valuable insights every week!

You can also connect with Ben directly at ben@doorbps.com
or check out his YouTube Channel @CheersLB for more content and real estate tips.

Thank you for supporting the podcast, see ya next week!

Corey:

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Wisconsin Investor. I'm super excited for today. I've got Ben Keleny here with me, a fellow Door County in, uh, but investing all over the place. So we're going to get into Ben's uh story here in just a minute. Before we do, though, guys, I got an exciting announcement. We are going to do a little giveaway for the audience coming up. So, all of you guys that have been loyal listeners, we want to reward you guys with some giveaways. So, I will uh talk a little bit about that before we wrap here today. So, hang on to the end of today's episode so you can figure out how to get into this giveaway that we're doing. Uh, and we're gonna do that uh New Year's, right around the New Year's time frame. Kick off the new year with some giveaways from the Wisconsin investor for you, our loyal listeners. So excited about that. Hang on to the end. With that, Ben, let's get right into it, man. Ben Calaney, how you doing, buddy?

Ben:

Good, man. Doing well, doing well. Thanks so much for uh having me here.

Corey:

Absolutely, dude. I'm excited to chat with you, dude. You got a lot of stuff going on. You've got a pretty wide background in in real estate uh all across Wisconsin, it sounds like so excited to get into that with you today. But uh, when did you get started in in real estate, Ben? And how did that how did that first deal come around?

Ben:

Sure. I mean, you know, the I guess the long the the long story is uh my my father had a rental property, coincidentally, uh Mifflin Street in Madison.

Corey:

Oh the old Black Party Street, okay.

Ben:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So that was uh that was a nice uh encouragement to uh to get involved there. He he bought a place there, and as a kid he had us help kind of do some of the fixing up a little bit, if you will, on the place. And okay.

Corey:

Every May, I'm sure there was plenty of fixing up to do.

Ben:

Oh yeah. Right. Oh yeah. Yeah, pretty much. We used to go down and uh, you know, we'd call it treasure hunting. You'd find all the stuff the kids would leave, and we'd ran, you know, pick up random bikes and TVs and all sorts of things. That's awesome.

Corey:

That would was that his only property? It was, it was, yeah. Interesting. Interesting. I'm sure we could probably riff on that for a while, why he only had the one and why it was on Mifflin Street, but we'll keep we'll keep her moving here. So you had him as your as your inspiration in your back, uh, you know, to get you kind of introduced to real estate. What a blessing that is, man, as a kid, right? Like opening your eyes to that.

Ben:

Yeah, for sure. I mean, just not only for us as kids, we uh you know, we appreciated the tenants that he had down there. We'll shout out to Mickey's Dairy Barn, one of the uh one of the tenants worked there. So we'd go in like we were big shots and they'd buy us breakfast occasionally. Oh nice. That's awesome, dude. That's awesome.

Corey:

So when did you when did you get your first deal and and when did that like what was your motivation when you saw that? Like, how did that come about?

Ben:

You know, it kind of one of those things as a kid, right? You just do what seems to make sense or what your parents tell you to do, basically. But uh, you know, later on down the line, I did some mortgage work. I I worked with uh, you know, one of the guys that I worked with was starting to do rental property, and then uh fast forward to probably about 2008, right around that the the lovely market crash that we saw. Yeah, uh I was I was in the market to start rolling. So that was kind of my initial first thing. I you know, houses were just so incredibly cheap at that point. Oh my gosh. You know, you you couldn't do bad if you were on the other side of the crash. Obviously on the front side, you're you're doing bad. But if you're if you're picking a house up for 30k, you know, that's something that if you can make it livable, you're doing okay.

Corey:

So yeah, you're gonna you're gonna do me just fine. So you got I mean, you had the timing. You're one of the rare guys that had the timing of the market work out for you like beautifully. Looking back now, I mean, that's gotta be something to think about.

Ben:

Oh, for sure, for sure. I mean, incredibly lucky with that. You know, my my wife's father was was big into rental too, and that kind of helped so we segue, you know, into properties through him in lacrosse area, and that uh, you know, he was a good good helper, a good guy, and he really helped us get going with that. So that turned out to be a a blessing for sure.

Corey:

So that's awesome, dude. So uh was your first deal in lacrosse then?

Ben:

Yep. Okay. Awesome. So you still have it today? I do, yeah. Yeah. Okay, my my wife is a little too fond of it to let it go at this point. So it's just a long-term rental and it's a nice house, though. It's a cute little spot.

Corey:

Okay. So you're is your wife involved in the business?

Ben:

You know, in limited spurts, right? As long as she has the patience for it, she does. But uh she's also a full-time teacher, so she doesn't really have too much time to play, but she really enjoys the the designing aspects and the you know, the imagining, the fun parts of it, right? Figuring out how something's gonna work, not actually doing the physical labor of making it work.

Corey:

Yes, for sure. That's my wife is the same way. She's an amazing designer. Uh, all of our Airbnbs she's she's done the design on, and I'm like, people always comment on how beautiful the spaces are, and she's she's definitely got a a knack for it. I always joke, I I don't even know how to color coordinate my clothes every day to get dressed, and let alone how am I gonna do a freaking house. And uh she's got that thing pretty dialed in. So it's nice to have that little that the the partnership, right? Where the strengths, yeah, the strengths that I don't have, she's got.

Ben:

Yeah, no, that's a a blessing. And she does lovely work for you, I'm sure. So yeah, yeah.

Corey:

What is so what does the portfolio look like today, Ben? What is that? You said you got you still got that long-term in lacrosse. What markets are you in, and what is the total portfolio look like today?

Ben:

Yeah, you know, so it it's kind of a varied portfolio, I guess, if you will. I've I've played the game different ways throughout the different years. Um, but I've I've got my base portfolio in in lacrosse is mostly long-term rental. We've got just a few short midterm type of places there, too, just two places actually. Uh, but an assortment, you know, single-family houses, duplexes, and occasional triplex over there. So that's kind of the base. The Sturgeon Bay area. I've got a mix of long-term and short-term here. Okay. Uh as well as two boutique hotels, which are kind of a weird deal, but fun. Yeah. Um, a little bit of stuff out of town, you know, just looking at that new lovely property we we picked up through you guys. Yeah. The old Korean church needs some love, but it'll be a really cool place. Uh, you know, and then two rivers. We've got a little bit of property there. And then the one only outlier out tight outside of Wisconsin is uh South Carolina. We've got a place on Tali Beach, which is crazy, but it's fun.

