KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Funding Freedom: Investor Financing and Building Wealth Through Real Estate

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

Summary:Mortgage lender Ben Steph joins host Kevin Cahill to discuss how real estate agents and investors can build long-term wealth through real estate financing strategies. Steph breaks down the core differences between local cash flow markets and appreciation markets, emphasizing the power of multi-unit house hacking for single buyers. He explains why real estate agents should move past transactional thinking, identify a specific investor niche, and leverage specialized lending products to unlock equity and create repeat investor clients.

Introducing America's Workforce Academy built by META, paid training, a job, and a path to America's future, because the future is for everyone. Learn more at meta.com slash America's Workforce Academy. Welcome back to the Realty Funnels Podcast. I'm Kevin Cahill, and I'm so delighted today to welcome Ben Steff to the Realty Funnels podcast. Ben is a mortgage lender, and he's headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and he focuses on, of course, first-time homebuyers, refinancing, but his special niche is helping investors gain freedom through investing in real estate.

I'm looking forward to the conversation. Ben, welcome. Kevin, thank you for having me, man. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you. Well, it's my pleasure. Thank you for joining me. Let's give everyone a little sense of who you are, where you are, and what you do.

Yeah, so I'm 5'7. I weigh 100. No, I'm kidding. So born and raised in Chicago, I come from immigrant family. We're Romanians. So we still travel. We go off and speak the language and everything. I'm actually going to Romania in a month.

So I grew up in this sort of two worlds, right? We had the Eastern European world and then we had the American world. And so we got to see how Americans did things, right? We got to see how like the work ethic of just the immigrant mentality of like, eat what you kill, figure it out, no handouts, like just make it work and make it happen. And so my dad was a, he is a GC. So I grew up doing, I grew up doing construction. I like working with my hands.

But long term, I was like, eh, I don't think I want to do this. I want to be the guy that like shows up on the job site. for an hour or two and like owns the building like who's that guy right because i would i would notice like there'd be the realtor like the owner um coming in and and he had the i was like okay that's the guy with the money like i want to be the guy that owns and so basically i help my dad like i didn't i wouldn't say i helped him manage the construction business i helped him manage the glass business because he started a franchise later on but i you know i helped him with construction we did he he would i would help him with the technology with payroll with excel like i

I was kind of growing up. Like I had to do all the, you know, some of the things for him because he couldn't do it. He doesn't know how to, you know, use a word document or whatever. Now he does,

but, um, so yeah, did that, went to college, graduated with the bachelor and business management. I paid cash for school. So I would work and then take off and then work.

So I did that on and off. And then I did mortgage lending full time and school at the same time, which was really difficult. Um, very, very hard where I did classes at night and then I would work all day. And so, there was some overlap there, graduated. The degree was completely worthless, did not need the degree.

But I had to finish because I hate starting things and not finishing. So I did it out of pride, honestly. And so I got my degree in business management, did some odd jobs here and there, landed in mortgage on accident, started as a career. And then I realized, wow, wait a minute. Like, it was just a job for me, Kevin. Like, it was just a whatever job. I didn't, you know what I mean? I wasn't like, well, I'm going to grow and I want to become the VP of the company. Like, I didn't care. I was like, whatever, I just need a job. And then I realized, oh, wait a minute, this could be my own business.

Like, this can be lucrative, but also I could start my own thing and I can kind of do my own thing because I thought it was just some big corporate, corporatized, like business model. But I realize it's not. You can actually kind of run it like your own business as a realtor would, right? And so, yeah, eventually I, every job I took from that point on, I would go to a smaller and smaller shop to where eventually I was like, okay, I needed to do my own thing because I kept budding heads with everybody. I kept like, I disagree with how they ran the business. I disagree with their marketing. I disagree with all their strategies. And I was like, you know, let me just run it myself.

And so now we're here. Fast forward six years in the business now. It's fascinating that mortgage lending is very similar to residential real estate brokerage where you create your own book of business, you call your own hours, you provide the level of service you desire to provide, you realize that the more you can solve other people's problems, the more you're going to be in demand. And there's no limit. Nobody's putting a ceiling on how much money you can earn in mortgage lending simply because they're wanting you to close more transactions,

lend more money, do more deals. and from there, more opportunities just continue to flow in. Yeah, that's exactly right. Like, if I was a real filter, there's so much overlap between the way we run our businesses is independent, you know, like contractors, if you want to call it that. So I think there is a lot of a lot of that. And it's definitely one of those things where it takes a while, at least for me, it took me a long time for things to pick up.

