How an Oilfield Worker Closed 95 Real Estate Deals in Montana | Gene Hauck

Gene Hauck (00:00)

If you are on your own as a solo producer and you’re just starting out, like you can’t not afford to have some

form of accountability, even if it seems like a big cost, it’s really not. You have to see it as an investment in yourself because you don’t know what you don’t know. And the way I see it is that you’re paying for wisdom. You’re paying for a shortcut to maybe not have to make the same mistakes that the person whose coaching you did. if you can be accountable and you can be coachable and humble enough to, let your beliefs be challenged, your perspectives, it can be very, very helpful.

Dylan Silver (01:05)

Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Gene Hauck, a Billings, Montana real estate broker who spent nine years working in the oil field and mining industries before getting into real estate in 2022. And in just a few years, he’s already closed 95 transactions, more than 37 million in volume, while building a big part of his business around investors and people relocating to Montana. Gene, thanks for joining us here today.

Gene Hauck (01:32)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Dylan Silver (01:34)

What types of deals are coming across your desk these days?

Gene Hauck (01:38)

I’m still seeing a decent source this year from expired listings, just the prospecting that I’ve done. And I also run cold email to them, keep a campaign up to date with it. And then I have, I would say about a third of my business is working with investors. And the types of deals we’re seeing on that side is I would say tired landlord, absentee owner, people that are just sick of having them and ready to get rid of them, or maybe they’re fully depreciated out and they’re looking to trade up those types of deals.

And then I work with relocation buyers too. So we’re seeing quite a bit of that, seeing quite a bit of movement coming to billings, but people are moving out too. So I’d say that’s a summary for it.

Dylan Silver (02:19)

You mentioned three niches and three lead sources, right? You’ve got expired listings, relocations, and then investors. We were talking in the green room. I know you’ve got a a deal, I believe, on a sevenplex that’s closing later today. If you look at just one of those components, let’s take expired listings, for instance. There’s a lot of folks that may see that as an opportunity. And so that type of person may be hearing from many agents.

and may have a lot of information coming at them, how do you differentiate yourself?

Gene Hauck (02:50)

it’s funny too, because that kind of ties into the question of like, you get asked all the time, like, how do I build that? How do I get these? And it’s not just a thing, it’s such a mix of like skill building that goes into it. Like with expired listings, I mean, there’s a lot of practice that I’ve done over the years too, with just writing objections that I get out daily, writing the scripts out, role playing. I mean, you name it. And it’s just reps that improve that. And I think when you can improve those sales skills, it helps you get out of your own way to then help people.

and influence them in the way that they’re already trying to go. And I think that’s what creates that differentiation.

Dylan Silver (03:22)

if we take a step back here, you’re an oil field guy that became a realtor, how did you make that transition?

Gene Hauck (03:30)

It wasn’t linear by any stretch. I met a guy named Craig Morgan back in 2020 when I was still drilling on a rig. And up until that point, I had never really seen anything different than where I was going, which was a life rent oil field, is gonna be a company man, all the things. And he sat up there with me for about four hours talking about these businesses that he ran back home in the Dallas area. And he was partnered with a contractor, they were building apartment complexes.

And I just was fascinated with it, honestly, as I listened to him. And it started just it changed the trajec trajectory for me, honestly, because I started listening to bigger pockets, of course. I think that’s one of those things. And then rich dad, poor dad, all the things. And that turned into I want to buy a rental property. And then, you don’t know what you don’t know as you learn and go and grow. I started realizing that maybe that wasn’t gonna be exactly what I wanted. So we were thinking we would start flipping.

And we tried a couple of them, learned a lot of really great lessons and just kinda happened into the residential sales role because I realized the potential for income. Like there’s no ceiling for it. And then that would allow me to then buy more rental property and continue to build it. So that’s kind of how I got here today.

Dylan Silver (04:36)

Now I’ve been in I wanna say a similar but different mind space where doing something pretty different and then going into real estate. And I think a lot of people can relate to this because sometimes we stumble into real estate, sometimes it’s very intentional, but then figuring out, well, which

niche am I going to operate? Am I gonna be a flipper? Am I gonna be involved in brokerage? Sounds like you tried a number of things and you realized, you know, brokerage is a repeatable model that gives you uncapped income potential.

