The Intrigue Podcast

The Intrigue Podcast is a show about real estate, business, and the opportunities hiding in plain sight, right here in our own community. Every episode, host Ryan Rominger sits down with the investors, operators, and experts who have the best local insights, pulling back the curtain on the deals, the decisions, and the local knowledge that moves markets.

The Intrigue Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 56 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts The Intrigue Podcast, a business show with 56 episodes published.

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  Episode #40

  Episode 40 - Darin Moon: Growing an Airbnb Business with Your Spouse

  Sep 28, 202655 min

  Episode 40 of The Intrigue Podcast features Darin Moon, managing broker and short-term rental operator who runs the business with his wife, Jenna. Darin calls himself the dreamer and Jenna the doer: he says yes and figures it out, she processes, builds the systems, runs operations and keeps the books. "She's been my AI agent before AI," he jokes. It started in 2021 with one Westfield house near Grand Park that a client wanted to keep, which Darin staged himself. Word of mouth brought another, then a Fountain Square duplex, and a year in, Jenna said she could join him. Today they manage 17 short-term doors around Indy, plus long-term rentals back in Darin's hometown of Marion. The meat of the episode is how you run an Airbnb like a business instead of a side hustle. Darin and Jenna interview owners before taking them on, and the key question is how involved they want to be. Their standard is a five-star hotel, and as Ryan puts it, you can't want guest-favorite reviews while running the place like a Motel 6. Quality furniture pays for itself, but durable doesn't mean expensive: Ryan's pricey suede sofa lasted six months, while Jenna stages whole properties from Amazon return auctions, including a $2,500 nightstand she got for $60. Indy isn't a vacation market, so in the slow months they shift listings toward mid-term guests like traveling contractors and families between homes, at a lower 15% management fee versus 20% for short stays. The back half is a masterclass in guest experience. Turn an unused garage into an amenity with epoxy floors, lighting and a photo wall guests will tag. Put the sauna in your top ten photos. Send Crumbl cookies the morning after something goes wrong; it's saved plenty of five-star reviews. Ryan shares his own summer fire drill: an 1890 house, a 110-degree heat wave, emergency window units, new breakers and an $800 electric bill. Darin's "perfection inspections," where someone walks the house after the cleaners pushing and pulling on everything, exist for one reason: if one thing breaks in a guest's first hour, they'll search the whole house for more. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: *MARRIAGE & BUSINESS: The dreamer/doer split, and the rule that every yes from Darin goes through Jenna before it's final. *"She's been my AI agent before AI," Darin on Jenna running operations. *OWNERS: Why "I want to be very hands-on" can be the wrong answer when hiring a manager. *FURNITURE: A $2,500 nightstand for $60 from an Amazon return auction, fully assembled. *MID-TERM SHIFT: How they rework listings for winter and why bookings jump around Valentine's Day. *AMENITIES: Garages, saunas and hot tubs, and why the properties that win are the ones guests never want to leave. *Plus: Garth Brooks, Willie Nelson at 93, and the best concert Darin's ever seen. Darin makes the case that the Airbnbs built to last are the ones run like a business, and that the right partner, at home and at work, makes all the difference. Hit subscribe, tap the notification bell, and we'll see you next week.

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  Episode #39

  Episode 39 - Stephen Barton: Wholesale or Real Estate Who Sells best?

