Are Better Real Estate Deals Coming? Clint Wetherill’s Market Outlook

Clint Wetherill (00:00)
The cycle of death is

You purchase a property in one of these areas, you fix it up, you find the best poor quality tenant that you possibly can for that area. They tear the house up, you evict them, and you’re just on this hamster wheel, this cycle of death over and over again. But yet, the on paper return, looks so great, but that is not real.

Issa Hanna (01:53)
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Issa Hanna and today we have Clint Wetherill with us to share his knowledge. Clint, welcome to the show.

Clint Wetherill (02:01)
Thanks so much for having me. I’m a fan of the show and it’s just an honor to be here. So thanks so much.

Issa Hanna (02:06)
It’s an honor to have Indiana’s top property guy in the house, in the booth with us, man. we’re gonna get so much knowledge from you, man. I’m super excited. But for the viewers at home, can you kind of break down, you’re in all types of facets of real estate, but break down what your day to days look like and then an overview of what real estate you’re into.

Clint Wetherill (02:24)
Yeah, for sure. Again, name my name is Clint Wetherill and I own a real estate brokerage based out of Fishers Indiana with my business partner Scott Adams. He is the other half of the Homeboys. And him and I have been doing this together for a really long time. It’s kind of interesting. him and I used to be friendly competitors at the local sheriff sale auctions and foreclosure sales and

We just gained a respect for one another and we would fight over the same properties and then go out to lunch afterwards. And we decided to join forces and we’ve been doing it doing this ever since. So I am a product of that you can mix friendship and business because Scotty’s my best friend doing this. But together we own Realty Wealth Advisors, which is a real estate brokerage that

help service our customers with investment properties where we buy somewhere between five and ten investment properties a month. We fix them up, have those properties inspected, we pass those along to our customers. And then we do the ongoing property management with the management company that we own, Zuluscape, and we have about eleven hundred doors under management. But then on top of that, we

develop one to two commercial multifamily real estate developments a year. currently we are building a hundred and thirty-five townhomes in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and we are finishing twenty-five duplexes in Evansville, Indiana. So I know that’s small in the grand scheme of commercial real estate, but it’s giant to us because we’re a small, mom and pop company here in central Indiana.

But we have staff of about twenty people that we get to come to work with every day. We love real estate and we love talking about it. So that’s why I’m here with you today.

Issa Hanna (04:12)
I love that. I love that. I love that when we were talking earlier, you expressed how much you cared about your clients. You cared about the business. You just touched on it now. And that’s what you’re gonna get from you referred to as mom and pop, we say boutique. when you got the owner operator in there, him and Scott, is the name of your partner, correct? and next time, what, I’m gonna already in i invite you guys back on the show for another time.

And you bring Scott with you. But when you got a partner like Scott and you got a partner like Clint and they’re the owner operators, they care about their clients, they can do so much more for you than that big box brand. So that nice shiny name is just a name, you guys. You want to go after the guy that has the knowledge, and that’s Clint. But then now I wanna I you said 25 years, so let’s rewind it back. Twenty-five years ago, how did young Clint stumble into this business we all love?

Clint Wetherill (05:01)
That’s a great question. And it’s a question I’m really passionate about, actually. I graduated college in one, Indiana University. And I have to plug that we’re the current national champions in football. It’s still hard to believe. But it happened. It’s not a dream. But I went to work for an office supply company and I joke about it. I s I say prior to being in real estate, I was an air freshener and urinal cake salesman.

which is just two of the glamorous products that I was selling. And but I did I did love the job and I got this bug for real estate. I was always really, drawn to real estate. And it was a very unique time, two thousand two, three, four, five. There was a massive foreclosure boom, really across the country, but here in the Midwest, there was a large amount of foreclosures on houses that were

Pretty new, couple years old. And that fit, kind of my knowledge. I’m handy enough just to be dangerous. I started buying foreclosures and fixing them up on the side outside of my normal nine to five sales gig. And, I think it was kind of hard to mess up at that time. And I tell people that, a bad deal on the types of houses that I was buying because they were just paint and carpet deals. I was making about 10 grand and a phenomenal deal. I was making 30.

