October 4, 2023 • 48 mins
In this episode, we hear part of Kristine's story, a self-proclaimed "nerdy introvert" from California and one of our cherished FlipSisters.
She generously opens up about her journey, and how she overcame self-doubt to start building a rental portfolio with a goal of 20K in positive cash flow each month.
We do a deep dive on her limiting beliefs and the crucial mindset shifts she had to make in order to fully step into her role as CEO of her real estate investing business.
You'll also hear the importance of a team, whether you're investing locally or remotely. There's so much goodness in this episode! Be ready to get inspired by Kristine's story and learn invaluable lessons to succeed in the real estate investing space.
GOODIES
1. THE book on women flipping houses is here! Click here to grab the digital download of my new book for just $4.99! Just as everything else we do is different, so is FLIPPED: Lessons and Stories of Women Flipping Houses and Facing Their Fears.
2. Sick of sitting on the sideline watching other people do the thing you want to be doing? Are you FINALLY ready to do what it takes to flip your first house and want incredible step-by-step training and support to get you there faster? Click here to see if we may be a fit to work together.
3. Follow That Flip! Follow this 8-part video series as we flip a house!
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Debbie DeBerry | The Flipstress®
Leaving people and places better than we find them.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Flip Houses Like a Girl
podcast, where we educate,empower and celebrate everyday
women who are facing their fears, juggling family and business,
embracing their awesomeness andwholeheartedly chasing their
dream of flipping houses.
Each episode delivers honest togoodness tools, tips and
(00:21):
strategies you can implementtoday to get closer to your
first or next successful houseflip.
Here's your spiky-hairedbreakfast taco-loving host.
House flipping coach DebbieDeViery.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hey there, I hope that you're having an easy day
and I'm excited to introduce youto Christine, who is one of our
Flip sisters in California andsince we recorded this episode,
she's actually joined ourcoaching staff, so we're super
excited about that.
Anyway, I'm happy to share thisconversation with you.
(01:03):
She takes us on her journey to20K in positive cash flow per
month on rental properties.
So she's going to take usthrough some of her properties
and, most importantly, she opensup about the mindset shifts she
(01:25):
had to have and her biggestchallenges, which all came from
inside her head, which they dofor all of us.
So I'm excited to share thisconversation.
It's a really powerfulconversation and she shares some
great tips and is just superreal with us.
(01:47):
So let's get into it.
Let's meet Christine.
You want to start withintroducing yourself and letting
us know who you are, where youare and what you're up to in the
world?
Sure, my name is Christine.
I live in Southern Californiawith my family.
I have two kids, 17 and almost13.
(02:07):
And my husband is self-employed.
I have been, my background isengineering, and I've been
working in my field for a longtime, almost 30 years.
It's been a great career, butI'm a little burnt out, so that
(02:28):
was definitely one of thereasons why I started looking at
real estate.
Yeah, what do you do?
What kind of engineering do youdo?
So my focus is lighting andcontrols for buildings.
Oh, I do remember that.
Okay, so I worked as aconsultant for several years and
then I went onto the sales side, but in the same field.
(02:51):
Okay, got it.
So I've been there for almost 20years.
And have you?
Where are you?
In Southern California,Torrance, so Los Angeles area.
How long have you been there?
27 years since college.
Were you in Ohio before?
No, I went to school at theUniversity of Colorado.
(03:12):
Okay, so I was in Boulder whichis an amazing place.
That campus, beautiful campus.
Oh, what a cool place to growinto being an adult.
That's awesome.
Okay.
So, southern Cal been there areally long time, I've been in
(03:32):
engineering a really long timeand my guess is you see real
estate investing as kind of likeyour next step, Like it's the
end goal, is cash flow.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
Yeah, I'm going to replace mysalary, got it?
(03:52):
When did you get into investing?
When did you buy your firstproperty?
So, my, the first deal I everdid was in 2019 and that was a
flip.
Okay, it was a tiny littlehouse and it was cosmetic for
the most part.
I did most of the work myselfand it was the most fun I've
(04:13):
ever had in my life.
Yeah, oh, wow, I've been in itfor seven weeks and I just loved
every second.
It was just, I felt soaccomplished.
You know, it was one of thosethings where I got to the end of
it and I was so proud Icouldn't wait.
My realtor drove up and wascoming up the front steps and I
(04:35):
just remember thinking this ismy proud, you know.
Besides, like having mychildren, this is my proudest
moment.
Yes, yes, I could totallyrelate Absolutely.
Gosh, how did you end upknowing on that flip?
I did okay, I did make a littlebit of money, but you know I
didn't.
I didn't really have theeducation to really really know
(04:59):
how to do it, but I did wellenough to know that this, it
works Right and you enjoy it.
I loved it.
Yeah, sometimes people do theirfirst slip and they're like, no
thanks, not for me, I'll be aprivate money lender instead.
And it's like, yeah, that is agood role for you.
(05:21):
Yeah, were there any bigsurprises in that, or was it a
pretty smooth process?
A lot of the my subfloor had tobe replaced.
Pretty much A lot of it hadwater damage, so that I wasn't
counting on.
But other than that, everythingwas not necessarily included in
(05:44):
my budget, just because thereare so many things you don't
think about, but it was notsurprising.
Yeah, nice, how did you findthat deal, mls?
Yes, okay, so you did yourfirst slip, made a little profit
, and then what happened?
And then I decided that I reallywanted to start to build the
(06:05):
cash flow and rentals was how Iwanted to do it.
So I started kind of lookinginto you know how do you do that
, and there were so many options.
It was a little overwhelming atfirst, but I decided that I
definitely wanted to do valueadd and my properties.
(06:27):
That was important to me and Ilooked at a bunch of different
markets and settled on a couplewhich I'll talk about.
But I had a lot of self-doubt.
There was definitely, you know,the voice inside of your head,
the bully.
I do, I do, yeah, I know herwell.
She's pretty mean, she's somean, she's the worst, the worst
(06:52):
, yeah, the worst.
She was like you can't do thisInteresting.
She wasn't saying that aboutthe flip no, okay, very
interesting, no, but you know, Ithink if I took long enough to
think about it, she probablywould have.
But for sure, for sure, withthe rentals.
(07:17):
She was like you cannot build aportfolio, like, no, who do you
think you are?
Wow, yeah, that is reallyinteresting.
Golly, so, yeah, how did youhandle it?
How'd you handle her?
I actually I hired a.
I call her a coach.
She was therapist.
(07:37):
That was my first move.
There's a very fine line, thedifference and she was amazing.
But she really helped me toretrain the voice, so that
helped a lot.
And that was a process that wasprobably a two year, two, two
(08:00):
and a half year process.
I also educated myself and itwas interesting because I
actually found your podcastwhile I was working on that flip
.
It was summer of 2019.
Oh my, you were on your secondepisode.
Oh my gosh, that is bananas.
Holy cow, wow, that gives mechills.
(08:22):
That's great.
And I was like, oh my gosh,this is amazing.
I love Debbie.
Oh my gosh.
But in my head I wasn't flippingRight, right Back then, I mean.
So I was like, okay, I'm, I'mgonna.
I you know, I kept followingyou, but I wanted to.
I ended up taking a burr class,basically.
(08:43):
So I took that class and it wasgood in that I learned the
mechanics of a burr, Iunderstood hard money, that sort
of thing, but the mindset wasnot addressed.
It is the biggest thing, oh mygosh.
So I started to.
(09:06):
I did start to buy properties,but still I was just paralyzed
at some points.
I was like I don't know whatI'm doing.
I still didn't think I could doit, wow.
So I started by.
The first property I bought wasin May of 2021.
(09:30):
And I was petrified, terrified,but it did end up going well, I
think that eventually I decidedwhat I was doing was flipping.
It was just to a different setof comps, if you will, yeah.
(09:50):
So it took me a little while tobe like yep, this is the place
I want to be, yes, so it's sohard to talk about.
You get it, you understand theterminology, value add, I can
say that, and most people don'tget that.
And so it's like okay, we'llcall it flipping.
Even though we're not alwaysselling the F-Lib, it's
(10:15):
improving.
I don't know how else to talkabout it to make people realize
that we're buying a property,we're improving it and then
we're either selling it orholding on to it.
Right, yeah, yeah, that'sinteresting, okay.
So when you were going to buyyour first rental in 2021, you
(10:40):
said you were petrified.
What were some of your biggestfears?
Like, what were your worries?
So that one is a short-termrental actually, okay, my
biggest worry always is alwayseconomic cycles.
