How Casey Adams Built a 200+ Door Property Management Business From Scratch

Casey Adams (00:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you don’t mind, want to just kind of say one last little piece about how real estate changed my life because not because it was easy, it changed my life because I kept showing up, I kept learning, I kept solving problems. And eventually I built a business around it, helping other investors avoid the mistakes that cost money and time. you know, especially in St. Louis.

Micah Johnson (01:55)
Hello everyone, welcome to today’s show. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Casey, who’s been making serious moves in real estate now since 2019. Casey, welcome in, glad to have you.

Casey Adams (02:06)
Thanks Micah, I’m happy to be here.

Micah Johnson (02:08)
I’m pumped for you to be here. I was excited with our pre-recording call. You’ve been at this for a little bit and consistent, steady work has started to build the life that you actually want. And that is what I love for everybody to know. And so let’s dig in on that. For folks that aren’t familiar with you yet, tell us a more about yourself and what your main focus is right now.

Casey Adams (02:28)
So I am Casey, obviously I’m here in St. Louis, Missouri. My main focus is on simplifying property management for out of state investors, one property at a time. We do single family, mostly section eight right now, but we are open to market rate tenants and also multifamily properties.

Micah Johnson (02:51)
Well, take us back. How’d you end up in property management? That’s not everybody’s thing. And I always find it interesting. I love meeting people who that they do like it. They enjoy it. That’s a part of the process they enjoy. So what led you there?

Casey Adams (03:05)
Well, definitely was not like on my, wanna do this, you know, list when I was in elementary school as an adult. Honestly, didn’t even as an adult, never really crossed my mind. But what did cross my mind was doing real estate investing. so prior to, or, know, prior to 2019, you know, I was actually doing CNA, CMT,

You know, I was a caregiver for our since 2008 or something like that. And ⁓ one day my husband says, you know, Casey, let’s get into real estate. And I was like, and like, I don’t know that light bulb that was already kind of up there just like clicked on and it was bright. And I just went, and I, and I took off with it. I self-taught too, by the way. I literally.

joined every Facebook group, asked all the silly questions, and even had people on Facebook comment back, well, who’s your guru? Where’s your mentor? And I’m over here like, ain’t got no mentor, guys. It’s just me over here learning and trying to ask the right questions. We wholesale the property in 2019, made 10 grand. Then, know.

started fixing and flipping from 2019 all the way to 2022.

Micah Johnson (04:28)
I want to pause right there because there’s something I want to, I really want listeners and viewers to understand the part where you’re talking about. asked the silly questions.

How much credit do you give your success today because you asked the silly questions? Bingo. I’ve never heard someone answer that question differently. And what I want the listeners and viewers, y’all out there to hear, you’ve heard the cliche your whole life. There are no stupid questions. And then all of us are like, well, yeah, that’s a stupid question. Like we always have, we can always come up with something like a stupid question. Obviously. The thing is we don’t like feeling stupid when we ask a question.

Casey Adams (05:31)
all of it. Yeah.

Micah Johnson (05:53)
That’s the factor and that’s what you got to be willing to feel because no matter what, every time I’ve gotten an answer, it’s felt somewhat obvious once I was told. I was like, my God, that makes so much sense. Right. And you’re like, why couldn’t I see it? And it’s like, cause you couldn’t see it until someone told you, you didn’t even know you didn’t know that you just knew you didn’t know something. And someone gave you that answer. Ask the questions y’all ask them, put them out there.

Anybody that makes fun of you for doing it, they’re not in your circle anyways. You know, they don’t, you don’t need to work with them. The ones that will answer and provide help, keep them forever. And they’re out there. There are those folks like the abundance mindset and high performing real estate is very large. Majority of the top performers, they’re willing to help. As long as we call it an ask hole, as long as you don’t just ask questions and never take action. Like once you ask action, ask action, and you’ll get every answer you’ve ever wanted.

Casey Adams (06:52)
Yeah, yeah, can’t disagree with that comment at all. There is a gentleman by the name of Jason Pouser and his statement that I’m about to repeat actually goes for like, you know, if you’re wholesaling a property and talking to owners and stuff like that. But I think that it can be applicable in all areas. He would say some will and some won’t. Who cares?

and I prefer to be the one that will. I’m gonna jump in head first and just kind of get in. And I don’t always have all of the answers when I do it. And it drives my husband nuts because he’s always the guy that’s like, come back here, wait a minute, what are you doing? And I’m like, just get out of my way.

