BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 150: Designing a Lifestyle-Based Real Estate Business with Luke Swab

Episode Date: November 26, 2015

For some, the goal of real estate is to make tens of millions of dollars. For others, like today’s guest, it’s a way to finance an incredible life. Today’s guest, Luke Swab, shares with us his story of designing his lifestyle through real estate and how you can do the same. Luke’s story will take you from the wild waters of Alaska to a motorcycle trip through Africa to the streets of Michigan real estate and more! Don’t miss this incredible honest, humorous, and informative episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast. Show 150. So I want to do real estate. I want to be extremely passive. The end goal for me is 40 to 50 houses. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com.

Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Josh Dorkin. Host to the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, finally back from Ireland. I don't know if I got that right. Mr. Brandon Turner. I am back. It was fun.

I was driving on the other side of the road and, you know, seeing a lot of sheep and horses and stuff. I found a lot of castles. That was cool. Yeah, the pictures were awesome, man. Yeah, I got some cool pictures. I'll, I'm going to link. What I'm going to do is on the show notes. this show at Biggerpockets.com slash show 150. I'm going to put a link in the show notes to my

Instagram page, which I think is just, it's like Instagram.com slash, I'm going to tell you right now, Brandon R. Turner. Instagram.com slash Brandon R. Turner. You can see all my recent pictures from the trip. I put a bunch from there. So anyway, yeah, I had a good time. I really found castles, like out in the middle of a farmer's field. I went and tracked one down. And it was so cool. So cool. Yeah, you just got back yesterday. So, you know, a little jet lag, clearly. A little bit, but, you know, that's all right. You don't look too good. I never looked too good. No, it's good.

I came back with like a thousand bigger pockets. By the way, if you emailed me on or sent me a private message on bigger pockets in the past week, I apologize because I have a thousand of them I got to respond to. I'll be doing that the rest of today. So, yeah, speaking of bigger pockets, I heard something cool happen today. Well, actually, this is a week ago, but a week ago. Yeah. So we just launched a brand new rebranding of bigger pockets.

We've put a lot of time and energy into this thing. We felt like the bigger pockets logo was feeling a little stale. We felt like the bigger pockets look and feel needed to be more consistent across the board. The first phase of, it's a multi-phase project. Launched a brand new logo. We love it. It's awesome. If you guys look on iTunes, hopefully the new iTunes cover image is now up.

It's got this guy and that guy, me and Brandon on it, along with our new logo. The site's nav is new. the site feels fresh, it feels new, it feels clean, it's exciting to me, a ton of work. And big thanks to the guy who kind of led the path, which was Josh Tilton, our UX designer, UI guy, he's amazing, he's done a phenomenal job. And I'm really excited about it. So, yeah, come, if you haven't been on the site, come check out bigger pockets. It just feels so good.

And it should be easier to find things, too. Like, I find it's a little easier to navigate now. So if you're looking for a certain topic or you're trying to find, you know, where do I find a book or where to find the webinars, where do I find, you know, whatever, the four. forums, it's a lot easier to get around at this point. A little more obvious. Yeah. Thank you.

Check it out. Speaking of Bigger Pockets News really quickly, we also just hit a milestone last week, which was 400,000 members, which is pretty exciting. You know, it's always hitting those milestone numbers. And so big thanks to all 400,000 of you for joining. We definitely appreciate it. And if you haven't been on the site in a while, there are just a ton of new people on Bigger Pockets to network with, connect with.

get on there and start interacting and making moves. There you go. All right. Let's get to today's quick tip. Quick tip. Today's quick tip is you are probably aware of this already, but do you know Bigger Pockets has a Facebook page and an Instagram account and a Twitter account? And so what we would like to start doing is showcasing some of our members and their

properties, photos of our members and their properties. So what we're asking you, listener, is take a picture of yourself in front of one of your properties. It could be a flip, a rental, whatever. a picture of yourself and running property. And on the picture, hold up a sign. Grab a piece of paper and just on it with a Sharpie or whatever on the paper. Just write hashtag bigger pockets and then send it to us. You can either, you know, send it to us on Twitter or on Facebook or whatever. But if we get those pictures, we're going to start

sharing those on our social media channels. Just kind of talking about our members a little bit and showing what you've done. So if you've got a picture of yourself in front of your rental, you know, take one, hold up, it could just be a selfie. Hold up a little piece of paper that says hashtag bigger pockets. And then tag us. at Bigger Pockets on your Twitter or Facebook message or whatever, and we'll get it. Awesome. Cool. Awesome.

All right, really quick, you guys, this is the Bigger Pockets podcast. Pretty soon, the Bigger Pockets podcast is going to be playing on the Android Play Store. I think that's what it's called. I don't know. Really excited about that. We're on Stitcher. We're on iTunes. We're on SoundCloud.

Please, particularly on iTunes, leave us ratings and reviews. If you're listening to this on Android, the Apple, whatever it's called, the Play Store, Google Play Store. at some point in the future, leave us ratings and reviews. It really helps us out, guys, we really do appreciate it. And it tells us that we're doing a decent job. So that's what I've got.

Have you ever lost a DSCR deal because the financing just took too long? Red flags popped up late. The lender needed more time. The deal fell apart. Well, our friends at Dominion Financial just launched a program to help prevent that. With their new express rental loan,

you can close in 10 days or less. And they still offer their price. price beat guarantee so you can get great pricing and a timeline you can count on. Fast, simple, reliable. That's Dominion Financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. That's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus.

You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off. and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact,

so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like same-day, BCH, International Wires, card or check, and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets, and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday.

How can you find amazing candidates fast, easy, just use indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed, sponsored job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts.

You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Why don't we get to the show?

Today's show is really, really cool. We got a guy who talks about lifestyle design when you're building a real estate business. And he's got a cool lifestyle. I'm envious. Yeah, that's a crazy story. Well, this is today's guest is Luke Swab. Luke is a professional commercial fisherman. Think of those guys that you see on TV, like the crazy drama on those fishing shows.

This guy has done that, and he was on a fishing show. So he's awesome. He's cool. He's laid back. And as Brandon said, he's building this really neat lifestyle business. for himself. A lot of fun, really, really good guy. So let's bring him on. Let's get to the show. All right, Luke, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here. Thank you. Thanks for letting me be on the show. Yeah, just be fun. I noticed, and I noticed before

we actually started this call, we were doing our kind of prep work. You have a little bit of a, I'm going to say Northern Midwest accent. I don't know if other people have picked up on that yet, but where are you from? Yeah, I'm from Lance. Well, I live in Lansing, Michigan right now, but I am from up north is what they call anything above Claire in Michigan. You're just from up north at that point. So I'm from up north Michigan. Someone on the hand, right? Yeah, if I got my handout, I'm right here and like the little crack between the two fingers here.

Okay. Well, I figure most of Michigan is kind of the crack. Oh, we've been going for a minute and a half. You're already on Detroit. Okay, that's fine. You know, I just, you know, I got it. I got it. It's here.

