Ep53 From Film School to Real Estate: Chase Keller's Journey Back to Iowa

[00:00:00] Vision for what you want. Where do you want to go? What do you want to learn? Most importantly, business, family, faith, whatever. Where do you want to see yourself 10, 20, 40 years down the road?

[00:00:11] From cornfields to high rises, office to industrial, houses to hotels and every other asset class in real estate, we cover the people, the projects and the profit. Welcome to the Investing in Iowa Show. This show is for go-doers, action takers and business owners.

[00:00:29] It's for people like you who are sick of Uncle Sam taking a huge bite of your apple. If you're looking to get ahead of what's taking place in Iowa, learn who is doing what and how you can get in on the action, you're in the right place. Hosted by Neil Timmins, an Iowa native who has been involved in over $300 million in real estate right here in Iowa. Recording in studio from West Des Moines, here's your host, Neil Timmins.

[00:00:56] I've got Chase Keller here on the show. Chase, welcome.

[00:00:59] Thank you. Very honored to be here, Neil.

[00:01:01] I'm excited for your year. Say, for the audience's sake, who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?

[00:01:05] Chase Keller, a commercial broker. I grew up here in Iowa, Cedar Falls. Moved around a little bit, left Iowa for college and working for a while, but eventually came back.

[00:01:16] When did you end up back here?

[00:01:17] 2010.

[00:01:18] Okay.

[00:01:19] Yeah.

[00:01:19] What brought you back?

[00:01:21] That's a longer story, but I went to film school down in Florida. Absolutely loved the industry. Moved to New York. Absolutely loved every second of being in New York, but came back. Found out about my oldest. Didn't really want to raise a family in Manhattan, so came back to Iowa.

[00:01:39] Yeah.

[00:01:39] Here I am.

[00:01:40] How did you stumble or formalize your path into real estate? How'd you get into this business?

[00:01:48] Yeah. Yeah. Interesting story. So I'll go back a little ways. My parents always had a few rentals growing up, and I'll take it even a step further. As far back as I can remember, I had a paper out.

[00:02:01] I never saw a dime of the money. My parents always just took it. I say that you'll find out a little bit more of the reason in the back. They weren't doing anything shady, weren't trying to take advantage of me. I didn't even think about it because I was a kid, but they took it all. It was all put into an account. I didn't have it. I come spend it. Whatever. Probably smart on their end.

[00:02:22] But my 16th birthday, I remember my dad said, we're going to do two things today. You're going to quit your paper out, and we're going to go find you a property to buy. And he had all of the paper out money saved up in an account. And so we went out and bought, I think we bought it for $12,000.

[00:02:40] Wow. This was back in, I don't even know how long ago that was, but a long time ago, about the 90s. We fixed it up a little bit, got it rented, held it for a year, sold that one, bought another really small crappy house, fixed that up a little bit, held it. And then I sold that one to buy my first house personally after graduating high school.

[00:03:03] After high school, a little bit of a break between high school and college with one of my best friends. We flipped a few properties, loved it. And that basically funded me leaving and going to film school. Totally different route.

[00:03:18] What an incredible story about the entry point in real estate. That is amazing. So fast forward me a little bit. You end up back here in Iowa. How'd you end up in real estate back at that point?

[00:03:28] Yeah. So I had to make a decision. Obviously I was in the film industry, loved the industry and moving back to Iowa. Naturally, not a lot of big studio pictures are shot here.

[00:03:39] Right.

[00:03:39] So I didn't really want to do the kind of film that takes place in Iowa. Nothing, not dissing anybody who's in that, but that just wasn't my deal. So I really went back to the only other thing that I knew that I really enjoyed and I thought I was pretty good at.

[00:03:54] And so I immediately, within, I think it was a couple of weeks of being back, bought three properties on a lease option and spent the summer completely fixing them up.

[00:04:05] Again, with the same buddy that I flipped the other properties with, there was 10 units and three buildings. I think four of the 10 units were even remotely rentable.

[00:04:15] So we spent a long, hard summer fixing it all up and got it all rented out and held those properties for years.

[00:04:23] Yeah. That's incredible. Just in case somebody doesn't know what a lease option is, can you give us a little context to that?

[00:04:29] Yeah. Good question. So it was basically, I had enough money to either buy a relatively small property or enough money to have a property that I didn't essentially have to pay for, but could fix up.

[00:04:44] So the deal that we struck with a guy that owned them all, was in the middle of renovating everything and had back surgery, but didn't want to deal with it.

