Unlocking Real Estate Success: A Journey to Wealth

Dylan Silver (00:00.77)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host Dylan Silver and today on the show we have Steve Franco. Steve is a real estate entrepreneur and Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (00:12.795)
Thank you, man. Thank you for having me.

Dylan Silver (00:14.614)
At the top of the show, always like to ask folks how they got into the real estate space. What was your entry point like? it in your blood?

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (00:24.081)
I mean, I grew up in it. My family had some properties, but I really wanted to real estate. I went into television production and then kind of got married and life changed and whatever. I was doing international stuff in the technology field and kind of got out to this little market which didn’t have any real media. So it was like, okay, I mean, I bought a building back in 1997 with my brother, still wasn’t paying attention to real estate and then 09 started buying full time and kind of making real estate a thing.

so wholesaling, landlady wholesaling flipping, whatever

Dylan Silver (00:52.076)
Mmm, okay.

Dylan Silver (00:56.832)
Okay, so family background, parents are, were brokers, realtors or lenders? What was their involvement in this race?

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (01:03.301)
I mean, they were both brokers, but more or less they just owned some property. They just own some rentals. know, mean, they back then you got a broker’s license because you walked in and paid 25 bucks and you became a broker. There was no, like my.

Dylan Silver (01:08.386)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (01:16.174)
It wasn’t as much. I just got my license in Texas two weeks ago and the test was so hard I said, wow I have lot more respect for licensed agents in Texas now.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (01:24.593)
Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely if you’ve never been through something so procedural because I mean that that’s my biggest thing in television in Real Estate because television there were no rules and regulations. It was get it on the air. And in Real Estate, it’s all paperwork and laws and process. That’s like, you know, most of what being a Real Estate agent is.

Dylan Silver (01:44.398)
like to say, at least in Texas, you have to know all these rules and regulations and laws, but don’t ever use it. Basically, you have to know it all, but don’t talk about it, because then you’re committing the practice of law without a license. Know everything, but don’t ever use it. It was an interesting deal there. 1997, you get a property, but then you leave that on the back burner until the crash happens.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (01:58.149)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (02:02.041)
Anyways.

Dylan Silver (02:12.546)
got in at the right time for the second go there. And so you mentioned wholesaling. That’s how I got in. What was the beginning stages of that for you? Was it a very educational period for you? Were you diving in head first? Did you have mentors at that time? How did you start wholesaling?

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (02:32.835)
I basically, because I was buying heavy at that point and we didn’t really plan to buy at the crash. We sort of refinanced the warehouse in Boston. My brother and I each took a hundred thousand or whatever out. And at the time Scranton Wilkes-Barre was like, I could buy, fix and be done with a double for under 40 grand and have it fully rented and ready to go. So like, you know, I was buying, buying, buying and making every mistake you can imagine. Cause I read one book on real estate investing. My parents never talked about what they did.

The rules 30 years ago were different and started picking stuff up at tax sale and other ways and realizing that I just didn’t want it in some ways. I picked something up at tax sale for three thousand bucks and walking out the door, somebody said, well, I’ll give you twenty thousand for it over the next five years. like, I didn’t even know that was called wholesaling. I’m like, all right. Yeah, fine. You know, that sounds like a deal. We can do that. You know, found out later some of it was wholesaling, some of it was seller finance. Didn’t really know they had terms to it.

And I did, I mean, I now teach real estate investing and I teach, you know, creative financing and deal analysis and whatever, but I didn’t really take any of those courses. And the one I did take from a major guru frankly, wasn’t as helpful as it should have been. That’s why when I teach, especially something like wholesaling, I have a earn while you learn category, meaning you take my class and then out of our profits together as partners, I pay you back the course fee.

course fee is not what matters to me the partnership money is what matters to me. So I mean kind of you know learn by doing learn by getting into it. No gee let’s see what a flip is like let’s see what a mobile home is like well that didn’t work it didn’t I’m not a huge fan of flipping mobile homes at least not down here but you know but it’s kind of been very experiential which is why when I’m you teaching or consulting with people it’s all very much been there done that you know I’ve been a private lender I borrow private money I’ve done it all.

