The countdown is on! Don't miss out!
St. Louis plays host to many things: Cardinals baseball, Blues hockey, a vibrant blues music and arts scene, a nationally recognized zoo, but this November, St. Louis will welcome real estate investors and aspiring real estate investors to the premier real estate investor conference of 2023, Gateway to Freedom!

Discover the ultimate real estate investment insights, uniting both seasoned investors and newcomers. This event is designed to unveil success secrets for everyone, whether you're a seasoned mogul refining strategies or a new enthusiast exploring fundamentals. Join us to connect, learn, and grow with a dynamic community passionate about real estate's potential.

St. Louis is known as the gateway to the West, but on November 4th - 5th, St. Louis will be known as the Gateway to Freedom!
Your Hosts
You will be in great hands as St. Louis Real Estate Investing veterans, Rich Groves and Josh Wiesler, serve as co-hosts for the innaugural Gateway to Freedom Real Estate Investing Conference!
Rich Groves
CO-Host
Rich Groves purchased his first rehab property in 2005 and shifted his focus to creative real estate investing in 2013 when he and his wife, Kim, formed their company, Metro STL Homes. For the last 10 years, all while maintaining his W-2 position as a corporate trainer focused on interpersonal and technology skills, Rich has participated in nearly 100 real estate transactions involving assignments/wholesaling, buy and holds, and “fix & flips.” In 2017, Rich began hosting monthly real estate meetups in St. Louis and now hosts two separate monthly REI meetups in the St. Louis area to pour value into new and experienced local investors, in both MO & IL.
Josh Wiesler
CO-HOST & Speaker
Josh Wiesler believes that real estate investing is one of the greatest avenues for personal and financial/wealth growth. He owns three companies and in more than seven years of personal development coaching and five years of real estate coaching, Josh has coached hundreds of real estate investors and has true passion for coaching high performing real estate professionals to transform their business and personal lives. Josh’s own real estate investing experience includes time with a title company, wholesaling, and property/project management. He is also a buy & hold investor, where Josh’s rental portfolio provides his tenants with great places to live and increases the values and safety of the neighborhoods in which he invests. in helping families and investors sell, buy, rehab, and rent. Josh has participated in more than 100 Real Estate Investing deals, generated over $1,000,000 In revenue, and owns an 11-unit multifamily property.
Conference Speakers
We are extremely excited to showcase this lineup of impressive speakers with an immense amount of real estate investing experience, of all types. These folks consist of some of the most knowledgeable experts in the St. Louis Real Estate Investing Community!
Kristina Aguilera
Processes & Procedures Expert
Kristina has been successfully investing in real estate for the last nine years, after years of insurance management and sales. Her company, SOP Factory, is a passion project for the tools, training, SOPs, and support she wished she had while acquiring almost 300 single-family rentals utilizing private money, scaling a self-management company, flipping over 40 properties at a time, and wholesaling simultaneously. As a visionary, needing to delegate, out of pure necessity, Kristina learned the skills and eventually built a team of SOP experts to help bring the chaos of investing to actionable SOPs that help investors best delegate, regardless of their leadership style. Today, with the help of a full-service team, the SOP Factory organizes the operations of top producing management, construction, wholesaling, and flipping companies. Even training in-house Operation/Transaction Coordinators, so that investors have a systematic approach and keep more profits in house without outsourcing or having to do it themselves.
Jeff Coffman
Creative Deal Structuring Expert
Jeff has been discovering creative ways to invest in real estate with virtually zero money out of pocket since 2015. He currently holds 43 cash-flowing properties between a seller-financing disposition model and straight rentals.
Kevin Dairaghi
NETWORKING EXPERT
Kevin jumped out of corporate America and went full-time into real estate investing. He was not ready, but he did not give himself an easy way out and charged ahead.  He started with grass root marketing and wholesaling until he found out how to raise money for “swinging the hammer” flips. He got to a point where he was spending $5K-$20K a month in marketing, but when his dad was diagnosed with cancer, Kevin watched his business melt away. That is the reason why, in his coaching, Kevin has a strong conviction that “the personal drives the professional.”  Kevin teamed up with a larger house buyer group and developed to 3 crews, a project manager, and an office manager.  He also let them all go to run a successful 100% referral-based business while working with his friends and coaching students.
