The Secrets to Thriving in Real Estate Investing While Working from Anywhere with Kase Knochenhauer

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Jason Muth: 0:52

Welcome to The Real Estate Law Podcast. Thanks again for listening to us. Rory, we have a fascinating episode and a fascinating guest right here as I'm about to get devoured by a grizzly bear on the wall. We're talking to Kase Knochenhauer. He's down on Starlink you know which Starlink is a satellite connection on the internet? Is that is that what you're what you're living off of these days?

Kase Knochenhauer: 1:15

Yes, Starlink or Starbucks one of the two. So we're constantly at Starbucks Wi Fi or thanks to Elon Musk's Starlink when tree cover permits. So yeah, I'm sitting on the beach in the Panhandle right now. My wife and I travel full time with our two kids. So we live out of his little truck right here.

Jason Muth: 1:32

Look at that truck. Look at that thing.

Kase Knochenhauer: 1:37

Yeah, it's slow is all get out. But we were able to crawl over things as needed. And so beautiful location today, so.

Jason Muth: 1:43

So you know, worry, we didn't just find some rando that's camping on the beach, did we?

Rory Gill: 1:49

No, that's a different podcast. But here we're here to show people a glimpse of what FIRE could look like, for for different people. And you know, nothing better than to actually see it a little bit, you know, as we're speaking from our real estate office, and you're Jason up at one of the rental properties, Kase is on the beach in Florida, enjoying time with his family and his young children before they before they start school and do all of that. So we're, we're going to take everybody on a glimpse of, you know, what FIRE looks like and how you can get there.

Jason Muth: 2:23

Hey, Kase, can you take us through your story a little bit as to how you not only got to that lovely backdrop in Florida, but where it all started? I believe you're from Michigan, is that right?

Kase Knochenhauer: 2:37

Yes, sir. Yeah, from Grand Rapids, Michigan. So we we have a flip team up there. My wife and I are traveling started in November of last year. So we've been on the road three months now. And have the intention of going until we get tired of it. And we don't really know when that's going to end. So my my sister gets married in Portugal in October 2023. Yes, 2023 couldn't remember what year it was. So we kind of we've rented our house until then. And after that, we're not sure what's going to happen. So yeah, so how I got here, I started as a real estate agent, sort of fell into business by accident in 2016, I believe, grew a team and realized I didn't like my job anymore. And I did my taxes. And I realized I really didn't like my job anymore. Because I made more money flipping three or four houses than I did

Jason Muth: 3:28

Everpresence of technology. We lost Kase's video, but we still have audio, which is great. And we're just about to get into Kase's story as to how he got to where he is right now and Kase I know that you started up in Michigan. And now you're in Florida. And take us through a little bit about how you got to the position right now where you're traveling with your family and you ended up where you are right now.

Kase Knochenhauer: 3:51

Yes, sir. Yeah, so I grew up in West Michigan, we still run our business from West Michigan. But currently we're in Destin, Florida and heading off to Houston and eventually the Grand Canyon. So we're perpetually moving, you know, 50 to 100 miles a day. But kind of how I got here in business, you know, literally sitting on the beach, which is something people joke about, but just happens to be where I am today. So I started as a real estate agent in 2016. worked way too hard, made pretty good money and realized, oh, I should build a team. And I did that. And then my money stayed about the same, but I ended up hating my job after two or three years of building a real estate team, I just didn't really enjoy it. And so I did taxes, and then really realized they didn't like being a real estate agent, team leader. And so we transitioned our team into flipping over 12 months or so of flipping casually into realizing that it was better money and less stress. And so that really came because I read a book Perry Marshall wrote a book called 80-20 Sales and Marketing. And most people heard of the 80-20 being, you know, 20% of your effort gives you 80% of the results. And you know, I've always kind of known that, but where it really blew my mind was it's fractal. And what I mean by that is 20% of 20% gives you the 80% of the 80% of the efforts, which means 5% of your efforts give us 50% of the results. And that was like, Whoa, mind blown. And so we really focused our business on eliminating the fluff. And so I'm a real estate agent, I'm a broker, but I don't even list our houses anymore. And so we've taken the 20% of the 20%, and done our best to sort of eliminate and really focus our business on on flipping homes and acquisition. So that that's the big sort of six year summary is real estate agent to team leader to flipping everything, and then doing everything to really focusing on just the acquisition. So we hire out the listing side and growing a team to sort of run things in my virtual absence. So I still work 6am to noon, five days a week. So I run an active proactive business 25 hours a week, and I react about another 15 hours a week as calls come in. So that's sort of how I got here today.