Corey:

It's a cool spot. Do you guys use that as a short-term rental and then stay there kind of a thing, or is that what the play is?

Ben:

Yep, yep, exactly. So it's it's uh it's an old beach cottage, you know, it's kind of uh a rougher house compared to a lot of what's around it, but yeah, for you know, our purposes it makes its money and gives us the place to land occasionally when it gets cold.

Corey:

So yeah, that's awesome, dude. You and I are very similar, you know, both door county ins. We've got a place in Florida, we do the same thing, like we get out of here usually. This year, we're sadly, I don't think we're gonna get there really at all this year. No, it's sad. I think I think we're we're gonna do Europe for a few weeks. Nice. Yeah, and that's gonna take up. We got some other travel plan, and we we do a team trip with our team here if we hit our goal, and I think we're gonna hit the goal this year, so we're gonna take our team on a trip somewhere. So it's like all that stuff going on, and our kids are getting older and they're into stuff now, so it's like a little bit harder to get them uh to want to go spend four months in Florida away from all their connections and friends and all that stuff. But we still have it. We've been doing more mid-terming with the house. You know, we we didn't we didn't rent it for a while, and now I'm like, well, if it's just gonna sit there, we gotta get some, we gotta, you know, the investor in me is my I start tweaking, I'm like doing my next graduate. Oh, yeah. I guess I'm gonna get some money coming in from this house. Like, can't just let it sit there.

Ben:

So that's uh I I look at everything, you know, the house we live, and I'm like, yeah, how can we how can we make some more money? How maybe rent this out? We'll travel in the summer. You know, everything's an investment, you know. It's not exactly a sentimental tie that some people have, but that's uh I guess a different mentality. So that's right.

Corey:

That's why I struggled. We had a boat, I just sold it this year, and we had a boat, and the whole time I was like, gosh, this thing is just such a depreciating asset, and I can't make any money on it. Like, how could I rent this boat? And I was like exploring all that out. Like maybe I could get it to some of the rental companies up here and they just like they pay me a cut of it or something. I don't know. Never did figure it out, so I just sold it. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't like I'm just I'll just rent a boat. Yeah, I'll just rent a boat if I want to take it out. So down in Florida, we're actually in a little boat club down there. Uh nice. So yeah, so it's nice. Like again, I'm just wasting money this year because I can't be down there. But when we are down there, it's nice. You just go on the little app, you say, like, okay, I want to take this boat out of this location. You hit the button, you show up, you get on the boat, they push you off, you come back, they pull you in, you get out of the boat, they clean it, you go. You don't have to do anything. No maintenance, I don't have to put a cover on, I don't have to do anything. It's so nice. So maybe I was spoiled maybe with with that whole arrangement that I'm like, wait, I have to put my own cover on my boat. Oh yeah. We look so spoiled. Yeah. Clean it off. Winterize? Ugh. Yeah. That could have been part of it. But well, that's cool, man. So do you guys get to go down there and use that place at all? Or is it how like how often are you are you getting down to South Carolina?

Ben:

You know, we're usually down there uh I'd say once a year is kind of what we try to do. Get down there, check in. Um, you know, I don't have uh, as of right now, a local manager for it, so I kind of self-manage that with uh with our other properties. So it's good, you know. I I and I've got a maintenance and I've got a cleaning team down there, but nobody really cares like you're gonna care, I guess, if you will, or maybe that's my Achilles heel on it, is that I try to micromanage, but yeah, yeah, it's nice to go down. You know, I I do a little bit of work, we have a little fun, the kids go, you know, play on the beach and yeah. Nice, dude. That's awesome.

Corey:

What so total units now, going back to the the mix of the portfolio, what does that look like? So of short terms slash midterms versus long term, like total, how many units are we talking about?

Ben:

You know, so long term probably looking at this point close to 40. Okay. Um short term, let's say looking about 25 units. Okay. So wow, that's awesome, dude.

Corey:

Are you are you self-managing all of these properties, or how are you how are you handling the management piece of it?

Ben:

I mean technical the South Carolina one there, but yeah, you know, I I and this is the good and the bad, right? This is what stops you from scaling, is that I I do manage most of them. I do have a property manager that I that that's her job, at least to take care of the the short-term units. And okay. Uh she's newer to the game, but she's she knows what she's doing pretty well. She's picking up speed pretty fast on things. So you know, the long term I've had property managers and just kind of had a friend doing it for a long time, and he stepped away to coincidentally pursue a a business, a moving business. I owned a moving business that I sold to him. Oh then it kind of became too busy to take care of the rental properties. So that's how it goes, you know. Yeah. But no, it it's good. And it's something that at this point, you know, as I slowly incorporate the different systems that are in place, the management system, stuff like that. It's it's a lot easier than it used to be. You know, online payments and reports and leak signing, it's all it's quick, it's easy. Not to say that it's not a headache, but it's still it's a lot less than it used to be.

Corey:

So yeah, for sure. I've always been anti-self-management myself, but like you said, in the last probably five years, I would say Ben, would you agree? It's just like the technology's really stepped up and made it a lot more manageable to man self-manage, it seems like.

Ben:

Yeah, I mean, it it's just gonna get even crazier. I'd it's I'm trying to stay up with it, but it's it's something changes, something's new every day. I mean, there's yeah, the the customer service chatbots that are you know, we get inquiries from people about something or other with one of the vacation homes and the software we have for that. It it's got one integrated and it'll it'll fire back to him right away. It'll give him an answer. You know, not not always a good answer necessarily, but that's it, I'm sure gonna get refined pretty quickly.

Corey:

Sure. So well, a lot of those websites they want you responding right away to help the help the rankings, right? I mean, that's something that they look at to get you higher up in the ranks, is how responsive you are as a host. So that speed to that response is an important factor, right? Oh, for sure, for sure.

Ben:

You know, and and people want a personal touch too, but just having somebody respond, I feel like that's nowadays it's it's a instant gratification world, you know. If somebody leaves you a hang and you're like, what's going on? I you know, yeah, our uh our patience level is going down i incredibly. So a hundred percent having having an autoresponder with a little bit more intelligence is huge. So yeah. What are you using for us uh management software for the so short terms? Uh owner res. I owner res right now. Before I had tried a couple other ones and landed on owner res just with you know the customer service of it. Uh puts that website out for you. I'm most of them are pretty relatively similar. Okay. Um, you know, the calendar integration is pretty good. The payment processing, all that stuff was pretty easy.

