Todd Dexheimer: Teacher Turned Investor, 800 Units & $45 Million In Holdings
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Todd Dexheimer shares his journey from being a teacher to researching real estate investing, to eventually jumping in full-time over the span of a couple of years. He's done single-family, multi-family, mobile homes, and even a ski resort. Todd's pushed through roadblocks, adapted his mindset and grown his company to new heights. Todd now focuses his time on 100+ unit complexes & senior group homes. Learn from Todd to help you forge your path in real estate. You can also hear from Todd on the Pillars of Wealth Creation Podcast.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- How his career got started and his background
- Tood first found some books on real estate and that sparked his interest to pursue it further
- Todd’s first 3 purchases were a foreclosure (to live in), single-family rental, and a flip (that flopped)
- You’re going to have adversity, but you have to figure out what to do with the adversity (to succeed)
- He called 100 banks looking for loans to keep going with the rentals and found out the smaller local banks were more willing to work with him
- He had a goal of buying a 100-unit building and was able to do so
- The first big purchase was an 84 unit building
- Todd’s goal is to make a positive impact and is able to serve everyone with his work
- If you focus on serving the people around you, you will make a profit
- Bought mobile home park and was able to sell and triple the price in three weeks
- Focusing on buying 100 plus unit buildings and getting into senior group homes
- Todd wants to work on growing his mentoring program in the future to teach others and share the lessons he's learned
Timestamps: If You Want To Jump Ahead To Your Favorite Part
0:00 - Intro and overview on Todd’s career
17:03 – The steps he took after getting loans from the banks
24:10 - The value of your mindset
27:20 – What his first steps were in purchasing his first big complex
32:14 – How Todd dealt with the staff that the complexes already had
38:00 – What his future goals are
Links In This Episode:
Todd's website: http://www.venturedproperties.com/
Todd's coaching website: http://coachwithdex.com/
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
All right, welcome everybody to the REL freedom podcast. Today we've got a wonderful story here we have Todd Dexheimer. And he's a local investor here in the Twin Cities area. And he's going to share with us his journey from being a teacher to now being in real estate investing and that journey and how it came about. So just to recap here for Todd, just a quick fact. So Todd has ventured the properties. He also has the pillars of wealth creation podcast that he runs, which I've listened to some episode. It's fantastic knowledge and information also has 800 units to his name that he's fixed up flipped, you've got single family homes, duplexes, multi units, even a ski resort, mobile home park, lots of stuff that you've you've dove into here, which we can cover, and about $45 million in real estate, under your name right now. So welcome, Todd, thank you so much for being on. And why don't you just say hi.
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, Mike. appreciate you having me on. definitely excited to get going.
Mike Swenson
So Todd, why don't we just get started here dig right into your your backstory. So, you know, you started out as a teacher, and, you know, realize that that wasn't going to be your, your lifelong direction, and you had an interest in real estate. So just tell us a little bit about that. That journey of you know, the inner strain of how you got from from being a teacher to getting your feet wet and real estate. Man.
Todd Dexheimer
It's now forever ago, but yeah, we, you know, like, I just was never satisfied being a teacher. I can remember really early on. I don't even know if it was like, a couple months and but I'm, like I said to my wife, I said, I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do when I grow up. Because, you know, so I thought about going to school to become like a doctor, going back to become an architect. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. But I started reading these books. And I should say, started, I picked them back up. I had read some Rich Dad, Poor Dad and stuff like that.
Todd Dexheimer
And so I picked up some of these books back up, and I stumbled on these real estate books. I thought, Man, this is something I could see myself doing just makes a ton of sense. And so I really dove into the real estate. I really started picking up every edge, everything I could read. And what spoke to me the most was rental real estate was multifamily. made so much sense. I understood it I worked construction in the summers. So I got the construction aspect of it. I got the house aspect of it. And so I dove in it was several a year and a half, probably before I actually bought my first property.
Mike Swenson
Just to back up for a second here. How long were you a teacher before you had kind of the inner strings here?
Todd Dexheimer
Well, I was probably like, a month in I don't know, oh, just like right away.
Mike Swenson
Here we go. I'm already I'm a teacher. And now I'm realizing this
Todd Dexheimer
It's just, it just I don't know, maybe it wasn't a month, maybe it was six months. Maybe it was what it but it was fairly quickly into it. Like, this is just not it. Until, but it was probably about it was so I started teaching 2005 was 2007 when I really was like Okay, I got to figure something out like this, this is not going to be working for me. Yep. And I gotta figure something out. Or maybe this is still gonna work. But I've got to make sure I've got something on the side to eventually phase out of what so that was the that was where I started reading these books and really diving into real estate. And I just got obsessed with like it just became something I had to do. And the timing couldn't have been worse and it couldn't have been better. Right.
