Show Notes

In this episode of The Hyperfast Agent Podcast, host Dan Lesniak interviews Hans Struzyna, an Olympian that has made the shift from rowing into real estate. Learn how Hans’s rowing experience has translated into building a successful real estate business, investment business, and podcast production company!

Episode Highlights:

  • In a previous life, Hans rowed competitively at a really high level, finishing 4th in the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
  • After taking a year off, Hans decided to make the move into real estate, first taking on shortsales and foreclosures.
  • Last year as part of the Gunderman Group, Hans’s team did over $200M in transactions.
  • As one of the youngest crews competing in the Olympics, Hans’s team did not have the experience to medal.
  • Hans and his team were only 2 seconds behind the team that finished in front of them and ¼ of a second ahead of the team behind them.
  • There are a variety of similarities and differences between the Olympics and real estate game, usually revolving around time.
  • Hans has the experience of performing at a high level while being very uncomfortable, something he translated to real estate.
  • Everyone should do their best to go out and make themselves uncomfortable to strengthen themselves in business.
  • When watching the Olympics, viewers are seeing the culmination of a lifetime of effort.
  • Even Olympians weren’t born as Olympians; everyone has to work hard to achieve their dreams.
  • In October of 2018, Hans made the decision to retire from Olympic-level rowing.
  • Even through the pandemic, Hans was able to bring in $30M in 2020, hitting his goal right on the nose.
  • Hans and his wife like to invest in small multifamily properties.
  • During the pandemic, Hans and his buddies started a podcast post-production business to cut the costs of producing podcasts in half.
  • Currently, Hans and his podcast partners are putting together a Podboxx, which contains everything you need to get your podcast off the ground.
  • With prices skyrocketing in the Bay Area, Hans and his wife decided to buy real estate in Tacoma, Washington.
  • Initially, Hans and his wife had trouble pulling the trigger on their first property in Tacoma because he was flipping a house locally.
  • After pulling the trigger on his first property, Hans saw that it was a snowball effect from a financial standpoint.
  • Your ultimate goal should be to turn your active income into passive income via investing.
  • Hans looks for a minimum of roughly $300 per door when he invests in a property.
  • Any time you have the chance to gain equity on a property, you should be willing to invest a little more and recycle the money from there.
  • With his strategy of recycling cash flow, Hans was able to avoid paying taxes in California last year.
  • It’s important to get in the slipstream of someone that has done what you want to do.
  • Hans advises investors not to make an offer until they’ve underwritten at least 30 deals in a given market.
  • Even after achieving great success, Hans places importance on remaining coachable and learning from others.

3 Key Points:

  1. Hans competed in the Men’s 8 rowing competition as part of Team USA in the 2016 Rio Olympics, missing out on a medal by only 2 seconds.
  2. It’s incredibly important to learn how to perform at a high level while in an uncomfortable state, something that Hans was able to learn in the Olympics.
  3. By turning his active income into passive income via investing in property, Hans aims to be able to take month-long vacations with little to no financial impact.

Tweetable Quotes:

  • “Anyone who has raced at a high level can tell you it just comes down to 1 or 2 percent.” - Hans Struzyna
  • “The stuff that has translated from my rowing career to my real estate career...is being coachable, taking criticism, applying the lessons I learned immediately...and finding mentors who have been there.” - Hans Struzyna
  • “There’s a lot of mountains to climb out there and ultimately I decided that I wanted to climb a new mountain, hence why I’m in real estate.” - Hans Struzyna
  • “I think that going broke by making investments is one of the best ways to get rich.” - Dan Lesniak

Resources Mentioned: