How Real Estate Wholesalers Can Level Up Into Bigger Multifamily Deals and Better Buyer Relationships

Chad Ockstadt (00:00)
I mean, it’s just this is like, get to up level your game, right? So if you’re a wholesaler, you’re just generating leads for somebody, you’re doing something, getting the education, figuring out what that, what’s the next level? How do I, how do I actually lock down a deal? How do I actually double close a deal? How do I actually start owning deals? How can I get into a syndication?

Quentin (00:03)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today. Have another fantastic guest. I’m probably going to talk about some more top family things and how to analyze financials. I mean, this guy is one pretty much walk you through some of the things that he does very, very well. And you know, that’s that’s what excite me because we literally all could be doing the same thing.

But there is still something different that we’re all going to bring to the space because we’re different individuals. We have different processes. And so I’m glad that he’s here for us to learn and glean from his experience. And I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Chad Ockstadt. Mr. Chad, how you doing today,

Chad Ockstadt (02:37)
outstanding and getting even better. Thanks Q.

Quentin (02:39)
I love it, man. I love the outstanding and getting even better. I absolutely love that, man. That’s the type of energy I love to bring to the show. I always tell people at the center of your business is you. There’s no way of getting around it. You know, we got processes. We may hire, we may fire, but at the center is you. And so I love that, man, that you are getting better, sir. And so, man, I am a tight Mr. Chad. I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people.

Chad Ockstadt (02:53)
Mm-hmm.

Quentin (03:09)
What’s your main focus these days? If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got to the space that you’re in. And then man, tell them what part of the world you’re in, And so Mr. Chad, you have the floor, my friend.

Chad Ockstadt (03:21)
Yeah. So we’re in Palm coast, Florida. Um, me and my wife, we, uh, we escaped Michigan in 2021, um, to

Quentin (03:30)
Yeah.

Chad Ockstadt (03:30)
out of all that crazy lockdown stuff. Um, and my origins origin story from real estate side of things is in 2003, I bought my first rental property, bought a few more. And then this crazy thing happened 2000, 2007, eight ish, and I just lost it all. Right.

And, ⁓ and then I jumped it, but I jumped into marketing and sales. ran sales offices. I’ve been internet marketing for a long, long, long, long time, like 20 some years. and my wife and I were running a coaching business for eight years. ⁓ and then she had a crazy opportunity to, ⁓ to be an executive marketer in a, ⁓ real estate event company is like one of the biggest event companies in the world.

Quentin (04:08)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Ockstadt (04:21)
⁓ if I said it, would know it, but, and they bring on people like David Goggins and Pace Morby and like all these big, big, big, big people. ⁓ and so she was doing all the marketing for them. I was kind of bored. I was like, what do I, what am I going to do with my time? Now? I’m going to, I’m like, basically stay at home, dad. got a six year old. This is great. But, ⁓ and I actually started a medical company, which is the craziest thing, which I’m like, it’s just a passive investor in.

Quentin (04:23)
Yep.

Chad Ockstadt (04:47)
And I teamed up with a doctor and I was basically the marketing and sales brain around it just to get it launched. And then when we had it launched, I was like, what do I do now? And he was always complaining that he had a portfolio, single family portfolio that he felt like he was getting ripped off on. So his property manager, ⁓ he felt like that they were taking, they weren’t getting him what he was just like deserved or whatever. I don’t know if that’s true, but

Quentin (05:05)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Ockstadt (06:03)
I was like, Hey, if you,

you know, if you want me to find you a buyer, I will. And, ⁓ and I just kind of kicked on the marketing juice and, ⁓ literally had a, like a feeding frenzy, like a, ⁓ a bidding war for this property or these properties in like a less than a month. And, but then when we had it under contract, finally we had gotten more money than we thought we were going to get for it.

Quentin (06:18)
Mm.

Chad Ockstadt (06:28)
but all the headaches started popping up the, ⁓ you know, foundation issues, the, all of the stuff that I didn’t know about this property in the process of it, but they, you know, they found it in underwriting and so, but it got me a really good relationship with this buyer, the buyer and they were up leveling their buybacks from like, you know, million minimum to 10 million minimum. I’m like, you know what? I bet I could find you some deals. That’s not an issue. And so I,

you know, within a couple of months, I had about a hundred deals in a spreadsheet and, um, and I’m like, not like, not one of them hit their buy box. So I had some learning to do, but I’m like, but I’m like, kind of, uh, uh, you know, um, I, I felt like I could do something better. Let’s go find somewhere buyers. So now I have 20 some buyers and 200 deals in a spreadsheet and I have a full-time EA trying to match all these deals and it was not effective.

