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Preston Landis
Hi, I'm here to pick up my son, Milo.
Sean
There's no Milo here. Who picked up my son from school? Streaming only on Peacock.
Preston Landis
I'm gonna need the name of everyone that could have a connection. You don't understand.
Sean
It was just the five of us. So this was all planned?
Preston Landis
What are you gonna do? I will do whatever it takes to get my son back. I honestly didn't see this coming.
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Sean
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Preston Landis
Your planet is now marked for death.
Sean
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Preston Landis
Light them up, Johnny.
Sean
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Preston Landis
That is fantastic.
Sean
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Preston Landis
What time is it, Ben? It's cloud time. I'm satisfied. Right now. I'm making good money. If I paid off my entire debt, obviously I would be clearing over six figures a month. But if I instead used money to go and redeploy, I could maybe make more money, but have more debt. So you kind of got to wear out that risk to reward. And I'm kind of in the process of doing so again. That 40 House portfolio, this is something big I'm on. It's just jumping in the pool. You're not a swim the same way. Truly.
Sean
Just how you learn the fastest.
Preston Landis
It's how you learn. So. So.
Sean
And we're young enough to be able to.
Preston Landis
Right?
Sean
Like if something bad happens, you have another chance.
Preston Landis
And this just goes in general, right? Like you need to cut the stuff, the bad stuff out of your life, whether the people, places, habits, whatever it is, if it doesn't build you, it's not helping you.
Sean
Okay, guys, Digital social hour. We got Preston Landis here today, first in person podcast for him. We're going to talk Section eight.
Preston Landis
Yep.
Sean
Let's do it, baby. I've heard of it. I've seen a lot of posts about it, but I've never liked it. Took a deep dive. So I'm excited to the.
Preston Landis
Yeah, yeah, it's. It's something that I would say has become very popular lately and especially with, you know, social media and all these people that are posting about it and how lucrative it can be, especially with, you know, times of an uncertainty. Like we are, you know, like we have right now, you know, my payments are still arriving, so. So, you know, whenever the first was a few days ago, I still got paid. The government shut down. Housing subsidies are not affected. So again, Section 8 is great for a lot of people in their strategies. It doesn't make sense, but for me and my strategy it does.
Sean
That's interesting. So you mentioned the shutdown, so that's actually a good point. So you're still getting paid even though the government shut down.
Preston Landis
Correct. And I have heard of some because there's different public housing authorities. Right. And the HUD essentially distributes different funds, allocates different funds to different housing authorities. And I've heard of some housing authorities being 15 days late on the payments. I have not heard of in my network of people, anyone not being paid at all.
Sean
Interesting.
Preston Landis
So again, you know, I have traditional rentals, I have Section 8 rentals. If I could transition every single traditional rental over to a Section 8 rental, I would.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
Even given all the uncertainty with the Section 8 space, because it's been around since 1974, it and, and you know, government housing subsidies in general have been around since the 20s, the 1920s, but I don't see any president or anyone ever know making 7 or 8, 7, 8 million people homeless. Right.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
Because that's the number of people that are on section 8 or just government housing subsidies in general. So yeah, I, I, I find it fairly, you know, safe as far as an investment. If you're familiar with triple net leases at all.
Sean
I'm not.
Preston Landis
It's essentially a more it's a corporate thing. So like a CVS would sign a lease with someone who owns the building. Right. And they would. The triple net stands for insurance, taxes and upkeep of the property. Right. So it's essentially just mailbox money. Right. You don't have to do anything with these triple net properties, these commercial deals.
Sean
Got it.
Preston Landis
And so with Section 8, there was a low barrier to entry, which sort of interested me. And.
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Preston Landis
Me and I started off my first deal. Well, let me rewind a little bit and start from the beginning and I'll give you a very brief synopsis of kind of my story and what, how I scale my portfolio from 0 to 100 houses. So basically what happened was about three and a half years ago, I started looking into the space. I was really intrigued by it. I love the idea of owning real estate, tangible assets. And obviously at that time in my life, I was working in commercial real estate and I was making decent money, but I couldn't go buy some 1632 unit apartment complex. So I started off with one house, as most people do, and I bought a course from Tom Cruz, who you may or may not have seen on Instagram.
Sean
I have. That's the guy I see all the time.
Preston Landis
Yeah. He's got all the crazy cars.
Sean
He's got thousands of houses.
Preston Landis
He has about 800.
Sean
800.
Preston Landis
And they're all paid off.
Sean
That's insane.
Preston Landis
He's. He's insane. So back in 2022, I signed up with him. And I will say Tom provided immense value to me and helped me with a lot of things along the way. I don't have anything bad to say about him.
Sean
Yeah, I know he's controversial.
Preston Landis
Yeah. But that sort of getting into that course obviously was, you know, a lot of, with the courses and stuff cost me in total around seven grand.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
And in, in essence, what my goal was to, was to buy a house with $2,500 down, because that was when what he was advertising.
Sean
That sounds really cheap. Is that 20% down or.
Preston Landis
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. These are cheap seller financing deals. But the people that are selling these deals are targeting homeowners that don't have maybe the liquidity or the credit to buy it. But when he, when he sent me this first deal, it was that exact situation, and I didn't know how that system worked at the time.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
But again, Tom's so busy, he can't handle all these thousands of people that he has to deal with. So I close on the property, it somehow passes inspection. 45 days later, I get a call that my roof has collapsed.
Sean
Geez.
Preston Landis
The back half of the roof collapsed. So obviously, Section 8 orders an immediate move out, as you can imagine. And I get a quote, I get a few quotes, and the lowest I got was 15 grand.
