Heartland Investment Partners - January 2022

Heartland Investment Partners - January 2022

& STRIPES

HEARTLAND INVESTMEN T COMPANIES STARS

JANUARY 2022

AN.COM

DARINGARM 319-350-5378

A Tip From a Scuba Diving Plumber

YOU’LL NEVER MAKE THIS PROPERTY MISTAKE AGAIN!

A year or two after I bought my lake house, something went wrong with the toilet. I messed around with it for a while, but nothing I tried stopped the leak. So, I called a plumber — and the wisest, most grizzled man in all of Okoboji, Iowa, showed up. The plumber’s name was Jim. He fixed my toilet in about 15 minutes. We had a great time shooting the breeze about wax rings, leaks, and my general plumbing incompetence. But what I’ll never forget is the story Jim told me on his way out the door.

“You don’t shut your water off? Oh boy. Let me tell you a story …”

Now, most plumbers would have thrown in the towel at this point. But Jim grew up on Lake Okoboji! He strapped on his scuba gear and went in. Like an FBI agent diffusing a bomb, he found the shutoff valve and turned it off underwater. “After that, I called in a disaster company and they pumped tens of thousands of gallons of water out of that house,” Jim told me. “Of course, it was too late for the building. It was a total loss. They had to rebuild from the ground up.”

It turns out that five years before my toilet problem, Jim woke up to a message from a freaked out homeowner. They were out of town and said their neighbor had called to tell them they had a huge leak back at the house. No big deal, Jim figured. The homeowner was probably exaggerating. People embellish their stories all the time to get plumbers to come over faster. But he still grabbed his stuff and headed that way. When Jim showed up at the ranch house, he couldn’t believe what he saw: A waterfall was flowing out of the home’s front door! Water was pouring out of the side door, too, and soaking the deck. In a minute, Jim realized what had happened: A pipe had burst in the house, and because the homeowners had left their water on, the entire basement had filled to the brim. Now, the water had nowhere else to go and was flooding the street. Jim’s first instinct was to shut that water off from the city’s main line. So, he called the city to make arrangements. It took them four hours to find the maps, identify the shutoff location, and send out a crew to scrape ice away from the valve cover — all while the water kept pouring. Then, the disaster — the valve wasn’t there! Road construction from the previous summer had concreted right over it. Jim only had one option left: scuba dive into the flooded basement and shut the water off from there.

Then, he looked me in the eye and said, “Darin, always shut off your water in the winter.”

Thirteen years later, I haven’t forgotten Jim’s tip! Gina and I went up to the lake house this month, and the last thing we did before heading home was switch the water off. Jim’s story is a property owner’s nightmare. Fortunately, the investors who work with me don’t have to worry about making management mistakes or dealing with their aftermath. If you don’t want to be an “active” hands-on manager, you can opt to be “passive” and let my team worry about those headaches. “Passive” is pretty popular. After all, we never forget to shut the water off. And we know all the best plumbers! –Darin Garman

“In a minute, Jim realized what had happened: A pipe had burst in the house, and because the homeowners had left their water on, the entire basement had filled to the brim. ”

“Hey Darin, what do you do about your water here in the wintertime when you go back to your place in town?” he asked me. I told him I turned the furnace down to 55 degrees F and ran it the whole winter so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. I thought that was pretty smart, but he looked at me like I was a box of rocks.

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5 WAYS TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS IN RETIREMENT Don’t Spend Another Year Lonely!

Friendship just might be the fourth secret to longevity, right behind eating well, exercising, and getting plenty of sleep. According to the Mayo Clinic, making friends can reduce stress, improve your self-confidence, and give you purpose in life! People with good friends are also more likely to exercise and less likely to drink to excess. But making friends is tough, especially in your golden years. To finally kick loneliness to the curb in 2022, try these five tips. 1. Get a dog. Adopting a dog (assuming you truly want one) will incentivize you to leave the house for walks, vet visits, and more. You’ll likely attract new friends in the neighborhood when they stop to pet your pup, and you can also meet people at the dog park or obedience classes. If nothing else, you’ll have your dogs in common! 2. Join a hobby group. The easiest way to find friends with similar interests is to pursue those interests. If you like to quilt, join a quilting group, and if you kayak, look

for an outdoors club near you. Facebook is a great resource for finding online hobby groups, too! Just type your interest into the search bar and select “Groups” on the left- hand side of the screen.

3. Volunteer. Volunteering has similar benefits to joining a hobby group with the added benefit of giving back to the community! There’s likely a cause for whatever you’re interested in, whether that’s food, animals, or sports. Visit

VolunteerMatch.org to find opportunities in your area sorted by organization type.

