Worst Indy Neighborhoods? Hidden Gems? He Spills Everything...

Usually when it it comes to any of the squatterers when I walk in cuz I don't want to give them my real name. Do you come in locked? No, I do not. And I don't advise anybody to do so. I don't say that you shouldn't bring something with you. Once you come walking in with weapons, game over because now you're threatening. You always tell me that you don't understand my real estate [music] investing strategy. I'm just trying to go to where people like to live and I can afford to invest. Where is an area in Indianapolis in your [music] experience walking the streets that you would never ever own real estate? Welcome back to another episode of the Roots Podcast. I'm Tyler Lingal joined by my co-host Max Moore. Today we have Steve Layman on the show. If you don't know him as Steve, you might know him as the Grumpy Real Estate Investor. He's genuinely one of my favorite real estate uh Instagram follows. If you don't follow him, you have to. His videos are hilarious. Tyler and I were genuinely rolling going through his feed. He has a video where just go just go watch it. It's at the top of his feed. [laughter] You have to have it organically. Steve is out in indie neighborhoods literally all day long. I don't know if there's anybody else um out there that knows these neighborhoods like he does. He's seen all the horror stories. He's seen the upsides, but probably more of the bad sides than anything else. Originally from Chicago, uh he's spent over a decade investing there from tax sales and distressed properties to turn keys flips, wholesales, spent a lot of time in the trucking industry. Well-rounded. He's got a lot of wisdom and genuinely just a funny guy to be around. Steve, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Uh we start every show with a quick planting root session. So, just diving right into some uh interesting questions. So, I want to know if you were to start over in Indianapolis with 25,000, what's the first move you'd make? I would be investing in stocks. That's where I would put all the money. Then I'd learn about real estate and I'd go find Yeah. the wholesalers and I'd find people like Seria or somebody like that, those kind of clubs, those kind of things. And um but I would invest that money in stocks, let it start working its thing, and then I'd go blow it. I wouldn't go blow it. No. No. No. [clears throat] Now, if I was 20 years old, yeah, absolutely. I'd go blow it. I'd go I'd go spending it on whatever I could find. A car doesn't matter. Back in my day, cars were $10,000, so it was easy to get nice car. So, get educated first. Yeah. Get educated first. That's the that's the main priority uh as far as I care with anything. Your education is going to be the most important thing. If you don't get educated, you're it's pointless to do. I see a lot of people out there trying to do this stuff with fire. Yeah. And are there people who get more educated than they probably should? Yeah. They bring the education too far without doing anything. So, does that make sense? Like, you know, don't sit on the sidelines, right? They just rather sit on the sidelines and read a book. And it's like, well, that's great unless you put that foot forward and go fall on your faces. Correct. It's the only way to learn. It's the only way I learned. But I learned the hard way. I think knowledge is free. Action costs money. Yep. And it's like 25K probably isn't enough to get going, which is why we keep it at that measure. So there's alternatives. I love the the stock. Get some knowledge. Yeah. I' I'd make that money work for me. What I know now, absolutely. All day long. I'd have that money floating around the stock market right now and just accumulating money. Yeah. I [clears throat] love that. Question two. If you had one free billboard in Indie for a week, what would it say? It wouldn't say anything. It' be a laughing emoji. [laughter] It would be just a laughing emoji. I love it. That one driving around 465. Just a laughing emoji. Brighten everyone's day. It would. It's either It's either going to make you laugh or you're going to go, "What? What? What? What's that supposed to mean?" I have to hear the backstory on that one. Oh, it's because I put laughing emojis on everything on Facebook and it drives people insane. In order to read is in the comments because it's it's I got to the point where I'm not going to comment anymore. I'm just going to put a laughing emoji. [laughter] And and the thing is I have I have people who follow me, right? Wow. And when I put a laughing emoji, it means that I found something in that poster's thing and it says there's something wrong with that property. You got to go find it, but I found something that you guys need to be aware about. Like a lot of these a lot of these people will put on they'll say hey this is a offmarket deal when actually it's on the market. Laughing emoji. Laughing emoji gets a laughing emoji. People Easter egg people who like to uh advertise their cars. Oh [laughter] no. Right. There you go. But people who like to advertise their cars and their automobiles on real estate investment post gets a laughing emoji. Seriously. Now I know that those people have it through however they're they're marketing it. Right. But still, if it's landing on that page, it's real estate, not cars. But you have to have a car to get around. No, it doesn't matter. [laughter] Breaking the And it's it's driven certain people nuts. I mean, literally, it's driven people nuts, and I do that. Next question. If you had one word to describe Indie, what would it be? Friendly. Friendly. Without question. Yeah. When I came here from Chicago, I had to tone it down. It's a lot of attitude, a lot of, you know, um, it's aggressive in Chicago. You move fast. It's like here. I didn't know before that you were from Chicago. Now it explains everything. Okay. [laughter] And it usually it usually does once I say I'm from Chicago. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great. I mean that. No. No. I get it. Trust me. I've heard it all my life. Um it's it's it's just that it's uh it's friendly down here and and you and I have to tone it I'm still trying to tone it down. So, but everyone tone it down. Every now and then, my Chicago will definitely come out and it's like, "Hey, what what's what needs a little Chicago every now and then?" I think it does. I think it needs somebody to be aggressive every now and then and kind of shake things up sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, moving down here is probably the best thing for me. It really kind of made me see things in a different light, which was good. Go Indie. Yeah. Yeah. Who's your by choice? I love it. Friendly. That's an awesome response. Except I'm still a Bears fan. No Colts. [laughter] Can agree to disagree there. Let's jump in. Let's get right into the meat of the the episode. Where is an area in Indianapolis in your experience walking the streets that you had never ever owned real estate? Marsill. That's what I [clears throat] said. That's what you said ever. And it started out back in 2012. I went down to Mars Hill looking at a property. I was standing at this property and the neighbor came up behind me. He goes, "You going to buy that property?" I go, "Thinking about it. I don't know. Still looking it over, looking at the neighborhood." And he goes, "Well, make sure none of them [ __ ] are getting