Latest / Real Investor Radio Podcast / Ep. 97 | Dan Butler’s Journey to 3,500 Units: Discipline, Deals, and Lessons Learned

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Ep. 97 | Dan Butler’s Journey to 3,500 Units: Discipline, Deals, and Lessons Learned · Real Investor Radio Podcast

• Jack BeVier (00:14) Hey, this is Jack Bevier with real investor radio. My cohosted Craig fear is taking his son to college today, driving down to South Carolina. So exciting day for the fear family. So they won't be joining us today. But the show must go on and I'm super excited to have the time to speak with Dan Butler, a good friend of mine. We've known each other for a long time. we're in the real investor round table together and get to spend time with each other a couple of days every four months or so, and just talk business, talk shop, work on our businesses. And, that's been a great opportunity for me to, to get to know Dan better and learn a ton from him. ⁓ and so I was super excited that he had the time to, to come on the podcast and, ⁓ and chat with us today. And, hopefully, you know, we can learn some more. that helps all of our businesses. So Dan, welcome ⁓ to the Real Investor Radio podcast. Great to see you, Dan Butler (01:11) Yeah, man, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to do this and look forward to having the conversation. Jack BeVier (01:16) Yeah, awesome. So you, your business is super unique, I think, because you have a real estate business, because you were involved in a number of different businesses, not just real estate, though that was core is core, and was a you know, big piece of what you grew and you grew it to scale. ⁓ Can you talk us talk to us just about your about your business history? Dan Butler (01:43) Sure, yeah. Going back 20 something years, we did mechanical engineering at Clemson University. It was in manufacturing, actually operations. I realized I was not a good engineer. Fixing things was not my thing. Understanding it was good, but fixing was another thing. So I decided to move more towards operations. And I had a mentor in high school that owned real estate. And I would drive around with him, and I was kind of the grunt guy. to help him cut the grass, put a board on a window, it was, know, stuff like that, little small knickknack stuff. And I just remember just the conversations around wealth creation as an 18 year old, ride around in a truck with my mentor. So I just knew I wanted to do it real estate and, you know, all through the college was back in my mind. So then, you know, graduated college, went to Florence, South Carolina, was traveling to Memphis. and they offered me a job about a year later. So I moved to Memphis in 1998. Did not know that Memphis was one of the top. Back then, I don't know where it is right now, but back then it was probably top five in the nation around rent to price ratios. And, you know, we're a 55 % city of rentals, you know, like the number of persons, versus homeownership. So it's a very high percentage of rental as a percent of the parcels of housing that's available. So anyway, I just had a dual career for about 13 years. was buying, doing the BRRR strategy before, you know, I wish I came up with the acronym myself, but that's exactly what I was doing. I used a lot of credit on my townhouse back then. I would just buy one house at a time and leapfrog, you know, buy one, fix one, refinance, the next one. And I made a plan back then. I can remember being on a plane to California and manufacturing to get to 300 houses free and clear by the time I was 48. And I were totally me. Yeah. And so I made that. then the beauty of that and, years later, you know, looking back to that, and I just literally told this to someone, I mentor a lot of young guys now, young guys and gals, but just writing it down and writing down the plan and how at the other end of it, just how much other things can happen just because you stuck to like a plan to go somewhere and hold yourself accountable to get that. So. Jack BeVier (03:41) That's a hell of a goal. Dan Butler (04:09) Out of that came a property management company, a maintenance company, a lending company, a virtual assistant business, ⁓ and just other things around real estate. ⁓ anyway, that's the high level. And then we transition to some other stuff. I'm happy to go into that. But that's the early days to get to where we build a real estate business. Jack BeVier (04:33) Yeah, so you're you got a day job early on you've got a day job and you're how you find it you find in deals on the side of they like stuff you can find on the MLS at the time what year and what year we end. Dan Butler (04:43) Yeah, that's a great question. I started in October 2001. Bought a 19 unit apartment in an area town called Frazier. Thought I was going make a killing. Numbers look great, but I didn't know what I was doing. I was underinsured, no renter's insurance, had to fire the first month, burn down four units. But anyway, and then I got through that and I was like, if I can get through this, I can get through anything in real estate, kind of in my mindset. But man, I was hitting up. Jack BeVier (04:46) ⁓ okay. Dan Butler (05:12) I just saw all these signs, I buy your house for cash. And I started just texting those guys and because Facebook wasn't a thing back then, right? I mean, it was probably just starting. I can't remember whether you're a startup, but I would just, you know, I started with the local banks. Let me back up. And I realized that I needed to go to local banks to get my money and versus the national banks. And national banks, felt like I was just a number. You know, they were sending off my stuff to somebody in another city that didn't know me. and whether I was going get a lot of credit or a loan from them or not. So I got local banks and then I started working just with local wholesalers and I would be like, I would text them, hey, I'm ready. I need another three bedroom, two bath in this area. And I tell this same thing, like those guys don't really, most of those wholesalers as I'm generalizing here, but most of them don't have a process to disbow their houses. And so back then I would just be, Jack BeVier (06:07) Yeah. They get some under contract. They just start texting the guys that thing. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Butler (06:10) Yeah, they start texting and then try to get it moved. And so then I would just be like, I'd be ahead of them. Like, hey man, I need a house. I'm ready. man, I'm about to put 100 contracts, you know? And, you know, had like 10 people like that. And so I just would, that's how I, you know, went about it. So just top of mind, pushing and getting in front of them before everybody else and try to get that house. Jack BeVier (06:33) Are you doing like heavy value add or stuff that doesn't need a whole lot of work? Like what's your, you know, what's the profile of the properties we're looking at? Dan Butler (06:42) Back then it was one zip code to start and they were three bedrooms, one or two baths, usually 15 to $30,000 rehab. I I kind of figured out that, you you buy something cheap, still, you know, say 20,000, it might need 80,000 or you buy 40,000 and it needs 30,000. You'd rather do the 30,000, you know, cause... Jack BeVier (07:03) Yeah, no gold stars for doing hard work, know, for doing harder work. Dan Butler (07:06) No, that's right. Just a lot more what uh-ohs and you know, things that pop up on you. So yeah, probably a $30,000 rehab was kind of the norm back then. Jack BeVier (07:18) Gotcha. So you just started burn back in early 2000s. How did you or did you ⁓ avoid the trap of all the free money and inflating values in 2006? I