Episode 62 - Real Estate Investing Isn’t Easy Anymore. Here’s What Still Works with Joe Hammel
What really separates real estate investors who scale from those who burn out early? In this episode, Stephen sits down with Joe to unpack what long-term real estate investing actually looks like when the market is tight, margins are thinner, and emotions can quietly sabotage good deals. They dive deep into real estate investing mindset, building a repeatable rental portfolio, and why boring “bread and butter” properties often outperform flashy strategies over time. Joe shares how he built a cash-flowing real estate portfolio in the Metro Detroit market, why real estate investing is more about discipline than hype, and how new investors can avoid the most common mistakes that kill momentum early. This conversation is packed with real-world lessons on rental properties, delegation, team building, and why your first investment property is really your education.
Stephen and Joe talked about:
00:00 Introduction and Early Real Estate Days
03:51 Personal Background and Initial Investments
05:31 Transition to Michigan and Real Estat
12:50 Guiding New Investors
19:00 The Importance of Delegation and Team Building
29:20 Building a Real Estate Team
31:09 Importance of Customer Satisfaction
33:43 Real Estate Horror Stories
38:30 Self-Management vs. Property Management
43:30 Balancing Rent and Tenant Retention
49:03 Personal Interests and Hobbies
52:44 Final Thoughts
TRANSCRIPT
∎ Teaser / Highlighted Clip
[JOE HAMMEL] (0:00 - 0:15)
That first property is your education, right? I mean, that is your four-year degree. If for so many reasons, like you're saying, for mine, my biggest epiphany for my first property was like, this works.
Like I just couldn't believe it when I rented out and someone sent me a check two months in a row.
[Stephen Husted] (0:16 - 0:27)
I'm like, this is it. Vacancy is the silent cashflow killer. Like it is, and it's just not worth chasing a hundred dollar bump.
Like that a hundred dollars is not going to do anything for me.
[JOE HAMMEL] (0:27 - 0:41)
Every time I run this, the math is almost identical. If not, you make more money with lower rent in the long run. But at minimum, it's way less work.
Like at minimum, you don't have to turn that thing over and try to rent it out again.
[Stephen Husted] (0:42 - 2:49)
Yeah. And if you can give that tenant the opportunity to save too, and they're not feeling like they're just getting pressed and having to go to a different market and a different property.
∎ Podcast Intro:
I'm Stephen Husted, and you're listening to The Breakthrough Podcast, a space designed for clarity, curiosity, and the stories that move us.
Here, we step away from the noise and into the moments that define us, the early influences, the hidden struggles, and the breakthroughs that reshape our lives, from personal reinvention to building a life through real estate and entrepreneurship, these conversations remind us that success isn't a straight line. It's a series of honest decisions, brave actions, and small shifts that change everything. This is where those stories live. Let's begin.
∎ Guest Introduction:
All right. Welcome back to the podcast. This first episode of 2026 sets the tone. I'm sitting down with Joe to talk about what real estate investing actually looks like right now. Not the Instagram version, not the highlight reel, but the part most people don't talk about once the market tightens and the easy money disappears.
We get into what separates investors who last from the ones who burn out early, why boring rental properties tend to win long-term, how mindset, discipline, and patience matter more than chasing the next shiny strategy, and why your first property is really just your tuition into this business. Joe shares what he's learned building a rental portfolio through different market cycles. What new investors need to hear instead of what they want to hear, and how to think clearly when deals are harder to come by.
If you're serious about real estate investing and you want something honest, practical, and grounded, this episode is for you. Let's get into it.
∎ Podcast Proper:
Glad to have you on, man.
Yeah, I'm excited to be here, Stephen. Yeah. So I've known you for a while.
We talked back in the heydays, I would say, when real estate was going crazy.
[JOE HAMMEL] (2:50 - 2:51)
Yeah, back when it was easy.
[Stephen Husted] (2:51 - 3:01)
Back when it was easy. Isn't that, well, yes, well, it was easier, but it still had some pretty big issues that you had to work through, would you say?
[JOE HAMMEL] (3:02 - 3:13)
Yeah, and it was easy, but we didn't know it was easy. That's the difference. Like it's easy to look back now and be like, oh man, just buy every house you've seen, but at the time it was like, is this whole thing going to collapse on us?
And that's the reality of every real estate market.
[Stephen Husted] (3:14 - 3:37)
Absolutely. And one thing I try to tell new investors when they're getting into the game now is before, like back in 2018, 19, those, that time period, the market was appreciating, rates were low. You could get behind on a project with a contractor, lose some money and still make out okay.
[JOE HAMMEL] (3:37 - 3:37)
You know what I mean?
[Stephen Husted] (3:38 - 3:45)
Because it was, everything was working, interest rates were low. You could do all kinds of different things. You can pull out of it.
Gave you some breathing room. Not anymore.
[JOE HAMMEL] (3:46 - 3:49)
Right. It's tighter. Margins, margins are tight right now.
[Stephen Husted] (3:49 - 3:57)
Yeah. So why don't you give the audience a little background on where you're at and what your business model is all about?
[JOE HAMMEL] (3:58 - 6:11)
Yeah, well, I guess I should ask you what the long version of the short version. Man. So I'm in Michigan now, right in the Metro Detroit market, but I was born and raised in Ohio.
I don't have a dog in the Ohio state versus Michigan fight. I don't care. I'm a Notre Dame fan.
You can hate me for that, but that's where I'm at. But so I was in manufacturing and started right out of high school. This is all in Ohio.
I graduated high school and instantly went to college and I started working full-time at the same time. I went to a community college so I could live at home and I just paid my way through school. So I was working, I was going to school during the day and working afternoons and midnights.
I did that for four years. And that was really what was my launching pad for everything I have today was because I didn't have debt. I actually graduated with money in the bank.
And so it really started with two deals. When I graduated college, I wanted to buy land and this is still in Ohio. I bought 23 acres of land for $96,000.
And a year, that was what the money I'd saved up while working full-time and going to school. And then a year later I was going to build a house there, but then I decided I just better buy a house. So I bought a $112,000 house FHA three and a half percent down.
So it really wasn't that much money. So I had the land and the house. And then my now wife, she was in Michigan.
That's an even longer story. I want to go into that one. She was in Michigan.
And so I had gotten the bug. I was like, I got to figure out something else. I don't want to be a manufacturer my whole life.
I was like, this isn't what I want to do. My buddy, Jake Graff, he gave me some resources, some podcasts and books, and it was all about real estate investing. And so that was what flipped my switch for me.
I was like, this is it. This is what I've been looking for. So I sold the land and sold the house and moved to Michigan.
And so I did good on the house and the land. So I came to Michigan with $50,000, $60,000 based on selling those first two. And those first two deals also opened my eyes again.
Oh my gosh, you can make so much money in this. I made more money on those two houses than I would in half a year of working on the house and the land. And so that's when I came to Michigan.
