Speaker 1: So I went and actually, at that point, I had
enough in my first one and it had appreciated and
I'd done some extra work on it to improve the value.
So everybody, I'll love this, right, this is out because
everybody's like, oh, how do you go from one to two?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Because a lot of people just buy one?
Speaker 1: Not a whole lot of people go past that, So
I about them or they end up selling it because
they're like, I'm tired of being a landlord, right. But me,
I'm like, let's go to a second one. And I
what I did is I went and refinanced my first
one and I was old fifty thousand dollars. With that
fifty thousand, I went and bought the second one.
Speaker 3: You were listening to, Carrie. Let'sa's financial survival network where
you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else
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Speaker 4: And welcome. You are listening to and watching the Financial
Survival at work. Hey it's early December, we're still in
the first week. I can't believe the year is almost gone.
But our commitment to bringing you interesting people with interesting
ways to make money to hold on to your money,
that that will go through until I stopped doing the show.
Right now, I've got the interesting person on. He went
from being in the oil field to real estate. And
I always thought the people in the people in the
oil industry didn't so much do that. But his name
is Casey Gregorson, and Casey, it's great to have you on.
You know, you are a petroleum engineer, highly paid profession, challenging,
mentally stimulating, and you wound up in real estate.
Speaker 1: That's right, Oh, just way, just the way I drew
it up back in college, right, those engineering classes. But
but yeah, absolutely, yeah, that was It's been quite the journey, yeah,
I mean initially. I mean I remember too, like my
undergrad I had. I had a degree, so I played
college football actually, and I was there for five years,
so unlike all my other buddies that were and I
went like, if I'm gonna be here for five years,
may be as much done.
Speaker 2: As I can.
Speaker 1: So I actually had an undergrad a major in math
and chemistry, in minors physics and spaaning. But after all that,
I was like, well, what am I actually going to
do with that? So luckily I got agree and I
got accepted to University of Wyoming to do my stress
and petroleum engineering. So so at that point I'm like,
all right, now I got it.
Speaker 2: Now we got a path, and thought I was going
to work oil and gas to the rest of my life.
Pretty cool.
Speaker 4: So uh And obviously, when you work in O ANDNG,
unless unless you're running the company, you're an employee, right,
so they got to tell you where to go, they
tell you what to do. But so what got you
into real estate? I mean, I know, the opportunity of
the arose. You mentioned something about your dad helping you out,
but what was a really driving force because basically you
had it made career wise. I mean, yeah, it's cyclical
on the odel patch, but for the past twenty odd years,
you know, petroleum engineers have ruled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a little bit of yeah. So for
sure I know that and that I'll come back to
your last point. But as far as like how it started,
you start of hit on it. So I my fortune.
Speaker 2: The one of the best things my dad ever did
for me.
Speaker 1: He was great, I mean, raised me really well, but
he helped me with a down payment and co sign
on my house, which is when I was actually going
to school at the University Wyoming in twenty ten. So
I bought that first house and U and bought actually
my roommate's dad who was selling it, so we bought it,
and then I did the original house hack. Right today
people talk about house hacking where people will go and
boo get it, buy a house and then have her
favor rent. So that was initially why I did in
twenty ten, and I just got a taste of it, right,
But but again I went and merchant.
Speaker 2: As to your point, I had a.
Speaker 1: Great job in oil and gas really well, I had
one of the most paying jobs out of college compared
to my peers, and I was.
Speaker 2: I was stoked. I loved it.
Speaker 1: And oil and gas was just like times in twenty
twelve started was it was a good time to be
an oil and gas. We had company credit cards andres
and third parties.
Speaker 2: Was it was fun?
Speaker 1: I definitely, I still I definitely have great memories of it.
But kind of what when it started to really turn,
which is a lot of right, I'm.
Speaker 2: Canada right.
Speaker 1: So I started working in the field in originally in
like in West Texas. Right, So I as an engineer.
We been like six and I worked for Shell. I
should have started there. So I worked for Shell, big company,
great training, right, But they sent us out to the
field for a So when I went out the field
of West Texas, I got there and I quickly realized, wow,
this is I had a two weeks on shift where
I'd work two weeks on the field and then I
have tool for all this extra time. So initially that
was one first kind of moment to change. Hey, wow,
I got all this time only work half the year.