there." I go looked back at him. I said, "What?" He goes, "Make sure none of them darkies." I go, "What? What? What [ __ ] What? What? What are you talking about?" Right. And I knew what he meant. And that ever since then, I was like, "Nope. Never. Never, never, ever, ever, ever again. That is Mars Hill. It is Mars Hill. And is it all the people in Mars Hill? No, there's good people in Marell. There's great people in Mars Hill. There is. Without question. But And people are going to shame us in this episode. Oh, you're talking about [ __ ] Would you move to Marcel? Like, I want to see them put their money where their mouth is. Right. Exactly. No, you're not. And um it it's it drove a sense into me that I was like, you know what? This is the the neighborhood. And as I drove around the neighborhood, it got to the point where I was like, "Yeah, I can I get it. I get it now. I understand it." So, and we can sell houses in Marcel. I just want to make sure we're not steer steering people. No, no, you people people can go and and buy in Mars Hill all day long if they want. You know, I'm just saying that this was my own personal right situation that happened and I'll never forget it. And and he was serious and it was just like, wow. [laughter] Yeah. that when you have that bad gut feeling about an area. Yeah. And every time I go to Marzilla, I I think about that and I'm just I cringe every time I go. Flip the coin. Where is somewhere that you've stumbled upon? You're like, I would buy here, but maybe nobody else would. There's a section over in 46218 on Parker Drive. Okay. Uh on Parker Drive, Parker Street, and it's actually a little pocket. And I'm just not going to say it because I like it. [laughter] So, it's a it's a little section over there. It is. Yeah. It's one of the best little streets that I've come across. Everybody's takes care of their homes. Everybody watches over each other. Everybody just It's a lot of houses over there, too. Single families. Yeah. I own a few houses over there. Yeah. There there's a place where I don't shut up about to you. There's a um it it's really is it's nice and and it's peaceful and it's just a little pocket and it's like nope this is this is mine. Not mine. I shouldn't say that. It's not right. It's it's the area that I would It's got a good neighbor. It does. Yeah. Amidst the rough and tumble of the near east side. Yep. Well, it's looking for the like sticker price that is affordable that has growth opportunity with a community too. It's hard to find. Yeah. Yeah. And Indie has a couple like that. And that's where I try to go. You always tell me that you don't understand my real estate investing strategy. I'm just trying to go to where people like to live and I can afford to invest. Oh, sure. Absolutely. You want to go that direction and and you want to be able to get into those places at an affordable price as an investor, right? And you want to create a community that homeowners are going to want to get into that they can afford. I mean, nowadays it's difficult out there. Let's be honest. I mean, you're a younger generation and the younger generation can't afford these houses. They just can't anywhere. So, what I want to know is you said you've had a we were talking with before the show and you said you've had a hand in all the big wholesalers, Mainstay, Simple, all the big names in real estate investing and you've touched their business in some way and help some way somehow. Yeah. Because you were investing before they did this, right? So, we we were there. Um, I my business partners at the time was FS Houses, Ryan, Ashley Mullen, and we were already starting a turnkey company back then. So, when we started doing that, we uh Ryan had and Ashley put together a meetup and they were having these meetups. So, everybody started coming to these meetups and lo and behold, everybody was starting to come in and the manship showed up. Um, Will Hall showed up from New Paradox. Ben Grace, you know, Ben Bu buys houses, um, all the all the big names that, but they weren't big names at the time. They were all just starting out. We were cash buyers, so we were buying their product for them. So, it all worked out that way. But my question is, what is the biggest change you've seen in Indianapolis since investing back then, 2015, pre205 to now? How has the game changed? It's changed because affordability. It's just not. Everybody's like, "Oh, Indianapolis is affordable." Sure, if you're from California and you've got million-dollar homes. You come to Indie, it's not really as affordable. The the spreads we were getting was 10% if we're like cash on cash, right? We're getting 10 12% returns. And now you can't really get that. You're now down to 7%. You know, and then is it bad? No, it's not necessarily bad, but you're not getting it that spreads out. We were buying houses for $2,500 from tax sale, right? and turned around. We'd sink 15 into them, 30 into them, turn around and sell them for 80, sell them as a turnkey property. Then, of course, the market, you know, went through the roof and everything. But after that, when things have settled down, it got a little tougher. It got saturated. It got oversaturated. A lot of people from out of state were coming in here. They're starting to drive up areas. There's a place called Bean Creek. [laughter] All the [snorts] California people back in 2015, 16, 17, they they started coming in and that area was and I'm still mad at them because that was a solid twobedroom, one bath homes and 600 bucks at the time. You could buy properties for like $40,000 and they were cash flowing like crazy. And then these guys all came in and of course 200k, right? Being creek house sold many of them for 200k, right? Absolutely. And but that's where that's where it has all gone. And it's good. I mean, it's good. It's good for the neighborhood. It's good for for the investors. So, but it's it kind of has. Do you think Indianapolis is in a price bubble? Oh, I've always thought that. Yeah. Since 2018, I think like 2020 to 2023 this everything went through the roof and I think that it just increased too fast, way too fast for what it should have. But that's just my opinion. I mean, we jued up for sure. It's going to have a Yeah. I mean, it's it's not going to I hope it doesn't it's not going down. I don't In my opinion, I don't think it's going to go down. All right. It'd be hard for it to go down. It's what it will do is it'll dip. It's going to probably dip at best 5%. If even that the question is if the dip didn't already happen. Exactly. And it already might have. Um and who knows what's with these interest if they lower those rates going on. Right. Exactly. It's all with I wonder if all the out ofate investors come marching back in if that's my concern. Um I think we have an affordability problem as it is and if investors come in and start driving up them prices again it's not it's going to hurt. I think a lot learned their lesson. Yeah. I think I think but there's people who are pushing out there that shouldn't be pushing certain stuff. So kind of drives me nuts. What is the what's the after effect to the out of state investors? I got started I mean I'm only 24. Got started in 2020 investing. It's like I feel like I'm on the back end of the craze. Like I see out of state investors today and I know that like negligence on the properties but I haven't seen it in mass strides. What do you feel like the big honestly I think the