August 2022

Ashley:
This is the Real Estate Rookie, Episode 211.

Simon:
Really putting your head down and figuring out what you’re going to do and start doing it, and it’s not going to be easy at first. Nothing’s ever easy at first. We just got to dedicate time, dedicate time. Even if that means I’m not in a position to buy right now, that’s okay. Most people might not be. But if you start taking step one and step two and step three, the next thing you know it’s 2023, and now you have money saved up. Then you can start putting things into motion. For us, I think the important thing is it didn’t happen overnight, and success doesn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of dedication, a lot of reading, a lot of just researching, and ultimately just lining the ducks up for what we wanted to accomplish.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr, and I’m here with my co-host, Tony Robinson.

Tony:
Welcome to the Real Estate Rookie podcast where every week, twice a week, we bring you the inspiration, information, education, motivation you need to kick-start your real estate investing journey. I usually like to start the show by highlighting some folks from our real estate rookie community who have left some reviews for us on Apple and Spotify. Today’s review comes from, actually that’s a pretty crazy username, 1727738AHEB. I have no idea what that means.

Ashley:
You [inaudible 00:01:16] pronounce it.

Tony:
I wouldn’t even know. I wouldn’t even know. They said, “Great and informative and fun. Great podcast for beginners or seasoned pros discussing the ins and outs of real estate investing without the fluff. This duo was easy to listen to, and they keep things fun and light. Quickly becoming my favorite and has helped me jump in feet first.” So for those of you that are listening, if you haven’t yet, please you leave us an honest rating review on whatever platform you’re listening to. More reviews help us reach more people, and the goal here is to help as many people as we can. We definitely appreciate it. With the reviews out of the way, Ashley, let’s get into some boring banter. My favorite part of the show now, what’s new in your neck of the woods?

Ashley:
I’ve got a couple projects in rehab right now. I just got a text last night from a contractor. It was actually from a garbage removal company that went into my hoarder house. They sent five pictures. I was looking at the pictures, and the first picture was of a kitchen. I was like, “What is this?” I realized it was the same house. I didn’t even recognize it. Because the sink and the cabinets and the floor have been covered in so much stuff, I had no idea what the cabinets or the floor even looked like that I never even imagined it without everything on it. I was just in shock. So I can’t wait to actually go to the property, get some footy for some Instagram reels before and after. It’s just amazing. We haven’t even done any rehab, and it’s already went through this major transformation.

Tony:
How much did it cost to dump everything, do you know?

Ashley:
It was $3,900.

Tony:
That’s not bad.

Ashley:
No. I expected it to be at least over five grand, but it was $3,900. It’s 1,500 square feet I think the house is. It was just packed full with a path that went through the upstairs, tons of stuff. Then there was a garage. Then there was a little goat barn and then just some scrap and garbage scattered around the yard. They went in, and they brought their own dumpsters, everything, and hauled it all out.

Tony:
Wow. Well, hey, I’m excited to see the progress of the hoarder house. You got to keep us updated on the IG.

Ashley:
Yeah, yeah, I definitely will. What about you? What’s new with your projects?

Tony:
We’ve been doing some hiring, but we unfortunately lost some folks that we recently hired. I’ve hired two personal assistants since Memorial Day or early May, and we’ve lost them both. One, we had to let go just because it wasn’t quite the right fit. This replacement that we hired, she walked away from us because she felt that it wasn’t the right fit. So now we’re back to square one, trying to find another personal assistant. If you’re listening to this and you want to apply and you live somewhere near where I live, alphageekcapital.com/jobs. We’re looking for good people to help us grow this business out. We’re at the point where there’s a lot of things that we just can’t do anymore. I know I’ve always been bad with my phones and my text messages, but right now the little number icons on my phone, 332, and my text message bubble says 289. Then I’ve got another 300 unread emails. So my life is in shambles. I need some help. So if you’re interested, feel free to reach out and apply.

Ashley:
Here’s just a fair warning. When our producer, Erik, started, what, a year and a half ago on here, the first thing that he was told that Tony likes the room at, what, 72 degrees and red Skittles only in the candy dish. So make sure you guys know what you’re getting into before you apply.

Tony:
Yeah. I’m a bit of a diva behind scenes. I need my black shirts pressed a certain way.

Ashley:
I know exactly when we get off of this and we’re talking to Erik, he’s going to tell me that I was wrong, that it was actually 68 degrees or whatever. He’s going to know exactly what it was. Well, today we have a couple on the show. I feel like it’s been a while since we did two guests at once. We have Simon and Chrissy on. They are house hackers who actually turned their basement into a short-term rental.

Tony:
I love their story. Simon actually participated in the Short-Term Rental Bootcamp that I led earlier this year. From that bootcamp, he actually went out, took action, and got that first deal done. They talk a lot about their journey as a couple and how Simon was able to convince Chrissy that real estate investing was the right thing to do and some of those compromises that they made. They talk about how they were able to navigate the strict short-term rental policies in Denver. But most of all, and this is the thing that stood out to me, they use a basement unit to kind of kick-start their business. I was thinking, “Man, why doesn’t California have basements?” I was literally google searching on the side while we’re talking to them.

Ashley:
It’s earthquakes, right?

Tony:
That’s what I thought, but it’s a common misconception. It’s not because of the earthquakes.

Ashley:
Oh.

Tony:
I guess it’s because on the East Coast and some of these other places, the foundation, the joist going into the foundation will freeze if they’re not dug deep enough into the surface. So you have to dig deep on the East Coast anyway, so they have to build out that foundation and that basement to hold up the joist for the house. In California, because it’s so warm, it doesn’t freeze that low, so you don’t have to dig deep. Apparently, it’s really expensive to build out a basement. Anyway, I learned something new today because of Simon and Chrissy.

Ashley:
That’s interesting. Because there are houses around here that are on just concrete slabs or they have crawl spaces and stuff. So if you live on the East Coast, your house is better built if it has a basement [inaudible 00:07:02].

Tony:
Yeah, there you go. There you go.

Ashley:
Chrissy and Simon did the bootcamp that Tony hosted. There’s actually new bootcamps coming out this fall if you guys want to join them, but you have to hurry because the deadline is August 31st. So make sure you go to biggerpockets.com/classes.

Tony:
Simon and Chrissy, welcome to the Real Estate Rookie podcast. We are super excited to have you both. Chrissy, maybe you can start us off. Tell us a little bit about both of your backgrounds and what brought you guys here today.

Krissy:
Awesome. Well, like you said, my name is Chrissy. This is my partner, Simon. A little bit about us, we started our real estate investment journey back in, I don’t know, December 2021, which in reality, it started way before that with Simon being really interested in a part of the BiggerPockets community. Simon and I had been together for a while. He had been consistently telling me about BiggerPockets and all the different real estate investing opportunities and ways to learn about real estate investing and that he wanted to house hack. I said, “Okay, what is that?” and he told me all about house hacking, what that opportunity would look like. My first and initial thought to that was, “No way.” I feel like how I grew up when you envision buying and owning your first house, I wasn’t expecting other people to be living with me, and it was not something that I was even remotely excited about. So we talked about it and we kind of moved on.
Then some time went by, we talked about it some more. Simon started sending me a lot of books, a lot of resources, and started sharing, what felt to me, pie-in-the-sky stories about how our life could change and how cool this experience would be if we were to start getting into the real estate space. So long story short, he got me on board with it all. In the fall of 2021, we got connected to a Rockstar realtor who was in the short-term rental space. Through that, we found our first property in December 2021 and launched our first short-term rental in May 2022.

Tony:
Well, first congratulations to you both for getting that first property up and running. I want to go back to something that you said, Chrissy. You said Simon was feeding you stories that you felt like were pie in the sky. I’m curious. Why did you feel what those people were achieving was so out of reach for you guys?

Krissy:
Simon and I started this journey while still working full time. Simon works in sales, I do as well, sales and marketing. For me, I was like, “We have a full-time job. When are we going to be able to do this in our spare time?” He would so often send me Instagram stories or different people to follow about how they just started this journey in their spare time. Knowing Simon and I, I was like, “We don’t have a lot of spare time. What’s this going to look like?” So it just felt like something that was really out of reach for us. Slowly but surely, he started sending me information, I would feel like, in pieces, like step one, let’s learn about what this could be, step two.
Honestly, I would probably say one of our most important steps was finding a realtor that was in this space and had done it themselves. We had, like I mentioned, a Rockstar realtor with Good Neighbor Realty here in the Denver Metro area. Our realtor, she also had short-term rentals and was doing some real estate investing. So when we started this conversation with her, as much as you want to believe and trust in your partner that these crazy ideas are real, hearing it from someone else who had real-life, tangible examples about how they were living it made it a lot more comfortable for me, I would say.
Then when we started looking for homes, I felt like I had an okay vision for how this would work, but she really helps me bring it to the next level. When we were looking at properties, she was like, “All you have to do is move a door frame, add this here, here’s your lockout, here’s your Airbnb space.” I was like, “Okay, that doesn’t sound as crazy. It sounds achievable.” So I think, step one, building your team, so your realtor that can help you with your vision, I would say, was a huge starting point for our success.

Ashley:
Well, Chrissy, that’s great advice within the first five minutes of the episode right there. Simon, I want to hear why you wanted to do real estate, maybe your point of view, and what it was like trying to get Chrissy to come on board and why you didn’t just give up and be like, “You know what? It’s not for her. We’re not going to do it.”

Simon:
It was a process, and it didn’t just happened overnight. It happened throughout several years. I remember a few months ago I was just going through my notes on my phone on an airplane ride, and I found a note of the first time I listened to BiggerPockets Set for Life, reading it, I bought the book by Scott Trench, and wrote a note, “What is house hacking? Looking into house hacking.” This was back in 2018. So I’ve been a big fan of BiggerPockets. I had the opportunity to work at BiggerPockets and surround myself with the like-minded individuals. I really knew that what I wanted my life to look like was just have the freedom, not only for myself, for Chrissy, but for the family that we are trying to build. Really looking at it not from a short-term horizon, but at a long-term horizon of what are the steps that we need to make right now in order to set us up for success over the next 5, 10, 15 years.
We started living together about a year after we started dating. My initial plan was to buy a short-term rental in Orlando. I’m from Orlando, so I had boots on the ground in Orlando. Learning everything that Avery Carl has taught us and you guys have taught us is really just managing it long distance. That was going to be my initial plan. Chrissy was not on board for that. She was anxious about managing a property from long distance. She was anxious about not being able to touch it, feeling it. So after further consideration, we decided to not go that route.
Then I really had to sell her on the opportunity of, like, “Okay, well, if we’re not going to buy a house out of state, then this is what I want to do. I don’t want to buy…” I kept telling her this. I’m like, “We’re going to buy a home. We’re going to start a business. We’re not going to buy a home. We’re not going to buy our forever home. We’re going to start buying investment property in order to set us up for success and being able to really buy the house of her dreams in a few years.”
It took a lot of patience. I sent her a lot of videos, a lot of books, which she may or may not have read. But I think it ultimately just came down to trust. I remember one night after a couple drinks setting out a five-year plan of, like, “Hey, if these are the steps that we can take right now, this is what our life can look like in five years from now.” I think that’s really ultimately what brought her on board. It really just comes down to trust and me being knowledgeable about the space, about what we want it to look like, and she really had 100% confidence in my ability to make it happen.

Ashley:
Simon, I think what you did there where you actually wrote out the five-year plan and showed it to her, I think that helps so many people when they provide that visual as to like, “Okay, it’s just not me talking,” but putting it on paper so they can actually look at it. I think it makes it so much easier to digest because you can see the numbers, and you can see what’s happening. We’ve had a bunch of guests that have come on and showed that. That’s like with my husband when we were paying off debt, I’m like, “I want to do this Dave Ramsey thing. I want to get rid of all of our debt.” I made this whole Excel spreadsheet of just like, “Here’s how we’re going to do it.” He was like, “Okay. Yeah, actually, let’s do it,” after it took me so long to get him on board with that. But I think that’s great advice right there. Chrissy, what was the one thing that made you…? Was it that night for you, that five-year plan visualizing it, or was it multiple things?

Krissy:
Yes, definitely the five-year plan and seeing what that could look like was definitely helpful. But I also think it came with a set of compromises about what he really wanted to do and what I felt comfortable with. When we first started talking about Florida, the control freak in me was like, “Absolutely not.” I was like, “I have to be able to manage this. I can’t envision us doing this across the country.” So I think that’s where the first compromise came, and Simon said, “Okay, let’s do it locally.” That was probably our first big step towards getting aligned on this journey and taking that next step.
It’s kind of funny in hindsight. Because now that we’re actually doing it, I feel a little bit silly about being so against doing it across the country, because I’m like, “Oh, we got this now.” But I needed that ability to be able to live in the moment and check on things. So I think that’s where it comes with compromise and working with your partner to be like, “Okay, this is the vision. This is how you envision it. This is actually how I envision it. Where can we meet in the middle? Then we can get started.” I think deciding to do our first one locally was the big first step in that.

