Retired at 28: Growing Wealth through Real Estate Investing Dallas Hileman

I found with entrepreneurship and business and this happened a lot of spots in my life is if we're like putting our head down and doing the right things and, you know, grinding ourselves, opportunities come and we just need to recognize them.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

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Very, very busy, but trying to find, find the most, get the most out of life as I can, you know. It's too short, right?

It's true, man. And why. And yeah, the world's crazy, so you might as well make the most of it and do what you can and have fun hopefully on the process too. Not burn yourself out. It's kind of the show anyway. Yeah, man. So I mean you've. So when we were introduced together and when I started diving into your whole story, I was just like, okay, but by like 28, I think it was, right, 28 years old, you've, you've already created this thriving real estate business that's spitting out cash flow. I think it was over a hundred thousand a year, which just cash flow alone is like what most people don't even get to that point. Right.

Yeah, yeah.

And you've been doing all this cool stuff. I mean, so I want to walk through like obviously the real estate part, like that's, I think a lot of folks listening, we talked about it. A lot of busy entrepreneurs, small business owners, professionals. And sometimes you're just not getting everything out of your business, but you want to do some cool stuff on the side to increase what you're doing.

Yeah. I mean, whatever you're getting out of your business, even if it's not your business, even if it's just a job, we always want to be putting as much of our additional capital and any extra time we have towards real estate, in my opinion.

I want to hear your opinion, man. I want to hear your story and like what, how you found real estate at a young age and the path. Because I think a lot of people are, I don't know if it's like a daunting kind of thing, you know, like I own my house and I've done some small stuff but I haven't scaled. So I'm super curious of like what got you to that point? And then I want to dive in a little bit.

Yeah. So I, I was doing door to door sales. I knocked on people's houses and tried to sell them one year pest control subscriptions. And I, I actually did it for a total of like seven and a half years. So I did it for a long time after and I started doing it during college. I was doing that during the summer, go do, you know, eight months of college and you know, when I finish the semester, go back out for the summer again. And after A couple summers of that, I'm like, man, I was actually making more money doing summer sales, knocking on people's doors, selling pest control in four months than I would have if I were to like graduate and get a job in my field. And so I'm like, man, I can work for four months and like, have a little bit of flexibility for eight months, or I can work for 12 months and make a little bit less money. I think I'd rather keep grinding on the door. It was a grind, but, you know, there's. I think the benefits outweigh the cons. And so I was doing that for, I guess it had been like four years at the time. And I was kind of at the spot. I was engaged to a girl. I was getting married that fall. And it was kind of like, man, I, you know, when I was single, I was like, yeah, I could knock doors forever. I go with all my buddies. It's just a bunch of bros hanging out. You know, we knock doors during the day, hang out at nights, hang out on the weekends. It was really fun. But, you know, thinking about like getting married and starting a family, I'm like, and, And I also traveled every summer for this. So I lived in Utah and I'd go to, you know, California or to St. Louis, Missouri or Kansas City or North Carolina. We just went to lots of different places. I'm like, man, that actually sounds pretty terrible. Like with kids and a family and uprooting the whole family regularly to go out for four months of the year. And so I was trying to just like, I was just thinking through my future. I'm like, you know what? Like, I can see myself doing this for a little bit longer, but I don't think I want to do this forever. Like, if I have kids that are like in school and making friends in school, like, I cannot picture myself doing the same type of job in that later family situation. And so I was just kind of, I wasn't like urgent, you know, I was still a few years down the road before I felt like I'd like, need to find something different. But I was also kind of at a spot where I was like, well, if I stop doing sales, I was making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year or in the four month summer. And I guess I did have to recruit and build my team in the off season. So it's like it was year round, but it was really a grind during the four month summer. And so like, if I go to do anything else, I will take a huge pay cut and I'll be working 12 months out of the year and I'll have a boss and I'll have to ask for vacation days off. And like, I don't just, like, do my own thing and run my own schedule. And there's a lot of freedom that I had from the job that I had. And I was like, man, that would also be really crappy. Like, I don't want to sell forever, but I don't want to have to go get a normal job. And so I was kind of like, at this dilemma and I didn't really know what the answer was. I. I just. I was just aware that I, like, was at this crossroads of something's going to have to be different in the future. I just don't know what that awareness is.

Good, though, at that age, too. And right where you're at that cross roads.

Yeah, yeah. And. And I think that's. I mean, I think that's important is to be aware of issues but also not freak out about them. Right. I think I was seeing these things, but like, well, at least for the next little while, I can just keep on grinding. And I. I just figured I'd figure it out. And even I did, you know, it all worked out great. But, you know, I think that's an important principle for life, is if you're feeling stuck and feeling overwhelmed, just keep going, just keep on trucking. And, you know, problems always solve themselves over time, so they do.

A couple things that I thought were like, super stand out right there is the fact that a, you did this for like, so many years. You said something like seven years. So I mean, like, you got the chops. And then traveling, I'm just thinking already where this might go. Cause it's the first time hearing your story. I'm like, with real estate traveling, I mean, you're seeing all these different markets and you're starting to see different neighborhoods and you're probably looking at. So I'm just, I'm just observing here, but continue on, man. I like it.

