Investing in Chicago Real Estate: The Smart Path to Wealth

John Harcar (00:02.056)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar. And I’m here today with Olaf Wrzesinski. Hope I said that right. And we’re going to talk about besides his journey in real estate and business, we’re going to talk about when it’s time to rent versus when it’s time to buy. Remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers. mean, really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five extra business. We do it by providing the tools and resources to grow.

That business they want to have and in turn live the life they want to live So Olaf man, welcome to our show

Olaf Wrzesinski (00:37.582)
Appreciate it, happy to be here.

John Harcar (00:39.198)
Yeah, I’m looking forward to going over our topic of, you know, rent versus buy. You know, a lot of people have different thoughts on the subject, but before we get into all that, tell us about yourself, man, you know, tell us about your background in business and real estate and kind of what got you here.

Olaf Wrzesinski (00:55.426)
Yeah, totally. So I’m 25 years old. I live in the city of Chicago. I’ve been in the industry for three years and one month now. I was in college before that. I always had a passion for real estate. My mom’s also a real estate agent. That’s kind of where I’ve got my spark.

And I went to college, you know, I started off in civil engineering about two and a half years into that. I completely made the whole identity shift, went to the school of business, jumped around from major to major, didn’t really feel, didn’t really see myself having a future with any of that. So after a full four years of being at a university, I dropped out, just went all in on my personal real estate.

John Harcar (01:39.838)
Wow.

Olaf Wrzesinski (01:41.998)
And now we’re here three years later, best decision I’ve ever made to this day.

John Harcar (01:48.138)
So spent the whole four years and then just decided that nothing that you studied was gonna be the one, right?

Olaf Wrzesinski (01:54.016)
Yep, yeah, exactly. was, my parents are, you know, they’re foreign parents, they’re from Poland, so for anyone that has foreign parents, they know that there’s only a certain amount of things that they want you to do, and I just went against all of that, you know, just I knew I wanted to do real estate, and it was time to make a decision for myself, and here we are today.

John Harcar (02:15.306)
Got it. And I like to ask a lot if you watch any of my podcasts, I like to ask a lot of people like, but you answered the question, like what is that, what was that spark? What was that seed planted about real estate? You said your mother was an agent.

Olaf Wrzesinski (02:29.326)
Yeah, and I know like in a little kid’s mind, cause she used to take me to showings when I was a kid. Yeah, and I remember thinking as a kid, I was like, my mom gets to drive around and show people houses and get paid for it. Like this is awesome. And that’s literally where it started.

John Harcar (02:35.323)
I was just gonna ask that.

John Harcar (02:46.25)
Well, that’s like my new favorite saying, I get to do what I do and I get paid to eat ice cream pretty much, right? Doing what I love. So your mom was living the life. So it’s very cool. So when you started in real estate, what avenue did you take? Were you like her and went into being a real estate agent or did you go into investing? What was your kind of path?

Olaf Wrzesinski (03:10.19)
Yeah, so I started off as a broke college student. I opened up a credit card and pretty much maxed it out just to be able to live and pay for my license and stuff like that. I started off doing sales.

basically called every single number in my contact book on my phone just like, hey, I’m a real estate agent. know, kids in my age have Snapchat, Instagram. I literally messaged every single person I’ve ever been in contact with and let them know that I was real estate agent. And it kind of just started from there. You know, I told my friends to tell their moms, tell their aunts, tell their grandparents, like, yo, I do real estate. Like, let’s sell a home, let’s buy a home.

John Harcar (03:42.378)
Hmm.

Olaf Wrzesinski (03:57.83)
And then now, you know, three years later, I started off in the Southwest suburbs. That’s where my parents live, of Chicago.

Then about a year and a half ago. I moved to the city business just like naturally brought me here, you know home prices are higher There’s more of an inventory And then about six months ago I opened up the rental side of my business because there is just so much money so many people moving that are looking to rent in Chicago as well and it’s just a much

easier process on like an agent standpoint. So that’s where I’m at now. I kind of have like a hybrid business.

John Harcar (04:38.32)
What were, when you first started, what were some of the struggles that you were having in, it finding clients, doing your marketing, building your brand? mean, what are a couple of struggles that you had to overcome to keep moving forward?

Olaf Wrzesinski (04:54.762)
Yeah, great question. would say one of my biggest struggles was probably just like my self belief and just knowledge on sales. I mean, I never had like a sales job. I was a delivery driver throughout college, know, Jimmy John’s, Instacart, a Philly cheesesteak place. Like, you don’t have to do sales, you just drive and chop food off. So it was definitely that. And just the fact that I was

John Harcar (05:11.742)
Mm-hmm

John Harcar (05:18.92)
Great.