So I think that is basically mybrain's way of sort of masking
(11:03):
the self-doubt.
You know I would be like, oh,but the economy might crash
right after I buy this property.
Oh, and what would happen ifthe economy crashed?
Oh, I could just the property.
I might not be able to pay themortgage, it will lose value.
You know, I saw myself likegoing into this place of like
(11:33):
something catastrophic is gonnahappen, oh my gosh.
Yes, very normal.
Yeah, and you did it.
Anyway, I did.
I did, you know, and thankfully,with that one, my husband has
his own thing.
He's supportive, verysupportive of me, but it's real
(11:54):
estate's not his jam.
However, with this one, becausewe were using a second home
loan, a vacation loan, and itwas a place that we went to
often.
It was in Arizona, in Phoenix,oh nice, he was on the mortgage,
you know, he was.
It helped, I have to say,helped a lot, because I was like
(12:17):
all right, you know, if I endup losing all this money, like
it's both of us Right, right,and at the moment, that's what I
needed, you know, at the moment, and I mean so it was great to
have his support.
He actually didn't go to thehouse for probably about I don't
(12:40):
know 10 months, maybe, untilafter I had rehabbed it,
furnished it.
It had been rented as ashort-term rental for a while,
but when he did, it was a veryproud moment for me.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, all of asudden you're different, yeah,
and you created this awesomespace and you did this awesome
(13:03):
stuff and big scary things I did.
Yeah, that's so cool.
Okay, that's your first rentaland that's an STR.
Do you still have it?
I do, okay, so let's talk abouthow you're managing that.
Or if you hired a propertymanager, how are you doing that?
Since you're in SouthernCalifornia Marpeze and Phoenix
(13:24):
how are you doing that?
So, for the construction, itwas COVID, so my kids were out
of school, so I just picked themup and we drove to Phoenix and
we did a rehab.
That was fantastic, and what Iloved was they both have a sense
of ownership of that property.
(13:45):
That is really cool.
My daughter helped me a lotwith the overall scheme, the
colors she loves, a good trip tohome goods, and my son helped
build every piece of furniture.
Like it was great.
(14:08):
It was a family affair.
My husband was here running hisbusiness, but I loved that they
were a part of it.
I know it is the best.
Yeah, so once I got it up andrunning, I do self-manage.
I feel like the online travelagencies make it so easy to
(14:28):
self-manage.
Yeah, you need a cleaner and arepair person.
That's what you need and thenyou need to be responsive.
You have to be responsive.
If you're not a responsiveperson, you need to hand that
off, because it's all about yourrating.
It is Like how well yourproperty does entirely falls on
(14:49):
your rating and that falls on.
Is this person responsive?
How quickly are they responding?
Yeah, all of that.
Yeah, you have a good team andyou use technology and you use
tech.
Yeah, which?
Everything you can.
Yeah, I'm a little olderprobably than the average first
(15:12):
time investor, so it doesn'tcome quite as naturally to me,
but now that I use it on a daily, maybe weekly, basis, it's fine
.
Like I figured it out, it'sfine.
Yeah, I think you're right, inline with everyone in our group.
Ok, good, we're all a bunch ofmiddle-aged women Doing this
(15:37):
thing.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Which is great.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's maybe why I feel so comfortable.
Yeah, yeah, ok, so that'sproperty one.
Tell me about property two.
Property two was a burr, like.
I bought it to rehab it, rentit and refinance it and rent it
as a long-term rental.
That one's a long-term, correct.
(16:00):
How did that process go for you?
It went OK.
It was a little harder becauseit was further away.
So this is.
I've moved to Ohio since thenfor my long terms.
I got it, so it's across thecountry.
It's a little bit harder tofind good contractors.
(16:21):
I found an excellent realtorout of the gate, so that's not
an issue, nice.
But the contractors were alittle bit harder.
I had to stay on top of them,which was from a distance, like
I didn't really know what thecondition was.
I had to rely on pictures andvideos to see where they were in
(16:45):
the process.
Yeah, and so that was tough,but it got done eventually.
It took longer, cost more thanI anticipated, but in the end it
was fine.
Okay, do you think it tooklonger and cost more because you
weren't there or who knows why?
(17:07):
I don't think it would have.
I think the cost was justthings that I missed.
Got it.
But I do think it took longerbecause I wasn't able to check
in on the property.
I think I've since done alittle more thorough job of
vetting my contractors, so thatdefinitely makes a difference.
(17:31):
Yeah, I think we get better atthat every time.
Yeah, what made you choose Ohioand what city?
Or is it different cities thatyou're focusing on?
Yeah, they're all in theCleveland area, either in the
city or in a suburb.
I looked at several differentcash flowing cities throughout
(17:53):
the country and, to be honest,it was all about the realtor
Interesting.
Yep, it was that great of anexperience it was.
I made contact with her.
She took me seriously.
He was incredibly responsiveand knew what I needed as an
(18:14):
out-of-state investor.
Not all realtors do, and that'sokay, but she got it.
She understood what I needed.
Nice, were you able to pull outas much cash as you thought you
were going to?
Not quite.
A couple of things happened.
So I bought that house in Marchof 2022.
(18:37):
Mm-hmm.
And by the time I went torefinance it, which was in
September there's a six-monthwait period, right?
Yeah, we got a season and bythe time I went to refinance the
property, the comps had gonedown a little bit.
So and actually I mentionedthis in the group.
(19:00):
I had an experience.
So the first time I had theproperty appraised the first
lender that I started workingwith they appraised the property
and it came in so low it wasjust over what I bought it for.
Oh my gosh, like they didn'teven try.
It was devastating.
(19:23):
It was like I looked at thecomps and I was like these are
the comps that aren't, arebarely livable.
Yeah, these are like the beforethey were, they were the before
comps and that.
But you know what it was?
It was super hard andeventually, after a little while
, I realized that I was tying myown self-worth to the value
(19:49):
that that appraiser had given tothem.
That random appraiser.
Oh my gosh, what an awesome,awesome self-awareness.
Kudos to you.
To even like get that.
It was actually someone elsewho pointed it out, but once,
(20:10):
once I heard it, I was likethat's exactly what's happening.
That resonates.
Oh my gosh, yeah, it is.
It's like how dare you?
Yeah, and I was, from then,able to unwind that, you know,
and it took a while, I would sayfor four weeks.
I didn't want to look at realestate, I just let that, you
(20:31):
know.
I canceled the application.
I was like I need to just takea beat.
And finally, and it was finebecause I bought the property in
cash, so it was, I wasn'tpaying an interest on my payment
or anything Gotcha, but Iwanted my money back.
I mean, do something else, yeah?
So about a month later Istarted the process again with a
(20:54):
different lender they, you know, obviously it was a different
appraiser and this time I did apacket, so found my own comps,
you know, put together this nicepacket with pictures and what I
had done to improve theproperty and the comps that I
was looking at.
And the second time it came in,I would say within about $3,000
(21:19):
of my idea of what it should be,and I was like, yes, good for
you.
So you got the pretty much.
You got the value you weretrying to get.
I did, I did.
I left a little more money inthe property than I had planned,
but that was okay with me.
It was, you know, it was mylearning experience and the
(21:41):
silver lining.
So with a rental, your cash flowis going to depend on your
mortgage payment, right, there'sthe income coming in and
there's your expenses Right.
And if you have a lower loanamount, your mortgage is less
Right, so your cash flow is moreRight.
It's, like you know, makesperfect sense.
(22:04):
But it wasn't until, like, Igot that first check after I had
refied and I'm like, oh my gosh, rent is $1250.
My mortgage is $550.
Oh my gosh, that's crazy.
So in the end it ended up likethe property performs like crazy
(22:28):
.
That's ridiculous.
Two and a quarter X orsomething like that.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I do payproperty management on that one.
So long-term rental, you'repaying property management.
What are they charging?
10, 15%, they charge 10.
Yeah, that's pretty standardfor the long-term stuff.
(22:48):
Yeah, nice, and, as it turnsout, worth every penny.
Yeah, okay.
So that was project, that wasproperty two, rental property
two, yeah, okay.
And then, so that was March oflast year, so then you joined
around, then I joined in.
(23:11):
I want to say it was aboutMemorial Day weekend, so end of
May, okay.
So then what was propertynumber three?
So, property number three, andI took a beat between the second
property, mostly because I wasstill working with that
(23:31):
self-doubt.
I was still kind of goingthrough that process.
The thing that started to reallychange it was the mindset work
that I was doing.