  Sep 23, 20261 hour

  Episode 39 of The Intrigue Podcast features Stephen Barton, director of sales at Realty Wealth Advisors, who got into real estate with a bad back, $500 in savings, and a radio contest. Finals week, 2012: a DJ offers free tickets to an investing seminar to the ninth caller, and Stephen whips into the school parking lot and wins. The seminar was a pitch for a $10,000 mastermind, so his wife found the course kit on eBay for $300, and the newlyweds started hand-writing letters to absentee owners. His first lead put him in front of Brett Snodgrass, who taught him contracts and comps, split the deal 50/50, and told him to get licensed. He did in 2014, and today guides out-of-state investors into new-construction duplexes, triplexes and quads across Indiana. The meat of the episode is wholesaling, and host and guest come at it from opposite sides. Stephen came up in it the way Brett taught him: double close with your own money so you have skin in the game. Ryan runs the math sellers never see: a $10K assignment fee on a $100,000 house beats the 6% an agent would earn on the MLS, yet the pitch is still "don't pay a realtor." His twist: agents opened that door by turning down distressed listings that didn't "fit their brand." His fix is showing sellers both numbers side by side, a cash offer and the listed net, and letting them choose. The back half gets into distressed property. Hand-written letters are winning again as Google Ads get pricey. Stephen walks through a short sale on five Indy duplexes, where a local bank wrote down the debt because he had cash ready. And there are appraisal war stories from the recent floods, including a Chase appraisal $30K under that demanded waterproofing while every waterproofer in town was booked. The fix on Ryan's deal? Downspout extensions, which Stephen calls the number one issue he sees in Indiana. His advice to out-of-state investors: a deal on paper isn't always a deal for you. Find a local advisor who knows which neighborhoods are rising and falling, and hold on for dear life. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: *ORIGIN STORY: A radio contest, a $300 eBay course kit, and $500 in the bank. *"While I disagree with wholesalers, I am also jealous of them," Ryan on stealing the wholesaler marketing playbook. *WHOLESALING: Why a $10K assignment fee on a $100K house quietly beats the 6% commission sellers are told to avoid. *SHORT SALES: How having funds ready got a bank to write down debt on five duplexes. *APPRAISALS: Why appraisers come in under contract price but rarely over. *TAKEAWAY: "If it's a deal, it's a deal," but that doesn't make it the right investment for you. Stephen makes the case that the best Indianapolis deals still come down to local knowledge and an advisor who'll tell you when to walk away. Find him at realtywealthadvisors.com and on his team's show, The Homeboys Podcast (homeboyspodcast.com). Hit subscribe, tap the notification bell, and we'll see you next week.

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  Episode #38

  Episode 38 - Nate Spangle: Indiana's Data Center Boom, Explained by the "Indiana Guy"

  Sep 14, 20261h 10m

  Episode 38 of The Intrigue Podcast features Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana and host of the Get IN. podcast, who built a statewide media company out of a Broad Ripple studio and became, improbably, "the Indiana guy." His whole project is one idea: to change how people see a place, you have to physically show up in it, all 92 counties, while everyone else phones it in from a laptop in L.A. The bit that made him famous started by accident, alone in a free WNBA suite with a friend filming him from across the arena; now strangers do it unprompted. But the persona hides a full media operation, not a one-man influencer act, built to chase the small-town stories the national accounts never bother to visit. The meat of the episode is data centers, the most radioactive topic in Indiana, and Nate refuses the easy applause line. Nobody's dying to be pro-data-center, he says, but the loud "no" crowd is skipping the math. He walks through LaPorte, the deal he knows best: Microsoft moving in, the municipal budget projected to climb from $30 million toward $60-90 million in two decades, with property taxes routed straight to the school corporation. Turn it down, he argues, and the next county over takes it and builds the better schools and parks. His sharpest jab: you can't rage against data centers from a phone and lean on AI all day. He's not calling it right, just honest; time, he says, will tell. After a funny GLP-1 detour, the back half lands on the question the episode kept circling: what do city people get wrong about small-town Indiana? This is the emotional core of the show. Be curious, not judgmental, Nate says. A 161-year-old family farm, a house a grandfather built by hand in 1925, a regular who's come to the same bar for 45 years because it's where he and his late wife had date night, none of it survives a "what do you even do there" sneer. His real thesis: Indiana, big city or small town, rewards people who get energy from making an impact. Asked to sum up the state in one word, he skips the description and picks his mantra: impact. People, he insists, matter more here than buildings or beaches, and the ones who last are those who show up for it. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: *CONTENT: Why boots-on-the-ground beats national accounts spinning a Google Earth shot into a fake stat about a town they've never seen. *"You can't have your cake and eat it too," Nate on people who fight data centers while using AI every day. *DATA CENTERS: The number nobody posts, LaPorte's budget projected to jump from $30M to $60-90M in two decades as Microsoft skips local tax breaks. *THE GRIND: 113 videos before one cracked 10,000 views, and why testing beats posting the same clip 100 times. *Not an influencer, a media company: a network of podcasts, statewide plus South Bend and Fishers newsletters, and eight Hoosier contractors. *TAKEAWAY: "Be curious, not judgmental," the line Nate lives by when city and small-town people write each other off. *Plus: the fact-check that kills a viral clip, there's no "Linton County" in Indiana (it's Linton, in Greene County). Nate makes the case that you change a place by showing up for it, and that the storytellers who last, like the towns that do, are the ones people care about. Find him at getindiana.com, @natespangle, and the Get IN. podcast. Hit subscribe, tap the notification bell, and we'll see you next week.

