From Network Engineer to Real Estate Investor: Sean Ledbetter’s Journey to Cash Flow

Sean Ledbetter (00:00)
I spent more than I had to but because of the strategies that I use I basically started with a fix and flip, got hard money lending, got the ⁓ acquisition, 90 % of the acquisition, got 100 % of the renovation, I converted into a three unit, I did a DSCR loan, I poured out $40,000 in cash tax free, I Airbnb the basement, the first level, I was able to rent out midterm.

Dylan Silver (00:00)
Yeah. Sean Ledbetter (00:24)
And I was able to read out midterm as well. And I was pretty much getting, right now I’m getting about $1,500 of cash flow every month.

Dylan Silver (02:03)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a Maryland based realtor, investor and property manager. His company, Unique Property Investment Group has been around since 2016 and he also works in tech as a network engineer. Please welcome Sean Ledbetter. Sean, welcome to the show.

Sean Ledbetter (02:21)
Thank you for having me, Dylan.

Dylan Silver (02:23)
It’s a pleasure to have you. I always like to start off at the top by asking folks how they got into real estate.

Sean Ledbetter (02:28)
Yeah, so I kind of stumbled across real estate. I purchased my first home in Bowie, Maryland, which is in Prince George County here in Maryland, back in 1999. And at that time I purchased it for $146,000, put down $5,000 on the home. And at that time I was nervous, Dylan. I was like, how can I purchase this home and how can I stay in it? And as you know, at that time, that’s when the real estate boom happened.

Dylan Silver (02:48)
Yeah.

Boom.

Sean Ledbetter (02:52)
So

I purchased it in 1999. I sold it for $388,000 six years later. So when that boom happened, the light bulb went off and said, you know what? Go get your real estate license. Sell your own home. Become an agent, sell your own home. That way you can save 3%, move on to your next property. And so that’s what I did. So that’s how I learned about real estate and learned the benefits of how real estate could really help out me and my family at that particular time.

Dylan Silver (03:18)
Now when you got into the real estate space from the tech world as a network engineer, were you thinking maybe about a career transition or were you thinking, hey, I like what happened with my own home and maybe there’s something there and maybe I go be an investor or was it really, hey, let me just see what this is like.

Sean Ledbetter (03:33)
Yeah, I started out with saying, you know what, I’m going to just get my license to help people buy, sell, invest, mainly friends and family at that particular time. So I didn’t see it as a career as, you know, me helping out the masses in regards to making this a full time career. But I did know that it was a benefit of having my real estate license because not just helping out my friends and family, but at that time I wanted to be a real estate investor. So I was going to meetups and understanding, you know, how does that process work?

Some of the creative strategies that I use today, I learned back in 2000. And so, I just wanted to know, you know what? If I don’t become a full-time agent or make this a full-time career, how can I make this as a benefit for other things that’s coming down the road? Which, in 2016, I started my own real estate investment company and there I am.

Dylan Silver (04:21)
think a lot of people think that, well, it must be difficult to be involved in both. But I would also say it’s on real estate’s tricky if you don’t have a license, right? If you’re on the outside looking in, and that’s probably, we probably have a similar mentality in that regard. It’s like buying and selling a home is complicated. And so, you know, when you have the ability to kind of learn everything about the process yourself, there is an investment, there’s a financial investment, but buying a home is a big financial investment.

Sean Ledbetter (04:31)
Absolutely.

Yes.

Dylan Silver (04:47)
what’s you know $3,500 more in a couple hours, not a couple hours, but some hours to get some studying done, right, and pass a test. And then you can help other people in your immediate friend group and then so on and so forth. I had a similar approach, which was, you know, I want to go the investment route and I wasn’t and I’m still not truthfully super passionate, although I may change about listing homes and about representing buyers and showing properties and so on and so forth. But

Sean Ledbetter (04:53)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (05:15)
I said, you know, I really want to be an investor and I think if I don’t have the capital to buy a bunch of duplexes right now, let’s get my license and let’s scale and build the relationships. I want to pivot a bit here, Sean, and ask you about kind of the steps that led to you forming the investment group. So you got your license. Was it after shortly after you sold your home in early 2000s?

Sean Ledbetter (05:23)
Yeah.

I actually got my license during that, so I sold my own home. So I got my license at the time, and still is today. It’s only a 60 hour course. So I spent about $120. I went at night from 6 to 10 o’clock for like a month and a half. And I got my license and I sold my own home. And by doing that, guess what? I saved 3 % on the sale.

Dylan Silver (06:29)
Okay.

Yeah, you got your money back right there.