Gene Hauck (05:05)

Yeah, a hundred percent. Well, and the whole picking your niche thing, it’s another key topic for me lately because we run a team too, and everybody asks, like, how do I create a marketing plan? Like, what does that need to look like? Who should I reach out to? And I think before you understand like the niche that you really feel passionate about or the niches, you just have to try them. Like you just have to start because you can spend all this time overanalyzing the things that you could do, should do, and then you end up not doing anything.

And you really don’t know until you try it anyway.

Dylan Silver (05:32)

That’s exactly right. especially when it comes to building a career in brokerage. There’s all these statistics that people hear, however large percentage of realtors are, let their license lapse after two years and so forth. And so going from a career not a sales career into a sales career, into brokerage, and then specifically in the niche of relocations, you can see the drilling down.

happening there. Relocations. Is this something that is very common in Montana or is this a niche within a niche?

Gene Hauck (06:05)

I would say it’s very common. I don’t have a hard number to give you as far as how many have happened this year. It’s kind of hard to pull anything accurate, especially because it’s pulled, in arrears. Again, to my point, like you don’t know until you know. I started blogging on my website about a year ago today. And just because I started seeing like all of the benefits that you can gain from, doing that and getting yourself out there, having consistency across the board with name, address, phone, that type of thing.

And I can’t correlate it, exactly to it. But two weeks later is when I got an inbound lead just on my website and they were relocating here from Hawaii and I just started thinking more and more about it and I loved working with them. And then they referred another one, those people referred to another one. I love working with all of them, and so I realized, okay, this is pretty cool actually, and I can really be a value to these people because they don’t know the area, they don’t know all these things about it, and I can go above and beyond for them.

Dylan Silver (06:56)

I’m involved in relocation in a different component when we talk about brokerage. But relocation, there’s so much that’s involved that is not simply a house and a neighborhood. It’s also understanding what lifestyle will look like, understanding what cost of living looks like, proximity to a job or what the job market looks like, right? And you talk about a big transition, Hawaii to Montana,

When you look at specifically out of state relocation, what are the most important things that folks involved in brokerage have to get right when having those conversations?

Gene Hauck (07:34)

Really just understanding the client specifically, I think, is number one because if you don’t ask the right questions, you’re not gonna I mean, that’s all this is is asking the right questions. if you’re not finding what you’re looking for, you just need better questions for that. So trying to understand like what is truly important to them. And sometimes they may not know how to articulate it a hundred percent either. And so like everybody’s different in their what they need, I think, and how much information they need. Everybody receives information differently.

And so there in my opinion, there’s a lot that goes into making sure that you’re holding that standard with people. And it might be showing like some people might want to see the whole entire town, different areas, different subdivisions everywhere. And that’s just part of the process. And then others, they may already know when they come in. Like I had a gal who had already identified a property that she really loved. And I showed her that one on FaceTime, showed her one other one, and we wrote an offer on the first one that she’d already identified. And so you just it’s so different.

Dylan Silver (08:29)

I’ve heard from folks that handle relocations. It’s almost a tale of two stories, folks that say this can be done entirely virtually, and then folks that say it can be done virtually, but I won’t do a deal unless I know this person will be able to ultimately walk the property before closing. What’s your outlook on this being able to be done entirely virtually?

Gene Hauck (08:50)

Yeah, it’s totally case by case and independent on that person because you can tell when somebody’s very confident about it, and then you can tell when you there’s a little bit of reservation. If there’s a little bit of reservation, I would rather them just err on the side of caution unless there’s something externally that’s, deciding their decision to do it virtually in a hurry. I don’t want anybody to ever get into a situation where they feel like they didn’t fully know something. And the more I learn from talking to people is that

Just because I think I’ve explained or articulated something really well, it doesn’t always mean that’s the case, but you don’t find that out until later on. So if I think that there’s any chance of getting into that with it, I would rather just wait if it’s a possibility.

Dylan Silver (09:28)

I want to get granular into billings. This is where you’re based. If you’re describing billings to folks who may not be familiar with it, how would you break it down for us?

