Do you have what it takes to be a SheeksFreak? Well, today’s guest is a self-proclaimed SheeksFreak as he has been achieving financial independence by owning multifamily, single-family, Airbnb, and BRRRRs properties both in and out of state!
Dan Sheeks has also been successfully balancing mentoring students about the idea of financial independence and investing in real estate – making it all look effortless!
If you want to start on real estate investing, definitely reach out to him and be a “SheeksFreak” yourself as Dan definitely knows the tips and tricks to real estate investing.
Don’t miss this episode as Dan shares his own experience with his real estate investments. He also shared his personal strategy on acquiring properties to be able keep more of his income.
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Listen to the podcast here
Get Your Freak On By Acquiring Real Estate Properties With Dan Sheeks
Nick, how are you doing?
I’m doing well. How are you doing?
I’m doing fantastic. This Jacksonville disaster, which I may have talked about on this show before, is looking to be closed. I am hoping it happens. This has been getting pushed out. We’ve been on a contract for four months. It’s been a disaster. We can talk about that another time. I’m excited about that. What’s going on in your world?
Not too much. Same old, same old doing the broker thing and building the brand out here. I’m enjoying my life outside of the military.
You’re still getting used to it. Our guest is awesome. His name is Dan Sheeks. I’ve known him for a few years. He is a high school teacher. He teaches high school juniors and seniors. He teaches an elective class. It’s marketing. He’s getting into personal finance as well. He wants to spread this whole idea of financial independence to these high school kids so they can start preparing and they can get into their first house hacks, maybe when they’re in college. If they take the correct steps, these kids can retire easily by 30 or probably even earlier, 25 or 26.
Dan is passionate about that. He’s created his own Instagram and blog. He does Zoom calls with kids. If you’re between the ages of 15 to 25, I would highly recommend that you reach out to him because it’s not going to be sustainable for him doing one on one calls for much longer. It’s an awesome show. He also has quite a bit of real estate investing, so you’ll learn about that. I’m excited about it.
What he’s doing is super amazing. In high school, I don’t ever remember having classes or subjects teaching you what he’s teaching his students. He brings a lot of content. He’s a super cool dude. It’s a great episode.
Let’s bring him on.
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Welcome to the show, Dan. How are you doing?
I’m doing great, Craig. Good to see you.
Good to see you as well. I always call you Dan The Man. I’m sure I’m the only one that’s ever called you that. It’s great to see you. You met Nick. We’re excited to talk to you all about your journey towards financial independence.
Nice to meet you, Nick. Glad to be on the show. Thanks for having me.
I’m super excited to chat with you and learn more about you and what you’re doing.
Dan, tell us how it all started. How did you hear about financial independence? When did you take your first step? Walk us through your first property there.
I did it backward. I bought my first piece of real estate before I knew anything about financial independence, the FIRE Movements, or even knew what real estate investing was. If we start at the beginning, I bought my first real estate property in 2004. I bought it as a primary residence. It was a two-bedroom townhome outside of Denver, Colorado.
Interestingly, it was a house hack, but I didn’t know. I had no idea what a house hack was or what that strategy was back then. It was a 2 bedroom and 2 bath. I had a friend moving from Texas to Colorado to Denver and it made sense to me to get a roommate and have him pay me some money. We did that for a couple of years until he moved out.
I bought that first property for about $140,000. It was 2004. I was probably about 30 at the time. It was a good investment. As we all know, about four years later, everything went to crap. About four years later, that property was worth maybe $70,000, $80,000. I was way underwater on the mortgage. The reason we got to 2008 was because of the way they were doing mortgages before that. I bought this property for about $140,000. It was zero money down.
I had an 80/20 loan. Both of those loans are interest-only payments. When you think about that in today’s world, that doesn’t even make sense. It was acceptable back then. I did have a steady income and I was making good money. I could afford the mortgage. I could afford principal and interest payments. When given the option of interest-only, that sounded a good deal to me because that was more money in my bank account every month. I didn’t know what I was doing. I went in blind.
