Unlocking Real Estate: Key Insights from a Top Investor Agent

Stephen Schmidt (00:03.07)
Welcome back to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host Stephen Schmidt. And if you’re joining us for the second, third or hundredth time, welcome back. If you’re joining us for the first time, welcome to the show. We just probably about to be a regular on your podcast listening docket. I’ve got a treat for you guys today. I’m here in the studio with Mark Keene. Mark has been a real estate agent for over seven years. He got licensed in 2018 and he’s specializes in working with investors in his

Mark Keene (00:03.734)
to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host, Stephen Schmidt. And if you’re joining us for the second, third or hundredth time, welcome back. If you’re joining us for the first time, welcome to the show. We’re probably about to be a regular on your podcast listening docket. I’ve got a treat for you guys today. I’m here in the studio with Mark Keene. Mark has been a real estate agent for over seven years. He got licensed in 2018 and he specializes in working with investors in his native state.

Stephen Schmidt (00:32.84)
native state of Indiana. So we’re going to roll right into it have a great conversation today. But before we do just remember that investor fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their businesses, which allows them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted to allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. that being said, Mark, welcome to the show today.

Mark Keene (00:33.688)
of Indiana so we’re gonna roll right into it have a great conversation today but before we do just remember that investor fuel we help real estate investors service providers and real estate entrepreneurs 2 to 5x their businesses which allows them to build the business since they’ve always wanted to live the lives they’ve always dreamed up without being said Mark welcome to the show today welcome hey thanks for having me I appreciate it yeah

Stephen Schmidt (00:55.372)
Yeah, super glad that you’re here, man. Can you just before we get started and our topic of talking about real estate, can you share a little bit about yourself and how you got here?

Mark Keene (00:58.07)
Before we get started into our topic of talking about real estate, can you share a little bit about yourself and how you got here? Well, I’ve been a real estate agent, like I said, since 2018. How I became a real estate agent, I was helping a gentleman flip houses. Because before as an agent, I owned a remodeling company for over a decade.

Now the guy that I was helping flip houses, he’s like, dude, you gotta become a real estate agent. You know more people and talk to more people than anyone I’ve ever met. So that’s how I ended up getting my real estate license. I’m with my third company. I’m now the managing broker of my current office.

First office, I got recruited by Exit Realty, a great company, was there for a couple years. I’m the Managing Broker of BS Realty Services, Indiana LLC. we specialize with investors and the services part is property management. The owners are Bill and Sabina. As a Managing Broker, I do the real estate stuff and Bill and Sabina do the property management, the services part.

Stephen Schmidt (02:07.031)
Now, so you owned a remodeling company before you got in the business. What made you decide to go get your real estate license?

Mark Keene (02:10.8)
what made you decide to go get your real estate license? same thing. was the guy who talked me into it. He was like, he was my first managing broker and he was a real estate agent and I used to help him flip houses. So he actually talked me in to get my license and I worked with him for the first two years I was an agent. And it was just time to part ways. Good person, nothing against him. It was just time to move different direction.

Stephen Schmidt (02:35.233)
Yeah. So what what drew you to working with investors specifically because you had kind of a background with it already?

Mark Keene (02:40.037)
No, just gonna happen. Because what happened with Bill and Sabina, how I got involved with Bill and Sabina when I was with Exit, they had investors. They were licensed in Illinois, I was licensed in Indiana. So in Northwest Indiana with Gary and Hammond and Wiedeen and Lake Station and Maribil, great places to invest in real estate is your real estate investor. And they do the property management of it. So that’s how they work with investors.

Since they were licensed in Illinois and not in Indiana, they hired me as a referral agent. So we did like 12 deals together. I got my manager broker license. They opened up the office and I became the manager broker. And as I started out with one investor, two and a half, three years ago. And now I’m up to probably two dozen different investors because they talk about your elevator speech or in sales and you do. Well, part of my elevator speech was, hey, I work with investors.

Stephen Schmidt (03:31.447)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Keene (03:35.988)
You can Google me, my Google page. I’ve had investors find me from all over the country on my Google page because I live in Valparaiso, Indiana, which is about 20 minutes east of Gary. BS Realty owns property in Gary. My Google page has my office with the property that we own there. So if you Google real estate agents in Gary, there’s only two or three of us and I pop up. So I get phone calls all the time on my Google page.

