Master Multifamily Investing: Your Guide to Milwaukee Property Management

Michael Stansbury (00:00.714)
Hello everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Mike Stansbury. I have a special guest today, Mr. Chris Jansen. Chris, how are you, sir?

Chris (00:12.351)
You’re doing fantastic. How are you doing today?

Michael Stansbury (00:14.37)
man awesome, I wish I was in California, well that’s where you’re at, I’m in Memphis, Tennessee, which is just a little less cool than California. But guys, what’s that, that again? Upper 80s today, yeah, we just got a lot of humidity and not so much fun right now, and no beach to look at in Memphis. We got the river, which is fun. But folks, tell you that Investor Fuel, and Investor Fuel,

Chris (00:24.575)
80s today. Upper 80s today. Supposed to get in the 90s this weekend. Yep.

Michael Stansbury (00:43.842)
we help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs two to five X their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted and allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Chris, so you’re in real estate. One of the things I like about this is you’re doing this, this is kind of a part-time but a full-time kind of gig that you’re doing. Tell me, how did you get started? What was the origin story of?

of how you even began the process of investing in real estate.

Chris (01:15.347)
Yeah, thanks for asking. Well, you know, back in 2020 COVID, I started working from home. And I was all excited to work from home. And that quickly, that excitement quickly died down. I got really bored. I was living by myself and started reading up on investments, know, dabbled in the stock market a little bit. But the issue I ran into with that for me is I got really emotionally attached to a lot of the stocks and you know, they were

go up and then I’d get fear of missing out and I’d buy it high and then it’d start to go down and then I’d sell it low and it was just losing money that way. So not a great strategy. So started looking at other avenues. And my dad, who is a tax preparer, he owned one duplex and his goal dream back in the day was to start with the duplex house hack, go up to a four unit.

Michael Stansbury (01:55.427)
Right?

Chris (02:12.956)
and then just keep scaling that way. And he kind of told me about that and got me excited. So that kind of got me interested and we can talk more about from there. But ultimately, I ended up meeting some friends and introduced me to, sounds like a similar community maybe to Investor Fuel. And they’ve helped me educate me and grow my portfolio.

Michael Stansbury (02:37.228)
Yeah, groups are either RIA’s groups or even online groups. They really do help pour fuel onto the fire. That’s what we try to do in, and just to help people with their education and then see, you know, just hearing stories of where somebody was and then what they took action on. The successes, but more importantly, hey, this is where I messed up. This is where, you know, you can learn something from me. That’s where it’s at.

So your dad was a CPA, so it’s funny, CPAs always know, they know the tax code, they’re supposed to. And so they know the wonderful reasons why someone should keep real estate. So what are yours? Why are you investing in real estate? And what are you particularly doing? What’s your strategy today?

Chris (03:08.422)
Ha!

Chris (03:23.516)
The main reason I’m doing it is just it stands the test of time. It’s not, can, values can go down, but historically they’ve gone up and it’s not quite as volatile as.

the stock market. So there’s all of those enticing features. ultimately, it’s you know, I can use so much leverage to just scale quickly and where I invest in the Midwest cash flow is everything and that’s ultimately my goal is to replace my W2 income.

with real estate, cashflow from the real estate. So the passive nature is beautiful and all those things too. So that’s the main thing though for me is cashflow and then the fact that yeah, of course the tax benefits don’t hurt, right? My friend Nate and Tabitha, their first big deal was a 21 unit motel.

in northern Wisconsin, they paid a little over, I think it was 1.2 million, which out here in California, I’m like, yeah, you can get a house, like a three-bedroom house maybe for that, right? And the first year, because they did a cost segregation study,

Michael Stansbury (04:36.824)
Right.

Chris (04:41.918)
accelerated all the depreciation, they put an extra $56,000 in their pocket just from the tax benefits, which is incredible. lots of cool avenues. It’s very easy to get shiny object syndrome in this space.

Michael Stansbury (04:57.036)
Yes, yeah. When somebody says they’re in real estate, it’s like, well, that opens it up a lot. Yeah, you can do a lot. logistically, let’s talk about that. You live in California, you invest in Wisconsin. Tell me, you know, just break it down for me. How does it work? How do you, what’s your, you know, your SOPs like during the day or what’s your daily method of operation to make sure that you’re getting inventory and you’re able to do those deals?

Chris (05:03.002)
Right? Exactly. Exactly.

