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In this conversation, Brett McCollum interviews Chad Risinger, a seasoned real estate developer, who shares his journey from construction to entrepreneurship. Chad discusses the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on his career, the lucrative business model of self storage, and the importance of mentorship in the real estate industry. He also highlights current and future development projects, including a single-family subdivision and mixed-use developments, while emphasizing the opportunities available for blue collar developers in todayโ€™s market.

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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

Brett McCollum (00:00.815)
All right guys, welcome back to the show. I am your host, Brett McCollum, and Iโ€™m here today with Chad Risinger, and today weโ€™re gonna be talking about development. Guys, before we do, wanted to tell you a little bit more about Investor Fuel. We help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs to 2 to 5X their businesses to allow them to build the businesses theyโ€™ve always wanted and allow them to build the lives theyโ€™ve always dreamed of. Without further ado, Chad, how are you, man?

Chad Risinger (00:24.238)
Hey, Iโ€™m great. Great to be here.

Brett McCollum (00:26.147)
Yeah, man, dude, we hadnโ€™t yet met until just a little bit ago, kind of pre-show, but really great kind of getting to know you a little bit, catching up a little bit. So kind of give us some history, man. Like, it was a lot of fun for me getting to know you. Tell the people a bit who you are, give some background, that sort of thing.

Chad Risinger (00:41.272)
Yeah, well, Iโ€™m fired up about real estate development, but starting out, so I went into construction when I was 18. I went to work for the union and we started taking some of the biggest projects in Kansas City out of the ground with grown men. So I was 18 years old and going to work with guys who were going through their first divorce. So it was a crazy time and havingโ€ฆ

Brett McCollum (00:44.601)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (01:06.447)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (01:07.438)
you know, throw you to the walls and go to work every day in the mud and the grit andโ€ฆ

Did all that for about 10 years and was building homes on the side. Always wanted to be a real estate developer, building spec homes, some multi-family and a couple of custom homes for some friends of mineโ€™s parents and things like that. was doing that too and then 08 happened. generationally I was about 28 years old in 08 and so.

everything just quit and everybody got laid off from work and the real estate, you know, collapse and all of that. But really what that did is it forced me into going full time into entrepreneurship and developing and using all those skills that I had learned over the last 10 years and really put that to work for myself.

in hindsight, probably the best thing that could have helped helped push me into what I really wanted to do, which was work for myself and be an entrepreneur. So went into a remodeling apartment complexes with the water and storm or, you know, water and fire restoration companies. They, were taking over their big projects. We had the licenses and things we needed to go in and remodel those. And then,

Brett McCollum (02:07.246)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (02:33.538)
went into commercial and real estate development. And Iโ€™m actually in a self storage facility right now that I built and developed on four acres just outside of Kansas City. I stay in the suburbs of Kansas City.

Brett McCollum (02:45.892)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (02:46.498)
This oneโ€™s in Grain Valley, Missouri, and I built myself a little back office here. So Iโ€™m just in the self storage facility this morning. And then weโ€™ve got a single family residential development on a golf course going in right now. So Iโ€™ll be out there this afternoon and working on that project.

Brett McCollum (03:04.143)
Dude, thatโ€™s super cool, man. We have a lot to unpack with this, obviously, because development, know, lot of our shows that weโ€™re listening to, a lot of us are, you know, just the everyday single family home, you know, fix and flip or buy and hold investor, maybe, you know, I say every day, and a lot of us have like, you know, X amount of rental properties, but not a lot of opportunities that we were talking about development, right? Yeah.

Chad Risinger (03:27.662)
So you know you kind of do a little bit of that all throughout your career as well.

Brett McCollum (03:34.125)
Yeah, Iโ€™m sure you have because you see opportunity. You see can when you own the one of my theories is like if you can he or she owns the money owns the deal, but also who controls the construction controls the deal, right?

Chad Risinger (03:47.01)
The way I see it is real estate developers are really the market makers. Create the market out there. yeah, so thatโ€™s really what I love about it is we come in and we create that market. And so many of the fix-and-flippers or the apartment complex buyers and things, theyโ€™re buying somebody a development that somebody else has put in years ago.

Brett McCollum (03:51.821)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (04:13.316)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Risinger (04:14.187)
Weโ€™re just getting out in front of that and putting it in ourselves.