[00:04:53] He had a good business. Our cashflow was good for him. So we basically just took over his payments.

[00:05:00] You just made monthly payments, but we had a lease.

[00:05:03] So no real security on the properties other than the piece of paper saying we had the option to buy within a couple of years.

[00:05:11] Made the payments, put every dime basically that I had to fixing up the units and almost two years to the day, I was able to get a loan, refinance and pay them off.

[00:05:22] Executed.

[00:05:23] That's amazing. It's underutilized tool. Have you used it since then?

[00:05:26] Well, only one other time. Yeah. Yeah. That was it. Not a ton. Bought several on contract, but at least optionally a couple of times.

[00:05:35] All right. So fast forward through that series of transactions. What'd you do next?

[00:05:39] Yeah. So my history has just gotten all over the place. I knew I loved real estate, but what I wanted to settle in on was definitely up in there.

[00:05:49] And I was ready to roll with the punches and just figure it out. I didn't really have a long-term plan. Honestly, I wish. So this kind of goes back to my dad and essentially lovingly say forced me into real estate.

[00:06:02] I wish that I was more aware of how smart my dad actually was and what he was trying to push me to, but I was a kid, young, dumb, whatever.

[00:06:12] My rebellion in life, or at least to my parents was going to film school instead of jumping into real estate. But yeah, I came back and I've done everything from, obviously I bought a good number of properties, did at least in the beginning, did all of the renovation, all of the maintenance, all of the management.

[00:06:29] Yeah. Everything myself. I like it. It's good work. I think I'm pretty good at it. Did wholesaling for a year. Did it with the same buddy, went crazy with it. And my goal wasn't to be a long-term wholesaler, but I wanted to do larger multifamily.

[00:06:46] I have somewhat of a spending problem that anytime my bank account gets up a little bit, I find a deal and I just want to buy it. Don't ever save up enough to buy larger multifamilies. The way after a year, I was going to save up enough to buy a larger multifamily property. A decent number of the deals that I was trying to wholesale, I just kept to myself because they were good deals. That's a problem, Neil. I don't know what to do.

[00:07:09] I know where people in this business are definitely deal junkies. It's challenging to walk away when you know there's profit.

[00:07:14] But yeah, did wholesaling for a while, started a property management company for a while. That was definitely started for the right reasons, but I think I'm good at property management.

[00:07:27] That is definitely not where my passion and where I think that the best use of my time is. So I didn't run that too long.

[00:07:33] I did one pretty decent size syndication that went overall pretty well. It was here in Ankeny. It was my first large deal that I had ever done here in the Des Moines metro. So I'd say when I came back to Iowa, I was up in Cedar Falls again. So buying a lot of that property up there, eventually decided that I wanted to move my business to Des Moines.

[00:07:55] And so when you're the one in Ankeny that you ended up syndicating, when you say a larger multifamily, give me some context, roughly what size is that?

[00:08:02] Yeah. So a 52 unit and we bought for just over 3 million, put a bunch of work into it, held it for three, four years, sold out and worked out pretty well. I thought I was really interested in syndication. That's just not my deal.

[00:08:18] I love the concept. I have a ton of friends and contacts that do a really good job in it. And I love the concept, but me raising money, just.

[00:08:28] It's raising money is not doing real estate. Yeah.

[00:08:30] It's a requirement. It's a component to doing so, but it's not exactly the same.

[00:08:36] Yeah.

[00:08:36] So you knew real estate was home for you, but not exactly sure what segment, if you will, of real estate. And so you try to reverse things and some fit like a glove and some fit.

[00:08:47] More like a boot on a hand, I suspect. Huh? And then eventually you settle in and find yourself.

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[00:09:33] Yeah. So again, I lovingly say that my wife, she didn't force me into getting my license, but strongly encouraged.

[00:09:42] She's brilliant, beautiful young ladies. Obviously, I take her advice, probably not as much as I should, but I took her advice, jumped into it, and found out I absolutely love the brokerage side as well.

[00:09:53] Yeah. What about the brokerage side of you, dear?

[00:09:55] I'm a deal junkie, and there's only so much, even if I'm extremely successful, there's only so much that I can buy myself.

[00:10:04] I already have so much money, and really now I get to go out and spend other people's money.

[00:10:09] I get to look at all the deals. I get to do the negotiations every day, and I love that part.

[00:10:16] I think I'm good at it. I think I'm suited for it, and it works.

[00:10:20] It keeps you in the environment to be able to see deals, and so in the event, there's opportunities, I suspect you still buy.

[00:10:25] I can imagine that your background as an investor probably helps provide counsel to buyers.