Sean
Oh my gosh.
Preston Landis
So now I'm thinking I just spent seven to learn about three with closing costs to purchase my first property, and I have to pay 15 grand to fix this property. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm. This business is not for me. And to give you a long story short, basically the same thing happened with the second house. Right. And at that, at that point, I was in the process of offloading those two properties because I was in different ventures doing different things, and I was in my head going to go back and work in commercial real estate. And again, obviously, real estate is, you know, residential real estate is semi liquid. So as I was in the process of offloading them, a wholesaler who I had never spoken to somehow got my information and reached out about a deal in Macon, Georgia, which is about an hour southeast of Atlanta. And the deal was, it just looked too good to be true. And so I, you know, spent a bit of time going back and forth with them, the seller, it was through a wholesaler. And eventually I decided to purchase the deal and place a tenant while I'm simultaneously kind of fixing things up with the first two properties. And that third house was sort of my first glimpse of hope. Right. Maybe this can work. Right.
Sean
Was that a Section 8 house?
Preston Landis
That was. Yes. And so what happened there was I. It was a seller finance deal as well. I had to put more down. But the lady, she was an older lady, and she financed it back to me at 3%. And this was in. I purchased this property in November of 2023. So rates were much, much higher.
Sean
Yeah, they were like 10.
Preston Landis
Yeah, well, know, DSCR loans were quoting around. Yeah, 9 to 10%.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
It was insane at a point. And, you know, I guess back to the road. So I get to. I buy. I buy the fourth house. And I'm just addicted to the cash flow at this point.
Sean
Right.
Preston Landis
Even though I had that bad experience.
Sean
Right.
Preston Landis
I'm still addicted to that. That feeling I got when I got the check from the third house.
Sean
So you weren't even profitable yet. You were.
Preston Landis
I was like the cash flow, I was in the red.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
I was using money that I had had saved up, and I was in the red big time. However, after that fourth house, again, everything was good. I'm getting tenants in here, going through the process with the housing authorities. They all move at different paces. So my favorite market, Montgomery, Alabama, which is my largest market, that I'm exposed to it, they move quickly. So I'll give an example. This morning I sent an email and my property manager sent an email, cc'd me, and they responded within 10 minutes.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
So that is a big factor of the Section 8 business and being able to scale. Right. Because if you have. If you have a housing authority that takes days to respond to, say, an inspection or, hey, we need this from you, or we. Or they need to process this document, and they take four days for everything. Whether. Whereas Montgomery, it takes a day for them to do this.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
You know, you can imagine it adds up, right? That castle that you're losing out on adds up.
Sean
That's some really great advice because I'd imagine most people don't even think about that.
Preston Landis
Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, that's, that's a huge part of it. And so at that fourth house, I basically ran out of money. I won't say basically, I, I ran out of money aside from money I needed for my personal life, money to invest. I ran out of it. And I was basically just at this point where I had no other option but to go and find other people to raise money from. So I kind of go back to the drawing board and think, how can I do this? Ironically, about a month after everything sort of stabilized. So this is probably late, either late 2023 or early 2024.
Sean
So you got the roofs fixed and.
Preston Landis
Everything was, everything was, everything was good. We got everything stabilized with those four. But again I had the problem of I have no liquidity. So I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to be able to raise the capital. Right. Because I don't have a ton of experience. And from what I had learned up until that point, I was going to charge absurd interest rates to borrow money from any lender. And it wasn't that my credit was bad, but it was, I needed to close quick. This was again a seller finance deal.
Sean
Right.
Preston Landis
It was a ten house portfolio. The guy that brought me that third deal that kept me in the business bought me this, brought me this portfolio. It was 10 units, 10 houses. Essentially what I did, and I don't mind sharing this is I put the property under contract and not, not having a damn clue how I was going to close on it.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
But I knew that if I did not put it under contract that someone else would snatch it up. This was the same day the wholesaler sent this to me, you know, so I was, I was in a bit of a time crunch. So I basically signed the contract. I have seven calendar days to submit the earnest money, which for those who don't know, earnest money is. It's basically just you put up a deposit as your good faith, so to speak, and after a certain period of time it becomes non refundable. So I put up the earnest money out of my personal funds that I had remaining.
Sean
How much was the earnest.
Preston Landis
The earnest money was $10,000, which was.
Sean
Probably a lot for you at the time.
Preston Landis
Which again left me with little to nothing.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
And you know, obviously I have Credit cards and stuff. And I had money, you know, still coming in from these other houses, right. So I mean, I live in la, so not enough to cover, but money coming in. So I put the 10,000 up. I am basically just scrambling to figure out how I can raise this money. Because that deal I believe was I had 14 days before my earnest money went firm, which means non refundable. And I was so confident in the fact that I could get the deal done that during those 14 days, obviously I was day and night hunting for lenders. I thought I had someone, they backed out. So then I have to come to a decision. Do I want to bail from this deal or do I want to roll the dice with my $10,000 that I really need and try and get this property or, you know, so I really was at a fork in the road and I decided that after that, when that 14 day mark hit, I was going to go and raise the funds. So I rolled the dice. And to make it a long story short, I found probably 200 to 300 wholesalers and copy paste message them my buy box, everything I wanted to buy down to the T. And then emails just started coming in, deals started coming in. Deal flow was crazy. And I basically just took that model and replicated it a few times. Right. And then I was like, okay, I want to get to a point where I'm not just buying nine, 10 houses at a time or six or eight or 10. And so the last portfolio I closed was 40 houses, which was for about a month a complete nightmare because there was 11 vacancies.
Sean
Whoa.