And then what felt like overnight, everything just changed. And now, like, you know, for me, my business really took off. And, yeah, we just solved problems well and at a high level. And that's what I do, you know. That's how we keep busy. And you're in the Chicago area. Is your lending practice limited to Chicago land? Is that where you focus?

No. So Chicago is just where we get a lot of referrals there. but I'm actually nationwide. We have a lot of deals in Florida, Atlanta, California, and Missouri, like all over, states all over. Virginia, it depends on the deal itself. So most of our investor products are available nationwide in virtually every state, with the exception of, like, Alaska, I think. And some products aren't available in New York. But yeah, so right now, I'm nationwide, so I help a lot of investors across the board.

And when you focus in on a niche, you recognize that you can become a specialist. You can really become deeply knowledgeable in that space. And for you, you've mentioned that that's really focusing in on rental properties, helping people achieve wealth through, in essence, positive cash flow by owning cash flowing pieces of real estate. How did you dial into that niche? You know, I just always like that niche a little bit more. I always geared my content and conversations around it, like helping people discover through the financing programs, what rentals they could buy, the fact that they could buy rentals when they thought that they couldn't, helping them house-sack buy a four unit where they

could live in one, rent out the rest, right? So, like, helping people do that outside of the normal, like, let's just help you buy a house in the suburbs was really fascinating to me. So I always was drawn to that. I don't know why. Maybe if we sat down for three hours, we can figure it out. On a couch. I'm on a couch.

And let me like analyze, you know. But I just, I love, you know, I still love homebuyers. I help them still. But the focus definitely lately has just been investors because they're, they've been keeping me busy. And they're, I think they're an underserved market. And I'll tell you why investor mortgages and loans for investors, especially Helox, are not as scalable. well, Helox are more scalable, but in general, the investment niche is not as scalable

because each loan takes a lot more work and handholding. And it's a lot more hands-on. When it comes to helping someone buy a house, the loan process is a little bit easier. So I could probably do 10 of those without batting an eye, right? I'll be busy, but I'm not like screaming in my head cut off. But like if I did three or four investment deals, they might keep me as busy as 10. my point. And probably because you're dealing with rentals, you're dealing with, you know, what's the cash flow in this property? Exactly. Appraisals, like everything's so important about

appraisals. Like, what are the market rents going to come in at? What are the comps for both comps for rent for sales comparison for the actual sales price? So like there's so many layers to it. And investors are not in clean situations all the time. They have a million things going on. They have, they always, almost every investor I'm working with right now has an issue. right like they like some are fairly clean but but a lot of them aren't and not saying that they don't have good credit but the point is they had something come up or some weird whatever so yeah i know from investing in multifamily properties that i dealt with the fact that i needed to qualify for the loan and the property needed to qualify for the loan when you're dealing with

a single family residential purchase for an owner occupant it's very clean. It's just like, okay, can this person afford the mortgage and is the property worth what they're paying for the property? Done. We're done. Then you get into residential rental properties, and it's always fascinating to me,

especially in Florida, where I honestly, I just don't think I've seen a pro forma where any seller has ever said, we have these things renting at maximum market rents. You can't get another dime. No, always saying, we haven't raised the rents in seven years. We've had good tenants.

We didn't want to have any vacancies. I'm sure you can get a lot more money in rent. No, you're getting the max you can get. You just don't want to deal with those vacancies that might come up if you push too hard. But they always make it sound like, you know, we're bringing in $8,000. hours a month in rent, you can probably bring in 12,000. No, that's never the day. And nobody is

ever saying, we're getting 12,000 a month and we're just hitting it out of the park. You're not going to get another dime. So then when you take these situations to a lender, the lender is having to look through and say, based on the comps, what should these properties be getting in rent, based on the condition, based on the current job economy locally. And so, yes, they're much more complicated. But from my point of view, if I'm dealing with a lender who is okay with the amount of work that that's going to take, okay. Now as a broker, I'm dealing with a mortgage lender who's on my team helping me help

people accumulate wealth through real estate. Yeah. And that's what you need to. You need someone, in my opinion, if you're going to build a team, especially for real estate investing, you want to have a team that is experienced and that they think like investors and personally, if they are, if possible, that they are investing in real estate. Because then they know how to put on the investor hat and look at it through those lens as well, not saying they have to have a hundred doors, but like I think that it's important.

