September 22, 2025 • 30 mins
In Episode 27 of The Rent-ish Podcast, Zach and Patrick sit down with Mary Ragano, Senior Marketing Leader at Innago and a real estate investor who dove into the market with zero prior experience. By day, Mary helps landlords and property managers streamline their rental businesses with intuitive software, but when it came to her own journey, she had to learn the ropes firsthand.
Tune in as Mary shares the story of her very first property: what sparked her interest in real estate, the challenges she faced as a beginner, and the key lessons she walked away with. Whether you’re just thinking about buying your first property or already managing a growing portfolio, this episode is full of relatable insights and takeaways you won’t want to miss.
Learn More https://innago.com/podcast/
Sponsors:
Innago is a free, online property management software designed for landlords, particularly those managing small to medium-sized portfolios. It offers a range of features to simplify tasks like rent collection, lease management, maintenance requests, and tenant screening.
Ledgre is an All-in-One Accounting Software Built for Rentals. Organize property transactions, track expenses, and automate rental accounting with simple software focused on your industry.
Cohorts where serious real estate leaders level up. Join a curated peer group of founders, principals, and GPs who meet monthly in small, high-value circles. No fluff—just real insights, real accountability, and direct access to people who’ve done it before.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
What's going on, everybody?
Welcome to the Rentish PodcastSeason 2.
I'm Zach, and I'm here with myco-host, Patrick.
We're two rookies chasing thedream of real estate investing.
In this podcast, we'll talkabout property management, wild
stories, and everything inbetween.
We don't know it all yet.
But that's the point.
(00:21):
We're learning as we go, justlike you.
We'll bring in the experts toeducate and inform us, and we'll
figure it out together.
So let's laugh, learn, and diveinto real estate side-by-side,
Patrick.
Let's get started.
What up?
Oh, you snuck in a what up.
I'd say you're two for two now.
Two episodes deep.
You got the intro done.
First take.
I think we don't need to do itagain.
(00:42):
Yeah, no, we're good.
I think you nailed it.
We're maturing and growing andI'm happy to watch your
maturity.
It's harder to memorize thanwhat up, I will say.
My whole line.
I've got lines now.
They're trusting me with lines.
When the producers came to uswith this whole thing, they gave
you the script and you werelike, oh no.
I have to Say things now?
What's my problem?
(01:03):
Patrick, how is your day going?
You're working on a little limeseltzer over there.
Good, yeah.
No, I had my coffee already.
But you've already caffeinatedup.
You're ready to talk about realestate and property management.
I'm ready.
Okay.
Yeah.
Because we've got a very specialguest.
I know.
She's sitting right here.
She is sitting right here.
And we're about to acknowledgeher starting now.
(01:23):
So we're going to do one of ourfavorite segments of the first
season.
We're going to introduce it forthe second season.
It's called My First Property.
And today...
We're going to explore how realestate professionals, even those
outside the typical investormold, took their first leap into
property ownership.
Today's guest is someone whoseday job is all about helping
landlords and property managerssucceed, but who also knows what
it's like to take that firststep herself.
(01:45):
And we're joined by Mary Regano,who is a senior marketing leader
at Enago, where she spends herdays helping landlords and
property managers across thecountry simplify their rental
business through powerful,intuitive software.
But behind the marketing mindsetis a real estate investor who
does decided to jump in withoutany experience.
In this episode, we're divinginto Mary's very first property,
what sparked her interest, howshe navigated the process, and
(02:08):
the lessons that she learned.
Mary, welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (02:11):
Thanks so much, guys.
Happy to be
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
here.
Patrick gave a little applause.
Can you pick this up on themics?
Can you pick up the golfapplause?
Okay, we'll get the soundboardand do a natural proper.
Welcome to the show.
This is for hardcore listenersof The Rent It.
Do we have fan names yet?
Renties?
The renties?
I like that, the renties.
So hardcore renties may know,the producers like that one too.
(02:38):
Hardcore renties may know fromthe first season that Mary was
on one of our very firstepisodes a couple times because
she was helping us out with thereal estate games that we
played.
Did you bring any games today?
SPEAKER_00 (02:48):
I did not.
I was not
SPEAKER_01 (02:50):
prepped for that.
Oh man, okay, that's okay.
Next time.
The producers, they were like,we can't.
UNKNOWN (02:55):
We can't.
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
We can't be too fun.
They said, we'll bring you backin one condition.
No more games.
No more games.
No, you helped us out lastseason, learned some real estate
terminology, but now you're hereto kind of share a little bit
about you and your backstory andwhere you come from and what
makes you tick.
SPEAKER_00 (03:10):
Yep, I am.
Okay,
SPEAKER_01 (03:11):
cool.
Well, share with us a little bitabout who you are.
We'd love to know.
I'm sure that Patrick and I willhave some questions for you
along the way, but tell us aboutyour journey into real estate
and property management.
What brought you here?
SPEAKER_00 (03:22):
Sure.
So I started investing inproperties in, I think it was
2019.
So what's that, six years ago?
SPEAKER_01 (03:29):
Jesus.
that's math yeah yeah sorry notto be dramatic that is six years
ago that's crazy wow that was areal jump scare
SPEAKER_00 (03:42):
for you six years ago um i started investing in
real estate and there was nolike i had no prior experience
no prior knowledge um just kindof found a building that worked
well and that we were interestedin and we got really lucky we
still We still own it today andit's been, we own more, but we
(04:02):
still own the first buildingthat we ever bought.
And yeah, it's been a great,great experience so far.
SPEAKER_01 (04:08):
Okay.
Well, I mean, you work closelywith landlords and property
managers and your role at Anago.
So I guess where, where did thatpassion come from?
Like what made you want tobecome one yourself?
SPEAKER_00 (04:19):
Yeah, for me, I think it's really, there were, I
guess two sides.
There's like the creative, likeromantic side.
And then there's the like veryfinancial and functional side.
So from the financial front,functional side.
I think I just very quicklylearned that relying exclusively
on a W-2 as income was probablynot going to get me to my goals
as quickly as I wanted to.
(04:39):
And I wanted just more financialfreedom.
And so I started looking intoall sorts of different avenues
for investing.
So stock market, and I hated it.
I started looking into like sidejobs.
I did all sorts.
I just looked into differentthings that I could do beyond
just like the day jobs that Ihad and really just kind of got
into real estate through mybrother.
(04:59):
He was the one who startedtalking to me a lot about just
where the potential was and Ithink at first I thought there
was this big hurdle that youneeded all this money in order
to get into it and he's the onethat really showed me that if
you play your cards right and dothings in a smart way that you
don't always need that muchmoney up front and that it's a
lot more attainable than I thinkI originally thought so that was
(05:20):
a big part of it and then theother side of me was so we
bought our first property inCincinnati in OTR which is where
we actually are currently Andthe
SPEAKER_01 (05:30):
Rentish Studios over the Rhine.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (05:34):
just like so when I was growing up, this was an area
that I never went to as a kid.
And when I graduated fromcollege and came down here and
again, visited my brother as hewas living down here, I was just
blown away by everything thatthey were doing and how they
were keeping the like thehistory of all the buildings and
the facades.
But they were just really likefinishing them up and making
them nicer.
(05:54):
And, you know, everybody wasmoving down here and there were
so many businesses that were andI just like wanted to be part of
it.
So I think it was really thatcombination that gave me the
confidence to like jump in
SPEAKER_01 (06:05):
with both feet.
And question for you, were you,so when you bought the rental
property, were you living inCincinnati at the time?
SPEAKER_00 (06:12):
I was not.
SPEAKER_01 (06:13):
Okay.
So how did that, how did thatwork?
Like doing a first time rentalinvestment in a place you
weren't living?
SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
Man, I got really lucky because the first one
really did go quite smoothly.
I say that having now gonethrough ones that did not go
smoothly.
So I can say with confidencethat it went very smoothly and
Yeah, I don't know.
So I didn't invest alone.
So I invested with my siblings.
Again, my brother, whooriginally had introduced me to
(06:39):
the idea of real estateinvesting, and then my other
brother.