We'll keep on going. I actually, all my. All my properties that I own are, you know, within a couple hours of where I live. But it totally is nice to have been to different markets and, you know, be aware of pros and cons of different markets and what things are like over there, just as a general real estate investor principle. But yeah, I guess how I got, like. I guess my transition to kind of figuring out what I'm doing with my life or figuring out the solution for that problem. I got an unexpected Call from one of my old college buddies. His name was Braden. And he called me and he's like, dallas, what are you doing with all your sales money? Because he knew I was making good money doing sales. And I was like, well, I've got, you know, my 401k. I've got my. It is a solo 401k. I've got my IRA, I've got these other investments. And, you know, I'm just doing like the typical put money into stocks and mutual funds using tax advantage strategies where I can. Is. That's pretty cool. Have you ever thought about investing in real estate? And I was like, well, no, not really. And I didn't know any real estate investors. I. I had heard horror stories of being a landlord, you know, and having bad tenants and not. I didn't have any specific stories in mind, but like, yeah, that sounds terrible being a landlord. That does not sound like that'd be my cup of tea. Well, he's like, well. And I also knew he was a real estate agent, so I know that he's like, obviously has incentive to sell me a property, get his real estate commission, right? And so I was like, a little bit just like, kind of dismissed it. I don't think I'm interested. But he's like, well, before you say no, you should at least meet my father in law, Dave. Dave's a successful real estate investor, and it's like been the best thing for him. You should at least hear his story and hear what it's all about. And so I went down to Provo, Utah, about, I don't know, 20 minutes from where I lived at the time. And I had lunch at Dave's house, in his kitchen, just eating a sandwich. And Dave just told me his story. He's like, he worked as a firefighter, and in his late 30s, he started investing in real estate. Had a buddy show him how to do what he was doing. Bought a rental property, caught the vision, and just like went all in. And within a handful of years, you know, built up his rental portfolio. And now in his, you know, late 40s, he was living a really cushy life and living the dream. And so I kind of heard his story. I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's cool. Like, I didn't, I didn't previously know real estate investors, and I didn't know what that looked like or how successful it could be. And so I kind of like caught the vision. And all of a sudden I went from like, nah, I don't want to do that to, like, I think this is exactly what I want to do.

Yeah, man. I mean, that's where. Well, the thing that stood out there for me is you got a guy in his late 30s who started, and you said in his 40s. It was already feeling pretty cushy with the whole landlording thing, you know, owning properties. So that timeline right there, I was going to expect, like, oh, the guy's 70 something now, and he's, you know, he's. He spent a long time doing this. But no, like, that's 10 years. Ish.

And, yeah, kind of reflects early 50s that, you know, I give him the benefit of the doubt. I didn't ask his age. I don't know, but I always started in his. In his late 30s. And he's not an old guy, you know, he's like a. He's a dad of a. His oldest girl was in college, you know, so however old that would make somebody, maybe low 50s. I don't know.

That's all good, though. No, I mean, it's great because I think that time horizon. I'm just putting myself in those shoes. For one, I'm late 30s. But also, just for anyone listening, I know the demographics kind of similar, you know, 40s, 50s as well. So it's. It's not too late. It's basically like what I want to put out there, too.

And I mean, the earlier the better. But starting, you know, now is better than is the next best time, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So what happened after that point?

Yeah, so I told Brayden after that. I was like, all right, Braden, I'm interested. Like, go find me a property. You know, he's a real estate agent. That's what he does. Go find me a property. Let's see what you got. And, you know, now I find my own properties. But at the time, he went out and found a good property, and he's like, hey, I think this is a good one. And he had done a pro forma, running all the numbers. And I was like, okay, yeah. But, like, he's got his. You know, he's a salesperson. I didn't really trust his pro forma. And, you know, that was one thing Dave told me when I had lunch. It's like, if you're going to do it, like, I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you have and look over any properties with you and, you know, help you be a landlord for the first time, like, you know, just let me know. And so I called Dave back. I'm like, hey, Dave, I'VE got this property. Braden thinks it's awesome, but I just wanted to get your opinion on it, so I sent it over to him. He looked at the numbers. He's like, yeah, this looks like a pretty good property. I think this would be a good win for you. And so I was like. I told Brandon, I'm like, all right. I don't know what I was doing. But I trusted my mentor. He became my mentor. Unofficial mentor, Mentor, right? I. I trusted him. And he said it seemed like a good deal. And so I was like, all right, let's go for it. I kind of felt like I just had to take a leap of faith, you know, and I don't know what I'm doing. But they did and had to give it a shot. So I was feeling pretty good about it. Like, the numbers look good that, you know, it seemed like it was going to provide a really good rate of return for me. We went to look at the property in person. We got it under contract, and we went to go do our inspection. And when we were walking through the property, turns out this property was, like, in super bad condition. Specifically, one unit had, like, holes in the walls, holes in the doors, nasty stuff dripping down the walls, super unclean kitchen. And it was vacant. They had just finished an eviction. And it's just. And then even the outside was like, some siding was coming off, missing shingles on the roof, bikes and junk in the front yard. And just like the parking lot was like crumbly asphalt potholes and stuff. I'm like, man, this. And I grew up in a nice neighborhood, you know, I. I grew up with a middle class or just slightly above middle class family. And I was like, man, I haven't really even seen properties like this before. And even knocking doors, we kind of stay away from low income areas. And so I was a little bit hesitant. I actually was like, I went from, like, being super excited to, like, totally fearful.