But yeah, that's so true. It's like the paradox of marketing a listing. It's so funny to me when agents sometimes call and they're like, Ben, this is such a good deal. Like, you have to jump on this. And you look at it and you're like, I don't think it's a good deal. And they're like, you're wrong. It's a good deal. And I'm like, well, why don't you get it then? Well, I can't. I got this. I got that and whatever. But it's, you know, I'm like, okay. Like, and then from the seller perspective, we, it's like, it's like, oh man, fantastic opportunity. Possibility of raising rents, like so much, you know, of course they have to lavish it up and make it sound so good. And it's like,

well, why are you selling that? You know, it's like if it's that good, if it's that good. And I get it. Sometimes you need, you know, you need equity or you need funds, whatever. But it's just, it's funny to me. It's like I ignore listing descriptions. I ignore the listing agents say I don't care anymore. I'm pulling up the tax bill.

We're looking at title. We're looking at the pro form. We're looking at the OM. Like, it's irrelevant to me. It's irrelevant. I'm looking at the P&L. It's just like, I've kind of learned just to not like, and for the realtors listening, I'm sorry, but like, I just don't trust some, some agents anymore, like listing agents.

Like even, I don't care what you tell me the taxes are, Kevin. I'm looking up the taxes. Of course. And you share what? I don't care. You know what I mean? And insurance. I'm getting insurance quotes, right?

What type of insurance do you have currently? Oh, okay, you have a certain policy that doesn't insure the roof, but you're insuring the building. Okay, interesting. It's a cash replacement for the roof, but not for, okay, gotcha. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. There's just things that we think through, you know?

It's so interesting when I look at a, because I still look at rental properties all the time. I'm sure you do. And I started my career in Cleveland, Ohio, where an investment property could absolutely cash flow every month. It could deliver a very nice return on investment, positive cash flow. Then I moved down to Florida to run Keller Williams Realty in Tampa Bay. And I was looking at these rental properties. And I bought a bunch of rental properties in Florida. It was a totally different game than in Cleveland.

It was an appreciation game. In Cleveland, it was a cash flow game. In Florida, you would buy this property, improve it, get it rented for maximum money, sit on it for three years, get some appreciation, exit. Because it wasn't cash flowing that whole. whole time. It was okay. It wasn't sucking wind. It wasn't terrible. But the real opportunity was the exit. In Cleveland, and here I am in Seattle now, Seattle, it's very, very much the case that the rental properties are going to be subsidizing the renter's lifestyle somewhat, but the

appreciation is the game. But you get into those Midwest sensibilities, Chicago land, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, you're going to get cash flowing properties. So that's a whole different thing that you get into when you're helping fund freedom. You know, in essence, when you're helping an investor, the investor needs to know, what game am I actually playing here? Oh, that's so good. What game? Right. What game are you playing? What's the market that you're in? And what's the strategy that you're going for?

What's the end goal? Because everything that we do is just a vehicle. Whether it's opening a car wash, buying a quadplex, right? Or buying a single family Airbnb. Like, what's the strategy here? Because a lot of people will ask, it's like asking,

I love when people ask me, like, should I do X or should I do Y? It's like, should I buy an Airbnb? Or should I use a DSCR loan to, buy a rental property. It's like, it's like I respond with, that's like asking me, should I buy an F-150 with zero context, by the way. Like you just approached me on the street and you're like, hey, Kevin, I'm thinking about buying a Ford F-150. Should I do it? I would say, why are you thinking about buying a Ford F-150? Right. I mean, why not a Prius? Like, what are we talking about here, right? Are you an Uber driver? Are you construction worker? Are you commuting every day to an office job,

an hour away? Like, what's the point, right? And so I think it's important to establish that because what the context matters, the goals matter. So if you really want cash flow, okay, in the market they're in, right, what's your unique advantage? That's why I love like investing locally because that's your unique advantage. You grew up there or you live there. So you know you could see things that maybe institutional investors, out of state investors don't see. But like, what's your unique advantage of what are you going for? Is the game like, like you said, we have some investors right now looking in Oklahoma and in parts in Alabama. And what we've noticed there is the rents are pretty high. cap rates are pretty good and the rents and I'm sorry the the taxes and insurance are so cheap like

it's dying my it's just like beautiful right if you can find the right deal and so we're noticing that it's like that's a cash flow game but guess what like you mentioned with um with Ohio the appreciation though is going to be pretty slow yeah I're not to appreciate that fast so don't expect a large equity bill so are you going for a lot of cash flow I mean we always talk about what's your freedom number right like if you had this much coming in a month, like more passively that doesn't require 40, 50, 60 hours a week of work. What is that number for you? Is it a 5 grand, 10 grand, 30 grand a month?