Todd Dexheimer
So this was 2007 when I really just had this obsession, I had to get some real estate in 2008 mid 2008 I was ready, I was ready to buy. So I started going and looking at these properties and going to Craigslist and looking on Craigslist and gotten that like anywhere I could find I remember listening to these audio tapes, audio tapes and played it and put it my tape deck in my vehicle and I drive around people are like what what's and drive around and listen to like Carlton sheets and all these people that were like the big names at the time. And they tell me to drive for dollars and do all this stuff. And so I can still remember doing that that type of stuff, but it was you know 2008 Finally, mid 2008, or end of summer I started buying my first properties and I bought three of them kind of all at once.
Todd Dexheimer
I bought a house to live in. It was a foreclosure. And we were gonna fix it up. And we did fix it up. And sold it a couple years later, then I bought a my first rental property, it was just a single family bought it for $65,000 stuck another 15 into it 15 to 20 into it, and was able to rent it for like 1400 bucks a month. And then did a flip, which ended up being a flop that made a couple bucks, but I, I was the one that did the physical labor with my I think my wife probably helped me, you know, my business partner, I had a business partner he helped, like, you know, so. But I dove in pretty hard right away, because I was just obsessed. And again, this is 2008. Like I said it was it was a terrible time, because the market just crashed or just it was a still on the way down. It was a great time because the prices were cheap already. So it was it was a very confusing time. But I was naive enough not to really understand what was happening. I was naive enough to just think I could do it. And I could am glad because there was a lot of people that were running, they're covering their heads, they thought real estate was crazy.
Mike Swenson
A lot of ways you knew just as much as everybody else. Because you know, those people that were in the market, were figuring out what the heck's happening, they had never seen a market like that. So in a lot of ways you were on an even playing field with the with the quote unquote, experts
Todd Dexheimer
I think I had a an advantage in in some aspects to, of course, a disadvantage in other aspects. But I had an advantage in some aspects because I was blind, right? I didn't really truly understand what it happened. I knew that prices had dropped, but it didn't really understand the full complexity of everything going on. And I wasn't hurt by it. Right? It actually helped me because I was able to buy prices for properties for cheaper prices. You know, some things hurt me, right? Because lending was just not that available. So it was more much more difficult to get lending. You know, there was there was just nobody in your corner. So that was definitely difficult. But at the same time, some things were really great. You know, contractors were desperate, they needed work, they were willing to do things for a great price.
Mike Swenson
Okay, so you had you had those first couple. And now you're living in one, you flopped flipped and flopped on one. And talk to me how then that led into the next few properties. You know, after you kind of got past that first wave, you look up and you see okay, what do I want to do next? What does that look like for you?
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, I mean, I was still hungry. And I saw that the rental worked really well. So I went bought another rental, bought another rental, I actually ran out of possibilities to buy more rentals in my personal name, I didn't know that if there was any other way. Because at the time, you could only get four rentals in your personal name. So I had four properties in your personal name. So I had my property I was living in. And then I had my three rentals. So I went and started talking to some friends and I got one friend to partner with me. And he bought a couple rentals in his name. And eventually I ran into this kind of roadblock. And so I started flipping houses again, this is all within less than a year. Yep.
Todd Dexheimer
And so then I started flipping houses again, I didn't want to flip because the first one was a flop It was terrible. I'd like that was a bad experience. But through this I kept on finding these houses. I'm like, man, I could buy this thing for 30 grand, I could put 30 into it. 60 grand would sell for $120,000 like, Ah, yeah, so I've seen all these houses, but I didn't want to flip. And then when I ran into these hurdles, and I couldn't figure out how to get more properties at that, well, I'm just gonna flip properties and be able to buy properties for cash that and keep those as rentals and I'll take some of the profits and eventually I'll get enough cash just to be able to own these things cash. So that's what I started doing. I bought my first my next first flip was three properties a quite frankly, all at once. I decided to flip three at once.
Mike Swenson
Just to back up a second. So at this time now you're you're all in you're done teaching, right?
Todd Dexheimer
No, I'm still teaching. So this is 2009 This is okay. So started in 2008 summer of 2008. By the time I started flipping again, it was probably the very beginning of summer of 2009. So or maybe it's the end of spring so I was still like I was still teacher. It was my summer break, but I was actually working construction that summer too. It was crazy. I was I was like working myself crazy hours. I just had my daughter It was a wild times it was like constant working and never seen anybody but right. I was so obsessed and wanted to get it done. I wanted to figure out how to make this happen. And I wanted to go, I wanted to go full time real estate, but I couldn't convince my wife. She liked a cushy job. They paid me $30,000 a year, right?
Mike Swenson
Yeah, the secure the secure job of being a teacher.