Gene Hauck (09:37)

there’s a lot of growth and just from jobs. Like we have some pretty big staples here with the medical field. There’s two big level one trauma centers here. and they’re in the process of building a new facility. We have refineries, we have the mining industry. There’s two different ones. There’s coal and then there’s ore mines, like where I was up at Stillwater. And so I think a lot of people gravitate here toward for that.

And then the other part of it is everybody loves Montana. And you mean you see the Yellowstone show and all the pictures and everything with it. Billings is a lesser, it’s a more affordable area than Bozeman, but it is so different. And it’s all again back to what’s important to the person who’s moving here. but Billings itself is great. I mean, I’ve grown up here and I don’t know anything different as far as living goes. And there’s what is it?

four or five different areas that are staples. I mean, we have the West End, we have the North Elevation, which is older homes. They’re bigger. I think they were the higher median price actually to the older ones where we have the South Side, then we have north side, then we have the heights. And then there’s some outlying areas too for people who want some property with acreage, which is nice. Like east of it is Shepherd, Huntley, Warden and those areas. And then west you have Laurel, Park City, Columbus, Red Lodge.

So that’s there’s a wide variety of property types to choose from, which I think is helpful.

Dylan Silver (10:57)

Do you see a new construction being popular or are most people looking at pre-owned homes?

Gene Hauck (11:03)

Yeah, new construction is definitely very popular. And there’s a lot of really good builders here too. And they all have their specific niches. And I would say most all of them do a really great job. And I just pulled an absorption study for new construction. I think I found 228 in the last 24 months that were sold and closed for new builds, which is decent. But I think it’s going to continue to increase because you can just see where everybody’s planning to develop.

Dylan Silver (12:08)

new build and ground up construction is interesting because it provides an opportunity in many cases for folks to not just get new homes but also get lower interest rates if the builders use in-house financing in any capacity. you get a builder warranty. but also you we’re seeing more and more cost effective homes. Are you seeing new builders that are also building cost effective homes?

Gene Hauck (12:33)

Yeah, there’s a variety of patio homes and townhomes clusters that are being built. I actually just sold one to a relocation buyer. It’s Canal Vista is the little area up in the heights. And I mean, really great spot. And for the price, I mean, I think it was just below four hundred thousand and yeah, beautiful. not an unaffordable HOA per month either. And so there’s definitely plenty of opportunities for people looking for those too. And then you also have

new build single family that are not in an HOA to where like they’re pretty big in size. And this is in the heights, most of it, but you’ll see that just the basement isn’t finished. And so then they can sell it for a little bit less and people can do it over time as they go.

Dylan Silver (13:15)

what’s interesting when we talk about new builds and the price point is you’re seeing a lot of people who may be now looking at this from the outside looking in and saying, Well, what are reasonable expectations for the sale of my home? How long will my home sit for if I’m thinking about moving? Does that impact the pre owned side and what their expectations set should be when they go to sell?

Gene Hauck (13:38)

absolutely. I mean, and again, everybody’s situation is so different. I just it’s always my goal to try to provide and offer all the tools that I possibly can so that somebody, just so they have enough information to make an informed decision. What I mean by that is like somebody might be qualified and able to use a bridge loan to purchase their next property, depending on how quickly they need to move. that might be an option to use.

And even if it’s one that they don’t want to use, I want to know that they have it in the back pocket two years and them to know that so that, if they do identify a property that they love and we go under contract with the contingency of selling their home, there’s it’s happening. We’re seeing it quite a bit to where buyers are getting bumped out just from another offer. And so if somebody has that bridge loan that they’re able to use, then they don’t have to get bumped out with it. And it’s more risk and it’s more payment and all the things, but it can be really helpful.

But when we’re sitting down and we’re deciding like, hey, what’s the timeline? What’s a reasonable one to expect? It’s pretty simple to identify that when you’re in, a residential neighborhood in town. There’s a ton of data. I mean, you have to have enough sales to actually go, okay, here’s our average days on market. But you also gotta consider like right now we’re in the changing seasons going into fall. And so pulling a sixty day market pace, it’s not gonna be as relevant as it would be if we did it two months ago.

Because weather’s changing school, all the things. And so I like to tell people that the reality is we don’t know what your home is worth. I mean, we know we have a really great idea of where to start it. And we start it by looking at what’s active around us and the sold comparables, but we have to evaluate every week like where we’re sitting, what’s the activity been like, what’s the show and feedback? Have we got any offers? And then I also like to look, in this zip code for this property.

How many active listings do we have each week? How many new listings? How many pending? How many sold? And then how many price reductions have been made? And if we really got a head scratcher, it’s like, well, let’s call the other listing agents around here and ask them about their showing activity if we can’t find it. And then all of that information allows us to make a decision on whether or not it makes sense to reduce the price at that time because it may just need more visibility in a lower bracket.

Dylan Silver (15:41)

Yeah, I mean there’s so much that goes into it. And you mentioned so many of the different factors.

and we have so much data available to us, but in many cases that relationship with someone who may have an active listing or who recently had is so helpful. I want to pivot though. We’ve talked about the traditional brokerage side and folks looking for their homestead. I want to talk about investors. Are you seeing more buy and hold investors, folks doing flips, folks doing short-term rentals? is it a mix across the board? What are you seeing on the investor side?

Gene Hauck (16:15)

From what I’m seeing, I’m seeing a lot of fix and flips happening. there’s definitely a fair share of buy and holds too that I’m a part of. Like, for example, I represented a guy earlier this year. he’ll close five flips this year. But I mean, he’s also, he just bought a 30-unit apartment complex in April too. And so they’re renovating that to improve the value of it.

And then there’s two other people here in town I’m pretty connected with that do really, really great business. And one of them, he’s on track to do forty-five flips this year. So I mean he’s doing it at a high volume. and then there’s plenty of other people that are, new even getting into the space that are wanting some help with it and just trying to get going with it. So I mean it’s definitely growing, but you gotta be it’s competitive. I mean, it’s funny because

I’ll just say his name, Wyatt Johnson. He’s great. He’s amazing. Billing’s home buyers here. He’s the one that’s gonna do those 45, I think roughly, maybe more. but it’s funny because his marketing is just so amazing. Every time I go to look at a property for the company that I’m with or that I help out, he’s already been there usually. There’s maybe one out of ten that he hasn’t been there yet. And it’s great though, because he’s very collaborative in that I’ll always call him if I cause I always ask the people, hey, you talk to Wyatt? They’re like, yeah, the guy on TV.

And then I’ll call him and he’ll share his thoughts and what he thinks about it and what he’s gonna do with it. So it’s just that shows you right there that it’s abundant, like there’s plenty to go around and there’s people that do want to collaborate.

Dylan Silver (18:17)

Can we get granular about acquisitions for flips specifically, such as, what is a acquisitions price for a distressed property? If someone is unfamiliar with the market out there and wanted to know what they should expect to simply acquire a property before getting into the rehab cost, what’s a reasonable expectation for a distressed property?

Gene Hauck (18:38)

So this is a wide topic, as you know, but it’s very dependent on the area here and even specific streets and what we think we’re gonna get for demand when we’re figuring out an after repair value. But like our process with it is so these guys have a couple different acquisitions, guys, in it, and they’ll send me an address and the details on it in Slack. And usually I’ll go there and I’ll meet the seller and I’ll walk the property. And if it needs a lot of work.

I don’t really want to be the one to give it a number. And so they have an in-house contractor that usually works in billings here from Monday through Thursday. I’ll get him to go take a look at it too. Because I always tell the seller, like, you really want this guy to come in here and bid it out because, if we’re just estimating or guessing and we’re way off, it’s either going to hurt you or help you, but you don’t know which. And so it’s much better to have as much information as we can so we can then, make a good decision for you.

But as far as like how do we get that number, I mean, I would say across the board, a good rule of thumb is anywhere from 70 to 80% of ARV minus whatever it’s going to cost to get up to that ARV for the rehab. And it’s hard to find ones like that because, that’s a big discount. And I always like to make sure that every seller that I talk to is just fully aware of the process, how much it could be worth, if they were to listen on the retail market, either as is or if they put the money into it.

