Harness the Power of Military Intelligence in Creative Fin Projects

Brett McCollum (00:00.97)
All right guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Brett McCollum, and I’m here today with Austin LeFevre. And today we’re going to be talking about going from military intelligence to real estate investing. All right, before we do guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs to 5X their businesses and allow them to build the business that they’ve always wanted and allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Without further ado guys, Austin, welcome to the show, man.

Austin LeFevre (00:26.495)
Hey, good time. Welcome to the show, man. What’s up?

Brett McCollum (00:30.702)
Perfect man, we talked for a while pre-show, man, getting to know each other a little bit and I’m incredibly excited to do this episode with you. I know you’ve got a lot to unpack and share with us and it’s gonna be fun, man. So tell us, man, catch us up to speed a little bit. Who’s Austin Lefevre? How’d you get into real estate? Give us some back history,

Austin LeFevre (00:32.895)
You

Austin LeFevre (00:51.603)
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know how far back you want me to go. I’m just, you know, little by little. I don’t know if I even remember that. So actually, yeah, I think I got interested because my grandparents actually odened a bed and breakfast when I was a kid. And I loved going there. It was just like, you know, I grew up in Las Vegas, which is this like hustle and bustle city. And they lived out in the boonies on this little piece of heaven and

Brett McCollum (00:54.776)
Day one.

Brett McCollum (00:59.594)
I know, right?

Austin LeFevre (01:20.767)
you know, is in the mountains of Utah. And I remember going there and just being able to ride four wheelers when I was like eight or nine and there was like, no, I had all the freedom in the world. I was like, this is so cool. You know, and, my grandma, which to this day at our bed and breakfast, we still make the exact same seven up pancakes with homemade apple cider syrup that she made. It was my all time favorite breakfast.

Brett McCollum (01:23.182)
Mmm.

Brett McCollum (01:32.43)
That’s the dream as a kid, man, yeah.

Austin LeFevre (01:46.911)
It is like it. I mean the pancakes melt in your mouth. They’re so good and

Brett McCollum (01:51.544)
You’re have to share that recipe, my friend, unless it’s family secret, then I guess I won’t ask.

Austin LeFevre (01:53.903)
Yeah. No, no, man, I’m one of those I like to share, but I will say this, though. It will never taste as good as it does at our bed and breakfast. For some reason, I’ve tried to make it like even, you know, I have a house up north in northern Utah. I’ve tried to make it in Las Vegas. I don’t know if it’s the elevation. I don’t know if it’s like my grandma’s spirit. You know, like, I don’t know. But it tastes better at the bed and breakfast.

Brett McCollum (02:17.558)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (02:22.238)
So yeah, that was like my first exposure to kind of the real estate world. I mean, I didn’t really know a lot about it, but at least I had a family member who kind of did something that was in real estate. So that was kind of cool growing up and coming for, you know, family reunions, holidays, we’d come to the bed and breakfast, the whole family, everybody would have their own room, you know. Yeah, it was a good time. So that was kind of, that was my first exposure real life.

Brett McCollum (02:22.318)
That’s wild.

Brett McCollum (02:44.022)
I bet that was awesome, yeah.

Austin LeFevre (02:51.134)
The other thing I talked to you about before the show is that I was one of those kids obsessed with Monopoly. Even though the game took six to eight hours or whatever to play, was like, I’m in, let’s go. would, yeah, no. I, even my family, we’ve played only a couple of times and they’re like, dad, you always win. I just, I love the game.

Brett McCollum (03:02.668)
Yeah, and I’m not gonna lose, yeah.

Brett McCollum (03:16.696)
Well, it’s funny you say that, because like we were talking, I know we were talking about that a little bit, but like the mental fortitude to play a game that long, to, as a kid and to have that objective, like I have to imagine, I mean, you know how it is, like how, Austin, how old are your kids by the way?

Austin LeFevre (03:28.094)
Especially when you’re a kid.

Austin LeFevre (03:36.296)
So let’s see, my youngest is eight. So it’s eight, 10, 12, 14.

Brett McCollum (03:41.698)
Yeah, so I know as a kid, like those pre-adolescent years coming in, that’s the formative times, you know, of our minds. I want, and I’m not sure, I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist, whatever you want to, I’m not, but I imagine that probably created some patterns in your mind even early on, you know, now that you’re an adult, you know, and you can like, yeah, maybe I did, you know, that’s really cool.

Austin LeFevre (03:49.126)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (04:02.6)
I think so. Yeah.

Well, you know, you know, it’s funny is like my mom, she even says it today. She’s like, Austin, I don’t know what happened to you because of our, you know, there were three kids, right? I have an older brother and younger sister and she’s like, of the kids, you are by far the laziest. And she’s like, but no, she’s like, but as an adult, I mean, you are by far.

Brett McCollum (04:26.062)
Thanks mom.

Austin LeFevre (04:34.352)
the most ambitious, the most driven, the most entrepreneurial. And so she’s like, I don’t know exactly what clicked for you. She’s like, I will say this though. There were a few things as a kid that really did motivate you. And she’s like, it was really only three. Food. She’s like, girls and money. yeah, and I was like, yeah, it really hasn’t changed much. Just the stakes have gotten higher.

