BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 251: Replacing Your Income with Real Estate as a DIY Landlord with Eric Drenckhahn

Episode Date: November 2, 2017

How do you build up an arsenal of relevant landlording knowledge? Through hands-on experience. Eric Drenckhahn is a “DIY landlord” who has managed his mid-sized portfolio for years and who has come across countless maintenance and landlording issues. Join us in picking his experienced mind across a myriad of real estate issues and learn how to become a successful DIY landlord. In This Episode We Cover: How Eric got started investing in real estate Thoughts on buying properties for what they’re worth The reason he waited for 8 years before investing again Why the real estate crash didn’t hurt him Tips for determining your CapEx How to become a DIY maintenance landlord A discussion on DIY vs. hiring it out What you should know about managing properties Instances where doing it yourself goes a long way What’s next for with Eric And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Calculators LoopNet Books Mentioned in this Show Set for Life by Scott Trench Emerging Real Estate Markets by David Lindahl Fire Round Questions Who is responsible: tenant or landlord? How much do you collect as a holding deposit/fee, and what do you call it? What do your unit turnovers actually cost? Refinish hardwood or install LVP? Best flooring for a rental? Tweetable Topics: “To make money, you need to have positive cash flow.” (Tweet This!) “Landlord can weed out the simple things.” (Tweet This!) “Managing property is no problem.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Eric Eric’s BiggerPockets Profile Eric’s Personal Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 ACH, 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. A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs. That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating income and earning your trust while they do it. And that comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, you're in a

income slips and your trust slips too. And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards. They focus on activity, not outcomes. Mind is different. They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow. Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free. Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment like an investment. 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 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. This is the bigger pockets podcast show, 251. So my life was pretty busy, and I didn't really have time to think about all the, oh, what am I going to do here with this money or what are my goals? It was just like, you know, property would come available. And I think, geez, if the last one was a good deal and this one's even cheaper, then if the last one made sense to buy, then it makes sense of it. this one. So then I would buy it.

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, Mr. Scott Trench. What's going on, Scott? Not much.

You guys might not hear it, but I actually did the intro today, and Josh just shut me down real hard. That's what happens when you are the co-host. You get shut down by the host. Ah, gotcha. How are things going, Josh? As the Rock used to say, no, you roll! And shut your mouth. No.

That is what the Rock used to say. And sadly, I actually know that because for a minute or two, I did watch some wrestling. Nice. Yeah. How about you? Were you a wrestling guy? Yeah, I mean, you're a rugger. I am a rugger, and I assume that those wrestlers must sustain injuries like we do in rugby.

I don't know if you guys can see if you're listening to the show on audio, but I actually have a second black eye that I got from rugby. In the same eye, I didn't reopen. In the exact same place as the former black eye. I've even got five stitches again. And no, I didn't reopen my old cut. I got a brand new cut, like maybe three or four millimeters. kilometers away from the first one. For smart, you sure are not so smart sometimes.

Yeah, I don't know how I sustained the exact same injury twice in one month. It's ridiculous, ridiculous. Yeah, man, well, listen, we got a cool show today. I know you're super, super excited about it. And I think we should get this thing going here. So before we do, let's do today's cool tip tip. All right, today's quick tip is to sign up for a bigger pockets pro account before the price goes up on November 15th, 2017. That gives you just two weeks to sign up at the current price of

$290 per year. We're adding some cool new features, including an all-new rehab estimation calculated to the pro membership, which will be live by the 15th. If you sign up before then, you'll be grandfathered into the current pricing and will not see an increase. After November 15th, the price is going to be $390 per year. And if that's not enough of an incentive to sign up today, we're offering a 20% off discount applied to your account for as long as your subscription remains active. And again, that's off the current price for those of you who sign up in the next two weeks. Use the discount code 1115 at sign up to get that 20% off. Go to biggerpockets.com slash pro to sign up.

And again, that code is 1115. Awesome. Awesome. That's great. Cool. All right. Well, good tip. Good tip.

Guys, this is show 251 of the bigger pockets. You can check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 2,5.1. All right, guys, today's guest, Eric Drankhan is a real estate investor who really is the epitome of the DIY landlord. This guy knows landlording inside and out. And if you're interested in getting started or if you're in the game of rental properties and you're looking for, you're looking for, Just additional knowledge, some great info, great, great ideas. Tune in. This guy knows what he's doing.

Let's bring him, let's get this thing started. All right, Eric, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here. Hey, it's good to be here. Yeah, very, very exciting. You've been writing for bigger pockets for a while now, huh? I have. It's been a bit since I've written an article, but I have, I've written quite a few articles there.

And just things got kind of tied up with, who knows, you know, rental property and retirement. and that, but it's always a great great site to be on. Yeah, for sure. Well, I tell you what, Scott, I know, was a bit fanboyish when he was on the phone with you earlier. I told him to settle down, and I think he's taken it the other way and is completely silent here. But I think we'll get him to pick up.

Scott, you can speak. Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, first of all, Eric comes on the show at the first time, and he's covered in paint because he's living exactly what he's talking about when he talks about real estate investing. just came from rental property where he's painting and doing God knows what on his rental property. So I'm looking forward to it. This guy is living what he preaches on our blog. Perfect. Living the dream. That's awesome. All right. Well, let's let's dive into this thing. Let's get into

the story here. So how did you get started? Why real estate and how did you end up getting started? You know, somewhat of an accident. You know, my dad was actually in real estate. He was a broker and had a company and that maybe was part of it. But how I actually got rental properties, you know, quite a few years ago. I had some false starts with some adventures with my dad as well that we lost money on. But having said that, when I first started, I had a couple duplexes in the year around 2000. My father had a stroke and I had a takeover his properties and pay the nursing home. Anyway, I had these two properties that, you know, you could say had four units, one tenant, big mortgages. And we had to either sell them or get them rented. So I decided, you know what,

let's get him rented. And it kind of went from there. And then in two, 2008, I was starting to buy, I wanted to buy more properties. And I started looking at, you know, properties. And I thought, geez, if I just bought a property and even if I had to feed it 100 bucks a month, it's always going to be worth more, right? That's, that was kind of the way it was back in 2003, four, five. And then I started, uh, started looking more into actual investing rather than just what most people do, just go to the MLS and buy one. And when I started looking at that, I realized that to make money, you need to have positive cash flow, first of all. What? Stop it.

And so, yeah, so then I started looking at properties in around 2007, I saw this one fourplex that I looked at, and I told my realtor, and it was listed for 385, right? And I told my realtor, geez, I'm having a number. I'm having a hard time coming up with a number with a three in front of it to make an offer. So she goes, well, make an offer at $300,000 then, which I still thought was too high. But I made the offer and it sold for $380. So I made a $300,000 offer and sold for $380. And we kept looking at it.