So the three of us went in on ittogether.
And so they both lived inCincinnati.
So that helped.
And I was living in Chicago atthe time.
And so I think having some bootson the ground and some people
that I trusted that were goingto be there and driving by the
property every week or everyday, checking in on it, made it
so it felt way more feasibleRight.
(07:00):
And
SPEAKER_01 (07:02):
another question, because I think that's surprised
me about some of the people thatwe've talked to who bought their
first rental property is many ofthem were still renting
themselves.
Did you, were you also in thatsituation where you were renting
the property you were living in,but bought a property?
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (07:17):
Yeah.
And that's interesting.
Yes, I was renting and then webought this property.
So we bought this property andmy one, so again, it was the
three of us and my one brotheractually moved into the property
and that allowed us to getbetter loan terms which i'm sure
lots of people have talked aboutthat have been on here it's it's
i'm such a proponent of househacking the only thing i wish i
(07:39):
had done differently is done itearlier okay there's just so
much more opportunity and soyeah so that made it really
feasible but no the rest of uswere my other brother and i were
both renting at the time that webought our first property so it
wasn't until a couple yearslater that i actually bought my
first place in chicago so gotcha
SPEAKER_01 (07:58):
yeah well now we've had two guests on the show that
that have done that same thing,the renting in a property,
buying an investment property.
So that's more proof for you,buddy.
You can do it yourself.
Yeah, exactly.
I've been hearing, because youthink like, okay, before you buy
a rental property, you have toown the property you live in,
which doesn't seem like that hasto be the case.
Oftentimes it isn't.
That seemed conventional wisdomto us, though.
(08:19):
Like for me, at least growingup, it was like, oh, your first
property should be one that youbuy that you live in.
But now it's like, that's so notthe case that, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (08:26):
Yeah, and I think, you know, if I were, so you
definitely Definitely don't haveto.
If I were to do it a differentway and to buy my first
property, I would still do thehouse hacking because I just
think that there's so muchopportunity with that.
You can have somebody else thateffectively covers your mortgage
for you.
And so as long as you can coverthe down payment, there's just
(08:47):
very little risk in doing itthat way.
SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
And just as a refresher with that whole house
hacking term, I know we coveredit last season, but for newer
listeners and those of us thatmay have forgotten exactly what
that means.
It's been a long summer break.
SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
Definitely not you.
SPEAKER_01 (09:04):
Not me, no.
I think I remember what itmeans.
Can I guess?
SPEAKER_00 (09:08):
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (09:08):
Okay.
Is that where you live in aproperty and rent out another
portion of that property tosomebody else?
SPEAKER_00 (09:15):
Correct, yep.
So some people do it where theymight buy a three-bedroom
apartment and they rent out oneof the bedrooms.
So they rent it out to theirfriends.
A lot of people will do that,especially if you're young and
you're single.
Other people, like the first onethat we house outside of the
property that my brother livedin.
My husband and I actually househacked in Chicago and we bought
a duplex.
So we lived in one of theapartments and we rented out the
(09:37):
other apartment.
SPEAKER_01 (09:38):
So that's like that specifically is something you're
a major proponent of.
Yes.
Like, OK,
SPEAKER_00 (09:42):
huge because it's a it's a it's a quicker way to
acquire more and moreproperties.
And so what you'll see is someinvestors do is they'll
especially if you start, youknow, earlier in life, you can
jump from property to property.
So like you go, you have to livein the property for a year and
you probably want to live in theproperty like stay stationary
for a year so you go out you buythe property you start house
(10:04):
hacking you live there for ayear then you can go on and get
your next property and you getrenters for that existing one
and it's a way to build out yourportfolio in a very affordable
way because when you do when youbuy it and you're going to live
in it you're not required to putas much down as you do an
investment property requires a20% minimum down payment
SPEAKER_01 (10:23):
but when you're living in it you get the FHA
loan or whatever
SPEAKER_00 (10:26):
it's right exactly so then you can now there's like
Look at you
SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
pulling the letters out of your pocket like
SPEAKER_00 (10:34):
that.
People listening might be like,well, FHA doesn't always apply.
And that's fair.
There's limits and there'scertain things that can restrict
you on it.
But there's again, there's justa lot more opportunity when it's
seen as a purchase that'sintended for personal use and
not for business use.
And so it gives you a lot moreflexibility.
You can also get better likeconstruction loan terms.
(10:56):
So if you buy a place that needsto be renovated, you can do that
a little bit easier.
So there's just a lot moreopportunity if it's a place that
you're actually going to livein.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
Got it.
Well, tell us a little bit,speaking of the place itself.
So your first investmentproperty, tell us about the
place.
Why was it that location?
Other than the fact that it wasjust over the Rhine and it's a
cool
SPEAKER_00 (11:14):
area.
SPEAKER_01 (11:14):
But was there anything else about the
building, anything about thestyle of the place that you
ended up landing on that madeyou want to go there?
SPEAKER_00 (11:20):
Yeah, so we had looked at a couple and we talked
about it for like a year.
It took us a long time to pullthe trigger on it.
And I think, again, becausethere was just this scary hurdle
of like, can we do this?
Like, this seems like a lot.
Like, we don't know anythingabout real estate.
Like, what are we doing?
And so we'd been looking for awhile and I would say all
different types of places.
We looked at condos, we lookedat buildings.
And this one, honestly, I thinkwhat really pulled the trigger
(11:42):
on this one is I rememberwalking through the building and
we had a real estate agent and Ibelieve her name was Linda.
She walked us through thebuilding and there was another
group that was walking throughthe building at the same time of
us with a different real estateagent.
And the real estate agent keptpointing out all these issues
with the building because it wasa good we were like this is a
great place like for the area wewere so excited and he starts
(12:04):
pointing out all these issueswith the building to the to the
people who's walking through usand he was like you don't get
this building there's a messthere there's a mess there this
is going to cost you a fortunethis is a like a money pit and
our Linda our real estate agentturned to us and she whispered
and she goes this guy doesn'tknow what he's talking about and
he said I'll explain when we getoutside and so we got outside
and she was like all thosethings that he pointed out are
(12:26):
valid like they need to be fixedbut she's like they're not going
to cost the type of money thathe's talking about.
This is a great investment.
There's so much potential here.
And I think we just like trustedLinda and did it.
And we were like, this is reallylike, we got to jump on this
one.
And yeah, I feel like it waslike one of those just like
stars aligned.
And we were like, let's try it.
And we threw out an offer thatwe were like, we felt confident
(12:48):
in.
It was definitely below asking,but we were like, let's just
see, like, let's see if we caneven like get them to like play
ball with us.
And they did.
And so then that's kind of
SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
how
SPEAKER_00 (12:57):
it, all because of Linda.
SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
Wow.
And was, and Linda was right.
Like the fixes didn't end up
SPEAKER_00 (13:02):
costing.
And Linda was right.
Wow.
Okay.
We got to have Linda
SPEAKER_01 (13:05):
on the pod.
Hashtag Linda was right.
Get that trending.
SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
She knew what she was talking about.
So it ended up working.
We also did after all of that, Ishouldn't just say, we were
like, we just said Linda andthen we just did it.
We had, we knew somecontractors.
We had them walk through thebuilding with us.
And so we started to firm upquotes.
We built out like a pro form.
We did all the right stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (13:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:25):
But we, she's really what made us like, maybe we
should look at this one.
Like maybe we should get alittle bit more serious about
it.
SPEAKER_01 (13:31):
This question might sound negative.
SPEAKER_00 (13:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:34):
Going through the entire process of looking for an
investment property, gettingexcited about it, finding this,
giving an offer that you thinkis a good offer that you believe
in, but it was lower than theasking price and getting
accepted.
Does that feel like a rarePokemon now than compared to
when it did when you originallybought the property?
SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
Yes.
You know, it's now I've gonethrough the process of buying
investment properties and buyingmy house that I live in.
And I think those two are verydifferent scenarios.
For an investment property, forall of our investment
properties, we focus onbuildings that we want to
renovate because we feel like wehave the most opportunity to
negotiate and get the types ofdeals that we want.
