19 Units in 6 Years by Buying Small, Overlooked, $100K Rentals

9:01Christle Stezskal:Well, that's cool. I think that's another great piece of advice for people. Like if you are at all interested in buying auction properties, just go to a couple of auctions and see how it works. You're going to learn so much, but also auctions are a great place to meet people who have money and might be willing to be a private lender for you. So if you continue to go and start to build a brand for yourself or start to build a reputation for yourself. I mean, in most auctions, you got to pay cash for properties. If not right away, then within like 10 to 15 days. So these are great people who have cash on hand, who like investing in real estate, who could be lender contacts, but they also have all the other contacts you need to invest in real estate.

9:40Christle Stezskal:Auctions are just a great place to hang out if you want to build your network, because those are doers at the auction. They're not playing games if they're bidding on auction properties. So you vetted this person by going and seeing how they were doing what they were doing. You looked at some of the properties that they were bidding on. So that gave you a level of comfort, I assume. Yeah. And then he would go to the auctions and bid for you. Did it take a while before you like won? Because auctions aren't easy to win. People bid those properties up.

10:05BiggerPockets:It took a while. We probably worked with him for probably two, three months, honestly. We were looking at properties every night. Every night after the kids went to bed, we were looking at the properties and flagging anything we're interested in. And what's tricky is you can't actually make your final bid. Like you can't set that number until you know the condition of the property, which you don't know until morning of. Right. If at all. There were so many times he's like, I can't really see much. Like, don't know what's going to happen. And that's actually how this property was. He went to it and he's like, it's tiny.

10:35BiggerPockets:You know, it's eight hundred fifty square feet. He's like, it looks like it started maybe getting some work because there was new siding on, but it wasn't fully completed. So he's like, this is a little bit of a wild card. So we're like, okay, well, what could it possibly cost to renovate this thing? Right? Like it's 800 square feet. And we set our price. But those mornings were so tense. And my husband and I were both working. Right? So I can remember sitting at our desks being like, okay, we have 10 minutes. Figure this out. Like quick. Chat like back and forth. Yeah. And then send him the info.

11:05BiggerPockets:And we finally won that one. He told us. He's like, you'll get one. He's like, it takes time, but we'll get it. And so this day, I remember I was sitting in a meeting, a one-on-one meeting with my manager. And I get a text message that says, you won. I need the LLC name now. I was like, oh my God. I'm like, what do I do? So I told my manager, I'm like, I'm so sorry, but I just got a text message and I need five minutes. And I went like, you know, hustled and did whatever I needed to do. But it was like, whoa, like just wild. It was very cool.

11:36Christle Stezskal:Okay. How much did you win the auction for?

11:38BiggerPockets:Yeah. So that house we bought for$21 ,000.

11:41Christle Stezskal:21 ,800 square foot house. Okay. Was it a complete gut job? What's the catch here?

11:47BiggerPockets:So it was, but not for us. The people who owned it before, it must have been an investor that ran out of money. I don't know how you do on an 800, but I mean, stuff happens. But they had gone and they had completely gutted it and started drywall flooring. So it was set up perfectly for us to just go in and finish it. So we did finish the renovation completely. They had started like some tile floor in one of the rooms, but it was ugly. And we're like, just rip it up and let's just do LVP through the whole thing. So, you know, standard, we do the same finishes and all of our stuff to keep it easy.

12:20BiggerPockets:So, you know, dark wood LVP, white cabinets, black knobs, all white bathroom, just went and did that. We did have to add AC. We had to redo the electrical because somebody had gone and pulled out all the wiring. But it was, I think the renovation ended up being all in 40 ,000 maybe.

12:38Christle Stezskal:Oh, wow. So it's not bad at all.

12:40BiggerPockets:No, no. With all new ACHVAC.

12:43Christle Stezskal:So you're all in 60, 65 grand.

12:45BiggerPockets:What's that thing rent for?

12:47Christle Stezskal:Well, what did it rent for then versus what's it rent for now?

12:49BiggerPockets:When it rented at first, I think it was like 800. That's such a deal. I know. Well, and we bought it cash. We funded the renovation ourself and then it appraised right away for 88. Oh, wow. So it was, we pulled almost everything out of it. We've got$13 ,000 in that one too. Oh my goodness, man. Most of our money back cash flows and it's up to 925 now.

13:12Christle Stezskal:Oh, my goodness. What a deal. Yeah, that's awesome. It's got to be scary to to to walk into a partnership like that, though, when you're when you're doing a deal like this. I know you said you vetted him by going and kind of seeing what he was doing. Do you have any other tips or advice you would give to people who are considering a partnership or a similar model for making sure that who they're working with, they can trust? Is there any conversations you had up front before you did anything?

