YFP REI 116: Translating Pharmacist Skills to Real Estate Investing

David and Nate welcome back Dylan Koch, PharmD, RPhto the show to share how he went from a full-time career as a pharmacist to full-time career in real estate investing.

Episode Summary

In this episode, David and Nate welcome back Dylan Koch, PharmD, RPh to the show to share how he went from a full-time career as a pharmacist to full-time career in real estate investing. 

Dylan shares that there are actually many skills from his training as a pharmacist that have helped shape his success in real estate investing. Through a lot of hard work, Dylan has grown his real estate portfolio and now focuses exclusively on his real estate ventures. He shares the journey of the transition from pharmacy to real estate and the financial strategies he had in place to set him up for success on his new career path.

Whether you’re looking to explore real estate investing as a side hustle or curious about jumping in full-time, Dylan’s story is all about how both paths can offer meaningful opportunities.

About Today’s Guest

Dylan Koch, PharmD, RPh, was born and raised in a small town in western Ohio. Always knowing financial prudence was important, he started to read personal finance books close to pharmacy school graduation. After spending hundreds of hours learning about personal finance and investing, Dylan decided that real estate would be his preferred method towards financial independence. Upon graduating in 2017, Dylan built a small portfolio of 13 units with some partners, sold the entire portfolio, and built back up his own portfolio to 10 units. Dylan left full time pharmacy in October of 2021 to do real estate full-time and fast-track his path towards financial independence.

Key Points from the Episode

• Full-time real estate investing without pharmacy practice. [0:06]
• Leaving pharmacy for real estate as a successful entrepreneur. [1:05]
• Transitioning from pharmacy to real estate investing. [3:36]
• Transitioning from pharmacist to real estate investor with a safety net. [5:35]
• Tax strategy and real estate investing for pharmacists. [9:54]
• Real estate investing strategies and skills transfer from pharmacy school. [14:04]
• Real estate investing challenges and how to handle them. [21:23]
• Real estate investing for pharmacists. [28:24]
• Real estate investing with industry experts. [30:56]

Episode Highlights

“I think it’s great. So if you’ve been thinking at all about, hey, what would it look like to just do real estate for a change or just do a side hustle or leave pharmacy altogether? Well, we’re not promoting that we still like to share the full story. So I think Dylan gives a really good vision of that.” – Nate Hedrick

“One of the things that Nate and I talk about often is that you do not have to leave your full time pharmacy job in order to have meaningful time spent with real estate investing. At the same time, we also know that some pharmacists really enjoy splitting their time between the two different careers between pharmacy and real estate investing or other things. And you’ve swung that all the way full time. But you did it in this interesting way where you went part time for quite a while.” -David Bright 

“And to the point you just mentioned, like pharmacists like safety nets, and I think our schooling and our training professors like, you know, everything has to be perfect because like, you know, nothing can be wrong in a prescription or someone’s health chart, and entrepreneurship in general. But it’s like real estate investing with flips and stuff always comes up where you it’s almost like you have to figure it out and go with the flow like it’s it’s almost like a 180 from the pharmacists approach.” -Dylan Koch

“But also, I guess your your first point of like, it being a waste. I don’t think it was a waste. You know, I met some my best friends and my wife from pharmacy school. And I was, I had some of the best memories from that time. So kind of intangible side of things. But I use my pharmacy degree and in the income that it did to put me in a good position at a young age to invest in real estate, get in good financial footing.” -Dylan Koch

“So you know, I think the skills are transferable. And I think if you’re just smart with it, you can use that to your advantage, especially at the beginning.” -Dylan Koch

“I think that’s the biggest difference is, you don’t really have a lot of trial and error in pharmacy, because you kind of need to know the answer going in. But in real estate there, you can have some screw ups and still figure it out. Right. And so I think the biggest thing, I guess that helped the transition was just a personal attitude of ‘I’m gonna figure this out.’” – Dylan Koch

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
• YFP Disclaimer
• Your Financial Pharmacist
• YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook Group
• Nate Hedrick on Instagram
• David Bright on Instagram
• YFP Real Estate Investing Website
• David Bright on LinkedIn
• Nate Hedrick on LinkedIn
• YFP REI 68
• All the Hacks Podcast
• Bigger Pockets Podcast
• YFP REI 115: What is Real Estate Professional Status (REPS)?
• DiSC Profile Assessment
• Morning Brew Properties
• Morning Brew Properties Instagram

Episode Transcript

Nate Hedrick  00:06

Welcome to the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. I’m Nate Hedrick.

