Mike Gengler: What I Learned From My First Flip
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If you haven't done a flip before, you're probably wanting to hear some feedback from someone that just went through it. What was that first flip like? What lessons did you learn? What surprised you about your experience? Would you do it again? Meet Mike Gengler, real estate agent with the Elite Advantage Team, based out of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in Minnesota. He's fresh off of his first flip that he did with the team & working with an investor partner. He shares his firsthand experience on this episode to be able to help others move forward on their first flip in the future. Come learn the good & the bad of what he experienced to help you make your first flip the best it can be!
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Location is one of the things to check on in finding a flip.
- It's important to look up and know city & country ordinances and codes before purchasing a home to renovate.
- To help stay in budget, it's a good idea to anticipate unexpected costs. We used a 10% buffer on this property.
- One thing we have learned is to get more accurate numbers, and they need to have a more detailed plan in place for a lot of these projects.
- Considered purchase price, rough budget, and then you know list price.
- People can connect to Mike at [email protected] or you can call him at 763-477-2918
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro and overview on Mike’s career.
01:28 - Important things on finding a flip.
10:09 - What are the work involved in the property?
17:31 - Discussion about unexpected cost.
21:08 - How helpful license contractors are.
22:01 - What they have learned in building the project.
32:03 - How people can connect to Mike.
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL freedom podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson, let's get some real freedom together.
Mike Swenson
All right, welcome everybody to another episode of The REL freedom Podcast. And today is an exciting day, because I get to share the story of one of our agents Mike Gengler, sharing his story about doing his first flip. And so one of the cool things about our team is we love to work with investors, we want to work with people that want to build wealth. And we also have people on our team that want to help build their own wealth. And, you know, flipping a home is a great way to start to do that. And so, you know, Mike's been an agent on our team for a while now. And we decided, as a team, we wanted to tackle a flip project together. And so Mike's going to share his perspective and his story on that. And hopefully give you guys listening a chance, if you haven't done a flip before, if you haven't done investing before, this will give you an opportunity of the things to think about, and how to get started. So welcome, Mike, we are so excited to have you share about this flip.
Mike Gengler
Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's an exciting thing to try out. And I was glad that the team was supportive, and we were able to do it together.
Mike Swenson
Why don't you just go ahead and give a little bit of a background of maybe some of the things that we were looking for some of the things that were important and finding a flip, because I know for a lot of people, it's like, gosh, I don't even know where to start? What's something that's gonna make a good flip? How do I know that the numbers are gonna work out? Gosh, I don't even know how to estimate repair costs. What do I do? So if you just kind of want to maybe start with that? What were some of those initial considerations about, you know, where we wanted to find it, how we wanted to find it? And what that looked like?
Mike Gengler
Yeah, those were all, all great things that we had to take into consideration. I mean, I would say the most important part about that is finding a good calculator, either online or making one yourself so that, you know, at the end of the day, you know, kind of what the end result will be assuming all of your numbers are correct. I mean, that's, that's a big part of it is alright, if I do, assuming I've done all this, right, I should make X dollars at the end of this. So that would be step one. And there's lots of calculators online, or we can provide you the one that we use with the team as well. I mean, there's going to be numbers that you need purchase price is obviously an important one, how much you're spending on closing costs to close the initial deal. And then how much the loan is going to cost you to hold it while you're doing all this need to account for all the expenses that you're going to have throughout the term of this project.
Mike Gengler
Utilities permits, yep, utilities, misters. All of these things. Yes, dumpsters for sure. So that's like you helped with it. And you know that we got four dumpsters instead of one dumpster like we budgeted for. So right, we were going through properties, and we're looking at all this, I think a big part of it is figuring out each each project that you're going to do within the house, and then how much you're going to spend on it. And those estimates are going to get better with time, we were lucky enough to have three people looking at this and you know, so we have three sets of eyes on everything. And so our estimates came in fairly accurately, because we can kind of average out what we all think we're gonna spend, then, you know, we got pretty close on a lot of stuff. But the other part is don't sweat every single dollar on this. Now dumpsters, we spent 2000 instead of 500.
