Everybody's Kennedy. Neal. Hello. And we are here with Isaac Laine. Welcome. Hey, thank you. Thank. I appreciate the opportunity
to be on the show. Your story is just really relatable
and I think it's awesome. You know, you kind of started at zero and
you work your way up with my first year. I just spent really just networking
with people and reading books and really just learning
like the basics of real estate. I'm a big numbers guy. Like it just has to make sense to me
numbers wise for me to really feel comfortable
to get into it. So the first year kind of learned as much as I could
and then try to save money as much as money
as I could for a down payment. So at the time I was fresh out of college
and had a job at the time where I was traveling all the time. So they kind of pretty much paid
for all my living expenses. So I lived out of hotels
for like two years. The pay for food every day gave me
a rental car for like transportation. So pretty much I saved all the money I was making
and half of it went to the stock market. The other half went towards
a down payment. So out of that first year,
I bought a duplex in like Waukegan, Illinois, which is about 30 minutes
north of Chicago. And that's kind of how I got started and currently invests
primarily in like Columbus, Ohio. And I currently have three doors and trying to look to scale
and expand a little bit. So when you bought that duplex,
like what were what was going through your head, like kind of decided. And when I just started, like studying,
like saving up money, like this is what I'm going to do. I lose the money, I lose the money,
but at least I know, like I tried and confident about it, very optimistic
that it was going to turn out very well. Didn't
go as well as I thought it was going to. And it was a lot. It was a learning curve, which was great. I bought the duplex and again, that
was the whole idea of like passive income. I didn't really want to manage
the properties. I got a property manager for and I thought
like I gave it to the property manager, don't get too worried about it
and call it a day with last word. Yeah, that was not it. I didn't realize
I needed to manage the property manager. I didn't realize how important location
was for the property. Was it in the greatest location? So I had issues with people
breaking into the property. The property was on the older side. It was from like the 1920s. I had a lot like plumbing type issues. So I guess to learn things very quickly. The good thing about the property was
I ended up selling it after six months, but because how the market was going,
I ended up making money from that sell, which was really nice. But what would you have done
differently as a first time buyer? And maybe you can help some people
that are listening. What would you have looked at? The biggest thing I would have looked at
is just the location of the property, which is like something you can't really
change, like rehabbed the property itself. But if it's in a D class neighborhood,
like, there's nothing you can do, right? It turns out
you're not gonna get better tenants. So I want to just do research in terms
of like the safest areas are there. And I guess what the better the best,
I guess tenant demographic would be in that area would be the biggest thing
I would have done. The second thing I would have done is
kind of look for a newer property, okay? Older properties,
just like 1910 like that. It just has a lot of maintenance issues. And I did budget for maintenance, but
not that much that I was having with it. So just newer or newer property
in like a better area. So after you. Okay,
so you sold the duplex. So then what happens? Are you like never again with real estate? Or you're like, I got to try this again,
but do it a little differently? Yeah. So I had the bought a duplex, held that
for about six months during that time. I have a younger sister at that time
who was a senior in high school. She was going to the Ohio State
and she saw what I was doing and wanted to get into house
hacking out of her college roommates and her first year of freshman year. She has to live on campus,
but after that, she moved out so I told her that I'd help her
look for a property. I started researching Columbus
and just really liked the macroeconomics of the city itself. Just in terms of population, it's
the second biggest city in the Midwest, which to me I never thought like Chicago's first, but
I would have thought other cities were. And then half of the population
is renters, which is pretty nice. Just have that big good for you
that detail. No, it's true. No, this
this is really good information, guys. Those two things are so important. Yeah. So that after seeing that,
I actually before I sold the property in Waukegan, I bought another duplex
in Columbus that I was going to house living one side,
but I was traveling all the time for work, so I was there very rarely
and then renting out the other. And then I sold the property in Waukegan
and turned 31 that into a single family property
in Columbus too. So for those of you,
you don't know where the house hack is. You want to explain because I think
some people might not know. Yeah, yeah. So a house like this basic of it is just
you live in one part of that, so you have a house or a multifamily
property, you live on one side of the unit, you rent out the other
and you're able to use like a a homeowner occupied loan to get a low down payment
to get that property. You kind of follow three points
each time, right? Yeah. So three points of investing. And I think that would be very good
for some of the listener, especially some of the new listeners. So these are three things for out
of state investing that you came up with. I like these. So you want to go over the big three
things would be just networking, creating a system
and then also just taking action. So first part, in terms of networking,
I think your network is your net worth. So making sure that you know, people
in that area, the big I guess, big four people in your team,
your real estate agent, property manager, a contractor and a lender, I think especially if you're
investing out of state and you buying properties that are like
silencing you, you have to really rely on your real estate agent
to really know that area, to know that you're actually going
in a really good location that has low crime
or will have a good tenant base. And then also you
you want to have that property manager to give you a second opinion of what the status of that property like,
what it looks like at the time. Then also what rents
will possibly be in that area. It awesome. So that's the network
and the next one or systematize. Yeah. So just making systems for for for your
pretty much your business so a big thing for me was just kind of writing down
step by step, especially just starting out like what I needed to do in order
to acquire the properties on terms of, you know, how many properties
I need to underwrite each day just to make sure because I can see myself
a lot of times when I first started, like I, I'd underwrite
like five properties and not get anything. But All right,
I did something for that day and I kind of realized, like when
I put out more input, I'd find a lease, like if I did maybe ten or 15 properties
I day underwrite, I'd find maybe two or three that were possible
that could possibly cash flow. So it just kind of coming up with a system
of like what you're actually doing. And then also like in terms
of like your processes during like let's say like you're trying to acquire
property in terms of finding a lender, finding your property manager after
you get that property under contract, like what steps you're going through
during the due diligence period. Just so when you do want to scale,
which I eventually want to do, you have you're able to delegate
those kind of task out where you can do more important type tasks
that will make you more money. So I loved the last part,
the take action part, right? Which is the third piece
of the three points. I think this is a lot of time analysis. Paralysis kicks in where
people just don't do anything, right? Yeah, yeah. I think especially like with drills,
like there's so many different ways you can make money through
like wholesaling, fixing and flipping where you kind of get lost on
like what you really want to do. I think you just got to like, narrow down
and decide what you want to do and just take like small steps every day,
kind of working towards that. I feel like for me I just kind of decided that, Hey,
this is what I'm going to do. And just like each day
as I go find a lender, not not in super hard that like I was going to buy a property
within one day, but they find the lender next day,
find the property manager, and each day just kind of builds them for you there
and kind of get to that point is true. And I'm glad you brought up the confusion
of all those choices too, like the wholesaling
and the fix and flips and stuff like that. You know, for whatever reason you follow. The principles are rich at poor, that you wanted the reoccurring revenue
in the passive income. Yeah, yeah. How did you make that choice? Because that's actually the best choice,
but it's the least done. You just made more sense like, Hey,
I want to run. That is what that you know. Isaac I agree. I just like most people,
they see that equity and they want it. Yeah, they pay the tax and then they,
you know, they scramble to do it again. Yours is slow and steady. I think that wins the race every time. I've always done that. But it's
I always feel like I'm like the exception. Well, thanks for being on the show, Isaac. Yeah, yeah. We're excited to see where you go
and hopefully we see you again at limo. Now you're in Phenix. Let's keep it touch those.
Definitely. Thank you. All right.