13:39BiggerPockets:Yeah. So we also asked him for references. So I talked to three other investors that he'd worked with.

13:44Christle Stezskal:Okay.

13:45BiggerPockets:And then the other thing that was nice is they, you know, he had a team that he worked with. His team was very communicative. They used iCloud to record videos and send them to us. We had like weekly updates on how the renovations were going. You got to just be in communication, right? As long as that's happening. And you get videos. Pictures are one thing, right? because the picture can be taken anywhere. But if you see a video, it starts with your front door and you're walking into the house, there's a little bit more there to it.

14:12Christle Stezskal:Awesome. I definitely wanna dive into seeing how you continued scaling, but first we gotta take a quick break.

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18:31Christle Stezskal:All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets podcast with investor Crystal Stasco, and we are talking about how she built her real estate business. She did her first deal in Kansas City, Missouri, and I would say that was a solid double in terms of profitability. and then did a second deal in a semi-partnership. I call that one a double, maybe going on a triple. Like that's a pretty good deal.

18:58BiggerPockets:Yeah, that's a great one. Proud of that one.

18:59Christle Stezskal:All right. So how did you determine what was going to be next? Did you continue this business model with this person? Did you continue in Kansas City? Kind of where does the story pivot from here?

19:09BiggerPockets:Yeah. So to be honest, I think we would have continued with that process, but COVID happened and foreclosures were done.

19:17Christle Stezskal:Yeah, they dried up. They dried up.

19:19BiggerPockets:So unfortunately for that gentleman we worked with, his business kind of shut down for a little while. At the same time, though, we were reflecting. And honestly, people are like, why did you start out of state? Like, isn't that, I can't, you're crazy. It was great because it forced us to figure out how to do it with other people and systems. But at the same time, it is kind of nice to have things a little bit closer.

19:42Christle Stezskal:There's a price for convenience, though.

19:44BiggerPockets:Absolutely.

19:45Christle Stezskal:I just think that out-of-state investors have a leg up because you have to build your business to run pretty much without you. That way, when you want out, it's a whole lot easier than where people like me, I don't have to do that. I'm here, but I end up spending time doing things I absolutely should not be doing out of pure convenience. So is there a benefit to investing in your backyard? Yeah, I love investing in my backyard, but you have to force yourself to build in processes, even though you can do the things yourself. And when you're type A like you, that can be sometimes hard to do.

20:19BiggerPockets:Yeah. So we decided, you know, let's try to stay a little bit closer to home. So again, through networking, we found a realtor in Rock County, Wisconsin. So that's just over the Illinois border, just north of Rockford, Illinois. For us, it's about an hour. And we started working with him in Beloit specifically. And we started building portfolio there. We got our first property in fall of 2020. Single family, purchased it for $57 ,000 two-bedroom.

20:50Christle Stezskal:Was this on market?

20:51BiggerPockets:Yeah, it was on market. He brought it to us. I feel like he knew it was coming to market, so pocket listing. But yeah, it was just MLS. It was an investor that had it. He had a couple of buildings, and he was trying to 1031 into some other stuff. And so we told him, yeah, we're flexible to your timeline. So go ahead and get your other stuff figured out so you can 1031 it all together and we'll just close when you're ready.

21:12Christle Stezskal:Did this one need work? Was it already rented out? What's the story?

21:14BiggerPockets:No, it was totally renovated. It was not.

21:18Christle Stezskal:For 50 what?

21:19BiggerPockets:Yeah, 57. Yeah, it's tiny. It's tiny. It's like 600 square feet.

21:24Christle Stezskal:Okay.

21:24BiggerPockets:But in renovated rental grade. Yeah, I mean, but still. Still, I mean, LVP floors, white kitchen appliances.

21:31Christle Stezskal:What was the rent the tenant was paying?

21:33BiggerPockets:It was not rented at the time. We rented it. I want to say our first rent was$7.25 on it.

21:38Christle Stezskal:Oh, that's solid.

21:40BiggerPockets:That's solid.

21:41Christle Stezskal:Awesome. Okay. Did you pay cash and refi this one or how did you purchase it?

21:46BiggerPockets:We just financed it straight up on that one.

21:48Christle Stezskal:So you did like a conventional mortgage, 25 % down, 30-year fixed?

21:52BiggerPockets:Yep.