It’s not like the flip the this house type numbers that you see on cable TV, but but it was very controlled and very easy to attain. And I attracted some other local real estate investors that wanted to do the same thing that I was doing. And, I got my real estate license. I was kind of a one-man general contractor realtor combo. And it was the greatest job in the history of the world. I was

Buying three, four homes a week for myself and my clients and going around and checking on the job sites. And I was young and naive and I thought that’s how real estate worked. And then the Great Recession happened in two thousand eight and our for sale signs got switched out with for rent signs. And I became a property manager overnight. And I tell everybody, in real estate it’s evolve or die. If you think you’re gonna get in and do the exact same thing all the time, it’s

your longevity in this business is gonna be difficult. And we had to that was the our my first lesson in evolving or dying. And became a property manager overnight. and then s really started growing the client base organically. I’ve never done any advertising. my business partner Scott had access to a pretty large customer base and we just service, our group of customers and we, word of mouth, we have

got a really good reputation, over the years, but we love helping people change their financial lives through real estate because it’s changed ours.

Issa Hanna (07:39)
I love that. word of mouth, you guys, word of mouth, the best advertisement you can have. You treat one client the right way, the way you’re supposed to. You care about that client, you plant the seed, that seed grows. They’re gonna bring you their friends, they’re gonna bring you everybody. Why? Because they can trust you. They found somebody that’s gonna make you money. So I wanted to highlight that out of your answer, Clint. You’re already bringing such great knowledge to the show. but word of mouth, as somebody who sold

had over two hundred and fifty first time home buyers in the Chicagoland area and never spent a dollar on advertising. I can definitely attest to that, Clint, hundred percent.

Clint Wetherill (08:15)
You take care of your customers and they will they will find you, I promise you.

Issa Hanna (08:19)
Yes, exactly. That word of mouth you won’t know how it spreads. Everybody likes to have a guy, right? you could be that guy for It goes such a long way, man. And man, brokerage owner had to pivot. I wanted to highlight that too, and we’ll go into that. We are a business of variables. so you gotta pivot so many times. You gotta learn, you gotta grow. The Great Recession, the internet boom.

now AI. Where do you think AI is gonna be in the real estate game ten years from now? How involved do you think we’re as humans gonna be?

Clint Wetherill (09:38)
I mean, that’s a great question. I’m heavily involved in the day to day operation of our property management business. And I can say there are certain tasks that it’s been very, beneficial to so far and certain tasks that I don’t think we’re ready for. like when it comes to rent collection, our AI it’s driven by AI and it’s you build the module and it and it and it just works. I mean it’s beautiful.

However, you I know there’s lots of companies out there that like coordinate maintenance that are, driven by AI voice. And I don’t think that our tenants and our owners are ready for that level of AI. They still like hearing from a live person. So I think there’s a lot of the runway is still pretty long on how it works out. I think with a lot of the task driven stuff, I think it’s really attractive. I mean, it’s always there. you I

don’t have to have an employee that’s coming in and working in my brick and mortar, office location. And I think that I think that it’s amazing. But I still think that it’s important not to lose sight of the customer service part of getting a live, person on the phone. I tell all of my customers we have about two hundred and seventy five rental property owners. All of them have my cell phone number. and I think that says a lot, that the business owner

is giving out their cell phone number to every single one of their customers. so I think that I think that that’s something that with AI actually also creates an opportunity for certain companies, that there’s so many companies that you’re going to be getting a a computer driven, voice or response that if you’re saying, Hey, here’s my cell phone, call me on Saturday.

I think that says a lot. So I think AI helps a lot with the task driven stuff, but I think it also gives us the opportunity to separate ourselves with communication by being available to our customers.

Issa Hanna (11:22)
I love that, Clint. and it goes back to the word of mouth. That’s how you get the word of mouth out there. You have people have access to you, the owner, you Clint, you the guy that cares about them. Puts people off when they hear the AI voice, right? So the whole reason the profession of real estate agent exists is because people feel weird talking business about their homes, right? They need that agent in the middle of the intermediary area. property management people don’t want to deal with the tenants. They

hire us to do it. So it’s a personal thing and a machine’s not going to be able to replace that. They are going to make you super efficient though in the future. So just like we’ve embraced the internet 20, something years ago, we need to super embrace this because it’s coming and you don’t want to be left in the dust. so man, I I’m loving your answers right now. You’re

dropping so much knowledge on everybody right now, Clint. the Homeboys podcast, I’m sure, is just a library of just real estate knowledge. So man, amazing. I wanna I wanna get a real estate nightmare from you now, right? Because we are proper or we are a business of variables. We get to be experts at putting out fires. We get to be experts at learning from our mistakes. So

Give me a real estate nightmare that sticks out in your mind ’cause we all have one as an investor.