Todd Dexheimer
so it was pretty wild times. But um, so 2010. So a year later, fast forward a year later, so I'll take you through some of that. So that's a sort of flipping these houses. One house ended up selling, but then the sale fell through and I couldn't, I couldn't resell it. Unless it was to a non FHA buyer. This was an area where mostly FHA, because the appraisal came in really bad. So I was like, What am I going to do with this house? I gotta rent it. So I'm talking to as many people as I possibly can, nobody can give me an answer on how to get a loan. And finally, one guy says, we'll reach out to this bank, I think they'll give you a loan. And, and I called this bank, and I remember sitting down at the bank, targeting them about the property and they said, Yeah, we'll give you the money for that property. Just put it in an LLC, and then we'll get you a loan. And they did that. And it completely shifted.
Todd Dexheimer
My paradigm opened my mind. I like this was, Wow, this is amazing. So I figured out that they were giving me a commercial loan for a residential property. So I started calling banks. I called like, 100 banks. And I got a lot of like, You're crazy. No, we can't do that. You're, you know, you're stupid, the markets crashing and you're gonna go bankrupt, blah, blah, blah. But I got some banks that were like, Yeah, let's do it. Sounds great. And so I ended up getting about five or six banks that said, Yes, and at the same time, had good rates and terms that would make sense for me. And so I started buying more rentals again. So that was just that one failed property. And that's the things people got to remember, like, you're going to have adversity, but you got to figure out what are you going to do with adversity, a pandemic just hit us? Like, what did you do with this pandemic? That made you better than before the pandemic, like, you've got to look at that. And so, so one failed opportunity.
Mike Swenson
Let's not gloss over when you said you call the 100. Banks, like, that's one. Banks, right? That's right. It's a lot of work. Right?
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, it was a lot of work. It was a lot of, like I said, it was a lot of nose, I remember one Baker specifically, totally me, telling me, I'm just, you know, stupid, and this is, this idea is crazy, it's gonna, you know, I'm going to go bankrupt. And any bank that would lend to me is going to end up going bankrupt, she was just like, rip me a new one. And, you know, I wish I knew her contact information now and could call her up and ask her how things are going but but you know, you just got to keep on pushing on because there's no other way it really, there's no other way, if you want to be successful, you're going to hit bumps along the way, you're gonna hit problems, and you've got to figure out how to push on beyond them. And you're just going to shift your paradigm so many times, and, and you have to persevere through it. And so, so that was that really propelled me to the next level of being able to then buy more properties for rentals, be able to continue, I was contai continue to do these flips. I built my rental portfolio up pretty substantially to probably about 100 units at that time.
Mike Swenson
So then how did you get to, you know, as you're, as you're figuring these things out, you know, obviously, somebody said call a bank, but, but how much of this is advice that you got from other people, you know, just asking questions, like, I kind of see you as, you know, kind of you have your, your investigator hat on, right, and you're having to go out and you've got a problem, you're trying to find a solution, and you're just constantly talking to different people and, and while that person may not give you the, the piece that you need to finish the equation, it's like, they give you the next step in the process, right. You know, and, and then you have to go and you have to figure out the next step. It's, you know, in a lot of ways, like you taught industrial tech, right, and so, you know, it's following a large set or a large sequence of steps to figure it out. And you were just going step one, in the manual, step two in the manual, step three in the manual, and you kept unlocking that next step through conversations with people right? Yep.
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I, a lot of it's my stubbornness and just thinking I can do everything myself. So a lot of it I didn't lean on people probably as much as I should have. But there was still plenty of people along the way that helped guide me so I call this this bank and, and I think I'm gonna go with this big national player, right? Of course, they're gonna lend me a ton of money. And so I say Hey, I set up this meeting with this banker. And I tell this banker, my big, audacious plan. And I have a business plan to come with a business plan. I'm all ready to go. And I'm thinking he's gonna be like, this is great, y'all. You're the first one that's ever, ever came to me with a problem.
Mike Swenson
Let me go open up the vault, we've got actually had your name on the money ready to go?
Todd Dexheimer
We already knew you are the guy. This guy goes, look, he just forget our bank. He said, he says, you're not going to get money through our bank or too big. You we have to check too many boxes. He says, Why don't you do this? Why don't you call the small local banks. They're the ones that are going to do business with you. He said, You got a great idea. I think you're going to be successful. call these credit unions call local banks. And that's the way you got to do it. And so that's what prompted me to start calling all these small local banks. Otherwise, I would have called the big banks, I called them and gotten the nose and got the press.