David Bright  00:10

And I’m David Bright. We’re both pharmacists and real estate investors that believe that real estate investing does not have to distract from a meaningful career in pharmacy.

Nate Hedrick  00:18

Each episode we share stories that educate and inspire pharmacists to leverage real estate investing as a part of your financial plan. Hey, David, how’s it going?

David Bright  00:31

Hey, good, thanks. How you doing, man?

Nate Hedrick  00:33

Good, really good. Just got off on an excellent interview. And you know, after last week’s episode about going part time in real estate investing and, and really full time real estate investing. Part time in pharmacy, we wanted to bring in someone that has actually done the full switch, like what does it look like to be a full time real estate investor, no pharmacy whatsoever. And we had someone from the past that we were like, Oh, why don’t we call up Dylan. Dylan Koch is fantastic at this. And we had him back on episode 68 way back in season one and just thought he’d be a really good fit for this.

David Bright  01:04

Yeah, it was fun to talk with him again, as someone that’s that’s done, this whole process, right, started off in full time pharmacy start off, we’re going a bunch of overtime, trying to get in better control of his financial picture. And then slowly going down to just full time and then going to part time. And then finally, at some point, stepping away from pharmacy as real estate just turned out to be incredibly successful for him. And so it’s just as interesting transition to watch him walk. And in not in a way that I like, I don’t want this to be a discouragement for people to in pharmacy. I think he talks about that transition what I was a fit for him. And it’s not going to be a fit for everybody. But it’s it’s just fun to see someone find that passion, hit that passion, and go hard after it.

Nate Hedrick  01:51

Yeah. And what I like is that he doesn’t just talk about how he like it was like he walked away and now he sits around all day and like lounges at the pool, right? Like he’s working hard at a business. Right? He is really doing a lot of work. But in a different field. And like, that’s a that’s an okay thing for him. I just really liked that. He’s realistic about the requirements realistic about the day to day, I just that’s really refreshing. I think there’s so much out there about like, Oh, you just do real estate, and then you retire. And it’s easy. And it’s like, that’s not actually the case. And this is a real person doing it. And here’s what it actually looks like. I really liked that.

David Bright  02:28

I like how he talks about so much that he transferred from his pharmacy training and pharmacy background that’s able to help him to in real estate, I think we we tend to think of there’s so many things that are so niche in pharmacy and how many people are going to know, you know, imprint codes and things like that, you know, there’s there’s things that aren’t going to transfer, obviously. But there’s so much that does. And he talks about some of those skills and lessons and character traits and resilience that he built as a pharmacist that has helped him to be really successful in real estate as well. Yeah,

Nate Hedrick  02:58

I think it’s great. So if you’ve been thinking at all about, hey, what would it look like to just do real estate for a change or just do a side hustle or leave pharmacy altogether? Well, we’re not promoting that we still like to share the full story. So I think Dylan gives a really good vision of that. And, again, hope you guys enjoy it as much as we enjoyed talking to Dylan. Here you go. 

Nate Hedrick  03:19

Hey, Dylan, welcome back to the show.

Dylan Koch  03:22

Yeah, guys, thanks for having me. Happy to be back.

Nate Hedrick  03:24

It’s great to have you. We we know that we last connected we lasted in the show, gosh, almost one and a half years ago, Episode 68. Way back in season one, I guess why don’t we just jump right in? What have you been up to since then?

Dylan Koch  03:36

Yeah, it’s been. It’s been a lot of changes. And so, you know, previously, I was just like, you know, contemplating getting out of out of pharmacy and set the tone. I graduated in 2017. But then, fast forward in October of 2022, actually left full time pharmacy kind of stayed on PRN, but in, I haven’t worked shifts in the pharmacy since February of 2023. So it’s been almost a year.

Nate Hedrick  04:05

And so obviously, during that time, running as a full time real estate agent, full time real estate investor, like tell us a little bit about what that what that looks like today for you on a daily basis.