I was like, well, I might as well try to figure out how to do real estate investing. I naively, it worked out for me, but I got, you can call it lucky, whatever.
[Stephen Husted] (6:11 - 6:12)
Sometimes it's good to be naive going into it.
[JOE HAMMEL] (6:12 - 6:44)
Yeah, I got my real estate license, which I can't in good faith recommend to most people. But I got my real estate license and I started figuring that out and then eventually started buying houses. And today I actually closed on an eight unit property this week.
So that put me at 39 doors and it's 25 properties. It's cashflow and it's like $115,000 a year. Once the eight units vacant, once that's rented out fully, it'll be $150,000 plus.
So fingers crossed that goes well.
[Stephen Husted] (6:45 - 7:02)
That's beautiful. That's good. Do you think you have an advantage being out there and local and being able to drive your properties and the infrastructure part of it?
Because that's a really hard part of the equation for an out-of-state investor is dialing in your team. Yeah, there are some advantages that I use and then some that I don't use.
[JOE HAMMEL] (7:02 - 7:40)
Oh, interesting. Knowing the market is obviously very helpful. I just know the market so well as an investor, as a realtor, and from all perspectives, that helps.
Going to the properties is something I don't really do. Most of my houses, yeah, most of my houses, I've only been there one time. And that was just kind of either during the escrow period or some of them, it wasn't even till after close when I went to see them and I was a 25 minute drive away.
I just didn't need it. I had a realtor on the team go show them to me. So it helps.
It definitely helps. But I think if you have a good team in the market you're buying, you can get around that piece.
[Stephen Husted] (7:41 - 8:01)
Yeah. And what keeps you separated from the property? Like you said, not being super emotionally invested and going there and walking through the rehab.
When you're buying these properties, are you buying them that they're kind of in distress and you're doing a rehab? Are you doing cosmetic updates? What is your type of strategy with that?
[JOE HAMMEL] (8:01 - 8:37)
Yeah. I love sweat equity, either bigger sweat equity, medium sweat equity, a little bit of meat on the bones. That margins are tight, but that gives you that little bit of cushion when you have some sweat equity in there.
So I really like those, but you set it in there and just detaching the emotion. I can do that really well in real estate. It just doesn't bother me what happens or what a property looks like.
We use the same colors, the same toilets, the same fixtures, nothing about it. It just has to look good and be really nice, but I don't have that. Oh, I want to do this kitchen, this color type thing.
I don't have time for that.
[Stephen Husted] (8:37 - 8:57)
Yeah. Streamlining the process is, unless you're flipping the house, like there's a different strategy to that, then yeah, getting it designed out makes sense. But when you're making them rent ready, the more basic and simple you can put it, the better you're going to be, because you put your heart and soul into it with doing things and all of a sudden a year later, it's all beat up.
Yeah.
[JOE HAMMEL] (8:57 - 8:58)
Oh my gosh. Quick.
[Stephen Husted] (8:59 - 8:59)
Yeah.
[JOE HAMMEL] (8:59 - 9:00)
You can't be attached to them.
[Stephen Husted] (9:01 - 9:05)
No, not at all. So what were the books that you read in the beginning, by the way?
[JOE HAMMEL] (9:06 - 9:39)
Uh, the classics, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Set for Life. Set for Life was the one that was like, okay, I want to get into scalable income and figure out how to minimize my expenses, and then I read the other, just all those beginner books. I have a whole list of them.
Rental Property, or Rental Properties for Beginners and by Brandon Turner, his book, and quite a few of that. Some of them were mentality books. It was like Grit by Angela Duckworth, David Goggins.
What's his book? What's David Goggins' books? It's going to come to me as soon as we're done with this, but.
[Stephen Husted] (9:39 - 9:42)
Right. The Grit, you nailed it there. You better have some Grit.
[JOE HAMMEL] (9:43 - 10:19)
Oh my gosh. Yeah. You better have Grit.
That's like the number one thing. I think so much of real estate investing, it is mindset. It is who you are because it's a very proven method to creating wealth, right?
It's the number one wealth builder in history. It is so very straightforward. You just have to persevere through it.
If you're super uptight and you're worried about $10 here, $20 there, it's going to run you ragged, right? I mean, tenants will eat you alive. Or you can just not be bothered by any of that.
Realize that, hey, something's going to break. I have it in my budget to fix it and just move on.
[Stephen Husted] (10:20 - 10:56)
Right. Have the right teams in place to do the things you need to get done. Treat your, treat it like it's a business.
And at the end of the day, there is going to be things that are going to have to get repaired. There's going to be tenant issues. Yes.
I think that going into it as a new investor, you should probably understand that these are things you're going to potentially go through. I will tell you firsthand when I moved, when I bought my first property out in Detroit, I was like, I'm going to buy in this area, let's see how this goes. And no, I heard some of the horror stories and they started all come true real quick.
And I'm like, okay. Oh, cool. It got broken into the first day on Zillow.
All right, cool. Got that one off the list. What's next?
[JOE HAMMEL] (10:57 - 11:58)
Yeah. Detroit, Detroit can be a beast. There's really, it's such, there's a line between too aggressive and we call them bread and butter deals.
It's the deals that it's what my portfolio is made up of. And it's typically what my team, we recommend investors buy. And that price point people see Detroit and they think, oh, I can buy a 10, $20,000 house.
You can, but you shouldn't. It won't be your house after a while. No.
Yeah. Don't do that. It's like 80K, some of the 75K or 70K, you can make it work.
But 70K up to 130, 140, that's more that sweet point. That's including suburbs and Detroit. There's Detroit and then there's 60 cities that we consider making up Metro Detroit that border Detroit.
And we do a lot of investing in the suburbs as well as Detroit proper. And you're going to typically spend a little bit more in the suburbs, a touch lower ROI on paper. So it just depends on, do you want that a little bit more aggressive in the city or do you want to be a little bit more, whatever, less risky in the burbs?
[Stephen Husted] (11:58 - 12:41)
And some people are really successful with the harder markets. Oh my gosh. Their bread and butter is that the one property I sold in Detroit, I met the guy on the Detroit investor group on Facebook and he just had to put out a post saying I buy just properties that have squatters issues that landlords don't want to deal with anymore.
And I was about a year and a half in on just so much bullshit that I just DM'd him. I told him the scenario on the property. He bought it, took it over and then he started updating me on, Oh yeah, this is how I got that person out.
This is what I did. Oh, this was bad. I screwed up on this, but he had people that would go out there and like get people out.
[JOE HAMMEL] (12:42 - 12:59)
Yeah. Yeah. If you're surviving in that 20 to 50K Detroit property range, you've got some systems.
That is life for you and you've got to figure it out. And they, like you said, they make a lot of money, but for us mere mortals, we should kind of stick 60, 75K and above is typically where we'll survive.
