The Wisconsin Investor

Wisconsin Rental Market Update: Rents Slowing, Buy Box Tips, and Long-Term Wealth Plays

• Corey Reyment

Share episode

Send us a text

On this episode we dig into how Eddie went from diesel bays to building long-term wealth through Wisconsin rentals — using a simple buy box, steady mentorship from his dad, and a numbers-first approach that keeps emotion out of offers. We also break down today’s rental slowdown, real rent-setting strategy, and why in-house rehab gives local investors a massive edge.

🛠️ Growing up on job sites and learning management from the ground up
💼 Leaving a capped wage job for flexible, asset-backed wealth
😬 First-deal fears, financial worries & getting your spouse aligned
📊 Using a buy box: $25k equity, sub-$200k all-in, 25% ROI targets
🧮 Taking emotion out of offers with calculators, not “feelings”
🏦 Smart debt as a hedge against inflation and a long-term wealth lever
🏘️ Rents leveling off in NE Wisconsin & slower tenant demand
🔍 Verifying rent projections: PM data, local comps, Rentometer
📈 Filling units fast vs pushing rents — how to decide
🔨 Why in-house rehab creates predictability, speed, and confidence
🌲 Door County life, deer season, and investing the Wisconsin way

Giveaway Reminder: 🎉
 Subscribe on YouTube, follow us on Instagram or Facebook, then comment “DONE” on the pinned post and tag two friends.
Share the giveaway post to earn a bonus entry.

Prizes:
• One-hour coaching session with Corey
• $250 Amazon gift card
• Wisconsin Investor Starter Kit (merch, books, coffee)

Want to reach Eddie?
The best way to connect with him is through https://rulepropertymanagement.com/

Speaker 1:

What's going on, everybody? Corey Reyment, your host here of the Wisconsin Investor Podcast. And uh we, as usual, have another amazing episode we're about to bring you guys here post-Thanksgiving. So hopefully all y'all had a great Thanksgiving and you're stuffed with uh with good times and turkey. And um, you didn't put on too many pounds over last week here. So uh also I want to announce something here on the last episode. I brought I talked about this as well, but hang on to the end of today's episode. I'm gonna be talking about how you're gonna get in uh be able to get involved in a little giveaway that we're doing. So you're we're gonna get three different winners here, and we're gonna announce them on January 1st. And so you're gonna want to hang on to the end of the episode to figure out how do you get entered in to win those prizes, and you're not gonna want to miss what those prizes are. You're gonna want to be in on those things, right? Eddie, Eddie doesn't even know what they are yet. Nope, not yet. He's gonna he's gonna hang on to the end, too, I hope, and we'll figure it out. So, with that, let me bring in our guest for today's episode. I got Eddie Eisman here with me. Eddie, what's going on, man? How are you doing? Pretty good. Didn't kill you. So that was unfortunate. But yeah. Well, at the time we're recording this, I did say, you know, happy Thanksgiving, but we still have we still have some time at the time of recording this to uh get you a deer. So yes, that is a great Wisconsin tradition. So I usually ask that at the end of the uh end of the call, favorite Wisconsin tradition, but gun deer season is one of those top top-notch uh traditions, wouldn't you say? Yeah, definitely. So yeah. Well, I'm excited to have you on, man. You uh you've got quite an interesting story here and some family history and things like that. Tell everybody a little bit about how you got started in this real estate thing, because I think uh you've got a little different perspective maybe than a lot of other folks that have gotten started in it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I've always been around real estate pretty much my entire life since I was a kid. My dad's been investing for about 30 years now. Um I am 31. Um and when I was a kid, I was helping him with little projects. He'd always bring me to his houses after he didn't start out with the management and all that stuff, so he's always bringing that himself. Yeah. So he'd always be bringing me to like the project sites with helping him with small stuff. So I've always been kind of around it. Um then I first he was actually my first job working for his management company, kind of doing like maintenance stuff, cleanouts, cutting grass. Um it was kind of just a job at the time I didn't think of much of investing at that point. Yeah. Um while I was doing that, I was actually going for my automotive and diesel degree as well. So I was a diesel mechanic for about five years. Okay. And in that time, I think 2021 is when me and my wife bought our first rental property.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So what was that shift for you, Eddie? When did you go from like, hey, I'm gonna be I'm gonna go down this diesel mechanic path to like I'm gonna dive into this family business thing full time? Yeah, diesel being a diesel mechanic is kind of sounded fun at the time. And then as I was going, I was like, man, this is starting to get you know, it's just kind of getting sore. I obviously five years five years, people are gonna be like, uh, I've done it for 20, 30 years. And but and then just kind of it seems like having a job, you know, you have a cap on how much you can make. Sure. And then we're planning on having a kid eventually. Um, it'd be nice to spend more time with them. Nice. So you were looking more so long term for you, it sounds like like the body piece of it was a big piece of it for you. So the decent mechanic thing. Okay. Yeah. I I've never uh I'm not very handy. So I Yeah, I've always liked working my hands. Yeah. That that to me, I I I would like it. I feel like I would earn my man card a little more if uh if I was a little more handy than I am. But um, I did this morning, Eddie. I did win some husband of the year awards by getting the toilet unplugged for my wife. Yeah, she didn't put she didn't plug it. It was one of the kids, okay. But but she she I did unplug it. So I can I can plunge toilets, which is uh a new skill set that I think I could put on my resume if I ever need to. Um so your dad, talk about your dad. So he's he was all he's also an attorney, correct? Yeah, he's also an attorney. He's been I guess I don't even know how long he's been an attorney for. He's had his own law firm. Um he started rule, and I don't even know. Ten or ten years ago, I want to say.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