Micah Johnson (07:39)
I’m doing the thing, okay?

Casey Adams (07:40)
Yeah,

yeah, you sit over there. got it. Okay. He’s like, I don’t know about you. You’ve been doing that for over 20 years though. So I think he’s okay now.

Micah Johnson (07:53)
He’s got it. He’s learned, you know, let her go. It’s going somewhere good Maybe the idea so blame him He gave me you and said you want to do real estate and you said do I want to do real estate? Let’s show it to you. Okay, so now you’re so 2019 up to 2022 you’ve wholesaled you fix and flipped what?

Casey Adams (07:57)
Yeah.

sorry.

Yeah, and just to kind of dial it back to that time period just for a second, during that time I was running up to five or six projects at a time partnering with people on helping them do their projects and wholesale their properties and things like that. A short story is that one time somebody was going to wholesale their properties, you ended up backing out last minute.

Turns out I found the property on Facebook Marketplace and I still wholesale that property. And then I asked the guy that we partnered with as like, he’s like, no, that’s your deal. You can have that because you’re the one that ended up ultimately facilitating it. Because one of my core values is integrity and with that comes honesty. And so like if I can…

you know, facilitate something and you know what not. And even if the person that I was trying that was helping me or whatever, I’ll try to make it right with them. And if they say no, then my consciousness clear, you know.

Micah Johnson (09:18)
Right, that’s there’s a benefit to doing the right thing One your kids watch it. My kids watch me way more than they listen to me. That’s what I’ve learned and There’s something to going home at night and falling asleep without a bunch of stuff on your mind and on your heart It is it’s it’s it’s way more energy to mess with people really and if you’ll just be straight up with them and I’ve learned in those moments where

Either it was a mistake on your part or something happened where when you do the right thing, what comes after that, you could have never guessed. You could have never like planned for it to happen. It was like life almost gives you this chance. It says you live this well, wait and see what happens. And it’s over and over again, especially in real estate. deal with, it’s funny. I try to encourage people. It’s a math problem and it’s a people problem. If especially if you’re dealing with single family residential.

Casey Adams (09:48)
Yeah.

Micah Johnson (10:10)
There is there is it’s not it’s not one or the other it’s both and how you handle the people problem Determines how good of a math problem you have directly if It’s amazing because when you do the deal the people problem well They will tell you thank you and be happy for how much money you just made yeah, you’ve never heard that before that might be mind-boggling to you, but it’s true because You can’t imagine the problem. You just saved them from

Casey Adams (11:14)
Right.

Micah Johnson (11:15)
Foreclosure you come out you’ll picked up a foreclosure to put in a buy and hold in the pre-call like If you can save somebody from those You know what you do for their life And guess what happens for your life awesome stuff. They’re great deals. They’re the most usually it’s the number one Indicator someone will sell at a discount is pre foreclosure It’s also pre foreclosure Life has happened to that human, you know, like they don’t even want to talk about it most of the time

Casey Adams (11:43)
Right, yeah. we, and you know, dealing with a lot of the, you know, regular market rate people and Section 8 people, know, life happens, you know, just as when I’m reviewing an application to move in or in the middle of a lease, I can’t predict whether that person’s going to stay there long term or an eviction happens, you know, or any of those things. But I do my best ⁓ to follow our screening criteria all the way through so that we can

try to have some level of predictability on their behavior. But again, life happens, know, and doing the right thing. And we, that’s what we tell tenants to is, you know, communicate. I can’t help you. I can’t even put a plan together if I don’t know there’s something wrong, you know, all I know is that you’re not communicating with me and I got to file, I got to file on you or whatever. So yeah, so that’s the low end of real estate, but the higher ends are the, you know, the returns and the helping people. like,

One of the reasons that, you know, going into your earlier question about, you know, what happened, you know, from 2022 on is when I started placing people in houses, I just, I didn’t even think about the money, you know, really, honestly, what I love the most and what I’m thinking about the most right now is helping somebody find a house that they want to live in and getting them to that end point.

And after that, it was just, you know, takeoff time.