[Stephen Husted] (13:00 - 13:20)
So when you have a new investor coming to you and they're fresh, like I'm sure you get a lot that, let's say I want to be an investor or I want to buy out here, but they have no clue how to even underwrite a deal, right? A lot of the times, how do you walk them through that? Like, how do you pick a market or explain to them?
Do you do it by their budget? How much money do they have in reserves? How are you kind of guiding them through?
[JOE HAMMEL] (13:21 - 14:55)
Yeah. We have a, it's called an investor consult that we do at the beginning. It's just a list of questions.
Like you're saying in terms of how much money do you have, right? That's a pretty critical question. We got to know how much money you have.
We get a feel for what their risk tolerance is. If they're like, Hey, I really want this high ROI. And they seem to really have some thick skin.
That's okay. Let's play a little more aggressive. If it's good with X ROI and you can tell they just want to have a solid experience, cool, we know what type of property to plug that person into.
And we have a ton of data at this point. We're the number one medium team in Michigan by unit count. So we've done a ton of transactions.
We've seen what works and we know what doesn't work. So typically if someone doesn't have an opinion or they're asking ours, we can give them a really good idea of this statistically is your highest probability type property for you to succeed. And that's what we call those bread and butter in that 80 to 120 K range.
Between 6, 12% cash on cash ROI. Their rents on those are going to be $1,100 to $1,400, maybe $1,500. The cashflow, a couple hundred bucks a door.
They're really solid investment property. Again, it's the majority of my portfolio is because that's where I sit, right? I like those.
And so try that first, get into that property. We have all the resources. Whoever you talk to should be able to give you a property manager and some contractors that you need.
And if you like it by another one, if you like, okay, I want to go more aggressive on your second one, change it from there, or if you want to go less aggressive, change it from there. But that's the first one to start with to get that one, that's your education. And then adjust your strategy after that one.
[Stephen Husted] (14:55 - 15:22)
Yeah, it's definitely, you can read books, watch podcasts, learn from you, but you're going to learn your big skills just by doing, I mean, at the end of the day, you can gain as much knowledge, but every experience is different because you get, you buy a property and there's something different that goes on with tenants or the property or the market, there's, it's always unique as much, you know what I'm saying?
Like things are always changing.
[JOE HAMMEL] (15:23 - 15:43)
It's been said before, but if you haven't bought a property yet, then you need to hear it again. That first property is your education, right? I mean, that is your four-year degree.
If for so many reasons, like you're saying, for mine, my biggest epiphany for my first property was like, this works. Like, I just couldn't believe it when I had rented it out and someone sent me a check two months in a row.
[Stephen Husted] (15:43 - 15:44)
I was like, this is it?
[JOE HAMMEL] (15:44 - 16:00)
I was like, this is all like, and guess what? My furnace broke the third month and I was like, okay, well I budgeted for CapEx, so that's my CapEx money. So I fixed the furnace and I got my check the month after that.
And I was like, wow, I could do this like 20 times in a row.
[Stephen Husted] (16:00 - 16:31)
Yeah. It's interesting, especially when you stay in it long enough, things start to compound. You really start to see like principal pay down on the loans, even though maybe you're, the cashflow's the icing on the cake, you know, that's just, you got a good deal, so you got this cashflow.
But you know, the principal pay down with the appreciation on top of that, and you see that over a decade and you've got 10 properties, you start to see that on paper and you're like, whoa, okay, this is really cool.
[JOE HAMMEL] (16:31 - 16:58)
As soon as you started going that direction, I knew where you're going to take it. And it's so true. Those first couple of properties, you're so hung up on what is this month's cashflow?
Cashflow and, oh no, I had something break. I lost all my cashflow. Doesn't freaking matter.
You're not going to retire on one or two or three houses. You're trying to build that portfolio. And as soon as you get a couple of houses, you realize you're making the majority of your money in equity.
Like even if you're buying turnkey, like you said it, loan pay down and appreciation, you're making more money than you are in cashflow.
[Stephen Husted] (16:59 - 17:20)
Absolutely. So you probably, and by the way, you have the most amazing like list of everybody that you could possibly hire. That thing is so dialed in.
When Michael sent it over to me, I was like, yeah, like I knew you had everything together because that list was just, you had contractors, handymen, plumbers, property management.
[JOE HAMMEL] (17:20 - 17:47)
That's six years of adding people and taking people away to try and get a list. And it's honestly something that still gets updated. Someone that can be on there for two years and then something happens.
They get like busy, they grow and their service drops. And so some people on that list actually have a life cycle. It's like they stay on that list for two or three years and then, Oh, their service drop, we pull them off the list and put someone else new in there.
But that's been huge to new investors, out of state investors succeeding.
[Stephen Husted] (17:48 - 18:33)
Absolutely. Because when you have that list together that you've vetted and to your point, that's so true, you might have a contractor or a property management doing really good for a couple of years, and then they decide they're going to scale more, they get busier and they don't have systems in place, they don't have team place, they lose people, and then everything goes completely sideways and you have to, at that point, pivot and let them go and build that business up. And it's good to have multiple people that you're standing in connection with, whether it's contractors or handymans or electricians, whatever.
I always want in threes and I always call them. Even if I'm not using them, I talk to them on a yearly basis because I never know what I'm going to.
[JOE HAMMEL] (18:34 - 18:36)
Yeah. That's awesome. That's a good tip.
I hadn't heard that before.
[Stephen Husted] (18:37 - 19:28)
Yeah. It's just- It's a relationship. It is, it's definitely a relationship.
Like, I know if you were coming to Silicon Valley and you needed to buy primary residence, investment property, you don't have nothing to worry about. Joe and his family would be taken care of. I would treat you like, would I buy this deal?
Would this be something I would do? Joe would be taken care of. And I always want the same on my team out of state.
Like I talk to them, I try to get a good sense. Are they a good person? Are they going to care about my success and their own?
We're a team on this. Sometimes that works out. Sometimes that doesn't work out.
It took years of kind of getting burned. And I'm somebody that really like, I trust a lot. Sometimes that, and that's something that I try to work on.
Trust has to be earned. But I mean, a lot of people in Detroit that I put trust in, dude, they would. Dude, I know.
Dude, would go crazy.
[JOE HAMMEL] (19:29 - 19:44)
Yeah. Like crazy. And that's why the list is huge.
You've got to have vetted people you're using because if not, and I'm assuming that goes for most cities, right? I agree. Downtown St. Louis, I'm sure as Kansas City is probably pretty similar.
[Stephen Husted] (19:45 - 19:55)
I think it's everywhere. Honestly, I don't care what market it is. I think somebody can have bad intentions no matter where you buy and what price point there's bad actors and there's things going on.
[JOE HAMMEL] (19:56 - 20:04)
With contractors, it's just part of the game though. We can make so much money doing this. There's some barriers to entries and that's one of them.
You got to navigate that piece.
