Jobless to 25 Units in 5 Years (My Exact Strategy)
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Today, we brought on another rookie investor to share their experience and share their story of getting started in real estate investing. It's also a great episode to watch if you're thinking of pivoting or changing your strategy. We'll break it down with Jared as to what you should think about and why he decided to do that. And this episode is also about hustle.

If you want to learn unique ways to find off-market deals, to find partners, to build your brand without doing social media, without being a podcast host, this is the episode for you.

Today, we're bringing on Jared Hoddle. So welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm Ashley Kerr. And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And Jared, super happy to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us on the Rookie Podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. Jared, let's start off with a life before real estate. What were you doing and how did you come upon real estate investing? I've always wanted to be a football coach. So I was a college football coach, kind of working my way up through some of the smaller things.

schools. And so I was in Madison, South Dakota at Dakota State University and then went up to University of Minnesota Crookston. Always on the offensive side, you know, working with quarterbacks, receivers, and it was a ton of fun. 2019 Crookston University of Minnesota Crookston decided to drop

football so I'm uh I'm originally from Waterloo Iowa and I I moved back home in uh late 2019 and of course everybody knows what happens in in 2020 so uh I was um you know looking for a job nothing no one was hiring and um I actually went to uh

a wedding of my cousin and my other cousin was like, Oh man, you got to listen to this podcast. It's about, you know, real estate investing. And so he, he introduced me to bigger pockets at that time. And, uh, you know, I started just listening and listen, I love the, you know, Jocko Willink was like my guys when I, when he was on the bigger pockets, you know, podcast, listen to that episode. I'm like, okay, this, this is something, this is something good here. So, um, so kind of,

The whole time, you know, I was just looking for purpose, looking for a why, seeing what, you know, skills I had as a football coach and what could be transferable maybe in a different career. I grew up helping my grandpa. He had about, I don't know, 15 properties probably. So I was always making extra cash with him in Waterloo here, painting or mowing or doing snow removal. So I always had been around rentals, been around tenants, watched his processes and

And so it kind of all, you know, came together when I was listening to Bigger Pockets and thinking about being a football coach and, you know, what we did with, you know, recruiting is kind of like sales, kind of like putting yourself out there. And I think someone, you know, mentioned driving for dollars. And obviously I knew Waterloo and had a lot of time on my hands. So just started driving around and looking for some places. Jared, everyone's going to think you're a paid sponsor with all those Bigger Pockets plugs.

So, Jared, you've got your mindset on real estate investing and you said you're out driving for dollars, doing different things to get that first deal. What about financially? Was there anything you were doing to get your house in order to get that first deal or did you even know how you were going to fund it? I think luckily, you know, I've always been a frugal person. So, you know, along the way.

you know, obviously, as you would imagine, college football coaches don't get paid a ton of money. So, you know, you're kind of needing to budget along the way and, and, uh, you know, save more than you spend. And, and, uh, so I, I luckily had those, you know, principals already had some money saved up, you know, but to that point, it's like, yeah, how do you get a loan without a job? And so, um, that was definitely a difficult at that time. And, and especially, you know, at that time, I also started getting into real estate sales, which obviously is difficult to, um,

you know, it's, it's, uh, you don't have a W2 income, so you're not going that, you know, conventional route. And, uh, but I, for the first couple, I had 20% saved up. And so it kind of worked out just because I had someone, you know, willing to take a chance on me with, you know, underwriting the deal and seeing that I, you know, just started a new career and had the money down. So, so Jared, it sounds like as you were searching for that next career phase, you, you became an agent. Yeah. So I think early on, you know, driving for dollars, uh, you

you know, looking for deals. It just kind of spoke to me, you know, the real estate investing and how little there are people out there, you know, aside from, you know, places like BiggerPockets or forums where you can ask questions. There's not a ton of like local people in a lot of communities that kind of

know what's going on real estate investing wise, but also, you know, willing to help other people along the way. So I kind of saw an opportunity with that, kind of pairing that with my background being a teacher and a coach and recruiting. And so it just kind of ended up being a perfect fit. But certainly, you know, getting those first two deals showed me like, oh, this might be something here where I can help others.