Chris (05:27.718)
Yeah, so I’ve done deals from various amount of sources. I’ve bought off the MLS. I’ve gotten a deal off Craigslist. I’ve gotten deals off Facebook Marketplace, Facebook groups, through referrals from property managers. I’ve even had like my mom’s.

friend just because I post on social media so everybody knows I’m in that space. And randomly I’ll get messages from people like, Hey, I know you do real estate. My, so was like my mom’s friends, ex husband’s nephew or something was like, you know, trying to sell their house and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to help them in that sense. But I talked to them and it’s just interesting like where where leads can come from. So

Michael Stansbury (05:49.773)
Right?

Chris (06:13.89)
yeah, all sorts of sources like that. and then like day to day, I do use a property manager and, you mentioned like lessons learned. Definitely some lessons learned with, with that. It’s great to have somebody in your team. but property manager is the, I feel in buy and hold space, vesting out of state, you have to really, really have trust in that person. They have to know exactly, they have to know what they’re doing. and be able to give you.

good insights into what’s going on at your property and keep tabs on it. you know, you want to, if you’re, if you’re doing that, if you’re doing the long distance, you want a really solid property manager and you want to interview the heck out of them and check all their references, you know, if they’re doing any sort of rehabs for you, check all their past projects they’ve done and make sure, you know, what quality of work you’re getting. So yeah, lots of lessons learned in that space. I just hired two new property managers.

did more due diligence this time around. know, live and you learn. But yeah, some two cents there.

Michael Stansbury (07:19.142)
Yep. So in the state of Wisconsin, are you in multiple cities there or are you concentrated on a certain county or what’s that look like?

Chris (07:29.022)
Yeah, I mainly focus on the eastern part that’s right along Lake Michigan. So right now I just have properties in Milwaukee, Racine, which is just south of Milwaukee, and Manitowoc. But I would go a little bit inland over to, they call it the Fox Valley area, or the Fox Cities, which would be like,

Maybe for Appleton, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, that kind of area. No, Baraboo, Baraboo is more by Wisconsin Dells. I believe. Yeah. The Dells. Yeah. Which is great. That’s, that’s a whole nother market. More touristy area. I don’t know the policies with Airbnb is out there, but they allow it and everything that might be a good strategy out there. yeah. So Milwaukee.

Michael Stansbury (07:59.49)
that near Baraboo as well.

Michael Stansbury (08:06.766)
Okay, catch it, the deals. Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (08:17.016)
Right.

Chris (08:25.362)
Milwaukee is interesting because it’s a big city, very spotty market. You know, can pay 600 grand for a house or you can pay, you know, 80 grand for a house depending on what the neighborhood is. So yeah, this five unit I’m buying is my first one in Milwaukee and we’re actually going to be targeting section eight because it’s, it is a lower income community. And funny enough, like section eight rents there.

Michael Stansbury (08:34.798)
Yeah.

Chris (08:55.772)
I think it’s similar to Chicago and like Gary, Indiana, places like that where the approved payment standards are quite a bit higher really than the market rents in those areas. And it’s obviously subsidized. So there’s some benefits there. So anyways, that’ll also be my first experience getting in with Section 8. So excited to try that.

Michael Stansbury (09:17.87)
So yeah, how did the lead come through with the multifamily? What did that look like? What’s the origin story there?

Chris (09:23.17)
yeah. That one was interesting. so it was for Facebook marketplace, but first it was a wholesaler, selling it on marketplace. Okay. They, it was initially listed for 240, 240,000 and, the wholesaler got on her contract for like two 67, which is like, okay, that’s interesting. That is higher than what they’re asking, but it’s, was a very creative structure and they had a

Michael Stansbury (09:28.354)
All right.

Chris (09:51.557)
large chunk of it with 0 % financing over, I think it was like eight years or seven years or something. So in the long run, it was actually a solid structure. But if you run into issues in the first three years, you’re gonna be underwater basically. So I was kind of negotiating with her. I was trying to get the price down a little bit to compensate for those risks.

but the seller wouldn’t budge on it. And then I kept, just, I looked again at marketplace and the broker had put it on there separately. So I reached out to the brokers that, isn’t this, I thought this was under contract, you know, by this wholesaler. And they’d tell me that the wholesalers in breach, they didn’t pay their EMD. And so they’re looking for secondary offers. So I just directly negotiated then with the broker.

got it for the listing price and they still were willing to sell or finance half of it at 3.5 % interest only. So very creative deal. Yeah, there’s so many lessons learned on this one too, but it’s gonna go through. The challenge was the financing because I had about 50 % seller financed, second position loan. Most lenders wouldn’t entertain that. And the ones that did were,

where they had their own requirements. Some of them just had really high interest rates. And the one I ended up going with at first said no, they’re a local credit union. They were okay with me being out of state because I had family there. I’m from Wisconsin. So I was able to get in the door that way, but they didn’t like my entity structure because I have a Wyoming holding company and then that’s owned by a California trust.