Micah Johnson (13:11)
And I want to I want to shine light on that too. It’s Charlie Munger’s concept in motion, which is invert. Where does a bunch of money come from? It comes from helping people find a house they want to live in in your world. Right. And when when we get that and get that in our own world, we start making more money than we ever thought about. It starts coming in from places because you realize the action that creates the money is this.

Money’s not a thing in of itself as a byproduct of the other things and when you I remember reading early in my real estate career How to win friends and influence people and towards I’m listening to the book. I was listening to it not reading it Okay for those out there Towards the like three quarters of the way in and he says, you know, there’s a secret sauce to all this stuff I’m talking about and it’s you have to actually care

If you don’t care, you’re just hurting people. You can do the same thing and take from them. But if you do care, it’ll open more doors, you know what to do with. You’ll have more money than you know what to do with you. All these different things happen. And as I’ve seen it my own life, you just explained it and I’ve heard it from countless others that when you can get it in that order, there’s nothing wrong with making money. It’s a byproduct of the stuff we do. If it doesn’t pay my financial paycheck enough, I don’t do it. That’s fine. However, if you’re going to do it,

What’s that emotional side? call it the emotional paycheck, because that’s the part. You pay that, your financial paycheck should be good. You can pay that other one correctly, because you’ll do it long enough. We were talking about this a little bit earlier, consistency. Number one thing that’s hard for entrepreneurs, doing the same thing long enough to get the full benefit out of

Casey Adams (14:38)
Right.

Yeah, consistency and you know, throughout all of it is just also communication, you know, I couldn’t do it without, you know, being able to properly communicate. And, you know, I’m such a blunt person that, you know, at the end of the day, I am actually thankful for AI so that I can be like, okay, find a different way to say that I want you to basically

you know, move about your business with the four letter words in front of it.

Micah Johnson (15:24)
No, it’s handy for that for sure. Now, what other ways have you found AI useful in your business?

Casey Adams (16:10)
so right now, primarily it’s, it’s, you know, kind of helping create some images. You know, my, if you go visit my, Facebook page, one of my personal Facebook pages, you’ll see, a picture of me standing there with curly hair. I never actually took that picture, but it looks good, know, it looks like something I would wear, you know? and, right now, primarily it does help us,

you know, we can do our SOPs in there and it will align it out real nice and, you know, give us a nice product at the end of the day. And then I’ve been trying to figure out like how it can help me create apps and, you know, do different like things where it will just like have an AI agent and all the workflows and, you know, things like that in there. I’ve seen somebody post the other day that they let Claude.

inside of their, we use Rentvine property management software and it created basically a financial forecast and had all these graphs and charts and I was like, all right, I’m not a tedious type person, I don’t like to sit down and do the little stuff ADHD, I’m a very big picture person, again, I don’t need to have all the details just to jump in, okay? But.

In this instance, I was like, all right, we got to sit down and we got to have a relationship talk with Claude here because they’re doing some things over there that chat GPT just can’t right now. I saw a Manus. I really like Manus The one thing I got coming up soon is we’re going to.

I forgot about this, so I’m gonna just say it. What is that we have a conference, a room here, and we’re gonna go ahead and invite other, not property managers, but real estate agents and vendors of all types, HVACs and stuff like that. So, Manus I said Manus, this is the context of it, this is what I want you to do, and it created me an entire 10 or 11 slide shows that I could put up on a wall or whatever and just take people through.

this is what we’re about, this is what I’m talking about, you know, and this is how we can work together to not only help you make money, but also help me make money, so.

Micah Johnson (18:20)
Right. And that, man, that as a tool for things like that, saves weeks, months. It’s so efficient in that regard because done well. mean, you’re never going to be able to get the human completely out of everything. I’d like that fear. it give her some stuff? Sure. But ultimately it’s human world we live in. We’re to have to interact with each other at some point. So when you think of it as the tool to offset the redundancy,

especially for ADHD folks that we struggle with. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful because you can just set it. You can do your follow-ups for you if you needed to. can do a friend of mine, he owns a few companies, one of them, he owns a property management and an AI one. So I’ve gotten to see behind the scenes some of the agents that you can do and what really goes happens. And it’s like, bro, this is truly incredible. He’s predicting probably within this year, you’ll have your first

Solopreneur They may have a VA it could just be agents But like truly just one person show grossing a million dollars or netting a million a year as an investor because of how many tasks it can offset Because that’s not easy to do like yeah That’s quite a few deals to get turning and there’s a lot of back-end so far though They’re they’re able to develop it which also it gets me excited because that’s the part that holds most of us back is

those the tedious things that is just like, I’m never going to do this. Literally somebody called me earlier today, say, Hey, you want to help me with this? I literally had tell him like, I would never do that long enough for it to be of any benefit to you or me ever. I’m so sorry, but I just know me and I would never do that. That would let me like dab myself in the eye with this marker over and over again, you know, and it’s, helps it. But I even told him, I was like, I got an AI tool I can build for this. That would be perfect.