Well, it's a whole new thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I don't think this is for me. I don't think I'm cut out for this. Like, all those horror stories, and I haven't heard very many but, like the, you know, whispers of landlord horror stories, bad tenants toilets, you know, repairs. Like, that is exactly what this looks like, is just headaches. And so I was, like, pretty nervous. And I was like, my wife was with me. She went and saw it, and she was also nervous. She's like, I don't think we should do it. So I was like, well, let Me call Dave and like, see what he thinks. And so I called Dave. I'm like, dave, we went and saw the property and it was like, super bad. He's like, well, what'd you see? It's like holes in the doors, holes in the walls. This. That was like, okay. Anything else? No, just like that stuff. He's like, dallas, when we buy a rental property, we're not buying it because it's cute. We're not buying it because we want to live there ourselves. We're not buying it because we like to look at it. We buy a rental property because of the numbers. And we ran the numbers and the numbers look like it works. And so even if we do budget to fix these things, the numbers still work. And so if the numbers work, we should proceed. So, you know, it's obviously your decision, but I think that you should do it is basically what he said. And so I, like, was at this power and like, everything inside of me was saying, no, run. This is a bad idea. But my mentor and my real estate agent, who I felt like was, you know, he was. He was a friend of mine, but I understood that he was incentivized to sell a property. But he was saying, yes. And my mentor says, yeah, you should do it. And so I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go for it, worst case scenario. But I had invested like $80,000 into the property. I'm like, worst case scenario, I lose my 80 grand. I have a terrible experience. I could move on from that. I mean, it not be fun. That was all of my. All of my savings at the time. But I was like, life would go on. I wouldn't. I wouldn't be like, dead, you know? And so I. I just took a leap of faith and did it, as scary as it was. And it took me about three months to be like, oh, my gosh. This was actually the best financial decision I've ever made.

So, I mean, that's such a common thing, I'm sure, like, when people newbies getting into real estate. Because that's probably what I would feel like too, you know, getting in and seeing a property and be like, oh, my God, that's gonna be so much work. Or like, what do I not know here? What are behind the walls and things that are gonna cost way more. But like you said, if you have a mentor, someone who's done a lot of these, seen the things, the common issues, and, you know, the numbers, that's the key thing. It's an investment, right? Like it all comes down to numbers. And yeah, I guess the numbers thing, I'd love to go a little deeper on that, like the things to look at or look for. But also like, what was your next steps to repairing this thing? Was it like, is it budgeted in that you're having someone else do this? Are you doing it?

Like, great question. So as far as running numbers, that's, that's a huge topic. That'd be an hour long conversation. But just for somebody who wants a quick tip, there's a website called dealcheck IO and it's the best software for running numbers. Now you have to know like, what to put in all the fields and how to use it. But it's really cool because it'll import properties from Zillow. You type in the address, it pulls in data from Zillow and it pulls in a lot of the, like, estimated rents, estimated property taxes, estimated insurance. And you also kind of fine tune your expenses and the loan product that you're using and things like that. But if you, you know, if you know what you're doing enough to run numbers, it's by far the best property analysis tool out there. And it's free. Like you can have like 10 saved properties at a time for free. So if you're just like, yeah, I'll just delete the ones I didn't want, you know, and put in new ones and it's free forever.

Cool. So no barrier to at least try.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess the only other thing I'll say with the analysis is just recognize that the analysis is just a projection. So if the analysis looks, all we're looking for is that, you know, in a moderate or even conservative situation, that the returns from this property would at least be tolerable. Right. So we're not, we're not looking. I mean, and the better it looks, the better, right? If we find a slam dunk deal, then then great. But I'm, I'm just looking to say, hey, you know, if I'm doing a moderate analysis, I'm not being super aggressive. Is this at least tolerable? Like, would I be okay with getting this kind of rate of return? And if I am, then that's great because when you buy the property, whatever you buy, whatever the analysis said, we're always going to do our very best to get it to perform as, as well as we can, as much rents as we can, little as expenses as we can. And in my experience, I outperform my analysis by quite a bit, like probably 30% better cash flow than maybe not 20, 20 to 30% better cash flow than my projections. Dead and. And so solid. If we use it, if we use our analysis to just make a logical decision that this property is. Is at least tolerable, and then we're going to do our best to maximize it once we have it, then it's. We're going to be happy with it.

So beautiful. It's great setup, man. And thanks. And yeah, go check that out, everyone. I want to go poke at that too, see some numbers. And I'm sure there's some other. Yeah. These tools, you know, I'm sure with AI too. I know. I've heard there's some pretty wild things you can do to analyze properties, but that's probably a whole nother rabbit hole.

Yeah, there's a lot to it. But for sure.

Anyway, let's go back to, like. Because the common thing when you see a fixer upper or something like this is like, how the heck am I going to do the work, you know, or who's going to do the work? And I don't know the costs on that. So. Yeah, what was your approach there?

So that was something I did wrong for. There's a lot of things I did wrong. I had a mentor, and his system worked. But he's old school, right. He wasn't using modern technologies and tools and systems. And so he was like, yeah, I own properties all around my house. And he was the repair guy. He was retired, right. From his rentals, but he also would go and do all of his own repairs. And so I was like, okay, I'm just going to do what my mentor does. And this unit that was in disarray, I went up and spent like three days. My wife and I went out. She came up with me for a day. We cleaned it. I actually got a buddy and his wife, too. We went up and cleaned everything. And then we had to, you know, repaint it, patch some walls. And I had done pretty well. And then I got to the spot where I was replacing doors and I was like, I bought some doors. I bought a. A router with, like, a little template to cut out the hinges on the doors. And it just, like, I could not get it. I tried on two different doors. I ruined the doors that I bought from Lowe's. Luckily, Lowe's took them back as returns and gave me my money back. And so before.

It's tough.