Corey:

So nice. Yeah, we're we're just in the process of getting set up with Guestie for Pros. We ran Guestie for hosts for a long time. It used to be called your porter, and Guestie bought it, but like they it was like the redheaded stepchild of Guesty, so there was like zero support whatsoever. Yeah. So like we'd have we'd have like VRBO would break all the time, like integration, and then there's just like nobody to help it. VRBO would be like, oh no, it's Guestie. Guestie, like three days later would email you back, oh no, it's VRBOs, and you're like, oh my gosh, you know, we're losing how much money right now because of this integration system. So we're we're going through the painful process of integrating a new or setting up a new system, but I think it'll be really good in the long run for us. And we're we're probably missing a lot of dollars by not being on something a little more professional than what we were on.

Ben:

So well, and I think guesty, maybe, maybe not. I'm pretty sure they also have some sort of an AI chatbot too integrated and then the dynamic pricing and all that type of stuff.

Corey:

So yeah, they have a lot of cool tools. I just that's the other overwhelming part, though. So I'm like, you know, you and I were talking a little bit before this, as you start getting into all these different types of real estate, right? You've got long-term, you've got short-term, you've got flips, you know, you've got commercial stuff, multifamily, storage. Like there's all there's net and never-ending if you want to grow, if you're growth-minded, real estate's a great place to just never stop growing because you can always learn something new or whatever. But it also can, as we were talking about, kind of can start to stretch you a little bit thin on certain things, right? Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah.

Ben:

No, and that's it. You know, a lot of the guys say figure pick one thing and do it well, right? Instead of pick five and do them all okay. It's uh it'll it'll inhibit your growth a little. But yeah.

Corey:

Yeah. Have you experienced that in in what you've done? Have you did you start with just focusing on the long terms or have you kind of been like me, like a little bit of squirrel brain and a little bit all over the place?

Ben:

Yeah, you know, always looking for the opportunity in it, I guess. Just kind of learning a lot as I've as I've gone with it. Um, you know, I did flips for a while. I it's you know, being the time that it was when we started buying the foreclosure game was kind of the the way in. So the uglier the better at that point. We were we were buying them for dirt cheap and they were just in rough, rough shape. But yeah, nobody wanted to touch them. But if you can buy a place for 2030, cost was way lower then. And yeah, yeah. I learned a lot of skills, so that's that was good.

Corey:

I bet. I bet. Nowadays, what do you what is the strategy for you in today's market, Ben? I mean, things I feel like have shifted a little bit here this fall. Uh we're seeing we're seeing that the markets maybe changing a little bit. Anything you're seeing here that you're you're pivoting to or that you're, you know, it sounds like you're an opportunistic investor, which is really cool. Like whatever the market's giving you, you're gonna sound like you're gonna go attack that and and capitalize on it, which is which is kind of nice that you can be that nimble, right? But what are you seeing? Anything you're seeing as you're going into 2026 here that you're kind of eyeing up as maybe opportunities?

Ben:

Yeah. Um, you know, that that mid that midterm, I think, is really a good space to be. Um you know, long term is always gonna be a stable, you're not gonna get rich on it in the short term, but you know, long-term rental you'll build appreciation regardless if the market goes up or down. You're gonna, you know, eventually be up there if you hold on long enough and you know, take care of the assets. So um, you know, I think the short-term market, unless you have a unique property, which I mean we're in Door County, so they're there it's a little insulated in the game, but I think we're we're hitting a point where it's saturated, so your average house isn't gonna necessarily make the money or balance out to what it would have, you know, a few years ago, versus long-term or midterm renting it. So especially for the extra headache and hassle of of doing short term. It's yeah, you know. Yeah. Um, other than that, I'm kind of kind of leaning into looking at some more multifamily potential, uh you know, possibly even building uh a bigger multiplex, but that's you know, like always something in the works if you're not if you're not busy or have something going on, then you get bored. So that's right.

Corey:

That's right. Yeah, that's we've seen that with all of our short our whole short-term rental portfolio. After COVID, it was like, man, you could put, or during COVID, you could just put a turd out there on your BNB or VRBO, and you'd be booked up with some crazy average daily nights and stuff like that. And then it was like everybody threw their houses up and just oversaturated the crap out of it. And so we've started to add like the hot, we started to pay for get the hot tubs going, you know, starting to add some of the other extra amenities, arcade machines, like all that kind of stuff to try to stand out from everybody else to to keep the bookings up and all that work. And three years ago, you didn't have to do any of that. You could just have a a nice bed and place for people to sleep, and they were tickled pink. Uh it's it's become a lot more competitive in the last couple years in the short-term game. Yeah. So yeah.

Ben:

Yeah, so I was just gonna say what what improvements or uh tips do you have for me then adding on the short term? What's what's seen the best return for your buck? What's you know what I mean?

Corey:

We just threw hot tubs in four of our Wisconsin properties. Um I had Tyler Cabot on one of the episodes a few probably three, four, or five months ago, maybe. And he runs a short-term rental management company out of Appleton. And that was one of the things he talked about on that episode was hot tubs. So I took action on it. I'm like, all right, I'm getting some hot tubs, you know. Uh and so we just got it took forever to get them, though, and then to get them installed. And I will say this so far they've been kind of a pain in the butt. We have one down in our Florida place too. And people book specifically for the hot tub, which is great, like awesome. We're getting like off-season bookings right now because of the hot tub. However, when the hot tub doesn't work, now you're in a bit of a pickle, right? And so we've already had you know a circuit board go out on one of them, and then down in Florida the heat pump is out, and people, you know, it it messes with that guest experience a little bit when they're coming there expecting to get in a hot tub, and you can't give them that hot tub. So if there's we're learning, it's new. Um, it's helping to obviously get bookings. Like one guy specifically said he booked um because of the hot tub. Like he searched specifically for hot tubs and boom, you know, book for that. So that was one thing. Another thing is we hired a guy um in the summer. Sounds similar to the person you were talking about that you've got um trying to help you with the property management piece of things. And uh he was a fresh guy out of college. We didn't really have a good role for him. We were just like, hey, come in here and help us make more money on short terms. Like, didn't really give him any training or anything. We're just like, figure it out. We're busy doing a million things, right? Like, figure it out. Throw them throw them to the wolves. Throw them to the wolves. And uh, you know, I don't know that that was the right thing to do. Uh we yeah, we we a couple months later we just uh you know decided it probably wasn't a good fit for for either of us, and we hired a third-party revenue management company. Um and they've been so far pretty good. Like they're in every day messing around with you know price labs and playing with putting different promotions out and doing all these different things to try to get the the um bookings up there, and so far we're seeing some results with that as well. So those two things are pretty new, but we're starting to see we're already seeing some some movement from what we were experiencing before from adding those two things in. So you know. Nice. That's it.