mean, that took that took that period of time took a lot of people down. Dan Butler (07:35) You know, I'm sure you remember me telling this story, but like we actually took off when everybody else was going down at that point. And there's two reasons that I think that right off the top of my head, one is I had a great relationship with all the local banks. You know, I was paying my notes and I was only, you they were teaching, you know, remember this, they were teaching to buy it, fix it, get it appraised high and take some money out. And now you're making Do that 10 times a year and you're making $150,000 plus you got these 10 rentals and my engineer head could not figure out. It's like, wait a second, I'm borrowing money to have a salary and I still got to pay it back over the next 15, 20 years. And so I didn't do that. I just would buy it, fix it, and I would just try to get whatever I had in it, you know, And so that $65,000, I would still have 35,000 in the back of me, right? And so just kept doing that over and over again. Jack BeVier (08:26) Mm-hmm. Dan Butler (08:33) And then I put it on 15-year notes, you know, as you know, mean most people you talk to now are all 30-year DSCR notes and I just put it on 15. Yeah, the whole learnings got resized and I'm like my mentors taught me 15-year and the reason for that was, you know, if you paid that down for several years, you just do that. I did this the other day with another guy that I showed him a 15-year and a 13-year note. Jack BeVier (08:43) Yeah, whole markets gotten resized to that. Yeah. Dan Butler (09:01) You're paying that principal down so fast. So when things happen, it's like 08 crash type situation. I had options. I could reamortize it. I was okay if the interest rate went up. I was safe. But to answer your question about 06, 06, 08, so the banks were taking all those houses back. I was one of the few because the way I'd structure my loans, we were paying our notes on time. And so they just started calling us. I mean, it was crazy. I mean, hey, I got five houses. you take them? Take them and we'll ref, they would finance the purchase and the rehab. mean, you know, at a very painful, they wanted, yeah, they wanted the REO off. Jack BeVier (09:38) They just needed to move the inventory. You may know you're a good operator. And you were and you were in a you were in a I mean, that's a good cash flow market, right? Memphis is a good cash flow market. So you could you could make the numbers work on a 15 year am and still make the payments. I mean, there's a lot to talk about in there in the middle. But like just fast forward to today. Is that the case like or has have asset prices moved up so that that that that's models harder to pull off these days? Dan Butler (10:07) In certain areas, you could still do it. I think it's still doable, but what I'm most fearful of is the guys that are putting 30-year notes and taking so much money out. That's coming back around. You know what I mean? That people are flashing 30,000, 40,000-hour checks. Look, I just closed my house. I refinanced. Look, I took 30,000 out. I'm I want to put, I'm not one of those guys. like, in my back, I'm like, that's not good. Jack BeVier (10:09) huh. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's come back around. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. ⁓ Dan Butler (10:36) Don't do that, please don't do that. Here we go again, 08. So I ⁓ just encourage people, my whole goal back then, and it still is to this day when you talk about that kind of model, is just to break even and find your income some other stream while the asset pays itself down. Jack BeVier (10:54) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I a meeting. do this like, like this office hours kind of meeting every two weeks for for everyone at Dominion. And probably like, maybe like 25 30 % of the company shows up, which you know, I'm thrilled about. And, we just talked about real estate investing, like just whatever real estate investing topics, you know, lot of folks who work with us, you know, didn't come from real estate investing backgrounds, you know, they came from mortgage, you know, resi consumer mortgage. And so, you know, I just like, you know, and also just lots of people have personal interests in real estate investing. So like, why not? You know, why not talk about it? ⁓ But this last week's one was exactly what you just said. And I'm like, and that's gonna be I think the next podcast episode, we're going to talk about that. But I have this idea of like, this, this like Ponzi scheme. ⁓ I call it a Ponzi scheme, because it gets everyone's attention, right? You know, because when you say, but like, the idea of taking out debt, taking out debt that the asset doesn't actually carry. ⁓ and then use and, and, you know, talking yourself into the idea that it's like, Hey, this is, just got a tax free cash out. ⁓ you know, I don't get a tax bill on those cash out proceeds and it's like relatively cheap money. You know, I think people who would think about it, some people just think about it as, there's cash in the bank, you know, thumbs up. Good. Dan Butler (12:12) you Jack BeVier (12:22) And then a little slightly more sophisticated version of that is this is, this is cheap corporate debt, right? This is 7 % corporate debt and I can't go raise 7 % corporate debt. So if I'm interested in bringing in private investors at that mean the going rate on that's, you know, eight to 12, why wouldn't I take this cheaper corporate debt? Um, you know, but that presumes that that's okay. if you can always keep that money deployed at higher returns, and you're definitionally right, like taking some risk there by by bringing in that that extra corporate debt. And then I think that there's but and that can get you but that can still get you in trouble, right? Because you've got the deployment risk. Good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Dan Butler (13:03) Well, it's good. Yeah. Well, it's good till it's not. Like if DSCR, and I think y'all said something about Baltimore, like having trouble like DSCR loans, was it at Baltimore that they were saying they weren't going to do them or? Jack BeVier (13:17) Yeah, there's a big throw in the idea that happened. So a lot of people a lot of the city's been redlined. Dan Butler (13:22) Yeah, so they're not doing them. like if that stops, you know, it's the same thing though. wait, that's what happened Once the bank said that pendulum swung and I'm not gonna do that loan for you anymore You're like, ⁓ gosh, and it'll hold for several months but also now you can't pay your taxes because the cash was not there and then Jack BeVier (13:27) Yes, exactly. That was the cashflow model. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, yeah. So wait, so now, now substitute the word bank for investors, right? Like, I'm going to get money with investors and I'm using that new investor money to pay the debt service to the old investors. I'm like, that's what that's, that's, that's called a Ponzi screen scheme. Like, like it's, it's not that it's not as sexy when you do it with 7 % corporate debt. Dan Butler (14:02) Okay. Jack BeVier (14:08) But it's still the same idea in that you're building a snowball that's that's getting bigger and bigger and chasing you down the hill and one trip and you're done. And to your point, to your point, exactly. ⁓ I think the, in Baltimore, we're seeing the pause in DSCR lending or at least pullback in DSCR lending, you know, more stringent on the credit side, double checking those appraised values to make sure people aren't like, you know, using weird values. that is leading to some. some incidents of people's cashflow model getting disrupted and they're like, shit, they you know, shit, I'm out. Here's the keys. So we're seeing a little wave of that right now just for the exactly the reason that you pointed out that like, if that's your cash flow model, it's good until late and then you're done, you know. Dan Butler (14:54) Yep, you're done. I'm fearful. It's hard when we get older as you and I age and get wisdom of imparting that wisdom without offending somebody because they're all just young and hungry and just getting taught these ways and you're like, you feel like grandpa, don't do that son. Don't do that son, I told you. But you just see it. mean, it's just math. You just do the math and like, hey man. Jack BeVier (15:11) You're crotch, crotchety old man. Yeah. Dan Butler (15:24) And intuitively, they know that this is going on, that they're doing a Ponzi scheme that's going to, you know... Jack BeVier (15:32) Yeah, that kind of gets to like the if you believe right, like the math is easy to understand. It's easy to illustrate the point if you use the math where you know, if you if you invest in an asset that gives you a 6 % return, and you and the money that you use to buy that asset costs you 7%. How much money do you make negative 1 % right really, you know, you know, and then your return your equity gets nothing and actually your equity has to service 1 % debt. you know, one per that 1 % gap. like, that's definitely everyone, you know, it's obvious to everyone immediately that that's a recipe for failure eventually. But the what people get screwed up is that they get the expense ratio wrong, right? They, or, you know, they either they either don't know at all and aren't even doing the math of that. They just are been told to do a certain thing and you'll get rich doing this thing. Or they run the math, but they've run it wrong. And they think they're investing in assets that are a nine. You know, returning a nine and borrowing money at seven when the reality is they just haven't had a turnover yet. And that nine's going to get dropped down to a six once they get through a turnover cycle. ⁓ and they just, you know, their math is just wrong, right? It's the, ⁓ yeah, it's the, it's not the thing you don't know that gets you in trouble. The big short quote, the, it's the, it's the thing, you know, for sure. That just ain't so. ⁓ so anyway, yeah, that's a, that's been a topical thing. ⁓ I think I'm going to do another. Dan Butler (16:45) Yeah. Yeah. Jack BeVier (16:59) we'll do an episode about that and dig deeper on that concept. But so you guys, mean, so you made it through because of discipline is what I heard. That's the that's the bottom line is that you just didn't engage in that and had then a portfolio that actually had fundamentals behind it. And then you're the you're the only guy standing when nobody else is around. I mean, I must have been fun. Dan Butler (17:20) Yep. You know, the only, and then I would say the downside of what happened just for us was if your bank gave you 10 houses, for example, you'd have to take the good with the bad. And so we had to many years to kind of catch that back up, you know, same 10 years of just like, wow, we got a hundred houses that are in a terrible area that, you know, we had to create a system. Like, you know, if a house went vacant, we would say, Jack BeVier (17:33) ⁓ huh. Dan Butler (17:49) Does it have three years of green or three years of red? And we had a system like where it's three years of red, we're selling it. And so we had to create systems around there to call off because what was happening was, you we were having houses that were pulling down the whole portfolio. We didn't even realize it. You know what I mean? Like, you cause we run so fast and took out so many houses from these banks that we had to then call out what we had taken to get right sized on the right properties. Cause you, Jack BeVier (17:55) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Dan Butler (18:19) One thing I learned through that whole adventure, last, you know, just college 20 years anyway, but it's you can't will a house to prosperity. Because I'm hard headed. I mean, I always be like, oh, I'm going to make that, I'm going to put bars on the window. I'm going change the window units. I'm going to change the hard floors. It didn't matter because if that neighborhood did not support you being there, you know, it didn't matter which you could get a house for free and you'd still lose money. Jack BeVier (18:27) Mm-hmm. Yeah, so like, what's your what's your I'd love to get your take on that philosophy of like how to call a portfolio. ⁓ Because I think that there's so for example, yeah, like, hey, this thing is a dog. It's we you know, we just we just spent we, you we've been in the red for a couple years on this on this address. We should sell it because it's a dog. Or other side of that coin is, well, you just invested all the money that you needed to fix in the furnace, repair in the roof and like waterproof in the basement. And so like all the hard work's done, the things about to go, you know, about to be in the black. That was just deferred capex. And you should have done that when you bought the thing is all that the world's told you here. So like, don't sell that one because it's, it's stocks about to go up. You're about to actually get a real return off of that thing. Do you, you know, and then, and then I've also heard, Hey, do the rent by math, you know, kind of like other version of the, or, know, other side of the spectrum here is do the rent by math. And if the property has appreciated to the point where it's highest and best use, is the opportunity cost of the money that you could get from selling that house, right? Is the idea is that like, Hey, I can sell it for $500,000. I'm only bringing in $2,300 a month. That return on assets is not that not very good when you, you know, it's great on my, the 250 grand or it's fine if on the 250 grand I have into the house, but on the 500 that I could have instead of that house, I should sell that thing. But then those are also the highest appreciating assets. A lot of the, know, have been the highest appreciating assets, more stable areas, know, tenancy duration is going to be long, you know, because, because it's a nice area. like, what has been your, what has been your ⁓ philosophy on calling the portfolio? Dan Butler (20:34) I it's what you said, like if it's, we try to like, is it operational issues or is it CapEx issues? And so one thing is that we, if you look at my portfolio now, I've got like eight different property, we use property where, and I've got eight different portfolios and it's by zones of the city. One thing that we messed up early on in my opinion is we had them all in one portfolio. Jack BeVier (21:02) Hmm. Dan Butler (21:03) every zip code in the city all together. And it's just hard to see the data. know what mean? So then you really, you know, so location quality, you start seeing that when a portfolio over here in this zone is really red versus this one's really green. And so that's part of it. like, to your point, if the reason it was negative last year was because of the new roof, that's not the reason to sell. You know what I mean? Jack BeVier (21:10) Yeah. When you're not holding for location quality. Yeah. Dan Butler (21:32) You look and say, all right, your rental income matched what you should, know, 90 % of theoretical, whatever. But if it's like operational issues where like it's just getting hammered with work order after work order and, you know, turnover, two turnovers in a year, that kind of stuff. it's not as exact science, but it's better than just like, ⁓ just trying to hold on, you know, like, so at least