Brett McCollum (04:17.263)
Yeah, something youโ€™d said and it kind of sparked a thought because Iโ€™m trying to draw a lot of parallels to like maybe the single family home operator, know, and thatโ€™s their niche or like and maybe like more of what I might identify with in the wholesale world too, right? We have our niches. A lot of us, we jump, we take a course, we go to a, you know, some kind of a thing, we buy it, we go through the curriculum, if you will, and now weโ€™re pros, right? So then weโ€™re going to go off on our own and start our own business.

You mentioned that you jumped in at 18 and you were there for what, 10 years, right? Before you went out on your own. What do you think, and I think I know the answer, but do you think that that training ground from 18 to 28 helped you to be where you are? Walk me through that a little bit.

Chad Risinger (05:10.126)
Yeah, was, and it is, it did, itโ€™s about what you make out of it. When I went to work and we were bringing big projects out of the ground, I was there observing what all the trades were doing. I was there to learn what the process of how, what goes in first, whatโ€™s second, whatโ€™s third, and all of that. And so that really helped me just,

Brett McCollum (05:15.897)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (05:26.596)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (05:39.242)
not going through the motions, really paying attention to whatโ€™s going on and how itโ€™s being done by the best in the city. I mean, we were on big projects and so I was learning how to do it by the best. And so I just looked at it that way and, really took that knowledge and started building homes on the side and, really, you know, kind of taking that to another level with, know, just kind of having no fear too. There was a lot of guys that,

Brett McCollum (05:59.599)
Very cool.

Brett McCollum (06:07.981)
Yeah, when youโ€™re young and youโ€™re, yeah, thereโ€™s no fear.

Chad Risinger (06:10.08)
Yeah, I had no fear and I worked with a lot of guys that were like, you know, I would ask him like, why arenโ€™t we building houses? Like everybody was building houses in 06. Letโ€™s just get it straight. Like you couldnโ€™t build a house that didnโ€™t sell. And so, you know, everybody was in.

Brett McCollum (06:22.127)
Yeah, thatโ€™s not that feels familiar.

Chad Risinger (06:25.134)
And it wasnโ€™t so it wasnโ€™t that big of a leap to go and get a house built to go start building houses back then because it was so easy and money was easy to get and things like that. But I can remember going and buying my first lot and telling my my friendโ€™s dad that I had.

bought a lot and Iโ€™m going to start building houses.โ€ And heโ€™s like, you did? Really? Oh, well, Iโ€™m going to go. So he went and bought a lot and started building houses. Like it just took, you know, that kid whoโ€™s having a rage to go in and start doing it. thatโ€™s, but you know, really from 18 to 28, that was really a lot of experience and big, big, heavy construction. And that was, I started out in residential, um, really because it was

Brett McCollum (06:51.406)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Risinger (07:08.462)
the most accessible to me to do that. But then during the day I was going to work on big, huge commercial projects at another level. So I was getting to see where I wanted to go and then working on where I needed to start to get there.

Brett McCollum (07:22.701)
Yeah. Yeah, and thatโ€™s kind of what I was getting at. like thereโ€™s so much to be said for having a place to hone your craft before you take it out on your own and you make the mistakes.

Chad Risinger (07:31.149)
Yeah.

Iโ€™ll say this, Iโ€™ve bought all the courses too. Iโ€™ve been to all the meetups and I go to all the courses and Iโ€™ve done all that stuff too. So however you get there, I would encourage anybody to do what you can do to get there. And Iโ€™ve done the courses too. Iโ€™ve bought everything, anything under 500 bucks Iโ€™ve bought.

Brett McCollum (07:38.051)
Yeah. Okay.

Brett McCollum (07:56.099)
Yeah, right? Well, I tell people when theyโ€™re coming in and talking to us and talking to me separately, that sort of thing. Iโ€™m like, man, one of the best things you can do is go work for somebody for a little while. Learn the business. Know, because you donโ€™t know what you know or at very least hire a coach thatโ€™s going to save your butt from making those mistakes or go make them on your own. you know, thatโ€™s fine, too. But I try to warn people ahead of time, you know, and I think thatโ€™s really cool because.