Michael Stansbury (11:36.823)
Right?

Chris (11:48.553)
So there’s like all these states involved. They just weren’t comfortable with it. So honestly, at the end of the day, I’m like, you know, what if I just create a new LLC in Wisconsin and I own the LLC and we’ll just go that way. And they were fine with it. So had to, you know, get creative again, but, found a way to make it work. So, and their interest rates, like 6.75%, which I haven’t seen from any other source. So it’s great.

Michael Stansbury (12:06.798)
Yeah, but the… go ahead.

Michael Stansbury (12:11.575)
Okay.

And so is there any value, you doing any value add to it or are you just keeping it, is there, yes, okay. So, to you.

Chris (12:20.67)
A little bit. there’s, you know, there’s some, I’m probably going to put 25 or 30 grand into it. The biggest thing is the attic unit, which is the fifth unit. It’s not really up to code. Like the electrical has got not just double tapping, but triple tapping in the panel. So very handymanish job. You know, it’s got a furnace that works, but it’s like from the seventies. and two of the units are

Michael Stansbury (12:49.166)
when they made things a little bit better, right?

Chris (12:50.75)
Yeah, like it lasts but I’m sure the efficiencies garbage, right? and then two of the there’s two two bedroom units, including the attic, and they share electric and gas meters. So currently it’s structured so that I’m I’m paying those bills, which gas in the winter in Wisconsin is very expensive. So and then you throw in the old furnace. So there’s definitely efficiencies to be made there.

Michael Stansbury (12:55.758)
All right, yeah.

Chris (13:19.422)
And honestly, if I can go through section eight, right now they’re rented out for those two bedroom units, 850 and 950. Section eight, if you’re including all utilities, section eight will pay 1300, 1350 for the same units. So even if I get a little bit less, even if I get 1200, that’s a huge uptick in cashflow and OI and all that. So yeah, so.

Michael Stansbury (13:30.806)
Okay, right.

Michael Stansbury (13:43.566)
Okay, awesome. So I like that deal. so day to day, you’re doing this part time, but it sounds like you’re doing like full time work. what’s your full time job and what were you doing before your full time job? What did Chris’s life look like before real estate and maybe before 2020 and all the COVID nonsense? What did that look like?

Chris (14:08.894)
Sure. Well, I did. I grew up in Green Bay actually so And right out of high school 2008. I joined the Marine Corps. So spent four years, you know in the military Did some training in California But mostly was stationed out on the East Coast in North Carolina and did a couple tours to Afghanistan during that time as well So I Didn’t love those four years. I will say that

I met a lot of incredible people that are still friends today. And honestly, there’s even people that if I haven’t talked to them in 15 years and I’m in their city and I hit them up on Facebook, it’s like we never got out of touch. It’s awesome. I did that with a friend in Boston. yeah, it was great just to catch up and see what they’re up to. But the other advantage of that is how I got started in real estate is my first property I owned

Michael Stansbury (14:51.288)
Yeah, it’s beautiful.

Chris (15:05.96)
you I used the VA loan so I didn’t have to put any money down and that was also during COVID. So the interest rate was low and right after that, all the prices shot up. So I got to, you know, leverage the equity. But anyways, kind of going back after the military, moved out to California on my own, wanted to live in a big city, wanted to live, you know, in a warm area and got…

Michael Stansbury (15:08.696)
Right.

Chris (15:33.991)
my degrees in engineering, civil engineering from UCLA and then Stanford for grad school. So went that route, lots of schooling, got my engineering license and started working as an engineer. So yeah, that all kind of was leading up to COVID. My first job was in 2017. So yeah, everything was on track, going on track. And I still, I’m very grateful for that.

Michael Stansbury (15:45.592)
Yeah.

Chris (16:03.038)
from the profession and the fun projects I get to work on and stuff. It’s just, I don’t see myself doing this until I’m 65. I wanna have a family. I wanna have time to spend with that family. I don’t have to worry about PTO. I see how much my boss works and she has kids, pretty much as a single mom at this point. she is just stressed out of her mind. And I’m just like, I…

knowing how am I going to put myself in that position. not all engineers at her level are like that, but I’ve seen it a lot. I just with my work ethic, we’re both from the Midwest. I just feel like I could fall into that same trap if I just if I only focused on the career. So yeah, I’m trying to build something bigger for myself and not limit what’s possible.