Casey Adams (20:16)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, add a little bit more light to that. I went to another conference in Nashville and that another realtor gave me this idea. She’s in Texas and she’s also a property manager down there. I was like, man, that’s a great idea. And then I thought to myself, well, I got to put together a slideshow. ⁓ shoot. Hold on, Casey. We got to. OK, we’re to put this over here for a minute.

And then I was scrolling through TikTok one day and this ad for Manus came up and I was like, I’m gonna give you a whirl. Five minutes later, 10 minutes later, whatever it was, I had a whole freaking, you know, slideshow and I was like, you’re my best friend, this is beautiful, I’m downloading it, can you give me my script too?

Micah Johnson (21:02)
Yep. Once they’re trained, it’s amazing. It’s amazing what you can do, especially on brand stuff. I use it in my land investment company too. Same kind of stuff. Help build photos, build content that’s useful. It really helps you be useful and not just say stupid stuff. And that’s where, you know, lot, it’s even labeling AI info now on Facebook and things, but the way I’m looking at it is you can tell if it’s useful information or not.

Yeah. Who cares that I know how to use a tool where I can go get the information to help me write it. I knew what to ask it to tell you this. Okay. Like, so it’s not like it’s just making random stuff up to tell you.

Casey Adams (21:40)
Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Micah Johnson (21:43)
All right, so now we’re in 2022 to 2026. Your property management, you’re growing. What was it like from the beginning to where you’re at now?

Casey Adams (21:54)
So in the latter part of 2022, I was kind of getting tired of contractors. Like, I don’t know if you know what that is, but 99 % of them are just like, are you kidding me? And we came across two sets of them that were like, one was a mouthpiece that kind of didn’t know what the heck he was doing. And the other one was the guy that knew what he was doing, but was tired of it, you know, but the mouthpiece was excited and you know, he, oh man, fired both of those guys. But anyway.

So I was just like, all right, I’m done. I gotta take some time out for myself, you know, and I came across a post on Facebook said, I need a property manager. And that was, I remember it clearly, it was around Thanksgiving of 2022. And I was like, all right, I’m in, I’m your girl. And the crazy thing is, is I showed up in sweatpants and a t-shirt, take me or hate me, I don’t really care, you know? And at the end of the day, she just loved what came out of my mouth versus what I was wearing.

And I walked out of there and I was like, huh, I don’t think I got that. you know, whatever, we’ll just keep on moving. And then she calls me, she’s like, man, that was the best interview I ever had. And I was like.

Micah Johnson (23:07)
Okay.

Casey Adams (23:08)
⁓

Yeah. so anyway, also, you know, to help offset some of the income as you know, before this, I was working full time, I did do foster care. And so I had my cousin’s kids for a little bit. And then I got, you know, that was a different type of foster care, because it’s like a family relative placement. And then I was like, ⁓ let’s do regular foster care. God bless those people.

because the first set of kids I got was the last set of kids I got and they were so close in age and as cute as they were in their story, I don’t have to go into all of that right now, but they definitely needed somebody to take care of them and I was happy to be that person. And their next story was they actually got adopted by my husband and I’s mutual friends. So today they are in a stable home environment.

where they’ll never have to worry about missing a doctor’s appointment or not having their medical or educational needs met again. So yeah, but anyway, going into that, that was the year that I ended up having them go live with my friends so that then they can go on to be adopted. I got into, saw, and I ended up working for another investor who had almost 800 doors.