Tony:
Chrissy, you mentioned a couple things. I want to go back to one of them because I was feverishly scribbling as you were talking because it was a really profound thing that you said. When I asked about the pie-in-the-sky thing, you said that it just didn’t seem achievable, but you started to just try… Instead of focusing on this big, huge task, you were just like, “Okay, what is the next step that is achievable?” I think for anyone that’s trying to tackle any goal, that is such a phenomenal framework to apply to that journey. It’s like, “Yeah, if we’re working our day jobs, the idea of retiring and sipping piña coladas on the beach, that seems too far fetched.” But the idea of reading that first book or going to that meetup or buying a ticket to that conference, those are things that I know I can do. Once I’ve done that thing and I feel comfortable with it, what’s the next step? Maybe after I go to that meetup, maybe now I go talk to that agent. Now after I talk to that agent, maybe I go talk to a lender. And it all kind of starts to snowball.
I think for so many people I’m sure, Chrissy, were in the exact same situation as you where it felt unrealistic, or it felt like too big of a journey to take, but if you just really boil it down to the next step that you feel most comfortable and confident in, that’s how you continue to make progress. I don’t even know if you realize that you said something so profound, but that was an amazing, amazing thing.

Krissy:
No. I think that’s why Simon and I actually make incredible partners in the sense that Simon has the pie-in-the-sky vision. He has the vision and the dream that I never had. I don’t think I ever would’ve dreamed this for myself. My first step is, “What’s the action plan? What are we going to do? What’s step one? I need structure. I need all the details.” He’s like, “Well, we’ll just figure it out.” I’m like, “That’s not going to work for me.” I needed the details.
Like you said, biting off as much as you can chew in the moment probably would be my best advice because that’s what we did. When I thought big picture, I was like, “No way.” Then when I thought, “Okay, fine.” Literally, step one for me is, like, “Fine. I’ll start following real estate investors on Instagram. They can come up in my feed. I’ll start to see what they’re chatting about. I’ll watch their stories, and I will get comfortable with this.” Then more and more, we went to a meetup, we started talking to other people, and they just were like, “Oh, yeah. You got this. This is not that hard.” I was like, “Okay. Yeah, we got this.” I started with those meetups. I will say, I started seeing other people like us and how they were achieving it, which also made me feel more comfortable. Then, like you said, that’s when the snowball effect happened where we started talking to a realtor, we got lending and everything going, and then here we are.

Ashley:
Along those lines of those steps that you did going to the meetups, looking at different resources, were there any other tools or things that you did that gave you that extra confidence to like, “Okay, we are ready. We can do this”?

Krissy:
For me, I would say that’s where I leaned on my partner. I know we talked about this earlier, how he’d give me a bunch of books. I did not read them. I was like, “I don’t have time for this.” Basically, I told Simon earlier, I have to say I started following Sarah’s Instagram, and I was like, “Okay, this is getting me on board. I like this. I like her. I like the vibe of this. This is all really going forward.” I just started consuming knowledge in places that I know I’d be receptive to. So I would read blogs. I would google things. I knew sitting down and reading a big book about real estate investing probably wasn’t going to be how I would feel the most connected to this. But Simon did that work, and that’s where I think partnerships come into play. So he had all of the details that I probably wasn’t so sure about.
Then I would say networking is huge. I know that networking will probably take our business, as we look at more opportunities going forward, to the next level. But I will say that talking to people that are similar in age to you, similar experiences, similar places in their career and learning how they’re doing it, I would probably say was the biggest factor in beginning to have a vision for us achieving this.

Tony:
Chrissy, I want to give you a thank you for shouting out my wife, Sarah. If you guys aren’t following her on Instagram, it’s @saraaraad. Obviously, she talks everything short-term rentals, but she’s also a bit of a character, so you guys will get a laugh. You can get some fun.

Krissy:
Definite, you should follow. It’s a great. It’s entertaining. It makes you feel awesome. I love it.

Ashley:
She’s not a character, Tony. She is the main character [inaudible 00:21:33].

Tony:
That is it. She’s the leading lady.

Ashley:
Simon, what about you? Obviously, you had been learning about real estate. You had the opportunity to work with people at BiggerPockets. What were the things that really helped you decide, “Okay, I know I can analyze a deal. I know how I’m going to manage it,” things like that?

Simon:
A couple things. Number one is you just got to start somewhere. A lot of people get paralysis by analysis. They just start looking at properties on Redfin, on Zillow, and they never start making progress. So I think the first thing is dedicate some time, dedicate your weekends, read some books, figure out a strategy, what are you going to do, but also figure out what works for you. For us, it was short-term rentals here in Denver. Other people in other markets, that strategy might not work. So you have to really figure out, what do you want to do, and what are the steps that you need to take?
Something that was very valuable for us is we were part of the Short-Term Rental Bootcamp that kicked off earlier this year. It’s one thing to watch videos and figure out how to analyze properties, BiggerPockets has a lot of tools out there, but it’s invaluable for someone to walk you through the actual steps of this is how you find a deal. These are the tools that you need to take. This is what you need to be watching out for, and this is the red flags that you need to also be looking out for. So I think just really putting your head down and figuring out what you’re going to do and start doing it.
It’s not going to be easy at first. Nothing’s ever easy at first, but you just got to dedicate time, dedicate time. Even if that means I’m not in a position to buy right now. That’s okay. Most people might not be. But if you start taking step one and step two and step three, the next thing you know it’s 2023, and now you have money saved up. Then you can start putting things into motion. For us, I think the important thing is it didn’t happen overnight, and success doesn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of dedication, a lot of reading, a lot of just researching, and ultimately just lining the ducks up for what we wanted to accomplish.

Ashley:
That’s awesome, Simon. I’ve been fortunate enough to teach a couple of the bootcamp classes, but not the short-term rental one. Tony, you were the instructor for this one, right?

Tony:
I was. I was. I’m always super happy to see when folks who attended the bootcamp actually go out and use that knowledge that we share, man. So love to hear it.

Ashley:
After you guys have learned as much as you could, you’ve found your team, built your team, what about the other parts of managing a short-term rental? Did you go ahead and find those people, like a cleaner, a handyman, before you got your deal? Or did you close on the property, get it ready, and then you’re like, “Oh, wait. We need these other people”? Or maybe you guys are doing it yourself. What did that look like?

Simon:
I can take this one. I think there’s only so much reading, so much learning that you can do, but it just comes down to, like, “Hey, let’s make an offer.” It got accepted the same day, which we were extremely lucky. We closed on the property on December 1st, but we actually didn’t move in until February 1st because the sellers were doing a rent-back. They were building a new home that was under construction that was delayed, so it gave us some time in between getting it started. Then once we got started, we found there was a lot more things going on with the house than we were aware of initially, and it took a lot of time. We moved in on February 1st. I was like, “All right, Chrissy, March 1st, we’re getting this thing up and started.” Then it was April 1st. Then it was May 1st. Finally by May 24th, we got it up… No, it was May 19th. We got it up on Airbnb. 30 minutes later we got our first booking.

Tony:
Wow, congratulations. That’s amazing.

Krissy:
Yeah.

Simon:
Thank you.

Tony:
That first booking is always the most memorable. I always tell this, but it’s almost like a gambling feeling or something. There’s this high that comes in every time your phone chimes and that booking comes in and you see the booking amount. It’s unlike anything that I’ve experienced.

Simon:
The first one was awesome. Even now, when we still get it every day, now it’s even better because it’s like… For me, I was like, I got Chrissy on board. I had her to believe on me, but I was still like, “I hope this works. She’s trusting me with all this. I hope I’m making the right decision.” Then, ultimately now, we got it listed in May. June and July, we were almost 100% occupancy, and it’s booked through October now. It’s just our basement downstairs. It’s been a phenomenal journey, and we’re just getting started.
Going back to what you asked, Ashley, it was a journey. As Chrissy mentioned, we both work full-time jobs. The last thing you want to do after working eight, nine, ten hours in your W2 is heading down to the basement and paint and build furniture and get things started. We tried to do most of it ourselves, but there were a couple projects that we needed to outsource. So we found a really good painter who painted our entire thing. We had to install egress windows to make it official for legality reasons. Then we built a door separating our kitchen from the downstairs to really split the units. Everything else we did ourselves, and it was just a lot of building furniture. I think our go-to places was Target, her favorite, HomeGoods, Ikea, and Hobby Lobby.

Krissy:
Amazon.

Tony:
Amazon.

Ashley:
Well, that’s Tony’s favorite thing to do is to build furniture. I know that from watching all the Instagram reels that are made in building furniture. I want to ask real quick about… You talked about putting in the egress windows. Can you just explain exactly what that is for anyone that doesn’t know? Then how you found out that you actually needed that and any other things that maybe weren’t up to code or needed to be. Even the short-term rental laws in your area, where did you have to go to learn those things?

Simon:
I’ll take the regulations in Arvada, and then you can take the egress windows. We did a lot of research by the short-term rental regulations in Denver. The way that it works in Denver, in the city of Denver, you cannot have Airbnbs that are not your primary resident, so they must be owner-occupied. We knew that our goal was not to just buy a property, live in it forever. We wanted to buy a property, put it on Airbnb, and then a year later move out of that property and do it all over again.
We learned by really just calling the city, relying on our realtor, that we found Arvada is a close city about 10 minutes west of Denver near the mountains, that you can have up to three non-owner-occupied short-term rental properties. So we identified a couple of other cities. It was Arvada and Wheat Ridge, basically, that it came down to. I was like, “Okay, this is where we’re going to focus our search. That is a no-brainer. We’re not going to buy properties in Denver. It must be in Arvada.” So that’s how we chose the location.
It just comes down to calling the city and having conversations with the public officials. BiggerPockets has great, great content. You can do a lot of research, and lot of people are constantly talking about the short-term rental market as well. But really just picking up the phone and calling. People can’t be afraid to do that. Call the county, call the city, speak to people, learn the regulations.
Also going back to what Chrissy said earlier is rely on a really good real estate agent. I think that’s the number one thing that first-time home buyers make a decision, a mistake that they might make is not going with the best agent that meets their needs. For us, we want to find someone that specializes in short-term rentals, that specializes in house hacks. We found someone that not only specializes in these strategies, but she has gone through the process herself, and she has been successful. She’s on her third, maybe even fourth property by now, and she knows all the regulations. So we really relied on her for advice in regards to what city we’re going to be buying the property. I’ll let Chrissy talk on the egress windows.

Krissy:
As Simon mentioned, we Airbnb our basement. Egress windows are windows in a basement that someone could exit, they could go out of. Our Airbnb is a three-bedroom Airbnb. When we purchased the house, it had a single egress window downstairs, which I believe does meet Airbnb’s requirements for the square footage in this space for having a single egress window.
But for me, when I was looking at this space, I was coming at it at at a point of experience. If I was staying in a basement, what type of natural lighting could there be? How could I feel the most safe and comfortable? I grew up in New Mexico where basements really aren’t a thing, so the thought of staying in a basement on an Airbnb, I was like, “Does that make me feel trapped downstairs? How can we make this space feel the most accessible to people?” For me, I was like, “We need these windows.”
So we looked at our budget and what we had planned, and we decided that this would be a priority for us, when building out our space, would be to add these windows. So not only does it add value to our Airbnb, but it adds value to our overall property. When we go to resell this house, if that is something we do years down the road, having those egress windows down in those other bedrooms make them full bedrooms with Colorado regulations. That was also important to us. How do we invest in the short term for our short-term rental but also in our overall property?

Tony:
Just one follow-up question, just for folks that aren’t familiar with egress windows, what does it cost to add an egress window to a basement unit?

Ashley:
Each window was about $4,000.

Tony:
That’s not too bad because you literally have to cut into the side of the home if there was no egress there before.

Krissy:
Right. We have a brick home, so they were going through brick and cement to get in there. The one thing that I will also say, a hidden plus that came out of our egress windows, is Simon and I are both pretty chatty people. So when we met the people who were doing our egress windows, we were telling them what we were doing, and we were telling them about how we have these other projects. They were like, “Oh, yeah. We could build a doorframe for you guys.” We were like, “Excellent.” I think that was kind of the snowball start of continuing to build our network when it came to people. Technically, they were an egress window company, but they also had the skills to do other things. We liked them. We trusted their work. We thought they gave us a fair price when we were comparing it to other things. So we were like, “Absolutely. When you have time next Saturday afternoon, you can come build our doorframe for us.
I would also say, too, Ashley, going back to your earlier question about building our network and choosing our cleaners and stuff, we started with one cleaner and it didn’t quite work out, but we started talking and connecting to these cleaners and were able to keep another team member who’s now become our lead cleaner. So I think, for us, it’s been really helpful to just connect with the people that are supporting us with our business. Whenever we’re here, we go down and we talk to them. We ask them how it’s going. Are we supplying everything they need? Do they have any suggestions for us? Are they seeing things that we’re not seeing? Because we don’t always look at the property every time they turn it over.
We, this summer, went out of the country for a couple weeks, and we had two or three same-day turnovers while we were gone. I was a nervous wreck. I was like, “Oh my gosh, same-day turnovers.” I’m like, “Not only am I not here to double check everything, but to also be in the same place to do it.” Everything went seamlessly. I think after the first one, because we trusted and we were so well connected to the people that were supporting us through this, that it was a pretty seamless process for us.