other people as well. Yep. Talk about a great like networking opportunity for you to meet other investors by wanting to be the go-to agent to help them get a deal. Obviously Waterloo, you know, where I live pretty small market. But one thing that I always think about that is like, I got to start the,

real estate meetup here, you know, in our town because no one was doing it before. So it's like, you know, some of those other frontiers had already been, you know, conquered if you, you know, the bigger cities, but you know, when you get in a smaller regional spot, it's like, man, you could be a little bit late to the party and still kind of be the guy doing the stuff. But absolutely. It's been, it's been fantastic.

networking and meeting people and watching other people grow alongside me and doing their thing as well. So that's been awesome. - And Jared, I wanna go back to the driving for dollars and how that led to your first deal. But I feel like we need to pause on the meetup here just for a moment. Because I think when a lot of rookies

talk to themselves about building their network, building their brand, they think about social media and they think about becoming a podcast host. They think about trying to go viral on social media. They think about the digital age and what it means to build your brand and build your presence there.

But being a podcast host isn't for everyone. You know, being a TikTok dancing star isn't for everyone. But the local meetups, I think, are one of those untapped ways that a rookie with zero experience can still go out there and build a name for themselves, build their network. So you said that you were fortunate enough to build or start the first meetup in your area. Yeah.

What has been the impact of starting that local meetup on your life and on your business? I've been saying that nonstop. I mean, AI, it's a tool. It's helpful. You know, everybody has got this new way of getting a deal and new lists that no one else has gotten. And at the end of the day, it's like, it's a contact sport. It's pounding the pavement. It's turning over stones. And I think,

it kind of exciting to me because the more AI solutions that come out, the more people can pound the pavement and make a difference, you know? So it's like, you're Sabat on with that. I mean, it's like, if you can, if you can have the, the meetup and you can have the physical thing, but we're still humans and we still want to, you know, talk to locals in our, in our area, we still want to talk to humans. And, and so I've always been a believer in that. I mean, you know, especially if you can,

you know, be an honest person and, and follow up when you say you're going to follow up. It's just striking how, how many opportunities there are out there for those people. But certainly the meetup for me, you know, I think every once in a while it was being run before I started it, you know, it would be, I don't know, there wasn't really a cadence to it. So, you know, when there's no cadence, it's kind of the, kind of the kiss of death to me because then no one knows when, you know, the next one's going to be. So I just said me and a buddy who's a, a

A banker in town, I told him like, we're just going to do it. And if it ends up just being me and you, then it's just going to be me and you, but we're going to throw it out to people and we're going to do some programming. And I could go through my list in real estate sales, but I would imagine 30% of my sales have come from some connection there and certainly, you know, helping people out there, inviting my clients there, but also people showing up that said, hey, you know,

So and so was talking. They said, I need to come meet you because, you know, you know how to do real estate sales. So it's been awesome. Jared, I think the key of what you said was, hey, we're going to throw this thing. And even if it's just me and you, who cares? And I think there's that like teenage mindset.

inside of each of us. It's like, what if I throw this party and nobody shows up? But like you said, it's like, what the worst is going to happen is that it's just you and your good friend having a beer and then you guys just talk about real estate. So I think more rookies who are listening should start local meetups.

Um, because I think it's the easiest way to start building that network. So thank you for sharing that Jared. But now going back to the, the driving for dollars, how long did it actually take? How much driving do you think you had to do before you found that first deal? Well, you know, luckily I, I grew up in, uh, in Waterloo. So I kind of, I knew the areas that I would, uh, invest. And I, it's funny, my mom's got two rentals and, um,

I was still kind of looking at being a football coach. And so we, I sat down with her and I said, if I end up getting a, a spot, a duplex, whatever, and I get another job and move away, like, will you manage it for me? And she's like, I will, but I am not going here, here, here, and here. So it became easy to, to look at the spots that, uh,