So that didn't work. That didn't work. But you know what? If you don't make offers, you don't make it happen. All right. Let's talk about that for a second because you're, you know, before you dive too deep on the store here, I think it's a really good, good chance to dive in on this. So, you know, a property is not worth what somebody is willing to sell it. It's saying it's worth.

It's worth what somebody's willing to pay for it, right? And a property is only worth what you're willing to pay for it to you. Exactly. And I'm in it to make money for me, not make money for them. Correct. Correct. So, you know, if you're a new investor and you're hearing this, pay very special attention, just because it's listed at 385, Eric thinks it's worth $300 and maybe not even that much.

You know, he could go and chase that property, which is what a lot of people do. they get emotionally attached, particularly novices, and they start to chase the price and say, well, I'm desperate. I got to get my hands on a property or, you know, oh, I love this thing. You fall in love with it, whatever it is. And then you end up paying way the heck more than it's worth. And there goes your cash flow. There goes your profit, right?

Exactly. And that happened to a lot of investors just prior to 2008. They were chasing properties. And of course, then eventually they lost. Yeah. Right on. Well, continue. So yeah, so anyway, so that property didn't work, but I kept looking at properties.

And that just happened to be about the same time as the 2008 crash started. And so then I was able to buy almost an identical property to that one that I made an offer of 300 for for about 318. Still wasn't as cheap as I liked it, but, you know, it was one of those things that, you know, 318 still wasn't bad. And what I was looking for is a 15% cash on cash return. So even though it wasn't my ideal number, it was still pretty good cash flow. It was vacant. Matter of fact, when I looked at it and people need to understand that these properties that you buy are not necessarily going to be pristine condition and pristine because it was 20 below

outside of Syria, Minnesota, it's 20 below. And inside the building, it was 20 below. Nice. Because there was no heat, right? And I can see copper pipes split with icecles hanging down them. And that's the ones I can see. I don't know what's going on out there with. the ones I can't see, the ones in the wall and everything else. But you know what? We made the offer.

And that was the first fourplex in 2008 that I bought. And since then, I bought one in 2009, which was for 269, better condition. And I bought one at 269, even better condition. And it kind of went from there. So every year from 2008, 9, 10, 11, and 12, I bought another fourplex. And we did some flips along the way. Did a flip in 2012. But everything was bought in a creative manner. It wasn't just off the MLS. That's another key. So really quick, Scott. What market do you in? Minneapolis, St. Paul, Egan, Minnesota, whatever. Okay, right on. Sorry. Go ahead, Scott. Ed West. So I have a question kind of going back to when you first got started here in 2000. Can you tell us a little bit about those first two deals? I know you had some experience with your father there.

But was your financial position and your goals and your lifestyle like going into those deals and how did you get those and then why did you wait another eight years before buying again? Damn, this kid is good. Brandon Turner, you're out of here. You know, they were kind of, once again, a little bit of accidental thing. And I wasn't really thinking anything about retirement or financial independence or it was just like, what are we going to do with these things? Do we get rid of them? Do we sell them? Do we, you know, because my father actually went in a nursing home, right? So you got to do something with the asset. And so it was kind of an accidental thing. And I thought, okay, we'll just, we'll just rent them out and see would happen. So somewhat it was an accidental thing. And it seemed to work. And then, you know,

I was having decent cash flow off these, even though, like I say, what I did do is I refinanced my house to pay off the mortgages on these properties. So then they were cash flow in real well because they were paid off. But of course, my own personal cash flow was a little bit less. And just kind of went from there. And then as I started looking at more, and I was looking at different business opportunities, you know, I had an IT job. So I was making pretty decent money. And I was living well below my means and not because there was any kind of thing that I was trying to do. It just made sense, right? I mean, why do I want to go into credit card debt and pay interest to, I work for a bank, but to them greedy bankers. I just don't want to do that. So make a long story short, I had a pretty

solid capital, enough capital in the bank. And, you know, looking back, what probably made a difference, I went to one of these rah-rah seminars. I went to a Dave Lindahl seminar. Actually, not necessarily a seminar with him, but I sent away for some of his books and started reading them. And, you know, some of his stuff is what, what got me to the idea of positive cash flow, 15% cash on cash return. And then I started looking for deals that would actually kind of make that happen. And it takes a while. I analyze properties on LoopNet and the MLS and not that I was going to buy them, but I would get the numbers, you know, what the people, what the seller said they would do. and I would analyze the heck out of them.

I must analyze 100 properties before I bought one. Just as a practice. Well, that's great. That's what people should be doing, right? Exactly. Yeah. Well, I want to go back a second here. You had talked about on those first properties actually paying off the mortgage on the

properties. Why did you do that? A lot of people would say that's a bad idea is to pay off those mortgages. and make it so you're not leveraged, right? I mean, calling it cash flow because you've paid, you know, you don't have a note on it, a lot of investors would argue that you're not cash along at all or potentially not cash flowing.

So how would you answer that and I guess why do it that way? Well, I had two mortgages and I consolidated them into one. And the interest rate was quite a bit cheaper, being one and being an owner-occupied mortgage, than it was even cheaper yet, right? And I can't remember what the interest rate was, you know, on the original mortgage versus the mortgage that I wind up with. But I always thought that, you know, your job could go away, right? Your tenants could go away.

And if you don't have a mortgage, your property will probably still stay. You know, you can always rent it out. And, you know, it's probably good to be leveraged if you want to really, you know, expand, expand, expand. But I try to be a little more conservative. And maybe it's the rabbit and the hair kind of thing. or I should say the tortoise and the hair kind of thing. But it's almost better just to keep accumulating at a nice, steady pace. So how was it going through that 2007-2008 crash?

I mean, it sounded like your interest, your motivation really peaked in that 2007 period when you were going to these seminars and learning about stock investing. But you had these paid off properties, yet you didn't actually make your next purchase into 2008. Can you talk about your mindset going through that period with the market crash and how that affected your market? Sure. You know, the stock market crash, I wasn't in, I was in the market in my 401k, but in my own personal investments, I basically got out of the market in around 2002 or so. And so I wasn't really in the stock market and the crash didn't really hurt me. And, you know, I still had properties. So even though they might have been worthless, they were still,

you know, when you have one building, it doesn't matter what it's worth. You still have one building. Right. Now, when you go to sell it, then maybe that matters. But as far as, you know, really didn't impact me that much. The real estate crash, other than to the positive, where it allowed me to buy stuff, didn't hurt me. And I knew that rental property, you know, that people have to have a place to rent, right? And if I have a vacancy, I can always, I saw somebody on CNBC. I can't remember his name, but he was a big real estate guru that has millions of properties,

whatever. And he said that you can always increase demand by lowering price, right? And that's actually something you learn in economics 101 about the first like 20 minutes of the class. And so I wasn't too worried about getting a property and being able to rent it because you can always lower the price. And if you don't have a mortgage, and now my first property, I did have a mortgage. But I mean, the duplexes I didn't, but my first one that I bought when I got ready to buy, I had a big mortgage. As a matter of fact, it was like $1,700 a month, you know. And granted it was a fourplex.