Clint Wetherill (12:38)
Well, I’ve had a ton of I mean it’s I could get I could get give some really interesting ones. we’ve had some different celebrity run ins. We were on a on a wild we had a property that was showcased on a wild sh T V show called Teen Mom not too long ago and had People magazine calling our office and different things. But

But anyhow, I want to kind of be more educational than th than funny or interesting. I think that, one of the biggest things that I learned early on as far as real estate nightmare is what happens when people get caught up with on paper returns that aren’t realistic. And here in Indianapolis, and I’m sure it’s like this across the country, there are parts of Indianapolis you don’t want to go at night. And if you don’t want to go there at night,

You d you should not be investing in that area. Now, the reality is if I could give you a pro forma that looks really incredible at some of those areas. And you’re like, my gosh, fifteen percent cash on cash return, twenty percent cash on cash return. I can’t I can’t lose. Well, you can. you get on what’s called the cycle of death. And I learned this, very, very early on. The cycle of death is

You purchase a property in one of these areas, you fix it up, you find the best poor quality tenant that you possibly can for that area. They tear the house up, you evict them, and you’re just on this hamster wheel, this cycle of death over and over again. But yet, the on paper return, looks so great, but that is not real. So like my biggest nightmare story early on was

getting caught up and back then it was a lot different than it is now. Like back then you could buy houses for ten grand. Like seriously, ten thousand dollars, back whenever I was getting started. And you think, my gosh, I can’t I can’t miss. You buy it for ten grand, you put, thirty grand into it. You rent it out for eight hundred dollars. And like I said, I’m going back twenty five years. And there is no way you’re gonna make that property work. your only option is to be able to sell it to another sucker to be able to get out of it. So

I caution everybody, if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is. And to be very cautious when you’re when you’re analyzing proformas because a lot of times the best looking properties on paper are actually the worst performers. And I learned that a very hard lesson early on.

Issa Hanna (14:52)
Definitely. I love how you described the cycle of death because, somebody who’s had some properties in those areas, and has learned, from my mistake. so I’ve made the same mistake. it is a cycle of death, you guys. You guys it literally these people will live there for a year, they’ll move out, you gotta come in, you gotta overhaul the whole property. It’s a yearly cycle. If you get lucky, they might stay there for three years. But the longer they stay, the more work you gotta do. So

the longer that cyclone stays, the more, the more it tears it up. And we touched on that. You said one of your strengths that you bring to the table for your clients, when we were talking before, is that you’re teaching them how not to make these mistakes that this is what they’re paying for. This is the expert services that you pay for. When you’ve made these mistakes, right, you’ve gone through that fire, you can teach

Or you can do for your client a lot more because you foresee these things. You’re an expert at and be, man, that’s a potential fire right there. I gotta put this out before it starts. So man, I’m loving these answers. 1100 rentals, 25 years in the business, owner of a brokerage, property management company, multifamily projects. I mean, you name it, you’re in it, Clint. You and and Sky. I mean it’s truly amazing. I want to know what the future holds,

Five years down the line, real wealth, Real Wealth Advisors. Where are we gonna see you guys at?

Clint Wetherill (16:53)
Yeah, it’s a good question. I’m I am a man of faith and I d I’m on a constant journey to figure out my priorities in life. I think that that’s something that I’ve had phases in my life where I’ve failed at that miserably. I I’m very blessed to have I’m old for having such young daughters. I have seven and ten year old girls and they’re just the greatest, blessings of my life.

And I just I love going home from work and being an active father. That’s truly my most successful thing of my life, is being able to be an active father, to those two beautiful girls. But as far as real estate goes, I don’t know. I like this. I like I like giving out my knowledge, my horse.

horror stories of real estate, my, learning from my mistakes. I think that, we as a business are probably gonna be somewhere in a lateral movement for the next for the next 10 years. We develop, w a project or so a year. we I’m not looking to develop five. I’m also not looking to buy 40 homes a month. I I’m looking to

kind of stay, the same course because I don’t want to ever get to the point where I’m too big where I can’t give my customers my cell phone number. I just I just don’t have a lot of interest in that. And what does the what does the future hold for real estate? I don’t know. If I did know for certain, I wouldn’t be doing this for very long because I’d make so much money when something were to happen that, I wouldn’t have to do it. But my personal belief

Is that we have seen a giant run up in real estate over the last 10 years. here in Indiana, it’s been remarkable. And along with that, we’ve had crazy, rental appreciation. our rental costs have gone up, drastically. But or shouldn’t say cost, our rental rates have gone up drastically. I do think that we’re at a point where we’re cresting as far as our rental rates go.