I mean, your program stressesthat, before you even look at a
(23:53):
number, you address mindset.
Yeah, and it was like ah, youknow right, it all comes back to
it.
It just does like everythingcomes back to what's going on in
here.
What are you telling yourself?
What story are you believing?
Yeah, yeah.
(24:13):
Are you listening to your innervoice?
Yeah, or are you saying youknow what?
There's data here?
Yeah, I don't have to have acrystal ball because I can look
at the data, which is reallyfantastic.
It takes the pressure off right.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
It really does it takes the pressure off.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
It's just the data.
Yes, thank you.
I'm glad you know most people,not most.
There are definitely somepeople who are like, oh, I don't
need mindset stuff and I'm likethat's usually a sign that you
might need a little bit, becauseit all comes back to it the
(24:53):
thing we're avoiding doing, thehard thing that we're avoiding
doing, whatever it is firing acontractor.
We're not doing it because thedata doesn't tell us that we
shouldn't fire that contractor.
We're not doing it because ofall the stuff we're saying in
(25:13):
our heads about it and how it'sgoing to be harder and it's all
going to.
You know, it's going to be thisand that and it's always the
answer.
If you're questioning whetheryou need to fire the person, you
probably need to fire theperson.
It's probably not a good fit,whoever that team member is.
But then we get all up in ourheads, second guess ourselves oh
, it's, my favorite part isfiguring that out and trying to
(25:38):
understand me, yep, and then youlearn and grow and do, and then
all of a sudden you gotsomething else that's popping up
.
It's like this constant thing.
So I'm glad you, I'm glad youget it.
I did and I got a lot out of it, and I think you know I'm a
numbers person, right, I lovenumbers.
(25:59):
You're an engineer, yeah,exactly so that that part really
spoke to me how to not justgather the data but how to use
it, how to interpret it in a waythat's going to help your
project be successful yeah, hugeyeah.
(26:20):
And help you reach your goals,because your goals might be
different than the next person's.
And so how do we apply that toyou and your track that you're
on?
Oh, I love it.
So you refinanced that one inOctober-ish, yeah, november.
I called close in November,yeah, ok.
And then you had to purchasesomething.
(26:44):
Before then, though, duringthat time, yeah, I went under
contract within a week ofgetting that check I was, by
that time, I mean, I could notbelieve the difference in my
mindset.
I was so ready and you know alittle bit I was chomping at the
(27:05):
bit, but also I had beenanalyzing properties.
I had been just looking at themarket so intently that it was
much easier at that point tofind a good deal.
You know, to know a deal was agood deal, yes, and to jump on
(27:27):
it immediately, yes, yes, butwait, was Property 3 in
California?
No, are they all in Ohio.
They're all, except for thefirst one, which is in Arizona.
That's right, ok, yeah, forsome reason I thought you bought
that.
I thought that two-story houseis maybe a duplex.
I thought that was a Californiaproperty.
I don't know why I assumed thatthat's weird.
(27:49):
It's not.
I probably didn't mention it,but it is.
It is in Ohio.
Yeah, ok, and that was Property3.
That was Property 3.
Yeah, that one came, tenantoccupied, ok, and I will
probably in June have one of theunits come vacant.
(28:09):
So I will have to do a turn inor rehab in that one, yeah, but
the second one, the secondtenant, we raised the rent.
He's staying.
You know it's stabilized so I'mnot going to touch it.
Nice, so basically, you justbought that one and it's kind of
turned key.
For now it is.
Yeah, are all of these close toeach other?
(28:33):
Like, are there certain pocketsthat you like the most?
The second and the third oneare very close to each other.
So the single family bar andthen the duplex are very close
to each other.
They're in the same zip code.
I like the zip code.
However, what I've realized is Iwanted to go to neighborhoods
(28:55):
with a little higher value,because and this is something
that I learned from your podcastbefore I even joined the
program because the spread ismore Right.
Right, it's all aboutpercentages, it is yeah, yeah,
and so there's a little morewiggle room.
Yes, in a property that has ahigher value, yes, yes.
(29:19):
So that's what I've been doingnow.
So the last property that Iclosed on, which was about two
weeks ago that one is in asuburb OK, ok, and that is a
burr OK.
And the property number three,the duplex did you get financing
(29:41):
for that or is that OK?
I did Conventional financing,since it's Conventional
financing Because you weren'tdoing any repairs or anything
initially, so Correct.
Then, what about for thisproperty?
Did you finance this or are youusing cash, or what are you
doing?
This one, I'm using hard money.
Okay, how has that process been?
(30:04):
Great, actually, I had thisneeds a garage.
That's a requirement by the city, so I it's the first time I'm
adding square footage to aproperty, so it was like oh,
okay, I wonder if the hard moneylender is going to cover that.
You just need to ask, you justneed to ask.
(30:26):
They do Not all of them would,but I found one that would, yeah
, and they're like yep,absolutely, we'll cover it.
You know, it's all based on thepercentage of the ARV.
Absolutely, they just want tomake sure they're not in.
They're in it up to a certainpercent.
They want to make sure theirinvestment is less than 70%, or
(30:51):
whatever, of the.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Now, what do you mean?
It requires a garage.
If it requires a garage, whyisn't there a garage?
Well, the city has thisrequirement that every house
needs to have a garage.
I've never heard this.
(31:12):
This is crazy.
I know it is something that isenforced at the time of a sale,
so and I don't know how longit's been a part of the city
agreements, but I did noticewhen I was there that every
house has a garage.
They're all in the backyard,you know.
(31:32):
So you have this long drivewayand that's one of the most
interesting things I've everheard.
Real estate is so weird.
I love it.
Is there a way to?
Can you make a garage apartment?
So that is definitely somethingthat's that I'm thinking about.
(31:53):
I did talk to the city, I'vetalked to them several times and
I'm, you know, building arelationship with them, trying
to definitely use honey.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
You know innocence right.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Exactly To attract the bees there.
So you know, little by little,I'm asking them questions like
that.
You know, I asked the shortterm rental.
No, that's an absolute.
No, I have considered mediumterm rental and that is a
possibility, but every tenanthas to be registered with the
(32:31):
city.
Oh, interesting, yes, so thatwould mean registering a new
tenant, every, you know, free,yeah, yeah.
So, and then my next question.
You know I'm spacing.
My next question is about youknow how I use this garage?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
So if it's possible to use it as a you know ADU or
you know converted or anythinglike that, so yeah, that's
really interesting.
This is the one that's moresuburban and so I guess it just
has its own, its own rules.
That garage thing is superinteresting.
(33:11):
I wonder what the deal isbehind that.
That's an interesting rule.
It is the.
The good thing for me as a buyerwas this was on the MLS, ok,
and it actually wasn't on myradar, the area wasn't, but my
realtor pointed it out to me andshe said hey, I think you
(33:34):
should look at this one becauseit's in a decent suburb, but
most homeowners are going to shyaway from this property because
they're not going to want toadd the garage because of that.
Yes, and I was like OK, so Ilooked at it and I got a couple
(33:57):
of quotes from garage companiesand turned out it wasn't really
that expensive.
Yeah, I was.
I was actually floored by howinexpensive it was to add the
garage.
I only need to add a one cargarage.
So, and as a rental, that thatworks just fine, yeah, but when
(34:21):
we went to make the offer, thehouse was listed for 80,000.
Ok, and I, you know that wasway more than I could pay with
my.
You know, once I put it throughthe deal, analyze everything,
but my number came out to be 60.
(34:41):
I want to say it was about 63.
So my realtor was like, ok, Ithink we should start at 60.
I was like, ok, let's do it.
I mean, what's the worst thatcould happen?
Right?
And they did not accept it.
They came back at 64.
Wow, that's a big jump.
I mean it's 20 percent Big jump.
(35:02):
Yeah, holy cow, exactly so.
I was like, let me sleep on it,let me you know.
So I, I looked at my dealanalyzer again.
I slept on it.
The next morning I woke up andI said 60,500.
Final off.
And they took it.
That's awesome, holy cow.
(35:25):
Had it been on the market along time?
Oh, not that long, less than amonth.
They just needed to sell.
Yeah, they were.
They were out.
Oh, got it OK.
And so, yeah, they, they wereanxious, and I think at that
point they had realized that thegarage was going to be a
(35:45):
challenge for a home buyer.
Yeah, what have you learned?
I know you've already sharedsome things you've learned about
yourself along the way.
Is there anything else thatyou've learned about yourself
along the way Of all theseprojects?