You know, I could invest and I think, you know, obviously not everybody has a mom that's going to do it for you. But I think that's a great conversation to have with a property manager is, okay, I want to own a property where you're willing to manage and then kind of reverse engineer that and lead that to where you can drive for dollars. And I don't know how other states are set up. You know, we have Beacon Schneider is our tax assessor website. And so, you know, I call it driving for dollars. But a lot of times it's a virtual driving for dollars, just going down the, you

you know, the tax list and streets that way and seeing who owns what. And, you know, certainly if there's a property in there that looks good, I'll drive by and make sure that it's, you know, the one that would be worth calling on. Jared, give us just like a quick breakdown. What are you looking for as you're going through the county's website on this tax list? You know, initially, I didn't really have a great plan. You know, it's been refined over the years. You know, at this point, I love the 50s and newer single family homes now as kind of my

kind of my bread and butter. I think the 1950s, you know, brought a lot of things, you know, modern foundations and, you know, at least eight foot in the basement, modern wiring, typically, typically there's not asbestos siding or insulation. So that's kind of just, you know, where I start and then,

you know, all different, you know, ways to look. Is it vacant? Is it, you know, is the lawn getting, you know, long? You know, talking to a neighbor who might be out. I mean, just getting ready to close on one that was a Facebook marketplace. So, I mean, it's like just kind of looking at all these different little tiny avenues that, you know, aren't going to be the greatest honey hole. But when you get the sum of the parts together, you're going to have some good results.

you know, I guess, yield from it. Another great thing to look at too on those TAC records is the actual mailing address for the taxes. And, you know, if the owner is out of state, maybe more motivated to sell to or doesn't live at that property, maybe it's a rental or, you know, they want to get rid of it. So that's another great indicator. But that's just such an old

school way nowadays, you know, to go and look, but you can get so much free information. So if you are a rookie investor and you don't want to pay for all these expensive, you know, different programs and softwares to actually go and find a deal, like

sit down and go through, you know, the tax rules. Before we get into five ways that rookie investors can get 5% interest rates, let's hear a word from our show sponsor. Want to invest in real estate but don't have the time or know the best local markets? Rent to Retirement has you covered. Now look, here's the deal. They've helped thousands of investors just like you find turnkey homes across the best U.S. markets.

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Visit rentready.com. That's R-E-N-T-R-E-D-I dot com and use code BP2025 to get started. When I bought my first rental, I actually thought collecting rent would be the hardest part. I was completely wrong. The admin never stopped. Expenses, receipts, tax forms, tenant issues. I didn't expect the behind-the-scenes work to take up so much of my time and headspace.

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That's where Baseline comes in. Baseline helps me get out of the weeds. It's the official banking platform of BiggerPockets, and it handles the whole back end. Spence tracking, financial reporting, rent collection, even tenant screening. It's the first time I've felt in control. And now that I'm not drowning in admin, I finally see how my real estate business can scale.

If you're starting out, do yourself a favor, sign up at baseline.com slash BP today, and you'll get a $100 bonus. So Jared, how did you find this deal? And what was the asking price on this property? And did you do any negotiation to get to a purchase price? It's funny. I got two duplexes about back to back.

you know, right in the same week. You know, it's always funny when it rains, it pours, it seems both good and bad. But one of the deals that I wanted to take you guys through was a duplex fairly close to my, you know, the house I grew up south of town in Waterloo. I think it's the best area in Waterloo at the time. I did too. And there's about three duplexes built right next to each other. So I called on all of them and

Didn't hear anything for months. And all of a sudden I got a call one month and the guy said, well, I got a call from you. Are you actually interested in buying it? I'm getting older and want to sell it. And I said, yeah. I just want to add something there too, because you said that you called on it for months and

And I think that's the part that rookies are going to just kind of gloss over. But it's not like you called this person the very first time they picked up and said, hey, can I sell you my house at a really great deal? Right. It took it took time of building that relationship. So I just want to make sure that we pointed that out. So please continue. A hundred percent. And even at that point, he still was like, I got two people that are also interested. So I got to call them, too. And it's like, OK, there's never a done deal even when they call. But it gets you excited, of course. So I ended up going through the property. You know, it looked exactly like

you know, I thought it would. It's funny because I didn't do an inspection. I don't necessarily recommend that. I think this was built in the 50s. So I think I got bailed out a little bit because of the few things that I've had to do have been fairly simple repairs just with the, you know, the way the house is laid out. But I think one of the funniest things about it is he, he's like, I, my assessment just went up. My tax assessment just went up. He's like, I think it's probably what the house is worth. So if you paid me that,

you know, I would, I'd be happy. And, and I, you know, so now it looks like the, I paid like a random number. Everybody's like, why, how'd you get that number? It's like, I don't know. It was just assessed at that at the time. And I thought it was pretty close, you know? So, but I think it was about $131,000.