What youโ€™ve been able to do since then, youโ€™re talking about self storage and you got, you know, your other development, things like that. like, you almost wonder, do you get to that without having, you donโ€™t know, this has been your path, so we wonโ€™t know. But I look at it from a perspective like, man, itโ€™s really impressive to see like the trajectory in the path thatโ€™s been there and man, thatโ€™s really cool to watch.

Chad Risinger (08:44.866)
Yeah, and I still seek out those mentors. I was in a meetup, a guy on Facebook was putting together a multi-family, you know, meetup development type of thing, you know, and he wanted to sell a course. Thatโ€™s great. I went there anyway and I knew what I was getting into.

Brett McCollum (09:01.375)
You need to nugget from anything, absolutely.

Chad Risinger (09:03.928)
But I met a guy there who was asking some very good questions. And I went up and met him after the meeting. And I was like, are you a builder and developer? Heโ€™s like, yes. I got his name and number. I went to visit him.

we just hit it off. mean, itโ€™s just things like that where like I can go and I want to meet with him. I go out, heโ€™s putting in subdivisions, heโ€™s building them out, heโ€™s buying lots and heโ€™s interested in Missouri side. So now weโ€™re talking about developments that I have coming up in the future. And so you just never know where youโ€™re going to meet somebody thatโ€™s going to take you to the next level. And then, and then you never get, you never, youโ€™re never at the top. Youโ€™re always moving.

Brett McCollum (09:37.935)
Thatโ€™s right.

Chad Risinger (09:44.014)
towards other people, always growing and moving towards people that are doing it bigger that can help you out and give you some insight.

Brett McCollum (09:44.143)
Weโ€™re growinโ€™.

Brett McCollum (09:49.401)
Yeah. You go into this kind of forced into it like we talked about almost to get on your own in that 08 space. Looking back, you made mention like that was the best thing that could have happened to me. In the moment though, was it scary or is it exciting or is it both? Like what was that like?

Chad Risinger (10:06.338)
Yeah, absolutely, it is. I donโ€™t really remember. just, one foot in front of the other has just always been my mantra and faith. I mean, I just really donโ€™t have a lot of fear that, I just know that youโ€™ve gotta keep growing and taking risks, and Iโ€™ve done that, and itโ€™s paid off in the past, and I just know whatโ€™sโ€ฆ

Brett McCollum (10:11.567)
That is a while ago.

Chad Risinger (10:32.664)
I just get that confidence as I move through life that every, know, just one foot in front of the other, making the best decisions you can in the moment and then moving through mitigating risk but still taking on risk. so was it scary? I donโ€™t know. I always tend to keep my expenses low at home. So I think itโ€™s important to have a really good sense of, of,

budgeting and things not living outside of your means. So I didnโ€™t have a whole lot of fear of going out there and taking risk. I just didnโ€™t have huge house payment and big car payments and things like that. So I just kept it. I hope thatโ€™s not too boring of an answer, but I really just.

Brett McCollum (11:14.883)
Not, no, I mean, everybody has their own path, man. Like, yeah, thatโ€™s just, and itโ€™s really just a testament to the, your grit thatโ€™s inside of you, right? Like thatโ€™s a thing. Like, and some people have it and some people donโ€™t. And that doesnโ€™t make anybody, you better or worse than anybody else just means like Chadโ€™s got that thing, you know, like, which is really cool. Moving into, right, talk me through this. You just said self storage. So,

Obviously, you know, youโ€™re going through, like, how did you land on that side of it? Like, what happened there?

Chad Risinger (11:51.222)
wanted to get into development and wanted to put in my own infrastructure and stuff and just prove to myself that all of the things that Iโ€™ve learned, that I know it and that I can do it. And so one of the things I could do was put together a self storage facility in my hometown and just looked around and I donโ€™t wanna, Iโ€™m not a genius, I just timed it perfectly.

We got started in 2019, built it out in 2020 and filled it up. And so it went really well. And it was at a time when self storage was coming into its prime and a lot of people were, you know, the uncertainty with the coronavirus and everything, nobody knew what was going to happen. We just put one foot in front of the other. kept building, kept growing and lo and behold, everybody needed storage from that. So.

Brett McCollum (12:50.127)
It popped off, thatโ€™s for sure.