Like, what is it? And then, okay, let's work to build up to that point with our rental properties. And I think that's, that's, I love being a part of the team with the investor to help them get to that point. Because at the end of the day, we all want cash flow. I think, well, at least I would argue, like we want cash flow. Appreciation is nice. Tax benefits are nice. Costs sag with depreciation.

great. But at the end of the day, you do want some income coming in. So you don't have to work full time or so you can retire or whatever. So yeah. And yeah, you just need to know what game you're in. It's often the case that when I'm dealing with a property seller, they'll say, hey, we had an appraisal three months ago and we want to go with that number. And so my first question will be, why was it that you had an appraisal? And in essence, when I was in the real estate classes, you know, of the, when I was dealing with appraisal 101, the first question an appraiser asks is, what is the purpose for this appraisal? Because if they're looking at funding a mortgage or refinance, that's different than if they're doing a valuation for somebody's net worth statement,

or if they're valuing something for some type of personal financial statement. And so when people come to me and they say I have an appraisal, the appraiser said it was worth X, I just take that with a grain of salt because I need to know exactly the questions that were asked by that appraiser. And the same thing when we're real estate brokers, mortgage lenders, when we're dealing with our clients, you know, the question is, what's the goal? What are you trying to accomplish here? Wealth is very easy to achieve in the long haul through real estate, but you need to know what game you're playing because if you're reading a book, you went to a hotel and attended some seminar, and it talks about getting rich quick through real estate with no money down. You realize

we need to figure out what game you're playing. And then when you're playing that game, where's the best playground to play it? Exactly. Because it might not be in your local area. Right. Like study the rules of the game that you're playing so you can play the game better than anybody else. And then be so good that you'll excel and win. Like that's how I look at it.

So we, and I think there's two different types of real estate investing. There's active and passive. So you could like R.AITs. I forgot how they're, anyway, but like there's syndications. And you're dealing with REITs.

Yeah, with REITs. And like, you have all. these different platforms where you can invest and have returns or, you know, be an LP, right, on a deal. And that's fine, you know, or you can boot on the, hey, put your boots on and go, like, help make sure the construction project's moving along on your new flip, right? So there's different ways to do it. And you have to, like, I think it's important to establish that, but then also establish the niche that you're in. And so this is why I talk about this a lot of my YouTube channel when I'm talking to investors, Kevin, is, like, I have investors. I have this one guy right now.

And I had to yell at him a couple times because he's new. And he's like, Ben, I really want to buy a four unit. I'm like, okay, great. This is what you got what you got to do? And he's like, you know what, Ben? I really want to do condos. There's some really good condo deals. We can start doing condos, you know?

And then he's like, all right. Actually, I want to do Airbnbs. Let's do Airbnbs in this area. And I'm like, buddy, focus. Like, pick a niche and focus on it, you know? Like stop changing what. property type you're going to because you master faster, right, when you're pursuing something that is, I want to buy three to four unit properties and that's it. In Chicago, we're the number

one multifamily market, I believe, after New York actually, for small residential multifamily. We have the most two to four unit properties. And so because of that, I got investors like in real estate agents that just focus on that. And so they get really good at a buy box, building a buy box around finding a property. So I think it's important, hence the one thing, right? it's important to focus and not chase two rabbits at the same time because you can't catch both of them. You only can catch one. And then with that being said as well, that's why I also focus on, that's why I try to focus where I can and not try to have 40 businesses running at the same time. Because having multiple businesses, like having multiple wives, I think it's very, very difficult if you ask me.