Mike Gengler
Well, that's $1,500. But then the bathrooms, we budgeted 6000 and spent 3000. So at the beginning, you don't want to be off like that. But hopefully you're off over on some stuff and under on some stuff, and then it kind of washes out in the end. Yep. And then I know that we put a 10% You know, we figured out what our number was, and then we put a 10% buffer on that as well. So all right, our budget came out to I believe it was like 59 and change. So we just rounded up to 60. And then 10%. Alright, so we're looking at 66,000 for our rehab budget overall, we've at least got that extra wiggle room in there. And that's something that I think, you know, for our first, second, third, fourth deals, we're gonna keep adding that in, but as our numbers get tighter and tighter, we can start okay, maybe we only have an 8% cushion, and then a 6% cushion and that way we can start getting more aggressive in our purchase prices.
Mike Swenson
And there's going to be surprises that pop up too and things that you can't plan for. So, you know, one of the things that we probably came out to be a benefit that we didn't necessarily expect to be as much of a benefit was the location and I should back up a second and just say our intention With this project was to be more hands on, so that we could learn more about it to be less hands on. In the future, it would be awesome to sit in our ivory tower and have, you know, play project manager and everybody else does all the work. But we wanted to probably lean in a little bit more. And we ended up leaning in more than we thought we would, in terms of some of the hands on work, but but the goal here was to be more involved.
Mike Swenson
So we could learn it so that we could then be more leveraged to others in the future. So that was intentional for us. And I think one of the things that worked in our favor as we just happened to find a property that was pretty darn close for all of us. And had that not been the case, some of the other properties we're looking at, I think would have been a lot more challenging for us. Because there's more drive time back and forth, you know, a trip for you and me was 678 minutes. Whereas if it was a 20 minute drive or a 30 minute drive, that would have made a bigger difference. Now, obviously, if we were less hands on that matters less than the future, but because we wanted to be more involved. That's something that kind of stumbled in our favor.
Mike Gengler
Absolutely. That allowed, since we were so hands on that allowed for, oh, I don't feel like I'm wasting my time if I drive over there, but I've only got 90 minutes. You know, it's I got 90 minutes of work for 10 minutes of driving versus, you know, an hour of work for an hour of driving. So it was a big deal there. And I'm gonna go back, you know, one step further, you said, sit in the ivory tower and be the project manager, I'm going one step further, I want to purchase the deal and then hand the whole thing off and somebody else project manages the whole thing, like, yeah, that's the, that's the end step for me is just finding the deals. And then maybe we have multiple crews. But you know what I mean, I'd love to get to a point where Oh, no, we can't buy any more deals, because we don't have enough people to work. Like, I don't think we'll ever get to that point. But that's kind of the goal here. And as much as I enjoyed some of the work, there were definite times of not enjoying the work as well. So I could see there being a definite happy medium medium in there of doing some projects, you know, within some of the webs, but definitely not to the extent that we did on this project.
Mike Swenson
You know, that being said, Mike, what our involvement was, is we we still obviously had licensed contractors doing the licensed work. And so, you know, if you go back to the house hacker trying to do everything themselves, I mean, we we had a lot of work that a lot of great people helped us with that we didn't even have to do so if you think about what kind of the worst case scenario somebody wanted to take on all the work man, we still be maybe interviewing or doing this podcast episode a year from now, because we wouldn't have been done. So we did have some great licensed contractors that did the work that they needed to do and obviously that the city required them to do. So you know, we still only did some of the sheetrock the painting the some of the demo stuffs, the outdoor work the, you know, the curb appeal type stuff. And we still found ourselves over involved than what we probably anticipated we wanted to do.
Mike Gengler
When you kind of list out the major things that we add help with roofing and siding, plumbing, electrician, and then I think maybe a gas line was yeah, we moved one gas last
Mike Swenson
line, we ended up having a furnace that had to be installed. surprises, right things you can't plan for is when the fire goes out in the winter in Minnesota.
Mike Gengler
But yeah, I mean, just thinking about the the roofing and siding, the electrician and the plumber, like Yeah, that was a massive amount of man hours that were that were put into this project that that we paid for. And we still ended up working a ton more than we thought we were gonna work in addition to the hours we thought we would put in, we worked out a ton more. But yeah, like you said, this was, you know, the learning deal. This was my first flip. And I think I went into it with the thoughts of oh, this is, you know, we're going to make a lot of money. I'm going to put in, you know, some hours, a little bit of background on myself. I've helped my dad with projects since I was tiny, you know, it started off, you know, holding the light for him and his common saying, can you see because I can't. And you know, now we're up to the point where, okay, I'm doing some projects on myself.