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  The Intrigue Podcast

  Episode 37 - Daniel Baker: Marrying Money & Real Estate

  Sep 9, 20261h 11m

  Episode 37 of The Circle Investor Podcast features Daniel Baker, a Northwestern Mutual financial advisor who runs Felix Financial and owns a pair of Indianapolis Airbnbs, and who built his practice around the clients his colleagues warned him to avoid: real estate investors. His philosophy is one idea. Real estate and the stock market aren't rivals, they're partners, and the people who build real wealth marry the two. Ryan opens with his favorite question for finance people who respect property, stocks or real estate, and Daniel reframes it: it's not either/or. Stocks are the only truly passive play, no midnight calls, no closing costs, but an investor who brings a real edge to real estate will often watch it outperform. From there they get into leverage, using the market as a "staging area" to park capital between deals, and moves like borrowing against a portfolio to fund a renovation, cost-segregation studies, and retirement accounts as tax strategy.The conversation turns to the question every young person with a little money saved faces: buy a house or buy stocks? Daniel's answer depends on the market. In an affordable one like Central Indiana, he's all-in on homeownership, not because it always beats the S&P, but because a house is a "forced savings vehicle," one of only two assets most Americans can't easily raid. He sets that against a California couple sitting on $300,000 who still can't touch a starter home. Ryan, a realtor, happily undercuts his own industry: homeownership, he admits, is "overrated," a Tamagotchi you're stuck stressing over. Then both land on the real point, that buy-versus-rent is finally a philosophical question about what you want your life to look like.The back half is a clinic on short-term rentals, and a myth-buster. Between Daniel's two Airbnbs and Ryan's Bluebird in Fletcher Place, they take apart the passive-income fantasy: an STR is a hospitality business, the most active real estate you can own, where "$10,000 a month" is revenue, not profit, and Daniel figures 95% of new listings never turn a real one. What separates the winners is the thing Ryan says "doesn't scale": the art of actually caring. They trade war stories from a July heat wave, five window units, extension cords at midnight, and credit Ryan's wife Lindsay's relentless hospitality for 100-plus straight five-star reviews. The payoff is the most human moment of the episode: guests rarely want a refund so much as they want to feel heard, and the hosts who last do it for more than money, because they love the house and the city they're inviting people into.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:*STRATEGY: The investors who win don't pick real estate or stocks. They engineer the two to work together.*"Your emotions are not a good financial advisor." Daniel on why panic-selling, not the market, is what loses people money.*The move most people miss: borrow against your stock portfolio to fund a renovation, then deduct the interest as a business expense.*HOMEOWNERSHIP: Why a house is a "forced savings vehicle," and why in an affordable market that can beat the math on paper.*A realtor admits homeownership is "overrated," and compares owning a house to keeping a Tamagotchi alive.*HOSPITALITY: The line that pops the Airbnb bubble. "$10,000 a month" is revenue, not profit, and 95% of new listings never make a real one.*What "passive income" really looks like: a heat wave, five window units, and extension cords run down the stairs at midnight.*TAKEAWAY: Read Unreasonable Hospitality, the mindset behind Lindsay's 100-plus straight five-star reviews.*Plus: the fact-check that shot down Ryan's 80% guess on the share of Airbnb bookings made by women.Daniel makes the case that money and real estate were never built to compete, and that the best hosts, like the best investors, are the ones who genuinely care. Find him at Felix Financial with Northwestern Mutual in Carmel. Hit subscribe, tap the notification bell, and we'll see you next week.