[00:10:32] Yes. Yeah.

[00:10:33] Yeah, absolutely. And I come at that very much as an owner standpoint. Obviously, I bought a bunch, I've sold a bunch, and I can see both sides.

[00:10:42] I've done number 1031, so I know the process. I know the emotions that go into it. Of course, we always say on the investment side, the business side, there shouldn't be any emotion.

[00:10:52] It's all about the numbers, but we all know that's not true. There's still so many emotions that go in, but having been on that side many times myself, spending my own money, I have a better idea of what somebody's looking at, what they need.

[00:11:06] What type of things do you focus, what asset classes do you focus on?

[00:11:10] Yeah. So the majority of my brokerage career has definitely been in multifamily. We do a good amount of multifamily here in the metro. I love multifamily. It's been my bread and butter. And one of the things that I really like about it is the operation side.

[00:11:25] I love the business side of real estate itself. And of course, I love and we've done a decent amount of net lease investment sales. And those are good. Those are easier, certainly for the analysis, run the numbers. We've done a handful of leases, not a ton on that side. That's not my focus. Definitely not my desire. I'm where I want to spend most of my time.

[00:11:48] Sure. But yeah, office, I haven't done any industrial, not legit full industrial, but yeah, multifamily. However, we are gearing up and we're going to jump in headlong into the hospitality space.

[00:12:03] Hmm. I'm super excited for it. What appeals to you about that space?

[00:12:07] Similarly, I like the operation. I like the business side of it. And obviously hotels similar to multifamily, but even more so the business itself plays a massive role in the success of a hotel.

[00:12:20] Of course, you can hire a hotel manager. There's a lot of fantastic managers around the country, but the business itself, the real estate, and I love the physical touch feel part of real estate. And I never want to get away from that. But this is to me, the perfect marriage of business and operations and real estate itself.

[00:12:39] Much like a multifamily, you have to operate it correctly in order to make money. That management component has to be dialed in for probably, I suspect more so in the hospitality business.

[00:12:49] Yes, absolutely. And I love seeing the ups and the downs and just a lot of the stuff that goes along with the operations of the hotels as I've been diving into this.

[00:12:58] And different brands, different flags, and really what that means. And then the requirements that are come along with each of those.

[00:13:04] Yeah, absolutely. And getting into that is an interesting story. Again, looking back, I wish I was smart enough to realize how smart my dad was, or at least what he was trying to push me to.

[00:13:15] And obviously, went to film school. And like how many of us in the world, especially the millennial generation and younger, going to college for something that they're not using anymore?

[00:13:25] Sure. I'll justify a little bit that. I did try to use, or did use it for a little while. Didn't last very long.

[00:13:31] But one of the very interesting connections is while I was in film school down in Orlando, Florida, I worked at a little side job.

[00:13:40] And I worked with, it was through the America Reads program.

[00:13:43] And I was in kindergarten class, helping kids go through their alphabet, go through their sounds, read, do some math, that kind of stuff.

[00:13:51] And in kindergarten, the teacher that I worked with there was tremendous. I absolutely loved working with her.

[00:13:58] And of course, I was not even like a paraeducator. I'm even below that. But what I learned from her, this was obviously well before having kids.

[00:14:07] Loved working with her, got to know her a little bit, got to know her husband, which owned a, or owns, started his own business brokerage.

[00:14:16] And extremely successful, does really, really good work. Stayed in touch with them. He was actually up in New York when I was up there, came out, visited, and played around.

[00:14:27] Kept in touch over the years. I was always very interested in the business brokerage world.

[00:14:32] And he tapped me a while ago that their company was very interested in starting a hotel division.

[00:14:40] And so that connection, I mean, of course, I'm not a teacher by any means. I have no desire to be a teacher, but happened to go to film school, go to this, working in this elementary school.

[00:14:52] And the husband of the teacher that I work with created a great connection, and we are gearing up to do a lot in the hospitality space. I'm stoked.

[00:14:59] It's amazing. Relationships make everything happen. That's really incredible.

[00:15:04] For you, why Iowa? You could do what you do anywhere. You choose to be here. Why here?

[00:15:08] Yeah. So I did choose to come back to Iowa, and that was partially because our families were here, grandparents were here.

[00:15:14] But of course, it's a great place to raise a family, and that was one of the number one reasons.

[00:15:20] Now, I will say, while I was up in Cedar Falls and before deciding to move to Des Moines, I took probably two months off, and all I did full-time was analyze markets.