[Stephen Husted] (20:05 - 20:35)
Yeah. I try to tell new investors. I have some call me and they're, they don't know how to like, Hey, I got to do all these different things.
I'm like, Hey, one, you have to become an expert at delegating. So you have to understand that the minute something, there's a problem who's solving that problem, right? You need to become an expert at hiring experts.
These are things like do these two things really well and you're going to really succeed in investing.
[JOE HAMMEL] (20:35 - 21:28)
It's funny you say that. I made a mental note before we recorded this. I was like, well, he might ask me what some of my struggles are.
And at the beginning delegation, right? And you, it's funny you said that. Yeah
It's something that a lot of type A personalities, investors, people like this, we're like, we're good at a lot of things and we just want to get it done ourselves. Right. That's a typical profile of an investor.
And so it's typically a skill that you have to learn is to, well, how do I let someone else do it? And that goes for everything. That goes for the real estate business.
That goes for investing other businesses. If you want to scale, you have to figure that out. And usually it's accepting that, Hey, some of these things aren't going to get done exactly how I would have done them.
Correct. But a lot of times they'll get done better and other times they'll just get done. And you didn't have to do it.
And that was still a win. So it definitely a skill. It took years to kind of refine.
But once you figure it out, it's a key to the game.
[Stephen Husted] (21:28 - 21:43)
It totally. Absolutely. And I think it comes because you start putting in these different reps and you go through so much that finally you like you throw the towel in like, okay, I need to figure this out better.
Like this isn't working from my day to day.
[JOE HAMMEL] (21:44 - 21:55)
You start dropping balls is what happens. It's like you're juggling all these, you're juggling, you keep adding more and you're entrepreneur. And then you start dropping them.
It's like, you have to figure out how to outsource some of that stuff so you don't drop as many.
[Stephen Husted] (21:55 - 22:27)
Yeah, absolutely. And keep to your vision because I think, you know, investors too, a lot of them are big visionaries. Like they're bigger at the bigger picture.
Here's where I'm going in 10 years. Let me work backwards and let me figure this out. And you're putting that puzzle together through things.
You're investing strategy now. Has it pivoted over the time period that you've been working on it? Are you kind of really doing systematically?
I know this. I know if I buy this, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. And it's going to get me here at this point.
Or are you kind of trying to step up to bigger things or like, what are your goals you think?
[JOE HAMMEL] (22:27 - 23:33)
That's a good question. I probably have an answer. That's not as common.
Straight my portfolio and it's these bread and butter properties. Yeah. I just recently bought an eight unit, which was kind of stepping outside of my normal buy box because it's kind of getting bigger, but I have no real intentions of changing my strategy.
If next year I might buy a $110,000 two bedroom house and just be super happy with adding that to my portfolio. I found what works and I'm really content doing it on repeat. There's so many shiny object syndrome is such a big problem for real estate investors, it's like, Oh, maybe I should go buy notes next year or, Oh man, I'll bet you, I'll bet you I could get really good at development or man.
I'm hearing these, what are these? The, I almost said old people homes, but the senior living or what? There's so many like other strategies and it's like, man, true and tested, find something that works and most of the time, a lot of times that's just a single family home rental.
And if my original goal was like 20, 25 doors, I've already hit that now. So now it's like, what do I do? I guess just keep doing it.
[Stephen Husted] (23:33 - 23:40)
Well, it's funny. The shiny objects, having a podcast does not help. So don't ever start one because all you do is there are all these people with different strategies.
[JOE HAMMEL] (23:40 - 23:44)
Yeah. You get so many ideas. Yeah, I'm sure that's gotta be tough.
[Stephen Husted] (23:44 - 23:59)
Yeah, seriously. I got into development in Seattle based on a bunch of people that I met at the bigger pockets conference, and then I had them on the podcast and I'm sitting there listening to them and going, that's, that's cool. I think that's the direction I want to go.
I swear to God, I pivoted so quick.
[JOE HAMMEL] (23:59 - 23:59)
That's great.
[Stephen Husted] (24:00 - 24:49)
It's a lot of people don't figure it out. Cause then you have to relearn something new. Well, here's the thing.
So you can pivot, right? But here's the deal. You start off with long-term rentals, right?
You got that bread and butter and you're going. And then let's say you move into midterm rentals or now you're doing adding a short-term rental. And then you go into development.
Something's going to give, I mean, you can put as many teams and systems and VAs and all that in the mix, but those are all separate little businesses. You know what I mean? They all kind of need different attention and different things going on, different research, so what happens is you're not giving your all on every single strategy.
It's as simple as that. It's okay to pivot. There's nothing wrong with that, but you just have to understand the big picture when you are pivoting, what's that going to do to the overall business.
Right.
[JOE HAMMEL] (24:49 - 25:46)
Well, and you asked it earlier, like what's your long-term goal? And for me, it was, I'm going to make plenty of money, but my bigger goal was fire, financial defense retire early. My bigger goal was that how quickly can I get out of the game rather than how much can I do, it's how quickly can I get out?
And so I think that's not everybody's goal. Some people are like, Hey, I have time. I want to build a freaking monster and good for them.
I'm at a spot where I've got two kids. My wife has a great job. And so it's like, we're both flexible.
So I want to spend as much of my flex time with the kids and that's not doubling my income. It's just keeping what my income, what it is. And so I think that's my biggest deterrent from shiny objects is because I know, like I would have to go learn something new and I have to master something new.
And that takes time and kind of past the time investment at this period. And that this might last a decade, right? I might get bored in 10 or 20 years, but right now it's where I'm at.
[Stephen Husted] (25:47 - 25:56)
Well, that's cool because at least you understand that you're guarding your time from that and you're setting the parameters of how you want to kind of live your life. And that's the key. That's really good.
[JOE HAMMEL] (25:57 - 26:30)
Yeah. I feel like you almost have to give yourself permission to do that in our industry, right? Cause there's a lot of motivational books and there's a lot of motivational speeches and they're all push yourself.
And I think that's great. I think you can, you should if you're at a certain point, but you also really have to recognize when is enough and kind of be able to just enjoy income. And your job is only one piece of your complete purpose and your circle in life.
You've got family, you got relationships, you got hobbies, you got all of those other things. Income's just one bucket.
[Stephen Husted] (26:30 - 28:02)
Yeah, that's it. And this is really good points. I mean, it's funny.
We're both having these little moments when you bring up something, but I'm kind of at that point too. I'm 55, but I started late in the investing game. I was 35 and I just basically got clean, started over, lost everything and had to build up.
And so I had this sense of urgency that I had to like catch up. And so I've just been like on fire since that day, since 35. But now I'm getting to this point where I'm going like, God, I just want to buy a sprinter van and cruise around for the weekends and go ride my mountain bike and go on a run.
But the cool thing is that vision. I'll get there. It might not happen right now.