And he had tenants in there both paying 600. And so the funny thing about that is, you know, what's everybody say? Well, that's not the 1% rule. But I knew the area well enough. I knew his rents were low. I knew I was going to put I think I put 25% down on that. So I knew I was going to be okay.

and I could work rents up, and I knew it was going to be a great deal down the road. So that's what I always tell investors, too, when I'm helping them out is like the 1% rule is a rule. It's not like an end-all, be-all. So make sure it makes sense for the area and kind of what you're trying to accomplish because if the area is better than that and you think you can get rents up, I think it's just a blip on the radar if you're paying a little bit more.

less rent when you first get it. So with this deal, did the seller ask for any pre-approval or to see that you could actually close on the deal at all? And did you end up using agents or you guys just did it yourself? Yeah, he did not, which is kind of wild to think back about that. But no, we did not use agents. I wasn't licensed at the time. He did not have an agent. I used my friend who just started as an attorney here in town.

He drafted up the purchase agreement, which has been really cool, you know, adding him to part of your story. It's always fun when you can work with, you know, some of your friends on, you know, different pieces and it kind of connects you guys even more. So that was cool. And, you know, there was an appraisal and all that. But, of course, you know, getting it with tenants was also a little bit of a learning curve, you know, for me because, you know, it's my first property. I didn't know, you know.

You hear people talk about the estoppel agreements and stuff like that. And I'm like, should I do that? Should I not? And now you have to explain what an estoppel agreement is. And then we'll have Tony spell it because he that's how he learned how to spell it. I'm just happy I can say it at least close to being right. But, you know, when you talk to an attorney, a lot of them and that's what I really I appreciate about my attorney is, I mean, there's the the legal jargon. And then there's also the, you know, kind of the common sense approach, I guess you could say. And

So the estoppel agreement, essentially, the way I understand it is you're basically asking the tenant, here's what I have that you signed. Do you agree with this being what you signed? Sometimes they try to pull a fast one or sometimes the landlord's pulling a fast one and it's not exactly what the lease says or there's been some side agreement along the way that you got to iron out. But

For me, I just felt like I did not have them do it. I didn't want to take that initial approach kind of coming out guns ablaze and I thought any...

potential, you know, issues that would pop up would be short-lived just because, I mean, in Iowa, you know, you don't really sign a longer than a year lease and, you know, your rents were already low. So, I mean, it wasn't like it could get much worse that way either. Well, we actually do have an estoppel agreement. It's at biggerpockets.com slash estoppel. And I literally just created it, like,

two days ago that it got uploaded to the resource hub. So perfect timing, Jared, to mention that. So if anybody needs a copy of an estoppel agreement, we've got one at biggerpockets.com slash estoppel. Jared, I'd love to hear a little bit more about the deal and what happens next. So you, you find it, you negotiate it, you get it under contract. Now tenants are already in place. So on day one of closing, is there any action that you need to take? Are you, are you, uh,

planning on doing rehab and kind of shifting the attendance around? Like what's your, what's your action on day one of getting the keys? Best laid plans of mice and men, you know, go awry. I feel like that was my situation on this, you know, I study in bigger pockets and just, you know, having this like elaborate plan and then you get closer to the day and you're like, Oh man, what, you know, what, what, what am I going to do? So the first thing I knew I wanted, I knew I wanted to do was I don't want to accept, you know, checks or cash or have to walk by and, and pick up,

checks or anything like that. So I sent a letter saying, we're going to set you up on apartments.com, I believe I used at that time. And you can pay on there. And luckily, the tenants are pretty tech savvy. So it wasn't... Well, one of them signed up right away. The other one must've been...

must have been doing bill pay out of his bank account because the old landlord would bring me a check for about two or three months saying, Oh, here's this check. Here's this check. So I got lucky that, you know, the guy was just a great guy and was willing to help me out. You know that he was handing his money over, but, um,

Obviously, the utilities were in their name, but in our area, you can make a landlord account where if the utilities were to switch for some reason or they weren't going to pay the utilities for some reason, it would just go default back into the landlord's name so the power stayed on versus cutting the power off and potentially having an issue with frozen pipes or something like that. So I got the landlord account set up fairly early on.