Todd Dexheimer
But this guy set me up for success by telling me like, Look, we're not the bank for you. You've got a small base. So yeah, there was many way many people along the way that, you know, hinted me or pushed me in the right direction. So yes, it wasn't just me necessarily navigating. You got to count on other people. But you also have to be careful with the advice that our other people give you as well, right? You've got to, you've got to trust but verify. There's gonna be there's a lot of people that, and I don't think many people maliciously give you bad advice, right? There might be some, but most people don't maliciously give you bad advice. They just give you bad advice, because that's the that's the limited belief that they have in their own head.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. So okay, so now you you've kind of unlocked this new potential, you know, finding these smaller local banks that are willing to give you loans. How do you how do you take that next step from there,
Todd Dexheimer
I got, quite frankly, I got stuck into in the epic game was easy. It was successful with it. And so I bought a lot of properties. And I flipped a lot of properties, I get really good at flipping, I got stuck and flipping, I wanted to grow and expand, I wanted to get in these large multi families.
Mike Swenson
Now at this point, you're still doing in the Twin Cities area, or you've expanded,
Todd Dexheimer
No, all Twin Cities. But finally, it broke through that limiting belief, right. So that's the thing is, we're gonna get stuck in our ways. And I did, and I got comfortable with it. And you've got to be able to get uncomfortable, I got comfortable with flipping, I got comfortable buying these one to four family properties. I was good at it. And I made money doing it. And so I just kept on doing it. But I wanted to buy these larger properties. So finally.
Mike Swenson
and what is it? What's the reason for that?
Todd Dexheimer
A scale, scale, you know, these small properties. They're great, the profit looks fantastic. But then when you start really looking at, okay, if I want to scale, this business profit looks fantastic right now. But as I scale, I've got to really have property managers, I've got to have showing agents, I've got to have bookkeeper, I gotta, you know, I guess start adding these people to the puzzle. And all of a sudden, my profit doesn't look as good. And the headache and hassle starts being pretty intimidating. And so that's what I was looking at is okay. Yeah, my margins are really good right now. But as I add more units, it's actually going to get less profitable per unit. And I just didn't like that. And the other thing is, man, I, quite frankly, I still think, a single family or a duplex, at least at that time, I don't know about now, because I haven't analyzed those properties.
Todd Dexheimer
They're probably still the case where that you can make more money with them on a per property basis. But you have to look at how big do you want to scale and I wanted to scale big, I wanted to continue to do this and grow. If you're only looking for 10 units, well then buy 10 single family houses, that's fine, but it's impossible for me or very difficult for me to come in and scale the size. I want to scale with single family houses. It's just so hard to keep on buying and buying and buy and buy and get these good deals and renovating them and all that kind of stuff and everything so spread out so it just made sense to go large multifamily. But that limited belief was there. It was hard to shift that paradigm. I finally had a mentor of mine that you know, I was I started buying so I started buying, like 1020 unit buildings. I got my brain to accept that.
Todd Dexheimer
A I said to him, I said one day I want to buy 100 unit building Oh work myself up to that. And hopefully, hopefully in the next, you know, three to five years, I'll do that. He's like, Well, why not do now? I'm like, Well, I don't know, you know, I got to get skilled. And she's like, Why? You know? Why? Why do you have a skill now? Anyway, we had a conversation and just completely, like shifted the way I thought like, oh, you're you're right, like people, there's a lot of people that are doing it that have way less experienced than me that have already gone to the 100 unit. And it was, so why am I letting the Why am I holding myself back? So finally, through a conversation with him, like he just completely kicked my butt and shifted my paradigm, again, to now shifting to 100 plus unit, multifamily value add through syndication exactly what I'm doing today.
Mike Swenson
Now, I'm curious, how does that conversation go with with your wife? Does she I mean, obviously, now you're, you're at the point where you're not updating her on every single purchase you're making. Right? Right, and how that's all working. But, you know, she also is your partner in crime here. So, you know, she at least needs to be aware of what you're doing. So, you know, what is what does she think about? Okay, let's go buy this 100 unit property?
Todd Dexheimer
My wife's awesome. She's super supportive. She's, she's in my corner. So yeah. Does she did she have questions? She has questions, but when I can explain to her the reasoning why. And in, you know, the risk factor, I think the biggest thing that is always in her mind is will is what's the risk factor? Like? Are we gonna lose everything if we go like, go this route? So when I can explain to her the risk factors, and, you know, understanding where we're going in the vision, she jumps on board, said she, she's, she's the best. So, you know, not probably not everybody revives like her. But I think the most important thing is, is you've got to, you've got to be able to have that plan. Do you have a vision? And do you have a plan in place. And if you have a vision and a plan in place to make your life's a lot easier to jump on board, then if you don't, when I wanted to quit my job, I couldn't convince my wife to quit my job.
Todd Dexheimer
We went to church. And the pastor talked to us about, you know, basically risk taking and doing things. I can't remember the exact message, but we both got on church, and just the way the pastor talked, allowed her to think in a different way. And she said, What, just show me the numbers, right? And so I'm like, Oh, yeah. Why didn't I think of that? Like, why did the pastor have to tell me to do that, or tell her to have me do that, right? shown her before I showed her the numbers, I showed her the plan. If I would have done that, she would have been okay with it.