David Dodge
MARKETING & LEAD GENERATION EXPERT
David Dodge is a St. Louis Real Estate Investor with over 19 years of experience. He first started investing in real estate at the age of 20 while attending the University of Missouri-Columbia. David specializes in wholesaling real estate as well as using the BRRRR method to acquire Rental Properties with none of his own money!   He also loves teaching others how easy it is learn to wholesale real estate for huge profits and how they can use Other People’s Money to buy rental properties!  David and his team have wholesaled over 700 houses to date and his company, House Sold Easy, averages several wholesale transactions per month. Aside from wholesaling, David also fix-and-flips properties as well as continues to build upon his impressive 100 property rental portfolio with a goal of taking that portfolio to 200+ units in the next 24-36 months. David has co-authored three books: “The Ultimate Guide to Wholesale Real Estate”, “The BRRRR Method” & “The 3 Pillars of Wholesaling Real Estate” that he wrote with his business partner Mike Slane. His podcast, “Discount Property Investor,” teaches people all about wholesaling real estate as well as tons of tips and tricks about marketing, land lording, rehabbing, and utilizing The BRRRR Method.
Jennifer Donley
SECTION 8 RENTALS EXPERT
Jennifer Donley was affectionately crowned ‘The Queen of Section 8’ because she became the expert in the real estate investment community on how to use Section 8 rental properties most effectively. Although some people may think of Section 8 as a royal pain, Jennifer got to know the people Section 8 offices. She studied their processes, learning how to use them to her advantage. The result has been that her houses command the highest rents, her tenants stay longer on average than most people’s tenants, her tenants take great care of her houses, and she always collects her rent. Her rental houses cash-flow so well that, in just a short 5-year period of time, she has gone from feeling anxious over money issues to absolutely ruling her finances! She now enjoys financial freedom and peace in her personal kingdom.
Brysan Duvall
WHOLESALING EXPERT
Brysan’s primary focus is off-market real estate investing, including wholesaling and flipping. He did his first deal in 2017. His operation is wholesale intensive and his expertise is marketing and sales. Today, his focus is on wholesaling smaller multifamily and commercial assets.
Tim Grimmett
REHABBING EXPERT
Tim Grimmett helps successful professionals live authentic lives on their own terms by achieving time and income freedom through real estate investing while simultaneously creating monumental relationships with their spouse and children. Tim has been investing in real estate since 1999 when he purchased his first two family home in South City. He grew his business to seven LLCs and 20+ employees only to lose everything and have to start over in 2014. With renewed focus, he was determined to rebuild while focusing on the important aspects of faith, family, and finances. Today, Tim teaches married couples how to control their own day and live on purpose through the use of real estate as their income source. Tim has created success time and again by following a structured process to find hidden gems, accurately estimate project costs, and effectively manage contractors. At the core of his approach is a disciplined decision-making process to ensure that he stays on top of cash and resources - from making an offer on a property to selecting materials and managing contractors. With hundreds of rehabs under his belt, Tim splits his time between overseeing his own projects for his real estate investment business and helping students build their own real estate investment portfolios.
Matt Hays
SHORT-TERM RENTALS EXPERT
Matt started out in his earlier 20’s working 3 jobs, 18-20 hours a day, to provide for his family, eating Raman noodles and drinking Red Bull in between. He was willing to do whatever it took to succeed! After doing that for 2 years, Matt realized all he was doing was trading his body and time for money and he just knew, deep down, there had to be a better way. Lo and behold, Matt picked up the little purple book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and, boom, he was hooked! Fast forward to today, Matt has completed over a thousand real estate transactions, including fix & flips, wholesales, commercial warehouses, trailers, land, long term rentals, and now 100% of his time is focused on the Short Term Rental game! Matt founded STR Accelerator Academy with his partner, Noah. They help people achieve true financial freedom through Short Term Rentals!
Darren Hoefgen
BRRRR Strategy EXPERT
Growing up, Darren’s parents had built rental property, so that gave him an idea of what investing was. Darren went to school, got his degree, got a job, and once he had that W-2 income, he slowly started buying rental property. After the end of a relationship, Darren bought a place, moved in, and began his house hack - rehabbing it while working his 9 to 5. At the end of that project, he realized he wasn’t going to make any money because he was making bad decisions for investment property, so Darren got some training and learned how to run real estate investing as a business. Fast forward a decade, Darren has rehabbed, for retail sale and for rent, well over 100 properties in the St. Louis market. He has traveled all over the US and Canada teaching people how to build their real estate businesses. Darren has built and sold a successful property management business. His focus my real estate efforts primarily on building and managing my rental property and building the construction and plumbing company that focuses on rental property creation, and turnover.
Jonathan Rankin
RENTAL PORTFOLIO BUILDING EXPERT
A St. Louis native, Jonathan Rankin is a prolific entrepreneur, dedicated husband, and father. His strong leadership, decisive nature, and deft navigational techniques have been keys to his business success for more than 15 years. With keen insight and strong operational skills, he currently has multiple businesses in various stages of development and growth. Rankins primary holdings are in St. Louis residential and commercial real estate investing and lending. He has closed more than 350 annual wholesale deals and manages a Real Estate portfolio in excess of $15M. Jonathan's passion is clear when he's following and growing private equity firms such as Blackstone that acquire CRE, distressed debt backed by CRE or businesses in need of capital injections for operational growth.