Preston Landis
Which was a curse and a blessing because we got to go in there and play section eight tenants immediately. Right. There was no, hey, get out. You know, but it was a bit of a headache at first because there's a lot that goes into that.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
And there's also a lot that goes into transferring, you know, 40 different people over to 40 different. Like we have a portal that our tenants pay through and they pay their portion of their rent through. And I have tenants that don't pay any rent.
Sean
Yeah, they only have to pay like 3%. Right.
Preston Landis
Well, it varies. So I have some tenants that pay me 28 bucks, I have some tenants that pay me $0. And I have some tenants that pay me, you know, I think the highest is five of five or three.
Sean
Yeah, it depends on the state or.
Preston Landis
No, it depends on their income.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
So it's all depends on their income. And the rent amount is all depend on bedroom count. So I could have a 2,000 square foot, three bedroom house that would rent, that could rent for the same amount as a 800 square foot three bedroom house. So it's all based off of, you know, bedroom count.
Sean
So.
Preston Landis
Basically all that happened, I got to that point and now in my life I have reached a point where I in a way have. After I closed on those 40, 40 properties, it was this dopamine hit that I've never, you know, encountered before. And now. And there was so much upside to the deal and now I see that those deals are out there and I'm just so hungry to go get more. And I know the formula, I know how to raise the capital, I know how to set up the cap stack, I know how to do all the stuff. But one of the things I want to touch on just for anyone that's watching, that wants to learn is the management aspect of, you know, Section 8 investing. Because I've never been to Georgia or Alabama.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
And I own 62 in Alabama and the rest are in Georgia.
Sean
That's impressive.
Preston Landis
So the. And I've had nightmare situations happen with the management, not imagine.
Sean
Yeah. I feel like it's inevitable in real estate.
Preston Landis
Yeah.
Sean
Whether it's section eight or just.
Preston Landis
Yeah.
Sean
You know, in general.
Preston Landis
Yeah. And so I, I've had multiple, you know, cases where I should have probably gone out there back in the day. I had, I was in Birmingham. It was the fourth house that I bought.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
That house ended up burning down.
Sean
Holy crap.
Preston Landis
To give you a long story short, the tenant was again, from my understanding, I talked to the fire marshal, was doing some sort of meth and I guess maybe something caught on fire. And yeah, the house burned down. But we had replacement cost insurance. So we got to, you know, thank.
Sean
God we got that insurance.
Preston Landis
We got cut a check from State Farm and the work that needed to be done costed less than what we.
Sean
Nice.
Preston Landis
The check was from Safe Farm. So we were able to kind of pocket some money there. And then we just have this burnt house that, you know, either we can use the money and fix or we can just basically demo it and sell the land and keep the proceeds.
Sean
What did you decide?
Preston Landis
We decided to fix it up.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
And I've since offloaded it because we put, you know, it looks nice. Right. We had $80,000 to put into it and it looks nice. And we just. I just decided to sell it because I believe in the power of at most two markets being exposed. At most two markets, ideally one. But I can't sit here and talk because I'm exposed To two. At one point, I was in seven different markets.
Sean
Holy crap.
Preston Landis
Yeah.
Sean
You're talking cities or.
Preston Landis
Well, I was in Toledo, Ohio. I was in St. Louis. I was in Albany, Georgia. Macon, Georgia. Montgomery, Birmingham.
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Preston Landis
There was one more.
Sean
Okay. And you felt like you spread yourself too thin doing that.
Preston Landis
Well, it just, it didn't make sense from a management aspect. Right. Because, you know, everyone wants to get paid right from the management standpoint. And if they're managing one or two houses, they don't have a huge incentive to, you know, when there's a call at your property to get out there ASAP, if they've got another guy that's got 50 properties and he has a call. Right. So I have a team of three in Alabama. My property management fees are 6%, which the average fee is typically 10%, but with the high volume, we lowered it to 6.
Sean
Got it.
Preston Landis
And it's. It's been a ride. I've fired numerous property managers and I'm not proud of saying that. I'm just for the people out there that are watching. I want to be educated. You need to. I recommend learning the business before handing the business off. Right. Because if you buy a house, say you wanted to buy your first Section 8 house, and I said, hey, Sean, you know, let's go close on it in 30 days. We close on in 30 days. You get the keys, whatever you don't want to. Oh, gosh, this might need to be one of those things we clip out this might be one of those things we clip out because I totally lost my train of thought.
Sean
You buy your first section 8 house and you don't want to.
Preston Landis
But before that.
Sean
Oh, firing property managers.
Preston Landis
Yes. Yes. Okay, so you don't want to hand the business off before you know the business. Right. So if I came to you, Sean, and I said, hey, in 30 days, let's have your property closed, and we'll. We'll get you management set up. Right. They'll start charging you all sorts of fees. Set up fees, administration fees, extra management fees, all these sorts of fees on top of. And you wouldn't really notice to say no to that, because that's just kind of standard. Right?
Sean
Right.
Preston Landis
But I do mentorships, and I help people with my free time now because again, I'm focused on buying big portfolios. And at the moment, I'm kind of at a standstill, but there are not.
Sean
Many on the market.
Preston Landis
Well, I'm just kind of waiting to see where rates go.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
And kind of build more equity in my personal portfolio, pay down some more debt, you know, kind of hyper amortize that debt just to be safe and stay at kind of a healthy loan to value. But I guess my point is that you want to make sure that you're not getting screwed over by any. Anyone that's managing your properties, because they will try and charge you extra fees. They will try and cut corners. They will try and tell you, hey, this is this much, but it's really this much.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
So you need to be very, very cautious of who you're hiring. Make sure that you're getting references from other successful landlords and investors in that area before ever even considering a property manager. Because if you blindly do it, it's like going to a bar, drinking 15 beers and trying to throw a dice or a dart and hit the bullseye.