Dylan Koch  04:14

Yeah, so basically, I run I have my agent’s license, but I don’t use that a lot other than like listing on flips on a lot of my day to day is we do a lot direct direct to seller marketing, and then it’s kind of on us to figure out what the exit strategy is. So a lot of it is to be honest, most of my day is spent on the phones calling sellers. That is the most of my day. But other than that, it’s managing flips, it’s data management, managing our current rental portfolio and then whatever flips that we have currently going on. We did I think five or six flips last year which they you know, they’re time intensive too, so.

Nate Hedrick  04:50

Are you doing a lot of the work yourself or you’re hiring contractors for most of that?

Dylan Koch  04:53

I’m not a handyman by any means. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot doing this but we hire out mostly everything when it comes to the rehab.

Nate Hedrick  05:02

But see, that’s good, because I think a lot of people hear like, oh, I run the flips, and they think, Oh, he’s probably swinging a hammer six out every eight hours. And like, you don’t have to do that. Like, that’s not what’s necessarily required.

Dylan Koch  05:11

Nope. I just show up on the job site, make sure that we’re on the timelines that we’re supposed to be and that the work is kind of getting done. And at the beginning, man, like when I first started this, I didn’t know the difference between like a plaster wall and drywall. So I’d have to get someone I know to come in and like be Hey, is this actually being done correctly? And you know, so? I’ve come a long way in that regard. But I’m definitely not the one with the tools. 

Nate Hedrick  05:33

I love it.

David Bright  05:35

No, I feel you on that one, for sure. If if you see me swinging a hammer in a house, we have something wrong, that’s for sure. So, you know, as as folks that listen to the podcast regularly know one of the things that Nate and I talk about often is that you do not have to leave your full time pharmacy job in order to have meaningful time spent with real estate investing. At the same time, we also know that some pharmacists really enjoy splitting their time between the two different careers between pharmacy and real estate investing or other things. And you’ve swung that all the way full time. But you did it in this interesting way where you went part time for for quite a while. And you did it with this and appear and approach to picking up shifts, I would imagine that there’s something there that pharmacists with this inner desire to have strong safety really like because it just feels like this warm blanket if I could jump back into pharmacy if I need to, right if you’re making that transition. But I’m curious how that went for you. Do you feel like that was a useful part of your transition? Do you feel like it held you back? Or if you had to do over again? Would you do it differently? 

Dylan Koch  06:39

Great question. And I’ll try to answer in a multitude of ways. So everyone’s situation is obviously different. And me, I consider myself very lucky in the fact that I was young, I think I was 29 when I first like, decided to go full time.  My wife and I didn’t have any kids. And my wife is also a pharmacist, right. And we but we purposely also lived well below our means with our combined incomes, right. And so it was we were in a financial position where we didn’t really have to worry about my income, if it went away, I was able to use her benefits, you know, as like health insurance and whatnot. And it was kind of like, you know, we want to start that we want to start family planning, we want to start doing these things. So it’s kind of like a, hey, Dylan, it’s either like a now, maybe almost never kind of a thing. And so we just decided to kind of go for it. And the rest is history. And, you know, I don’t know if I touched on this previously, but in my first three months, you know, indirect the salary, you send a lot of mail you send, it’s a lot, it’s expensive endeavor. And I went like three, three or four months, and spent close to $30,000 in the business. And I haven’t done one deal yet. And so it was almost like a it was almost like, Oh, what the hell did I do kind of a situation. But at the same time, like I’m going to keep my licenses active. I will I don’t think I’ll ever not have them as kind of a safety net. If things do end up going south, but luckily, I’ve been we’ve been very fortunate since then. Did that help? Or what else would you like me to hit on? 

David Bright  08:14

I mean, I can feel everybody’s like gasp of stress when you say that you spent $30,000 on marketing and saw no revenue coming from that right when you walked away from a full time job where you had that steady W2 income coming in. So I feel like that’s that is that mountain of stress. And I can definitely see why having your license there would help, but it does sound like that jumping open doors to different business strategies. Like I’m assuming that you wouldn’t have done that much direct mail if you didn’t have time in the day to chase those leads once that once that flow started coming in.

