Ep #106: Dylan Borland & David Toupin on Multifamily Success

Young Entrepreneurs Carving Their Path in Multifamily Investing

Ep #106 – Dylan Borland and David Toupin began real estate investing at a very young age by fixing and flipping and have decided to use multifamily investing and ownership to “get out of the rat race before it even started!”

Here’s some of what you will learn:

Full Transcript

Ep #106 – Dylan Borland and David Toupin

Welcome. This is the Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing Podcast. This is where you’ll learn strategies to help you achieve lifetime financial freedom through real estate investment. Your host, Rod Khleif, has owned over 2,000 homes and apartments. And he brings experts in all aspects of real estate investment and management on to the show. Now, here’s your host, Rod Khleif.

Early Beginnings in Business and Real Estate

Rod Khleif: Welcome to Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing. I’m Rod Khleif and I am thrilled you’re here. I know you guys are really gonna enjoy the two gentleman we’re interviewing today.

I had done one of my free 30-minute phone calls with one of them, and was so impressed with their work ethic, and what they’ve done already at their young age. They’re both in their 20s, and they’re about to close on the first 24-unit deal.

You guys, you’ve heard me interview people with a few hundred units to a few thousand units to tens of thousands of units, but people like these two gentleman will relate to many of you much more because they’re just really getting going in the multi-family space. They’ve been bitten by the ‘multi-family bug’, and I’m really excited to have them tell you their story, ‘cause I was really impressed, I think you will be as well.

Their names are Dylan Borland and David Toupin. Guys, welcome to the show.

David Toupin: Thanks Rod.

Dylan Borland: Thanks for having us.

From Flipping Cars to Flipping Homes

Rod Khleif: Absolutely. Dylan, let’s start with you. Tell us how you got started in business in general, and then in real estate. Make sure you tell people how you were when you got started, ‘cause that kinda blew me away as well.

Dylan Borland: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’ll try to keep it as short as possible. I started at a very young age in business. Just out of necessity. I realized that if I wanted to provide for myself… If I wanted to buy a car when I was 16, if I wanted to buy clothes, if I had to eat, quite frankly, I was the only person. It’s kind of a lone wolf.I was the only person that was going to be able to do it for myself.

My parents were divorced growing up. My mom was working two jobs just to pay for the house.It was up to me. I started at the age of 13, actually flipping cars. The reason why I got into that was because my neighbor was always working on cars in his garage. He’d fix one up, put it on his lawn, and sell it.

I got into it, not with the idea of wanting to flip cars, but I got into it because I knew, when I was 16, I didn’t have money to pay a mechanic to fix my car, when I eventually bought a car.

So anyways, I got the car-fixing bug. I started going out to the auctions, and we bought a car there together, fixed it, flipped it. From about the age of 13 to 17, I spent some time fixing and flipping cars. But for me, Rod, that wasn’t enough, ‘cause I had very specific income goals in mind, and I’d have to flip a lot of cars to get there.

I actually read a book on real estate investing when I was 17, and I said, “That’s it. That’s what I wanna do. That’s the business that’s gonna give me the income goals that I had in mind.”

Rod Khleif: Do you remember what book it was?

Dylan Borland: It was. It was actually Trump Real Estate 101.

Rod Khleif: [chuckles] Love it. I have all of Mr President Trump’s books. Yeah. Fantastic. Alright, continue. Sorry to interrupt.

Dylan Borland: Yeah. So I read that book and I was just really inspired. I said, “As far as I could tell, real estate was the only business where I could get to build the type of income that I had envisioned for myself, and the lifestyle that I wanted for myself.

I actually wound up buying my first property when I was 17. I couldn’t even legally buy it at the time. I had to have my girlfriend buy it ‘cause she was 18.

Rod Khleif: Love it.

Overcoming Market Challenges

Dylan Borland: It was behind the house where I grew up. This was in 2006, Rod. We renovated it, and flipped it. I did very, very well but then shortly after that the market crashed as we all know, and I think that the Detroit market, with the automotive industry, got it a little sooner than the rest of the nation.

I was quickly having to figure out then, “Now, what do I do?” That’s kind of a quick synopsis to where I was at…

Rod Khleif: Okay. But since then… Talk about what you’ve done since then, ‘cause that’s the most impressive…

Dylan Borland: Yeah. I’ve been investing now all in, full-time since 2006. I’ve been… That was at 11 years already. My business, Rod, has really been primarily focused on residential fix and flip. From about 2006 to 2010, the market was declining than recovering. I had bought… My focus was on buying income rental properties. I had accumulated actually 108 single-family rental properties, up until 2010.

After 2010, to make a long story short, I ended up going through a divorce, and I had to liquidate those properties. I took about a year off, from 2010 to 2011 to kinda I get my thoughts back together.