So all right, man. Well, cool. So you're from Michigan, and you are a real estate investor. Tell us about what do you do full time and how did you end up falling into real estate? Well, I'm, I guess if you had to say what my job was, I'm a commercial fisherman. I started that 13 years ago when I was 18. I found out that my some kind of third cousin relative uncle that I don't really know has a fishing boat in Alaska. So I got his number, called him up.

asked for a job, and then I worked for him for two summers and thought this was an unbelievable way to make money. So I bought my boat when I was 20 years old, and that's been my main job for the last 11 years as being commercial fishermen in June and July. So you go out there for two months a year, three months a year, right? Yeah, two months. Well, it's actually, I make it sound like it's two months,

but really six weeks, sometimes five, I can squeeze it down. So a very short period of time. So you have a really, I mean, this is a different, job, right? I mean, you work for two months and the rest of the year you sit on your ass. I mean, that sounds tough, man. That's exactly. It is tough. Tell us about the fishing, like, you're one of these guys, like, on the TV shows where they all fight on the boats and they're, you know, it's crazy. Is that kind of what you do? That's exactly what I do. And it's a difficult job. I want to make sure that everyone knows it's hard. I'm kidding. I've seen the shows and there's not a

chance in hell that you'd find me on one of those boats. Not a chance. So like, kudos to you for having a big set. I'm really fortunate and happy because I do make a lot of money in a very short time if I play my cards right. And there's a lot of times, I've been fortunate. Every year's been good except for two out of my 11. So that's really good record. But yeah, it is a hard job. I make a big chunk of money. And then I have a huge opportunity to do whatever I want the rest of the year, which has been, luckily for me, not blowing it like a lot of fishermen do. And I've been investing in real estate. So that's my strategy. I still, I guess, have a full-time job, even though it's five to six weeks total year. That's really cool. And, you know, obviously we want to talk about

your real estate, but you've done some TV as a result of your fishing and other things, right? Oh, yeah, like you, Josh, I have a TV career kind of. So you're not famous at all. I know. No, I only have 500 followers on Instagram, so I'm... 501 after today, I'm going to follow you. I would hope so. Good.

But yeah, two summers ago, I was approached by a casting company, and we worked with Animal Planet, and I was one of six boats featured on an eight-episode show called Alaska Battle on the Bay. So I had a guy on my boat Had a little film crew And we shot a full season of this show And the ratings were bad I was funny

It was good Like everyone liked me The rest of the guy I'm not trying to pat myself in the back But the rest of the characters Were just casted poorly I think it could have been A really interesting show

Because it's amazing what we do out there The whole industry is Completely different than all the other fisheries It's still a derby style unlike crab with IFQs. So you don't know how much you're going to catch. You don't even know what you're getting paid until the end of the season when you caught it all, which is a horrible way to run out with this, by the way. Yeah, that's pretty rough.

And just in his example, last year, well, two years ago, we got paid $1.28 a pound. Okay. So I made my money. I made $50,000 to $75,000. That's good. The next year, I got paid $0.50 a pound. Oh. So you can imagine I didn't make any money.

And on top of that, that was the first time I reinvested in the business. I was running a piece of garbage fishing boat that was $15,000. And I invested and got a $150,000 boat, made this huge investment. They made that boat in Detroit? Is that what this $15,000? I mean, is that? These are Detroit prices. No.

No, I just got it from some guy in Seattle. Nice joke there. I appreciate it. But anyway, I didn't get paid at all. I didn't, when it came to settle after all my crew was paid, I went home without a check. This was my first time in 13 years of flying back home from Alaska, still owing money and no check in my pocket. So that was a big reality check. Right around the same period, I started focusing harder on my real estate because I've been

extremely lazy with it. And now I'm realizing that I really need to focus more on it. and take advantage of the ample opportunities that are in the Detroit. I mean, Lansing area of Michigan. Nice. Is that where you invest, Lansing? Yeah, I invest right here in Lansing, Michigan. Okay.

Okay. Well, let's get into it. So, you know, that's cool. That's fascinating. Congrats on, well, your flop of a show. No, but it sounds really cool. And, you know, what I find interesting is, you know, it's one of these careers where, you know,

It's like teaching, right? Teacher, you work, what, nine, ten months out of the year, and then you have like a really amazing two months of free time. You obviously have considerably more time, which opens you up for the opportunity to get into real estate instead of bumming around, right? And so I'm super excited to hear about this lifestyle that you've built, which is what it sounds like is pretty cool. So how'd you get started in real estate? Well, my first deal, luckily didn't work. And what was I? I was probably about 23 years old. And before I went fishing, I found a house in a Holt Lake, Michigan, a tiny little town that has a crashing economy. And I signed a land contract for a guy. And I put a thousand dollars down earnest money. And I was going to buy the house for 55,000, two bed, one bath, probably about 600 square feet. And I think the terms were 7%. five-year balloon, and I had my worst fishing season ever. And up until this last year, obviously, this was my first bad season.

And I came back and I had to walk away from the deal. And in hindsight, that was the best thing that could happen because Home Lake is not a good rental. I didn't do any research. I was just like, I have money. I want to be a landlord. I want to own properties. And I'm very thankful that it fell through.

So that was my first failed attempt at real estate. Yeah. Really quick. What is a land contract? You use that term? Oh, that's same as owner financing. That's where the owner of the property is the bank. So you deal with them. You write up a contract. What's the interest rate? What are the terms? How long is it for, et cetera. Land contracts are like that terminology is used a lot of times in Michigan and a few other states, I think, right? But most of the U.S. doesn't talk about, we just talk about owner financing or maybe lease options we've heard. Right, right. But yeah, land contracts are big out there. So yeah, I don't deal with them in my area.

There's a lot of land contracts going on in Detroit right now. Oh, there, I bet. I mean, how is stuff? Because, you know, granted, over the three years we've been doing the show, I've given a lot of grief to detown. But, like, obviously there's a lot of money going in. The Quicken guy is buying up downtown, building it up or trying to. Are you seeing things start to turn at all?

Or is it still kind of? Totally. Yeah, I don't hang out much in Detroit, but I have friends that are in Detroit, actually in Detroit proper, and then friends are on the outside, like Furndale, Royal Oak, things like that. It's getting very trendy to live downtown, more expensive. I see it improving. I think Detroit is a great place to invest.