Todd Dexheimer
Now. I'm happy. You know, we went to church that day. And I'm happy the pastor talked about what he talked about. But it's just about laying out the plan, laying out what's going on, laid out the numbers. And so you can make sense, because we all think like everybody understands the way we think. I think that's a big thing that everybody struggles with we, for some reason, we think people, people know our vision. For some reason, people, we think that people know what's on our mind. Because we've told them, Well, did we really tell them? Or did we just kind of tell them, like, we know it very complex, we can't expect everybody to know it the way we do.
Mike Swenson
And the thing that I always have to remind myself to is, you know, we think when I tell somebody something one time, like, now I've told them, you know, told them right? And then you think about yourself, like how many times do you have to personally hear something before it starts to register. So, you know, we tell you know, the real estate team that I work on, you know, we're probably going to say the same thing. 10 different ways. 10 different times, and it's just finding a way for it to finally sink in.
Mike Swenson
And the other thing that I love that you're talking about is thinking bigger, and the value of your mindset, you know, the deeper that I get into real estate, it feels like, you know, it's it's more and more mindset, the further that you go, you know, it's it's like, it felt like when I first started like 5050 and then it's like 6040 mindset now it's 70% mindset. Now it's 80% mindset, it's just yeah, it's that over and over again. And when you were talking about like the 100 unit thing. It's just getting over the fact that you're you're thinking like 100% am I worthy of 100 being an owner of 100 unit thing and then it's kind of a it's a risk factor. Can I physically take the risk to own 100 unit building, and then once you break through that barrier now, it just sets up for the next site and you just keep going and you keep going.
Todd Dexheimer
It's funny because now I don't think anything of it now, now. 100 unit 200 unit 300 unit it just it's not intimidating at all, like I don't even think of anything of it. It's It's funny how quickly your mind can shift. But if you would have told me five years ago, that you're going to have 100 yard but excited, but I probably went to really believe you, huh? You know. So yeah, it's just that you've got your your brain is, though you said it's a it's 80%. I mean, it's 80% mindset, your brain doesn't allow you to believe things you've got part of part of that too, is being around the right people listening to the right podcast, listening to podcasts like this, where you've got guests on that are doing things. And so you start hearing that, and you start going while it's possible, right?
Todd Dexheimer
You've got to be around the vocabulary, you got to be around the people you've got to be hearing over and over, like you say, get to hear it like 10 times before you understand it. That's just how it is. And so if you want to do something, you've got to figure out how to get in the corridor, or you've got to figure out how to hear from people that are doing it, surround yourself with those people. That's the beautiful thing, quite frankly, about podcasts about books is you're so you are surrounding yourself with people that are doing it. When you're reading books, and you're listening to podcasts, you're surrounding yourself with the right people.
Mike Swenson
Now, well, and it's funny, because you had mentioned when you first started out, you were reading books, and that's how I got started with my first rental property that we fixed up and I said, You know, I went to the library, and I found books about investments and rental properties. The thing is, is I didn't even know if it was a good book, right? Like, you know, you don't you don't know anything. And so you have to read one or two books, and then you had said, you know, to kind of analyze and verify. And you're kind of looking at like, okay, are there similar themes coming out here? Is there a similar message that's coming through but but that's really just how you get started as you just have to jump in and you figure it out as you go.
Mike Swenson
And, you know, there's there's probably not a lot of people out there that start with 100 unit building, some do, you know, some just jump right in or take that risk. And some have to work up to that. But it's, it's you're continually just getting better every day? re expanding your thinking, having new people pour into you, and it continues to grow. And then and then now like you said, you're just, hey, it's just it's just how many units? Yeah, you know, so walk through the logistics of this.
Mike Swenson
So you know, talk about that, that first big complex that you bought, putting putting, you know, the people in place to, to, you know, rent that stuff out? is a lot of that stuff already taken care of by whoever owned that previously? Or do you have to bring in new people to, to manage that? Or how do you walk through that? Because it's part of it's the numbers game on the purchase? But then it's the logistics game of, of implementing that and turning so it's profitable for you. So what are the things that you look at? To take a building, you know, that that somebody else has owned to now what are you going to do to make it better and more profitable for yourself?
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, so first of all, the type of buildings I buy, typically are replacing management, we're typically replacing on site staff, that doesn't always have to happen, you know, if you're buying a, we're selling one of the buildings that I own right now they're gonna keep our my on site staff, they're going to keep the property management company because we're doing great, like, why would you replace them where we're showing improvement every single month or so. So things are going really well. So things are if you're buying a building, where positive things are happening, where the attitudes good, where the you know, you maybe you want to keep some or maybe all of the staff.