(14:15):
And now that we've done itenough times, we feel like we
have enough comfort in doing itthat way, bringing the value
back to the building and thenrenting it out.
So we feel like that's where wecan get the most bang for our
buck, I guess.
So we've had good success withthat.
I will say, though, on thereverse side, buying a house for
myself, I certainly was not ableto have the same type of
(14:35):
negotiating power that I didwith like trying to buy
investment property.
So I think the deals are stillout there.
You just have to be willing tosometimes take a little bit of a
risk.
If the property is in perfectcondition, that's the place that
everyone wants, right?
If it needs no work, if itdoesn't need a creative eye or
whatever, that's whereeveryone's going after.
(14:56):
And so those ones aren't goingto go significantly under
asking.
But the one that like, you know,there's some issues and yeah,
it's going to take a littleelbow grease and stuff.
Those are the ones where thebest example I have is there's
so many people that sellproperties that don't clean
them.
So then you have buyers walkingthrough and they're like, this
place is dirty.
There's so many issues with it.
And really there aren't.
It's just some people havetrouble seeing past that.
SPEAKER_01 (15:17):
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_00 (15:18):
And so we always find a lot of opportunity with
that.
If the person looks like they'vekind of just let it, you know,
run amok, sometimes it's reallynot in that bad a condition.
It just needs a good coat ofpaint, clean, and you can get a
pretty good deal on those onestoo.
SPEAKER_01 (15:32):
Okay.
Okay.
So yeah, quick question.
Something that you said made mejust think of this.
So, and like the last part, it'skind of not necessarily what I'm
asking about, but like aproperty that needs more like
actual work, like more money tofix important things.
Obviously like you could getlike a lower price on the
property for it, but that pricethat you would be paying in
(15:55):
renovation isn't included inlike mortgage payments, right?
Like you have to pay thatupfront.
So is that something like thatyou really have to consider?
Like, let's say there's like aproperty that you get a really
good deal on, but it requires somuch money in renovations that
you can't afford that.
Whereas you might be able toafford a property that's more
expensive, but you can, youdon't have to do as many
(16:15):
renovations and don't have to doas big of a down payment
essentially.
SPEAKER_00 (16:18):
Right.
Absolutely.
I mean, all those things have tobe factored in and you can get
construction loans.
And the nice thing about whenyou do an FHA is you can get
what's you to roll yourconstruction loan into your home
mortgage loan and the reasonthat's beneficial is because
construction loans carry muchhigher interest rates than like
(16:39):
a traditional home loan sothere's opportunities to like
get creative again with yourfinancing but yes you're exactly
right there could be times whereyou'd rather buy the smaller
condo unit that's in goodcondition or the smaller
building that's again in goodcondition and doesn't need as
much because you don't have asmuch cash up front but you can
cover them mortgage payments, orthere might be times when you're
(17:01):
like, you know, we've got alittle bit of cash.
We can put it in, we can makethe renovations and we can make
this worth a lot more money thanit's worth or get higher rent
payments.
And we're going to go thatroute.
It just, it does depend on your,on your situation.
And I've had partners for mostof my, most of the buildings
that we've bought.
And so that helps a lot becauseyou're spreading the risk out
among more than just one person.
SPEAKER_01 (17:22):
Sure.
Cool.
Well, speaking of construction,you had your search, you talked
to Linda, Linda rocks, you gotthe place.
What, what challenges did youface that maybe you didn't
really expect to face?
Because you said that it wentvery smooth and you're lucky for
it going very smooth, butcertainly there must have been
some things that were roadblocksalong the way and any hurdles
that came up along the process.
SPEAKER_00 (17:42):
Yeah, on the first one, again, like I said, I mean,
man, we got lucky because itreally was relatively smooth.
I think the biggest hurdle thatwe faced was that because of the
area that we bought in, therewere certain historical
requirements.
So they weren't necessarilylike, you didn't need it for the
structure of the building or forany other purpose.
other than that it was just arequirement due to like the
(18:02):
historical nature of thebuilding right so we had to make
some changes to certain thingsand one of the things that we
had to do was we had to getspecial windows and our
contractors ordered those lateand right now as I'm saying it
I'm like it was a really minorissue but at the time it felt
really big because again likethis was my first investment and
you know it wasn't like you knowwe had money tied up in it and
(18:25):
you're like oh my god like thecontractors made a massive
mistake they forgot to order thewindows on time and on honestly
ultimately it put us back liketwo months it really wasn't the
end of the world but we had towait until those came in because
we couldn't start renting it outuntil we got the new windows in
and we could install them rightum and so honestly that was
really the biggest with ourfirst building that was really
the biggest hiccup that we facedright out of the gate now we had
(18:48):
issues with tenants later onwe've had issues with other
buildings down the road youoccasionally get a unicorn like
that where things go smoothlyand we just got lucky that it
was our first building But I'vecertainly had issues since.
It has not always gone thatsmoothly.
SPEAKER_01 (19:02):
Was it smooth with the closing process then?
Like right before that too, likenothing you wish you would have
negotiated for or anything?
SPEAKER_00 (19:08):
No, again, we got really lucky.
So the people that owned thebuilding were out-of-state
investors and they had just madea lot of like really, like for
lack of a better way of sayingit, kind of dumb mistakes.
They had just like, they wereout of town.
They weren't doing a good job ofkeeping up with the contractors.
So the contractors were kind oftaking shortcuts.
And then again, some of thatstuff that I was just
describing, like not expensive.
(19:28):
things but just historicalrequirements they were totally
oblivious to so they hadn't doneit right so there were just a
lot of like just dumb thingsthat they were doing and so they
were really eager to get it offtheir hands and so that gave us
a lot of negotiating power andso we just came back and you
know when we did the inspectionwe came back and knocked off for
(19:49):
certain things and again evenout of the gate we we came in on
I think we went back and forthmaybe they came back with a
different price and then we cameback and we met somewhere in the
middle And that's where weultimately netted out.
But no, honestly, that one was,it really went quite, like I
said, quite smoothly.
SPEAKER_01 (20:06):
That's cool.
I mean, that gives certain hopefor people listening, people
like us.
I cannot guarantee that it willalways go that way.
Oh, I know, for sure.
I was going to say, I know thisepisode is more about your first
property, but what's one of thebigger issues that you had with
a property that you boughtafterwards?
SPEAKER_00 (20:23):
We bought a property that was, again, another
renovation, probably a biggerrenovation than And then the
first one that we had bought andour contractor went AWOL halfway
through the project with ourmoney.
And it was like a chunk ofmoney.
And so that was a huge issue.
So yeah, that was very scary andvery like, are we ever like what
we had moments in that one wherewe asked ourselves, like, should
(20:46):
we just cut our losses and sellthis?
Like this is like, and just tryto make back any portion of what
we've put into it.
And we ultimately, we found anew contractor.
We had our hurdles even withthat contract.
contractor and we ultimately didget it rented but we bought the
property with the expectexpectation of it taking I think
(21:06):
four months is what we had likeearmarked in terms of
renovations and it took twoyears oh wow so and again like
we lost a lot of money with thatfirst contractor and never got
it back
SPEAKER_01 (21:18):
wow so what's so
SPEAKER_00 (21:21):
not to scare I mean I think this is about like first
time buying and like you can doit and you can everyone that's
talked
SPEAKER_01 (21:27):
about first time buying is has run into like some
kind of hurt.
So these are things that peopleneed to be aware of.
That's kind of, cause I, yeah,that could have, you got, like
you said, you got lucky withyour first time, but it could
have been worse.
So I guess like, what'ssomething that you learned from
that experience that if anotherfirst time buyer ran into that
on their first time, like thatyou would tell them as advice or
(21:47):
like something you learned?
SPEAKER_00 (21:48):
Yeah.
Well, there's a couple ofthings.
So one is I think on, in termsof things we did well, again,
we, I never bought by myself.