If you're savvy, I don't want to deal with it, and I'm close. So I'm not recommending people from California. Hey, this Luke guy said invest in Detroit. Hey, I live an hour and halfway. I'm not even touching it, you know. But there's a lot of opportunity there for sure. Cool. Yeah. Well, let me ask you about real estate. I mean, you make good money as a commercial fisherman. You could probably do that, you know, for a long time of your life and have a decent life. Why pursue, why get into real estate? Because I don't like commercial fishing. I've always done jobs because you got to make money somehow. And that's a good way to make concentrated money and concentrated time. I don't like it. It's stressful. The things I have to do, I don't feel right about. It's very dog-eat-dog, and I'm a pretty laid-back, nice guy. And I just don't like what I have to do.

do. So I want to do real estate. I want to be extremely passive. The end goal for me is 40 to 50 houses, handed all over to a property manager, and I just collect, you know, 80 to $100,000 a year. And I just talk on the phone more to one or two people with a property management company. That's what I want. You're going to be a professional bum. Yeah, that's what I'm, right now I'm part-time bum. I'm trying to be professional bum. So what was the first deal? that you actually did. So this first deal, the $55,000 house fell apart. Thank goodness, what actually happened next? Well, I was bumming around the world, as you would call it. I was on a motorcycle trip in Africa for five months with my best friend. Needed, I was living on couches. I didn't pay rent

for about three or four years somehow, just bumming. And I landed in Lansing, Michigan. My sister lived there. My cousin lived there. I have some family that is in the region surrounding. And I decided I wanted a place to live. So I started looking at houses. The market was down. So it was four years ago. So about 2011. Yeah. And I just picked a neighborhood that my sister had a home in and looked at prices and found a house on the MLS, but it was an auction. And it started at 25 grand. And I looked at it with my realtor. Okay, I could live in here. It's two-bedroom, one bath, big upstairs. And it started 25 grand. So on the day that you bid, I just click, you know, bid, someone out bid me, click bid again. It was going up in $2,500 increments.

And it got to about $32,500. And there was this little buy it now button for 40. And I said, eh, I don't care. Buy it now. Bought it for 40. And that was, I still live in that house today. So that was my first purchase four years ago. And then I did, I lived by myself for a year because I was always on couches,

one of my own space, lived in myself for a year. during that time I got my second rental property. That worked out really well. I still have the original tenants, by the way. But the house I lived in, what I did was over the next three years, I remodeled it. I put in a new IKEA kitchen. I took out the wall between the living room, opened it up, granite countertops. I put some money into it, about 25,000 new driveway.

And then I took the upstairs, put a separate entrance on the upstairs, and turn the upstairs into an efficiency apartment. A real small one, but it's beautiful. And I rent that for $5.50 a month. And then I also have a roommate now, and he pays $4.75 a month. So I'm clearing just over $1,000 on a house that's free and clear. And I live there. That's nice.

And I don't pay for Internet. I get it for my neighbor. He gives me the password. That is house hacking right there to a serious house hacking. That is a serious house hacking. Yeah. I love it. Yeah.

Do you also have a hose, tight to his host, Spigot, you know, filling your sink up. I don't know. I mean, you tap it in the cable. Yeah. No, no. I don't have cable. I have Netflix, Friends Passwords or something.

I don't know. Like I was saying, professional bum. That's funny. That's the way it sounds like. I love it. All right. So you bought that house. You bought it for cash.

You're bringing in all this money now, which is a, I mean, that's a good cash flow deal. Even if you had a mortgage on it, that would likely cash flow well. But then you got a second rental. property. Let's talk about that one. I mean, how did you find it? How'd you get it? What'd you do? I'm a less, you know, and I'm pretty loyal guy. So I use the same realtor, even though I found the house. Hey, Tim, I got this house. Can I look at it? I bought that house for $32,000. And it had

purple carpet throughout. And when I say throughout, I'm talking bathroom kitchen, purple carpet. And by the way, all my houses are built in the 20s. They're all the same shotgun style. bungalows, two bed, one bath, unfinished basement, no upstairs, except for my own personal. I have the upstairs. So I'm very simple because I don't want to, I don't want things to break. So if you have a simple house, you have less things to break. So I bought this house, ripped out the carpet, put tile in the bathroom, kitchen, took about a month, painted. I got maybe $38,000 into it, put it for rent. It's renting at $750. put it for rent at Craigslist, got lots of people interested, picked out a really nice husband and wife, and they're still there to this day.

And I've never, I don't raise their rent. The check comes first of the month, and it's a wonderful thing. The last thing that happened to it was the fridge went out. So I talked to them and I got them a nice, pretty black to match all the other appliances, double swinging fridge. And I hooked it up to water. They've an ice maker. They're really, really happy about it. And it was 800 box. I could have, you know, got one for 500, but they're really, they treat me well, so I'm treating them well. Yeah, it works perfect. Yeah.

So I, I, I love that philosophy, right? Like, my good, I mean, not that I'm going to let any of my tenants live and, you know, swallow, but like the tenants that are my best tenants that I like that pay on time that do good things for me. Yeah, I want to reward them. Because it's a lot easier, just like finding employees for a company, right? Like, it's a lot easier to hold on to people than it is to have to hire new or a lot easier to hold on to good tenants than it is to go find a new tenant constantly in that turnover.

And yeah, I think that's great insight. And the funny thing about that particular story is I own the house across the street. And that fridge also went out at the same time. And Lowe's came and delivered two fridges. And there was a one nice one sitting next to the, you know, cheaper $500 one. And, you know, if the tenants were watching, they could look through the windows and see, oh, how come they get the little white fridge and I get a nice black fridge, you know,

and I don't know, that's just funny. But that's my one house that I may dump in the portfolio. It's like my, everyone has a problem house, right? And that's my problem house. So was that like the white, the house across the street was the bad one? Is that what you were saying? Or the one that you, which was the bad house? The bad house is the one across the street from the white house.

It's gray. It used to be a storefront converted into a house. So it has really weird. rooms. It's a weird house. And that leads me into something else. I don't buy weird houses anymore because you get weird tenants. Yeah. So that, okay, so I always tell the story about my hell house. I talk about on the podcast. I talk about on webinars every week. I have this one house that I just, I hate this house, right? And it is a weird house. It was a weird back area that was attached to it above a garage and like it, the whole thing's weird and it tracks weird tenants.

I don't, you said that perfectly. Weird houses attract weird tenants. Yeah. Well, it's unpredictable, right? I mean, the key at the end of the day is you want to create a portfolio that's predictable that, you know, that's kind of this, hey, this is the exact type of property we buy. These are the tenants that typically will end up in the property. It's easy. You use the same paint. You can kind of build this portfolio, you know, plug and play across the board. Once you start adding in those weird houses, it just kind of gets confusing, doesn't it? Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. So how big is your portfolio today? I have nine properties including mine that I live in.

So I went in with a goal of buying two properties a year with my fishing money. So I would get a loan from a bank because it's cheap money, pay my 20% down because it's investment property. That's what you do in Michigan. And I'd have enough money for two down payments. So all my properties are fixed rates. They're 15 years. I could have gone 30 if I wanted and talk to your accountant.

And if that's better, you get better interest depreciation. But I don't know. I'm kind of old school and getting them paid off faster. Well, let's talk about that because that's a question a lot of people ask is should I go 15 year or 30 year? I mean, you're saying you want to do 15 because you want to get them paid off quicker. Why do you want to do that? Because I don't have much debt. The only debt I have is business debt.