Jason Muth: 6:23

What you're doing right now where you're in your is it a Toyota Tacoma with with a big camper on the back, right, so you guys will sleep there you go to campgrounds and the family camps out in that vehicle?

Kase Knochenhauer: 6:37

Yeah, it's a very small camper. So I'll turn my video on briefly. So this is the this is our truck right here. So it's 22 square feet, for our family of four, and a dog. And I'm not sure if you're asking if this was the goal. And this wasn't the goal, to be honest. So we started with a school bus and then went to an ambulance. And every one got halved in size and twiced in cost was the was what sort of happened. But we I always had the goal of sort of retiring in terms of like, I think you mentioned FIRE earlier, Rory or Jason. And the idea of like, you know, financially free and retire early is something I've always had and and the retire early isn't the part though, but financial free, and work because I want to not because I have to it was really the the goal I had and in living on significantly less than we made is focus I had very early in life.

Rory Gill: 7:37

Yeah, clearly you have a you know, a lot of mobility. But when you're talking about how you work in real estate, those are some still very active jobs, you know, house flipping, real estate brokering, even if you optimize everything great, those are still there's still active income, those are active pursuits. Tell me a little bit more about how you were able to get assistance and help and support in virtual assistants and everything to do all that work. Quite frankly, it's something that I struggle with on an ongoing basis, being able to find the support and set up the systems outside of myself. And you've done it to such a degree, I'd really love to hear your take on how how you build up that infrastructure.

Kase Knochenhauer: 8:19

Yeah, I built the infrastructure twice. The first time I did it very badly. So we hired agents and virtual assistants, and I was primarily the hub, where people reported to me. And I realized that was when I built the brokerage I realized it was a very poor business model. And so I upgraded my business partner now Tyler, to sort of an integrator role. So visionary integrator and approaching the business from a two headed beast style where we realize we each have strengths and weaknesses. And his as the integrator, we've really realized that if I can, if I can do a very great B process, he can fix it. And so we always say I sort of blazed the path and he fixes what I break. And so that's been a big change is bringing in a partner in the business first, and the second is being okay if people do things differently. So our team at this point is myself, my business partner is the integrator. Our operations team is a transaction coordinator. I'm currently sitting in the seat of a like flip manager, which is a pretty part time role, maybe five hours a week. So I manage our six contracting crews. And then we have a sales team, which consists of my Integrator as sort of like the head of sales, a salesman that's local, and then we have two virtual assistants that run our text and mostly response so we do inbound and referral marketing so probably 50 to 60% of our business comes from real estate agents that call us and say, Hey, I got a house, that's great for you. And so that's sort of what our team looks like. We also have one virtual assistant in the Operations Department, which largely does utility management. So we're operating somewhere between 15 and 25, flips at a time. And it's a, it's a full time job to turn on and off electricity. So that's really what, what she's sort of sits in at what our team looks like. But in terms of like, how do you build that is really good question. And I always have been thinking, I started backwards, and it's like, what low level position can we hire, but it's working better to think top down? Like, what can I get rid of, to handle the next report. So instead of saying, I'm gonna hire virtual assistants for myself, it's been, I want to give part of my job to one of my current employees. And what that means is they don't have time for it. So I need to hire them a virtual assistant. And that's been a much better perspective, than I need to hire myself a virtual assistant, and because then you're creating another department. So that shift of perspective of okay, I'm going to have to give Tyler half my job. So in order to do that, I need to hire him somebody. And we realized it couldn't have been a virtual assistant. So I need to hire him somebody local, but they need a virtual assistant. So it's funny, the backers perspective have to save myself time means I need to hire my partner, a local person so that they need a virtual assistant. So it's a very backwards mentality of saving time means I hire somebody else for somebody way, way down the line. And that's been a big, big perspective change, I've sort of had to shift over the last three years.