Brett McCollum (04:38.062)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (04:56.846)
Track, track, track, yes.

Brett McCollum (05:01.506)
Yeah. Right.

Austin LeFevre (05:03.462)
I have a wife and three daughters, right? And a son. And then, you know, I love food. You know, I told you I love to cook, bake, all the things. And I’m definitely a foodie. And then, yeah, I love making money. I love the challenge of just creating something that’s gonna cash flow. know, for some reason that just, you know, gets the motivation, the juices flowing, so.

Brett McCollum (05:23.822)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (05:27.692)
Yeah, so, all right, when was the, what year would you give or take it? Because I know you’re, we talked, kind of gave a military intelligence, you know, is what we’re gonna talk about that a little bit. Like, did you enter into the military right out of high school? Did you go out? Like, when was that like?

Austin LeFevre (05:36.915)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (05:46.853)
No, it was kind of just, I mean, we, okay, so right out of high school, I actually went and served a two-year mission for my church. And I actually went to the former Yugoslavia. And so I spoke, I spoke Croatian and I learned that language, which is a very, it’s like the third most difficult language in Europe to learn. Hungary or Hungarian and Finnish. Those are the other two that are very, very challenging.

And then when I got back, was 2008 and I got married. My wife and I were, you know, we were poor. I was going to college. She had finished beauty school. So she was kind of the breadwinner. She was the one bringing home the bacon while I was doing school. I still worked, you know, part time at the buckle at the mall, you know, selling clothes.

But yeah, I was doing, you know, 16, 17 credit hours. So it was like time and a half that I was trying to just get college done as fast as possible. And then 2008, the crash happened. And, and my wife, they basically handed her a notice that, we’re closing our doors tomorrow. You’re out of the job, you know, and that was our main income. I was an ambassador for the college I was going to, so I had helped with like recruiting and that was part of my scholarship. And

Brett McCollum (06:42.156)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (07:06.814)
I ended up being at some event where there was an army recruiter and he was like, hey, have you ever thought about the military? I was like, I mean, I’ve always, even as a kid, I felt that at some point I would be in a military position. I don’t know why. I feel like I’ve always had sort of a forward thinking or just like a gut feeling about very big things in my life. I don’t know where that comes from, but.

I told them not really, but I was willing to listen. So I went and I went and talked to them. You know, I took their little test, you know, the ASVAB test, which tells you, you know, what jobs you qualify for. And they’re like, hey, man, you can have any job you want. Like you scored very well. So whatever you want, it’s open. But then. Well, then I went to the. Well, first I called my mom.

Brett McCollum (07:43.118)
That’s what I have to say.

Brett McCollum (07:55.234)
They told me I’d peel potatoes, by the way.

Austin LeFevre (08:03.74)
And my mom was like, no, I don’t want my son, you know, going to put his life on the line, this and that, you know, she’s definitely her baby, you know. Then she called back and she’s like, hey, I know you talked to the army, but our neighbor has been in the Air Force for 27 years. He said to go talk to the Air Force. They’re more family friendly. And, you know, you’d probably you could find a position that wasn’t as dangerous, you know. And so I was like, OK, mom, you know.

I’ll go talk to the Air Force. Well, the Air Force was in need of linguists and intelligence professionals. I already spoke multiple languages. You know, I spoke Croatian. I could understand Serbian, most of Bosnian, because they’re very similar. They’re all Slavic based and they’re actually about 50 % the same as Russian as well. So, you know, if you learn one, it’s very easy to transition into another one of those languages. Well,

Brett McCollum (08:58.83)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (09:02.398)
I signed up with the Air Force. were like, yeah, we’re going to make you a, you know, multiple linguist type, whatever. Well, I wanted to focus on, you know, Yugoslavian languages. So Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, because that’s where I felt most comfortable. And they’re like, hey, these jobs aren’t coming up. We’re all moving into the Middle East. This was during Operation Enduring Freedom. And so it was all like,

know, Urdu and Aramaic Arabic, you know, they wanted the Middle Eastern dialects and the languages going on in the Middle East. so my wife and I, though, like I said, she had lost her job. Our checking account was down to like, I think it was like one hundred and ten dollars. You know, like we were broke. And. And I just said, look, just whatever Intel positions are open.

Let me know like I’m ready to go because we need to get paid we need to get and then I had found out my wife was pregnant we didn’t have insurance so I was like I was like shoot like we need to find insurance because we’re about to you know she needs to get checkups and whatever else Actually, I want to I want to say something though This is something that I think the new generation doesn’t always understand and I don’t know if you went through this But I feel like our age group usually goes through this

We were very, very poor. I mean, very poor. Now, it was 2008. Obviously, the crash was a big impact. But we were scrappy. When my wife lost her job, I called my cousin. I was like, hey, man, I know you work at the local car wash detailing place. Do they have any openings? He’s like, yeah, I could probably get you a job. But then I was working a buckle. I was detailing cars on the weekends.

I would literally after hours go and clean out the vacuum pipes to get quarters to take my wife to the dollar theater and then share a meal at like fast food. Like that’s how, that’s how we had dates. it was, but, but I was cleaning, like literally this was discussed, like all the stuff you vacuum in people’s cars, pet hair, human hair, skin. I mean, it was nasty. And I’m cleaning quarters to cheeto quarters, nickel dimes to try and pay for these little dates, you know.