I would just, know, for you to the audience out there, just put your own process in place. take the emotion out and just go after it, like try to get your numbers and like, you know, use some sort of system to do that. It doesn't have to be the same system for everybody. Just pick your own system that would force you to make that decision. Does that make sense? Jack BeVier (22:08) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. I've taken to, I go to all the turnovers. So like, you know, once every two weeks, I'll just, you know, go four hours and drive around and, and look at it and like, look, look at everything as it goes vacant. And, ⁓ cause I'm trying to identify like, all right, how much is this turnover going to be to bring the property up to like our, our renovation standard today? Certain things, you know, certain things got renovated 15 years ago when the standard was a little bit different. Or we might've bought that property at the courthouse steps and like leased it back to whoever was in who was, he was there, the previous owner, the tenant who was in the house. And so like didn't get really renovated. And so that's going to be a big, know, I'm trying to see like, all right, how much money are we going to need to invest? Right. What's the cashflow negative to get this thing back online? and you know, cause do I really want to spend $50,000 and then the other overlay is the location. Do I want to really want to spend $50,000 here? ⁓ and so we ended up calling like the stuff that's going to be high capex turnovers in lower end locations. Both of those being like the driver being that like, I don't think that I'm going to get great tendency duration next time, or like I have to spend a lot of money to get a great, you know, to get the tendency duration that I want. ⁓ and I'm trying to like weed those out over time. Dan Butler (23:34) And I mean, would you agree with this statement? I think the real return on the investments when you sell, you know, just that's because I used to be the big. Yeah. And just being able to redeploy that capital and something else, like extract it like you were somewhat earlier, like if you bought it for 50, now it's worth 100. But you kind of run the numbers based on the 50, but you go get 100 right now and put a 1031 or redeploy that to a higher returning, you know. Jack BeVier (23:40) Mm-hmm. Yeah, the big like in terms of like percentage of the IRR. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Dan Butler (24:03) And then not have to worry about that negative cashflow that we're talking about. Those are some of the things that I've just learned. They used to call me a house hoarder. I would just buy, buy, buy, and hold. And I still believe in that, but now I'm like, all right, now I start trading. You're trading up and try to increase your, use that equity that we're talking about to go from a C to a B or B to A or A to a commercial. Jack BeVier (24:07) Yeah. Great strategy. Mm-hmm. Dan Butler (24:33) So I've kind of pivoted now to just commercial. And I've really enjoyed that piece. And I can really see bigger numbers happening when you add the value, get the rents up, sell it, and then 1031 to the next one and get all that. mean, bonus depreciation is now come back up with the big bad or big beautiful bill, whichever side you're on to, whatever you want to call it. Jack BeVier (24:55) Yep. Hey, let's talk about, so, mean, you build out the property management business did, ⁓ for your, for your, for your portfolio. but you're also doing it for third parties. Is that right? Was that just, ⁓ because you wanted to, like, to afford the staff that you wanted to, know, to deliver the service level you needed to take on third party management. And is that, is that a business that you're still in? Like talking about, cause that's a tough, I mean, that's a tough business. So like what's your, what's been your experience there? Dan Butler (25:07) Bye. Yes. Yeah, I'm in here. Yeah, no, it's super tough business, but we had gone to scale. We were, you know, doing everything ourselves. I mean, I can tell you the days where I was picking up rent and signing leases, you know, on the back of my truck or, you know, I mean, without an office. And so we realized after we got into, you know, three or four hundred units that we can't keep doing. This is not sustainable, you know, to have a life, family. And back then I was still in manufacturing actually, because I was doing dual for 13 years. Jack BeVier (25:56) wow. Dan Butler (25:57) And so I just realized we had to start managing for others to create the fee income, to hire the people, to help manage ours as well. And so still doing that to this day, we manage about 3,500 in West Tennessee and three different offices, have a staff mixture of virtual and local. so yeah, mean, the thing that helps us from a third party management is that We eat our own cooking and we are, I'm part of leasing calls and I'm driving, if my stuff's not getting leased, that means my clients aren't getting leased. So what else can we be doing? So as owners in the own real estate, that's helping us drive and be on the cutting edge of whatever we can do to try to be faster, more efficient, more cost effective, all those things. So it's worked in our favor to have the scale. to get things cheaper, to get things more, you know, faster, know, people that vendors that now are like, you're the top two or three vendor for them. You know what mean? Like you have their attention and so you're like, so scale helps in that regard. Jack BeVier (27:04) Mm-hmm. Yeah, right. how have you guys grown from a staffing perspective, from an operations perspective, like, like getting up to 3,500, that is a substantial property management company. mean, is that, ⁓ is it, you know, is that 50 people in the office working off of whiteboards? I mean, you mentioned property where, but you know, how, how have you grown that and how have you turned that into a profitable business? Dan Butler (27:36) Yeah, that's a great question. We used to go to all the conferences across the nation, PropertyWare and ⁓ Narapum and different stuff and really learned around the virtual business about 10 years ago. Yeah, so that's when we made a pivot. We actually met ⁓ Alex ⁓ Hamani. Is that Hamani? You Dallas. You remember he was just one person in office. Jack BeVier (27:49) yeah, okay, that was the okay. Understood. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, Harmony, yeah. Yeah, Dallas, yeah. Dan Butler (28:05) and all these people in India. And I met him and I sat down with the first, one of first RIRs, I'll never forget it. And like, I was like, how in the world is he doing this? And was having these guys approve vendors, you know, at Home Depot and just all this stuff. And I went back to tell my business partner about it. He couldn't believe it. You know, and so, but when we finally clicked, was like, well, you can do this. You know, we went straight at it and, We kind of look at it like the local people are the naval officers or officers in the military and then the virtual or more your infantry, get it done, tactical, does that make sense? So, and we use traction for every department is using traction to like have good goals, key metrics, everybody has their number, you know, like. what's your one number that you're really trying to focus on to improve the business. And so your to-dos and all that stuff and your goals should match trying to get that number up to be more effective. Jack BeVier (29:10) How many people now do you use to manage those 3,500? Dan Butler (29:18) It's probably 50. You know, 50 plus. Jack BeVier (29:20) Okay. And how many Americans versus how many offshore? Dan