Olaf Wrzesinski (05:23.47)
what 21, 22 years old as like someone that’s supposed to be considered professional, you know? So I’ve had multiple agents and people tell me like, you’re way too young to be doing this. And you know, not that it ended up getting my head a little bit, but never to the point where like it made me quit, but like that was definitely, you know, starting off I was like, oh man, like.

I don’t have the finances to invest in my business. I’m young, people are looking at me as a little kid. How do they expect me to sell their home or whatever? But it’s all a belief thing. It all comes down to that. The energy that you put out into the world is definitely what’s reciprocated and comes back to you.

John Harcar (06:09.556)
How did you overcome that? Was there any books? there any podcasts, anything specifically that you kind of helped in gearing towards or gearing up your mindset?

Olaf Wrzesinski (06:21.228)
Yeah, I would say, you know, I don’t really like, yeah, there’s bigger pockets. Like I’ve listened to a few of those, but biggest one for me was just in general, just listening to like a big one for me, probably the first person I started listening to was Andy Frisella. He’s the CEO of First Form.

and he is the MF podcast on Spotify. That is, that is probably, you know, the, the first one, one that I’ve listened to the most. yeah, I mean, plenty of self development books as well. And just, you know, realizing that nothing will change unless I change myself. So getting myself out of the comfort zone, like networking events, cold emailing people that I would be, you know, usually scared to talk to.

And just trying things, just continuing to try an error, trial and error, trial and error, and just keep doing that until something sticks and then run with it.

John Harcar (07:20.394)
Nice. So as you started building up your real estate career, did you seek out any mentorships? Did you join any groups? mean, what type of continual education, I guess you could say, did you do?

Olaf Wrzesinski (07:34.432)
Yeah, so I’d say like towards the end of my first year, I joined a real estate team. It was like a small mom and pop shop in the suburbs, but I’d say like six to eight months into that, I kind of hit a ceiling with it.

I just felt like I wasn’t getting offered what I was supposed to in order to grow. Business was doing better. And then I pivoted to being a solo, just solo agent at a different brokerage for a little bit. But then when I moved downtown, I joined another team. And that’s kind of like where the like professionalism really started, where I felt like I finally was starting to get experience. And then I was in that team for just about a

John Harcar (08:15.722)
Got it.

Olaf Wrzesinski (08:22.288)
And then I joined this company because they also have a lot of resources for like the rental side because I just naturally started getting a whole bunch of rental business, you know people my age they’re not really ready to buy yet. They’re looking to rent So just you know, I thought it would be a good thing for me to not leave money on the table and kind of start that side of it

John Harcar (08:43.466)
Okay, so now when you say the rental business, I mean, is it buying the properties and renting them out? Is it, you know, being like a arbitrage and finding, you know, being the mediator between a tenant? I mean, what does that all look like?

Olaf Wrzesinski (08:57.834)
So it’s, in other words, it’s basically being an apartment locator or a leasing consultant. There’s plenty of beautiful buildings in the city of Chicago with amenities, with professional management. You know, they come at a pretty good price tag and there’s a lot of people looking for them that are, you know, having trouble finding the right one because there’s literally hundreds of options to choose from. So that’s also the service that I provide.

John Harcar (09:04.575)
Got it.

John Harcar (09:24.586)
So are these people that are selling their house and then they want to go rent somewhere or these are people that just are coming in saying, hey, we’re looking for a rental, can you help us?

Olaf Wrzesinski (09:34.818)
both avenues, I’ve had plenty of both. People that are sick of being homeowners, they just wanna live somewhere where if a light bulb goes out, they call the front desk and someone comes fixes it, like having amenities, a gym, a pool, et cetera. And then people just looking to rent in general that aren’t looking for the homeowner.

John Harcar (09:54.154)
Okay. But you’re not doing any type of property management per se.

Olaf Wrzesinski (09:59.798)
No, no property management, nope.

John Harcar (10:01.566)
So once they get into that place, you’re just.

Olaf Wrzesinski (10:05.356)
Yep. Yep, that’s right.

John Harcar (10:06.014)
hands off. Very cool. Very cool. So what does your business look like now? I mean, is it just yourself? Do you have any people that are working with you on the rental side?

Olaf Wrzesinski (10:15.488)
Yeah, so I have a team that’s part of my company that schedules tours for us.

You know, the rental side of things is a very like high volume business. So we’ve got four people that are scheduling tours for my clients. And then I do have an assistant that helps me, you know, go out and tour these clients at these buildings. Cause in Chicago, it’s required for, you know, for a client to have representation on a tour in order for the agent to get compensated.

And you know, some days I’m touring anywhere from three to five people. So I could have what’s called a tour assistant and they just basically helped me out with that.

John Harcar (10:57.812)
Got it. OK, awesome. So it’s just you and those four people, nobody else in management, anybody else on your team.