Mike Gengler
You know, we've learned a ton about how much how much work actually goes into this. That would be the first thing I think I learned. And then by the end of it, I was just happy to be knowing all right, I mean, we're listing soon. So we're not at the final process here. But I mean, we'd have to we'd have to drop in price pretty significantly to not make any money so we're at least going to come out positive I feel I can say but really the win here is just the the massive amount of knowledge that I got from this.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, so I think for folks, then to kind of understand this the scope of the project, let's just maybe walk through a little bit, you know, what the work was that was involved on the property. So when we, when we kind of look at exterior first, right, we had somebody that came in and did all the siding for the house and the garage, new roof for the house in the garage, had a lot of tree trimming that needed to be done. And I think trimming probably understates the work that had to be done, because there was branches sitting on the roof. So it's a nice half acre lot, there's a lot of room there. And it was just clouded with a lot of clutter. So we cleaned a lot of that out, opened up the space so that people could see, you know, see all the room that there was, and then just kind of the normal, you know, throw down some mulch and that kind of stuff, too.
Mike Swenson
So I think that's Oh, in a retaining wall, right, there was a, you know, probably what a 30 foot long retaining wall about a foot and a half high, that was just old and dilapidated and need to be refreshed. So this is I think that's probably the scope of the exterior work, the junk removal was significant on the, you know, the, the garage was basically completely full of stuff. It had two sheds behind it, that were completely full of stuff. And so when we talk about the dumpster removals, there was just a lot more stuff than we anticipated that could fit into a dumpster.
Mike Gengler
Yeah, that was our first thing that we did was, you know, weekend one, get in there. And, alright, you know, your first thing you get to do is you get to demo stuff, which is pretty exciting. When you do it. One you just closed on a house. So you've got this house, and you're ready to go. And then two, you get to swing a big hammer, use a crowbar, whatever, whatever necessary tool, you need to remove this stuff. So that's, that's pretty fun. But on this one, we ended up signing and as his addendum, so we got all of the all of the stuff that was leftover in the garage and the sheds. And yeah, they were definitely full. I mean, now we obviously know we used for dumpsters on this project, but even looking back for the amount of stuff that was left over. I mean, that was it should have been at least two dumpsters that we thought about, you know, one for the stuff and one for the House Project. You know, it's the little things like that just knowing all right, I mean, this, this is just one house, but it was an 1100 square foot house, we turned it into, I mean, we didn't change the foundation size or anything but 1100 square feet to 1600. And we use yards of dumpster. So
Mike Swenson
you're not a big not a big house to be on with
Mike Gengler
Eye opening, at least in my part, to see how quickly those dumpsters could really fill up. So yeah, roof siding on both the house and the garage, the tree trimming, which is a complete understatement for how much tree trimming was done. And the retaining wall. And then on this one specifically, as well, there's one more tree still in the front yard, that his city compliance needs to be removed. So in our instance, the city has agreed to remove it, but they haven't gotten around to it yet. We'll be escrowing the money for that so that the new buyer does not have to deal with that they will, it'll just be already into the purchase agreement that the money's escrowed for it. And when the city can get to it, they'll take care of it. So again, like a lot of processes, just knowing, you know, city ordinances, and in this case, a specific city, you know, they went through and they had marked it marked the tree. So once we saw that,
Mike Swenson
and that was unanticipated, I think it was the probably the first week or two we were there. Yeah, that he had come through and marked all these trees for emerald ash borer, you know, in our street, and pretty much the whole town, they marked it. So when we bought it, we didn't know that that was going to happen. And the cost isn't isn't a significant cost. But at the same time, that's a surprise costs, I guess, are an unplanned cost that popped up that, you know, thankfully, it wasn't significant. But at the same time, it's not something we could plan for which, you know, I think that's some of the learning here too, is there's there's stuff that pops up you can't plan for you just roll with it.
Mike Gengler
And then the other thing on you know, as long since we're talking about ordinances, when we purchased the house, there was a sewer compliance issue. So this was known beforehand, and the listing agent had already gotten a quote, We verified the quote before we closed on the property, so that we could you know, so I don't remember that exact dollar amount, but we just use that in our budget. And that was another thing where, you know, just, it was known ahead of time, which was nice, and so we could budget for it, you know, it was an exact dollar amount. So that was something where we didn't have to guess. So that was really nice. I think we've talked about multiple times, you know, in the future that we would enjoy more of those exact quotes beforehand, because it was nice knowing for I want to say it was like 7400, I think, you know, for 7400, this sewer thing is going to be taken care of, and all we have to do is call in and say this day to come out here.