Like I don’t want anybody to ever feel like they didn’t have all the information and they got slighted. That’s never the goal because that’s just not the way to do business. Like if it’s a fit, it’s a fit. There’s plenty of them that are fits where people fully know exactly what it might be worth, but it’s just, you know, value is what you get, price what you pay. It’s worth it for them to sell it at a discount.

Dylan Silver (20:15)

the space that I cut my teeth in before getting licensed as a realtor. And when folks are

in an area where if their home was in a livable condition or, would pass an inspection, they’re looking at those price points. But what they’re not seeing is the cost of materials going up and the cost for a good contractor going up, right? they’re not seeing that in order for them to get their home to that

condition it would require X amount of ten thousand dollars in order for that to happen. And so that’s where the arbitrage happens. That’s why flipping makes sense for flippers because you’ll put in X amount of dollars and you’ll sell it for more. the reverse isn’t true if you’re not putting in any work, of course. So that conversation and that expectation set is so important. Which speaking of expectations, you’re involved with investors and you’re involved

With folks looking for their homestead, their home. These are two different conversations. And a lot of times realtors and brokers have difficulty managing those different types of buyers and those different types of conversations. Walk us through the differences and mentality between that investor and that person who’s relocating or looking for their homestead.

Gene Hauck (21:27)

I mean different order of priorities for sure, which, obviously, and both have pros and cons. I would say, investors, it is all just a numbers game. Like you do see emotions come up. That’s if anybody tells you they don’t, they’re lying or they’re wrong. Like they it’s some it’s to what extent though, right? Like some people are less than others. And that’s why I always try to remind sellers when I’m talking to as well, is that

Look, like I just want you to know the numbers, I’m sure it’s gonna be low. I don’t know what it’s gonna be because I don’t make the offers for them, but I know it’ll be low. Like have the number in your head that you’re not willing to go below and just stand strong with whatever that is, because then it either works or it doesn’t. But you just gotta remember they’re running a business. So it’s nothing it’s nothing personal or an attack against your home. And then as far as, relocation buyers with what’s important to them, it’s just a whole different set of things. But there’s

Still come across plenty of analytical people that are, they put a lot of value in knowing the numbers of utilities, insurance, and getting all these things in line before they move forward. I love that because there isn’t gonna be surprises in it. And I think like that’s what I’m seeing mostly with the buyers that are relocating here. They wanna know, they wanna be fully informed before they make a decision. So like both are good in that sense.

Dylan Silver (22:33)

I wanna ask you on the relocation side, you’ve got a great YouTube channel and I was watching a video before hopping on here that you posted I believe today about Billings versus Bozeman. I’ve heard from folks who have YouTube channels specifically in a niche.

right that’s their channel will drive the potentially leads but then also a lot of people on the brokerage side become familiar with someone through their channel even if someone doesn’t have thousands and thousands of views or subscribers that is still a really effective marketing channel for other realtors and brokers who may be listening

or maybe folks who are in the on ramp of becoming a realtor. They may be in their first year or two in business. what’s been the response to your channel and what’s been growth like?

Gene Hauck (23:19)

Yeah, it’s a good question. it’s nil yet. I mean, it just started, I would say I really just got a cadence for long form videos month to a month and a half ago. But I’ll tell you this. I am anything I’ve always been this way. Like anything that I know is going to produce a result, like I’m all in. And I don’t even think about the result or what it is. I think about the process and improving the process with it. And that’s how you have to be if you want to get into the YouTube thing because

I mean, you might get some leads in 90 days. You might get it in 180 days. It might be a year, but you’re doing the thing over and over consistently, same day every week, without a result. And you just have to know that it will work. But I also would say that it would be beneficial behoove people to follow a process of somebody who’s already doing it that works. Like I’m a very big fan of Aaron Chua. He’s a Tom Ferry coach and it’s a very, very specific granular process that goes into it.

And I mean at every facet of it honestly. And so for me, that’s why I gravitated towards it. I don’t pick a video to shoot and shoot it, I don’t I wouldn’t be here. It has to be specific.