Quentin (07:14)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Ockstadt (07:25)
Right. Um, and so I’m like, went to my wife that she’d, she got in on AI, she got in coding way back in the day, right? She went to school for it and everything. And then when AI coding started coming out, she got into it she was building software for her client and some other clients on the side. I was like, Hey, is there any way you could create something for me? And she’s like, sure. And two days she had a demo for me.

that looked like it worked, but it did not work. ⁓ then it’s, but I’m like doing, I’m like showing people, but I’m like, I’m so excited about this. I’m like, wow, this is amazing. It like, it’ll be able to analyze, you know, T12s and rent roll, and it’s going to actually be able to match it to this buy box and all this stuff. And like, wow, that’s super cool. And I’m, telling everybody about it. And, everybody’s like, well, tell me when it’s ready. And then it took another month to actually make it work, right? Like to actually,

analyze financials and I say a month ⁓ in how fast she works would have been like six months in normal developer time. And so in a month we had a working software and now we’ve been, for about two months now we’ve been just pumping deals into this and then we’ve been pumping buyers. So we have 50 end buyers that are all from somebody that wants a five unit.

Quentin (08:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chad Ockstadt (08:49)
up to somebody that wants a thousand units and you know these institutional buyers and then and then you got deals in there. We have about one point five billion dollars worth of real estate on the platform right now and ⁓ you know we’re learning a lot. We actually just brought on a CEO and a CEO ⁓ and there you know or well CTO really because we said you know CEO manages people. CTO analyzes or ⁓ runs

software bots, right? That this business is going to be is AI first. It’s multifamily first. And so we’re like, instead of having people on our team or like, how can we just build agents that are going to be able to do the things that we want? And so he’s been running that. And then our CEO is, basically connecting with the buyers. has a deep financial background and runs, owns 400 units himself. And so he, he’s, he’s done lending. He’s done really like.

a broker, he’s done it all and now he’s kind of taking us up another notch in the game.

Quentin (09:52)
Yeah, yeah.

Man, brother, thank you, sir, man. Thank you for taking us on the journey. And I love stories, man. And so, and as people talk, I see in pictures. So man, you took me on the journey, man. I appreciate it, brother. I appreciate it. Thank you for letting us know where you are, how you got there, man. And I’m gonna give a brief summary. As you was writing, I was actively listening. I as you was talking,

I was actively listening and writing. And so I kind of want to create a little summary.

Because I want to make a statement, ask you a question, right? And so you said you escaped Michigan, right? You said you got out of Michigan, escaped Michigan. In 2003, I believe, you you bought your first rental and then, you know, bought some more, bought some more. Then 2008, you kind of say you lost it all, right? And then you go into marketing and you and your wife for a short time, y’all ran your own, well, not short time, I think it was like eight to 10 years, right? You ran your own coaching business, right? And so your wife got a great opportunity.

Chad Ockstadt (11:12)
Mm-hmm.

Quentin (11:26)
You was bored. He was like, listen, you got the great opportunity. I’m bored over here. Man, that’s the story of so many men. That’s a whole nother topic in this stuff, You know what I’m saying? Me and my homeboy, we talk about stuff like this all the time. But so he started your own medical office, you know? And so within that medical office, I you had a partner and he was talking about how he was losing money on some deals. And so you kind of took advantage, like your natural kind of marketing kind of kicked in, your experience kicked in.

And so that kind of related to a relationship with a buyer. then ⁓ you learned to kind of do, you know, kind of get the wheels going and your wife created this software that you all had to, you know, it looked like it worked, but then you had to do it for a month to really get it working. Now you’re pumping in deals. Pretty good summary, right? Is that pretty much? Yeah. All right. So listen, so I always do that because one is show people I’m actively listening to two, the kind of

Chad Ockstadt (12:10)
Yeah, yeah. Rockin’. I love it.