Mike Gengler
And so that worked very smooth, since it was an issue before the close of the house as well. And it was a city compliance issue, the buyer, we used investors to fund the fund the purchase, so the investors ended up you know, they had to escrow one and a half times the amount. So just being upfront with them about hey, you're gonna have to escrow 10, five into this account, but it's gonna take care of this, and that's already, you know, they were actually more happy doing that than getting the, the estimated amounts just because they again, they knew it's gonna cost $7,400. So there's no, you know, there's no unforeseen things happening on that side.
Mike Swenson
So then kind of thinking about interior Do you want to walk through just so people get a an idea of the scope of that
Mike Gengler
Repair, like we alluded to earlier, electrical, and plumbing was all done by licensed contractors. One, we didn't want to do that much work, you know, we already were taking on a large amount of work with what we were agreeing to do on the project side and to, you know, again, you know, they're licensed contractors. So we've got the permits, we've got the, the licensing, and so when we go to sell the house, we have all that documentation, so it helps on the on that side as well.
Mike Swenson
And there's things that they have to bring up to current code, or, you know, depending on where we're at, and I think, you know, they, they added a lot of outlets, you know, even so there's, you know, like you said, we added 500 square feet, so they obviously had to add stuff where we didn't have stuff to finish it off. But even the current stuff, you know, there was a lot of new switches, outlets, lights to bring things up to current code, that was really important. And so that was nice to have, you know, the, the licensed electrician to do all that work. And, and for the city to sign off on everything, that's what you have to do is have that licensed contractor do that work. So and even something that wasn't I would say we didn't anticipate in the beginning, like adding the waterline to add a dishwasher. You know, like we, we didn't think about that. And then as we started to talk about the kitchen layout and what we wanted, we're like, oh, yeah, we want to make sure I think somebody had recommended, you know, hey, this doesn't have a dishwasher, you want to make sure you've got a dishwasher. And it's like, oh, yeah, and we don't have the plumbing for that. So we need to hire somebody to do the plumbing.
Mike Swenson
So I think that was an example of unexpected costs that that we we kind of knew, I mean, obviously we we plan for appliances as a dishwasher, but realizing, oh, we need to add the water line. And then when we decided to change the layout of the kitchen, you know, moving a gas line. So having a licensed person come out and move that gas line, there's there's a few things that were unanticipated at that point. And then, you know, really the, the switches, the outlets and all that we had no clue what needed to happen. So, you know, we tried to estimate a rough cost at the beginning, but until you start to get bids. And I think that brings up a good point. You know, this was a property that we wanted to move quickly on, we didn't have time to submit out to everybody to get us bid.
Mike Swenson
So it was kind of best case guest scenario on the quotes. And it wasn't until we got the actual codes that we found out how close we were, you know, with some of those expenses, and you know, like the average person and I don't want to scare people, you know, the average person's not going to know what the electrical code is in terms of how many outlets need to get added what lines need to be moved. And so either you have to be willing to come up with a best guess rough number for your estimate before you buy the property. Or you want to risk bringing in somebody to come and give you an accurate quote, the likelihood of that property being gone as strong as well. I mean, you know, we made this purchase late summer, it was still a hot market. So you're balancing that risk reward of I may not have all the information. So I'm going to have to make the best decision I can with the information I have. And in some regards, kind of cross your fingers and hope you're close enough.
Mike Gengler
Yeah, absolutely. I want to say this was on market for like four days before we closed. So it was basically on market. And then he was called listing agent was calling for highest and best by the end of the weekend. So we were for sure in a situation where yeah, we need to just come up with our own numbers. Now moving forward. One of the goals of this project as well was to build the relationships with those contractors, so that we could use them in the future. And one of the things we would like to use them for in addition to the work is hey, we are really serious about property X, can you get over there in the next 24 hours and give give me a bit on this. And if you've already done business with somebody, then they're more likely to say yes to that. So that that was a huge Part of why we did this as well. But if you don't have that information available, you need to decide how willing you are to move, you know what your risk factor is. And if you're comfortable with your own estimates, and possibly being off on those estimates, then yeah, move forward with the property. And if you're not comfortable, then just wait and see what happens and then go with, you know, there's gonna be another property, and it'll happen for you eventually, but you have to make those decisions for yourself.
Mike Swenson
And I know, I think wrote with roofing and siding, at least, there was one kind of one rough quote, where they were able to just pull up Google Maps, and kind of mark and based on the square footage, give a quote. So I think that's something to where, yeah, you may, it may not hurt to have a few people that you could at least attempt to reach out before you put in a bid. Or they could let you know, depending on the quality of the interior pictures, you know, like the kitchen as an example, and electrician could look at those pictures maybe and say, oh, we need to do this, and this and this, but at the same time, you need to have an idea of what your rough layouts gonna be. So there's, there's some moving pieces there.