[00:15:32] I knew I didn't want to stay in Cedar Falls. Love Cedar Falls for a lot of reasons, but knew I didn't want to stay there.

[00:15:39] I just, I sat back. I wanted to stay in the Midwest, but I looked at every metro in the Midwest, and obviously looking for a market that I can, good place to raise my family.

[00:15:50] But where is the real estate? Where is that going? What am I looking for? And I looked at everything, Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, every metro in the Midwest, but everything was pointing to Des Moines.

[00:16:03] And so that's why I love Des Moines. Other than winters, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be here forever.

[00:16:09] It's really, well, you landed in a heck of a good city, and since you've been here, it's really been incredible ever since.

[00:16:14] This place continues to morph, grow, and provide tremendous opportunity.

[00:16:19] Chase, you ready for the final three questions?

[00:16:21] Absolutely.

[00:16:21] If you had one piece of advice for your 20-year-old self, what would it be?

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[00:16:59] Listen to the people around you.

[00:17:01] And at the same token, don't listen to all the people around you.

[00:17:05] But take a step back and create more of a vision for what you want.

[00:17:09] Where do you want to go?

[00:17:09] What do you want to learn?

[00:17:11] Most importantly, business, family, faith, whatever.

[00:17:14] Where do you want to see yourself 10, 20, 40 years down the road?

[00:17:19] I wish I would have taken a much bigger step back as opposed to just, hey, this looks fun.

[00:17:24] Try this.

[00:17:25] Hey, this was successful.

[00:17:26] Let's keep going.

[00:17:27] Let's move over here.

[00:17:28] As you look forward for the next 10, 20 years, what's it look like for you?

[00:17:31] Yeah.

[00:17:31] So one of the things, obviously on the brokerage side, the hospitality space is going to be a major, but it's definitely not going to be the only play that we're making.

[00:17:40] And on that level, I'll say that we're not just going to be working in Iowa in hospitality.

[00:17:46] We're going to be working nationwide, natural for hospitality to not be geographically centered.

[00:17:51] But we've got a few other asset classes that we're wanting to take on.

[00:17:56] Once we really get going in the hospitality, where I want to take that.

[00:18:01] Down the road, some very niche, different markets are excited to take on.

[00:18:05] Family-wise, we've got a relatively young family.

[00:18:08] So the next 10, 15 years, we're very focused on what's going on with the kids.

[00:18:13] Where do we go?

[00:18:14] What activities are we doing?

[00:18:15] Vacations.

[00:18:16] That's a huge portion of my life.

[00:18:19] It's great.

[00:18:20] Two books that changed your life.

[00:18:21] Obviously, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

[00:18:23] Several times through high school, when I would get in trouble, instead of getting grounded or, I don't know, getting the car taken away, that happened a lot too.

[00:18:33] My dad would say that you're going to read this book and you're going to give me a report.

[00:18:37] And that was probably the only punishment that I can really remember post getting spanked from my dad.

[00:18:42] That's where we went.

[00:18:43] And the first book that he did that at 16 years old was Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

[00:18:48] I think there's probably been maybe two or three years since then that I haven't read that book every year.

[00:18:55] So, yeah.

[00:18:56] Naturally, I think that's a fairly obvious answer for a lot of investors, but definitely played a huge role for me.

[00:19:03] It's a little purple Bible.

[00:19:04] That's a lot of people into the investment industry.

[00:19:07] Another book.

[00:19:07] What else comes to mind?

[00:19:09] The very first book that I ever bought on audiobook, which goes, I'm a huge audio listener, podcast, audiobooks, was Winning by Jack Welch.

[00:19:20] I think that played a huge part for me, just not only because it was the first one and that was my gateway drug into the audio learning industry.

[00:19:29] But one of the most important things that I still think about with that book is obviously he's the CEO of GE.

[00:19:37] And he said that if we can't be number one or number two in any industry, we're getting out.

[00:19:43] Even if we're number three and we're making tons of profit, we're doing really well.

[00:19:48] If we can't be one or two, we're out.

[00:19:52] And we're going to push those resources into something that we can be number one or two.

[00:19:56] And I think that's played a good role for me in my life overall.

[00:20:00] Not that I've intentionally thought about it too much, but putting in anything that I'm doing, I want to do at an exceptional level.

[00:20:08] Even if it's a very niche, a very small pond, I want to do that extremely well.

[00:20:13] If you were cast away on an island for a year, you could only get three pieces of data about your business each and every month.

[00:20:21] I'll let you define your business however you so choose.

[00:20:23] What three things must you know every month to know how your business is running?