In 2008, that property depreciated to the point where I was well underwater. I was faced with the decision, do I want to foreclose on this property or do I want to keep making the payments? Right about that same time, I moved out of the property and it became a rental. Rents were low at the time too. I was losing about $100 a month of cashflow on that property as a rental. It still was something I could afford. It wasn’t going to break the bank for me. A lot of people were foreclosing in 2008, 2009. That was an option. I stuck with it. I didn’t want to have that ding on my credit score. I continued renting it, probably breaking even at best.
Finally, maybe around 2015, the value had come back up quite a bit to where I realized that I could sell the property and bring some money out of that transaction. Unfortunately, I had moved out more than three years before the sale. I couldn’t do the exemption on capital gains for it. I still walked away with probably about $60,000 when I sold that property in 2015. I refinanced it so I was making principal and interest payments for a few years. It had appreciated post-2008 as well.
That first deal wasn’t even a deal. You wanted to buy a primary residence because you were sick of renting. That was the thing to do back in 2004 before BiggerPockets or any of this stuff. You bought a property because you thought it would be a good decision to do. You bought it for $100,000. You did an 80/20 loan. I’m pretty sure what this means is that you had two mortgages, one covered 80% of the cost. It was interest-only.
At no point during those four years did you pay any part of the principal to that because you’re paying interest-only. The property depreciated to below what you bought it for. You were like, “Even if I sell it to the listing, I can’t pay off the lender.” That’s why 2008 happened. On statistics, you were able to hold on. The gross always comes back. I’m not sure if you recognized that then, but you knew. There must have been crazy emotions going through.
For several years after 2008, I’d say 4 or 5 years, I always categorized that property as the worst financial decision I’ve ever made in my life. On paper, I was out $50,000. Real estate does always come back. There are some exceptions. I bought it for $140,000 and sold it for about $175,000. It had come back and then some by the time I sold it. I probably owned it for a total of eleven years. It ended up not being the worst financial decision in my life. It ended up being pretty good. It allowed me to invest in a different property after I sold it.
Real estate does always come back. Share on XIt’s not the best return. You had no investment into it. It was a high return. It’s awesome that you were able to get $30,000 out of it in 2015. That’s when your real estate investing started.
A couple of things happened in 2015. One is I sold that place. Also, right then, I met my now wife. We started hanging out and she owned a couple of rental properties herself with some family members. She was starting to look into investing in real estate as an actual income source. She got me hooked back into it. She’s the one that introduced me to BiggerPockets.
It was a 1 plus 1 equals 5 when it comes to our enthusiasm for real estate and learning as much as we could back then. We fed off each other. If we were driving in the mountains, we had a real estate podcast on. If we were reading a book, she would read it, then I would read it. We were both in it to win it. We’ve hit the gas pedal for our real estate investments.
What did that first deal look like between you two?
The first one we bought together was a primary residence. It was a two-bedroom condo in Denver. It’s interesting how we found that one. We’re listening to different podcasts and reading different blog articles and stuff. I came across the idea, which is a great strategy for newbies out there or people who are looking to find off-market deals, which is probably about everyone. The strategy that I learned about was finding units that were for rent on Craigslist or Zillow and identifying them as a property where it was pretty evident that there wasn’t a property management company. Putting that listing up, you could tell it was an owner who had that property and was trying to rent it out.
I started making some calls to units that would make sense as a rental property and also that would make sense for us to live in and down the line as a rental property. Since we were going to live in it, we wanted it to be close to where we were working. The location for us was key. I used all that criteria. I started calling listings for places that were for rent and focusing on ones that I could tell were probably listed by the actual owner.
I called probably 20 or 30 different places and simply would say, “I see your place is for rent. I’m interested. My fiance and I are looking for a place to live. I have another question for you, would you at all be interested in possibly selling it off-market? Maybe we can take it off your hands.” Most people would say no or they weren’t interested in that. I eventually found one that said, “Maybe we’re interested in selling it.” I remember it pretty vividly. I probably talked to that person on the phone in the afternoon and that evening, we drove out and looked at the condo with the owner. It was snowing like crazy.