21:53Christle Stezskal:So you found this amazing deal. You have now said, all right, investing closer to home seems like a better fit now that we have some experience. Plus we feel like the market's affordable. Things are growing in the right direction. At what point in all these deals were you able to leave your job? How did you make that decision?

22:12BiggerPockets:Yeah. So it was kind of happening right around this time, right? We, it's like one, two, three, we've gotten, they're working. It's, this is a thing. You know, I had only been in IT a couple of years. I wasn't like super into it. I wasn't super invested in that role. And it just made sense for us. It was going to give me the flexibility to stay home with my kids and spend more time with them. And so we just decided to go for it.

22:37Christle Stezskal:And when you say you went full time, you mean just you, your husband continued working a W-2?

22:41BiggerPockets:Yep. Yep. So my husband is still working his W-2. He's an engineer. I'm very thankful that we found real estate and that we were both comfortable enough for me to leave. We didn't necessarily need my income. His is the household income that supports us. We don't use our real estate income at this point. I love that. Just put it right back in.

22:58Christle Stezskal:That's a lesson people learn, I think once you start doing a few deals, because yeah, the allure is buy properties, get cashflow, cashflow equals income, income replaces job. Then I do full-time real estate, but several things happen when you do that. A, you become less bankable. Banks love a W-2. Even if your real estate business makes so much more than your W-2, they will still love a W-2. So you limit yourself from a bankability perspective when you leave your job too soon. Also, there's something to be said about real estate being more enjoyable when you don't have to feed your kids with the money your deals produce.

23:38Christle Stezskal:But once it becomes I've got to pay my mortgage and feed my kids with my real estate business, it can hurt you because you start looking at deals with different goggles on. Right. Absolutely. And so knowing that no one's going to starve and our bills are going to be paid regardless of if I do this real estate deal or not, A, makes it more fun. B, helps you make more solid investing decisions. I'm saying all this because everybody wants to quit their job. And I think there are some people that absolutely should quit their job. Sure. If you can generate enough cash flow and you have a terrible job and it's limiting your life with your family, sure, you should try to figure out a way out.

24:16Christle Stezskal:But if you at all like what you're doing, you make a decent income, keep that job as long as possible because it's just you can grow and scale faster. It will make your investing life easier. You will enjoy investing more. And then you can build up wealth faster if you have a job versus not having a job. It will make real estate harder if you don't have a job. So just don't just do it because you can do it because you have to or you need to. I didn't quit my job until it literally cost me money to have a job. But other than that, I was going to keep working. All right. I'm off my soapbox. Great.

24:52Christle Stezskal:You were able to quit your job. Your husband still works. Can you give us give me a little bit of a breakdown? Like, what does your portfolio look like now? Where are the properties? Did you sell anything that you bought? Like, where are you standing?

25:05BiggerPockets:Our thing is we find houses that are in need of renovation, significant or light, usually more significant. We renovate them. We cash out and we hold them. We are at a total of 19 doors right now. Wow.

25:20Christle Stezskal:Congrats.

25:20BiggerPockets:Thank you. We've got 18 long terms and we just got our first Airbnb in summer 2024.

25:27Christle Stezskal:In your backyard or did you go get one somewhere cool?

25:30BiggerPockets:So it's in Wisconsin, but it's just over the Illinois border.

25:34Christle Stezskal:Okay. So it's somewhere cold, but not somewhere cool.

25:36BiggerPockets:Well, yeah. I mean, cold during winter. So yes. but that's that's you know that's where we're at um but we love it it's it's a little lake house it's on a very quiet little lake it is the perfect little retreat and we are so obsessed

25:50Christle Stezskal:do you guys use it we use it when we can yeah uh but it's it's booked very often we were supposed

25:56BiggerPockets:to go up there this week for spring break and it got booked and we were like all right like let other people enjoy it we'll we'll hang here but yeah our long terms 18 doors long term we have a four unit. We have a two unit. Both of those are in Wisconsin. We did just start working into Illinois a little bit more into Michesney Park, which is just north of Rockford. I did a direct mail marketing.

26:14Christle Stezskal:That was going to be my next question is how are you snagging these local deals?

26:18BiggerPockets:Yeah. So this is kind of crazy, to be honest. After I left, I was like, let's try all the things. Let's try banded signs. Let's try direct mail networking in investor groups. Banded signs, I got nothing off of. It was people calling me with, dude, it was the most ridiculous numbers.

26:34Christle Stezskal:and there was a time they worked. It doesn't work anymore.