Chad Risinger (12:51.278)
time. Yeah, and even my peers in the industry are like you, you just you donโ€™t know. And then Iโ€™m like, well, you know, whatever, but Iโ€™m going to still Iโ€™m still going to do more. So I love the business. Itโ€™s incredible. I want Iโ€™m going to do 10 more and weโ€™re just going for

Brett McCollum (13:10.937)
Wow.

Chad Risinger (13:12.376)
look for those opportunities and get those entitlements with the city. Weโ€™re gonna build more. And Iโ€™ve got my mom in the office working this. Itโ€™s so easy and she loves it and itโ€™s great. Weโ€™re just having a lot of fun with it. So itโ€™s a great business and really just kind of was looking at a lot of different things to do and Self Storage just kind of made sense on this property at that time.

Brett McCollum (13:36.015)
Yeah. How does it, and this is just a for me question. Iโ€™m just like, cause I know a lot of different operators that have self, thatโ€™s really high on self storage. They speak really highly of the business model on it. Maybe give, I donโ€™t know, the 50,000 foot view business model of self storage and why it makes a lot of sense right now.

Chad Risinger (13:57.646)
So thereโ€™s demand for it, for sure. Whether the marketโ€™s going up and people are selling and moving, or the marketโ€™s going down, theyโ€™re downsizing and theyโ€™re needing storage for that. And then thereโ€™s also everything in between. The other thing, too, that I love about it is that the laws surrounding self storage are very pro-operator. And so when someone doesnโ€™t pay me,

They have 45 days to pay me or theyโ€™re out and I can sell their stuff and move them out. Thereโ€™s no court case, thereโ€™s no eviction process, thereโ€™s none of that. So itโ€™s very pro-operator in that if somebody doesnโ€™t pay me, I move them out and I get somebody else to come in and pay for the storage and I love that part.

tenants who donโ€™t want to pay and then I have to go through eviction processes and court cases and things like that. The other thing is that from a business model standpoint the pricing is very flexible so itโ€™s month to month and itโ€™s you know as demand comes up and we get full we can raise rates as we need to and then if we need to do a special or anything like that or we need to you know

give somebody a break or lower some rates, we can do that too. And itโ€™s very month to month, very fluid. now we have a little different model than most of the corporate, weโ€™re mom and pop type of place. So we donโ€™t raise our rates every three months to get that maximum amount. try it.

But that also gives us a lot of success here because we get a lot of customers from those places that come in. They want to stay at a place where itโ€™s just a steady, maybe once a year type of increase. And we have a lot of long-term tenants. So that was one of the biggest surprises, too, is that not only do we have long-term tenants, but they also will get a, they love it here. Theyโ€™ll get another unit. And theyโ€™ll get another unit. I did not realize how many customers we would get that would get another one and another one. itโ€™s just.

Brett McCollum (16:05.369)
Wow, yeah, I wouldnโ€™t have thought that either. thatโ€™s really, Yeah, Iโ€™ve got maintenance overhead is minimal, as of today anyway, because itโ€™s new, but.

Chad Risinger (16:08.824)
Yep.

Chad Risinger (16:14.998)
Yeah, exactly, and thatโ€™s why I would go new. I mean, I see a lot of facilities that are 30, 40 years old with a line around the block to buy them, and theyโ€™re in very old condition and need updates, and theyโ€™ve beenโ€ฆ

maxed out and all of their pro formaโ€™s and theyโ€™re you know all of that taken over by professional operators and I get really nervous or worried for customers that might come in and see that and think theyโ€™re getting great value but thereโ€™s a lot of maintenance that goes into those older units that that I think are kind of gonna be a gonna be a little bit of trouble if you canโ€™t tell Iโ€™m completely biased for a new construction so but I can see the writing on the wall with these older you know we get a lot of customers from the older facilities

that are like you know itโ€™s just it just they were built with skinnier driveways and and and insulation in the ceilings that can fall that it just it just isnโ€™t the same product that you can build today.

Brett McCollum (17:10.863)
Yeah, weโ€™ve seen them.

Brett McCollum (17:15.991)
Yeah, I mean itโ€™s super cool. Iโ€™m glad you were able to kind of break that down a bit there. And I know that if itโ€™s done right and you got your numbers right, like ROI side of itโ€™s pretty lucrative too.