You know, one wife is enough like that. Like I'm not even doing enough for that. Like imagine, you know, adding anyway. So, yeah. You mentioned Gary Keller and the one thing. Of course, I worked with Gary for many, many years. He's just an absolutely brilliant visionary. He has a wonderful book called The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, which when I talked with

Gary years ago, he actually said, I think that's the best book I've ever written. And there you go. And he is really masterful. So if anybody is thinking about getting into residential real estate, yes, the one thing is great, the question. What is the one thing I could be doing if I did that properly would negate having to do other things or make other things less important? And when you get into the millionaire real estate investor, then you're looking at strategies for identifying what you will buy, finding the network of people who will help you find what you will buy, including bird dogging, people who can help you find those properties.

but then also the lenders who can help you get the financing to get into those properties, the property managers who will help you manage your growing assets. And it's just a wonderful way of looking at it. But all that being said, I think the really important thing here is that we focus on creating that network, you know, studying from the masters, the people who have gone ahead of us. And then just pick the one thing that you will really become, comfortable with. And whatever that might be. In Florida, Lisa and I've dealt with so many vacation rental buyers. And we've dealt with selling those assets. We've helped people buy

those assets. But the people who are excelling in the short-term rental space, they have a whole system. They have the people who can help them turn over a unit, the cleaning team, the the painters, the people who will get in there very quickly and repair any damage. It's a whole niche, and yet it's a different niche than dealing with the long-term rentals, which is a totally different niche than dealing with owning office buildings, which is totally different than dealing with warehouses. I have a guy in my network who his whole wealth was built by buying stores, storage facilities. He doesn't deal with short-term rentals. He doesn't deal with even single-family

residential stuff. He is all about how do I maximize the income potential from the storage facilities. And then he's dealing with all sorts of ancillary income streams, rental, you know, the rental insurance for those people in the short-term, or I'm sorry, in the storage units. They're renting their storage unit, but they're going to have to ensure their stuff in there in case there's fire or storm or whatever it might be. It's selling, you know, moving equipment right there. I mean, so what's your niche? It's really important that you figure out what you're going to focus on. Yeah. And I think that goes to the investors. I think that goes to real estate agents, right? Like, are you going to focus on luxury homes, new builds, move up buyers, first time home buyers,

right? Like, what is the niche you're going to focus on, even from a marketing perspective? And I think that's what's so important, Kevin, that a lot of people just don't. You know, we see all these guys that are successful. And it's like, oh, yeah, they're running four businesses. So it's like, that's the business. So if they're running five businesses, I should be running five. Like Elon Musk, he's got all these companies. And it's like, guys, you don't understand.

Like, all these people did one thing first. They all started. I think Gary Keller talks about this book, too. Like, these guys started one thing, got really good at it. Then once that machine was sort of humming, like almost in your sleep. and now you sold, you built a company you sold or you hired a CEO, so now you're not, you're on the board, but you're not really running it. It's like now I can, okay, start something else, right, and have something else run.

But you could do that in a compressed amount of time because you already built the first business well. So that's why I'm like, build the first thing well. Do that part well. Then you could build everything else, you know? And I think in this day and age, we can't focus to save our lives. Like, we just can't. There's so much distraction.

And that's how you went. I wanted to show you that my copy of the book is spiral bound. And I've got the plastic cover on it. And I've got tabs on it. And this is a well-worn book. But yeah, you know, if you're going to focus in on creating freedom through investing in real estate, start studying from those people who have gone ahead of you. And the millionaire real estate agent, or millionaire real estate. estate investor for one book, you know, that's somebody who's earning a million dollars a year of

cash flow from their rental properties. So, so many interesting things. Let me ask you this, Ben, when you're dealing with somebody who is thinking, this makes sense to me, I'm young, I've got time, I've got runway, I've got money to invest. What are the first questions you're asking that person to help guide them on their journey to growing wealth through real estate. Sometimes I ask them, what do they want? And the thing is they don't know what they want. So I don't spend a lot of time there because they want to figure it out. I mean, if I was single and I didn't have kids, like immediately we're house hacking.

Because in our market, it's so easy to do. So there's a lot of inventory for it. That's why I got into it. My first property was a duplex. And I had the entire mortgage paid off in 11 years. years. The mortgage was at 8.625. I never refied because I just knew that the ROI, the cost of refi, I'd have the home paid off before the benefit of a lower interest rate would even make sense. But that tenant was paying most of the mortgage and I was just pouring money into the rest of it

to get it paid off. That's it. Yeah. So that like most effective strategy, if you're not married or even if you're married and your spouse is on board with it, that's always the, you know, tricky part. They have to be on board. But if you're not, if they're not, a bit if you're not married and you're single, I think house hacking in our, in our market, three to four unit is the highest returns. Right now if you buy a duplex, it's not quite worth it. Honestly, it'd be better to just do a four unit. But yeah, that's the strategy. Like, that's what's working right now. That's what's really effective. And so I think that like starting off in that niche is great, having mentors and the network around you that you can trust, right? Having the contractor, the attorney, because we're an attorney state, at least in Illinois, having the filter that you trust that's in your corner.