And I do see that, we haven’t hard hardly had any foreclosure inventory in forever. And why would you? Because the properties are appreciating so fast. If a person stops paying their mortgage payment, then they just put a for sale sign in the yard, they pay the bank off, they still make money and they go on their merry way. But we’re starting to see that there is gonna be more foreclosure inventory. So I do believe that we are close. How close, don’t know, but we are close.

to being into a period where you’re gonna start finding good real estate deals again. Here, for the last ten years, I mean everything that especially single family, we would have to buy the biggest dog with fleas in a b in a in a good neighborhood. And I mean like we would we don’t get outside of we’re always in good neighborhoods, but we were buying houses that needed so much work just to be able to get a deal.

when I started in real estate, I was buying houses that needed five thousand dollars of work and was an incredible deal. Those days have been gone forever. So, where does it get to, I don’t know. But I do think that you’re about to see in the single family and multifamily world that there are gonna be some more deals. And as far as myself and Scotty go, like our growth will be, very slow. And I think that that’s something that when you’re deciding on who to work with.

For investment properties. If you’re watching a company that just has extreme massive growth where they were managing 200 properties last year and now they’re managing 800, that is very, difficult to sustain. And I would be very cautious about going into business with a marketing machine that’s growing at that rate because it’s I could tell you I’ve owned a property management company for 25 years. And if you told me that I was going to double this next year, I would tell you that I am not staffed for that, nor can I control that. So

be cautious. Go into business with people that have been doing it for a very long time and have a good plan.

Issa Hanna (20:37)
Exactly. I literally was gonna say, give me the guy who’s been doing it for twenty five years, who’s seen everything. Not the company that’s putting twenty, thirty K into marketing and that you’re seeing on social media all the time. Right. because you’re paying for the knowledge and you’re paying the same thing. you might as well get the best services for what you pay, right? We’re all about paying for our bucks. So now if they did wanna get a hold of you guys,

Clint Wetherill (21:00)
Realty Wealth Advisors, Zuluscape.

Issa Hanna (21:02)
Yeah, Realty Wealth Advisors. How could they reach you?

Clint Wetherill (21:05)
So probably the easiest way is homeboyspodcast.com We have a lot of resources on there. We also have all of the properties that we have available for our investors. if you want to contact us directly, our phone number is 317-688-8555. we’d be we would love to help you out, set up a consultation, talk you through the entire process.

And then we are available on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, even though I am not the foremost expert in social media. I’ve got a guy behind the camera over there named Bryce that is, but you can reach out to us on social media as well.

Issa Hanna (21:43)
Definitely. And shout out to Bryce because he is definitely an MVP over there. he fixed an issue like this before we started. So shout out Bryce, shout out the Homeboys podcast because you guys are bringing such a a wealth of knowledge, to people that may not know how to get that knowledge otherwise. So make sure you guys check them out. I wanna leave with one piece of advice from you.

And this is for our new guys, right? So our business is all about building relationships, growing your network. For the new guy who’s just starting, if you had to give him one piece of advice on how to start building that first relationship, what would you tell him?

Clint Wetherill (22:19)
I think we kind of hit on it early. One, I would say get started right away because the quicker you can build your portfolio, one of my the biggest, strengths of my career is I started acquiring assets at twenty three years old. And I it you don’t know it then, but it it changes your life, if you are able to start acquiring. So I would say get started quick. But whenever you are

going into business with someone, make sure that you’re going into business with someone that is experienced. And I know there’s lots of people that are getting their start trying to do what Scotty and I do, but if they’ve only been doing it for a couple of years, I wouldn’t do it. I mean, I think you have to be proven because there’s a lot of fly by night companies. I see it every day. it’s once you find someone that’s been doing it for twenty five years like us,

know, if we were doing it the wrong way, we would have been outed a long time ago. And there’s other markets, I we know a couple of ladies in Cincinnati that have been doing this for a very long time. we know a gentleman down in Jacksonville, Florida has been doing this for a really long time. There’s other markets that that have people like Scotty and I that know their stuff. But I would make sure you do your homework, get started, right away and always be looking for the next deal.

Issa Hanna (23:31)
Definitely, because guys, the property management game is a unforgiving game for those fly by night people. They’ll come in, it’s easy to get in, but not a lot of people stick around for twenty-five years in the property management business. I mean, they’re amongst the top, one percent, two percent of property management businesses just being around that long. So amazing, advice, Clint.

Thank you so much for coming on the show. It was it was a true honor to have you on. And like I said, I want to invite you and Scotty back on for a later date.

Clint Wetherill (24:02)
We would love that. Thanks so much. I’ve had a blast being on there and don’t hesitate to reach out anytime. And as I always tell everybody, happy investing.

Issa Hanna (24:09)
Perfect. man, it was a true honor to host you and to our viewers at home. If you guys enjoyed my conversation with Clint and want to see more like it, make sure to hit like and subscribe. We talk to people every day that can bring us different knowledge on every aspect of the real estate industry. Until next time, the Homeboys Podcast, The Real Estate Pros, we are out.