Chad Risinger (17:27.532)
Yeah, commercial is just another world when it comes to raising rates and lowering costs and dividing that by your cap rate and getting a heck of a return on your investment. Itโ€™s great.

Brett McCollum (17:41.507)
Yeah, I know. Iโ€™ve heard so many people like super pro on that. Want to transition a bit to just kind of for sake of time, youโ€™re building out a, you have another development. say, was it on a golf course that youโ€™re building out? that correct?

Chad Risinger (17:56.236)
Yes, we have a single family subdivision going in right along the seventh green. Yeah. Weโ€™ll put in 30 homes there in the first phase. And so itโ€™s going to be nice. Itโ€™s really great spot, really great niche little spot surrounded by woods. when youโ€™ve got the golf course on three sides of you and youโ€™re building in there, customers love that because they know that youโ€™re not going to have another

Brett McCollum (18:01.507)
Wow, how many homes are you guys doing on that one?

Brett McCollum (18:18.573)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (18:24.12)
portion of the subdivision, another 800 homes attached to you, all using that main road through your subdivision. Weโ€™re just kind of an exclusive little 30 lot subdivision right there that, yeah, itโ€™s gonna be cool. A lot of complaints from customers that, you well I bought this property and then somebodyโ€™s building right behind me. I thought that was gonna be woods the rest of my life. And what weโ€™re doing is weโ€™re creating those green spaces around the property so that nobody is gonna build behind you. Or youโ€™ve got a golf course lot there, so.

Brett McCollum (18:43.734)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (18:53.838)
And thereโ€™s a lot of demand for single family lots right now. Thereโ€™s a lot of really qualified builders that are looking for lots in our market. Weโ€™ve got a little bit of a hiccup going on right now, but theyโ€™ve worked, I mean, when they worked through, they worked through 2023 and then 2024 was a little better. What weโ€™re developing, what weโ€™re putting in right now is really actually a spring of 2026 play.

Brett McCollum (19:03.641)
Yeah.

I am.

Chad Risinger (19:22.902)
So when weโ€™re developing today, those builders are going to come in and start building in the fall for spring of 2026. So I think thereโ€™s a lot of optimism around that timing.

Brett McCollum (19:25.261)
Right?

Brett McCollum (19:38.639)
Well, that was going to be one of my questions, I guess, too, from the development play, right? Is in the fix and flip or play, we can kind of itโ€™s a little maybe not easy because like, mean, I got beat up on some personal stuff last year, trying to I got swept into some forecasting that I missed, mistimed because rates werenโ€™t where they are now at the time. And, you know, this that and the third and this things hadnโ€™t slowed down yet. And we kind of got caught up into it a little bit.

when youโ€™re forecasting out a full year plus, thereโ€™s so much, how to, from the developer lens, how are you doing that? Like, because obviously we canโ€™t know everything that far ahead, but thereโ€™s probably certain metrics that you are watching that say, you know what, this is a safe, like mitigating your risk, this is as safe as I know how to make it in the moment. What do you do on that situation?

Chad Risinger (20:32.961)
A lot of it that I count on personally and hold close to me is just my organic questions that I ask other builders and developers. What are you seeing? And so that portion of it from builder after builder after builder is like, yes, weโ€™re interested in more lots. Weโ€™re interested in ramping up.

Weโ€™ve come through a slow fit period right now, but weโ€™re optimistic about the future. So a lot of it is organic. then some of it is just instead of looking at, what do I predict will happen? I look at, well, whatโ€™s the probability of whatโ€™s going to happen? We can look back and see thereโ€™s been hiccups, but we can also see that real estate as a whole has gone up.

Brett McCollum (21:16.527)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Risinger (21:26.946)
with a few dips but continues to go up. I donโ€™t want to get into this, well, itโ€™s always going to go up kind of convert, you know, thatโ€™s not what Iโ€™m saying. But the probability of it, and one of the metrics Iโ€™ve been looking at is everybodyโ€™s heard on the news that thereโ€™s a 4 million housing shortage. But on top of that, you know, thereโ€™s the metric that if interest rates were going to come down, maybe just even a 1%.

Brett McCollum (21:43.801)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (21:55.278)
Dude.