You have your, you know, the millionaire investor, Gary Keller talks about having this like team that's not on your payroll, right? But they kind of are. Like they're not on your payroll. You're not paying them, you know, monthly or annually. It's not a retainer. But they get paid, you know, if the deal closes. And so they're all incentivized to help you, but if there's a difference between people that will help you to help you, not because they want to get a check. And there are people like that out there that exists.

And so when you find that team, you have the team around you, now you just got to find the deal, right? Then you've got to learn how to vet the deal because it's easier to get into a deal than to get out of it, as they say in the book, right? So I think what I would do is focus on multifamily. If you can't, then long-term single family is like the way to go. I hate flipping, to be honest with you. I actually don't think fixing, like flipping houses is a great model. unless you have a dialed-in system and team for finding a cheap deal. I agree.

It's too risky. There are too many market externalities that you don't control that can change everything about your ROI. Right. And then you've got a 1031 to avoid paying capital gains tax. So there's all these capital gains tax you have to pay after you kind of made money. And most people don't make money. So I actually don't like flipping.

I think people make money. I have like some of my flippers do. but if you're newer, I'm in the opinion of buying hold, buy and hold, buy and hold. Buy and hold, do a birth strategy, but hold it. Don't sell it. Right. But like, you know, buy the property that needs work with the value ads, renovate it, increase the value. If you want to take cash out, take cash out or do a heloog.

That's what I do. I do a helic for rentals a lot. So we'll do a line of credit without traditional income verification. Use that line of credit to buy more rentals that need value add or that need construction. and they just keep doing that over and over again. That's how you never have, you know, you never run out of money. Easier said than done, but that's probably what I would do, you know? And really, it's just a matter of getting the experience and understanding the cycles that you deal with.

One of the things that I knew very early on where I had my rental properties in Cleveland, Ohio, was that I was very close to the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, and both were teaching hospitals that had annual residency. programs. And so I always cycled my rents to correspond with that annual cycle. Now, most of the time, my tenants would arrive in June and would stay for three years. That was typical. But they didn't always stay for three years, and it didn't matter to me how long they stayed. But I wasn't having a lease that ended any other month of the year than June. So then I knew that, okay, these people are going to be leaving at the end of this

lease. And in the lease agreement, they've already allowed me permission to show the property during the final 30 days of their lease. And so then I was getting the next batch of residents who were coming for their very prestigious, very high-paying residency programs at the Cleveland Clinic or University Hospitals. And then that cycle was the cycle to be in. And then I watched some of my neighbors on these various streets that had these duplexes, multifamily properties. And I would see signs go up on January. And I was like, do you have any clue who your best tenant is? And they just

didn't have a clue. So they're just dealing with whoever would rent in January. or maybe February or it's, you know, slow this time of year. So March, they're dealing with all these months of vacancy. And I'd see these neighbors and I'd say, hey, you know, you should probably try to get somebody in there, you know, starting on June 15th and just have the lease cycle, June 15th to the following June 15th. It'll work June 15th. That's a weird day. Don't worry about it.

That's when they want to take possession. So you start to get to know your local market area. you can really capitalize on the market of the moment in your area for, you know, lower turnover, best quality tenants, maximum rents, minimum wear and tear. 100%. I have an investor that's in, he's by a hospital, very big hospital in my market. And so he knows his demographic very well. And he actually works in the same industry, not at that hospital, a different one. So he started in that industry.