out of state investors are going to come no matter what because bigger pockets and stuff like that are pushing Indianapolis. So, they're going to be here and they're still going to get caught up in the situations that have already been watching it. These these people get caught in situations that they can't get from underneath and then they're promised these big things and nothing comes to fruition like a turnkey provider. Turnkey whether it be a turnkey provider, whether it be a wholesaler, whether it be a realtor who are all promising them this, oh yeah, it's going to go up in price. Fountain Square, Fountain Square, Fountain Square. Everything's near Fountain Square. If it's not near fountain square, it's not worth buying. You know, that that that was the thing. You know, it's the thing. It really was. It was like fountain score this fountain score. Oh, it was just aggravating. And and I forgot who it was. One of the guys got a shirt says near fountain score. So, I mean, it's, you know, that's how dumb it is. And if it if it gets too far, again, it just goes back to the affordability issues. I don't know if that actually answers your question or not, but if you're getting in right now, where are you looking in India? If I I see I thought about this. I thought if I start over, if I start completely over, put yourself in where am I going? Cuz actually I got a friend who is currently kind of stepping back into the game. He left in 2019 and he's coming back in. And I think it's multif family. I do. But I don't think Indie is the place for it. I think you got to go outside of Indie to go for multif family. Outside as in Anderson or outside as in Louisville, Cincinnati. I think you got better opportunities out in those little locations. Um but more supply. Yeah, more supply. Uh Chicago, you know, areas like that. Granted, it's not landlord friendly in Illinois, but it's still more lucrative. See, I disagree because I think the appreciation will be better here than Chicago or Cincinnati. Not Chicago, but Louisville, those are like 1800s. No, and I falling apart. I agree. I have a sister-in-law who's down in Louisville flipping houses and stuff like that and things are getting a little slow down there. So, from my understanding. So, I just wonder like it's the I know Indie because it's the horse I'm betting on, right? And so, there is blind spots there. I don't know anywhere else, right? But I mean my whole thought with multifamily is buy multif family, make it cash flow something. You don't want to be losing money and then ride that appreciation. So broad triple duplex. They're expensive, don't get me wrong. 350, 450 even. However, when you rent it for 2,000 and you get a great tenant who pays on time, they're you actually say sentences to you and talk to you like a human [laughter] and then it's worth 550. Okay, pretty good. That's my favorite investment right now. Yeah, but it's got a cash flow. That's the key. It's got a cash flow. But it's got a cash flow in the deal if you can, right? Anything with cash flow if you put enough equity in the deal. Yeah. You said start over, but if you're starting over Yeah. It's It's not going to be It's not going to be that easy, right? I would I would actually put in stocks and wait till it's 100K and then start. No, I don't know if I'd do that. I'm just spitballing. There are other avenues to to invest. Um, but if I'm investing in indie, it's going to be I would start like wholesaling. That's kind of where I would take it. I like that. You you go buying houses, you fix them up a little, just do a little bit to them, right? Kick them out back on market and that's make a lot of money doing that. And I think Yeah, I think there's good amount of money to be made and you're kind of investing. You're not wholesaling, you're wholesaling, right? You're executing. I've never been a fan of the name wholesaling, but it it does make sense that, you know, you got you got that going on and you when you clear it out, you clean it out, you sell it as is, make some minor repairs. I I think there's a good way to make money. There are some major companies that crush at wholesaling and the things that I see them do, cuz we'll walk it with first-time home buyers where they're buying them in in mass production. They're ridding a 90-yard dumpster, clearing the thing out, painting it a light color. Sure. Ripping all the blinds off, making that thing as bright as possible, putting a nice fancy door lock on the way in, changing door handles out, and then that's it. Maybe cleaning the furnace if it needs it. And and people don't see that. And little landscaping goes a long way. There's uh one guy, uh, a seal. He goes out and he fixes these houses up, but he doesn't It's like he goes to Kmart, Kmart, and I'm dating myself. uh Walmart or something, picks up some cheap little stuff, but it makes it look nice and clean. And he turns around and he sells them for like an extra $40,000. And to me, I'm like, and he's got such a knack for it. He really does. He's just got this this vision when he walks into those houses. I'm just like, man, how [laughter] fun. I'm jealous when it comes down to it cuz I'm just like, man, that's that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I've recently interacted with a seal landscaping. He was recommended for me for landscaping. Okay. He had a good vision with it. That's good. He did one of my duplexes. Yep. And that's Yeah, he's he's definitely got an eye for things. So, he's a good follow on Instagram. He has cool aesthetic photos and all that of houses he's done. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Not familiar. I'll have to check him out. I think wholesaling is huge. Uh I've got a lot of people that I run into cold calling trying to get those deals. The way I like it is going and chasing expireds. Yeah. It's like what didn't sell, why didn't it sell? That's the route that I take is looking at expireds, looking at the tax sale properties. Um, and when looking at the tax sale properties, like the list I got out now for the October uh tax sale, start chasing those. Start hitting the sellers. Start hitting up the sellers because yes, they're going to they have 12 months to redeem. Yeah. So, if you hit them up now and continue to hit them up and up and up and up, those who don't redeem are going to need to sell. And if you can get they can sell, that's what I've heard. What? Get get technical. How do you find the seller's contact information? Uh just like anything else, I you just use Spokio or something like that. One of those soft. Yes, exactly. There's a million of them. Okay. Yeah. You're just finding the tax list online or Yep. newspaper. Yeah, it's online. It's all online. Marian County is online. So, it's avail something. But yeah, but the tax sale kind of sucks cuz you got to just wait to see if they redeem. So that's the problem with the tax sale and you have to buy quite a few properties to make it lucrative. So you can't just go in there going I'm going to buy one property and I'm going to get a few be duds, right? Cuz you're going to cuz you got to realize that the majority of them are going to get redeemed. So once they're redeemed, you get your money back plus any interest you make. Right. Right. Um but that's the problem. You're going to lose that. But the ones that you get are going to be lucrative. So let's say you go and you buy a hundred. Let's just say and you're only going to get 