In this segment of The Same Day Podcast, Mat Zalk invites Chris Cahill, the Owner of Cahill Property Developments, to speak about purchasing and flipping real estate. Chris shares how he develops solid relationships with contractors, his plans for growing his portfolio, and how he purchases and upgrades properties.
Financing and Other Strategic Hacks for Purchasing and Flipping Homes
Chris Cahill is the Owner of Cahill Property Developments, where he purchases rundown, uninhabited properties and lists updated homes for rent or sale. Through his company, Chris owns $8 million in real estate assets.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Chris Cahill details his first real estate investment deal
- Chris’ transition from employee to entrepreneur
- How Chris’ construction experience helped him develop his entrepreneurial skills
- Financing strategies for property renovations
- The challenges of securing investment deals in a volatile economy
- Real estate purchasing and upgrading criteria
- Money-saving hacks to improve portfolio profitability
- Chris explains how he manages contractors
- Cahill Property Developments’ plans for future growth
In this episode…
When it comes to investing in real estate, financing is a leading concern for many first-time investors. However, with tactical strategies, purchasing and flipping homes can be profitable rather than risky. One construction-trained entrepreneur multiplied his portfolio value by maximizing ROI consistently.
With a background in property renovations, Chris Cahill takes a conservative approach to real estate investing. With each home purchase, Chris ensures an ROI of at least 100% by refinancing hard money loans after completing renovations. While acquiring profitable deals in an unstable economy is challenging, Chris recommends analyzing rental markets for ideal prices and comparing similar homes in the area to structure renovations accordingly.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Mat Zalk on LinkedIn
- Keyrenter Property Management
- Keyrenter Property Management in Tulsa | Oklahoma City | Arkansas
- Keyrenter Property Management email address: [email protected]
- Chris Lile State Farm
- Chris Lile’s phone number: 918-878-7771
- Chris Cahill on LinkedIn | Facebook
- Chris Cahill’s email: [email protected]
- “Navigating the Obstacles of Launching Your Big Idea” with Vondell Burns on The Same Day Podcast
- “Exploring New Possibilities in Entrepreneurship” with Chip Gaberino on The Same Day Podcast
- “Renting to Own: The Advantages of a Contract for Deed” with Brook Reutter on The Same Day Podcast
- “Building a Successful HVAC Company From the Ground Up” with Will Gilbrech on The Same Day Podcast
Sponsor for this episode…
Chris Lile at State Farm Insurance:
This episode is brought to you by Chris Lile at State Farm Insurance.
Chris Lile at State Farm helps you protect your most precious assets and investments, including home and auto.
To learn more about how you can save double digits on all your insurance needs, visit dialliale.com or call Chris’ office at 918-878-7771.
Keyrenter Property Management:
This episode is also brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management.
Keyrenter Property Management is a full-service property management company that helps clients buy, renovate, and operate real estate assets.
The team helps clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management.
That’s why, no matter what rental you have — single-family homes, condos, townhomes, or apartments — they can give you the management solutions you need.
To learn more about their services, go to https://keyrenterpmc.com/ or send them an email at [email protected].
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:05
Welcome to The Same Day Podcast where we discuss driving incremental business growth and other topics related to real estate, property management and entrepreneurship. Now to the show at hand.
Mat Zalk 0:20
Mat Zalk Here I’m the host of The Same Day a Podcast where I connect with top business experts and real estate leaders has guests on our show have been Vondell Burns of Thankless Productions. Chip Gaberino, a local real estate entrepreneur and restaurants who are in Brook Reutter talking about contract for deed versus lease to own properties. We also had Will Gilbrech on the show from Franklin Heating and Air discussing some of the difficulties of growing and scaling a heating and air business. Today’s episode is brought to you by Chris Lile State Farm. Chris Lile State Farm helps you protect your most precious assets and investments whether it’s your home and auto investment rental properties or other valuables called Chris Lile State Farm for a quick and painless phone call to potentially save double digits on all of your insurance needs, visit diallile.com or call his office at 918-878-7771 Today’s episode is also brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management and Keyrenter Property Management. We are a full service property management company helping our clients buy renovate and operate real estate assets. We help our clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management. Listen, Chris, you definitely know how hard it is to line up contractors to get them make ready done in a reasonable amount of time. On a gut renovation or after a tenant leaves the property contractors are busy, the work seems to drag on forever and all that leads to lost rental income a Keyrenter we line up our dedicated vendors so that turns can happen super quickly and we get more money back into the pockets of our owners. That’s why no matter what rental you have single family homes, condos, townhomes, we have the management solutions you need go to keyrenterpmc.com or email us at [email protected]. Before we introduce today’s guest, I want to give a shout out. I generally do this as an introduction to the person that actually introduced me to the guest. In this case, it’s Google, I don’t think Google needs any additional praise. But we do get a ton of our best client leads from Google. Chris first found us at Keyrenter by doing a search for property managers on Google. So for what it’s worth, thanks for doing that. Chris Cahill is the owner of Cahill Property Developments here in Tulsa is company purchases old and uninhabitable properties and provides updated homes for rent and or purchase in the Tulsa area. Chris’s company Cahill Property Developments holds around 6 million in real estate assets and is continuing to grow. Chris, welcome to the show. How are you?
Chris Cahill 2:39
Good. Have you been?
Mat Zalk 2:40
I’ve been great. I’m so excited to have you on the show. You were just talking before the show. And I was like, no, stop, stop, stop, stop. Let’s talk about this in real time. Before we get back to the conversation on dumpsters, which is sounds like a ridiculous conversation. But it’s actually really interesting for for real estate investors that are starting to think about scaling their businesses, and you know how to save a little bit of money here and there and not pay vendors for as much stuff. Let’s talk about how you got started in real estate investing. When was it? What was your first deal?
Chris Cahill 3:08
How’d you kind of get the idea. So I actually started out and, and sort of the business by working with my dad’s drywall company. And I really just knew, I don’t know, since the beginning that I knew that I wanted to start my own company basically. And I was doing construction work. And I kind of started out with that stuff. And I was running around other people’s jobs. And it was just, I don’t know, I felt like it was kind of a pain to deal with the customers and do all this stuff. And, and that’s whenever I found out that I wanted to do real estate and kind of kind of do my own thing and be my own boss and I can get my own work doing that stuff. And really, it just originally had started out like I was basically purchasing the properties just so I could continue having work for myself and, and stuff like that. And I originally I had started as doing flips, and then I kind of realized that maybe doing rentals and stuff like that was the better option and just kind of having stuff you know, just having things that are just appreciating over time. Yep. So when we started in there being rented
Mat Zalk 4:25
when you started with your dad, you were actually swinging a hammer you were you are now is our Scripture.
Chris Cahill 4:31
I was he was actually a commercial. That’s the funny part is he was a commercial contractor. So I was working on like big buildings hanging drywall, metal framing, and I was doing like ceiling grid ceiling tile and all that stuff. And I had actually I had always known that I wanted to start my own thing and I had actually cut my hand really bad. I was doing some ceiling grid. And there was say, like, H vac unit that had a fan up there spinning up there without a cage on it, that some, some guy had taken off, like earlier and we didn’t know that. And I stuck my hand up there and it. Yeah, it pretty bad and had to get like 20 Something stitches, I almost lost my finger. I got really lucky though. And that’s kinda whenever I realized, like, I don’t need to be doing all this stuff like, I mean, I don’t need to, I need to find a way to make money to where I’m not damaging my Branca brain, you know? Exactly. And a lot of the guys that had worked with my dad, I mean, I’d seen some of them, you know, getting close to 60. And some of them over 60 where it’s like, you know, they can’t really move there. It’s hard for him to get up in the mornings and stuff, because they’ve been doing it their whole life. And that’s all they know, you know. And that’s kind of whenever I realized that I need to, you know, start looking at how I can find better ways to make money. And, and also, of course, my dad was always want me to go to school, and you know, stuff like that, and not do that type of work. But
Mat Zalk 6:10
But your dad was an entrepreneur? Yes.
Chris Cahill 6:15
Yes. And he kind of wanted me to get another job to work for somebody else. And I’ve never had that mindset. And it’s kind of funny, because I ended up going to school on getting a degree in mechanical engineering. Oh, wow. And I really, I did a lot of that, because him and my wife wanted me to, and I, I thought that it was a good route to take, you know, I was like, it’s always something to fall back on, you know, and I think it did help me a lot. And I think that’s where I really got my like, I guess I got my work ethic from doing a lot of that construction stuff. But that also, I think, help ingrain it into me to, to continue that into my like adult career, you know, because I was going to school full time, flipping a house. And working full time, I was working actually for my, for my mother in law, cleaning houses. She wasn’t my mother in law at the time, I was just dating my wife at the time
Mat Zalk 7:15
you’re recording, you’re recording your wife and proving to your mother in law that you can
Chris Cahill 7:20
provide for the family. So this is how it happened. I was working for my dad and then going to school full time. And once that, that next semester had started, my schedule didn’t work well working for my dad’s company. So I kinda stopped doing that. And then started that semester, I started cleaning cleaning houses for her. I think it was my junior semester, my first the first semester of my junior year. And so I started cleaning houses and I was like, Okay, I’m done, like waiting on real estate I missed since I was like, 18 that I wanted to do real estate, you know, I was like, I’m tired of waiting. Like, I’m tired of listening to people around me saying like, Oh, like that’s hard and all this stuff. And I was listening to people who had never done it. Yeah. And I was like, Okay, I’m kind of tired of waiting on that. And I went and bought my first house, my junior year. So I was working on the house myself. And I was going I had a full, full workday. I was working. I was getting up at eight, and then going to work. Or I was going to work starting at eight. And then working till like, on the days I didn’t have class starting at 430. I went, I work till about five o’clock. And then I’d go to school right after. So it was like, I think it was like Mondays and Wednesdays are Monday, Wednesday and Friday. No, I think it was Monday and Wednesdays, I had a class that started at 430 to seven. And then I’d have a class from seven to 10. And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I had a class that I think was seven to 10 every night. And then I think Friday I had a class it was I think it was like a six or no, it was a four I can’t remember I think is a six hour class taking a full load. Yes. And then I bought the house on top of that. So then it was like, even after that I was trying to work every week and then sometimes on the nights. I’d work if I got off early from class, I’d go to work like 11 o’clock at night I worked like seven to 11 or or nine to 11 If I could get off early and
Mat Zalk 9:28
you were doing everything yourself on that first house, your your Yeah, whatever reframing we had to hanging sheetrock, repairing
Chris Cahill 9:34
hanging sheetrock and learning how to do tile and stuff like that, and doing everything, putting the floors and everything. And yeah, it was a it was a full workload for sure. So,
Mat Zalk 9:45
I mean, I love I love this because there’s there’s, it happens so frequently, at least in our organization that I run by a house and I’m like, Why didn’t Why didn’t we just sweep out these leaves that yeah, you know, fine, we Open the house for for showings, it’s false, somebody open the door leaves blue in. And I’m like, somebody just has to come in here and do this. Yeah. And it often falls to property managers false to me. And I’m like, people see me as the head of the company. And I’m on my hands and knees with paper towel for cleaning some sticky thing on the floor. Yeah. And they’re like, Wow, I didn’t know you do this. And I’m like, Look, man, I have, I’ve worked my ass off for many, many years. It doesn’t mean I can’t work my ass off. Now. When I see things that have to get done, they have to get done. It doesn’t matter who doesn’t. We just have to get this thing done. And so your background and actually hanging sheetrock and doing real? Yeah, real work? Yeah, probably helps you significantly now it’s like nothing, nothing is too good or too dirty to, for us to do as entrepreneurs.
Chris Cahill 10:45
Exactly. And that’s, that’s also the thing with that is, I think it also helped me. So I had the I had the construction experience from my dad’s company. But I think it also helped me, you know, working on a house, because that’s a lot different than commercial stuff, of actually figuring out how things go together. You know, and I think, I think that’s one of the things that kind of gives me a leg up as being an investor is because I kind of know what steps in that process and when to bring people in and things like that. And I know how things need to be done. You know, if I see somebody doing something wrong, you know, I can tell when a contractor has no clue what he’s doing, you know? Yeah. And I think that was really helpful, you know, starting out doing my own stuff, because I’ve done multiple properties. So originally, that’s how I started was doing that, you know, doing all my own houses. Yeah. And so I’ve done a lot of houses, you know, where it was just me and partner, me and some family and me and my wife, my wife is help on some houses.
Mat Zalk 11:51
When you when you took your first step in entrepreneurship, did you envision it as being more glamorous or less glamorous than it actually was?
Chris Cahill 12:01
I think it’s about I mean, it is what it is. I mean, it’s not like I’m a celebrity. And you know, I just, it’s just a job, you know? Yeah. And I show up and I do it. And I also enjoy it.
Mat Zalk 12:14
You’re your own boss. Yeah, then go on vacation when you want to go on vacation.