Jason Muth: 11:41

You know, thinking back 2016 is when you said, you started as a real estate agent, you know, that's only seven years ago. And now you're at the point that you have this, this company that sustains itself with your involvement, and a portfolio of properties that you know, I'm sure generate cash and wealth for you guys to be able to hit the road, and give your family the experience that you're giving them right now. Talk a little bit about how you found your business partner. And that pivot that you made, when you realized that being an agent and being a team lead were not the direction that you wanted to take things, you know, for the subsequent years after you made that decision.

Kase Knochenhauer: 12:26

Yeah, I found my business partner accidentally, I actually, I hired him as a photographer for an event. And I hired him as an agent. And then I've always sort of like, had that perspective of who not how. And I realized that Tyler was an excellent who, and was really, I was sitting in his seat. And so I think the we follow the EOS Model, which is the same author as the wrote, Traction that wrote Rocket Fuel. So that's really where we got the method of integrator and visionary. And I realize the the idea of like, do you have the right people in the right seats. And so that was a, it's been a two or a three year transition into creating seats. So I mentioned like, I am currently the flip manager. At some point, I'd like to hire that out. I'm also our current CFO, which is something I'd like to hire out. And so realizing like you know, who's in the right spot, and who's in the wrong spot, or is the right person but in the wrong seat, and transitioning people, so that they're in the right place at the right time is really important. Previously, I'd made, I think, very good hires at very bad times. Um, so I hired a salesperson when I absolutely should not have I should have hired a, you know, an integrator or a CFO or something like that. But we hired my last salesperson we just hired Matt is doing a fantastic job. But the person I hired five years ago, and never should have done, good guy, great salesperson, but at the wrong time. So I'm not sure if that answered your question. I gotta look at it a big circle there.

Jason Muth: 14:52

Yeah, we're fascinated for you to tell our audience how you've been able to put together the team that you have, you know, because again, thinking back seven years ago, I'm sure we all think back to our lives seven years ago, and you've built all this in that span of time, you know, and a lot of people are kind of still either spinning their wheels or they're going a little more slowly or they're going at the pace that you know that they want to be going at. But you know, there is the ability to go quickly if you're finding the right team members, putting them in the right seats and kind of going forward the right way.

Rory Gill: 15:27

I guess I just want to ask a question that maybe would benefit almost any business right now where people are doing a lot more work from home and hybrid working. How do you maintain kind of group cohesiveness and a culture within your companies with people working together? If you're not actually seeing each other face to face and building a relationship the old fashioned way?

Kase Knochenhauer: 15:51

That's a great question. I think the first thing is consistent communication. If you're not going to see people, it's important to communicate. So we have a Google chats, we say, Good morning, every day, we have a weekly, every week, unless you've got like an immediate death in your family or you're on vacation, you're at our our weekly meetings. And so we do that. We have good measurables, that we're keeping each other accountable for our goals, top down accountability. So if I'm not making the phone calls, how on earth can I expect my salesperson to make the same phone calls or, you know, meet my goals, if you can't meet his goals. And I think the last person is, and this has been, again, another slow transition is the realization that we need to keep team values. So we have four values, which I'm praying I can remember right now, because we just changed them very slightly. So we have an acronym, FAST. And so the the first is full of grace. So we understand people make mistakes. The second is adaptable. So we're a small team. And larger teams, maybe this isn't relevant. But for us, we need to be adaptable. So someone needs to be able to transition their their job and move from listing houses to flipping houses. The next is S and that is self directed and accountable. And that's the change we made is adding accountable, into self directed so somebody that we can hit her head a project to and is going to take it from start to finish. And we know that can do it themselves. And the last is teachable. And so those are what we've defined. And the reason we came up with those values is we looked at the people that were on our team, and the people that we wanted on our team, and we said, you know what our if if in three or five years, we're going to like take over our market and be the team we want it to do, what are those values in our team? And what are the values that we want.

Jason Muth: 20:06

So Kase, where is your portfolio of properties? Is it throughout Michigan or concentrated in some cities? Or you working in multiple markets across the country?

Kase Knochenhauer: 20:18

Yeah, we we own 104 units, primarily small multi, we own two apartment complexes of 23 and 24 units, one on the east side of Michigan, one on the west side and the rest are primarily single family and small multi in the west side of Michigan. And then I'm a fractional owner of two triple net industrial properties in Chicago and also West Michigan. So my goal is to sort of transition into to larger industrial over the next three to four or five years. So primarily the Midwest at this point.