Tony:
I want to talk about how you two split up the duties between you. But before we do, since you mentioned cleaners and the important role that they play, Simon, maybe if you can walk us through, who is on your short-term rental team, and how did you guys go about finding those folks and vetting them to make sure they’d be able to do a good job?

Simon:
We’ve gone through a few handymen. We actually haven’t used them since launching our Airbnb, but I decided at first, I was like, I don’t want to just pick one. I want to have multiple so we can have multiple resources when and if the time comes. I would say the only person in our team besides Chrissy and I right now is our cleaner. How did I find these people? I joined Facebook groups, I used Nextdoor, and I just asked questions. I was not afraid to just pick up the phone and call people. I come from a long sales background. I’ve been in sales my entire career, and I’m not afraid of just picking up the phone and calling whether it’s a plumber, whether it’s a handyman, whether it’s a cleaner and having them come to the house. We can interview them, walk us through their process, and just speaking with a lot of people and networking.

Krissy:
I have one quick thing to add with that, we also started with small projects. So when we found a handyman, we’d say, “Hey, can you do this one thing?” If that one thing went really well, we were like, “Okay, great. Here’s the 32 other thousand things that we need done.” So I think that helped us feel confident in them, and I think it just helps to build that partnership. We take this in steps. Let’s take this in step with our partnerships as well.

Tony:
One follow up to that. I’m so glad you mentioned starting with the small things. I was thinking about this when you were talking about the rehab and the egress company. The same thing happened to us in Joshua Tree. When we first found our rehab crew out there, the first thing they did for us was they built an outdoor pergola, and that’s all we needed them for. They built a pergola in our backyard for one of our properties. Then something broke at the property and our regular handyman wasn’t available. We’re like, “Hey, would you mind? Are you able to go and fix this?” He’s like, “Yeah, for sure, I can go fix it, whatever.” And he knocked it out.
Then I think something bigger ended up happening. We wanted to like replace some cabinets or something. We were like, “Hey, can you replace cabinets?” He was like, “Yeah, I can replace cabinets.” We just started progressively asking for bigger things. We were like, “Well, is there anything that you can’t do?” He was like, “No. I was actually a home builder for 30 years, so I can pretty much do anything inside of a property.” It’s crazy to think now. I would probably lead with that if I was him, but he was just doing whatever we needed him to do. My point is is you never know what people are capable of doing unless you ask and you give them that opportunity to show and prove. So I’m glad you guys found the benefit from that in your business as well.

Simon:
It just comes down to just treating them like a human and asking questions, like, feel them, welcome. They’re on your team. Your success is depending on their work, so just being grateful for anyone that comes and helps us. Then asking those questions. It’s like, “Hey, what, what else can you help us with? Or if you can’t do X, maybe you connect us with someone that can do it.” That’s really how you’re supposed to build your team.

Ashley:
I want to ask something about doing it in the basement, so doing a remodel in the basement. How was it? Was there already plumbing down there? Did you have to add in a pump for the toilet? Then also, what about your laundry? I know in New York here, a lot of houses have basements. That’s where a lot of people’s laundry is actually located in the basement. Did you guys have to relocate that or anything?

Simon:
For us, the basement was already furnished. There’s three-

Krissy:
Finished.

Simon:
Oh, yeah. Finished, not furnished. It’s already finished. There’s three bedrooms down there and one full bathroom. The laundry is a little bit of a problem. I’ll let Chrissy talk on this because she’s very passionate about this subject.

Krissy:
Like Simon said, our basement was already finished. The only, I would say besides the window, big improvement was we didn’t really have a kitchenette down there. So we were building out the refrigerator or the microwave, and we were going through different things. Then we were like, “If someone was to need to wash something, where would they go? The bathroom?” We’re like, “That’s weird.” Like Simon said, our washer and dryer is downstairs, and it’s in a locked-out room. We were really lucky that we could put a little kitchenette up against that wall and run the pipe through the laundry room.
We actually lock out our laundry room and don’t let our guests use it. I jokingly say it’s the laundry room of death because it’s not finished. There’s pipes and ceilings. From a safety and a liability standpoint, that just something I wasn’t interested in doing. So far, it hasn’t been a problem at all with our guests needing to use the laundry.
For us, it takes planning. Sometimes that planning can get frustrating because we’ve gone two or three weeks where we’ve been at full capacity. Usually it’s they’ve checked out at 11:00, run downstairs, and throw your laundry in. We’re going to be flipping the sheets. For the way we’re doing it and the minimal access to our washer and dryer, I will say when we were first starting to read about how many sets of sheets we should have, how many sets of towels and stuff, I was reading double was around best practice. So that’s how we started. Then knowing our constraints around the washer and dryer, we went ahead and bumped everything up to three sets, which has been really good for us. So if we aren’t able to finish everything before a new guest checks in, we can do that.
But it really just comes down to capacity planning. If we know there’s a two-day gap, it’s go-time on the laundry front for us personally as well as getting bedspreads, sheets even more done. A couple times we’ve had to go to a laundromat. We just tell ourselves, the cost of our time to spend two hours at a laundromat, because you can put in six loads at a single time, is definitely an opportunity cost we’re willing to be a part of for this Airbnb.

Simon:
I’ll be honest. One of my favorite things about running the Airbnb is finding an excuse to not do laundry and just taking it to the laundromat and picking it back up. Just treating it like an operating expense.

Krissy:
Oh, lordy. We disagree about that. I’m like, “You can wait.”

Ashley:
My only active short-term rental right now is an Airbnb Arbitrage. It’s in an apartment complex. They have laundry rooms there, but they’re very small washer and dryers. You basically have to take over the whole laundry room to do all the sheets and bedding and towels and stuff. My business partner on that short-term rental actually owns a laundromat around the corner. So our cleaner actually takes it to the laundromat, throws them all into things, cleans it while it’s going in the wash. When she’s done cleaning, goes back and throws it into the dryer, and then will come back and get everything and have the second set done for when somebody comes in. But it’s definitely so much easier, I think, taking it to the laundromat and just using only two washers instead of having to use a whole bunch of them or doing multiple loads, I guess.

Krissy:
Absolutely. I will say when the time comes that we move probably out from the upstairs and decide to Airbnb the entire property versus just the basement, we’ll probably have to think through a little bit more on the laundry front because it can be a lot. But I will say, definitely recommend the multiple sets of things. I thought that at first I was like, “Why do I need so many things?” Now I’m like, “Oh, this is fantastic.” You never know when something might get ruined as well. It’s just so much easier to just move on and pull up your extras and do an Amazon order like it’s part of the business, and it’s okay. It definitely a little takes a little bit more navigating than we thought, but it’s worth it.

Ashley:
I want to ask about that. You mentioned that when you move out of the upstairs, if you were to Airbnb it, are you able to do that since it’s not going to be your primary, or since it was your primary at one time, you can?

Simon:
We can certainly do so. That’s why we bought it in Arvada. In Arvada, you can have up to three non-primary short-term rentals. So that was a leading indicator as to why we’re going to purchase property in Arvada and not the city of Denver. So that is our plan to purchase a new home next spring.

Ashley:
And do it all over again.

Simon:
Do it all over again.

Ashley:
Yay.

Simon:
Learn from our mistakes, learn how to budget a little bit better. Also, the opportunity from a revenue standpoint, it can essentially nearly double our revenue because it goes from being able to sleep a maximum of six to potentially 12 guests and open up the entire upstairs and downstairs.

Tony:
And the revenue you’ll get from your second-

Simon:
Exactly.

Tony:
… Airbnb house hack, so it’s almost like a 1.5 or 2.5 increase because you’re doubling it and some.

Simon:
Yeah.

Ashley:
Well, we want to go into the numbers of this property. We’ve talked a lot about what it is and what you’ve done with it. What was the purchase price of this? It was on the MLS, correct, and you used your agent to buy it. That was the deal source.

Simon:
Yep. It was on the MLS. On a Saturday, we saw four properties. We really like two, and we ultimately went with this one. We bought it with a conventional loan of 5% down, and the home price was $575,000.

Tony:
So it was only one Saturday. So you guys only looked at four properties, and out of those… Oh, okay, all right. It was just one of the Saturdays that you guys were out shopping you found this one.

Krissy:
Oh, I guess we did two or three Saturdays. So this was probably our eighth or ninth property that we saw before we made the decision for it. For me, I was really big on location. We, obviously, both had been living in Denver city for years, and I loved it. So moving super far out to make sure that we were in a place that allowed us this flexibility with Airbnb wasn’t something that I was super thrilled about. I was like, “I want to stay in Denver.” But now knowing how close we are and the experience of the area that we chose that we can give our guests as well as ourselves, it’s almost like I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Ashley:
Could you explain the conventional loan? Because usually when you hear conventional loan, you hear 20% down, and if you want 3.5% or 5% down, it’s FHA. So can you explain where you found this at a bank? I know my sister got pre-approved for this loan, too. I was like, “Wait, you can do that, only 5% down on a conventional?” So maybe you can explain how you found that loan and where you got it from and the benefits of going with the conventional compared to the FHA.

Krissy:
When we first decided that we were going to do this, we thought about our financing and how we were going to be able to tackle it. Neither of us have been homeowners before, so we definitely wanted to leverage that first-time home buyer opportunity here in Colorado. So we sat down and said, “What would make the most sense for us? Should we do this property together? Should we take it in pieces? Should we do it separately? How can we begin thinking about this in the long term?” So when we decided to do this property, we decided that we were going to go at it together, but only put it in one of our names in order for us to qualify for that first-time home buyer opportunity. That is how we tackled this one together and got started in this space. It’s been good for us in the sense that we thought about it from the standpoint is leverage the things that you have access to.
We definitely are first-time home buyers. We aren’t two people that have a ton of cash. We’ve been saving really hard for these opportunities. So that’s where we said, “How can we divide and conquer, but then also conquer together?” So that made that decision for me to use my first-time home buyer opportunity on this property. Then the next one we go to will be where Simon uses his first-time home buyer opportunity for us. Then eventually when we get married in October of 2023, then we will combine everything together.
I think at least when dividing and conquering and looking at our investments and our finances, I always just thought, “Of course, we would do this together. We’re partners. We’re getting married. Like, of course.” I think we kind of took a step back and said, “What actually are all of our options?” We’re 100% not only committed to each other, but to building this together. Let’s make sure that we leverage everything that we have access to because we’re young. We’re starting from scratch. We’re pretty green in all this. So definitely doing our homework and also talking, not only talking, finding a lender that will a) lend to you is the first part, but b) that you trust and you build a relationship, too. I feel like everything goes back to building that relationship.
This was the first time we purchased a home. We sat down with our lender, and I said, “I have a stack of questions. Half of them are probably dumb, but I’m just going to throw them out here about how this works,” and just be brave enough to ask them. By the end of this, taking on a $575,000 mortgage didn’t seem as scary as it did in the beginning when I was like, “Oh my God, no way.” So I think it literally goes back down to that relationship building. We still talk to our lender. He still checks in with us, gives us updates on our property, asks us about our next one. He is definitely someone we will go back to for future properties, and he’s someone who we valued his perspective and his opinions as well.

Tony:
Chrissy, I’m so glad you mentioned that story about asking all those questions to the lender because a lot of times what drives fear is a lack of knowledge, and the fastest and easiest way to overcome that fear is to increase the amount of knowledge you have in that given subject. For new investors, if you’re not doing what Chrissy and Simon did where you’re sitting down with your agent and you’re asking them all the questions, even the ones you think that are dumb, or you’re not sitting down with your lender and asking them the questions, your property manager, whoever it is, those are the things you need to do especially at the beginning to overcome some of that fear.
Just a really quick side note, when we were trying to get Sarah on board with some stuff we were doing, I literally picked up the phone and called my lender and said, “Here, just ask the questions that you’re thinking of. That way you’re not just hearing it from me.” So it’s a really good way to get your spouse on board, too.
Before we wrap up talking about the deal, I want to just go into the cash flow numbers. You guys have had this property for a couple of months now. What kind of revenue is your short-term rental unit bringing in for you guys on average?

Simon:
We listed it on May 19th. June and July is $4,500 each month-

Tony:
Wow.

Simon:
… so $4,500 a month. That being said, June and July are the busiest seasons for it. But it’s already really excited to see that we have bookings through September through October. So really excited to see how this plays out over the next few months as we head into the winter season.

Tony:
Again, the goal of a house hack is to offset your mortgage. I would assume at $575,000, 5% down, the Airbnb’s probably covering all of your mortgage, or if not, pretty, pretty darn close to it. So as a house hack, I would say this is really successful.

Simon:
The mortgage was a 30-year mortgage. Our mortgage is at 27, so we are cash flowing right around 15, $2,000 after paying the cleaner. That’s really our biggest expense.

