Cry at your desk with James Wise (CFFL 0015)
Jack Butala: James Wise is a licensed real estate broker. His company, The Holton-Wise Property Group, operates one of the largest scattered site rental property portfolios in the Cleveland, Ohio area. They cater to investors, both local and out of state, and want to build a long-term wealth program through passive income investing. He's always had a passion for real estate investing. He purchased his first property at the age of 21 and never has looked back. He's been a guest speaker on several real estate investment internet radio shows and podcasts. He regularly writes blogs and articles about real estate investing. James is a lifelong resident of the greater Cleveland area. He's an active member of the national association of realtors and the Ackeron-Cleveland association of realtors. He holds an associate's degree in business management from Cayahoga Community College. Jill, you're like 21, how's it feel? You guys have kind of kindred spirits. Same kind of investing age.
Jill DeWit: Say that again? I'm 21. I like that. Thank you.
Jack Butala: No, James did I leave anything out?
James Wise: Nope, I think you hit everything on the head.
Jack Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: You threw me on that. That was good, thank you.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Well no I mean, all kidding aside, Jill can you imagine starting this when you're 21?
Jill DeWit: Oh my goodness, and staying with it. We kind of did. I did, Ben and I got this ... I don't know, like I'm supposed to have the corporate whatever job and I got sidetracked. I wish I would have stayed with it.
Jack Butala: I went in public accounting and then I bought a rental house and I sold it, and I horsed around with a bunch of stuff for 10 years, and then finally ...
Jill DeWit: Right, it all comes back.
Jack Butala: James I got to know. What pushed you over the edge at such an early age?
James Wise: I always wanted to be a landlord. That was like my dream. I don't know why, I just thought that was a great business model that I wanted to do. You buy a house using somebody else's money, and then somebody else pays off your loan. As soon as I heard that I'm like sold.
Jack Butala: The switch just flipped in your head and that was it.
James Wise: I'm like ah, greatest idea ever. Sign me up.
Jack Butala: Did you ever want to be a fireman or a baseball player or just a landlord?
James Wise: I mean I'm sure I wanted to be a baseball player around the age of like 10. I'm not much of an athlete, so that quickly went to the wayside.
Jack Butala: Who are you in your professional industry, like explain your niche and how many units you guys have. Give us a good solid overview.
James Wise: Okay. Yeah. The Holton-Wise Property Group, we're located in Cleveland. We work the west side of Cleveland and some surrounding suburbs. Brookland, Lakewood, Parma. We do scattered site property management. We're a full service brokerage, so we do residential sales as well. Mostly we're geared towards the investor. Our main objective is to help people buy rental properties and then we take over the management. Our typical client is going to be out of state. High net worth individual that doesn't have a lot of time or perhaps they're in a market like LA where the prices are incredibly high, and they see the prices we have out here in Cleveland and they're like "Wow! That's pretty cheap! I couldn't even get a parking lot for that over here." That's what we do. Right now we're getting close to 300 units under management. Of that, my partner and I,