And it was just her, her spouse and basically her sister and a bunch of guys running around doing, I guess her maintenance and stuff like that. And they were spread out from St. Louis all the way down to like Southern Missouri and, you know, I guess Western Missouri. And so when I got into doing that, I I was like, I’m like cash app and docu-sign.

you got a whole property management system and they can apply through there. You got a website, you got workflows that you can create in there. And I’m really starting to think like an operator, you know, and realizing that we need to have systems and we need to have workflows. so basically from that point till about April, I was hired in making like $20 an hour. And because of

what I ultimately I ended up training virtual assistants for them as well. Ultimately, what I ended up doing was getting a $5 an hour pay raise by like June or July of the following year because even they saw that I could really do some things. And then by August, I was like, shoot, I’m going to start getting on base. I’m going to make my own stuff. And a friend of mine says, Casey, I got a client for you. And I was like,

Whoa, hold on, wait a minute. was just, I only got this part of it built out. I’m not sure, you know, and thank goodness ⁓ that investor had faith that I could, you know, build something. Cause I was upfront with them, you know, I don’t know, you know, all of this picture and you know, this and that, but I do know how to rent to people. have my own rental properties. You know, I think at the time I only had five, but today we have nine. And then from,

Basically, 2023 to 2026, we just went from one door to over 200 organically, word of mouth, referrals. We only just started advertising on Yelp and did a little bit of Google this month. And still, we’re still getting doors organically. Our investors are building.

The guy that I started with with one door is still with me today, you know, and he’s got several doors and a few of them got several doors and things like that. We’re managing a couple of apartment complexes. And then we also took that original LLC and put it back to use. It’s a totally separate…

division, well, totally separate company, you it’s not even a division of the property management company because it is its own company. And we’re doing maintenance and make-readies with that one. And so that’s been a huge relief off the property management company because before we were handling everything and now we just, one vendor, one paying goes over there. I don’t always have to deal with it and it’s great. So.

Micah Johnson (27:28)
And it’s one of the ways you can vertically integrate that business, especially if you were an investor before. You already took the time to build these kind of teams out and do these things. That’s valuable. And you can use them in more ways than one, especially if you’ll think outside the box. And real estate rewards the heck out of thinking outside the box. if you will, we said this earlier before I think we recorded, which was we rarely stay where we started in real estate. Bounce along until you find that spot.

I know a lot of guys that never end up staying in the same spot. bounce along, keep finding that next thing over and over. But if you do it in a way where you don’t have to break the old stuff you built, it just stacks. That’s when things get really sweet. Y’all are doing that right now, which is, if you’re listening and watching in, think about that with your business. What else are you already doing by way of doing this one thing where if it’s time, you can vertically integrate, you can put that in there where you’re pulling more cash off the same deals.

You’re generating more income off the same customer and getting one customer is the most expensive part. If you can get one customer to pay more, that’s the huge win in that.

Casey Adams (28:39)
Yeah, yeah. you know, the other beautiful thing that I’ve been able to do by building all of these things from our start is my husband worked full time for AT &T for 12 years. And so I think it was 2024. I was able to retire him from his job. And, you know, our income now solely is from our rental properties and our businesses today.

Micah Johnson (29:04)
First, congratulations. love getting, I like getting to tell people, congratulations, that pulled it off. Cause not many people say it to them when they say it out loud. They’re just like, I wish that was me. Well, do the work and create it. And it can be you. Like that’s the, that’s, that’s what’s amazing about real estate, especially the American real estate market. If you are born in America, you have access to the American real estate market by way of get involved with it.

It is if you’re going to show up and do the work, you will win. There is no competition in real estate if you show up and do your job every day. The guy who taught me told me that I’ve lived it out for 12 years now. And it’s 100 % true. If you show up and get the work done, your people will use you. Your vibe attracts your tribe. Right. The reason why that lady didn’t mind you in sweatpants in the shirt, because you were straight with her. You told her.

And my favorite part is you own units. If you’re going to use a property management company and they don’t own them, ask yourself why. How can they care about what you care a lot about is they can’t even understand what it feels like to not have it full. Right. You know, the stress of a vacancy personally, you know what that feels like. So it’s forced you to solve problems in a way to keep them limited.

Casey Adams (30:05)
Yeah.

Micah Johnson (30:28)
where if you don’t have that stress, you would never solve the problem that way. It wouldn’t bother you. It’s just empty. That’s just empty. We can’t have ads just empty. That’s not the way any of this works. So I love the fact that you do it too. I think it’s a superpower when folks do that.

