Where the word comes from

The first video on the channel with the word in its title is dated June 14, 2018: You’re overpaying for real estate UNLESS… you WEDGE, posted five months into full-time YouTube and four years before the company existed. Its automatic captions are unusable, so the citation rests on the title and the date; the idea it names is the one below, and it has not changed since.

The wedge

Kevin’s account

Buy fixer-uppers and generate a target of 20% equity gains after repairs. That cushion protects against fluctuations in real estate values. 1

The arithmetic: buy for 70 and put in 10 on a house worth 100 fixed, and you hold 20 of equity you never paid for. Because accounting carries the house at 80, that 20 is invisible on the balance sheet until the house sells, which is the subject of the invisible-equity page. Because the company borrows nothing against it, a market drop of 10% leaves the position above water rather than under a margin call.

Where

Kevin’s account

High prices are driven by high-paying jobs, weather, desirability and low-growth city councils with patchwork permitting. That is why my startup invests heavily in California: an arbitrage bet that California housing will remain incompetent, locking in property-tax levels and a lack of new construction despite job influx. The scoreboard so far: values in Florida and Austin fell over 25% while Southern California values rose. Market figures are my account of the trend; the thesis is my strategy, not a guarantee. 2

The portfolio at June 2026: 32 single-family rentals, four multifamily buildings and two lots, headquartered in Ventura. The company has evaluated purchases elsewhere, including a 2024 Texas contract that is now in litigation. 3

How the work gets done

No in-house crew. After the 2017 construction loss, every renovation is subcontracted, and Lauren Paffrath’s in-house team manages the finished rentals.

From the September 29, 2026 Q&A

Kevin’s account

Kevin focuses on low-build areas with built-in property tax shelters. California does not reassess property values after an acquisition, which is an exceptional property tax hack, especially if properties are acquired at a discount, because that discount is not taxed. Additionally, Kevin prefers municipalities that are very slow at approving building permits, even for things the state is mandating, such as accessory dwelling units. When the state says permits get done in 60 days, local municipalities often drag them out for years. Those are built-in put options, essentially, granted by the city at no cost, reducing available housing through bureaucratic incompetence or litigiousness or whatever it might be. 4

Two mechanisms, then. Under California’s Proposition 13 the assessed value is set at the purchase price and can rise only about 2% a year, so a property bought below market pays tax on the discounted price for as long as it is held. And a city that will not issue permits keeps new supply off the market, which protects the value of what already exists. Both are the state’s failures, used on purpose.

In his own videos

• August 2026: pay 20% under market value after the fix-up; that is the wedge. 5

• November 2025: the company’s internal wedge finder flagged a property McKay then bought for HouseHack. 6

In his own videos

• June 14, 2018: You’re overpaying for real estate UNLESS you WEDGE, the earliest use of the word on the channel. 7

The definition in the filings

The June 2025 report defines it for the SEC: a wedge property is one the company believes is under its fair market value, or to which it can add value through renovations, or where the value created surpasses the cost of the renovations; it may also be one not operating at its highest and best use, including not obtaining optimal rents. The stated plan is to buy them, renovate, rent, and eventually package them into a vehicle to sell to other investors while keeping the management, an idea the filings call MiniFunds and which has not yet been executed. 8