Dylan Koch  08:47

Very good point, David. As people kind of asked me that, like when you get started what you do and I’m always say direct to sellers great, because at least in my market, MLS is few and far between for deals right now. But if you send out the marketing and the people call me don’t have time to answer that phone call, you’re basically setting your money on fire. Right? And like because you need a way also convert, you know, those leads, or it’s just not gonna be worth it, I guess is what I would say, or have some dedicated time to do that. And to the point you just mentioned, like pharmacists like safety nets, and I think our schooling and our training professors like, you know, everything has to be perfect because like, you know, nothing can be wrong in a prescription or someone’s health chart, and entrepreneurship in general. But it’s like real estate investing with flips and stuff always comes up where you it’s almost like you have to figure it out and go with the flow like it’s it’s almost like a 180 from the pharmacists approach. And it took me a while to like get over that because I would have to be the perfectionist, and it would cause probably undue stress that I was putting under myself or something like that.

Nate Hedrick  09:54

Yeah, I really liked that idea of like the safety net. There was a podcast I listened to a while ago. that. It’s called All the Hacks. And he does. It’s a great show about like travel benefits. And he has some really good guests. And he talks about when he went full time into the podcast world and how like scary it was. And he said, like, two weeks before he decided to make the jump. He signed up to drive for Uber. And, like, drove for a whole weekend just to see what it was like and how much he could make as like his fallback, right. Like, if this doesn’t work out, I can always drive for Uber, right? Yeah, I guess pharmacy a pretty darn good fallback. Like if you had to, if you had to fall back on something like that’s not a bad place to be right. 

Dylan Koch  10:33

Yep. And they I think I heard it on a Bigger Pockets podcast a long time ago and they asked a very similar question and his response that kind of stuck with me, it was my worst case scenario is going back to the job I was just doing. Right. So it’s like, you’re your worst case scenarios, almost the job that I’m doing now. And you kind of frame it like that. It’s like, okay, well, why not kind of take the leap? And at least give it a try? And that’s the biggest thing I think, for me personally, is I would have just stayed full time, I would back of my mind open, like, what if you know, what if I would have went to it? What if I would have gone for it? At least now I can answer that question. Even if I would have fallen flat on my face, I would have known. 

Nate Hedrick  11:10

I love that. I think that’s huge. Because I think most people when they envision, like the worst case scenario, they jump to, like, I’m homeless, and I have to sell my car to like, you know, to eat this week. And like, that’s not, that’s not the case, right? Like, you would set yourself up in a position of strength financially so you could make that move. And if it didn’t work out, you had a great fallback plan. I think that’s really cool.

Dylan Koch  11:31

The people who follow your show, they probably at least, you know, have an idea of budgeting. Right. And so we knew what our six months of expenses were. And so we kind of had that set aside before doing this or like, basically, okay, Dylan, you have six months to figure this out? Like, you know, on top of everything else, and seeing the numbers is what helps me and that’s I feel like a lot of pharmacists are very quantitative like seeing that kind of stuff. And that’s what helped me do it. And it helps me even when analyzing real estate deals today, it was like the numbers are pretty objective. 

Nate Hedrick  11:59

Yeah, like that a lot.

David Bright  12:01

Yeah, speaking of quantitative, one of the things we’ve been talking about in the last couple episodes is tax strategy and real estate, because it’s the beginning of the year, right. This is when everybody’s in tax mode. And we just talked on our last episode about real estate professional status in taxes. We talked about how once you make the jump, where your pharmacy career is no longer your primary, and you’re spending more hours in real estate and several other thresholds if you want to get into the weeds, rewind back to last week’s episode, and you can get into that. But as far as how did that pan out for you some of the tax strategy to go along with this business strategy of wholesaling and other other real estate activity? 

Dylan Koch  12:40

And so obligatory, like, you know, consult your CPA or whatever. But yeah, wholesaling and flipping is considered like ordinary income. So just like you know, so that’s depending on how much you make, you could be in a very high tax bracket. And then obviously, if you’re married, your spouse or as a pharmacist and make decent money. But we were in a position, I guess, all through, it would have been 2022 tax season, right? Where, in 2023, we filed where we would have had to have paid I think it ended up being about $40,000 to the IRS. But because I’m a real estate professional and we can take our active losses, it gets my our passive. Is that right? 

Nate Hedrick  13:23

Passive losses against active income, right? 

