BiggerPockets Podcast 029 with Dawn Anastasi Transcript

Link to show: BP Podcast 029: Using Peer-to-Peer Lending to Finance Deals, Cash Flow, and Fix and Hold Investing with Dawn Anastasi

Josh: This is the BiggerPockets Podcast, Show 29.

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Josh: What is going on everybody? This is Josh Dorkin, host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, here with Episode 29 and my fabulous co-host Brandon Turner. Hey Brandon you are fabulous.

Brandon: I love when you call me fabulous. That's the best title right there.

Josh:Yes, you and Elton John.

Brandon: Thank you, hahaha. Oh, can you feel the love tonight? Alright.

Josh: I will tell you, I'm not totally feeling the love and I will tell everybody why.

Brandon: Please tell them why, because...

Josh: Well, the reason why is this is now the second time we are recording episode 29 of the BiggerPockets podcast and you know it's not because of anything other than the fact that...

Brandon: Your sound quality was terrible the first time. It simply just was not very good Josh.

Josh: That was because I think it was the fact that when you recorded it Brandon, the show somehow magically vanished. And so we all did an hour plus of work, an hour and a half this morning suddenly the show disappeared.

Brandon: It did not disappear, it was corrupted. The file was corrupted.

Josh: You're corrupted.

Brandon: It was corrupted. I tried for two hours to un-corrupt it and I...

Josh: He did, he did.

Brandon: Who knows? Anyway, it's okay because the 2nd recording, it was awesome It was a thousand times better than the first.

Josh: It was great. So listen, the show is great and you find certainly at all, it's not the two hours of sleep I got and having to record this. You know that's why, that's why.

Brandon: Now this is one of my favorite... this is hands down, one of my favorite interviews we've done. So yeah, I think people are going to love this.

Josh: Awesome, awesome. Well, really quick, before we get started, going to do today's quick tip. For today's quick tip, we're going to talk about shared workplaces and the reason we're talking about shared workplaces is, this morning when we recorded the podcast, I was actually recording from a shared workplace, and we thought you know, "Hey listen this is a great opportunity. Investors who may not want to work out on their home office or garage or something.

Co-working spaces are really great opportunities. They're fairly inexpensive and you can rent desks and things like that. Get boardrooms and conference rooms and access to a lot of resources, by using a shared work space. I work out of Galvanize, downtown here in Denver and it's fantastic. If you've never thought about it, and wanted to get of the house and looking for an office, check out the local co-working space and shared work spaces. I think that's going to do well for you. Brandon: Yeah I agree, very cool.

Josh: Yeah. Nice. Nice. Well, today's show we've got a cool guest and really quick before we do talk about her, I just want to thank everybody who has left us ratings and reviews on iTunes. We continue to climb in the ratings, continue to get lots of great reviews. If you haven't done so, please do. We really appreciate it and it does help us get more visibility.

Today's guest is Dawn Anastasi. She's out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She's a real estate investor and been doing this for a couple of years. Buy and hold, primarily with single families and some duplexes and she's got some pretty cool insight. We're going to talk about things like peer to peer lending. We're going to talk about partnerships. We're going to talk about, you know, general landlording topics, so definitely stay tuned as we as we move forward with the show.

Really quickly if you've got questions when you're listening to this or any other show, make sure you check out our show notes. This show is BiggerPockets.com/show29 and what you can do is actually ask questions about our guests or us in the show notes. If you've got questions for Dawn, ask them in the show notes and even if you thought she did a great job and don't have questions and want to just thank her for her time, do that. Because our guests love it. So without further ado, I think we should bring her on. Dawn, thanks for being on the show, nice to have you.

Dawn: Hi Josh. Hi Brandon.

Brandon: Hello.

Josh: Hey, hey, hey, hey. Well, it is really nice to have you and we're very excited to get started here. Let's jump in really quick and talk about what kind of investing do you do today?

Brandon: Josh, is it possible to jump in really slow?

Josh: It is.

Brandon: You guys jump at one speed when you jump in into something.

Josh: Well, if you do kind of a time warp right, since Dawn here is super sci-fi freak like I am, if you're actually traveling at close to the speed of light... oh am I still geeking out here?

Brandon: Yep, still geeking out.

Josh: Are we on the air?

Brandon: We are. Dawn, welcome to the show again.

Dawn: Hi Brandon, welcome.

Brandon: Hi, yeah so let's jump in..

Josh: I'm a little sad I'm going tell you. I'm a little sad that Dawn didn't co-geek with me.

Brandon: We're going to leave you out there on that one, Josh. Alright, so we're jumping real moderately here and Josh would you like to ask moderately?

Josh: I don't even know what that means. What kind of investing are you doing right now Dawn?

Dawn: Okay, well, I am actually working on single-family, residential home investing. I do some duplexes but primarily single-family homes is my bread and butter. That's what I've been focused on.

Brandon: Nice and you do that up by where you live in Milwaukee?

Dawn: Exactly. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the land of Milk and Cheese. Believe it or not, I don't have a cow in my backyard.

Brandon: Amazing.

Josh: I don't believe you.

Dawn: I know completely amazing

Josh: Okay nice, so you're buying single families and duplexes and really quick, is that how you started or how did you get going and we'll just jump through that kind of quickly, not that it's uninteresting because it is very interesting, but you know apparently everything I do has to be quickly or Brandon is going to [inaudible] [06:45].

Dawn: I actually started investing in early 2008. I started with my cousin and her husband, believing that since he was a contractor that he knew what he was doing and with the plan of flipping houses was the goal and to leave a long story short which is probably good in this moderate conversation here, he got one of the two properties that we started with almost rent-ready and then things kind of just fell apart from there, and to all your listeners out there, I'd like to advise them on a quick tip.

All: Quick tip.

Josh: Yes! Ho, ho, ho. We love it.

Dawn: That, don't invest with family because it doesn't always work out as you would expect, so that is my first tip of the day.

Brandon: That's awesome and very true.

Josh: That's awesome. Actually you shouldn't say that's awesome. You should say, "That sucks."

Dawn: Exactly.

Brandon: That is an awesome tip.

Dawn: Yes.

Josh: The tip is a good one.

Brandon: The tip is an awesome tip.

Josh: It is unfortunate that you had a problem with said cousin's husband, the contractor who failed in many ways.

Dawn: Yes.

Brandon: What did you do?

Dawn: Well, amongst dealing from me, not finishing what he did, taking it 10 months to rehab a house and he was a contractor supposedly doing this for a living. That's just a few of the minor things that I'll kind of point out at this time.

Josh: Now, is he still the husband of your cousin?

Dawn: Yes, he is.

Josh: Wow. That's crazy. Is there like a whole ex communication thing going? And you don't have to answer any of these questions.

Dawn: Oh it's okay. We don't talk. We kind of parted ways and that's all where we are today.