Tony:
You’re getting paid to live at home.

Krissy:
Yeah, it’s great.

Ashley:
We’re going to go onto our rookie request line segment. This is where anyone can call in at 1-888-5ROOKIE and leave us a voicemail, and we may play it on the show for a guest to hear. Today’s question is, “Hi. I’m a rookie investor from New Jersey. My girlfriend and I are looking to buy a house hack soon. My question is, what should we be asking an agent so we can purchase the right home for us?”

Simon:
Hey, Ju Yun. Thank you so much for your question and congratulations on taking the first step. I think what I’ll say, before asking your agent, is figuring out what you want to do, what strategy you want to pursue and what works in New Jersey. My second point would be to leverage the BiggerPockets agent finder. They have a large network of agents who specialize in working with investors. These agents are typically investors in their own markets. They understand what works, what doesn’t. They understand the regulations. They understand the strategies. They’re really able to give you detailed information about what may work in New Jersey. Because my assumption is going to be that what works for us here in Denver may not work in New Jersey. I’m sure the short-term rental regulations are different. Our long-term goals might be different than your long-term goals. So really just figuring out your why, but also finding an agent that really understands the market.

Krissy:
The only thing that I would add to that from a much simpler level, like I said, Simon’s the vision and I’m the “How do we make this happen?” is bring your realtor into your vision and ask the question as simple as when you’re looking at properties of, “How would this work?” That was my favorite question to ask our realtor. Your realtor has probably seen thousands of properties. They will probably have a vision for a property where, if you move this door or add that, here’s your lockout, here’s your house hack, here’s your Airbnb. Starting from scratch, I didn’t see it, but I had a realtor who did, and I asked the question, “Okay, I like this property. I like the neighborhood. I like the kitchen back splash. How will this work?” Leaning on them to answer that simple question might almost be one of your most important questions.

Tony:
I’m going to take us now, guys, to our rookie exam. Thanks for answering that beautiful question from Ju Yun. I’m sure they really appreciate that. Are you guys ready for the rookie exam?

Krissy:
We hope so.

Simon:
Yeah.

Tony:
We’ll go question by question, so you guys can take one… Simon, maybe you take the first one. Chrissy, you can take the second one. You guys can both maybe answer the last one together. Question number one, again, Simon, we’ll point this at you, what’s one actionable thing rookies should do after listening to this episode?

Simon:
Create a BiggerPockets account, set up your keyword alerts, and start networking with people. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t be afraid to engage with people who have already done what you’re doing and just get comfortable at being uncomfortable.

Ashley:
I think that’s the first person to ever recommend on here to set up those keywords in the forums. You know what? That is not talked about enough because that was what I did, too. Like, anything with Buffalo, anything with seller financing. Those are my original keyword alerts that would come in. Yeah, it is so interesting. You’ll get the ping of the email where somebody’s talking about this. You can go in and see what’s going on because there are so many forum posts in there, and this makes it like you get to see what’s happening as people are going through the forum conversation because you’re alerted about it. So that’s an awesome tip.

Simon:
There’s so much valuable information on BiggerPockets. Start with the keyword alerts. My favorite is setting up location keyword alerts so at least you have an understanding of the conversations that are being had about your market or the market that you’re interested in purchasing your property in.

Ashley:
Chrissy, what about you?

Krissy:
Probably very similar to Simon. I would say surround yourself with information that you know will be receptive to. So I think for me, like I said, today, if you’re interested in this, do something as simple as follow five people on Instagram who are doing it. I know everything that you see on Instagram isn’t real life. You will build furniture together, and you will cry, and it will be tough, but then you will build furniture together and have beautiful pictures for your Airbnb listing. So you’ll get both. But I would say start to open your lens and see people doing it and start to see the small things. Then, like I said, day by day, follow by follow, it will start to feel more achievable. So just baby steps. There’s nothing wrong with baby steps.

Ashley:
The next question, what is one tool, software, app, or system in your business that you guys use?

Simon:
Hospitable. We use Hospitable to manage guest communications automations when they’re checking in, when they request an inquiry, when they arrive, when they check out. It also sends automatic notifications to our cleaner. She has her calendar synced to our Airbnb calendar, so as soon as there’s a booking, it automatically pops up on her calendar. It just makes our life so much easier. I’ve said this to my friends and I’ll say it before, for us, for this business, our house right now, the hard part is already done. The hard part of finding a property, building it, building furniture, that is hard. For us now, it’s just texting people through Airbnb. Hospitable makes it so much easier for us so that we don’t constantly have to be looking at our phone when there’s a new inquiry, when there’s a new message, or communicating information with our cleaner.

Tony:
Hospitable is great.

Krissy:
100% agree. It’s forget it, forget it, and leave it. Like I said, also getting comfortable with it. When Simon first told me we were going to automate everything, but I was like, “Well, what if I need to talk to them? What if there’s a one-off situation and they need to hear from me?” He was like, “No, that’s too much work.” Now we’ve done the “set it and forget it” with Hospitable, and it’s been incredible. Of course, there’s those couple of moments where they ask a specific question and they might get an automated response, and then you respond back to them. Nobody has ever said anything. They’ve been like, “Okay, sounds great.” So 100% recommend it.

Tony:
Last question for you both. Where do you plan on being in five years? Chrissy, I want to start with you because I know you were the one that was a little bit more hesitant to begin with. So I’m curious how that’s changed over this journey that you’ve been on.

Krissy:
In five years from now, I see Simon and I close to in our forever home with non-downstairs friends living with us and multiple other properties. So our five-year plan is definitely us being in a home on our own, and then keeping the current house we’re in fully on Airbnb and hopefully having at least two or three other properties. I don’t know. We’ve talked about, like, “Could this be the future where this, one day, becomes our full-time jobs?” Potentially. But also, Simon and I really like our careers. We like what we’re doing work-wise, and balancing this in addition to all of that has been really exciting for us. We also might have a family by then, so we might have a totally different perspective on balancing all these different things. But for now, it’s definitely in our own home, not being on Airbnb five years from now, and hopefully a couple properties in addition to it.

Simon:
Yeah, that was a good, good answer. I think for me it’s having a lot of income-producing properties, Airbnbs, and leveraging that money, leveraging that income to buy more passive investments. For me, I just want to be financially free. I don’t want to rely on my W2 job, and I want to have multiple properties. Especially now in our line of work where remote working, working from home is going to be probably a forever thing, I see ourselves having properties all over the country, in Florida, possibly even in Colombia, my home country, and being able to work from wherever we want in our properties so that they’re not only a business but that we’re also leveraging them for our own personal use and being able to retire from the W2 and really managing the Airbnbs, managing our investments, and potentially getting into other investments.

Tony:
Love that. I’m sure with the projection that you guys are on, the path you guys are on, you’ll more than easily get there. So it’s [inaudible 00:59:16] to have you guys back on one day and you can tell us all about your Airbnbs in Colombia.

Krissy:
I love it.

Tony:
Before we wrap things up, I just want to give a quick shout out to this week’s Rookie Rockstar. If you’d like to get highlighted as a Rookie Rockstar, get active in the BiggerPockets’ forums, Real Estate Rookie Facebook group, or [inaudible 00:59:32] Ashley’s DMs. This week’s Rookie Rockstar is Scott Alair from Ontario, Canada. I like Scott’s post. He posted this in the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group. The first thing Scott said, before he even told his story, he said, “I will become a millionaire one day, and for some reason, I can say it confidently knowing there’s a path to get me there. I’m sure anyone can if they can just get out of their comfort zone.” So Scott, way to set the bar high for people.
Scott said that he bought a property with a 5% down payment. It was one of the best decisions he made. He bought the property during COVID, early 2020, and he put about $22,000 into the property, refinanced a few months later, and pulled out $21,000. So he is only got 1,000 bucks left in the deal. Since then, he’s gained over 20% in equity, which is about 50 grand, which he said is more than he’s ever even made at a job. So Scott, congratulations to you. Excited to see you one day hit that millionaire status.

Ashley:
That is so cool, Scott, and thanks for the little bit of advice and motivation, too, at the beginning for everyone listening and congratulations on that deal. Simon and Chrissy, where can everyone find out some more information about you guys and reach out to you?

Simon:
We are both active on Instagram, on BiggerPockets. You can find us on Instagram. I’m sure, Tony and Ashley, if you want to put our handles on the show notes. Also on BiggerPockets, I’ll put my link on there as well. Feel free to ask us any questions you have whether or not you’re looking at buying a short-term rental or any other different strategies. I think it really just comes down to communicating and learning for people that have already done it. We would be more than happy to answer any of your questions, hop on a quick call, and share further details that you may have.

Ashley:
Well, thank you guys so much.

Krissy:
Thank you so much for having us. We were super excited, a little nervous to share our story because, definitely, we don’t see ourselves as experts by any means, so we’re coming on this podcast truly as rookies. We took step one. We did the first property. So hopefully the next time we talk to you guys, we might not be full-blown rookies anymore.

Ashley:
Well, Chrissy, within the first five minutes, you were already giving away great advice so-

Tony:
Totally.

Ashley:
… [inaudible 01:01:44] yourself.

Tony:
I just want to add one thing onto that really quick before we wrap. So many people who only have one deal oftentimes sell themselves short in terms of how much knowledge they have towards the person that has zero deals. So if someone who’s never done an Airbnb or short-term rental or any kind of investment property before, if they came to you and said, “Tell me what you know about Airbnbs and real estate investing,” you will blow their minds. So don’t sell yourself short. You guys, obviously, maybe you don’t have a massive portfolio, but you guys do have a lot of experience. You’ve gone through the process. You know what you’re doing. So excited for you guys to keep growing.

Simon:
I was just going to give you guys a shout out. We love the show. We listen to it all the time. Just keep doing what you’re doing because it’s helped us tremendously as we get started and continue to expand and grow into the business that we have right now and what we hope to be in the near future.

Ashley:
Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate that. I think having guests on who have just done one deal are some of our most important and valuable guests because it is so fresh in your mind as to how you got that deal and what you’re doing right now. I think that is tremendous value. Sometimes when you have these experts on, they forget those little tiny details, those little things that actually made a huge impact on getting that first deal. So thank you guys so much for coming on and sharing your story with us.

Krissy:
Thank you for having us. This has been great. Hopefully, we can inspire another couple like us. I know, like you said, it’s like, being able to listen to people that are like-minded, not only like-minded, but you’re like, “Oh, we’re like them. We don’t have enough money for a bunch of properties, but we can tackle this first one.” I always think that’s really, really helpful to just hear from people where you’re like, “Okay, we’re on a similar playing field.”

Ashley:
Well, thank you everyone for listening to this week’s Real Estate Rookie podcast. We will be back on Saturday with the Rookie Reply. I’m Ashley @WealthFromRentals, and he’s Tony @TonyJRobinson. We’ll see you guys next time. (singing)

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show, 652.

Craig:
When you learn anything new or when you’re trying to get into anything new, education always comes first. Right. Education times action equals results. And so, you can keep adding education, adding education, education, but if that action is zero, you’re never going to get anything. But also, the other way around, if you’re all action, all action, and no education, you’re not going to get anything.
So the first step, I always think, is education. If you’re listening to this podcast and you go to one of these boot camps, your education is going to be there. By the time we’re done with the bootcamp, you’re going to be ready to take action. Then all you got to do is worry about that second part, which is action, and then successful [inaudible 00:00:39].

David:
What’s going on everyone. This is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. Here today with my co-host Rob Abasolo, where we are bringing you a fire edition of the show. We are joined by Craig Curelop and Ashley Kehr, two other BiggerPockets heavy hitters, as we bring our insight, experience and feedback into answering commonly asked questions directly from the BiggerPockets forums.
In today’s episode, we get into stuff about house hacking, avoiding time-showing properties when you are renting them, what’s going on in the market, where we’re buying and more. Rob, what were some of your favorite parts of today’s show?

Rob:
I just like the unique perspective of everybody. There’s four of us, we all come from different paths, right, when it comes to real estate, there’s short-term rentals, long-term investing, long-distance investing and house hacking. So it was really nice to get a nice, balanced view from everybody.

David:
Yes, sir. And it was pretty fun by the way. So if you want to be entertained and learn something, this is a podcast for you. We’re going to get to it in a second, but before we do, today’s quick tip brought to you by Robert Abasolo.

Rob:
Ah, yes. Ooh, quick tip you. You put me on the spot here. So if you don’t know, BiggerPockets host boot camps. So if you’re looking to get into real estate, we have a bunch of different boot camps that can help you do that. We have the Rookie Bootcamps to help you get started. We have Rookie Landlord Bootcamp to teach you how to manage your property. Multifamily Bootcamp for your next multifamily investment purchase. Short-term Rental Bootcamp to dive into investing in short-term rentals like Airbnbs and vacation homes. And finally House Hacking Bootcamps, diving into earning income from your primary residents through creative strategies on your property.
And the quick tip here, getting to that, boot camps are only $489, which is already a great deal, but it’s an even better deal if you’re already a pro member, the boot camps at that point are just $199. And if you’re just a listener of the show, you can get 10% off right now when you use promo code, Boot Camp 10.

