The engineer and the car salesman from Illinois who built a 74-property real estate business
What happened on Sunday night, May 17, 2026 — when Kevin and Cynthia Shriver sat down with Lou Brown for what members called the best session of the year.
In 2009, Kevin and Cynthia Shriver were on the verge of giving up. He had spent 25 years selling cars. She had spent 20 years at Boeing. They had burned through $80,000 to $90,000 on real estate gurus that didn’t work. They owned two rentals. One of them was vacant. The other was a problem. They were ready to throw in the towel.
On Sunday night, sixteen years later, they sat down with me for one of the most candid case study interviews we’ve put on the air. By the time it was over, members were typing in the chat that this was the single best session of the year.
Here is some of what came out of it.
The couple now pulls in $70,000 a month across their portfolio
Today the Shrivers run a 74-property business out of Edwardsville, Illinois.
Thirty-one families have graduated their Path to Home Ownership program and gone on to bank financing. Another seventy-plus families are still in the program working their way there. Sixteen properties sit inside their Roth IRA. That Roth is worth over $2.6 million today, started from a $140,000 conversion they made in 2011 when they paid $23,000 in tax to move the money over.
Last year alone, they added $250,763 to their bottom line from profit centers that most landlords don’t even know exist. Pet fees. Pet rent. Move-in fees in place of security deposits. Annual rent increases baked into the paperwork. Option fees. Application fees. Twenty-five-plus revenue lines a traditional landlord leaves on the table every single month.
How did two corporate burnouts get there from two vacant rentals? They followed a system.
We had been searching for something else. We came from entrepreneur families. We had bought some material. Unfortunately, we spent $80,000 to $90,000. That’s our wall of shame in our office. Stuff that didn’t work. We were about ready to throw in the towel.
Kevin Shriver
I’m not gonna knock those people. They had a program. But they were a one-trick pony. All they had was one thing, whether it was lease option, or subject-to, or raising private money. They didn’t have a complete system. Thank God we found Lou.
Kevin Shriver
The $10 house on Park Street
The Shrivers walked through one of their favorite deals in detail.
A wholesaler had a property under contract and couldn’t close. There was a second mortgage no one had told him about. The sellers were desperate to get to Florida where they already had jobs lined up. The Shrivers stepped in, took the existing loan over subject to, and paid the sellers $10 plus $676 in closing costs to take the house off their hands.
They put it on the market recently at $175,000. The buyer brought $25,000 down. The deal is now generating $1,452 a month on a 30-year Agreement for Deed at 10.99% interest.
Total cash they put into the property to acquire it: under $700. Total they receive every month for the next 30 years: $1,452.
The Skype deal where the seller paid Cynthia $20,731 to take his house
This one was Cynthia’s. She has an engineering background. She used to tell Kevin, “Just give me my computer, let me sit in the corner, and leave me alone.” Then one day she decided to prove to herself she could do a deal start to finish.
She never met the seller. He was in Florida watching his good buddy’s house in Illinois go vacant while still making the payments. She got on Skype, walked him through the entire Cost to Sell worksheet, and the numbers came back at negative $20,000.
He said, “I can’t go to closing paying you $20,000 to sell my house.” I said, “How much of that can you handle?” We worked the numbers backwards. He said he could afford $248 a month. I said, okay, that means you’re going to pay us that for 8 years with interest. And that’s what he did. He paid us straight every month for 8 years to make up that difference of the negative equity. We had no money out of pocket whatsoever.
Cynthia Shriver
She also wanted everyone listening to know:
Was I perfect the first time? No. I crashed and burned on two or three before that one. By the time I had done that one, what a confidence booster. So now I’m not scared to go to any of this anymore. You just gotta go do one.
Cynthia Shriver
The math that should stop every landlord in their tracks
Right after the interview, I pulled up a side-by-side example members had never seen before.
Picture two investors. Both own seven properties. Both pull $2,450 a month in net cash flow from all seven properties, which works out to $29,400 a year.
Now add the profit centers Kevin and Cynthia layer into every transaction. Last year that added $250,763 to the Shrivers’ business across their 74 properties. Divided down, that’s $3,378 of EXTRA income per property, every year.
Apply that to the same seven properties and you get an extra $23,648 a year that the average landlord never sees.
That’s not a different business. That’s the same seven properties. The only difference is the system.
Last year, $250,000 to our bottom line in profit centers. If you’re not utilizing the profit centers, shame on you. That’s something traditional landlords don’t have. They collect a security deposit. We collect a move-in fee. There’s a difference there.