Josh: Wow, wow, wow, wow. I am sorry and your quick tip was a good one because you know so many people think that you can just jump in and, "Hey, you know someone's so in my family would be great to work with," and ultimately what they don't realize is, you know, it's a marriage. You know, a partnership in real estate is really is a marriage and you have to get along and you have to trust them wholeheartedly and unfortunately, this thing, this situation happens over and again for a lot of people and I am truly sorry that you did have to deal with that.

Brandon: In podcast 27 maybe I think it was, with Jason Grote and Catherine Grote. They invest with their family but I think sometimes it seems to work out really well, but sometimes it works out terrible. I do not believe in renting to family or friends ever, because it always seems to work out bad, but some people seem to do it and I don't know what the magic is, maybe like, I don't know maybe...

Josh: I would love to rent to you, Brandon. That would be fun.

Brandon: I would not rent from you. You would evict me so... I have too many cats to rent anyway. Alright let's move on. So Dawn, your relative left the picture and what happened next? Did you buy more property? Did you hold out for a while, what happened?

Dawn: Well, he basically left me with two properties. Like I said, one was close to being rent-ready and the second one was actually completely got it down to the studs. So yes, I had to essentially come in and finish this property off. Put in drywall. Put in complete electrical, complete plumbing, basically everything. Everything that needed to be in there. There was nothing. No kitchen cabinets, nothing. I kind of got a trial by fire and worked my way through that with this property that was two hours north of where I live, so that was a challenge as well and had my first landlording experience actually with the first property, which was almost rent-ready and once I finish up a few small things, was actually advertising it and found a couple that lived in North Carolina of all things, that wanted to rent it. They saw the ad online. They had a family in the area that came by and checked it out. Called them over the phone to see what it looked like and basically packed up all their belongings and moved to Wisconsin.

Brandon: Whoa.

Dawn: That was my first experience as a landlord.

Josh: They never even saw the place before moving in?

Dawn: Other than pictures online, no, they actually never set foot in the house before they decided to rent it.

Brandon: How'd that turn out?

Dawn: That turned out actually really well. They were renter for over three years.

Brandon: Nice.

Dawn: Until the husband's job took them elsewhere and they were always good payers. They took great care of the house, so i think I was lucky in that respect of finding a very good first set of tenants for this rental.

Josh: Nice, and you do all the management. You take care of all these properties, only by yourself, correct?

Dawn: That is correct, Josh.

Brandon: And you don't like, do the swinging of the hammers or anything like that, right? You hire contractors?

Dawn: I hire contractors when necessary. I actually do swing a hammer, use a screwdriver various tools...

Josh: If I had a hammer...

Brandon: Keep going.

Josh: All over this land...

Brandon: Alright.

Dawn: Go Josh.

Brandon: Keep going. Wow alright, now that Josh is done singing... So you do, you do all the work, that's cool.

Dawn: Yeah actually, That's probably unusual for a woman in real estate to actually do some of the rehab work herself like drywall and stuff, installing light fixtures, doorknobs, ceramic tile. Things like that. It's probably pretty unusual, and I think that also kind of sets me apart from some of the other women in real estate as well.

Josh: Gotcha, gotcha. So you know, obviously you bring up the fact that you're a woman and clearly we understand this and it just brings me to the thought that, you know, on BiggerPockets, at least I'd say, with the audience, it's somewhere between 70 and 80% men. That's my guess-timate. And you know, I would assume across the population of investors, it's probably somewhere in the similar ratio. Maybe less, maybe more. Whatever.

Let's talk a little bit about that because as a woman, you know, I'm sure you probably have different things that you have to deal with than we do obviously, in terms of just interrelating with folks and potentially dealing with, not that you're incapable, you're obviously very capable, all women.

Dawn: Yes.

Josh: I'm sure not saying this in the right way. I bet you there's a bunch of people out there that give women a hard time as an investor and I'm curious if that's something you have to deal with.

Dawn: Yeah, Josh.

Josh: And I just checked my foot out of my mouth, by the way.

Dawn: Yes, I saw that, that was great. Okay, in terms of being a woman in a real estate investor, I think the most challenging aspect I've run into is dealing with contractors. You talked about 70 to 80% of real estate investors being men, well, if you look at the contractor side, you're probably up by 95% or more being contractors that I've worked with. And some contractors are perhaps older set in their ways and it's very hard for them to work with a woman. They're kind of used to dealing with the man of the house, so to speak.

Brandon: Hey little lady, is your husband home?

Dawn: Yeah, yeah exactly.

Josh: Is that what you [inaudible] [14:48] Brandon?

Brandon: That's my old man stuck in his lady’s voice.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon: I'll do that more often.

Dawn: So that can be a challenge sometimes when you know contractors don't take you necessarily seriously, and when I do find those contractors that actually listens to what I have to say and understand that okay maybe I don't know every single thing about their trade but I know enough to at least talk intelligently about it, and if they get that then it's actually great to work with them and have actual good ongoing business relationships with them.

Brandon: Yeah. So to the contractors out there. Get over yourselves. there's women in this business and you got to deal with them, right? And to the women, I guess you know, is there any advice that you might want to give to them in terms of dealing? I mean, what do you do if you call and you get nothing on the phone or you hire a contractor and he's cool upfront and suddenly he's giving you the chauvinistic crap or he's just kind of disrespect you. Obviously, you're going to fire him, but is there any way to overcome that or ensure that it doesn't happen? How do you dominate the situation?

Dawn: That's a good question, Josh. The biggest thing that I do is essentially, first and foremost you talk with your money so if you don't give them any more business, that's a clear indication that they're just not doing what you want them to do. You can kind of tell a little bit upfront when a contractor is going to be easy to work with when you're dealing with them on getting quotes. If it's very hard to work with them on getting a quote for the work, then you're kind of looking at having a hard time dealing with them on the actual work itself. So that's probably a good tip right there.

Josh: There you go, there you go.

Brandon: That's awesome.

Josh: Yeah, that's great, that's great. Well, okay, so you're in Milwaukee. You're a strong woman, who's crushing all those chauvinistic Brandon contractors.

Brandon: Hey. Hey, yes.

Josh: It's like the perfect ethnic man, actually. Yes. What price range are we talking about here? I don't know here in Denver, I guess in any city, you're going to have your high, your mid and your low. Are you working in the high end, the low end? What's your kind of niche?

Dawn: Well, I actually have found that my specialty or what I have invested in recently is more on the low-priced end. I traditionally try to stay within the $20,000 to $30,000 price range.

Josh: Wow.

Dawn: Yeah, that's definitely you know...

Josh: That's not just for like, the bedroom, right? Are these houses that have walls or..?

Dawn: These are actual single-family homes in the $20,000 to $30,000 range. I primarily look for the low-priced deals that need some rehab. They always need some rehab, but primarily either banked owned foreclosures or short sales, things like that, that you can get really cheap.