Ben:

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean the the hot tub, I feel like you can open up, especially since we don't really have ice fishing anymore. It it opens up a little bit more winter travel.

Corey:

So yeah, yeah, yeah. So we uh talk about that church a little bit, Ben. So you bought a church from us.

Ben:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you guys, you know, and just yeah, plugging you guys, it's even right now, you know, what's going on today, there's a couple waterfront places. I'm like, man, if I wasn't already spreading myself out a little too much with the projects, I'd I'd probably jump on a couple more. But yeah, you guys come across some some great projects, and yeah, but awesome, man.

Corey:

The church, yeah. What's the plan with the church, man? So you're buying it. So if everybody knows, Ben bought a church from us. We had a church out there for a while on our buyers list, and um the the sellers of this of this church, they just it kept going and we they kept saying, Well, we can lower the price, we can lower the price, so we kept putting it back out and lowering the price and lowering the price. And finally, Ben, it was just too tempting for you, man. You had to you had to bite on the apple, dude. So you took it on. What's the plan? What are you gonna do with this thing?

Ben:

Yeah, yeah. So uh for anybody, I guess, that wants the full context of it, it's an old Korean church. Uh, and that being said, if anybody's looking for uh any sort of Korean Bibles and church stuff, things like that, find me on the internet. I'll uh I'll give them to you. Okay.

Corey:

Okay.

Ben:

We've been spreading that out, but it'd be good to find somebody who'd actually appreciate that.

Corey:

We have a pretty strong Korean following on the Wisconsin Investor Podcast. Nice, nice. You never know? No, I never know. We'll find out, I guess, after this if we do or not.

Ben:

Yep, yep. Um, but yeah, you know, it it's a really neat project. You know, and just like anything with investing, right? You've got to be able to see the future potential through the uh see the see the diamond through the the turret, if you will. Yeah. Um you know, it it had some water damage, and so first we're kind of addressing that. They did a lot of updates on their own. And like, you know, at some point I think it it had a freezing on the top level. Water worked its way down to the basement, nobody was really around. So I think that scared off a lot of people. But that's opportunity, you know what I mean? That's how that's how I see it, I guess. And then uh yeah. So so with that, you know, we're looking, we'll probably do some updating, making it more of a living space, okay, with the potential for keeping it a church, keeping it kind of like an event space. You know, it's got a it's got a really nice big kitchen area. We'll you know, turn that into a beautiful kitchen with an open up bar type of area. It's got like the old school windows that from the kitchen to like the main hall is there. So like it lends itself to a lot of cool options with that. That's awesome, dude.

Corey:

So take us through the decision of that. And let's break this, let's break this church down a little bit, right? So you see the thing come through. You you what what's going through your head? Are you right away like, man, I think we could do something really cool with this? And then you start diving into some numbers, or like what's your process when you see something like this come through?

Ben:

Yeah, I mean, you know, so like any any project, right? You've got to have an idea. Here's here's what my numbers are coming in. And and you've talked about this, you know, a bit before too. But look at it and say, okay, well, well, you know, for me, my options being I'd I'll do short term, I'll do long term, or I'll flip. Less into flipping nowadays, just if I can afford to hold it, I'd I'd rather hold it for the long term and make something out of it one way or another. Yeah, you know, but I'll look at something as either the one percent rule, uh you know, where you'd say, okay, if I'm gonna end up sticking, we're buying it for X. If I stick another, let's say I'm I'm all into it for two hundred thousand. I need to be able to at least get, and this is on a long-term type of basis, two thousand dollars a month for it. So I need to be able to get one percent each month, and then I know it'll make money. Not maybe a ton, but it'll make money and appreciate and grow. So yeah. Um, you know, I don't know the the short-term market as well in Appleton, so I kind of did a little research and it it's there. It's not quite the market that you know we're blessed with up in Dork County. It's it's but Appleton's awesome. I mean, it's a great place to be. It's a growing city, it's got so much going on. You know, Lawrence University. Um, you know, so so you look at it as a as a short term, and I lean to the one in pr one and a half percent, basically. I'll say if let's say if we're into it for uh 200,000, they need to be able to make three thousand dollars a month, or at least we're bringing in three thousand a month for short-term your added expenses, your cleaning. I mean, you understand the game, but for people that don't, there's a lot more involved. You don't pay a lot of you know, taxes, you're doing linens, you're furnishing a place, you're taking care of the upkeep. Um but then it lends itself to midterm too. So coincidentally, we we work with uh a guy who does who finds a lot of housing, corporate housing for people. So you know, he's like, well, there's there's always we do a bit down in Appleton, and uh there's a need for the they'll find housing for like the timber rattlers or for people for you know hospital terms or anything like that. But yeah. Um you know, so so I you kind of have to break it down like that. What's my default? You know, and and from there you can at least work, and that's kind of what we're doing. We're we're setting it up to be housing basically potential on it. Um, you know, in the meantime, I have reached out to a couple of realtors and things like that and say, hey, if you have any tenants, we'd be happy to kind of build the suit. Uh it it's lovely if if we could have somebody who'd say, hey, yeah, I'd love the space for X amount of month. You make it work for us, we'll sign a lease and throw a ton of money down.

Corey:

So that's awesome, dude. So you have a lot of options with this one, it sounds like. I mean, you got, you know, we always talk about having multiple exit strategies with properties, right? And it sounds like you've got like three or four here short-term, midterm. You've got the event idea here. You could put build the suit and then and lease that way. I mean, so there's a lot of opportunity here, right? And so is that was that all part of the decision when you were going into this, Ben, or was this something that some of these have developed since you've kind of gotten into the project?

Ben:

You know, a little bit developed getting into it. It like I like you said, kind of was it was a great deal, I think. It's something I we just couldn't pass up on, so it wasn't something that I was directly looking for. Um but you know, you it you have to be open to opportunity, whatever that looks like nowadays. It's a different market. I mean who I I thought it was gonna start dipping back down, but now we're talking about 50-year mortgages at a three percent rate and things like that. So I I can only imagine if that ends up being something that happens, the prices are just gonna keep going up. So I know, I know.