Sean
Right.
Preston Landis
It's just not. It's just not gonna happen.
Sean
So, anyway, thanks for sharing the dark side of this business.
Preston Landis
There is a dark side.
Sean
You're very open about it.
Preston Landis
The management side is. Can be dark. But the reason I am doing the mentorship is because my three guys handle everything from A to Z for me.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
I. We talk on the phone every single day. I will say that we do. I talk to my one lead property manager every single day. Sometimes it calls for literally two minutes, Sometimes it's for an hour. It just depends what's going on. And. And there are things that happen. For instance, this last weekend during Halloween, their Halloween weekend, there was a, you know, Friday night, it's Halloween and I get a message that, you know, someone's airs or I'm sorry, their heating is out, so we can't leave them. It's cold in Alabama. We can't leave them with no heat. So we have to go fix that right then. So he doesn't ask me to go do these things. He does them right. I give him a budget. He knows what he can spend, he knows what he can't spend. He knows what he can do, he can't do. And again, he's the lead manager and he's got someone under him.
Sean
Does that get reimbursed? How does that work when something like that happens?
Preston Landis
Well, so it comes out of the company card.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
So. So we share expenses so that everything that, you know, he buys is. I see, right. So again, if there's a contractor that goes out, I would like to speak to them directly. I would like to know, get a scope of work breakdown of everything, like myself, I want to speak to them. I don't want my property manager at this point. I trust my property manager enough. But sometimes, just when you think you trust people, you get screwed.
Sean
Times are tough right now too. Yeah.
Preston Landis
You got to stay on top of people. And the management aspect is probably the most important aspect of the section a business.
Sean
Would you say that's the toughest part of the business? Like when it comes to finding the deal or managing it, would you say the managing is harder?
Preston Landis
You know, I found that finding deals right now is not hard. You know, and especially I'm walking through with some of my clients there that are looking to buy their first deal. And I'm seeing lots of inventory on the market. So I'm not super concerned with whether we're in a buyer's market or seller's market personally, because my game plan is to buy and hold. I believe in that method and that's what I've been taught. So I will continue to recycle equity that I have in my properties. So I will probably, you know, assuming rates drop within this next 12 to 18 months, I'll probably refinance, pull some equity out and go redeploy that capital tax free into other assets.
Sean
Right.
Preston Landis
But again, I guess I would like to jump into the light things about the business.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
Which is.
Sean
We should probably talk about that.
Preston Landis
Yeah, that's probably a good thing to talk about and let everyone know. But in essence, Section 8 is something that even if, let's say, worst, worst case scenario, Section 8 ends next year. The way I see it is. Okay. First, 8 million people are gonna be homeless, so there's gonna be a ton of people with a ton of problems on their hands. Do you foresee that happening?
Sean
No. That's a lot of people. Plus all their family, too.
Preston Landis
Right, Right.
Sean
So I can't imagine that. I've never heard of that being brought up. Is that a conversation people are having?
Preston Landis
People on my Instagram have commented many, many, many different things about, enjoy it while you can. It's coming to an end. And while I know I don't. I don't even look twice at those comments because I know that it's not true. And until I stop getting paid, then I'm not concerned.
Sean
Yeah. I've never seen the administration talk about this, so I don't know.
Preston Landis
Right. And another thing that I want to talk about, and I'm sure you plan to talk about at some point, was the difference between investing in single family versus multifamily. Because a lot of people do ask the question to me, why do you only invest in single family?
Sean
That is a unique approach.
Preston Landis
It is. Right. Because with multifamily, you can scale a bit easier. Not a bit easier. You can scale a lot easier with multifamily. But with Section eight. Right. I'm going to give you an example. If you sat on a wait list for five years and you received a voucher for three bedrooms, which I only target properties with three bedrooms and up. If you had a voucher for three bedrooms, would you go to an apartment and say, I want to live here, where you have to share, you know, the building with someone, or would you go to a house that's on a point three acre lot? And, you know, either way, the voucher covers three bedrooms, the house, obviously you're gonna pick the house. Right. And so when there is turnover, which is there, there's very few of with the Section 8 space. And that's a big. Another big misconception is the average tent stays anywhere from six to eight years.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
Which is a lot less than a traditional tenant.
Sean
A lot longer.
Preston Landis
A lot. A lot longer.
Sean
Yeah, yeah.
Preston Landis
Than in the traditional tenant. And sorry if I said something else, but they stay a lot longer. They keep the place clean. Because like I said, you know, you can file judgments against them if they don't keep the place clean. Right. And if they don't keep the place clean and you file judgments, they get their voucher removed, which they can never get back.
Sean
How common is that?
Preston Landis
I haven't had it happen.
Sean
Oh, wow.
Preston Landis
So I've. I'VE I've had a few evictions, unfortunately, and I'm very giving. You know, last Christmas, I gave one of my tenants. You know, their portion was a bit bigger than the average person's portion. I just said, you know, use that and go help your kids, and next month, for that matter. So I do do things like that, and I am very friendly as a investor. When my property manager says, hey, I think we should evict this person, I said, give them one more week to cover their portion. Again, we're not talking a big portion, but that just shows that they're not, you know, reliable and that they might be damaging the house. So at that point, we have to take action. But I've never personally had that happen to me where my house is completely just damaged, and I have to go in there and spend 10, 15 grand on just, you know, drywall and flooring and appliances because they messed it up. Yeah, that's never happened.