Josh: Okay, so I'm just curious because my neighbor just built a garage for $25,000 and it's literally like a giant tree car garage, I mean it's crazy. It's big as a house, but how much rent does a $20,000 or $30,000 house go for?

Dawn: Well, it certainly depends on the number of bedrooms and amenities Josh, but the range that I'm seeing in the Milwaukee area here is roughly around, and this is specific to the zip code that I focus in...

Josh: Yeah sure.

Dawn: Is roughly around $700, $800 for 2-bedroom single-family. Maybe $800 to $950 for a 3-bedroom and $950 and up for a 4-bedroom. Maybe somewhere around $1,100 or $1,200. I do have one 4-bedroom rented out for $1,100, So that's kind of a guideline.

Josh: So your strategy is to find negative cash flow properties then.

Dawn: No, exactly not.

Brandon: Those definitely meet the 2% rule.

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Dawn: Actually, 3% in some cases.

Brandon: Yeah yeah. And for those who don't know, the 2% rule basically means that the monthly rent that comes in is 2% of the purchase price so a $100,000 house would rent for $2000 or $50,000 house would rent for $1000. Yeah that's awesome.

Josh: And it's just kind of a general guideline.

Brandon: It's not like you have to do that to be an investor. It guarantees pretty much, not guarantees, but...

Josh: But we come close, yeah.

Brandon: It gives you a good indication you're going to cash flow like crazy.

Josh: Well that's over an extended period of time.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: That's essentially going to take into account all your capex and all your expenses. Yeah, 3%, that's crazy. And I already hear the sound of people getting ready to email you and get in touch and book in to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Dawn: No, did I say 3%? No, no. You got to stay away. This is horrible.

Josh: It's getting a little crowded over there. Hold on.

Brandon: The secret's out.

Josh:Yeah.

Brandon: No that's cool. So do you think, there's been a lot of debate on the forums lately. I've seen about people saying that the 2% rule days are over, and people need to start compromising on their standards, do you agree? Do you think people should invest in there, like, if they can't get the 2% should they come to Milwaukee or elsewhere, what do you think?

Dawn: My impression is that people really need to be comfortable with what they do because they need to be able to sleep at night and if the thought of investing elsewhere just makes them worry a little bit, then they need to keep their money safe and more for me, No, I'm just kidding. They need to be comfortable with whatever strategy they do because at the end of the day, you want to be happy. You want to be comfortable. You want to sleep at night. If you're okay, with let's say, 1 1/2 % in your home market, that's great. There's something to be said for those who do want to go after the 3 % or 3 1/2% type of properties.

Brandon: Yeah, that's awesome. That's a good advice. How are you then financing these properties? Do you bank loans? Have you always been using bank loans or what do you do?

Dawn: No, for the most part, I started off within Milwaukee investing by purchasing a couple with actual conventional financing. A single family and a duplex, and then starting around 2012, then I actually started making cash purchases with some of my own savings, as well as using peer-to-peer lending to actually get cash and make cash offers on properties.

Josh: That's nice.

Brandon: Let's actually talk about that. The peer to peer, What exactly is peer to peer lending?

Dawn: Well, peer to peer lending is essentially a method of financing somebody through a group of various unrelated parties, For example, I might put out an ad saying, "I need $30,000." Joe contributes $50, Sally contributes $100, maybe JimBob contributes $1000, so everybody...

Brandon: Oh Jimbob.

Josh: Jimbob.

Dawn: Yeah exactly, Jimbob.

Brandon: Jimbob, yes, Jimbob.

Dawn: So there's a group of different people that are completely unrelated that chip in little bit some money until you get to the full funding amount.

Brandon: How do you find these people?

Dawn: There's actually a couple of sites, peer to peer lending websites out there that work on matching up these investors with the borrowers. One of which is called Lending Club and the second is called Prosper. Those are the two sites that I have used.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: We actually do work with those companies as well, BiggerPockets does, and actually for anyone listening we've got a relationship with those guys. We'll actually put a link to both websites in the show notes at the, if you go the BiggerPockets.com/show29, that is the link to the show notes and there you'll find the links to both Prosper and Lending Club, and yeah, we've had some good chats with those guys and they're really good people, and it's great. It's so cool to hear from somebody at least on the real estate side, who's using those things. So how does it work? Well first, why don't we talk about the differences between the two?

Brandon: Yeah, Are they identical or why would you choose Prosper over Lending Club for example?

Dawn: Okay Josh, the differences between the two, Lending Club for example, has loans up to $35,000 each loan. Prosper on the other hand, has total loan amounts that you can take up to $35,000 but that's across multiple loans. Now with Lending Club, that's up to two loans of $35,000 each. So you can kind of see the differences right there .

The second thing is that Lending Club and Prosper they do rank your loan based on a credit score. They do it a little bit differently, but for the most part they do it pretty much to protect their lenders.

Lending Club is a rating system from A1-G5, so the rate that you'll get on your loan depends on your rating with them. With Lending Club you can have up to two loans at any one time like a said. However, the second loan can only be after at least the minimum of six months of on-time payments with them. So those are a few of differences that I've seen between the two sites.

Josh: And what about rates? So you're borrowing $30,000 or $15,000 or whatever, and I'd love to hear what you've actually used these sites to borrow for, what types of projects. First what are the rates you're getting that money for?

Dawn: Well, the rates of course depend on your credit score, like I said, but if you have a good credit score, you know over 740 or whatnot, you're looking at rates that are a little over 6, 7, 8 %, somewhere in that range. So they're definitely much lower than what traditional hard money loans are considered, and so that is also another advantage to these peer to peer lending sites.

Josh: Nice, nice, nice. Okay, I talked about rates, we talked about loan amounts. So for you for example, are you financing the purchase? I mean, these are fairly inexpensive property, so are you financing the purchase of the property or you're using it for rehab? What are you specifically using them for?

Dawn: Yeah Josh the benefit of my strategy with investing in these very low-priced properties is that kind of fits the target of the peer to peer landing sites loan amounts. So as an example, the first property that I purchased in 2012 was a bank owned foreclosure listed at $24,900 and I actually took at out a loan from Lending Club for $21,000 and I kicked in my own money for the remainder of the purchase price plus rehab work, and I was able to get a single-family home with a loan term of three years, at like a 7 point something percent interest rates. So that was a pretty good deal there.

Brandon: Yeah.

Dawn: Another one that I purchased using Prosper, which was the next one, was a property for$23,000 and I got a loan for $18,000 and then of course kicked in my own money for the remainder plus the rehab work as well.

Brandon: Okay.

Dawn: See, you can kind off see, it's a mixture of using primarily the peer to peer lending and then some of my own money as well.

Brandon: So what do the payments look like? Is that interest only, or do you actually make a payment?

Dawn: No, Brandon. It's actually fully amortized loan, so you are either getting a 3-year or a 5-year term, and then your payments are spread across that, just like the payments would be for conventional mortgage, other than the much shorter time frame.