And he's done pretty much anything, like multifamily, running starting his own law firm, all that fun stuff. Nice. What were some of the lessons that you learned from that? I mean, seeing your dad start these things, you know, kind of from the ground up and from you basically being ingrained in it. Are there anything now that you look back that you're like, oh yeah, like that that's definitely a lesson I learned in the process, or you know, anything like that that you gleaned from your dad diving into this, you know, this business on a couple different fronts, right? From the attorney side and from and from the uh property management side. Um obviously he's seen it like I saw it's been kind of a help with him because obviously he sees things like that won't work, or he's had he's he's had troubles with before. Like he always has these um I don't know, why can't I think of it? Um rules or regul or always writ all everything's written down on what to do if this happens, or I can always go to him like, oh don't do this, like I had this happen, this is why. He's got a whole list of like experien like from experience of things going maybe wrong or bad that you can just go to big help with growing there, and obviously that's one another reason I kind of jump took the jump when I got started back till in twenty-one is I knew I noticed you was nervous as hell. Yeah, what even with all that help, but I knew we could figure it out. Yeah, worst case you got you got pops that can help at least give you some uh some advice on on what not to do, right? Or what to do. Like you kind of gotta figure it yourself. That's great, man. That's awesome. Versus I I I I think that's probably a huge advantage you have versus him just handing you the keys. Definitely. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Um, what was I gonna ask you about, Eddie, on that? There was something I wanted to go into with that whole experience thing. Um oh, what were your big fears? So you talk about like, man, I was really scared on that first one. You saw your dad do this with however many properties, everybody has like over a hundred units or something, right? Yeah, right around there. And you saw him do this like probably like it was like like in his sleep, he's probably buying properties. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. So were you diving in that first one? Do you remember? Like, I know it was already four years ago, but like what were some of the what were some of the fears you had going into that? I think more just the financial worry, like just worrying that it's not gonna work out, or something we're gonna get sued, or um if we can't, like if we can't find tenants, it is just all that kind of first investor stuff. Um more in my mind than also trying to convince my wife that it's a good idea. So she what was her sentiment when you guys were getting into this? Was she uh was she just making sure it's gonna work? Okay. Were you guys both on board when you decided? Like, how did that decision come to be for you guys that you were gonna go ahead and start? Like, do you remember that decision like how did that first conversation go? Was it her idea? Was it your idea? And how did you guys go from starting that conversation to actually taking action on it? It was kind of talking with my dad. Um, we kind of just have meetings with just kind of financial meetings, just going over stuff in life in general. Um, where we're looking, like, you know, we could have there's houses for sale, like it seems like obviously you can see where I've been at. Um I can help you along the way. Um that's kind of just how it started. He kind of started the idea, and then I started we started looking into a little bit more, like all this could probably work and time, like when we have kids. Back then we didn't have any. Um we we'd be able to have more time to spend with them and more money to go on trips per se. Okay. So you guys kind of were you guys were having these financial meetings with your dad or just you and your wife? Yeah, I just kind of we have us pointers. Um That's awesome. Market stuff like that, just kind of keep up to date. That's cool. That's awesome that he does that for you guys. Sits down. What are some of the lessons you've learned through those those meetings? Anything that our audience could could glean, you know, inside your your family meetings a little bit, your family meeting structure, or anything that he's talked about with you guys that you're like, oh, that was a big aha moment for us that changed some things. Just trying to keep update, like watching your numbers, don't let them slip away. I don't know how to explain it. Um keep update with your numbers. Um I've seen invest investing keeps up like the stock market, we've quite a bit in there. Um, but don't get too honed in on the numbers right now. Eventually, theoretically, they always go up. Don't worry about the dips. Okay. I don't tend to watch it too much. It just eventually go up and haven't an issue there yet. So you're not trying to time the market basically, pulling in and out and playing the market, you're just set forget as it as it's maybe towards the tire age, but yeah, not too worried about it right now. Is that similar then to why real estate was appealing to you guys too? Is that it's kind of a similar thing? Hey, I can buy these properties and not necessarily set