Kevin Shriver
The moment that hit hardest
I asked Cynthia about the families they’ve put into homes. She paused, then answered:
When I’ve had grown men across the closing table, in their late 30s, early 40s, and they’re crying because they thought they would never be in an ownership position of a home, that’s pretty remarkable. I wasn’t expecting that. To me, it’s not just about the money. It’s about what you’re able to give back. We’re put on this life for some reason. Sometimes we don’t know why, but it’s things like that that give you purpose.
Cynthia Shriver
This is a different kind of real estate business than most people are running. And it shows up in the way these families talk about it.
Their son already owns 13 properties
Kevin and Cynthia have a son named Kyle. He started as their sales leasing agent while he was in college. I got hold of him at one of the events. He decided not to go back to school.
He now owns 13 properties of his own. Four are Agreement for Deeds. The other nine are lease options. He doesn’t own a single traditional rental.
He started when he was 21 years old. Now is married. Has babies. Has dependable monthly income for the next thirty years.
How great to start young and be able to have all of this stuff going on today.
What members are saying
The chat lit up Sunday night with comments from members who have been at this for years. A few that stood out:
Steven Williams unmuted himself to deliver this:
There is greatness in those meetings. You are the expert. I’m not trying to inflate your head too much, but you’re the da Vinci of real estate and these systems. Imagine if I was an artist, how awesome it would be to be tutored by a da Vinci, or by Mozart, or Einstein. You want to get trained by the best.
Steven Williams
John Sarver in chat:
It is really like a master’s in Street Smart training. It literally fills in the gaps on House Monster and the contracts. You get about 46 hours of training. That’s a master’s in many institutions.
John Sarver
Brad and Chris, members who have built across 8 states:
Chris and I have taken every 4-day event at least 9 times. We always keep learning. Just do it.
Brad & Chris
Rick Premji on the call:
Normally Lou says, or some smart people say, you have to listen seven times that you will understand. So this will be my seventh MPI.
Rick Premji
And Kevin’s closing words for anyone watching from the outside:
We are nobody special. We’ve just followed the system. We’re not brain surgeons. All you have to do is follow the system and apply it. When Lou first started, there weren’t paved roads, there was a rocky path through the briars. When we got started, we had a gravel road. Now you guys today have got the interstate. You should be able to take your business and build it faster than what we did, because all the tools are here.
Kevin Shriver
Two doors are still open this month
Sunday night was the next-to-last REIA before Massive Passive Income. Here is where you can step in.
Watch the full Shriver interview inside REIA
Start a 14-day free trial of the REIA membership with promo code REIA14 and you get:
— A seat on Sunday night’s live call with me (next call is Sunday, May 24, 9:00 PM Eastern). This is the final REIA before MPI, which means I’ll be sharpening the playbook, taking last-minute questions, and pulling the curtain back on what’s coming.
— Full access to the member library, including the complete Shriver interview from May 17, every Sunday session recording, and my deal coaching back catalog.
— Live Q&A with me during Sunday’s call. Bring your deals. Bring your sticking points.
— The chat community where members share wins, leads, and warnings every week.
After 14 days the membership continues at $37 a month. Cancel any time during the trial and you pay nothing. This is the lowest-friction way to see what’s actually inside.
Join us at Massive Passive Income
Nine days from now. Four days online. No planes, trains, or automobiles.
This is the event Kevin and Cynthia credited for the $250,763 in profit centers they added last year. It’s where every calculator and every contract gets updated. It’s where members like Brad and Chris have come back at least nine times. It’s where Rick Premji is showing up for his seventh appearance.
Cynthia had the line that should be the headline:
What the hell are you waiting for? When are you going to do it? If you’re waiting for some perfect storm, that’s going to pass you by. Are you going to be serious about this business or not? You gotta want it.
Cynthia Shriver
My add: You’re gonna blow it.
Builder Package holders get last year’s MPI recordings sent over right away so you can start consuming the material before the live event starts. Two shots at the same content.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
My take on that, lightly cleaned up from Sunday’s call:
We are a very heart-driven business model. We help deserving families end up with home ownership regardless of credit or financial background. We’re heart-driven to the sellers to solve their problem. We’re heart-driven to lenders to get their money working at reasonable interest rates instead of 0%. Definitely think about the heart, and you will drive your business.
Ready to see what’s inside?
Start your 14-day free trial here: use promo code REIA14.
Watch the full Shriver interview tonight. Sit in on Sunday’s live call this weekend. Browse the whole library. Decide for yourself whether what these members are doing is what you want to be doing.
After 14 days it’s $37 a month, and you cancel any time.
For MPI registration: streetsmartmpi.com or call 1-800-578-8580.