Casey Adams (30:44)
Yeah, and to the point about being empty, like my outlook on that is an empty house is not only a not a profitable house for the owner, but not for myself as well. And it costs more money for even me as a property manager for that property to be vacant, just like it does for the owner. Maybe the scale is, you know, not as high as what the owner is experiencing, but

Like you said, I know what that feels like. just, I got two vacancies at once. One of them’s moving in today. One of them’s gonna move in next month. But ⁓ my God, I’m over here like, okay, come on, come on, come on.

Micah Johnson (31:26)
Where are they? are they? Somebody bite. Somebody bite. Alright, I got one.

Casey Adams (31:30)
Yeah, and so like, you know, and then the cost of the unit turns and I’ve been, you know, that’s been a big topic inside the property management team on my end is how do we keep these people renewing? know, better customer service, do you want, you know, something fixed? ⁓ you know, what can we do to make sure that you’re happy in that house because

The most expensive thing is not just a vacancy, but a unit turn. So you combine the unit turn with the vacancy and suddenly you’re out five grand just in that one month. You ⁓ can be out up to 10 grand by the next month or if you didn’t place the right tenant in there to take care of the unit, you can easily stack that. And so my goal is always to keep the unit occupied.

and to keep the vacancy low because I know what it feels like and I don’t like seeing, you looking at my vacancy board and seeing like, you know, a house vacant because I’m like.

That’s one house that I gotta go personally check on. I’ve gotta go, you know, have my hand in. I’ve gotta make sure that, you know, there’s no break-ins that, you know, in the winter time is the worst because here in St. Louis we experience sub-zero temperatures, you know. So we got pipes that need to, you know, be winterized and we gotta worry about pipe busting, things like that. And then the HVAC system can suddenly go out. So it just becomes a bigger headache to have an occupied property.

My, as far as a, a vacant property versus having an occupied property to be occupied 100%. Even if it’s, you know, the tenant has kind of got an attitude or something like that, I’d rather deal with her being in there than deal with knowing that I’ve got, you know, this house over here that all of these other things could happen.

Micah Johnson (33:25)
Right. Right. And it’s funny putting out because houses need lived in. People don’t think about that part much. They’re designed to breathe. They are not designed to be closed and never open. The doors need to open. The windows need to open. The systems need to run like all of it needs to go. That’s why they can last so long is that. And it’s so true. I love that you pointed that out is the fact that because you could be dealing with a if you’re out there dealing with a

owner who won’t go down and rent that could be a good thing to talk to him about is hey look I Understand that used to rent for more but now it’s written for less But here’s the thing if we don’t do this, this is what it’s gonna happen. I know for sure Especially going into those winter months like I’m in Florida. We don’t have to deal with that. Thankfully and I’m born and raised here I know I’m blessed. I don’t know what it’s like my wife’s from Connecticut. I’ve been there for one winner. Nope. Nope

Casey Adams (34:22)
But I couldn’t know that I need.

Micah Johnson (34:23)
Uh-uh.

I need the sun in my life. I need to walk around outside. The thing is, it gets hot in Florida, but I can get in the water. That’s the way it is.

Casey Adams (34:37)
Yeah, I’ve been in Florida in the wintertime and boy, you know, 55 degrees is excellent compared to or even 75 degrees during the day compared to coming back here and it being like 20.

Micah Johnson (34:51)
The silly numbers, it’s silly numbers, but it leads to we deal with other different issues because of that. But it lines up with the same concept of how you take care of the product, especially from your perspective as the property manager. Because what I love the fact that you’re thinking about, it’s not just your bottom line. It’s not just I need this occupied so they don’t bother me. It’s, hey, the property won’t function well. The physical care for it won’t work right. These are all the things.

are that are causing why we need to move, which is real data. And that’s handy to people. It’s useful because if I’m an owner and you’re coming to me with that information, the chances of me making a better choice are way higher. And well, I just think we should go down. Well, why? Well, I just think so based on how long I’ve been doing this. You know, like that’s not a helpful answer.

Casey Adams (35:34)
Yeah.