Stephen Schmidt (04:03.681)
Wow. Now, so what does your typical investor client look like? Are they fix and flip, buy and hold, or something else?

Mark Keene (04:04.662)
Mostly we work with the guys that are ready to buy and hold Sometimes they’re brand new we do a lot of video walkthroughs like I got a deal I’m supposed to be closing this week With an investor. This is a crazy story. He he told me that he was wanting to invest in Gary and when he was wanting to invest in Gary he was on realtor.com or Zillow and

He would call an agent, email them or text them, wait 24 hours, didn’t get a response, he’d go on to the next person. I was the sixth real estate agent that he called. I was the first one that answered the phone. This guy not only is already about ready to close on the first property, he wants to buy five or six more properties.

You froze up, are you still there?

Mark Keene (05:02.996)
I lost connection. Tater, you turned me off.

Stephen Schmidt (05:05.581)
You there?

Mark Keene (05:12.268)
Taney, you’re turning off the internet. Come on, get out of there.

Mark Keene (05:48.704)
Twitter turned off my internet.

Mark Keene (06:02.05)
All we’re ready? right. So your question was, what’s my typical investor? Most of them, since we don’t have a construction company, we try to get them so they’re 30 to 60 days ready for someone to move in. Maybe add a ceiling fan, maybe paint the walls, clean up the basement, that kind of stuff.

Stephen Schmidt (06:12.333)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Keene (06:26.371)
Sometimes they do a little bit, if there’s a totally unfinished basement, they may frame it out, an egress window, add an additional bedroom, that sort of thing. But we try to get them ready. The properties we look at for the investors, especially since they’re out of town, and we don’t want to do any sort of maintenance, is the HVA system’s pretty good, the roof’s in pretty decent shape, the…

We don’t want to get the phone call at 5.30 on a Friday, hey, the water heater’s out. We want to eliminate that kind of stuff. So we look for properties that are pretty well put together. When it comes to the investors, they all have their typical, they run the numbers is what they say. So I could take the same property and send it out to 10 or 12 different investors. And I’ll get two people interested, the rest of them say the numbers don’t work.

They have their way of doing the math. They know how it works. They know what it looks like. And then we proceed. If they want us to go look, we go look. You know, the last guy, I had an investor that bought two properties. We’re trying to close on two properties coming up. I did video. He’s an over the road truck driver. Lives not too far from here. But actually someone I helped buy at the house he’s living in like three years ago. And he, I did probably half a dozen video walkthroughs for him.

Send them to them like, all right, we like these two. Let’s make offers on those. So we ended up getting both of them accepted.

Stephen Schmidt (08:00.781)
That’s awesome. So what do you think separates a great investor agent from just a traditional residential agent? Because what I find is, is there almost seems to be like the never ending battle between investor versus a realtor in pretty much most markets. Like they don’t really play together very friendly. So what typically have you ran into in that space? What do you think really separates yourself, especially being willing to work with investors?

Mark Keene (08:02.353)
What do you think separates a great investor agent from just a traditional residential agent? Because what I find is there almost seems to be the never-ending battle between investor versus realtor in pretty much most markets. They don’t really play together very friendly. So what typically have you ran into in that space? What do you think really separates yourself, especially being willing to work with investors?

So, like, you’re talking about wholesalers or things like that or what the difference is or? No, no, no, in general what I find is that investors, unless they’re, I guess unless they are buying and holding, Generally speaking, most investors, fix and flippers and wholesalers, I guess would probably be the ones that I see having the most issues but.

Stephen Schmidt (08:35.497)
No, no, no. In general, what I find is, that investors, unless they’re, I guess, unless they are buying and holding, right? Generally speaking, most investors, fix and flippers and wholesalers, I guess, would probably be the ones that I see having the most issues. in general, I don’t find realtors are very willing to play with investors that much.

Mark Keene (08:56.247)
In general, don’t find realtors are very willing to play with investors that much. Well, see, it’s that doesn’t make any sense to me because I’d rather have like a great I have an investor, two of the two I have in California, their mom and son. I talked to the son first. He called me on one of my listings.