Sean
That's good, because you got 100 units now, right?
Preston Landis
Yeah.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
So, I mean, basically the only difficult. And another difficult part, and this sort of ties into the management aspect, is the inspections. Right. So obviously, Section 8 has annual inspections. And the reason I'm saying this is because we were just talking about keeping the property clean. Right. So some people look at these inspections as a curse. They think, oh, I've got to go and look and see how my property looks before the inspector comes out, et cetera, et cetera. But it's actually a blessing because it's once a year. It's one day out of 365 days that you have to worry about how your house, how your asset that you invested money into looks from the interior. And if you pass, you get another 12 months of guaranteed rental income. So they're insuring your house looks good, and if it doesn't, you get to fix it up, and you get another 12 months of guaranteed rental income. Or it still looks good and you go about your day. But if you fail the inspection and you have multiple. You can fail a couple times before they put you into what's called abatement. All abatement means is that they will pause all payments until a reinspection has occurred and it is fully passed.
Sean
Got it.
Preston Landis
And they will prorate whatever, you know, however many days or weeks or months was in between the time of abatement was filed and the time that the inspector passed the unit. So that's one thing about it, keeps your. I look at it as a good thing, quite frankly. Some people look at as a bad thing, I look at as a good thing.
Sean
I mean, it would give me peace of mind.
Preston Landis
It gives me peace of mind. Exactly. So I have. I have the peace of mind knowing that my units are safe and then that and clean and that also for the next 12 months, I get guaranteed rent. So I look at it as a win. Win.
Sean
Yeah. What, are you profitable yet? Like, at what point was the cash flow really, really solid?
Preston Landis
Yeah. So about midway through 2024 is when I really started, you know, breaking off. I bought a portfolio of 18 houses. That was big for me. I did have a partner at that, with that property, with those properties, but I only am paying them 9% on their money. So when you look at these Section 8 returns. Right. And Tom always told me, look for 35 to 45 cash on cash returns, which is an absurd number.
Sean
What does that mean? Exactly.
Preston Landis
So if you invested $10,000, you would get anywhere between 3, 504, 500 back on that year.
Sean
Oh, per year. Okay.
Preston Landis
Per year.
Sean
So you'd make it back in three. Three years, Essentially three years. Okay.
Preston Landis
And up to two and a half is what he's saying. I like to target more conservatively, 30%. And with that and those high returns, it allows me to cover that investor's pref. The preferred return with no problem. So my plan, and this is no secret to them, is to kind of groom them for a little bit, keep paying them their 9%. You know, they're a very wealthy person.
Sean
Yeah. They're older. They're probably happy with that.
Preston Landis
Yeah, they just want, you know, they invested 750,000. They just want to make their 9% of their money. And they're happy with that.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
And then eventually I will refinance and pull the equity out when hopefully again, rates are lower, and I'll rinse and repeat. Pay them out and rinse and repeat.
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. So three and a third year, you're aiming to get your money back. That's. That's pretty quick.
Preston Landis
So I am looking to. By the end of 2026, I want to be at 250 houses. That's my goal. And at the beginning of this year, I. I've hit my goal for this year, and I'm. But I'm not.
Sean
Was your goal 100 this year?
Preston Landis
It was okay, but I have 102, so I'm still going. I. I don't want to stop. I'm addicted to the feeling of receiving that money, and I don't mean that in a lustful way.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
I Don't lust for money, but it's just that time freedom that it gives me. But again, it got to a point where there was too much time freedom and I had to start doing something else to fill my days.
Sean
I mean, it is very hard to find any business where you have money guaranteed coming in every month.
Preston Landis
It is.
Sean
I can't think of that many.
Preston Landis
It is. You know, it's very hard.
Sean
Like subscription maybe, but like, when it comes to real estate, it's. Yeah, it's tough.
Preston Landis
It is, it is. And that's kind of why I'm in the process of transitioning all the remaining traditional rentals I have over to Section 8 rentals so that I can kind of have everything stabilized. Yeah.
Sean
Because there's a lot of people defaulting on their cars right now, their houses.
Preston Landis
There's a lot of.
Sean
You know, with Section 8, that's not really a possibility.
Preston Landis
Right, it's not. I mean, look, they're covering from 70 to 100% of the rent. If your expenses are even close to 70%, you're not looking at the right deals.
Sean
Right. What, what percent do you aim for, for expenses?
Preston Landis
I don't look at it from that metric. I try and I look at it from a per house net profit. So I aim for 600 per house profit. Profit.
Sean
Is that per month or per month?
Preston Landis
Per month per house.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
And that's after I put away 10 of my gross rents for maintenance and repairs.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
I put that away for. In a separate account just in case the worst thing happens.
Sean
Got it. That's smart.
Preston Landis
To put myself in a good position. I put. And that is also including management, which is 6%. And then that's including my debt service, my taxes, and my insurance. So I'd like to think that $600 per house is a fairly reasonable goal to have for anyone out there looking to buy Section 8 real estate. And it can go up.
Sean
It.
Preston Landis
Honestly, I've seen people cash flow. Tom. Tom, again, his stuff's paid off, but he's. He's literally cash flowing. Thirteen hundred dollars per house.
Sean
Yeah. What do you think of that strategy? Fully paying off the house versus what you're doing?
Preston Landis
You know, I've spent probably three days in total thinking about that.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
Like, I spent numerous, numerous hours keeping.
Sean
You up at night.