And so I had spent like three days up here doing just, like, grinding stuff. And so I ended up calling. I have A buddy that was like, yeah, me and my, my brother are starting a construction business. He's a contractor, you know, and we're kind of building the business together. So I called him like, hey, does your brother do doors? Like, could he help hang some doors for me? He's like, oh yeah, for sure. So he went up there, spent like three hours and had all the doors hung. I'm like, dude. And I feel like that kind of started to open my mind to like, man, I, I'm not that handy. I can do little stuff. I could unclog a sink, you know, I can paint a wall, you know, But I didn't want to do that with my time. I was, My time was pretty valuable with, you know, my career. And so I feel way better off just hiring it out. So now I hire out everything I own. Properties. Even properties that are like 20 minutes away from where I live. I haven't been there since I bought them. I just, I manage 100% remotely, hire it all out.

But I'm a big fan of that. I mean, it's all about that goes with any part of your life. It's like you have time and energy and it's like, how are you feeling with those? Like, is your time is worth something? Obviously we all have our own number. And then it's like, is that energy you want to put out towards that task or that thing or is it like making you kind of repel from it and frustrating you and all that stuff? Some people just love that. And yeah, yeah.

And if that's like a zen spot for you, then great, go for it. But for me it's not. It's frustrating.

No, no. Shame, you know. So cool. So you did this deal and so it seemed to have worked out this, this one. So what?

Like, yeah, I was getting after the investment, I was getting about a thousand bucks a month of cash flow and I'm like, oh shoot, a thousand. And it was a four unit building. It was a four plex. So I was getting, you know, 250 per month per unit in cash flow. And for me, like that, just that monthly cash. I'm like, oh my gosh. I like that's. I live off, you know, at the time I was living off like 5,000 bucks a year. Like, you know, it was just me, my wife living in a one bedroom apartment and we're not spenders, you know, I was driving an old beat up 2014 Jetta and happy with that, you know. Anyway, so I was like, man, if I could just have a Few more of these, I could like, be financially free. Like, I wouldn't have to work, I wouldn't be living my dream life, you know, but I would, like, at least have my necessities covered. And so, like that for me, I just caught the vision. I was like, man, a thousand bucks a month from this. I made this purchase once and then, you know, have to have in touch with my mentor. He's like. And that's the, you know, the properties perform that at its very worst during year one. Because what happens is you. Rents go up over time and it gets, you know, your mortgage stays pretty much the same, but as rents go up with inflation, you get more and more cash flow. As time goes on, it's like, man, if I can get it, you know, it's this good already. I just need a few more of these. And so what happened for me is I, I stayed living frugal. I, you know, even though I was like a thousand bucks a month, that could, you know, be a car payment for a really cool car, you know, I could go blow that money. But I kept living frugal and I saved that money up. Plus, I actually felt like more motivated at my job. Now I was a commission based salesman. I'm like, man, if I could like, work harder, get more sales and make more money at work, then I could invest more money into real estate faster and just scale this, this thing quicker. And so I just doubled down everywhere. And, and it took me about one more year to be able to buy my next rental property. And then it took me about one more year to buy my next one. But once I had three properties, I had, you know, three properties that were producing a little over 1,000 bucks per month each. So I had, you know, probably $3,500 a month of cash flow. Combining that with my job, I was able to scale a lot faster. So I bought two properties the next year. I bought three properties the next year. And it just got, it got easier and easier to scale for me by the time I had five, four plexes. So it took me, you know, I bought a property and it was one year, two year after about three years when I bought two, four plexes in the same year I had that fifth one. And I was like, shoot, I'll be cash flowing like, you know, $6,500 a month. Maybe. I don't remember the exact number, but it is my, my initial goal was 6,000. Like, if I could have $6,000 a month, I would quit my job. And I was like, I reached it. And you know, that year, like with the year that I bought that fifth fourplex after, you know, giving it a year of time, I cash flowed over a hundred thousand dollars that year. But it was at that fifth one I was kind of running the numbers, projecting forward. I'm like, I could quit my job. So I did. I was like, I'm done. I stopped knocking doors, quit my sales job and just kept rolling out my real estate career.

I love it, man. I mean, it's like I'm hearing two things. There's consistency, you know, it's like for one in the sales job, you're doing that, what, seven and a half years, I think you said. And that was obviously funding the bigger vision that you had. And you were seeing the vision as it was developing. You're like, okay, this compounds, like literally compounds in effort or not even in effort, just in results and returns. And then the fact that you hammered down like you saw the vision, so you had three years of consistency. But it wasn't just like sitting back, chilling or blowing the cash. It was, you're actually, no, you're going to keep compounding your investment and focus into this consistent path, which I don't think most people do. They might just get one or a couple here and there. But you went all in. But all in on both sides, you know.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, and, and the model that I followed is very much like, hey, I make really good money with my job. Like my time is best spent working in my sales job because I was good at it. It was commission based job. The more energy I put, the more money I could make from it. So I had a really good gig over there. There are people where it's like, hey, I don't make great money at my job or I'm not in a, you know, scalable income job. And that's fine too. There are ways to do. I could have been like investing more time and energy into real estate and scaling it by partnering with people or finding undervalued deals that I can, you know, invest energy into repair and you know, scale a little bit quicker that way instead. But either way it's doubling down, right? Whether we want to double down at our business and say, hey, I make great money, I'm just going to be an investor and invest my extra cash into more real estate and retire that way, or I don't make great money, I'm going to invest my time and energy into real estate activities and get creative, you know, use partners, try to negotiate deals with sellers and if I buy distressed property that need repairs. But you got to double down if you want to, at least if you want to go fast, you got to double down somewhere.

