Building Wealth with Real Estate: Michael Kearse’s Unique Approach

Dylan Silver (00:00.964)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show I have Michael Kearse. Michael is a, in the private lender space, he secured returns by investing in real estate backed opportunities all without the headaches of tenants, toilets, or renovations. And he’s based out of the Philly area. Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael (00:23.49)
Thanks for having me, Dylan. Glad to be here.

Dylan Silver (00:25.56)
Absolutely. I’m from New Jersey, so I have an affinity towards anybody who’s from that tri-state area. I’m in Texas now, but I tell people when you’re in Northern New Jersey, I was just outside of Newark, New Jersey, there’s almost like a competition. I remember when I was younger looking at like Drexel, which is in the Philly area, and figuring out which part of the country I wanted to be in. And now I’m here in Texas, and whenever there’s anybody from like Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, I’m like, hey, what’s going on? It’s good to see another one of us.

Michael (00:55.426)
Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty cool. It’s a world. grew up in South Jersey. I was born in New York. Yeah, I’ve been in this tri-state area all my life and just settled down right outside Philly.

Dylan Silver (00:55.59)
you

Dylan Silver (01:01.413)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (01:07.94)
Let’s talk about your beginnings in the real estate space. I think a lot of times people will see the end result, they’ll see the success, but they don’t see the journey along the way. And you’re in a very niche space in the private lending space. How did you get started in the real estate space?

Michael (01:24.428)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just to be clear, when you say private lending, I rely on private lenders. I’m more of a real estate investor, but I started off wholesaling like most real estate investors do. This was a little bit before COVID and it was a grind, right? If you’re familiar with wholesaling, you’re really a marketer at the end of the day. A lot of people don’t really understand that or realize that. And

Dylan Silver (01:30.811)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Michael (01:54.146)
Yeah, I think it took me maybe six months to get my first deal. I was a ferocious learner. YouTube University, books, podcasts, you name it, I consumed it. I invested in myself as well. And I eventually discovered that, you know, one, you can buy properties very, very inexpensively all across the country. And then two, that you could sell it to individuals who are struggling to get traditional.

bank financing for three to four times what you paid for using creative financing, seller financing.

Dylan Silver (02:28.9)
You know, I’m actually a wholesaler myself. I’m very passionate about this because I’m also a realtor in Dallas. And as you know, Michael, there’s a sort of a butting of the heads between realtors and wholesalers. I’ve said this on an earlier podcast. I got done with my real estate school in late March, got licensed in early April. So it’s almost.

Michael (02:42.455)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (02:49.764)
two months now so I’m still brand new as a realtor but when I raised my hand and they said do we have any wholesalers in the room it was like I was announcing myself that I was the enemy I was crazy I said this is not good I don’t know if I should have announced myself there was audible gasp there was like maybe 50 people in the room audible gasp and then this woman god bless this lady I hope she’s doing well studying to be a broker said you’re a wholesaler

And I was like, oh no, what did I just admit? I was aware of this conflict, but I wasn’t aware on this level. And my question you, Michael, is when I think about the path of a real estate entrepreneur, someone like myself, someone like yourself, starting on the outside looking in, I know that I was no idea how to get in a real estate. This was two years ago in July of 2023. Started networking. I went to a RIA event, then paid a bunch of money to go to a conference.

Michael (03:16.238)
You

Michael (03:22.658)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (03:46.074)
then started working with companies who do wholesale, got my first couple deals in, still didn’t really know what I was doing, then got a bunch more deals in to the point where I felt like, there’s some level of mastery happening. Now I got my real estate license that I’m looking at, how do I get my first fix and flip? And maybe from there, who knows, five, 10 years, I might be doing hard money lending and long-term, short-term Airbnb, who knows? I’m curious what your take is on the path of a real estate entrepreneur.