And lawn mowing, I bought it right in the middle of summer. So I had to get, you know, lawn mowing set up. And then for me, it was just a welcome letter, you know, sent right to him saying, here's the number to call if you have issues. I'm the new owner. And

and then just kind of waiting out the leases. And I think there's a little bit of a give and take with leases. I think if you hit them right, you know, I know some other people have probably better strategies than I do on this, but I didn't feel like hitting them right away with, you know, 20, 30, 40% increase was right. But so we kind of worked out a plan to get there, you know, over a couple of years and have done that. So yeah.

Much like you, a lot of investors don't want to necessarily jump in and increase rents tremendously right away because sometimes you end up losing good tenants and that cost of turnover could be more than the incremental increase in rent. But we've interviewed Dion McNeely a few times on the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. If you guys just search Dion's name on Bigger Podcast, I'm sure you'll find the episode. But he has what's called the binder method where he basically makes a presentation to the tenants and

and gets them to explain why they feel a certain rent increase is either fair or not fair. And he's used it to pretty good success. And Dion will actually also be speaking at BP Con this year. So if you guys want to see him live on stage, which I think will be fantastic for the Ricky audience, head over to biggerpockets.com slash conference. You guys can check it out there in sunny Las Vegas. So let's get back to the numbers on the deal though, Jared. So you have these sentence in place. You start to stabilize a little bit, make some improvements around the management side.

You said the rents were initially 600. What were you actually able to charge after those increases and what was your net cash flow? I got lucky because I got a 30-year fixed mortgage right in the heat of COVID and it was fixed at 3% for 30 years. And so my payment is virtually nothing. I would say, I don't know, 900 bucks or something like that, all taxes and insurance included. So

That's been fantastic and allowed me a little bit of a runway to work on getting rents up and doing some improvements over there. Certainly the downside is if you ever have to recapitalize it, it's like the banks are going to be very excited to get that off their books. So I'm trying to just roll with that as long as I can. But yeah.

Rents were initially $600. I think one had just signed a lease and one lease was due in January. So I knew the January lease I'd have a little bit of leverage with because no one likes to move in the middle of Iowa in January. So I think I worked her up to $750 in January. She ended up staying a couple more years and then actually bought a house. So that was exciting to see.

And then, um, and then I was able to, to, to move rents to market. I believe they're at eight, uh, 50 now. So that's kind of, um, that side. And then the other side, uh, has been a, uh, same person and just slowly every, every year, just adding a little bit and add a little bit. And we, that one is up to eight 50, um, as well. So, um,

uh, yeah, I think that's what that's cashflow and seven or not cashflow. And that's, uh, that's grossing 1700. And, you know, I like to set a little bit aside for, you know, maintenance and, and things like that. So I like to, I like to say it's probably, you know, cashflow in about, you know, target is 300 a month and, and just, um, not that I'm using that money for anything, just kind of rolling it all into an account, using it to buy or improve other properties. And, you know, I, I learned, uh,

You know, last year, especially, you know, it's like if you take care of your properties, they'll take care of you. So, you know, I don't want to sap everything out and have nothing for a big capital expenditure. You know, it's great to leave money in there. And then it's just a minor annoyance when you have to do a roof. It's not a catastrophic situation if you're doing a furnace or a roof or air conditioner or having eviction or whatever. So that's been great for me. And obviously, everybody's got a different plan. But I love helping people with real estate sales. So I don't necessarily need the...