them forget, and they're a little more active than stocks. Just to make make basically long-term wealth gaining. We're not looking for cash flow right now, um, but just long-term wealth gain is what we're looking for right now. Right on. So when you're when you're evaluating a property, that's what you're looking for, is like, is this gonna fit our wealth bucket? Not necessarily like a cash per door type of uh uh Yeah, we're really looking for the initial equity and then the ROI. Okay. But I mean, if we have to put a little bit in each month, obviously you can't lose a ton each month. Yeah, um, but uh the value of it going up over time and then your loan pay down is all tax efficient for us. For sure. Yeah, and the tax benefits. We didn't talk about that, right? You know, I was just I was just reading some things this last week about um the dollar and how you know inflation, uh people people who you know, and they people have different degrees of risk tolerance, right? And so you and I sound like we're very okay with debt and smart debt, right? Smart debt. I'm not saying go get credit cards here and have that kind of debt, but like smart debt. And what it is, it's like it's really a hedge against inflation, right? And so there's you know, the dollar, the dollar that we have today is gonna be worth less tomorrow, right? And that's just the nature of the beast. But if you have an asset that you can leverage debt against, right, you're borrowing at today's cheap dollar, cheaper dollar, right? And it's gonna get less and less valuable every day. And if you're locked in on a period of time, those payments, right, essentially paying down that, you're having your tenants pay that debt down, the property's appreciating hopefully at or above the inflation rate, and you're you're basically using other people's money to create wealth. And this is every wealthy person out there. I don't know a lot of wealthy people that don't leverage debt, right? I mean, yeah, it's very difficult to try to be a cash person and really um scale anything of significance. Obviously, there's risk, right? When you when you leverage debt, there's risk with it. But um, you know, if you're trying to do everything cash and just I'm gonna pay all my properties off and do all this sort of stuff, for the average majority of people out there, that's gonna be uh almost impossible goal to try to achieve and and really build anything of significance in the long run, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the management, talk about the management side of things a little bit, Eddie. So you um is your your wife is involved in the management company as well, or is it just you involved in that? She and she's involved with our five properties. Um Kevin, he's the one that started his management company. Um I've him and two involved that, but I've seen starting with our own. We didn't have anyone managing them, so we kind of figured out all the leases, um, all the tenant rules. There's so many. Like I always come across, it seems like, oh, can we if this happens, can we do this? Like, no, we can't do that. I don't know, there's just so many rules around it, and so many laws that you can't you gotta be careful that you don't cross. For sure. For sure. So are you helping out in the management company then, or is it just your own properties that you guys are managing right now? Okay. Um he has they would there's a few people at work in there that actually do all that stuff. So I'm not too familiar with that side yet. I've spent time if I get more familiar with it, but I just started going full-time with him earlier this year. So okay, so you are full-time in the in the rental business with okay. And you and your dad buy them together then now, or how how is that structured? He is 51%, I'm 49%. Nice we're doing for this year. Awesome, man. Uh and how did you guys come up with that structure and what were some things in that discussion that you know you could you could remember uh here? Just the way it I don't know how to explain it. Because in time, um I'll probably help with uh managing the company more. Okay. That's just how we wanted to set it up to begin with. I don't know how to explain it then. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, and then eventually your dad, if he's ready to phase out, I'm sure he has some kind of legacy plan or some kind of you know, turnover plan or something like that. Now, with those properties, are though is your buy box any different on the ones with your dad versus the ones that you're buying? And how do you separate those two? 25,000 equity and 25% ROA, like I said. So it gives us a little more. Obviously, when a first initial starting, we have some cash between me and my wife. Um, but with him being done this for so long, uh, he's a little more cash. So we can be a little more. Um obviously between me and my wife, we need to have a little bit of cash flow. We don't we have some extra cash flow, obviously, if we need to make it work. Yeah. Um, but with it being a little bit extra cash now, we can we're looking for equity, like I said. Okay. So 25,000 of equity. So it doesn't matter percentage-wise. You're not concerned about the percentage of equity when you guys are doing this? No, just twenty initial twenty-five thousand equity. We're really looking to be under two hundred thousand all in for a house. Obviously, one percent