Preston Landis
And to answer your question, I. I don't have. I don't have the answer to that question yet. I don't know if paying them off makes more sense. And again, this, this. It's kind of at this point, a. I'm looking at from a risk versus. Right, right. So I'm satisfied right now. I'm making good money. If I paid off my entire debt, obviously I would be, you know, clearing over six figures a month. But if I instead used money to go and redeploy, I could maybe make more money, but have more debt. So you kind of got to weigh out that risk to reward. And I'm kind of in the process of doing so again. That 40 House portfolio, and this is, this is something big I'm on is just, just jumping in the pool whether you're not a swim or not.
Sean
I'm the same way, truly. Just how you learn the fastest.
Preston Landis
It's how you learn. So.
Sean
And we're young enough to be able to.
Preston Landis
Right.
Sean
Like if something bad happens, you know.
Preston Landis
You have another chance.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
And you know, I think for anyone. And this just goes in general, Right. Like you need to cut the stuff, the bad stuff out of your life. Right. Whether it be people, places, habits, whatever it is, if it doesn't build you, it's, it's, it's, it's not helping you. Right. So you need to just jump in. That is my. I literally think I post something once a day on my story that basically in a way says just get going.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
Learn, educate yourself and get going.
Sean
I mean, that's what you did with that first 10 unit deal.
Preston Landis
Exactly.
Sean
You didn't have the money.
Preston Landis
Exactly. I didn't. And let me go back to that real quick because I missed a super funny part. Now that it's all said and done and, you know, I kind of get to look back and laugh at it, But I paid 30% on that loan.
Sean
Holy crap.
Preston Landis
Yeah.
Sean
That's insane.
Preston Landis
I bought 100 grand and I paid a flat 30% rate. Paid him back in eight months. Yeah.
Sean
Oh, so it's a private lender.
Preston Landis
As a private money lender, you were super desperate.
Sean
So you did 30%. Holy.
Preston Landis
Well, because at that point, I was going to lose the 10 grand.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
So there was two guys that I was kind of waiting on and one was being stagnant. And this guy, the clock was ticking and the seller was no bullshit. He was straight to the point, nuts.
Sean
So, like I made out huge.
Preston Landis
But Look, I sold one of the houses in 450 grand and paid back the private money lender.
Sean
So you made it work with closing costs.
Preston Landis
I just about broke even.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
And those nine houses I owned for just by myself, there were no investors, $0 out of my pocket. Those were my houses.
Sean
Well done.
Preston Landis
And so that was, you know, about four grand a month in cash flow. Just zero. And that completely, completely changed my mindset.
Sean
Also, once you raise that first capital, it's much easier to continue raising a thousand percent.
Preston Landis
So my second deal, I actually also use a private money lender, but I paid about half of what I paid.
Sean
15.
Preston Landis
Yeah.
Sean
Which is still a lot, but.
Preston Landis
Which is still a lot. But with these deals where, you know, you. There's meat on the bone, some extra.
Sean
Meat on the bone, you could afford it.
Preston Landis
Yeah, you can afford to, you know, do that.
Sean
But.
Preston Landis
Yeah. So that, that deal changed my entire mindset perspective, everything of the real estate space. Use other people's money.
Sean
Opm.
Preston Landis
Opm. It's the key. It really is. And I know, you know, I probably sound like a broken record because everyone says it, but it's the truth. And what I would recommend is to learn how to find the good deals.
Sean
Yep.
Preston Landis
If you have no money and you're out there right now, learn how to find the good deals. Because if you have the good deal, you can access the capital. There's so much money out there, man.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
And you know that. But you need to know where to find a good deal if you want to raise the money.
Sean
I just finished Eric Trump's book, and there was a whole chapter on real estate, how they scaled their real estate. And they used opm. You know, even the Trump family, right. They were using other people's money, you.
Preston Landis
Know, multi billion dollar, obviously.
Sean
Yeah. They were using a lot of banks, I believe.
Preston Landis
Yeah. Yeah.
Sean
Sounds like you're more using private lenders.
Preston Landis
Yeah. And, you know, we've sort of established ourselves with a specific bank back down in the south, because that's where these properties are in the Southeast. And we're going to, again, when the time is right, refinance through the bank. And at that point we'll be using a regional bank and it'll be good. We'll have the relationship with them and. Yeah, we'll start leveraging our relationship with the bank to go and just kind of rinse and repeat, copy paste what we've been doing.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
So, yeah, that's kind of my two cents on that whole aspect.
Sean
Yeah, you've definitely inspired me. I might have to buy a couple every year and just compound.
Preston Landis
I mean, look, man, if you. It's easy math. Let's just say 600 per house per month. So if you bought two a year, that's 1200 per month, that's $14,400 per year. And if you kept compounding that so you're making 14,000 the first year, the $400 your first year. Now if you take that cash flow and you just keep rolling it over and then you also buy an extra additional two units that next year and you keep buying two and Sean, we're talking 12, $15,000 maybe at the max 20,000, $20,000 down to close.
Sean
That's nothing for closing.
Preston Landis
And then you're making that much money.
Sean
Is that like a fifty thousand dollar house? Like what's the value of the house?
Preston Landis
Well, 80 to 120k. A lot of these deals are seller finance or creative financed and subject to is a whole different world with more being those guys and the Morbi method even is a different way you could go about.
Sean
Yeah. When I bought my house out here I tried doing that method.
Preston Landis
Did you?
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
Where'd you buy?
Sean
I bought in Summerlin.
Preston Landis
Okay.
Sean
Yeah.
Preston Landis
Cool.
Sean
But at the price range I wanted it was a bit harder I think to do that method. But I'd imagine at the lower price.
Preston Landis
Ranges it works, it makes sense. And especially with you know, obviously these cash flowing properties, they. It makes sense. And you know, obviously your credit needs to be good and people with bad credit, that's kind of when you have to transition to the seller financing subject too.