David:
All right, let’s bring in Ashley and Craig and get to the good stuff. All right, so today’s format’s going to be a little bit different, but a bit of fun. We’ve got several BiggerPockets personalities all with their own expert analysis on different elements of asset classes in real estate. And we’re going to be taking questions right out of the BiggerPockets forums and giving our two cents on what we would do. We would hope that our answers can help you on your real estate investing journey and keep you entertain while you’re learning. Moderating us today is the moderator Rob Abasolo himself. Rob, take it away.

Rob:
Hello. Hello. Yes. You can call me Mod Rob for short. And I think that’s actually a very fitting name. You kind of moderated on my behalf. This is my job, David. I’m taking over from here. Look at me, I am the podcast host now.
So we all come from different backgrounds as you said, so I think we all kind of share a very unique experience here. I’m short-term rentals, we got long-term rentals, we got house hacking, and we got long-distance investing. So we’re pulling a lot of these questions straight from the forums. And we’re looking for everyone’s very spicy or moderate takes here. All right. So don’t hold back everybody. It’s a Friday afternoon. Let’s get into it.
First question, when do you give rent credit to a tenant? And is this something that you’ve encountered often in your rental histories? Oh, let me do the official moderator thing here, we’ll start with Ashley Kehr.

Ashley:
Well, hello everyone. My name is Ashley Kehr and I’m super excited to be here today to talk about landlording because I’m hosting a landlord bootcamp that is coming up this fall. So I have given credit to tenants before. And one of the biggest reasons I have done that is because I want to get rid of that headache. Sometimes just taking the initiative by listening to the tenant, understanding what the issue is and giving them a little bit of a credit has made a big difference. And instead of me battling with them and it becoming a bigger issue because I’m not giving them the $25 credit they want for that month for something…
And the biggest reason that I have given credits before is if they are having maintenance done and for some reason the maintenance hasn’t been done, maybe their fridge broke down and I cannot get somebody there until the next day. I’ve given people a credit to go and buy ice and buy a cooler to keep their food in until the fridge can go and get repaired. So I definitely am for giving credits just to get rid of that headache.
Another thing I’ve given a credit for besides maintenance is just like any kind of disruption that may have occurred on their property that may even be out of my control. Just maybe they’ve come in and landscapers I hired accidentally chopped up something with the weed whacker that they had outside. So I think it’s great to have a relationship where you can give a little to a tenant when these circumstances happen, instead of just constantly saying, “Nope, this is what the rent is” and being strict and firm to it.
But then there’s other times where you shouldn’t give in to a rent credit. So for example, there was a water leak into a unit and it was because of the weather. Ice had dammed up on the roof of the property. Water started seeping in behind the ice and it leaked into some of the units and it damaged some of the contents, the property that the tenants had in there. And we had our insurance cover repairing the drywall, getting in there, making sure there’s no mold forming, taking care of the unit as quickly as possible. The tenant wanted us to cover the contents that were damaged. And that is why a tenant has renter’s insurance. So that was one instance where we didn’t give our rent credit that we had the tenant go to their renter’s insurance to cover their personal property in the unit.

Rob:
So that’s interesting. Have you come across that situation often where there’s something that the tenant could have done to sort of prevent it on their end? Like in this example, they don’t have the renter insurance so is that a hard line that you draw all the time with all your properties?

Ashley:
Well, this one was because it wasn’t like any neglect on our part that something happened to the unit. So it was because of the weather that the ice build up on the roof. There was nothing we could have done to prevent that during that time. And so, that’s why we had them go… And they actually did have renter’s insurance, they just didn’t want to use it because you make a claim, your premium goes up. So if maybe there was something that was neglected on the property and that did cause damage to the tenant’s property, then yes, I would feel that it would be my responsibility to give them a credit or to give them money towards replacing whatever was damaged on the property.

Rob:
Yeah, it’s an interesting distinction because in short-term rentals, it’s the very same thing. If it’s something that’s my fault, I will always offer to try to make it right in some capacity or refund them for the inconvenience. I’ve just had two… I’ve had actually a lot, over the last week, I would say probably a list of 10, not catastrophic items, but 10 things that have just really taken my time. And so, two examples here, in my Scottsdale house, in David’s Scottsdale house, our water heater went out and it kept going out on the guests. And so, in those instances, that’s on our fault, not really a neglect thing, but obviously, the water heater, you don’t know when it’s going to go out. So we had to refund the guests for that instance.
Fast forward to like two days ago, and my guests actually happened to lock themselves out of my house. Now, we have electronic keypads on both doors, but the guests managed to lock the deadbolt for both doors and they decided to leave through the garage for whatever reason and they closed the garage. And so, when they called us, they’re like, “Hey, the code’s not working.” And fast forward to like four hours later, they were really, really, really, really mad. And I’m like, “Well, I mean, you guys locked the deadbolts and locked yourself out. You went past my fail-safes here and you still managed to lock yourself out.” And so, that was an instance where I was really sympathetic and I apologized, but it wasn’t an instance in which I would’ve offered a refund because there’s not really anything I could have done about that. I sent a locksmith out, I helped him out, I adjusted very quickly, but that’s not something that I wanted to take the blame for just because that was such a niche scenario that’s never happened in my 1000 stays, five years of hosting.
David, I know that you have properties across the country, I know you’ve really scaled your operation really from coast to coast here. So what do rent credits really look like for someone at scale like yourself?

David:
First thing I’ll say about this is that I haven’t given rent credits out before. Doesn’t mean I never would, but like Ashley said, it would have to be something where I messed up. I would also say I’m more likely to voluntarily offer a rent credit than have a tenant try to hold me hostage, which I think is what happens a lot of the time. You work in the restaurant industry for a while and you get those people that complain about everything they can about their food because they’re hoping that you’ll give them something free. That’ll usually cause me to just be more firm than I normally would’ve been.
On the other side though, I will say it’s better to give someone a rent credit than to decrease what their monthly rent is. And that’s because with rent control, that’s starting to pop up in more and more cities and inflation increasing so quickly, if you spend a couple years not increasing your rent, you can get really, really far behind and then be unable to increase it to market rent because of rent control restrictions.
And since a lot of these properties are valued based on the income they bring in, if you have a property that’s renting for below market rent, we see this a lot in San Francisco where there’s a building that comps would say it would be worth $2 million, but the rents are from 10 years ago, they haven’t been able to keep up. So the property, no one wants to buy it if they’re going to be renting out for a thousand dollars a month because they can’t raise the rents to the $5,000 a month number that they should be. So in those scenarios, rather than discounting, someone’s monthly rent, which I think a lot of landlords do when they’re trying to have a good heart and they’re like, “Oh, I’ll keep their rent low.” No bump their rent up and give them a credit instead. It’s the same to them, but you don’t fall behind with the laws for rent control.
The other little caveat I’ll add is a lot of times, property managers will ask you as the landlord to pay for something because they’re more likely to get money out of you than the tenant. So I just got a DM from someone that was asking me that the tenant screwed something up, messed up the plumbing in the toilet. And then, the property management company tried to build a landlord and say, “Hey, this is what the plumber bill was.” And they were saying, “Hey, is this on me or is this on the tenant?”
And I had the exact same scenario, I had a tenant who said the toilet is overflowing. We send out a plumber, the plumber pulls out a little stuffed animal from the pipes of the toilet. And I said, “Yeah, send me a picture of that.” And I sent it back to the landlord and said, “I wasn’t in the house to shove this thing down the pipe so I’m not paying for this plumber.” And the tenant put it on to the rent that month. So sometimes you have to pay a little bit of attention, because you just assume that the property management company’s going to bill you as a landlord before they go to the tenant because it’s faster for them and they’re more likely to get the money out of you.

Rob:
Sure. I think that’s fair. I hate when that happens, by the way. I tried not to stuff stuffed animals down my toilet as much these days, because those plumbing bills are really expensive.
But I also wanted to ask, are there any creative uses of rent credit that anyone here can speak to? I know for me, I know that I can reimburse a short-term rental guest their nightly rate or part of their nightly rate if I have to. But what I like to do is actually offer them sort of like a dinner, if you will, or sometimes we’ll send like a bottle of wine or something like that because I feel like that’s more personal.
It’s like, “Yes, I could reimburse you a hundred dollars and I’m sure you’d be happy with that,” but what I like to do is say, “Hey, I’m so sorry about that. What I’d like to do is just buy you and your family dinner. Is that something that you guys would be okay with? Just send me the receipt when you’re done and I’ll send you a reimbursement through Airbnb.” And most people, typically, are very happy with that just because they’re like, “Oh, that’s a very nice thing that you’re willing to do. And I think it goes a little bit further than just sending like a blank check in the Airbnb system, if you will.
So Craig, as our resident house hacking king here, can you tell us a little bit about how rent credits work in your space? Because I know when you’re coexisting and living in the same space as someone else, what does that like? Is it tough to have conversations that might require you to either approve or deny a rent credit to your tenant?

Craig:
Yeah. Honestly, it’s very similar to what Ashley mentioned. Right. The way I kind of look at it is I’m giving these people a product, right, I’m giving them a place to live for relatively inexpensive and in return, they’re paying me rent. And so, at any time that product is damaged, then I would be willing to hear about a rent credit. And so, kind of like Ashley said, a lot of times, if there’s maintenance or something kind of happens, there was one time recently where our water pump was broken and we didn’t have water for like three days. And I gave the tenant like a hundred bucks discount on rent for her rent convenience. And she was super happy with that. And oftentimes, I’d like to try to get ahead of it versus have them ask for it because then it makes relationship that much better if they don’t have to ask for it and they’re more likely to stay, reduced turnover, and in a rent by the room situation, turnover is actually a pretty big deal so anything you can do to reduce turnover is something I would highly recommend.
In terms of like having the conversation when they ask for it and I don’t want to give it to them, again, I try to bring it to the lease, right, I try to keep things really simple. But again, if they’re like really upfront, if they’re really crazy about it and they’re starting to act emotionally, oftentimes, depending on the amount, I will just give in just to kind of let the problem pass so they feel like they’re having a good place to live. Because at the end of the day, you need to make sure that these people enjoy where they live or they’re going to make your life…

Rob:
I mean, that makes sense. I think if you offer it up, it’s usually a delight to people versus if they have to ask for it, then tensions are always going to be a little high, which is obviously something that you probably experience in the house hacking arena. So I actually wanted to get into that a little bit. [inaudible 00:14:35]. Can you run us through some of the pros and cons of renting by the room? And this could be in the capacity of house hacking could also be if you wanted to just have a lease where you were renting all the rooms individually. Give us a little bit of kind of the both sides of this concept.

Craig:
Yeah. So the pros are, obviously, you can make a lot more money. Right. For example, I’ve got a house in Denver, it’s a five-bedroom, two-bath. And if I were to rent that as a single-family house, I’d get about 26, $2,700 a year. From a rent by the room perspective, I can get between 37 or $3,900 a month. Sorry. 26 and $27 a month or $3,700 a month. So we’re talking a thousand dollars a month difference just by renting by the room. And so, you really need to take a look at it and see if it’s worth it for you.
The cons, right, is that it’s a lot more work, there’s some tenant conflict, no one really feels like they own the house, they have ownership of the house so, there’s a little leak under the sink, they’re less inclined to fix it like someone in a single-family house might. And so, it’s a little bit more management intensive, but it’s a lot more profitable. And in expensive markets, especially ones like Denver, Seattle, and kind of these tier two type markets where you can rent by the room and make things work, I think it’s a great way to be able to house hack and to be able to cash flow and live rent free in expensive market that you can also get appreciation. It’s a way you can have your cake and eat it too with great cash flow and great appreciation.

Rob:
Sure. David and Ash, I’m curious, have y’all ever done the house hacking thing? Any point in your real estate journey, have you ever done just a very simple house hack?

Ashley:
I have not done one and I wish that I could have, that I would’ve known about it before I built my house, but I actually did it through my sister. So she was fresh out of college and wanted to buy property so I got her to purchase a duplex and I partnered with her on it. We were 50/50 partners and I gifted her the down payment for the property. She went and got an FHA loan and she lived in one unit, remodeled the whole unit, moved out to the upstairs, rented out the bottom one with increased rent. And now she lives in that unit where she could rent it out for probably $900 a month. She lives there for 50 bucks a month.

Rob:
That’s cool. David, what about you?

Ashley:
I live through her.

David:
Vicariously house hack through your sister.

Rob:
Vicariously is all that matters.