He knows, I think he's a, I forgot what, not a nurse practitioner, but I forgot. Some position. Anyway, but the point is, the point is this is that he knows his tenants, like you said. And you know, like the timelines of things and the type of tenants that you deal with and like your niche, your niche for those sense because your tenants are your customers, right? You're buying a business, which is a multifamily property. And so the customers are the, or the. tents are going to be staying in it. So I think it's important to understand like, yeah, what,

what's the best season for them, right? So for us, it's between, you know, May and June. Like, it's like the best season. Once you're past June, it's like, good luck, you know. Maybe even July. But, but, but yeah, I think that's, that's so important, Kevin. Like, it's, yeah. I mean, are, and you said, do you move, do you move from Cleveland to Florida now to Seattle? Are you in Seattle now. Yep, exactly. What had you move? Like, if you don't mind me asking, like the difference. Oh, no. It's just, so I was in Cleveland, Ohio, running real estate brokerages there. I had ownership in a bunch of different Keller Williams Realty offices in Cleveland. And then I recruited an entire brokerage, 360 agents, six offices into Keller Williams Realty back in 2009. That put me on

the national radar, which created all sorts of opportunities for me to run real estate offices elsewhere. And I was going through a divorce and looking for a fresh start. And sunny Florida sounded like a pretty nice place. And so I was given the opportunity to run Keller Williams Realty in Tampa Bay. And very thankful I met my wife, Lisa, there in the Sarasota area. I was running Keller Williams in Sarasota, Lakewood, Anglewood, and Venice as well, and met my wife, Lisa, there 15 years ago. And so she's a Florida native. She grew up in the heat of Florida, went to grade school without air conditioning, if you can imagine. And so I was there 15 years. She was there her whole life. We started vacationing in the Pacific Northwest back in 2012.

we really fell in love with the mountains and the cooler air in the summer. Here it is, you know, July 8th, and it is 58 degrees outside compared to Florida, which is already, you know, 94, 95 degrees. So I was just looking for a new chapter, fresh, cool, nice mountain air. And so that's what took me to Washington. We bought our first home in Washington, 2020. And then we were spending our summers in Washington, our winters in Florida. But then after a few of those winters in Florida, we're like, this is just not getting cool anymore.

And so we decided, let's just do a full year up in Seattle. And we loved it. And so we got rid of our Florida home. And now we're just full time in Seattle. Nice. Wow. And you're not managing a brokerage anymore, right? No, I was able to successfully merge my entire operation.

So in 2013, Lisa and I created our own brokerage, ran that for 10 years, had offices across Florida and Washington where we had our homes. And in 2023, I decided to merge all of our ongoing operations into EXP Realty. And we did that very successfully over an eight-week period in 2023. And so now I just focus on my own team of real estate agents. I don't have to deal with compliance issues. I just let EXP handle the compliance, and I just focus on lead generation and running teams. And then I do a lot of coaching and training of real estate agents. Plus I am doing a lot of full-stack engineering for software prop techs.

Nice. Wow, a lot of hats, Kevin. A lot of businesses. It's all real estate. All of it has been real estate since really 1993. Yeah, nice. No, I love that. I think that's important. Like, there's a connection between everything.

And it's funny because that direction, where you're at now is kind of where I want to go. You know, we want to look at starting to build a team. Our model is very similar to the XPU model. So we actually have some agents that are coming aboard that want to get paid for the loans, right? So we have a program that allows real estate agents to become licensed. And we do the loans. They don't touch it. They don't do anything.

We do the loans start to finish. and they get paid on it. So yeah, I think it's cool. It's all connected. Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting. Years ago, I was approached by an investment bank, and they wanted me to run their operations in Pinellas County,

which was St. Petersburg in Clearwater. And I was like, why, I really appreciate it, but I don't know anything about investment banking, but I know all this stuff about residential real estate. And they're like, oh, you know how to run teams. you know how to lead people, you know how to manage systems, you know, you'll be fine. But I was like, but I love real estate. And maybe it wasn't necessarily, you know, it wasn't like, it was just one of those moments

where you sort of say yourself, how do I picture my future? Do I picture it down this path, which could be incredible? Or do I picture it down this path with which could be incredible? And it wasn't like a mistake or anything. It was just like, oh, it's just a chance. choice. That could have been a good path. This could have been a good path. I just decided to take that fork in the road. And you know, what I've always loved about real estate is that it's a very able investment. And by able, I mean it is mortgageable. It is rentable. It is improvable. It is

improvable. It is leverageable. It is sellable. You know, if I'm feeling like my stock investments over at Vanguard aren't performing as well as I'd like them to, they're not going to invite me into the boardroom and let me throw in my two cents. I can't sort of go to Wall Street and just pipe it up and say, hey, this should all be worth a lot more money. But if I'm holding on to a piece of real estate and I'm thinking, this is underperforming. I can go to Lowe's, I can go to Home Depot, I can do a lot of different things to improve that piece of real estate. And all of a sudden, and I can see an immediate change in those performance metrics. Yep, yep.