Chris Cahill 12:18
Exactly. Exactly. And I think, I think that does help me being my own boss, because, you know, if I was working for somebody else, I mean, if I was working for somebody else, you know, petting dogs all day. If I mean, I still wouldn’t, you know, you’d still find something to complain about, you know, no matter
Mat Zalk 12:34
what if you was a terrible, I was a terrible employee for so long. Yeah. Yeah. The I think
Chris Cahill 12:39
there’s a really good employee. I just, I think I was one of those people where it was like, There’s no way that how do I frame this? I guess, you know, whenever, whenever I was working in banking, and construction, I teach all these people that you know, how to do things, and how to how to work and all this stuff. And I feel like constructions, one of the businesses, where whenever somebody learns how to do stuff, they’re stuck on their own. A lot of those people will end up starting their own company. A lot of them are really hard workers. And once they figure it out, why not just go work for yourself?
Mat Zalk 13:17
It’s like training a contractor age back HVAC. Yeah, that’s exactly it will eventually go be sorry, training an apprentice to journeyman and eventually they’ll just start a competing business. Exactly.
Chris Cahill 13:27
start their own stuff. Because if they’re a hard worker, and they know how to do it, why would you work for somebody else? And I think that’s how I was where, wherever I worked, I was always, you know, I’m not trying to brag, but I was always one of the hardest best workers. Yeah, because that’s how my parents had taught me, that’s just all I knew is to work hard, you know. And I remember working at Target and I had worked there for like, a month. And I remember they’re, like,
Mat Zalk 13:53
we need you to be a manager.
Chris Cahill 13:55
They were training me to be a manager there. These people had worked there for like years. And they’re like, looking at me, like kind of upset, like, Oh, they’re teaching you how to do that. Yeah. And then show up on time, every time. And I had worked there. It was, it was earlier in my college career. And I had, I had only worked there because it was able to fit around my school schedule easier than working for my dad was at the time. And they started like, trying to give me like, like a full schedule, because I was only supposed to be part time there. Yeah. And they started give me a full schedule. I was like, I was like, I had told him multiple times. Like I can’t, like I don’t really want to work in full schedule. Like if I’m working a full schedule. I’m gonna go work for my dad who is at the time paying me like 13 or 14 an hour. Whenever at target at the time. It was like eight bucks an hour. That was like, literally, if you’re gonna sketch like this, like I’m just gonna go work for my dad. Can
Mat Zalk 14:53
you imagine if you walk in you do a couple of days the managers like licking his chops just like oh my god, I’ve got A smart kid is hard work, and he shows up good work ethic, like I am going, I’m gonna ride the rest of my career on the back of this guy, exact thing.
Chris Cahill 15:10
Like, I was like, I was like, Alright, I’m leaving. So I ended up working for my dad again. Because that was the thing is I always had worked for my dad, on and off, I had worked for my dad working summer since I was like 16, or 17, you know, always doing that and always had something going on in my free time, you know, but
Mat Zalk 15:27
so so you start, you buy a house, you start putting a crew together, you’re doing most of it yourself, you start getting a couple of subs together, and you start Yeah, then you’re like, I just need to buy more houses, like keep these guys busy once you assemble the team.
Chris Cahill 15:39
So originally, I had started out as basically, we were kind of like a construction crew. And I had a buddy working for me at the time. And then I had another buddy work for me. And I was also I ended up started doing a little bit of work for another investor and things like that. And just
Mat Zalk 15:58
because that investor was like, I can’t find somebody to use work and, and
Chris Cahill 16:01
it also is more work for us in our downtime, because at the time, I didn’t know a whole lot about banks and things like that. And I was just I was buying houses, under, under my personal name. Yeah, and basically, you know, a 30 day clothes and having to get underwritten and all that stuff. And so there’s a lot of time in between houses and stuff like that. So I do work for i We’re still doing work for other people were still a construction company at the time. And then we eventually kind of stopped doing work for other people. And then, really, now the way we work is we basically just hire subcontractors and basically just oversee the projects and stuff like that. And we had we I mean, we do a little bit of stuff here and there when we need to, you know, but it’s really just subcontractors from here on out.
Mat Zalk 16:59
Did you when you’re doing the construction stuff? Did you ever get bitten, nonpayment delayed payment, somebody was like, this is not up to my standard. And you’re like, Man, this is a nice job I’ve ever done. You’re telling me it’s
Chris Cahill 17:11
that kind of stuff. That’s the thing. There’s always there’s always a level of something. You know, there’s always I wouldn’t say I never gotten bitten as in people didn’t pay. I’d get bitten as in Oh, I didn’t get the job high enough. I basically did it for free, or I lost money I paid. Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember whenever I was, basically, I was the only employee and I did a battery model for somebody that I had known. And actually a friend of our family friend, and I remember, halfway through, I was like, Man, I lost money on this. I knew I had a few weeks left on it. And I was like, and that was at the time I was still going to school was two and it was like, I knew I had lost money. It was like, just knowing the next two or three weeks or whatever. It took me to finish it for free. Yeah, that I’m paying that I’m paying. And I was like, Man, that sucks. But the funny thing is, I still got it done. The funny thing is still a beautiful bathroom, you know? Yeah.
Mat Zalk 18:15
So you can be proud. So you build your reputation on the back of what you learned in those early days. I find it surprising when when like, somebody that’s been in business for 20 years comes in and underbid something in like a very significant way. And then they come back to you and say I didn’t see that second, or third layer of shingles on there. This has never happened to me, or they underbid it and they come back. I need a little bit more money. And you’re like, Man, you’ve been in business for a long time. This is not your first rodeo. Yeah, I need you to be I need you to be better than this.
Chris Cahill 18:42
And that was kind of my other thing. So I think I was a bad contractor, in a sense, because I, I would do that I would bid somebody’s job. And I would I would never really upcharge him unless they were like something completely different. Like, yeah, there was all this like unforeseen stuff, and I would just
Mat Zalk 19:01
wood rot wood rot.
Chris Cahill 19:02
I would just Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would just eat the cost on everything, you know. And I really never asked for any more money from people because there was like, some jobs I made good on and some jobs. I did it. And that’s just kind of the way I saw it, you know? Yeah. And it was like, I think I undercharged a lot of people. And, and I and I overperformed on the work that I did, so it was like,
Mat Zalk 19:28
great for the client. I was great for the client. You ever worked our business? I mean, how does that translate now when you look at a house and you think, you know, I know what this is going to cost to remodel? Do you ever get it wrong, and you’re in it for way more? You don’t see the latent defects? You know, so
Chris Cahill 19:43
when more than you expected, there’s always stuff that is unforeseen, but um, I like there to be a cushion in the deals that we find. Yeah, and really, I’ve never lost on a on a property that are
Mat Zalk 19:58
real estate’s also. So forgive me Oh, yeah, on the buy and hold side, if you’re trying to flip things and you get it wrong, you ago, yeah, you’ve done all this work for free for months, and holding cost of your capital and all this stuff and you lose, it sucks. Ah,
Chris Cahill 20:09
and that’s also the thing is I know, a rough estimate of what it’s going to cost to do the job. And I always run my numbers, you know, and I like to make, I like to make a good amount on my flips, and, and whatnot. Anyway. So it’s like, you know, worst case scenario, I’ll still make, you know, 15 20,000 on a deal where it’s like, it’s like, Hey, I could be buying at a high price like some of these other people. But it’s like, I mean, where’s our cushion now? Yeah, what’s the point? How many flips isn’t done? Ah, so, kind of the business that we’re in is basically everything we do is a flip. So every rental that we have, we’ve flipped it, to hold it as a rental. Okay, so I’d say hi, around 50.
Mat Zalk 21:02
How many have you sold? How many of you, you keep it? How many to yourself?
Chris Cahill 21:06
So pretty much all last year, we didn’t really sell anything. And we, we, I think we gained probably 15 to 20 properties last year. Yeah. And and so this year, we’ve switched, we’ve been stolen a lot of stuff, just because rates are so high. And it’s so my, my idea for what I was. So last year, basically, I had bought a whole bunch of stuff. And I was like, okay, rates are going up. I don’t really care always be able to refinance at a lower rate. Yeah. So I was basically refinancing everything just right off the bat just refinancing it. And refinancing
Mat Zalk 21:47
meaning you’d buy it, you’d buy it on one rate, you would put the cash in and then you got to do the renovation and you’d refinance it immediately re refinance it. I mean, why would you not do a construction financing?
Chris Cahill 21:58
Note? So you had a construction draw? Probably because I don’t? Well, I would, it would be a hard money loan. I buy hard money. Got it? Yes. Okay. Okay. So I would do that. And I’m basically refinance everything just as soon as I could.
Mat Zalk 22:14
And when you able to pull out basically 100%, I mean, so the hard money approach is what I buy for 100, I put in 50. And then I refinance it at 200. And I’m 75% loan to value and I take out all of my cash and the equity that I that I built in the renovation is now you know, what I have the other approach is, you say to the bank, I want to do construction financing loan, it’s going to be 100 to buy 50 to two, you know, remodel, and they say, Okay, I’ll give you 100% of the acquisition or 85% of the acquisition, I’ll give you, you know, 75 80% of the construction. So you’re still in it for some cash. Yeah,
Chris Cahill 22:46
your approach was the former. So basically, everything that I purchase, I’d make sure that I was getting all my money back and even more at times, you know. And so I always was planning on that. And, I mean, if I got more than great, if not, then, I mean, there’s some, there’s some deals where I put maybe, I think, one that I did last year, I brought like 300 bucks to close on it. And I think that was,
Mat Zalk 23:17
I think serious track record. Everything else was less, where you got money by everything.
Chris Cahill 23:21
Everything else was less 10 or 20 grand. Yeah. On a refinance. How are
Mat Zalk 23:26
you finding deals in this economy and 2022? I mean, things were still things were crazy. Yeah. And prices that sellers were expecting, were still nuts. They’re still nuts today, and 20 at the end of 2023. Deals.
Chris Cahill 23:39
I think this this year has been harder. I mean, it’s a little harder for me right now. I still I work with all the whole all the wholesalers, I can find, I’m always like, hey, add me to your list. And stuff like that, and just talking with all of them. And I just tried to keep a I try to have like a relationship with everybody that I deal with, like in the business. And I think, I don’t know, I think that goes a long way because I never screw anybody over. You know, I do what I say I’m going to do if I tell somebody, I’m going to close, I’m going to close, you know, this
Mat Zalk 24:15
is a small town, you can get in trouble real quick by doing. And I
Chris Cahill 24:19
even I treat everybody like that wholesalers, everybody that I deal with, I treat like that and contractors. And I think that’s been helpful because it’s like, every time a wholesaler can’t get rid of something, or they’re running out of time or whatnot. They always come back to me and say, Hey, I know you said you’d buy it for this. Are you still okay to buy for that and stuff like that, you know? And I’m always you know, even if I’m their last resort, it’s like, hey, I’ll still buy you know, we’re gonna do I’m still here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, still got a deal. You know. And I think that’s been helpful because they now you know, after I close a couple of deals with somebody, they always know that, hey, of course that he’s gonna buy it for that price. He’s not going to come back and say Oh, hi the electricals jacked up or something, and I didn’t look at that or whatnot. Because, you know, if I walk through the property, and I know that I know that it’s going to fit into what I want into basically my Buy Box, then, you know, there’s nothing for me to argue about, I know that I’m getting a deal, no matter what that’s like, but there’s
Mat Zalk 25:20
a good lesson in here and not burning bridges and not like letting your ego get in the way. I think as soon as we realize that, like, fundamentally everybody’s out for themselves, you’ll be a lot happier in life. So when that wholesaler is trying to get more money, you’d have two approaches. You’re like, Oh, screw that person, you’re trying to get more money. He’s, he’s doing me wrong, he’s this, or you can be like, I understand. He’s just trying to feed his family or she’s trying to feed her family, and they’re trying to get the best for them and for their, for their seller and whatever else. So when they come back to me, you don’t have to be spiteful or vengeful. Or, or say, No, I, you know, I offered you 30 At the time now I’m gonna offer you 25 It’s like so fast. You can burn bridges very easily in a small town or any town. Yeah. Avoid doing that you’ll get the deals. Yeah.
Chris Cahill 26:01
Because that’s the thing is I could do that to people I could, you know, I could argue down and get everybody down on price and try to hurt everybody, you know, but then, I mean, what good does that do? Did they bring me there next year? Yeah, remind the next person they look for? Because I had it for a while where people were like, Hey, I got this, like, you know, I’m not even sending it to anybody else. Because I know, I’m gonna make my money. You’re gonna get it closed in the next week or two? And I have no questions, you know? Yeah. And that’s been very helpful. Just, I mean, treating everybody that way, you know,
Mat Zalk 26:33
our interest rates right now affecting your acquisition strategy or kind of hold my person.