Brandon: So it's almost more like a car loan? It feels like.

Dawn: Yeah, somewhat. Keep in mind though that your payments are going to be pretty high on a 3-year or 5-year loan, It's great for the strategy of getting one of these loans to get the cash quickly to secure and get the property and get the rehab done. It might be good for a flipper perhaps, who just needs that extra cash, but then if you're going to do a buy and hold long-term, for example, you probably either might want to let it sit for the three years and just pay it off and then you've got a free and clear property after three or five years.

Brandon: Yeah.

Dawn: Or you know do some sort of cash out refi after your ARV is higher, and then you can get basically all of your money back if you do it correctly and then have this property that has a much lower monthly payment on it

Brandon: That's cool.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah it sounds great, it sounds cool. Clearly it's going to be problematic in a lot of cases where you know you're working on a half a million dollar house and you need $50,000 or anything more than obviously they lend out though it sounds like maybe you can get, you know, one of the smaller loans. But it makes me think, for other people listening, I'm assuming this is totally closure, right? I mean, I know that there was a whole hollabaloo back a couple of years ago, when these guys, I think even one of them was shut down for a while. And so my question is, is there anything to worry about? Do they actually vet the deals before you can start getting investors on them? Fill us in.

Dawn: Well from what I know of these organizations, you're responsible for placing your own ads. They're not going to write the ad for you and they will basically verify your credit score and indicate if you're a home owner, those type of things. They put those details up so other investors can look at your details so they can determine for themselves, "Is this a loan that they want to fund?" So there's all these loans out there and investors can pick and choose the ones that they want based on the rating that the site gives the investors to choose from.

Josh: Gotcha, gotcha. You know it seems that this could be an interesting way to go, not only for the borrower, but also as a potential lender if you got some cash sitting on the sideline, it might be a good way to go to lend out some money. Have you tried that?

Dawn: I've actually tried lending money with both for Prosper and Lending Club. I did that essentially like a science experiment. I took a couple of hundred bucks and put it out on Prosper and tried to see what the results where. I actually tried that experiment with Prosper before they re-organized and so I wound up only getting $80 back out of my $200.

Josh: That is not a good return.

Dawn: No, that is not a good return, but then like you said, Josh they shut down for a little bit. They re-organized and I haven't tried that same experiment with them since, but I did try also with Lending Club and out of my $200, I so far have actually gotten a couple of the investments paid off already for the people that borrowed and I'm still collecting interest on, I think a couple of other ones.

Josh: Nice. Cool. That's great. So I guess in terms of benefits and downsides, what would you say as overall benefits then for these peer to peer lending organizations or using them at least.

Dawn: Yes, well as far as the benefits, I think it's been a great vehicle to invest in these lower-priced properties. I'm able to put an ad out and get funded within a week, a week and a half. So I can get the cash very quickly to be able to buy these properties and then it just provides an extra avenue as opposed to going to let's say hard money lender or trying to get conventional financing especially if you're over the 4-mortgage, you know, limit that a lot of banks have internally.

So those are the couple of advantages I would say. As far as the disadvantages, I would say that first of all, there are limits. $35,000 may not be helpful for everybody in their markets and what they're trying to do. Secondly, because the loans are considered unsecured loans, you may actually take a small hit on your credit score when you use these unsecured loans. I did notice that my credit score did take a little bit of a hit, but when I've been monitoring I haven't seen it deep that low as to be a complete detriment.

Josh: Gotcha.

Brandon: The thing that I would notice is, when I heard you talking about these in the forum a couple of weeks ago, I thought, "That's awesome." Like I wonder if I should try to use that. The thing why I haven't done it yet is because I want a refinance. I got a four or fiveplex dependent that I got to refinance soon and I'm worried that that would like, mess up my debt income. So that's something that people have to worry about. Because that's going show on the credit report, right?

Dawn: Oh absolutely, just like any credit card balance that you have on your credit report, these show up on your credit report as well. Yeah, it can fit in a 2-way strategy, as long as, just like any other financing vehicle you use it wisely.

Brandon: You know just sitting here thinking, I'm thinking that it wouldn't be a bad idea for somebody who doesn't have a lot of money but wants to get in to flipping. If you have found a really good deal, you can usually have a hard money lender to fund, you know lets say, 60% or 70% of the after repair value, and that might cover the entire purchase price or close to. Then you can use peer to peer lending to cover the repairs because the peer to peer lending isn't dependent on the property, it's not a mortgage, it seems like it could be decent way to flip a house with no money in to it, so maybe somebody can try that, I don't know. If somebody does let us know how it goes, if you tried that. I'd love to actually know.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great idea. Maybe you'll try it Brandon.

Brandon: I actually will. Once I refinance this fourplex, I probably will.

Josh: Is it four or five? Because you said four then you said five. I'm confused or...

Brandon: It's four right now.

Brandon: Yeah, there's a decommissioned fifth unit that I can't recommission until after I refinance it. So it's a long story.

Josh: That's kind of like your twin brother who's actually inside you.

Brandon: There is a long, I have a big, long post called How to Buy a Multi-Family. I'll put the link in the show notes and you can learn why it's a four slash five plex but yeah long story. Anyway, enough about me.

Josh: It's always about you.

Brandon: It's always about me. Alright so, yeah peer to peer lending. Cool, good stuff. If anybody else has experience with that, come on the show notes or the forums. Let's talk about it because it's fascinating, I think. So cool. Let's go back a little bit Dawn, if you don't mind to the world of being a landlord in the buy and rental property. You were talking about buying these houses. I'm wondering how bad are they? You said they only need a little bit of repair but how bad are you actually buying them for? What do you put in them to make them rentable?

Dawn: It has actually varied. There has been one property that I've put in maybe about. $1,600 of work and it had already 10 tenants in it, and I basically started collecting rent within 3 days. Another property put in about $1,200 worth of work and had that one rented out for $750 a month. You can find them all over the board and typically, the lower the price, the more there's going to be, but not necessarily. It’s all about finding the deal.

Josh: That's interesting, you know, some of our guys actually, our guest from podcast 1 Marty Boardman and from 6 Jay Scott, are I believe doing some work up in Milwaukee and it's fascinating. We've had some interesting conversations about it, from what I gather, I find it hard to believe that there's these deals and people just aren't clamoring all over it and I'm thinking right now in my head, you know the turnkey guys they're all crazy up in the North East and down in Memphis. Are there turnkey companies up in Milwaukee because it seems kind of like a no-brainer place where you know these guys can set up shop. Is that going on over there?

Dawn: I've never actually purchased from a turnkey place. I know that there are some wholesalers that are working in the area. I'm not sure about turnkeys. I know for a fact that there's wholesalers in the area because I've actually got letters, the yellow letters from wholesalers, so that's kind of amusing.

Brandon: Nice.

Dawn: Yeah, nice.

Brandon: You know I've never gotten one. Somebody should send me a yellow letter.