Todd Dexheimer
Now, if you're buying a distressed property or a property that you know, definitely need some major change, especially if you've got a tenant base change, that's going to be happening, likely you're going to be replacing your staff and property management company, to staff and property management company that can handle what you're trying to achieve. So oftentimes, that's what we're doing. We're coming in with new property management, we're coming in with new staffing, and we're gonna change the look and the feel of the property itself. So really, there's a lot of diligence in who is the right fit for our property. And, and making sure that the pieces can match together pretty well.
Todd Dexheimer
We've got a business plan, every time we buy a property, we have a specific business plan of exactly what we're doing. We want to make sure the team members that are in place can actually follow through with that business plan. That's, that's vitally important. I think people spend way too little time on understanding the intricacies of the asset management of our the intricacies of really, truly being successful after you execute on the property right, close. we all we all worry about closing and buying a 200 unit building or a 10 unit building. Well we don't talk about the actual operation of that 200 unit building or 10 unit building.
Mike Swenson
You own it and now what are you going to do with it?
Todd Dexheimer
Now what are you going to do with it? How are you going to be successful and that's super important. That's vitally important. That's gonna make or break your investment. And quite frankly, the good companies can take a marginal purchase can purchase property at not that great of a price, have a marginal property and turn it into a great investment, where the companies that are poor asset management can purchase for a great price and still have a poor for investment in the end, right? Because they don't know how to manage they, they run these things that guys see it all the time I buy properties from those people, right?
Todd Dexheimer
We're buying properties from people that don't know how to manage your properties that don't spend the time that don't budget properly, whatever it is, so those that's well, let's, oh, that's a perfect example, perfect runway into the first property, I purchased the first larger property that purchase was an 84 unit building. And that building was purchased by a group that went out and they bought a ton of units, I think they bought a like 1000 units in a year. And they had no, they had no execution. Right, they maybe had some vision, but they didn't have execution, they didn't have implementation of their vision, that's really important, too, you have to be able to get your property management company on the same page as your implementation is your vision so we can implement it, right.
Todd Dexheimer
So they didn't have that. And so they bought these properties and struggled on all of them, they just kind of limped along. And the opportunity came for me to be able to purchase that property, one of them from them. And so I did, I came in and I looked at the property, there was a lot of words on it, it, it definitely wasn't being operated properly, the occupancy was low, the units were in poor condition. But that smells money, right. And I made many mistakes is well on this property. But the mistake I didn't make is, is I bought it at a good price. And I was able to eventually get my management company, it was actually my second management company, was eventually able to get my second management company to buy into my vision. And so we could execute the business plan properly.
Mike Swenson
So then how do you, you know, you think about obviously, you spend so much time analyzing these deals that Yeah, now you have to figure out what makes a good property management company. You know, how do you vet those people out? Is it talking to other people that they've managed for and kind of reference check, or, you know, and then to and you're doing this out of state? You know, it's it's a little bit sight unseen, in terms of, you know, here, at least in the Twin Cities, you know, lots of people, you could ask lots of people, I suppose you can do the same in other states, maybe it really doesn't matter, but walk me through that process to determine, you know, are we keeping the management, you know, staff in place? Are we switching that over? How do we vet these people out?
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, again, we have to look at the success of the building. And we want to interview the people that are currently involved with the property because there might be some great staff on site, we don't want to just fire them, just fire them just because we, you know, we want to we want people to keep their jobs, that's healthy for everybody. So if we've got good staff involved, we want to keep them and sometimes the good staff is involved, but they just their hands are tied, right, there's no money involved, or there's no opportunity for them to actually do things that property, the owner, or the property management company isn't doing repairs, or maintenance or whatever it is, and so their hands are tied, they would love that.
Todd Dexheimer
They might be great, we might want to keep them around so we want to interview everybody we want to understand what's going on we understand the pros and cons of you know and get their attitude to attitude plays a big role specially on your on site staff attitude plays a massive role. I can have a man just like look back at this saying this property this 84 unit property. My very first onsite person had a very poor attitude. Tenants were their her enemy tenants were were bad and she needed to have the sign of authority and that type of it was it was a recipe for disaster. She did poorly. The I look at the who I have right now. At that same building and she is amazing. She's got the attitude of she's serving the tenant, she cares for the tenants that are like family to her. She respects them.
Todd Dexheimer
They're not beneath her in any level. And she does come with authority but it's it's a different type of authority. It's not a boss over you. You know, it's we need to collect rent because we have a contractual agreement and you need to pay tight. So it's a totally different experience and she does amazing so that attitude plays a big role into it. As far as looking at property management. Companies? Do you want to look at a couple things? First of all, do they have experience in managing properties like yours? Or like what you're wanting to buy? Yep. So do they have? There's there's a couple things we got to look at, first of all, first thing? What's the property look like right now?