And that's what's great about it. There are things we can't control, but there's a lot of things that we can't control, you know, in the real estate space. And like that's what makes it so valuable, yeah. Well, Ben, this has been a great conversation. You and I already know we could go and keep on talking for another hour and a half. But I want to give everybody an opportunity to connect with you. Tell us where they should go, your website that you'd prefer them to go to

more about you. Yeah. So I would say to my website, so fundingfredom.net, guys, if you want to learn more about, there's so many just resources there that you can tap into. And then the second one is my YouTube channel. So if you just go to Funding Freedom, type in Benstep, funding freedom, or we can go to YouTube.com slash at Funding Freedom with Ben, as Kevin is displaying here on the screen. There I talk a lot about investment strategies and creative financing programs that you guys can

leverage to buy more real estate and scale. If you're a realtor, I highly recommend the content because you can not only see for yourself like how to do content, right? But also you can see what are some programs that will make you guys more money? I wholeheartedly believe a lot of the programs I'm going to talk about guys. If you're a realtor, you will make more GCI every year if you referred these programs to your investors. Because if you give investors money, what are they going to do with it?

They're going to spend it. They're going to do something with it. I created so many listings and buy side deals because I helped my investors take out money or otherwise they wouldn't be able to take out, right? Or help them purchase. And so because of that, it creates deals for you as the agent. So I highly recommend if you guys want to go there. Yeah.

And we're new. And maybe we can get together for another podcast episode again soon. But one of the things that I always was training my real estate agent. when I was running these various brokerages, you know, Keller Williams and Cobble Banker and then my own brokerage and now at EXP, most consumers have their primary residence, and they live there, and unless they're thinking about making a change,

you as a real estate agent don't have any transactional opportunity with them. But many of these people have money in savings, money set aside for investment, and they could be investing, and they could be investing in real estate, and they could be investing in real estate with you as their guide, if only they knew that you were conversational and experienced and knowledgeable in that space. So I always was talking with real estate agents about just ask one of those sort of like the television show, Colombo, you know, you're about to walk away from the conversation and you say,

Oh, by the way, have you ever thought about investing in real estate? And boom, all of a sudden, what was a closed door, because they're not thinking of buying or selling or moving their own primary residence, becomes a sort of like, you know, we should talk about that. Are there any good deals out there right now? What do you know about it? How would I go about getting started on it? And then all of a sudden, instead of having no client from that,

contact, all of a sudden you have a repeat client. Yep. And those repeat clients are hanging out at the country club. They're hanging out at the restaurants. They're hanging out with their work colleagues. And they're talking about what they're doing. And they're talking about who they're doing it with. And then all of a sudden, the floodgates open and you could find yourself very busy.

Yep. I know a lot of agents that built their business off of turning regular buyers into investors. So they would convince, like, I did this with a client that wanted to buy a condo and I was like, dude, you're single. Like, you should buy four unit. And the agent, of course, the agent was sort of, no offense, like an order taker. Like, he just

did whatever the client wanted. And that's like, anyway, but like, very typical. Very typical. And the client was like, hey, I want to do this. I'm like, well, what if you did this? And he was like, oh, shoot, you're right. Like, why not? And then he did it. And he's so happy. And of course, like, it's funny. He goes to me more than he goes to the agent because I, you know, we kind of coach him through. Hey,

in the multifamily process. Here's some things to look out for. And, you know, because we do more than just here's a loan. You know what I mean? And so, and so, yeah, that stuff like that, I think you could do tremendously well if you just teach people how to become real estate investors. It could be families. It could be first-time homebuyers, like show them the opportunities and make it easier

for them. And yeah, get them into the game. Well, this has been a great conversation, Ben. Thank you so much. I want to give everyone an opportunity to connect. Remember, you can go to fund. Fundingfreedom.net to connect with Ben, Steph. You can go to YouTube.com slash at Funding Freedom with Ben,

and you'll find his channel there, and you'll be able to watch a lot of very helpful videos. Ben, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today on the Realty Funnels podcast. Yeah, Kevin, thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Marketing is hard.

But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion.

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