rent is a deal, but nice. Somehow you can't get it. Yeah, and then you said 25% ROI. How are how do you guys calculate the ROI? Because I I I talked to a lot of investors and people run it a bunch of different ways. I'd have to look at the Excel sheet. There's one that he already had pre-made. Um I could pull it up quick, but I'm I'm not 100% sure how he has it all set up in there. Some people look at it like cash on cash return. Um, some people look at just like the overall asset, everything they'll factor in. Okay. Cool. Yep. Between the equity and how much cash you have to put in it or you get out of it. Okay. Well, that's cool. That's probably that's a pretty, I would say, easy metric to hit, but I mean it makes you guys probably more competitive than maybe somebody who needs to have a certain percentage of equity or some of those other things. Like you guys can probably pick up a lot more properties with this type of a buy box. Definitely. Yeah, I think that's something interesting, Eddie. We were you were at the uh REI success meeting last week, right? And and I thought what was interesting for me, so for the audience out there, we ran uh Reese from our team, put together an awesome presentation, and yeah, he had a calculator that he created and gave out to everybody there. Um that we'll give we'll give to you as well if you're interested in this, just hit me up and we'll get you that calculator. Uh, but what it was designed to do is really take out the emotion from these offers, right? And I think what's great about what you guys did here, Eddie, you guys set a buy box, right? And and if it fits the buy box, it sounds like you guys will buy it. Yep. No emotion to it. Just look at it, see if it works, and write an offer and see if it'll take it. Yeah. That's all you could do, right? And what was interesting in there, do you remember we had a table that had a much higher ARV than everybody else on this same property? So what we did is we put everybody at tables and we gave them all the information that you know people on our buyer's list get. And this was a real deal that went through our buyer's list process. And so we wanted it, we knew what the we knew what it sold for, we knew what the rehab was, we knew all the numbers ahead of time, and we wanted to just have everybody at a table have access to the information, then they discussed it as a table. They submitted through their little little calculator form, their numbers, and then we got to compare everybody's and kind of have a discussion about it, which was really cool. But one of the tables had a much higher ARV, but their offer was and their rehab was, I think their rehab was higher, but not enough to offset like what their offer should have been based on their ARV number. And when we asked them, like, hey, why did you offer that number? They it was a feeling. I remember they were like, Well, we just felt like we were offering too much then because it was too much higher than what the minimum suggested offer was or something. And we're like, that's the whole idea of having a buy box in this calculator. Is you take out that emotion, that bias, right? If your calculator says, Hey, I want to make 20,000 on a flip, and your calculator says, Oh, I can offer this number, then offer that number. Don't try to make 30,000 because now all of a sudden 30,000 of a of uh 100% of zero is zero, right? You know, you got no deal to even make any money on. And and so to me, that was a hopefully a big takeaway for everybody in the audience was was what you guys are doing. Same thing. Just get your buy box, whether it's a certain profit amount you need to make, a percentage, whatever it is, get your buy box, and it and at least if you're competitive with your buy box, now you can just get the emotion out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like that's worked really well. Your dad's got how many properties? A hundred and some himself? I think now. Okay. Another eight or eight or nine this year. Eight or nine this year, and then you and your wife have five, just kind of utilizing the same strategy, right? Yep, yeah, definitely. I think 2024, me and my wife, but this is before I went full time, we bought another four. So kind of figure it out a little bit. That's awesome. Was able to get us the next four. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's huge. I think, you know, I see people a lot of times make the same mistake, Eddie, as they're just kind of like, well, I feel like that one's a good one, or this. And that's why when we went to this new process at Wisconsin Discount properties, we got rid of the walkthroughs. And a lot of people were, you know, um in up in arms about this. They wanted to walk through the property before they put an offer in, right? And that's fine. I understand why people want that. And there's some um, there's something to be said about walking through a property and being able to like physically see it, touch it, feel it, smell it, that kind of thing. But also you get very emotional about it when you walk through it. It's all about that's a lot about feelings, right? Like, oh, I felt this energy when I walked in or felt this or whatever. Again, for some people, if it works for them and they're they're hitting their numbers and they're doing great, awesome. My um, I guess my thought and what what you guys are doing, just to back