I've never bought a TV from Best Buy with their credit card. and my car is always paying cash. And I don't know. I just like it might not be logical. It's probably more of an emotional viewpoint. But I just want my houses to be fixed 15s because they're paid off sooner. And it's kind of a set it and forget it kind of deal. I haven't had to go commercial loan yet with adjustable rates and having that looming over your head.

What's going to happen in five years? The rate's going to go up. What am I going to do? Always worrying about refinancing. I've come to find out that financing it's extremely hard to do. And once I have a house locked in, set it and forget it,

cash flow, make sure your numbers are good. And then you're there. And you don't worry about it for 15 years. Yeah. We're not going to, we're not going to judge it, you know, the idea.

I actually liked the idea. You know, when I was younger, you know, in first starting out, everything I wanted was 30 year. I wanted as minimum as possible down. I wanted, you know,

my goal was to maximize my leverage and put as little money into it. But now I'm thinking more like, Like five, 10 years down the road here, 15 years down the road from now, it would be really nice to have a lot of paid off properties because it gives you so many options down the road. Less fingers in the pie or less people's agendas on your deal. It's just your agenda. It's your property. You own it. You don't have anybody mortgage person yelling at you or doing anything weird. I know. So I get both sides completely and I don't think there is a right or wrong way there. And I think a 15 years is a nice middle of the road between those people who say, I need to pay all cash or I need to get a 30 year fixed. You know, that's kind of, have a nice middle of the roadway. And what works for you, for you doesn't necessarily have to work for the next guy, which is an important thing for the listeners, you know, just because this is what you've got going on, Luke, and, you know, I may, you know, that 30-year thing may work better.

And that goes across the board with real estate. Like, that's the beauty of this show is we want to expose people to all these different ideas and reasonings because it works. It makes sense for you, and it may make sense for tens of thousands of other people. Sure. And I still have the full-time job, the fishing. So I'm not living off this investment money. I still have the regular full-time job income that I'm using for the investment. So if I was only full-time real estate, no fishing, I might have to have a different strategy to leverage more, you know, like Brandon's saying. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about a thing that

you and I kind of talked about before in the prep work. And basically, your story kind of revolves around this idea of having a lifestyle-based real estate business. Like, your goal, you said earlier, was 40 or 50 houses. You're not looking to become a billionaire here. You're not looking to, I'm assuming you're not looking to work 40, 50 hours a week trying to build up this massive business. Like, what is your goal? Your goal is to be a bum, as you said. Professional bum. Professional, professional bum. That's kind of a lifestyle-based real estate business. I mean, like, can you talk about that a little bit? Why is that important to you? You know, it's all about freedom for me.

How do I put this? I look around at the world. Okay, let's back up. I've seen a lot of the world. I've been to over 40 countries. I've seen all these cultures. I've seen how Americans live, how people live in South Africa, you know, Thailand, Europe, whatever, all these places.

And I'm not convinced the American culture is perfect. So a lot of people in America, they just get stuck in this trap of having. to work, having no freedom, forgetting what they do for fun, forgetting what their hobbies are, not loving people as much as they could, all these hippie ideas, you know. And I don't want to be part of that. So yeah, that's, I guess, my answer right there. I love it. Can we get another guest to do this show? I don't really like this guy. I think it's awesome, man. I mean, yeah, listen, we're so self-centered here. And, you know, there's a whole lot more to life than the J-O-B and

And I think that is something that I think bigger pocket speaks to for a lot of people is, you know, finding ways to supplement incomes, finding ways to replace incomes. Real estate is really an amazing tool for building that lifestyle business that, that you've got going on. And, you know, we love it and we support it. And I'm envious. Forty countries is phenomenal. I mean, you know, I'd love to do that. And one of these days that will happen.

I want to know about like what your thoughts are between, you know, there's this hard dichotomy, you want to say, or whatever, a difference between hustling so you don't have to work later and still enjoying life now, right? Like I could put in 10 years of hardcore work, 100 hours a week for the next 10 years and they never have to work again. Then I get freedom for the rest of my life. Or I could enjoy life now and enjoy it for the rest of my life. But where do you find yourself on that scale of passivity, what you want to call it?

That is the hardest question. right there. And that's, it's a different answer for everybody. I lean more extreme towards the way of working less and playing more. Um, you know, I've seen both sides of it. I mean, for what you're supposed to do is work until you retire and then enjoy yourself. But when you retire, you're 65. Yeah, what you're supposed to do. You know, you're 65 and your knees hurt and you can't go on a hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. But you can, you can right now. But at the same time, you don't want to be supported by the system, you know, have no money to be able to do anything. So it's just fine line. So for, so I grew up in a poor family. So we didn't get to go on

very many trips. We didn't even really have much money for food. So I had some motivation to work hard, but once I got some money, I want to play. So I think I've always kind of just had this outlook, like you got to do both. I am not afraid to work at all. I mean, I want to be a professional bomb, but at the same time, I've done a season on, you know, a crab boat in Alaska, and that's the most dangerous job in the world. That's a hard job to do. I've been doing commercial fishing for 13 years. I absolutely hate it. But it's worth for me having the rest of the year off. So I think people need to decide what's important for them, time, money, relationships, whatever, and then go from there. Right on. Right on. Well, so, you know, you've built up this portfolio.

to a year, you're up to nine, at some point you want to dump it all off. It sounds like you're currently managing the entire portfolio yourself. How time consuming is that for you? What are some of the big headaches that you're facing? I've been really fortunate so far. And I think that's because I've been very picky with the properties. So in Lansing, you know, when I was buying $40,000 houses, you could have bought similar $20,000 houses. You know, And on paper, you make more money. But I'm so picky. I only buy in one little neighborhood.

I can walk to all my properties. So there's nothing more than half a mile away from my current house. It's a growing area. You get better quality tenants here. I don't own any. All my houses are built in the 20s, but they've all been remodeled. So electricals updated, drywall, furnace, roof, vinyl windows. So I've been very selective with what I buy.

And I'm buying low maintenance properties. So I can get away with leaving, say, the fifth of a month, get all my rent checks, and then come back at the end of the month. And I didn't miss any emails, any phone calls. There are no problems. And the tenants don't even know I'm gone. I can do that. What is a low-maintenance property? What does that mean exactly?

Is it that you've done the fix-up on them? And so now there's no maintenance, or is there something else that you're talking about? In my opinion, it's just my, when I say low-maintenance house, I don't have any finished basements because, you can have water problems, especially in my neighborhood. It's moist ground. So people with finished basements have sub-pumps going out, drywall getting wet, et cetera. So that's eliminated because I don't have any. And then as far as plumbing or electrical, if there's a problem, you can crawl up in the attic and fish wires down.

Or you go in the unfinished basement and fish wires up. Okay, so that's easy to do. You don't ever have to tear drywall out. The windows open and close. You wouldn't believe there's houses in my neighborhood where the windows are wood. they're painted shut. The tenant's trying to open them. There's a problem.