Jason Muth: 20:54

Is that transition part of the current company that you have? Or are you launching a new company if you're gonna transition into some more industrial real estate?

Kase Knochenhauer: 21:03

Great question. It's a it's an argument, my integrator and I have constantly have of where do we focus and I think I think it's probably going to start with the department. So we'll probably add a sales department that is industrial, which is going to be myself for a while, and maybe a broker to identify larger industrial properties. And I see us probably doing both for a while, and maybe in five, six years shutting down the flip business as acquisitions become more lucrative. It's also sort of market dependent. And, you know, I, I think where we thrive as a team is sitting where the, you know, sitting in front of the money, I think, is a good way of putting it. And I can predict a year from now I have a lot of trouble knowing what the market is going to look like in three, four or five years. And so I think that is it another company is a hard question to answer today. But I'd say it's either another company or another department, two or three years, we probably won't be shutting down the flip team yet.

Jason Muth: 22:05

We had a fantastic guest on almost a year ago at this point about industrial real estate, his name was Chad Griffiths. And Rory was he out in Edmonton, was that right?

Rory Gill: 22:15

Edmonton or Calgary is up in Alberta.

Jason Muth: 22:17

I think it was Edmonton, but I might have that wrong. And you know, we don't really talk too much about industrial estate on this podcast. But you know, it was definitely food for thought when he came on, it just opened our eyes as to really what the world of industrial real estate is. And not to go down that road too far. But I think it's worth bringing up now as you know, kind of the real estate world shifts around us. And investors, like yourself, Kase, are looking toward the industrial category, maybe as a way to either round out your portfolio or to shift a component of your portfolio because of something that you must be seeing. So what are you seeing that makes you interested in that space?

Kase Knochenhauer: 22:55

Yeah, that's a good question. Part of it is just size and simplicity. So we have 50 properties at this point. And it's 50 roofs, 50 furnaces, 50 driveways, it's a lot of tenants. And so I've sort of always built, I've always had the idea that I'll collectively build a portfolio. So we, the reason we do single families is because we buy equity. I don't buy them, because it's a great rental, I buy them because it's a great equity. And what I mean by that is I'm able to buy something for say $50,000, put 30 into it, that's worth 120. So instantly, I made 30 grand whether or not it cash flows really well or barely at all. And the vision I've had is acquiring, you know, say 150 pieces of property, and then sell them selling them off in bulk. So to some investor that says I'll buy 30 of them at at 85% market. And for me, I don't really care if if I sell them in a small discount, because I'm able to 1031 exchange a large portion of equity into something that takes less time. And that's been sort of the vision I have is and the question I think the reason I'm looking at industrial today is because we have a key partner that is currently doing industrial. So I'm jumping in as an equity partner, and not a time partner on those acquisitions. I've seen them grow substantially. And that's a very attractive portion. But it could be you know, maybe three or four years from now, we find that the multifamily is more attractive. So I'm flexible, but size brings benefits, and one is time and the second is tax benefits of you know, if I can reduce 50 parcels into five, two things happen. One, I save time. And the second is I can simplify and open up some benefits in terms of cost segregation studies, that can really simplify the tax burden. So this year I'm one major goal I had is not paying taxes, which I'm happy to pay my fair share of taxes and this year, I had some substantial losses and large cost segregation studies that will roll losses forward into future years. And so well this is a short term, option or benefit I'll say large future industrial properties simplify and multifamily simplify the cost segregation study. For your listeners that maybe you don't know what this is, you can do this on $100,000 single family home. So there's some great software out there. One is we've used this I think it's KBKG And it's maybe $450 per property. But what it does is it separates the, you guys are going to know this a lot better me than as a real estate attorney and accountant, but it separates the non real estate from the real estate is a really easy way of putting it. And so maybe $100,000 property, they'll identify $30,000 of non real estate and I'd be like fridges, and drywall and roofs and carpet and driveways. And you can use that as a tax deduction. And I think until the end of 2023, if I'm not mistaken, and maybe 2022, you get 100% deduction on that value. And I think decreases at 20% for the next five years or something. So the some of the benefits are disappearing over the next few years. You're able to, you know, effectively reduce your tax burden by your down payment basically, if you buy something leveraged at about 75%, which is a very attractive way to pay Uncle Sam a little bit less, so.