Brett McCollum (11:02.232)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (11:19.294)
And I think that’s.

Brett McCollum (11:20.704)
I think it’s important, I’m glad you said that because I think it’s important that we never lose sight of that. Because the reality is we’re not promised tomorrow, we’re not promised anything and tomorrow anything could happen in the world. You probably have enough knowledge in your mind to know like something could happen tomorrow that shuts things off and like we’re back to that like…

Austin LeFevre (11:26.374)
Yeah. Well, and that’s where.

Austin LeFevre (11:38.899)
Yeah. Well, and I guess that the lessons I learned was I became extremely resourceful very early on. know, I became a problem solver and I really think that’s what that’s the real foundation of investing is you’re a problem solver. And really, it’s the foundation of almost any entrepreneurial spirit or any entrepreneurial endeavor is having resourcefulness to solve problems for people, you know.

Brett McCollum (11:47.394)
Love it. Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (12:06.846)
In fact, this is a little segue, but yesterday my my general manager that runs all my properties, he called me up. He’s like, hey, man, our cleaner, he kind of bailed because she wanted to go watch her daughter play basketball for state. And so we have it was like 12 rooms that needed to be cleaned. And I was like, all right, I’m in. You know, I jumped in. I was cleaning rooms, you know, and it’s like, guys, I’ve owned this for this is my sixth year as an owner. It’s like I still I will still go to those

introductory positions. And what’s funny is I got in there and I was like, you know what, we’re missing stuff. noticed there were like, some gnats that like dead, you know, little flies on the ceiling. I’m like, dude, what is that? That is disgusting. Why is that not being cleaned? You know, like, and I had a list of things like, hey, these are things that are being missed. Had I not been in there cleaning the rooms myself. And then I was using the vacuum. I was like, dude, this vacuum freaking sucks. Like, like in a bad way. Like, I guess it doesn’t suck, right?

Brett McCollum (12:43.874)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (13:01.481)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (13:05.249)
Yeah, touche.

Austin LeFevre (13:05.502)
But I was like, we need to get a new vacuum. I can’t believe the cleaners have put up with this for this long. Anyway, back to my story. My wife and I started very humbly, like I said, ended up went and interviewed with the Air Force. And he knew what he was doing. Here we are, poor, starving college students. He took us to Chili’s and that’s where he did his recruitment was at Chili’s. He’s like, guys, order whatever you want, anything you want.

order it, you know, and so we, I mean, we did, we ordered appetizers, we ordered steak, we got dessert, you know, I was like, sweet, you know. Yeah, man. But back then, it’s slapped. It was real, you know. Anyway, so he’s like, look, if you, you know, sign and this and that, and we did, and then, like I said, I ended up taking the, it was a different Intel position.

Brett McCollum (13:40.408)
Man, Chili’s Circa 0809, that’s bringing it back. That was the timer there, yeah.

Austin LeFevre (14:03.91)
I mean, intelligence analysis is basically what it was. And yeah, that’s kind of the beginning of the story right there. And for the next 10 years, I was working different missions. I worked missions in the Middle East, in Asia, South America. We did counterdrug for six years. And then finally they said, I did a couple tours overseas. And they’re like, hey, look, if you’re going to continue.

you’re going to deploy for a year every third year moving forward until retirement, which is, you know that, and I had already missed, you know, plenty of time with my wife and kids. I, you know, between training and deployments, was like, look, man. yeah, I was like, I think I want to try something else, you know, and originally I actually, I applied for pre-med at a BYU. That’s how I ended up at in Utah. And I got into their pre-med program and,

My wife got pregnant with number four while I was doing that. And I remember sitting in class, I had just taken a test and I got like a 79 and I was stoked. I was like, yes, I didn’t even have time to study. And I was able to get it. And then there’s this kid next to me and he was crying, literally crying. Cause he got an 89 % instead of a 90. And I’m like, you guys have no idea what the world is about. Like no idea. it was kind of at that point, my wife and I actually went on a date and

Brett McCollum (15:17.464)
Hahaha!

Austin LeFevre (15:29.19)
You know, I was doing again, 60, 70 hours at school. was working 30, 40 hours a week. And so I, I mean, I was not home and she’s there pregnant already has, we already have three kids. She’s pregnant. And, and I was like, this is our life for the next, you know, 12 years. Cause after pre-med it’s med school. And then you have, you know, your, your apprenticeship or whatever.

And then you, and then if I want specialty school, which I was planning to be an orthopedic surgeon, that’s what I want to do. I love sports medicine, you know. Um, and she, she says she didn’t say this, but I think she did. And I don’t know the exact words, but she’s like, I’m pretty sure we will get a divorce. And, I was, well, cause it was just so stressful. I mean, it was, it was terrible. Like, like I was never home. She was not sleeping. She’s dealing with, you know, three kids right now under.

Brett McCollum (16:15.181)
Wow.

Sure it was, yeah.