Olaf Wrzesinski (11:05.582)
Yeah, no, no, I am part of a team at this company, but I’m not a team lead yet. No.

John Harcar (11:11.348)
Got it. So where do you see your growth path? Like what is your, do you see the business going?

Olaf Wrzesinski (11:17.358)
Well, a big factor in that is definitely my social media presence, specifically my Instagram. Before I joined this company, the company that I’m part of, it’s called Apartment Amigo, and we’re very social media heavy. And it’s a rental agency at the end of the day. We just opened up the buy sell side of things just about like a year ago now, I think.

And yeah, when I first joined, was just posting, you know, rental stuff, like apartments for rent. And, you know, it’s, definitely grown to a pretty good standpoint. And then recently I’ve started posting by cell content as well. So, I would definitely say, you know, the, bigger volume right now that’s coming in our rentals and that’s like coming in at a very sufficient amount to where I could delegate some of that stuff, you know,

automate it and then focus on the buy sell side of things again. Because I’ve never really been at the point where I’m just like consistently making paychecks from buys or sells. But now it’s, you know, since I’ve been posting the content, I’ve been attracting more home buyers and home sellers and stuff like that.

John Harcar (12:34.026)
Very cool. All right, so let’s kind of touch on our topic. Time to rent, time to buy.

Olaf Wrzesinski (12:38.338)
Yep.

John Harcar (12:40.499)
Which is the best win or which is is win when when is it best time to buy when best time to rent?

Olaf Wrzesinski (12:46.368)
Yeah, that is a great question. you know, especially in Chicago, it really depends on, it depends on a number of things from the personal side, but it also just depends on exactly what you’re looking for.

and just like your long-term goals because the biggest factor in Chicago that really eats away at people’s monthly payments are these HOAs. And you know, not saying that it doesn’t work for some people because for some of them it’s perfectly fine, but…

John Harcar (13:11.348)
Mm-hmm.

Olaf Wrzesinski (13:18.414)
especially with mortgage rates nowadays, you’re paying your mortgage, you’re paying your taxes, and then you’re paying an HOA fee, which I believe the average HOA fee in Chicago is somewhere in between $400 to $600 a month. But then some of them, especially in the Schrederville area are up to $3,000. And it goes up from there, it goes down from there.

So just like, you know, if you find yourself a nice condo building that has a $3,000 H.O.A. for example, plus mortgage, plus taxes, you’re paying what, you know, you could find yourself a penthouse at a rental building for the same price. So for some people it just like makes more sense to go to the rental building, especially if, you know, let’s say they have a contract with their work that’s keeping them in Chicago for two or three years.

John Harcar (13:59.114)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (14:12.361)
Yeah.

Olaf Wrzesinski (14:12.942)
You know then they rent out for two or three years and then they go somewhere else So I always tell my clients like hey unless you’re looking to stay here for at least 10 to 15 years

Or if you’d be fine with living in the suburbs, that would be more cost effective for you. If not, I would definitely say renting is a pretty good route. And then also nowadays, obviously you’re not building equity. It’s kind of throwing money into a black hole. But some of these newer buildings are coming with, they have what’s called like the built program. There’s a new credit card. It’s not that new, but there’s the built credit card.

John Harcar (14:47.284)
Mm-hmm.

Olaf Wrzesinski (14:51.67)
which allows you to pay your rent with credit at certain buildings. So yes, it’s not building equity, but at least you’re building up a stronger credit history, building up your credit score. So when it does come down to purchasing a property down the line, you’ve got a couple of years of payments that were made on time. Yep, exactly.

John Harcar (15:10.89)
Of good payment record Yeah Are so are all these people that are renting is it all long-term stuff? Is it do you do short term? Is it midterm seasonal?

Olaf Wrzesinski (15:22.702)
Minimum of 12 months, know, yes, 12 to 18 months, regular long term.

John Harcar (15:24.554)
Okay, so regular or long-term?

John Harcar (15:30.728)
Have you thought about doing any type of like short-term vacation rentals, anything like that? Like traveling nurses?

Olaf Wrzesinski (15:36.622)
So I, with most of these rental buildings, they don’t offer shorter term leases, but there are, you know, there’s just like third service companies that are able to do that, like blueground.com. Obviously there’s Airbnb, which is pretty much outlawed in the city of Chicago, but you can find something, you know, on the outskirts of the city outside of downtown.

John Harcar (16:02.652)
Mm-hmm. Why is it outlawed?

Olaf Wrzesinski (16:05.922)
because it’s a very seasonal thing here in Chicago and people love to book Airbnbs in the winter for one night and just throw parties and trash the whole place. So these buildings just don’t allow it whatsoever.