Chris Cahill 26:40
Whenever I purchased not really No, I mean, I don’t really care. I mean, I try to buy it to where I can do whatever I want with the deal. I mean, if I want to refinance it and keep it, then I can, if I want to turn around and flip it, I can. Yeah, I tried to. I don’t know, I feel like I’m conservative. Whenever I purchased, I don’t, I don’t try to buy everything. I don’t try to make everything worked, you know, I just purchase what I know will work. And I never lose money. You know, by doing that. Even if it’s like, I just try to not I try to never buy anything risky. You know, if it’s too risky, I want it to work. Even at the low end, I’m still going to make my money. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, I’m not going out there and like, oh, well, if I take that risk, then I couldn’t make money. You know, I try to look at it. On the other side of things, you get what I’m saying? Where it’s like, I’m making my money, no matter what if I make money, if I take that risk, and I make extra money on top of that, then that’s, you know, that’s a blessing.
Mat Zalk 27:49
So let me ask you this. You’ve been historically from what I’ve seen of your portfolio, you’re fairly geography agnostic, you’ve got stuff in Jeongseon stuff in North Tulsa. Yeah. Like, there are multiple philosophies people say, I only want to buy in this area, school districts, whatever, you don’t seem to follow that approach. They’re also the they’re also multiple philosophies around to what extent you would upgrade an investor would upgrade the property, I want to I want to have a house that I would live in myself with my family, or, look, I don’t have to live here. This is a reasonable property for a reasonable person, different demographic than then I find myself in right now whatever, what is your what do you generally buy? Kind of what’s your Buy Box? What do you generally buy? And then how do you figure out to what extent you upgrade it. So
Chris Cahill 28:30
I, I basically always go off of what comparables are, for certain areas. So that’s why I don’t really care where the area is, as long as the numbers make sense, you know, and as long as I know that, I can make it make sense for my contractors as well. And so really, all by anywhere, I mean, that’s what I tell everybody, as long as the numbers work, I don’t really care, you know, so the numbers may work in the area to where it’s super low, and you’re not going to sell it to me for that price. You know. And so whenever I fix things up, I basically go off of what it looks like in the area. And I try to make, I mean, even if it’s a lower income area, I want everything to where it’s like, if my family had to pack up, if we, you know, if we got kicked out of our house, you know, fell on hard times, and we had to move into one of these smaller properties. Would I be comfortable with that, you know, and it doesn’t have to be super fancy, it doesn’t have to be any of that. But I want it to be a clean and nice house, you know, and I want it that’s the thing is like, I have some buddies that are also investors and sometimes, you know, sometimes people end up trying to overdo in a certain area and things like that. And I try to always, you know, kind of mentor them and say, Hey, don’t overdo it. Don’t overdo it.
Mat Zalk 29:50
Even grant it in there. Yeah. Yeah,
Chris Cahill 29:53
yeah. And, and, at times, I mean, if they’re in an area where it makes sense So then yes, for sure. And, and, and it also depends on what outcome you’re looking for if you’re trying to flip it or whatnot. I mean, it does make a huge difference whether you’re trying to flip it or rent it, you know, you may not need granite everywhere. I mean, if somebody sees for mica in a rental house, I mean, a lot of times they’re not even gonna notice the difference. They’re just gonna, they just want somewhere to live, you know, and it’s so hard for them to find places to live right now that it’s like, you know, as long as the property is cleaned up, looks nice. And you know, new paint on the walls. I mean, they don’t care whether it’s, you know, gold fixtures everywhere and everything’s just, you know, jumping out at you because they just were trying to find somewhere to live you clean it clean and reasonable. Yeah, yeah. And that’s kind of the way I look at it is everything needs to be cleaned up. And where I would be comfortable living with you know, if there’s, you know, roaches everywhere, you know, you know your wife Mike. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, if there’s roaches everywhere, mice everywhere, there’s grease stains all over everything, then it’s like, you know Yeah, it’s like that, you know, I don’t feel comfortable putting somebody else to make sure.
Mat Zalk 31:13
Tell me a little bit about we’re talking about dumpsters before the show. I want to hear about the dumpsters and other kind of little hacks that you’ve done to save money for yourself and improve profitability across the portfolio. What let’s start with the dumpsters. What was your what was the decision like to get your own dumpsters
Chris Cahill 31:31
back Starlet. It was about remember from April or May of last year. We had so many projects that were going on that we were using. I was doing the math it was around like two or $3,000 a month just in dumpsters because we purchased the house. Need a 30 yard dumpster to come out. Fill it up. Take it away that same day. We need another one the next day to fill it up. You know we may need two full dumpsters right off the bat on our house right when we purchased it. And yeah, so it was about two or $3,000 a month that we were just spinning, just keeping dumpsters at properties. So I was like, hey, what if we? I had always known about the dumpsters. And one of my buddies said something about Yeah, they have roll off dumpsters. They go on a trailer. I was like, no, they don’t. Like do they really? Like they just go on a trailer. So I don’t need actual truck. Freeze it. Yeah. Because I had never really paid attention to it. Sure. Now that they actually had roll off. You know, they actually go on to the actual trailer. I was like, okay, and I looked at I bought it. I bought a trailer and three dumpsters like, it was like, within that same week that he had told
Mat Zalk 32:46
me that, but that’s a $20,000 investment. Yeah,
Chris Cahill 32:50
well, so the trailer itself was $13,000. Wow. And then each dumpster on top of that was like five to investment. Yeah, it was 30 I think after taxes and everything was about $35,000 For my first three dumpsters. Yep. So what I did is I had purchased those all cash. And then I went back to my banker that I do my investment properties with refinanced all those. And
Mat Zalk 33:19
basically, who do you Who do you do all your loans with?
Chris Cahill 33:21
I use we St.
Mat Zalk 33:24
Cool. We see. So I interest formerly Tulsa federal credit.
Chris Cahill 33:27
Yes, yes. And I had built up such a good relationship there that, you know, even if I was getting better rates at other places that really, you know, the relationship I had didn’t really matter, you know, with the rates, because, because what I was able to do with them. So I had, I mean, I still use them. I haven’t been refinancing lately. But whenever I start refinancing again, I’ll head right back over two way street. So I still I’m still talking to him all the time. But back to the dumpsters. So basically, I refinanced those. And my payment on them was like, I think, like $500 a month. So it’s like, you know, I’m saving a bunch of money and I’m paying off those dumpsters. So flexibility. And I have the flexibility is the biggest thing, because I don’t have to wait on a dumpster if I need to go. If I need to go pick up stuff right now. I just send the guy over there, go pick it up. I don’t have to pay to set a dumpster. I don’t have to pay anything, you know. And even if I don’t fill out the dumpster? Well, I’ll just take it to the next house and fill it up there. And it’s that I think without even saving the money, I think the flexibility is the biggest thing because I never have to wait on a dumpster. And if I need multiple dumpsters in a day, I mean I have two houses that we’re working out in St. Paul for right now and they’re right next door to each other. And for a while while we’re doing the demo on that and cleaning out all the stuff that was inside of them. We needed like if we were using 30 yard dumpsters, we would have needed like probably five or six in a day, wow. You know, where it was like five or six just to start the job. So and my guys could have done that in, you know, a day or two. So it’s like, so it’s like we could just have, I could have just sit. So what we did was we just send somebody out there and just have two or three dumpsters out there time. I think maybe even at that time, we had all four of our dumpsters out there. Just, you know, cycling them, and what does it actually cost to take it to the dump? It really depends on what’s in there. It can be $100. I mean, sometimes it’s even $50 to, you know, to based on weight or based on weight? Yeah, yeah, got
Mat Zalk 35:38
it. So you have that much weight, you have the empty weight, the whole weight, or whatever else it says, tear
Chris Cahill 35:45
off weight or well, so they know what they do is they weigh the whole, the whole load, and then you’ll come back through and they’ll weigh it at the end. Got it. Once the dumpster is empty. And they call that your tear off weight or whatnot, and then you just pay for what was in it.
Mat Zalk 35:59
So you got to have a guy that’s willing, I don’t even know where the city dump is actually, there’s probably one down 75 somewhere. Yeah, there’s
Chris Cahill 36:05
one. There’s one, I think off of Peoria, and then there’s a good one. We just started wherever. So we do them in support. We’ve got one in support that we use a lot. And then one in Tulsa and then there’s one out and and there’s that indoor dompet broken error or whatnot. Sorry, weren’t
Mat Zalk 36:27
incinerate the trash. Now.
Chris Cahill 36:28
I think what they do is they’re more expensive. I think what they do is they just, they, like, shred it all up and like, separate it all. And then they load it off. When it’s
Mat Zalk 36:40
interesting. But so flexibility, you save a little bit of money, but ultimately, you just got control over your own
Chris Cahill 36:46
waste. Yeah, exactly.
Mat Zalk 36:49
What else? What else have you done that saves you, you know, incrementally I think in property. It’s so many industries must be the same way. But it’s like incremental gain. How can you save a couple of pennies, because fundamentally, you’re paying $100 today to get $1 every month for the next 100 months? And beyond? It sounds like anytime you can save a little bit your, your your Uh huh.
Chris Cahill 37:08
So I think one of our biggest things was, especially last year, we slowed down a little bit this year trying to, we’re trying to regroup and and get to where we can just take off again, like we did last year. And I also want to get into apartment buildings and stuff like that and start scaling kind of that way. But um, I think the biggest thing is the contractors and using my group of contractors, so a lot of a lot of the people that I used, just work for me. And I think that’s been very beneficial, because it’s like, if I have something in a different house that needs done and just send them over because there’s more triage property. Yeah, yeah. And it’s like, basically, it made it so easy that I don’t have to wait on contractors. Yeah, we were at the time, we’re doing like full remodels. It took us a month to fix it up and remodel it. Well. And by that time, by that time that we were done remodeling, my refinance was ready. Like, we just I just send pictures to my guy, we Street, send pictures, hey, remodels done refinancing. And then we’re refinance
Mat Zalk 38:22
and what do you what are you doing on plumbing on like stuff that he’s permits on? Ah, back and forth? Yeah, system. So
Chris Cahill 38:28
I have, I have three separate. I have electrician, plumber, electricians, one that we’ve always been having trouble with finding new electricians and stuff like that.
Mat Zalk 38:41
The trouble is finding is finding a good vendor at a reasonable price. And anybody. Yeah, whatever, and get somebody in there for $30 an hour. Exactly.
Chris Cahill 38:50
And also, our biggest thing is the time to so it’s like sometimes we’re paying more money. Sometimes I’m paying more money to get things done. Yeah, even though I know it’s more expensive. I mean, I know I’m wasting money, but I’m able to get into that next property quicker. Yeah, and the way that I saw it was I’m my money that I make is mostly on the equity in the property, not on the rental. Yeah. Which is kind of I think a lot of people see that as backwards thinking but I make the biggest money whenever I remodel a property. So the time is the most important if I can get it done quicker. And onto the next property. As long as that property is paying for itself with the rental money then, you know, the next property is the biggest thing. So really, the contractors and who I used was the biggest thing. So really, back to the plumbing and electric I just I just use the same guys always. And it’s just easier to always have the same person they’re always right there because I use them so much. The plumbing and electric and H back. Those guys have their own companies. But I think With all the work that I’ve given them, it’s helped. It’s helped them to be able to help start their companies. Yeah. But also I’m giving them a lot of work. So it’s like, you know, they’re right there every time I need them. Yeah. And all the construction type things like, you know, sheetrock painting, all that stuff is basically, I mean, there’s subcontractors, but it’s almost like they’re in house, because they’re really just working for me.
Mat Zalk 40:25
How do you pay your guys on the on the trades? Do you pay them weekly? Do you pay them monthly project paid start a little bit and a little bit.
Chris Cahill 40:31
I paid them weekly I so whenever I was a contractor, I would basically just do it. At the end of the job. Just every time I was a great contractor for a client. Yeah, I was too good. I was way too yet. I didn’t like being uncomfortable and saying, Hey, give me this, you know, sometimes I would take some money, like halfway just to pay for the materials and stuff like that, depending on how big the job was, or whatnot. But yeah, so I feel like that’s, I feel like that’s kind of hard for some contractors, especially whenever you’re using smaller companies, which we like using smaller companies, because they, I mean, they sort of rely on us. Yeah, they sort of rely on us to continue growing. continue growing with us, in a sense, you know, and so really sorry, what was your question?