Dylan Silver (04:17.858)
stuff.

Dylan Silver (04:32.077)
So this was Boston area.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (04:34.445)
No, only the first building was Boston. Everything else was Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Okay. At that point, where would you base that? By the time we started buying out here, we started buying locally. I was living out in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Dylan Silver (04:39.63)
Okay, and at that point, where were you based out of, where were you living out

Dylan Silver (04:50.51)
Okay, okay. So it sounds like you had a multitude of strategies and really figuring it out as you go, which is a great way to learn. There’s also a lot of risk there. So you weren’t someone who was risk adverse. You were saying, look, I’m gonna figure this out. I’m gonna learn, I’m gonna make my mistakes, I’m gonna fail forward, but I’m gonna succeed in the end. And so you were doing these deals, realizing after the fact that, that was what we call seller finance, wholesale, so on and so forth.

And so was there a niche that you saw at some point when you’re doing this, you’re like, okay, I’m going to drill into this or was it I’m just going to take the deals wherever they come?

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (05:29.029)
Well, I mean, for the most part, I always looked at it like I remember when I got my license and I went to sign down with the first broker I met with because a friend of mine was going there and I said, don’t expect me to sell property. Don’t even bother me. Don’t call me. I’m not doing your little caravans. None of that. I’m here to get MLS access so I can buy property. And then it was like, commission check, commission check, commission check. And then that became especially after covid. I saw people buying property at way more than they were still buying it for way more than I would.

because I’m extremely hard on the numbers. And so like if it doesn’t make a very tiny donut, I would rather keep my money where it is. during COVID, I was selling stuff to people and looking at their, I’ll take your commission check, but bluntly I’m waiting for you to get foreclosed on it the numbers don’t make sense to me. And a lot of guys who look at numbers differently own a lot more property than I do. you know, works for them, but for me, I have a whole different.

mentality on the numbers. So I really said, okay, I want to be a landlord. I want to own 20, 30 units. I want to, which we did, and then we sold down during COVID because people offered us crazy money. you know, but really for me, it’s a long-term play. That’s why I’m getting into self storage and they’re like, so in five years, five years, you’re going to sell out? No, I’m never selling out in five years. I’m refinancing and I’m just keeping this.

Dylan Silver (06:50.766)
That’s very interesting strategy to have. would say, I’ve heard this a couple times now. I’m curious what you think of some related spaces, like for instance, RV parks. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about acquiring, not necessarily distressed, but folks who have a storage space and they’re retiring. And so you get to spruce it up, similar deal with RV parks. using that as a cash flowing asset, that’s relatively low maintenance.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (06:53.285)
the same.

Dylan Silver (07:20.814)
Do you feel like both the storage and RV park space that there may be some similarities there?

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (07:26.535)
yeah. mean, I’m right now I’m looking at I mean, residential rental always if it’s affordable. And I have to be honest, what’s going on nationally and with the economy and stuff? I’m very concerned because if the changes if what’s being tried in Washington doesn’t work, if we don’t end up with the same import export partners and if we don’t up with the same job base, who’s going to be paying my rent is a huge concern for me. But

You know, go put it back a few years or whatever, even even a few months or whatever. And hopefully it all works out. But I’m looking at affordable home, affordable rental. Somebody always has to live somewhere. They RV parks, vacation RV parks all depends on the economy. And we’re coming out of a phenomenal buyer’s market. People traveling Airbnb was doing great.