Rory Gill: 26:38

Anybody who's into buy and hold investments right now for the next few years should understand what a cost segregation study is. And also read the requirements for being a real estate professional or having your spouse be one. That's the magic combo to get the most out of your taxes. And it's something that we backed into. It's not something we planned in advance, but I know that that's transforming our position too.

Kase Knochenhauer: 27:01

Yeah, it is in in Rory too. And this is something to bring up is some some listeners may say, Oh crap, I bought something that didn't do a cost segregation study. Yes, but you can also do cost segregation studies, in hopes to get this backwards arrears are in advance or backwards. So you can backdate a cost segregation study and fix your taxes from last year the year before, which is unbelievably cool. And so if you bought a bought a big apartment complex, you can actually fix your taxes from something needed last year, the year before.

Rory Gill: 27:31

And it's it's a little bit messy to go back a couple years, it's a much simpler way to do it to do it. Today I'm going to respectively but it exists. If you have particularly a higher cost property that you bought a few years ago, it's still worth it's worth jumping the hoops. Particularly if you have you know, a good cost segregation study and real estate professional status.

Jason Muth: 27:53

Yeah, I mean Kase, it's almost like you were a fly on the wall in our house for the past six months. We've, we've brought up cost segregations have come up a lot on our podcast recently. The property I'm sitting in right now, we just did a cost segregation study on that a few weeks ago. So we did that to revise taxes, as we're planning to do before we file this year. And you know, I think that people get into real estate investing because they see other people that are doing it, they know that real estate is a good buy. But they don't necessarily know all the ins and outs of why it's a good buy until they get deeper into the strategies such as offsetting active income, or passive income with cost segregation studies and 1031 exchanges, all the stuff you've talked about, you figured out, we're figuring out, you know, everyone figures out at some point, they might figure it out from day one, or they might figure it out many years later. But this is what the real estate investor world is doing to be able to grow folios to be able to have more capital to invest. And, you know, this is the way the tax law has been written. It favors real estate investors, and you can make the argument that real estate investors are taking on a lot of the risks on putting a lot of capital for these properties, but they're doing good things for communities, they're providing housing for people, you know, this is a long list of reasons as to why it seems like a cheat code. But it was written for a specific purpose, I guess is all I'll say there.

Kase Knochenhauer: 29:25

Absolutely. And you brought up, you know, I think a lot of questions are in what assets should I invest in? How do I get started? Where do we put my money? And I think some investors wait until they think they have everything figured out but you'll never know. And I would go where the knowledge is. And what I mean by that is the reason I did industrials, not because knew anything about it, it's because my partner did. And I went there because I had access to it. And so if your uncle is a multifamily investor, it's a great place to go. If you know a tiny bit about something, go find more people and keep chasing the partnerships are the reason we could go from A to B to C. And just like you mentioned, I think a lot of people try to figure out everything. And they you know, then they never do anything. And so you'll you'll learn things, unfortunately as you go in, but you'll learn faster if you learn from other people. So,

Jason Muth: 30:21

Yeah, a question I have about your life when you just started with this endeavor back in 2016 as a real estate agent, did you have it mapped out to basically where you are today? Seven years later? So on the beach in Florida?

Kase Knochenhauer: 30:34

Not at all. No, I knew I wouldn't work a long time. I'm so I knew I wouldn't be a real estate agent forever. I did it because I studied geology in, in university, and I didn't know what else to do. And I didn't want to be away from home working in oil for 11 months of the year. So no, I knew I, I knew I'd be done working at 35. I mean, you know, for me, it was pretty easy doing the math starting at 25 years old, like, Okay, if I work hard for 10 years, and you know, we lived on $32 to $35,000 a year until we had children, and then it jumped to 45. So we live on very little. And so I knew like, Okay, if I make decent money, I can save money quickly. And I can actively retire, and really focus my time on my children and my wife and, and building businesses and having fun money. I didn't know what I knew. I knew what if I could offer but I didn't know what it would look like, is maybe a good way to answer that. So yeah, being a real estate investor. I think I knew I would be part time, but I didn't think I thought it'd be an I thought I'd invest in real estate. But I didn't think that'd be what my job is. And that pivot is something that happened sort of slowly, looking back as like, oh, it was kind of obvious. But no, it's something I didn't I did not think I'd be here. I also didn't think I'd be on the road full time. either. That's, that's sort of a relatively unexpected occurrence as well.