Dylan Koch  13:25

Yes, against active income and like you’re taking into my wife’s income too. So we kind of lowered her tax bracket down, we ended up getting from owing $40k to getting a check for $8,000 was a big swing and the power of that. But you have to, I want to caveat that is, a lot of that was bonus depreciation, the cost segregation from a lot of real estate that we bought that year, this upcoming year, we won’t have that same benefit, because we didn’t buy a whole lot of real estate in 2023 when interest rates went up a lot, right. And so it can have great things. But you are also putting yourself on a treadmill almost by continuing to buy real estate to see those big gains like those really $50,000 plus movements. 

Nate Hedrick  14:04

I think that’s huge. And that’s something that we talked a little bit about last week was just how you have to get it right. And you have to do all the right things. Like you said, you have to buy real estate for it to depreciate for it to count. And so yeah, it’s not just this one size fits all model, you have to actually follow the right rules and, and do the things the right way. But it can be lucrative, like you just described, right, you can have a great, great year where you’re not paying anything. So yeah, and again, as a 1099 employee, for my real estate work, I fully feel that right? Because the tax bill comes due at the end of the year. And the ability to not have to pay that and actually might even get money back is that that’s that’s about as good as you can get.

Dylan Koch  14:37

Yeah, and you can get very advanced and you know, our CPA that we have here is very good and like, you know that you can go into strategies that okay, well, on 2022 you guys didn’t make a whole lot of money on paper. Now you have this traditional IRA over here, why don’t we move that to a Roth these are gonna pay the benefit the taxes on that income bracket, so your conversion switch is at a much lower tax bracket than it normally would be. Right, so you can get into like this more advanced kind of strategies when you do that kind of stuff, too.

Nate Hedrick  15:02

Yeah, I love that. Definitely get the accountant on board, that’s good. What about your investing? Like your actual business strategy? Has that changed at all since you’ve gone full time? Or was it just the ability to do it at a higher level? 

Dylan Koch  15:16

It was. So the overall theme was, I like investing more than anything else. I want to buy and hold rentals, whether it be you know, at the beginning was single family homes that I knew to small multi families. And eventually, I wanted to own larger stuff. But everything like on MLS, I was getting outbid, or like, I couldn’t make the numbers pencil. So I was like, I sign up for these courses to learn direct to seller marketing, and basically these leads would come in, I’m like, Okay, well, I don’t really want to and in this part of town, or etc. And so instead of just wasting those dollars, is trying to find a way to monetize, you know, those leads that come in, and then being in the real estate space, you meet buyers from other people. And just because you don’t want it doesn’t mean that someone else doesn’t want it. And so now the the thesis basically is wholesale or flip things that you know, I don’t want to keep purposely for a high active income to take that high active income and buying hold stuff, whether it be the BURRR strategy, or like you know, we’re buying a 13 unit place next week, that would be just like a traditional buy, right? And so like it’s just but it’s a lead flow that’s most important that top of that filter are the leads, right and everything else below that secondary.

Nate Hedrick  16:27

And do you do most of the investing locally, then? Or is this in multiple markets? Or is it all nearby?

Dylan Koch  16:33

It’s all in Cincinnati, Ohio. Yeah, and I live here. I’ve been here since 2011. So I feel very comfortable in this market. I have my own opinion is my back my back door is also an area that the numbers still make sense. If I lived out in California or something, you don’t have to do the virtual stuff. But I’m just fortunate for where we live.

Nate Hedrick  16:51

Yeah, all three Midwesterners on the call here. So yeah, that’s right, he won’t even need to get on board with with our cool states!

David Bright  17:01

Well, you also went to pharmacy school in Cincinnati, right. And that’s kind of how this this began, you got familiar with the area you started investing early on in your career. And so through pharmacy school, there was obviously some benefit of getting to know the area and become an investor early on, though not a lot of people jump out of a pharmacy career quite as early as you did. I’ve heard people argue that, you know, that can be kind of a waste to put that much time and effort into studying and student loans and all those things for pharmacy degree, just to jump out quickly. But then I’ve also heard some really strong argument that there’s skills you pick up in pharmacy school and in your pharmacy training, and as your work as a pharmacist that can translate very well to real estate investing. So I’m curious, I know, I’m biased in that. But I’m curious what you find as your skills that transferred from your pharmacy world that make you a really strong investor.