Dawn: Yeah, your [inaudible] [37:27]

Josh: Brandon's address is...

Brandon: I want a yellow letter.

Josh: He likes brownies, by the way.

Brandon: I do.

Josh: And he lives in Washington.

Brandon: Glenn [inaudible] [37:34] sent me brownies. Anyway. Enough about me again.

Dawn: Yes, enough about you Brandon.

Josh: It's interesting. I mean, it just kind of has my brain turning about this. You know I would think that folks would want to do that. You know that leads me to the next question, and I know that you're managing your own properties, but is there a pretty strong property management infrastructure in town there? Are there a lot of good property managers or maybe you have a little experience in dealing with them since you're not actually using any?

Dawn: Yeah Josh, I'm not actually using any property management companies myself. Since starting landlording, I have always been managing my own properties and I think that's just because I like the control aspect of it. I like dealing with the tenants one-on-one. I certainly know of at least, a property management company in the Milwaukee area I would not work with, but as far as those that I would work with so far, I have not spent the time searching them out yet because I have been doing everything myself.

Josh: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Well, so you're doing these singles and you're doing these multis as well. Why single families versus multi-family? You said you're starting to get into the duplexes but you know was there a reason for the preference originally?

Dawn: Well first of all, the single families will also come at a cheaper price point than the duplexes or the multi families. So it's a very small way of starting, and of course that fit right in with the peer to peer lending strategy of the $35,000 or less so that was a benefit for me.

Second of all, the single family home have multiple exit strategies which I really like. First of all, you can find a tenant that has occupied the property that decides that they want to buy it so you that potential opportunity. If a tenant decides to vacate, you can either sell directly retail on the MLS. You can possibly find just by word-of -mouth another investor by going to a RIA group or something like that, that might want to buy your property. So as you can see there's quite a number of different possibilities that you can work with single families.

Duplexes, primarily, maybe owner occupance. They're going to rent out the other half. I have a more limited pool of people that are going to buy that type of property. Then apartment complexes, for 4-families, 8-families etcetera. You're typically marketing only to investors for the majority of what are you going to do. So you kind of even have a smaller pool there. The single family just gives you more exit strategies and are less expensive.

Brandon: Yeah that makes sense.

Josh: Nice, nice. Really quick, sorry I was just going to say, that's pretty awesome. I mean, you know I think for a lot of new investors they don't really think out towards those exit strategies. It's like, "Hey, I'm going to flip the house. Cool." "Well everything's going to go perfect and I'm going to do this," or "Hey, I'm going to buy and hold and everything's going to be perfect." You know it's so cool that in your plan here, you're thinking about these exit strategies because I think it's a necessity, because things are bound to go wrong. Or you may not be able to sell it for what you think you're going to get for it.

Dawn: Absolutely and the difference between a single family and a duplex, I mean I guess my rule of thumb and this is what you call a tweetable, is: A deal is a deal is a deal. Whether it's a single family or duplex or whatnot, you just have to go where the deal is.

Brandon: Yeah that will be a tweetable topic in the show notes at BiggerPockets.com/show29.

Josh: Tweetable topics.

Brandon: For those who don't know what a tweetable topic is, go to the show notes and find out. It means you can click a button and tweet it. There's some fancy stuff going on there. So that's pretty cool.

Josh: And it basically gets the word out about. Shares these wonderful quotes and of course brings people back to check out the show and hear them, so yeah if you have a Twitter account be sure to tweet our tweetable topics. Say that 10 times fast.

Brandon: I was to say, add me and Josh on Twitter and BiggerPockets because we like friends.

Josh: Yeah and Brandon will link to us on Twitter. Our twitter accounts on the show notes. Dawn are you on Twitter, by the way?

Dawn: Yes I am actually on Twitter.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: So we'll add Dawn's account too. We'll all have a big, old Twitter party.

Brandon: Hey Dawn, how are you finding properties? These cheap ones. Are you direct mail or driving for dollars or MLS?

Dawn: I am actually just finding them right on the MLS, which is probably going to surprise a lot of people because they think, "Oh. these low priced properties. You're going to have to send out the yellow letters you're going to have to drive around. I'm actually just going for the low hanging fruit right on the MLS. I haven't even taken the time to investigate other options because these are just right out there for the picking.

Josh: So what you're saying, in case I'm hearing it wrong here is, I could go to Milwaukee. I can look on the MLS and I could find properties that require $1,200 or $1,400 in repairs. That cost me $20,000 or $30,000 that are going to rent for like 700 or 800 bucks and I don't have to like do any kind of marketing, because they’re just there.

Dawn: No, Josh. Milwaukee is a terrible area. No you got to stay away from that.

Josh: Because I'm booking a flight. You know what I'm saying? I'm coming down, I'm coming up.

Brandon: They're probably are like good and bad neighborhoods that, I mean a person like Dawn, you're going to know those. Like if somebody came to my town, they would buy they cheap ones then I'd laugh at them.

Josh: Yeah, and that was kind of a little bit where I was going to head is, it is so important to know those markets and know the niches in neighborhood. If you end up buying in the wrong place, you can find yourself a lot of trouble, right?

Dawn: Oh exactly. In Milwaukee, there's properties that are under $10,000 but those properties are in the areas that I would not want to walk around at night, so I definitely stay away from those type of things.

Josh: Those areas are called Detroit.

Brandon: I watched a really good video on Detroit on YouTube the other day and they were showing how awesome and amazing it's becoming so...

Josh: Well, they've got cool plans now that their bank is... now all the debts wiped out. I just like ripping on Detroit every two shows.

Brandon: Yes, we do. That's why we have those gap of listeners in the Detroit area.

Josh: So I'm just curious. You're investing in this lower-end neighborhood. I've invested in lower end neighborhoods. I have found that I am not built in investing in lower end neighborhoods.

Brandon: You're too short.

Josh: I am. Damn, seriously? I thought we were past that. Oh my God, okay. So are you finding that you're having a fairly high turnover? And you know, are you experiencing a lot of challenges? Because what I found at least in those neighborhoods, it really did tend to be a little more difficult. There are more challenges in screening tenants and more evictions. I mean, I've dealt with drugs and all sorts of nonsense. Have you experienced these things?

Dawn: Actually Josh, I've been pretty lucky in all the years that I've done landlording since 2009. I have never once had an eviction. I've never had any.

Brandon: Rub it in Dawn. Rub it in.

Josh: I’m having my first one.

Brandon: It's like a baby. I'm having. It is very painful. Just like labor. Anyway.

Dawn: Yeah Brandon. I'm sure there's a lot of women out there that are going to… [inaudible] [45:45]

Josh: All the women listening yeah. Everybody cry for Brandon.

Brandon: Yes. It's a hard knock life.