4. Move to a 55-plus community. Also called retirement communities or active adult communities, these neighborhoods are known for their low-maintenance housing, amenities, and group activity options — and they’re all over the U.S. If you want to find friends in your age group to swim and play tennis with, a local real estate agent can help you find them.

5. Become a mentor. Mentorship is a valuable way to form friendships across generations. You can sign up for an existing program in the field you retired from or reach out to a local college or high school career center and offer your services. They’ll likely have graduates who’d love to meet you!

The ONE Investment That Actually Works

TRY MY SECRET TO BEATING THE FED AND THE MARKET

Not a day goes by when I don’t get a “Pitch Piece” from someone selling a stock or bond, or oil, gas, gold, silver, etc. Every time, the company making the “pitch” is doing the same thing: saying they REALLY BELIEVE “their investment” will go up in value — in some cases “skyrocket”! They usually provide some kind of voodoo evidence that this is going to happen. You’ve probably seen these pitches, too — especially in today’s economy. Do these people REALLY KNOW that their stock, bond, or whatever is going to increase in value? Of course, they don’t! They can’t control the markets. No one can. They just have a 50% chance of getting it right. If you’ve gotten these pitches, you’ve probably wondered, “Is there actually a sure thing out there? Something 100% guaranteed to make money? Something I CAN predict?”

I don’t have much experience in financial markets (remember, I’m a real estate guy), but I can tell you right now about one investment that is predictable and WILL make you money, even if the markets take another big tumble. (Which seems pretty likely considering the current political, social, and global economic unrest. Throw in the virus, and it doesn’t take a genius to see disaster coming.)

You can choose to ignore what is going on, but if you’re negatively impacted by the financial markets in the coming months, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. To learn more about the only investment that works, call me at 319.350.5378 or email me at [email protected] and ask to hear about the returns coming in for apartment properties I’m working on with investors like you. Think it over, but if I were you, this is one thing I would not procrastinate on in 2022. –Darin

That one investment is … drumroll, please ... well- located, well-maintained apartments!

No matter what the financial markets do, people will still need a place to live, and they will still pay rent. (Even under current COVID-19 conditions, our collections are over 90%!) This is the best place to put your money. If you think you can trust the politicians to save us all at the last minute … well, I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, too!

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I WA LIFE

SUDOKU

torms

3 Iowa Snows You’re Lucky

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Missed

SOLUTION

rvived One...

(And if You Su

Congrats!)

Iowa weather has steeper mood swings than a feisty toddler. When you live here, you get used to things like freak snowstorms in May and temperatures shooting down at the drop of a hat. In 2016, our state broke a 101-year-old record for the widest temperature difference in a single month. On Feb. 13, it was 17 below zero. Fifteen days later, it was 75 degrees F! Of course, all of these recent events pale in comparison to the legendary storms of decades ago. Here are accounts of just three of the craziest storms on record. 1. The Train-Burier of 1915 — This blizzard raged for days in the icy depths of February, leaving huge drifts and coating the state in icicles. It also wreaked havoc on the railroad. As OnlyInYourState. com puts it, “Several miles of railroad tracks were encased in ice and had to be chipped out of the snow by hand.” Trains were stranded in the snowfall along with people and cargo. 2. The ‘Great Snowstorm’ of 1973 — In most places, you’re safe from snowstorms by April, but not in Iowa! On April 8, 1973, a blizzard dropped between 15–19 inches of snow across the state. According to The Gazette, “The wind piled the snow into drifts as high as 16 feet.” The paper also reported 14 deaths, abandoned snowplows, mail delivery hiccups, and a full stop to public transportation. In Cedar Rapids, police and firefighters even used a toboggan to haul a pregnant woman through the drifts to the hospital.

SALES AND SUCCES S

APARTMENT

4 UNITS — UNDER CONTRACT! ALL 2 BEDROOM

48 UNITS SOLD!

3. The Super Bowl Blizzard of 1975 — Just two years after the Great Snowstorm, another blizzard struck the Hawkeye

State. Its brutal winds whipped up snow tornadoes, and 58 Midwesterners and thousands of animals died. On the anniversary of the storm in 2015, Dickinson County Emergency Management rounded up news articles covering the event. They told stories of power lines, water shortages, and rescue missions. But there were some fond accounts, too. One paper reported a local motel was literally a port in the storm, writing, “Landlord and Mrs. Vern Drawbaugh of the Oaks Motel hosted 17 guests at a candlelight breakfast last Saturday morning, serving rolls delivered by snowmobile by Donna (Mrs. Dudley) Short of the Spirit Lake Bakery the night before.”

4 UNITS SOLD! ALL 2 BEDROOM

CONTACT DARIN TODAY AT 319-350-5378 FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THESE LISTINGS!