Chad Risinger (21:55.744)
About 5 million new buyers would be coming into the market that can qualify for a new home. Another metric is that youโ€™ve got the millennial and Gen Z. Statistically, the millennials, when youโ€™re in your 30s, home ownership is about 33%. When you get into your 40s and 50s, which theyโ€™re getting into their 40s now, and that goes up to 53%. So thatโ€™s another 10 million homes that weโ€™re going to need.

for those homeowners, for those, for those. And then Gen Zโ€™s right next, right behind them. Very low home ownership rate right now at 8%. But as they move forward in the next 10 years going into their, you know, their prime buying ages, thatโ€™s another 10 million of homes that weโ€™re gonna need. So when you add all of that up, that thereโ€™s just a really good looking runway for new construction in this country.

Brett McCollum (22:53.049)
Yeah, and thatโ€™s, mean, we hear that a lot and, you know, bumps and bruises happen. I mean, you went through the whole 08 cycle too, and I mean, you probably know many developers that maybe went under in those times. But, you know, the great thing about real estate is we all are gonna need roof over our heads, that sort of thing. What are you doing, Iโ€™m curious, price point wise, like, is there a target that you guys like to build for, or is it like,

Is it more custom in nature than that, that it kind of varies? What do you guys do?

Chad Risinger (23:24.812)
Yeah, so sometimes the builders kind of dictate the partnerships that I bring that I get are kind of dictate what weโ€™re going to do. And a lot of what we do is a mixed use development where thereโ€™s a little bit of everything. So weโ€™ve got the higher end builders that are looking for lots. Weโ€™ll put those in. But weโ€™ll take 100 acres and weโ€™ll.

weโ€™ll break it down to a single family subdivision where itโ€™s a step down process. Weโ€™ll have the bigger homes step down to a little bit smaller home to step down to another one. Iโ€™ve got the builders in each one of those genres. If thatโ€™s their bread and butter, thatโ€™s all they want to do. And then another portion of it would be like the patio home development. And Iโ€™ve got a guy that does nothing but patio homes and heโ€™s really good at it and theyโ€™re gorgeous. And he kicks everybodyโ€™s butt on.

what they like and how, I mean, these patio homes look like they should be the upper end homes. So heโ€™s doing a really great job. When you meet people like that, itโ€™s really easy to gain the confidence to come in and put a subdivision in to, because youโ€™re providing the product that they want, that they, you know, and you can cater to it. I think that another thing too, is that if youโ€™re a blue collar developer right now, if youโ€™ve got the,

Do they still say Rolodex? I say Rolodex. If youโ€™ve got a contact list of your excavators and your utility contractors and things like that, I think thereโ€™s a real opportunity for blue collar developers right now. Iโ€™m not hating on the corporate guys, but Iโ€™ve talked to them too. I sit down with them. Anytime theyโ€™ll let me sit down with them. And the conversations that we have, a lot of it is around, well,

Brett McCollum (24:41.443)
Yeah, yeah.

Chad Risinger (25:09.016)
You know, weโ€™ve got this big project under contract and weโ€™ve got a million dollars in lawyer fees and weโ€™ve got $500,000 in engineering so far and weโ€™re getting ready to go into putting into the subdivision and weโ€™re asking for all these bonds and these TIFF, increment financing stuff from the city to be able to get all this stuff done and Iโ€™m just like, my gosh, like, what are you guys doing?

Brett McCollum (25:37.487)
Brain damage, right? Yeah.

Chad Risinger (25:38.446)
Iโ€™m just like, Iโ€™m putting in a subdivision right now. Iโ€™ve got $20,000 in it upfront.

And so I think if youโ€™re in now, when you work on bigger projects, the price is going to go up, but not that much. And if youโ€™re going to go and ask for all of those incentives and stuff from the city, I think thereโ€™s a real opportunity for blue collar developers to go in and say, Iโ€™m not going to ask you for any of those incentives. Hereโ€™s my plan to put it all together and just do it myself. And I think real opportunity for people to come in and be able to do that. Now.

Brett McCollum (26:09.359)
Wow.

Chad Risinger (26:14.796)
Whatโ€™s great about it is the commercial developers that are pushing the lot prices up and up and up because their cost is going up and up and up. Theyโ€™ve put themselves in a situation where theyโ€™re hiring everything out, even general contracting the infrastructure on their projects. Then what that allows me to do is come in and get it done myself for less.

and still charge those prices that theyโ€™re creating the market up here for and come in and do that. So I would encourage anybody thatโ€™s in development thatโ€™s doing it thatโ€™s, you know, either theyโ€™ve done it and theyโ€™ve backed out or theyโ€™veโ€ฆ

Brett McCollum (26:46.073)
Sure.