Austin LeFevre (16:27.21)
Five. Three kids under five. I mean, that’s no joke. mean, you know, you got four kids too. And so I changed. Like that day I was like, okay, I guess we’re going a different route. And that’s when I got into, you know, sales and a few other things, few other positions. And then, you know, eventually ended up at Brandmakers, which is where I was selling swag. I told you about that before the show.

Brett McCollum (16:51.5)
Yeah. Yeah. And you told, so I want to kind of, let’s at least we’re at least going to touch on the brand thing because that was some, that was interesting. And then I do want to get into kind of, on the real estate side with how are you able to kind of use some of the military intelligence background into that. Okay. But on the sales side of it beforehand, it wasn’t like you were selling like, I mean, it’s cool. I mean, it’s, swag and so it’s cool, but it’s not like this,

Austin LeFevre (17:06.408)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (17:20.0)
Massively sexy thing that everybody in the world needs like boom, you know And you found yourself at the top of that right is that kind of like what happened there?

Austin LeFevre (17:30.527)
I mean, I don’t know if I’d say the top. mean, there’s some guys that have been there for, you know, but by the time I got there, there were guys that were there like eight or 10 years and they were, they were selling, you know, two, three million in a year, you know, which is great though, because it gave me something to shoot for. It like planted the seed of possibility. It’s like, those guys are doing it. And I wouldn’t say they’re any smarter, more disciplined than I am. So why can’t I do it? You know?

Brett McCollum (17:50.797)
Love that.

Austin LeFevre (17:58.941)
Those first couple of years though, I’ll tell you what the difference really is. And this goes back to any business, know, someone has to spearhead the company like, like, they create a culture either by design or by default. So if, if you create a culture by design, you’re going to be able to create it exactly the way you want people to have a mentality, a drive, that sort of thing. But if you don’t,

Brett McCollum (18:16.408)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (18:26.598)
It’s just left to whatever, wherever the chips will fall, you know, and, that’s not a good business model, you know? So we have a CEO, his name is James. And I remember many things right when I started that just completely shifted my mindset on what it means to be a leader. Now I had just spent many years in the military with many high quality, highly qualified leaders, right?

But they have a different way of doing things, right? It’s very disciplinary. It’s very much in your face, you know, you know, talking about boot camp or basic training. It’s very much like you suck, you’re terrible, you’re all these things, you know, and they nitpick and they white glove inspect everything you clean, everything you do. And James wasn’t that way. You know, I almost didn’t know how to handle the fact that he didn’t yell at me. Like, I didn’t know. I didn’t know how that worked, you know.

And I think it was probably my second day of training and he he were in the conference room and he stands up on the table in the conference room. He’s like, Austin, I need you to know something. I was like, OK, he’s like, your life is going to suck for at least two years. It’s going to suck. It’s going to be terrible. You’re going to hate it. You’re going to want to throw in the towel. But I’ll tell you this, if you stick with me for at least two years.

I’ll show you how to make more money than you’ve ever made in your entire life. But you have to stick with me for at least two years. And he’s like, but I’m telling you, it’s going to be horrible. And you’re going to go through so much and you’re going to hate it because you’re going to be on the phone so much that phone’s going to give you cauliflower ear as if you’re in a fight. OK, but you know, that kind of real talk. Changed me forever, changed me forever. Yeah, well.

Brett McCollum (19:55.054)
Mmm.

Brett McCollum (20:17.326)
It was belief at the end of the day. Like, you know what? I believe you now.

Austin LeFevre (20:20.222)
He gave me, instead of saying like, here’s the goal to sell this much, he’s like, look, I’m not going to tell you how much you’re going to sell, but I need you to be in this for at least two years and give it everything you got. And you will make more than you ever have. I’m telling you that first year I made more than I had ever had. It was tough. was terrible because they don’t give you, they don’t give you leads. They don’t give you, you know, it’s not like they hand you people to call. You’re literally a 1099. You eat what you kill, you know, so you have to be on the hunt.

Brett McCollum (20:37.858)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (20:50.078)
every day. so when he told me that I was like, well, I’m going to try and do it in less than two years. You know, like that was my mentality. I was like, well, if he tells me it takes two years, I’m going to try and do it in one or maybe one and a half, you know. man, I was on the phone just I would literally at night I’d come home from work. My wife and I would, you know, turn on Netflix or whatever. I’d be on my computer looking at prospects to call the next day and making a list of 50 to 100 prospects.

Brett McCollum (20:55.768)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (21:18.672)
of companies that I could call the next day. So every day I came in, I was ready. I had a list of people to call and I actually broke the company record for most calls made in a month. was like it was like almost 2000 calls in a month, which is just it’s insane. Right. Like.

Brett McCollum (21:34.926)
Yeah. And that’s a drive, man. That like, you know, that’s an innate quality that you carry. And that’s, so that’s, I’m glad you talked about it. Cause that obviously we know in the real estate world, um, you know, leads are like the marketing, the leads are the lifeblood of the business. We can’t buy a property without having somebody to talk to. You know what I mean? I have to imagine this might be a nice segue. That’s the, that was a discipline that you created that did you carry any of that over into real estate?