So we spread the costs out amonga couple of us and that really
helped because while you wereinvesting money and it sure it
was a chunk of money it wasn'tnothing it wasn't like I put my
savings into this and it wasthis like very risky thing it
(22:08):
spread it a little bit yeahwhich I think especially when
you're newer to it and you don'tyou haven't built up the
experience to know what you'redoing it's a it's a safer way to
do it when you kind of you'renot going to get as much return
because you're splitting withpeople but at least you give
yourself a bit of a safety netright so I would do you know for
anyone who's interested if youcan find people that you trust
and that you want to work withit's a great way to like jump I
(22:29):
can see Patrick looking over atyou.
You and
SPEAKER_01 (22:31):
me, you and me.
We talked
SPEAKER_00 (22:32):
about it before.
SPEAKER_01 (22:32):
I heard they're looking for a new buyer at Carew
Tower.
You want to go 50-50 on that badboy?
Turn it into a recording studio?
I'm going to reopen
SPEAKER_00 (22:41):
the observations.
I can see the wheels turningover there.
Like, oh, that's all I have todo.
If I find someone, I'll
SPEAKER_01 (22:45):
do it.
SPEAKER_00 (22:46):
It'll be crazy, though.
So I think that was one biglearning.
And again, something that wedid, that we actually did do
well.
The thing that we didn't dowell, and I'm almost embarrassed
to say it, because saying it outloud, you're like, yeah, no,
duh.
No.
Be smart.
But we actually didn't have acontract with our contractor.
And that's one thing that Ilearned is so often, again, you
(23:06):
don't know anything when you'regoing into it.
And these contractors come toyou and they know everything,
right?
Like they've done this a milliontimes.
And so you kind of just followtheir lead.
And so he kind of like, we methim.
He seemed fine.
I mean, he was like, he wasn'tmy favorite person in the world,
but he was fine.
Like he was a contractor.
He was knowledgeable.
He was available, which was ahuge piece of it.
So we just sort of followed hislead on things.
(23:28):
And there's things that goingback we should have done better
and that was one thing like geta contract that says projects
will be done by this or like youknow payments will be allocated
in such a way because whathappened is when he ran away
with the money we had no legalrecourse we went and got a
lawyer because we were like howdo we we got to get our money
back and we had no there was nocontract so the guy had kind of
(23:51):
pulled one over us there wasbasically
SPEAKER_01 (23:52):
like no proof that you had hired him essentially
SPEAKER_00 (23:55):
well no there's proof that we had hired him but
but technically he could justsay I'm still working on it but
it had been months since he hadbeen at the property so there
was no way to like enforce itbecause we had not put anything
in writing so it was truly likethis unenforceable issue and so
if I were to go back I wouldjust be a lot more strict with
(24:16):
things like that and I would Ithink again you just kind of are
like okay like just tell me whatto do like tell me where to sign
and I had heard before likedon't pay the contractors until
they do the work and they haddone the work they told us it
was done but we didn't go andreally like bring an inspector
through or check it.
And so, yeah, there were just,it was just silly things that
like, again, they're almostembarrassing to say, but that's
SPEAKER_01 (24:35):
good to know.
Like, I wouldn't think of thatthough.
You know, if it was my firsttime, I'll be like, this guy
knows everything.
SPEAKER_00 (24:40):
Right.
Like, Oh, this is, and we, wedid, I shouldn't say that.
We signed a contract.
There were just, it was a verylike flimsy contract.
There were no dates assigned toit.
There was no recourse.
Like what happens if you'reunhappy with a product?
Like there's so many more andyou can look up online, there's
free contracts out there, or youcan, again, you can pay for
legal resources to put somethingtogether for you and we should
(25:02):
have done that but so we had acontract it just was a
SPEAKER_01 (25:06):
not enough yeah i see okay well that is a good
word of warning i think to a lotof people and
SPEAKER_00 (25:11):
yeah get a contract
SPEAKER_01 (25:13):
get a contract get a
SPEAKER_00 (25:14):
contract
SPEAKER_01 (25:15):
and if you can't it like legal like hiring a lawyer
might be like out of the out ofthe budget for a lot of people
but there's a lot of good online
SPEAKER_00 (25:22):
resources and ai is super helpful okay shout out to
SPEAKER_01 (25:28):
ai Little did you know, Patrick and I are AI this
whole time.
You've just been listening totwo robots talk on this podcast
for two seasons.
All right.
I'm sure we'll have you back atsome point, Mary, to talk about
further on in your career andwhat you've done with other
properties and other challenges,hurdles, stories, and stuff like
that.
Patrick, did you have anylast-minute questions that you
wanted to ask Mary about?
No, I feel like I'm learning.
(25:49):
You know what I mean?
I know that's the point of thepodcast, but I feel like you
have people on and we talk aboutstuff and it's just kind of
like, oh, yeah, whatever.
We're just doing it.
but then now in the secondseason it's like oh like I
remember things and the morethat Mary tells me about her
experience it's like I learn newthings but I already like have
enough knowledge to where likeit's kind of like all coming
(26:09):
together and I feel I don't knowit feels good I mean you pulled
that acronym right out of thereyou're so confident too it's
awesome
SPEAKER_00 (26:16):
and I will say like that's how it is even buying
your properties like now that Iown multiple again I can look
back and be like that was sostupid you only know what you
don't know once you get past ityou know like once you're in the
future you can look back and belike man I knew nothing I guess
that's the thing is like nobodyreally knows what they're doing
you kind of just jump in and youfigure it out as you go and you
get smarter with each one andwith each year that passes and
(26:38):
with each experience and there'snothing if you're sitting around
waiting for like well I justgotta get this much knowledge or
I gotta read these books or Igotta do this like you will
never feel prepared there wasnothing that will ever prepare
you you just gotta do it andthen you learn
SPEAKER_01 (26:53):
I don't think we can say anything more profound than
that so I think we're gonna goahead and just end it right here
See you guys.
We're going to just end theshow.
Thank you guys for listening toanother episode of the Rentish
Podcast.
Thank you, Mary Regano, forjoining us on this episode.
It's been fun to talk with you.
We did this for a few of ourother interviewees and I think
we're going to keep thistradition alive just as a fun
conversation.
What's your favorite movie ofall time?
(27:14):
Patrick and I are movie guys andso we talk about movies and go
back and forth stuff on thepodcast.
One of your favorite movies ofall time.
You don't have to say the bestof the best.
You
SPEAKER_00 (27:23):
guys, this is so embarrassing because I don't
even know.
And you guys are movie guys.
and it's going to be some reallyembarrassing.
There's nothing embarrassing.
You know
SPEAKER_01 (27:31):
what's more embarrassing is pretending like
you like a movie that youactually don't like.
Or that I've never seen.
I love that movie.
It could be a Pixar movie.
It could be Finding Nemo.
Finding Nemo is awesome.
I was about to say you got beefagainst Finding Nemo.
Finding Nemo is a great movie.
(27:52):
I'm just saying it seems likeyou're leading.
You better pick Finding Nemo.
It could be one of those.
It could be like an old funaction movie, Christmas movie.
I'm like, it's anything, notjust like the best of the best.
SPEAKER_00 (28:04):
I would say the movies that give me the most
nostalgia are obviously theHarry Potter series because I
feel like you hear that musicand you're like, okay, it's
Christmas
SPEAKER_01 (28:12):
time.
SPEAKER_00 (28:13):
I was really obsessed for a long time with
the movie He's Just Not ThatInto You, which is like a
romantic comedy.
I have not
SPEAKER_01 (28:19):
seen it.
SPEAKER_00 (28:20):
Oh my God.
I have not seen it either.
You're not missing anything.
It's really not worth it.
But I was really, that's likethe last time I remember being
like obsessed with a movie andwatching it multiple times other
than that man
SPEAKER_01 (28:31):
she's just not that into you I'll ask my girlfriend
about it and then we'll probablywatch
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
it so maybe I shouldn't ask her that's the way
to do it is watch it yeah watchit with your girlfriend but yeah
probably that and then now Ijust live the life of yeah
Disney movies and Pixar moviesand Paw Patrol so
SPEAKER_01 (28:49):
alright cool well stay tuned for the next episode
of the Rentish podcast wherePatrick talks about she's not
that into you but yeah thank youThank you guys for listening to
another episode of the show.