Chad Risinger (26:57.806)
some real opportunity in certain markets. Now flooded markets like, you know, well let me say popular markets like your Texas and Florida and things like that. Where the population is moving, thereโ€™s a reason for why thatโ€™s very popular to build and develop in there in those areas. I just, even for me, I would be a little bit hesitant because itโ€™s just a, there just seems like to be a lot of big, big players, a lot of people, a lot of competition.

Here in Kansas City in the Midwest, thereโ€™s the big players of course, but still a lot of opportunities. I get calls every single day to buy my self storage facility. And the line is around the block for an apartment complex or a self storage facility. But I can go and look at land thatโ€™s been on the market for six months and they havenโ€™t had an offer yet on it.

just not in a whole lot of competition with anyone else if I want to come in and put in the street and curb and infrastructure myself. Thereโ€™s three or four other players in the market in a certain area that may be doing stuff, but if theyโ€™ve got other things going on, it leaves an opportunity to go and put a project under.

Brett McCollum (28:15.619)
or any one of you, right? and like you might be in, and they can, like itโ€™s, yeah, thatโ€™s really cool. Cause thereโ€™s really no, at the end of the day, it sounds like youโ€™re really good at like, cause youโ€™ve talked, you said, I donโ€™t know if itโ€™s pre-short or like where youโ€™re working with these other guys, like, Hey, I found, I know this guy that wants to do this and I can push it over to him. And you know, like you guys are able to collaborate more than compete even.

Chad Risinger (28:36.206)
Exactly, thatโ€™s way Iโ€™ve seen it too, is just that other builders and developers, some of the surprising conversations that Iโ€™ve had are like, yeah, Iโ€™ll buy lots from another developer, and theyโ€™re developers, right? And theyโ€™re building out their own subdivision, and theyโ€™re like, well, yeah, Iโ€™m gonna go buy his lots out too. I wanna stay relevant, I wanna stay in the flow.

Brett McCollum (28:56.719)
Thereโ€™s so much more opportunity and collaboration than there is to try to compete with all those around us.

Chad Risinger (29:02.284)
Yeah, yes. And thereโ€™s opportunities even to work with the corporate companies like a Lennar. You get the property under contract, theyโ€™ll probably take it at any stage. If you get the entitlements done, you donโ€™t want to do the development, theyโ€™ll look at that. Or thereโ€™s another operator in your area that will do that. If you get the streets and curb and infrastructure in and you want to sell all the lots out, thatโ€™s a good number to call.

Brett McCollum (29:16.078)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (29:31.566)
because theyโ€™ve got the money and theyโ€™re looking for lots. So you can reach out to those people, kind of get a feel for the market, to stay ahead of those guys and see what theyโ€™re looking to do in your specific market. And I think thatโ€™s gonna give you a really good indication of when to get in and what to build out.

Brett McCollum (29:54.457)
Yeah, so youโ€™ve got self storage that you got going on and then youโ€™re building out the development. Whatโ€™s kind of next like, you know, because I know you, I can tell you, think youโ€™re thinking ahead, youโ€™re looking at the future. Whatโ€™s next for you?

Chad Risinger (30:06.774)
Itโ€™s really that mixed use development where you bring it all together. Youโ€™ve got, weโ€™re creating an ecosystem where weโ€™ve got apartment complexes and commercial on the front. Weโ€™ve got single family homes and then weโ€™ve got duplex and patio home air, portions of it, all six, seven phases of that. And as you build those out, what you create is, well, youโ€™reโ€ฆ

Youโ€™re gonna move into the apartment complex. You meet a bunch of friends. You got a lot, you got, you know, your friends and everything. Then you wanna buy a house, so you buy a patio home. Thatโ€™s your starter home. Youโ€™re buying that. Youโ€™ve met a lot of people. But you donโ€™t wanna move out of the neighborhood. You donโ€™t wanna lose all your friends or move away. But your familyโ€™s growing, so you hop over.