that can’t continue forever. So I’m looking more at mobile home parks. I’m looking at long term stay locations. I’m looking at traveling nurse locations, self storage, things that people have like what the founder of Google, he calls it the toothbrush test. If people have to use it twice a day, that’s what he’s buying. Well, they can skip washing their car. Car washers are doing phenomenally right there and they’re a great market right now. But if the economy changes, are they? They can’t switch

skip washing their clothes. So I would pick, if I had to pick car wash versus laundromat, I’m picking laundromat. If I had to pick RV park or short-term vacation rental, like I’m looking at Airbnb arbitrage right now, and it has to be a market that has not just vacation going for it. Like something like State College, Pennsylvania, where there’s a research park, there’s the university, there’s vacation, and there’s business. So there’s…

Dylan Silver (09:14.36)
Let’s talk about Airbnb arbitrage. When I hear that term, I’m actually looking at it myself so selfishly, right? So looking at these deals, when I think about Airbnb arbitrage, I’m looking at this property is available for rent. I’m going to make an offer as a, I’ll pay your rent, but I’m also going to Airbnb it out with your knowledge. And in some cases, I’ll split profits with you or pay more than what you’re asking for, so on and so forth. Is that what you’re referring to by Airbnb arbitrage?

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (09:41.187)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, because I’m not ready. I mean, I’m not saying I wouldn’t, but I’m not ready to buy, you know, spend a quarter million dollars and hope it works because the reality with Airbnb is first of all, that market Airbnb, Vervo, whatever your flavor is. Who knows when that’s going to roll up its sleeves and especially because in a state like Pennsylvania, there’s no black letter law making it OK. The town can shut you down at any time. So I had a friend owned a half million dollar beautiful property on on the lake that he’d done a lot of work to and was Airbnb being it.

and the town shut his Airbnb down. didn’t shut the rest of them down. They picked on his. So all of a sudden he went from having an income stream to having a property he had to sell quickly. He had to get out fast. I mean, he had the money to float it. wasn’t like a desperate sale. So I like Airbnb arbitrage also because all the zoning questions are the owner says to you, yes, this is allowable. And in my Airbnb arbitrage, it’s…

which I have, need to, I have not located one I like yet. It’s sort of one of those dawdling things, but in my lease, it says if this is not actually viable legal purpose, my lease can end. So I’m not stuck. If a town says no more Airbnb, I’m not stuck trying to sublet out and break even. But yeah, I mean, that’s a great play.

Dylan Silver (10:50.168)
Mmm. You’re not stuck in there.

Dylan Silver (10:56.662)
I’m not actively. I’m not. Well, I say this. I am actively looking, but I haven’t done one yet. And it’s interesting because to me, it should be a win win. If you trust the person that is being the person who’s going to have the Airbnb and then they’re getting more than what they’re expecting. I’m thinking that it should be a win win. But of course, you still have the old mentality of I don’t want any type of.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (11:20.817)
going to be a wet wet, but we’ll have have one.

Dylan Silver (11:25.036)
disturbances. I don’t want to have to deal with the headache of, you know, maintenance issues or damage and so on and so forth. I mean, Steve, let me tell you a short story here. There was a realtor who I was speaking with. I forget which state he was in, but his strategy was I’m going to Airbnb out the listings that I have. That are high days on market where the sellers do not want to come down in price.

So it’ll be effectively a win-win for all of us. So I’ll manage the Airbnb. I’ll get some type of fee from that. Right, and then the seller is able to have this as a cash flowing asset as opposed to just sitting vacant. And in many cases, you know, it’s being maintained fairly well. So it’s a win-win. And if they want to keep it on market like that for however long, they can do that.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (11:59.067)
Fears, whatever, yeah.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (12:06.789)
Yep, that’s great way.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (12:18.299)
Well, yeah, and also you can throw technology at it. You can have smoke detectors that actually detect cigarette and pot. You can have noise detectors that notify you if noise levels go above X. You can have, I have those in some of my student rentals. And the same kind of mentality goes on the short term, on the medium term, the nursing and whatever. And the same play of not just the arbitrage rental side, but also the tired whatever. You know, I’m actually talking…

Dylan Silver (12:26.585)
wow.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (12:47.697)
while trying to talk, the seller kind of runs hot and cold, to a guy who has a 20 unit old dead roadside motel. And I’m looking at it as a self storage and a medium term transitional housing play as well. But same kind of thing where I’m coming to him saying, oh, it’s not seller finance, I’m buying you, but I am paying you off over time because of that. So finding those creative sellers is always great. The problem right now is because we’re coming off a seller, at least up here, we’re coming off a seller’s market for the last four years.