So you get plenty of rents. But, you know, it's still got property tax on top of that. So it's a little bit nervous when you buy your first property. Sure. I know, I know this was probably going to be Josh's question, but I'm going to steal it. What is your why behind this? What were you looking to do when going into this? What was your end goal? Were you working a full-time job and wanted to replace that income? Nice, nice job, man. Way to jump in and actually steal right from the notes. I love that. Absolutely. It was a great, great poach there of the question.

Wow. Okay. You know, I'd like to think that back then I thought build up, build up and eventually we'll be financially independent and then we can, you know, retire and live under the palm trees. But at that point, I was just thinking, well, this would give me another $1,000 a month for something, or whatever the number was. And I wasn't really thinking that, oh, at some point, I can retire and live on these. It was just, you know, because I was working full time. And I always maxed up my 401K, that kind of thing. And I always had different businesses on the side that would generate a dollar here or a dollar there. Because every hour you sit on the couch, you ain't making money.

There you go. And anytime you can take that hour, and turn it into something, right? And some people say, oh, I'm not going to do that. It's only, you know, I can hire it out for $10 an hour. But if you can get off your butt and do that thing, and even though you're only making $10 an hour, you know, I was making six-figure income,

but there's a lot of times I went out there and made less than $10 an hour just because what else you're going to make during that hour, you know, and maybe there was other more important things that I could have been doing or more financially benefit, you know, like for the future or whatever. But if you can turn every hour of your day into money, and that's what I was thinking about some of these rentals, just like, you know, let's get some. Let's put my money to work. And at some point, it just kind of became like, holy crap, there's enough fear to live on. Yeah. You know, so it wasn't a thing that,

oh, it's one more, one more, one more and I'll have enough to live on. It was more like, geez, all of a sudden, it was there. I love that. I love that mindset, you know, because, yeah, my time is worth X amount per hour. But if I go home and sit on the couch and watch Netflix for three hours, my time is worth zero dollars per hour. Instead, I could be out at my rental property, fixing up, painting, rehabbing, doing something that is adding value. So that marginal use of my time is not compared to the dollar per hour I make at work. It's compared to the dollars I would be making, doing whatever leisure activity I was doing. So if I don't have something productive to do or something fun to do, might as well go ahead and go and build my business. I think that's a great

mindset. I love it. This is coming from the guy who sits around watching dancing from the stars, but that's fine. That's fine. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So, Eric, the argument, look, I hear the argument. And the counter to that is obviously, you know, you should be spending your time and energy on the $100 an hour, the $500 an hour. So instead of watching dancing from the stars with the stars with Scott, and instead of going

to the property and fixing it, you know, you hire the guy and use that time to be finding other deals. But like to Scott's point, I mean, as long as you're being productive, there's nothing wrong, right? I mean, you don't always have to be productive either. The end of the day, the question is, what's your goal, right? What's your why? What are you trying to do this for? Like, and so I don't hear you saying, hey, I'm trying to build an empire here of millions of dollars a year in cash flow. It sounds like you kind of started this thing.

You're working. And little by little, it's like, oh, well, this portfolio can actually replace my job potentially at some point. Maybe I'll keep going. Is that a fair assessment? And also, are you still working? No, I actually quit July 5th, 2016. So a little over a year ago is when I left my job.

Thank you. Nice. And, you know, I quit a decent job. You know, like I say, six figures, 401K, 10 holidays, four weeks of vacation, pension, the whole bit. So, you know, it was quite a bit of. And by the way, for anybody who's getting ready to be financially independent and thinks, oh, I'm just going to quit your job, it's more of a mental exercise than a financial one

because there's a first job I ever quit, you know, without having another one to go to. So it was a little bit, you know, and then when my boss said, are you sure? You know, because actually I was messaging him on our same time system, right, is what it works. And I sent him an email saying, you know, I resign as of this date. And then he said, I got your email. I'm getting ready to submit it to HR. Are you sure? and up until I got the, are you sure, I was a thousand percent sure.

But then he says, are you sure? And, you know, it's just like anything. When the computer says, are you sure? You got to just double check because. But then I said, yeah, that's what I want to do. So having looked back my portfolio, my stock portfolio has been going up. And actually, they have more money than I spend, which is kind of nice. But yeah, as I was accumulating properties, you know, it was just that I was so busy.

because I would, once again, I was working full time, and I buy a property and rehab it and rent it and do the apartment turns, all of me. You know, my girlfriend actually helped quite a bit too. You know, she helps with the cleaning and some of the other things. But for the most part, it's me. And once in a while, I hire somebody to work with me if I have, like one of the fourplexes I bought, I hired some folks to work with me. But every weekend, 8 o'clock in the morning, I was there. You know, every day after work, you know, we get off work at the time I get home, it's 5, 5.30. 6 o'clock.

I'm at the property. 839 and run to Menards or Home Depot or wherever pickup supplies and then I can't leave it in the back of my truck because I might rain so I got to go back to the rental property at 930, 10 o'clock at night, unload it and then come back home and then do whatever you have to do, you know, on with your life for about 15, 20 minutes, take a shower, go to bed and sometimes I get up in the morning and the hour before work, run back to the rental property, maybe do a couple things that you can do. Yeah. So yeah. And then so my life was pretty busy until I didn't really have time to think about all the, oh, what am I going to do here with this money or what are my,

you know, what are my goals? It was just like, you know, property would come available. And I think, geez, if the last one was a good deal and this one's even cheaper, then if the last one made sense to buy, then it makes sense to buy this one. Yeah. So then I buy it. Yeah. You're working like, you know, doing all this stuff, you quit your job. Did you then fill your time with doing even more of this or did you begin to actually enjoy some of that newfound free time that you had? Or are you still getting up at 8 o'clock on a Saturday going to your property to paint and, you know, fix stuff? No, as a matter of fact, so my day, I still typically get up between 6 and 7, you know, but generally I, you know, I read the news and check, check my bank statements, make sure they match to what they

should be with Quicken. And then, so I didn't really start painting today until I was after 11 when I painted for about three hours and, and maybe not even quite three hours. But, and I've been doing a lot of traveling, you know, so when I first retired, you know, we first trip we went to was Branson, Branson, Branson, so it's about, you know, six hours away. Actually, maybe it's a little more, it's about 600 miles away. So we spent a week in Branson and then, so that was good. It was hot, but it was, but it was good, you know, and it was a cheap vacation, relatively cheap because we could drive there, you know, and the shows are cheap. And then we did it again in December, because we want to kind of go out. It's like somebody tells the ice is thick enough, but you can't just go out

there and start jumping in the middle of the pond. You got to kind of go little by little. And then so December we went to Branson again, thinking it might be a little warmer than Minnesota, but it really wasn't. January, spent almost a full month between Nashville and Florida. February, went to Tucson. March we went to Blocchi in New Orleans. So you got the life. You got what exactly. what you wanted and then in between you're occupying your time working on your properties. Why do you do that today still? You know, obviously you can outsource some of that work.