Michael (04:16.226)
That’s a great question so I would say just from what I’ve seen and what I’ve gone through Most of the time you start off I think most people start off wholesaling if they kind of understand it If they don’t start off wholesaling, then it’s usually the more traditional method of what people see on TV they try to do a fix and flip or You know, they they do a traditional burr method where they may take out a loan go buy a property Rent it out and pull out the equity and try to do it

again. But to your point, once you get in and if you can figure it out and figure out what makes sense to you, you usually niche down and stick with one type of strategy and do it over and over and over again if you don’t get your teeth kicked in until you master it and start to scale. It’s not for everyone. It can be a grind, especially if you

aren’t getting around people who know what they’re doing. I think that’s the biggest key. Whether it’s you bootstrapping and sweat equity and you work with someone that’s successful or you take the route like I did where you invest in yourself and you try to learn from the right coach to execute a proven strategy. I would say.

Dylan Silver (05:17.348)
Huge.

Dylan Silver (05:33.552)
Let’s talk about the value of networking. I did probably the thing that a lot of people would do, which is I just tried to learn everything and I wasn’t seeing a lot of results. So before I got into real estate, I was selling cars, working for a major Nissan dealership in South Texas and San Antonio. And I knew I wanted to be in real estate. So I figured, let me just like learn everything. The thing was, was that when you have a full-time job, specifically the job that I had, and many people can probably relate to this,

It’s tough to find the energy and also the network to mentor you along the way. And I didn’t even prioritize that. So I was just trying to learn everything. It wasn’t until I really started getting heavy into networking and getting in the right circles and prioritizing, let me go to a meetup a week. Let me get to a conference. Let me see who I can know that I really started to see progress in my journey.

Michael (06:31.118)
Well said, well said. You know, I’ve been helping individuals who are struggling in real estate and oftentimes when they tell me one of their biggest challenges or I don’t have the capital, right? And I always tell them, you know, learning how to raise money is really a skill, right? You just haven’t been taught how to do it. So I always tell them, find someone that is, you know, very, very successful at raising capital or find someone who’s very,

successful at what you’re struggling at and reach out to them and either like I said try to see how you can provide value to them and maybe work with them and help with them or see if they will be willing to to mentor you and coach you and For you know a nominal fee and I always tell people that you know every time I talk to them

It’s the best way. I tell them, you know, we live in the best time in the world where you have everything in the palm of your hands of a smartphone, right? It’s not like 20 years ago when you had to be in those unique circles or behind that unique door to get that valuable information. Now it’s everywhere. I think what most people need to do now is just discern who they’re listening to. And I always tell them, you know,

In every circle, I don’t care what industry it is or what discipline it is, there’s always 1 to 2 % that is outpacing everyone else in the industry. And they just know something that the majority of that marketer or that industry or those subject matter experts don’t know. And you just need to obtain that information and then take action.

Dylan Silver (07:58.15)
everyone.

Dylan Silver (08:10.746)
What I’ve seen too, Michael, is there’s a huge emphasis that I’m currently placing on my wholesale business and then starting out as a realtor on aggressive networking strategies that I can take so I can find that cutting edge strategy or technology. Because if I could have gotten to wholesale 15 years ago when it wasn’t what it is today, who knows? That would have been tremendous, right? But instead, I have to play

catch up in a way because I’m having to learn the game after everyone else did and also they know, okay, this is where the industry is headed towards. These are the niches that other people aren’t doing. Like for instance, let me give an example here. Speed to lead in the AI space, being able to respond to leads very quickly, even if I’m on a podcast here. There’s a lot of companies that are trying to get into this space with the AI dialers, the AI textures and email.

Michael (09:01.068)
Yeah.

Michael (09:07.202)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (09:07.588)
but not quite there yet. And I’ve spoken with a couple of gentlemen here on this show actually who have companies that are currently doing the speed to lead. And I think if people can take advantage of a tool like that, if they can really, another one is AI prompting, right? If you know how to write an AI prompt other than just, how many people are in pre-foreclosure in this area? If you can prompt it to do a certain search, like these are skills that I…

Just two of the ones that I like that I think set people super far ahead.