up again, make another point. What you guys are doing is there's a whole nother swath of investors out there that are like you guys. I have my numbers, I have my areas I want to buy. If it, if it fits in though that thing, we buy it. If not, next one. You know, and you're just you're just looking for deals. You become a deal finder, then not a deal creator, and you get rid of all the emotion and you get rid of all of the, well, maybe I should offer a little bit less to try to squeeze a little bit more out and all this kind of stuff. You just this is it. Boom, this is what the calculator says of what we can offer. And you're gonna miss some and you're gonna get some. Yeah, yeah. You gotta offer a ton, you'll offer way more than you'll actually get. I don't remember what there's a rule of something that you put a hundred offers, get 10. I don't know. I don't remember. I just remember someone saying it. Yeah, it's it it it depends who you ask. And I would argue though, you could if you have the wrong criteria and you have the wrong buy box, you could offer a hundred times and still have zero deals. Yeah. Right? Like it's the truth. Uh, I just met with one of our employees yesterday, and we do try to sit down with our employees at least once, once a year, twice a year to go over their goals and kind of what do they want out of life and kind of bigger picture stuff, similar to what what what we'll be doing with one of our giveaways here for the audience that I'll talk about at the end here. And one of the things we uncovered was the buy box that that person has to use is different than what I would recommend, but it's based on their personal financial situation right now. And so they have to offer a certain way because of some of the things that they've gone through in their life and and that sort of thing. And um, so what we advise we came up with a different strategy for this person, and they're gonna hopefully be able to change their buy box now to be more competitive to get more deals. And that that was a big glaring thing for me when we sat down and broke everything down. Was I was like, man, I can't even think of how many deals you're probably missing out on because you have this life thing that happened to you in this situation. But let's let's come up with some strategy to change that so that you can be more competitive on these offers. Um, and we just did a quick scenario. It was interesting, Eddie. We ran like what my calculator would be, quick math, and what this person's calculator would be based on their situation. And we just picked like a random like $300,000 ARV, $40,000 rehab, right? Kind of a standard deal in our market, right? And um we were fift forty-five thousand dollars difference on what our offers would be because of the buy because of the way we were calculating things and the way that we had to do things. And then so I just think of like, man, that was that's probably a thirty thousand dollar profit deal with the way that we ran the numbers on it that that person is missing out on, and like how many of those come across our plates all the time, and we miss out just because we're running the wrong formula or the wrong calculator or the wrong buy box, you know. So that would have a mentor with all that too. Yeah, what was that? You have a mentor, is that what you said? Yeah, a mentor, definitely. I would not have gotten this far without a mentor. Yeah. Well, you talk about the fear, right? Like how many people get to that point and then don't have that person to like lean on that experience, right? Yeah, that makes it really hard. I I remember my first one, it was the same thing. Uh Tony Breuer, who a lot of you guys know, he owns good faith uh funding, and he'd been he's in the he's been in the game probably about the same amount of time your dad has been. I think they were probably got started around the same time. And uh I remember I had my first one under contract and I was excited, but I was so scared. And I was like looking to sabotage it. I was like, oh, how can I get out of this deal? I just I just worked for three months to try to find an off-market deal. I got one, and now I'm so scared I want to try to figure out how do I get out of this thing. And I remember calling him and I was freaking out. And I was like, Tony, what do I do? Like, I got this deal under contract. What if it doesn't appraise out? What if I have to have all this money stuck into it? What if I can't get like all those fears Eddie, you talked about, I was kind of like, yeah, okay, I can relate to that. Um, and he's like, Well, who cares? You'll be fine. You're not putting 25% down and then another bunch of money for rehab, like even if it doesn't appraise out, you maybe you only have 5% stuck in a deal or 10% stuck in the deal versus you know 25% plus rehab. And I was like, oh okay. I'm like, so should I do it? He's like, Yeah, do it. You're never gonna you're never gonna start if you don't do it. I'm like, all right, I'll do it. But if I didn't have that person to call or that mentor to lean on, probably would have backed out eventually. Who knows where if I'd be sitting here talking to you right now, Eddie? You know? Yeah. I might be maybe I'd be going for diesel mechanic or something, trying to find a different path in life. Going forward for you guys, Eddie, what are some of the challenges you guys have right now? Um, obviously