Jason Muth: 32:06

With two children or three? What do you have?

Kase Knochenhauer: 32:09

Two kids. Two kids and a dog. So they basically three yeah.

Jason Muth: 32:12

Rory and I did a week in a Airstream with a 18 month old at the time. And halfway through the trip. We're like, we gotta go home right now. I think you you either have, you know, far more patience than we do or things are just going a lot better.

Kase Knochenhauer: 32:32

Being on the road, definitely. So especially small. So a lot of people hit the road in something really big. And it's basically a mobile house, you know, something they have to still clean and still work on. Because our truck is so small, there's amazingly little to do. So I work from 6am to noon. And my wife is like having breakfast, and I play with the kids. And then we make lunch and we play with the kids. And then we make dinner and we play with the kids. It's like it's weird, because we don't have cleaning. Dishes are we've you know, four cups, four plates, four bowls. So it's because we're so small, it's removed a lot of the responsibility. And I think it's allowed us to see things a little bit easier. Where you know, like being in an Airstream is you know, it's a fair sized vehicle, my guess was, and suddenly it's like just being at home just somewhere else. And there's been so uncomfortable and so small has really simplified our living and given me a lot more patience than maybe I didn't have before. Which which is a huge benefit that I don't think I really realized at the time when we picked this vehicle.

Jason Muth: 33:45

Are you a follower of Mr. Money Mustache?

Kase Knochenhauer: 33:50

I am aware of who it is and I've I've heard him speak but I'm not a avid follower. But yeah, I love his message of I think you know, and I would say I'd say Mr. Money Mustache and I'd probably give it a get we'd get along well, we spend very little. And I love being frugal. Like I get a big kick out of staying at Cracker Barrels all the time because it's free. Yeah, like I love that, you know, we use their internet we stay in their parking lot. And you know, the idea of spent spend $1 to save $1 Or save $1 To earn $1 Is is a is a I think that's a big overarching theme he has

Jason Muth: 34:24

From what I understand I think you guys are getting along really well. I think he might look at your your vehicle and say well, maybe you could do this on a on a bicycle instead. So you know, we'll we'll get to our final questions and then Kase you could tell everybody how they can reach out to you if they want to follow your adventures and learn more about you. But you know, Rory, just one one comment I have I mean like I'm going to sound like the old fuddy duddy here. That's even a word I should use. But did you at 25 years old have that same message taught to you that that Kase learned a lot of younger people in their 20s are learning that they're like, oh, yeah, I'll work for 10 years and that's it. I mean, I'm in my 40s I came out of college and it was like alright, well what are you going to do for your life? Here were 40 years and retire. And somewhere along the way, I figured out I didn't have to work until 65 to get to the point that I was super happy with what I had, you know, and I'm certainly working more than I am than I ever have now. It's just work for myself instead of work for somebody else. But I didn't figure that out so I was in my 40s. Like Rory what what was taught to you.

Rory Gill: 35:28

It's almost the opposite. If you go to grad school, go to law school. Don't worry about the debt. Just take that on and then you know after 25 years, it's forgiven anyway, so lesson that, that was taught to me and you know, you'll make more money if you go to school longer. And you know, listen, there's there's value in education, there's value in what I learned. But the way I went about it was kind of a lesson of that, or it was a product of that lesson. And, yeah, there, it was not the way to go. And it's not what I would advise other people to do.

Kase Knochenhauer: 36:00

And I, you know, I say, retire at 30-35. When you live on so little, you can retire on a lot less. And there's a big difference between saying, I don't have to work. And I'm working because I want to, and I have to work because, you know, so many people are broke and make $300,000 a year, because they live on $305,000 a year. And, and we spend very little you can, you know, it's like, our biggest bill is Starlink. Yeah, we don't, we don't have we don't have big expensive bills, and we live really cheaply. And we make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and, you know, 35,000, we're probably down to 35 grand a year, again, as personal expenses. And, yeah, if you live a simple life, you can work a lot less. So, yeah.