Dawn: Yes. So yeah, I have not had to deal with an eviction. Not had to deal with drug issues. Primarily most of my tenants have stayed, the first unit in Milwaukee rented out January 1st of 2012. They've been there ever since. The only time of turnover I've had is one of duplexes where I've gone through a couple set of tenants so I've had pretty long-term tenants. No evictions, no drugs issues. I think I've just been, either pretty lucky or I've just been doing pretty good job at tenant screening.

Josh: Yeah, rub it in that I sucked at it. Wow okay, pile it on, you two.

Brandon: Do you have any tips that you can give like, why do you think you have had such luck or good experiences with landlording and other people, just like Josh, have a horrible time.

Josh: Hey listen, you're evicting your first. Wait, it actually comes next to that. I don't wish that on you Brandon.

Brandon: Thank you.

Dawn: Well definitely, I would attribute a lot of things that I've learned; especially recently since I've joined BiggerPockets. Just reading all of the forum posts, different user experiences from all across the country, even though different states or different, you know the human experience is the same. The concepts are pretty much the same, and so you get a lot of knowledge and experience just by pouring over all of the forum posts. The blogs, the podcasts, I mean there's just so much information that it is just extremely valuable.

Brandon: Nice, nice. We'll give you your $20 after the show.

Dawn: Oh okay thanks.

Josh: No, that was totally an awesome plug. We did not again, pay Dawn for said price.

Brandon: Well I think you hit on a big important thing there. That's tenant screening. How important it is upfront, even if it means having an extra month or two of vacancy to have a good tenant in place, it will save you money in the long run.

Dawn: Oh absolutely.

Josh: Brandon, wrote a pretty good post on tenant screening, have you read that?

Dawn: I read everything Brandon writes.

Brandon: Yes. Yeah, I will link to that.

Josh: Do you read anything that I write?

Brandon: Josh does not write. You can barely read. Come on. And just so everyone knows my tenant that I'm evicting, I did not place her. I took over that property. We bought that with her in place. That's my excuse of why I have a bad tenant.

Josh: It’s okay, it happens to everyone.

Brandon: Yeah, not to Dawn. Alright, alright. You've been good so far, so yeah that's good. Alright. Let's move on to something, two weeks ago, three weeks ago four, wow. Time flies. We did podcast #25 and we interviewed four new investors and just talked to them about their very first deal and one of the investors, Mehran, talked about investing in Milwaukee. And he actually mentioned he partnered with you so I'm wondering how did that happen? Can you kind of tell us the story of how did you meet him and what are you guys doing?

Dawn: Well, it's a good question since I've been having such prosperity in the Milwaukee marketplace. I decided that it might be helpful to see if I could find out if there are anybody else that wanted to get close to the 2% rule etcetera in other markets that weren't doing as well. So I placed an ad out on the BiggerPockets marketplace, which is a great site for connecting potential investors to people that are looking for partnerships.

Brandon: Yep.

Dawn: And I was actually very surprised by the response that I got. Responses from people in California, New York, Chicago, even all the way out to Australia. Just in the process of emailing people back and forth, you kind of develop a sense of that person's personality and get to know what their goals and their strengths and so forth are. We just developed kind of a relationship over email. We started investing in Milwaukee together with a 50-50 partnership and it's worked out really well so far.

Brandon: That's awesome.

Josh: Wait a second if I heard you right, what you said was that you posted an ad on the BiggerPockets marketplace, which is found at BiggerPockets.com/marketplace and suddenly you had a people contacting you from not only all over the country, but all over the world. Is that correct?

Dawn: Exactly Josh. Australia is part of the world.

Josh: Wow it's a conspiracy that dawned on Josh. That’s awesome and yes I was aware that these things happen. I did my schtick here for emphasis, as to the importance of and the power of posting on our marketplace and yes, it's a plug. Sorry guys, deal with it. We got to pay for the show somehow. The market place is a great place to post if you have got deals, opportunities, things like that. I'm just so happy to hear that you had such success and such a great response when you posted there and obviously, ultimately, finding your partner there.

Dawn: Exactly. The BiggerPockets market place is kind of like the Match.com or the E Harmony, connecting investors to people that need to find deals and people that have deals that need investors.

Josh: I like that.

Brandon: Yeah I like that analogy, that's cool.

Josh: Yeah, that's awesome.

Brandon: We should make a dating site video Josh. I found my match at BiggerPockets.

Josh: And then you've got like Brandon and I running. Going up the hill, holding hands.

Brandon: Yes, it would be awesome.

Josh: Yeah, I don't know.

Brandon: Alright, so what made Mehran stand out to you, and how should people be doing that? What should they be looking to advertise themselves if they need somebody to work with?

Dawn: Obviously the first thing is not just to say, "I need money," or "I'm looking for an investor," but kind of describe what your goals are. I think that's a bigger part of it, as well, is what are your long term goals? What are you looking to get out of real estate investing? Are you going to be a good match, personality wise, because if you find somebody that you're just going to butt heads with on every decision, then the partnership is not going to work out. It really is, like Josh said, a marriage, and you have to find the person you're going to be compatible with, personality wise, not just investing wise.

Brandon: I love what you said there, that you just don't go and say, "I'm looking for a partner. I'm looking for money." People do that all the time. "Here's what I got, here's what I want." I mean, it's about like a relationship. You just don't say give me this and I think that's a really, really big tip.

Josh: And I'll take it one further. You know, what we see all the time and you know, this applies certainly for BiggerPockets, but frankly it applies everywhere. We'll see people coming on the marketplace and when they join BiggerPockets, first thing they do is post an ad. "Hey, I need money. I need a partner. I need this." And I'm like, "Oh my goodness," or like, "What are you doing?" People, this is a community of people. You don't just jump in and start begging for stuff, right?

You want to create a relationship, as Brandon said, establish rapport. Again, not just on our market place. Whether you go to a RIA and you're networking there. Or anywhere else, get involved. Get into the conversation. Let people start to know who you are, what you're about. Maybe after you've done that a little bit, then you can start saying, "Hey guys, I got this opportunity. I got this deal. I need a partner."

Brandon: And honestly, Dawn you and Mehran, both are two of the best I've ever seen in the forums at doing that. You guys actually, are part of the community and I love that because everyone knows who you are and everyone like, I ask you questions and you ask other people's questions. I love that, so good job on that. You're the ideal part of our community

Dawn: Awesome.

Brandon: Yeah. Very cool. So partnerships, do you do them deal-by-deal, case-by-case? Or you just full-on, it's a business partnership?

Dawn: Definitely a business partnership Brandon. After the investing with the family experience that I had, you know I was a little bit turned off by partnerships, but...

Josh: No.

Dawn: Yeah, hard to believe but I jumped right back into it because I definitely see the value that one person is not an island. They can't do everything themselves and having a good partner actually allows you to expand your horizons, expand your business and both people can grow as individuals and investors.

Brandon: Yeah that's awesome. Cool.

Josh: That is. Really really quick because we're very fast running out of time here. How do you screen your potential partners? Is there anything you look for? Is it like hiring an employee? You're doing background checks, things like that? Or what do you actually do? Or what have you done?