Michael (09:38.164)
man, the AI space you mentioned is huge. I’ve had a couple of people approach me as well when you talk about speed to lead and using AI agents to respond to inquiries and things like that. And I’ve seen some things that are, in theory, make sense. I haven’t come across anyone that has something proven. But I put up

Couple of to the test and I’m interested in see where that space goes. But to your point, mean, AI, chat, GBT, there’s another one that just came out that everyone has been going crazy about. I think so, DeepSeek, yes. But if you learn how to prompt, my God.

Dylan Silver (10:14.266)
DeepSeek?

Yeah.

Michael (10:22.478)
And that’s what I just got introduced to how powerful chat GBT was last year when I started coaching others. And I have a digital marketing background. And man, the way that I can leverage it to create content. And once I really understood like, yes, I need to learn how to prompt. And that was something that I learned on YouTube, right? I went right to YouTube.

watched every video and finally found the expert who really understood and can really teach you in a concise way on how to prompt. And it’s changed the game for me.

Dylan Silver (10:56.058)
I have some things that I’m doing in my business which are so mind blowing. People think I have a whole production team doing it and there’s specific tools that I’m using. I always said, Michael, that I wasn’t gonna be one of those guys who, when I had the secret sauce, when I had the sauce, that I was gonna hold it behind a closed door. But now here I am holding it behind a closed door. I don’t wanna tell people.

that I don’t have this big production team doing all this marketing. I’m doing some things that are so mind-blowing even to me. I’m like, I can’t let anybody know that I’m doing this for $200 a month because then they’re going to go, they think that I’m doing all these super time-consuming tasks. They have little idea that I’m actually delegating it to AI. Michael, which space are you currently involved in?

in your real estate investing journey. Are you currently in the fix and flip space? Which space are you currently most active in?

Michael (11:51.468)
Yeah, it’s a very, very unique niche space. So I would say I am in the buy and hold space. And it’s very, very unique and different in that I call it virtual creative real estate. It’s a virtual creative buy and hold strategy, what I do. So what I do is I find a property anywhere in the United States on market, anywhere between

you know, $35,000 to $50,000. A three bed, bath that is move in ready, meaning that a single mom with three kids can move right in and live in the home. I acquire that property cash and then I sell it to someone who has not so good credit, who’s tired of renting on seller financing. But I position it like I am a bank. So I get a down payment and I finance them the remaining balance over 30 years at an 8 % to 10 % interest rate.

So the fact that I do it virtually, I never leave this chair, it’s pretty cool and it’s given me a lot of leverage. And then the fact that I can buy properties at that price point so cheap and then make such a huge market markup and profit. And I get all of the benefits of a buying a whole investor with none of the headaches.

Dylan Silver (13:13.84)
Without giving away all the sauce here, Michael, was this a strategy that you created or did you have mentorship in this area?

Michael (13:20.654)
A little bit of both. you know having that digital marketing background I’ve seen Various different types of strategies and I just kind of took pieces from what I had seen and just created it on my own And It’s been astounding it was so much easier than whole selling compared to and I was making so much more money it was just insane and

I still feel new, right? I started doing this four or five years ago during COVID. I have over 70 properties. I don’t have a huge team. You know, I’m very, very lean. I don’t have huge overhead. I don’t deal with tenants, toilets or termites. I don’t even pay the taxes or the insurance, right? That’s all done by the tenant because I’m more like a bank. So it’s been amazing.

Dylan Silver (14:17.862)
This sounds incredible. I want to be a part of whatever this is. I got to get into this. is I’m over here spinning my wheels, doing the wholesale grind, as you know about. I just learned a new strategy without giving away all the gold nuggets. Save some of it for a later discussion here, Michael. But when you were coming up with this strategy, the virtual element of it is something that I love and I aspire to have a similar type of.

a lifestyle and also real estate strategy. want to do this remotely. I love travel. I love the idea of living abroad even. When you were coming up with this strategy, was there a kind of a growth process, an iteration of this is how this is going to look? Did you start off thinking I’m going to own these properties and manage them? Or did it become a deal where you’re just acting as the bank? How did this end up transpiring?