Do you just enjoy doing it? Do you like you got nothing else to do and you want to spend your time doing that? And I'm not saying this in a bad way. I'm just, again, I'm just trying to understand because there are, a lot of people who do that. But, you know, a lot of, a lot of folks out there will say, well, that's, that's not necessarily a great idea. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. And for me, first of all, everybody's got to do something. You can't sleep all day long, right? So you got to do something. So if I wasn't working on the rental properties, I would be doing something else, maybe.

But the rental property is key. You know, it gives you something to do. It's not really that hard. There's sometimes I do stuff that I'm not real, like, keen on doing. But you got to do something. And I hate to leave a dollar sitting on the table. You know, that's one thing that, and I think, you know, if somebody's going to make 50 bucks an hour to paint or whatever, you know, because if you hire a painter, granted, you can go to Craigslist and hire somebody. But if you hire a painting company or regular, they're going to get you for 50, 60, 80 bucks an hour or whatever when they're painting.

They're probably going to paint faster than you, maybe. But it's going to be expensive. And I think, you know what? I might as well do it. And I'll save the money. You know what? I bet I increase my annual income between men. managing the property myself and doing my own maintenance, doing my own property turns by at least

50 grand a year. Yeah. You know, and that's huge money. You know, I mean, that's, that's decent money. Yeah. And I think what that does is that reduces your risk on a lot of these properties too, right? So let's say that I'm a new investor and I come into it with your mindset of I'm going to do it myself and handle these expenses myself and manage property, improve it, do the maintenance,

paint. That really reduces my, my, my, my. my risk of having a catastrophic cash flow event, it helps me increase my cash flow for the first few years. I love it. This is exactly the way I approached my properties for the first few years, although I'm starting to transition to doing a little bit of the work, getting that outsourced. A question for you, though, how did you learn how to do this kind of maintenance in the

first place? Where did you develop that skill set? Before that question really quick, I just want to make sure that we're clear to anyone listening. you've, if you do the work yourself, if you manage it yourself and or you do your own maintenance, you still better be accounting for that stuff when you're doing the evaluation of the property before purchase because, you know, you go and you buy a property and you assume that you're going to do the management instead of paying somebody 10%.

At some point in time, there is a, there is a chance that you will want to have it manage or you will need to have it managed. And if you have not accounted for it, that 10% suddenly comes in. You're in a lot of trouble. So, you know, that's 100% correct. So when I evaluate a property, I assume that there's going to be at least a 7% management fee. And most people, if they're doing single family houses, they should figure 10%. Yeah. Another one, they should figure is a 5% vacancy rate. Yep. You know, nothing any less than 5%. And another expense that you don't always think about as a maintenance is, you know, sure, you can figure out the light bill, you can figure out the taxes, you can figure out insurance, but maintenance is about 10% of the rents because your roof wears out

every year for 30 years and then all of a sudden you need a new roof. Same with the HVAC system, same with the kitchen sink, same with the whatever. And a lot of people miss those expenses. You know, and especially the management fee, and that's just bonus money. It's bonus money in your pocket, but you should still factor it into the equation. Yep. Because if somebody's got a bunch a property they want to that they that they're figuring a zero percent management fee. Hey, I get 24 that they can certainly manage for me if they're doing it for free. Yep. And this is why I think it's really important to always use the bigger pockets calculators when you're analyzing these deals because when I build my own spreadsheet or whatever, I'll forget those things. And at least with

the calculators, you are forced to put in a number in there. If you put in zero for vacancy, that's on you. But at least you're thinking about those numbers. So you always need to run through these and put those in. With regards to your comments on repairs, a lot of investors will split out repairs into repairs and then CAPEX. So it sounds like you kind of lump those two together into that 10% number combined. Yeah, that's kind of what I do. Because it's simple, I guess, it's probably the, because you really don't know what CAPX expense you're going to have. I mean, you might figure there's, maybe you could go 5%, 5%, or some kind of pro-rated thing. But you really don't know this year what you're going to have for a CAPX expense.

And then secondly, as far as taxes-wise, now you can do about $2,500 a year in expenses versus a true CAP-X, but, you know, like appliances or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, so I have two more questions for you about this DIY maintenance stuff. The first is, again, how did you learn how to do this and develop that skill set? And the second is, well, I'll get the second one after you answer that one. Yeah. Well, you know, YouTube's a great thing to.

to have, right? Now, I already knew quite a bit about just home maintenance in general because I used to do stuff around my own house. So that helped as well. But I was going to actually have a guy help me paint. Actually, I was going to have him paint for me. And he was just a part-time handyman guy that didn't really work much. So I thought, well, he can work on the weekend, you know. And he was like, oh, it's Memorial Day weekend. I don't want to, I don't want to paint today. And I thought to myself, well, I got this fourplex. I need to have painted because if I got to get renters in, I got to have a painted first, right? And I can't, my schedule can't be, based upon his being able to work or not.

So I thought, you know what? I'm going to paint myself. So I went in there and I told him, I don't need you anymore. So I went ahead and just started painting. And that was the first start of my painting. But then, you know, it's just like anything, everything builds on itself. Yeah. So now you did some painting.

Well, now how about do you know how to do sheetrock? Well, you know, sheet rock isn't any fun, but, you know, you put the mud on and you sand it off. And the first few times maybe it takes longer than the professional guy. but then after a while you're getting a little better. And, you know, changing a faucet isn't that hard. But it just, you know, once you change a faucet, maybe you can figure out how to change something else. So it's just kind of a, before you know,

you're pulling toilets and redoing, you know, shower valves and the whole bet. So, but yeah, YouTube is a tremendous help on finding any, you know, no matter what your problem is, working on a car, working on a house, somebody out there has dedicated their life to helping you fix that exact same problem that you're trying to figure out. Yeah. For free, and it's on YouTube, and it's got a bunch of likes, and it's great. And it's exactly how I've done a lot of things in there.