As a reminder, follow us atTheRentishPod on socials.
You can go to questions atTheRentishPod.com if you have a
question, a comment, a topicsuggestion, or just a fun
(29:10):
interviewee thing that you wantto hear us ask our next guest
about.
You can email those questionsthere.
Don't forget if you're listeningon Spotify or Apple Podcasts to
give us a review.
Take that star and just drag itas far as it'll go to the
right-hand side of your screen.
Leave us a comment.
We'd appreciate you very, verymuch for listening.
Until next time, I've been ZachThat's been Patrick.
That's been Mary.
And we'll see you guys nexttime.
What's going on, everybody?
Welcome to the Rentish PodcastSeason 2.
I'm Zach, and I'm here with myco-host, Patrick.
We're two rookies chasing thedream of real estate investing.
In this podcast, we'll talkabout property management, wild
stories, and everything inbetween.
We don't know it all yet.
But that's the point.
(00:21):
We're learning as we go, justlike you.
We'll bring in the experts toeducate and inform us, and we'll
figure it out together.
So let's laugh, learn, and diveinto real estate side-by-side,
Patrick.
Let's get started.
What up?
Oh, you snuck in a what up.
I'd say you're two for two now.
Two episodes deep.
You got the intro done.
First take.
I think we don't need to do itagain.
(00:42):
Yeah, no, we're good.
I think you nailed it.
We're maturing and growing andI'm happy to watch your
maturity.
It's harder to memorize thanwhat up, I will say.
My whole line.
I've got lines now.
They're trusting me with lines.
When the producers came to uswith this whole thing, they gave
you the script and you werelike, oh no.
I have to Say things now?
What's my problem?
(01:03):
Patrick, how is your day going?
You're working on a little limeseltzer over there.
Good, yeah.
No, I had my coffee already.
But you've already caffeinatedup.
You're ready to talk about realestate and property management.
I'm ready.
Okay.
Yeah.
Because we've got a very specialguest.
I know.
She's sitting right here.
She is sitting right here.
And we're about to acknowledgeher starting now.
(01:23):
So we're going to do one of ourfavorite segments of the first
season.
We're going to introduce it forthe second season.
It's called My First Property.
And today...
We're going to explore how realestate professionals, even those
outside the typical investormold, took their first leap into
property ownership.
Today's guest is someone whoseday job is all about helping
landlords and property managerssucceed, but who also knows what
it's like to take that firststep herself.
(01:45):
And we're joined by Mary Regano,who is a senior marketing leader
at Enago, where she spends herdays helping landlords and
property managers across thecountry simplify their rental
business through powerful,intuitive software.
But behind the marketing mindsetis a real estate investor who
does decided to jump in withoutany experience.
In this episode, we're divinginto Mary's very first property,
what sparked her interest, howshe navigated the process, and
(02:08):
the lessons that she learned.
Mary, welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (02:11):
Thanks so much, guys.
Happy to be
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
here.
Patrick gave a little applause.
Can you pick this up on themics?
Can you pick up the golfapplause?
Okay, we'll get the soundboardand do a natural proper.
Welcome to the show.
This is for hardcore listenersof The Rent It.
Do we have fan names yet?
Renties?
The renties?
I like that, the renties.
So hardcore renties may know,the producers like that one too.
(02:38):
Hardcore renties may know fromthe first season that Mary was
on one of our very firstepisodes a couple times because
she was helping us out with thereal estate games that we
played.
Did you bring any games today?
SPEAKER_00 (02:48):
I did not.
I was not
SPEAKER_01 (02:50):
prepped for that.
Oh man, okay, that's okay.
Next time.
The producers, they were like,we can't.
UNKNOWN (02:55):
We can't.
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
We can't be too fun.
They said, we'll bring you backin one condition.
No more games.
No more games.
No, you helped us out lastseason, learned some real estate
terminology, but now you're hereto kind of share a little bit
about you and your backstory andwhere you come from and what
makes you tick.
SPEAKER_00 (03:10):
Yep, I am.
Okay,
SPEAKER_01 (03:11):
cool.
Well, share with us a little bitabout who you are.
We'd love to know.
I'm sure that Patrick and I willhave some questions for you
along the way, but tell us aboutyour journey into real estate
and property management.
What brought you here?
SPEAKER_00 (03:22):
Sure.
So I started investing inproperties in, I think it was
2019.
So what's that, six years ago?
SPEAKER_01 (03:29):
Jesus.
that's math yeah yeah sorry notto be dramatic that is six years
ago that's crazy wow that was areal jump scare
SPEAKER_00 (03:42):
for you six years ago um i started investing in
real estate and there was nolike i had no prior experience
no prior knowledge um just kindof found a building that worked
well and that we were interestedin and we got really lucky we
still We still own it today andit's been, we own more, but we
(04:02):
still own the first buildingthat we ever bought.
And yeah, it's been a great,great experience so far.
SPEAKER_01 (04:08):
Okay.
Well, I mean, you work closelywith landlords and property
managers and your role at Anago.
So I guess where, where did thatpassion come from?
Like what made you want tobecome one yourself?
SPEAKER_00 (04:19):
Yeah, for me, I think it's really, there were, I
guess two sides.
There's like the creative, likeromantic side.
And then there's the like veryfinancial and functional side.
So from the financial front,functional side.
I think I just very quicklylearned that relying exclusively
on a W-2 as income was probablynot going to get me to my goals
as quickly as I wanted to.
(04:39):
And I wanted just more financialfreedom.
And so I started looking intoall sorts of different avenues
for investing.
So stock market, and I hated it.
I started looking into like sidejobs.
I did all sorts.
I just looked into differentthings that I could do beyond
just like the day jobs that Ihad and really just kind of got
into real estate through mybrother.
(04:59):
He was the one who startedtalking to me a lot about just
where the potential was and Ithink at first I thought there
was this big hurdle that youneeded all this money in order
to get into it and he's the onethat really showed me that if
you play your cards right and dothings in a smart way that you
don't always need that muchmoney up front and that it's a
lot more attainable than I thinkI originally thought so that was
(05:20):
a big part of it and then theother side of me was so we
bought our first property inCincinnati in OTR which is where
we actually are currently Andthe
SPEAKER_01 (05:30):
Rentish Studios over the Rhine.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (05:34):
just like so when I was growing up, this was an area
that I never went to as a kid.
And when I graduated fromcollege and came down here and
again, visited my brother as hewas living down here, I was just
blown away by everything thatthey were doing and how they
were keeping the like thehistory of all the buildings and
the facades.
But they were just really likefinishing them up and making
them nicer.
(05:54):
And, you know, everybody wasmoving down here and there were
so many businesses that were andI just like wanted to be part of
it.
So I think it was really thatcombination that gave me the
confidence to like jump in
SPEAKER_01 (06:05):
with both feet.
And question for you, were you,so when you bought the rental
property, were you living inCincinnati at the time?
SPEAKER_00 (06:12):
I was not.
SPEAKER_01 (06:13):
Okay.
So how did that, how did thatwork?
Like doing a first time rentalinvestment in a place you
weren't living?
SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
Man, I got really lucky because the first one
really did go quite smoothly.
I say that having now gonethrough ones that did not go
smoothly.
So I can say with confidencethat it went very smoothly and
Yeah, I don't know.
So I didn't invest alone.
So I invested with my siblings.
Again, my brother, whooriginally had introduced me to
(06:39):
the idea of real estateinvesting, and then my other
brother.
So the three of us went in on ittogether.
And so they both lived inCincinnati.
So that helped.
And I was living in Chicago atthe time.
And so I think having some bootson the ground and some people
that I trusted that were goingto be there and driving by the
property every week or everyday, checking in on it, made it
so it felt way more feasibleRight.
(07:00):
And
SPEAKER_01 (07:02):
another question, because I think that's surprised
me about some of the people thatwe've talked to who bought their
first rental property is many ofthem were still renting
themselves.
Did you, were you also in thatsituation where you were renting
the property you were living in,but bought a property?
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (07:17):
Yeah.
And that's interesting.
Yes, I was renting and then webought this property.