Mat Zalk 41:28
The how often your passion was,
Chris Cahill 41:30
you said weekly, so basically, weekly, weekly, as I pay them, they give me a price to do the job. And I pay them based on how much is done at that every Friday. So in
Mat Zalk 41:40
essence, they’re smaller companies, they’re managing their people, you’re managing their cash flow for them, because they might not have the capability. They might not be super sophisticated business people, they may whatever, there are small organizations that don’t have big admin teams that can present to you. I’m 40% done, therefore, here’s my 40% invoice and you do that perform exactly. Do you do you at this point? Do you do any third party work? I mean, if somebody wants to reach out to you and say, Chris, I want I want help with a remodel any of that? No,
Chris Cahill 42:05
no. So the way that I say it is, like I said, we make all our money in the equity that we gave him. Yeah. And we make so much doing that, that if I make 1010, or 20%, overseeing a job, like me, that’s gonna be a, it’s gonna be $100,000 job for us to even, like really care, you know, to even make that. So, really, we don’t know, we don’t do anything for other people. And I share I like to, I’ll share contacts for like my heating their plumber and stuff like that. But the guys who weren’t doing my construction stuff, it’s hard for me to really grow, it’s hard for me to give them give out their number and stuff like that. Because, because I keep them busy. And it’s like, you know, if I give out their number to everybody else, and I don’t have the guys whenever I need, you know, and I basically, I basically paid them for like a year straight, just continuing to have jobs continuing to continue to put houses in front of them to work on, you know, so it’s, how many are you working on right now? Right now, now, I think, three, or four, and then we’ve got one, got two that are in contract to sell. And then, but one of those was a duplex that was rented. And another one was the one that we flipped.
Mat Zalk 43:27
And what is your at this point? What is your property management team look like? Who’s Who’s doing the work for you?
Chris Cahill 43:33
It’s basically just one person in the office. And she. So whenever I had started with you guys, at the time, I had never property management. And I was getting a deal from somebody that was seven properties. And I was like, I’m a construction guy. Like I’m not trying to get into property. So originally, I was like, Okay, I Googled a couple of companies, I called another company that came up, no answer, no, no return phone call. I found you guys. I was like, okay, so you called me right back, or I think I had gotten in contact with you was a perfect match. And that was very beneficial at the time, because I didn’t have the time to do that. I was worried about buying houses and and every time I purchased a property, I mean, I’m making all that money in equity that why was I going to spend all my time. Yeah, and trying to try to meet the contractors and yeah, and stuff like that to fix a toilet, you know. So that was so beneficial to help me start growing to where we could end up hiring somebody to do our own property management. Because now, the way that I saw now is that I had the money to hire somebody. And at the time, we’re bringing on so many new houses that it was like the amount of money that I’m spending to set a lease and do all this extra stuff that I basically, I could hire somebody, just to work for me even if you know, we only have like 30 Something, properties that we’re renting, but we’re bringing on so many that is going to be meeting with new people, meeting new clients, putting things out for lease releasing old stuff that is like it made sense to hire somebody, because we’re purchasing it at such a
Mat Zalk 45:26
fast rate and are using are using the good software now. Ah,
Chris Cahill 45:29
yes. Yes. And now we’re still working on learning it. We use. What is it? That shows you how much I look at it? Building? Building resilient. Okay, cool. Yeah. So I tried to use I looked at at folio, I think that’s what you guys used to? Yeah, I tried using that. But they said that you needed like 50 properties. To get started.
Mat Zalk 45:54
I wish you would have spoken to me about this. Because the trick is, the reality is you put in you say I’ve got 50 properties, because you’re paying a minimum fees, you’re paying, I don’t know $2 a door or whatever to fit the door. And then you say, oh, do I have 123 Main Street 234 Main Street three, four, or five, Main Street four, or five, six, or whatever it is. And you just be making them up until you actually have them. Here’s what I would do if I had to start over. I mean, we started when we first brought out folio on we had a multifamily property that we were managing. So we had the 50 doors, it wasn’t a big deal. But ultimately, when I when I talked to people that run up against this 50 unit, so stupid, because property at folio misses out on so much business because they’re not willing to work. So like you’ll be with building forever, because the pain points associated with switching that when you when you have 50 or 60 or 70 doors, they’re like you’ll never they’ll never get you back. Which is Which sucks. And
Chris Cahill 46:38
that’s what that’s what I said to with. And that’s what I had told the person who I had hired to do this. And if I didn’t really want to start with, with something that I wasn’t going to be comfortable with. Because I knew I knew. I mean, I’m so set in growth, that if I have a huge pain point, I don’t really care. I mean, I try to outgrow that. So I’m not really I’m not really focused on something that I know, I might be losing a little bit of money at. Because I’m so focused on, you know, such a bigger goal that yeah, sometimes I overlooked that, you know, and I knew that even if building was going to be a pain later on. It was like, I know, once we have to start with a no new program, there’s no way we’re ever going to switch. Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, it’s hard to do such a, it’s hard to do such a big switch. It’s painful. Yeah, it’s so painful. And I don’t even know if at that point, if the troubles that we’re having at that program, will the new programming and fix them? Yeah, why even take? Why even take the risk of switching it if we don’t even know if that’s going to help. So
Mat Zalk 47:45
we absorbed a business in in April 2022 that had that was using building and I found it. I’m an Apple user power user for the last six years. And I found it to be really, really cumbersome to use just the navigation of that of the of the interface and what they show what was available. How to pull reports and stuff was really painful. But once you get used to assist them, it doesn’t really matter. You just do it. You know how to do what you need to do. What’s your goal in terms of how many properties you want to get to?
Chris Cahill 48:13
I don’t know i It sounds crazy. But I tell everybody like 10,000 1000 doors 10,000 doors, not 10,000 properties. Yeah, but I’m trying right now to get into multifamily. And that’s why we’re still in a lot right now. I’m hoping that. I don’t know, I think there might be some opportunities coming up with rates going up in the next year or two, that there might be a might be a chance to get into some multifamily. But then again, I sometimes I look at some of the stuff that people are purchasing. And I’m like, how can they make that work? Like why? Why do people? Why do people purchase some of the stuff that I’m purchasing? But I don’t know, I think there might be some opportunities coming up in the next year or two. And I’d like to get into multifamily. Yeah.
Mat Zalk 49:03
What’s attractive about multifamily with you?
Chris Cahill 49:07
I don’t know I think the scale of it, I see a lot easier ways to scale on that. Because that’s, I think, this year, we’ve seen a lot of growing pains. Kind of, I feel like I’m just I feel like I’m back into the construction mindset where I’m just chasing my tail. And we’re just always, always trying to find a new house, always trying to do this. Trying to purchase new property, always trying to look for something new. And we’re just drawing it one or two, one or two properties at a time where it’s like, you know, even if we’re buying fairly quickly. I mean, it still still takes a month, month or two to get in and out of the deal. Yeah, after we’ve purchased it. And, you know, we can only grow so quick at that, you know, there’s always So many deals out there to be found, you know, and in this area, it’s the question
Mat Zalk 50:04
is, if you’re growing, if you’ve got your crew and you’ve got your subs and you you like are moving at a steady pace, won’t multifamily buy a 50 unit property and all of a sudden you’ve got to renovate a whole bunch of units and wanted to tax your systems in a way that that could be uncomfortable.
Chris Cahill 50:21
Ah, I would say now, so I’m always, I don’t know, I’m like a high energy like, I always need to find something. Yeah. And I think right now, I’m just like, we’re just like grinding our wheels, even though, you know, you’re
Mat Zalk 50:38
making progress, but it’s making progress. That doesn’t feel but that doesn’t feel fast. It’s not fast enough. You can’t get to 10,000 Can’t get 10,000 doing one by one. Yeah, yeah. And
Chris Cahill 50:47
even if I don’t get to 10,000, I mean, you know, as long as I continue growing, like, I’m always trying to find something new, I’m always trying to grow myself, in every way possible, you know, with my family, with, with my business, with the relationships, you know, learning late learning, I’m trying to work on learning Spanish. And I’m just, I’m always trying to find a way that I can like better myself. And right now, I feel like, I mean, I could just do this forever. I mean, but then what difference is this from a normal job, just, you know, buying 20 3040 houses a year that the house is a year? Like, I just feel like that, that wouldn’t be any girl. You know, I always want to find something new and basically challenged myself. And I’d like to think that would be a new challenge to grow in multifamily. And it would be I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know, I just, I just see it as a challenge that I’d like to like to take on, you know,
Mat Zalk 51:50
let me ask you this on the growth and development side. What are you reading these days that that inspires you?
Chris Cahill 51:54
So, right now, I’ve been working on my Spanish and I speak with my contractors. I watch YouTube videos. Watch. I watched her. I watched Coco. Have you seen that Disney movie, which
Mat Zalk 52:16
was a great way to learn English by doing by watching Disney movies. Yeah,
Chris Cahill 52:21
exactly. So my daughter watches Disney movies a lot. So I watched him in Spanish. And I watched him with her hoping that she’ll learn to watch Coco in Spanish. And I also read books in Spanish and I my phone set to Spanish. Wow. Basically, I just Yeah, so I read like some short stories and stuff on on. My wife bought one of those tablets is on tablets fire. She bought it. She thought she thought Yeah, we thought she was gonna use it sat there for like a month or two. Like sort of downloads. I was like, I’ll take it. Yeah, so I started there downloading Spanish books and stuff. And I also I tried. I think I’ve got the next one. I keep trying to read it. I think stuff that’s a little too complicated for my screeners. But I’m trying to read it, you know, that book meditations? No, I like this famous philosopher. I think Mark is a really Oh, the old Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s that might be hard. Yeah, yeah, that’s the thing. So I I’ve read some of the like, previous for the books, and I can get through the little previous but yeah, I mean, that would be hard. That’d be hard. Because my my Spanish reading is actually pretty good. But you sit with a dictionary
Mat Zalk 53:44
I was reading. My Spanish is very good. I mean, I’m fully fluent. But I was reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez as really 100 Years of Solitude. And I probably read that book three or four times in English. And I started reading in Spanish. And I was like, Man, this is literature. This is literature. And it’s hard. And these are the words he’s using advanced vocabulary. And I was just sitting there with a dictionary highlighting and taking notes. It was it was really a challenge.
Chris Cahill 54:09
Okay, so how did you learned Spanish?
Mat Zalk 54:13
On sixth grade the same way everybody else did? I mean, it’s the same way everybody it was it was la PS pencil the blue mop and mama say yo mama or papa say Yama father Armano breath and like and I just picked it up and I ran with it. But I had really, really good teacher. So in high school, we did a trip to Quinta vaca south of Mexico City and South North. Yeah, outside of Mexico City. And we studied for a month and lived with the family and it was awesome. That was I just had a really good really, really good Spanish teachers. Yeah, so it made it much easier and then traveling around Latin America. Once you have a bass travelling around, it’s a lot easier and you get more in conversation. I mean, the beautiful thing about about Spanish and I also spoke Arabic for a long time. But the I should say I still do but I just haven’t used it very much. The beautiful thing about about Latin about Working cultures is a significant bar scene. And when you have a couple of beers, you lose your inhibitions. All of a sudden, you’re blabbing to the person next to you, you don’t care that you sound stupid. That’s how you really develop your language and Arabic gets much more difficult because you’re not a there’s like a, you know, a hookah scene and the tea scene, maybe caffeine does something similar, but not nearly to the same extent as alcohol does. You just lose all your inhibitions or blabbing away. You don’t care what you’re saying. It’s harder to learn Arabic, not just in the structure and language form and you know, the logic of the language, but also in that you don’t have any don’t have as many practical applications uses
Chris Cahill 55:29
for Yeah, yeah. And that’s really the best way to learn is just talking to people and things hard to start talking with you and my I need to meet up with you.
Mat Zalk 55:40
Next podcast in Spanish.
Chris Cahill 55:42
Oh, yeah. That was one of my goals. That was one of my goals is to be able to be so good to be able to do a Spanish podcast next years is it was my comeback. Let’s do it. And it’s actually it’s actually at the end of this year. But that, that’s also my other thing. My other thing with my Spanish is, I’m very uncomfortable speaking Spanish to people who speak English. So my contractors who are better English than me, I don’t know, I don’t know what it is. It might be. I don’t know, it might be my pride that I’ve just uncomfortable. Their English is better than mine. I’ll rarely speak Spanish. Like I’ll say a few things in Spanish or whether or not
Mat Zalk 56:21
you guys do in Latin America where they don’t speak English. I mean, it’s hard. It’s just, it’s because you’re going to default to the easiest path of communication. You’re only trying to learn Spanish because you have to speak to these contractors. And it just makes it much easier if you did, because that’s the that’s the path of least resistance. Somebody’s already easier in English. It’s hard to go back to Spanish and be like, I’m trying to work here. I’m trying to practice so let’s do this in Spanish and you have trouble when you stumble. You can’t actually get your message across. It’s
Chris Cahill 56:44
hard. Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s the thing is I because I’m buddies with all my contractors, and so off speak, I’ll speak to them a little bit in Spanish, and then I’ll start to stutter or not think of a word and then I’ll be like, like, if it’s like, if we’re actually talking about work or something. It’s like, okay, I’m going back to English because yeah,
Mat Zalk 57:02
that was that was a joke. Yeah, yeah. That’s the other hard part is you walk into someone you’re like, Oh, that one does this. And then they respond to you like, and you’re like, oh, no, I was just kidding. I was just kidding. Yeah, I don’t actually speak that. Well,
Chris Cahill 57:15
yeah. So that’s the thing is the guys who don’t speak English, I talked to them and I’ll sit there and sometimes I’ll talk to them for 30 minutes an hour just talking about life and stuff like that the other day and how their family is done and stuff like that. So that’s where I really get my learning is if when I’m with if
Mat Zalk 57:35
somebody wants to if somebody wants to either practice their Spanish or bring you an interesting real estate deal, how do they how do they reach out how do they find you?