Frank Ruzicka
LENDING EXPERT
Real estate investing has always been one of Frank’s passions. He considers real estate the greatest opportunity to create wealth, more importantly, generational wealth. Frank’s goal is to educate and assist as many as possible on the opportunities real estate provides. He enjoys watching people grow their net worth by following simple, proven methods of creating wealth through real estate investing.
Lucas Walls
REI TEAM-BUILDING EXPERT
Lucas and his business partner, Sam Primm, purchased their first rental property in 2014 and still own that house today. While working full time jobs, Lucas and Sam kept adding quality assets to their rental portfolio and started to incorporate fix and flipping into their investment strategy. Lucas went full-time in real estate in 2017. Since then, he and Sam have built 3 amazing divisions of our company, including a rental business (Midwest Property Group) holding a $45,000,000 portfolio value comprised of single-family houses, apartment complexes, storage facilities and vacation rentals, a flipping business (FasterHouse) where they buy and sell about 250 houses per year, focusing on treating all our sellers with love and compassion as we help them navigate a challenging time in their life, and an education Business (FasterFreedom) with over 1,200 students nationwide in which they teach other investors the right way to invest in real estate. Lucas and Sam have grown their organization to 44 amazing team members and place a huge emphasis on company culture and creating a positive impact on our community.
and Our Special Guest...
After beginning his journey in real estate investing, T.J. made numerous mistakes that cost significant time and money. Not exactly the way he expected to start his career! But with smart financial decisions and a little hard work, he was determined to become financially independent through multifamily real estate. In his first year of multifamily investing, T.J. set a goal to buy 50 units and had surpassed that by securing 232 units. By establishing systems and creating a supportive team, I built the foundation for what is now a successful multifamily portfolio. Now T.J. uses his personal struggle and success to help people just like you find success through real estate investing. T.J. shows investors how to build a team, find off-market deals, complete due-diligence, secure financing and raise money for their very own deals.
T.J. Cremeans
Multi-Families Expert
Keynote Speakers
We are extremely excited to showcase two of the most impressive keynote speakers the St. Louis area, if not the nation, has to offer!
Mike Kitko
Mike Kitko is the Founder and CEO of Inner Wealth Global, a personal and professional development company which helps business owners create more wealth, success, and happiness in their lives and businesses. Through coaching, training, and other needle-moving content, Inner Wealth helps business owners keep their eyes on what they really want - a fulfilling life which includes health, wealth, powerful relationships, and a lifestyle they're excited to wake up to every day.
Shaun McCloskey
Shaun McCloskey is a real estate investor, author, and nationally recognized speaker. Considered “the Coach’s Coach,” Shaun coaches high caliber business owners, national speakers and coaches across the country. When he's not out changing lives and helping others to grow their businesses visions, he can be found in his hometown of St. Louis with his wife and 3 children, playing guitar and singing in a band for fun. His personal and business motto is “give first” which is evident in his coaching programs and personal interactions.
Don't miss this incredible event.
Topics
Wholesaling
Learn the wholesale process, step-by-step.
Rehabbing
Learn how to properly rehab an investment property.
Buy & Hold Strategy
Learn what to look for and how to identify great buy & hold deals.
Section 8 Rentals
Learn the ins and outs of the Section 8 rental world.
Short Term Rentals 
Learn how to utilize AirBnB to increase your passive income stream.
BRRRR Method
BRRRR is more than something you say when you are cold! Learn what it is and how to do it correctly.
Multi-Family Investing
Learn how to properly acquire a multi-family property to generate cash-flow.
SOPs & Streamlining a Business
Learn how you can create a streamlines process for your real estate investing business, so that you have more time and more freedom.
Marketing & Lead Generation
Learn how to find the hot deals in today's market!
Creative Deal Structuring
Learn about creative financing techniques.
Financing Your Deals
Learn tips and strategies to raise capital for your real estate investment deals.
Mindset
Learn how to shift your mindset to be ready for incredible success by taking massive action!
Conference Location
Aviator Hotel & Suites,6921 S Lindbergh Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63125
Phone: (314) 892-3600
Website: https://www.aviatorhotelsuites.com/
DISCOUNT ROOMS AVAILABLE!
If you are traveling into the St. Louis area and would like to stay on-site at the host hotel, use the link below to reserve your room at the special conference discounted rate!
Event Sponsors & Vendors
These sponsors and vendors help make this event possible. Please visit their website and/or consider doing business with them.
Ticket Packages
Choose a ticket package that suits your needs and your budget.
STREAMING ADMISSION
Streaming Admission ticket package includes:
  • Virtual Access to All Speaker Sessions (ONLINE)
  • Invitation to PRIVATE Facebook Group
  • You will recieve an email with the streaming instructions

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