Corey:

I'm everything I'm hearing is like doomsday, right? Like we're in like the world's gonna end, the economy's gonna crash, but then there's like you said, okay, now there's this 50-year mortgage or the portable mortgage is the other the other one that's come out, right? And I'm like, dang, if that happens, for those of us that own real estate, like, well, there goes our net worth. Like it just keeps going up at that point. Like sucks to get into it now sometimes, right? But yeah, uh I do I do know this too, Ben, kind of along that line to make that point. You're talking about like what I what I noticed with you is you you're just going wherever the opportunity is. And I think that's a little bit that's that's a strength I think that you have that other investors I think get very rigid, and hey, this worked for me back in 2020. I'm gonna just stick with this for the next five years, and now they've bought way less, they've done way less deals, maybe, because they're very rigid on what they're looking for, what their criteria is, and it sounds like you're pivoting as the market is changing.

Ben:

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I mean that's it. It's it's a different. Different market to find property in. You know, I've never been afraid to drive around, see an ugly house, you know, find the the owner's details and give them a call and say, hey, you know, are you interested in selling and get the you know the FU or get the yeah potentially? Like, yeah, what are you offering? And you know, but it's there's less and less of that. Um, you know, and and a company like yours, I mean, I I I'm signed up for a couple other wholesale emails that I get around the state, and you guys are top notch. So can't can't speak highly enough to that.

Corey:

Let's go. We're Ben, you're automatically entered in this giveaway I'm gonna talk about at the end. Just for that little comment there. That's what we're doing.

Ben:

Yeah. Um, you know, but it's tough. It's it's one of those things. I put out a little bit of content, but the the next generation, I think they're really gonna have to get creative. They're gonna have to find different ways that they want to get into real estate. Or say it's it's not feasible, which is sadly a little bit true for for some. You know, but that's maybe where syndication comes into into play if somebody says, well, I can at least invest in real estate and uh, you know, see that appreciation and see a slate return on something just to diversify. But yeah. No, uh opportunistic, back to your original, original thing there. Uh, you know, it's it's you just if you can stay open to it, it'll usually benefit you if you stay on it, right? I've I've definitely lost on a couple deals and gotten in over my head a few times and you know, done done work that I shouldn't have. That's why I'm now a licensed contract, because sometimes you gotta try to do it, do it all yourself, and if you can't, you uh you you'll need a lot of those contract resources.

Corey:

So if you've talked about a little bit, that's huge. Yeah, for sure. That's I mean, that's a huge advantage I think that you have right there, too, and and being competitive in this market, right? So we just did um at our REI success meeting on Tuesday, Reese from our company just did an amazing um event, and we're hoping that some other RIAs around the state will want him to come in and do this as well because it was really impactful. He built a crazy awesome calculator, and then we went through a sample deal that we actually that actually went through our process, and my brother was that was the winning bidder on this one, and so he broke down some of his rehab and numbers and stuff. But we had everybody at their tables go through and look at the inspection report, watch the video, come up with their rehab budget, what's their max offer going to be? And Reese made it so easy with this calculator. Um, but what was interesting is he had everybody put in what they wanted to make on the deal, and then it spits out what your max offer can be based on that. And some people some people change their offer, even though like they say they make want to make $20,000 on this flip, right? They would change their offer because the minimum suggested offer was way lower than what their offer calculator was telling them to do. Okay. And so they were like, ah, like it they got emotional about the difference between what the calculator was saying and what the minimum suggested was, and they would lose the deal. Like we had one on their table, you know, that won the deal, quote unquote, because they had the highest offer on the property. And it was interesting to see the psychology of that, of like how we get caught up sometimes in emotions with these things, and with like, well, again, kind of going back to my original point, this is what I did in 2020, and this is what worked for me. Well, that might not work for you in today's market. You know, the days of getting 50 grand, 60 grand pops pretty easily on some of these flips, not saying it can't happen because it definitely can and it will happen, but it's a lot more rare these days. And if you're really firm, like, man, I just need to make $20,000 on a flip and I'm tickled pink, and you're pretty confident in those rehab numbers and your ARVs, you know, you can be you can still be very competitive in today's landscape with putting offers in either on MLS or through you know wholesalers or whatever the case is. But if you start getting greedy, I think that's where you know 100% of zero is zero, right, Ben? So you can you can say you want to make fifty thousand dollars, but if you don't have a deal to make fifty thousand dollars on, you ain't making anything.

Ben:

No, exactly. And and that's it. I mean, and you can wait for the perfect deal, but the perfect deal is often not gonna happen, right? You gotta sometimes just say, hey, this is gonna work, or this maybe wasn't in the area, or this wasn't the the ideal property I was looking for. But you know, I guess it's your uh your capacity for paying a little bit on some of that stuff if you're ending up with something that you weren't exactly imagining. But for some people that's they stick to their lane, and that's yeah, if it works out, then yeah, more power to them. Yep, for sure. For sure.

Corey:

Let's let I want to pivot real quick, Ben, because you've been you've done all kinds of different things here now. Financing wise, you know, how are you financing the properties in today's landscape? Are you are you utilizing the Burr strategy and are you using commercial lenders, hard money, private money, your own cash, lines of credit? Like let's talk a little bit about some of the tools and the financial tool belt for you.

Ben:

Sure, sure. Um, yeah, you know, and kind of kind of like you've spoken about before, that that the Burr method is is something that I've done a fair bit of. Um, you know, would especially with those foreclosures, you know, you could build so much equity. Oh my gosh, yeah. So quick on it, uh, turn around and use that equity on the next project. So um, you know, it's for people that don't know, it's essentially you you build that that extra cash and you take that cash out to roll into your next project and you kind of keep rolling. You know, if you find some place that's not livable, you make it livable, you get that rent, you get the bank to loan you on that new value. Um but yeah, so I've done I did that for a fair bit of time, uh a fair bit of of Burr method, and then I, you know, kind of keep uh a line of credit for if there's anything that's you know last minute. You gotta be ready to mobilize, you gotta be ready for a deal if you can. And and that's uh not everybody, right? Right. They've been doing it for long enough where I I'm lucky with that, and sometimes it's easy to get, sometimes it's not. You know, it's uh I kind of kept a rolling line of credit too on a couple places, and the banks started to get a little bit stricter on what you could do with it, and then they you know wanted to have control over how you're spending it. So you you I I've pivoted a little bit, and then uh, you know, with some of the recent projects, I've just started to work with some outside investors. Okay. Um, you know, people saying, Okay, well, I'd like to like to get my skin in the game, but I don't want to have to do the work, I don't want to have to deal with the tenants, but I'll I'll take a return on on whatever that looks like. So yeah. Not so far as to to work with the full-on syndication type of deal, but okay.