So I’m asking about the listing and he said, yeah, I’m closing down another property just a month ago. I said, well, you already work with a real estate agent. He goes, no, I only call the listing agents. I go, why would you only call the listing agents? He goes, it’s easier just to talk to them. I go, well, you’re in California. Wouldn’t you rather have boots on the ground that someone’s willing to work with you and go look at properties so that way you know you’re protected? I said, you’re looking at my listing.

I’d love for you to buy my listing, but if you don’t, I’d rather help you find your next two or three properties than stop with just my listing. Then you’ll know that you’re protected when it’s here. And you agree with that. So he and his mom have since bought four properties through me. What’s crazy about that is, one of the other ones that he bought before he started working with me, he went through the listing agent.

The listing agent was also his property manager for the property. Once that contract ended, he let BS Realty Services take over his property managers. Once we took over, we discovered he’d needed a new roof before he bought the property. There was mold in the property that the listing agent and the property managers never told him about. So if he would have gone through us, he would not have bought that property.

Stephen Schmidt (10:21.069)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (10:37.069)
Hmm

Mark Keene (10:37.671)
He had like a $30,000 price tag to fix the property once we took over just to make it inhabitable. And the other people he was dealing with, they were just trying to sell him the property and call it a day and collect his rent every month for him. And it’s, you gotta, I try to treat people fair. You you build that relationship with an investor. Like the guy, I have a guy that’s in Florida, we’re closing in on his first property, probably coming up here this week.

Stephen Schmidt (10:44.589)
well.

Stephen Schmidt (10:51.105)
Right.

Mark Keene (11:07.143)
He wants to get six properties over the next 12 months. That’s five more deals. My guy that were closed on two properties probably before the month’s over. He wants to have six properties. He wants to have 15 properties by the end of 2026. That’s built-in income as a real estate agent. Why you would not want to work with an investor, I have no idea.

Stephen Schmidt (11:10.733)
100 %

Stephen Schmidt (11:21.9)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (11:28.173)
So how do you evaluate whether a property is a good investment opportunity or not?

Mark Keene (11:35.921)
Part of it is the experience I have as a remodeler, that helps considerably. Before I did remodeling, I sold building materials for close to two decades. So when I walk into a house, I know the structure of the house. I know if it could be fixed. If I walk in and there’s like a support post down in the basement every 10 feet, that’s not a good property. If the foundation’s cracked. One of my agents in my office is actually my oldest son.

who’s also a licensed home inspector. So if he walks through, he’s getting the eyes of a home inspector. Bill Ashcraft, the owner of my company, he actually took a home inspecting course. So when I go through, when I work with investors, I don’t just go through as a real estate agent by myself.

I bring at least my son Jeremy or Bill and Sabina along with me as the property managers because they’re the ones, if I have my investors off to them, they’re the ones that are responsible for maintaining the house. So if you’ve got eyes of a home inspector in there, the property managers in there besides me, it’s important to eliminate the houses as much as it is to find the good one. And like a typical search for me with a brand new investor.

I will pull up possibly 200 to 250 homes on the MLS within their search criteria and I’ll literally click on each one of those houses to get the description, to see what it is and look at all the pictures and out of those 250 I’ll send them 25 houses to look at. Of the 25 houses they’re going to narrow it down to maybe 10 or 11.

then we go walk through the 10 or 11 and look at those. So we’ve eliminated a lot of that before we even start walking through. And of the 10 or 11, we’re going to get it down to one or two.

Stephen Schmidt (13:25.005)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (13:28.937)
Right. Now, so do you personally invest as well?

Mark Keene (13:31.161)
So do you personally invest as well? I have not personally invested. It’s on the list of things I’m wanting to get accomplished. I haven’t done it yet.

Stephen Schmidt (13:39.533)
I gotcha. What’s holding you back?

Mark Keene (13:41.223)
What’s holding you back? I have a lot of fun being a real estate agent. Part of it is like a conflict of interest. I’ve had people, I’ve had investors I’ve worked with that they said I used to work with that real estate agent. I don’t want to work with them anymore because the good houses, he would buy the good houses before he even sent it to me. So if I can eliminate that conflict of interest, they know I have their best interests at heart.