So yeah, yeah, there you go, man. And that's, I think it's great motto for whatever you do. But here, where it can be exponential growth with your efforts, really not one time, but at least like setting it up for that property. Big announcement here. The Hustle and Flowchart podcast is now the newest podcast on the HubSpot Podcast Network. They're the audio destination for business professionals. It's exactly why I joined the network, to expand what we've been doing here. Making business the fuel for your life, not the stressor or the burnout. We want to build fun and make business a big part of who we are and our expression out to others. So you're going to expect a lot more. More curated guests that sync up with this mission. Also, more topics and episodes from me. And I want you to keep listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Go check out other shows on the HubSpot podcast network at HubSpot.com podcastnetwork Hey, I wanna tell you about an all in one marketing platform that's been a game changer for a bunch of businesses. It's called Kartra and it's the all in one tool that you need to grow. So the point is you don't need to pay for a whole bunch of different subscriptions because Kartra does it all. So what makes Kartra different is that you can automate everything. Everything from delivering your online courses, sending targeted emails, selling products, and even handling your customer support. So all in all, it's saving you time and a bunch of money. And right now you can try it out for 30 days. Just head over to hustleandflowchart.com com/kartra and go get that free trial again. That is hustle and flowchart.com/k a r T R A. Now tell me about the team. Like what, what goes into a property? Obviously you now have multiple and maybe luckily not luckily, I don't know, but like the region. So I'm thinking like regional. How do you deal with that? Like, what are your thoughts on location and then team?

For me, like each county that I have properties in, I need a different team. My team consists of a handyman, that's my probably most important team member, a cleaner, carpet cleaner. Like people that you need for turnovers and repairs. And then I, I just recently hired like management assistant who Helps me just kind of like deal with texting tenants and deal with turnovers and listing units and things like that.

So not a full blown manager, but an assistant, more or less.

I self manage everything, but I do my self managing is just like relying on people to do it. I just kind of coordinate stuff, right.

And more like a CEO of.

Yeah, I'm the CEO of my real estate portfolio. I make decisions and, and I think the only thing that I still do that's like, okay, this. And I'm hoping that my new assistant will eventually take this over, but she lists the units, gets applications. I still am like, I want to be the one to pick my tenants because picking the wrong tenant could be huge nightmares. And I'm like, you know, I've got 32 units right now and you know, that means I probably have, I don't know, maybe on average a little more than one turnover per month. I feel like it ends up coming in like batches though. It's like, oh, one month, I'll have like three turnovers and then I don't have any for a couple months. But it takes me maybe an hour to review an application. And I still do that. I'm like, I do want to be the person to pick my tenant. So that's what I still do. That's like, I feel kind of like I'm in the weeds on that section. But my bookkeeping, you know, all the stuff that's a little more just routine and mundane, I hire somebody else to do that for me. So my management model is basically, you know, once I have a tenant in there, they pay rent online. If they go late, there's automatic late fees that get posted. If they're still late, my assistant will message them and say, hey, rent's due. You know, try to maybe work a deal on cutting their late fees in half. They can pay by Friday or something like that. So she kind of manages that. And then anytime there's a repair, my, my tenant texts in on our, like I use a Google voice number. So they text in on our Google voice number and either my me or my assistant will do a group chat with my handyman and the tenant and say, hey, you know, Mr. Handyman, this tenant and this address is having this issue. Can you go take care of it? They'll schedule it with the tenant. They get the job done, send me a bill, and then we just write them a check and pay them. And so like my job's done there. And then if I have a turnover, then we list it, get somebody in and I mean it's pretty simple. Like self managing is way more lucrative, not only because of saving management fees, but no one cares more about your units than you do. So you'll get higher rents, you'll keep your expenses lower, and if you do it the right way, it's all digital from your computer and pretty minimal time commitment.

Dude, I love it. Like for some reason I haven't heard this kind of model. It's always like either you're doing everything yourself or you're, you know, you're, you're Farming out what, 20% to a property management company or something like that?

No, if you're doing short term rentals that be more accurate for long term rentals, you'll find management companies that'll do 8 to 10%, but they're also frequently charging like 50% of the first month's rent when they sign a new contract, a new lease. And then they're also usually up charging on any repairs that are needing to be done. And so that means they're like not incentivized to keep your expenses low. If anything, it's like, oh yeah, the more repairs, the more, you know that's extra income by charging extra for all the repairs that we do. So I, I bought properties before that were like one property specifically, this lady was owning it and she's like, man, I just don't make any money from this thing. And when I bought it, the property managers being professionally managed, they were charging like 750amonth for rent. When I bought it, I raised rent to like 1200 bucks. So huge jumps in rents, Everybody moved out, but I was able to fill it because that was market rent is, you know, people were willing to pay that. And like I had looked at their operating statement and she was just getting like tons of repairs all over the place. And it's my nicest building that I own. It was built in 1991 and I have like, I might have repairs here and there, but it's probably my least repair building. And so just like she had a bad manager, that was a bad property manager. But I think that in general property managers aren't going to, I mean no one's going to care for it the same way that you will. So when you're, at least when you're growing your business until you're like, man, I'm so busy that I just don't have time for this or like, you know, I'm kind of at this spot now where it's like, man, if I pick up another Property. I don't really value the extra cash flow. Like I already make way more money in cash flow than I spend each year. So like it doesn't improve my lifestyle, but it will hurt my lifestyle because I've just got more to deal with. At some point you'll get to a spot where it's like, okay, it is finally worth passing these off. And my strategy is going to be more of trying to hire somebody to replace me rather than hiring a property manager, like hire an internal assistant. But anyway, eventually you will get to that point. But I'm a big believer in self managing, especially starting.