Corey:

Um just bringing them in on like a note and a mortgage and giving them a uh are you paying them at the end of the like are you refinancing them out of it? Are they in it for the long term with you on these deals? What's the arrangement on these?

Ben:

You know, I've done a little a little where it's a just a flip plan where we're looking at either you know selling the place or refinancing after, you know, let's say two years or whatever the term will be. I've done that a little, and then I you know, I've got an investor that just says, keep me in, you know, build the equity, build the return. We're we're just hanging in there. I've got I need the write-offs for for my regular income. So yeah, it that's a good place to be if if uh you know you're that person, that's awesome. So you're doing well for yourself outside of real estate, and you can say this will help me balance out my other income.

Corey:

Uh so on that one, did you create a separate LLC with that person so that they're actually an owner then? Yep. Not just a lender. Okay, cool. That's a strategy I think like as you're saying that, I'm like, man, I should start thinking about that myself with raising private money on some bigger deals. Um, sometimes what investors want, they'll take a lower rate of return in exchange for a bigger chunk of the depreciation, right? And you can you can set that up in your operating agreement when you're doing this with your attorneys. So for those of you guys out there that don't know, the depreciation is going to show up as a loss on your tax returns. And depending on your IRS tax status, if you're a quote unquote real estate professional or you're just a regular person, I guess, out there, will determine what income you can write off. But let's say somebody like what Ben's talking about has a lot of, say, stock dividend investments or things like that, and they're making a lot of passive income, even if they're not doing real estate full time, they can still use that depreciation to offset that those dividends or those passive income um things that they're making and wipe that out from having to pay any tax on that stuff, which is pretty awesome. And they get to get in involved in an appreciating asset that's still kicking them off a return. So it's like they're almost double dipping it away, like not tipping the IRS, as we say, right? Yeah. That money out of the IRS's pocket if you can, and you're getting the upside on on a real estate investment on the other side. So you're giving that person an opportunity, which is amazing, right? It's a it's a good win-win, it sounds like.

Ben:

Oh, for sure, for sure. And it's it, you know, yeah, when everybody can can benefit from it, it's a good deal. So that's that's definitely a nice thing.

Corey:

Yeah, that's awesome. Another thing we just had on Mikey from uh specialized trust company. This is another untapped thing that I think uh I I always forget about too. So having Mikey on for me was like a good reminder. There's so much money sitting in people's retirement accounts and IRAs and 401ks, and they don't know that they can even self-direct that. And basically what self-direct means is they can roll it into a self-directed custodian, like specialized IRA. So it's not a pull out, they're not pulling it out and paying the penalties, but they can roll that money and then they can quote unquote self-direct it, meaning they can say, I'm gonna invest it in what I want to invest it in, real estate being one of those things, and they can give you that money, Ben, and then you can go do projects with their retirement accounts that are probably for them just like, oh, I don't I kind of forget I have it type money, right? So it's not even like personal cash. I mean now you can go lend out this IRA money for them, they're gonna get a nice steady return, right? And safe, it's secured against real estate, they're insured on it, and all that kind of stuff. And um, and it's not just I don't know where I'm investing this and who knows where land, right? Some stocks that I have no clue what's happening with, right? And now they can control that retirement income a little bit better.

Ben:

Oh, so that's that's people just self-directing their their trusses, huh?

Corey:

Yeah, just self-well, just IRAs, 401ks, all that stuff. They're just rolling them into self-directed accounts and then and then lending that out.

Ben:

Yeah.

Corey:

We'll see. Yeah. I mean, there's tr literally trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines in retirement accounts right now. And these and people forget about it. They're like, oh yeah, I got this IRA, I don't know, makes whatever. I don't really pay attention to it. I can't touch it until I'm 59 and a half anyway, so why worry about it, right? It's like, well, you could self-direct that. And if it's a Roth, now it's all tax-free gain that they're making in their retirement account. There you go. Yeah. So they can they can partner with somebody like you, Ben, and you're gonna go put their money to work for them, and they get to just make sure it's in a nice stable asset, and they don't have to worry about the fluctuations of the stock market and who tweeted what today or whatever. You know, it's very secure, very safe, and and if they try know and like and trust you, and you're a decent guy, you're gonna make sure they get paid back. So that's what they're investing in you in a way, right? Um, in that relationship. But it's a good way to tap into people's private money that they don't even realize they have. It's not it's almost like found money for them. Like, oh yeah, I do have an IRA. Forgot about that. You can self-direct that and I can put it to work for you. Let's do it.

Ben:

Yeah. Oh, that's smart. Yeah. Smart aspect or way to roll if you can yeah, tap into that for sure.

Corey:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I think that's really important. Yeah, you mentioned um, you know, a couple different ways you're financing it. For those people out there that don't know about the Burr strategy. Uh we have a course called Burr for Beginners that we give away. If you want a piece of that, uh just get on our buyer's list and have a conversation with Connor from our team. Tell him you want the Burr course and he'll hook you up with that. But Burr stands for buy, rehab, rent, refinance. And we've got several episodes on the Burr strategy, so I'm not going to get into the meat and potatoes of all that. Um, but it's a great way to recycle capital and you don't need a lot of money to get started. And you can build a portfolio relatively quickly. Like I went from zero to a hundred units in three years with like $8,000 in my bank account when I started. So I didn't have any extra capital. I raised some private money from some IRAs and some other stuff. But other than that, I utilized the birth strategy and just kept recycling those same funds to get to 100 units and in a relatively short period of time. So it's uh it's my favorite strategy. If anybody who listens to this podcast, you probably know that by now. Uh talk about it on every episode. But uh it's cool that you're using it too with some lines of credit and you're pairing up some different things, private money, lines of credit, all those types of things. Are you using commercial financing at all? Like community banks commercial financing?

Ben:

Not not currently, no. Um I've I've explored it a little bit, but haven't gone down that that route yet. So Okay.

Corey:

Cool.

Ben:

Yeah, I know you I know you guys talk about, I don't know if Johnson Johnson bank, right?