the market's slowing down a little bit for renters. We're seeing a little bit of decline in finding tenants, taking a little bit longer. Okay. And then the rents are kind of leveling out or not really going down, just leveling out. It's not gonna be like it doesn't seem like it's obviously we're going into the slower time of the year, but it seems a little bit extra this time of the year. Or this year, I should say. Just seems like rents and renters are um a little harder to find right now. Okay. But I don't we're still finding it that's just taking well, it's not like the COVID time anymore. You can find them in a week and it's gone. Yeah, yeah. We're seeing that too on our portfolio with our I obviously I don't do anything on the property management side, but I have I I'm in communication with our management companies, and I've been seeing that too. Like we've had to drop prices on some of them that in the past it was like we could every year pretty much consistently bank on at least some rent increase. And this year we've actually had to like bring it back down a little bit just to try to get some qualified applicants in there. Yeah, that's another thing is watching the market a little bit, see what it's doing. Yeah. When you run your numbers as well and make sure it's gonna work out. Yeah. Yeah, staying up on top of trends, right? So do you think you think this is maybe deeper than just the seasonal thing? Um I I don't know. It's a guess, it seems like, but it seems like it's a little more of a like a normal slowdown. It seems like it might stay for a little bit. I don't know. Like I said, I haven't been in for too long, but it kind of seems like it's stay here to stay a little bit longer than winter, but who knows? Time will tell. Yep. Yeah. I know every year this time of year, I get like really like, oh man, the market's gonna crash. What's happening? And then like by March, I'm like, yeah, the market rules. This is awesome, right? Yeah. We're in like the six months of winter when it it's it started, and it's it's true across the board for a lot of things. But I think you're right, there is something a little deeper here. It feels like there is maybe a leveling off. I don't think there's I don't see like a crash happening or anything like that. But it's definitely leveling off. Yeah, you can't bank on you know as much appreciation or as much rent increase as you could, I think, in years past, is what I'm seeing. That's my prediction anyway, if anybody cares. Yeah, yeah. But that should not stop you from buying, right, Eddie? It doesn't sound like that's gonna slow you guys down. Nope. Just make sure you have your right rent estimates and put in your buybacks and keep moving. Cool. Are you guys doing anything different with what you're seeing in the market other than just maybe adjusting some of the numbers a little bit, or how are you guys pivoting right now? This we're keeping the same numbers, 25,000, 25% away, but just it's really checking out the rents, what we think we can get and make sure we that's what we can get. Cool. Um, because I see we buy buy and we have them three months, so three months could change a lot. We want to make sure I see it's all prediction. Yep. Um, but you kind of gotta make sure you can get your rent. Yeah. How are you guys doing that? Like, I mean, obviously you've got your own portfolio that you can glean information from, right? But when you're th when you're saying checking rents and that kind of thing, like what do you what is your guys' process typically to try to check around? Obviously, the property manager. Um, I just I mean, I email him and he kind of looks around and at what obviously he's had a lot of experience. He's I think he's been doing it for 10 or 11 years now. He's a lot of experience, what he can he'll go in and just kind of look look at the market around it, you know, look at what other houses we might have if we have any in that area, what they're getting for rent, the size, and kind of give me a rank that's what I can go off of. Okay. All right. And do you know what he's checking, like how he's looking these things up? Is it just looking at Zillow and like I said, looking at what other ones we have on under contract for what amount, and then just kind of going off based off of that, so because I let him he'll look at like how many bedrooms, how updated it is. Um matching it up to see what's looking for rents for the area. Yeah, I don't I've known people use Zillow Rents or whatever. I know um apartments.com is another one people use. Yeah. Um rentometer. You guys ever use that? Rentometer. Is it rentometer or rentometer? Uh uh may rent rentometer. Rentometer. I don't know what it's called. Rentometer, rentometer. Either one. Yeah. I know we use that. I think we throw that in our a lot of our uh uh with uh if we have a rental property or one that could be a rental property, I think we'll throw that report in there for you guys as well. So that's another one to double check to. Um, we've also just checked with you know our property management companies like what you're doing, Eddie. So for the audience out there, if you guys are working with a property manager, you can check with them. I will say this though, I have seen in the past, you know, for those people out there that are using third-party management with some of my stuff, I've had to challenge sometimes the