We drove out to the condo to take a look at it with the idea of we could rent it, although we knew we didn’t want to do that. With the owner, it was like, “Maybe we would like to buy this.” We looked at the condo and it met our needs. I talked to the owner and said, “We’re interested in buying this.” I laid it out a little thick. I said, “We’re engaged. We’re getting married in a few months. This place would be the first place we would live in as a married couple. It will always have a special place in our memory.” It so happened that this owner, who I would say was probably in his 60s, said that he and his wife lived in that condo when they got married. There was a connection there. I don’t know if it helped us out, maybe it did or it didn’t.
We ended up buying that property from him off-market. We paid about $210,000 for the two-bedroom condo. We did a conventional loan since it was a primary residence but only put 5% down. That came out to about $8,500. I hope I had the purchase price right. It may have been a little less than $210,000. I know that for $8,500 down, we moved into that condo and had a great interest rate because it was a primary residence.
We lived there for almost two years. While we lived there, we fixed it up a little. There’s nothing major. We did some countertops. We updated some bathrooms, fresh paints, kitchen cabinets, hardware, and some minor stuff like that. We moved out and it’s now a rental for us. It’s a decent rental. It’s not a homerun rental. The fact is we have $8,500. Even with the money we spent to fix it up a little bit, we may have $10,000 into that property. In three years, it appreciated about $40,000. That’s a good return on investment for $10,000 and we were able to live there for about a year and a half.
What does that rent for now?
That rents for about $1,350 a month.
What’s your mortgage on it?
We financed almost the whole purchase price. I can tell you that the net cashflow for that property is about $100 a month. You have the PITI plus repairs, maintenance, CapEx, and vacancy. We are probably at $1,250 and we’re running it for $1,350.
It’s not a bad deal, especially if you have a condo somewhere in Denver where it’s going to appreciate over time.
It’s a great location. We’re happy with it.
Where is that?
It’s on the north side of the Tech Center.
I’m sure the vacancy is pretty low there
I have a quick question. What was the strategy behind finding for-rent owners? Was it because you can get a better deal? What was the strategy behind that?
If you do want to get good at something, you'd have to take that first step and just do it and know that it's not going to be perfect or anywhere close to that. Share on XThe strategy is it’s all about finding a deal off-market. We contacted this owner who was trying to rent his units and said, “We’d like to buy it from you.” This owner was open to that idea. We did a deal with him off-market. He had a real estate lawyer that was a relative that helped him with his side of the transaction. We have a real estate agent who’s also a lender and we paid him a flat rate of $2,000 to do our side of the transaction.
No real estate agents were involved. No real estate agent commissions had to be paid. That saved each of us a few $1,000 because it was off-market. That’s what made the deal work. If he had listed it on the MLS and we had found it on the MLS, the price that he would have wanted to cover his real estate agent commissions would not have made it a price that we could have worked with. It was only due to the fact that it was an off-market deal that the numbers worked.
You called between 20 and 30 people. Of those 20 and 30 people, was this the only person that was interested at all in selling? What was the typical response you got?
The typical response wasn’t super negative. I always said, “We are interested in renting your place. By the way, would selling it be an option for you?” Most of the time, they would say, “No, we want to keep it. It’s an investment property for us.” That was the usual response. No harm done. It’s an easy way to find leads for places. A lot of times, if it’s a unit, you can tell the actual owner is listing it. You can tell that because the listing won’t look professional. The listing won’t say, “Contact this property manager at this phone number for any inquiries or showings.” Sometimes the pictures don’t look good.
Those are all indications that the owner himself or herself is listing the property for rent. A lot of times, those owners don’t want to be professional investors and don’t want to deal with tenants. If it is vacant, that’s an issue they’re dealing with. They’re spending money every day as that place is vacant with no tenant paying rent. It’s a good time to catch them and say, “It’s vacant right now. Maybe this is a time where you should think about getting rid of this property and selling it if it’s not something that you’re into or you don’t enjoy being a landlord or something like that.”