30 of them. So you're going to lose 70% of you got to be doing that scale for it to be worth it is what I'm hearing. You you have to be not for like the loan. What about the loan guys? Like I won't buy one flip. Yeah. No mm- no. It's and and and and and for them it's it's what you need to do or those people need to do is send postcards and continue to send postcards. Postcards and postcards. Call them do whatever. start making contact. Postcards, you know, I always like postcards. Um, I'm not a big cold caller or anything like that, but postcards, that kind of stuff. Send a letter, you know, send a nice little letter saying, "Hey, I understand you're, you know, going through your your troubles here. If you think about selling, you know, I know your property sold at tax sale, but you still have options." Yeah. That kind of thing. And it's just like with anything else, you're fighting an uphill battle. you're going to be fighting through the noise of 10, 15 other people, you know, saying the same exact things to them. It's just marketing, getting your foot and and that's and that's the way the the the one-offs need to do it. Yeah. You know, you can't you can go to sale and take your chances. Yeah. You're going to get crushed. But, you know, in in all actuality, you getting you getting that property. And the thing is that you're buying the lean. You're not buying the property. So, you can't go to that property. You can't board it up. You I mean, you could if you wanted to. I mean, but you know, I mean, tax sale or sheriff sale? Tax sale. Sheriff sale is completely different. Now, sheriff sale, you can go to sheriff sale and you can get the property right then and there. Right. Right. So, but you might not know what you're buying. Right. Right. Unless you go look at it and make sure, you know, you can't get in. No, you can't get in. You can stand on the sidewalk and look at it. Well, let's get into that. What happened when you stood on the sidewalk [laughter] and looked at a house here recently? I I had a big telescope and that's what I had and then I just go telescope. Wow. I have not You heard it here first. Telescopes. Telescopes out the sheriff. That's right. Sheriff share sale in Indie any good? Not anymore. No. I usually uh Dave Short was the big sheriff sale person. So I always ask him how it's going. He's he's like it's not going very well. And and it's not that at least for for his per for his purposes, you know. It's just too many people there for making money. Yeah, they've clearly the numbers are not are not there for flipping and stuff like that. Okay, so loan off flipping doesn't really work. Uh multif family go to Louisville. What are we supposed to do here? Sit on our hands. Yeah, I think you've you've really stried out everything having wholesaling. That's because I'm a deal killer. So that's uh [laughter] wholesaling you did honor. You said that one word. Yep. No, flipping houses. uh you know people want to buy some single family homes and start that way but if you can buy single family homes I think starting out with ranch homes you know the 1950 build that kind of properties places in Cumberland you know those kind of houses um even by post and 38th which I swear I'd never say but saying it now so um I have no no problem stepping back on my words uh that area over there has got some solid little properties over there that you can make some good cash flow on. You pick them up for 70,000 80,000. If you're listing a ranch for 250 that looks cute, it's going to sell. Oh, yeah. That's all I've noticed. Almost. No, no matter where it is. Yep. It's crazy. For sure. And and and I don't know. It's just they're simpler and easier to maintain compared to if you have, you know, your twotory 1930 build um sitting over at Rule and Tenth, right? It's just a a pain in the butt to maintain. It is. I know because I've owned them. So they're they're they're not the fun. They're not the funnest. Yeah, I had a quad on Tacoma. I was going to say it was a lot of fun. Yeah, I'm sure it was. Shared shared utilities, meters. It was a lot of fun. [laughter] Learned a lot of lessons. Yeah. Right. Action versus knowledge. No, but didn't even think to ask me before I bought it. [laughter] Right. But see, here this here's the thing. You you did it. You stepped out. You stepped out and you did it instead of just reading a book. Correct. You stepped out and did it. And now you have this big beautiful blue duplex. This duplex and you bought one of the new ones, right? His opinion on those. No, you don't. [laughter] Yeah, it's fine. I'm not going to be offended. No, it's totally fine. I'm really not going to be offended. I know you're talking the new duplexes, right? Yeah, I've already rented it. I'm pretty sure I have a decent opinion on it. And you got What's your rents? Bottom 1,800. Top is not rented. I just furnished it. Okay. Airbnb medium-term. Okay. Midterm. Okay. Is it you couldn't get long-term on it because you didn't try or I got longterm on the bottom? No, on the bottom, but the top you didn't want. I didn't try. Okay. So, you didn't try. So, we'll we'll take that out of the equation. If you're looking at just strictly long-term for both sides, it's going to [clears throat] be tough at 1,800. That's why I don't think it's lucrative in the long run. Right now, you're doing brand new builds and single family homes. Lener, I saw Lener right now is posting something about for investment properties and I'm going, "Yeah, the thing with that is is that you have brand new build houses, that's great and fine and dandy, but tenants tear things apart." And well, [clears throat] guess what? Yeah, that $1,800 you're getting right now right off the bat cuz everything's new. It's all brand new. Wait till the tenant tears it apart and then you're going back in having to fix everything up. It's no longer new. Are you going to get the 1,800? No. you probably see that 1,800 dip a little bit and there's you you may get 17. But even if it goes down 50 bucks, that alters all your numbers. Isn't that for all rentals though? Uh, no, not necessarily because let's say I have a 1930 duplex, right? And I just put rental grade into it. I already know what kind of materials I'm putting into it and I already know exactly what Yeah. But the materials they use aren't like hardwoods and stuff that gets torn. Like it's LVP flooring. Yeah, it's still it can still be torn up though. You tenants are tenants are an amazing group of people that I've seen them tear up things that oh my god it just was No, you're totally right. My goal is to only hold it for two to three turns and sell it. I think the long for the long term on new builds um I don't think it's lucrative. I think in five years in five years I just don't see the benefit. I'm sorry for cutting you off. The the the issue I am seeing is they're building 10 in a row and they all go up for rent at the same time and it's a race to the bottom. 