Sean
Right.
Preston Landis
If you have bad credit and you have not a lot of money, you have two options. Seller financing, subject to. That's really it. And I'm being honest with you because you can't get a loan, I mean you can't get a loan from a bank, you can't get a loan from a credit union, you can't get a loan from probably even a private money lender because I didn't have bad credit when I raised from that initial deal.
Sean
Did he check your credit, the private lender?
Preston Landis
He wanted to know what it was and I wasn't going to lie to him because of my first deal. Obviously reputation's everything. I told him the truth and it wasn't bad but it wasn't great like 680 or. Yeah, yeah, I was right around six. Okay. And he wasn't too concerned with that. He was more concerned with having clatter on the properties and making sure that the properties are performing. So I just had to get him copies of the leases etc and yeah, that was kind of my. That was kind of what things played out with that. So I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to go over or.
Sean
I guess you mentioned earlier you're like helping people now.
Preston Landis
I am helping people now. Yeah. And again, I don't want to come off as someone who's just selling courses and just you pay me and I'm running off into the sunset because that's not what happens. And currently I have about eight people on board.
Sean
Nice.
Preston Landis
And we're only looking to take on about 10 at a time so that I can truly dedicate my time to each person.
Sean
Respect.
Preston Landis
I'm still making money. You know, they're getting the knowledge they need and I'm personally. They're calling my personal phone number and I am walking them through on zooms, phone calls, whatever they need to get their first property. I'm even working with guys that have 19 units.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
Nine duplexes and one single family home in Milwaukee.
Sean
So.
Preston Landis
And I'm working with everything in between. So the way I see it is Tom inspired me to get into this business in a way of after watching his videos, after seeing what he can do, he gave me the confidence, he gave me that I want to jump in the deep end and I want to do it now. So with that I sort of, I'll never be in a competition with Tom. He's.
Sean
He's the OG.
Preston Landis
He's the OG. He is the section 8 king. But. And I have immense respect for him. But with my program, I would like to think of it more as a.
Sean
One on one mentorship, a different type of teaching.
Preston Landis
Right.
Sean
His is more mass market.
Preston Landis
Right.
Sean
You're giving one on one advice.
Preston Landis
Right. It's very personal. I, you know, we literally interview people before we take them on and onboard them because we want someone also that's committed. Right. And we want someone that has the money to be able to buy properties because we don't want a situation where we make them pay a certain amount of money. And then we teach them all this knowledge. We show them how to do everything. We give them all the templates, all the leases, all the, you know, rental property calculators, everything you need, all the videos. And they don't have enough money. They don't have cash.
Sean
Would you say you would need at least 50k to start?
Preston Landis
No. No. I recommend 15 to 20.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
And you know, I, I literally could make one phone call right now and have someone a. Actually it's an investor. It's for an investor. You could put $6,000 down plus closing costs. You're probably in it for 72 to 7,500. And that's a real deal. You're not overpaying. It's not marketed to sort some household. It's an off market deal. And the same guy that's selling it is the same guy that I bought 58 properties from in Montgomery. And he's a stand up guy, 78 years old, he's blind and he essentially is just a distressed landlord.
Sean
Savage, you can own a section eight house tomorrow for 7200.
Preston Landis
Yep.
Sean
Wow.
Preston Landis
Yeah, I mean, you know, hit that, put it under contract and get the, you know, title work back and whatnot, go through the closing process. But you could put a property.
Sean
Yeah, it's a few months and finding.
Preston Landis
I mean, you know, the process you.
Sean
Just went through with your house, finding a tenant, would that take a good amount of time too?
Preston Landis
On average, if you're picking in the right markets, it should not take you.
Sean
What's the process? Is there a government website you just list your property on and then.
Preston Landis
Yeah. So obviously Zillow, believe it or not, there's a lot of voucher holders on Zillow.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
The main one is affordable housing dot com, there's go section eight dot com. There's even Facebook. People look on Facebook, there's voucher holders everywhere. I would recommend, obviously, the more places you have it, the more eyeballs you get on it, the quicker you'll get at least. So we typically list on all four and more actually. But as far as the process, you will get say, let's say five tenants that apply, they will give you their vouchers. They'll, you'll confirm they have vouchers for how many bedrooms? Let's say this house is three bedrooms. You will then with the tenants, you'll select a tenant. Obviously you have to pick one of the five and you will then with the tenants, with the tenant, you will kind of as a team submit this form called the rafter. It's rfta, stands for Request for Tenancy Approval. You submit that to the housing authority along some other documentation. That doesn't take long. They let's say you had that three bedroom house listed at you wanted fourteen hundred dollars a month in rent. They will probably come back, especially right now and say we'll do twelve hundred dollars. Because again, there's some pushback right now. And immediately, right off the bat, I would say meet them in the middle. Most times they'll do it, most times they'll do it. So if they come back at 1000 and you're at 1400, say 1200, just meet them in the middle and they'll typically say yes. And again, as you acquire more properties and get, you know, more, start to work more with the housing Authority, you become closer and closer with them, and they start to get to know you. They. They start to recognize your phone number when it pops up.
Sean
They trust you.
Preston Landis
They trust you, and it makes your life seamless, especially when they have good relationships with your property managers as well.
Sean
Right.
Preston Landis
So I make sure that my property managers are bringing those inspectors donuts, coffee, smart cupcakes, whatever it is to make them happy, not just so they'll pass to, you know, bribe them to pass.
Sean
But bribe them with a donut?