Quentin (12:21)
Say it back to you so you can kind of recognize some of the patterns that’s going on, kind of recall, because I make this statement, Mr. Chad, that destiny has no wasted moments. Destiny has no wasted moments. Now you gave me that story in a short blurb, but we talk about years of the process, right? Years of the process of figuring it out, trial and error, finding things that stick, finding things that we got to totally eliminate and let go of. And so…

Chad Ockstadt (12:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Quentin (12:50)
My question is, what has the moments, what has the journey taught you about yourself? What has it revealed to you about you? Is it discipline, resilience? Has it changed the way you think about innovation? Like, what is these moments, Mr. Chad, brought to you about yourself?

Chad Ockstadt (13:08)
Well, I think the biggest thing is, learning the things that I used to have was like impatience, right? A lot of impatience is that especially if a multifamily deals, right? Like these, these bigger deals, they take time, they take energy, they take things, but it’s like, it’s like having the patience and then just constantly filling in the pipeline. And the challenge that I’ve seen with a lot of people closing deals is they go into hyper, ⁓

focus mode where they’re like, I have to be in this deal like, in like an urgent manner, but now everything back here gets stopped. Like, because they have to have conversations with everybody over here, everybody over here. Right. And, and, and if you’re not, if they’re not having conversations with these people over here, the no deal flows coming behind this deal. So they’re like hyper-focused on this deal. I’m going to get this done because it’s like, there’s

timeframes and things that have like closing dates and like all this stuff that has to happen at this time and like if you don’t have systems back here keep on filling the pipeline behind you then then then there’s never gonna be like another one on top of it you can’t have you have two commercial deals closed in a month if you didn’t have this pipeline like roll in and have these systems and things happening in the background and so that’s we like to take that off of people’s hands

so then they can have the processes for them. We’re doing it essentially for them. For the buyer side, we’re handing them a great deal on the platter of what they want exactly in their buy box. And in the wholesale side, they don’t have to try to work both sides because a lot of times what happens is they’re…

They’re going out and connecting with deals over here, but now I got to go connect with all these buyers over here and trying to do both things is very, very, very, very challenging. So it’s like, it’s, and then it gets crazy when you have just so many, like I said that my, my, ⁓ EA and I don’t mean like a VA. This was like a really good, like smart person that’s a very like, like productive and like get really things done and could think on their own and all that stuff. And they were having challenging.

trying to match all of these deals.

Quentin (15:28)
Yeah.

Yeah. No, I love it, man. One of my favorite books is Atomic Habits. I talk about it a lot on the podcast. So you’re familiar with it, right? And so I can I got to say I got to get the quote committed to memory. how we fall to that.

Chad Ockstadt (16:15)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Quentin (16:25)
to the level of our habits, right? We don’t rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our habits. So when I hear you talk about systems and stuff like that, automatically I start to think about the habits, the systems that we create, because those are the foundation that our businesses are going to thrive on. once you’ve said it and you got the foundation, you got a system, it leaves so much room for you to just grow. takes kind of like, cause he talks about that.

Chad Ockstadt (16:27)
Yeah.

Quentin (16:51)
You don’t have to get too much brain power to it because when you got the system in place and it’s automatic, you don’t have to give too much brain power to it. And so I love it, man. I love that’s what you’re doing for your clients, for the people that you’re serving. Man, I would love to know, sir, what is what’s next for you, man? Like what’s next for the business? What are you looking to solve a scale next, man?

Chad Ockstadt (17:10)
What’s funny, I always get yelled at because I’m like the vision person, like the feature. This is, this is the thing. This is what we’re adding. I have, I have this all laid out before we, you know, even had it done, right? Like I’m like, okay, so next is, well, first we’re integrating like a whole nother level of underwriting into the deal, right? Like an institutional level underwriting, like right now it’s good. It analyzes a financials, it analyzes T12s.

Quentin (17:23)
Yeah.

Chad Ockstadt (17:38)
a rent rule, can give you an ROI cap rate. It’ll give you, do some basic research, but we’re going to do some really, really deep underwriting and adding that to the system. We’re up leveling that right now. Our, ⁓ CEO is working with the buyers very, very closely to make sure that their buy boxes are super tight and that, that we’re not sending them stuff that they don’t want to look at. So that is the things that we’re working on currently. Next after that is going to be

we’re going to integrate lending. So we’re going to actually be able to have lenders. So this is the vision here is that you bring in a deal like a wholesaler brings a deal ⁓ and then that matches with the buyer and then the buyer can then match with a lender. But we’re actually going to circumvent that where every deal that comes in is going to get matched at the same time with a lender and a buyer. So then now