I think it's a great concept, man. And it's something that I think a lot of business owners, people listening right now can relate to. I'm sure a lot of us listening have assistance or someone on our team that we just know handles a lot of the admin work. It's like, well, there's a lot of that here too. Even if it's a physical space, it gets you out of the doing of a lot of that coordination, which I'm sure sucks up most of the time.

Yeah, well, and, and I think my job gets boiled down to like I always tell my students if you, for every unit that you, that you own, plan on spending like 30 minutes per month per unit. But I feel like that goes down like as you scale, right. You get the, the benefit of the masses. And so like I, I've got 32 rental units and probably takes me about 10 hours a month and I work on them about maybe once or twice a month for a few hours at a time, you know, and I kind of look through my reports and try to find inefficiencies or maybe I'm doing some screenings for a turnover and maybe I have to coordinate stuff for like random text messages here and there. But it's pretty minimal effort. And yeah, my 32 units right now, they're bringing in like $280,000 a year in cash flow. So it's like I'm okay investing 10 hours a month for, you know, $22,000 a month of cash flow.

That's pretty, pretty solid, man. Yeah. And I think that's something everyone, I mean, doesn't matter where you live in, that's going to be helpful. And it's something that's totally doable. It sound with something that we already existing like a business or a professional gig that we have. I'm kind of curious of your thoughts on the current market conditions. Obviously interest rates are higher, locations. I don't know exactly what you have in mind there, but what are your thoughts generally for someone who is starting out new to all this?

So, I mean, it's still a great time to buy. It's a little bit different now. So some markets that we used to really like have now been kind of priced out. So for example, I live in Utah. All of my properties are in Utah. For a lot of people that's become priced out because the, the prices have already gotten high. It's a fast growing area, lots of people moving in, which means it's a great place to own. Long term, we're going to get a lot of appreciation, lots of rent growth, but it makes the entrance prices pretty high. And then that was already kind of hard to swallow, but then with higher interest rates happening now, now it's like really hard to swallow. And it actually makes it very difficult to find positive cash flowing properties. That cash flow day one with an 8% interest mortgage rate. Right. So there's some markets that were like, yeah, you used to be like, oh, these are great markets. We love these because they're growing so fast. Some of the really fast growing stuff are like, hey, this is still a great market. But we're probably like, we're gonna have to look through 50 bad deals to find one good deal. And then if we find it, doesn't mean we'll get it. We're gonna have to like compete with other buyers that are also trying to win that really good deal, you know. So it's just, it became difficult in some markets that are growing fast. So our markets, our recommended markets have shifted to more like moderate, moderately growing markets or more stable markets that are lower priced. And the, you know, the cash flow that we look at starting out is not quite as sexy. We're looking at like, yes, a little bit lower rates of return on cash flow. But the future outlook is really good. So the what, what's happening is with the higher interest rates, it is putting downward pressure on purchase prices. And so we are able to get better deals. And the market's slowing down. Like before it was like, oh, this property is listed for $400,000. If I don't even want a chance at it, I've got to offer 440. You know, like we're, you know, what it's listed for wasn't what it was selling for. And now it's starting to slow down in the opposite direction where they're listed. If we see a property listed for more than 30 days and we say, hey, we are going to Be asking for a discount upfront. So it's listed for 400 now. We can maybe get it for 385 or 390. Right. And so we get a little more negotiation. So we actually are able to lock in better deals right now than we were a year ago or two years ago. But the cash flow is not as great because the interest rates are so high. But what's exciting is if we can have a property that does well and meets our cash flow requirements and meets our rates of return requirements with the high 8% interest rate, eventually no one has a crystal ball. But fingers crossed, hopefully rates will drop again to where they're going, you know, 5% even. Even a few percent off. And now all of a sudden, we free up an extra few hundred dollars of, you know, what was going towards interest on our mortgage. Now, our property was performing okay before or decent before. Now it's performing great. Right. And so, yeah, like, it's still a great time to buy. It is harder. We do. We do sift through more bad deals before we find the deals that we actually want to move forward on. But there's still lots of great properties out there. Our students are buying properties all the time. We just have to make sure we're getting the right ones.

Yeah. And it's. It's almost like a sound of what, like the longer time horizon. So kind of putting that. That out there and then knowing and just being diligent. Right. Using the tools like you mentioned before, and just being persistent and showing up and looking for those that might be lingering for a little longer, 30 days plus or whatever.

Yeah. And just knowing that, knowing the tactics. Right. It's all about, I mean, finding a good deal and turning a good deal into a great deal with negotiating. That's a huge part of our strategy and knowing the right negotiation tactics and having the right teams. Like, part of what we offer is we connect our students with team members in their areas, like a real estate agent, a lender, and inspectors and things like that. And so when, you know, when they find the right property, they're going to have experts that are able to negotiate strongly for them and turn a good deal into a great deal.

Yeah, well, I mean, like, you bring up a point because like, the other part of we were talking like this, this podcast, kind of like a two for. There's a lot of people who want to, you know, they're curious about the real estate stuff. And obviously now with Financial World, we want to diversify. I think it's always smart to do that anyway. But why not something that is a lot more long term in real estate? I'm doing the same here locally in San Diego and luckily I have some property here so I can kind of like develop and move stuff around in a hot place. Obviously very expensive. So. But like to your point, now you've reached a point of what? 30. 30 plus 35 properties I think you said.

And yeah, 30, 32 rental units.