Michael Stansbury (16:43.533)
Right?

Michael Stansbury (16:55.254)
Yeah, that’s great. and that’s seeing things the way they are and then, and then trying to, you know, create your own future and not have it created for you. Most people, you know, I got completely lucky. I also educated, not a civil engineer, didn’t go to UCL or Stanford, went to the University of Arkansas. but I got into real estate right after, I graduated just based on

an attorney’s friend’s advice, because I was, I was doing my job, but it was paying very low and that, know, you had student loans to pay off and I was like, this ain’t working out so well. So it’s great that you, you, you see that and you see something else and you’ve got momentum. I mean, you’re buying properties and you’re doing multifamilies and you’re learning what, so what are some of the things that you’ve learned on your way? Your personal experiences, maybe specific to the multifamily or some of the single family homes. What are some of the.

the things that you’ve learned about this that you’d like to impart on somebody that’s coming up.

Chris (18:01.534)
Sure, yeah. There are a lot of things, so trying to rack my brain right now. one thing is definitely, for me, what’s helped is being, as you mentioned, being a part of a group, a community, whatever that looks like. And getting in there and showing up frequently and often to show that you’re serious and to really network and get to know people and folks there. Because look, if you’re gonna do wholesaling, you’re gonna need buyers for your property. If you’re gonna do buy and hold, you might need a wholesaler or…

brokers that go to help you find properties. You know, you’re gonna need contractors, all those folks. So I know some people wanna just jump in. I think it’s important to.

to learn not just from YouTube University, but to learn from folks that are in the industry. Because you don’t know what you don’t know. And so if you’re just sitting there watching YouTube, one, you don’t know who you’re learning from. You don’t know when enough is enough before you take action. And so whether it’s a community, a mentorship, a coach, whatever it is,

Michael Stansbury (18:53.709)
Right.

Michael Stansbury (19:01.774)
Yeah.

Chris (19:07.806)
Learn from folks doing it so that you you have the it just is gonna boost your confidence and protect you Definitely want to say, you know, you want an LLC you want insurance? Don’t cut corners. No matter what you do like do it by the book because the books there for a reason right like Practices are in place for a reason and you don’t want to get yourself into trouble legally or financially

Michael Stansbury (19:28.078)
Great.

Michael Stansbury (19:35.362)
No.

Chris (19:37.609)
with any of that stuff. I mentioned the property manager. That’s really big if you’re doing this out of state, especially. And a big thing that I didn’t think about at all when I got into this is just the value of networking and not just even at real estate events or real estate groups, even just business, like Chamber of Commerce events, business networking events.

hosting your own webinars, whatever you can do to get your name out there, want everybody to know what you’re doing. And then if you do get into multifamily, you’re probably gonna have to raise money unless you just got millions of dollars sitting around. when you get to that point, right? So, know, and even if you did, like if you wanna really scale, you wanna leverage other people’s currencies. So, you know,

Michael Stansbury (20:19.116)
I mean, who doesn’t?

Michael Stansbury (20:25.123)
Right.

Chris (20:32.924)
You might want to bring somebody on your first deal in multifamily who has experience. Maybe they don’t even bring money to the deal, but you just want their shared experience and you give them a cut. that’s right. So you got those options, but the big thing is the networking and the more people, the better. Cause when you actually start showing people deals, people get cold feeds and you know, they don’t know if they want to be locked in for five years or whatever it is. So,

Yeah, the bigger the net you can put out there, the better. So those are some things. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (21:08.078)
Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, yeah, that’s great. So one of the things I always relay it back and this is something I learned late is because maybe it was a point of pride, you but you you’re educated, you got a master’s degree. And one of the things that we’ve, you know, that I think maybe education hopefully will change in this regard is it wasn’t until I in real estate kind of got a coach and got a mentor.

specific to somebody that was doing something where I was want to be and I had unpaid coaches and mentors but then when I made the payment it became something sort of like okay now I’m really gonna listen and I’m gonna take action and so doing that exploded what I’ve done and I’m not the only one if

Chris (21:53.822)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (22:01.194)
If you’re really serious about something, if you’re really serious about civil engineering, what do you got to do? Well, you got to go get an education, right? you can’t just, you know, be a civil engineer tomorrow. without, without that, without that education and with real estate, it’s the same thing. If somebody is doing the amount of work that you’re doing, then. You know, figure out a way to, either pay them as a coach or go to, you know, like you said, do your research.

find out who’s doing things and then grab on to it. What’s been a book? What’s been a mentor that has had an effect on you, Chris?