Austin LeFevre (22:05.15)
Yeah, I think for me, just didn’t. I almost love it when people tell me something’s like not possible, you know, I it’s like this idea of mission impossible, you know, you’re like, I think I could make that work. You know, I think I’m resourceful enough that I could find a way to solve that problem, you know. And again, some of the analysis I did was on companies. It’s like, OK, if I want to sell this much, I don’t want to go to companies that have 30 employees.

That means they’re only ordering 30 shirts. But if I go to companies that have 300 employees and more, that means their minimum order for employee shirts, that’s 300 shirts, you know? Well, whatever it is I’m selling, there’s a lot more there. And so I would, I would definitely like, I would Google and analyze all these companies that were, you know, larger or had more personnel or had more, you know, opportunities to give stuff away, that sort of thing. And it, it just got to the point where.

Brett McCollum (22:45.198)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (23:05.246)
I mean, I was, yeah, I was just some of my orders were, they started out being like a thousand, $2,000. And then they jumped to like 20, $30,000. And then I was getting orders that were 80, $90, $100,000, like one order, because I was going after specific companies that I knew they had the budget, they had the personnel and they weren’t going to sweat. They weren’t going to sweat about the cost, you Like one of the, this isn’t actually my client, but one of the clients that

one of the partners that the company has is Intuit. Intuit owns TurboTax. They do all the payment processing. They own multiple things now. They spend three million a year on Slack. Just that. Just that. But think about it. Think how much money they make on payment processing, on TurboTax, on all of these things they have. And they’re all software based. So there’s really not a lot of overhead for them.

Brett McCollum (23:37.985)
yeah.

Brett McCollum (23:49.356)
Wow.

Austin LeFevre (24:04.318)
You know, so where is their overhead? It’s spending money on their employees, you know? Anyway, yeah, so there’s a lot of a lot that’s transitioned and I think at time like I loved that job like and I honestly I’m still affiliated with them. I still have a team that produces like I’m still you know, I have a team that basically sells for me now and I still get involved maybe 1520 % of the time. You know, but.

Brett McCollum (24:04.365)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (24:33.223)
And yeah, I mean, it’s still another stream of income for me that’s consistent, you know.

Brett McCollum (24:36.408)
That’s it. All right. Well, speaking of streams of income, what are things like? So you got certain real estate you’re doing. We talked to kind of pretty show you’re in more of the buy and hold space like cash flow now. What is it looking like today for you? What are you doing?

Austin LeFevre (24:47.72)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (24:52.136)
So I actually took a kind of an analysis of the market. I didn’t realize this when I started. Okay. So I bought my first property December, 2019. There’s a problem with that. Two months later, COVID hit and they shut down vacations for the entire world. So I was a little panicked. We had taken some equity out of our home for the down payment, kind of leveraged it that way.

Brett McCollum (25:02.371)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (25:19.632)
I used my income from brand makers to pay for the remodel. did all the work myself on that first property. was, you know, it was kind of crazy. was a, six bedroom, seven bath, a bed and breakfast. And, I mean, we did the entire thing, you know, the whole, the whole thing got remodeled. It basically got stripped down to, you know, the bare bones. And then we just, we, we did it all new, you know? and

Brett McCollum (25:42.37)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (25:44.851)
When COVID hit, was like, man, I don’t know, we might end up moving into this bed and breakfast. This is gonna be our new family home because I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t know if they’re gonna turn the lights back on for vacations or whatever. Luckily, about three months into the pandemic, after the shutdown, they were like, all right, look, you can leave your house, but if you are gonna leave, go to low populated areas, out into nature, get out into open air spaces.

Brett McCollum (25:56.024)
Right.

Austin LeFevre (26:15.496)
We’re in a town of 500 people. This is like as low density population as you can get. And the bookings just went through the roof because people were so stir crazy. And so we actually almost broke even in year one, which was COVID-2020.

Brett McCollum (26:17.528)
Yep.

Brett McCollum (26:25.464)
Yeah, for sure.

Brett McCollum (26:32.27)
Yeah, that’s a blessing right there. All right, so you have that going COVID year and then it I was we talked a little bit like how many units do you own now? How many doors do you own now?

Austin LeFevre (26:34.119)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (26:42.802)
We have 28 doors, 28 units that we ran out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (26:44.366)
28.

That’s incredible. And the future, like, well, let me ask you this. We talked about it. Like, how are you using your, because we’re talking about creative finance a little bit in your military intelligence background. So you’ve grown to 28 doors out of this thing and that’s like no small feat. How did you do that? what did that like, bring that a little bit together for us.

Austin LeFevre (26:56.648)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (27:07.868)
Yeah. I mean, in the beginning, I really only knew the traditional financing way, go into the bank or to a lender. That’s all I knew. this actually this property that I’m in right now, this is a house and then five rental units built on the back of it. It used to be a bed and breakfast. And then we basically remodeled the house portion for my family. And then we’ve rent out all the five of these rooms. They pay my mortgage and then they make us about 15 grand a month.