Chris Cahill 57:45
Ah, I don’t really know I’m not really there’s no very Yeah, I have a Facebook I have a Facebook I have a LinkedIn but I don’t ever use I don’t ever use that. I try not to be a big social media guy. Can I then
Mat Zalk 58:01
if you have a deal if you have a really good deal that you want to wholesale to Chris Cahill, do not reach out. Now
Chris Cahill 58:06
reach me. Reach out to me just email me text me. Find me on Facebook. Hey, guess what
Mat Zalk 58:14
email? What email they pin you on? Just take.
Chris Cahill 58:20
Mat Zalk 58:22
Beautiful [email protected] I love it. Chris Cahill’s the owner of Cahill Property Developments here in Tulsa. His company purchases old and uninhabitable properties and provides updated homes for rent and or purchase in the Tulsa area. Currently, Cahill Property Developments holds around $6 million in real estate assets and is continuing to grow all the way to 10,000 homes. 10,000 doors and
Chris Cahill 58:46
doors. Yes, Chris, thank you for being on the show. You’re 40 years left. You got you got time.
Mat Zalk 58:51
You got that baby face. They’re still young.
Chris Cahill 58:53
I got plenty of time. But thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
Outro 59:02
Thanks for listening to The Same Day Podcast. Tune in to a new show each week, and be sure to subscribe to get future episodesMat Zalk 0:20
Mat Zalk Here I’m the host of The Same Day a Podcast where I connect with top business experts and real estate leaders has guests on our show have been Vondell Burns of Thankless Productions. Chip Gaberino, a local real estate entrepreneur and restaurants who are in Brook Reutter talking about contract for deed versus lease to own properties. We also had Will Gilbrech on the show from Franklin Heating and Air discussing some of the difficulties of growing and scaling a heating and air business. Today’s episode is brought to you by Chris Lile State Farm. Chris Lile State Farm helps you protect your most precious assets and investments whether it’s your home and auto investment rental properties or other valuables called Chris Lile State Farm for a quick and painless phone call to potentially save double digits on all of your insurance needs, visit diallile.com or call his office at 918-878-7771 Today’s episode is also brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management and Keyrenter Property Management. We are a full service property management company helping our clients buy renovate and operate real estate assets. We help our clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management. Listen, Chris, you definitely know how hard it is to line up contractors to get them make ready done in a reasonable amount of time. On a gut renovation or after a tenant leaves the property contractors are busy, the work seems to drag on forever and all that leads to lost rental income a Keyrenter we line up our dedicated vendors so that turns can happen super quickly and we get more money back into the pockets of our owners. That’s why no matter what rental you have single family homes, condos, townhomes, we have the management solutions you need go to keyrenterpmc.com or email us at [email protected]. Before we introduce today’s guest, I want to give a shout out. I generally do this as an introduction to the person that actually introduced me to the guest. In this case, it’s Google, I don’t think Google needs any additional praise. But we do get a ton of our best client leads from Google. Chris first found us at Keyrenter by doing a search for property managers on Google. So for what it’s worth, thanks for doing that. Chris Cahill is the owner of Cahill Property Developments here in Tulsa is company purchases old and uninhabitable properties and provides updated homes for rent and or purchase in the Tulsa area. Chris’s company Cahill Property Developments holds around 6 million in real estate assets and is continuing to grow. Chris, welcome to the show. How are you?
Chris Cahill 2:39
Good. Have you been?
Mat Zalk 2:40
I’ve been great. I’m so excited to have you on the show. You were just talking before the show. And I was like, no, stop, stop, stop, stop. Let’s talk about this in real time. Before we get back to the conversation on dumpsters, which is sounds like a ridiculous conversation. But it’s actually really interesting for for real estate investors that are starting to think about scaling their businesses, and you know how to save a little bit of money here and there and not pay vendors for as much stuff. Let’s talk about how you got started in real estate investing. When was it? What was your first deal?
Chris Cahill 3:08
How’d you kind of get the idea. So I actually started out and, and sort of the business by working with my dad’s drywall company. And I really just knew, I don’t know, since the beginning that I knew that I wanted to start my own company basically. And I was doing construction work. And I kind of started out with that stuff. And I was running around other people’s jobs. And it was just, I don’t know, I felt like it was kind of a pain to deal with the customers and do all this stuff. And, and that’s whenever I found out that I wanted to do real estate and kind of kind of do my own thing and be my own boss and I can get my own work doing that stuff. And really, it just originally had started out like I was basically purchasing the properties just so I could continue having work for myself and, and stuff like that. And I originally I had started as doing flips, and then I kind of realized that maybe doing rentals and stuff like that was the better option and just kind of having stuff you know, just having things that are just appreciating over time. Yep. So when we started in there being rented
Mat Zalk 4:25
when you started with your dad, you were actually swinging a hammer you were you are now is our Scripture.
Chris Cahill 4:31
I was he was actually a commercial. That’s the funny part is he was a commercial contractor. So I was working on like big buildings hanging drywall, metal framing, and I was doing like ceiling grid ceiling tile and all that stuff. And I had actually I had always known that I wanted to start my own thing and I had actually cut my hand really bad. I was doing some ceiling grid. And there was say, like, H vac unit that had a fan up there spinning up there without a cage on it, that some, some guy had taken off, like earlier and we didn’t know that. And I stuck my hand up there and it. Yeah, it pretty bad and had to get like 20 Something stitches, I almost lost my finger. I got really lucky though. And that’s kinda whenever I realized, like, I don’t need to be doing all this stuff like, I mean, I don’t need to, I need to find a way to make money to where I’m not damaging my Branca brain, you know? Exactly. And a lot of the guys that had worked with my dad, I mean, I’d seen some of them, you know, getting close to 60. And some of them over 60 where it’s like, you know, they can’t really move there. It’s hard for him to get up in the mornings and stuff, because they’ve been doing it their whole life. And that’s all they know, you know. And that’s kind of whenever I realized that I need to, you know, start looking at how I can find better ways to make money. And, and also, of course, my dad was always want me to go to school, and you know, stuff like that, and not do that type of work. But
Mat Zalk 6:10
But your dad was an entrepreneur? Yes.
Chris Cahill 6:15
Yes. And he kind of wanted me to get another job to work for somebody else. And I’ve never had that mindset. And it’s kind of funny, because I ended up going to school on getting a degree in mechanical engineering. Oh, wow. And I really, I did a lot of that, because him and my wife wanted me to, and I, I thought that it was a good route to take, you know, I was like, it’s always something to fall back on, you know, and I think it did help me a lot. And I think that’s where I really got my like, I guess I got my work ethic from doing a lot of that construction stuff. But that also, I think, help ingrain it into me to, to continue that into my like adult career, you know, because I was going to school full time, flipping a house. And working full time, I was working actually for my, for my mother in law, cleaning houses. She wasn’t my mother in law at the time, I was just dating my wife at the time
Mat Zalk 7:15
you’re recording, you’re recording your wife and proving to your mother in law that you can
Chris Cahill 7:20
provide for the family. So this is how it happened. I was working for my dad and then going to school full time. And once that, that next semester had started, my schedule didn’t work well working for my dad’s company. So I kinda stopped doing that. And then started that semester, I started cleaning cleaning houses for her. I think it was my junior semester, my first the first semester of my junior year. And so I started cleaning houses and I was like, Okay, I’m done, like waiting on real estate I missed since I was like, 18 that I wanted to do real estate, you know, I was like, I’m tired of waiting. Like, I’m tired of listening to people around me saying like, Oh, like that’s hard and all this stuff. And I was listening to people who had never done it. Yeah. And I was like, Okay, I’m kind of tired of waiting on that. And I went and bought my first house, my junior year. So I was working on the house myself. And I was going I had a full, full workday. I was working. I was getting up at eight, and then going to work. Or I was going to work starting at eight. And then working till like, on the days I didn’t have class starting at 430. I went, I work till about five o’clock. And then I’d go to school right after. So it was like, I think it was like Mondays and Wednesdays are Monday, Wednesday and Friday. No, I think it was Monday and Wednesdays, I had a class that started at 430 to seven. And then I’d have a class from seven to 10. And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I had a class that I think was seven to 10 every night. And then I think Friday I had a class it was I think it was like a six or no, it was a four I can’t remember I think is a six hour class taking a full load. Yes. And then I bought the house on top of that. So then it was like, even after that I was trying to work every week and then sometimes on the nights. I’d work if I got off early from class, I’d go to work like 11 o’clock at night I worked like seven to 11 or or nine to 11 If I could get off early and
Mat Zalk 9:28
you were doing everything yourself on that first house, your your Yeah, whatever reframing we had to hanging sheetrock, repairing
Chris Cahill 9:34
hanging sheetrock and learning how to do tile and stuff like that, and doing everything, putting the floors and everything. And yeah, it was a it was a full workload for sure. So,
Mat Zalk 9:45
I mean, I love I love this because there’s there’s, it happens so frequently, at least in our organization that I run by a house and I’m like, Why didn’t Why didn’t we just sweep out these leaves that yeah, you know, fine, we Open the house for for showings, it’s false, somebody open the door leaves blue in. And I’m like, somebody just has to come in here and do this. Yeah. And it often falls to property managers false to me. And I’m like, people see me as the head of the company. And I’m on my hands and knees with paper towel for cleaning some sticky thing on the floor. Yeah. And they’re like, Wow, I didn’t know you do this. And I’m like, Look, man, I have, I’ve worked my ass off for many, many years. It doesn’t mean I can’t work my ass off. Now. When I see things that have to get done, they have to get done. It doesn’t matter who doesn’t. We just have to get this thing done. And so your background and actually hanging sheetrock and doing real? Yeah, real work? Yeah, probably helps you significantly now it’s like nothing, nothing is too good or too dirty to, for us to do as entrepreneurs.
Chris Cahill 10:45
Exactly. And that’s, that’s also the thing with that is, I think it also helped me. So I had the I had the construction experience from my dad’s company. But I think it also helped me, you know, working on a house, because that’s a lot different than commercial stuff, of actually figuring out how things go together. You know, and I think, I think that’s one of the things that kind of gives me a leg up as being an investor is because I kind of know what steps in that process and when to bring people in and things like that. And I know how things need to be done. You know, if I see somebody doing something wrong, you know, I can tell when a contractor has no clue what he’s doing, you know? Yeah. And I think that was really helpful, you know, starting out doing my own stuff, because I’ve done multiple properties. So originally, that’s how I started was doing that, you know, doing all my own houses. Yeah. And so I’ve done a lot of houses, you know, where it was just me and partner, me and some family and me and my wife, my wife is help on some houses.
Mat Zalk 11:51
When you when you took your first step in entrepreneurship, did you envision it as being more glamorous or less glamorous than it actually was?
Chris Cahill 12:01
I think it’s about I mean, it is what it is. I mean, it’s not like I’m a celebrity. And you know, I just, it’s just a job, you know? Yeah. And I show up and I do it. And I also enjoy it.
Mat Zalk 12:14
You’re your own boss. Yeah, then go on vacation when you want to go on vacation.
Chris Cahill 12:18
Exactly. Exactly. And I think, I think that does help me being my own boss, because, you know, if I was working for somebody else, I mean, if I was working for somebody else, you know, petting dogs all day. If I mean, I still wouldn’t, you know, you’d still find something to complain about, you know, no matter
Mat Zalk 12:34
what if you was a terrible, I was a terrible employee for so long. Yeah. Yeah. The I think
Chris Cahill 12:39
there’s a really good employee. I just, I think I was one of those people where it was like, There’s no way that how do I frame this? I guess, you know, whenever, whenever I was working in banking, and construction, I teach all these people that you know, how to do things, and how to how to work and all this stuff. And I feel like constructions, one of the businesses, where whenever somebody learns how to do stuff, they’re stuck on their own. A lot of those people will end up starting their own company. A lot of them are really hard workers. And once they figure it out, why not just go work for yourself?
Mat Zalk 13:17
It’s like training a contractor age back HVAC. Yeah, that’s exactly it will eventually go be sorry, training an apprentice to journeyman and eventually they’ll just start a competing business. Exactly.
Chris Cahill 13:27
start their own stuff. Because if they’re a hard worker, and they know how to do it, why would you work for somebody else? And I think that’s how I was where, wherever I worked, I was always, you know, I’m not trying to brag, but I was always one of the hardest best workers. Yeah, because that’s how my parents had taught me, that’s just all I knew is to work hard, you know. And I remember working at Target and I had worked there for like, a month. And I remember they’re, like,
Mat Zalk 13:53
we need you to be a manager.