Jumped back into real estate full time, trying to recover from that personal hiccup. I went and focused on fixing and flipping single-families exclusively, so I could keep my capital moving. I could rotate it about three times a year at 20 to 30% returns.

I got to a point very quickly where I was doing over 100 fix and flip properties a year, from 2011, to just about November… Well, not just about, exactly, November 2016, where then we decided to move into the multi-family game; which is how we got introduced to you and your material as well.

Rod Khleif: Awesome. Awesome.

Dylan Borland: I’ve done a few things in between that time frame, a couple of lot opportunities, which I think you probably are aware of as well but that’s where we’re at now.

David Toupin’s Journey to Real Estate

Rod Khleif: Now, that’s awesome, and it’s so funny, I can totally relate to starting to do business when you’re 14. I lied about my age and got a job at Burger King, so I could buy my first car; my 70 Road Runner.

Dylan Borland: Nice.

Rod Khleif: I’d this cool 70 Road Runner with this pistol grip shifter, and it had a hood scoop, which is called and air grab. You click a switch and a hood scoop comes out of the hood, electronically. Yeah, that was so…

Dylan Borland: Ah, that’s nice.

Rod Khleif: Yeah that was awesome. But I had to go and work at Burger King, and flip burgers for a couple of years…

Dylan Borland: So you were not flipping cars, you were flipping burgers.

David Toupin: Flipping burgers.

Rod Khleif: No. Exactly. No.

[chuckles]

Rod Khleif: See, you were a lot smarter than I was. Okay, David, you’re up. Tell us about your background and how you got started.

David Toupin: Yeah, absolutely. I guess I kinda have a similar story. Starting at a young age. 13 years old, my parents told me… I’ve always been a huge car guy, kinda like Dylan. I never gotten to flipping but I knew when I turned 16, I wanted to buy a car. And my parents said, “You bring us X amount of money, and we’ll match it up to like three or 4,000 bucks, and you can buy a car on your16th birthday.”

So I started a landscaping business. I don’t wanna do what everyone else was doing. Everyone else was kinda doing, going working at the fast-food places, or working for a minimum wage. I wanted to…

Rod Khleif: Oh, sure you had to throw that in there after my story, didn’t you?

David Toupin: Yeah, I threw that in there.

[chuckles]

Rod Khleif: Nice. [chuckles]

Dylan Borland: That’s brutal David.

David Toupin: No, but I really saw myself doing something else. I didn’t really like working for other people, necessarily. I like working for myself.

I started a landscaping business, and throughout high school, by the time I was 17 or 18, I had accumulated probably about $10,000 worth of equipment, 50 plus clients. I was mowing lawns and doing landscaping every week, and I accumulated quite a bit of money doing that. I sold that off when I went to college.

Rod Khleif: Okay.

Transitioning to Real Estate and Early Deals

David Toupin: Yeah. Since then, I… My first three years in college, I actually went to… Initially, go into the dental program. My dad’s a dentist, so I thought I always wanted to be a dentist, at that point.

I quickly changed my mind, and decided business was for me. My junior year, I had done it internship in auditing, and I then did one in investment banking and consulting.

In the meantime, while I was doing those, I had read a book. You know it. I’m sure the almost all of you read this, Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Rod Khleif: Of course.

David Toupin: It’s cliché but that book blew my mind, completely got me hooked on real estate. Funny story, you had, I believe Erik Stark last week.

Rod Khleif: Mm-hmm.

David Toupin: It’s what you aired.

Rod Khleif: Right.

David Toupin: His partner Steve Mills, I had heard on Bigger Pockets, quite a while ago, about a year ago. Steve Mills had mentioned he’s from Royal Oak, Michigan, right close to where we are. And he had said, “Go read Rich Dad Poor Dad on the podcast.” That’s what got me into it. Steve Mills was actually the catalyst.

Rod Khleif: No kidding.

David Toupin: Yeah.

Rod Khleif: I’ll be darned.

David Toupin: That’s funny that you had his partner on your show.

Rod Khleif: That’s funny.

David Toupin: Steve actually then became my first mentor.

Rod Khleif: Awesome.

David Toupin: For a few months, he really mentored me, and got me into real estate. Those guys are great. Steve and Erik, they do a great job.

Rod Khleif: Yes.

David Toupin: Yeah. From there, I actually got out of my last internship, and decided that working in the corporate world was not for me. I’d some big job offers, and literally, the day I got out of my last internship, I turned them all down and …

Rod Khleif: Yeah, I think you wrote down, you were offered like 80 grand, which is pretty significant starting salary and you turned it down.

David Toupin: Yeah… Especially for Michigan.

Rod Khleif: Right.

David Toupin: For Michigan… And I turned it down the day after I got out ‘cause I knew I’d… Like Dylan, I had very specific income goals. I knew I wasn’t going to hit it by working for someone else. I knew that it was only gonna come by I working for myself.