David:
I was sort of on the other end of house hacking. So I rented a room from someone else until I had maybe eight or nine houses as rentals. And then I bought the house that I live in now and I rented out rooms just to people that needed them. I wasn’t really super serious about them. The problem was parking with that property. It’s this big 2,800 square foot house with four or five bedrooms, but there’s nowhere to put the cars for everyone. It’s an HOA, you can’t park on the street. So that one didn’t work out great.
But over the years, I’ve just rented rooms out to people that needed it. And now, I wanted to get a deal that I was going to split into several smaller units, but the only way I can make it work is if I lived in it as a primary resident. So because I’m not home that much, I’m just having that house turned into several units and I’ll be living in one of them myself and renting out the other ones, and then, I’ll move out of it and rent it out. So I suppose, that would be like my first official house hack, which is kind of funny that this deep into my career I’m doing it.
But the way that I look at it is you sort of conform yourself to make real estate work for you. You don’t try to force real estate to bend to work for what’s convenient for you because that’s where you just get frustrated with it all the time. I think Craig made a really good point, the way that I look at investing in real estate at this point in my career is it’s more about principles than just like, “Give me a formula and I want to follow that exact specific formula forever,” because the market changes too much to have one formula that you can do forever.
The principle is that the more work you’re willing to do, running a by the work room is a little bit more work than just renting out traditionally, the higher your profit will be. So you can have a spectrum and on one end is comfort, on the other end is profit. And the more that you can move yourselves towards profit and away from comfort, the more deals you can make work and the more wealth that you’re going to build. So we all have to kind of ask ourselves where on that spectrum we’re willing to go. But I do think it’s important that you recognize, if you’re sitting at home saying, “I love my primary residence, I just couldn’t house hack,” maybe that’s why you haven’t bought a house in the last four years, maybe that’s why you’re not going to build wealth like somebody else who realizes that that comfort is very, very expensive when you look at what real estate can do for you over a 30-year timeframe,

Rob:
Totally. I mean, you have to basically surrender your comfort for a while, right, so that you can get into whatever dream in the real estate space that you want. I’m a very serial, like redfined scourer, and I have been my whole life. And anytime I saw a property I couldn’t afford or that was like just out of reach, I was always like, “How can I make this work? How can I make this work for me?”
So when my wife and I moved from Kansas City, our house there, I think our mortgage is like 1100 bucks, and we moved to LA, which is smart, right, we were like, “Yeah, why don’t we just pay four times more for a house out here? That makes a lot of sense.” We moved out there and we saw this house that was, I think, at that time, $624,000. So it was easily four times more expensive than our Kansas City house. But this house had a 279 square foot studio apartment underneath. And I was just getting into Airbnb and I had calculated, “Well, I think if I rent this little studio out for a hundred to $125 a night, I think I can make like two or $3,000 a month. And that’s exactly what it was.
But I always had to convince my wife on that because she’s like, “I don’t want to deal with having to talk to people. I don’t ever want to go like take them down an extra roll of toilet paper or whatever.” And I was like, “No, it’s cool. Give it to me. I like meeting my guests. It’s all great.” And so, that was solid. We lived with people from that point on for probably like three or four years after that. And that’s really what accelerated our rental portfolio because I really attribute everything I have to house hacking, because we were able to save, at this point, probably 180 to $200,000 worth of mortgages, we were able to save that up and apply that to different pieces in our portfolio now. So I wouldn’t be where I’m at if it weren’t for house hacking. So I’m very grateful for that.
And just in case anyone at home doesn’t know what that is, that it is renting out a space in your house or a space on the lot of your house and using that rent to subsidize your mortgage. That’s all it is. There’s so many ways you can house hack so get creative with it and figure out how you can get out of your mortgage. Because I think the faster you don’t pay a mortgage, the faster you can really use that money to snowball into the next thing here.
So moving on into the next question here, we have kind of a specific scenario here. So someone asks, “After a few months of having a property under contract and waiting for lawyers and title to clear everything, we are finally ready to close on an investment property. This property is a mixed-use commercial retail storefront and two apartments above. The property is occupied with leases in place. My question is what would the next step be after we close? Should I send out updated leases with our new landlord information? I know that the old leases that are being used are still binding until they expire.” Anybody have any insight on this one?

David:
I think this is right up Ashley’s alley.

Ashley:
You know what? I am ready for this question, David. So for this one, the first thing I would do, before you even close on the property, is send out a estoppel agreements to the tenants. So get the current owner’s permission to do this. And what they are is basically you’re sending them a piece of paper that asks for them to verify the information that’s on the lease. And you may find out more information about the property. So have their name, their contact information so that you do have all of that when you’re ready to close.
And then you’re going to ask, who are the residents of the property, so that you have everybody that’s currently living there. And then you’re going to go through, “Okay, how much do you pay a month? Do you pay any additional fees? Who pays the utilities? Are there any repairs or maintenance that need to be done in your property? Who handles the landscaping, who handles the snowplowing?” Everything like that and just go through it. “Do you own the appliances? Do the landlord own the appliances?” So as many questions as you can think of, you put onto this form, you’re going to send it to the tenants or go and hand it to them and have them send that information back.
And then, you can go through the lease agreements and kind of compare them. So if there are any differences, you can go ahead and clarify that before you actually go and close on the property. And then, when you do close, that’s the time to make sure they have your information to send you the new rents. You’re going to maybe send them kind of a welcome letter stating as to, “Here is how everything will work now. So your rent will be paid online, electronically through this website. You’ll have your own portal. And this is how maintenance requests are handled.” And you kind of tell them your systems and processes to handle things once they close on the property and it switched to the new management.

Rob:
Yeah. Yeah. They also asked, “Should we do a walkthrough and talk to all the tenants?” So it sounds like we should probably talk to the tenants. What are your thoughts on specifically doing a walkthrough of the tenant space if they’re already occupying it?

Ashley:
Yeah. So usually I would do that before I even get to commitment on the property or get close to closing. That’s something I would do. But if you’re doing it after closing, you just send them a notice. And usually it will state in the lease agreement that they currently have if you have to give them 48 hours notice, 24-hour notice and you would just send them a letter stating that you would be going through the property. They did say they had commercial properties so those will probably be easier to get into than the residential, where you’ll have to kind of coordinate with the tenants, but you can go through with them. And if you want to ask them what needs to be done into the property or let them know they’re going to be making repairs on the property.
And then also, taking pictures because when they go and move out of this property, it will be very easy for them to say, “Oh, well, this was like this when I moved in,” if you don’t have any kind of inspection form that’s signed by the previous landlord and the current tenants that are in place. So that would be another thing too is documenting everything and asking them if there were things that were not taken care of when they moved into the property.

Rob:
Sure. Yeah. By the way, whoever asked this question, I just want you to know, this has been a dream of mine for a long time to own a place sort of on a main street where there’s a lot of foot traffic and everything like that, the bottom floor is like a coffee shop or some kind of commercial space, and then two apartments above, one that’s a tenant and one that’s me. And then, have it be like one whole, I don’t know, like a cash-flowing machine that pays for the building. So kudos to you for locking that down.
On my next question here, David, I think you probably have some insight here just because you run such a big team that’s doing this every day. This person asks, “Are in-person rental showings a thing of the past or still valuable? In this post-pandemic world where virtual meetings and showings have become much more standard in everyone’s lives, is it possible or is there anyone out there not doing any in-person showings at all?” What’s that shift been like for your team, Dave?

David:
In-person showings for rental properties?

Rob:
I think so. Yeah. Or like selling homes too.

David:
No, people are still seeing homes, that still happens in-person. There’s not a whole lot of people that are buying stuff site unseen. Maybe an investor might do something like that, but even then, as we’re seeing more and more properties moving into the short-term rental space, it’s moving back into where you need to see the house, the floor plan, how it flows. When we were in, the only way that you rented out properties was a long-term rental, they were going to have a lease for 12 months and they were going to collect rent every single month, it was kind of like apartment complexes but just applied to residential housing. So the tenants were just going to pay whatever the market rate was for a two-bedroom, one bathroom or a two-two or something and the floor plans very rarely ever played a role in the property.
But when you’re renting at a short-term rental, you’re going to be paying more, you have sort of the pick of the litter where you want to go stay, the floor plan does become a lot more important. So I would say I’ve seen just as many showings as we ever had before. The difference would be, people aren’t going to look at a house as their first piece of due diligence. There’s a lot of work that you can do and then you kind of narrow down the amount of houses they actually go see because there’s information available that you can weed some out. Old school, you just had to go look at the house and you were going to learn everything about the house when you were seeing it.

Rob:
Yeah. I mean, they seem like they have some pretty strong opinions here because effectively, what they’re asking is, “Why should we still take them through the unit? This seems like a waste of me and my staff’s team. Gas, at the time of writing this, is crazy high. The type of properties we manage are 50 units and under spaced all over multiple cities. We fill each unit and don’t have a model unit like some large complexes.” So I think they just think that because of the technology available, it’s not really a necessary thing, but you feel like it is pretty necessary at this time still?

David:
You don’t know what a house smells like when you’re looking at a video. I can’t tell you how many times good realtors can make a house look much better than it really is. Catfishing is real in real estate investing, it happens all the time. So it’s very easy for you to-

Rob:
The original.

David:
Yeah. Wide angle lenses and show flattering angles. And then you go look at the property and you’re like, “What I thought was a dining room is half of a breakfast nook. I’m half impressed they made it look that good and half angry that it’s that bad.” So if you’re smart, you’re still going to go look at a property before you sign a 12-month lease. My advice to this person, if you don’t want to meet them there, is put a code on the door, put a SimpliSafe camera, who sponsors BiggerPockets, up on the entryway so you can see who’s going in there. Take anything out of the house that they could steal and just let them go in there themselves and go check it out and then go back out rather than you drive all the way. I don’t think they need you there to go see the unit, they just need to be able to see it.

Rob:
Ashley, what about you? What do you think? For your portfolio, how are you handling showings?

Ashley:
Yeah. Well, I’m using a third-party property management company right now, but I was going to kind of touch on what David said about doing the keypad lock. If you’re using property management software, a lot of them actually have this integrated now where you don’t even have to talk to a person to do a showing or to lease an apartment so you put all the information online. Some of the software actually has like AI intelligence, artificial intelligence that will respond. So you give this robot all the information about the unit. People look at the listing online, they can send a message to ask a question about the unit and then the AI will respond to it.
If you are going to do in-person showings, you can actually put your schedule online as to when you’re available. Someone can go ahead and click to sign up for it, sign up for that showing. You get a text message that there’s a showing at this time. Or like David said, you go ahead and you put the lockbox code. So to get the actual code, they have to scan their license, a copy of their license into the software. And then, they will get an access code that’s valid for a certain window of time, maybe it’s a half hour window of time, they get to go into the property. And then, when they leave, the code changes to something else. So instead of just doing virtual videos, like the property management company I was using, they were doing YouTube videos to do virtual showings, but there’s so much technology out there where you can get people into the unit without ever having to talk to them or without ever having to go and take the time to show them the unit too.

Rob:
Yeah. Awesome. Craig, what about you? Any final words of wisdom here on whether or not the age of showing your homes is over?

Craig:
Yeah. I think what David and Ashley said are pretty on point. One thing I would add is something that we do is we kind of do like an open house approach. And so, like Ashley, I’ve got most of all my stuff on property management now, but back when I was doing the house hacking thing more vigilantly, we would just do a… Nice, David. We would do like an open house. Right. And so, I would just say, “Hey, we’re going to be showing this house on Tuesdays and Thursdays from five to 7:00 PM.” We’d have someone show up there with their computer. They can go on there, so it really wouldn’t be a big waste of their time if no one showed up. And so, then you’re kind of limited to, “Okay, I know I’m looking to be there two days a week.” It promotes some competition if there are people there at the same time. And I found that you can usually send them applications right on site as well. And its helped us a lot. I love the open house approach if you need to do it in-person.

Rob:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s no right or wrong here, right, guys? There’s just what’s right for you. That’s what I always say. Moving on to kind of the next question here. Someone asked, “How do you stay informed on your local markets or markets that you invest in?” David, you just put in 15 offers on homes and I think you just close on them. So tell us about that. How did you come across these markets? How do you find yourself even locating any of the markets that you’re investing right now?