What what's the opportunity I could do? Right? So then,
like a lot of other people, I was now moved
up to Canada, still working in the field because I
had asked my I had asked my boss and my
mentors go like, hey, how do I stay in a
few because I love this schedule and I want to
do more. So I'm driving around in the highways up
in Alberta, Canada, and uh, and somebody recommends the book
Rich Dad portad to me. So I never forgeted for
like a lot of people, right, So I'm driving around
and never forget. I'm driving site to site and I'm
listening to this book and he starts to talk about
assets and liabilities, and then that's when it clicks, right,
like this asset that I've still owned again, at this point,
I've owned this property for the first one. I've owned
it for like five years, and and I've just been
making a little bit of cash flow on it, and
I'm happy, right it's I make a little bit but
it's nothing, and I get some tag drafts but it's
nothing big. But then I read that book and I'm like, oh, wow,
that's That's what I'd be doing, is I have an
asset that's paying me. Right, So it clicks, and then
I ultimately I go down this rabbit hole of like
reading a bunch of more books on real estate, learning
everything I can because then and then I've got to
bug Right then I'm like, all right, how do I
go get the second one? So I went and actually
at that point I had enough in my first one
and it had appreciated and I'd done some extra work on.
Speaker 2: It to improve the value.
Speaker 1: So everybody, I'll love this, right, this is howt Because
everybody's like, oh, how do you go from one to two, right,
because a lot of people just won. Not a whole
lot of people go past that, so I bought them
or they end up selling it because they're like, I'm
tired of being a landlord, right. But me, I'm like,
let's go to a second one. And I what I
did is I went and refinanced my first one, and
I was old fifty thousand dollars. With that fifty thousand,
I went and bought the second one. I won't go
too much into detail, but basically with that second one,
I bought a house under rented and I did some
value add to it to where when it was all done,
once I had fixed it up and had it rented out,
I was not taking one thousand dollars a month of
cash flow after I paid my mortgage, taxes, insurance and everything.
Speaker 2: I was making one thousand dollars. And at that point you're.
Speaker 1: Like, and I'm only like, I don't know, twenty five,
twenty six at a time, I'm like, I just with
no money, literally just from the equity of the first house,
just created another one thousand dollars of cash flow, and
then then it's on.
Speaker 2: Right, Then you started worsting huh, yeah, for sure, it's work.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: And your point, I was ruined, right, So then I
did a couple other business opportunities. We invested in a
franchise called Purebar, and I started to run my own business,
and then I started to apply some of that stuff
to real estate. And then like once I started running
my own business, I always joke it was like I
felt almost like schizophrenic or bipolar. I was living two
lives right, kind of like those movies right to where
I would go to shell Show is an extremely conservative,
like very structured company, so much red tape to get
anything done right.
Speaker 2: It's moving at a snail's pace if you like big company.
Speaker 4: They got controls, they got systems in place, and you're
a you're a cog in the wheel, right.
Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1: And then my other life I was living buying real
estate deals, running a small like going as fast as
you're just trying to grow in scale.
Speaker 2: So it's a little bit two different.
Speaker 1: That's to your point of like how did you like
want to leave the Like what eventually let me transition
or what made me what planted the seed was like
being able to run my own thing and have it
like I could have an impact and such a big
impact on my own bottom line when I started to
invest and do my own deals versus I.
Speaker 2: Could make good money with Shelle.
Speaker 1: But I had I had a deaf thing, and I
could only push I can only push that so hard.
Speaker 4: Right, So, uh so you're looking back, you know, what
would you have done differently? Knowing what you know now?
Would you have bothered to go into work for Shell
in the first place?
Speaker 1: That is a great question, and I have not Actually,
no one's ever really asked that would have started there.
I think I would have because it helped it held
much for so much because I had a good paying job.