Yeah. Hey, Scott, before your next question, Eric, I just want to jump on this one really quick. Why would somebody do DIY versus hiring out? I mean, I see your profile making sense, right? I'm a retiree. I don't have a lot to do. It's kind of fun learning these new skills and doing these things. can you think of you know for the listeners who are who've never done this before

why would they decide to do it totally DIY versus you know hiring manager and contractors is you know can you make the case for one or the other well as far as doing it yourself you know like say simple thing like changing a water heater now if you can find somebody to put in a water heater for 300 bucks labor you know that's probably pretty cheap. And the water heater itself, they're going to sell you on and mark it up. So you're going to save probably $100 on buying a water heater, right? Because you go to Home Depot, buy a water heater.

And you can bring it in your basement or in the apartment or whatever you're bringing it and hook it up yourself. And, you know, I can get a water heater probably within, I don't know, probably a couple hours. But you're going to save $300 in two hours. You know, it's not rocket science. These guys aren't heart surgeons, you know, but they're getting heart surgeon rate. They're getting $200 an hour to do stuff. And it just is not worth it to pay somebody that kind of money when you can make it yourself.

Yeah. Makes sense. Part of that equation, I imagine, has to be factoring in the proximity of these properties to your life. So are these properties all very convenient to where you live? You know, that is the beauty. And the best investment property is one you can walk to. But having said that, mine are 20 of my 25 renters live within four miles of me. So that helps. And there's a Home Depot halfway in between. So it's, it's perfect from a, you know, when I'm going there, if I need to stop at Home Depot, I can stop at Home Depot and pick something up. And it does make it, you know, if you're living 30, 40, 50 miles away or across the country, it's, it's almost impossible to do it all yourself.

And my properties are all within 10 miles of each other. But even, even that, you know, it becomes a pretty big pain to get to one of my properties during rush hour across town after work. And I'm already starting to kind of resent. going there when I have to deal with these small problems. So I think that that's a really important point if you're thinking about becoming a DIY landlord and doing the maintenance yourself and working on the properties is proximity because the farther every mile that gets added onto these properties, it's more and more of a pain. And that does, I think, compound over time to into the financials of doing it yourself. Exactly. But like I say, anything you can do yourself because a property manager and managing your property is a no-brainer, first of all, you know, because a property manager doesn't even do anything, right? All they do is take a call. They don't go out there and fix it.

You know, everybody thinks all the property manager, they're going to handle everything. They're going to get the toilet calls at 2 a.m., which don't really happen. But anyway, so a property manager doesn't really do anything. All they do is answer the phone. And as long as you have phone access, right, you can be anywhere in the world and do it. Because it doesn't matter. Nobody knows where you're at. They dial a 651. area code or whatever the number is, and you could be on a cruise ship into Bahamas, or you could be up in Alaska, or you could be, you know, across the street from them. So managing the property is no problem. And then having a list of contractors a call, if you don't want to do it yourself,

maybe that's another key, right? But Craig's list, you know, yellow pages, whatever. Because not that, because I know if I want to call a plumber, all I have to do is there's Farmington plumbing and heating, there's all kinds of advertisements on Craigs. All I have to do is call a name brand plumber. and rotor, router, whatever, and they'll come out there and fix it. And it'll charge big money, but it'll get done. It'll get done right. No matter where I am in the world. So I might have something that might take five minutes and $10 for meat effects.

But if I call a plumber, maybe it's $300. But that gives me the freedom to go anywhere. Same with the HVAC problem. I got HVAC people I can call. I generally fix my own HVAC stuff too because I just, I weed out the simple things. So I don't want to have somebody come there. And as a whole other deal, I had one guy that just give you an $185 mistake that I had. So the tenants moved out and I was in the unit and we turned the heat on just to see if it

work. It wouldn't work. So then I did some simple things. It still wouldn't fix it. I called the HVAC guy. And he came out there and he said, well, geez, the gas on? Well, it wasn't on because it should have been in a landlord cutover status. The utility company didn't put it in there.

They shut it off. And it turns out I did get my money back. from the utility companies. But having said that, if a landlord can weed out the simple things, you don't have to know how to fix everything. But if you can weed out the simple things, it's going to save you a ton of money. Yeah. Yeah.

Yesterday, I feel like an idiot. Yesterday, our landlord at the office here was in the building. And we're doing a rehab of our bathroom. And I was like, you know, while we're at it, can we have the guys check out the water line to the water fountain because that thing hasn't worked since we moved here? walks over, takes the plug, puts it in the wall, and it starts working.

Like, what? Oh, no. Terrible. Bigger Pockets is the idiot tenant in that scenario. Yes, yes, of course. All right. But there's so many things. Even at one where the tenant,

you had one of these self-ringing mops or whatever with a de-handle kind of that you grab a little of. And when they put it in the closet, which is also where the furnace is, there's a light switch there and when the light switch anyway that de-handle caught the light switch and turned the furnace off so then they call me and say hey you know the furnace doesn't work what's going on now every time I'm up well you know now if I wouldn't have been there or if I wasn't close enough to go do that that would have been another $185 call probably or something

similar so you know just being able to at least rule out some simple things yeah makes a huge difference makes sense and I suspect that your handiness your ability to handle these problems a lot on your own is it comes in very useful when you are away and traveling and you get one of those calls because you know who to call and you know when you're getting a good deal or getting ripped off and to move on to the next contractor. That's, I think, something that folks that are afraid to do it yourself are going to lose out on. You know, not doing that, but I've coached tenants through a lot of things as well. So I had one where, as a matter of fact, it was this winter.

So there's, he said, oh, in these fourplexes, the water heaters are on the main level on the bottom floor and it's cement floor where the floor. so it's not terrible when the water heater leaks, but he said, oh, the water heater's leaking. So I said, well, send me a video or a picture of what's happening. So he sent me a little video, you know, magic of cell phones. And I saw that it was leaking out of the overflow, the pressure relief valve. So I said, well, go down to the water heater and take that pressure relief valve

and flip it back and forth a few times. So he did that, and it stopped the water. Then I also told him, now turn the thermostat down on the hot water heater so it doesn't get quite as hot. And that's solved it enough so that it, so. that it wasn't leak. And then when I came back, I changed that pressure relief valve. Yeah. But simple things like that, you can do. And that probably saved 300 bucks or more, you know. So, Eric, how many units do you have today? I have 25 renters. And it's kind of divided up into, I got five fourplexes, a couple duplexes, and one single family house. Got it. Cool. And where are you going?

Well, what's the goal? I mean, you don't need a job anymore. You go to Branson or Ozark. I don't know what what you're doing there. I watch the show. So, yeah, you know, there's some shady activities, supposedly in that, in that neck of the woods. But what's the plan? Are you going to just keep buying properties? Are you done? You can just live off these and do your thing or, you know, where are you going? You know, I generally have plenty to live on. I'm actually going to, I just bought a new truck and I'm going to get a fifth wheel and we're going to do a little more vacationing. You know, get away in the wintertime for sure. But I'm not really actively looking to buy any at this point. However, If one falls on my lap, I certainly am not afraid to buy it.