10 different I know the section over there that's over in Fountain Square. I see it. There's multiple of them. Multiple sections. No, no, no. I I know. I know. Riverside. Um the Riverside one too. Yeah. Um but they actually have rented them for the most part. No, that's good. Um it did take a little bit. But here's my the only perspective shift I might have is I'm very curious to see the medium-term results. Mhm. Because um obviously the rent rates higher and those tenants every time I've had one and I've asked a lot of people, they treat them pretty well. I've I've literally these travel nurses actually No, travel nurses. Travel nurses. They don't treat them like home. They treat them like shortterm and midterm are two different animals as far as I care. So and short-term, right? They're all different. The midterm because those people aren't actually like living there. That's not going to be their permanent address. Where the long-term that's a permanent address. And what you want to do with that is you want to keep those people in there as long as possible. Literally, right? You want to keep them hope the new would be sticky. So since it's a new, it's brand new, you would figure you should be able to keep them in there for 5 years, right? They hopefully they're going to stay for 5 years, but I don't think they are sticky enough because they don't have a garage. Street parking. They actually have a back driveway which is great and they are set up like an apartments like you walk in you're like this is an apartment. Oh shoot. So I am worried about turnover and someone mentioned that to me. They're like you're going to get killed on turnover. That's a possibility. Not at first. Very curious. What's funny is that turnover will be less is actually like genuinely and that's what you would think with a brand new build that you got somebody who just moved in there. they're going to stay and remain in that house and hopefully they're taking care of it like the midterms. Now, a midterm, they're not there enough. And again, they they're not going to tear it apart because a place to lay their head. But I did ask the tenants if they would sign a two-year lease. They said no. And you said no. You got I was like, you're not staying. Wait a second. So, I was leasing in August, dude. I was just like, get someone in. If I'm leasing and I got a brand new place to to move into and you ask me for a two-year lease and you're going to charge me 1,800, I'd knock you down on price a little bit. I did try. Okay. And go that route. They said no. Even when I knocked down the price. See why? That's dumb. I'm going for two-year leases on everything you have. But then again, my my mind says, you know, a little different now. I mean, I guess if I was younger and No, I I still would still want the two cuz it's brand new. I'm surprised. I don't know. Who knows? When I rented, I stayed a year and I beat the hell out of the place and then I moved on and then I beat the hell out of place. And it also goes to like animals. Do you have animals in there and dogs? We're in Indianapolis. You know, you got to have dogs, right? You can't say no animals. And it's like, well, really? I mean, everybody's got a dog somehow some way or some sort of animal that gets away. And you know, you next thing you know, you got three or four dogs sitting in there because, you know, as we said off camera, that you know, that one person who wound up having three dogs in my one unit [laughter] and my maintenance guy walked in there and said, "Really? Three? Okay. I don't think you're supposed to have three. [laughter] Got to charge up for you." But but not not all tenants tear everything up. They don't. some tenants. I mean, I got a guy who's got a person, he's been in there for 15 years now, loves the place, takes care of the place, actually makes his own repairs. Do you raise the rents? No. When you got a person in there long enough, you learn not to touch those rents or if you do raise them, you raise them because of property taxes. Very conservative. Conservatively, you don't you don't jack them through the roof. No, you don't. I have a tenant who I did raise just a little bit up, but it was as a result of the dog thing. I got, you know, preventive maintenance report came in. Actually, I didn't even need the PMR on that. He told me straight up. He's like, I'm getting a second dog. My girlfriend's moving in. She has a cat. And I [laughter] said, whoa. I said, "Okay, that's a big shift. Like, extra occupancy. Let's go. 50 more bucks. Dog, cat, another 50." And he was like, "Game." And then I was like, "By the way, you want to sign into your lease?" He's like, "Absolutely." So, I'm okay with that. There you go. That's a And and and that and and that's a win-win, right, for everybody. Yeah. And when you have somebody for long term, like I had uh I picked up a property for $30,000, right? Over on the old south side. I had it for 10 years. Yeah. Just about 10 years. They were in there the whole time. They're already pre previously in there for 10 years. Wild. So, and I didn't start raising the rents until the uh property taxes started go up. So, I had this from 201 14 or 15. No, 14. 10 years. Yeah, cuz I just got rid of it. 2014. So, you know, and and I've had them in there the whole entire time. They're paying 600 bucks. And I was fine with it. Why? Because I bought it for 30,000. I wasn't making any repairs. Yeah. What did you sell it for? Uh, I sold that one for 90. Just offloaded it and dumped it. So, not bad. Can live off that in a year. 10 years. tripled your price and they paid on time and I raised the I I raised the rent up to about 700 bucks because of property taxes and stuff like that. Dang. You know what actually pisses me off more than anything else. I'm in in the midst of selling a lot of tened homes. So, getting to see so many different things. There [laughter] are the tenants that you're describing that have been there forever, won't sign a lease, but they pay the first of every month. Something goes wrong, they're the first person at Lowe's to fix it. They send you pictures of the Lowe's receipts and all these dang investors come in and say, "I want you to get him out before closing [laughter] and it takes a little bit of my soul." Oh yeah, it's terrible. And honestly, I'm like, "Hey, by the way, they're selling. Most likely you're going to get out and also here's my card." Because I have a vacancy over here coming up. Please call me so that I can keep you in my a little bit of your soul out. It does established life and it's just like it it hurts. That's why you got to buy, you know. Yeah. Find another I always get them asking me if I got a place for them and it's like, "No, I don't." They're always asking. They're always asking. Um, [laughter] we just sound like we slam these people. They're always asking. They are. They are always asking. But the they hear the sellers selling and like I'm selling a $500,000 duplex right now and the person doesn't want to talk to me cuz they're terrified that they're getting kicked out. And I'm like, I know who's buying it and I'm assuring them that they're not getting them. And even still, in that reactivity, what are the most common ways wholesalers take advantage of new people of new people? They don't tell them everything. They don't they they don't they they they don't necessarily always lie, but they don't tell they leave out. Exactly. So conveniently, um, you know, a huge tree root that grew through the basement accidentally didn't get into a photo, you know, uh, nobody really knew about it except the wholesaler and the seller, right? I walked in there doing an evaluation. And I asked the seller and I go, "How long has that been there?" "Oh, yeah, it's a it's a $30,000 repair from blah blah blah company." I go, "Nobody said a word about it to nobody other than so h how did you already know the repaired $30,000 repair?" That's a footnote. All right. Exactly. So, it's it's