Oh for sure.
Wow, that's a really goodquestion.
I mean, I've learned a tonabout the process, but it's an
(36:07):
even question even betterquestion to ask what I've
learned about myself.
I think what I've learned aboutmyself is that I do need to look
at the data, I do need to seethe numbers, and it is a little
harder with rentals than it iswith sold properties, so I have
(36:31):
to rely on my realtor and myproperty manager.
But once I am able to look atthat and analyze it with real,
accurate numbers, yeah, my doubt, my self doubt, goes away.
I've realized that I can prettymuch tackle whatever comes at
(36:58):
me.
That's awesome.
I mean, that's a level ofself-trust right there.
That I'll be okay, I'll figureit out.
That's huge.
Yeah, I'll figure it out.
I think that's probably thebiggest lesson I've learned was
there's nothing that somebody'sgoing to throw at me that I
(37:20):
can't work my way through.
Somehow, some way, I willfigure it out and I will come
out on the other side yeah,you'll be okay, you'll be okay.
I think that's one of thebiggest things that we all learn
on this journey.
It all comes down to justtrusting ourselves.
That's huge.
(37:42):
What?
And maybe you know this andmaybe you don't want to share it
you don't have to.
You are buying for cash flow.
What's your monthly cash flowwith all your properties?
Sure, right now it's about2,500.
Nice, that is taking intoaccount property management.
(38:03):
That's also taking into accountCapEx, OpEx, my operating
expenses on the monthly basis,as well as setting aside money
for vacancy, for big repairs,water heaters, that sort of
thing.
Yes, that's something that,honestly, I would say.
(38:26):
Before I bought the Duplex,that was something that I
finally started to do was setaside that money on a monthly
basis.
Yes, what's left over after Ido that is, it's about 2,500 a
month.
That's fantastic.
That's on three properties,four properties yes, you're
(38:49):
right, three, because the lastone isn't cash flowing yet.
Yeah, okay, that's awesome.
Man, that's over 800 bucks perproperty.
That's awesome.
That's fantastic.
Do you have a goal that you'reaiming for?
I do.
I live in Southern California.
It's an expensive place to live.
(39:09):
Yes, my goal is $20,000 of cashflow.
Do you have a plan of howyou're going to get there?
I love that.
It's so important to have thatgoal and then back out of it to
be like no, you can totally getthat.
It's just this.
It's all just numbers.
Everything is just numbers.
(39:30):
It's X number of propertiesproducing X amount monthly
revenue, and you're there.
Do you have any reason to investanywhere other than Ohio?
Yes, you're going to gosomewhere else.
I'm so glad you asked thatquestion because I think, when I
first started in Ohio, I lovethe market as a cash flowing
(39:51):
market.
It's wonderful.
I love my team that I havethere.
However, I would like to, once Ihave a substantial portfolio
I'm thinking 10 to 12 doors I'dlike to go to a more
appreciating market.
It's a balance.
I feel like I want to diversify.
(40:12):
Yeah, yeah, I have the propertyin Arizona, which is definitely
an appreciated market.
Yeah, then I have the ones inOhio.
The good thing about Ohio isit's very stable.
Yes, even through the housingcrisis, their property values
did not change that much.
I love that.
(40:33):
I love that about Ohio, but Iwould like to go to somewhere
where there's a lot more jobgrowth, where there is more
population growth, wherebusinesses are moving.
That's where I think, yeah, thestability plays well for cash
flowing, absolutely.
Then, just like you said, theother factors play into a more
(40:55):
appreciating situation.
Are there certain ones you'reeyeballing.
Yes, my parents.
I've lost them both in the pasttwo years.
Oh gosh, I am so sorry.
That's awful, thank you.
They lived great lives, great,great life.
It's bittersweet, but I hadthem for a long time and they
(41:21):
both were happy with howeverything played out.
But they retired to Charlotte,north Carolina Cool, I'm not
sure that Charlotte is the city,but I love North Carolina.
The triangle, right, theresearch triangle yeah,
absolutely.
There are so many differentcities there that have a lot of
(41:46):
possibility.
Yeah, I do see myself goingthere.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I still have a lot of investors.
When I was just a real estatebroker and just getting into
real estate investing, I workedwith a lot of investors, mostly
from California.
(42:06):
A lot of them would just buyhouses over the phone with me
and I'm like this is so weird.
Okay, sure, never been here,but the numbers are fantastic.
This was, oh my gosh, so longago 16 years ago, 15, 16 years
ago.
But they invested here.
Most of them still own theirproperties.
(42:27):
They invested here.
They invested in the researchtriangle, north Carolina.
Then they bought cash flowingproperties in Ohio.
Oh, interesting, yeah, it'ssuper interesting.
I'm like that's so funny thatyou're naming these names Like
yeah, you have one short-termrental in there, do you have a
desire to have more?
(42:49):
See, I like to buy propertieswhere I can go like, hang out
for a while and I can go stay inthem.
Do you have a desire to buymore of those or do you prefer a
long-term?
I do have a preference for along-term.
I think that I will add amid-term rental at some point
this year, just because I wouldlike to accelerate the cash flow
(43:13):
a little bit and also givemyself the flexibility.
If I have one in Ohio, then Ihave a place to stay when I'm
visiting my properties.
So, yeah, short-term, I don'tthink I want more than one
short-term, just because it'snot what I'm interested in.
(43:35):
Yeah, but mid-term seems likethe happy medium, obsessed, if I
haven't made that clear.
I'm obsessed with mid-termrentals.
They're just short-term rentals.
We were talking at the beginning, before we started recording,
that it is very hands-on.
You've got to be responsive.
At least, I don't think we wererecording yet.
(43:56):
But with mid-terms, yeah, butit's dialed down a notch because
it's a month, two months, threemonths here, snowbirds here, so
it's nice and honestly, theyare about the same in terms of
Because with short-term rentals.
The expenses are so high withcleaning oh my gosh and with
(44:18):
people getting really upset atthe high cleaning fees, so I've
dialed some of those back sothat I can compete.
And people are going around,they're circumventing the
regulations, even though youhave to have a short-term permit
like in Austin, people don't.
They're flooding, flooding theshort-term rental market.
It's definitely over-saturated.
(44:40):
Mid-term is still more of asleeper.
Yeah, the same thing happenedin Phoenix too.
It got very saturated.
That's absolutely true.
Yeah, oh my gosh.
Well, I love your plan, I loveyour story.
Thank you, for I think it'sreally cool and interesting to
(45:02):
hear your journey.
Yeah, I think it's reallyinteresting and I appreciate you
sharing the real stuff.
Oh, thank you, because that'swhat most people don't talk
about, but it's really like yeah, no, I totally had so much
self-doubt Like I for surethought I was going to screw
everything up, but then you didit anyway, you know.
(45:23):
So, kudos to you, thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Anything else that you wantedto share about your journey or
anything we didn't touch on thatyou wanted to.
I think one point that I wouldlike to make about the
short-term and term rental and Ithink I kind of lucked out with
(45:46):
my Phoenix property, to behonest, but I've learned since
then is to evaluate it as along-term rental first, yes, and
then if it.
You know, if you end up, ifit's saturated, if the
regulations change, right,you've got somewhere to go.
You bought that in May of 2021.
(46:11):
Okay, so COVID had already.
Okay.
So what we were seeing waspeople who had short-term
rentals.
When COVID hit, it was likedone, and they didn't like pivot
fast enough into a long-termrental or anything else to get
people in, and it was just theywere just sitting empty.
Oh my gosh, that's an awesometip.
(46:32):
Absolutely, make sure it works.
It's just like with a flip wego into Make sure you have other
strategies that you can use.
You're not just relying on thatone thing and if that one thing
doesn't work, you're screwed.
Exactly, that's super smart.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
That's an awesome tip.
Well, thank you, it's beenwonderful.
(46:57):
Thank you, thank you for beingengaging in the group.
Really, it makes it that muchbetter.
So, thanks for being you.
I appreciate it very much.
Thank you, debbie, I appreciatethat.
Awesome, all right, well, Iwill see you in the group.
Okay, thanks, christine.
All right, bye, bye, whether youwant to buy, renovate and sell
(47:20):
houses or you want to buy,renovate and rent them out.
That's what we help you do.
We walk women through this verything all day, every day, and
while, of course, we show youthe steps, we walk you through
the process of it all.
But, just like Christine said,the most important piece is our
(47:44):
biggest focus and that's yourmindset, that's your limiting
beliefs, that's the story you'vebeen telling yourself about
whatever it is that has kept youstuck.