Quentin (18:09)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Ockstadt (18:37)
the ideal outcome is that they get this packet, like a pre-approval packet, like, hey, this deal is approved with these numbers, this interest rate, this underwriting, all this stuff on your desk, bam, here you go. And you can basically just grab it and it’s just done. And then that takes their brain, because if a financial institution, even if it’s a private one, has underwrite it,

and then they can trust the match even more. And it’s like a deeper level of everything. And then the cool thing is the higher level wholesalers that come to the door, they can actually take that brief from the lenders and actually be able to connect with the buyer and be like, hey, this is what I actually specifically have. And then if it doesn’t write, they can go back to the seller and be like, hey,

these numbers don’t work out. My lender won’t lend on this. You need to get to here to actually make it work. So it’ll give them negotiating power.

Quentin (19:42)
I love it.

Got it. Got it. I love it, man. So you’re setting up to help a lot of people. And so I love asking people this question just to get their unique perspective on it, right? So, Chad, when you hear the word relationship, what comes to mind to you?

Chad Ockstadt (20:02)
Yeah. So I’m amazing ⁓ short, like quick. can make a relationship so quick, Like we know, like we feel like we’ve known each other for a while. We’ve just met, right? That was from my door-to-door sales background. I used to have to make friends with somebody at a door so quickly. ⁓ Where I’m growing is the long-term relationship. This is why I brought a CEO on. It’s like his job is to build these long-term relationships.

Quentin (20:13)
Yep.

Chad Ockstadt (20:31)
on the backend so then we can have these multiple deals with these buyers, multiple deals coming in the front door. I can just have conversations, hey, come bring your deal, come bring your deal, come submit your buy box, submit your buy box. And that’s really easy for me because I’m so used to just going door, move on to the next one. I’ve knocked over a hundred thousand doors in my life. And yeah, I know more. Yeah, probably.

Quentin (20:56)
You said 100,000?

Come on, bro.

Chad Ockstadt (21:00)
I did the math on it and it’s a lot because I’ve done it off and on for 10 years, three years. was very consistent. relationships are so important because that’s what allows for multiple transactions. I don’t want a buyer for ⁓ just one buy one deal and then go away. I want them to come back and buy all my deals and just

Quentin (21:03)
Got you.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chad Ockstadt (21:28)
I want to be your only person. On the front end, want to be on the wholesale side. I want you to go, I would rather make less money on this deal and bring it to you guys and have it easier for me because they’re so cool or they get it or whatever. And this process is just so much easier than try to keep more money in it.

Quentin (21:55)
Well Chad brother, think you’re gonna see some kind of alignment here brother. So I was a mailman for 15 years. Let it carry ya, 24,000 steps a day. Most of the time, six days a week. So when you talk about that 100K doors, I’m like, yeah, I can see how, I can see the pathway to that, for sure. For sure. Yeah, cause I had, I think at the time, I think I had over 400.

Chad Ockstadt (22:03)
wow.

You’ve seen Sadoors.

Mm-hmm.

Quentin (22:22)
over 400 deliveries a day. you we started to do the math on that. Yeah, you can imagine, right? And so, but what I love, what I synthesize from what you said, I often equate the word relationship to community, right? And I always say community is common unity, right? And unity is different than uniformity.

Chad Ockstadt (22:26)
You can do the math here very quickly.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Quentin (22:45)
Uniformity is everybody doing the same thing at the same time. That’s uniformity. Unity is when people do different things at different time, but with the same goal. So I love, bro, how you know your strong point. Like, you know, you’re depending on your, what they say, 110,000 hours, yeah, 10,000 hours, right? You’re depending well over that, right? So you know your sweet spot, but you’re partying up with somebody who’s good at the long-term relationship. But I didn’t even hear you say you’re not willing to kind of learn it.

Chad Ockstadt (22:50)
Mm-hmm.

Quentin (23:14)
But you still know your strong point. is that how goes to my… Exactly, man. And so for me, that shows that you’re building a community. You’re building something that’s sustainable because it’s just not about relationships. It’s about empowering people who do something specifically different than you. But we all got the same goal. We all got, we all under the same mission. And so, man, I love what I’m hearing from you, sir. And that’s why I was so happy to have this conversation, Chad.

Chad Ockstadt (23:14)
⁓ I’m getting better at it.