David:
Well, this should be an entire podcast episode. I’ll see if I can keep this relatively short to give my co-guests here an opportunity to talk. The first thing I look for is where people are moving to. So my philosophy, everyone has their own, I feel like most investors, especially those that start off, they don’t value location as much as someone in my position does. So my philosophy is, the only thing I cannot change about a house is the location. I can literally change everything else. So rather than saying, “All right, where can I get cash flow?” And just going for what looks to be the strongest cash-flowing house they can find, and then talking themselves into why they should buy that property, which often leads you into buying in these like D-minus areas that everything in your gut is screaming at you avoid it, but the spreadsheet magic is just so tempting. Right. It’s like that little hypnotizing thing saying, “Buy me,” and you start coming with all these excuses about how you’re going to make this deal work.
I start with the best areas that I think are going to have the most growth. It’s not speculation, it’s delayed gratification. I don’t really look at where rents are going to be, or I should say, the ROI is going to be incredibly strong in year one, I’m looking at it in years five through 10. Where am I going to see the most growth? And right now, this is areas where Californians and New Yorkers are moving to, they’re bringing a lot of money, they’re bringing the best jobs. So I looked for areas that have warm weather, because Californians need that. Like someone like me that grew up there, we’re not going to go live in North Dakota. There’s just no Californian that’s going to do that. Low or no state income taxes, because right now we’re paying 13 and a half and every year we hear them trying to push another bill forward that’s going to bump our state’s income taxes to 18%. So you throw that on top of almost like 45% federal taxes and you are over 50% of your income is getting paid in taxes at the high tax brackets.
And then, right now, I think the trend where we see the most growth happening would be the sort of like conservative minded political environments. I think the last five to 10 years, the liberal minded political environments were crushing it. We saw huge growth in San Francisco, in Seattle and Austin, Texas. And now, the people that are moving tend to be the more conservative minded ones and they’re the ones bringing money with them. So I’m looking in Tennessee, I’m looking in South Florida, I’m looking in Texas, and then I’m looking in some of the areas like Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, because I’m just seeing that’s where I think that the money’s going to be going to.
The next thing I look for is where is there a constraint of supply? I don’t want to go buy in an area like Kansas that has so much land that they could just build a million houses and their value’s never really going to go up. Part of the reason why Austin and Seattle did so well, and San Francisco, is there’s not really anywhere to build in any of those cities. The supply is constrained and when the supply is constrained and the demand goes up when people move there, you’re going to get, not only rising prices, but rising rents. A lot of people say, “Don’t buy real estate and bet on appreciation.” Well, appreciation happens in more ways than just prices going up, rents go up too. And it’s much more profitable when you buy in a place where rents go up significantly and consistently every single year.
And then, once I’m there, I say, where is the soft spot in this market? So my strategy has been to target the properties that other people are either afraid of buying or the buyer pool is thin. Think about climbing Mount Everest, when you get to the top, the air is very thin, there’s not as much oxygen. When you’re competing with the lion share of the buyer pool, they all want that same starter house at the really low price point that makes you feel really safe. Even when we’re having a correction in the market like we are right now, you don’t see that very much in the starter homes because 80% of the buyers are all competing over those properties.
So I’ve stepped into the luxury space and every market has its own luxury space. Some places, a $500,000 home is luxury, some places, a $2 million home is luxury. You have to figure out where that is in the market, but I’m looking for that. And then when I hit all three of those and I get the high day on markets, I’m then looking for properties with terrible marketing, really bad realtors that are selling them. I pay attention to the news and I look to see like when is the fear porn going out and everyone’s freaking out. That’s when I write the most aggressive offer.
So as odd as it sounds, I always feel like the investors are asking the wrong questions, they’re saying, “What’s the software that I can use that will do all the work for me and bring me the best deal and all by that one?” And I’m looking at it more from a psychological perspective, where do I find the seller that’s having the most fear that just wants to get that property off their hands and they’re going to be the most motivated.

Ashley:
David, even just with market analysis, since we’re kind of covering landlording, not only is it important to kind of study your market, what’s going on with purchasing there, but also what’s going on with landlord laws too and staying on top of that because those can also change just like short-term rental laws and regulations are changing in cities too. So I do have a resource for everyone to find out state specific landlord laws in your area. So you can go to avail.co/education/laws. And they actually have a breakdown of every single state and showing what the landlord tenant laws are in that state.
And then if you go to your local housing authority, so in Buffalo, New York, where I’m from, for example, there is Section 8. And the Section 8 housing authority that gives out the vouchers is called Belmont Housing. And on their website, you can actually sign up for free or low-cost houses to kind of learn about being a landlord. They actually train you because they want the landlords to obviously provide fair and safe housing for the people with the Section 8 vouchers.
And then, there’s also another one called homeny.org. And this is another housing authority in Buffalo and they give out free classes or low-cost classes too to landlords. And they also create books. Every couple years, they’ll go through and create just like a landlord guide to being a landlord in New York state. So using resources like that to stay on top of the laws.
And then, also having an attorney, having an attorney review your documents. If you have a question like one of the biggest controversial issues that I see across the country are therapy dogs and, “Do I have to allow a dog because it’s a therapy dog? What are the rules for that?” So just having an attorney that is real estate specific and knows these laws and regulations can really help you on issues that may be case by case basis and not as clear cut too.

Rob:
So what haven’t we asked about landlord? Are there any final words here before we kind of start wrapping up?

David:
Well, we could talk about the fact that you don’t have to do it. People like me don’t really landlord for ourselves, we have property managers that handle that. And I like that element just because I don’t want to have the tenant saying, “Hey, landlord/owner/neighbor, this thing’s broken. Can you come fix it for me?” And now you got to say, “Well, that’s kind of on you.” And then they’re mad at you and now this is also your neighbor who’s upset with you. So I prefer to just have a buffer in between us and let a professional handle it. And it also, in my opinion, gives me an opportunity to bring a job, a wage, a career into the real estate field for someone that wouldn’t have had it. I’d much rather let someone else kind of learn the business, doing the work for me and then I can focus on making a better process, a better system, getting more properties, whatever the case may be.

Ashley:
I think if someone’s trying to decide which way to go, there’s no wrong answer, but if you are going to self-manage and that’s how I started out, I self-manage, is make sure you take advantage of software, make it easier on yourself, but also make sure you understand fair housing laws and what the rules and regulations are, that you educate yourself on that.
And as far as going into using a property management company, just realize, it may not be as passive as you think it is. You may still need to act as an asset manager, as in, every month when you get the owner reports going through, what the charges are, making sure that when your unit is becoming vacant, that they are listing it and that it is getting rented out.
So that was a mistake I made when I hired property management. It ended up being the month before COVID started and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this was perfect timing. This is great. I feel like a weight is off my shoulder. I have all this free time, I can do whatever.” And then, a couple months went by and I was like, “Whoa, wait a minute. What is going on with these charges? What’s happening with this?” So now every month I have an asset manager who goes through the owner reports. He is the contact person for the property management company if they have any requests or approvals they need made and he just makes sure things are getting done. So just make sure you are seeing the whole picture before you decide to either self-manage or to hire a property management company.

Rob:
Right. And scale up accordingly. Right. A lot of people try to jump in and they’re like, “I’m ready to do this, go full-time. I want to buy 10 units.” I’m like, “Just do one, do your first one, make sure you like this because what if you don’t, then you have 10 properties, you got to figure out what to do.” And I’m a really big proponent of self-managing for as long as possible just to learn the business and understand the business. That way, when you do delegate it out, you understand if your property is doing a great job or not.
Craig, what about you? Any final words before we hit it into the final question here?

Craig:
Yeah, one thing I kind of want to touch on is a little bit about kind of like what market to choose. And I think a lot of people get held up on when they’re trying to pick a market for their first deal or going out of state. And really, you just got to pick one. Right. You are going to find cases for and cases against every market in the United States. I don’t think anyone is perfect and I don’t think anyone is horrible, there’s deals in every market.
Personally, when I look to find deals outside of where I live, I go to places where I know other people have invested, I know they have a team and I know that I can ask them for like, “Hey, who do you use for a property manager? Who do you use for a realtor? Who do you use for a contractor?” And that just alleviates so much time, stress and energy from me. I don’t even care if it’s like the best market or the most appreciating market, but if I can hit that easy button and get my team just like that, I think that’s invaluable.

David:
Yeah. Landlording can drive you crazy.

Rob:
As we can see in your eyes here. If you’re on the podcast, be sure to watch this on YouTube so you can get the full visual presentation here. Final question before we head out, why is education important across the board?

Ashley:
I think I kind of touched on this a little bit with becoming a landlord, is just knowing what the laws and regulations are because you can get in trouble for not being compliant. But I think another part of it is that you can save money by just knowing what you have to do upfront. So even like with doing a rehab on a property is knowing what permits to get or what needs to be done, can save you a lot of money when the building inspector comes and is like, “Oh no, you need to have a permit for this. This needs to be inspected. And you need to rip out all this plumbing.” So being educated and doing your research or having people on your team that know these things will just save you money, but also, so you don’t get sued.

Rob:
Right. Right. And ultimately, I guess what you’re saying here is that education, well, A, is a lot less expensive than a lawsuit, but also a lot less expensive than mistakes in general. Right?

Ashley:
Mm-hmm.

Rob:
What about you, Craig? Why do you think education is so important across the board?

Craig:
When you learn anything new or when you’re trying to get into anything new, education always comes first. Right. Education times action equals results. And so, you can keep adding education, adding education, education, but if that action is zero, you’re never going to get anything. But also the other way around, if you’re all action, all action and no education, you’re not going to get anything. So the first step I always think is education. If you’re listening to this podcast and you go to one of these boot camps, your education is going to be there. By the time we’re done with the bootcamp, you’re going to be ready to take action. Then all you got to do is worry about that second part, which is action, and then successful [inaudible 00:43:08].

Rob:
Awesome. Well, speaking of education, Ashley, I know that you’re hosting a boot camp here so do you think you could maybe tell us a little bit about it?

Ashley:
Sure. Yeah. I’ve hosted for the past year Real Estate Rookie Bootcamp, where we actually did a live event. And then, we did about four virtual sessions where we just went through how to basically get your first deal in 90 days, how to feel comfortable and confident with making offers. And what does that process actually look like? And now, I’m launching a new one where it is all about landlording. So whether you want to self-manage your property or you just want to know how to be a landlord so you can oversee your property management company, this bootcamp goes through everything you need to know from the day you purchase your property and you’re ready to lease it out to handling the daily operations of doing property management such as the maintenance, the communication, like collecting your rent, everything like that.

Rob:
And Craig, what about you? You’re also hosting a bootcamp, right?

Craig:
Yeah, so we’re hosting the BiggerPockets House Hacking Bootcamp. And so, in this 10-week course, we’re basing going to teach you everything. If you knew next to nothing about house hacking, you’ll be ready, willing, and able to buy a house hack after these 10 weeks. We’re going to go into how to find a house hack, how to analyze them, how to market your listing, how to get tenants, how to pick an area, how to build your team. Anything you need to know is there. And then, of course, we’ve got the Q&A for anything that we may have missed. So definitely come check it out. Hope to see all you guys there.

Rob:
Awesome. Well, if you want to learn more and get signed up for the different boot camps, you can go to biggerpockets.com/enroll. And if you go to that URL I just listed, biggerpockets.com/enroll, you actually get 10% off starting when you enroll in boot camp using the code, Boot Camp 10. Okay, so with that, that concludes the panel. How did I do? How did I do as the moderator, guys? I do okay?

Ashley:
Very moderate.

Craig:
Yeah.

Rob:
Yeah. Very moderate. I moderately did okay. That’s all I aim to do.

David:
You are the okayest.

Rob:
Well, you know what? My sister actually bought me a shirt one time that says, “World’s okayest brother,” and I really embrace that role. So people want to learn more about you, David, where can people find out about you on the interwebs?

David:
You can find me on every social media, @davidgreene24, and then YouTube, at David Greene Real Estate.

Rob:
Ashley, what about you?

Ashley:
You can find me on the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, which I co-host with Tony Robinson. You can find me mostly on Instagram at Wealth Firm Rentals, and then also, on the Real Estate Rookie YouTube channel.

Rob:
That’s awesome. Craig, what about you? Do you have any seek any Finstas out there that you want to tell us about?

Craig:
Yes, sir. So yeah, you can find us, we have a podcast called Invest2Fi and also, I’m on Instagram, I’m at The Fi Guy, and TikTok and all those good things, so The Fi Guy.

David:
And Rob, if people want more moderately valuable content, where can they find it? How about you?

Rob:
Well, you can find my moderately entertaining and comedic videos over on YouTube at Robuilt. You can find me on Instagram at Robuilt as well. And on TikTok, if you want even more moderately comedic stuff, you can find me over at RobuiltO, just add the O.

David:
And if you didn’t know, BiggerPockets has an entire YouTube channel where you can get more content just like this. I just had a video released today with Christian, where we’re talking about the market, loan products, interest rates, what’s working, what’s not working, lots of stuff that will help make you money. So after you’re done listening to this podcast, go check out the BiggerPockets YouTube channel and listen to some more.
Ashley, Craig and you yourself too, Rob, great job everybody. This has been a lot of fun. Hopefully, we can do more of this in the future. I’ll let you guys get out of here. This is David Greene for Rob, the Moderator, Abasolo, signing out.

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, show number 328. Very special Finance Friday edition where we interview Alex Breshears and Beth Johnson and talk about private money lending as an alternative investment vehicle.

Alex:
Because when most people talk about they want that financial independence, they want that financial freedom, what they’re usually truly wanting is time freedom or geographical freedom. And I kind of got stuck in this because I got geographical freedom kind of forced upon me by Uncle Sam, and that’s why I would rather do lending, and I don’t have to babysit tenants or contractors. I have the ability, my spouse currently lives in Europe, I can go to Europe and still fund alone and still keep my business going. And Beth has a similar story to that too because she splits time between two places as well.

Mindy:
Hello. Hello. Hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my critical thinking cohost Scott Trench.