Forming a Successful Partnership

Rod Khleif: Good for you. I’m sure that was a challenging decision…

David Toupin: Very challenging.

Rod Khleif: Because if you’re facing that kind of salary in one hand, the bird in the hand versus a dream and a goal…

David Toupin: Exactly.

Rod Khleif: That says a lot about you. Your goal setting and the power of you setting your own goals, and realizing what you really wanted.

David Toupin: Yeah… A lot of people are in the same scenario, and I say for me it was easy because I didn’t really have much to lose. I don’t have a ton of costs and expenses to live.

David Toupin: I don’t have a family to support. I know it’s a different decision when you’re at that point but for me, it was kind of a no-brainer type. If I take that leap now, I’m really not missing out on too much. I could always go back, and maybe try for the job again.

Rod Khleif: So that’s how you justified it ‘cause you’re like, “You know what…” [chuckles]

David Toupin: But it was never… I had nothing to lose at the point but in my head, I was never going back. I never wanted to take that second option. My first and only option was to make it in real estate, was the thing.

Rod Khleif: Awesome. I read here that you did your first wholesale deal, and made 12 grand…

First Multifamily Acquisitions

Rod Khleif: Well, so let’s talk about this first… Well not first, but the deal that you’ve got on the table right now. If I understand it correctly, it’s two 12 units?

David Toupin: Correct.

Dylan Borland: Yup.

Rod Khleif: Tell us how you sourced it, and tell us about it.

Dylan Borland: Go ahead Dave.

David Toupin: Yes, so we found, actually both of them, through local multi family brokers, and they are actually our competitors; the two brokers. One had enlisted, I think Dylan found it online, and the other one, I kinda have a relationship before hand and he sent it to me.

They’re actually two blocks from each other on the same street…

Rod Khleif: Perfect.

David Toupin: Yeah. They’re great. One is a 12-unit, all one-bedroom units, and the other one is all two-bedroom units…

Deal Structure and Financing Lessons

Rod Khleif: The numbers, what are you paying and what do you anticipate as far as returns, if that’s something you can come off your cuff with.

David Toupin: Yes, I think what we shoot for any time, from here on out, when we’re putting a deal, together is, we mostly aim for what our investors is gonna get, and then we look at our piece of the cut.

One of these, we syndicated and the other one we bought for ourselves…

Strategies for Rent Increases and Value Add

Rod Khleif: Those rents sound fantastic. Let me ask you this, are you gonna start pushing the rents? Are you gonna start bringing them up?

Dylan Borland: Yeah.

David Toupin: Right away. That’s our goal.

Rod Khleif: Okay. What are you gonna do to minimize vacancy? What is your plan? Do you have a plan for raising the rents?

Dylan Borland: Yes.

Rod Khleif: I mean, you’re not just gonna go, and raise the rent 100 bucks and not do anything, I hope.

Dylan Borland: Correct.

David Toupin: No. I think, majority of tenants on both these properties are month to month. I think, it’ll be pretty easy right away to going in. I think our goal is to incrementally raise them…

Building Systems and Scaling Up

Rod Khleif: What’s next for you, guys?

Dylan Borland: That’s a good question.

Rod Khleif: Before we start recording you mentioned you’ve got some stuff in the hopper.

Dylan & David Toupin: Yeah. [laughter]

Rod Khleif: What sorts of things are you looking at?

David Toupin: For us, the biggest thing on getting this two 12 units down is, we’re systematize… We like systems in this business. We’re really big system guys, so…

Rod Khleif: Those of you listening, every business in the world is two things: people and systems…

Syndication Models and Long-Term Goals

Dylan Borland: We have a goal. Just more specifically, over the next five years to acquire 100 million in multi-family assets over the next five years. We broke it down to 20 million a year. Now, we’re not in a rush to get there ‘cause we don’t wanna make bad investment decisions, right?

Rod Khleif: Right.

Dylan Borland: But I think, it’s important to set that goal.

Rod Khleif: Sure.

Dylan Borland: Right now, going forward, like David had mentioned, these 12 units were more so, training wheels for us to get those systems established. The syndication process, the raising the capital process, the management process…

Management Approaches

Rod Khleif: Let’s talk about management for a second. Now, I’m a big proponent in self-management. I would say, there are arguments both ways. If you’re locked in to the management, a lot of times that can take away from your acquisition energy.

Dylan Borland: Sure.

Rod Khleif: Are you guys planning on… You said you’re gonna charge 4% management fees. I’m assuming you are managing?

Dylan Borland: Correct. Yup. We’re gonna be managing everything here in-house.

Rod Khleif: Okay. And you’ll be managing the managers basically…

Lessons from Financing and Lender Relationships

Rod Khleif: How did you get the financing for those two deals? Did you just go to a local regional bank?