Dylan Koch  17:53

I definitely agree with that. The latter point point of that, where I mean, going through pharmacy school, at least for me, it is difficult, like you know, so at the end, you have to develop even character traits. So you know, like, diligence, doing things when you don’t want to do, critical thinking, obviously, is a big one. And so yeah, I would say a lot of the skills, overlap and help in part. Especially like, anything analytical like underwriting, for example, I feel like most pharmacists engineers are good. It’s the intangible side things that kind of you need to balance out because, you know, sometimes people call me and they just don’t use nice words, they say that, you know, don’t contact me, again. It’s having that kind of that thick skin, which, you know, if you’re a retail pharmacist, you’re probably used to that too. But also, I guess your your first point of like, it being a waste. I don’t think it was a waste. You know, I met some my best friends and my wife from pharmacy school. And I was, I had some of the best memories from that time. So kind of intangible side of things. But I use my pharmacy degree and in the income that it did to put me in a good position at a young age to invest in real estate, get in good financial footing. I didn’t have a whole lot of I think I like 72,000 in student loan debt. So I’d knock that off pretty quick, working a whole lot overtime. I was very lendable for someone my age. So I bought my first house hack that way. So you know, I think the skills are transferable. And I think if you’re just smart with it, you can use that to your advantage, especially at the beginning.

David Bright  19:25

Now, that makes a lot of sense that I feel like we hear that in other professions quite a bit like there’s a whole lot of people that go to law school and then may not practice on in the traditional sense that we think of for those of us that like watch Law and Order and things like that, right. But there’s people that will jump into plenty of different careers with a law degree. I think that there’s there’s a lot of similarity in what could be done in pharmacy, although so many people, particularly in the last several years of pharmacy shortage, get in and stay into a pharmacy career. I’m curious also, what were some of the pieces of training that you found that were most beneficial to help you make that shift. Because clearly in a pharmacy school curriculum, we don’t teach wholesaling, we don’t teach comping residential properties. Right? So how did you how did you harness that momentum of quick learning? And pick up some of these other skills quickly?

Dylan Koch  20:18

That’s a good question. I don’t think I’ve been asked that before, David. And I guess what I would say is like, this might be a more of a, I don’t know, I feel like if you’re a pharmacist, you have to have some kind of level of determination, or something or like, you know, like, this “not give up” attitude. Because a lot of stuff I learned, you know, there was some mentors in there. But it was a lot of books, podcasts, and YouTube University, and then the school of hard knocks. So you know, that’s that, I think that’s the biggest difference is, you don’t really have a lot of trial and error in pharmacy, because you kind of need to know the answer going in. But in real estate there, you can have some screw ups and still figure it out. Right. And so I think the biggest thing, I guess that helped the transition was just a personal attitude of I’m gonna figure this out. And really, again, diving into the numbers I feel like is not to be underrated. I know I’ve said that already. But it helps me. Once I see it on paper, I’m like, This is my worst case scenario, it helps me then take the action forward to the next step.

Nate Hedrick  21:23

Yeah, I really liked that. I think that that helps me as well to get to actually see those real life numbers, and then it doesn’t seem nearly as scary. So I think that’s a great point to highlight. Something else you said just stuck with me because I pulled it while you were talking. I pulled up a picture that you posted the other day. And so we obviously like promoting the positive aspects of real estate investing on our show, right? We talk about that all the time. But we also like the reality of investing. I think that’s, that’s a line we’d like to be on on top of. And you are also very transparent, especially on like social media with with all the stuff that can go wrong, right? The screw ups, like you just mentioned. So you posted today, and I just want to read some of it because I think it’s it will give ourselves our audience some idea. It says: “The non highlight reel of real estate boiler broke at the rental $10,000 to replace. Seller lied about the rents by $2000 a month. Kills the deal. Cleaner broke a window at a flip scheduled to sell tomorrow. HVAC stopped working in a property that was supposed to close tomorrow. And this was all in the past two days.” Like if somebody’s reading that, right, or they’re just bailing on this like nevermind, pharmacy is great. I’m not gonna complain about calling the insurance company, I’m just gonna do it. Like, how do you get through that?