property management companies to push the rents a little bit on some of them. You might not want to do that now in this current market, like we're talking about, Eddie. But sometimes, you know, do your own due diligence too, is what I would say on some of your rentals. Because sometimes they're gonna want to, I don't want to say take the easy button, hit the easy button, but they want to get people in there and depends on what they think your goals are. If they think your goals are to get it filled as quickly as possible, they're gonna go a little bit lower on the rents to try to get a lot of quality applicants. Good strategy. Good strategy. The other option to that, if you're looking to maximize your rents, is you may have to ask your management company to push that rent up a little bit higher. So have that conversation with them when they're gonna go list that thing about where they think the rents could be. And if in your research you think, hey, I think we can get another hundred, two hundred, three hundred bucks on this thing, you know. Don't be afraid to ask them to start there. You can always come down on price, right? If it's not rented, it's not the end of the world. Um if you're okay with a little vacancy for a little bit, right? Yep. Yeah. What do you guys typically do? Do you know Eddie? Do you typically just go off of whatever your your guy in the office says, or do you guys play with that number and see, you know, hey, can we push that a little bit? Um, I typically go off what he says, because he's gonna be the one that's gonna be look looking to rent it. Okay. Um I'll do a little bit of research, and usually he's pretty close. Okay. Um he's pretty good at guesstimating rents. And I think for everyone they've got, he's been pretty close. Nice. So it's been good so far. It's a nice resource to have, man. Yeah, it's definitely helped a lot in giving you more confidence writing an offer. For sure. Um are you uh is the management company do they only manage your guys' portfolio or do you guys manage for outside funds as well. So cool. I don't know, I don't know what the I don't know the exact amount of how money they manage. Um but they do manage ours plus other people's as well. Okay. Are they just northeast Wisconsin or where do they do their managing? Um so they're based out of Nina, but I think they do within a 60 mile radius, is what they're doing. Okay. So if anybody investors out there listening, you guys are looking for some other options on property management, you can talk to Eddie or or go to ruralproperty management.com, I would assume. Yep. There you go. Go to ruralproperty management.com and you guys can get in contact with them and find out if they might be a good fit to help you guys manage that portfolio. And uh obviously, you know, the family here, Eddie, you guys got a lot of experience in the game in your own personal stuff. So I would assume you guys could, you know, help a lot of investors with translating that into you know helping them be successful if they're you know similar investors to you guys. Yeah. And then we also have an in-house team that um does the work as well. Oh, the rehab? Yep, the rehab. That is such a huge advantage, man. I I have some uh out-of-state investors that have, you know, they live in some high-priced areas, Denver, you know, California, places like that. And we're always looking for good management companies to connect them with that can do the rehab because you know that is just like it's not as commonity as I would have thought, like in other places that people do the rehab for people. I thought that's just what you do if you're a management company, but it sounds like some of them just manage in other parts of the, you know, they just do the leases and the and the background checks and that kind of thing, and they leave the rehab up to the investor to have to manage. That's I can't imagine trying to do that from you know 1,500 miles away or whatever, right? Yeah, that'd be a pain. Yeah. So that's a huge advantage for us here in Wisconsin, at least in northeast Wisconsin. I can't speak for a lot of the other places in Wisconsin, like Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire, you know, central Wisconsin, that type of thing. But I would imagine that you know, it seems like it's a cultural thing here in Wisconsin that our management companies handle the rehab on a lot of these things. So that's huge. I mean, that that is a big issue with flips for a lot of people, too, is who do you get to do the work? Right. So you can know your ARVs and you can know what your rehab should cost, but if you don't have anybody to actually do it, or they're not in line with what you're estimating for your rehab costs or your timeline, they just take way too long. It throws the whole thing out of whack. So if you have a good management company, Eddie, like you guys, and you can turn these properties for people relatively quickly, and you have an in-house person. Now, I if I'm an investor and I don't have to worry about who's gonna do the work, I can just hire you guys to do the whole thing, like white glove service. That's amazing. That's awesome. Then it's just how many of those can you find, right? It's just a matter of how many properties can I pick up, how much money can I raise? Done. Right. We get a pretty good idea of what things cost, and they'll stay consistent. Heck