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HEARTLAND INVESTMENT COMPANIES

PRST STD US POSTAGE PAID BOISE, ID PERMIT 411

Darin Garman: Heartland’s Most Trusted Multi-Family Investment Advisor 2505 Silver Oak Trail Marion, IA 52302 DarinGarman.com 319-350-5378

INSIDE Page 1

How to Keep Away Scuba Diving Plumbers

Page 2 How to Make 2021 Your Last Lonely Year

Darin Shares a Secret

Page 3 Planning a Trip to Iowa? 3 Reasons to Wait for Spring

Apartment Sales and Success

Go Brandless! Page 4 Go Brandless — Their Unique Comeback Story IT’S BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER

Companies like Warby Parker have built a powerful customer following for creating direct-to-consumer products that slash prices by cutting out the middleman. Now, Brandless is doing the same thing for small, everyday purchases. When you buy peanut butter, you’re not just buying the product — you’re also buying the brand attached to it, along with its costs of distributing and warehousing, plus retail space. By eliminating what co-founder and CEO Tina Sharkey calls a “brand tax,” she realized Brandless could significantly cut down the costs for small products that people bought every day. When Sharkey and veteran entrepreneur Ido Leffler came up with the concept of Brandless, it immediately caught fire. They raised over $16 million in November 2016, and at launch, received over $50 million in venture capital from New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures, and others. However, their business model didn’t sustain itself forever — Sharkey stepped down as CEO in May 2019 after friction between her and lead investor SoftBank Vision Fund. By February 2020, Brandless had shut down and laid off 90% of its workforce, leaving only a few to manage open orders.

Brandless is thriving again, nevertheless. When Brandless shut down, they cited their struggle with fierce competition and business model inviability in the direct-to-consumer market. Part of the problem was that Brandless simply wasn’t sustainable in the way Sharkey and Leffler originally hoped. That’s when Utah-based digital marketing exec Ryan Treft entered the picture. He’s the new CEO, and his vision has, thus far, helped make the consumer’s “quality to price valued product” daydream a reality. “It’s not about racing other brands to the bottom of being the cheapest, because that’s where people compromise on the quality, the ingredients,” Treft said. His new leadership promises to uphold Brandless’ previous commitments to keep all its products free from 400 potentially harmful ingredients, including parabens, sulfates, and synthetic dyes. For a new “brand” that attracted a lot of attention back when it was in its early stages, Brandless is certainly back to the top with its newer product lines in personal care. They’ve received great reviews and attention across platforms. Congrats for fighting your way back, Brandless!

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WHAT WI LL 2022 BRING YOU? ! LOOK WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CONTACT THE AREAS APARTMENT SPEC IAL I ST FOR OVER 30 YEARS ! MORE RESOURCES AT: DARINGARMAN. COM

• I GET DEALS CLOSED AT HIGH PRICES EVEN WITH COVID-19! • I GET MANY OWNER’S FULL ASKING PRICE FAST!

16 Units! Closed!

12 Units! Closed!

36 Units! Closed.

• I GET DEALS CLOSED ON THE OWNERS TIME FRAME!

48 Units! C L O S E D !

30 Units! Closed!

16 Units! Closed!

• DEALS CLOSED WITH NO HASSLES FOR OWNER, TENANTS OR STAFF! • THESE DEALS HAD NO LENDER ISSUES! NO LEGAL ISSUES!

8 Units! S O L D!

12 Units! S O L D!

DOWNTOWN RENTAL CONDOS SOLD! SOME STILL AVAILABLE— CALL DARIN!

MP HERE MANY OF THESE BIG OFFERS IN JUST DAYS!

RECORD PRICING!!

MP HERE

• EASY, EASY, EASY!

HEARTLAND INVESTMENT REAL ESTATE

1350 BOYSON ROAD A-1 HIAWATHA, IA 52233

DARINGARMAN.COM IS “ THE PLACE ” WHERE MULTI - FAMILY INVESTORS GO

CALL / EMAIL Darin Garman, Apartment Specialist! #319-350-5378 [email protected] WWW.DARINGARMAN.COM

HOLD ON TO THIS FLYER AND MAKE 2022 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER!!! CALL ME ANYTIME FOR APARTMENT OWNER, MARKET OR LANDLORD INFORMATION. THERE IS NEVER ANY OBLIGATION! ASK ALL OF MY AREA LANDLORD AND APARTMENT OWNER CLIENTS!! HAPPY LANDLORD REFERENCES SHARED ANYTIME!! GO SEE ALL OF YOUR RESOURCES AT WWW.DARINGARMAN.COM