Thanks for elaborating on that strategy. That is a great strategy. I’ve heard of it before. I’ve never done it myself. It sounds like you’ve had some success. You’ve got that condo, then what happened?
That strategy doesn’t have to be for a primary residence, not at all, for people reading out there. We did it knowing that we would live there for a while. You could use that same strategy to find a property to buy off-market that you don’t intend on living in and you want to purchase it as an investment property right from the get-go. That works as well.
You used the proceeds from property one to help you buy this property. Where did you go from there? What’s property 3 and 4 look like for you?
When I sold that townhome, I walked away from the table with about $60,000. About $10,000 went into buying this condo that we talked about. I spent another $5,000 or $8,000 paying off my car loan. That left us with about $40,000 extra. Craig, when I met you, we were looking into this option. We wanted to do an Airbnb property, a short-term rental property, but Denver was too expensive. We were looking in Colorado Springs. We were starting to feel that market out down there.
We did eventually buy a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house in Colorado Springs. We call it our pink house because it is a pink house. It’s cute and memorable and unique. It stands out on Airbnb listings. It was pink when we bought it, so we left it that way. We took the remaining money from the sale of my original townhome and we used that as a downpayment for this house in Colorado Springs, which now has been an Airbnb for us going on over three years.
What’s your average rent and stuff for that?
I will exclude Coronavirus months from that answer. We’ve owned it for over three years. The Coronavirus blip will hopefully end soon and then it’ll be back. It has picked back up. I would say our average rent is seasonal, for sure. Summer months do way better than the winter months for that property as an Airbnb. We could be making revenue of somewhere around $4,000 to $4,500 a month in the summer months. In the slower months, it might be more like $1,500.
What is your mortgage on that?
I’m not sure if I know the exact number. I want to say it’s somewhere around $1,100 to $1,200. We bought that property for $255,000.
You did a straight-up 20% down on that one.
It might have been 25% down.
That’s a great strategy. Airbnb is super volatile. I’ve had a few Airbnbs myself and it’s one of those things where it’s a feast in the summer and famine in the winter. You have to make sure that you’re not spending all your money in the summer and get those reserves in for the winter.
I don’t know if all Airbnbs are seasonal. I’m sure there are some that maybe aren’t, but ours is. We planned for it and it’s been great. We did decide for us personally that we didn’t want to acquire any more short-term rental investment properties because they are high maintenance. This one is about an hour’s drive from us, 45 minutes with good traffic. We don’t want to drive down there too often. We have an amazing woman who cleans it for us whenever it’s needed, whenever we turn it over to a guest. We may drive down there once or twice a month at the most to stock up on supplies. We have not purchased any other properties that we intended as a short-term rental. We have the one.
That’s great. It’s always good to test strategies out. The worst thing that could happen is that thing becomes a full-time rental for you. I’m sure that will work as a full-time rental as well as an Airbnb. You always want to make sure that your properties work in multiple ways because Coronavirus could happen and you may not want to Airbnb it anymore or whatever happens. You’ve collected a few more properties since then.
Since then, we’ve also bought a triplex in Colorado Springs as well. It’s about an hour south of us. That was a big-time renovation project, though. You could call it a BRRRR, but we didn’t finance it that way. We did force some equity in it with a major rehab to all three units. It’s a house that is a duplex. In the back, there’s a cottage. We redid all three of those units. That’s performing well for us.
We came to a point where we knew that investing in Colorado wasn’t our long-term strategy because of the high cost of the property. We decided to go out of state and we looked at a couple of different markets. Eventually, I got it narrowed down to Florida and Michigan and more specifically, the Orlando area in Florida and around Detroit, Michigan. We ultimately chose Detroit. We don’t invest in the city of Detroit. We invest a little bit west of Detroit in a suburb called Wayne.