Butler (29:27) probably 20 American, US, and then 30 virtual. And it's a little bit, it moves a little bit because some of our offices are now using in-house techs for maintenance. In Memphis, we're not, Dyersburg, Jackson, we do. So Memphis, that happens, our headcount will go up. And I believe in that model as well, just because having your own people. Jack BeVier (29:31) Nice. Dan Butler (29:52) you know, to be able to just go tell them right now to go to help Suzy Q that's having HVAC. You know what mean? Like just take care of people the best. think the more you can have internally, the better, in my opinion. Jack BeVier (30:05) Yeah, yeah, the control, you know, matters. Yeah. Dan Butler (30:07) The control, that's right. I hate saying control because I was like, it sounds like you're a control freak, but it's more about just being the best you can be and controlling it helps you. I can tell you a quick story. I went and got my HVAC, my plumbing, my GC license because several years ago we had a HVAC contractor who was supposed to pull all these gas permits. SETI had done them. People moving in in December can't get heat on because gas is not inspected. Jack BeVier (30:17) Mm-hmm. Dan Butler (30:37) And I'm like, there's a book called QBQ, question behind the question. It's all about personal accountability. We had read that book and I just really believe in the principles around it. And it's like, I can't blame him. What else, what can I do differently? And that was the light bulb moment for me to go get my permits or my licensing. So then I just go pull the permit myself. know I have my team, go pull it on the system, go get the contractor, go do it. And we know it's done. And so that was a pivotal piece as well. Jack BeVier (31:06) What's that? So question behind the question that that that's a book you said, ⁓ what tell me about that? What's the ideas behind it? Dan Butler (31:10) Excuse me? Just personal accountability. A lot of people say, why did this happen? Why did you do that? And it flips it and says, well, what can I do to help you with that? And it just flips the whole narrative around instead of a defensive conversation. I can't tell you in a conversation, it's like, all right, what do need from me? Well, I don't have this computer. I don't have this program. Okay, I will get you that computer. I'm gonna get that program. I'll see you in a week. Jack BeVier (31:37) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Dan Butler (31:44) And then you come back next week and it's like, you you do that several iterations. All of a there's no more excuses. They got to get it done. And if they're not getting it done, they're not the right person. Then that's a whole nother conversation. You know what mean? Like to me, it's just taking the excuses off the board is what the personal accountability is like, you know, how people get in silos and their job and like, that's not my role. And, know, an easy one would be like a front desk at an office, like, and somebody shows up. Jack BeVier (31:51) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dan Butler (32:12) and the front desk person's not there. And it's like, you would just walk by because you're not the front desk person versus, wait, there's somebody here that needs some help. Let me help my front desk person that's co-employee of mine. Hey, how can I help you? what can I go, know, something sense like it just flips the narrative. And then if everybody does that as a culture, you lift up because nobody, know, nobody's afraid to help each other out in times of need and not putting, putting the finger. Jack BeVier (32:18) Uh-huh. Dan Butler (32:41) You're more about what's the problem, you're trying to solve the problem and not focus on the person and just taking it out. Anyway, that was a, you we had the author come and did a, you know, a seminar with us and I'm a big believer that if everybody for your audience like QBQ, John Miller, it's a great book. Jack BeVier (32:46) Mm-hmm. Yeah, follow. That's cool. Thanks, man. So let's talk about the the rental portfolio. You grew a lot property management with it. And then you've gotten into lending, but you've also gotten into a number of other businesses. I'd really like to talk about that because I've always I found that really, really interesting and unique how you've approached that. When did you start getting into non real estate businesses? Dan Butler (33:26) Great question. you know, philosophically, one of the things I learned early on is competitors are actually your friends. And the reason I bring that up is I had a competitor friend of mine that we would go to lunch and we would just share ideas and share problems. know, at one point I had, given him, I'd done culture index, which you're very familiar with. I'm sure a of people in your audience use culture index, but personality surveys, I'd done his whole office. I knew his people better than he did, even though I didn't know them though. You know what mean? Cause I could see the, like, man, would tell them, yeah, I would tell them that CFO is gonna, was a CFO as a debater. And like that debater is not gonna last. And, he's great. was a, know, CFO with his previous company. And then a year later he's firing him cause the numbers were a mess. And anyway. Jack BeVier (34:02) Talk about the dynamic, even though you haven't ever witnessed it. Dan Butler (34:18) We gained that trust and he had invested in a Gustas Fried Chicken. And he called me one day and said, hey man, my partner wants out. He's got kids going to college and private school. Would you want to buy in? And this is part of the whole, when I sold Prescor and got out of that, I was kind of like, what am I going to do next? It was right about that same time when I sold the first private management company I was involved with. Jack BeVier (34:24) Okay. Dan Butler (34:47) and I bought in for 33 % and all of a sudden the next month I'm getting a check for a third of the net of the net profit. And I'm like, I don't know how to make chicken. I don't know these employees. I'm just, but I'm a strategic partner with the operator and the operator owns a third. He's in Knoxville, Tennessee. And it was just an eye, a light bulb moment for me to say, you know, cause you think about a rich debt, debt, know, the next book, know, cashflow quadrant. You know, you think about the employee. Was it self-employed, business owner, investor? And so that's, you know, I had made all those, the rounds, right? And so that was when I was like, oh wow, that's the eye that they're he kept talking about. And so I just went down this path of like, how do I scale that model to be a investor? And so what I did was I just, you know, Jack BeVier (35:20) Mm-hmm. Other ones. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Butler (35:45) As we've talked about, the local banks have been my big partner for 20 something years, all the banks in Memphis. And I just went to them and said, hey, find me somebody that's 20 years behind me. It's like a Dan from 20 years ago that low on capital, hungry, grinding, but just needs a little push, little edge, mainly around capital and then just advising. And so I found... Three or four banks gave me three or four different companies that needed that exact thing. And some of didn't work. Some of them weren't good, know, too risky and whatever. But that was one of the things I looked for was not somebody wanting money off the table, but somebody was going to take the money and take it from X to Y. So like, you know, we've talked about that ProHealth, the IV healthcare clinic stuff, and they were two clinics and using my money went to five and now it's self-funding. So it's just a really cool... And to your point when you said at the beginning of podcast, real estate is the catalyst to allow me to have the cash flow to do that. Real estate is still the core of everything. It's just allowing me to diversify. So when I go back to the banks now, I'm very diversified. I'm not just real estate heavy, which has been my whole life. And so now I see other streams of income that can now sustain different... volatility of the market or whatever is going on, you know, with the economy and stuff like Jack BeVier (37:18) Did you ⁓ did you ever invest in other real estate businesses? Because to me, like, like, hey, it's a capital intensive business, you've got a ton of experience operating it. Or would you view that as like, I already have those operations. So why am I going to spend time investing in that? Or any other reason why like, I've always thought like, yeah, like, find find the 20 year old version of me and provide, you know, hire LTC, you know, provide, you know, provide equity and guidance and help them build their, their machine seems like a neat idea. And I'm, and I'm like, pretty well. And since I know the operations of real estate, feel like I wouldn't have big surprises there. Whereas if I went to like the idea of investing in a chicken business, like I literally don't know, like what I have, I don't know what I don't know. I have no idea what the chicken supply chain is or whatever. Right. Like the, um, and that scares the shit out of me. Um, but, uh, Dan Butler (38:05) Yeah. Right, right, right. Jack BeVier (38:16) I mean, I guess, you know, are you, are you, did you just do a ton of research to get comfortable? I'm gonna hit you with like seven questions. Did you do a ton of research to get comfortable with those operating businesses or did you not, and, did you not like the idea of doing this on the real estate side? I mean, you know, how, how have you chosen with businesses you've gotten in and how have you gotten comfortable doing stuff that's outside of real estate? Dan Butler (38:22) Yeah, that's right. Well, I'm a philosopher profile and culture index. I'll start there. So part of my profile, how I was, know, God made me is to go try things, learn, you know, touch the oven, it's hot, don't do that again kind of thing. so, ⁓ but my background in manufacturing really taught me around P &L analysis, balance sheet, understand operations. ⁓ And so I really focused on that piece as far as any business I've looked at. just the health of the business and where the cash flow, the accounts receivable, accounts payable. ⁓ So that was more, and what I've really learned, and I've got a one pager that I've created for this, core values is most important. I start there, and then what are these in the cash flow, and what value can I bring? Because they're tools that I can bring, and will they be a good listener, a good partner? Because I've got some that I've invested in that don't want to do what I suggest. can import that wisdom. And so those, like I said, well, I'll never do those again. I want people that are going to walk along with me to do the things that I've learned. ⁓ so I think that's answers three of the seven. The real estate one, you know, like we just merged. That's why we're 3500 units. We just merged with Renshaw Property Management in March. And we would say, you know, if ⁓ Jack BeVier (39:51) You Dan Butler (40:06) we can buy property management companies in different bolt-ons within that, we will. But I feel like that's a solid, like, I don't think I would do another real estate venture, you know, like from a operational business perspective. Does that make sense? It would just be a bolt-on to what we're doing there. Jack BeVier (40:25) Yeah, we're trying to do it. Yeah. Yeah, make more sense to bolt it on. Yeah, follow. So talking about the in these operating businesses, because your your perspective on the the partners that you choose, and, you know, I want to dig a little bit deeper about like, you know, how you add value aside from coming with a check of, you know, important, of course, as that is, like, you what you mentioned that you've used Culture Index to help with that. What are the other like core values that you are focused on? ⁓ you know, and when you're hearing a pitch from somebody, like, how do you figure out fit versus not, you know, and, how do you assess the risk profile? You know, Mark, Mark, like I love Marcus Lomonas, like the, that, ⁓ that show the profit. ⁓ mean, and whatever, yeah, whenever you've, whenever you've told me about this, that's the, that's the mental image that like comes to mind for me. ⁓ Dan Butler (41:12) people process product. Jack BeVier (41:20) You know, how similar or dissimilar is it from that? Dan Butler (41:24) Yeah, I mean, I think ⁓ it's just like even with the lending, as you know, we're both involved in lending and just the client. Like when I'm looking forward, when the going gets tough, the character of that person, know, what's the weather going to do in the hard times? ⁓ You know, how well they live in their life, you know, they suck in the business dry. Are they really, you know, where's the money going? ⁓ You know, are they are they a good listener? You know, like Do they listen to what you're trying to impart and do they enact some of the stuff that you're imparting? But obviously, humility, integrity, long-term partnerships, that kind of mentality versus a transactional relationship, those are very important to me. But the other big thing I would say is I've learned to take it slow. We bought a business where the guys were pushing to close and... ⁓ close this month and we should have waited a month to get all the rest of the due diligence and stuff finished up. it just turns into a disaster. It creates the opportunity to have a disaster. So just take it slow, get to know the person or the team and who's part of it's like, what's your role? What are you doing? So for me, I don't want to be the operator. That's one thing I've learned several years ago that that's not what I want to be doing at this phase. So I want to be a trusted advisor, critique, accountability partner, capital partner, that kind of thing. So that's kind of my role that I want to kind of sit in and just be there. One thing that the partners I do have that have come to me and they're like, man, we just love when you pick up the phone and just talk through a problem with you and you help us solve it. And so that's where I feel like I want to be in that lane. Jack BeVier (43:15) much time? ⁓ How much like what's your week look like? Right? You got tons of different verticals going on here. How do you how do you manage that time? How much time a week are you willing to spend on each business? Dan Butler (43:21) Bye. ⁓ Most of the business I'm not spending hardly any time. mean, like it's a once a month call, a once a week report. know, I keep a one thing I learned from the banks, you know, four or five years ago, they kept talking about global cashflow. So I keep nice spreadsheets to show all the LLCs and the revenue and the net income and the margins and my percentage of the equity that should be coming to me so that the banks clearly see. It's for the banks, but I've also learned it's come for me. like, to your point, where should I put more time or more money or what's, you know, oh wow, this one's struggling. We need to have a conversation. Like, it's going, you know, trending in the wrong direction. But the majority of my time, to be honest with you, it's like, it's, you know, a few hours on each business and then the lending business probably takes the most of my time. I think I talked about that the last RIR, but like, just because I'm still at face. I'm