The sellers still believe it’s a seller’s market. It hasn’t quite sunk into them that the game is changing and days on market are going up and whatever. So we’re getting, but the landlords and you know, I mean his idea, I love his idea that I’ve got high days on market listings and I’m running Airbnb. So if I get a sale, I can clear it way before that happens. You know, I’m running Airbnb for a week and sales not gonna happen in a week. So that’s a great play. And like self storage, mobile home parks, RV parks.

As long as you don’t own too many of the actual physical units, you if your mobile home park is 80 % park owned, well, effectively, you’re running an apartment building because you’re responsible for maintenance. in all those things, you’re basically renting dirt and self storage. I’m swearing. OK, climate control to a small extent, but I’m going to keep you dry. I’m giving you a steel box and saying, know the roof works. Good luck with everything else. And those kinds of rentals are great. They’re expensive.

to get into because there’s such a high profit margin or because there’s such a low cost and so fairly easy that the real estate investment trust and so forth are after you. But the two that I’m in the process of, well, hopefully we’re breaking ground next month on, the REITs are one of my escape routes. I’m saying, okay, I’m gonna have 3 million into this thing and I know U-Haul, assuming everything doesn’t change, U-Haul will pay me nine in five years. So I’ve…

I’m fine. can either keep it and live off it forever or I can exit big. So, you know, I mean, that’s it.

Dylan Silver (14:48.638)
exit strategy out.

You know, when I’m talking to guests about the different strategies for folks who are considering getting into the real estate space, of course people are going to look at wholesaling, they’re going to look at fixing and flipping, they might look at even just looking at a rental or buying a property off the MLS to use as a long-term rental. But some strategies that are particularly intriguing to me, just selfishly, are the midterm or corporate housing space, and then also storage and RV parks. Because with midterm,

And I select these things specifically because midterm, if your tenant is having issues or if the individual who’s staying there is having issues, the business that they’re employed by is also going to be taking note of this, especially if your contract is with them. So if it’s if it’s a hospital, you know, business, right, whatever the case may be, and they lose their job, well, now they’re going to have to get someone else to fill it anyhow. So that seems to me like less of a headache. Also, when it comes. Go ahead.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (15:37.297)
Right.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (15:49.435)
Well, no, no, yeah, yeah, you’re absolutely right. if you have that midterm is great because if you have that corporate backup, and even if you don’t, never expected them to be there for a year. So if they promise six months and they leave in three, well, OK, it’s a little different, but that’s not huge.

Dylan Silver (16:07.348)
Yeah, versus staying there for a year, they break their lease and so on and so forth. So, you know, with the storage and with the RV parks, to your point, Steve, if you’re owning the dirt, you know, what is your overhead? Well, your overhead is your initial investment. It’s not like there’s tons of maintenance. With the storage facility, I’m a little less well-versed than that. I could see that being a larger acquisition fee. I could see there being some maintenance involved with that. You have to interface with the different, you know,

owners of the storage units, but in general, it’s not like these people are living there. So in most cases, I can’t imagine you’re having to deal with issues of the scale of an eviction. Of course, people might not pay, they might leave their stuff in there and so on and so forth, but it’s not as big of a headache.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (16:55.051)
Well, exactly. mean, and you know, because you have no in storage, you have no care custody of control of the unit, meaning you don’t have you don’t have access to their box. So if they come to you and say, such and so was stolen, you say, well, that’s too bad. Who do you give your key to? Because we don’t have your key. So it’s not our problem. And what I love to say, I mean, it has a lower cost load, but it also has a lower stress meaning meaning if you say.

residential residential rental is 50 % load. This is more like 40 or 30 % load because if you have a furnace, it’s only keeping it above above freezing and below boiling. But also you never have the 2am. my God, the furnace went out. My kids are dying. You know you’re not there on Christmas Eve. Whereas if your storage unit your furnace goes out, OK, you may have a problem if you promise a certain temperature, whatever, whatever, but no one’s dying there. If they’re living there, they’re in violation, so it’s definitely a different model.