Chris Cahill 13:55
They were training me to be a manager there. These people had worked there for like years. And they’re like, looking at me, like kind of upset, like, Oh, they’re teaching you how to do that. Yeah. And then show up on time, every time. And I had worked there. It was, it was earlier in my college career. And I had, I had only worked there because it was able to fit around my school schedule easier than working for my dad was at the time. And they started like, trying to give me like, like a full schedule, because I was only supposed to be part time there. Yeah. And they started give me a full schedule. I was like, I was like, I had told him multiple times. Like I can’t, like I don’t really want to work in full schedule. Like if I’m working a full schedule. I’m gonna go work for my dad who is at the time paying me like 13 or 14 an hour. Whenever at target at the time. It was like eight bucks an hour. That was like, literally, if you’re gonna sketch like this, like I’m just gonna go work for my dad. Can
Mat Zalk 14:53
you imagine if you walk in you do a couple of days the managers like licking his chops just like oh my god, I’ve got A smart kid is hard work, and he shows up good work ethic, like I am going, I’m gonna ride the rest of my career on the back of this guy, exact thing.
Chris Cahill 15:10
Like, I was like, I was like, Alright, I’m leaving. So I ended up working for my dad again. Because that was the thing is I always had worked for my dad, on and off, I had worked for my dad working summer since I was like 16, or 17, you know, always doing that and always had something going on in my free time, you know, but
Mat Zalk 15:27
so so you start, you buy a house, you start putting a crew together, you’re doing most of it yourself, you start getting a couple of subs together, and you start Yeah, then you’re like, I just need to buy more houses, like keep these guys busy once you assemble the team.
Chris Cahill 15:39
So originally, I had started out as basically, we were kind of like a construction crew. And I had a buddy working for me at the time. And then I had another buddy work for me. And I was also I ended up started doing a little bit of work for another investor and things like that. And just
Mat Zalk 15:58
because that investor was like, I can’t find somebody to use work and, and
Chris Cahill 16:01
it also is more work for us in our downtime, because at the time, I didn’t know a whole lot about banks and things like that. And I was just I was buying houses, under, under my personal name. Yeah, and basically, you know, a 30 day clothes and having to get underwritten and all that stuff. And so there’s a lot of time in between houses and stuff like that. So I do work for i We’re still doing work for other people were still a construction company at the time. And then we eventually kind of stopped doing work for other people. And then, really, now the way we work is we basically just hire subcontractors and basically just oversee the projects and stuff like that. And we had we I mean, we do a little bit of stuff here and there when we need to, you know, but it’s really just subcontractors from here on out.
Mat Zalk 16:59
Did you when you’re doing the construction stuff? Did you ever get bitten, nonpayment delayed payment, somebody was like, this is not up to my standard. And you’re like, Man, this is a nice job I’ve ever done. You’re telling me it’s
Chris Cahill 17:11
that kind of stuff. That’s the thing. There’s always there’s always a level of something. You know, there’s always I wouldn’t say I never gotten bitten as in people didn’t pay. I’d get bitten as in Oh, I didn’t get the job high enough. I basically did it for free, or I lost money I paid. Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember whenever I was, basically, I was the only employee and I did a battery model for somebody that I had known. And actually a friend of our family friend, and I remember, halfway through, I was like, Man, I lost money on this. I knew I had a few weeks left on it. And I was like, and that was at the time I was still going to school was two and it was like, I knew I had lost money. It was like, just knowing the next two or three weeks or whatever. It took me to finish it for free. Yeah, that I’m paying that I’m paying. And I was like, Man, that sucks. But the funny thing is, I still got it done. The funny thing is still a beautiful bathroom, you know? Yeah.
Mat Zalk 18:15
So you can be proud. So you build your reputation on the back of what you learned in those early days. I find it surprising when when like, somebody that’s been in business for 20 years comes in and underbid something in like a very significant way. And then they come back to you and say I didn’t see that second, or third layer of shingles on there. This has never happened to me, or they underbid it and they come back. I need a little bit more money. And you’re like, Man, you’ve been in business for a long time. This is not your first rodeo. Yeah, I need you to be I need you to be better than this.
Chris Cahill 18:42
And that was kind of my other thing. So I think I was a bad contractor, in a sense, because I, I would do that I would bid somebody’s job. And I would I would never really upcharge him unless they were like something completely different. Like, yeah, there was all this like unforeseen stuff, and I would just
Mat Zalk 19:01
wood rot wood rot.
Chris Cahill 19:02
I would just Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would just eat the cost on everything, you know. And I really never asked for any more money from people because there was like, some jobs I made good on and some jobs. I did it. And that’s just kind of the way I saw it, you know? Yeah. And it was like, I think I undercharged a lot of people. And, and I and I overperformed on the work that I did, so it was like,
Mat Zalk 19:28
great for the client. I was great for the client. You ever worked our business? I mean, how does that translate now when you look at a house and you think, you know, I know what this is going to cost to remodel? Do you ever get it wrong, and you’re in it for way more? You don’t see the latent defects? You know, so
Chris Cahill 19:43
when more than you expected, there’s always stuff that is unforeseen, but um, I like there to be a cushion in the deals that we find. Yeah, and really, I’ve never lost on a on a property that are
Mat Zalk 19:58
real estate’s also. So forgive me Oh, yeah, on the buy and hold side, if you’re trying to flip things and you get it wrong, you ago, yeah, you’ve done all this work for free for months, and holding cost of your capital and all this stuff and you lose, it sucks. Ah,
Chris Cahill 20:09
and that’s also the thing is I know, a rough estimate of what it’s going to cost to do the job. And I always run my numbers, you know, and I like to make, I like to make a good amount on my flips, and, and whatnot. Anyway. So it’s like, you know, worst case scenario, I’ll still make, you know, 15 20,000 on a deal where it’s like, it’s like, Hey, I could be buying at a high price like some of these other people. But it’s like, I mean, where’s our cushion now? Yeah, what’s the point? How many flips isn’t done? Ah, so, kind of the business that we’re in is basically everything we do is a flip. So every rental that we have, we’ve flipped it, to hold it as a rental. Okay, so I’d say hi, around 50.
Mat Zalk 21:02
How many have you sold? How many of you, you keep it? How many to yourself?
Chris Cahill 21:06
So pretty much all last year, we didn’t really sell anything. And we, we, I think we gained probably 15 to 20 properties last year. Yeah. And and so this year, we’ve switched, we’ve been stolen a lot of stuff, just because rates are so high. And it’s so my, my idea for what I was. So last year, basically, I had bought a whole bunch of stuff. And I was like, okay, rates are going up. I don’t really care always be able to refinance at a lower rate. Yeah. So I was basically refinancing everything just right off the bat just refinancing it. And refinancing
Mat Zalk 21:47
meaning you’d buy it, you’d buy it on one rate, you would put the cash in and then you got to do the renovation and you’d refinance it immediately re refinance it. I mean, why would you not do a construction financing?
Chris Cahill 21:58
Note? So you had a construction draw? Probably because I don’t? Well, I would, it would be a hard money loan. I buy hard money. Got it? Yes. Okay. Okay. So I would do that. And I’m basically refinance everything just as soon as I could.
Mat Zalk 22:14
And when you able to pull out basically 100%, I mean, so the hard money approach is what I buy for 100, I put in 50. And then I refinance it at 200. And I’m 75% loan to value and I take out all of my cash and the equity that I that I built in the renovation is now you know, what I have the other approach is, you say to the bank, I want to do construction financing loan, it’s going to be 100 to buy 50 to two, you know, remodel, and they say, Okay, I’ll give you 100% of the acquisition or 85% of the acquisition, I’ll give you, you know, 75 80% of the construction. So you’re still in it for some cash. Yeah,
Chris Cahill 22:46
your approach was the former. So basically, everything that I purchase, I’d make sure that I was getting all my money back and even more at times, you know. And so I always was planning on that. And, I mean, if I got more than great, if not, then, I mean, there’s some, there’s some deals where I put maybe, I think, one that I did last year, I brought like 300 bucks to close on it. And I think that was,
Mat Zalk 23:17
I think serious track record. Everything else was less, where you got money by everything.
Chris Cahill 23:21
Everything else was less 10 or 20 grand. Yeah. On a refinance. How are
Mat Zalk 23:26
you finding deals in this economy and 2022? I mean, things were still things were crazy. Yeah. And prices that sellers were expecting, were still nuts. They’re still nuts today, and 20 at the end of 2023. Deals.
Chris Cahill 23:39
I think this this year has been harder. I mean, it’s a little harder for me right now. I still I work with all the whole all the wholesalers, I can find, I’m always like, hey, add me to your list. And stuff like that, and just talking with all of them. And I just tried to keep a I try to have like a relationship with everybody that I deal with, like in the business. And I think, I don’t know, I think that goes a long way because I never screw anybody over. You know, I do what I say I’m going to do if I tell somebody, I’m going to close, I’m going to close, you know, this
Mat Zalk 24:15
is a small town, you can get in trouble real quick by doing. And I
Chris Cahill 24:19
even I treat everybody like that wholesalers, everybody that I deal with, I treat like that and contractors. And I think that’s been helpful because it’s like, every time a wholesaler can’t get rid of something, or they’re running out of time or whatnot. They always come back to me and say, Hey, I know you said you’d buy it for this. Are you still okay to buy for that and stuff like that, you know? And I’m always you know, even if I’m their last resort, it’s like, hey, I’ll still buy you know, we’re gonna do I’m still here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, still got a deal. You know. And I think that’s been helpful because they now you know, after I close a couple of deals with somebody, they always know that, hey, of course that he’s gonna buy it for that price. He’s not going to come back and say Oh, hi the electricals jacked up or something, and I didn’t look at that or whatnot. Because, you know, if I walk through the property, and I know that I know that it’s going to fit into what I want into basically my Buy Box, then, you know, there’s nothing for me to argue about, I know that I’m getting a deal, no matter what that’s like, but there’s
Mat Zalk 25:20
a good lesson in here and not burning bridges and not like letting your ego get in the way. I think as soon as we realize that, like, fundamentally everybody’s out for themselves, you’ll be a lot happier in life. So when that wholesaler is trying to get more money, you’d have two approaches. You’re like, Oh, screw that person, you’re trying to get more money. He’s, he’s doing me wrong, he’s this, or you can be like, I understand. He’s just trying to feed his family or she’s trying to feed her family, and they’re trying to get the best for them and for their, for their seller and whatever else. So when they come back to me, you don’t have to be spiteful or vengeful. Or, or say, No, I, you know, I offered you 30 At the time now I’m gonna offer you 25 It’s like so fast. You can burn bridges very easily in a small town or any town. Yeah. Avoid doing that you’ll get the deals. Yeah.
Chris Cahill 26:01
Because that’s the thing is I could do that to people I could, you know, I could argue down and get everybody down on price and try to hurt everybody, you know, but then, I mean, what good does that do? Did they bring me there next year? Yeah, remind the next person they look for? Because I had it for a while where people were like, Hey, I got this, like, you know, I’m not even sending it to anybody else. Because I know, I’m gonna make my money. You’re gonna get it closed in the next week or two? And I have no questions, you know? Yeah. And that’s been very helpful. Just, I mean, treating everybody that way, you know,
Mat Zalk 26:33
our interest rates right now affecting your acquisition strategy or kind of hold my person.
Chris Cahill 26:40
Whenever I purchased not really No, I mean, I don’t really care. I mean, I try to buy it to where I can do whatever I want with the deal. I mean, if I want to refinance it and keep it, then I can, if I want to turn around and flip it, I can. Yeah, I tried to. I don’t know, I feel like I’m conservative. Whenever I purchased, I don’t, I don’t try to buy everything. I don’t try to make everything worked, you know, I just purchase what I know will work. And I never lose money. You know, by doing that. Even if it’s like, I just try to not I try to never buy anything risky. You know, if it’s too risky, I want it to work. Even at the low end, I’m still going to make my money. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, I’m not going out there and like, oh, well, if I take that risk, then I couldn’t make money. You know, I try to look at it. On the other side of things, you get what I’m saying? Where it’s like, I’m making my money, no matter what if I make money, if I take that risk, and I make extra money on top of that, then that’s, you know, that’s a blessing.