things like that. And my big thing is get eyes on properties no matter what. Right. And just do that. You always have to have eyes on your properties. And I say it in my videos, you get these people on YouTube or whatever going, I buy sight unseen. Bull. Bull. You're not bull. You got somebody putting some eyes on it. Yeah. You have to have people put eyes on it. I don't care who has to put eyes on it. Get somebody to put eyes on it. Wholesalers teaching wholesalers how to wholesale saying I don't wholesaler new wholesalers teaching new wholesalers drives me nuts. Oh, that that because well I I did two deals. Great. Congratulations, you know, yay for you. Um and and yet you don't know what a bad title is when it goes south on you. Yeah. All this non-refundable stuff drives me insane. Um because it's that's their game. I know it's terrible. It it's here. This is uh you have to put up $5,000. I've seen a $10,000 non-refundable now. And I go in my head I go $10,000 non-refundable. How much non-refundable did you give to the seller? Did you give him 10,000? Because how can you expect me to pay you 10,000? Oh, but all the marketing I did and I don't care. That's a business expense. Yeah. I don't care about that. It's not for me to pay your business expenses. I'm not giving anyone non-refundable earnest money. Bad decision. And the thing is is that anytime we bought properties and we'd have these arguments with these wholesalers, we're buying the properties. If we're saying we're buying it, we're buying it. We're not we're not I would and have done non-refundable when I toured it, preferably with the contractor. And I looked at the floor joist, you know, I got in the attic, looked at the foundation. Yep. But that's after reading 50 inspection reports. Yes. Trump off the block should never sign his name on that contract. Correct. They before sending you before sending the contract before someone someone's got to go in there and and look at it. And yeah, it's the people who put out and they go, "Okay, yeah, I'll just put down the 5,000 non-re I'm not even look at the property. Side unseen." [laughter] And then, you know, I'm sure some of these the deals have had have gone south and I know certain wholesalers have kept the money. So, it's like, is it worth losing? Is it worth losing at $5,000, $10,000? Not me. Yeah. I'll walk back and say, I won't do non-refundable if I haven't personally been in the property or had somebody like Steve go and vet the place for me. And and you know, my big thing even when I do do the non-refundable, it is going to be on the aspects of the title being clean. The title has to come back clear, right? We have any problems with title. People are not educated on the title issues, right? So if title comes back, screwed. We just just a a little short anecdote and and we'll take the blame for this. We had a guy figure out he got something in the mail from Maring County saying, "You're delinquent on $9,000 property taxes." He was like, "What? I've been paying my owners paying." We find out it transferred and it was a duplex that split and he only bought one side. He paid for the whole But during the transaction, seller ghosted us. Yep. Oh, ghosted. But it was a big deal during the transaction to have them that they were selling them both everywhere. It was in the BLC written everywhere. Both it's both. We're like, "How did title not do this?" Yeah. How did title not title? Right. Right. [laughter] How title title. And it happens sometimes, you know. I mean, you got to put both addresses just when when it comes to duplexes and they're being split and everything, you got to really make sure that that stuff has been done properly. Condo association record. kind of sick of that. I'm going to be honest with you. Why are they split? The reversaling pisses me off with duplexes. Pisses me off. Why are they split? Why is that? Uh I like them better as duplexes and I like them better as a fan of the marketplace of duplexes. I just hate it when I see one and then they get up for 400k and they sit on the BLC for 29. That's what I'm saying. Why are they split? What is it selling? Well, the advantage is this. So I buy it for $100,000, right? And if I can split both of them, that means the one side's paying all my expenses. The other side's pure profit. Yeah, that's what it is. I thought it was just they could just sell it for 50 G's more if they Oh, you could do it that too. You could, but some but people don't think of it that way. Some people off the rental. Some people said I read this book on flipping, you know, [laughter] right? There are there are lenders most lenders many of lenders will not lend that split. They want it put back together because of the issues got the loan through. I know but it did it wasn't you guys did everything right except for write one sentence in the purchase agreement. Yeah. And that and that's all thanks. But if if that title work's not done and it's not done properly and something goes astray or title finds something on it that nobody has discussed or talked about, you just don't want it. Yeah. You know, and I want you're going to give me my money back and like you said, it falls back on you or not. Otherwise, two dang numbers. Don't give me my money back. I just Yeah. Go do Chicago stuff. You're going to pay someone's property taxes. No, I I hope not. We'll see what happens in court. I hope that gets solved. Uh, good luck. Well, I want to switch gears. I want to hit our game show, Roots Ranks. [laughter] Were you about to do some little drum roll of beat in? We need to do a drum roll. All right. Drum roll. We're not going to be cute like the Bigger Pockets guys. Yeah, [laughter] we don't have any slang terms here. Roots. Roots ranks. We uh h this game this game show is going to be all about investing types. You shared before we got on the air that there's a lot of different uh investments that you do that you like and I want to see where you rank them. The trick is though when you say where they're at one through five. If you put something at three, it has to stay in stone at three. Okay? Okay. So, you don't know what's coming next. Okay. And we'll see where you put them all together. And then also defend your answer without knowing what the next one is. So, when you say three, tell me why. Three. Number one, insurance investing. Where do you rank it? One through five. Insurance investing is number four. [snorts] And number four is because it's just it's good to have. It's good passive income. And it's not even necessarily income coming in. It's just you have it stashed away and it creates interest. And no matter what the market does, up or down, doesn't matter what it's doing, I'm creating like I had an insurance policy for my grandparents since I've been 18 years old. I'm 55 now. So, um, so it created 4%. So, when everything was at zero, I was getting four. [clears throat] So, break down a little bit how insurance investing works for those who don't know. It's it's more of like being your own bank kind of thing. you start investing into insurance policies, whether it be, you know, long-term insurance and, you know, term life and stuff like that. Kind of like life insurance policies. And that's kind of what I the direction I go. I'm not fully invested in that realm, but that's kind of never done it what I've done. So, it's it's like being life insurance. And you can you can you can actually take money from you can take money from