Brett McCollum (30:43.193)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (30:51.918)
to the bigger home where youโ€™ve got a nice yard and everything and you work all that. And then the kids grow up and they leave the house. But youโ€™ve still got all your friends there and youโ€™ve got your walking trails and all your amenities and things. Maybe you want to step back down to a smaller home or even half a duplex if youโ€™re not going to be here full time. You want to do some traveling and you donโ€™t want to take care of the yard.

Brett McCollum (30:55.599)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (31:09.423)
the apartment.

Brett McCollum (31:17.443)
creating a very like a cyclical thing for them. Yeah, thatโ€™s really cool.

Chad Risinger (31:20.814)
Yeah, yeah, so thatโ€™s our focus right now is to build out those mixed use developments and support the commercial through everything that we build. And that takes us around 100 to 140 acres.

Brett McCollum (31:33.359)
Very, wow, thatโ€™s cool. Man, thatโ€™s exciting, man. And hereโ€™s the thing is, youโ€™ve done it all from 18 and then 2008 and then youโ€™re, I have no reason for any to believe at all that youโ€™re not gonna do that. Yeah, heโ€™s gonna do it. Yep, itโ€™s gonna happen.

Chad Risinger (31:56.59)
Yeah, and I can look at the people that have gone before me, the guys I used to build lots from, and they stop by and we talk and I ask them, howโ€™d you do all this stuff? But yeah, really, itโ€™s a good time to get into development. feel like weโ€™ve got a runway ahead of us and thereโ€™s a little bit of uncertainty right now.

And I think that if you look at that and say, well, Iโ€™m going to wait, right? And Iโ€™m going to see how things are all going to work out. The mixed use development that weโ€™re doing right now is going to be a 2027 play. You know what I mean? Well, if you wait till 2027 to think, man, I might want to buy some land and do a development. Well, good luck. Good luck.

Brett McCollum (32:47.652)
Yep.

Chad Risinger (32:48.59)
Because when the economy turns around and the interest rates come down and weโ€™ve got the tariff thing behind us and we know what prices are going to be on infrastructure, and the optimism is there, when the optimism gets there, good luck. Good luck getting the land and trying to tie it up under contract and get all that stuff done before. Then youโ€™re looking at a 2029 completion date.

Brett McCollum (33:04.74)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (33:14.477)
Right, right, and then yeah, who knows, right, yeah.

Chad Risinger (33:16.55)
So the runways now the runway is now and to get that traction in that momentum.

Brett McCollum (33:24.319)
man, Chad, this has been a great, mean, thanks for driving through. No, I donโ€™t think youโ€™re wrong. I see youโ€™re playing it out in real time. But like I said, this has been great. If people want to reach out to you, follow you in some way, that sort of thing, whatโ€™s the best way for them toโ€ฆ

Chad Risinger (33:26.144)
Itโ€™s opinion.

Chad Risinger (33:39.724)
Yeah, no worries. So you can email me at chad at riceingercapitol.com and Iโ€™ll get your email there. if youโ€™re in real estate development, Iโ€™d love to talk to you. I I wouldnโ€™t say Iโ€™m the best at education or teaching people how to do it, right? Not just yet. I havenโ€™t wrote a book yet, but.

I would say that, you know, if youโ€™re in it, if youโ€™re in the game or if you got one foot in the door and you need a little push, give me a holler, shoot an email. You can go to RisingerCapitol.com and get on my calendar. Letโ€™s, you know, letโ€™s talk. And if you want to come alongside of us, if you just are excited about it and see the opportunity, but not quite there on, you know, on how to do it all yourself and you want to come alongside us, we can talk about that too.

Brett McCollum (34:09.817)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (34:31.087)
Dude, thatโ€™s incredible. Like guys, thatโ€™s a no brainer, right? If youโ€™re in the KC area or not even, you reach out to Chad guys and get to know them. Man, this has been great, man. Iโ€™m like selfish. like, I just want to keep talking and everything. But I do want to respect your time, Chad. So man, itโ€™s been a pleasure.

Chad Risinger (34:36.589)
Yeah.

Chad Risinger (34:48.398)
Yeah, no problem, same here. Been real good, Brad, I appreciate it.

Brett McCollum (34:53.037)
Yeah man, alright. Well guys, thanks for listening and weโ€™ll catch you guys on the next episode. Take care everybody.

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