Preston Landis
Yeah. I'm not bribing people with donuts out here, but. But to establish credibility with the housing authority, you know, they go back and report to, you know, each individual caseworker, and, you know, we treat them well, and, you know, you want to make sure you have a good, established relationship with the housing authority. It'll make your life a lot easier and more profitable.
Sean
Well, man, I'm impressed. You scaled 100 units in, what, four or five years?
Preston Landis
No, it was actually. So I. I bought my first house all cash in 2022. Sold it. This was the craziest thing ever. Sold it within, I think it was three or four weeks.
Sean
This was the section eight house?
Preston Landis
No, no, this was before that.
Sean
Okay.
Preston Landis
This is before Tom. I got into Tom's program, and I sold it within three, four weeks.
Sean
That's crazy. You didn't even fix it at all. It just.
Preston Landis
No, I didn't. I didn't fix it. I just decided I didn't want to. I was like, this is too much money for me to have invested into one property. And it was in Dayton, Ohio. And I basically was like, what's going on? Why did I do this? Kind of panicked. Felt like I made a. Was having a midlife crisis. Made a wrong decision. Anyway, I sold it off. Kind of went back again, went back to the drawing board, did some more research, came across Tom's program and said, you know what? I'm just gonna do it. Jumped right in. Watched his entire program that night. Got my first property locked up in, like, within two weeks.
Sean
Oh, so it's only been three years?
Preston Landis
Yeah, I was 22, a little over three years.
Sean
Okay, Hunter, you just hit three years. That's crazy.
Preston Landis
It's been a ride, man.
Sean
I mean, Tom scaled quick, too.
Preston Landis
I feel like Tom skilled quick. He's been doing this for. I don't want to speak for him. I think 10 to 12 years.
Sean
And he's got 800, 800 all paid off, which is.
Preston Landis
He's. He's. I mean, again, like we said earlier, he's a size section.
Sean
Ak. Yeah, he's the og, man.
Preston Landis
And I've shouted him out on my Instagram a few times. He's. He's, he is the OG and he's a great guy and nothing but respect.
Sean
For him giving you your flowers. Tom, if you're watching this.
Preston Landis
Yep. Shout out if you're watching this.
Sean
Yeah. Where can people find you if they want to learn more from you? Can they DM you?
Preston Landis
Yeah. So you can find me on all social media platforms. You know, tick tock, Instagram, YouTube, the whole nine. @ PJL invests. A lot of people do miss the L in there. They type in pjl, put a link. Yeah. So it's pjl, which is Preston James Landis. But I also say sometime, peace, joy and love.
Sean
I love it.
Preston Landis
Invests.
Sean
Cool.
Preston Landis
So that's kind of my story, man.
Sean
Yeah. Check them out, guys. If you're Interested in section 8, shoot them a DM. See you next time.
Preston Landis
All right, man.
Sean
Peace. I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.
Date: November 19, 2025
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Preston Landis (PJL Invests)
Episode Theme: Scaling a Section 8 Real Estate Portfolio Rapidly, Leveraging OPM, and Managing 100+ Properties Remotely
This episode explores how Preston Landis went from zero to over 100 Section 8 rental units—often buying sight unseen and closing on a 40-house deal at once. Preston breaks down the realities of Section 8 real estate investing, the role of mentorship, how he scaled using other people’s money (OPM), the critical factors of property management, and major lessons learned, emphasizing transparency and actionable advice for would-be investors.
“My payments are still arriving...the government shut down, housing subsidies are not affected.” — Preston (01:55)
“I don't see any president or anyone ever making 7 or 8 million people homeless.” — Preston (03:23)
“I put the property under contract and not, not having a damn clue how I was going to close on it.” (12:19)
“I recommend learning the business before handing the business off.” (21:07)
“It’s once a year...one day out of 365...if you pass, you get another 12 months of guaranteed rental income.” (31:54–32:13)
“If you invested $10,000, you would get anywhere between $3,500 to $4,500 back that year.” (33:08–33:17)
“Just jumping in the pool whether you know how to swim or not. It’s how you learn.” — Preston (38:01)
"I have not heard of in my network of people, anyone not being paid at all." — Preston (02:39)
"The back half of the roof collapsed. So obviously, Section 8 orders an immediate move out..." — Preston (07:28)
"The last portfolio I closed was 40 houses, which was for about a month a complete nightmare because there was 11 vacancies." — Preston (15:07)
"Learn the business before handing the business off. Right...if you blindly do it, it's like going to a bar, drinking 15 beers and trying to throw a dart and hit the bullseye." — Preston (21:51, 23:44)
"I paid 30% on that loan. I bought $100,000 and I paid a flat 30% rate. Paid him back in eight months." — Preston (39:00)
"Just get going. Learn, educate yourself and get going." — Preston (38:40)
“The average tent stays anywhere from six to eight years...They keep the place clean.” — Preston (29:01)
“You could put $6,000 down plus closing costs. You're probably in it for $7,200 to $7,500. And that's a real deal...” — Preston (46:29)
“Use other people's money. OPM. It's the key. It really is.” — Preston (40:32)
Platform/Markets:
Mentorship & Giving Back:
Preston Landis delivers a candid, step-by-step look at the realities behind massive, rapid real estate scaling—demystifying both the unique strengths and the risks of Section 8 investing. He’s a compelling case for hustle, calculated risk, and the power of relationships over geography. This episode is packed with actionable insights for aspiring investors and realistic warnings about what to expect on the journey.
Connect with Preston:
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube: @PJLinvests
Recommended If:
You want the real scoop on rental real estate, Section 8 investing, or turning adversity into rapid wealth—even if you have almost nothing to start.