So we bought this property andmy one, so again, it was the
three of us and my one brotheractually moved into the property
and that allowed us to getbetter loan terms which i'm sure
lots of people have talked aboutthat have been on here it's it's
i'm such a proponent of househacking the only thing i wish i
(07:39):
had done differently is done itearlier okay there's just so
much more opportunity and soyeah so that made it really
feasible but no the rest of uswere my other brother and i were
both renting at the time that webought our first property so it
wasn't until a couple yearslater that i actually bought my
first place in chicago so gotcha
SPEAKER_01 (07:58):
yeah well now we've had two guests on the show that
that have done that same thing,the renting in a property,
buying an investment property.
So that's more proof for you,buddy.
You can do it yourself.
Yeah, exactly.
I've been hearing, because youthink like, okay, before you buy
a rental property, you have toown the property you live in,
which doesn't seem like that hasto be the case.
Oftentimes it isn't.
That seemed conventional wisdomto us, though.
(08:19):
Like for me, at least growingup, it was like, oh, your first
property should be one that youbuy that you live in.
But now it's like, that's so notthe case that, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (08:26):
Yeah, and I think, you know, if I were, so you
definitely Definitely don't haveto.
If I were to do it a differentway and to buy my first
property, I would still do thehouse hacking because I just
think that there's so muchopportunity with that.
You can have somebody else thateffectively covers your mortgage
for you.
And so as long as you can coverthe down payment, there's just
(08:47):
very little risk in doing itthat way.
SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
And just as a refresher with that whole house
hacking term, I know we coveredit last season, but for newer
listeners and those of us thatmay have forgotten exactly what
that means.
It's been a long summer break.
SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
Definitely not you.
SPEAKER_01 (09:04):
Not me, no.
I think I remember what itmeans.
Can I guess?
SPEAKER_00 (09:08):
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (09:08):
Okay.
Is that where you live in aproperty and rent out another
portion of that property tosomebody else?
SPEAKER_00 (09:15):
Correct, yep.
So some people do it where theymight buy a three-bedroom
apartment and they rent out oneof the bedrooms.
So they rent it out to theirfriends.
A lot of people will do that,especially if you're young and
you're single.
Other people, like the first onethat we house outside of the
property that my brother livedin.
My husband and I actually househacked in Chicago and we bought
a duplex.
So we lived in one of theapartments and we rented out the
(09:37):
other apartment.
SPEAKER_01 (09:38):
So that's like that specifically is something you're
a major proponent of.
Yes.
Like, OK,
SPEAKER_00 (09:42):
huge because it's a it's a it's a quicker way to
acquire more and moreproperties.
And so what you'll see is someinvestors do is they'll
especially if you start, youknow, earlier in life, you can
jump from property to property.
So like you go, you have to livein the property for a year and
you probably want to live in theproperty like stay stationary
for a year so you go out you buythe property you start house
(10:04):
hacking you live there for ayear then you can go on and get
your next property and you getrenters for that existing one
and it's a way to build out yourportfolio in a very affordable
way because when you do when youbuy it and you're going to live
in it you're not required to putas much down as you do an
investment property requires a20% minimum down payment
SPEAKER_01 (10:23):
but when you're living in it you get the FHA
loan or whatever
SPEAKER_00 (10:26):
it's right exactly so then you can now there's like
Look at you
SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
pulling the letters out of your pocket like
SPEAKER_00 (10:34):
that.
People listening might be like,well, FHA doesn't always apply.
And that's fair.
There's limits and there'scertain things that can restrict
you on it.
But there's again, there's justa lot more opportunity when it's
seen as a purchase that'sintended for personal use and
not for business use.
And so it gives you a lot moreflexibility.
You can also get better likeconstruction loan terms.
(10:56):
So if you buy a place that needsto be renovated, you can do that
a little bit easier.
So there's just a lot moreopportunity if it's a place that
you're actually going to livein.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
Got it.
Well, tell us a little bit,speaking of the place itself.
So your first investmentproperty, tell us about the
place.
Why was it that location?
Other than the fact that it wasjust over the Rhine and it's a
cool
SPEAKER_00 (11:14):
area.
SPEAKER_01 (11:14):
But was there anything else about the
building, anything about thestyle of the place that you
ended up landing on that madeyou want to go there?
SPEAKER_00 (11:20):
Yeah, so we had looked at a couple and we talked
about it for like a year.
It took us a long time to pullthe trigger on it.
And I think, again, becausethere was just this scary hurdle
of like, can we do this?
Like, this seems like a lot.
Like, we don't know anythingabout real estate.
Like, what are we doing?
And so we'd been looking for awhile and I would say all
different types of places.
We looked at condos, we lookedat buildings.
And this one, honestly, I thinkwhat really pulled the trigger
(11:42):
on this one is I rememberwalking through the building and
we had a real estate agent and Ibelieve her name was Linda.
She walked us through thebuilding and there was another
group that was walking throughthe building at the same time of
us with a different real estateagent.
And the real estate agent keptpointing out all these issues
with the building because it wasa good we were like this is a
great place like for the area wewere so excited and he starts
(12:04):
pointing out all these issueswith the building to the to the
people who's walking through usand he was like you don't get
this building there's a messthere there's a mess there this
is going to cost you a fortunethis is a like a money pit and
our Linda our real estate agentturned to us and she whispered
and she goes this guy doesn'tknow what he's talking about and
he said I'll explain when we getoutside and so we got outside
and she was like all thosethings that he pointed out are
(12:26):
valid like they need to be fixedbut she's like they're not going
to cost the type of money thathe's talking about.
This is a great investment.
There's so much potential here.
And I think we just like trustedLinda and did it.
And we were like, this is reallylike, we got to jump on this
one.
And yeah, I feel like it waslike one of those just like
stars aligned.
And we were like, let's try it.
And we threw out an offer thatwe were like, we felt confident
(12:48):
in.
It was definitely below asking,but we were like, let's just
see, like, let's see if we caneven like get them to like play
ball with us.
And they did.
And so then that's kind of
SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
how
SPEAKER_00 (12:57):
it, all because of Linda.
SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
Wow.
And was, and Linda was right.
Like the fixes didn't end up
SPEAKER_00 (13:02):
costing.
And Linda was right.
Wow.
Okay.
We got to have Linda
SPEAKER_01 (13:05):
on the pod.
Hashtag Linda was right.
Get that trending.
SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
She knew what she was talking about.
So it ended up working.
We also did after all of that, Ishouldn't just say, we were
like, we just said Linda andthen we just did it.
We had, we knew somecontractors.
We had them walk through thebuilding with us.
And so we started to firm upquotes.
We built out like a pro form.
We did all the right stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (13:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:25):
But we, she's really what made us like, maybe we
should look at this one.
Like maybe we should get alittle bit more serious about
it.
SPEAKER_01 (13:31):
This question might sound negative.
SPEAKER_00 (13:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:34):
Going through the entire process of looking for an
investment property, gettingexcited about it, finding this,
giving an offer that you thinkis a good offer that you believe
in, but it was lower than theasking price and getting
accepted.
Does that feel like a rarePokemon now than compared to
when it did when you originallybought the property?
SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
Yes.
You know, it's now I've gonethrough the process of buying
investment properties and buyingmy house that I live in.
And I think those two are verydifferent scenarios.
For an investment property, forall of our investment
properties, we focus onbuildings that we want to
renovate because we feel like wehave the most opportunity to
negotiate and get the types ofdeals that we want.
(14:15):
And now that we've done itenough times, we feel like we
have enough comfort in doing itthat way, bringing the value
back to the building and thenrenting it out.
So we feel like that's where wecan get the most bang for our
buck, I guess.
So we've had good success withthat.
I will say, though, on thereverse side, buying a house for
myself, I certainly was not ableto have the same type of
(14:35):
negotiating power that I didwith like trying to buy
investment property.
So I think the deals are stillout there.
You just have to be willing tosometimes take a little bit of a
risk.
If the property is in perfectcondition, that's the place that
everyone wants, right?
If it needs no work, if itdoesn't need a creative eye or
whatever, that's whereeveryone's going after.