those policies and go do things with them and then put the money back. Yeah. It's like having a 401k. Yeah. I should let you know. Yeah, you definitely should look into it. Look into it. I'm g send you a contact. It's one of those things, you know, you should do like writing your will, but you just defer. [laughter] I'm assuming you don't got one of those either. Okay. Um and hopefully you don't have to get one for a while. Gosh, I need I know my to-do list for [laughter] this winter. Yeah, when it's slow. I was 46 before I wrote my will. Okay, fair. So, you've got time. And I went through two heart surgeries prior to that. No, just I wonder what kickstarted [laughter] wasn't the heart surgeries. Full confidence in the surgeon there. Uh, next option, bonds. Bond investing. Bond investing. Uh, it's all where matter where the yields are at. So, I'd put that kind of round three. Round three. A little bit better than insurance. What yields are you trying to get? I like where they're at now. I liked them at five. Uh, I don't really want them at three. So, where do I buy bonds? How do I How do I get in? It's uh through a website that I go through. any like Charles Schwabond Charles Charles Schwab stuff like that Fidelity every every broker has them. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. Someone be able to get you in. Nice. Um H let's go with trucking companies next. Five. Number five. Five is [clears throat] uh because you got to know you ha you have to know the transportation field. You have to know and and being I'm from the transportation field was a trucker. Uh, I know what's going on with companies, UPS, FedEx, things like that. Like I bought in the UPS at $35 and I bought at the FedEx at uh 52 at the time and stuff like that. Um, you mean stocks in their companies or what do you Yeah, buy the stocks and the companies, but also I have a couple friends that own trucking companies and I have money invested in with them. So, it's kind of like a private investment there. Private investments. Got it. Yeah. So, my parents' neighbor, shout out Willie, uh owns a couple trucking companies. Mhm. Wife's driving around in a she she drives a Mercedes, a nice little comfortable Mercedes during the the week and then she's got the Maybach. Is that how you say it? I'm going to get flamed in the comments on the weekends. [laughter] And when that thing when that thing rolls you when that thing rolls out of the the the garage, I'm like, it just looks looks so nice. Trucking pays very well. People don't realize it. You just think it's a dumb person sitting behind a wheel driving up and down the road. No, sorry folks. It's a little bit more than that, but it's it can pay well. It can it pays very well if you know how to do it. And digits. Uh I had a uh CEO of a company who was in the break room with the truckers and we just started chatting one day and every time I went back in, he started teaching me little bits and things about investing and how to get into stocks and bonds and stuff like that. I have to do a whole another It was a It was a good It was a good learning lesson for me because I was very naive at the time. Um everybody's like 401ks this and this. I'm like, "Ah, forget that. I don't care about 401ks." And I was that's stupid of me to say that at the time, but I was dumb until this guy walked in that room and I sat there and just listened to him and and just out of the blue he just, you know, it was just kind of one of those things that happened and every time I go back there, I go see him. Where do you rank stock investing? Just investing in stocks generally. Number two. Two. Why? Two stocks. Uh because you can if you really start learning stocks and how businesses run, that's where you're going to learn how the business is run and how capitalism works and stuff like that. And you'll understand that people will complain about Apple and greedy investor or greedy CEOs and yeah, are they getting paid a little too much? Yeah, probably. But in the end, you're still using this product. And guess what? [laughter] You have a 401k while using it. You You have a 401k. You have something going on. And I guarantee that Apple's in that 401k somewhere. And guess what? You're you're you're a stockholder. So, I mean, it's I love all these anti- capitalist people. Go move to China, my man. Like, come on. Exactly. So, [laughter] so, so stocks once you can figure out the company and the great thing is you get to listen to the calls, you know, on the board calls and stuff like that and when they're talking and what the CEO is saying and what they, you know, think is going to happen. I mean, just CNBC alone, you know, you just watch that. They give you a whole ton of information and yeah, it's later information. You're not on, you know, what you're getting, but still, you can still make good judgment calls on what to do and how to do. So, stocks definitely are right there. What I struggle with is the fangs, right? Is like the it's uh you know Apple, Netflix, Amazon, yada. Yeah, they are uh if you look at them versus the S&P 500, it's like fangs just dominating. But what I struggle with is like are they not overpriced? I think they're overpriced. I think they have been overpriced for a very long time. But it it's a I think the stock I don't feel comfortable with the I think I think the stock market's more of a bubble than the real estate market. That's why I'm investing heavily in real estate. I think it's way less risky than absolutely stocks. No pick of the day. Real estate will always and yes, that's the number one. So, [laughter] we were going to say have to ask it. We're going to say gold next. Gold next. We were going to say silver. Actually, I you can say that. How about wood? I don't invest in wood. Lumber. Lumber's taking I don't know. Commodities. Well, lumber's taking a dip. And I but but that tariffs tariffs. Yeah. But the stocks and businesses and and things like that I think are overvalued right now. I I just do. And and there's an index which is uh the what's the index? It's like the total volume of the market versus the GDP. The Russell the Russell index. Russell. Some of those indexes we're actually someone can correct me if that's middle. We're not super super high yet but we're going up. Yep. So, yeah, you guys find that index. There's an index that's it's the total volume of the stock market, like the amount of money in it versus GDP. No, it's Warren Buffett's number one index. Yep. It's very, if you if you look at what Warren Buffett does and and you see where he's at going towards, you kind of gravitate towards what other Birkshshire Hathway is doing. I mean, you just do because then if he's buying a train, go invest in that train, [laughter] right? It's probably come on that complicated probably going somewhere. Even if you buy one stock, you know, I mean, it's it's just that with AI, you literally can there's an app that I have, Autotrader. See, AI is fascinates me and that's a whole whole another ball of wax that um autotrader just literally follows like Warren Buffett obviously it's behind it's delayed. So, you're not only delayed on the calls that he's and then the calls again, but you're still trailing with him. It's very just automatically invest for you the right guy on that one. Yeah. You're fired. Just kidding. Yeah. I'm gonna replace you [laughter] replace you with jogging. Dang it. So, why is real estate number one? Real estate's number one