Quentin (23:42)
Listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, sir, how can they reach out to you,

Chad Ockstadt (23:51)
Yeah, the best place currently is probably Facebook. So Chad Ockstadt, same, you know, the name right there on the screen. if you want to connect with me for sure. if you’re like, Hey, I have a deal that is off market. I’m direct to it or I’m the seller. Like I’m, actually own the deal. I have it under contract or I have the seller connection. ⁓ you can go to dealengineos.com and you can actually submit that deal on there.

same website, you’re going to actually, if you’re a buyer, like if you want to, and it’s not just multifamily, we’re just multifamily first, we’re about 95 % multifamily. And if you have, if you want to buy an apartment building, ⁓ RV park, whatever, large and exciting, ⁓ and you have a very clear on what you’re wanting, you can go to Deal Engine OS and you can actually submit your buybacks completely free and you will, you’ll start getting very precision.

deals that come across your ⁓ desk that you’ll want to buy.

Quentin (24:57)
Got you, yeah. Now Chad I normally don’t do this. I don’t know if there are on the spot right at this moment. Like normally I’m closing out, but I feel led, man. I just want to make sure that there’s no other message that you want to get out there. Like if you came in with something on your mind that you wanted to land, I just want to make sure that you can land that message if there’s something like that. Again, I know I’m putting you on the spot, but I feel like I just want to make sure if there’s something that you want to stick that you get, you able to get that in, man.

Chad Ockstadt (25:18)
Nah, all good.

I mean, these aren’t preset questions, so everything’s on the spot. But, yeah.

I mean, it’s just this is like, get to up level your game, right? So if you’re a wholesaler, you’re just generating leads for somebody, you’re doing something, getting the education, figuring out what that, what’s the next level? How do I, how do I actually lock down a deal? How do I actually double close a deal? How do I actually start owning deals? How can I get into a syndication?

Quentin (25:33)
Mm.

Chad Ockstadt (25:50)
Those things like these.

don’t I see the same people forwarding the same emails that they’ve been doing for the last six months here or whatever and they’re just doing the same thing and I’m like I don’t know how you’re one I don’t know how some of these people are making money because I don’t understand how just forwarding email you deserve some sort of dollars ⁓ but it’s just up level your game learn that next level like in fact like watch your guys’s interviews watch like

come come see what we’re doing over here. Spencer Thomas, he’s our CEO. He has amazing stuff like that. You, you’re going to learn how to underwrite deals and learn all this stuff. So it’s like get to the always look for that. If I would have just like when I came into this, I didn’t know anything about multifamily. I didn’t do anything, but I just constantly learned. I constantly like, what’s the next level? How can I be, how can I get more of this deal? How can I

be how can I earn more of this deal? What’s going to actually get me ⁓ big, big, big assignments and double closes and all of this stuff. it’s like, it’s just looking at what the next level is and how can I get there while still doing the activities that are getting paid.

Quentin (27:04)
Yeah. No, man, I appreciate that, And I’m glad we explored that because, again, I think this is some good nuggets that people are getting. So listen, let me say three things to you, sincerely. First, thank you for your time. I believe time is our most precious commodity, right? And we get to choose what we do without time, right? And so you chose to be here. And I want to say that I value that. Thank you for your time, sir. Thank you for showing up.

Chad Ockstadt (27:29)
Thank you.

Quentin (27:30)
Secondly, man, thank you for your story. I also call it like the gift of your authenticity, the gift of your integrity, even the gift of your vulnerability, right? Because you share some stuff that you did not have to share. And I believe just our stories, like our vulnerable raw stories, it plants seeds in people. Let them know, one, you’re not alone. Like, you know, some of the things that you’re going through, this, you’re not, you know, sometimes you can feel isolated as a business owner, but you’re not by yourself. And so I thank you for the seeds that you planted.

And we don’t know when those seeds are going to take root or when they’re going to grow. It could be now. It could be five years. It could be 10 years from now. But the seed is still there. And so I thank you, man, for planting the seeds with your story, with your narrative, with your expertise. And lastly, thank you for your mindset, sir, the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. Chad, I appreciate you coming on today, Yeah. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Chad. His information is in the show notes.

Chad Ockstadt (28:22)
Thank you.

Quentin (28:29)
Please get in contact with him. Take this time to level up, get in contact with him, and definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Chad.