Mat Zalk 27:49
So let me ask you this. You’ve been historically from what I’ve seen of your portfolio, you’re fairly geography agnostic, you’ve got stuff in Jeongseon stuff in North Tulsa. Yeah. Like, there are multiple philosophies people say, I only want to buy in this area, school districts, whatever, you don’t seem to follow that approach. They’re also the they’re also multiple philosophies around to what extent you would upgrade an investor would upgrade the property, I want to I want to have a house that I would live in myself with my family, or, look, I don’t have to live here. This is a reasonable property for a reasonable person, different demographic than then I find myself in right now whatever, what is your what do you generally buy? Kind of what’s your Buy Box? What do you generally buy? And then how do you figure out to what extent you upgrade it. So
Chris Cahill 28:30
I, I basically always go off of what comparables are, for certain areas. So that’s why I don’t really care where the area is, as long as the numbers make sense, you know, and as long as I know that, I can make it make sense for my contractors as well. And so really, all by anywhere, I mean, that’s what I tell everybody, as long as the numbers work, I don’t really care, you know, so the numbers may work in the area to where it’s super low, and you’re not going to sell it to me for that price. You know. And so whenever I fix things up, I basically go off of what it looks like in the area. And I try to make, I mean, even if it’s a lower income area, I want everything to where it’s like, if my family had to pack up, if we, you know, if we got kicked out of our house, you know, fell on hard times, and we had to move into one of these smaller properties. Would I be comfortable with that, you know, and it doesn’t have to be super fancy, it doesn’t have to be any of that. But I want it to be a clean and nice house, you know, and I want it that’s the thing is like, I have some buddies that are also investors and sometimes, you know, sometimes people end up trying to overdo in a certain area and things like that. And I try to always, you know, kind of mentor them and say, Hey, don’t overdo it. Don’t overdo it.
Mat Zalk 29:50
Even grant it in there. Yeah. Yeah,
Chris Cahill 29:53
yeah. And, and, at times, I mean, if they’re in an area where it makes sense So then yes, for sure. And, and, and it also depends on what outcome you’re looking for if you’re trying to flip it or whatnot. I mean, it does make a huge difference whether you’re trying to flip it or rent it, you know, you may not need granite everywhere. I mean, if somebody sees for mica in a rental house, I mean, a lot of times they’re not even gonna notice the difference. They’re just gonna, they just want somewhere to live, you know, and it’s so hard for them to find places to live right now that it’s like, you know, as long as the property is cleaned up, looks nice. And you know, new paint on the walls. I mean, they don’t care whether it’s, you know, gold fixtures everywhere and everything’s just, you know, jumping out at you because they just were trying to find somewhere to live you clean it clean and reasonable. Yeah, yeah. And that’s kind of the way I look at it is everything needs to be cleaned up. And where I would be comfortable living with you know, if there’s, you know, roaches everywhere, you know, you know your wife Mike. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, if there’s roaches everywhere, mice everywhere, there’s grease stains all over everything, then it’s like, you know Yeah, it’s like that, you know, I don’t feel comfortable putting somebody else to make sure.
Mat Zalk 31:13
Tell me a little bit about we’re talking about dumpsters before the show. I want to hear about the dumpsters and other kind of little hacks that you’ve done to save money for yourself and improve profitability across the portfolio. What let’s start with the dumpsters. What was your what was the decision like to get your own dumpsters
Chris Cahill 31:31
back Starlet. It was about remember from April or May of last year. We had so many projects that were going on that we were using. I was doing the math it was around like two or $3,000 a month just in dumpsters because we purchased the house. Need a 30 yard dumpster to come out. Fill it up. Take it away that same day. We need another one the next day to fill it up. You know we may need two full dumpsters right off the bat on our house right when we purchased it. And yeah, so it was about two or $3,000 a month that we were just spinning, just keeping dumpsters at properties. So I was like, hey, what if we? I had always known about the dumpsters. And one of my buddies said something about Yeah, they have roll off dumpsters. They go on a trailer. I was like, no, they don’t. Like do they really? Like they just go on a trailer. So I don’t need actual truck. Freeze it. Yeah. Because I had never really paid attention to it. Sure. Now that they actually had roll off. You know, they actually go on to the actual trailer. I was like, okay, and I looked at I bought it. I bought a trailer and three dumpsters like, it was like, within that same week that he had told
Mat Zalk 32:46
me that, but that’s a $20,000 investment. Yeah,
Chris Cahill 32:50
well, so the trailer itself was $13,000. Wow. And then each dumpster on top of that was like five to investment. Yeah, it was 30 I think after taxes and everything was about $35,000 For my first three dumpsters. Yep. So what I did is I had purchased those all cash. And then I went back to my banker that I do my investment properties with refinanced all those. And
Mat Zalk 33:19
basically, who do you Who do you do all your loans with?
Chris Cahill 33:21
I use we St.
Mat Zalk 33:24
Cool. We see. So I interest formerly Tulsa federal credit.
Chris Cahill 33:27
Yes, yes. And I had built up such a good relationship there that, you know, even if I was getting better rates at other places that really, you know, the relationship I had didn’t really matter, you know, with the rates, because, because what I was able to do with them. So I had, I mean, I still use them. I haven’t been refinancing lately. But whenever I start refinancing again, I’ll head right back over two way street. So I still I’m still talking to him all the time. But back to the dumpsters. So basically, I refinanced those. And my payment on them was like, I think, like $500 a month. So it’s like, you know, I’m saving a bunch of money and I’m paying off those dumpsters. So flexibility. And I have the flexibility is the biggest thing, because I don’t have to wait on a dumpster if I need to go. If I need to go pick up stuff right now. I just send the guy over there, go pick it up. I don’t have to pay to set a dumpster. I don’t have to pay anything, you know. And even if I don’t fill out the dumpster? Well, I’ll just take it to the next house and fill it up there. And it’s that I think without even saving the money, I think the flexibility is the biggest thing because I never have to wait on a dumpster. And if I need multiple dumpsters in a day, I mean I have two houses that we’re working out in St. Paul for right now and they’re right next door to each other. And for a while while we’re doing the demo on that and cleaning out all the stuff that was inside of them. We needed like if we were using 30 yard dumpsters, we would have needed like probably five or six in a day, wow. You know, where it was like five or six just to start the job. So and my guys could have done that in, you know, a day or two. So it’s like, so it’s like we could just have, I could have just sit. So what we did was we just send somebody out there and just have two or three dumpsters out there time. I think maybe even at that time, we had all four of our dumpsters out there. Just, you know, cycling them, and what does it actually cost to take it to the dump? It really depends on what’s in there. It can be $100. I mean, sometimes it’s even $50 to, you know, to based on weight or based on weight? Yeah, yeah, got
Mat Zalk 35:38
it. So you have that much weight, you have the empty weight, the whole weight, or whatever else it says, tear
Chris Cahill 35:45
off weight or well, so they know what they do is they weigh the whole, the whole load, and then you’ll come back through and they’ll weigh it at the end. Got it. Once the dumpster is empty. And they call that your tear off weight or whatnot, and then you just pay for what was in it.
Mat Zalk 35:59
So you got to have a guy that’s willing, I don’t even know where the city dump is actually, there’s probably one down 75 somewhere. Yeah, there’s
Chris Cahill 36:05
one. There’s one, I think off of Peoria, and then there’s a good one. We just started wherever. So we do them in support. We’ve got one in support that we use a lot. And then one in Tulsa and then there’s one out and and there’s that indoor dompet broken error or whatnot. Sorry, weren’t
Mat Zalk 36:27
incinerate the trash. Now.
Chris Cahill 36:28
I think what they do is they’re more expensive. I think what they do is they just, they, like, shred it all up and like, separate it all. And then they load it off. When it’s
Mat Zalk 36:40
interesting. But so flexibility, you save a little bit of money, but ultimately, you just got control over your own
Chris Cahill 36:46
waste. Yeah, exactly.
Mat Zalk 36:49
What else? What else have you done that saves you, you know, incrementally I think in property. It’s so many industries must be the same way. But it’s like incremental gain. How can you save a couple of pennies, because fundamentally, you’re paying $100 today to get $1 every month for the next 100 months? And beyond? It sounds like anytime you can save a little bit your, your your Uh huh.
Chris Cahill 37:08
So I think one of our biggest things was, especially last year, we slowed down a little bit this year trying to, we’re trying to regroup and and get to where we can just take off again, like we did last year. And I also want to get into apartment buildings and stuff like that and start scaling kind of that way. But um, I think the biggest thing is the contractors and using my group of contractors, so a lot of a lot of the people that I used, just work for me. And I think that’s been very beneficial, because it’s like, if I have something in a different house that needs done and just send them over because there’s more triage property. Yeah, yeah. And it’s like, basically, it made it so easy that I don’t have to wait on contractors. Yeah, we were at the time, we’re doing like full remodels. It took us a month to fix it up and remodel it. Well. And by that time, by that time that we were done remodeling, my refinance was ready. Like, we just I just send pictures to my guy, we Street, send pictures, hey, remodels done refinancing. And then we’re refinance
Mat Zalk 38:22
and what do you what are you doing on plumbing on like stuff that he’s permits on? Ah, back and forth? Yeah, system. So
Chris Cahill 38:28
I have, I have three separate. I have electrician, plumber, electricians, one that we’ve always been having trouble with finding new electricians and stuff like that.
Mat Zalk 38:41
The trouble is finding is finding a good vendor at a reasonable price. And anybody. Yeah, whatever, and get somebody in there for $30 an hour. Exactly.
Chris Cahill 38:50
And also, our biggest thing is the time to so it’s like sometimes we’re paying more money. Sometimes I’m paying more money to get things done. Yeah, even though I know it’s more expensive. I mean, I know I’m wasting money, but I’m able to get into that next property quicker. Yeah, and the way that I saw it was I’m my money that I make is mostly on the equity in the property, not on the rental. Yeah. Which is kind of I think a lot of people see that as backwards thinking but I make the biggest money whenever I remodel a property. So the time is the most important if I can get it done quicker. And onto the next property. As long as that property is paying for itself with the rental money then, you know, the next property is the biggest thing. So really, the contractors and who I used was the biggest thing. So really, back to the plumbing and electric I just I just use the same guys always. And it’s just easier to always have the same person they’re always right there because I use them so much. The plumbing and electric and H back. Those guys have their own companies. But I think With all the work that I’ve given them, it’s helped. It’s helped them to be able to help start their companies. Yeah. But also I’m giving them a lot of work. So it’s like, you know, they’re right there every time I need them. Yeah. And all the construction type things like, you know, sheetrock painting, all that stuff is basically, I mean, there’s subcontractors, but it’s almost like they’re in house, because they’re really just working for me.
Mat Zalk 40:25
How do you pay your guys on the on the trades? Do you pay them weekly? Do you pay them monthly project paid start a little bit and a little bit.
Chris Cahill 40:31
I paid them weekly I so whenever I was a contractor, I would basically just do it. At the end of the job. Just every time I was a great contractor for a client. Yeah, I was too good. I was way too yet. I didn’t like being uncomfortable and saying, Hey, give me this, you know, sometimes I would take some money, like halfway just to pay for the materials and stuff like that, depending on how big the job was, or whatnot. But yeah, so I feel like that’s, I feel like that’s kind of hard for some contractors, especially whenever you’re using smaller companies, which we like using smaller companies, because they, I mean, they sort of rely on us. Yeah, they sort of rely on us to continue growing. continue growing with us, in a sense, you know, and so really sorry, what was your question?
Mat Zalk 41:28
The how often your passion was,
Chris Cahill 41:30
you said weekly, so basically, weekly, weekly, as I pay them, they give me a price to do the job. And I pay them based on how much is done at that every Friday. So in
Mat Zalk 41:40
essence, they’re smaller companies, they’re managing their people, you’re managing their cash flow for them, because they might not have the capability. They might not be super sophisticated business people, they may whatever, there are small organizations that don’t have big admin teams that can present to you. I’m 40% done, therefore, here’s my 40% invoice and you do that perform exactly. Do you do you at this point? Do you do any third party work? I mean, if somebody wants to reach out to you and say, Chris, I want I want help with a remodel any of that? No,
Chris Cahill 42:05
no. So the way that I say it is, like I said, we make all our money in the equity that we gave him. Yeah. And we make so much doing that, that if I make 1010, or 20%, overseeing a job, like me, that’s gonna be a, it’s gonna be $100,000 job for us to even, like really care, you know, to even make that. So, really, we don’t know, we don’t do anything for other people. And I share I like to, I’ll share contacts for like my heating their plumber and stuff like that. But the guys who weren’t doing my construction stuff, it’s hard for me to really grow, it’s hard for me to give them give out their number and stuff like that. Because, because I keep them busy. And it’s like, you know, if I give out their number to everybody else, and I don’t have the guys whenever I need, you know, and I basically, I basically paid them for like a year straight, just continuing to have jobs continuing to continue to put houses in front of them to work on, you know, so it’s, how many are you working on right now? Right now, now, I think, three, or four, and then we’ve got one, got two that are in contract to sell. And then, but one of those was a duplex that was rented. And another one was the one that we flipped.
Mat Zalk 43:27
And what is your at this point? What is your property management team look like? Who’s Who’s doing the work for you?