Sean Ledbetter (06:49)
I got my money back right there. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dylan Silver (06:50)
You know,

I think ⁓ when people hear stories like that, they think, okay, well, maybe I could see myself in that. 2016, you start the investment company, unique property investment group. So along the way, I’m imagining there were some pivot points, or maybe you saw some market shifts, you see the 2008 crash that happens, right? What were some of those pivot points? Or were there any maybe events or relationships in the real estate space that made you decide, you know what, I got to get into this, I got to start my own.

Sean Ledbetter (07:07)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (07:17)
investment group.

Sean Ledbetter (07:18)
Yeah, good question. Well, one of the things it was a situation, a life situation that happened in my life. My uncle passed away. And when my uncle passed away, we had a family home that has been in our family since the 1950s. My grandparents purchased a home in the 1950s for $15,000. That home has been in our family since then. So it got passed down to my uncle. Unfortunately, my uncle passed away. He passed it down to my

my mom passed it down to my brother, myself, and my cousin. And so the real estate investing started there because the property stayed vacant. It was a non-appreciating asset for two years. So that’s really where the real estate investment started because I had to refinance the property, I had to renovate the property, and then we had to get a tenant in there. And so that allowed me to, number one, understand the real estate investment process and the phases of real estate investing.

investing,

but I didn’t have the time frame of getting it sold or getting it flipped in a short period of time. Because typically, a lot of people with real estate investors

Dylan Silver (08:19)
Time crunch.

Sean Ledbetter (08:20)
The time crunch, hard money lending, short term period. So this allowed me to learn the process, understand all the nuances in real estate investing and get my feet wet. So that’s where it started. And from there, it whetted and whet my appetite to start doing other things.

Dylan Silver (08:36)
You know, it’s interesting because the two experiences that got you involved in one in real estate in general and then the other one in investing and with the investment company is deals that involved yourself and your family. Right. And so what a great, you know, I’d say message and anyone can relate to this who’s looking at buying a house. mean, that’s again, one of the biggest reasons why I got my license was because I just thought, man, this is tricky. Right.

Sean Ledbetter (08:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dylan Silver (09:02)
And know, can entrust this process with someone else, but I really want to understand that. Hopefully I have the opportunity to buy multiple homes in my life and not one, although one, I’d take one too, right? But the ability to then use that as a learning tool and kind of the pivot point, which launches a new idea, new creative investment group, like that’s…

Sean Ledbetter (09:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dylan Silver (09:25)
That’s a really interesting opportunity. That first year, two years, three years after 2016, what was the business like? How active were you? And then were you doing flips? Were you doing rentals? What was the business like?

Sean Ledbetter (10:10)
So I started off doing flips. And again, the first deal that I received was through a family connection. We had a family friend that passed away and his children were living out of state. And so at that time, they lived in the property, but they no longer lived there and they wanted to sell the property. because I was the real estate agent, I had my own real estate investment company. One of the things that I do is I want to provide solutions

to a client or someone who’s looking to sell, right? And so, and here’s, that’s one of the benefits of being not just a real estate investor, but also a realtor that has a license because then you can provide many solutions and allow them to pick and choose what solution is best for them. So at this particular time, they wanted to sell.

I was going to buy the property. purchased the property for about, I ⁓ don’t know, like $115,000. I put about 75 into it and I sold it for $300,000. Right? So I pretty much grossed about $112,000, I believe, at that particular time. And that was my first deal. So one of the things I tell my clients, my mentors is it’s not how many deals you do, it’s how many deals you do correctly. And so it takes education, takes ambition.

Dylan Silver (11:05)
That’s a flip right there.

Sean Ledbetter (11:21)
And it takes just the willingness to go out and get it done.

Dylan Silver (11:25)
and get it done. I tell folks that, you know, the same strategy that worked in early 2000s is not going to work today or really, it might not work five years from then or if I start a strategy right now, it might not work five years from today. I know quite a few flippers in the DFW Dallas Fort Worth Metro who have pivoted away from flipping. It’s very tough in some metros to do flips and I can speak specifically to Dallas.

Sean Ledbetter (11:33)
That’s correct.

Dylan Silver (11:50)
it’s a little bit tricky to do flips you really have to buy the deal right and then a lot of times to new builds. People are getting very savvy you can find new builds for maybe marginally more than the cost of some of the higher end flips of people like well if I can go new versus rehab then I’m to go new. I’m curious what pivots you’ve seen in your business and you know what were some of those kind of defining moments where you said okay well there may be a market shift happening or I may have to adjust what we’re doing.