yeah. You're probably gonna have a bunch of people listening to this that will come work for you now, just so they can have access to that team. Yeah. And this in-house guy, right? That's fantastic. Well, Eddie, this is awesome, man. We always wrap with a fun question, as I said. And so, what we want, and this is for out-of-state people, and so they don't they don't know a lot about Wisconsin. We have people that want to invest here, but they just are like, I don't know. Tell me a little bit about Wisconsin. So, besides deer hunting season, which is right now, what is your favorite Wisconsin tradition or place to visit here in this state? Um, we've done a ton of hiking up by you guys, Door County. It's always awesome views, it's really pretty. In the summer, there's tons of stuff to do, tons of events. Um, we like to go up there a lot. Yeah. A lot of hiking. Yeah, for sure. We're very, very blessed to have Door County here, and I'm even more blessed I get to live here. Yeah, yeah. Oh nice, yeah. Doesn't suck. We'll say that. It does get a little quiet now this time of year, man. I was uh I was driving through town today and uh I took my daughter on a little date this morning. We were gonna go get some breakfast. She was super crabby. I was like, I'll take her for a little date before preschool, and we're gonna go to one of our favorite breakfast places, Julie's Cafe, right here, and uh get her some birthday cake confetti pancakes. And um they were closed up, man. They're only open, only open Friday, Saturday, Sunday now. So we we are in the off season for sure, so now it's a battle of trying to find the places that stay open year-round and all that kind of thing, but it's all good. Well, awesome. Um, again, I talked about at the start of this, guys. We want to give back to you guys loyal listeners for listening to the podcast. We got a big goal. We want to hit 500 YouTube subscribers here by the end of the year. So, what we're doing, if you're gonna help us with this, my loyal listener base, we are gonna give away some prizes. Okay, one of those prizes is gonna be a one-hour coaching session with me. We're gonna unpack, like I talked about one of my plays, we're gonna unpack your life. We're gonna figure out where you're at, where you're trying to go, and what are the roadblocks getting you there, and we're gonna help strategize on how to overcome those to accelerate those goals. Eddie mentioned it earlier, having a mentor. You guys, it's so important right now, having somebody here to help shorten that learning curve for you. That's why you listen to this podcast, I assume, because you're shortening your learning curve by listening to this podcast every week and learning from awesome people like Eddie and their experience. We will though be able to deep dive with you personally on your own personal goals on a one-on-one coaching session. That's one of the prizes we're giving away. The other one is a $250 Amazon gift card or Visa gift card, but I'll say Amazon gift card. And the other one is a Wisconsin investor kit. So we're gonna get some podcast merch in there. We're gonna get some uh of my favorite investing books, maybe some Door County coffee we'll throw in there. Just a little something, a little whisky, something, something in there. So here's all you guys have to do to get entered into this contest to win this, okay? You gotta subscribe to the YouTube channel. So if you're one of my Apple or Spotify listeners, love you guys. But go over and subscribe to the YouTube channel as well. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook, either one is fine. Okay. And then we have a pinned post that we're gonna be putting on there. Well, it might even be up already. I'm not sure. But you're gonna go to that pinned post and you're gonna comment done and tag two of your friends who love the show or who would love the show. Okay. Very simple. All right, subscribe on YouTube, go to the Facebook or Instagram, follow it, comment done, and tag two people in it that would like the show. And that's it. And you're entered in. All right. Um we also are have a giveaway post, and if you share that, we're gonna give you an additional entry into this contest. Okay, so go share that on your story, tag the Wisconsin investor, and we'll see that tag, and we'll enter you in for an additional um entry into this contest. So that's it. Easy peasy, Eddie. Let's get you in this contest, buddy. Let's get you in there. Okay. Any final any final comments or thoughts for the audience out there? Never know. No. Okay. I think we covered it, man. If anybody wants to get a hold of you, Eddie, or has any questions or wants to talk to you two about getting involved with you guys on the management side of things, what's the best way for them to reach you? Uh, probably by email or a phone number, whichever one. Uh yeah. If ever seeds call the main phone at rural property management. And then they'll direct you over. Awesome. All right. There you guys have it. We'll put that in the show notes of rural property management.com. You guys can go click on it if you want to click on it, or just go search it up. I'm sure it'll come right up on your Google searches. And um, guys, looking forward to seeing that subscriber list grow before the next episode. I appreciate you guys all for listening, and we will see you on the next show.

Head Shot

Corey Reyment

Host