money with the investments right now. And I, you know, that's just a blessing to me. So I think we're seeing more and more common, especially now as deals get harder is where people aren't rushing to quit their job and get full time into real estate, but actually using their W-2 or their other traditional income to fund their deals and to continue and grow and to build long term wealth instead of quitting and finding out they actually need to work

harder and longer than when they did it their job too. So I'm seeing like, just look, going into the bigger packets forums and different things on Instagram seems to be, that is a more of a growing trend where people are becoming more patient to actually quit their job and to, to stick with it instead of just going full-time real estate. I kind of have a little bit of a hot take on that. Cause I think it, I think it's what we do as a,

as humans, it's what we're leaving, you know, to the rest of the world. And I think it's a little bit selfish to say, I'm just going to have 10 rentals and, you know, go coast off into the sunset. I think, and obviously a lot of investors, you know, go and do great things after they leave their W2. But sometimes it's like, I mean, the hard things that we have to do as a real estate sales in your W2 doing your own self, you know, business or whatever, it's like, those are so important to your community and to your, uh,

life and your purpose and to your legacy that I think it's like, I feel like don't be in a hurry to get rid of those because that's kind of, you know, kind of what matters in life. So Jared, since you got that first property under contract, what does your portfolio look like today? I bought two duplexes basically back to back, you know, right around that time. The other one was fully vacant. So vacant in September and October, that was always a shocker trying to get that filled.

And then I bought a personal residence that I kind of house hacked with a roommate and then

That's when I met a couple business partners right about January, February, and it kind of exploded after that. We got more into doing the BRRRR strategy, single-family rentals. I became a little bit more bankable, so it became an option for us to do that. I did a couple flips and used that money to kind of just recycle into BRRRR single families and a couple smaller multifamily rentals.

And recently a couple smaller commercial buildings, which I'm pretty excited about. But right now, Portfolio is sitting about 25 doors, I would say, and some storage units. So that's been kind of exciting growth for us. But yeah, obviously using the BRRRR method, as long as you have some reserves and you're doing stuff right, I think it obviously still works and still is a great way to grow. And Jared, first congratulations on...

I think a lot of success in a relatively short period of time. But two things you mentioned, right? You mentioned partnerships and you mentioned BRRRR. And I think both of those are strategies that rookies should at least consider.

Let's talk about the BRRRR strategy first. So I guess first, for folks that maybe aren't familiar with that phrase, can you break down exactly what BRRRR means? Buy, rehab, rent, refinance, I think is what it stands for. But I mean, in practice, it's finding a house that needs some love and needs some work or a duplex or whatever and fixing it up.

talking to a bank that's willing to do either a cash out refinance or a cross collateralization or something where you can, you can realize some of your sweat equity and, um,

rent it out. Hopefully you're, you're renting it out for, you know, less than what your debt service would be or, and, um, and just trying to rinse and repeat it and doing it over and over again. Right now it's, it's difficult, but I think as long as you're, um, you know, having a little bit of the, at the end of each month, you're going to be doing okay when, uh, rates someday will come down, hopefully. So Jared, we have to hear your prediction. When do you think rates will come down?

Oh, you know, this is going to be live on YouTube. People are going to hold you to this. I don't know. I'm I'm just I'm happy when there's some discourse in real estate because it's great. I love it. It makes some of the people that are, you know, just kind of half in half out, get out and more deals for us. So I'd be happy for rates to stay high, you know.

Two more years, three more years, doesn't matter to me. So once it goes down, though, I'll be feeling. Because you're willing to put in the work and you've taken the time to get the knowledge and the skill set to actually find a deal where you set it perfectly as to the investors that aren't serious or don't take that time to learn or just trying to get rich quick.

they're going to fall out. They're not going to be a, your competition anymore. And there'll be deals for you. I think you said that perfectly. It's funny. You mentioned that actually about like, when will rates drop? And it's hard for us to know when, but I think the impact when they do drop is something that we can all agree on. I was talking to my lender a couple of weeks ago and he said that when rates dip below 6%, right? So we're, you know,

sevens ish right now, right? So a point in some change lower, but he said once rates drop below 6%, there's an estimated three to 4 million people who will then be able to start buying homes again. Right. And we're already in like a very supply constrained environment. And imagine what happens when we add in another three or 4 million potential buyers into that pool.

And I think he was even more so talking about like people just shopping for primary residences. So think about what happens when you expand that out to folks like us who are real estate investors, right? Like, what does that look like? So I couldn't agree more, Jared, that I think there is a very unique opportunity for real estate investors right now today to

to have more leverage when looking to purchase properties. You can ask for things like, let's negotiate on the price. You can ask for things like, can I get a seller credit? You know, so like, I think we are in a very unique space. So I appreciate you sharing that.