No, for sure. And to that point, whenever we take on management of something, we always send out a rental analysis, which gives the owner an idea of what’s recently been advertised in the area. There are a lot of people today that are like, FMR, FMR for section 8. fair market rate for section 8 doesn’t mean that that’s what you’re going to get. We have areas that

not a lot of people want to pay $1,600 a month to live there because they’re primarily rental areas. And, you know, and I can get 1200, 1300, you know, but unless, you know, going back to the section eight stuff is if that person, if the person that we end up getting to apply for that house doesn’t have income, you’re not going to get that 15, 1600. If they, if you’re not paying for any utilities,

Again, that 15, 1600 is unrealistic. And the numbers don’t pencil in. And a lot of times I’m the one that kind of has to, you know, be the bad guy that says, I want to get you off because, know, the more money you make, me too, babe, me too. You know, like we’re not out here, you know, trying to get low rents because we’re making more money off the lower rents. We get more money off the higher rents just like you do. It’s a win win. And so I don’t.

pretend like every deal works when it comes down to it because at the end of the day, if it doesn’t pencil ⁓ for the investor, it’s not gonna pencil for me either. And so I always have to, whether it’s a realtor referral or a guru referral or just somebody who just happened to find me, I have to give them the real raw data. Here’s our rental analysis. ⁓ Well, FMR says this, well, I’m sorry, I can’t.

tell you that you’re going to get that. I think that it’s going to sit a long time if you try to do that. And we’ve had a couple of investors where I’m like, OK, well, I’ll try it your way. But you can’t tell me that I didn’t try to tell you that it was going to sit a long time.

Micah Johnson (37:52)
Yeah. I am choosing not to listen to good advice. Send that back. We’ll go.

Casey Adams (37:59)
Yeah,

yeah, we’ll go. But I’m going to tell you the you know, the other thing about just like when you’re buying a house, what are you looking at? You’re looking at how long has that house been on the market? The longer that has been on the market, the more you ask yourself, well, what’s wrong with that house?

Micah Johnson (38:16)
Only question that comes up. Only one. What’s wrong with it?

Casey Adams (38:18)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and so I’m the one that has to always break it to them. Okay, well, I’m not sure our numbers, you know, maybe may have been a little off, but when we started doing these rental analysis, we’re getting more. Yes, let’s go for it. You know, versus just trying to, you know, to guess because like the one thing that I and I’ll be honest, some of my mistakes in the beginning was like, okay, we’ll go for FMR. That’s fine. You know, but as I became

more aware and more professional and you know and I learned from the past mistakes in the early days I realized you’re not going to get that FMR you know. Even today we got a we approved someone and sometimes you know depending on the house or the area we’ll take a voucher that is less than the number of bedrooms because maybe we’re having a harder time renting it you know and a lot of times it has to do with area.

not necessarily the house. Today it was a two-bedroom voucher holder for a three-bedroom house and I’m pretty positive she had income. So now I’m sitting over here like, well, why are you off? I asked for $13.50. That’s actually not too bad for that area over there. Why are you offering me less than $900 for it? And so now I’ve got to dig in to figure out, hey, Madam tenant, did you submit all your income?

Why is this coming in so low? And the cool thing about having an expert, you know, in the field and having your back as an investor is I’m the one that knows to ask those questions. If you’re a new investor, you wouldn’t know that maybe it has something to do with the tenant not submitting all their income or, you know, maybe something changed in their household or whatever.

And last minute just yesterday, the housing authority, the crazy thing about the housing authority and having them involved is they can change their mind in a minute. This is a totally different unit and totally different investor and tenant as well. But we had it approved for, it was a two bedroom, she had a two bedroom voucher. Everything’s kosher. We were in the inspection process, day before move in. I get yesterday an email.

well, we can’t no longer approve your 1150 that you asked for, 1100, whatever it was. We’re now at 850. And I was like, how do you do that? know, like we already agreed on this other amount and now we’re a day before move in and we just passed the inspection thing. And you’re like, well, sorry, I’m the government. can tell you that, you know, you’re caught right with us. Just kidding, right?

Micah Johnson (41:00)
Yeah,

JK, LOL. It is, and the property management world is so fascinating, especially because just like you mentioned, it’s the fine little details. It’s those little things that you learn from doing that you can’t learn them in the book part. The book part can’t teach it to you. And that’s that difference you talked about earlier of, you’ll jump in, you’ll get going. And that’s, if you’re listening and watching, that really is the secret.

Casey Adams (41:02)
Yeah.