Chris Cahill 43:33
It’s basically just one person in the office. And she. So whenever I had started with you guys, at the time, I had never property management. And I was getting a deal from somebody that was seven properties. And I was like, I’m a construction guy. Like I’m not trying to get into property. So originally, I was like, Okay, I Googled a couple of companies, I called another company that came up, no answer, no, no return phone call. I found you guys. I was like, okay, so you called me right back, or I think I had gotten in contact with you was a perfect match. And that was very beneficial at the time, because I didn’t have the time to do that. I was worried about buying houses and and every time I purchased a property, I mean, I’m making all that money in equity that why was I going to spend all my time. Yeah, and trying to try to meet the contractors and yeah, and stuff like that to fix a toilet, you know. So that was so beneficial to help me start growing to where we could end up hiring somebody to do our own property management. Because now, the way that I saw now is that I had the money to hire somebody. And at the time, we’re bringing on so many new houses that it was like the amount of money that I’m spending to set a lease and do all this extra stuff that I basically, I could hire somebody, just to work for me even if you know, we only have like 30 Something, properties that we’re renting, but we’re bringing on so many that is going to be meeting with new people, meeting new clients, putting things out for lease releasing old stuff that is like it made sense to hire somebody, because we’re purchasing it at such a
Mat Zalk 45:26
fast rate and are using are using the good software now. Ah,
Chris Cahill 45:29
yes. Yes. And now we’re still working on learning it. We use. What is it? That shows you how much I look at it? Building? Building resilient. Okay, cool. Yeah. So I tried to use I looked at at folio, I think that’s what you guys used to? Yeah, I tried using that. But they said that you needed like 50 properties. To get started.
Mat Zalk 45:54
I wish you would have spoken to me about this. Because the trick is, the reality is you put in you say I’ve got 50 properties, because you’re paying a minimum fees, you’re paying, I don’t know $2 a door or whatever to fit the door. And then you say, oh, do I have 123 Main Street 234 Main Street three, four, or five, Main Street four, or five, six, or whatever it is. And you just be making them up until you actually have them. Here’s what I would do if I had to start over. I mean, we started when we first brought out folio on we had a multifamily property that we were managing. So we had the 50 doors, it wasn’t a big deal. But ultimately, when I when I talked to people that run up against this 50 unit, so stupid, because property at folio misses out on so much business because they’re not willing to work. So like you’ll be with building forever, because the pain points associated with switching that when you when you have 50 or 60 or 70 doors, they’re like you’ll never they’ll never get you back. Which is Which sucks. And
Chris Cahill 46:38
that’s what that’s what I said to with. And that’s what I had told the person who I had hired to do this. And if I didn’t really want to start with, with something that I wasn’t going to be comfortable with. Because I knew I knew. I mean, I’m so set in growth, that if I have a huge pain point, I don’t really care. I mean, I try to outgrow that. So I’m not really I’m not really focused on something that I know, I might be losing a little bit of money at. Because I’m so focused on, you know, such a bigger goal that yeah, sometimes I overlooked that, you know, and I knew that even if building was going to be a pain later on. It was like, I know, once we have to start with a no new program, there’s no way we’re ever going to switch. Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, it’s hard to do such a, it’s hard to do such a big switch. It’s painful. Yeah, it’s so painful. And I don’t even know if at that point, if the troubles that we’re having at that program, will the new programming and fix them? Yeah, why even take? Why even take the risk of switching it if we don’t even know if that’s going to help. So
Mat Zalk 47:45
we absorbed a business in in April 2022 that had that was using building and I found it. I’m an Apple user power user for the last six years. And I found it to be really, really cumbersome to use just the navigation of that of the of the interface and what they show what was available. How to pull reports and stuff was really painful. But once you get used to assist them, it doesn’t really matter. You just do it. You know how to do what you need to do. What’s your goal in terms of how many properties you want to get to?
Chris Cahill 48:13
I don’t know i It sounds crazy. But I tell everybody like 10,000 1000 doors 10,000 doors, not 10,000 properties. Yeah, but I’m trying right now to get into multifamily. And that’s why we’re still in a lot right now. I’m hoping that. I don’t know, I think there might be some opportunities coming up with rates going up in the next year or two, that there might be a might be a chance to get into some multifamily. But then again, I sometimes I look at some of the stuff that people are purchasing. And I’m like, how can they make that work? Like why? Why do people? Why do people purchase some of the stuff that I’m purchasing? But I don’t know, I think there might be some opportunities coming up in the next year or two. And I’d like to get into multifamily. Yeah.
Mat Zalk 49:03
What’s attractive about multifamily with you?
Chris Cahill 49:07
I don’t know I think the scale of it, I see a lot easier ways to scale on that. Because that’s, I think, this year, we’ve seen a lot of growing pains. Kind of, I feel like I’m just I feel like I’m back into the construction mindset where I’m just chasing my tail. And we’re just always, always trying to find a new house, always trying to do this. Trying to purchase new property, always trying to look for something new. And we’re just drawing it one or two, one or two properties at a time where it’s like, you know, even if we’re buying fairly quickly. I mean, it still still takes a month, month or two to get in and out of the deal. Yeah, after we’ve purchased it. And, you know, we can only grow so quick at that, you know, there’s always So many deals out there to be found, you know, and in this area, it’s the question
Mat Zalk 50:04
is, if you’re growing, if you’ve got your crew and you’ve got your subs and you you like are moving at a steady pace, won’t multifamily buy a 50 unit property and all of a sudden you’ve got to renovate a whole bunch of units and wanted to tax your systems in a way that that could be uncomfortable.
Chris Cahill 50:21
Ah, I would say now, so I’m always, I don’t know, I’m like a high energy like, I always need to find something. Yeah. And I think right now, I’m just like, we’re just like grinding our wheels, even though, you know, you’re
Mat Zalk 50:38
making progress, but it’s making progress. That doesn’t feel but that doesn’t feel fast. It’s not fast enough. You can’t get to 10,000 Can’t get 10,000 doing one by one. Yeah, yeah. And
Chris Cahill 50:47
even if I don’t get to 10,000, I mean, you know, as long as I continue growing, like, I’m always trying to find something new, I’m always trying to grow myself, in every way possible, you know, with my family, with, with my business, with the relationships, you know, learning late learning, I’m trying to work on learning Spanish. And I’m just, I’m always trying to find a way that I can like better myself. And right now, I feel like, I mean, I could just do this forever. I mean, but then what difference is this from a normal job, just, you know, buying 20 3040 houses a year that the house is a year? Like, I just feel like that, that wouldn’t be any girl. You know, I always want to find something new and basically challenged myself. And I’d like to think that would be a new challenge to grow in multifamily. And it would be I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know, I just, I just see it as a challenge that I’d like to like to take on, you know,
Mat Zalk 51:50
let me ask you this on the growth and development side. What are you reading these days that that inspires you?
Chris Cahill 51:54
So, right now, I’ve been working on my Spanish and I speak with my contractors. I watch YouTube videos. Watch. I watched her. I watched Coco. Have you seen that Disney movie, which
Mat Zalk 52:16
was a great way to learn English by doing by watching Disney movies. Yeah,
Chris Cahill 52:21
exactly. So my daughter watches Disney movies a lot. So I watched him in Spanish. And I watched him with her hoping that she’ll learn to watch Coco in Spanish. And I also read books in Spanish and I my phone set to Spanish. Wow. Basically, I just Yeah, so I read like some short stories and stuff on on. My wife bought one of those tablets is on tablets fire. She bought it. She thought she thought Yeah, we thought she was gonna use it sat there for like a month or two. Like sort of downloads. I was like, I’ll take it. Yeah, so I started there downloading Spanish books and stuff. And I also I tried. I think I’ve got the next one. I keep trying to read it. I think stuff that’s a little too complicated for my screeners. But I’m trying to read it, you know, that book meditations? No, I like this famous philosopher. I think Mark is a really Oh, the old Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s that might be hard. Yeah, yeah, that’s the thing. So I I’ve read some of the like, previous for the books, and I can get through the little previous but yeah, I mean, that would be hard. That’d be hard. Because my my Spanish reading is actually pretty good. But you sit with a dictionary
Mat Zalk 53:44
I was reading. My Spanish is very good. I mean, I’m fully fluent. But I was reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez as really 100 Years of Solitude. And I probably read that book three or four times in English. And I started reading in Spanish. And I was like, Man, this is literature. This is literature. And it’s hard. And these are the words he’s using advanced vocabulary. And I was just sitting there with a dictionary highlighting and taking notes. It was it was really a challenge.
Chris Cahill 54:09
Okay, so how did you learned Spanish?
Mat Zalk 54:13
On sixth grade the same way everybody else did? I mean, it’s the same way everybody it was it was la PS pencil the blue mop and mama say yo mama or papa say Yama father Armano breath and like and I just picked it up and I ran with it. But I had really, really good teacher. So in high school, we did a trip to Quinta vaca south of Mexico City and South North. Yeah, outside of Mexico City. And we studied for a month and lived with the family and it was awesome. That was I just had a really good really, really good Spanish teachers. Yeah, so it made it much easier and then traveling around Latin America. Once you have a bass travelling around, it’s a lot easier and you get more in conversation. I mean, the beautiful thing about about Spanish and I also spoke Arabic for a long time. But the I should say I still do but I just haven’t used it very much. The beautiful thing about about Latin about Working cultures is a significant bar scene. And when you have a couple of beers, you lose your inhibitions. All of a sudden, you’re blabbing to the person next to you, you don’t care that you sound stupid. That’s how you really develop your language and Arabic gets much more difficult because you’re not a there’s like a, you know, a hookah scene and the tea scene, maybe caffeine does something similar, but not nearly to the same extent as alcohol does. You just lose all your inhibitions or blabbing away. You don’t care what you’re saying. It’s harder to learn Arabic, not just in the structure and language form and you know, the logic of the language, but also in that you don’t have any don’t have as many practical applications uses
Chris Cahill 55:29
for Yeah, yeah. And that’s really the best way to learn is just talking to people and things hard to start talking with you and my I need to meet up with you.
Mat Zalk 55:40
Next podcast in Spanish.
Chris Cahill 55:42
Oh, yeah. That was one of my goals. That was one of my goals is to be able to be so good to be able to do a Spanish podcast next years is it was my comeback. Let’s do it. And it’s actually it’s actually at the end of this year. But that, that’s also my other thing. My other thing with my Spanish is, I’m very uncomfortable speaking Spanish to people who speak English. So my contractors who are better English than me, I don’t know, I don’t know what it is. It might be. I don’t know, it might be my pride that I’ve just uncomfortable. Their English is better than mine. I’ll rarely speak Spanish. Like I’ll say a few things in Spanish or whether or not
Mat Zalk 56:21
you guys do in Latin America where they don’t speak English. I mean, it’s hard. It’s just, it’s because you’re going to default to the easiest path of communication. You’re only trying to learn Spanish because you have to speak to these contractors. And it just makes it much easier if you did, because that’s the that’s the path of least resistance. Somebody’s already easier in English. It’s hard to go back to Spanish and be like, I’m trying to work here. I’m trying to practice so let’s do this in Spanish and you have trouble when you stumble. You can’t actually get your message across. It’s
Chris Cahill 56:44
hard. Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s the thing is I because I’m buddies with all my contractors, and so off speak, I’ll speak to them a little bit in Spanish, and then I’ll start to stutter or not think of a word and then I’ll be like, like, if it’s like, if we’re actually talking about work or something. It’s like, okay, I’m going back to English because yeah,
Mat Zalk 57:02
that was that was a joke. Yeah, yeah. That’s the other hard part is you walk into someone you’re like, Oh, that one does this. And then they respond to you like, and you’re like, oh, no, I was just kidding. I was just kidding. Yeah, I don’t actually speak that. Well,
Chris Cahill 57:15
yeah. So that’s the thing is the guys who don’t speak English, I talked to them and I’ll sit there and sometimes I’ll talk to them for 30 minutes an hour just talking about life and stuff like that the other day and how their family is done and stuff like that. So that’s where I really get my learning is if when I’m with if
Mat Zalk 57:35
somebody wants to if somebody wants to either practice their Spanish or bring you an interesting real estate deal, how do they how do they reach out how do they find you?
Chris Cahill 57:45
Ah, I don’t really know I’m not really there’s no very Yeah, I have a Facebook I have a Facebook I have a LinkedIn but I don’t ever use I don’t ever use that. I try not to be a big social media guy. Can I then
Mat Zalk 58:01
if you have a deal if you have a really good deal that you want to wholesale to Chris Cahill, do not reach out. Now
Chris Cahill 58:06
reach me. Reach out to me just email me text me. Find me on Facebook. Hey, guess what
Mat Zalk 58:14
email? What email they pin you on? Just take.
Chris Cahill 58:20
Mat Zalk 58:22
Beautiful [email protected] I love it. Chris Cahill’s the owner of Cahill Property Developments here in Tulsa. His company purchases old and uninhabitable properties and provides updated homes for rent and or purchase in the Tulsa area. Currently, Cahill Property Developments holds around $6 million in real estate assets and is continuing to grow all the way to 10,000 homes. 10,000 doors and
Chris Cahill 58:46
doors. Yes, Chris, thank you for being on the show. You’re 40 years left. You got you got time.
Mat Zalk 58:51
You got that baby face. They’re still young.
Chris Cahill 58:53
I got plenty of time. But thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
Outro 59:02
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