Jason Muth: 36:52

It's an amazing lesson. I think that, you know, we're also focused on what we see on social media, and, you know, fancy cars and fancy trips and beautiful, you know, just extravagance. And sometimes you could be happy without the extravagance and still be wildly successful, you know, have a huge nest egg or a nest egg. That's enough, that you're comfortable. And not live that ostentatious lifestyle, but live the lifestyle that you want to live. And it's, you know, it's a lot of credit to like figuring that out along the way. I think that the word retire retired is being misused a bit, but people that are retiring early. I wish there was a word for it, maybe there's different word for it, because none of us that are retiring early are retired, right? I mean, like you're working hard on the businesses that you have built up, you've mentioned you work from six to noon, and some other hours afterward. But retired in my mind is, you know, it allows you're retiring from having to work for somebody, and you're reclaiming your time to choose to do it with the people that you want to work with. You know, it's probably the best. But yeah, there needs to be a different word. Maybe another another language has a different word for what we're trying to get out of here. Yeah. Well Kase, we ask these three questions of all of our guests that come on the podcast just as a way to wrap things up and learn a little bit more about you. They're really simple questions, no gotchas here. Question number one we have if you can get on stage for a half an hour, and talk about any subject in the world with zero preparation. What would that be?

Kase Knochenhauer: 38:33

What we've been talking about, like, amped up about, so I could talk about like living away less, and a lot of people want to make a lot more money so they can retire. But you know, to me, it's like, I can talk about living a simple life. And I think that would be it'd be an entertaining, entertaining thing. So simple life, real estate, I would say simple life, real estate.

Jason Muth: 38:53

Second question we have tell us something that happened early in your life or career that impacts the way that you're working today.

Kase Knochenhauer: 39:01

Early in my life or career. Yeah, I, I worked with a gentleman named Kelly. He's a real estate agent. And he's always pushed me to be uncomfortable. And and I would say, I asked him, like, how do you prospect and how do you work? And how do you make money and, and he said something like, If you wake up every morning, and realize there's a $10,000 check sitting on a table waiting for you somewhere, you just have to go figure out where it is. And I've always liked that. And, and that vision of finding where you need to work is a really good question. And so like I said, sitting in front of the money earlier, I think that's a really good perspective of you don't have to do what you're doing today. So change your business to go sit closer to the money and and oftentimes that means you can work less and enjoy yourself more. And that vision of like looking for the $10,000 check, I think is a really good picture of of simplifying your life and simplifying your business and being more efficient with what you do.

Jason Muth: 40:14

Rory do you have that check right there on your desk?

Rory Gill: 40:16

I'm still looking for it.

Jason Muth: 40:18

Yeah, I have I think I have like, I don't know. 18 bucks in my wallet. I got cash.

Kase Knochenhauer: 40:24

You pulled that out fast.

Jason Muth: 40:26

I pulled that out fast. My wallet is sitting right here. I'm one of the last people in the world that still carries cash around. Final question we have for you tell us something that you're reading or watching or listening to these days.

Kase Knochenhauer: 40:39

Hmm. I'm reading a parent book right now.

Jason Muth: 40:47

Perfect.

Kase Knochenhauer: 40:48

I'm reading a parent book called Gist which is, which has been good. I've been trying to focus my education on the things I need to work on the most. And so a lot of times I fall into business books. And realizing I, what I care about most is being a good father and a good husband is important. So I'm reading a book called Gist, and I think that for any parents out there, it is a good one. Another one that I'm going to read, again, is Understanding Poverty. That's actually a book for teachers most of the time, but I think as I've been on the road, we were mistaken as a homeless family yesterday, which is pretty funny. But I think Understanding Poverty is another one that can spread light, and especially to real estate, real estate investors and people that are dealing with distress, I think it would be a great book, real estate agents, dealing with people trying to sell their home. And, you know, anytime you bring money into things, it gets complicated. But Understanding Poverty is really written for teachers, but I think opened the eyes of individuals that work with families that are struggling with their finances, especially children and, and young, young families.

Jason Muth: 42:02

Yeah, so it's good to get different perspectives also, and just want to check that one out as the Raising Lions recently.

Rory Gill: 42:14

We did. Yes.

Jason Muth: 42:16

And I think that actually changed a lot. But I think that we, we listened to it on Audible, right around, like the absolute bottom that we hit in December, of tantrums and bad things that were happening. And I think it's been a vast improvement since then. So you know, sometimes all you need is just a different perspective, from the author that might be able to help a couple tweaks in your parenting style, and found that really helped us out.