But I want to go back to the BRRRR though, right? Because I agree with you that I think there's some headwinds for that strategy today. But when you talk about building long-term wealth, when you talk about what does your portfolio look like five, 10 years from now, I still think it's one of the best tools to build that portfolio. But the challenge right now, I think, is in a few of those letters within that acronym. The first one being the BUY.

Finding good deals has gotten, I think, harder today for a multitude of reasons. So what are you seeing as the best way to find good deals today? Brandon Turner's always says it best, you know, it's a large funnel. I think it's important. Multiple different avenues of, of ways to get deals. Um, I think, you know, another thing he says is, is run, run to hard. I'll, I'll try to make this a short story, but one example that we're doing this summer is, uh,

the food bank in town approached us, they're expanding and they had two houses that would have to be torn down. And so they, you know, wanted to see if anybody would move them. And so we're, we're moving them, you know, do it. You're moving the houses? Moving the houses. So not a lot of people can, can, you know, do something like that or have the capacity or the willingness. And so, you know, I, I'm like, well, let's, let's try to take it down. So we're moving them across town to some city owned lots. And obviously there's a lot of work and a lot of,

question marks that come with it, but we're expecting to have a perfect burr on both of them by the end of the process.

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So, Jared, one thing we haven't touched on yet that you mentioned was making the pivot to self-storage. So I definitely want to get into that asset class. But first, why did you decide to make a pivot from your original, you know, multifamily strategy? That's a great question. And, you know, you listen to a lot of people out there that are entrepreneurs.

Once they get into one strategy, they're very good at it and they're, I would say, disciplined enough to stay in it. I might not have that discipline. I get a little bit of shiny object syndrome and want to do other stuff. I've convinced myself that my strategy is Waterloo and Cedar Valley specific, that I know this area better than anybody. And so that's kind of my competitive advantage. But certainly the self-storage kind of fits in with that, kind of knowing the area better.

Obviously running numbers just like you run on anything else, you know, making sure your debt service is going to, you know, be covered. And just someone I know in town was building them and going to be wanting to sell them and gave us a price. And we're like, that's not too bad. So that's kind of how that went.

that route went. And in the course of that, the neighbor also had some self-storage and he's like, oh, I'd sell you this self-storage. And we worked out a number there. So obviously it's always terrifying. You know, you want to make sure that your numbers make sense, but I think it's important to, you know, stretch yourself a little bit every day and learn a little bit more. I've been down

Trying to get the Google, you know, Google to acknowledge me as the owner. So it's like you're sitting down on a live chat with Google at the middle of downtown Waterloo. It's stuff you never expected you'd be doing. But, you know, that's part of the fun too. So with these self-storage units, kind of walk us through how is this been a better investment, worse investment and kind of compare and contrast why maybe a rookie investor would want to change their strategy to self-storage?

Yeah, I...

I mean, it's new for me. So I'm trying to hold out judgment. I would say at this point, I'm not, you know, just the day-to-day of it is a little bit more difficult. I mean, you got 52 people that are, you know, obviously it's not their home, but, you know, it's still something that they have and something that they care about. So you're, you know, you're still fielding calls, still, you know, talking to people who, you know, I can't pay rent this month. It'll have to be, you know, twice next month and working out, you know, the deals that you have to work out. That's difficult. Yeah.

Not a lot of people doing it, I guess, in town. So there's been a little bit of a learning curve on what a lease agreement looks like and what the process is if they're not paying. And so we've been having a little bit of a learning curve that way. I certainly think it goes well with someone like me who's kind of connected in the real estate world, connected with property managers. Seems like you have a great built-in clientele that way, just marketing to other managers in town.

you know, your own rentals, stuff like that. And of course, you know, Amazon and stuff like that is, I just think it's, you know, people want stuff, people are always going to have stuff. And, and so I just feel like bullish overall on, on storage for sure. So Jared, one last thing I want to pick your brain about here before we let you go is the, the partnership side as well. You said that was a kind of key moment in your investing journey that allowed you to, to scale a little bit more aggressively and,

What was the deciding factor to make you say partnering up with someone else actually does make sense for me? Again, I just am blessed and got lucky because it just made sense at the time. And I probably took it a lot lighter than I should have if I would have thought back. And nothing has gone bad. It's been great. But I've seen other ones go bad just from people that I've helped and

You know, I think it is like a marriage. As weird as that sounds, I mean, I think...