Cause right now I'm like, shit, we got portfolios profit. I'm in it now. There's no stopping me now.
When you got easy money in front of you, you got to take it. Yeah. Yeah.
But it's, I try to tell people, especially new investors that come to me mostly through social media. They want to get into investing. They typically work in tech.
They work in nine to five. I'm an investor. I want to do rehabs.
I watch what you do. I'm like, okay, what does your day look like time-wise? Like how much time do you want to put it put towards it?
What do you envision yourself doing? Just because you see that it looks cool. There's a lot in the background that has to be addressed.
And there's a lot of things coming at you left and right taxes and issues and paperwork, and there's a lot of stuff you have to, are you good at systemizing all that out over the years? Have you gotten better at it?
[JOE HAMMEL] (28:03 - 28:08)
I mean, I guess better at it. Yes. Partially because I hired someone who's better at it at home.
[Stephen Husted] (28:08 - 28:10)
So that's, that helps. Right. You got your expert.
[JOE HAMMEL] (28:11 - 28:17)
Yeah. Yeah. Cause you just said that's brutal.
Like you can get lost in just the administrative stuff behind the scenes.
[Stephen Husted] (28:18 - 28:32)
Do you even like that? I hate spreadsheets. I have to just be really straightforward.
I cannot, I don't want to do taxes. And I want to know the strategies and I want them to tell me how I'm going to save on my taxes. But I don't want to be in any type of spreadsheets.
[JOE HAMMEL] (28:32 - 28:32)
Yeah.
[Stephen Husted] (28:33 - 28:33)
Yeah.
[JOE HAMMEL] (28:33 - 28:41)
I'm cool doing my cost tags and get my most appreciation, but when it comes to the bookkeeping and all that stuff behind the scenes, it just makes me want to curl up and die inside.
[Stephen Husted] (28:41 - 28:46)
Oh my gosh. God, it's so terrible. Yeah.
I'm just thinking about it. It makes me upset right now.
[JOE HAMMEL] (28:46 - 28:47)
Yeah, I know. We got to change the subject.
[Stephen Husted] (28:47 - 29:10)
Let's get back to something cool here. Yeah. So you got your real estate license.
And then when was that moment when you decided you wanted to create a team? And yeah, because you got big really quick. I mean, you're really dialed in.
You have a complete approach for an investor that's coming into your pipeline, that's going to go through that. I can say that coming from me. It's good.
[JOE HAMMEL] (29:11 - 29:11)
Cool.
[Stephen Husted] (29:11 - 29:15)
I feel really confident going on the, going through the fire realty team. Yeah.
[JOE HAMMEL] (29:15 - 29:33)
I appreciate that. We're definitely dialed at this point. And 2019 I sold six houses and then 2020 I sold 59 in 2020 end of the year.
I brought on one agent. Cause I started getting too busy. And then 2020 Mike Helfant.
[Stephen Husted] (29:33 - 29:34)
Yeah.
[JOE HAMMEL] (29:34 - 32:06)
Yeah. Yeah. He's in the alley today.
He's our lead agent and lead training agent. Guy's a monster. Yep.
And then 2021 added a couple more agents and we sold like 160. 2022, a couple more, it was like 320. That was the first year we were the number one medium team.
2024 we just exploded. It was like 464 sales with, it was like eight agents. And it was all set up in that very, very beginning.
I was reading David Goggins and grit in 2019 and 2020. I think it was like February of 2020. I made 10,000 cold calls.
It was terrible. It was the hardest, worst year of my life was that first year of real estate as a realtor. And that's why I can't recommend it.
It's like, yeah, I'm sitting here now. I'm on top, but it was so horrible that I'm just like, I can't tell you to go do this because there's still a 95% chance you're going to fail. I just happened to be one of the fives that made it, but anyways, that's all depressing too.
So it's, there's, it was really at the beginning because I had done a lot of reading and learning of investing. I just caught a couple of investors those first year and I realized it clicks and it realized I could work with them. I started getting engaged in like forums and meetups and a couple of the resources and like anywhere I could find an investor, that was my client.
You just have to know how to work with an investor. You have to know what they want. You have to talk to their language and find them what they want and just can't drop balls.
And so did that successfully and it just compounded it. And now today it's like 60% plus of our business is a repeat or referral. It's just this snowball that I don't even think I could stop it if I wanted to just because it just keeps going.
And so it sounds silly, but a slogan is like always a five-star review, right? I mean, we will drop dead before we make someone upset and we really want that five-star review. Because with low price point investment properties, we don't make a ton of money on one house.
We do well if someone buys five, six, seven, eight houses with us. So our goal is this has to work, right? If this first house doesn't work, you're gone.
And so for us, it's like, we need to provide everything we can to make this as easy as possible and for it to work so next year you come back and buy another one. And that's just ultimately it was that and on top, we're in a good market, right? And we're in Metro Detroit.
We have one of the best price to rent ratios in the country. You heard of the bread and butter profile before earlier in the podcast. You can just make a couple hundred bucks a month and just do it on a repeat and not every market has that.
[Stephen Husted] (32:07 - 32:29)
Yeah. And if you have a good team like you guys and have all these different resources that will help you succeed, because the minute, if you get a new investor, that's buying their first property and they succeed on that first one, they got a good experience, they've been utilizing your list, now it's going to be easier on the second one, the third one, and they get the confidence because it's all working. The minute they don't have that.
[JOE HAMMEL] (32:30 - 32:30)
See ya.
[Stephen Husted] (32:31 - 32:31)
Bye.
[JOE HAMMEL] (32:32 - 32:33)
Yeah. Doesn't work.
[Stephen Husted] (32:33 - 32:58)
Yeah. And I'll have to say that to me, that was me in Detroit. I had a couple, had problems with X, Y, and Z, had some good outcomes, but then had some problems when the problems went bad, I was already in Kansas City's market and I had a great team.
I went, why am I putting in all this effort over here when this team is working smoothly and I'm scaling quicker? So I just went in there, but then that was a problem. I know.
[JOE HAMMEL] (32:58 - 32:58)
Yeah.
[Stephen Husted] (32:58 - 33:02)
Ball out there. It's sometimes it's just, sometimes it's just a coincidence.
[JOE HAMMEL] (33:02 - 33:50)
I've seen investors that bought, like I can think of one specifically, they bought two houses that I would have died to have. For me and the team, it's like, usually it's like, okay, we like this house, but if a client will buy it, we're going to give it to them, right? Because we'll just go find a different house and we'll make our money on that.
We're not stealing deals from clients. And so there's those two of them that, that happened with us. Like, I want them so badly, but it was like, all right, give them to the client.
They got them. And then it just didn't execute. Right.
Part of that was bad luck. They had some too bad tenants and a couple issues and they're like, this sucks and they were gone. And I was like, oh my gosh, I have 20 other properties that are identical profile that I freaking love.