[00:20:27] Obviously cash flow.

[00:20:28] That's probably the biggest one, the easiest one, the obvious answer.

[00:20:32] I would say the average deal size.

[00:20:35] So I'm obviously going off of the brokerage side, but the average deal size and how many transactions.

[00:20:42] Those are the biggest KIPs in my industry for a year.

[00:20:45] Jason, I've asked lots of questions.

[00:20:47] What's one question I did not ask that I should have asked?

[00:20:50] How many kids I have?

[00:20:51] Yeah, let's do it.

[00:20:53] That's obviously an enormous part of my world.

[00:20:56] So we've got six kids.

[00:20:57] Okay.

[00:20:57] Up for my oldest turns 14, four days.

[00:21:01] Yeah.

[00:21:02] And our youngest is two and a half.

[00:21:04] So they are my world.

[00:21:06] And obviously you're talking about like hobbies, anything else outside of, I love real estate.

[00:21:11] I love my business and my family.

[00:21:14] That's really it.

[00:21:15] With six kids, they are your hobbies, right?

[00:21:17] Yeah.

[00:21:17] For all the good and the bad reasons and trying to keep the house, not a complete tornado disaster

[00:21:23] every day and trying to teach them.

[00:21:26] It's one of my dreams.

[00:21:27] And it's been this way for well before I have kids was I want at least one of them to work

[00:21:34] with me in my business.

[00:21:35] That's incredible.

[00:21:36] Long time.

[00:21:36] Yeah.

[00:21:36] I loved working with my dad.

[00:21:38] He worked with his dad, very different industries, all three of them.

[00:21:43] But I hope that I can impart the wisdom and share my long-term careers as well.

[00:21:50] On their 16th birthday, what will you be doing with each of them?

[00:21:54] That is a good question.

[00:21:55] So my oldest turns 14 and while I'm not a huge fan of this, my wife and my three oldest

[00:22:04] are going this weekend to Taylor Swift concert on Indianapolis.

[00:22:10] All right.

[00:22:10] So I'm not a part of that.

[00:22:12] I'm staying back with the other babies.

[00:22:14] But yeah, travel.

[00:22:15] That's really what for our 13 year old, my wife took her and a few friends down to Disney

[00:22:21] World for just a quick three day trip.

[00:22:23] That's huge for us is travel, getting out experiences or trying to not be a toy and junk family because

[00:22:31] that's what a lot of it is, but build on the experiences with them.

[00:22:34] They never forget those.

[00:22:35] Dude, this has been a great conversation for people.

[00:22:38] They want to find you.

[00:22:39] They want to follow you.

[00:22:39] They want to connect with you.

[00:22:40] Where can they go?

[00:22:41] What should they do?

[00:22:42] Yeah.

[00:22:42] Obviously websites that's about to change with the new brokerage even officially announced

[00:22:47] that this may be the first time.

[00:22:49] Yeah.

[00:22:49] We're getting breaking news here.

[00:22:51] Yeah.

[00:22:51] Yeah.

[00:22:52] Keller real estate services.

[00:22:54] I don't have the domain yet.

[00:22:55] That was probably a dumb decision to announce it prior to you.

[00:22:58] I need to go home and lock that in prior to this coming out.

[00:23:02] Fortunately, we've got a few weeks before this rolls live.

[00:23:04] So if you're listening to the home, that will have already been resolved.

[00:23:07] Yes.

[00:23:07] Yeah.

[00:23:07] Yeah.

[00:23:08] But yeah, I'm on all the socials.

[00:23:09] LinkedIn's my main one.

[00:23:11] Instagram.

[00:23:12] Yeah.

[00:23:12] Chase Keller.

[00:23:13] Obviously email, phone.

[00:23:16] Yeah.

[00:23:16] Anyway.

[00:23:16] We'll put all the links below in the shout outs for everybody.

[00:23:19] Chase, thank you for being here.

[00:23:20] Yeah.

[00:23:21] Thank you, Neil.

[00:23:21] My pleasure.

[00:23:22] Thanks for listening.

[00:23:24] If you're enjoying the show, may I ask a favor of you?

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[00:23:33] It does a lot for us here at the show and I appreciate reading your thoughts.

[00:23:37] Great guests make for a great show.

[00:23:39] If you know of another Iowan who would be a great guest or you yourself have interest in

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[00:23:47] Visit Investing in Iowa to fill out an application or recommend a guest.

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[00:23:58] Click on the Invest With Us button in the top right corner.

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[00:24:05] Until next time, keep investing in Iowa.