because it's the most beneficial. And [clears throat] as you've stated, you know, investing and whether you're investing in in houses or you're investing in notes or you're investing in multif family, you got to have real estate in your portfolio. You have to have it. Okay. Every every successful person who has made their millions has real estate in their portfolio along with other things be diversified. You must be diversified. But real estate has to be in there. And I don't care if you buy a couple houses and you use them as rentals, your depreciation, your tax benefits, all all of it. That real estate's where you should be at. And I don't care whether it's a good market, bad market, real estate's always moving. People will always need roofs over their head just the way it is. I love the active income in real estate. So, I would echo that. It would be my number one as well. The results are in. Real estate comes in at number one, stocks number two, bonds number three, insurance four, and last up the unique one for Steve. Trucking companies transportation. Yeah, transportation. That was fun. Yeah. Steve, thanks for coming on the show. Before we let you out of here, we have a quick rapid fire segment that we do every single episode. Tyler, kick us off with your favorite question. What is your favorite dinner spot in Indie? Wolfiey's Bar and Grill. Which location? 96th Street. Right next to Peterson's. Both those locations. If I had to pick any place in India, it' be either one of those locations. Matter of fact, you can find me at Wolfies usually on Friday nights. Why Wolfies? Because it used to be a Bear Bar. Chicago Bear Bar. And when I first moved here, that was one of the first places I ever went to. And the people in there are tremendous. The service is excellent. Food is just absolutely fabulous. They have a a dry rub that is to die for, as far as I care, and they to this day, I tell them, I've been going there for like 15 years. They need to put that on the market, and they definitely do. But, uh, when I walked in there the first time, it was just they were nice people and everything. And I didn't walk back in for another six months after that. And the bartender behind the bar remembered what beer I drank and remembered my name. And that right there says it all. That that says true locals. You It is. And they got multiple locations uh throughout the northern part of here. So I like the one on Gist. Yeah, Gist is Gist over there. Yep. They picked that one up not too long ago. Probably about four or five years back. So they're coming to Pendleton, too. Yeah, they are. They're going absolutely. Yeah, they they've done they've definitely done well for themselves and definitely Well, next time you're in town, you got to try Wolfiey's 96 location, Friday night. Have a beer with Steve. What is the beer of choice? Miller Lighter. I'm easy and I'm a domestic guy. I don't I don't go any of the none of the food beers like Tyler. No, no, I I'll do some Miller Miller race day. Yeah, I'll put down some Millers. Yep. Spillers. Some spillers. There you go. [laughter] Usually Yeah. What's one habit that's changed your life? Uh, one habit that's changed my life. I really don't know. Kind of got me off guard on that one. Yeah, we go real deep. I don't I don't I don't know. I don't I don't habits. Drinking Miller. Is that Wolfies? [laughter] Drinking Miller. Wolfies. There you go. I Yeah, that's how habits that changed my life. Um, quitting cocaine. There you go. Yeah. Honestly, that was probably, you know, I still miss it to this day. This is a drug of choice and I miss it to this day, but I'm glad I don't do it. So, that's a good one. But that it definitely opened my eyes to watching my friends still continue on sometimes. And you watch people die and stuff like that, but I don't want to end this on that note. Yeah. [laughter] Last question for you. We're going deep again. What is an area of your life you're currently working on growing? I'm actually looking at um trying to tone myself down from being an aggressive individual and just bringing it down a couple [clears throat] notches. Um I need to do it. You know, I'm 55 years old. I thought the older I get, the more I'd calm down. Hell no. I can still be as aggressive as anything when this is if I was 25 years old. Um, and I just I need to tone it down just a tad. And you know what's helping? It's kicking out squatters. Amazingly enough, because I walk into these houses and I don't go throwing them out the door or anything. I just walk in, I go, "Hey folks, what's going on? Time to leave. We all you you know the routine. Let's go." And everybody kind of gets up. I go, "No police. We're just all going to all walk out. We're all going to be nice. You're going to be nice. I'm going to be nice and we're just going to move along. You're not supposed to be here. Don't come back. I was watching a uh a video uh episode. My wife was like, "Hey, we have Steve on the episode. Grumpy Real Estate Investor." Showed the video last night of you. There's a woman like staying in a garage, I think. Oh, yeah. And you were I was like, "Listen to how calm he is." She was She was half naked. Yeah. She [laughter] was half naked and was like, "Oh, dang." Yeah. Isn't it Isn't it uh What do you use? Do you use Jeffrey? Is that the name? Yeah, Jeff's my name. Jeff. Usually when it it comes to any of the squatters when I walk in because I don't want to give them my real name just for cuz if if they come back they're going to say Steve said I could stay here right when that police come or something like that. If I say Jeff and the police are with me, I don't know who Jeff is. I don't know what they're talking about. So yeah, I don't know who Jeff is. So do you uh do you come in locked, loaded? No, I do not. And I don't advise anybody to do so. I don't say that you shouldn't bring something with you. Just don't be showing it. Keep it concealed. If you're going to do it, keep it concealed. If once you come walking in with weapons, game over. Game over. Because now you're threatening. If you just walk in as if, you know, you're just coming in, you know, and you walk in, you say management company and just do that. Once you say that, there's you're established. Don't say police. Don't say any because one, you're not the police. And two, don't say anything. You know, get out of here. What are you all doing in there? You can't do that. You got to just come in calm. Treat them like a human. Treat them like a human. Once you treat them like a human, that's all they're looking for. And they know they're not supposed They know they're not supposed to be. Yeah. You just got to get the truth out of them. Wow. Jeff Management Company. [laughter] I actually try to avoid my name as much as possible. I give it as a last last resort. Last resort. Yeah. I did have another one where I had to get her out and she stood up and just started peeing all over the place. It's not that she was scared or anything. She was so whacked out and so on drugs I was like, "Oh, yeah. I'll come back tomorrow." Yeah. [laughter] Oh, man. Well, Steve, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. Keep People can find me at uh Steve Layman um uh Grumpy Investor, real estate investor, and phone number is 317 2733552. Awesome. This has been another episode of the Roots Podcast. Make sure to like and [music] subscribe, turn on the notification bell, and come to our next master class. Peace.