Dylan Silver (24:24)

you also mentioned Tom Ferry. when folks are considering making a career transition and they’re trying to understand, especially if they don’t have, realtors in their family or in their circle of friends or what have you, do you think coaching is really important and how much should new agents prioritize getting some form of coaching?

Gene Hauck (24:43)

I think it’s probably the number one most important thing. And it doesn’t have to look the same for everyone. I mean, like for example, on our team that we run here, it’s small, it’s intimate. There’s only three agents we have. and we have a weekly meeting to where we have them choose three things or we’ll help them choose three things that they want to be held accountable to. And that’s the biggest thing with it is the accountability. But

if you are on your own as a solo producer and you’re just starting out, like you can’t not afford to have some

form of accountability, even if it seems like a big cost, it’s really not. You have to see it as an investment in yourself because you don’t know what you don’t know. And the way I see it is that you’re paying for wisdom. You’re paying for a shortcut to maybe not have to make the same mistakes that the person whose coaching you did. if you can be accountable and you can be coachable and humble enough to, let your beliefs be challenged, your perspectives, it can be very, very helpful.

Dylan Silver (25:34)

If we look back to when you were getting started in twenty twenty two, what was that first year eighteen months like?

Gene Hauck (25:42)

Rough. I really didn’t start going hard in it until twenty twenty-three. And that’s when I hired a coach and that’s when it was, okay, well, I don’t have a huge sphere that we’re gonna be able to market to and how can we go get leads? And it was start calling expired listings. Expired listings are for sale by owners. And then of course, like I was working with Casey, the investor at that time, but

He hadn’t grown to the size that he is right now. And so it was a lot of running around too. I couldn’t even venture a guess to see how many properties I looked at in 2023 and 24 just for him. And there’s gonna be a lot of them that are a huge time waster. And it’s funny too, because a lot of people would ask me, like, why are you wasting your time doing that? But the other thing of it is is that like you go look at all these properties and they may not be a fit for the investor, but maybe you’re a fit to help that homeowner sell their home.

And that’s it’s worked out that way several times too. And so there’s just added benefits if you keep but here’s the thing. You can have whatever you want if you help enough people get what they want. Like don’t think about the transactional sense of it. It can’t be, well, if I do this, what am I gonna get? It just has to be how can I provide value and that be the only question that you ask and listen for. And that’s I think what really it was the game changer when I started really seeing and believing that early on.

Dylan Silver (27:00)

one of the things that doesn’t often get talking about, an advantage for someone involved in, traditional brokerage to work with investors, isn’t you’ve got more tools. You’re a Swiss army knife, of a broker of a realtor. And yes, this can be complicated, right? you have to understand and set the right expectations.

And not just with sellers, but also with your investors, right? Because you then especially when you’re public facing, you’re involved in brokerage, there’s more on the line, if I can say that. You mentioned though, being able to go in and if someone isn’t selling their home cash offer, you can also list their property. And I really wanna highlight that because

There’s so many times, wholesalers in particular, and I have a wholesale background and I love wholesalers, so nothing against wholesalers, is they don’t have that ability. They’ll go in, they’ll make a cash offer, and look, if someone doesn’t like the cash offer, that’s it, right? we’ll part ways and shake hands. But if you have the ability to say, look, the home in the condition that it’s in, this may be tricky to list on market, but look, if you really want to list that on market, we can do it with the right expectation set.

That’s a huge conversation that maybe you could be one of a handful of people that’s able and willing to have that conversation with distressed sellers.

Gene Hauck (28:11)

Yeah, it is challenging too because everybody wants to know, well, what is it gonna sell for if we list it? It’s like, well, because it’s going to be as is essentially, like it’s it needs rehabbed. and especially like obviously the more that it needs rehabbed, the harder this is and the wider the range. But what I tell people is still the same like principle with it. It’s that we don’t know. we gotta test it out, but we have to be willing to adapt. And you like we need to set a floor in the beginning that you can’t go below.

And I need to be fairly confident that we’re not going to go below that. And then we start above and we drop it accordingly to what we need to do. But I mean, another thing is that, if it’s something small that can be done or we’re talking a few thousand dollars to get it, I’m totally open to doing that in the beginning and then just getting it paid out of closing if I really think it’s gonna make a big difference because why not? It helps everybody, helps them get to where they’re going. We get something that’s maybe a little bit easier to sell.