Mike Swenson
And I think that's the value of what we learned as well as, yeah, we're not going to know everything, it would be nice to just say, Okay, this property went live, let's line up our contractors, and at this time this person is going to come in, and we're going to have all of our quotes, and then we submit our offer, it's just not going to be that smooth and, and fair to to the contractors, like their time is valuable to they're not going to be they're not going to want to just sit and give quotes to everybody who shows them MLS pictures or, you know, whatever pictures and I may or may not get this property, I may or may not get the work. So we want to be respectful them too. So it's finding that balance between cost benefit for them of can you give us a quote, this is a realistic option, or just coming up with a rough number. And you're hoping we're high on a few, but we're going to be low on a few others, and it's going to balance out.
Mike Gengler
Yeah, and I think, you know, one thing we learned for sure is to get more accurate numbers, we need to have a more detailed plan in place for a lot of these projects, I'm, you know, when we closed on this property, when we bought it, I plan for the kitchen was redo kitchen, I'm pretty sure that's about what we came up with. And so, you know, we, you know, we knew, Okay, we're gonna buy all new appliances, we knew we were going to buy all new cabinets and put in new countertops, we knew we were going to redo everything, but we hadn't laid it out. You know, we didn't realize, you know, just small things, the the microwave needs to be on its own own circuit. Okay, if you know that ahead of time, that's not an issue. If you wait until afterwards, now you got to find a circuit. So just a little bit more planning ahead of time on a lot of these things would have kind of gotten rid of some of the headaches later on. So that's, that's a huge part of what we learned.
Mike Gengler
And then, you know, on that vein, it's almost better to take out more stuff than it is to leave stuff, you know, because we, you know, that first weekend was demo weekend, and we went through and we got rid of a lot of stuff. And then we're still taking stuff out, you know, a week or two before we, you know, finished remodeling, because it was like, Oh, well, we got to take this out now. You know, I think that'll come with, Alright, here's our plan. Everything that's not a part of this plan needs to go. And so that will, that will help facilitate knowing what's going to be a part of the plan is having that more detailed plan ahead of time. So even if we had, you know, waited another week, or even two weeks after we closed before demo weekend, and come up with a plan, I think that would have saved more time in the long run on the overall project time length due to the fact that we would have had that to look back at. Yeah, the other things we did. And then we started with 1100 finished square feet, and we finished over 1600. So some interior framing was done for that.
Mike Gengler
So a lot of the a lot of the space, one end of the basement, added a third bedroom down there, and then added a family room down there sheet rack would be probably the biggest nightmare in my opinion on the project. It was I think budget wise, we're pretty much pretty close on this one for estimating the cost. We're just about 100 times off on the amount of effort that it would take and the amount of time and energy so this would be one I mean, we're all in agreement that we will never ever be sheet racking money and or taping on any of our projects ever again. So if you're looking for some work as a sheetrock contractor, or to get a hold of us, but yeah, and
Mike Swenson
I think the scope the scope of it changed a little bit when we're also realizing like oh you know in In, you know, the living room as an example, we ended up re sheet rocking it when the initial plan was we weren't going to reshoot rocket, you know. And then it's like, well, as long as we're doing this, we'll do this. And so I think the scope of it grew over time. And then to just realizing I know, we all knew that Medina is a skilled, a skilled laborer, and we're not as skilled in that. But I think the amount of time to do that as Yeah, like you said, is just kind of what what's soaked up a lot of a lot of that kind of final push.
Mike Gengler
So we, I want to say it was probably like two solid weeks of sheet racking, just hanging muddy and sanding over and over again. So that was definitely a big time suck for us by the end of the project. Not all got done, but it was more more work than we thought it was going to be. And then yeah, kitchen, we got all new cabinets, countertops. And that was something again, where we decided okay, well, hanging cabinets. None of us have ever done it before. But that's what YouTube is for. And we're able to look up on there. And you know, with a level and some patience, you can draw out on the walls and figure out where everything goes.