Yeah, yeah. And now you're coaching so you've like, obviously you don't need to keep scaling that. You're also educating on all this stuff and the fact you've, you've also grown a coaching business really large really quickly. And I know a lot of people listening are coaches as well or they have some kind of coaching element in their business. So I'm curious of I guess two things here. It's like tell me about the real estate coaching. So if people obviously you gave a ton of info already and if they want to jump in with you, I definitely want to give them that avenue to go with you. And then I want to talk about the coaching business itself, the model and everything.

Yeah. So I mean our business is called the Landlord Academy. So just go to thelandlordacademy.com We've got a free training. It's like a 20 minute training. You can learn from me. I'll give you all my best tips just kind of in a short, sweet, concise video. If you like it, book a call with my team. They'll chat with you about the different programs that we have for coaching and different price points. And we've got financing options available. So depending on your budget, we've guaranteed have a program that would fit your budget and be able to help you get started quickly.

So sweet. Yeah, man.

As far as growing the coaching business goes. So yeah, it's been a wild ride. I mean I've been doing it for about two years now and I guess two and a half years now. And initially I started it where I was like, I was kind of in limbo after I quit my sales job. I'm like, what am I doing with my time now? Like I picked up a ton of hobbies and I was trying to just like, you know, play and I played a lot but it's like you can only play so much before. It's just not fun. Especially when all my other friends were still working jobs and you know, busy and so I didn't have people to like share hobbies with. So yeah, I was like, maybe I'll go Get my real estate license. And the more I looked into that, I didn't really like how I was like, well, I have to like market myself and post on social media all the time. And like, maybe I'll go, maybe I'll go get my. Become a financial advisor and help coach people through like making personal finance investments and stuff. And then I was like, man, that's also like a sales job. And I was, I'd done sales for so long, I kind of don't want to do sales. And I, I had people ask me all the time, dude, I need to pick your brain about real estate. And in this time, I already joined lots of other real estate coaching courses and programs and I signed up for another one. And every program I bought are like super like long drawn out videos where it's either like recorded zoom calls, you know, like watching videos like this, like learn about real estate, which is, you know, these are great, but it's, it's a lot of long form video to get the, you know, nuggets that you.

Need the thing you're looking for.

Yeah, yeah. Or, or other ones that did have shorter videos. They were just like not very well planned out and like, not specific enough. And I'm like, man, I could do like. And I have joined some other courses on other topics that were phenomenal and like, amazing. I'm like, man, I could do a real estate course way better than any of these other ones that I've bought and spent thousands of dollars on. And so I just thought, I'm just gonna start doing it. I'll just start doing it. I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna do a YouTube channel or make a course. And so I just started making some videos. I made like 12 or 15 videos and I did like a pre sale. So I was like, I, I texted a bunch of friends and posted on Facebook like, hey, you know, just kind of put some feelers out to see if there's interest. And I got like 67 people that bought my pre launch with just a handful of videos. I was like, oh, that's cool. And it was only like a third of the people I knew and then like two thirds of people that like, I didn't know that like had, you know, I was like, share with a friend. I asked somebody to post on their Facebook to, you know, share the word or whatever. And so I was like, okay, that's pretty cool. So I just spent the next year like continuing to build it. I had another buddy that had a personal finance course and he's like, dude, all of my students are asking about real estate, but I'm not a real estate investor. And he's like, could I sell my course to your. Your course to my students? I was like, yeah, just give him this promo code. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how we do it. Like, I. I will. I will sell them. I'm going to do sales calls with them and sell your. Your program. And. And he's really, like. He's a salesperson and really good at, like, he's like, I'll help you find out the price point. Like, he's like, you're not charging nearly enough for your course already, and I want to get an affiliate commission, you know, so he, like, helped me kind of figure out my model of like, oh, what should I be charging? And what should I include? And what could I include to make it worth way more and make. Make it so people are willing to pay way more? And so he started selling my program for me, and, like, like, blew my mind. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is nuts. Like, in my. You know, I'd been in business for about a year at the time, and he did more sales in, like. Like, two weeks than I had done in my whole year, and with a lot less clients, you know? Cause he was just charging the right amount for the value that we're giving. And he helped me change my model and helped me give me some ideas to add more value to students, and it just kind of morphed. And, yeah, I really picked up. I. I found a good. A really good sales guy. So I was running ads on Facebook, kind of following the model that my friend taught me as running ads. And I hopped on a call. Sales call with a guy. He's like, wait, you're Dallas? Are you the one that I saw in the ads? I'm like, yeah, I'm the guy in the ads. He's like, why are you doing your own sales calls? I'm like, I don't know. I'm just starting up. He's like, you don't have a sales team. He's like, I like, no, we're just kind of new. He's like, dude, I need to get. I'll help you build a sales team. And we kind of worked out an agreement where it's like, look, if I can help you build a sales team, you'll get, you know, free. Free his membership for free. And he's like, you know, and I'd like to have an Opportunity to be like an equity partner. I think he just kind of saw an opportunity of like, this is cool. He's doing good stuff. And he obviously doesn't have his systems built up. And so we kind of set some goals. It's like, hey, if we reach these goals, then we'll be, you know, I'd be more than happy to have you be an equity partner. I wouldn't have done that alone. I know that for sure. And I brought the sales guy on and we. He just crushed it. He was like a phenomenal salesperson and we just like, yeah, took it to the moon and it's just been a. A wild ride since then.