And to me, I'm like, oh, you wasted these two. And it was just how it goes. Right.
And there's nothing really we could have done to prevent that, but it happens. And yeah, just as what it is.
[Stephen Husted] (33:50 - 35:02)
Yeah. I remember during COVID, I had a property out in Harper Woods. I've been talking to Michael about it too, and ended up having to put a tenant back into, and I wanted to sell it, but I was losing time and I thought, oh God, I'm going to sit going through the winter and then it's going to get broken into, so I made it a rental.
But anyways, that property had a tenant in it during COVID. I guess the property manager was giving her late fees, didn't know this. And then one day I get this phone call and this guy, Stephen Husted, married to Jennifer, has a daughter named Giselle, puts out my address.
He's like, that's what he said on the phone. Yeah. And he goes, I know what you're doing in Harper Woods.
I'm like, is this a cold caller? Like, no, I'm not selling the property. He's like, don't play games with me.
Don't play games with me, shoddy. That's what he said. And he's like, you better stop.
You better stop right now. And I'm like, dude, I don't even know what you're talking about. He's like, you know what I'm talking about.
No, I don't. Seriously. And I'm like, okay.
He starts to text me and he says, look, don't go after a little bit of money. Keep that tenant in there else I'm going to burn your fucking house down.
[JOE HAMMEL] (35:02 - 35:04)
Oh my gosh.
[Stephen Husted] (35:04 - 36:19)
Shoddy. That's a horror story, man. So he called my property management and I go, Hey, look it.
I just got threatened by this guy and I think he's the real deal. And so I told him what he said and they're like, Oh, okay. And I go, yeah.
And he skip traced me. And you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me, did you ever see the movie?
The town with Ben Affleck, one of my favorite movies. Anyways, they're going to go rob Fenway park, right. And they're dressed as cops and they get into there and they're going to go into where they have all the money from the games and they knock on the door and they start calling out the husbands that are in there, their wives and where they live.
So, Hey, we know your family. We know where you live. Do what we say and nothing will happen.
So this dude set that up. That's the first thing I thought about. I'm like, this is like wild.
And I saved that text. I have it in my phone, Detroit caller. And it was all over.
They were charging her during COVID when she lost her job, wasn't working, they were charging her fees. And it was probably some family member that was looking out for her. But yeah, it was just some crazy times.
So, I mean, what'd you do? Nothing. I just told the property management.
I told him do not charge her.
[JOE HAMMEL] (36:19 - 36:22)
Right. Yeah. Do not charge her.
[Stephen Husted] (36:22 - 36:30)
Yeah. Yeah. When I heard that word, I was like, oh shit, here we go.
That's a good one, man. I've heard anything like that. It ain't worth losing a house, Shawty.
[JOE HAMMEL] (36:30 - 36:56)
I'm like, oh shit. But for real, I mean, your demeanor right here is like on point. It's like, you're like, you're laughing about it, right?
I mean, that's a big deal. And I'm sure some time passed, you probably weren't laughing at the time. But that's that grit.
That's the resilience that you gotta have in this industry. And trust me, not everyone is going to deal with a horror story like that. That's pretty, pretty peak right there.
But, you know, the little stuff, I mean, you gotta be able to just be like, yep, is what it is and just move on.
[Stephen Husted] (36:56 - 37:50)
Yeah. And he caught me and I think it was a lockdown. I was like sitting on the couch in the living room and it was just it.
And the way his voice was. Oh yeah. You knew he wasn't fucking around.
Like you just knew. And I was just like going, and I'm trying to play it too. And I'm going, we're trying to feel him out.
Like what's going on? I'm like, and they'll burn your house down out there. That is really the truth.
That's a good one. Yeah. And I think all of these, like I said, you can read books, you can teach a new investor, you can't prep them for like something like that, they're going to go through it and they're either going to back out, never do it again, move on to another investing strategy, or they're going to learn from it, move on and have a good story.
Right. It's all about the story. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's my crazy one.
[JOE HAMMEL] (37:50 - 38:23)
I got a bunch of them out there, but my experience has been, it's almost, it's so clean. I mean, like I said, I'm at 39 doors right now. I only have two evictions over six years, a couple of tenants stopped paying and obviously they kind of trashed a place on their way out.
Crime, I've had a little bit of vandalism and I had a trash can stolen, but like, I don't, I mean, I must be doing something right. Cause it's just like, I just have this pretty rosy story of my actual properties. It's just not that bad.
I mean, so that's what I'm talking about. I think it just kind of depends on your path and what happens to you.
[Stephen Husted] (38:23 - 38:33)
It's a circumstance too. I think just things come up on different scenarios. You never know when that's going to happen.
Who do you have for your property management company?
[JOE HAMMEL] (38:33 - 39:09)
Did you have to vet them for a while? So it's a good question. I identify as self-managing because I basically have a part-time assistant who helps me self-manage and by helps me does most of the work, you know?
It's just funny. I've always answered that question with, I self-manage, I self-manage. And then one day, like recently I was like, you know what?
I actually don't self-manage. I have an assistant that does most of the managing for me. But I like that because that's kind of the, especially at my size.
It's a really nice blend of, I have some pretty good control. I have someone that I really trust and we can go back and forth on stuff and it just works, it works really well.
[Stephen Husted] (39:10 - 39:22)
That's good. Once again, if you have the good systems in place, things can run pretty smooth. What are the biggest issues you see new investors make?
When they come to you, like in as they go through it, like what are those issues look like?
[JOE HAMMEL] (39:23 - 40:21)
One of the biggest issues, self-sabotage. And it's why I accentuate mindset and grit so much is because you can hand a first-time new investor a great deal on a silver platter. And if they don't have that in them, they're just going to find a way to be like, ah, man, there's a problem with this and just move on.
And they just miss out on so many good deals because they do that. We're trying to make on a $130,000 house. I think it's going to be worth 300 grand someday.
It's going to be cashflow and it's going to be paid off a cashflow of $2,000 a month. We don't care about 250 bucks right now. I mean, like you do, but you don't, like you can't get ripped off, but you got to see the big picture.
And so it's that lack of vision that someone with a decent portfolio has. They just don't care about those little things. Cause they're like, Ooh, I'm in this deal.
I know I got a good deal. And I know this is going to make me a ton of money down the road. A $20 wire fee on my EMD is just not going to frazzle me.
And that's what gets them.
[Stephen Husted] (40:22 - 40:41)
Yeah. Like they feel like that once you get the property, maybe your gross rents, maybe you have some fix it repair items that are going to bring that down. And then it's like, I didn't think that this was going to happen.
Like you're going to have a lot of things happen, but understand that if you keep this property for 10, 15, 20 years, none of that's going to matter. Exactly.
[JOE HAMMEL] (40:41 - 41:23)
You've got to give it some time to smooth out. When I say my cashflow is one 15, I'm budgeting out 15% from each property for vacancy maintenance of CapEx. I'm not including that number.