Michael (15:10.176)
It was by accident. It’s really by accident. So when I first started wholesaling in the Philly market, it was very, very, very competitive, right? Very competitive. And I stumbled upon Sean Terry. And what intrigued me about Sean Terry in the Phoenix, Arizona area is he was teaching people how to virtual wholesale, right? And that appealed to me again, because I had this digital background, digital marketing background.

So I started virtual wholesaling. think the first deal I did, I chose the Charlotte Market. It was a virtual wholesale deal. It wasn’t until I was struggling and didn’t have the time to make cold calls, follow up on leads, because I was a full-time IT project manager. During the…

During my time of watching podcasts and reading different books, I would come across individuals that were doing different types of strategies that I was like, hmm, that’s interesting. It wasn’t until I came across a deal that I could not wholesale because it just wasn’t a wholesale deal. I had pulled a list of out of state owners who had tax liens.

And I thought those people must be distressed. And it was a property right a couple of miles from me. I sent a text blast to them and she was like, Michael.

It’s a money pit. My son lives in it. I owe back taxes. You pay the back taxes. You can have it. And I got super excited, right? Cause you know how hard it is to find a deal. Once I dug into the deal, I realized not only did she owe about 6,500 in back taxes, the ARB was only about $65,000. It needed about $35,000 in repair and she had a $17,000 reverse mortgage on it.

Dylan Silver (17:02.308)
Mm-hmm.

Michael (17:03.284)
So once I got that deal, I was about to throw it away, but I was like, you know what, let me try these strategies that I’ve been seeing these other gurus kind of talk about and implementing. And I tried it and it worked. So what I didn’t know that I did back then, but what I know now is I acquired the property via sub two and then I seller financed it to an investor who couldn’t get financing, who wanted to get into the real estate again.

So I was able to acquire a property for zero dollars, control it, and then I seller financed it to an investor for $85,000 in like three weeks. I got $15,000 down, he gave me that cash, and then I financed him the remaining $60,000 over eight years at a 5 % interest rate or something like that. So he started paying me $5.45 a month.

I paid off the back taxes, I bought the property current, and he paid me cash flow. I was just gonna collect that cash flow, and then at the end of the 10 years, I was gonna pay off the reverse mortgage and then transfer the deed to me. Long story short, he didn’t do what he was supposed to do, so I just gave the property back to the seller, and I made some cool profit in the interim. But when I did that deal, I was like, let me see if this was a mistake, let me see if this was an accident.

And then that’s when I went and did my first deal. My first deal was Borderline Ohio while I’m in Philadelphia working as an IT project manager. Listed on market, right? I didn’t have to waste time trying to find an off market deal, right? Listed on market for $8,000. It was a three, Title company couldn’t believe I was getting a property for $8,000. I didn’t have the money. I used my wife’s credit card. I didn’t even know you could buy a property on a credit card. A friend from college had told me that.

After closing costs, I was in it for a little over $9,700. I had never bought a property before in my life. I was shaking, like scared buying this property, but it was the best decision I’ve done. This is during COVID. I bought it for, I was in it for like $9,700. I sold it in four days for $45,000. I got $5,000 down.

Dylan Silver (19:09.958)
Oh my gosh

Michael (19:13.678)
I financed them the remaining $40,000 over eight years at a 7 % interest rate, which they came out to a $5.45 payment per month. That was 118 % return on my money. It was the easiest, fastest deal I ever did. After that, I said, forget wholesaling. I’m doing this. And I exhausted every financial resource I had to get as many as possible.

So the next property was 22,000. The next property was like 15,000. The next one was about 30,000. It wasn’t until I got about nine of them and I’m an IT product manager. I’m working full time. I’m two years into real estate investing. I’m like, I am a genius, right? But then I was like, now I see why Fix and Flippers raise money because my system was sound, right? I was just buying properties and then just seller financing them. I just needed more capital.