We all have them, we all havethese stories, we all have these
tapes.
But what are you doing to getwhere you want to go?
(48:05):
What are you doing to shineawareness on those thoughts and
that way of thinking that isn'tserving you?
That's what we're here to helpwith, because that part
translates into every area ofyour life.
All right, if you want to seeif we may be a good fit to work
(48:26):
together, go to herfirstslipcom,fill out the application and
book a call with our team.
Okay, until next time, go outthere, flip houses like a girl,
leave people in places betterthan you find them, and make it
a great day.
Bye-oh.
You're listening to the Flip Houses Like a Girl
podcast, where we educate,empower and celebrate everyday
women who are facing their fears, juggling family and business,
embracing their awesomeness andwholeheartedly chasing their
dream of flipping houses.
Each episode delivers honest togoodness tools, tips and
(00:21):
strategies you can implementtoday to get closer to your
first or next successful houseflip.
Here's your spiky-hairedbreakfast taco-loving host.
House flipping coach DebbieDeViery.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hey there, I hope that you're having an easy day
and I'm excited to introduce youto Christine, who is one of our
Flip sisters in California andsince we recorded this episode,
she's actually joined ourcoaching staff, so we're super
excited about that.
Anyway, I'm happy to share thisconversation with you.
(01:03):
She takes us on her journey to20K in positive cash flow per
month on rental properties.
So she's going to take usthrough some of her properties
and, most importantly, she opensup about the mindset shifts she
(01:25):
had to have and her biggestchallenges, which all came from
inside her head, which they dofor all of us.
So I'm excited to share thisconversation.
It's a really powerfulconversation and she shares some
great tips and is just superreal with us.
(01:47):
So let's get into it.
Let's meet Christine.
You want to start withintroducing yourself and letting
us know who you are, where youare and what you're up to in the
world?
Sure, my name is Christine.
I live in Southern Californiawith my family.
I have two kids, 17 and almost13.
(02:07):
And my husband is self-employed.
I have been, my background isengineering, and I've been
working in my field for a longtime, almost 30 years.
It's been a great career, butI'm a little burnt out, so that
(02:28):
was definitely one of thereasons why I started looking at
real estate.
Yeah, what do you do?
What kind of engineering do youdo?
So my focus is lighting andcontrols for buildings.
Oh, I do remember that.
Okay, so I worked as aconsultant for several years and
then I went onto the sales side, but in the same field.
(02:51):
Okay, got it.
So I've been there for almost 20years.
And have you?
Where are you?
In Southern California,Torrance, so Los Angeles area.
How long have you been there?
27 years since college.
Were you in Ohio before?
No, I went to school at theUniversity of Colorado.
(03:12):
Okay, so I was in Boulder whichis an amazing place.
That campus, beautiful campus.
Oh, what a cool place to growinto being an adult.
That's awesome.
Okay.
So, southern Cal been there areally long time, I've been in
(03:32):
engineering a really long timeand my guess is you see real
estate investing as kind of likeyour next step, Like it's the
end goal, is cash flow.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
Yeah, I'm going to replace mysalary, got it?
(03:52):
When did you get into investing?
When did you buy your firstproperty?
So, my, the first deal I everdid was in 2019 and that was a
flip.
Okay, it was a tiny littlehouse and it was cosmetic for
the most part.
I did most of the work myselfand it was the most fun I've
(04:13):
ever had in my life.
Yeah, oh, wow, I've been in itfor seven weeks and I just loved
every second.
It was just, I felt soaccomplished.
You know, it was one of thosethings where I got to the end of
it and I was so proud Icouldn't wait.
My realtor drove up and wascoming up the front steps and I
(04:35):
just remember thinking this ismy proud, you know.
Besides, like having mychildren, this is my proudest
moment.
Yes, yes, I could totallyrelate Absolutely.
Gosh, how did you end upknowing on that flip?
I did okay, I did make a littlebit of money, but you know I
didn't.
I didn't really have theeducation to really really know
(04:59):
how to do it, but I did wellenough to know that this, it
works Right and you enjoy it.
I loved it.
Yeah, sometimes people do theirfirst slip and they're like, no
thanks, not for me, I'll be aprivate money lender instead.
And it's like, yeah, that is agood role for you.
(05:21):
Yeah, were there any bigsurprises in that, or was it a
pretty smooth process?
A lot of the my subfloor had tobe replaced.
Pretty much A lot of it hadwater damage, so that I wasn't
counting on.
But other than that, everythingwas not necessarily included in
(05:44):
my budget, just because thereare so many things you don't
think about, but it was notsurprising.
Yeah, nice, how did you findthat deal, mls?
Yes, okay, so you did yourfirst slip, made a little profit
, and then what happened?
And then I decided that I reallywanted to start to build the
(06:05):
cash flow and rentals was how Iwanted to do it.
So I started kind of lookinginto you know how do you do that
, and there were so many options.
It was a little overwhelming atfirst, but I decided that I
definitely wanted to do valueadd and my properties.
(06:27):
That was important to me and Ilooked at a bunch of different
markets and settled on a couplewhich I'll talk about.
But I had a lot of self-doubt.
There was definitely, you know,the voice inside of your head,
the bully.
I do, I do, yeah, I know herwell.
She's pretty mean, she's somean, she's the worst, the worst
(06:52):
, yeah, the worst.
She was like you can't do thisInteresting.
She wasn't saying that aboutthe flip no, okay, very
interesting, no, but you know, Ithink if I took long enough to
think about it, she probablywould have.
But for sure, for sure, withthe rentals.
(07:17):
She was like you cannot build aportfolio, like, no, who do you
think you are?
Wow, yeah, that is reallyinteresting.
Golly, so, yeah, how did youhandle it?
How'd you handle her?
I actually I hired a.
I call her a coach.
She was therapist.
(07:37):
That was my first move.
There's a very fine line, thedifference and she was amazing.
But she really helped me toretrain the voice, so that
helped a lot.
And that was a process that wasprobably a two year, two, two
(08:00):
and a half year process.
I also educated myself and itwas interesting because I
actually found your podcastwhile I was working on that flip
.
It was summer of 2019.
Oh my, you were on your secondepisode.
Oh my gosh, that is bananas.
Holy cow, wow, that gives mechills.
(08:22):
That's great.
And I was like, oh my gosh,this is amazing.
I love Debbie.
Oh my gosh.
But in my head I wasn't flippingRight, right Back then, I mean.
So I was like, okay, I'm, I'mgonna.
I you know, I kept followingyou, but I wanted to.
I ended up taking a burr class,basically.
(08:43):
So I took that class and it wasgood in that I learned the
mechanics of a burr, Iunderstood hard money, that sort
of thing, but the mindset wasnot addressed.
It is the biggest thing, oh mygosh.
So I started to.
(09:06):
I did start to buy properties,but still I was just paralyzed
at some points.
I was like I don't know whatI'm doing.
I still didn't think I could doit, wow.
So I started by.
The first property I bought wasin May of 2021.
(09:30):
And I was petrified, terrified,but it did end up going well, I
think that eventually I decidedwhat I was doing was flipping.
It was just to a different setof comps, if you will, yeah.
(09:50):
So it took me a little while tobe like yep, this is the place
I want to be, yes, so it's sohard to talk about.
You get it, you understand theterminology, value add, I can
say that, and most people don'tget that.
And so it's like okay, we'llcall it flipping.
Even though we're not alwaysselling the F-Lib, it's
(10:15):
improving.
I don't know how else to talkabout it to make people realize
that we're buying a property,we're improving it and then
we're either selling it orholding on to it.
Right, yeah, yeah, that'sinteresting, okay.
So when you were going to buyyour first rental in 2021, you
(10:40):
said you were petrified.
What were some of your biggestfears?
Like, what were your worries?
So that one is a short-termrental actually, okay, my
biggest worry always is alwayseconomic cycles.
So I think that is basically mybrain's way of sort of masking
(11:03):
the self-doubt.
You know I would be like, oh,but the economy might crash
right after I buy this property.
Oh, and what would happen ifthe economy crashed?
Oh, I could just the property.
I might not be able to pay themortgage, it will lose value.
You know, I saw myself likegoing into this place of like
(11:33):
something catastrophic is gonnahappen, oh my gosh.
Yes, very normal.
Yeah, and you did it.
Anyway, I did.
I did, you know, and thankfully,with that one, my husband has
his own thing.
He's supportive, verysupportive of me, but it's real
(11:54):
estate's not his jam.