Brett McCollum (27:15.726)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (27:37.425)
in the summer. The winter months are not, you know, we have a seasonality to us. anyway, after this, though, I was like, man, I need to find a way to not use traditional financing, because it’s just getting too hard to qualify. You know, they make it extremely difficult, pretty much since 2008. And they wrote all those bad loans, you know, they’ve made it a lot harder for investors to qualify for, you know,

large sums of money because it’s risky or it can be risky. But then I started learning about, you know, assumption of loans and, you know, seller financing and all these creative ways to finance deals. Well, shortly after I bought this one, a lady in town came to me and she’s like, hey, I want to sell my 10 log cabins. She had these 10 log cabins. They’re just mini, you know, kind of tiny home cabins. And I was like, well, what do want to sell them for? She’s like, I want to sell them for one point six million.

And I was like, up to that point, the largest deal I had done was 720,000. That was the largest I had done. I was like, this is more than double that. I was like, you know what? I know these are profitable. I’ve run the numbers. I’ve done the analysis. I’ll figure it out. I’m going to figure it out. And not only that, she went 25 % down, which is 400K. That’s no joke.

So I worked the deal. I actually found a couple of partners, leveraged some of the other properties we had to get some equity out, you know, that sort of thing. And we were able to get those 10 cabins, so they’re financed 15 years at 4 % interest, which is crazy for seller finance, like 4 % interest. I was like, you know what, though, these people in these small towns, they just want to know that they’re going to be taken care of. You know, she was trying to retire. She’s a single.

lady in her sixties, you know, she wants to be. so now she gets a check for like $9,000 every month for the next 15 years. Plus she started, she got 400,000 down to go buy a new home and move closer to her kids and grandkids, you know? So after that experience, was like, no, this is actually a really good way. And you can negotiate anything. Like you can, everything’s negotiable, you know? And so that’s what kind of, think that Intel side of me started saying, okay.

Brett McCollum (29:37.325)
Right.

Austin LeFevre (30:03.418)
Now I need to take the skill set that I learned in intelligence, which was, we learned a lot of skills about human psychology, you know, how to, you know, get information from from people. And, you know, some people say it’s like manipulative, but if you really look at it at its core, it’s about proper communication. Yeah, it’s it’s learning what the language is of the person you’re speaking to, what matters to them.

Brett McCollum (30:11.512)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (30:23.384)
That part. Yep. Agreed.

Austin LeFevre (30:31.218)
And then if you can give them what matters to them, they’ll help you. They will work with you, you know, kind of a pro tip that I give even the guys that are in my community. tell them, I’m like, a lot of people think the best way to get on someone’s good graces is to serve them, to do a good deed for them, right? Like something simple, you know, in human psychology, it’s actually a greater bond to ask another individual for help.

Brett McCollum (31:01.677)
Hmm.

Austin LeFevre (31:01.79)
it to ask them to do you a favor. And that seems like counterintuitive, right, to the way we think. But think about this. When someone calls you and asks you for help or a favor, it basically tells you you’re a good person, you’re trustworthy, and all the good things about you, someone else is recognizing that and recognizing you for the good person you are. Therefore, you all of a sudden feel bonded to them and trust because they trust you.

Brett McCollum (31:09.004)
No, I’m, I’m, that tracks, I’m with you.

Austin LeFevre (31:31.485)
with their vulnerability. Isn’t that crazy? Like it does track. Yeah, it does track. so when you go into a negotiation and I’ll share a story real quick about the last hotel we bought that we did seller finance and the guy was, he was no, like zero chance for seller finance, you know, cause apparently he had like dealt with it for a year and got, I don’t know, something didn’t, anyway, he had a bad experience. But when you

Brett McCollum (31:34.264)
That’s track, I love it.

Austin LeFevre (31:59.261)
Okay, have you ever done carpentry work like woodwork? The rule, okay, but well, the rule, the first rule, right? Measure twice, cut once. That’s the first rule you learn is like, hey, you can’t, if you cut after one measurement and you realize you got the measurement wrong, you’re screwed. You gotta go buy more wood. It’s the same thing in communication. In communicating with people, you listen twice, you speak once. So it should be a two to one ratio when you’re trying to negotiate a deal.

Brett McCollum (32:02.626)
I mean, loosely. You don’t want me to do it though.

Brett McCollum (32:09.419)
once.

Austin LeFevre (32:27.59)
It’s two to one. Now I’m not saying that’s all the time, but, and by listen twice speak once, what I’m saying is you listen to hear everything. Then you repeat what the person said and make sure that you’re understanding exactly what they were saying. And then, and then it’s your turn to speak from your mind, your heart. So don’t be trying to, a lot of people will try to preemptively find their response before someone has even finished their thought or their idea.

Brett McCollum (32:42.882)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (32:56.19)
And that’s that’s normal, right? That’s that’s human nature. I think it’s a social construct that we have. But when you’re in a negotiation setting, shut that off, shut it off and try to listen twice as much as you normally would. OK, all right. Now go to the story. So we get this deal. It’s a it’s a small boutique hotel, but it does about 20000 in revenue a year at about a 50 % profitability. That is a fantastic deal, right? So we go into the negotiation.

Brett McCollum (33:09.41)
I love that.

Brett McCollum (33:20.526)
Okay. Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (33:25.95)
my general manager is one that actually brought me the deal because it was connected to his ex-wife’s family or something. Somehow he, got wind of it and he’s like, dude, he’s not, he is not down. I’ve asked him about seller finance. He is not even on board to even listen to it. was like, well, would would he at least have like a 15, 20 minute conversation with me? He’s like, yeah, we can set up a call. I was like, okay, perfect. So here’s what I did is I said, all right. What, why are you selling this property?