Dylan Koch  22:30

I mean, at the beginning that it would have really knocked me down, right? You know, and so it’s just the more seasoned you get, it’s just like pharmacy through like, you know, the more longer you’ve been a pharmacist, you the more you deal with, like the pains and struggles of that. So it’s first of all, you have to have reserves, right, always operate in a position where you have reserves that you can dip into if you need to. But it was just almost at this point and like doing this for, I don’t know, 18 months full time. It’s just another day. But at the same time, I will say because I’ve done this and I build the network, at the beginning if you don’t know the people to fix those problems,  that’s when the anxiety comes in. Right? And I luckily I now have the Rolodex of people, I can text and call or two or three of them, they can be like, Hey, this is what happened. Here’s the lockbox code, can you handle this for me? And it can get done pretty quickly. Right? And so is this having the resources to take care of those issues in a manner and once you’ve replaced a couple to you know how much stuff this is stuff that’s going to cost too. So it’s not like a sticker shock that you might get if you’re a little bit less experienced.

Nate Hedrick  23:35

I like the analogy made to being in the pharmacy, right? We do the exact same thing working – just pick retail pharmacy, like when something goes wrong, right? Oh, someone needed his medication, but they’re out. Like you just go into like, okay, well, these are my resources, these are the things I’m going to tap into, here’s the person I’m going to call, here’s the pharmacy I can send them to that’s open till eight and I know the guy and he’s always got blah, blah, blah in stock like you have your plan. It’s just when it’s in a totally different field than where your training is. It can feel overwhelming. But what you’re saying is you get that training. Like you just go out you do it you learn and then it doesn’t become a big deal just like every day pharmacists deal with problems that are gigantic, but don’t don’t freak out. They just handle it right. 

Dylan Koch  24:13

It’s the unknown that crazy anxiety. So you can if you have those resources in the back pocket you eliminate a lot of that.

Nate Hedrick  24:20

Money fixes a lot of problems so having having a few extra dollars saved up definitely helps.

Dylan Koch  24:25

Don’t me wrong I wasn’t happy about the situation. Like it’s just it the fact that happened then it’s just like kind of you know, we’ll deal with it. But if that would happen at the beginning -ah! I didn’t have all those properties to begin either so it’s like you know the size of this creates a problem I don’t know. 

Nate Hedrick  24:42

I often tell investors that I work with the first year is the worst year and the first one is the worst one. Even if the deal is good eventually it’s so hard because you’re starting from from dead stop to like, okay, I hope nothing goes wrong because all of a sudden I’m just gonna lose money. So you’re spot on like once you have that built up, it’s a lot easier.

Dylan Koch  25:01

Yep. 100%

David Bright  25:03

Yeah, I know you’ve you’ve also described how you’ve kind of built up this tolerance to a lot of things like that by doing this while you are a full time pharmacist picking up overtime, right? Like you’re working well over 40 hours as a pharmacist as you got started into this, and you kind of eased into this slowly so that you know, your first eviction, I’m sure that was a nightmare like it is for all of us. And then a few more in like you, it doesn’t become quite as much of a thing, right? First time the furnace goes out first time that this and that. And so as you as you find that tolerance that develops over time, do you recommend that people ease into things as well? Or do you think that you can still develop that pretty quickly, if you just made the jump?

Dylan Koch  25:46

I think you can make if you made the jump, I think you just it’s like learn by feet to the flame kind of thing. Like I think if you put yourself in that situation, you’re going to become adaptable and figure it out. But that goes down to like, not a lot of pharmacists I know can probably do that just from the personality type. But nothing I’m saying there’s anything wrong with that. But that slower transition is usually better suited. And, you know, I’m actually a fan of that DiSC Profile tests, I would recommend, like your people come out and take that too, and like figure out where you actually fit in that because that’s going to give you a lot of –  I enjoy underwriting. I don’t like tenant management, right. And that’s some of the what I do too, right. And so I manage my own portfolio now. But now that we’re getting a little bit of size, like that’s my next thing, I’m going to offload a lot of that too so that answer your question that kind of rambled a little bit there. 

David Bright  26:36

No, I like that a lot. And it takes me into my next one, as you talk about unloading your, your management, what what is your goal for the next 6, 12, 18 months? And how are you reacting to this shifting market that we’re in as interest rates are hopefully coming down as the market might start to unlock with volume a little bit more? What do you see as far as your business strategy for the next 6, 12, 18 months?