RV parks, yeah, you got to keep your underground stuff, right? And you got to keep your, you know, whatever, Same thing with mobile home parks or whatever, but it’s definitely a little bit of a different game because you’re not, the toilet’s not yours, the furnace is not yours, the whatever else is not yours. So if their furnace dies on them on Christmas Eve, that’s their problem.

Dylan Silver (18:09.262)
I’m almost-

That’s their pro. I’m almost out of points, Steve, where I think if people are looking at wholesale fix and flip, know, Airbnb, these strategies and sure, it costs more to do some of these other strategies, but they could partner with other people. I, to me, as someone on the outside looking in, I’m looking at even though it may be a little bit of a higher barrier to entry, the effort, the output of focus and time and energy is honestly similar.

from hearing people talk about this, it’s a lot of effort to go from one industry where you’re not in real estate at all to getting an Airbnb, it being successful, it could get shut down, you gotta have good reviews, so on and so forth, you gotta furnish it. It’s honestly, in my perspective, a similar level of effort to partner with someone and look at an RV park deal.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (18:59.569)
Well, and really, and having the right partners going in and having very careful partnership agreements, I can go on for hours of all the pitfalls and partnership agreements. Partnerships can be like arsenic sometimes pick the arsenic and just move on. But you definitely I mean, and everything is going to suck like people say, oh, wholesaling is easy. It can be easy. Or on one that I’m going to make a whopping my partner and I are going to split like nine thousand dollars off of the seller is.

Dylan Silver (19:11.341)
Yeah.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (19:26.393)
not being a jerk, but they’re just kind of clueless and they’re kind of fighting every single thing we ask them to do. You know, her husband no longer has his green card and he refuses to get it. And therefore, well, why can’t you buy my house anyway? Because he can’t sign. And so you spend as many hours or as much stress on anything. So you got to kind of pick it to me. Wholesaling. I don’t love fix and flips. I’ll do some ground up builds, but I don’t love fix and flips because. Fix and flips and wholesaling are potato chips.

I get a chunk of change and then, that was fun. Now what’s coming next month. Whereas rentals of any kind, self storage or whatever, that’s a diesel engine. It’s always thrown off a couple bucks. It might only throw off after you pay everything and you do all your numbers, 200 bucks a month, but okay, that’s 200 bucks every single month provided he keeps the money.

Dylan Silver (20:13.678)
Yeah, I had a guest tell me the best fast money is slow money. The best fast money is slow money. And so to your point, I had a guest, this is kind of a unique situation. He was a fix and flipper for something like 12 or 13 years. Still had his corporate job and realized that he wasn’t any closer to replacing his income to allow him to really escape the W-2 job. And so he’s like, well, what am I doing wrong? And he realized that his core competency was in

fixing and flipping, but that he hadn’t really done much by the way of wealth building that’s of a more permanent variety. And so you could just be on this hamster wheel, which is really not building traditional real estate wealth.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (20:58.129)
And that is really the biggest, one of the biggest things I tell everybody is exactly that. You need to find a way to build the engine. Like even on the brokerage firm, okay, great. We cash a couple of million dollars in commissions. Okay, fine. Now what? So like I’m getting out, I’m building my, I run the wholesalebroker.com and I also run my actual Pennsylvania licensed brokerage firm. The whole goal is I don’t wanna write transactions anymore.