He said, well, my brother’s actually, he’s a general contractor. He’s doing a development up North. He asked me if I want to invest with him and this is the only way I could do that, but I would, I’d like to kind of go invest with him on this housing development. Excellent. I wrote that down, wants to invest in housing development with his brother. And I said, well, how soon do you want to do that? He’s like, well, it’s probably going to be a couple of years before we actually do that because my daughter, my youngest is still in high school.

Brett McCollum (33:55.768)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (34:23.645)
and we want to make sure she graduates with her friends. She still has, I think it was two and a half years left. And so he’s like, I don’t really want to sell it right away because then I have to pay capital gains and I have to, can’t do a 1031 exchange. He was like, I have a lot of things. So he’s like, it is kind of a challenge. was like, daughter wants to finish high school. So two and a half, three years.

Austin LeFevre (00:00.109)
Yeah. Okay. So now, now the story about this. So I got a call from my general manager. He tells me that he’s got a deal for us. It’s a, it’s a boutique hotel. And what’s funny is, I had told him, I was like, Hey man, we just finished buying cabins and some other stuff. Like I don’t have money for another deal, you know? But he’s like, no, I think this would be a really good one. It’s going to cashflow whatever. was like, okay.

the guy did not want to do seller finance. He had been burned or had had a bad experience. And so I just, yeah, I just said to Gabe, was like, at least we can have a conversation with him. So I sat him down or no, we were on a phone call or a zoom or something. I’m trying to remember now, but basically I asked him some very just basic questions. So number one, why are you selling? Like, what is it that you want to get out of this?

Brett McCollum (00:29.823)
I’m out.

Brett McCollum (00:48.214)
Okay. So he was, he said no, then you still got him to take a meeting anyway. Okay.

Austin LeFevre (00:52.663)
Yeah. Yeah. And he said, look, I want to go invest in this development, this housing development with my brother, who’s a builder. I said, okay. So I wrote that down. He wants to go invest with his brother. And I said, what, you know, how, I guess what’s your timeline for selling this? You know, and he’s like, well, my daughter’s still in high school. You know, she has a couple more years. I don’t want to, you know, pull her out of school, but we would probably move, you know, once this is sold and,

I said, okay, so he doesn’t want to leave yet, but he does want to sell. Like, and I think part of it, his wife had been managing it and cleaning and doing all the things. And so she was just done. She was like, I’m out. Like this is exhausting. I’m tired. You know, I think they were kind of on the verge of just wanting to be retired. You know, the youngest kid is about to graduate high school in a couple of years and they’re just, they’re, they didn’t want to keep doing it. And so I, then I asked them what price they wanted. was like, well, what are you trying to sell us for? And they gave me the price.

So I wrote that down and then I think I can’t remember what the other two questions were, but then I, I again talking about listen twice. And so I just went through, I was like, okay, so you want to go invest with your brother. That’s why you’re selling this property. You need X amount of dollars to go invest with him for this development. You want to do it in the next two or three years when your daughter has graduated high school. So you don’t necessarily want to do it just yet because you want to do a 10 31 exchange so you can avoid the taxes. Okay.

And then I said, okay, so you want this amount? And he did have, I think he put the interest at the same or higher than what he was at is what he told me. And so, like I said, there was a few other questions, but I just kind of was like, all right, here’s what I can do. I was like, I can give you exactly the amount you’re asking for. I can do it as a lease to own so that you don’t have to start that time clock on your 1031 exchange.

Brett McCollum (02:31.736)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (02:50.796)
We can cover all the taxes, all the things. We will be running it starting the time we sign, we’re taking over, we’re running everything, but it’s a lease to own. And we’re gonna do it at this amount. I will give you the price you’re asking for. I only need help on this one. I said, can you help me? I need a 3 % interest rate. Otherwise the numbers don’t work and we have to walk away. Yeah, I said, can you help me? I was like.

Brett McCollum (03:13.07)
Can you help me? Remember? Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (03:17.208)
That’s the one thing I need your help on this. I can do these with you. I got you on all of these. This one, I need you to help me out. And he was like, Oh, can you at least meet me in the middle at four? I was like, I’m sorry, but the numbers, even at 4%, the numbers don’t work at the price you’re asking for. And I said, I can get you the price you’re asking for. And he was like, you know what? Yeah, that’s not a deal breaker. Let’s do it. And he signed the, he signed the deal right there. So.

Brett McCollum (03:41.646)
Wow. 20 minutes prior to that, he was a hard no.

Yeah. And that’s, and that’s using what you see exactly what you said. And that’s tactics and things that you learn principles from military intelligence of like how to listen properly. And, you know, more, more how to communicate properly even. Right.