There’s just a lot of benefit to it.

Dylan Silver (29:04)

especially wearing that investor hat too and you can see things from both angles. you touched on something as well. I’ve heard staging, painting the walls a deep cleaning make all the difference in the world. And I’m wearing my Texas realtor hat. Have you seen similar things happen in Montana?

Gene Hauck (29:20)

No, yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we do a flip, we do fully stage it and it’s beautiful. I mean, they look so good. They get amazing feedback when we do it. It’s a challenge to do it in an occupied home for a seller because, it’s awkward. They don’t want you moving their stuff around necessarily. They don’t want you they’re worried to sit on your stuff. I mean, it’s when we do that, it’s typically like one room here, one room there. It may not be the whole entire house. And then

It depends on how open they are to putting some work into the property in the beginning too when painting goes. But I always go through that with them and just say, Hey, these are the things that are gonna help. It’s totally up to you what you wanna do. Just know that if we don’t, this is what it can look like. So again, it’s not my decision. It’s theirs. I just wanna make sure they have enough information to make a good decision.

Dylan Silver (30:01)

when we talk about the types of deals that you’ve done, you mentioned relocation from Hawaii to Montana. That’s a far distance, that’s pretty impressive. I know you’re closing on a sevenplex later today. And of course, all the folks that are in Montana that you’re helping to buy and sell their properties, is there any one deal that sticks out as maybe a favorite deal or particularly fulfilling deal that you went through?

Gene Hauck (30:26)

I would say the thirty unit apartment complex earlier this year was pretty interesting. I was trying not to get specific with the numbers because we’re non disclosure state with it, so I’ll give generalization there. But we it was a long process. We made the first offer in January and it actually had expired off the market and it came off the market at

two million and initially looking at it, we thought, okay, we need to go in at like 175. And there was some back and forth with it. And we ended up getting it there. But then we had to come down significantly because it took, I mean, January was the offer. I think we went under contract like second week of January. And it didn’t close until April 10th. but there was a long line of just inspections and putting the pen to paper with understanding what are we going to be per unit for a rehab.

And like during the inspection process, we had an actual home inspector who does commercial inspections. We had his crew there, which was probably three guys. And then we had two other contractors there, one that was trying to scope all of the infrastructure for sewer lines to understand, because I mean it’s an older building. And yeah, I mean it took a long time. And then like when we got all the rehab bids back, it was in the range of like a million to 1.3, depending on what you wanted to do. And so

That was quite a bit higher than what we initially estimated per unit. And we just explained it to them like, hey, we gotta be here for this to make sense or here. And I thought, no way. I mean, we’re talking a few hundred thousand dollars lower than where we were. And they ended up saying, yeah, all right, we get it, let’s do it. And then it was just getting everything else done with it as far as financing goes. It got a little back and forth at the end, but end of the day it closed and it’s going really well now.

Dylan Silver (31:57)

I haven’t done a deal like that, but it’s deals like that make you feel like, okay, I handled that. the next one is not gonna be that hard. Like we’re ready to go. And it gives you so much confidence. And that’s a you said 30 units, right? that’s a large deal. And again.

Involved in relocation, involved, single family and you’re doing a seven unit later today, thirty unit, you’ve got all this experience, it pretty much if someone has a question about brokerage in your neck of the woods, you’ve seen it. or you’re at least familiar with it enough to

give a consult on it. we are coming up on time here though, Gene. Any new projects or activities that you’re working on? Also anything you’d like to mention directly to our audience.

Gene Hauck (32:38)

really just the YouTube channel for the relocating buyer to Montana. the goal from YouTube is to direct everybody to the relocation guide so that we can get in touch and at least have a conversation, which is just ghmtrealestate.com/moving-to-billings. You can find it in there. And then as far as other things I’m working on really is

It’s been nice because it’s these last this last month or so has been a little bit slower time, but it’s given me an ability to start working on some systems inside of the business and implementing AI at a little bit deeper level too. So

Dylan Silver (33:11)

Gene, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for your time.

Gene Hauck (33:14)

Thank you.