Dawn: Well definitely, first of all the personality. That's the easiest thing to screen for because you kind of know if you're going to get along with somebody or not; but you also want to check to see, "Okay what kind of income does this person have? What type of real estate investing experience do they have?" One person's going to bring a certain set of skills to the table, another person is going to bring a different set of skills to the table. You kind of have to vet your skill set and see are those going to be compatible?

Josh: Nice, definitely nice. Cool.

Brandon: Why don't we move on to one of my favorite parts of the podcast, which is known as the Fire round?

Josh: Those are my firing.

Brandon: Those are good sound effects Josh.

Josh: Did you like it?

Brandon: Yeah it was awesome. Basically were going to ask...

Josh:Fire round.

Brandon: We're going to ask some good questions...

Josh: I wish Dawn would put in on these.

Brandon: Alright, so refocusing.

Josh: Focus, get it together.

Brandon: Alright. We're going to ask some quick questions and with quick answers, Hence, the name fire round. These all come from the BiggerPockets forums, so if people have questions they want to ask, go on the forums, ask questions and we might pick them for the next fire round.

Josh: Fire round. Fire, fire.

Brandon: Alright, first fire round question. Do you take cash from tenants?

Dawn: Yes, I actually take in cash very rare instances, Brandon. Because I prefer to take money orders, which most of my tenants use to make payments, but on very rare occasions I have taken cash.

Brandon: Okay. Dangerous. Do you have anything any way to protect yourself if you're taking cash or you just don't do it very often?

Josh: Where do you get your cash? Where do you pick it up? When's your next pick up?

Brandon: I just realized we just told America what you're... anyway.

Dawn: No, I very rarely have any cash on me whatsoever, and if I do get cash it's basically going into the bank immediately.

Josh: Okay, this is not a fire round question. Your answer kind of got me thinking about safety a little bit, and Brandon mentioned it, but I'm thinking, you're doing showings or you're looking at properties. Do you have any tips, in terms of just staying safe and it really doesn't matter if you're a male or female, just in general, keeping safe as an investor.

Dawn: Yeah Josh. Just some quick tips for the listeners out there, is that you want to be safe and don't go walking around necessarily at night to look at properties. I do everything pretty much during the day. I have showings in a group environment, open house type showings on a weekend. I don't go looking at properties at night. It's always during the day, and I just don't meet anybody individually, one-on-one at a property generally at night. If I do meet somebody individually, I usually have somebody with me. Those are my quick tips to be safe when showing properties and so forth.

Josh: That's great. I think one of the strategies that a lot of people use is, particularly when you're showing a property to tenants, is to schedule multiple people to come at the same time. That way you eliminate the need to do the one-on-one anyway, and you're not wasting your time going back and forth 15 times. You have one schedule time, every day or something and show up and they come in and out.

Dawn: Exactly.

Brandon: Yeah, yeah. Right on.

Josh: Cool. Well back to the fire round, should an investor look into a short sale for their first deal. You talked about short sales and they tend to be really long and onerous, but what do you say about that?

Dawn: Absolutely Josh, a deal is a deal and sometimes short sales can really be great deals if the bank complies. I've even had short sales that have only taken as short as a month.

Brandon: Wow.

Dawn: Sometimes you know the bank has already pre-approved a price and they've had somebody else fall out, then you can kind of snap it up and you don't have to wait as long as what a traditional short sale might be.

Brandon: Cool.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon: What is the first tool somebody should buy or have if they're going to be a real estate investor?

Josh: Tool.

Brandon: You know like a tool box, tool.

Dawn: Yeah Brandon, I would probably go with a split between either a tape measure or a flashlight. Tape measures are always handy to measure dimensions and sizes and things like that; and a flashlight is great for going into the basements of properties, especially bank owned properties that don't have any electricity on.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: That's awesome. What would make an automatic denial when screening a tenant and I assume obviously, if somebody shows up in there and they look like Sasquatch like my co-host here, you will probably reject them?

Brandon: That was my nickname in high school.

Dawn: I'm not surprised.

Brandon: Everyone called me Sasquatch. Anyway.

Dawn: Well I have actually had one person show up to a showing kind of high, and so that was almost pretty much an automatic denial there.

Brandon: Yeah man, this is awesome.

Dawn: Yeah I know I'm pretty strict on that.

Brandon: I'll take it.

Dawn: But just things, like a recent eviction, criminal history, the basics like that. You're automatically out.

Josh: Yep. Agreed.

Brandon: Business cards. When is the right time to get them and do you absolutely need them?

Dawn: You don't absolutely need business cards. I think that's a myth when people are starting that they think, "Oh, I need to have a website and business cards." They focus on all the extra little fluff that doesn't necessarily get them there, but I've actually found business cards to be very helpful as a landlord when I go to RIA meetings. I can pass them out. When I am working with, showing a property. I can give them to potential applicants and then they can take that with them and if they have any questions with the property they've got my card right there and they can ask questions via email or give me a call.

Josh: Nice, nice.

Brandon: Cool.

Josh: Do you buy houses with bad foundations?

Dawn: I have bought one with a bad foundation once. It was only slightly bad, just a little bit bad. A little bit bad is okay. Got that fixed up and it was not a problem after that, but if something is crumbling and bad, I just stay away. I figure it's going to be too much money to fix up and it's not going be worth me getting my 3%.

Josh: Right on, right on.

Brandon: Aright last question of the fire round, and the most important question of the podcast. Are you, because you are from Wisconsin and I am from Minnesota, are you a Green Bay Packer fan?

Dawn: Brandon, you'll be happy to know that I do not care, one way or another, about football whatsoever.

Brandon: I'll take that as a no. You passed the test.

Josh: I'm a Packers fan.

Brandon: You are not. You are 62:20

Josh: I'm a Packers fan

Brandon: You don't even know what football is.

Josh: I may not but I'm a packers fan, so what are you going to do about it?

Brandon: You're out Josh, you're out.

Josh: Damn it.

Brandon: You're fired.

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Brandon: Alright.

Josh: Well that gets us into the final segment of the show. The famous...

Brandon: Foouur.

Josh: That was good, lovely.

Brandon: Yea that was pretty... alright. Number one of the famous four, Josh. Go.

Josh: Number one of the famous four, is what is your favorite real estate investing book? Real estate related book. Real estate book. What's your favorite real estate book?

Dawn: Well.

Josh: I changed my mind

Dawn: That's okay.

Josh: Yeah well forget it. Let's talk about something else. You don't want to answer then we'll have something else, okay? Okay? Okay? Is that fine? No, seriously. What's your favorite book? Favorite real estate book?

Dawn: Since I am very big into comedy, I've actually found that The Section 8 Bible is a couple of books that are hilarious for reading, especially if you'e been a landlord for a while. The guy that wrote it uses a term called elimination, which is not bathroom humor. It's actually taking things out of a rental property that that the tenants absolutely do not need and the things that he eliminates are just absolutely hilarious.