I want to get people on board, Pennsylvania and nationwide, that want me to guide them through, want me to be their legally or not broker. And so I’m getting five or 10 % from each deal, but I got 25, 15, 25, 30, 35 people out there bringing me deals. So that engine continues to run and I don’t have to be there for it. My private lending, same thing. I’m not the guy flipping that house, but I’m giving the money to that guy and…

Dylan Silver (21:43.726)
Hmm.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (21:55.505)
I’m sitting here guiding them, consulting them, JV, partnerships. I do a lot of experience and credit partnerships where a newbie comes to me, yada, yada, And I’m getting a piece for helping steer the boat, I guess, for lack of a better term.

Dylan Silver (22:10.542)
So with private money lending, I’ve seen this as a trend probably recently. I’m in Dallas, Fort Worth, Metroplex, so Dallas area in Texas. I’ve seen people go from fix and flipping to lending money, hard money lending, note buying, so on and so forth. And so…

I’m imagining that they’re doing this as a way to not be as hands-on in the business. it’s almost like the next level that I’m seeing, and it’s a natural progression. But I’m also looking at it from the perspective of these were people, predominantly, a lot of them, who were in the fix and flip space. So if the people that they’re lending to default, for whatever reason, it’s not like they do not have the ability to go and take it over themselves. They can do it.

versus a bank, it’s not the same thing. The bank does not want to have real estate assets under management, typically. They want to get rid of them, right? So if someone’s not paying, that’s not their wheelhouse.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (23:02.063)
Exactly.

And for me, like I’ve got like my retirement fund is pretty much all lent out. Probably 80 percent of it’s lent out. I don’t really have any stocks in that area. And I’ve got a line of credit based on that as well that I loan out. So I loan out money I’m probably not buying with or right now I’m loaning out money that I want to buy with. But until I find a deal, I’m talking with a guy later. I’m to get 20 percent loaning and money for six months. Flat 20. So OK, so probably in the next six months, I won’t need that money.

Dylan Silver (23:29.294)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (23:34.001)
He doesn’t want a large portion. probably. So basically, to me, it’s a matter of cash flow without a lot of risk, because if I’ve underwritten it right, the worst thing that happens is I end up owning an asset that’s worth more than I put out. And from his side, he doesn’t have to go to a bank and get a blood test and all that other. And also, when you get going with a private lender, like I’ve got one or two guys, they call me up.

Dylan Silver (23:48.526)
Hmm

Dylan Silver (23:53.357)
Yeah, literally.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (24:02.875)
They send me the numbers, I like the deal, I wire them the money. I don’t want to wire the title company the money. I don’t need to, there’s no process. I see that the deal works, I’ve dealt with them before, boom. And I use that in a mixture with I do debt service coverage ratio lending through Lendmark Capital and some other ones. It’s always a mixture of what works in that scenario.

Dylan Silver (24:26.508)
At what point in time did you realize I’m going to shift to hard money lending? Was it a time where you just reached a monetary amount, or was it a time where you wanted to get out of the fix and flipping space, or not so much fix and flipping, but just doing new builds, so on and so forth?

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (24:40.177)
Well for me, it’s not getting out of for me for me. It’s it’s it’s generating cash flow while looking for the next deal I mean my my two-year my with this new line of credit money My goal was to go out there and say okay that line of credit will leverage to you know Another two million dollars in ownership yeti. but now the problem is finding that ownership that meets my numbers goals Until then I can either let this money sit or I can You know do something else with it

Dylan Silver (25:02.251)
I see.

Dylan Silver (25:09.398)
Interesting, okay. I’m thinking

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (25:10.905)
Also, it’s also a commodity purchase. a, it’s going to take me, you know, three months to find a property, get it up running, da da da da. Or someone calls me and says, I want to borrow money tomorrow. And within a week or so I could be, you know, have that money deployed and doing something with it.