And so when you add up 15% across this portfolio, it's like 70, $75,000 a year that I'm not counting as cashflow. And so what does that mean? It means when the furnace breaks, I don't freaking care.
Cause I got 75 grand. I'm just going to fix the furnace with, and it takes time, right? That's a luxury of when you have a portfolio.
It's a lot tighter when you have one to three properties and it really does come out of your bank account. I get that. But that's the vision and the mindset required is this is a business.
Like stuff is going to break. It's just a matter of when, not a matter of if.
[Stephen Husted] (41:23 - 41:33)
Yeah. And do you feel like, especially now with rates higher, like tell me, well, Michael, I was talking to him about the property in Harper woods. I bought that for 50,000.
[JOE HAMMEL] (41:33 - 41:34)
Yeah, I mean, nice.
[Stephen Husted] (41:35 - 42:08)
It's a three, one basement, one 20 now, and it's dropped down a little bit. And I wanted to get out of it. I was like, you know what?
I am trying to focus more in development. That's really what I actually love to do. And so I'm trying to sell that one off, but it's like, now I heard that the property taxes on the next person is going to buy, it's not going to be an investor.
It's going to be an owner occupy buyer. That's going to live in it. And I'm like, Oh, okay.
I'm hearing all these different things that are going on. Do you feel like with the rates and to just other things, the dynamics have changed for investors out there a little bit?
[JOE HAMMEL] (42:09 - 42:55)
Yeah. Are you talking specifically on market or just in general? In general.
Yeah. I mean, just with interest rates, I feel like this happened across the board where prices went up during COVID, prices went up, rents went up. And then we had this period where prices kept going, but rents kind of stopped.
And so at least in our market, we had that, that was 2024 ish. And so that just tightened everything. Those prices were high, rates were high, but then rent wasn't going with it.
Rent will come back, but now you got to have this delay of you got to wait for affordability. You got to wait for these people's salaries to catch up. And so you got to give that two, three years.
And so the opportunity right now is to buy that tighter margin and then let it expand over the next couple of years. And I think that's a difficult thing to visualize
[Stephen Husted] (42:56 - 43:07)
Yeah. Especially when they've heard about what it was like in the glory days, like people have, they start going back to old content, they listen to it and they come back and they want this type of cash on cash and you're like, wait a minute. Yeah.
[JOE HAMMEL] (43:07 - 43:17)
Podcasts are such a good educational resource. But that's the one con is like, you can't compare numbers of 2021 to numbers of today.
[Stephen Husted] (43:18 - 43:48)
Yeah. And that's so hard, especially I try to tell people, look, if you're an investor 2015 and on, it was really hard to kind of screw up to be really honest. And I say that just being really honest about it.
The markets were appreciating, rates were low. You had room for error. Rents were increasing.
Definitely rents are, so are rents going down? Are you seeing a little bit of a shift on the rates out in the Detroit? Hold the whole, pretty much the whole area.
Kind of just a flat line over the last year and a half.
[JOE HAMMEL] (43:49 - 43:57)
And I think it still might be another year and a half until we get that bump back up to kind of match our prices and rates and property taxes, like you mentioned.
[Stephen Husted] (43:57 - 45:17)
Yeah, I'm getting, I'm going through that right now in Kansas city as well. And I brought this up to another lady who's an investor. She was on the podcast and this property went vacant.
I think we had it rented out for $1250. And tenants moved out. They were great tenants.
They moved out and then they put it on the market for $1500. And I'm going, what? That seems so high.
So I'm on random meter and I'm looking at it. I'm like, you guys do $1400. I don't know where your number is, but I just want somebody in there now.
178 days on the market, chasing that market down. What happened during that time period of the market, chasing that market down? Got squatters, got the refrigerator stolen.
The washer and dryer got stolen. And guess where we ended up in pricing? We ended up at $1295 and we put in tenants typically in the winter months.
So you're not getting the greatest tenants from my experience. And it's a husband and wife and four kids and a 3-1. Yeah, it's tight.
You know what I mean? And got them in, but all of that over chasing and the property management, they don't care. Some, they're going to make more money if they get the higher rent.
Two, when the turnover happens, they're going to make the money on that place, that tenant placement. So it's all up to the investor. Like they don't care.
I'm putting a refrigerator in, you know what I mean?
[JOE HAMMEL] (45:17 - 45:24)
So yeah, the property manager, I mean, they have thousand units. You're one unit. You got to fight for yourself there.
Totally. They're not going to do it.
[Stephen Husted] (45:24 - 45:44)
Yeah. And I chased it and kept bringing the price down. It was $1400, $1350, a bonus to move in and it just down and down.
And I went, ah, there you go. The thing that I preach the most, I got burned by, Hey, keep it a little bit below market. I don't know how you are with your tenants, but if I got good tenants, I don't raise rents on them.
[JOE HAMMEL] (45:44 - 45:44)
Yeah.
[Stephen Husted] (45:45 - 45:46)
I definitely below market.
[JOE HAMMEL] (45:46 - 46:54)
Yeah. I think my whole portfolio is below market at this point because I'm doing 1%, maybe one and a half is someone's like really far below, but I'm pretty much not doing 3% plus on anybody who's, who's proven to be a good tenant. I think that's a good nugget there too.
Like when I'm underwriting my own deals, like I'll put in my pro forma, like what is market rent? But then that doesn't mean I'm going to go out there and die on that hill of trying to get that because vacancy is a killer, so it's like, I'm going to underwrite this at 1500 because I want to see how it benchmarks to other deals. Right.
So if I'm going to run my deals the same across the board, but when it comes down to executing it again, my portfolio is built for 10 to 40 years. These first 10 years of this portfolio to me is just about getting it built and stabilization, so I run it at 1500 in today's market, I might list that at 1400, 1425 and just try to get that thing filled as quickly as possible. And then like you said, I'm not bumping up crazy high rent on an existing tenant because if they move out, I could sit, if I don't execute it well, I could sit for two to three plus months.
That's a lot more money lost than the 25 bucks a month.
[Stephen Husted] (46:55 - 47:11)
Absolutely. And that could be your time period when you get broken into. I know, right?
You have that. You have a squad or vacancy is the silent cashflow killer. Like it is, and it's just not worth chasing a hundred dollar bump.
Like that a hundred dollars is not going to do anything for me.
[JOE HAMMEL] (47:12 - 47:25)
Every time I run this, the math is almost identical. If not, you make more money with lower rent in the long run. But at minimum, it's way less work.
Like at minimum, you don't have to turn that thing over and try to rent it out again.
[Stephen Husted] (47:26 - 48:49)
Yeah. And if you can give that tenant the opportunity to save too, and they're not feeling like they're just getting pressed and having to go to a different market and a different property, and they feel like, okay, you know what? I can actually save money here.
I can build my future. Oh, perfect. Here's a good example of this scenario.