John Harcar (16:15.805)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, I see that. what kind of, I don’t know, what kind of trends are you seeing? mean, are you seeing that, you know, the rental, you know, market is going to continue to stay strong? Do you see that, you know, if we’re ever going to get any relief in the interest rates or what type of stuff are you seeing coming down the pipe?

Olaf Wrzesinski (16:37.619)
Yeah, so with rentals, especially in Chicago, I know it’s definitely different in other areas. again, like renting in Chicago is it’s it’s a crazy thing to say, but it’s actually more affordable than owning in some certain situations, just depending on the criteria. Renting is always going to be strong here. That’s for sure. I mean, there’s buildings being built left and right and they have

John Harcar (16:53.226)
I’m sure.

Olaf Wrzesinski (17:04.13)
the coolest amenities, the coolest lifestyle. Like everyone, especially in their 20s, I feel like everyone should at least try it for a year or two just to live that hands-off lifestyle. In terms of mortgage rates, I used to tell people that rates are gonna drop, rates are gonna drop. Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t have the answer to that, but what I do have the answer for,

is if you are deciding on making a purchase now or making a purchase later on in the year, for me it’s two key factors. Are you emotionally ready or are you financially ready? You know, are you emotionally ready to be a homeowner? Are you emotionally ready to be a landlord if you’re looking to make an investment? Are you financially ready to make the down payment that you want to make and do you have a good enough financial cushion in order to make that investment into your property or like

John Harcar (18:00.244)
Yeah, good advice.

Olaf Wrzesinski (18:02.1)
and you know mortgage rates, let’s say they go up, let’s say you take a mortgage out in the next month and they go up later down the line. Cool, you have a lower interest rate than what’s currently available in the market. Let’s say rates go down, cool, you could refinance for that lower rate. Like you’re never going to be paying more, you’re always going to be paying less once you take that mortgage out.

John Harcar (18:23.338)
Do you have any plans on taking this model outside of Chicago?

Olaf Wrzesinski (18:29.262)
man, I’ve no, I don’t have any plans to that. I love Chicago. It sucks during the winter, but it’s amazing during the summer. It’s my favorite place to be when it’s warm out. you know, I’ve always, I’ve always wanted to live in the west coast, but I think that’s once I start my, investment, once I start my real estate portfolio right now, you know, I’m three years into the business. I’m still building up my finances and just building a good life for myself until I get to that point.

John Harcar (18:57.896)
Awesome. And then, you know, what do you think are some of the keys to your success?

Olaf Wrzesinski (19:04.758)
I would say definitely just never giving up. I mean, I don’t have a college degree and I went to four years of school and I’m stubborn. Like I’m stubborn. If I want to do something, I’m going to go do it no matter how many times I embarrass myself, no matter how many times I lose. And you know, over these past few years, like I used to be a very anxious person and I’ve done the work.

in order to just be confident and believe in the bigger picture. So I would definitely say it’s just that consistency, grit, and self-belief.

John Harcar (19:42.186)
That’s awesome. And is there any advice you would give to someone maybe getting into the game, whether it’s being a real estate agent, maybe doing some stuff like you’re doing? What advice would you give to help them get set up for success?

Olaf Wrzesinski (19:55.488)
Yeah, I mean, you know, my advice is that if you’re on social media, you probably see all these internet gurus, you know, telling you how they made a million dollars in a month. And that works for some people and we should clap for them. You know, that’s great. Good for you. But for most of us, for 95 % of us, that’s not how it works. It takes days, it takes months, it takes years of just…

failing, losses, money being spent, credit cards being leveraged, you know, but if you just make a list, if you just write down a list of goals and then have a conversation with Chad GPT on how to execute these goals, set timelines, set standards, a quote that I live by is, you don’t rise to your goals, you fall into your systems.

Don’t even set goals, just set systems. Like what am I doing this week in order to get ahead for my bigger picture? And that’s it. And just head down. Don’t focus on anything else until you’re finally living the life that you want.

John Harcar (21:05.864)
If folks are listening and want to get in touch with you, they’re in the Chicago area, or maybe just kind of want to talk to you more about your business model, what’s the best way for them to get in touch?

Olaf Wrzesinski (21:15.714)
Hit me up on Instagram, hit me up on TikTok. My username is Olaf in Chicago. Pretty straightforward there. You know, I’m always responding to people on DMs. I’m posting every single day, so I’m very active on both of those platforms. So it’s the best way to reach me for sure.

John Harcar (21:33.834)
Cool. Then we’ll put all that stuff in the show notes. Olaf, thank you again, man, for coming on here and sharing your knowledge, guys, out there listening. I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you took some good notes. And if there’s any interest in talking with Olaf, reach out. Like I said, we’ll put everything in the show notes. So Olaf, thank you again. Everybody, we’ll see you on the next show. Cheers.

Olaf Wrzesinski (21:54.318)
Good