Chris (22:41.47)
Okay, so the first book I read, which I love, is, and I might get the name wrong, it’s Brandon Turner’s very popular Bigger Pockets book. I think it’s the book on rental property investments. Does that sound right to you? Yeah, I believe that’s the name of it. That’s a great book. I mean, the group I’m a part of, it’s called Renatus, and it’s a big national community, so.

Michael Stansbury (22:57.569)
Right?

Chris (23:09.33)
just being a part of that group and the mentorship I get there is fantastic. I’ve also, and I mentioned Brandon Turner. I’ve also, learned a lot from Grant Cardone and his programs. And actually what you just said is exactly what he says is, Hey, if you, know, if you’re doing all this stuff for free, you’re not really, you got nothing to lose. You got no skin in the game. Right. But if you’re, if you go down and if you put 20 grand into something or 10 grand or whatever it is, you put some skin in the game.

Michael Stansbury (23:30.339)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (23:39.295)
If you’re anything like me, you’re going to make sure you get your money’s worth, right? And so you’re going to take it a lot more seriously. that’s, mean, Warren Buffett, you know, talks about investing in yourself being the greatest investment you can ever make. It doesn’t erode away to inflation. It keeps paying dividends year after year. And even if you don’t use the information you learn right now to this moment today, it always finds a way to come back around and help you.

at some point or maybe help somebody else in your network. So, you know, can’t really can’t go wrong with that. Yeah, so.

Michael Stansbury (24:15.41)
Yeah, that’s awesome, Chris. So those are some good folks that obviously have a track record and they’ve had some success. And success leaves clues. So all right, so Chris from Green Bay, Wisconsin. so Packer fan, I assume, or do you care at all?

Chris (24:32.956)
Yeah, yeah, big Packer fan, big cheese head for sure. Love it. Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (24:35.902)
Big G’s head. Awesome. Yeah, I have some family that live in there in Green Bay and they go up to the Dells I think over there. So I’ve only been up to Wisconsin one time in my life. I’m in Memphis. We need to come up there I guess in July. That’s when Wisconsin’s really nice, right?

Chris (24:53.99)
Yeah, you know, they’ve got summer fest every year. I don’t know if that’s July or what, when that is, but summer fest in Milwaukee is great. We’ve got the state fair, Wisconsin Dells, lots of, lots of good things. And then just even like door County is a popular place just north of green Bay. they’re known for their vineyards and cherry, cherry wine. So in just all sorts of mixed berry wines and stuff like that. they even have, distilleries.

Michael Stansbury (25:09.993)
Mm-hmm, right.

Chris (25:23.634)
going up that way, fresh ice cream, lots of good things.

Michael Stansbury (25:26.71)
Wisconsin’s yeah they’ve got some cool that is some cool stuff I went to a Green Bay game in December against the Oakland Raiders about seven or eight years ago it was pretty it was epic it was epic to go to that stadium and and watch that game yeah in Green Bay it was pretty wild

Chris (25:40.4)
In Green Bay, yeah. Yeah, that can be, that can be cold.

Michael Stansbury (25:45.742)
It was movie-freo, it was very cold. Well Chris, where can people find out more about you and what you’re doing on the internet? Tell me about that.

Chris (25:56.518)
Yeah, so I mean, I’m all over social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, all the stuff. Most of my handles are at the Flow Authority. But if you wanted to see all of my stuff, you know, I’m actually going to be launching my website in a couple of days here, theflowauthority.com. And then I also have my link tree, which is the Flow Authority as well as the handle.

Michael Stansbury (26:07.534)
Okay.

Michael Stansbury (26:23.139)
Gotcha.

Chris (26:24.688)
Any of those, Linktree will have all the links. It’ll have upcoming events that we got going on. So yeah, check it out. And you can book a call with me as well and just chat. Ask me any questions you want. I’m an open book, so I’m happy to help.

Michael Stansbury (26:40.374)
Awesome. Well, hey Chris, thanks for being part of the Real Estate Pros podcast. Everybody go check out Chris’s stuff. We’ll have the link in the show notes for all the ways to find him. Again, thanks for watching. Like and subscribe and we’ll see you next time.