26:36BiggerPockets:Yeah. I have the same experience to you. I hated it. The direct mail, the first set of postcards I sent out, I specifically remember I did 83 test cards and one of those was to myself. So 82 cards went out to these targeted properties that I found. Um, I used prop stream for a list and I wanted to see what they look like. Like that was really the motivation. Like, let me get this. Let me see how it works. Let me make sure my phone number works. All right. I got two different deals off of that from two different investors.

27:06Christle Stezskal:OK.

27:06BiggerPockets:From those 82 cards. It's like, whoa.

27:10Christle Stezskal:First of all, that is unheard of. I was just I was just about to fuss at you, too, because 80 cards is a waste of money. But if you're doing it as a test, that makes sense. That's actually a pretty smart thing to do. Send out a small batch. See what they look like. So your test case landed you two deals on 80 postcards.

27:28BiggerPockets:Yeah. It was ridiculous.

27:30Christle Stezskal:OK, I'm going to I'm going to make a caveat here and then and then I want to ask you about that. Yes. People who are listening do not do that. You are throwing money down the drain. This is a very rare occasion where you'll get a deal from anything less than at least a thousand postcards to send less than 100 and get two deals is literally like a miracle. So congratulations. But I think here's what I think worked in your favor, just based on all my years of sending mail. Mail has a much higher return in smaller, less popular markets because people there are not used to getting direct mail. They're not used to hearing from real estate investors about buying their house.

28:14Christle Stezskal:If you're going to send 80 postcards in Houston, Texas, you wouldn't have heard a peep. But when you're sending it in much smaller markets, people are sometimes getting direct mail about buying their home for the very first time. They've never seen anything like it. So people respond. They're not always positive responses, but people respond. OK, so caveat out of the way. Congratulations. That's amazing. So you got two deals from this direct mail campaign where direct to seller, assuming they were decent deals.

28:40BiggerPockets:Yeah, yeah, no, they were great. And at this time, I was working with a small local bank, too.

28:44Christle Stezskal:So that's the formula. That's my formula.

28:47BiggerPockets:It was great. They basically set us up with a line of credit and then we could do our renovations using that line of credit or using our own cash. And then they would finance it for us at the end. We still work with them. They're great. Such a good relationship.

29:01Christle Stezskal:That's the play. That's the real estate investor, single family, small multifamily playbook. If you can find a way to get direct to seller leads and you can get in with a local community bank or two that like those types of assets in those specific markets. They can get super creative with you about how they get financed. You can really grow your real estate business if you nestle into that niche. That's super awesome. All right. This is great information and I want to dive into some more, but we're going to do that right after the break. If you own a short-term rental, here's something worth knowing.

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33:05Christle Stezskal:All right, we're back with investor Crystal Stayskill talking about growing her real estate portfolio. Let's jump back in. All right, so you sourced in some off-market deals, but it sounds like your price points are still that sub$100 ,000 price point. You put some money into it if it needs it, and then you're renting it out for somewhere between, it sounds like between$800 and$1 ,000 to$1 ,200? Is that the typical deal structure that you buy? And are you continuing to buy at that price point?

33:33BiggerPockets:Yeah. So generally speaking, yes, we're still in that same kind of price point. Obviously, COVID has changed things, right? It's much harder to find those property values. Everything has increased significantly. Additionally, though, rents have increased significantly. So we are still purchasing usually around 100 at this point. And then renting, those initial properties are still 900, et cetera. But we do have the last property that we did, we purchased for 110. Our renovation was right around 40. It appraised at 187. And then with that small bank, we did a cash out refi. So we were able to pull everything out except for 11 ,000.

34:16BiggerPockets:They had to keep 11 ,000 in it. It's renting for$1825.

34:20Christle Stezskal:Wow.

34:21BiggerPockets:Yeah, that one's pretty cool.

34:22Christle Stezskal:That's really good. And when you're buying sub$100 ,000 properties, what are the ages of these homes? Are they really old homes?

34:29BiggerPockets:Absolutely. So they're definitely older. We started limiting ourselves. We don't purchase anything older than like the 60s at this point.

34:37Christle Stezskal:Oh, that's not that bad.

34:38BiggerPockets:It's not. No, we were purchasing older stuff. Like our duplex was built in the 1880s, right? Old building. We don't want those anymore. But yeah, it's, you know, they've been worn down and a lot of them I'm buying from investors. So it hasn't been an occupied. It's been, you know, rented, tenanted, beat up. So we go in and, you know, this last one, we threw some new subfloor down in some of the rooms. We all new flooring, all paint, you know, updated electrical in a couple of places, a couple new windows, that kind of thing.