And this is I didn't mention this yet, but what
I was on the leverage was again, I had that
two weeks on two weeks off schedule, so I have
literally two weeks ago I didn't have to do anything
for Shell. So what I did is I started finding
fixer uppers, right, doing for myself or finding deals.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So I started doing or doing property management and training
a team.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I was doing all this time on my off days, right,
but I still had that W two job. So I,
like I always tell this story, I built my retical
from around we were around a one and a half
to two million in total assets, like total asset value.
Obviously we're using leverage to get there, which I'm gonna
get to.
Speaker 2: But anyway, we were able to.
Speaker 1: Grow that to like fifteen million over like eighteen months.
And it was purely because of experience and my W
two income. Right I was speaking, Now I could go
talk and I started building with I started building relationships
with small banks early on, like on that second deal
I'm talking to you about, like I was talking to
a small bank building relationship.
Speaker 2: So now I had that W two income.
Speaker 1: So that's why I think I would have probably would
not have changed it because I was able to Granted,
I wasn't making near like what I wanted to eventually make,
but I had a good stable income and I had
flipping experien experience, and so it was the perfect combination
to go to a small bank.
Speaker 4: So if you were starting out today, would you be
able to do this? Is the Are the opportunities still there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot. And that's funny too. I talked
to mentors of mine. They are like and then Grant
Cardo owns got a TVD show where they just went
and dropped him in the middle of middle of some country.
Speaker 2: You can build it again.
Speaker 1: And I feel like, yeah, just knowing what I now know,
I've just spent so many years in masterminds learning from
other people and uh and just training and educating myself
and and and I'll give you another rich Dad port
Ad quote, Like I remember he talks about being a
door to door salesman, right, Like when I first read
that book, I'm like, man, I wish I would have done.
I don't know anything about sales, right, but now I've
had to sell and close to you like one of
my superpowers in my companies. I still am the closer
on the like high level deals in our company, and
I can come in and negotiate. And it's a skill
I didn't realize I had until I really tapped into it.
And I definitely wasn't tapping into engineer, which I'm quoting.
So so yeah, I feel like I had to start
or that's the other thing thinking back it, maybe I should.
If I could start it over trajectory would have been
much faster, right, But I took him for kind of
longer route to it.
Speaker 4: So here's a question, do you think anybody could replicate
your success if if they're motivated.
Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, I'm a I guess the
difference with me.
Speaker 1: Is I just take action, Like like I'll go to
like I'm a part a lot of masterminds, and it's
a blessing and a curse, right, Like I go to
a two day mastermind and I'm learning, getting all these techniques,
getting all these best practices from other great people in
the industry, and I'm like, let's go apply that. And
I come back after the two days and I bring
it to my team and they'll on casey like and
we can't do all of this at once, but I'm like, no,
if we can, this is what we're going to implementence
in that. So, I've always taken massive action and been
willing to and I had a great w two income
that allowed me to take risks over the years to grow.
So yeah, maybe not to this point in this scale,
but I think anybody absolutely can go about and buy
their first rental property or start taking steps to giving
financial freedom.
Speaker 4: One.
Speaker 2: So, what's what's the worst deal you ever made? The
worst deal? Man?
Speaker 1: We? Uh, we had a collection of them. I'll never
forget this. In I'm going to go with a combination answer.
So we were in Dallas Fort Worth and it was
around like twenty seventeen, and and we thought we we
thought we had it like we had we had we'd
been buying houses and fixing them up and refinancing them,
and then we would refinanced that we get our money
back and we'd put a tenant in there and we.
Speaker 2: Just cash flow.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It's called the Burr strategy v R R r R right.
So we we did that on like four houses in
Fort Worth and like, man, we got this, and we
we did it with like one hundred thousand and just
kind of rolled the money and were like, all right, now,
let's go do a bunch of fix and flips to
feed our rental portfolio and then we could do more
of these, right.
Speaker 2: But what we did is we didn't realize is.
