In this episode of the She’s Got Assets podcast, host Speaker A interviews 25‑year‑old real‑estate entrepreneur Dave (also called Dane) McKinney. Dane recounts his journey from a finance degree and a brief stint in private wealth management to full‑time real‑estate investing. Early influences included a property‑management job in college, a mentor’s investing book, and reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. He joined the national brokerage SVN, then met Gabe Johansen of SMI Real Estate, a partnership that led to a 3½‑hour lunch that pivoted his career. Over the past three years Dane and Gabe have amassed about 80 multifamily apartment units and a 15,000‑sq‑ft self‑storage facility with 151 units in Corvallis. Dane also co‑runs a brokerage with Trevor Howard, having brokered $25‑30 million in transactions in the last two years and targeting $60 million this year. Throughout, he reflects on the tangible nature of real‑estate versus stocks, the constant entrepreneurial drive, and the importance of surrounding oneself with more experienced peers.
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All right. Welcome to the She's Got Assets podcast. Another really fun episode. I have a special guest, Dave McKinney, on. We met recently at the Salem Real Estate Investors event. It was a really great event for anyone that is local. It's totally worth the drive. I've been hearing things about it and I finally made it. And really quick backstory, this mastermind that was amazing, Dane was in my group. I had no idea who he was. I was like, oh my gosh, this guy's really smart and interesting. So we ended up talking a lot, but welcome Dane. I appreciate your being on. I'd love to hear just a quick bio and yeah, what you're all about.
Yeah. Well, I started in real estate like 4 years ago. I'm a young buck. So I'm 25 years old. When I graduated from Oregon State, I had a degree in finance and I was initially in kind of private wealth management and I wasn't super enthused by it. I mean, I liked the helping people invest their money and kind of helping people prepare for retirement, giving them a better plan. You know, telling them about strategies, I guess, of things to do with their money that they might not have known or been able to implement on their own otherwise. So that part was exciting to me. The part that wasn't exciting was that I didn't like the intangible piece of it. And so I always had an interest in real estate. I worked for a property management company in college, actually. The guy who ran it made me read his book on investing in real estate. That was one of the requirements to work for him. So that was That was kind of the initial literature that I read. I read that and then I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. So kind of a random— he was a former Stanford professor, so I'll give it to him. I mean, he was a sharp guy.
Okay.
But he's based out of Corvallis now, taught at Oregon State for a while and then has built up a pretty big portfolio down there. But anyways, I kind of saw the fruits of his labor because he was probably 70 when I was working for him. And I, you know, do a little quick mental math. He had like 400 units down in Corvallis. And I thought, you know, this might not be— this might not be the worst thing in the world to get into. So then I ended up working for SVN originally, which is a commercial brokerage that's national, but they have kind of franchises around the country. I actually really enjoyed the team that I was working with, but there wasn't like a strictly investment-oriented team. And so that was something that I felt like was missing. I met with Gabe Johansen for lunch one time because my intent was to like try to buy his buildings. I have no idea. Get somebody to like— get somebody to buy his buildings or like sell his buildings to somebody else. I don't know. Gabe owns, for those who don't know, he's my partner now, but he owns SMI Real Estate. Which is the brokerage that I work for, as well as somewhere around 1,200 multifamily units. And so he's a, he's a big player in the market. And for whatever reason, I was like, well, maybe he still lets other people broker his deals. But anyways, I went to lunch with him and then we ended up talking for like 3.5 hours. And as I left, like, it wasn't even supposed to be a recruiting meeting. It was just like a— I asked him to meet, actually. And then we left and I was like, I'm going to work for that guy. Yeah, that's, that's who I want to end up, you know, doing business with, I guess. And so long story short, it's been— that was in, that was in the fall of '20. Yeah, that was in the fall of '22. And, you know, 3, 2 and a half years later, I have 80 apartment units with him. And a self-storage property down in Corvallis that we just bought that's 15,000 square feet with 151 units and 7 uncovered parking spots. So nothing crazy there, but we've just a small portfolio. You're the product of the, of the 5 people that you spend the most time with, and everybody who I spend the most time with is leaps and bounds further than me. And so I always— I kind of— it gives me a chip on my shoulder, and I constantly just feel like I'm not doing enough. And then I tell Gabe that, and Gabe's like, dude, you're 25. Like, yeah. And so he, he kind of— he does both. He pushes me to do more, but he also reminds me that, you know, I'm not doing terribly bad, I guess, even though I I feel as though I'm behind all the time, but I think that's the nature of an entrepreneur, is just feeling like there's always more to do because there is always more to do. And so you're never— there's never a day where I finish and I'm like, oh, there's nothing to do tomorrow.
Just done.
Good, I beat it. Like, I won the game now. So yeah, that's, I guess, pretty good backstory. I also run a brokerage with my other business partner, Trevor Howard. So we run, we run a team, I guess is what it's called. And we have brokered together around $25 million, maybe $30 million in the last 2 years. So for being a new team and, you know, a down market, we feel pretty good about that. We're hoping, we're hoping to, to do $60 million this year. So we'll see.
I mean, I don't— obviously that's incredible. It's really inspiring. I would really unpack that. One thing I just want to circle back to was the— you said when you're getting into investing, the intangible part. And that's to me what I love about real estate. I'm curious, like, if you can explore that more because that to me, I can affect something. Stocks, I feel like it's out of my control.
