Real estate investment story breakdownfrom @marshallhaas

Transcript

Bought a 100 year old downtown building and turned it in 14 Airbnbs and nine offices. Here's the story and how it paid off. I was tier, and my startup was renting office space in this downtown Saint Louis building called the Ludwig. I lived on the 6th Floor, office on the 2nd. A few months in, the owner defaults. The bank owns the building now. Built in nineteen o five, rehabbed in 2007, worse closed in 2016. Two buildings were conjoined for 32,000 square feet. When I heard it was for sale, I started digging in. I already owned two Airbnbs down the street and saw a big opportunity. They wanted 2 and a half million. So we built a pitch deck, talked to investors, and started meeting with banks. The location was incredible. Walking distance to tier Arch, the Cardinals, the Blues, the Convention Center, everything. The plan was simple. Convert the 14 apartments into short term rentals using the model we'd already perfected. We negotiated and got it down to 1,750,000.00. To buy it, we raised $420,000 in cash and 400,000.0 rank twenty years with tier local bank. We closed the deal at the 2016. My cofounder put in 72,000. I put in a 175,000, literally everything I had. I even sold my car. 20,000 came from our business, and Ty invested the remaining 173,000. We started with four vacant units. My girlfriend did the interior design, and they booked up immediately. To save money, I did every turnover. Then at six units, we hired a housekeeper. At ten, we hired a general manager. We lived in the building, worked in the building, and in 2017, I got married in it. The wedding was in the empty Ground Floor space. As leases expired, we converted units. We upgraded my startup's office and the retail space eventually ran it out. We had the highs, full occupancy, thousands of five star reviews, and cash flow. And the lows, like the best who did a ton of drugs and jumped out of a window. Ugh. Or when the sewer line broke and dropped a massive best on us. Expenses were higher than we projected. Real estate is not passive. You're running a business. In 2017 to '23, we did 3,500,000.0 in revenue and 773,000 in net income. The first six years were strong, but in 2023, Downtown Best. Louis shifted. Fewer events, fewer visitors, more crime, and businesses closing. Our margins were shrinking. By then, we had all moved away, and the headaches just weren't worth it anymore. By 2024, I'd also sold my other company for life changing money. Managing a building wasn't my next better. So we sold for around 1,900,000.0. All in, my personal investment returned 525,000 between distributions and the sale. Solid win. The Ludwig was a thousand memories. It was our home, our hangout, our office, our wedding venue, and my MBA in real estate. Fall from our lessons from the journey.