(14:56):
And so those ones aren't goingto go significantly under
asking.
But the one that like, you know,there's some issues and yeah,
it's going to take a littleelbow grease and stuff.
Those are the ones where thebest example I have is there's
so many people that sellproperties that don't clean
them.
So then you have buyers walkingthrough and they're like, this
place is dirty.
There's so many issues with it.
And really there aren't.
It's just some people havetrouble seeing past that.
SPEAKER_01 (15:17):
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_00 (15:18):
And so we always find a lot of opportunity with
that.
If the person looks like they'vekind of just let it, you know,
run amok, sometimes it's reallynot in that bad a condition.
It just needs a good coat ofpaint, clean, and you can get a
pretty good deal on those onestoo.
SPEAKER_01 (15:32):
Okay.
Okay.
So yeah, quick question.
Something that you said made mejust think of this.
So, and like the last part, it'skind of not necessarily what I'm
asking about, but like aproperty that needs more like
actual work, like more money tofix important things.
Obviously like you could getlike a lower price on the
property for it, but that pricethat you would be paying in
(15:55):
renovation isn't included inlike mortgage payments, right?
Like you have to pay thatupfront.
So is that something like thatyou really have to consider?
Like, let's say there's like aproperty that you get a really
good deal on, but it requires somuch money in renovations that
you can't afford that.
Whereas you might be able toafford a property that's more
expensive, but you can, youdon't have to do as many
(16:15):
renovations and don't have to doas big of a down payment
essentially.
SPEAKER_00 (16:18):
Right.
Absolutely.
I mean, all those things have tobe factored in and you can get
construction loans.
And the nice thing about whenyou do an FHA is you can get
what's you to roll yourconstruction loan into your home
mortgage loan and the reasonthat's beneficial is because
construction loans carry muchhigher interest rates than like
(16:39):
a traditional home loan sothere's opportunities to like
get creative again with yourfinancing but yes you're exactly
right there could be times whereyou'd rather buy the smaller
condo unit that's in goodcondition or the smaller
building that's again in goodcondition and doesn't need as
much because you don't have asmuch cash up front but you can
cover them mortgage payments, orthere might be times when you're
(17:01):
like, you know, we've got alittle bit of cash.
We can put it in, we can makethe renovations and we can make
this worth a lot more money thanit's worth or get higher rent
payments.
And we're going to go thatroute.
It just, it does depend on your,on your situation.
And I've had partners for mostof my, most of the buildings
that we've bought.
And so that helps a lot becauseyou're spreading the risk out
among more than just one person.
SPEAKER_01 (17:22):
Sure.
Cool.
Well, speaking of construction,you had your search, you talked
to Linda, Linda rocks, you gotthe place.
What, what challenges did youface that maybe you didn't
really expect to face?
Because you said that it wentvery smooth and you're lucky for
it going very smooth, butcertainly there must have been
some things that were roadblocksalong the way and any hurdles
that came up along the process.
SPEAKER_00 (17:42):
Yeah, on the first one, again, like I said, I mean,
man, we got lucky because itreally was relatively smooth.
I think the biggest hurdle thatwe faced was that because of the
area that we bought in, therewere certain historical
requirements.
So they weren't necessarilylike, you didn't need it for the
structure of the building or forany other purpose.
other than that it was just arequirement due to like the
(18:02):
historical nature of thebuilding right so we had to make
some changes to certain thingsand one of the things that we
had to do was we had to getspecial windows and our
contractors ordered those lateand right now as I'm saying it
I'm like it was a really minorissue but at the time it felt
really big because again likethis was my first investment and
you know it wasn't like you knowwe had money tied up in it and
(18:25):
you're like oh my god like thecontractors made a massive
mistake they forgot to order thewindows on time and on honestly
ultimately it put us back liketwo months it really wasn't the
end of the world but we had towait until those came in because
we couldn't start renting it outuntil we got the new windows in
and we could install them rightum and so honestly that was
really the biggest with ourfirst building that was really
the biggest hiccup that we facedright out of the gate now we had
(18:48):
issues with tenants later onwe've had issues with other
buildings down the road youoccasionally get a unicorn like
that where things go smoothlyand we just got lucky that it
was our first building But I'vecertainly had issues since.
It has not always gone thatsmoothly.
SPEAKER_01 (19:02):
Was it smooth with the closing process then?
Like right before that too, likenothing you wish you would have
negotiated for or anything?
SPEAKER_00 (19:08):
No, again, we got really lucky.
So the people that owned thebuilding were out-of-state
investors and they had just madea lot of like really, like for
lack of a better way of sayingit, kind of dumb mistakes.
They had just like, they wereout of town.
They weren't doing a good job ofkeeping up with the contractors.
So the contractors were kind oftaking shortcuts.
And then again, some of thatstuff that I was just
describing, like not expensive.
(19:28):
things but just historicalrequirements they were totally
oblivious to so they hadn't doneit right so there were just a
lot of like just dumb thingsthat they were doing and so they
were really eager to get it offtheir hands and so that gave us
a lot of negotiating power andso we just came back and you
know when we did the inspectionwe came back and knocked off for
(19:49):
certain things and again evenout of the gate we we came in on
I think we went back and forthmaybe they came back with a
different price and then we cameback and we met somewhere in the
middle And that's where weultimately netted out.
But no, honestly, that one was,it really went quite, like I
said, quite smoothly.
SPEAKER_01 (20:06):
That's cool.
I mean, that gives certain hopefor people listening, people
like us.
I cannot guarantee that it willalways go that way.
Oh, I know, for sure.
I was going to say, I know thisepisode is more about your first
property, but what's one of thebigger issues that you had with
a property that you boughtafterwards?
SPEAKER_00 (20:23):
We bought a property that was, again, another
renovation, probably a biggerrenovation than And then the
first one that we had bought andour contractor went AWOL halfway
through the project with ourmoney.
And it was like a chunk ofmoney.
And so that was a huge issue.
So yeah, that was very scary andvery like, are we ever like what
we had moments in that one wherewe asked ourselves, like, should
(20:46):
we just cut our losses and sellthis?
Like this is like, and just tryto make back any portion of what
we've put into it.
And we ultimately, we found anew contractor.
We had our hurdles even withthat contract.
contractor and we ultimately didget it rented but we bought the
property with the expectexpectation of it taking I think
(21:06):
four months is what we had likeearmarked in terms of
renovations and it took twoyears oh wow so and again like
we lost a lot of money with thatfirst contractor and never got
it back
SPEAKER_01 (21:18):
wow so what's so
SPEAKER_00 (21:21):
not to scare I mean I think this is about like first
time buying and like you can doit and you can everyone that's
talked
SPEAKER_01 (21:27):
about first time buying is has run into like some
kind of hurt.
So these are things that peopleneed to be aware of.
That's kind of, cause I, yeah,that could have, you got, like
you said, you got lucky withyour first time, but it could
have been worse.
So I guess like, what'ssomething that you learned from
that experience that if anotherfirst time buyer ran into that
on their first time, like thatyou would tell them as advice or
(21:47):
like something you learned?
SPEAKER_00 (21:48):
Yeah.
Well, there's a couple ofthings.
So one is I think on, in termsof things we did well, again,
we, I never bought by myself.
So we spread the costs out amonga couple of us and that really
helped because while you wereinvesting money and it sure it
was a chunk of money it wasn'tnothing it wasn't like I put my
savings into this and it wasthis like very risky thing it
(22:08):
spread it a little bit yeahwhich I think especially when
you're newer to it and you don'tyou haven't built up the
experience to know what you'redoing it's a it's a safer way to
do it when you kind of you'renot going to get as much return
because you're splitting withpeople but at least you give
yourself a bit of a safety netright so I would do you know for
anyone who's interested if youcan find people that you trust
and that you want to work withit's a great way to like jump I
(22:29):
can see Patrick looking over atyou.
You and
SPEAKER_01 (22:31):
me, you and me.
We talked
SPEAKER_00 (22:32):
about it before.
SPEAKER_01 (22:32):
I heard they're looking for a new buyer at Carew
Tower.