However, with this one, becausewe were using a second home
loan, a vacation loan, and itwas a place that we went to
often.
It was in Arizona, in Phoenix,oh nice, he was on the mortgage,
you know, he was.
It helped, I have to say,helped a lot, because I was like
(12:17):
all right, you know, if I endup losing all this money, like
it's both of us Right, right,and at the moment, that's what I
needed, you know, at the moment, and I mean so it was great to
have his support.
He actually didn't go to thehouse for probably about I don't
(12:40):
know 10 months, maybe, untilafter I had rehabbed it,
furnished it.
It had been rented as ashort-term rental for a while,
but when he did, it was a veryproud moment for me.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, all of asudden you're different, yeah,
and you created this awesomespace and you did this awesome
(13:03):
stuff and big scary things I did.
Yeah, that's so cool.
Okay, that's your first rentaland that's an STR.
Do you still have it?
I do, okay, so let's talk abouthow you're managing that.
Or if you hired a propertymanager, how are you doing that?
Since you're in SouthernCalifornia Marpeze and Phoenix
(13:24):
how are you doing that?
So, for the construction, itwas COVID, so my kids were out
of school, so I just picked themup and we drove to Phoenix and
we did a rehab.
That was fantastic, and what Iloved was they both have a sense
of ownership of that property.
(13:45):
That is really cool.
My daughter helped me a lotwith the overall scheme, the
colors she loves, a good trip tohome goods, and my son helped
build every piece of furniture.
Like it was great.
(14:08):
It was a family affair.
My husband was here running hisbusiness, but I loved that they
were a part of it.
I know it is the best.
Yeah, so once I got it up andrunning, I do self-manage.
I feel like the online travelagencies make it so easy to
(14:28):
self-manage.
Yeah, you need a cleaner and arepair person.
That's what you need and thenyou need to be responsive.
You have to be responsive.
If you're not a responsiveperson, you need to hand that
off, because it's all about yourrating.
It is Like how well yourproperty does entirely falls on
(14:49):
your rating and that falls on.
Is this person responsive?
How quickly are they responding?
Yeah, all of that.
Yeah, you have a good team andyou use technology and you use
tech.
Yeah, which?
Everything you can.
Yeah, I'm a little olderprobably than the average first
(15:12):
time investor, so it doesn'tcome quite as naturally to me,
but now that I use it on a daily, maybe weekly, basis, it's fine
.
Like I figured it out, it'sfine.
Yeah, I think you're right, inline with everyone in our group.
Ok, good, we're all a bunch ofmiddle-aged women Doing this
(15:37):
thing.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Which is great.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's maybe why I feel so comfortable.
Yeah, yeah, ok, so that'sproperty one.
Tell me about property two.
Property two was a burr, like.
I bought it to rehab it, rentit and refinance it and rent it
as a long-term rental.
That one's a long-term, correct.
(16:00):
How did that process go for you?
It went OK.
It was a little harder becauseit was further away.
So this is.
I've moved to Ohio since thenfor my long terms.
I got it, so it's across thecountry.
It's a little bit harder tofind good contractors.
(16:21):
I found an excellent realtorout of the gate, so that's not
an issue, nice.
But the contractors were alittle bit harder.
I had to stay on top of them,which was from a distance, like
I didn't really know what thecondition was.
I had to rely on pictures andvideos to see where they were in
(16:45):
the process.
Yeah, and so that was tough,but it got done eventually.
It took longer, cost more thanI anticipated, but in the end it
was fine.
Okay, do you think it tooklonger and cost more because you
weren't there or who knows why?
(17:07):
I don't think it would have.
I think the cost was justthings that I missed.
Got it.
But I do think it took longerbecause I wasn't able to check
in on the property.
I think I've since done alittle more thorough job of
vetting my contractors, so thatdefinitely makes a difference.
(17:31):
Yeah, I think we get better atthat every time.
Yeah, what made you choose Ohioand what city?
Or is it different cities thatyou're focusing on?
Yeah, they're all in theCleveland area, either in the
city or in a suburb.
I looked at several differentcash flowing cities throughout
(17:53):
the country and, to be honest,it was all about the realtor
Interesting.
Yep, it was that great of anexperience it was.
I made contact with her.
She took me seriously.
He was incredibly responsiveand knew what I needed as an
(18:14):
out-of-state investor.
Not all realtors do, and that'sokay, but she got it.
She understood what I needed.
Nice, were you able to pull outas much cash as you thought you
were going to?
Not quite.
A couple of things happened.
So I bought that house in Marchof 2022.
(18:37):
Mm-hmm.
And by the time I went torefinance it, which was in
September there's a six-monthwait period, right?
Yeah, we got a season and bythe time I went to refinance the
property, the comps had gonedown a little bit.
So and actually I mentionedthis in the group.
(19:00):
I had an experience.
So the first time I had theproperty appraised the first
lender that I started workingwith they appraised the property
and it came in so low it wasjust over what I bought it for.
Oh my gosh, like they didn'teven try.
It was devastating.
(19:23):
It was like I looked at thecomps and I was like these are
the comps that aren't, arebarely livable.
Yeah, these are like the beforethey were, they were the before
comps and that.
But you know what it was?
It was super hard andeventually, after a little while
, I realized that I was tying myown self-worth to the value
(19:49):
that that appraiser had given tothem.
That random appraiser.
Oh my gosh, what an awesome,awesome self-awareness.
Kudos to you.
To even like get that.
It was actually someone elsewho pointed it out, but once,
(20:10):
once I heard it, I was likethat's exactly what's happening.
That resonates.
Oh my gosh, yeah, it is.
It's like how dare you?
Yeah, and I was, from then,able to unwind that, you know,
and it took a while, I would sayfor four weeks.
I didn't want to look at realestate, I just let that, you
(20:31):
know.
I canceled the application.
I was like I need to just takea beat.
And finally, and it was finebecause I bought the property in
cash, so it was, I wasn'tpaying an interest on my payment
or anything Gotcha, but Iwanted my money back.
I mean, do something else, yeah?
So about a month later Istarted the process again with a
(20:54):
different lender they, you know, obviously it was a different
appraiser and this time I did apacket, so found my own comps,
you know, put together this nicepacket with pictures and what I
had done to improve theproperty and the comps that I
was looking at.
And the second time it came in,I would say within about $3,000
(21:19):
of my idea of what it should be,and I was like, yes, good for
you.
So you got the pretty much.
You got the value you weretrying to get.
I did, I did.
I left a little more money inthe property than I had planned,
but that was okay with me.
It was, you know, it was mylearning experience and the
(21:41):
silver lining.
So with a rental, your cash flowis going to depend on your
mortgage payment, right, there'sthe income coming in and
there's your expenses Right.
And if you have a lower loanamount, your mortgage is less
Right, so your cash flow is moreRight.
It's, like you know, makesperfect sense.
(22:04):
But it wasn't until, like, Igot that first check after I had
refied and I'm like, oh my gosh, rent is $1250.
My mortgage is $550.
Oh my gosh, that's crazy.
So in the end it ended up likethe property performs like crazy
(22:28):
.
That's ridiculous.
Two and a quarter X orsomething like that.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I do payproperty management on that one.
So long-term rental, you'repaying property management.
What are they charging?
10, 15%, they charge 10.
Yeah, that's pretty standardfor the long-term stuff.
(22:48):
Yeah, nice, and, as it turnsout, worth every penny.
Yeah, okay.
So that was project, that wasproperty two, rental property
two, yeah, okay.
And then, so that was March oflast year, so then you joined
around, then I joined in.
(23:11):
I want to say it was aboutMemorial Day weekend, so end of
May, okay.
So then what was propertynumber three?
So, property number three, andI took a beat between the second
property, mostly because I wasstill working with that
(23:31):
self-doubt.
I was still kind of goingthrough that process.
The thing that started to reallychange it was the mindset work
that I was doing.
I mean, your program stressesthat, before you even look at a
(23:53):
number, you address mindset.
Yeah, and it was like ah, youknow right, it all comes back to
it.
It just does like everythingcomes back to what's going on in
here.
What are you telling yourself?
What story are you believing?
Yeah, yeah.
(24:13):
Are you listening to your innervoice?
Yeah, or are you saying youknow what?
There's data here?
Yeah, I don't have to have acrystal ball because I can look
at the data, which is reallyfantastic.
It takes the pressure off right.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
It really does it takes the pressure off.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
It's just the data.
Yes, thank you.