Mike Gengler
And that that worked out pretty well. All the all the cabinets have stayed hung on the walls, which is nice. And then we redid one bathroom, I'd say partially got new tile floor, new vanity, some new new fixtures in there. And then one bathroom, we completely redid it was, I mean it was it was a bathroom, but it was barely a bathroom. So it was basically a roughed in shower, and then a sink and a toilet. So it was very, very basic. So that one again, all new tile floor, tiled shower, new toilet, vanity, all of that stuff. So mostly vinyl plank flooring throughout vinyl plank, carpet in the basement bedroom, since that would be a little more comfortable and warm for a Minnesota home. And then yeah, vinyl plank everywhere else.
Mike Swenson
I mean, I think if you, you know, take a step back when we looked at purchase price, rough budget, and then you know list price, we're pretty close to where we were, we thought we would be longer than we thought. So probably some holding costs are higher. But in terms of purchase repair costs, sale price, we were pretty close. And like we mentioned, you know, the stuff that pops up that we didn't plan for, you know, we had a furnace repair. And then two weeks later we had a furnace go out. And so that's an expense that, you know, wasn't planned for, and yet at the same time, absolutely necessary in the Minnesota winter. And obviously the new buyer is going to really appreciate a brand new furnace. We planned? Well, I think we'll know a lot of things to be able to plan for better. But in terms of the numbers themselves, we shook out pretty close.
Mike Gengler
Yeah, definitely. You know, I think especially for our first one, I think we were pretty close on a lot of things. And yeah, we came in slightly over our rehab budget and slightly under what we're listing for. But missing by those small margins still allows for a solid profit on our first flip and put in more time than we thought we would especially in the last six weeks or so. But again, that was another another learning thing is okay, now that I've done that, I don't ever want to do that again. So there should be a healthy profit on the end of this, in addition to the into the learning
Mike Swenson
Maybe four and a half months, is what it took. And I know a lot of people would like to flip, you know, maybe two to four months, maybe three to four months. So we were on the long end fry four and a half ish, probably front loaded our time less than we thought and we back and loaded it more than we thought and then you know, in the future, Mike, what are you thinking in terms of, you know, how is this going to open up some doors for future opportunities?
Mike Gengler
Yeah, I think with everything that we learned on this one, it's gonna allow me to better estimate, you know, costs on projects, process on the whole thing, and to me, so I'll be able to make not only quicker decision but better decisions, I think on properties that we find that are potential for this. So that if we're, you know, in a situation where, again, we have a day or two let's say to make a decision on something, we can go through and you know, take the tour ourselves of the property, get our eyes on it, put in our estimates and then determine okay, you know, are we within a comfortable margin for for what moving forward On this deal, and what would our high end offer be, you know, as you hold those numbers, and as you get more experienced at this, I think that'll be the biggest thing is knowing what to offer on the property, and how much you're going to make at the end of the day. And so, you know, the next step will be alright, if I'm not doing as much work myself.
Mike Gengler
Now, how much am I paying, you know, contractor, you know, a framer, somebody to hang the cabinets, somebody to do the flooring for us, you know, all the sheet rocking the first person, we're hiring the sheet rocker, you know, accounting for all of those things, and then saying, Well, is it worth it? If the if the max profit on this is only half of what it was on this first one, then it's still worth it, though, because my time commitment is 1/10 of what it was. And figuring out how to make that work. So that I'm still a real estate agent 90% of the time throughout the entirety of this process, rather than being a real estate agent for the first three months, and then being a construction worker for a month. So making sure that doesn't happen again, and having the skills and knowledge sheet rock sander for a month. Yeah, she Roxanna was a solid week of my life did not did not see that one coming. But that happened.
Mike Swenson
Looking back, you know, excited for the experience. And like we said, thinking about building wealth, it's going to take, take some sacrifice, to be able to learn some things in the future, or learn some things for the future, being able to be more efficient, sharper with the numbers, build some great relationships with people like that's the future here. And this was I talk a lot about, you know, treating the first one as an education, we got a good education. And, you know, it's something we can apply moving forward and be able to leverage more things off of our plate, and, you know, be able to share in the profits with hiring more people.
Mike Swenson
And at the same time, now we get time back, like you said, to continue to be real estate agents to continue to leverage what we do best, which is finding and picking great properties, letting the other folks do what they do best, which is the skilled labor. And you know, through that we should be able to leverage more flips or renovations in a in a year's time with less of our time. So, Mike, if anybody wants to chat with you more about what it was like being a first time flipper, how can they reach out to you or get a hold of you or chat with you?
Mike Gengler
Yeah, absolutely. You can reach me at [email protected] or you can call me at 763-477-2918 and if you're looking to invest yourself or have questions about being a flipper yourself, I would be more than willing to share my experiences