The crazy tenant that was during COVID on the Woodside property in Harper Woods. She moved out, got a teacher in. Her kid went to school three doors down.
The school was right there. She was in there, paid on time. Every month for two and a half years.
I'm like, I'm going to keep her in there. And all of a sudden I was like, God, she's pays on time. There's not a peep from her.
I should just sell her this house. I was telling this to Michael. So I'm like, and then all of a sudden I get a note from the PM.
Your tenant's moving out. I'm like, oh, really? Okay.
It's like July, end of July. And so I had to get her some money. So I called her.
I'm like, Hey, where'd you move to? She's like, we bought a house. I was like, oh man.
I go, gosh, I was going to ask you if you wanted to buy. She's like, we probably would have bought your house. I'm like, oh my gosh.
Whoops. And that was a good example. She's like, you look the rent.
She was below market by like $250 and she saved up. Maybe that helped her buy a house. I don't know.
[JOE HAMMEL] (48:49 - 48:49)
Sure.
[Stephen Husted] (48:49 - 48:55)
Maybe, you know, whatever the case may be, I didn't keep just raising the rent. She had that same one. So that's nice.
[JOE HAMMEL] (48:55 - 48:55)
Yeah.
[Stephen Husted] (48:55 - 49:14)
That's great, man. It's cool. I think real estate is, it's just a lot of big, like life decisions, not only for you and your family, but others, you know what I mean?
We're trying to take this asset and get people housing and try to make a business out of it. But at the end of the day, we're all trying to work together.
[JOE HAMMEL] (49:15 - 49:15)
Yeah.
[Stephen Husted] (49:16 - 49:23)
It's kind of, it's a cool thing to be involved in. Yeah. That's exactly what I was going to say.
What do you like to do for fun? What are your hobbies?
[JOE HAMMEL] (49:23 - 49:24)
Man, that's a different direction.
[Stephen Husted] (49:25 - 49:25)
All right.
[JOE HAMMEL] (49:25 - 49:42)
See, I switched that one quick. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I enjoy real estate very well. I'm very passionate about real estate. I think there's a difference.
I would agree with you on that. Yeah, I would. Yeah.
Yeah. I like jujitsu right now. Kind of into that a lot.
Nice.
[Stephen Husted] (49:42 - 49:43)
How long have you been doing that?
[JOE HAMMEL] (49:44 - 49:59)
It's almost two years. Good for you. Yeah.
It's my workout. It's really cool. It's really fun.
So I like that a lot. And then anything outdoors. We like to travel, hike, dirt bikes, that sort of thing.
Sweet.
[Stephen Husted] (49:59 - 50:09)
The jujitsu goes really good with being an entrepreneur. Yeah. You know what I mean?
It's all that consistency. You're learning things. You got a lot of drawbacks.
[JOE HAMMEL] (50:09 - 50:34)
Yeah. It's the red pill. Yeah.
Yeah. It's the red pill, man. I mean, I think you go in that first day and every male thinks they can take care of themselves and you really quickly realize like, oh my gosh, so many people can beat me up and so at that moment you got to make a decision like, am I going to run away from this or am I going to learn this so I can be one of those guys and it's definitely a two directions.
[Stephen Husted] (50:34 - 50:39)
Yeah. How long will it take to become a, do you become black belt in jujitsu?
[JOE HAMMEL] (50:39 - 51:09)
I mean, yeah, that's a 10 to 15 year journey just cause it's that long. It's, I think it's like the longest journey in martial arts to becoming a black belt master. It's just, there's so many levels inside of white belt, blue belt, purple belt, brown belt, black belt.
And at each level is just such a big jump. I'm a blue belt right now. And if I go against 99.99% of purple belts, I'm going to get my butt kicked. And so brown and blacks don't stand a chance. And it's just, it's that clear cut. There's just so much to learn.
[Stephen Husted] (51:09 - 51:09)
Yeah.
[JOE HAMMEL] (51:09 - 52:18)
And it's amazing how good you can get most of the time. It's just something I observe at this point, how good you can get at winning and grappling match. That to me as a nerd and as someone who likes to learn things, that's an addicting area because it's, I have to get good at this.
I can't stand not being good at it. What gravitated you towards it? Like, how'd you get inspired?
You started, it started picking up momentum recently. I feel like the last five plus years, it's gotten a little bit more mainstream. And so for me, I was always interested in like self-defense and just that mask on the side of me.
It was like, Oh, I got to learn how to, you got to do something hand to hand. I think eventually maybe I'll do a little bit of striking, but at the time it's like, I kind of need my brain. So I don't want to get punched in the head every day.
So it was like, what's something else I can do? And just, you know, you look at the stats of well, wrestling and jujitsu are typically, it's one of the foundations of the UFC champions. And so it's like, it's a lot easier to find a jujitsu gym than a wrestling gym.
So I don't know, it just kind of was, that was the domino effect. It's all right, well, let's go talk to my wife at a, it was a two years ago, new year's resolution. It's like, Hey, I really want to do this.
She's like, well, go sign up. I didn't ask twice. I just signed up and started.
[Stephen Husted] (52:19 - 52:23)
Yeah. That's great. That's great.
And it all will run parallel with your business.
[JOE HAMMEL] (52:23 - 52:24)
It really does.
[Stephen Husted] (52:25 - 52:40)
Guaranteed. Anything that requires constant consistency and thought and growth and mindset and strategy and strength, all those things working together. It all translates into business.
[JOE HAMMEL] (52:40 - 52:43)
Yeah. It makes so much sense. It's a muscle that you can work out.
Yeah.
[Stephen Husted] (52:43 - 53:10)
Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool.
Well, I'm glad I got you on there. It's so funny. I feel like it's like a full circle moment because I've known you for a long time and I've been following you and you have a kick-ass, your newsletter, all the information, data points on the markets.
Dude, that stuff's so valuable. Cool. It's so quick and take a quick look at it.
Good. I look at it, move on and just keep doing what you're doing because you're obviously doing it right. There's not a lot doing it right, but you're definitely doing it right.
[JOE HAMMEL] (53:11 - 53:25)
So I appreciate that. I mean, it's funny, like kind of the same thing. I mean, it's probably been four or five years since the last time we literally talked a whole bunch.
And ever since then, I've seen your name. I've seen the podcast. I see you on the social media.
I'm just like, man, this guy's doing a lot of cool stuff. And so it's fun to get to talk to you now and kind of catch up.
[Stephen Husted] (53:25 - 53:35)
Yeah, definitely. So I appreciate you jumping on today. I hope you have a good year and the best of luck in 2026 and keep doing what you're doing, man.
I appreciate it.
[JOE HAMMEL] (53:36 - 53:37)
Cool. Thanks a lot. I appreciate that.
[Stephen Husted] (53:37 - 54:09)
And ride on, buddy. You have a good day. Talk to you soon.
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