Speaker 1: We had a really good contractor and we were investing
at lower price points. So when we stepped into the
higher price points and started working with different contractors, we
just we struggled, right, and we saw a little bit
of seasonality and yeah, we just we got we got
into some deals where we didn't And the other thing
is we missed on some of our ARVs, like and
the grant of the markets fluctuated a little bit, but
the house didn't end up being worth as much as
we thought right in to this day, like when we underwrite,
that's what makes me underwrite so much more conservatively when
we're figuring out the value the exit value of the house. Right,
So we bought. We had like three or four deals
where we did the same thing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Fortunately we sold them all, but we had to take
some significant losses to move them. And those are still
valuab wounds that I carried to today.
Speaker 4: Well, it's so valuable learning experience, right absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I always joke we uh yeah, I didn't get
an MBA, but I just yet we got it.
Speaker 2: We got it from school hard knocks.
Speaker 4: So, uh knowing what you know, now, what advice would
you give somebody assume in your masterminds you're mentoring people.
What's the biggest three takeaways that we could get from you?
Speaker 1: Now? Yeah, I would say one of the biggest ones
is start early, especially when it comes to real estate. Right, Like,
I've actually I purchased a house. It's really funny. Last
night I was in bed actually with my second I
have four bule voice.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: My first boy though, when he turned eight or nine,
I think it was eighth birthday, I ended up buying
him a house so he could start to buy it
and he could learn how to manage it, and ultimately
we start paying it down over time, right, because really,
stay over time, it's always gonna it's always going to succeed, right,
as long as you have as long as you look
over a long enough horizon, you should be fine. So
my second kid was asking about it, so that would
be one. It's like, start early, right. I bought my
first one in college. You could buy one for your kids.
Or if you haven't bought a single asset or done
anything in real estate, well you got to start somewhere.
And so my first advice would be start now, right.
Second thing would be start with somebody who knows what
they're doing, unless you're like me and you want to
just go figure it out yourself and you want to hustle,
and you want to work a two weeks job and
then when you're off on your off days, go hustle
just as hard. Some people are built like that, but
not everyone is. So I always recommend and like, go
find an operator a partner who who is doing deals right,
because go learn through them versus going through the school
hard knocks, right, go learn through them and do a deal, right.
So yeah, so get started, find a partner, right, And
then I think the other thing is just sort of
like being you know what, here's the other one, and
it's that that story that I just shared.
Speaker 2: It's always have two exit strategies.
Speaker 1: So, right, So if you're going to go try to
fix and flip a house, a lot of people will
do that, and fix and flipping can inherently be risky,
and I could also be very rewarding and you can.
Speaker 2: Make big profits.
Speaker 1: But what I've always done is I always make sure
almost done all our deals. I've always got two exit strategies.
So the first one is to flip it and sell
it often the second one is could we keep this
properties a rental?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And this is why I invest in Wyoming and the
markets like this are Montana, where I can still buy
properties that if I can't flip them, I can hold them.
Like right now, it's always a little bit slower. We're
talking today in December, right, It's always a little slower
in the winter time in Wyoming, And so what I'm
doing is I'm holding some of these properties is rentals
because right now they would I could either because here's
the other option is if you don't have another ease
of strategy, the only thing you can do is just
drop price, right, and then you're just cutting in your
profit and eventually taking losses on a flip. Right. So
what I do is if you can always buy and hold.
If you talk to so many people, they're always like,
they're always you talk to investors, they're always like, man,
I wish I wouldn't have sold all those properties right as.
Speaker 2: They look at the value right. So my thing is
have to.
Speaker 1: Exist strategies and yeah, and then just being a buy
and hold investor. I think it's one of the best
ways to It's a safe way to do it, and
you're not going to get rich quick, but you're going
to build wealth over long time, over a long period time.
Speaker 4: All right, then, great story here, Casey, really appreciate what
you're coming on. I guess the best place to find
you is caseygregorson dot com and the link is in
the show notes to this interview on Financial Survival Network
dot com. And we only ask that when you go
there sign up for our free newsletter, like over sixty
thousand of other FSN community members have. And if you've
got a question for Casey or myself, shoot me an
email kl at Carrie LUTs dot com. Casey, you love
the story. Love to have you back on again when
you're available, and we'll talk with you soon.
Speaker 2: Love to you. Thanks, Gerry, appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your
solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network
Speaker 2: Now more than ever,