You're with them, you know, till death do you part. And I think you always want to be giving 51%. If both sides feel like they're always giving 51%, you're going to be in good shape. I, you know, one of my partnerships, you know, we just, the sum of the parts is worth way more than us individually. You know, we can run interference for each other and have different skill sets. I'm probably the guy out.

pounding the pavement, seeing deals, finding stuff a little bit more. He's way better at operations and getting some of the birth stuff done and working with the city and things like that. And then my other one is kind of the same thing. He's way better at doing construction stuff and management and I'm better at finding deals and doing that way. I think we're

you know, financially, you know, conservative, you know, we're not spending, you don't need all the cash flow from it. I think that's an important part of your partnership. If one side's thinking that they're going to need to use it for income and the other side's thinking it's a long-term investment, I think you're going to have some major issues at some point with that. But, you know, if both sides are,

making good money in their W-2s or whatever else they're doing and it's just kind of part of their investment portfolio, I think you can make some

some serious, you know, money and investments with with a great partner. So and for the rookies that are listening, you may or may not know, but Ashley and I actually co-authored a book on real estate partnerships called Real Estate Partnerships. If you guys head over to biggerpockets.com slash partnerships, you can pick up a copy of the book there. But Jared, for you, it sounds like naturally each of you had your own skill set that you leaned into. And

But I still think that the biggest question that Ash and I probably get when it comes to partnerships is how do we structure the partnership? How do we divvy up the profits? How do we divvy up the cash we put in? How do we divvy up the ownership in this partnership? So what did that conversation look like for the three of you?

To that point, and not everybody's going to have this opportunity, but if you can start off with just a quick in and out, you know, a flip is what comes to my mind or just one rental where, you know, you don't have to have all that stuff hammered out with an attorney right away. It's, you know, maybe you set up an entity just to have one, but

if it's something that, you know, you can see if you can work well together. And if you can't, it's, you know, no harm, no foul. We'll, we'll separate this. Sometimes I, you know, as the same with, you know, an individual getting into real estate investing, it's always the, you know, what insurance should I have? What,

you know, what LLC should I set up an LLC? Should I not? What this should I do? And it's like, you know, none of that really matters until you're really going, you know, obviously you want to try to do it right. But, you know, I think that's such a barrier to a lot of people. So I would argue, you know, just start, start small.

and kind of, you know, if you have a friend that's an attorney, that can be a great resource to kind of get an idea how to set stuff up. And if you don't do it right the first time, but you just have a small, you know, deal or one house or whatever, you can, you can fix all that down the road. But, you know, you don't want to spend a bunch of money and time and mental energy on something. And then it doesn't, you know, you never end up buying something either. So we actually just did an episode with Bonnie Glam. It's X,

episode number 561, where she actually goes through, like, I think you said that it goes

exactly correct, Jared, that a lot of those things are barriers to getting started. So if you do need some clarification on what you do or don't need, this is a great episode with Bonnie to listen to Real Estate Rookie episode 561. Well, Jared, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today to tell us about your story. Can you let everyone know where they can reach out to you and find out more information? Pretty active on LinkedIn. Jared Hoddle, pretty...

I do have a TikTok. It's pretty fun. I think it's, you know, I don't know what it is actually. Jared Hoddle CRE or something like that. You'll find me. We will link it into the show description for everyone. I'm on BiggerPockets, pretty fairly active on there. So just reach out. Would love to chat with people and help anybody that I can. Hey, yeah, we'll link all your information into the show description. So if you're watching on YouTube, you can find it down below. Or if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, you'll find it into the show notes.

Well, thank you, Gunn-Jared, so much for joining us. And as Tony mentioned during the episode, we will be at BP Con this year in Las Vegas. Go to biggerpockets.com slash conference. Thank you for watching this episode of Real Estate Rookie. And a big thank you to our sponsor, Baselane. I'm Ashley and he's Tony. We'll see you guys next time.