We’ve done three BRRRRs in Wayne, Michigan. All of them are 3 bedroom, 1 bath houses and they’ve been okay. They’ve been those bunt singles. They have not been home runs. We are in the process of refinancing the third one and waiting for the appraisal to come back on that refinance or if you want to call it finance because we bought it all cash as you do with a BRRRR. If anyone’s familiar with BRRRR, you need that appraisal to come in at a nice high level. When you refinance it, you can pull out most if not maybe even all of the money you’ve put into it. We’re waiting to see on that third one. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a good appraisal. That’s where we’re at with the Detroit ones.
Can you explain to everybody what BRRRR is in case they don’t know?
BRRRR, Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat. It’s an amazing strategy. If you buy a property, typically, you buy it all cash. You own the property free and clear. For us, Detroit made sense because we were buying these houses in Detroit and we were buying them under $100,000. The least expensive one was $60,000. We bought it all in cash.
If you're young and you think about your money and if you're young and you pay attention to your financial future, you are not normal. You are different. Share on XWe then paid someone to go in and rehab the property. Typically, they’re pretty rundown. One that we bought was pretty much gutted. An investor got their hands on it and they were in the process of rehabbing and then maybe they ran out of funds and then put it up for sale. We got that one. That was probably the $60,000 property. It was halfway through a remodel when we bought it, which turned out to be not a good thing, by the way.
You buy a property all-cash and you pay someone to fix it up. Once it’s fixed up, you rent it out. After a few months of renting it to a tenant, you can go to a lender and say, “I have a property that I own and I’d like to take out a mortgage.” They will do an appraisal to find out how much that property’s worth. They will typically lend you up to 75% of the value of that property. You will get a check from the lender for that amount, 75% of the value, but then you have a mortgage payment.
The idea is that you can buy a place and can fix it up. All that money that you spend to do those two things, you can hopefully pull most or all that money out when you do the finance with the lender and then use that money that you got back to buy another BRRRR and that’s the repeat part of that process. Keep doing it and doing it.
That is a great explanation. You’re a teacher.
I hope I did a good job.
You’ve got a handful of properties here in Denver and Colorado Springs. You’ve forayed into BRRRR-ing out of state so you can do a little bit more and your money can take you a little bit further. Does that bring us to today? Where else are we?
That’s where we are today. Mixed in there, we also bought a duplex in Denver with some partnership with some family members. We also have a fourplex outside of Denver. That’s it. We have fifteen units. Hopefully, that adds up to fifteen. As a side note, I’m sure your readers know about the house hacking strategy. Craig, being the expert that he is.
We live in a three-bedroom house. It’s our primary residence. We do one form of house hacking with that. We rent out our basement, which is a finished basement with a bedroom, bathroom, living area, and storage. We have a roommate that lives in our basement. We do share a common entry. We do share the kitchen and laundry.
That tenant pays us about $1,000 a month to live in our basement. She’s awesome and we love her. We get along great. There are no issues. She’s our second roommate that we’ve had in the basement. We had one before and she moved on to other things. It doesn’t by any stretch pay our mortgage, but it pays a good chunk of it. We count that basement unit in our fifteen units too.
House hacking, as you know, is such a powerful strategy. It should offset your living expenses there. I’m sure your life doesn’t change that much by having someone live in the basement because you probably wouldn’t use that space anyway.
Not at all. It’s beneficial. If we’re out of town, she can water the plants and set our trash out on trash day. She can make sure that the house is good to go when we’re not around. We get along great. She’s awesome.
Before we head off into The Final Four, is there anything else you want to share?
I am a high school teacher. I do love working with young people. I’ve been teaching for many years. I teach business classes. I am super passionate about helping young people explore personal finance. Even more than that, financial independence strategies and real estate investing, my number one goal is to help young people get into this FIRE Movement, this financial independence thing with answering questions. I’m doing a whole lot of things around that.
My target is 15 to 25 years old. If any of your readers are young, by all means, they reach out to me. I’m sure we’ll do some contact info at the end here. I’m happy to talk with them or meet with them, Zoom, phone calls. I even have some groups online that I meet with helping young people do the same thing that we’re all doing, investing in real estate and finding passive income.