Corey:

Yeah, I use Johnson primarily for um HELOC's home equity lines of credit on my personal residence. So they they have probably I can't find anybody that can beat their terms and what they'll do. They'll they were, and I I haven't had to get one now for a little while, but um 90% loan to value. So your personal residence, which is pretty awesome. And no closing costs, so it doesn't really cost you anything to get it. And uh I think you have to do like a like $250 check-in account or something with them. You know, just have a little bit of deposit account with them. Um, but they were doing when rates were like eight, eight and a half percent on lines of credit, they were doing it, they've got me locked in at six and a half. Oh, nice. So I've taken some of that money and I've actually put it into some real estate investing funds at 10% return, and I'm getting so I'm making about a 3.5% spread on what my line of credit is doing. Otherwise, that's just dead money sitting in my house, right? So I'm like, I might as well utilize this capital.

Ben:

Oh, it's smart.

Corey:

Yeah.

Ben:

So it's a good then a good way to do it. Keep keep it rolling, you know, keep building that that wealth on it.

Corey:

So and then there's a bunch of community banks we we work with. We have a big lender list that I read on our website. So um, you know, I I always talk about being like all kinds of different having different buckets of money, right? So it sounds like you've got several buckets of money over there, you've got some lines of credit, you've got private lenders, you've got your cash, right? You've got some of those different things that you're utilizing, and and that's awesome. And the more of those, I think, for investors out there listening that you can have access to, the better chance you're gonna be able to, like you said, you're gonna use those lines of credit sometimes to strike quick, right? Oh, I got a smoking deal here, I gotta jump on this right now. I don't have time to go get a commercial loan on this thing. I gotta give a pretty competitive offer of cash, right? And boom, I want to go use this. Now you get some sweet deals just by having that line of credit because you can close quick, right?

Ben:

Yeah, well yeah. It's awesome. No, for for sure. You know, and one thing, it's it's it you and I are are kind of on the similar, similar path on things a little, but I know for a lot of people that are just getting into it, you know, and and if they don't have much of anything, you know, kind of along those same trust ideas, if they, you know, have have relatives or have you know somebody they know that owns a property that doesn't utilize it or would rather not sell it and take all those gains from from a second home or a third home. But that's kind of another another way I I see potentially for younger people to get involved is to go and see if the seller will do the seller finance, just set up a payment term. You know, that's getting a little more popular with people saying, Well, I can't I can't get a new mortgage on a place for this, but I you know, I can't get out of my current mortgage because it's it's the rates are so low. So you know, there's there's opportunity. I think you kind of spoke about that a little bit before and some of some of that angle for them. But yeah, for a newer for a first-time investor, I mean you've got to get a little creative, especially if you don't have money or you don't have the option to finance through a bank. I think there's there's gonna be some some growth there too, especially as you know, people age out of this house or that house and they wanna go live in Florida part-time, they'll rent a condo or whatever down there, but yeah. Maybe I can buy that house from you.

Corey:

Exactly. Yep. And I think look what you mentioned there, Ben, a good point for those those people out there that are just trying to get into the game. Sometimes if you don't have access to some of this stuff, like what Ben's talking about here, you know, you're gonna have to you're gonna have to hustle and grind a little bit on the front end, right? I think Ben, you and I probably both had to do some of that right when we started out. It's a lot of hustle, a lot of grind until you can get to a point where you've got a lot of these different tools you can use, and you don't have to maybe now you don't have to hustle and grind as much, right? I talk about like, you know, you get in and do a lot of the work on the stuff. I have soft office hands, so I'm not getting in doing any physical labor in there. Yeah. That's a smart way to do it.

Ben:

That's a smart way, and it's yeah. Anyway, there's pros and cons, right?

Corey:

So like you, you know, you're gonna have probably a lot more equity in these properties than I would. You know, my margins are gonna be tighter. I gotta be, I gotta be more disciplined on on the numbers on the front end, all those sort of things where you're probably able to get more deals because you you can get in and do the work. So you've got an advantage on that end of things, right?

Ben:

Yeah, I mean, yes and no, right? Like that's the that's the Achilles heel of it, is the scalability then becomes it's waiting on me, you know. Then it's if I'm the one, if I'm the hinge point of getting this place from unlivable to livable, then it's it's the and I and I'm not gonna do, you know, three other projects at the same time. I can only you know what I mean. That's yeah, I'm the holdup. And I've got other, you know, guys that work for me and maintenance people, but often I like to have my hands in things because it's it's fun. You know, I enjoy the the building side of things a little bit more than I should. But yeah, yeah. You get you gotta either, you know, lean into it and say, okay, it's there's some some aspects of this that I like and that I really enjoy, and find what those are, I guess. And yeah, but I I see the missed opportunities so often, right? Like I said, you guys have great deals out there today where I'm like, geez, you know, a couple on the water, that's an easy enough flip into an Airbnb. Like just would need somebody to to get up there and to get that fixed. And given it's not always gonna be like that, you're not right the but you have to be open to those opportunities. That's where I slow it up because I you know, I think we're closing on one from you guys. We that we closed yesterday technically, but it it goes through today, and that one's gonna need a lot of work, and that'll be, you know, a cool project. But the because of that, I'm like, I can't jump on this other one. I should finish that first. I'm not gonna be able to spread too thin. So yeah.

Corey:

I suppose you gotta be more disciplined on just that exact aspect of like, okay, I really want this shiny object over here, and I think I can make it, I can shine it up even better, but you know, I gotta be disciplined and know my capacity, right?

Ben:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and and that's it, you know. And if I'm if I want to take trips or if I want to do things like that, I need to really make sure I have it planned out, laid out well enough to keep progress moving. Otherwise, things things maintain, but they don't necessarily advance, right? You can't move on to the next project or find the next two if you're stuck on the last two. So yeah, yeah.

Corey:

So what does the future look like for you, Ben, as we get as we start to wrap here? I mean, is that in your your plans in the future, starting to build a team that you can then scale, or do you think you're just gonna you enjoy the building piece of it and the the getting dirty piece of it more so than it's important for you to scale?

Ben:

No, I think I I'm really getting to that point where I know I need more team players to, and you've done an awesome job. I mean, you have a great team of people that seem to seem to run the ship real well. I I mean I I don't know fully what your involvement is in everything, but i that's smart. You know, you're doing smart things by putting the people in place to take care of the stuff to give you more time to do what you do. And uh I think that's the goal, right? Like that's more freedom is is kind of the end goal on things, and as long as you can afford, or at least as long as I can afford to slowly put the people to do more of the updates, to do more of the the work there, and as well as to just manage things. I mean, I think you're gonna have AI can take care of coordinating with maintenance people, with you know, project ordering, with all the different things like that. But you still need people to to to run the AI, if you will. So yeah, for sure.