Austin LeFevre (03:59.469)
Yeah, well just to analyze the situation, read the room. Right, well, cause even a lot of things, and this is something I talk about in my community, I don’t know if you know this, but you can read people’s faces. I’m not saying the facial expressions. Yes, there are non-verbals like facial expressions, like your skull structure. I don’t know if you know this, but the way.

the way your eyelids look, the way your eyebrows are set up, the way your forehead, does it slope, is it rounded? All of that means something. And people don’t, I guess a lot of people don’t understand this, but like people with a more rounded face or rounded skull structure, they care less about facts, figures, and numbers. They wanna know more about backstory, feelings, emotions. They wanna know what the real story and feel behind something is. like.

Brett McCollum (04:32.28)
That’s good. Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (04:49.546)
If I meet somebody with a more rounded skull structure, know they don’t, they don’t give a crap if it cash flows 17 % over five years, blah, blah, you know, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They want to know, well, this was my grandparents place and it meant so much to me as a kid. And I know that I can make it successful. I just need this, this, and this. And they’re like, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. You know, it’s like, and like some people say that’s manipulative, but I don’t know. I’m communicating what’s important to them.

And that is a level of emotional and social intelligence, you know? And so that’s what I try to teach guys. It’s like, okay, so I had a student the other day. This will be my last story. I know we’re long already, but he went and tried to sell her finance. He jumped right in and said, hey, this is what I could do. He’s like, can do 20,000 down. I can do this much at this interest, blah, blah, blah. And the guy shot it down cold. And I said to him, I was like, man, did you even like…

Brett McCollum (05:20.769)
Absolutely.

Austin LeFevre (05:43.577)
ask him any questions about what he wanted or what he was trying to do with this deal. And he’s like, no. I was like, think how you would feel stepping into his shoes and someone just comes at you and you’re like, well, this is what I want. Dude, those walls of defense, they’re up immediately. You know, it really is kind of basic, but, you know what’s crazy is sometimes children do this naturally.

Brett McCollum (05:58.808)
Great. Yep.

Brett McCollum (06:11.067)
yes.

Austin LeFevre (06:12.482)
Think how many questions children ask because they genuinely want to know. And we start to lose that as we grow older and we become a little more selfish. It’s just natural. You become a little more self-absorbed and it’s kind of the way life works when you have to take care of this, that, and the other. anyway, that’s kind of my approach.

Brett McCollum (06:18.83)
Mm-hmm.

Austin LeFevre (06:37.004)
And you know, again, the other thing that I’ve invested that a lot of people don’t is tertiary markets. I go after these small town rural markets, kind of redneck markets, you know, that I kind of call them the market of misfit toys, you know, you know, like there’s a lot of value there. You just got to you got to do the analysis and maybe look at some of the outliers that most people don’t look at. And, you know,

Brett McCollum (06:42.776)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (06:50.294)
Yeah, there’s still value there, Austin. Yeah, for sure.

Austin LeFevre (07:05.4)
It can really pay out. Like I said, we’re averaging around 30 % profit margin on all of our properties. That’s, well, and it’s because in tertiary markets, properties are just undervalued usually by 15 to 25%. They’re undervalued from a city, a secondary or a primary market. And so that’s where I’ve dug in and just mined. I’m just mining.

Brett McCollum (07:12.92)
Wow, incredible.

Brett McCollum (07:31.458)
Yeah, and you’re doing it. Yeah. And you told me kind of pre show to that, you know, you’re you have a goal of hitting, you know, what’s next? Like, what’s that looking like?

Austin LeFevre (07:42.668)
Yeah, I we want to double at least in the next couple of years if possible. I mean, I definitely think it’s possible. For us right now, the real challenge with a tertiary market has nothing to do with the real estate itself. It’s the staff, the employees. And so right now we’ve been on a hunt for getting our next, I guess, layer of employees where it’s like, OK, now we’re ready to grow.

Brett McCollum (08:11.0)
Yeah.

Austin LeFevre (08:11.128)
I tried to grow in the future by just being like, we’ll find people. It’s a lot harder than you think. you live and die by the people that work with you.

Brett McCollum (08:18.614)
It is, yeah.

Brett McCollum (08:23.756)
Yeah. Well, very cool. Well, guys, like Austin said, we are running a little bit over, but man, what an amazing story, Austin, of like starting to know here we are and now in using, you know, it’s a testament to the things that happened to us. They happened for us, you know, and everything that you’ve walked through and been through is led to where you are today. And man, what an incredible, incredible story. So

Austin LeFevre (08:42.242)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (08:51.156)
If people want to reach out to you Austin, learn more about you, what’s the best way for that to happen?

Austin LeFevre (08:56.428)
So I have a Instagram page, it’s called Warrior Ethos Life. You can find me there on TikTok, it’s Warrior Real Estate, and then just Austin Lefevre on Facebook. So.

Brett McCollum (09:01.635)
Love it.

Brett McCollum (09:09.934)
Perfect. Yeah, guys, you don’t take him, go follow immediately because like what you’re doing is incredible, man. And you’re somebody worth following. Definitely.

Austin LeFevre (09:18.456)
I love helping people, so if they need help, mean, at least give me a chance to hop on a call for 10, 15 minutes.

Brett McCollum (09:22.306)
Love it.

Brett McCollum (09:26.19)
There you go. Well, Austin man, it’s been great guys. Thanks for tuning in and we will catch you guys on the next one. Take care everybody

Austin LeFevre (09:33.849)
See you.