Stephen Schmidt (13:47.821)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (14:03.575)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (14:07.799)
Yeah, no, that does make a lot of sense for sure. Now, so I know we talked a little bit about like Gary, Indiana, right? Like, is that like the best market that you’re seeing in your area right now? What’s so great about Gary and investing there?

Mark Keene (14:12.165)
Now, I know we talked a little bit about like Gary, Indiana, right? Like, is that like the best market that you’re seeing in your area right now? What’s so great about Gary and investing there? Partly, it’s probably the most undervalued property in the country, at least Houston. I’m what’s known as a region rat. Northwest Indiana is the Calumet region.

There’s a Calumet River runs through here in the state of Indiana. We’re known as the region. We’re kind of like the, we’re almost like a suburb of Chicago as opposed to being in the state of Indiana. So, and if you’re a region, if you’re from the region, you’re known as a region rat and I’m a region rat. I’ve grown up here. When Gary first started in my youth,

Stephen Schmidt (14:45.878)
really?

Mark Keene (14:57.447)
As a 10 or 11 year old kid, I could go to downtown Gary by myself and do shopping. There were buses that got you there. Public transportation. Fast forward to the late 70s or early 80s, houses in Gary and the classified ads, you could find a really good house for 500 bucks on the classified ads and nobody was buying it.

So no one was living in those houses. if you get on YouTube and look in Gary, there’s some knucklehead that’s out there creating YouTube videos. He goes through the worst parts of Gary, the worst parts of Detroit. He goes through the bad cities, finds the worst parts and go, hey, here’s the city. This is what it looks like. And it’s like 10 to 15 % of the city. He’s showing you the worst parts. There’s actually really nice parts in Gary. Really nice cities, really nice houses in Gary.

Stephen Schmidt (15:37.323)
Right. Sure.

Mark Keene (15:45.319)
And we currently have a lot of people within that are investors and flippers that are going to Gary because you go to Gary and buy a house for $50,000. That’s a three-bedroom, two-bath house. And it costs you $50,000 to $60,000 to put it all back together. So you got $110,000, $120,000 into it. You can list it now for $160,000 to $170,000. So it’s a nice turnaround with the numbers.

Stephen Schmidt (16:04.685)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Keene (16:14.727)
There’s people that do that. As a company, we don’t really do that too much because you got to have the contractors. We’re not a construction company. We have a couple of investors that want to do that, but they’re responsible for their own contractors putting it all back together.

Stephen Schmidt (16:30.283)
Yeah. So what are some? Yeah, no, it does. 100 percent. What are some common mistakes you see new investors making? What are some common mistakes that you see new investors making?

Mark Keene (16:31.227)
Hopefully that answered your question. no, it does 100%. What are some common mistakes you see new investors making? What’s that? What are some common mistakes that you see new investors making? Paying too much for a house. They don’t be able to get the return back. Or we don’t do them too much. Like you get into the ones that need a flip and they don’t have any experience flipping a house and they get in over their heads.

They get halfway done and it kind of freaks them out and they don’t know what to do. That type Have you ever talked to anybody out of a deal? yeah. That’s as important as a real… I got to produce share of responsibility to my investors. It’s just as important to them to have their backs say, you don’t want to do that. Like if you go on my Google page, I got 56 reviews of my Google page and you’ll find a couple behind there where the…

Stephen Schmidt (17:03.885)
Have you ever talked to anybody out of a deal?

Mark Keene (17:26.385)
First time homebuyers say we like working with Mark because he told us, this is not a house for you. You don’t want to buy this house. My responsibility is to my clients.

Stephen Schmidt (17:31.275)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (17:38.903)
So how much of your business is split between retail versus like the investor side?

Mark Keene (17:39.239)
So how much of your business is split between retail versus like the investor side? Probably 50-50. Really? Yeah. The bigger dollar ones are the home buyers. know, the investors aren’t looking for the $400,000 house. They’re not looking for a $350,000 house. The investor side, if they get above $150,000, they’re up high for an investment.