I'm glad you know most people,not most.
There are definitely somepeople who are like, oh, I don't
need mindset stuff and I'm likethat's usually a sign that you
might need a little bit, becauseit all comes back to it the
(24:53):
thing we're avoiding doing, thehard thing that we're avoiding
doing, whatever it is firing acontractor.
We're not doing it because thedata doesn't tell us that we
shouldn't fire that contractor.
We're not doing it because ofall the stuff we're saying in
(25:13):
our heads about it and how it'sgoing to be harder and it's all
going to.
You know, it's going to be thisand that and it's always the
answer.
If you're questioning whetheryou need to fire the person, you
probably need to fire theperson.
It's probably not a good fit,whoever that team member is.
But then we get all up in ourheads, second guess ourselves oh
, it's, my favorite part isfiguring that out and trying to
(25:38):
understand me, yep, and then youlearn and grow and do, and then
all of a sudden you gotsomething else that's popping up
.
It's like this constant thing.
So I'm glad you, I'm glad youget it.
I did and I got a lot out of it, and I think you know I'm a
numbers person, right, I lovenumbers.
(25:59):
You're an engineer, yeah,exactly so that that part really
spoke to me how to not justgather the data but how to use
it, how to interpret it in a waythat's going to help your
project be successful yeah, hugeyeah.
(26:20):
And help you reach your goals,because your goals might be
different than the next person's.
And so how do we apply that toyou and your track that you're
on?
Oh, I love it.
So you refinanced that one inOctober-ish, yeah, november.
I called close in November,yeah, ok.
And then you had to purchasesomething.
(26:44):
Before then, though, duringthat time, yeah, I went under
contract within a week ofgetting that check I was, by
that time, I mean, I could notbelieve the difference in my
mindset.
I was so ready and you know alittle bit I was chomping at the
(27:05):
bit, but also I had beenanalyzing properties.
I had been just looking at themarket so intently that it was
much easier at that point tofind a good deal.
You know, to know a deal was agood deal, yes, and to jump on
(27:27):
it immediately, yes, yes, butwait, was Property 3 in
California?
No, are they all in Ohio.
They're all, except for thefirst one, which is in Arizona.
That's right, ok, yeah, forsome reason I thought you bought
that.
I thought that two-story houseis maybe a duplex.
I thought that was a Californiaproperty.
I don't know why I assumed thatthat's weird.
(27:49):
It's not.
I probably didn't mention it,but it is.
It is in Ohio.
Yeah, ok, and that was Property3.
That was Property 3.
Yeah, that one came, tenantoccupied, ok, and I will
probably in June have one of theunits come vacant.
(28:09):
So I will have to do a turn inor rehab in that one, yeah, but
the second one, the secondtenant, we raised the rent.
He's staying.
You know it's stabilized so I'mnot going to touch it.
Nice, so basically, you justbought that one and it's kind of
turned key.
For now it is.
Yeah, are all of these close toeach other?
(28:33):
Like, are there certain pocketsthat you like the most?
The second and the third oneare very close to each other.
So the single family bar andthen the duplex are very close
to each other.
They're in the same zip code.
I like the zip code.
However, what I've realized is Iwanted to go to neighborhoods
(28:55):
with a little higher value,because and this is something
that I learned from your podcastbefore I even joined the
program because the spread ismore Right.
Right, it's all aboutpercentages, it is yeah, yeah,
and so there's a little morewiggle room.
Yes, in a property that has ahigher value, yes, yes.
(29:19):
So that's what I've been doingnow.
So the last property that Iclosed on, which was about two
weeks ago that one is in asuburb OK, ok, and that is a
burr OK.
And the property number three,the duplex did you get financing
(29:41):
for that or is that OK?
I did Conventional financing,since it's Conventional
financing Because you weren'tdoing any repairs or anything
initially, so Correct.
Then, what about for thisproperty?
Did you finance this or are youusing cash, or what are you
doing?
This one, I'm using hard money.
Okay, how has that process been?
(30:04):
Great, actually, I had thisneeds a garage.
That's a requirement by the city, so I it's the first time I'm
adding square footage to aproperty, so it was like oh,
okay, I wonder if the hard moneylender is going to cover that.
You just need to ask, you justneed to ask.
(30:26):
They do Not all of them would,but I found one that would, yeah
, and they're like yep,absolutely, we'll cover it.
You know, it's all based on thepercentage of the ARV.
Absolutely, they just want tomake sure they're not in.
They're in it up to a certainpercent.
They want to make sure theirinvestment is less than 70%, or
(30:51):
whatever, of the.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Now, what do you mean?
It requires a garage.
If it requires a garage, whyisn't there a garage?
Well, the city has thisrequirement that every house
needs to have a garage.
I've never heard this.
(31:12):
This is crazy.
I know it is something that isenforced at the time of a sale,
so and I don't know how longit's been a part of the city
agreements, but I did noticewhen I was there that every
house has a garage.
They're all in the backyard,you know.
(31:32):
So you have this long drivewayand that's one of the most
interesting things I've everheard.
Real estate is so weird.
I love it.
Is there a way to?
Can you make a garage apartment?
So that is definitely somethingthat's that I'm thinking about.
(31:53):
I did talk to the city, I'vetalked to them several times and
I'm, you know, building arelationship with them, trying
to definitely use honey.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
You know innocence right.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Exactly To attract the bees there.
So you know, little by little,I'm asking them questions like
that.
You know, I asked the shortterm rental.
No, that's an absolute.
No, I have considered mediumterm rental and that is a
possibility, but every tenanthas to be registered with the
(32:31):
city.
Oh, interesting, yes, so thatwould mean registering a new
tenant, every, you know, free,yeah, yeah.
So, and then my next question.
You know I'm spacing.
My next question is about youknow how I use this garage?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
So if it's possible to use it as a you know ADU or
you know converted or anythinglike that, so yeah, that's
really interesting.
This is the one that's moresuburban and so I guess it just
has its own, its own rules.
That garage thing is superinteresting.
(33:11):
I wonder what the deal isbehind that.
That's an interesting rule.
It is the.
The good thing for me as a buyerwas this was on the MLS, ok,
and it actually wasn't on myradar, the area wasn't, but my
realtor pointed it out to me andshe said hey, I think you
(33:34):
should look at this one becauseit's in a decent suburb, but
most homeowners are going to shyaway from this property because
they're not going to want toadd the garage because of that.
Yes, and I was like OK, so Ilooked at it and I got a couple
(33:57):
of quotes from garage companiesand turned out it wasn't really
that expensive.
Yeah, I was.
I was actually floored by howinexpensive it was to add the
garage.
I only need to add a one cargarage.
So, and as a rental, that thatworks just fine, yeah, but when
(34:21):
we went to make the offer, thehouse was listed for 80,000.
Ok, and I, you know that wasway more than I could pay with
my.
You know, once I put it throughthe deal, analyze everything,
but my number came out to be 60.
(34:41):
I want to say it was about 63.
So my realtor was like, ok, Ithink we should start at 60.
I was like, ok, let's do it.
I mean, what's the worst thatcould happen?
Right?
And they did not accept it.
They came back at 64.
Wow, that's a big jump.
I mean it's 20 percent Big jump.
(35:02):
Yeah, holy cow, exactly so.
I was like, let me sleep on it,let me you know.
So I, I looked at my dealanalyzer again.
I slept on it.
The next morning I woke up andI said 60,500.
Final off.
And they took it.
That's awesome, holy cow.
(35:25):
Had it been on the market along time?
Oh, not that long, less than amonth.
They just needed to sell.
Yeah, they were.
They were out.
Oh, got it OK.
And so, yeah, they, they wereanxious, and I think at that
point they had realized that thegarage was going to be a
(35:45):
challenge for a home buyer.
Yeah, what have you learned?
I know you've already sharedsome things you've learned about
yourself along the way.
Is there anything else thatyou've learned about yourself
along the way Of all theseprojects?
Oh for sure.
Wow, that's a really goodquestion.
I mean, I've learned a tonabout the process, but it's an
(36:07):
even question even betterquestion to ask what I've
learned about myself.
I think what I've learned aboutmyself is that I do need to look
at the data, I do need to seethe numbers, and it is a little
harder with rentals than it iswith sold properties, so I have
(36:31):
to rely on my realtor and myproperty manager.
But once I am able to look atthat and analyze it with real,
accurate numbers, yeah, my doubt, my self doubt, goes away.
I've realized that I can prettymuch tackle whatever comes at
(36:58):
me.
That's awesome.