Like, you know, people need to know your real estate investor, first of all, right? Because if they don't know, then when deals come up, they don't think of you to call to bail them out or to bail their friend out or whatever. So, and this has a little bit to do with creative financing too, or creative buying. So my tenants call me up and said, are you looking to buy any more houses? Well, I'm always looking to buy houses, but I'm not looking to buy houses retail and I'm looking to make money, right? You know, back to your original question, I'm going to slowly weave it. some properties out and buy some what I want to do is buy a vacation property in in in like Florida right something that I can rent out on weekends and and by the month or whatever we by the

week by the month for about two years and then I'm going to maybe move into it myself is kind of what I'm thinking because it needs to be a you know with a 1031 exchange got it's kind of what my what my hope is this is this is great and and to everybody listening you know I love doing shows like this. This is fairly different than a lot of the shows that we do because we don't often get a ton of really, really true DIY guys. And you are, you are DIY all the way. And it's awesome. Like, again, the point being, there's not just one way to skin a cat, right? You can be whatever you want to be. You can invest the way you want to invest. If it works and it obviously is working for you, you obviously have replaced your income. You know, you've got the lifestyle that you're,

you want and you get to do the one thing that you like doing, which is, you know, putting around in these houses and fixing stuff up, gives you something to do. That's like, that's fantastic. You created this lifestyle that you want. And that's the beauty of real estate. It gives you the opportunity to do that or like, hey, I want to be completely, you know, hands free. I don't want to, I don't want to get my hands dirty or, you know, I don't, I mean,

there's so many pathways that you can take as a real estate investor. You know, that's a, that's a tremendous way to look at it. And, you know, when I say do it yourself stuff, and earlier I know you asked about how I learned some of this stuff, if you hire somebody, like I hired a painter, it's actually a friend of mine, but I hired them. And I work with him for the day. You learn so many things, you know, that it's all about technique, really, is a lot of this do it yourself. I used to hire a furnace guy. We installed a couple, three furnaces together. I realized, you know, it's not that hard to install a furnace.

Install one. You can save $200 bucks an hour. But you're right. Real estate is there's so many different avenues. that you can take in it. You can flip houses. You can be a landlord. I like the landlord stuff

just because it's good residual income. But there's a ton of ways you can do it. You can be a developer, anything. Awesome. Cool, man. Well, with that, what do we move on to today's fire round?

It's time for the fire round. 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.

Wouldn't it be great if your houseplants 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. 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 500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free program. proposal and see your potential tax savings. As a quick reminder, the questions from the fire round come from our forums, and we're going to ask four or five of them. The first of those questions is a property management question. I've just recently taken over managing my properties from a property manager only to find smoke alarms chirping and no furnace filters have been changed out ever.

My question, do you charge your tenants for filters and batteries or simply expect them to take care of it themselves? I do not charge for filters and batteries. I do expect them to take care of themselves. Having said that, they probably don't, right? They, they, you know, ideally, they would change the filters in the furnaces. They need to be changed, but I pulled them out to, like I just pulled one out. The tenants moved out. They were there five years. I don't think the damn thing had been changed at all. It was solid, right. So sometimes they get crumpled up and then the air goes around them. But, but you're right. And smoke detectors, they should change the battery, but by law, I'm responsible for it. And if somebody dies, then it's not going to be good. So

the landlord should make damn sure that those things are working. Absolutely. So, you know, another pathetic story of Josh, you know, one was the water fountain, too. Last week, I, you know, I'm like, I don't think I've changed the filters in my house and my reminder to change the house. HVAC filters had not gone off of late. So I crawled up into the attic where there's this two units, one in the attic, one in the basement, went up to one in the attic.

and I definitively had not changed the filters in probably six months. So I changed it and I was like, this isn't good. We get our electric bill yesterday, 100 bucks more than it should have been. 100 bucks more than it should have been. And we could think of nothing other than it had to be the HVAC on overload, just trying to push air through when that thing was just completely stopped up. So there's your lesson. and make sure you get your filters clean and don't be an idiot like me.

My tenants pay electricity. Well, yeah, well, I am my own tenant. So, yeah, there you go. All right, next question. I'm curious what other landlords do. Do you have a fee that you use for when somebody leaves a deposit and how much is it? And what do you call it? And does it get credit towards rent?

How about that? Okay. So when my tenants apply for an apartment, because I overheard you say holding fee deposit, They give me an application fee and also a holding fee, right, of a thousand bucks, just for me to hold a unit. And I generally don't even like to take an application unless I get that money. I used to say, well, I'll waive the application fee if you give me a thousand bucks with the application.

But now I don't even do that because it's, there's just so many tenants. I don't have to. Having said that, that is a little trick that somebody can use to maybe sway a tenant to apply and lock them in with that thousand bucks. that does get applied to rent or deposit. And, you know, I hold the deposit until everybody in the apartment has moved out. Got it. I don't know if that answered the question.

Yeah. It's a great answer. It's a very confusingly asked question. So well played. Okay. Scott. All right. When you're turning over a unit after a tenant moves out, what does it typically cost you?

Do you budget for that? Do you have a certain percentage that you kind of allot to a normal turnover event? You know, I don't have a specific cost. And if I turn the apartment myself, it costs very, very little. There's obviously some cleaning, which you could say is free. There might be some touch-up paint. Now, on this one I'm doing right now is a full paint. So it's, you know, it might be $100 worth of paint.

Trying to think what else I did. You know, I fixed a lot of small things, you know, bought a new patio sliding a screen door. You know, it's $50 or whatever. It really isn't. When you do it yourself, they're just so much less expense to, but you can probably figure $1,000 to turn a unit. if you're paying it, you know, because it's going to cost four or five hundred bucks to clean it and paint it and plus fix whatever else is a matter with it. Yeah, and I'll add on to that.

When I do this for my properties, I usually have about $180 to $200 cleaning bill, and I don't like to do the cleaning. So I'll have the cleaners come. And while they're there, I'll try to show the property and take care of some of the problem, some of the little things I noticed, like maybe a handle and a drawer is missing or there's like, I need a new cover for one of the vents. something like that. So those are the kinds of things I like to do while I'm there to save some money and keep that turnover low for myself. Yeah. And, you know, if you clean yourself, like actually, my girlfriend helps clean, actually does most of it. And then when she finds something like a loose handle, you know, then she calls her over and I fix it right away, whether it's a tub handle or a drawer

handle, because if you don't fix those things, the tenant's going to move it. And then they're going to fall off. And now you can't just turn it with a screwdriver. Now you've got to fill the hole and make it work, right? Or put a different screw in there or a different handle. So catching stuff early is a huge thing. And I try to fix everything that I can possibly think of that's even partially broke. Like the toilet paper holder was, you know, screwed to the wall, but it was loose, you know, the part that holds the roll in. So I had to take the toilet paper roll off the wall, which actually tore quite a bit of the wall off and put bigger screws in there. But now it's bulletproof. Yeah. You know, because it's not going to fall off the first week the tenant is there.