I think the highest number I think I’ve ever done with an investment property is 170. Except for one, the lady flipped one. I had an investor, she paid 200,000 for a house. had it for three months. We turned around and sold it for 335,000. But I knew the property, I knew the area.

Stephen Schmidt (18:25.739)
Now, right. One of the things you mentioned was as far as common mistakes that you see as people overpaying for a house. And so like, how do you help clients avoid overpaying in competitive markets?

Mark Keene (18:37.383)
And so like how do you help plants avoid overpaying in competitive markets? What I do is there’s a couple different apps that I have access to as a real estate agent. So when I have a house that I think they might be interested in, and I do this with everybody, not just investors. If I’m showing houses to somebody and they’re interested in the house, I will do pull the comps on it for it. If it’s value that they want, then fine, we’ll do it. Like I had a house.

There’s a community called Michigan City. This is probably two and a half, three years ago. I had a client that really liked the house, but it needed to be flipped. I mean, you could live in, you could move into it. I call it like a Brady Bunch house. It was like the Brady Bunch lived in this house. That was the decor of this house. Well, the listing agent lived in the same neighborhood. She thought what she knew the value was, and she had it listed for, I think, $255,000.

Stephen Schmidt (19:35.469)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Keene (19:35.971)
I pulled the comps and the house put back together was only $220. This one needed work. So my clients offered $210 for this house and it was listed at $254, something like that. And I told them, you show me the comps to support this, they’ll offer more. But this is what I found. They ended up getting for $214,000 because she couldn’t provide the comps. I had another client that they wanted to buy a house in East Chicago.

The house in East Chicago was listed at $285,000. And they wanted to offer the 285 in the house. It was a really cool house. And I pulled the comps in East Chicago. And East Chicago, Indiana, the previous 12 months, the most any house had ever sold was $235,000. So this was listed $50,000 higher than any house that had sold. So I went back to them. I go, you’re not offered 285.

If you want to do the 235, that’s the most any officer sold, I’ll write up the deal for you. We’re not doing 285. I’m not letting you do that. And again, I went to that agent, showed me the cops, and they couldn’t do it. So that couple walked away and found a different house somewhere else.

Stephen Schmidt (20:45.591)
No kidding, ended up not buying it at all.

Mark Keene (20:48.103)
Yeah, they just wouldn’t do it. And Paul, I wouldn’t let him. It was a young couple with two kids and they’re like, really like the house. Yeah, but you’re not getting inside. You’re not going in. You’re not doing it. I’m not going to allow you to put yourself in that situation. They offered the 235 and it got turned down.

But that’s part of your job as a real estate agent, look out for your clients.

Stephen Schmidt (21:08.247)
Yeah, 100%.

Mark Keene (21:10.905)
so like with

Stephen Schmidt (21:14.071)
finding the deals, are you doing mostly on market properties or like how do you keep investors in the loop on opportunities before they hit the MLS?

Mark Keene (21:14.457)
finding the deals are you doing mostly on market properties or like how do you keep investors in the loop on opportunities before they hit the MLS? I have a lot of people to find me on my Google page. One of my clients was a guy from Virginia. He had three properties in Gary and he called me up, I got these three properties I want you to list them. So I got the properties. Bill and Sabina have a lot of investors. I have a lot of investors.

We share those three with the investors. I ended up selling two of those before they hit the MLS and the other one I sold shortly after that. I have a lot of wholesalers that come to me, I got these properties, could you promote them for me? And I do that occasionally. I have other guys that, hey, you have, would you have new listings? When they’re available, let me know, I’d be interested before they get on the MLS. So I have a network of probably three or four different investors, excuse me, that’ll be interested in doing that.

Stephen Schmidt (22:05.549)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (22:11.053)
So now what’s your approach on turning like a one-time client into a long-term business partner? Because you’ve kind of got the secret sauce for that figured out it sounds like.

Mark Keene (22:12.753)
So now what’s your approach on turning like a one-time client into a long-term business partner? Because you’ve got to seek your sauce for that figured out it sounds like. Well, you kind of interview the client. Your homeowners, that’s just kind of like every year we have a Christmas party. Anyone I’ve ever helped find a house, they get invited to our Christmas party. Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don’t. You stay connected with them a little bit.