I love what you do because this stuff, as you know, is not taught in schools. Even in the most basic form, financial independence and personal finance are not taught in schools. I love what you’re doing. You started off at a small scale with your class. Now I love that you’re growing it to be nationwide. Check Dan’s stuff out. His Instagram is @SheeksFreaks. Let’s move on to The Final Four.
Dan, is there a book that you’re reading? If so, what is it?
No. I’m going to be completely honest with you and your readers. I’m not a big reader. I do read books, but I’m not always reading a book. Some people have 3 or 4 books on their nightstand and my wife is one of them. That’s not me. I do read a lot of blog articles and listen to a lot of podcasts. I’ve never been a person to sit down and read five chapters in a book. That’s not who I am. I am reading no books.
What is the most recent book that you’ve read?
The most recent book I read for the second time was the new edition that Vicki Robin put out of Your Money or Your Life.
I haven’t heard of it. I have to check it out.
It’s a classic FI book. The first version came out in the ‘80s and was talking about buying bonds and stuff, which makes no sense today. She updated it.
I’ll be checking it out.
Dan, what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
The Sheeks Freaks community is a community I’m getting going for young people and teaching them about this stuff. When you first start doing something, it is going to be awful, it’s going to suck, and it’s probably going to look bad. That’s been true for me. When I started my Instagram page, my posts and captions were awful. When I first started writing blog posts for my blog site, they weren’t well written. I didn’t have any pictures. I was using stupid, bright colors and they didn’t look good.
You have to start somewhere. The advice is that if you do want to get good at something, you have to take that first step and do it and know that it’s not going to be perfect or anywhere close to that. As you do it over and over again, it will get better. In real estate, that’s the same way. You might lose money on your first purchase, but that’s okay. You’re going to learn so much. Your second purchase will be a little better. The third one will be better than that and then you’re off to the races.
Question number three, what is your why?
My wife and I talk about this often because we’re in it together and it has evolved over time. My wife is going to retire from her job. She’s also a teacher. At first, she was a full-time teacher, then she went to halftime and then will be doing a full retirement from teaching and W-2, which is only something we’ve been able to do because of real estate.
For me, it’s not the case. I love my job as a teacher. I don’t want to leave. I enjoy going to work. When we’re not in a Coronavirus remote learning situation, I do enjoy going there. Our why is not necessarily about leaving work or stopping our work careers. My wife is still busy doing real estate investment stuff. It’s more about having the ability to slow down and having the ability to use our time the way we want to so that we can do the things that bring us happiness. That would be the why.
Dan, what is the craziest thing you’ve ever seen in your classroom?
I’ll bring one that popped in my head. I could write a book with over seventeen years of high school kids. The one that popped in my mind is funnier. I don’t know if it’s crazy, but it’s funny. For this new business that I started, I needed a lawyer. I started looking around in my area and I found out that one of my alumni, Trey, has since become a lawyer and works at a law firm. I was looking at the website and saw him on there. I connected with that law firm. I didn’t hire my alumni, but I hired a different lawyer.
When he was in my class years ago, Trey was a starting basketball player, starting on a team, and he played college basketball at a Division I school. He’s tall. He’s close to 7’00” foot tall. One day he came into class and he asked me if I could do him a favor. He wanted to ask a girl either to the homecoming dance or prom. He wanted me to do it in a pretty unique way. At the beginning of each class, I have a PowerPoint slide that I put up on the front with a few questions to start the day, but I don’t turn it on until the bell rings, but it’s ready to go.
Once the bell rings, I turn on the slide for the kids. I call it a warm-up. They’ll answer a few questions on the warm-up. He wanted the last question on the warm-up to be, “Will you go to prom with me?” That in itself was funny and I was happy to do it. She said yes. The whole class stood up and applauded. It was mildly embarrassing for the female and probably even for Trey.
The funniest part was this girl, on her best day, might have been 5’2” inches tall. This kid is probably 6’10”. I suppose they clicked and there was chemistry there. The difference between their height when they’re standing next to each other was not a match I would have put together in my head, but it worked for them because she said yes. I’m sure they had a great time.