35:10Christle Stezskal:People hear sub 100 ,000 and they just think these are the worst properties I've ever seen in life. And that's not always the case. Like every market is different. I still buy property sub 100 ,000 sometimes, and they're perfectly fine houses. Do they need work? Yeah, absolutely. But they're not some home built in, you know, 1882, right? It's a very reasonable home. Like I'm buying one that was built in 72 for$85 ,000, right? Like this can be done. It depends on your market. One last thing I wanted to cover with you is you mentioned earlier in the podcast that you self-manage, but it sounds like a lot of your portfolio is about an hour drive away, maybe a little more.

35:48Christle Stezskal:Plus you've got the stuff in Kansas city. Are you managing the entire portfolio and how does that impact or not impact your life?

35:55BiggerPockets:Yeah. So I manage everything. Any of the maintenance requests come through me. Anytime leases need to be renewed, it's me finding new tenants. I do that. You know, honestly, it's, I feel like it, when it rains, as it pours. Like, I'll hear nothing. And then it's like everything, right?

36:11Christle Stezskal:Everybody's HVAC's out at the same time. Yeah.

36:14BiggerPockets:And it's on a Saturday and it's freezing.

36:16Christle Stezskal:And the roof's leaking. Yeah.

36:18BiggerPockets:Right. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, there's been things that it's like, wow, I need to address this immediately. Not convenient. My husband and I were out of the country for a wedding and I got a text from one of my tenants that the refrigerator started on fire. Like they opened it up and it was like smoking and stuff. I was like, we'll get it out the house. And I sent him a new fridge and like the, you know, Lowe's delivery, they also take away the old appliance and done in 24 hours. So, I mean, yeah, there's like stuff's going to happen and it's not the most convenient time, but you just have to have, again, systems.

36:53BiggerPockets:Like I know that I can go to Lowe's and I can get appliances delivered to any property and the old one removed quickly. I know that I can call this HVAC company and they'll go to this set of properties and they'll be out there today. I have plumbers that I can reach out to in each of the markets in Kansas City specifically. So we also inspect our units. I would recommend that to anybody who's starting out. And we've, I'll admit, like we've gotten a little bit lax with it. We started with quarterly inspections every single quarter.

37:22Christle Stezskal:Do you do them or do you send someone to do them?

37:25BiggerPockets:In Kansas City, I have somebody boots on the ground that he's my guy. He goes and he uses my form so it's all consistent and he schedules with the tenants he has their numbers he schedules he goes out there he takes pictures the units here i do them just so i can get in and see everything and say hi to my tenants we have good relationships with our tenants they our tenants stay with us for a really long time we have very low turnover um but it's it's all about relationships you know we we pride ourselves on being mom and pop and caring about our properties and not being run by a property management company where you're just a number Yeah, but yeah, I mean there's trade-offs, right?

38:00BiggerPockets:It is a lot of work and you do have to be available the whole tenants toilets and termites, right? Everybody says that it's it's not that bad Usually there are times where it all hits but it's really manageable All right.

38:13Christle Stezskal:Well, this has been amazing. You have a fantastic story What advice would you say or give to someone who's listening to this? who's maybe a teacher or maybe working a job where they know they need to bring in some additional income, but they're very scared to jump in. What advice would you give to that person?

38:32BiggerPockets:Yeah, I mean, it can be scary, right? And the way that I combat scary things is by like data gathering. Get your hands on anything you possibly can. Listen to BiggerPockets podcast, talk to other investors, read the books and network and see like, what are other people doing? Are there opportunities in your area? Do you need to start looking out of state? And I mean, that's scary too, but it does force you to figure stuff out so you can be confident to make that decision. So you can do it. You're capable of doing it. You just have to set your mind to it and combat any fears by just gathering data.

39:10BiggerPockets:Now, be careful not to get stuck in analysis paralysis, right? Like at some point you have to make a move, but there's definitely a fine line. You need to make sure that you're informed enough and confident enough in what you can do.

39:21Christle Stezskal:I love that. Crystal, you've got an amazing story. Thank you so much for coming on the BiggerPockets podcast and sharing it with everybody.

39:27BiggerPockets:Thank you.

39:28Christle Stezskal:All right, everybody. If you learned something from Crystal's story, then check out BiggerPockets podcast episode 1252. It was back on March 16th, and it was with investor Joanna Caldera. Joanna's another scrappy investor who proved almost anyone can improve their financial picture, starting with just one property. Thank you, everybody, for watching. this episode of the BiggerPockets podcast. We'll see you next time. Thank you all for listening to the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

39:59Christle Stezskal: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 Kay. Copywriting is by Calico Content. And editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com.