Corey:

Well, and it's that AI is great, but it's implementing AI, I'm finding, is like the challenge, right? Other like AI's got so many awesome tools and so many things you can do with it, but then also it's like you almost need a full-time person just to implement the stuff that you want to implement, right? Like it's almost more work, it's almost more work that like Chat GPT is easy enough to use for what it can do. But then, you know, some of the things I don't know. I actually was just talking to another investor the other day, Ben, as we wrap here, there's a little tip. I'm trying to get his prompts for this, but he was telling me how he's been using ChatGPT to do renderings of his flips. So he'll take pictures of the outside and the inside, and then he has some prompt that he's plugging into ChatGPT to have ChatGPT give him like what what it what it would look like if if they did the flip with this site sort of budget. Here's my budget. Wow. Then it'll get then it'll take it a step further and get the SKUs that he needs to order to make that flip happen. So wow, that's that's next level right there. I was like, dang, bro. I was like, send me that over, dude. So if I get that, I'll send that to you, Ben. I'll I'll I'll send over the prompts for you for your flips and and maybe we'll make that uh maybe we'll make that a giveaway here as well for the audience. If they want that, they can maybe hit me up, and if I get it, I'll I'll put in a little document for everybody that that we'll share.

Ben:

No, it I I did something a little similar. We've got a project, I'm just doing the the GC for uh for like a temporary housing local community habitat for humanity deal. Cool. And we sketched up just you know the old school, put it on paper. Here's the layout, here's what the layout's gonna look like, you know. Took a picture of it, told I think I used Gemini for that one, but said make this look more professional, right? Modify this, change this, and it it did pretty good. It it you know made it look like a nicer, more submittable workup to bring to you know, to get the permit, to get to to move things ahead.

Corey:

So that's awesome, dude. Yeah, there's a lot of great uses for it, and it keeps evolving, and like just every time I talk to investors about there's some other cool idea that people are doing like that. Like, I'm like, oh, that's a great, great way to do it. So well, this has been awesome, man. I know you probably got a bunch of projects to get to because you're closing out a deal. You better get to work here, right? So we better get you better get you off this podcast and get you rolling. Before we wrap though, I'm gonna talk about guys for the audience out there listening again as a as a give back to you guys and helping us grow the audience. We want to give do a little giveaway here, okay? So this is something we're gonna do on the I think it's January 1st on YouTube. So we really want to grow that YouTube audience, and we want to give back to you guys that are helping us grow that YouTube audience. So here's what we are gonna do. I have to pull up the details here, Ben, because I don't this is all new, man. Okay, so we got three giveaways, guys. All right, so we're gonna do a one-on-one strategy call with me for an hour. That is one of the options, all right. Another option you can choose from is there's gonna be a $250 Amazon or Visa gift card that we're gonna give away. And the third option is we're gonna give a little Wisconsin investor a little merch bundle out. So we're gonna get some merch in there, we're gonna do some books that that have been instrumental for us in growing the uh uh growing our business and you know, growing ourselves. So we're excited about that. Okay, so how do you qualify for this? All right. What you need to do is you gotta subscribe to the YouTube channel. That's number one. Okay. We're gonna do a giveaway video on there. So you're gonna comment on that giveaway video, all right? And then you're gonna follow us on Instagram and I think TikTok. Don't quote me on it. But if you would if you do those things and you comment on the uh on the YouTube giveaway, you will be entered in for one of these prizes at the end of the year. So we want to share, we want to grow. So subscribe, share, and uh, and tell some folks about the podcast and and comment in the video. And then you're entered in. Easy peasy, right? Pretty cool. Ben, are you subscribed?

Ben:

Uh I think so, man. I think I I think I jumped on recently and got subscribed. So just watching a few of the videos for sure. So awesome, dude.

Corey:

Awesome. So if you guys are listening to this on on uh Spotify or Apple or whatever, head over to YouTube, get entered into the contest, and um, and we're excited to hopefully grow this this YouTube audience and give back to you guys, my our loyal listeners. So, Ben, any final words for the audience out here, man? Any final thoughts, comments for anybody out there listening?

Ben:

Yeah, I mean, it it just just to plug you guys a little bit more, you know. Keep going, man. Yeah, you got the flow buddy. You know, you're putting out good, great information, I should say. You're you're teaching great lessons, but you it subscribe to your email list too. You know, there's there's always opportunities. You know, if you're somebody who's sitting on the sideline thinking I can never get into real estate, there's there's always a way. There's gonna be a way. You just have to be willing to you know stick your neck out a little bit and put in some work. And if it's you know the option between you say, in 20 years, do I want to be sitting in an office doing something at you know, working for another guy that I don't want to be doing, or maybe in 20 years I'd help be sitting on a beach doing a little bit of work for a guide or for for the lady sitting next to me, you know? She's the boss with you. So yeah. Um yeah, yeah. I love that dude. Get out there. If you're not sure, I'm happy to answer questions or help anybody who's coming up and looking for ideas too. So perfect.

Corey:

Ben, what's the best way? If somebody wants to reach out to you, email you, got contact, or what's the best way to get a hold of you if they wanted to set up with feedback?

Ben:

I've got a little bit. I'm starting to make some content too. I'm still pretty rough in the game on that. But uh, you know, I've got a VA and that that helps me make a little bit of that stuff nice. Sweet it is. Um, but I think it's I think like on Instagram, I'm at Cheers LB. Cheers LB pretty much Cheers Little Buddy. Same thing on YouTube, Cheers LB. Uh, or you can just email me. Ben at uh doorbps.com is probably the easiest there. So you got questions? If I can help, I'm happy to help. I want to make more content to help people learn the trades, get into investing too. So awesome, buddy.

Corey:

Well, we'll put all those in the show notes as well. So uh we'll get the Instagram and the YouTube and your email in there. So if anybody wants to connect up, just hit the show notes here and get connected up with Ben. And um Ben, final question favorite place to visit in Wisconsin or Wisconsin tradition?

Ben:

Man, uh, you know, it's it uh fish fry in Milwaukee is probably one of the one of the top ones, right? You go down and catch fish fry, catch, you know, a brewery tour, catch a game, you know, bucks, you know, brewers, any any sort of fun there. That's always a great trip. So nice. Love it, man.

Corey:

I love it. Well, dude, I appreciate you being on. This is a ton of information. Uh I think people need to go back and re listen to this one a couple times because there's a lot in here for you guys out there. So if you guys again got value out of this, get in that YouTube contest, share this thing, subscribe, comment on the Instagram, and uh follow us there as well. And uh, we will see you guys on the next episode.

Head Shot

Corey Reyment

Host