But dude, I love it. Yeah, it's like, I'm hearing like, systems, obviously. It's like everything. Yeah. It's even the real estate stuff that we were just talking about. But then also, yeah, sales guy or salesperson in general, whoever's talking. But like, you have that knowledge. So now you can pass down obviously what you already know. They're coming with their skill set. Then the third thing is, like, now you're leveraging someone else's audience to send warm leads or, you know, warm prospects your way. And what, they're even doing the selling or at least like doing the pre selling part of it all. I mean, pretty damn killer. Like, that's a solid model right there.

And I got, I got lucky. I kind of just had a lot of people reach out at the right time. Like my buddy Dan that was doing the personal finance course. He called me, he's like, hey, I saw you do a real estate course. My students are interested in real estate. Like, I wonder if there's a. So I got lucky and that was a huge turning point. And then this guy, like, clicking on my Facebook ad and I was trying to do a sales call with him and him eventually becoming my business partner. That, you know, took our business. Like, I think there's, you know, I think I found with entrepreneurship and business, and this happened with a lot of spots in my life is if we're like putting our head down and doing the right things and, you know, grinding ourselves, Opportunities come and we just need to recognize them. Right. Be open minded to opportunities. And, and both of these things, I could have been like, no, I'm going to do things my way and like, miss these amazing opportunities. But I was open minded. Yeah, sure, let's try it out, see what happens, you know, and it ends up working out sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't. But you got to always be open minded.

I mean, the fact that, and you said lucky and yeah, there's some luck, but the fact that you were putting yourself out there, like the fact that you were even putting an offer out there in the first place, but then selling or, you know, running Facebook ads, like most people won't even get to that step. And maybe a lot of people are hesitant, but it's like, boom, you did it.

I mean, you can say, yeah, there's, there's luck. Everybody's going to get lucky, though. Luck is more of a numbers thing, right? Like, the only reason I got lucky that Dan reached out to me is because I had made videos and been posting on my social media, you know, and so I got lucky because Dan reached out to me. And the only reason I met this other guy is because I had been running ads and doing sales calls and grinding and I got lucky that the, the right guy, you know. So I think that if you're doing the right things, luck will always come your way. It's just a numbers game, but you have to be open. You have to be willing to recognize the opportunities, right? So I think it's just putting in, putting in the effort and being open minded.

Dude, I love it in Dallas, man. Like, this thing is like packed with so many gyms and from both on the real estate side, coaching side, I'm curious, where are things headed now for you, like on both sides of the business or do you have, obviously you're, you're your family guy too, so that's a focus. But yeah, where do you see things going for, I guess those businesses and any last thoughts on before we wrap this puppy up?

Yeah, I mean, so we're for real estate. My next purchase is going to be something really large and I probably will just either if my internal manager is really doing well, maybe I'll have her do it. I feel like if we pick up a bunch of units at once, I'd be pretty tempted to just like hire property managers, say, hey, you do this professionally, at least get started that way. But I'm at a spot now with my real estate that I don't want to buy any more units that I'm going to be in charge of because, yeah, the extra money doesn't help me and the, the time of finding the deal and closing on and like getting it set up is going to be a pain. And so like, if, if I do something, it'll be, it'll be big. But most of my time right now is spent on my business. So I love growing my coaching business where, yeah, Trying to solve problems every day and trying to improve. And a lot of what I do now is adding contents, like figuring out what needs my students have and some stuff I'm not an expert in. So for example, we had a lot of needs, like hey, I want to learn how to do like really creative deals, like how do I negotiate with sellers for like seller financing terms and you know, get some multi unit.

I don't know if you do any of that kind of stuff too.

Yeah, I do, I do. And yeah, so yeah, how do we do. There's some stuff that I'm just not an expert in. And like even like I've got some tax advice but I've had people asking for like additional tax stuff. I'm like, I kind of know that. So I've actually been finding people say, hey you, you're good at this. And we're like contracting with them to like help us create modules to you know, add some value, add content for our students. So that's really what I do now is I do our, you know, growing our education, you know, the content that we have as well as just the systems as we continue to grow, you know, there's a lot of technology systems that are required and that's what I studied. Even though I never used my degree, I studied information systems in college. So I am very good with softwares and technologies and using them to automate a lot of the demands of, you know, high ticket coaching businesses.

So oh yeah, well, now's the world to do our time to do it with all the AIs and all these crazy automations you can build custom business. I'm doing all sorts of stuff too with my team and we're just like every day I'm like, oh my God, just like that. Just cut a whole, you know, slew of time off. So yeah, good time to be alive for that. And also shout out your podcast because you just started that, just launched it.

By, by recommendation of Joe. Yeah, we just started our podcast. It's called the Landlord Academy own your freedom podcast. So we just launched our first episode today. After talking with Joe. I'm actually going to probably trim it up a little bit and repost it, you know, little cleaned up version. So I'm learning, I'm learning we're brand new. I'm, I'm not a podcaster yet, but we're going to be sharing a lot of free, free nuggets and free advice. So go give it a follow.

Yeah man. Hey man, you're a podcaster now. You're in the. You're in the deep end. You just threw yourself in there. So this is how.

There you go. That's right. That's right. I'm sure if I keep on grinding, I'll get lucky eventually, you know, find some good opportunities.

So that's how it works, dude. Dallas, I appreciate you so much. Happy we connected, made it happen. And thanks for being so open, too. And definitely go check out the Landlord Academy if you're willing to dive in there or wanting to at least check out the video and learn a little bit more from Dallas. So appreciate you, man. And I'll go check out that podcast too. Curious?

Oh, yeah.

Thanks, J. All right, all right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living away work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But you know, work can be fun and it should be fueling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast and I will see you next time.