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  Episode #36

  Episode 36 - Ben Jones: From Famous Athletes to Hamilton County: An Honest Look at Indy Real Estate

  Sep 2, 20261h 10m

  Episode [##] of The Circle Investor Podcast features Ben Jones, a longtime Indianapolis and Hamilton County agent with Compass who works within the Compass Sports and Entertainment referral division, the network that connects agents to pro athletes and entertainers across the country. Ben played football at Purdue, and that background shows up in just about everything he does. The episode opens on the strangest thing about the 2026 market, which is that it barely feels like one market at all. Rates are still high, and while offers stack up in the suburbs, a perfectly priced downtown townhome can sit for a month without a single showing. That split becomes the way into everything else. Ben and the host dig into why downtown condos and townhomes have gone quiet while the north side stays busy, from businesses relocating to Carmel to the rise of rentals, rental caps inside buildings, and owner occupancy rules that keep changing. From there Ben opens up the part of his business most agents never get to see, which is working with professional athletes, where privacy and discretion matter more than knowing the market. He gets into LLCs and trusts, fans showing up at players' homes in bigger cities, and why being a former college athlete gives him a way in that no marketing budget can buy. The thread running under all of it is trust, and how relationships, not transactions, are what actually build a career. Ben is also refreshingly willing to say the quiet parts out loud. He talks honestly about pricing and the hard conversations that happen when a seller's number and the market's number do not match, about showings being driven by photos more than price, and about appraisals, appeals that rarely work, and the lender switch that can quietly fix one. He and the host also get into what makes Indy different, a place where a forty million dollar quarterback can show up to a youth basketball game and sign autographs for the kids without a scene, because Hoosiers seem to share an unspoken rule about letting people just be normal. And because Ben is raising his own family here, the last stretch gets personal. Westfield's explosive growth, the Carmel versus Zionsville versus Fishers debate, a couple of hidden gems worth the drive, and the simple truth that when it comes to Hamilton County, it is really hard to go wrong. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:*The tale of two markets in 2026, with multiple offers in the suburbs while a well priced downtown townhome sits with zero showings.*Why downtown demand has cooled, from businesses moving up to Carmel to rental caps and owner occupancy rules.*What it is really like working with pro athletes, where privacy and discretion matter more than market knowledge.*How LLCs, trusts, and power of attorney get used to keep a home purchase off the public record, and why investors care about this too.*Why being a former Purdue football player opens doors that no marketing budget ever could.*The honest truth about pricing and carrying costs, and why showings come down to photos more than the list price.*Appraisals, why appeals almost never work, and the lender switch that can save a deal.*What makes Indy unique, and how athletes and celebrities actually get to live normal lives here.*Westfield's growth explained, plus the Carmel vs Zionsville vs Fishers breakdown and a couple of local hidden gems. Go find Ben Jones on Instagram @buywithben and give him a follow. If you enjoyed the episode, leave us a five star review on Spotify and like and subscribe on YouTube. It really helps us out. If you know someone who would get something out of this one, send it their way. You can find our full library of episodes wherever you get your podcasts, and if you have someone we should interview or a topic we should cover, shoot us an email at circleinvestorpod@gmail.com . That is it for today. Join us right back here next week for another episode of The Circle Investor Podcast.

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