Dylan Koch  26:59

It probably will, I want to buy more real estate this year. And rates are down from there, we’re in 2023. So I think that’ll make that easier. And so I want to get to a point where we own 100 units really is what it comes down to I don’t know if I’ll get that 18 months, we’re after we have a closing here on the ninth we’ll be at 41. And so but there’s I’m am starting to target higher asset classes, and some in residential, but like 20-plus unit buildings that are a little bit higher size instead of the single family, small multis. So I also market to that for the active income side, because there’s always buyers for single family homes or small multifamily homes. So that will be like either the flips or as an agent or wholesales or whatever. But then personally, I will start to get into we’re under contract for office building, hopefully at some point too. So it’s just different asset classes, but a little bit bigger of deals. And the strategy won’t change. It’s, you know, holding the list, sending out the mail, introducing myself having a good brand or reputation here, my local market and this kind of continued underwriting contact sellers. I think what, you know, if if people do this at home, that’s going to but they send out 100 postcards, handwritten letters, don’t expect to get a deal out of that you need. I think it takes a lot more volume than people realize, especially at the beginning.

Dylan Koch  27:06

Yeah, I can totally see that. David, and I tried our hand at wholesaling for a little while. And yeah, the sheer volume was a lot to deal with.

Dylan Koch  28:33

That’s a lot. And you got to field a lot of phone calls. Yeah. 

Nate Hedrick  28:36

You have to be available for those phone calls, too. That was one of the other things we struggled with too with with wholesaling was that you like when that seller calls? If you don’t take that call, you might miss that whole deal. Right. So you have to be available. 

Dylan Koch  28:46

They just call next guy that they sent him another mailer. 

Nate Hedrick  28:48

Exactly, yeah. So that’s, that’s cool. So I guess we’ll wrap things up. I mean, this has been awesome. It just so nice to get a pulse on what you’ve been up to, and what it might look like for somebody to step away from pharmacy and do this full time. So what advice do you have people who are maybe feeling a little stuck right now feeling burnt out? Maybe they just want to take a step back from pharmacy, it doesn’t need to be a full leave, but maybe they want to take part time as an option. Like what advice do you have for somebody that’s that’s starting to work that direction in terms of considering real estate as an option? 

Dylan Koch  29:20

I would say first and foremost, like, do your budgeting, make sure that you guys are in a good financial position for something like that. But really, I would try to find someone local to you whether they’re another health care professional that has real estate investments, you know, that’s me here you guys in your local markets. Or even go to a real estate meetup. Meet people in the space and be like, what do you do? What’s your day to day look like and talk to 100 different people. And then in my experience, if you come with a genuine attitude, a lot of people will give you the time of day to like, Hey, if you want to get started this I will help kind of a thing. They’re more than willing to give their time up or something like that. So they easily tap your toe in with experience, right, I think experience is going to solve a lot of those problems.

Nate Hedrick  30:05

Yeah, especially it sounds like when you get further on, you know, like you said, the way to solve those problems is to have the resources and the access. And so if you can start by that developing that network, it makes the problem solving down the road a lot easier.

Dylan Koch  30:18

100%.

David Bright  30:20

I think this is really exciting hearing about what you’re doing. Even in a wild market, you’re doing a lot of wholesaling, you’re doing a lot of flipping, you’re growing into different asset classes, you’re you have creative tax strategy, you’re doing all kinds of really cool stuff here. It’s just exciting to see your success through this. If people want to reach out and talk with you directly about how you’ve done this, or maybe even ways to work together. Where can people find you?

Dylan Koch  30:43

I would just type my name into any of the social media platforms and I’m pretty much everywhere. That’d be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever. It says Dylan and the last name’s Koch that’s spelled K-O-C-H. And you’ll find me!

Nate Hedrick  30:55

Awesome. Dylan, really appreciate you coming back on the show, sharing what you’ve been up to, and just giving people some inspiration and some ideas about what they could look for in their own future. So just really appreciate your time and your expertise. 

Dylan Koch  31:06

Yeah, guys, thanks for having me. This is always fun.

David Bright  31:09

Thanks so much. 

David Bright  31:12

Thanks for listening to the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. If you liked what you heard in today’s show, please leave us a review or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. If you have a question know someone that would make a good guest or want to connect with us head on over to YFPRealestate.com and join the growing YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook group. 

Nate Hedrick  31:29

As we conclude this week’s episode of the YFP Real Estate Investing podcast, an important reminder that the content of this podcast is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in this podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with their financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archive newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and therefore may not be accurate at the time you listen to it. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer.

David Bright  32:24

Thank you for your support of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

 

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