My Journey Acquiring 200 Units In 22 Months

What started as launching a podcast over 4 years ago highlighting people "building wealth and gaining time and financial freedom through real estate" has turned into so much more. In the past 22 months, we've been able to acquire over 200 units of real estate. While that may sound impressive, it's really just a story of taking action, putting one foot in front of the next, take more action, and repeat.

I've owned rental properties for 15 years, back when we had to turn our townhouse into a rental. We couldn't afford to sell because the value of the property was too low. We were underwater on our mortgage. Instead of using that as an excuse, I educated myself, spoke to a lender, lined up a renter, and figured out a way to turn a lemon into lemonade. We ended up holding that property for a dozen years so where we could sell it for a profit. This horror story turned out to be a success.

That's the cool thing about real estate. The message tends to be "buy real estate and wait" because over time, things eventually trend upwards.

Over the years we fixed up some properties and sold them for a profit, but it wasn't until the fall of 2022 when my real estate investing journey really took off. After working with many investors who purchased their own properties, we found a "deal we couldn't refuse" and decided to partner with an investor to acquire a 25 unit apartment building in Stewartville, MN.

Instead of flipping houses, it's much more attractive to flip apartment buildings because while 1 unit is being fixed up and is vacant, you may still have 24 of the 25 units with tenants paying rents, give or take a few other units that might be vacant at any given time. In our case, over the 2+ years we've owned the property, we've been able to fix up well over 1/2 of the units while still getting rents from a vast majority of the units, adding roughly 50% value to the building in just 2 short years.

May people will read this and think "I don't have the money to do something like that". You might be right. But there are investors out there who are busy professionals and may not have the time or expertise to take on something like this.

This is the "Value Triangle"

Time.

Money.

Expertise.

Each of these words make up a side of a triangle. Working together, these 3 words allow you to scale much more quickly.

I realized what I had to contribute to scale quickly. I had TIME and I had EXPERTISE in the real estate investment space. I was looking for people that had MONEY, but perhaps not the time and not the expertise. Figuring this out helps to create true WIN-WIN scenarios. We all get more of what we want when we work together. Would you rather have a whole grape or a slice of a watermelon?

Having a slice of a much larger watermelon than the whole grape makes sense to me. That's how we've been able to scale and add 200 units of rental properties over these past 22 months. We've created WIN-WIN scenarios for investors.

Through this journey we've added 20 units in Iowa, another 8 units in Rochester, MN, another 8 units in Northern MN, and capped off with a 146 unit purchase in Winona, MN in the summer of 2024.

I don't own 100% of any of these buildings. However, I'm building relationships centered on trust and performance that will help us all grow in the future. You know what? You can come along for the ride too! Just reach out and ask how you can join the journey with us. It's going to be one heck of a ride!

Want to learn how you can get started investing in deals? Visit our site here: https://www.relfreedom.com/invest

Want to hear my full story? Check out this podcast episode where I share in detail my journey of 200 units in 22 months!: https://www.relfreedom.com/blog/mike-swenson-200-units-in-22-months