Bought, renovated, and managed by Mike Halverson — one founder, three desks, one P&L. Every deal on this page is underwritten by the operator who runs it.
— Mike Halverson, founder. Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Operating since 2017.
Mike's Quarter is built for the small-portfolio buyer the institutional shops ignore: 1–4 unit acquisitions, FHA and VA house hacks, BRRRR refinances, and the occasional small multifamily that fits a local lender's box. We've closed 312 acquisitions and $47.2M in cumulative volume working this lane alone. The desk is the asset class.
These are the three entry strategies first-time and small-portfolio investors actually close in the Midwest. Every one of them has been run by Mike personally — and most of them more than once.
Owner-occupies one unit, rents the other(s). FHA loan, 3.5% down, the rent covers most of the mortgage.
Sample: Cedar Rapids duplex, $148K, FHA at 3.5% down, $1,425/unit rent. Net cashflow positive by month two after Mike's $11K light-rehab.
Buy below market, renovate with the in-house crew, rent stabilized, refi cash-out, redeploy the capital into the next deal.
Sample: Waterloo 4-plex bought at $192K, $38K rehab, appraised post-rehab at $295K. Capital recycled twice in 2024.
Eligible veterans can owner-occupy one unit of a 4-plex with 0% down and finance 100% of acquisition + allowed rehab through the VA.
Sample: Davenport 4-plex, $312K, VA 0% down, gross rents $3,150/mo. Mike walked the buyer through entitlement and lender selection.
Every playbook above is run by Mike's 14-person in-house crew — no subcontractor chain, no GC markup layer. See the four-step underwriting →
This is the same four-step sequence every deal on Mike's desk runs through — whether it came in from a first-time house hacker or a returning BRRRR buyer. Nothing moves to the next chapter without the previous one being clean.
Address, contract price, financing source. Mike runs the 1% rule, the 50% rule, and a quick ARV estimate against his internal comp database of 1,400+ Midwest small-multifamily closings. If it doesn't clear the screen in 24 hours, you'll get a no-fit email — that's fine, it's the standard.
24 hoursMaximum Allowable Offer is calculated against a line-item rehab scope Mike's project managers walk through on-site — not a Zestimate and not a percent-of-value guess. The MAO letter, the scope, and the lender-ready rehab budget ship together.
72 hoursIf you're using Mike's crew for the renovation, a project manager does a room-by-room walkthrough and locks a fixed-price contract with a 19-day kitchen-to-kitchen flip timeline. If you're GC'ing yourself, Mike's scope ships as your scope — no markup, no add-on.
5 daysRents trended to current submarket median, vacancy normalized at 7%, repairs & capex at 8%, taxes and insurance locked. Mike runs the model on a 25-year hold and shows you the breakeven year, the cumulative cashflow, and the refinance window. You see the spreadsheet before you sign anything.
5 business daysTotal turnaround from first email to signed MAO letter: 5 business days. Mike signs the underwriting personally — no analyst handoff, no committee review.
"I sent Mike a Waterloo duplex I had been underwriting for three weeks. He came back in four days with a MAO letter that was $4,000 tighter than mine and a rehab scope my lender actually accepted. The first-month cashflow after his crew finished was $411 — I had modeled $90. Eighteen months in, I'm on deal number four with him."
Tell Mike the property, your financing plan, and what you're trying to accomplish. He'll come back with one of two emails: a deal-analysis package (MAO, rehab scope, 25-year cashflow model, lender-ready budget) or a short, honest "this isn't a fit" — and you don't owe him anything either way.