Todd Dexheimer
Do they have experience with the property? where it's at right now? And have they taken a property like that in that condition to the level that you want to bring it to? And then are they managing those properties? Right? So maybe they're a C class property manager, but you want to take that property from a C class to a B class? Well, do they manage B class properties? The answer might be no. And if the answer is no, that they're not your property manager, they're going to just keep it in C class. And that was, that was the problem with the first management company, or one of the problems out of many, but they they were RC class property management company, and they were keeping it C class, right? They were keeping it where it was at. And there's many other problems with it. But but that's a different, that's a mindset that we we can't there, that's not a good fit.
Todd Dexheimer
So we have to look at what our ultimate goals are, and find a company that fits in that, you know, if you're doing if you're doing renovations, do they have experience with that? Do they have experience renovating? Do they have experience changing the profile of buildings? You know, so getting to understand, can they execute on your vision? And have they done it before? referrals are huge, like you already said, I mean, that's probably the most important thing is referrals. I want to hear from other property owners that have used them that have had success with them. I also look at reviews, you know, what are other tenants saying about the properties that they manage? If every property that they manage has bad reviews, horrible reviews, we know there's probably something wrong. Now, if there's one or two, that's different, but if most of them have good reviews, I also like to Secret Shop some of their property.
Todd Dexheimer
So I pretend like I'm a tenant interested in their property, and we just go and Secret Shop them. I want to see what's going on. Let's see how their staff treats me. I want to see how their properties look, are they? Are they clean and orderly? Right? If I go in, and there's trash everywhere, and they just, they'll nobody cares about the property? That's a red flag. So those are some things you can do to really understand. You mentioned in, in state out of state, I don't think there's much of a difference. Sure is a little more efficient to be in state Probably, yeah, for sure. Because you don't have to jump in a plane. But there's also negatives, too. I think there's some benefits of being out of state. I have to delegate. I can't, I can't get stuck in the details. Right? The out of state otherwise, I'm not successful.
Mike Swenson
Okay, so then tell us a little bit more. I mean, we walked through a lot of those those early details and, and got into where you're at today, what do you look for in the future? What do you, where do you see this growing for you?
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, I mean, look, it's my goal is to continue to grow the company, my goal is to make a positive impact. So what I'm looking at is what can I do? How can I grow this company to be a positive impact upon anybody who I'm serving? My residents, my investors, my property managers, you know, everybody that I'm serving, so and also give back to the community that, you know, I live in, in my properties or into So, you know, the goal is to continue to grow the business, the goal is continue to do it in a way that I'm serving the people that I mentioned, you know, I'm very investor focused. So we're looking it's it's not about growing at a particular rate necessarily. Now, do I have what I like to add 600 units this year? Absolutely. But it's got to be the right 600 units, right? It's got to be the right properties. It's got to match my investor profile. Everything's got to work in unison with each other. It's got to be helping the people that I want to help. So it's really about serving those who, who I serve in a in a proper way. And growing, expanding, but doing it methodically.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and I like the keywords that you said, there. It's fit, helping people, you know, in doing the right things, and I think that's the key. You know, so many times, people's impressions of, you know, being a landlord or being an investor is that it's, it's this cold thing. It's just the bottom line, focus and all that. But for you putting together a business plan, executing on it, making sure everything's in alignment, talking to people, you know, like you said, secret shopping
Mike Swenson
Making sure it's a good fit, making sure that the tenants are happy. Like, there's so much more there that, you know, those are the things that really, truly make a difference, you know, do you have to still make a profit? Yes. Because otherwise you'd have to go work somewhere else or do another job or do something else. So it has to make a profit. And yet at the same time, what's triggering you,and what's triggering your investors is it's the helping people, it's the finding good fits, making people happy, that sort of stuff, which, which is what really matters.
Todd Dexheimer
If you are focused on what I mentioned, you know, serving the people around you, you will make a profit, right? Because I'm not going to make it if I'm truly serving my investors, and I'm providing them with excellent returns, that means we're making a profit. If I'm truly serving my residents who are in the building, I'm providing them a safe, clean, affordable place to live. Then they're paying me rent, right, because they respect us, and they have a contractual obligation that they feel like they should follow because we're following our portion, large, large majority of people in this country are good people, and they're gonna pay the rent, right? There always will be a few that won't. And that's just how it is. We know that and we underwrite for that, and we account for that. Right? And so if we're serving the people we say we're supposed to serve, we're gonna we're gonna make money.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Tell me a little bit. Just maybe a quick story on the side, you know, because you have, you know, you've purchased a ski resort, you know, you've purchased, you know, some mobile home areas. Tell us about one of those, those fun ones that just is outside of the box, how that came to be, and, and what ended up happening with that.