out there talking to clients. I love it because I love one thing I did, Dan Sullivan, I did a lot of his books and podcasts. I just learned I love doing deals. I love coaching people. Lending business gives me that. Two passions all in one. I'm doing a deal because I'm doing alone, but it's really their deal that I'm learning, helping build them up to create wealth. Does that make sense? Jack BeVier (44:55) Yeah, 100%. Dan Butler (44:56) So I'm trying to step back and answer your question. The majority of my time is mentoring others is what I would say. Meeting with people, coaching them, trying to tell them not to do these cash out stuff. Those kind of conversations. I just feel like I'm trying to help people, save them from themselves in some instances. But just, again. I meet with people all time that I'm not involved with their business. They're just looking for help in their business or career decision. And so that's where a lot of my time, know, thankfully the way I've set it up, the majority of my time can be just, you know, serving others and not so much in the businesses. Jack BeVier (45:38) Yeah, I follow. What is that we're like, is that where the dopamine rushes are coming from these days of is that nice. Dan Butler (45:45) Besides a cold lunch. Did one right before the show actually, just to make sure I was ready to go. Jack BeVier (45:55) That's great. That's awesome. That's awesome. So what's your what's your view on the market? Like, what do you think? You know, are you you know, you're leaning into things right now? ⁓ You know, any macro that you're concerned about? Like, just kind of what's your what's your outlook on the next 612 months? Dan Butler (46:10) Man, yeah, it's tough. I watch the markets every day, the CNBCs and listen to the CEOs and the different government officials like Scott Bessmer was on this morning just talking about tariffs and the Fed rates and all that stuff. I just feel like, I'm just a big believer that you never stop moving. You just might need to move your needle of what you're investing in or what you're buying, or you might have to make 10 offers instead of one offer. Kind of like stocks with dollar cost averaging, I just feel like you've got to keep moving forward. Obviously, protecting yourself, but ⁓ I think for me, I think once the interest rates, if they move a little bit, I think we'll see an uptick in the sales, which is going to help us all. ⁓ But I don't see, I mean, the rental market, I think it's going to continue. I it's good, but I feel like there's... people that are kind of in this weird, like in Memphis specifically, I could talk like people are like living together, two families in one. And so you start, start this past year, you've seen like rental, know, rental volume availability go up. And a lot of that's related to like people living in same households. Like it reminds me of 08, you know, so we got to figure out that piece. And I feel like, you know, when the Fed chair got the Fed guy came from Atlanta last RRR or maybe it two ago. Jack BeVier (47:38) Yeah, Dominic, yeah. Dan Butler (47:38) You notice that smartly did around the affordability. That's what's scary to me. The percentage of our income that has to go to buy a house right now. But what stuck out to me is from, we're investors, it's like, we need to keep buying houses and running because they can't afford to, you know, and I guess I could get into a moral conversation like, well, that's not helping the system. But I mean, I'm always like, well, I'll sell anything I have. to somebody who wants to own a home, I totally believe in homeownership. like, they just can't do it right now for whatever reason. Does that make sense? What are your thoughts on the market? How would you? Jack BeVier (48:15) Yeah. Yeah, ⁓ no, I'm concerned about the softness, especially now that the spring is over. I'm concerned that there's some underlying fragility because of how easy it's been to get DSCR loans, frankly, I mean, we've been a purveyor of them. Because like you said, you know, like, I'm like, hey, I'm selling, you know, I'm selling shovels, you know, like, ⁓ And everyone wants to, you everyone wants to buy one. So, you know, Hey, um, Dan Butler (48:48) And people were buying shovels. Right. I'll keep selling them. Jack BeVier (48:53) but I am also like trying to keep tabs on like, Hey, how's that? How's that going to affect the market? And are there, um, and no one expected to be in this higher interest rate environment for as long as we have, right? Like remember when, remember when we were in the higher interest rate environment, right? Like the first like six, 12 months of it, and it was, um, by the house, date, the rate. Well, that didn't work out. Dan Butler (49:16) you Jack BeVier (49:17) like that even you pretty much married that rate, you know, it's there hasn't been an opportunity to, you know, everyone thought that that was a temporary business decision that they were making for a year or two. And, you know, here we are walking into year three with kind of no end in sight, necessarily. We're like with, you know, certainly. So you know, I think that there's more fragility, or there's more cracks that are starting to show. And the Dan Butler (49:20) Right. Yeah. Jack BeVier (49:45) I guess the DSCR, ⁓ well, when they get appraisals wrong, right? When, when the appraiser gets appraisals wrong or when someone like knowingly games the system to like choose their appraiser and then like Jack that number up, that's the, that's the closest thing that I've seen to 2006, 2007 practices, which is right when I got into it. So I didn't see like the, you, you had a much better like perspective on it. ⁓ then I did. Dan Butler (50:13) Yeah, I mean, was buying stuff at 8%. Back in 05, 06, I mean, when that happened, was just like, I was buying at like 8 % interest rate before. don't get it why I was freaking out. Jack BeVier (50:16) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't understand why or I'm surprised that I'm surprised that we haven't seen a little bit even more softness in pricing than we have already. And I'm wondering if this winter is going to be an interesting buying opportunity because of that, because interest rates are still high, and money is getting a little bit harder to come by. And everyone's savings is lower than it has been. And now the flipping markets not given any free lunches out. Like there's no free lunches right now. Right? Like it's just it's just kind of a grind to be in real estate right now. I mean, one of the reasons I like the lending business so much is that we're the debt and not the equity, but we are still, you know, actively buying houses in Maryland. And I got my equity hat on there and man, it's, that is freaking work. Like that is, that is a harder business right now. We keep doing it because you have a very long-term view and of investing in being in that business. And I don't want to, to your point, I just think, you know, we should just keep moving, keep adding assets, dollar cost averaging and keep the machine running. But it's tough to make cash flow work right now in that business as a standalone. Dan Butler (51:34) What do you think? Do you think DSCR, do you think you'll see a slowdown? That's the one that I just keep wondering. That's the biggest, if you ask me just the one, talking about the market, that's the one piece that I'm concerned about. Jack BeVier (51:38) I think we'll... Yeah, I think that ⁓ I think we're going to start to see some scrutiny on I think we're going to see like tightening of the edges of the box. Like I think the edges of the DSCR box may come in a little bit. Yeah. And I think the originators Dan Butler (51:58) You