Now they’re married.
I do not believe they’re married.
Dan, where can people find out more about you? We touched on it a little bit, but why don’t you say it at the end?
I have started a community for young people who are interested in financial independence and even real estate investing. It’s called Sheeks Freaks. Sheeks is my last name and Freaks rhymes in it. To be honest, if you’re young and you think about your money, if you’re young and you pay attention to your financial future, you are not normal. You are different. You are a little bit of a freak. That’s where the Sheeks Freaks came from. I have a website, www.SheeksFreaks.com. I also have an Instagram and YouTube channel. We started a Facebook page as well. They can find me in all those places. I’m on LinkedIn as Dan Sheeks, so people can find me there, too. I’m on BiggerPockets every day as well.
You have to get on TikTok soon because that seems to be the next big trend.
It’s in the discussion. I’ve never been on TikTok. If you’re 10 to 16, that’s the new social media. I do need to get on the ball and learn some TikTok.
Dan, thanks for taking the time to come out and share your story. It was cool to hear it all from beginning to end. I’ve heard it in pieces, but I’ve never heard it all sitting down at once here. That’s been great.
It’s great being here. Thanks again for having me. Best of luck in your show going forward. I look forward to hearing some other good episodes.
Dan, it was great talking with you. I appreciate it.
Thanks, Nick.
Have a good one.
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That was Dan Sheeks. He is super articulate. He talks at the perfect speed so you can absorb everything he’s saying and understand it without him having to repeat it.
You can tell he’s a teacher.
I love his real estate story. As with almost every other real estate story, the first deal was built, and the second deal was built. On the third deal, he bought that condo for $140,000 four years before the big recession happened. He held on to it for no reason.
He didn’t want to ruin his credit, and because he didn’t want to ruin credit, he was able to hold on to it and he held on to it. He ended up selling it for a small profit over those years and then used the proceeds from that to buy the next one. Now, he and his wife have fifteen units and are well on their way towards financial independence.
I loved his advice, too, about how your first deal is not going to be perfect. No matter what it is you’re doing, the first time you do it is not going to be perfect. That’s great, especially for somebody getting into investing because you may not know everything. Not everybody knows everything. You have to take that first step. It’s super important and his advice was great.
I’ve got to get out of here. I’m going down to meet a friend who is traveling across the country in a van. He’s posted up at a bar and waiting for people he knows in Denver to come and visit him. He might be alone, so I don’t want to make them feel too bad.
It sounds wonderful. Have a good one. It was good talking with you.
You, too. See you.
Important Links
- Dan Sheeks
- @SheeksFreaks – Instagram
- Your Money or Your Life
- YouTube – Sheeks Freaks
- Facebook – Sheeks Freaks
- Dan Sheeks – LinkedIn
- BiggerPockets – Dan Sheeks
About Dan Sheeks
I am a high school Business/Marketing teacher, real estate investor, author, and personal finance advocate in Denver, Colorado. My wife and I have a variety of real estate investments including multifamily, single-family, Airbnb, and out-of-state BRRRRs.
In 2019, I founded the online community SheeksFreaks. This community is specifically for young people (ages 15-25) who are highly motivated in the areas of building wealth, entrepreneurship, real estate investing, mindset, early financial independence, and networking.
Working with teenagers, personal finance advocacy, real estate investing, and the FIRE movement are my four passions. I volunteer in the MoneyWi$er initiative out of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office with a few other hand-picked experts from around the state. The program strives to advance Financial Literacy in Colorado secondary education.
In my 15+ years of teaching high school, I have taught a variety of business subjects including financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and marketing. Embedded in my classes is the co-curricular DECA club in which students travel, compete, acquire leadership skills, do community service, and have fun! My students have competed at the national level with much success over the years.
During this time, I have also taken my high school students into local middle and elementary schools where they have taught the importance of personal finance to younger children.
I aim to help teens use specific methods of saving, earning extra income, and investing to set them on a track to purchase real estate investment properties in their early 20s and achieve financial independence at a young age.