You let them know if they have an issue with the house, they can reach back out to you. I had a client, they moved in and they had a roof leak and they were supposed to have a new roof in their house like a year after they moved in. I reached out to the listing agent, here’s what’s going on and within like three weeks, the seller, to his credit, knew it was a new roof, he sent his roofer over and they got the roof fixed. You help them out, it’s not a one shot deal. As far as investors, you need to interview them and find out what they’re wanting to do.

You know, most investors, they dream of having that investment portfolio that they’re gonna live on the beach when they retire, because they’re making so much money with the real estate. The goal is to help them get that accomplished. I got a financial advisor I work with that I’ve sent. My guy that recently, that I got two closings coming up, my truck driver, I sent him to my financial advisor.

Stephen Schmidt (23:27.885)
Mm.

Mark Keene (23:37.127)
Like a year and a half ago, and the two of them have been working together for like a year and a half, they’ll finally use it in position to buy houses. Now we’re buying houses. So it’s having that team to work with. Oh, it’s extremely important. It’s important to have like the title companies that I work with, because you always have issues. You got to be able to call someone and have them have your back.

Stephen Schmidt (23:44.885)
awesome. How important has been building that team for you to have long term success?

Mark Keene (24:05.703)
It helps to have my son be my home inspector. That’s a nice part of having my team. Bill and Sabina, as far as being property managers, I don’t know if I’d have the investor clientele if I wasn’t working with Bill and Sabina to have as a team, to have their support. Makes a big difference. When you could go and say, here’s what we have and we can look out for you, that helps. We have guys who do clean out stuff. gotta put the team, got lenders. Lenders are a big part.

You gotta have lenders that you can take your investors to and go here, talk with these people, and they’re gonna get you through some of the hiccups to get them to get to a closing. That’s a big part of the deal.

Stephen Schmidt (24:50.037)
Yeah, 100%. Well, Mark, thanks so much for being here today. If people want to connect with you, learn more about you, or should they go for that?

Mark Keene (24:52.327)
Thanks so much for being here today. If people want to connect with you, you learn more about you, or should they go for that? A couple different ways. I got an email. That is mhkeene, the number 60, at gmail.com. They can Google Mark Keene real estate agent. You can find me there real easy. I got a website, writing-realtor.com. Like you and I talked before we got on, I write a Harley.

put 6,000 miles a year on my Harley showing houses. So it’s a lot of fun. I have a good time. I’m not the normal real estate agent that rolls up on the driveway. Not at all. I love it. That’s what separates you though in a way. But yeah, I love working with people. I love working with investors. It doesn’t matter what state you’re in. Like you and I talked, I got them in California and Vegas and Texas.

Stephen Schmidt (25:28.887)
Not at all. love it. That’s what separates you though, in a way.

Mark Keene (25:46.329)
I’m part of an organization also that we have not discussed. It’s called Homes for Heroes. Have you ever heard of Homes for Heroes? I have, Because it is a real, there’s six, five different heroes, active, retired military, law enforcement, first responders, so firefighters and EMTs, healthcare workers, and education. What I do as a real estate agent, I give up 30 % of my gross commission.

Stephen Schmidt (25:52.301)
I have,

Mark Keene (26:12.007)
There’s a benefit that goes back to each hero. What the benefit is, it’s $700 for every $100,000 involved in the transaction. So if you buy a $100,000 house, you get $700 back, $200,000, you get $1,400 back. To date, I’ve done 24 hero transactions and I’ve given back over $34,000. So it’s kind of a cool thing, kind of an honor to work with people.

Stephen Schmidt (26:34.221)
That’s amazing.

Mark Keene (26:37.743)
My guy in Florida about ready to close on, he’s a 23 year Navy veteran. So he’s about ready to get like 850 bucks back from the price of his house. Kind of a neat thing. Well there you go everybody. I hope you enjoyed today’s show. We’ll see you on the next episode. Thanks again for being here Mark. All right, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You got it.

Stephen Schmidt (26:49.229)
Well, there you go, everybody. I hope you enjoyed today’s show. We’ll see you on the next episode. Thanks again for being here, Mark.

you got.