I mean, that's a level ofself-trust right there.
That I'll be okay, I'll figureit out.
That's huge.
Yeah, I'll figure it out.
I think that's probably thebiggest lesson I've learned was
there's nothing that somebody'sgoing to throw at me that I
(37:20):
can't work my way through.
Somehow, some way, I willfigure it out and I will come
out on the other side yeah,you'll be okay, you'll be okay.
I think that's one of thebiggest things that we all learn
on this journey.
It all comes down to justtrusting ourselves.
That's huge.
(37:42):
What?
And maybe you know this andmaybe you don't want to share it
you don't have to.
You are buying for cash flow.
What's your monthly cash flowwith all your properties?
Sure, right now it's about2,500.
Nice, that is taking intoaccount property management.
(38:03):
That's also taking into accountCapEx, OpEx, my operating
expenses on the monthly basis,as well as setting aside money
for vacancy, for big repairs,water heaters, that sort of
thing.
Yes, that's something that,honestly, I would say.
(38:26):
Before I bought the Duplex,that was something that I
finally started to do was setaside that money on a monthly
basis.
Yes, what's left over after Ido that is, it's about 2,500 a
month.
That's fantastic.
That's on three properties,four properties yes, you're
(38:49):
right, three, because the lastone isn't cash flowing yet.
Yeah, okay, that's awesome.
Man, that's over 800 bucks perproperty.
That's awesome.
That's fantastic.
Do you have a goal that you'reaiming for?
I do.
I live in Southern California.
It's an expensive place to live.
(39:09):
Yes, my goal is $20,000 of cashflow.
Do you have a plan of howyou're going to get there?
I love that.
It's so important to have thatgoal and then back out of it to
be like no, you can totally getthat.
It's just this.
It's all just numbers.
Everything is just numbers.
(39:30):
It's X number of propertiesproducing X amount monthly
revenue, and you're there.
Do you have any reason to investanywhere other than Ohio?
Yes, you're going to gosomewhere else.
I'm so glad you asked thatquestion because I think, when I
first started in Ohio, I lovethe market as a cash flowing
(39:51):
market.
It's wonderful.
I love my team that I havethere.
However, I would like to, once Ihave a substantial portfolio
I'm thinking 10 to 12 doors I'dlike to go to a more
appreciating market.
It's a balance.
I feel like I want to diversify.
(40:12):
Yeah, yeah, I have the propertyin Arizona, which is definitely
an appreciated market.
Yeah, then I have the ones inOhio.
The good thing about Ohio isit's very stable.
Yes, even through the housingcrisis, their property values
did not change that much.
I love that.
(40:33):
I love that about Ohio, but Iwould like to go to somewhere
where there's a lot more jobgrowth, where there is more
population growth, wherebusinesses are moving.
That's where I think, yeah, thestability plays well for cash
flowing, absolutely.
Then, just like you said, theother factors play into a more
(40:55):
appreciating situation.
Are there certain ones you'reeyeballing.
Yes, my parents.
I've lost them both in the pasttwo years.
Oh gosh, I am so sorry.
That's awful, thank you.
They lived great lives, great,great life.
It's bittersweet, but I hadthem for a long time and they
(41:21):
both were happy with howeverything played out.
But they retired to Charlotte,north Carolina Cool, I'm not
sure that Charlotte is the city,but I love North Carolina.
The triangle, right, theresearch triangle yeah,
absolutely.
There are so many differentcities there that have a lot of
(41:46):
possibility.
Yeah, I do see myself goingthere.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I still have a lot of investors.
When I was just a real estatebroker and just getting into
real estate investing, I workedwith a lot of investors, mostly
from California.
(42:06):
A lot of them would just buyhouses over the phone with me
and I'm like this is so weird.
Okay, sure, never been here,but the numbers are fantastic.
This was, oh my gosh, so longago 16 years ago, 15, 16 years
ago.
But they invested here.
Most of them still own theirproperties.
(42:27):
They invested here.
They invested in the researchtriangle, north Carolina.
Then they bought cash flowingproperties in Ohio.
Oh, interesting, yeah, it'ssuper interesting.
I'm like that's so funny thatyou're naming these names Like
yeah, you have one short-termrental in there, do you have a
desire to have more?
(42:49):
See, I like to buy propertieswhere I can go like, hang out
for a while and I can go stay inthem.
Do you have a desire to buymore of those or do you prefer a
long-term?
I do have a preference for along-term.
I think that I will add amid-term rental at some point
this year, just because I wouldlike to accelerate the cash flow
(43:13):
a little bit and also givemyself the flexibility.
If I have one in Ohio, then Ihave a place to stay when I'm
visiting my properties.
So, yeah, short-term, I don'tthink I want more than one
short-term, just because it'snot what I'm interested in.
(43:35):
Yeah, but mid-term seems likethe happy medium, obsessed, if I
haven't made that clear.
I'm obsessed with mid-termrentals.
They're just short-term rentals.
We were talking at the beginning, before we started recording,
that it is very hands-on.
You've got to be responsive.
At least, I don't think we wererecording yet.
(43:56):
But with mid-terms, yeah, butit's dialed down a notch because
it's a month, two months, threemonths here, snowbirds here, so
it's nice and honestly, theyare about the same in terms of
Because with short-term rentals.
The expenses are so high withcleaning oh my gosh and with
(44:18):
people getting really upset atthe high cleaning fees, so I've
dialed some of those back sothat I can compete.
And people are going around,they're circumventing the
regulations, even though youhave to have a short-term permit
like in Austin, people don't.
They're flooding, flooding theshort-term rental market.
It's definitely over-saturated.
(44:40):
Mid-term is still more of asleeper.
Yeah, the same thing happenedin Phoenix too.
It got very saturated.
That's absolutely true.
Yeah, oh my gosh.
Well, I love your plan, I loveyour story.
Thank you, for I think it'sreally cool and interesting to
(45:02):
hear your journey.
Yeah, I think it's reallyinteresting and I appreciate you
sharing the real stuff.
Oh, thank you, because that'swhat most people don't talk
about, but it's really like yeah, no, I totally had so much
self-doubt Like I for surethought I was going to screw
everything up, but then you didit anyway, you know.
(45:23):
So, kudos to you, thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Anything else that you wantedto share about your journey or
anything we didn't touch on thatyou wanted to.
I think one point that I wouldlike to make about the
short-term and term rental and Ithink I kind of lucked out with
(45:46):
my Phoenix property, to behonest, but I've learned since
then is to evaluate it as along-term rental first, yes, and
then if it.
You know, if you end up, ifit's saturated, if the
regulations change, right,you've got somewhere to go.
You bought that in May of 2021.
(46:11):
Okay, so COVID had already.
Okay.
So what we were seeing waspeople who had short-term
rentals.
When COVID hit, it was likedone, and they didn't like pivot
fast enough into a long-termrental or anything else to get
people in, and it was just theywere just sitting empty.
Oh my gosh, that's an awesometip.
(46:32):
Absolutely, make sure it works.
It's just like with a flip wego into Make sure you have other
strategies that you can use.
You're not just relying on thatone thing and if that one thing
doesn't work, you're screwed.
Exactly, that's super smart.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
That's an awesome tip.
Well, thank you, it's beenwonderful.
(46:57):
Thank you, thank you for beingengaging in the group.
Really, it makes it that muchbetter.
So, thanks for being you.
I appreciate it very much.
Thank you, debbie, I appreciatethat.
Awesome, all right, well, Iwill see you in the group.
Okay, thanks, christine.
All right, bye, bye, whether youwant to buy, renovate and sell
(47:20):
houses or you want to buy,renovate and rent them out.
That's what we help you do.
We walk women through this verything all day, every day, and
while, of course, we show youthe steps, we walk you through
the process of it all.
But, just like Christine said,the most important piece is our
(47:44):
biggest focus and that's yourmindset, that's your limiting
beliefs, that's the story you'vebeen telling yourself about
whatever it is that has kept youstuck.
We all have them, we all havethese stories, we all have these
tapes.
But what are you doing to getwhere you want to go?
(48:05):
What are you doing to shineawareness on those thoughts and
that way of thinking that isn'tserving you?
That's what we're here to helpwith, because that part
translates into every area ofyour life.
All right, if you want to seeif we may be a good fit to work
(48:26):
together, go to herfirstslipcom,fill out the application and
book a call with our team.
Okay, until next time, go outthere, flip houses like a girl,
leave people in places betterthan you find them, and make it
a great day.
Bye-oh.
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