You want to go 50-50 on that badboy?
Turn it into a recording studio?
I'm going to reopen
SPEAKER_00 (22:41):
the observations.
I can see the wheels turningover there.
Like, oh, that's all I have todo.
If I find someone, I'll
SPEAKER_01 (22:45):
do it.
SPEAKER_00 (22:46):
It'll be crazy, though.
So I think that was one biglearning.
And again, something that wedid, that we actually did do
well.
The thing that we didn't dowell, and I'm almost embarrassed
to say it, because saying it outloud, you're like, yeah, no,
duh.
No.
Be smart.
But we actually didn't have acontract with our contractor.
And that's one thing that Ilearned is so often, again, you
(23:06):
don't know anything when you'regoing into it.
And these contractors come toyou and they know everything,
right?
Like they've done this a milliontimes.
And so you kind of just followtheir lead.
And so he kind of like, we methim.
He seemed fine.
I mean, he was like, he wasn'tmy favorite person in the world,
but he was fine.
Like he was a contractor.
He was knowledgeable.
He was available, which was ahuge piece of it.
So we just sort of followed hislead on things.
(23:28):
And there's things that goingback we should have done better
and that was one thing like geta contract that says projects
will be done by this or like youknow payments will be allocated
in such a way because whathappened is when he ran away
with the money we had no legalrecourse we went and got a
lawyer because we were like howdo we we got to get our money
back and we had no there was nocontract so the guy had kind of
(23:51):
pulled one over us there wasbasically
SPEAKER_01 (23:52):
like no proof that you had hired him essentially
SPEAKER_00 (23:55):
well no there's proof that we had hired him but
but technically he could justsay I'm still working on it but
it had been months since he hadbeen at the property so there
was no way to like enforce itbecause we had not put anything
in writing so it was truly likethis unenforceable issue and so
if I were to go back I wouldjust be a lot more strict with
(24:16):
things like that and I would Ithink again you just kind of are
like okay like just tell me whatto do like tell me where to sign
and I had heard before likedon't pay the contractors until
they do the work and they haddone the work they told us it
was done but we didn't go andreally like bring an inspector
through or check it.
And so, yeah, there were just,it was just silly things that
like, again, they're almostembarrassing to say, but that's
SPEAKER_01 (24:35):
good to know.
Like, I wouldn't think of thatthough.
You know, if it was my firsttime, I'll be like, this guy
knows everything.
SPEAKER_00 (24:40):
Right.
Like, Oh, this is, and we, wedid, I shouldn't say that.
We signed a contract.
There were just, it was a verylike flimsy contract.
There were no dates assigned toit.
There was no recourse.
Like what happens if you'reunhappy with a product?
Like there's so many more andyou can look up online, there's
free contracts out there, or youcan, again, you can pay for
legal resources to put somethingtogether for you and we should
(25:02):
have done that but so we had acontract it just was a
SPEAKER_01 (25:06):
not enough yeah i see okay well that is a good
word of warning i think to a lotof people and
SPEAKER_00 (25:11):
yeah get a contract
SPEAKER_01 (25:13):
get a contract get a
SPEAKER_00 (25:14):
contract
SPEAKER_01 (25:15):
and if you can't it like legal like hiring a lawyer
might be like out of the out ofthe budget for a lot of people
but there's a lot of good online
SPEAKER_00 (25:22):
resources and ai is super helpful okay shout out to
SPEAKER_01 (25:28):
ai Little did you know, Patrick and I are AI this
whole time.
You've just been listening totwo robots talk on this podcast
for two seasons.
All right.
I'm sure we'll have you back atsome point, Mary, to talk about
further on in your career andwhat you've done with other
properties and other challenges,hurdles, stories, and stuff like
that.
Patrick, did you have anylast-minute questions that you
wanted to ask Mary about?
No, I feel like I'm learning.
(25:49):
You know what I mean?
I know that's the point of thepodcast, but I feel like you
have people on and we talk aboutstuff and it's just kind of
like, oh, yeah, whatever.
We're just doing it.
but then now in the secondseason it's like oh like I
remember things and the morethat Mary tells me about her
experience it's like I learn newthings but I already like have
enough knowledge to where likeit's kind of like all coming
(26:09):
together and I feel I don't knowit feels good I mean you pulled
that acronym right out of thereyou're so confident too it's
awesome
SPEAKER_00 (26:16):
and I will say like that's how it is even buying
your properties like now that Iown multiple again I can look
back and be like that was sostupid you only know what you
don't know once you get past ityou know like once you're in the
future you can look back and belike man I knew nothing I guess
that's the thing is like nobodyreally knows what they're doing
you kind of just jump in and youfigure it out as you go and you
get smarter with each one andwith each year that passes and
(26:38):
with each experience and there'snothing if you're sitting around
waiting for like well I justgotta get this much knowledge or
I gotta read these books or Igotta do this like you will
never feel prepared there wasnothing that will ever prepare
you you just gotta do it andthen you learn
SPEAKER_01 (26:53):
I don't think we can say anything more profound than
that so I think we're gonna goahead and just end it right here
See you guys.
We're going to just end theshow.
Thank you guys for listening toanother episode of the Rentish
Podcast.
Thank you, Mary Regano, forjoining us on this episode.
It's been fun to talk with you.
We did this for a few of ourother interviewees and I think
we're going to keep thistradition alive just as a fun
conversation.
What's your favorite movie ofall time?
(27:14):
Patrick and I are movie guys andso we talk about movies and go
back and forth stuff on thepodcast.
One of your favorite movies ofall time.
You don't have to say the bestof the best.
You
SPEAKER_00 (27:23):
guys, this is so embarrassing because I don't
even know.
And you guys are movie guys.
and it's going to be some reallyembarrassing.
There's nothing embarrassing.
You know
SPEAKER_01 (27:31):
what's more embarrassing is pretending like
you like a movie that youactually don't like.
Or that I've never seen.
I love that movie.
It could be a Pixar movie.
It could be Finding Nemo.
Finding Nemo is awesome.
I was about to say you got beefagainst Finding Nemo.
Finding Nemo is a great movie.
(27:52):
I'm just saying it seems likeyou're leading.
You better pick Finding Nemo.
It could be one of those.
It could be like an old funaction movie, Christmas movie.
I'm like, it's anything, notjust like the best of the best.
SPEAKER_00 (28:04):
I would say the movies that give me the most
nostalgia are obviously theHarry Potter series because I
feel like you hear that musicand you're like, okay, it's
Christmas
SPEAKER_01 (28:12):
time.
SPEAKER_00 (28:13):
I was really obsessed for a long time with
the movie He's Just Not ThatInto You, which is like a
romantic comedy.
I have not
SPEAKER_01 (28:19):
seen it.
SPEAKER_00 (28:20):
Oh my God.
I have not seen it either.
You're not missing anything.
It's really not worth it.
But I was really, that's likethe last time I remember being
like obsessed with a movie andwatching it multiple times other
than that man
SPEAKER_01 (28:31):
she's just not that into you I'll ask my girlfriend
about it and then we'll probablywatch
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
it so maybe I shouldn't ask her that's the way
to do it is watch it yeah watchit with your girlfriend but yeah
probably that and then now Ijust live the life of yeah
Disney movies and Pixar moviesand Paw Patrol so
SPEAKER_01 (28:49):
alright cool well stay tuned for the next episode
of the Rentish podcast wherePatrick talks about she's not
that into you but yeah thank youThank you guys for listening to
another episode of the show.
As a reminder, follow us atTheRentishPod on socials.
You can go to questions atTheRentishPod.com if you have a
question, a comment, a topicsuggestion, or just a fun
(29:10):
interviewee thing that you wantto hear us ask our next guest
about.
You can email those questionsthere.
Don't forget if you're listeningon Spotify or Apple Podcasts to
give us a review.
Take that star and just drag itas far as it'll go to the
right-hand side of your screen.
Leave us a comment.
We'd appreciate you very, verymuch for listening.
Until next time, I've been ZachThat's been Patrick.
That's been Mary.
And we'll see you guys nexttime.
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