Kase Knochenhauer: 42:46

Yeah, I like the being a parent is so hard. It is so hard. And I think this is this is a really good example. So like, I get a lot out of being a parent that teaches me in business as well. So there's this, this story of training your dog. And the idea is like, my dog is whining, and how do you fix it. And so a lot of times, like people go pet the dog. But the problem is, when you pet the dog, you reinforce the behavior. And so by ignoring the whining, the dog will stop. And then you pet it when it's not whining. And suddenly the whining goes away. And so in business, you can do that. And then parenting, you can do that. And so there's a strange amount of overlap between learning to be a good father and learning to be a good business leader. What do I pay attention to? And what should I ignore? It's taught me a lot as a father.

Jason Muth: 43:36

Yeah, there's a lot of parallels between parenting I before parenting, I found parallels between coaching in adult recreational sports leagues and business. You know, back when I was a sales manager, I used to also be a coach and captain in a couple different sports. And I mean, it was just amazing. It was sometimes it was like wrangling cats, or sheep, whatever the wrangling they were supposed to do. But you know, it taught me a lot to help out to become a better manager at work. And, you know, I was a parent for a couple of years while I was still working for somebody else. And that also helped. It helped me with empathy, which is something that I not that I didn't have empathy for people that were parents beforehand, but I really understood it better once I had a child, and I was able to see what other people with children were going through and how that impacted their life at work. So, you know, if you're listening to this, and you manage people, but you don't have a child, you know, just try to see it through their eyes as best as you can, that sometimes, they might need a little bit more support, based on whatever might be happening at home, and how that translates into the workspace too. With that, it's been a great conversation Kase. I really appreciate your you know, going into how you've built your business up and how you've kind of ended up at the point right now where you're able to take some time with your family, some really valuable time, hit the road and still operate the businesses that you are, if people wanted to reach out to you and we'll put all this in the show notes. How can they follow you? How can they say hi?

Kase Knochenhauer: 45:10

Yes, absolutely. So my wife runs our travel Instagram and YouTube. So we just started that. So we're complete amateurs, but that is happy bones family, on both Instagram and YouTube. And then we do work with a lot of investors and individuals that like to invest in our flips and earn a passive income, some more of the less time or more money invested an equity investment that if you're interested in that, you can go to Overlandinvestor.com and we can set up a time to talk and see if we'd be a good fit for you guys.

Jason Muth: 45:47

All right. That's good. Again, we'll put that all in the show notes just so you don't have to write it down. If you're driving. Rory, where can people reach out to you if they want to say hi, or ask questions?

Rory Gill: 45:57

You can find me through my real estate brokerage NextHome Titletown. That's nexthometitletown.com. Or my law practice UrbanVillage Legal that's urbanvillagelegal.com.

Jason Muth: 46:08

And if you'd like to reach out to me if you want to be a guest on this podcast, or if you have questions about anything, or you want us to track Kase down wherever he is, I could certainly try to help with that. Jason@nexthometitletown.com comes right to me. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd love it. If you give us some comments, or a five star review on wherever platform, you are listening to this, we're watching it with that Kase, thank you so much for all your time today. We wish you the best with your adventure and your travels. We will certainly be following along. I hope you don't mind if we comment every so often.

Kase Knochenhauer: 46:40

It was a pleasure, gentlemen, I'm sitting on the beach of my hood on trying to keep the window. So I'm sorry. Sorry, I had my video off the whole time.

Jason Muth: 46:48

That's okay, we're recording this in the Northeast where we are about to have record record record low temperatures hitting on Friday. I think the wind chill map is like what you see in the plains, you see minus 30 and 40. That's what's going to hit us when we're recording that in the next couple days. So you have a little wind there. I think that we're all going to be bundled up. Very good. All right. Well, thanks again for listening. This has been The Real Estate Law Podcast and we will talk to you next time. Thank you.

Rory Gill: 47:21

Thank you.

Announcer: 47:23

This has been The Real Estate Law Podcast. Because real estate is more than just pretty pictures. And law goes well beyond the paperwork and courtroom arguments. were powered by next home Titletown greater Boston's progressive real estate brokerage. More at nexthometitletown.com. And UrbanVillage Legal, Massachusetts real estate counsel serving savvy property owners lenders and investors more at urbanvillagelegal.com. Today's conversation was not legal advice, but we hope you found it entertaining and informative. Discover more at the realestatelawpodcast.com Thank you for listening.