Micah Johnson (41:29)
to success is to just take action, take some action, learn, take action. If you wait for everything to be perfect, it’s just not gonna be. That’s not the way it works. It’s just not the way it works. It’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna challenge you. It’s gonna make you not feel good. It’s gonna make you feel great. It’s gonna make you feel smart, make you feel dumb. It’s all the things. It’s completely normal. Just do it. Don’t stop doing those daily actions. KC, for someone that’s listening into this or watching and they’re thinking about

Casey Adams (41:36)
Yeah.

Micah Johnson (41:58)
property management or interest in it or could be for them. What would you give to some, what advice would you give to someone that’s listening that’s thought about this or they’re intrigued by listening to it?

Casey Adams (42:09)
Thought about getting into property management? No, actually, I think that going back to that boredom part of ADHD is that as much as I try to say I don’t like the drama, think that’s the part that kind of keeps me coming back because I’m like, okay, what are you going to do next?

Micah Johnson (42:13)
Real Satan just- Yeah, I heard that.

Casey Adams (42:36)
And this is me kind of peering over into the ring of property management. Okay, madam tenant owner, know, vendor, what are you going to do next? That’s going to be like.

Micah Johnson (42:47)
Yeah

Casey Adams (42:48)
You know.

But I would say that, you know, really just take, if you could take anything from what I said today is just do it. Like, you know, Nike commercial, you know, I’m a 90s kid, born in the 80s, grew up in the 90s, and we were taught to just do it. There is no reason to hold yourself back from it. And even if you don’t have a support system, the real estate community,

finding the right tribe, as you said earlier, is exactly what you need to do. Start attending meetups. Find the people that are, you know, that you jive with because those people can quickly become your support system because the one thing I think I left out is that I, yes, my husband was like, let’s get into it, but without my friends that were kind of already doing it and without the tribe that I built within real estate and getting that trusted community,

I don’t think that I would have really, you I would have done it, but it would not have been half as easy as it became along the way.

Micah Johnson (43:58)
then you probably wouldn’t be as far as you are along. And that is, I appreciate you sharing that message because one thing I try to get out, real estate is a team sport. It is a team sport. You can’t even close a property by yourself. You need people to do it. So it’s, it’s really building those relationships, digging in, finding somebody who has done it already and just ask them that, that nailed it. Thank you so much. Okay. For those listening and watching in that want to find out more about you.

Casey Adams (44:00)
No.

Micah Johnson (44:27)
follow along with what you have going on, possibly book a call with you because you just show signs of success for seven straight years. That’s folks I like to talk to. So what’s the best way for them to reach out to you and find you?

Casey Adams (44:40)
They reach out to me through one of my social medias. I’m on TikTok, Facebook, or you can just go book call or book a, you know, session or whatever with me on our website. So, yeah.

Micah Johnson (44:52)
Excellent. And if you’re listening to Washington, we’ll have all of Casey’s links in the show notes, like you hear me say all the time. We bring professionals on the show for a reason. These are the people, if you’re out there waiting for action and wondering who to talk to, message one of the people we bring on the show. If what today moved you, reach out to Casey, book the call, it could literally change your life. And it just starts with that kind of call. It gets you into the game, gets you in action. Take.

Take action, change your life, change your family’s life today. That’s what’s really possible. It’s done it for me. Casey, sounds like it’s done it for you as well.

Casey Adams (45:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you don’t mind, want to just kind of say one last little piece about how real estate changed my life because not because it was easy, it changed my life because I kept showing up, I kept learning, I kept solving problems. And eventually I built a business around it, helping other investors avoid the mistakes that cost money and time. you know, especially in St. Louis.

We have 88 different municipalities that have their own government and their own, you know, landlord policies. I mean, if you don’t know what you’re doing in St. Louis, you can get hurt real quick. So please give me a call. I’d be happy to have that conversation.

Micah Johnson (46:06)
Love that. Again, touch base with Casey if you’re in that area. Work with professionals, folks who are successful at it. Bring your own success to life. Casey, thanks for being with us. Thanks everybody out there for being with us. If you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else you think could get value out of it. And as always, if you’re not a subscriber yet, you know what to do. Click that button, follow along. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators just like Casey. People actually out there building a real

business in the industry. You can be next. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see y’all next episode.