They're calling you. I don't have any wood windows. So I don't get those calls. So those are the things that I'm talking about. I mostly buy turnkey, and I do pay a little premium for that because I don't want to be the guy managing contractors rehabbing, but I can still make the numbers work. So I do have to pay the down payment,

but I have to work less. So I'm willing to pay a premium to buy things on the MLS. and the prices were working out for me with that strategy. At the beginning of my real estate career, the last three deals have been no MLS, I've been being more creative, new ideas from listening to you guys, really. That's pretty much where I'm getting a lot of my stuff

is your own podcast and being inspired by other people. So yeah, the last three deals have been a little different with how I acquire them, but there's still low-maintenance houses pretty much turnkey. I'm doing a flip right now. It's my very first flip. Flip and hold, refine. It's the burr.

Burr. Yeah. So I'm doing one of those right now. And it's kind of a nightmare because I've never managed a project like this before. And, you know, everyone blames each other. The contractors blame each other. It's supposed to be done when I got done from fishing. That was five months ago. And now I just want to get it done before it freezes so I can get the water turned on and so it won't be vacant on winter long, you know. And that actually brings up a great, you know, point about burr investing, which is buy rehab, rent, refinance, repeat, right? That idea of like buying fix up or rentals, the, like, it never really goes as smoothly as you think it should. I mean, like, I like doing that strategy a lot because I'm able to, you know, build equity right into it. I'm able to be creative with the financing. But at the end of the day, it is hard work. Like, it is a job to have to manage the rehab of a property. And so what you did is you, you have a job that works two months out of the year and you work hardcore at it. You make enough income from it

to be able to buy real estate without having to do that side of the job of real estate. It's almost like in order to be in real estate, there are two sides of it. There's job and then there's the investment. You can either combine both of those into real estate or you can keep them separate. And so you've kept them separate for the most part in that you make money from a job, you put it into the investment. But again, there's no right or wrong way. But just kind of that's how it seems to play out. Yeah, that's exactly what I've done. Yeah, I agree 100% there. So do you anticipate needing to do more? Do you want to do more of those burr, kind of the fixture upper rentals? Or do you think you're from now and you're going to go back to the sort of

turnkey, you know, like where you just, you buy them finished and fixed up. Well, since I'm getting so, I'm frustrated with my fishing business. I'm trying to sell it. It's for sale right now if anyone wants it. I got it. I'll do it. Yeah. So I'm trying to get rid of that.

So I'm going to lose my income and I am going to be forced to do the Burr method or be more creative. So, but I think I'm willing to put in that work right now. Sure. So I'm probably going to have to change. I don't want to, but I can learn anything, so I can learn how to do that as well. There you go. You know, what takes, right?

There's a strategy. I did it on a webinar. I taught it a couple of weeks ago with the burr kind of this idea. Like, just because we're talking about lifestyle kind of business, just kind of a cool idea. And again, I talk about this also in the new upcoming book on rental property investing that'll be out like this week or next week. But anyway, so the idea is you can buy these property. Like, let's say you did two Burr strategies a year.

It's actually your strategy right now. you buy two properties a year. Let's just say you bought two properties a year. And you bought each one and you could put a bunch of work into it to make them look nice, fix them up, make them better, add some equity, get some cash flow. And you bought two every year just like that. And then after five years, you started selling two every year. Like theoretically, you know, if it all worked out the way, you know, perfectly like that, you did two a year and whatever. After five years, you could start selling two properties a year, make $40,000, $50,000 per property and profit with low tax is because long-term capital gains. And you can just live on six figures, just doing two

deals a year, buying two, selling two. And so it's just kind of a unique strategy that I know some people use as part of to live a lifestyle-based real estate business. So just throwing that out to you, in case you're ever interested in that kind of thing. It's kind of a cool strategy. Yeah. I think I kind of want to hold my stuff. So I have something to pass down to the kids and the family, you know, things like that. Yeah. And it's a whole different conversation we can get to do about, you know, leaving, what do you want to leave to your kids? What are your goals? And it kind of wrapped up this long, drawn-out thought I'm having here is, you know, there's so many different ways you can do this. And a lot of it just depends on what your goals are. And if your goal is

to live a lifestyle-based business, to have a lifestyle-based business, you can build that with real estate. If your goal is to make a million dollars a year, you can build that too. If your goal is to be a billionaire, you can technically do that. So that's why we love real estate. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's perfect. You can do whatever you want. Yeah. Tax season reminder for all the real estate investors listening. If you own rental properties, short-term rentals, commercial buildings, basically anything that's not your primary residence, you need to know about cost segregation. It's an IRS compliance strategy that lets you accelerate depreciation on your properties, which means you're paying less in taxes this year and keeping more cash in your pocket for your next deal.

Cost segregation guys is the go-to firm, having done over 12,000 of these studies with $1,000. 500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to Costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. If you think property management is expensive, try mismanaging a vacancy or an eviction or a maintenance issue that turns into a five-figure problem because no one caught it early. That's expensive.

A good property manager isn't overhead. Their protection against small mistakes turning into big losses. and that matters more than ever in this economy. That's why I like Mind. Unlike other property managers, Mind manages your property like an investment. They obsessively measure the things that matter for your bottom line. Things like occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score,

and they have the results to prove it. Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get your first month free, which is much cheaper than learning the hard way. Wouldn't it be great if your house plants paid rent while you were out of town? I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves. lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities. But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool mist like a bunch of leafy loafers.

But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you. These co-hosts are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details like messaging guests, creating your host space and managing reservations.

So everything runs smoothly. It's a practical way to earn a little extra money, maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. So anyway, very, very cool stuff.

I love talking about this stuff. I love the idea of lifestyle design and designing the kind of life you want to live. And it's cool at real estate can do that. So why don't we move on? And one more question I have before we go to the fire round is mistakes. What have you done? What have you screwed up on in the past a few years of being a real estate investor? Oh, lots of them. I got lots of mistakes. My flip house right now is kind of a mistake.

I'm too trusting, kind of getting frustrated and not being picky and like, yeah, it's good enough just to get it done one of those deals. Okay, actually, I'll tell you my worst mistake I've ever made, probably. Coming on this show. My worst mistake I've ever made. Involved giving some guys, some flippers, $20,000 cash and writing down on a napkin contract to buy a house for $40,000. Josh, she was shaking your head. Oh, man, I'm crying here.

It wasn't cash. It was secured funds or something. I didn't go in with an envelope if that makes you feel better. Okay, a little bit. Okay, good. So this was one of my deals that I got. Okay, so I have a couple houses on a certain street, and I saw that someone was starting to renovate a house across the street.

So I talked to them, what's going on, you know, and I would like to buy it if you want to sell it to me. And they're like, yeah, sure, we'll sell it to you for $40,000. And I'm like, oh, yeah, because it was going to, I know that neighborhood, and it's going to be worth $70. If there was a praise today, it'd probably be 70, 75. Okay, cool. So I have some money.

Just got back from fishing. So I'm like, yeah, what do we need to do here? I've never done this. What do we need to do? And they're like, we'll take half now. Okay, so I gave them $20,000 and we wrote a little receipt. And it's going to be completed in, I don't know, two months or so. And two years later, I'm, you know, don't have the house.