Sean Ledbetter (12:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:17)
with the investment group

Sean Ledbetter (12:18)
So one of the things that I kind of stick with is as a real estate investor, I buy properties one of two ways.

want a discount or second on terms. Right. And so as a real estate investor and it comes to fix and flip, no matter what market I’m in, I know that there’s still a good market for me because I’m going to buy 70 cents on the dollar. Right. That’s acquisition and renovation. And if I cannot purchase it for that, guess what? I just move on to the next deal. So for me, it’s not about emotion. It’s about what the dollars that make sense. Right. And if it doesn’t make sense, then you have to move on. Now, one of the things that I

because I have multiple services in my business because I’m a real estate agent because I’m I didn’t say this but I’m also a licensed contractor, a Murralla Home Improvement Contractor, I’m a property manager and I’m a real estate investor. So when I’m speaking to a client I say okay what is what are you looking for right and from there I just I come up with a plan okay this is what you’re looking for this is what I can offer I’m a licensed agent I can put it on the market as is

Dylan Silver (13:01)
There you go.

Sean Ledbetter (13:21)
I can put it on the market once you fix it up. You can, you know, renovate it or I can purchase it. Right? I like to give people opportunities and options and let them pick those options.

Dylan Silver (13:33)
What was the process like with becoming a licensed contractor?

Sean Ledbetter (13:36)
So in Maryland, it’s really simple. It’s an open book test. It’s an open book test. I think it’s like 55 questions. And because I’ve been doing real estate investing for so long, and also I come from a family where my brother is a master electrician, my dad’s a master electrician. So I come from that background. So it’s not really that complicated. If you understand the basics of uses home improvement, and again, it’s an open book test, it’s pretty simple.

Dylan Silver (14:03)
love to hear where there’s kind of this synergy within the family because maybe family wasn’t directly involved in real estate transactions, but more and more we’re seeing real estate investors and people tangent to the real estate space that are buying real estate are also buying businesses and a lot of those businesses are in the trades HVAC electrician, right? And tangent fields. And so it makes sense that, you know, family has some experience in those realms.

Sean Ledbetter (14:20)
Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Dylan Silver (14:30)
I’m curious, bringing us up to speed to today, 2016 to 2025, nine year time difference, what were maybe some of the trickier moments that you had to navigate as far as maybe deals? You mentioned 70%, I think a lot of people go 70%. Did you ever come across a deal where maybe there was more rehab than anticipated or where there may have been issues after the fact?

Sean Ledbetter (14:36)
Yes.

Yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely. You see I’m losing my hair here, right? So my last deal, my last deal was in Baltimore, Maryland. And that particular project.

was very difficult because and challenging one, because I’ve never done a deal in Baltimore. Number two, I was converting a row home into a three family multi-unit. Right? So that means you have to get permits, you have to deal with the county. And it was new to me. I’ve never done it. Never dealt with Baltimore city. I never did a conversion from a single family to a multi-family. And so, you know, what I thought the renovation was going to cost me, it cost me a little bit more and it cost me a little bit more time.

because I was new to the whole process. And so, you know, again, you you have one or two options, right? You can, you know, face your fears and move forward, or you can face your fears and crawl in the hole. And so I just learned to always fall or fail forward because you’re always going to have challenges. You’re going to always going to have, you know, issues and things you don’t see in real estate. But if you stick to the foundations and the basics of it, you can get, you can work.

Dylan Silver (16:13)
Yeah.

Sean Ledbetter (16:39)
your way through it.

I spent more than I had to but because of the strategies that I use I basically started with a fix and flip, got hard money lending, got the ⁓ acquisition, 90 % of the acquisition, got 100 % of the renovation, I converted into a three unit, I did a DSCR loan, I poured out $40,000 in cash tax free, I Airbnb the basement, the first level, I was able to rent out midterm.

Dylan Silver (16:40)
Yeah.

Sean Ledbetter (17:05)
And I was able to read out midterm as well. And I was pretty much getting, right now I’m getting about $1,500 of cash flow every month.

Dylan Silver (17:12)
The midterm housing, I love the midterm housing because it’s like they don’t have deal with any type of real tenant issues. The people that employ them want to make sure that they’re going to be, you know, working and if something happens to them, well, they have to find someone else to move in there in many cases, especially if it’s direct to a company. And then of course, short term is a great opportunity. Baltimore, can imagine great opportunity for short term housing.

Sean Ledbetter (17:15)
Yeah.

Yes.

Sure.

Dylan Silver (17:38)
I think a lot of people would be happy with $500 a month or less at this point. $1,500 is a great, great opportunity there. So congrats on pulling that one through there. But you know, a lot of lessons there. Dealing with permits, I know very difficult in a new city, conversion, challenging stuff. But we are coming up on time here, Sean. Where can folks go if they maybe like to learn more about your investment group or if they would like to…

Sean Ledbetter (17:42)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Dylan Silver (18:03)
reach out to you or maybe if they’re in the Maryland area.

Sean Ledbetter (18:05)
Absolutely. I don’t know if can share my screen, but you can find me on social media. My handle is S.LapbetterDMV. You can definitely find me there. from there, can just DM me and reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns.

Dylan Silver (18:20)
Sean, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Sean Ledbetter (18:23)
Thank you for having me, Dylan.