Tennis don't like that either. They don't want to move into a place and find out that it's, you know, things are breaking. Yeah. So. Well, and then you get a really crappy reputation. So, you know, yeah, we definitely discourage half-fitting things and doing it the right way here at Bigger Pockets is the way to go. So awesome. All right.

Last question of the fire round. What's the best flooring to use? And I guess that's a really broad question. Let's say, what are your preferred flooring for? let's say kitchen and then everything else? You know, for the bedrooms, I use carpet because I think people get up in the morning or whatever they want to walk on carpet. But that's the only place.

And carpet in a bedroom really doesn't get walked on much because people are very seldom in the bedroom. And when they are, they're in the bed. And in a bedroom, you know, it's covered with beds and dressers and everything else. Any place like a hallway, living room, dining room, I prefer to have laminette. You know, and I know there's some vinyl laminar out there that I haven't. Well, I've used some of some vinyl. for the kitchen, but there's some wood grain vinyl that might be good for a living room,

dining room, but I haven't used it. But I have used, like, it's a product by Home Depot. It's called the lure. It's got sticky on two sides on each one, and they kind of all stick together. In the bathroom, as I put tile, and I put a four-inch tile baseboard on the edge. So instead of a, you know, for your molding or whatever you call it, and then I put the, just the most recent one for the top of the tile, rather than buy bulldoze tile, which are expensive. And you never know how many you're going to need because they break.

they make a little cap that comes on there. Otherwise, I used to put just like a 45-degree angle at grout. But now with the, I just for the first time, use one of these. It's just a plastic or vinyl. It's like five bucks for eight feet kind of a kind of thing. You put that on top of the tile. It makes it look good. There you go.

Awesome. All right. Awesome. Well, I think it's time for the famous for. All right. Question number one. What is your favorite real estate book? Favorite real estate book?

You know, good question. I don't read too many real estate books. But, you know, I have read some stuff by Dave Lindahl. Nice, nice. Cool. All right, what about business book? Favorite business book? Good question. Like I say, you assume that I'm reading all these books. You know, I mostly just kind of read my stuff on the internet. But I'm just trying to think some of the books that I have read in the past that have really kind of made my, you know, I can't even think of a good business book at this point. So sorry about that. No, it's all good, man. All right. No, no books. We'll just, we'll just say a bigger pockets, right?

There you go. You don't tell you the truth? When I was early on how I found bigger pockets, I was searching for something. I can't remember what I was searching for, but something to do with making money in real estate, obviously, or something. And up came bigger pockets. And I read a ton of articles. And it was amazing the amount of information that was out there.

And I want to say there was a guy in Minnesota that actually started renters warehouse. And I can't remember his name, but I do have his phone number of my phone, that because I have talked to him in the past. He wrote an article, and it was pretty amazing as well. And then I started going to bigger pockets all the time, just reading whatever new articles were there. And I wasn't even aware of all the different sections of bigger pockets, but there was plenty of good articles that I did read.

It was pretty good. Awesome. Well, and now on occasion you write for us, which is great. Yeah. Cool. So what about hobbies? What do you like to do for fun outside of a rest? You know, I like, you know, good question.

I used to like to do a lot of hunting and fish. and I was a falconer for a long time, so I used to hunt with my Reddale Hawk. Get out of here. It actually was a blast. Do you have video of you falconing? No video, but probably some pictures. So it is pretty fun.

Yeah, could you send us along a couple of those pictures so we can put them in the show notes? I can do that. Yeah, that would be awesome. It's someone that can find them. Yeah. But I'll find something. You know, I like to travel.

I like to see different things. Kind of one of my goals now is to see every national park out there. I just got done seeing, we stopped at Mount Rushmore, not that that's a national park, but we stopped at Mount Rushmore. While we were there, we saw Wind Cave National Park. We saw a little big horn battlefield. Then we went up to Glacier National Park, even though there was fires. It was still impressive. And then on way back, we stopped at Teddy Roosevelt National Park. So we saw three in this past thing.

So I just like to travel, and I want to see as much of the United States as I can. And maybe at some point, go to some safe country, if there is one, over. seas, you know, like, I don't know, maybe Hawaii. I used to live in Hawaii, so I know that's the United States. But I, I, I, I, you got the fifth wheel now. I've got an RV this year. And so we, we started to explore the parks ourselves. We hit Rushmore and, and Devil's Tower and Badlands and Glacier and Yellowstone and

Teton. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. Like, I never really had a chance to see parks grown up and getting to, experience those as an adult. It's kind of an addiction. You're like, oh, I want the next one. I want the next one. So, yeah, that's great.

And of course, Josh learned how to change out the poop tank in the RV. Yes. Yes. And actually, I don't have my fifth wheel yet, but it's, you know, I've been negotiating with some people. And some of these negotiations have been going on for quite a while. She's winning, huh? No, actually, the sellers.

Oh, okay. Because I don't want to buy one and have it be worth less next year. That will. Yeah, but if you buy it right, maybe one year you get for free. Right. So I'm kind of, and I've been working with some other folks, or, you know, like this one, I made an offer. I think it was in March and we're still, you know,

here it is October. He still hasn't sold it. So we're a lot closer on price than we were. And I think I'm going to be able to get that one here pretty soon. Keep trying. Yeah. Keep trying. Cool.

Last question. Last question of the famous four here is what sets apart successful investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started. I think it's the drive and the determination and the ambition, right? So if you have a poor outlook on life and something happens, you think, oh, it'll never happen. Or I can't do that. And I can't say that I've never had that feeling, right? Because there's times you think, my God, am I ever making money on these real estate things?

You know, I'd buy one and I'd spend money fixing it up. And I'd have to buy another one and work in a hundred hour weeks forever, it seems. But it's being able to take those setbacks and say, you know, have a problem. positive attitude and just keep pushing forward, pushing forward, pushing forward. Knowing that you have to take some risks, right? Real estate is not, real estate's a ton of money. But having said that, it's a ton of risk as well. But you can mitigate that risk by, you know, I mean, tenant screening, buying at the right

price, not being undercapitalized. You can do a lot of things that will help you mitigate that risk. But at the end of it all, you have to have a positive attitude. You know, without that positive attitude, you're never going to make it. And it doesn't matter a real estate or building baskets. right. You've got to have a positive attitude and know you can do it and just keep pushing forward. Yes, agreed. I agreed. Scott, just have a positive attitude about those baskets you're weaving, man. You got this. You got this. I will. Eric, it's been a pleasure, man. Where can people find out more about you? Where can they connect with you?