And I call them. They don't answer their phones. Things are slowly happening. maybe like doors would be in at this point. You just go over there and look at the house whenever doors are in. Eventually, this last spring, I'm really getting on them. They're sick of me calling. They get it close enough for me to just say, this is good.

This is good. I was happy with the $40,000 purchase with what they were going to give me. Okay. So I finally closed on the house. I gave them the last $10,000 that they needed because they tricked me. me in that two-year span, they tricked me to give them another $10,000 to keep it going, you know. I don't recommend doing this to anybody. Don't do it.

This is absolutely horrible. So, yeah, I gave them the last $10,000 this spring, walked to the house. It was mostly what they said it was going to be. And I have the house and I run it for 850 months and it's good. I was looking in the attic and there was no insulation in the attic. So I blew some in real quick. they were just very dishonest people with how the whole deal went down

but luckily I didn't lose any money I got the house it's rented I'm sure it's paid in cash I can probably pull a line of credit off it and get all my money back if I want so it's like a good ending to a very dangerous don't do that again do you actually have the note to the house oh yeah yeah from there I got it

I made it sure yeah made it Was it scribbled and crayon or I mean? It wasn't crayon. I think it was a racable pen. Yeah, erasable pen. Nice. Yeah, well, that's, I mean, yeah, that's probably something people shouldn't be doing.

Yeah. And how would you have done it otherwise? You know, and now looking back, what would you have done in lieu of that? I would have got official paperwork from biggerpockets.com. and had them fill it out. I don't know. I really don't know the right way to do it because I did it the wrong way. You tell me, Josh, how do you go about this deal?

Because you don't want to scare them. It is a deal. If it works out, it's a great deal. The day that I signed and got the note, I had equity in the house. That thing is worth $75,000. I made it. It's a great deal. How should I have gone about it in a better way?

I don't know that I have an answer, but what I would say is at least what scares me is going into it and letting the the folks that you're buying it from finish the project. You know, it's because you don't know them from Adam. You don't know how reliable they are. You don't know how trustworthy are. You don't know the contractors, the subs. You don't know any of that, right?

So you're counting on their honesty, their team, whoever they are to actually get everything done for you, right? So, I mean, my thought would be either you close on the deal for a discount as incomplete, you know, buy the deal unfinished and, you know, negotiate down from the 40 to whatever it is 30, 33, I don't know. Or, you know, actually, that's probably the only thing I would do. I mean, because I don't want them doing work on my house. I would want it, you know, I would want to buy it and get rid of these guys to move on. I don't know. Brandon, what's your take on that?

I don't know. I'm with you on that one, Josh. I don't know. Yeah, it was one of those deals where you're like, do I figure out how to get out of this or keep going further down the rabbit hole? And the only reason, probably the main reason I kept going down the hole

was they have a local presence and I know where they're, they own lots of property in the area and I know their liquor store, it's half a mile from my house. They have three 7-Elevens. I know where they live. It'd be hard for them to just, you know, move away and not let me find them.

You know, that's kind of... So you put you trusted that they were local and that they weren't getting to disappear. Yeah. So they kind of jerked you a little bit. I'm from up north. I'm from up north Michigan. I do handshake deals and I got to stop doing that. But that's kind of my own culture and I want to trust people.

and believe people because that's how I am, but I made a mistake. And fortunately, I didn't have to pay for that mistake. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, it worked itself out. You know, part of the reason I wanted to even do the show was to be an inspiration for people to let them know, you know, you have a lot of people that are on the show that do things very well. And an average guy listening to this, they might be nervous that they would make mistakes

and they'd have to learn so much and never even get started. and I want people to know, hey, you got a guy in the show right now who's telling you, he did this bonehead move, and he's still out there going for it. And I want people to have no excuses. You know, if Luke did that dumb move, I was even smart enough not to do that what he did. And he's pulling it off. You know, I want people to just go for it, not as, you know, naively as I did. But, hey, you don't have to be a perfect real estate expert to do this, you know,

because I want people to have freedom with their lives. That's what I want. Yeah. Awesome. And that's why we do the show, man. I mean, this, I think if Brandon and I did this show just for the sake of doing the show, that we would have been done a long time ago. Frankly, I don't like talking to him.

I don't like spending time with him. It's my body odor. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, this, no, this sharing these stories, you know, and that's why we talk to somebody like you. We talked to somebody who just did their first deal.

I mean, we still talk to guys who've done. huge deals. Last week, we talked to Clark Howard, you know, nationally syndicated personal finance guy, you know, but we want people to get exposure and inspiration from people of all levels, no matter who they are and know that, like you said, and that's what Bigger Pockets is all about. You know, there is no one way. There is no one right way. No one person is better than the next. We're all the same. We're all on equal footing. And at the end of the day, you know, we all have to just kind of take that risk and there is risk and we're going to make mistakes and we're going to screw up and that's okay and just got to get past that fear and just start taking action.

Yeah. Yeah. Love it. All right. Well, hey, why don't we move over to the world famous fire round, which is sponsored by. All right. Today's fire round is brought to you by fresh books. So if you are a real estate hustler, you probably end up billing people for stuff quite often,

like late rent, contracting work, a set. I know that I do, which is why I am a huge fan of FreshBooks, and I recommend them all the time. FreshBooks is an incredibly easy-to-use invoice and software designed to help entrepreneurs get organized, save time invoicing, and get paid faster. You can also use it to keep track of your employees' hours, track expenses, and generate awesome reports. So Bill, like a boss, try FreshBooks free for 30 days. Just go to FreshBooks.com slash Bigger Pockets and enter Bigger Pockets in the How did you hear about a section when signing up? It's time for the fire round.

All right, this is the fire round. These questions come direct out of the Bigger Pockets forums, and we're going to fire them at you. First question. And this was a fascinating discussion. People should jump into this on the Bigger Pockets Forum. This is a great discussion. Should I drop out of college to be a real estate investor?

Ooh. Oh, wow. If you're going to do it, I mean, Yeah, college is really expensive. I don't think there's a very good ROI on college right now. It's only getting worse. And it's up to your personality. If you can think businesslike and motivate yourself to wake up in the morning instead of sleep in, I think it's a great thing to do. Absolutely. Nice. And by the way, lots of people who go to college can't self-motivate after they get out of college. So, yeah, like, you know, it's funny when we hire people, when we look for people of bigger pockets, I don't care, you know, the degree really doesn't matter. It's, I want somebody who's motivated. I want somebody who's excited.

I want somebody who's going to get off their butts. And that's the test of success regardless of what you do is like, can you get yourself to get out there and hustle? So I love that. If you're in the Denver area, BiggerPockets is hiring for numerous roles right now. If you want to come hang out with a BP team, just go to BiggerPockets.com. Jobs. And you can see them all.

Nice plug. Thanks. Yeah. We want to hang out with some more people on the site. so you can learn real estate at the same time as growing a big company. So yeah. All right. Second question.