Brandon: Is The section 8 Bible supposed to be funny or is it supposed to be serious?

Dawn: I think it's actually supposed to be serious but it really is funny.

Brandon: Those are the best.

Josh: So is he like eliminating bath, sinks, you know, like bed rooms?

Dawn: He eliminates windows. He eliminates glasses. I mean, seriously.

Josh: Are yo serious?

Dawn: I am serious. You have to read the book.

Josh: Very classy. Section 8 Bible.

Brandon: I'm going to read that one. Alright, what is your favorite non real estate business book?

Dawn: Non real estate business book, I guess, it sort of relates to real estate and this is going to be a cliche. The Rich Dad, the Poor Dad. I think that everybody says, so I'm going to be very cliche in my answer.

Brandon: That's okay, it's a good answer. I was driving home from like Lake Chelan and I listened to it. It's on YouTube. So you can actually listen to an audio version of it on YouTube for free. I did that and I love...

Josh: I think Lake Chelan is a place we should all know about right?

Brandon: Well, I talked about it in the last, was it the last episode or two times ago?

Josh: That would require somebody listening to…

Brandon: Okay fine. I was in Lake Chelan and it's a beautiful lake in the middle of Washington and enough about me.

Josh: Alright, I've got a really important question. You know, Brandon clearly thought Green Bay Packer question was important, but this is the ultimate question actually. And the question is, Deep Space Nine or The Next Generation? Which is better? That's a Star Trek reference for all of you non-geeks.

Dawn: Yes. Definitely Next Generation. You can't beat that.

Josh: Nice, nice. And do you have hobbies?

Brandon: That's not part of the famous four, Josh.

Josh: You know what, Brandon. Get over it.

Brandon: You're ruining things.

Josh: Hobbies, do you have any? Okay that's the question. Hobbies, do you have a hobby? Should I ask it again, Brandon? Dawn. I'm so sorry, you know it's coming off rude, but you know as we said in the beginning this is actually the second time we're recording this and of course we are doing it again because somebody messed up, which I mentioned earlier. But you know. Anyway, I'm a little, you know... Dawn, I apologize for Brandon.

Brandon: Josh lets me out of the closet sometimes and I misbehave. Hobbies?

Josh: Hobbies, yes.

Dawn: Yes, that's actually a good segue from the geeky things because I actually love board games. Traditionally when people think of board games, they think of Monopoly and Clue and all that, but those are not the kind of games. I like more the Euro Games, Settlers of Catan is probably a more popular one that people have heard on, but there are like thousands of the board games out there that are just absolutely wonderful to play. There's quite of number of groups out there that play them on a regular basis.

Brandon: Cool, cool. Yeah I've heard of good things about Settlers of Catana.

Josh: And I don't know what you guys are talking about. It must be the generation gap.

Brandon: It must be, Yeah. Old guys don't know. Alright last question. What do you think sets apart successful investors from those who never seem to gain any attraction and get anywhere?

Dawn: I think the number one thing would be perseverance. It's very easy to give up when you've had a bad day, when you've had a bad week. Your yellow letters are not getting the responses. People are yelling at you. You're investing in a rental property, you're just not finding good tenants. You wind up with a gutted house two hours north of you. It's easy to give up on that things like that, but if you don't give up, if you persevere, then I think good things are going to come to you. That's the biggest tip I can give to people that are listening out there is sometimes you got to just keep at it even though you might think that things are challenging because once you climb that mountain, you're going to be at the top. You're going to be looking at things and your view is going to be awesome.

Josh: Climbing mountains baby.

Brandon: Cool.

Josh: That's awesome. Dawn, I have to thank you for your patience and your perseverance.

Brandon: And putting up with Josh.

Josh: You know this being our second time around, I'm so sorry. Listen, awesome stuff. Great show. Thank you so much for being on. We really appreciate it. Thank you for everything you do on BiggerPockets. I know there's a ton of people who really respect all of the time you take and all the great advice you share. So thanks for being a part of the show and the community and be prepared to be inundated by people who are looking for those 3% deals.

Dawn: Remember there is nothing to be found in Milwaukee.

Brandon: Dawn is now on the Chamber of Commerce. Thank you very much Dawn.

Josh: Thanks Dawn.

Dawn: Okay thanks Josh. Thanks Brandon.

Brandon: Yup bye.

Josh: Take care.

Dawn: Bye

Josh: Alright guys, that was a lot of fun. Yes I was slightly surly and I'm just mad at Brandon a little bit.

Brandon: Who says surly? What kind of old man says those words?

Josh: Ouch.

Brandon: I'm kind of surly.

Josh: Thank you endemic man.

Brandon: You're welcome.

Josh: You freaking sasquatch, you. No, listen guys. Thank you for listening. Hopefully you enjoyed it. I thought there were a lot of great tips in there. Lots of feedback. I certainly learned a lot about the peer to peer stuff. I thought it was really interesting. Listen, if you enjoyed the show definitely make sure to jump on our shows notes at biggerpockets.com/show29. Leave any comments, questions. You name it. Dawn or Brandon and I will be there to answer them or respond and beyond that just the usual announcement.

If you guys aren't following us on Facebook, make sure you do so. It's facebook.com/biggerpockets. In fact yesterday, we put out a pretty cool post with a preview of a new feature coming to BiggerPockets and that preview does not exist on BiggerPockets. The only place to learn about this new feature and get the preview of it is on Facebook, so we do things like that from time to time. If you're not following us, you're missing out. Twitter. we're everywhere. We're worldwide Brandon, We're on all the networks, aren't we?

Brandon: Yeah, we got multiple area codes, wooh.

Josh: I don't get that. It must be the old thing.

Brandon: It's a rap. It's a rap song. Anyway.

Josh: Yes, yes.

Brandon: Continue.

Josh: Yes, I shall. Otherwise if you're not on our website, BiggerPockets. It is a fantastic community, as you might gather from listening. Our lovely guest, Dawn, has found partners from the show and much more. Definitely jump on, engage, get involved, participate. If you're looking to promote a property or looking for financing or you've got financing. Looking for partners. You can post all that in the market place, it's fantastic. Finally for anyone left talking and listening, or what you’re on, if you guys haven't checked it out, definitely check out our recently launched BiggerPockets flipping calculator. I know the show didn't really talk about flipping but yeah I've got time to talk and I'm going to talk about it.

The calculator can be found at biggerpockets.com/calc and it's great. It's really a fantastic tool. Brandon actually did a cool tutorial on the calculator and we'll link to that on the show notes as well.

With that, I'm going to let you go. Thanks again to everybody. We appreciate your listenership. We'll see you on show 30 and thanks for being here and thank you to Brandon for screwing up my day.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: Yeah, did you like that?

Brandon: Yeah, that was wonderful.

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