Dylan Silver (19:53.957)
Yeah.

Michael (20:04.918)
So then I learned how to raise money. And like I said, fast forward to today, I own maybe a little over 70 properties like this. I’ve raised a little over four million in private funds and I’ve been helping people get into home ownership. I started helping other investors last June and so my network has exploded. I got more deals than I can handle now.

And now I’m looking to, well, I’m actually starting a debt fund to, that way can have some cash to go get bigger and more deals faster and scale. So it’s been, it’s been crazy.

Dylan Silver (20:44.314)
Michael, what you’re doing is so niche and so unique. It’s super inspiring to hear stories like this, specifically this one. You know, I wanted to ask you, what was that feeling like? What was that day like when you did that first deal with the big spread there with the 9,000 credit card? What was that like, man? Like, walk me through that day, the emotions, the following week.

Michael (20:47.627)
Exactly.

Michael (21:09.364)
Yeah, so I can remember when I first got the property, I was scared. I was telling my wife and my sister-in-law what I was doing. They were looking at me like I was crazy. They were shaking their head. I was a little nervous, right? Because it was going off of what I had seen other people do. No one was coaching me. And like I said, I was shaking when I purchased the property. The title company was like, how are you buying it? And I was telling the title company what I was going to do. And they were looking at me like, are you sure you’re going to be able to do that? Anyway.

I listed the property. I was so scared. I was just the it was actually a lesbian couple. They negotiated the terms with me, right? I took the first one that offered me. I could have got so much more knowing what I knew now. I drove and met them at a Wegmans, maybe about an hour and a half from where I live. And we went over the paperwork in the parking lot on the hood of her car, right? Because it’s COVID. We’re trying to try not to abide by the rules.

And they gave me the cash in hand and I can remember driving home, music blasting, doing a hundred miles an hour on the highway, so happy, excited. Telling my wife like, I just made $5,000, I just sold the property. And she was like, congratulations, pay off my credit card. And like I said, after that, I was like, man, forget this wholesaling thing. It was so easy.

And that’s when I started to realize that, you know, there were so many people out there who have counted themselves out of home ownership for a variety of different reasons. And that opportunity is explosive. know, it’s ridiculous. But I’ve had people, you know, ask me if it’s a scam. I’ve had parents of the people that buy properties from me cry, thank me for giving their children the opportunity to own a home.

It’s even gotten to the point where people will tell me which properties to buy for them. I’ve sold properties where I already have the buyer in place when I go to acquire the property. It’s been insane. Like I said, I was doing this for the past four or five years by myself. I just had head down, just getting two or three deals a month. It wasn’t until…

Dylan Silver (23:17.349)
I’m speechless.

Michael (23:31.726)
Last year when I said, okay, I’m officially start coaching people where I started to really promote what I was doing and people didn’t believe me. They thought I was like the way the things that I would say on my Facebook page and why would someone buy? Why would someone pay $100,000 for a property that you paid $30,000 for? That’s something hard to explain if they can’t hear me talking to them. But yeah, man. And I’ve been showing other people how to do it and.

People have been having a lot of success and I’m excited to see what the next five years will play.

Dylan Silver (24:05.826)
Unbelievable. Congrats on your success thus far. I know it’s going to be amazing to see your journey here in the next five years. We are coming up on time here, Michael. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Michael (24:19.052)
Yeah, absolutely. My email address would probably be the best. Michael at MichaelKearse.com. My emails get flooded. A lot of them go to spam. So also I give out my phone number. People can text me. I’m always either on calls like this or in meetings or…

I’m closing on the deal today and I gotta make sure that the funding gets wired and things like that. So, 856-979-1627. Like I said, free-fill to text me, say, Mike, I seen you on a podcast. People are reaching out for me from different things that I’ve done. Yeah, would love to meet you, talk real estate, see how we can work together and really build wealth together.

Dylan Silver (25:02.448)
Michael, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Michael (25:06.542)
Awesome, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.