One of my rentals keeps getting mold because the tenant won't run their fans. You know like the vent fans in the bathroom and stuff? Yeah. Oh, see you. And push their furniture too close up against the walls. How does furniture against the walls create mold? Do you not have more? Okay.

I don't know. I don't live in Washington. Well, this person was in Florida. But it's really moist. It is moist, right? If you have furniture up against the wall, wall, like really close, like a couch or a dresser, like, you'll move it and they'll just be an exact outline of your furniture on the wall sometimes. Like, if it's a moist area, yeah, that happens

quite often. Anyways, so, yeah, the person was just saying, like, in their tent, it just keeps complaining about mold, but it's their own fault because they're not doing the things you're supposed to do to take care of it. Should they kick them out or what should they do? You know, I thought about that question. When I remodeled the upstairs in my house and put in a bathroom. It was a very small bathroom. So what I did was I wired the fan to the light. So in order to have light in the bathroom, hit the switch, fans on. It's loud. They have to do it. So that's one way to force their hand if they want to have light in the bathroom, fans automatically on. Yep, I do that as well. Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah. That's great. It forces people to have that on. I know other people,

they do have these things. They're expensive, but they might be worth it where they, I think they're like 60 or 80 bucks, but they'll turn on automatically. the exhaust when the humidity gets to a certain level. And so you install it in the same spot on the outlet switch as the other one, but it monitors humidity and just runs it whenever it needs to. So that is an option. It's a little more spendy, but it could work. Yeah, us desert people don't really understand what you guys are talking about.

All right, well, you know, whatever. We got mold. Good luck. Enjoy that. Thank you. All right. My next question. How should I find a good real estate attorney?

Where do I go about finding one of those? Oh, okay. Well, I don't use a attorney. now. But if I did, the guy I would use is the guy that hangs out at the courthouse and is always dealing with those, the sheriff sales. And I was just down there today, actually, for a sheriff's I watched those and I'm learning. That might be my new strategy to pick up homes. But there's always one or two lawyers down there. So they know real estate very well. And, you know, just start hanging out down there. I'm sure you'll find one. That'd be my suggestion. I actually love that suggestion,

because those are the real estate attorneys. They're going to be hanging out down there. So I love it. Yeah, totally. That's great. That's great. All right. Last question, the fire round. I'm brand new to real estate. How do I get people to take me seriously? Who are you trying to get taken seriously? I mean, I think they were just saying like the people. Generally, like people you work with contractors, other people you network with other investors, bankers, you name it. Yeah, they were at a networking event. So it was like all, you know, people. I changed the question. Okay. The real questions, I went to my first networking event. I, you know, I thought it was irrelevant. I read through it. Yes, you did.

All right. So, yeah, the first event, they're hanging out, passing out business cards. You know, I've been to those events before, and there's a lot of newbies there, and most of them will never be back. It'll be one time, and they're going to be done. How do you set yourself apart of somebody who's going to be seriously in this game for the long term? Well, I mean, action speak louder than words. So if you want to be serious, be serious and do some action. I don't know what else to say about that.

And if you've done a deal, people will look at you differently. if you've never done a deal. And you want to be serious with your realtor, put in offers, and the realtor would take you serious. You know, if you want to get buy a house, get pre-approved. I mean, just do things and then people will take you seriously. Yeah, I love that. That's great.

Really, really good advice. Awesome. Yep. Cool. All right, let's wrap this thing up by asking you are famous for. Famous for. All right. These questions are asked of every guest, and so you probably know what's coming.

Number one, what is your favorite real estate related book? I know it's coming, but I don't really read books. I listen to your podcast. That counts. And that's it, to be honest, if you want me to say another real estate podcast I listen to, I won't. I could say, like the Bigger Pockets podcast is my favorite real estate. Yeah, that's what I'm going to go with right there. You know, I've been learned different ways.

I'm not a huge reader, but I listen. to podcasts constantly. I've been doing it the last two years and it's completely changed my life. All kinds of podcasts, history podcasts, real estate podcast, finance. I've just, I've never learned so much in my life. And I've been to school, you know, college and everything. So podcasts are just wonderful. Podcast plug. There you go. So next question. I'm going to alter a little bit just for you, Mr. Man, Mr. Luke. All right. So what is your favorite non-real estate business? podcast. I have one of these, but it's a book. Because I didn't want to avoid two of the four questions. That's complete disrespect for you guys.

What's your favorite business book? Okay, okay. It's called How an Economy Grows and Why It Fails. Very interesting book. I recommend I even listen to it, which is what I did. You can find on YouTube and a couple hours long. And it's basically talks about, an economy and it uses fishing as an analogy so I like that and it starts off as people live on a small island they have no resources so they start to fish they use fish as money and it's kind of funny in the sense that they relate to what happened in America with the housing crash and the automobile all the automotive crash and they talk about the auto motor motorist crash where would that happen oh geez Detroit Michigan Flint Michigan Lansing Michigan um it happened

everywhere in Michigan. Yeah, okay. I stepped right into that one. Oh, man. It sounds interesting. Definitely sounds interesting. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

All right, so what do you do for fun? I mean, outside, obviously you don't fish for fun. What are your hobbies travel? I guess as a general, I just like adventures. As an example, I was just, I was in Codiac, Alaska for the last two weeks. I'm in Brown Bear Hunt. Did you get one? No, I didn't have a tag.

Those are really expensive. But one of my fishermen friends, he got really lucky. He got a dual tag with his wife. So we took out a 58-foot saining boat, went to a very remote part of the island, anchored up, took the skiff in, and we hunted brown bear. And you don't use bait, you just stock. And they were both successful. They got two bears.

One was a 10-footer, really big bear. Wow. So that was an adventure. I don't hunt, but I just like to see what's going on in the world. and I like to travel, ride motorcycles, and that's what I like to do. Wow. Awesome. Cool. All right. So final question from me, what do you believe sets apart successful investors from others who might give up, fail,

or what made you successful? What made me successful was I have this kind of skill. I call it the pulling it off skill. And an example is my horrible $20,000 down payment to the house. You heard earlier in that story. But I do have this some kind of skill where I get my, myself into binds and I can get out of it. And I learned this from commercial fishing. You just have to keep your boat running and floating and bringing in fish. Otherwise,

you don't make any money. And you have to be creative and you have to get your hands dirty. And you just have to believe in yourself and never give up and be uncomfortable, not sleep for 48 hours, and whatever it takes. And this is an example with this podcast. I'm not even doing it this at my own house. I still pulled it off. I still wasn't late. I had to borrow someone's house, use their internet. the password didn't work. I'm texting Timmer. Hey, what's your password? I finally figure it out.

I'd unplug the fridge, took down two clocks, pulling the shades. You should see this area that I created for myself pulling it off. And now we have an awesome podcast. So you just have to make it work and not give up when you have a little annoying problem. Come your way. That's one of my favorite answers I've ever had for that question. Oh, yeah.