know, tighter. like credit score increase kind of thing and cash liquidity. Jack BeVier (52:06) Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I mean, we did like, we did a credit score overlay ourselves because I was having too many, you know, because we originate the loan, me sell it. But one of the things you know, if there was any fraud, at any point in the 30 years of the loan, they can make me buy that loan back if they discover if the loan purchaser discovers that there was fraud. So like, you know, so we've always been super on, you know, on, you know, Dan Butler (52:29) you Jack BeVier (52:35) heightened awareness of fraud as a risk factor, a tail risk factor for the originator. And then also there's ⁓ usually six months of early payment default that gets put back on us. So if anybody defaults in the first six months, we have to buy that loan back and deal with it ourselves. It's just a risk allocation idea. Their argument is like, you knew this guy, you could have known, you should have known ⁓ that they were going to default early. And so we have to, ⁓ we have to own that risk. And so I was getting too many early payment defaults, even though loan purchasers can, or are willing to buy lower than 680 FICO's, I'm not willing to do it because they were defaulting on too high of a basis, right? And I'm only making a point on like when we're selling these things. So like if I have to foreclose and they end up getting V wrong, ⁓ that's a problem for me, right? Like I'm all of my, all of my profits. Dan Butler (53:25) Right. You're welcome. Jack BeVier (53:33) you know, profit goes out the window on one foreclosure, right for 50. the ⁓ anyway, so we did our own overlays for FICO is my point. And I think that's something that the industry might start to see is ⁓ just more scrutiny on making sure that they get V right. So like more intelligence around the appraisal reviews is where I could see loan purchasers ⁓ spending energy. Dan Butler (53:59) Well, the biggest concern I would say in that piece that I've seen is that there's a couple of lenders that are allowing three mile radius comps. And I could throw you a bunch of million dollar houses right beside some within three miles to a $30,000 house. You know what mean? Like, and that just. Jack BeVier (54:09) Yeah, like tomorrow. Mm Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's a thing in Baltimore. That was kind of one of the fundamental things that allowed that fraud to happen in Baltimore was proximity to comps and they were going point six miles away. Nothing crazy. But there's a comp on the block like or the couple two blocks over like we why'd we ignore that one to go over there like, like that it's remarkable to me that appraisers. I mean, I understand the Dan Butler (54:34) Right. Jack BeVier (54:41) Like I understand why, like the argument is by the industry is like, we should give our members the discretion because they're the experts and they should have the discretion to choose the best comps and make that judgment call. And I'm like, yeah, I hear you. But, ⁓ I dunno, I'm a little bit more cynical about human nature, maybe and incentive structures. And to me, it's like, if you didn't use a comp near that's very close in proximity to the subject property, I also want an explanation as to why you didn't use that one, you know, like, because like, explain to me why you disregarded this comp a block over to go 10 blocks over, like, and both of those should be part of the analysis, not just, we just get to pretend this one didn't exist. And we went over here, you know, ⁓ I feel like that's the, know, that's where, you know, the hand waving and smoke and mirrors kind of comes into play. We're like, well, you know, they just don't even have that conversation. Dan Butler (55:24) Right. Right. Jack BeVier (55:36) You know, I'm like, that's an awful important conversation to not have to require. ⁓ Anyway, yeah. Dan Butler (55:43) A fellow local, know, is a friendly competitor of mine, actually went to dinner with him last night. We were just talking about just the, we're struggling with, we know the appraisers are pushing the limit and we're doing these loans and it's kind of like right there. I mean, you know what I mean? Like we're following that lead, but we know that at some point that could be our house. You know what I mean? Like it. Jack BeVier (56:07) Yeah. Yeah. That's, and that's the thing is a lot of private lenders have gotten real comfortable the past five years with the DS, since the DSCR loans been in, we've been a takeout, you know, the first couple of years, everyone was very skeptical and was lending based off of like, I'm going to take this house back. What's it going to, you know, what do need to be in it as a rental property number? But then you just saw the exit happen over and over and over again. And after a couple of years, you're like, they're going to get a $200,000 refi and be able to take me out at one 40. Dan Butler (56:11) Thank Mm-hmm. Jack BeVier (56:36) I'll be fine anywhere below one 40, even though without that idea, you might only lent a hundred, but like to your point earlier, like you're good until you ain't, know, until the music stops. Dan Butler (56:48) Yeah, that's true. Sounds like country, but that's how I feel. Like good to it, do or not. know, I think we actually, and I kind of took this from a bank ⁓ from years ago. We do the economic model as well, as far as like the economic cashflow to get a value based on the rents, not section eight rents, market rent, and make sure that if we took that house back, that we could rent it and would cashflow that I could actually worse. Jack BeVier (57:05) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Dan Butler (57:15) I wish I had planned A, B, and C. And the worst case, I'd take this house, go get it refinanced, to keep it for myself until markets change. You know what mean? Like, pay some debt down and markets change. That's an appreciation or whatever. Jack BeVier (57:23) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Dan, I really appreciate your time today. It was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. I was looking forward to ⁓ to us chatting today. So yeah, thanks. Thanks for taking the time. And if folks want to get in touch with you, how should they do that? You guys have a website email any any content information you're willing to share? Dan Butler (57:37) Absolutely. Man, Dan Butler, 901 at gmail.com. I just keep it simple. And then my phone number, 901-289-7888. It's the only number I've ever had for 25 years. I keep it simple. happy to talk to anybody that needs or just wants to talk through ideas or issues. I love helping and coaching. And mainly, before the podcast started, I love just imparting wisdom of what not to do that I did. that I wish I could have done differently. You know what I mean? But I would say, would argue, failures cause you to learn and grow and be wise. Some people get stuck and they won't do anything. so just failing, there's a book by John Maxwell years ago, I Failing Forward, got to fail to learn. Because otherwise you just sit on the sidelines and won't do anything. then you look up and it's 10 years later, like, man, I wish I had bought some real estate or whatever the thing that you're thinking about doing. Jack BeVier (58:33) Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's awesome. And that would be a great opportunity. I would encourage everyone ⁓ to take them. So take, take Dan up on that offer. It's a very generous one. Sounds good, man. So thanks. Thanks everybody for listening. Appreciate it. This has been Jack Bavier with real investor radio. See you on the next one. Dan Butler (58:58) Yeah.