Dylan Borland: That was a good question. We started off with a referral from the seller’s agent. I said, “Okay, well, let’s try that first.” But we made a mistake because we didn’t have a backup plan. We didn’t approach other lenders…

Rod Khleif: And I will caution you on that. You wanna be careful, particularly if you’re working with brokers. If you work with a broker that goes to multiple lending facilities, you can get a bad reputation if you’ve got multiple brokers working at the same time…

Advice for Aspiring Investors

Rod Khleif: Let me ask you a question. Speak to the people that are listening, that thinking about getting into this business, that have not taken action, what would you tell them? Dylan, you wanna go first?

Dylan Borland: I’ve got a very simple solution for that. The best way to take that… I get asked this question a lot of time because I coach people as well too. They’re very hesitant, especially people who may be considering leaving their job, and they’ve got families, and they’ve got health insurance, and they’ve got benefits.

Most of the time, if I were to talk to somebody, I would say, “Hey, if you’re in a position where you’ve got six months saved up, just do it.”It’s the only way to jump in…

Motivation and Long-Term Vision

Rod Khleif: I wanna ask you guys both a question because you guys really, you remind me a lot of myself in getting started early. I know what motivated me when I was young. It wasn’t just the car. It’s deeper than that.

So, Dylan I want you to start. What do you think is your driver? what made you start when you were 13 years old, 14 years old, 15 years old and really make things happen? What do you think it was?

Dylan Borland: You know, that’s a good question. Because when I first started, and it has transformed dramatically since, but growing up, I was never a materialistic person. Though I had a very specific income goal in mind, I didn’t have it in mind with material things…

Raising Capital and Investor Relations

Rod Khleif: You said you got a seminar on this deal. What was it, the financing? Is that what’s the seminar or was there anything else?

David Toupin: Oh, boy.

Dylan Borland: How much time do you have?

[laughter]

Rod Khleif: Look, let’s hear it, because it’ll probably add value to the listeners. So, they don’t make the same mistakes…

Recommended Books and Resources

Rod Khleif: Any books that you’re reading right now that you love? Business-related, real estate-related?

David Toupin: I am reading “Never Split the Difference”. It’s by an FBI… [overlap talk]… it’s awesome.

Rod Khleif: Oh, that’s a great negotiation book, yeah…

Closing Thoughts

Rod Khleif: Guys, hey listen. I really appreciate you being on the show. It’s been a lot of fun.

David Toupin: Absolutely.

Rod Khleif: You definitely added value, and hopefully inspire some of the people that haven’t taken action yet to what’s possible. We are definitely gonna stay in touch, and follow each other’s careers.

David Toupin: Well thank you, Rod.

Dylan Borlan: Absolutely, and more importantly we appreciate everything you do for the community, so thank you.

David Toupin: Yeah, thank you. Rod.

Rod Khleif: Absolutely my pleasure, guys. Thanks for being on the show.

Dylan Borland: Thank you.

David Toupin: Thanks, Rod.

[music]

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What inspired Dylan Borland and David Toupin to start investing in real estate at such a young age?
Dylan and David were both motivated by a desire for financial independence and the flexibility to live life on their own terms. Early business ventures and influential books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” inspired them to pursue real estate as a means to achieve their income goals and personal freedom.

How did Dylan and David acquire their first multifamily deals?
They sourced their first two 12-unit multifamily properties through relationships with local brokers and by actively searching the market. They analyzed the potential for value-add and carefully structured their deals to benefit both themselves and their investors.

What were some of the biggest challenges they faced in their multifamily journey?
One major challenge was securing favorable financing terms, as their previous cash-based business left them with limited banking relationships. They also learned the importance of having backup financing plans and developing strong lender relationships to avoid costly mistakes.

What strategies do they use to increase rents and property value?
Dylan and David focus on incremental rent increases and property improvements, such as enhancing common areas and adding storage solutions. They aim to raise rents in a way that minimizes tenant turnover while adding value to the property and improving cash flow.

Why do they emphasize systems in their real estate business?
They believe that every business relies on strong systems and people. By creating efficient systems for due diligence, syndication, financing, and management, they can scale their operations and handle larger multifamily acquisitions confidently and efficiently.

What advice do Dylan and David have for aspiring real estate investors?
Both recommend taking action and not letting fear or analysis paralysis hold you back. They stress the importance of education, but also highlight that much of the learning comes from real-world experience and just getting started on your first deal.

Which books do they recommend for real estate investors?
They recommend several influential books, including:

  • “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss
  • “Trump Strategies for Real Estate” by George H. Ross
  • “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter
  • “Trump Real Estate 101” by Gary Eldred

These books offer valuable insights into negotiation, real estate strategies, and financial mindset.