Because it's so true, right? That's real. So much of real estate is about figuring it out. pulling it off. I like that. That's very cool. All right, Josh. All right, Luke, where can people find out more about you? You got a website, you know, and tell us, you know, you're trying to sell this fishing business. So you got a big audience.

Plug away, man. Okay. Go to DocStreetbrokers.com and look at my boat for sale. Call it Paul. He'll tell you what one it is. It's a beautiful boat, and it made me no money last year. But it could make... Oh, let me buy that now.

But it could make you money if they decide to pay us a dollar or $1.50. next year. You never know. No, you can find out more about me. I don't know. Follow me on Instagram at Luke Swab. I have a website called Luke and Nick.com. It's my Africa trip blog that we did. It's pretty cool. I have videos. You can find me on bigger pockets if I ever log on. I should do that more often. Which I should do more often. Yeah. And I just deactivated my Facebook two days ago because it wasn't helping my life. So I got rid of it. So They can't even find me there. Okay.

All right, man. I'll find you Instagram. Before we let you go, I want your best fish tail. You're a fisherman. We've got to get a fish tail out of you. Okay. Let's go. This is on the spot.

My first boat I bought, it was in such bad condition. I bought it sight unseen from a guy I met in an airport, sitting at a table for 10 minutes. Yeah. So you can see, I'm constantly learning, maybe not learning past behavior. I paid $12,000 for this boat. and the first year is great. I made money. Everything worked out. The second year, I almost sink it twice. How do you almost think a boat, by the way? How do you think a boat? Well, when you're at court, there's these huge tides in Alaska. They can fluctuate 30 feet,

you know, twice a day. So you have huge tides. And I'm tied up to the dock. It's fine. This is normal. The tide goes out. Your boat kind of settles down on the bottom of the river. and I land on this big rock, which would be no problem for other boats. But mine, when I landed, the boat shifted and it went, made this noise, and water started coming in. So I turned the build pumps on and let everybody know when the string of boats that I was tied to that I have this emergency and when the water comes back in that I need to get pulled out of the water. I got pulled out of the water.

It was fine. Then about a week later, I'm driving in to port again, and I'm about two miles offshore and I hit this rock. And the same thing happens, but this time I've no one to help me. So I'm talking on, I'm on the VHF alerting the coast guard of my situation. And I say alerting, just letting people know what's going on. And they come back and they say, how are you doing? And I'm like this 22 year old guy and they ask me if I need abandon the ship. And I'm like, I'm not abandoning the ship. I am not abandoning the ship. And some guy in a Skiff came out with a bigger pump called a trash pump.

And he got to my boat. When the water started coming to lift me up, I had T-shirts and a sweatshirt shoved in there and some epoxy called Splash Zone. And I limped the boat two miles up current into shore. All my bilge pumps were running. And it was one of those, you just watch it. And like, am I going to make it and I'm not going to make it? And I finally get to where they can launch me, take me out of the water.

But it's midnight. Everyone's gone to sleep. And I'm on the radio with the dispatch. and I'm like, hey, can you pull me out of the water? Because I'm almost sinking. And they say, well, can you wait till 8 o'clock when our guys go on shifts? We don't have to, you know, pay extra money. I'm like, well, I guess because I'm not sinking, but I'm very close.

So I had no sleep. I'm probably going on two days and no sleep. And I'm just dipping my finger in frosting, eating frosting. And I was trying not to fall asleep, going in and out, just looking to see if I'm going to sink. And I didn't sink. Wow. That is the best fish tail I've ever heard, and you need to avoid rocks more often.

Yeah. Yeah, well, I just put that boat up and I bought a different one a couple weeks later and finished the season, and it all worked out. All right on, man. Well, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for coming on the podcast, man. It was a whole lot of fun. We really appreciate it.

And we look forward to seeing you around, man. Cool. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And I keep doing this podcast. It's what gets me through my motorcycle trips. I listen to you guys in my helmet when I'm all over the world. And it gives me some fresh ideas when I get back to do the real estate.

Thanks, man. Awesome. I'll see around. Take care. Thanks. All right, guys, that was Luke Swab. Big thanks to Luke. And, you know, I love it.

I love his whole thing. You know, clearly, you know, he's not perfect in what he's doing, but none of us are, right? And, you know, we're all fallible and we all make mistakes. and that's why he likes the show and I think that's why people appreciate the tales that we tell and the interviews that we do and it was a lot of fun having him. Yeah, he's very real and I like that. Like he's very real and he's at a place a lot of our listeners

are probably at, you know, like their first few deals. They've done, you know, a handful. They're not multi, multi-millionaires with their real estate yet, but they're just on that journey and, you know, I love it. So cool. Link up really quick with Luke, if you want, on the show notes of biggerpockets.com slash show 150. I don't know.

Did you have anything you want to add? I was going to say, you know, it's funny. I mentioned earlier in the show about his accent. He's got kind of that like, like, when I think of that accent, I think of the northern Minnesota accent. Like, because I'm from Minnesota. And so everything's, yeah, I don't you know. That's how everyone talks. So I've been watching Fargo. Have you ever watched the show Fargo? I have not. Fantastic show. I mean, like one of the best shows I have ever seen. I've watched, I have one episode left of season one. Fantastic show. I'd highly recommend it. Yeah, it's on a, uh, I watched them on the plane ride. I don't know. It's probably on something, but I watched them on the plane ride two. and from Ireland. They had it on the plane, but man, such a good show. But everybody talks in that, like, that accent, the northern Midwest, a Swedish accent. Anyway, so it's awesome. That's great.

Yeah. I don't really care. Yeah. Hey, hey, really quick. So you've been gone for a week in Ireland. What was the coolest thing you saw or the coolest thing you did? You sent this picture, and we talked about before you're going to show your Instagram account, but you should show this picture of these monster cliffs that you saw these people

on the edge. I wouldn't go anywhere near that edge. That was so frightening to me. So there was a few times. We went two different places at cliffs. One was the cliffs of Moor. Yeah, Cliffs of Moor, which is M-O-H-E-R. And those were 650-foot cliffs.

Those are the cliffs of insanity from the Princess Bride. So that was insane. And then the other one was on the Aaron Islands. We went to the Aaron Islands or the islands off of the thing. And it's like, I can't pronounce the name of the actual cliff. but it's like the most famous thing on the Aaron Islands. Anyway, these cliffs are, I think, three or 400 feet high, but they're just so rocky and straight down.

And that's one of the coolest pictures I got with those. It was like these three like women standing down on the cliff and right on the, I don't know, it was insane. So you guys check it out, BiggerPockets.com slash show 150. I'll put a link to my Instagram account in there. You can see it. Cool. I'm in.

Let's get out of here. All right. Hey, big thanks. Welcome back. Let's get on to show 151 next week. Stay tuned at Biggerpockets.com slash podcast. With that, I'm Josh Dorkin, signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small.

If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K.

Copywriting is by Calicoe content. And editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing.

You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.