My blog out at no nonsense landlord.com is probably as good. You know, there's a contact me page. It can out read some of my articles. I'm a little behind on some articles, but I got a bunch of my head I just got to put out there. Nice. And yeah, feel free. Cool. And of course, you're also on bigger pockets. I am on bigger pockets. Yeah. Awesome.

And there's a contact or there's a way to contact me there as well. And I get an email when somebody does send an email, you know, so that that works. Awesome. Awesome. Well, listen, lots of luck. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. And we'll see around the community.

Well, thank you very much, Scott and Josh. It's been, first time I've actually met you guys or seen you. So it's, you know, I've seen a lot of your articles and different things on the, on bigger pockets, but first time I've actually seen you. So it's kind of a neat thing. Amazing. Fantastic. Yeah, it was fantastic to meet you as well. And I have, like Josh mentioned, I've been a fan of your writing.

Well, thank you. I really like it. Right on. All guys, that was Eric Drink on. Big thanks to Eric for coming on the show. Scott, was it everything you thought it would be? And more. It was everything I hope for.

I told you, I'm a big fan of this guy. He's been blogging for bigger pockets for a while now, and you can just tell that he has so much direct experience dealing with tenant issues, dealing with landloring problems, analyzing deals. Again, I mean, I mentioned this in the intro. I'll mention it again. This is the type of person that I like to network with

because that plethora of experience is just something that I can never, I can never replicate, no matter how many books I read, no matter how many podcasts I listen to, that direct hands-on experience in the field. it's really irreplaceable. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, it's awesome.

So as Scott mentioned up in the upfront, get out there. Make sure to reach out to folks like this in your local area. You know, just getting to know them. I mean, you can't help but benefit your investing business by befriending folks like Eric, you know, active investors in your area who've got experience. And obviously you have to make it worth their while. I mean, these guys get hit up constantly, constantly with requests from people to connect. So what are you going to do? What are you going to say to them that's going to get

them to sit down with you that everyone else hasn't already done or said? So think about that when you reach out. But awesome, man, listen, great show, lots of great tips. You know, again, the DIY thing is just, it's yet another arrow in the quiver. It's another path that you can take as a real estate investor. And our job here on the Bigger Pockets podcast is to introduce you to as many ideas and pathways as possible. And it's up to you, the listener, to decide what works for you. What's going to be the best past for you and your family? What's going to take you to your why? And so we hope you found this valuable. Thank you for listening. Scott, why don't you take it out, man? Do you even know what to say? All right, I'm Scott Trench. It's a Bigger Pockets podcast.

This is Scott Trench. And I'm just talking. Signing off. 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. It's time for it's time for. It's time. It's time. The random six. All right, so it's time for the random six where we ask you six completely. random questions so our users can get to know you and know a little bit more about you.

So first question I have for you is, who would you want in your lifeboat? If you just had a lifeboat to save one person on earth, who would it be? I got to make sure the other half isn't looking here. All right. Let's assume she's in there. Who else would you want? Yeah. Yeah.

You know, it's interesting because if you want to have an interesting discussion, you want somebody famous, not really famous, but somebody that's done it, like a Warren Buffett or a Trump or, I don't know, somebody that's has a lot of good information that you can talk to. Having said that, if you're in a lifeboat and, you know, where are we going? Are we going to a deserted island and that's where you're going to live forever? Or is it just to be saved and then we're back in society? Just pick a person.

Because that might make. a difference too. Yeah, I suppose. I'd want the best rower in the world in my life. That's a good answer. We'll say Warren. Let's say Warren Buffett. How about that? That would make for some good conversations. All right. Because he could definitely tell you, I mean, because he's definitely successful. Yeah. You know. Scott? Again, I'd go with, I go with the, oh, no, I don't care what you think. What's the next question? Oh, the next question. Which of your five senses would you say is your strongest? I would say sight, you know, in... This coming from a guy with Coke bottle glasses, by the way. Actually, no, these are just reading glasses, actually. You know, I can't see you guys on the screen if I don't have my reading glasses on.

So they're only like 1.5 hour reading glasses for three bucks that I buy them for. So I'm not going to spend the money on some fancy glasses. You guys probably wear contacts. That's why you don't have a glasses. I got perfect vision, although I'm starting to use those 1.5s when I read at night. So that's the problem when you get old, you know, and they say around 45 years old, they start to wear the reading glasses. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So next question, summer or winter, which is better? Why? You know, I like summer better than winter. Although when I was younger, I liked winter better because, you know, it was invigorating, right? And it's still short of invigorating, but I don't need as much invigoration as I used to maybe, because it's just too damn cold. And here in Minnesota, you know, Minnesota, we get winters, right?

You guys in Colorado, that's nothing, man. That's not even winter, man. This is true. Well, I was a boy, I would walk two miles to school, uphill in the snow. Yeah, both ways. But, you know, actually like fall and spring better, but I do like the summer better than the winter anymore. Awesome, Scott. Awesome.

So do you stand or walk up escalators? And there is a right answer. Yes. I generally walk up them. Good. That is correct. Unless there's people in the way. You know, sometimes on an escalator, there's people in a way.

Now, when you go to an airport. That's when you push them. Yeah. So if you go to an airport, they got the people movers, you know, the flat escalators you could say, those are cool because you can really move when you're walking on those. And there's a line in the middle to say, get off to the side. Yeah.

Right. And, man, you can really move on those things. But yeah, I generally try to walk up them if I can. Right on. All right. My last question. What is your favorite board game? Monopoly.

Of course. I used to like chess too, though. You know, chess is a good game. It's probably a toss between chess and, although I haven't played either for many years. But Monopoly or chess is always. Get back out there, man. Get playing. I used to be a pretty solid chess player.

Nice. Are you a good. cook? You know, when I was in high school and shortly after, I was a cook at a restaurant, you could say, and I actually owned a little bar restaurant. But, you know, I don't, you know, I could make whatever, but not. Nobody wants to eat it. I make the easy stuff. You know, if I can't do it in a microwave, I generally don't do it. Nice. Generally, my life is too fast that I don't have time to stop and make stuff, right? So maybe throw a couple eggs in a pan. That's about the biggest cooking I do. Sweet. See, I make very elaborate dishes that could have a lot of love and care

going into them and then they taste terrible even after all that. So maybe I should switch to the microwave. Yeah, do that. Nice. Microwave or like say, if it can't be done in two or three minutes, it probably ain't worth making. Perfect. All right, Eric, thanks so much. 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.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. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.