Todd Dexheimer
So the let's, let's talk mobile home park. So we, so my brother calls me up and says, Hey, I got this mobile home, I got this mobile home parks real estate opportunity you want to be a part of in like, I kind of didn't take him that serious, because he's not really a real estate investor. He's done a little bit of it. But he's not a real estate investor. And it's, you know, he's based in South Carolina, he lives in South Carolina, and it's down there. And I like yeah, you know, whatever. So he kind of keeps bothering me about it sends me all this information about it. And I just kind of kick it off. I wasn't focused at all on it. And for some reason, I just, I think it was because of his persistence. I dug into it.
Todd Dexheimer
And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is this looks like it could be a great deal. So I ended up pursuing it, got it under contract. And, and it was a 20 unit mobile home park. So really small. We had some opportunities, though potential development with it. Potentially renovate it was completely vacant. So maybe renovating the mobile homes, we thought at one time to take them all home off and putting new ones on, we found out the city wasn't gonna allow that if we took them off, they had to stay off. So anyways, we ended up having somebody reach out to us and say, hey, I want to buy this from you. And we started negotiating with him. And I thought, well, I wonder if other people are interested. So I threw it on Craigslist. This is before we even purchased it. We had it under contract, and ended up negotiating and getting a contract signed on it prior to us purchasing it. And we purchased it and sold it like a week or two later and made three times our original investment into the property.
Mike Swenson
Holy cow.
Todd Dexheimer
So it was a great little deal. I didn't hold it for very long, really just wholesale the thing. But yeah, I went to the property one time and you know, when I when I went and closed and then two weeks later, they had it sold for three times what we bought it for.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, that's funny how that comes up. And it's from your from a relative to that. You know, that stuff can happen.
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I didn't I didn't really take him serious. I mean, like, he dabbled in a little bit, but he's never been a serious real estate investor and but he was just persistent. And now that's what it took is his persistence. If he wasn't persistent, I wouldn't have done that deal.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, yeah. So then what what are you looking for now? You know, what, what is kind of your, your, your sweet spot here of possible investment opportunities?
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah. So I've got kind of two directions. One main direction that company is going but we're doing two things. First thing that we're doing and our main focus is multifamily value add right so we're doing we're purchasing large buildings like the one behind me if people are watching video. It's 122 unit apartment buildings, we're purchasing 100 Plus unit apartments, doing renovations to them. And we're doing that through syndications. So we take private investors who, you know, are completely passive, and they invest in the deal and they get the profits of the of the deal.
Todd Dexheimer
So that's kind of our main focus, we're looking to grow that portfolio continue to continue to add more units continue to provide for our clients that we're serving the other portion, and that we're just kind of getting into his senior group homes, and we're buying these group homes. And typically, there's some sort of deficiencies that we can correct in them might be might be occupancy might be leasing might be expenses, whatever. So we're buying these group homes and expanding that portion of the portfolio as well. So that's on the on the real estate investment side. And then the other side is, is my mentoring coaching program and I'm actually growing that trying to serve and help other people who want to kind of essentially do what I do by multifamily and grow portfolio.
Mike Swenson
So if people watching this listening to this, want to get a hold of you, you've got the mentoring coaching opportunities, if there happens to be somebody and that's the beauty of these podcasts and, and YouTube videos is it could be a year from now, two years from now, three years from now somebody's listening. They're like, Hey, I know of a unit or I know of a potential, you know, investment opportunity. How can folks get a hold of you?
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, absolutely. So a couple different ways. If they're looking at, you know, maybe wanting to passively invest or just have that conversation or they just want to have a conversation or that maybe they have a property you know, they can they can go onto my website, I've actually got a free download on my website, they can go to it's it's venturedproperties.com, venturedproperties.com. There's a free kind of ebook talks about multifamily real estate, why it's the best investment around goes into some you know what syndication is, so it's kind of a cool little deal, they can get into contact with me there. And then my coaching website is coach with DAX so if anybody wants to talk about that, see if it's a fit, I don't take everybody I only take people that are really serious and committed, not even be a fit, but if they have interest in that they can definitely reach out to me through coach with DAX and I'm all over social media to Facebook and LinkedIn are probably the two that I'm on the most so they can reach out to me there
Mike Swenson
Wonderful. Well, thanks so much for coming on. And you know, we'd love to have you on in the future we'll maybe come back with you know, what's Todd been up to the last few and we can have an update episode and hear about the new deals come
Todd Dexheimer
I can talk I can talk forever. So you just say you fire off questions I keep on like the Energizer butter egg. Just keep on going, man.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Todd, for coming on. We really appreciate it.
Todd Dexheimer
Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me.