Dylan Silver (25:27.234)
Yeah, it’s a totally new way of looking at it. I’m still, as you can tell, I’m still understanding kind of the arc of a real estate investor’s career, so many different ways to go into it. And when I hear about private money lending and so on and so forth, I think about this idea of getting out of the day-to-day operations. But hearing you talk about it, it’s like, well, no. Let me have my money work for me while it’s sitting here anyhow, and then I can continue to go look for these deals.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (25:53.317)
Well, mean, biggest mistake that we made early on is, and I know we’re kind of running out time, but the biggest mistake we made early on is doing everything myself. I I remember one day when I was still doing a lot of technology stuff, I’m literally painting the floor at one of my houses. At the time, painted floors are still an acceptable option in some of the affordable houses. And on the other hand, literally, I had my cell phone on my other hand talking to Samsung International about some satellite, some levitation of laptops or something.

So literally I’ve got two different worlds. And at the time I was the maintenance person. I was the buyer. I was the seller. I was the manager. And we’ve kind of gotten to the point where we have, we also run a management company. Now my wife handles that, but we have a maintenance call service. Tenants call in, this call service books a contractor, they take care of it. We don’t go out anymore. So it’s very important. And early on your suck zone as a rental owner,

Dylan Silver (26:24.426)
Everything.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (26:50.319)
is up to about 25 units before you’re making enough to make it worth doing. I’ve strongly advised people don’t try to self-manage, at least not after like one or two units, if you still have a real job. You know, like I was against it, but I now use a transaction coordinator for every single transaction. From the moment I sign with a client to the end of the deal, my TC handles most of the whiny back and forth paperwork stuff.

Dylan Silver (27:15.918)
Hmm.

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (27:16.625)
My rule of thumb is if it’s not if the job is not worth 300 bucks an hour Which is not what I make usually I don’t make 300 bucks an hour, but the job is not worth 300 bucks an hour I’m paying somebody for it Because I can do better if I have five people out there doing it for me So that’s kind of where I

Dylan Silver (27:26.03)
to do it.

Dylan Silver (27:32.152)
great mentality to have, you know, that approach. I’m probably going to think about that some more just because there’s so many different perspectives that you get hosting a show like this. And to hear yours really, once again, talks to the point of a real estate entrepreneur, high level real estate operator has got to have this kind of entrepreneurial neuroplasticity where you’re able to go and adapt your strategy based on the opportunities that are in front of you. And even hearing you talk about

you know, being so quote unquote set in your ways that you’re like, have to do everything myself. And instead of finding ways to delegate that while still not losing oversight of the business, you know, it’s really interesting conversation here. We are coming up on time here though, Steve. Where can folks go to get ahold of you?

Steve Franco, REI Homepage (28:18.769)
Yeah, so I mean, you can always text me or call me. Texting very often works better. 570-798-7051. It’s my direct number. You can go to REI home page dot com, which is sort of my little flower that has all my different companies on it. My the wholesale broker and with Pennsylvania just having changed the law on wholesaling and with some other states in the process of changing their law. Wholesale broker is not a brokerage firm. I own a P.A. brokerage, actually two of them.

PA brokerage firm, but that’s sort of my back office for wholesalers nationwide. And it’s also my edge one of my education sites. REI Hanson man is the other one, but REI homepage has everything. And you know, if you want a credit partner on a deal, you want a consultant, you want a private lender, you want to take some of my courses, you want to join my, if you’re a salesperson, we’re always looking for qualified people to do what I call my free JV program, which is you bring in a wholesale seller and I’ll, you know, we’ll split the profits on cutting it up for the rest of the way.

We will work with you a number of different ways. We’ll work with you any other way. So 570-798-7051 or reihomepage.com or the wholesalebroker.com. You can also find me on Facebook and whatever else, but those are the three most popular. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. For the free and our listeners to value. Thanks for your time. I appreciate it, man. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.

Dylan Silver (29:34.542)
Steve, thank you so much for coming on the show today, for giving our listeners some value. Thanks for your time, man. Thanks for coming on.