Scott:
Mindy, your intros are always a true credit to discussions around lending and finance and that kind of stuff. They generate a lot of interest. You make some great points. Okay, let’s continue.

Mindy:
Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you are starting.

Scott:
That’s right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big-time investments in assets like real estate, start your own business, or become a lending mogul, a bank, we’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way, so you can launch yourself towards those dreams.

Mindy:
Scott, this is an epic episode. We talk to Alex and Beth. This episode is probably going to run really close to two hours. And you know what? You are going to want to listen to every single second of this episode if you have any interest in making money. Do you think people listening to this episode, listening to this podcast, want to make money? Yes, they do. And if you want to make money, this is the episode that you want to listen to. It is an absolutely legitimate way to make money and make big money. I am so excited for this book that BiggerPockets Publishing is releasing. It’s called Lend to Live: Earn Hassle-Free, hassle-free, Passive Income in Real Estate with Private Money Lending. And it is fantastic.

Scott:
Yeah. I think that when you hear the word private lending, you tend to poo poo it or [inaudible 00:02:27], “I’m a real estate,” and all that, “Private lending sounds like a hassle. There’s a lot of paperwork.” All that kind of stuff. Sure. There’s some paperwork. There’s some work to get into this, just like there is in real estate investing, but this is a serious moment for this asset class. This is one of those episodes that, for me, is a game changing or perspective widening show. I liken it a lot to the episode we did with Jay Scott a few months back around syndication investing, which also went two hours because the topic needs two hours to really fully digest and really get a full intro into. This is an asset class where interest rates have been rising dramatically over the course of this year. Being a private money lender, tough gig.
When the capital markets are flooding with capital, tons of competition. That’s all dried up. There’s a big opportunity right now to be a lender. And I think after you listen to this episode, you’re going to have a hard decision in your mind about whether you want to buy rental properties or whether you want to lend to people buying rental properties. Because I think that the balance is really healthy right now in a way that it hasn’t been in 10 years. And I think it’s a really interesting time to do that, and you should seriously consider this for yourself. This is an option available to you if you have 20K, 50K a 100K, or 500K. This is not something you need millions to do. So I’m really interested in this and I’m going to take a serious look at this for my own portfolio, just like I took a serious look at syndications after the episode with Jay Scott.

Mindy:
I am only going to disagree with one thing, Scott. I think that there might be people who are listening, who are like, “I don’t want to get involved in real estate at all.” This is a great way to make money in real estate without owning real estate.

Scott:
Love it. Let’s bring them in.

Mindy:
You know what, before we do, Scott, even though this is a different type of Finance Friday, I feel that the subject matter of this show makes the disclaimer and advice even more relevant for this episode, so I’m going to say the contents of this podcast are informational in nature and are not legal or tax advice. And neither Scott, nor I, nor Beth, nor Alex, nor BiggerPockets, nor, nor, nor, is engaged in the provision of legal, tax or any other advice. You should seek your own advice from professional advisors, including lawyers and accountants regarding the legal tax and financial implications of any financial decision you contemplate. And as we say in just a few minutes, if you want to get into private lending, there are people that you are going to need to hire to do some work for you, some of these professionals that I just listed.
But later on in the show, we will discover that your borrowers are paying the whole thing. They’re footing the entire bill. So it’s even more important to get somebody that you trust to have your back because you’re not even paying for it. Alex Beshears and Beth Johnson are the authors of the latest BiggerPockets Publishing title, Lend to Live: Earn Hassle-Free Passive Income in Real Estate with Private Money Lending, which is a textbook about private lending, how to become a lender, how to find a lender if you need one. It is a fantastic book. And today we are going to cover how to use this method as an alternative investment. Beth and Alex, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast.

Alex:
Thank you for having us.

Mindy:
I’m so excited to talk to you ladies today. I have done some private lending. I think it’s really important to acknowledge before we jump into this, that this is going to sound a little bit scammy, but it is an actually legit way to invest your funds. The reason it sounds scammy is because you can make a lot of money as a real estate private money lender. However, if you don’t do it right, you can lose every single penny that you have ever put in there. So that’s where it starts to feel a little scammy.
You have to do the homework. You have to do the research. This is not a, “Oh, I’ve got a lot of money. I’m just going to lend it to somebody who wants it,” and everything’s going to come up roses. I mean, that would be really nice, but that’s not how reality works. So I have personally done private lending. I know this works, but I also know that you have to do some homework. I just wanted to get that out of the way before anybody’s like, “Nah, that sounds like a scam. I’m not going to listen.” It’s a totally legit… What kind of returns are we talking about?

Alex:
I would say on an annualized basis, depending on whether you’re in first lien or second lien, anywhere between 8% annualized, and maybe realistically up to 14 or 16% annualized.

Mindy:
That kind of return sounds almost fake. But it’s real. I have fattened my wallet with those kinds of returns by doing private lending. So I want to talk about how we can make all this amazing money. Let’s jump right into this. How do you get started? I have a pile of… Well, okay, let’s actually… Who’s qualified to be a private lender. Beth.

Beth:
Anybody can be a private money lender, as long as you have an amount of capital that you want to lend out, safely, securely, that can still leave you with a little bit of a nest egg so that you aren’t lending out every penny you have. Anybody can become a private money lender. And that’s what Alex and I are trying to communicate to the broader masses.

Scott:
What do you say to somebody who thinks that this is an activity that, really, you need to have a couple hundred thousand dollars in liquid cash, at minimum, in order to be an effective lender? Because that’s how much a property costs at my local area. How do you get over that for… I think a lot of people have that preconceived notion that this is for wealthier individuals who are looking to transition to a more passive form of investing.

Beth:
Well, I started with… My first loan was only 65,000 or so. It was a second lien position on a property that had a really significant amount of equity in it. And so even though I was in a junior lien position, I was still at less than 40% loan to value. So I had a very significant amount of equity to protect my capital investment. And I’ll let Alex tell her story too, because hers is quite similar and even involved less capital.

Alex:
Yes. So my first loan was actually about $32,000. Again, it was in the second lien position, but it was also in such a great equity position, like total combined loan to value between the first and the second was still under 60%. So it was still a whole lot of equity in the deal. But the other thing I can suggest to people, if you’re starting out with a smaller dollar amount, this might come as a surprise to your listeners in California, but there are still places in the United States where you can go and buy a house for $50,000. So if you are the type of person where you’re like, “I just can’t get over that hump,” and not wanting to be in a second lien, you can then invest, potentially, outside of your local market, into markets that are not valued as highly, and you’ll still be able to be in a first lien position with less capital.

Scott:
One question I’d have here is why would I want to, if I have 50,000 or a hundred thousand? What are some advantages of lending versus making that first actual equity investment in a rental property? Why might I favor lending over that, as a first time investor?

Alex:
It really depends on your goal, your personality traits and basically your lifestyle. So for example, both of us have done… we’ve been landlords or are landlords. We’ve done fix and flips. And for whatever reason, yes, while we’ve done them, that wasn’t something we wholeheartedly enjoyed. From my standpoint, I’m a military spouse, I’ve moved 19 times in 21 years, so I have been the long distance landlord, buyer, house of the VA loan, and then move, and then buy another one, and then turn the previous one into a rental, and it just… I hate being a landlord. I hated it. It did not fit my skill set.
It turns out it didn’t actually fit my goals either, because when most people talk about they want that financial independence, they want that financial freedom, what they’re usually truly wanting is time freedom or geographical freedom. And I kind of got stuck in this because I got geographical freedom kind of forced upon me by Uncle Sam. And that’s why I would rather do lending and I don’t have to babysit tenants or contractors. I have the ability, my spouse currently lives in Europe, I can go to Europe and still fund a loan and still keep my business going. And Beth has a similar story to that too, because she splits time between two places as well.

Beth:
Yeah. And I think it’s important to note that it doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. I am like Alex also where I prefer private lending because it’s a lot more passive, but I do have an active lending business too, and I’m also a landlord. So I like private lending to be a form of diversification. I think we see a lot of people out there trying to get to a hundred doors, a thousand doors, try to achieve some certain number in their portfolio. And I find that’s kind of unnecessary in my world. I like to have just a small amount of very manageable doors, and then with the additional capital or equity that I have, I’m going to a private lend that money out because it’s much more passive for me and it’s not an additional toilet or a roof that I have to take care of.

Scott:
Love it. And let me give you another answer or reason why I’m so interested in private lending today, is because I think that in 2022, at this point in time, it’s hard to believe that we’re going to see the same levels of appreciation we saw in recent years on rental property investing. And another interesting dynamic that’s going on right now, is because interest rates have risen so much, if I’m buying a property and using leverage as an equity investor, depending on what I believe about appreciation, rent growth and those types of things, debt may actually be dilutive to my return profile in buying a property. So, that leaves me with an all cash investment option. That’s what I’m thinking about here. An all cash investment option, if I think I’m going to get 3% appreciation on a five cap property, that’s an 8% return.
And I’m hearing from you, I can get an 8% or 14% return with potentially less risk as a private lender in this market. So I think that’s a really compelling… And there’s a lot there. I just went through that. It was very fast. So rewind if that didn’t make sense and try out the analysis for yourself, and the calculators, but that’s really powerful stuff to be able to get an eight to 14% return and be in the lending position rather than the equity holder, because theoretically, your worst case as a lender… Well, your worst case is you’re tied up in foreclosure court for several years and you can’t get your money back. Your second worst case is you have to foreclose on the property and figure it out. So anyways, I thought I would chime in there with that. You might actually get better returns lending today than you can as an equity investor, depending on what you believe and where your market is.

Alex:
Well, I’m also glad you brought that up because it’s kind of timely right now because we’re on, what, our second or third fed rate hike. And I hear a lot, and talking to active investors like, “Oh, I’m pausing on buying because I don’t want to deal with these high rates,” so they’re just letting money sit on the sidelines. And I’m like, “Why don’t you just pivot and use the higher rates potentially to your benefit?” You’re like, “Okay, great. Everybody’s borrowing at a higher interest rate. That’s good for a lender. Let’s go do that.”

Scott:
I think it’s a fascinating concept. Quick question though. One of the things that is advantageous about investing in real estate, if I’m in that position trying to make that choice, is I get tax advantages, like a depreciation and things to offset my rental income. As far as I know, the income from this business with interest and points are going to be straight up ordinary income that I really can’t shield effectively from income taxes. One, is that true or do you have any tips and tricks on the tax front? And two, if true, do you recommend that folks really do this inside of their 401(k) or other kind of tax deferred or tax advantage retirement accounts?

Alex:
So the interest component is going to be ordinary income and that, or not ordinary income, interest income, so you’ll get a 1099-INT like you would from your bank. And then Beth can run through some of the other fees, like the origination that you were talking about.

Beth:
Well, that still would count as ordinary business income. There aren’t really any tax advantages you would get, perhaps if you invested in a syndication or if you bought real estate. And that’s why I mentioned earlier that this doesn’t have to be a mutually exclusive deal. I think a lot of people will want to use this as a diversification tactic so that they can have passive income without maybe some constraints of two to three year terms like investing in a syndication, or they don’t want to actively manage real estate or not grow their portfolio. So it’s a definite alternative, or a supplement I should say. And then just in my world, I represent a whole bunch of passive investors. I mean, I guess, in practical terms are considered note investors, whole note investors, and I place them directly into loans.
And I have basically two camps there. There’s some older investors who are liquidating their real estate portfolio. They’re getting older, they want to retire, and actually, they’re looking to simplify their estate planning as well. They don’t want their children to have to inherit these properties and squabble over them. Maybe some of them haven’t really expressed a whole lot of interest in being a landlord, and so this is a simplification of their estate. And then there’s a younger crowd, the 20, 30s and 40 somethings, who are really trying to just manage their daily W-2 and their small growing family, and they just don’t have the time to be a real estate investor actively, and so they find advantages in the private money lending world that is not associated with having to deal with tenants and toilets. So being able to make those great rates of return can kind of offset the tax implications associated with it.

Mindy:
I was able to invest through my self-directed solo 401(k). I do have some self-employment income. I’m a real estate agent among other things. And this was a really great way to juice some of my returns in that account when other things were not juicing the returns. So that’s how I have invested in the past. But I also have other income that I’m already paying taxes on. I’m not looking to increase that income right now. I’m looking to increase my other investment opportunities income at that time. And the way that it works for me, Scott, if you’re not familiar, is that that’s just a regular investment.
I’m not paying it because it’s a 401(k), not a IRA. And here’s where I get super squidgy, if you’re interested, talk to somebody who really knows what they’re talking about, but I don’t pay UBIT or… unrelated business income tax, or any of that stuff that comes with an IRA to invest. So this is something you want to talk to before you invest to see if the accounts that you’re investing in is a good idea, or if there’s tax advantageous ways to invest in different…

Beth:
Mindy, you actually brought up a really good point, because I also invest through what I had at the time was a solo 401(k). And there are people who… I mean, when you do deal with a self-directed IRA, you cannot lend yourself money, but you can lend it to other people and there’s no tax implications. But if you were to, say, buy a property that’s levered in your self-directed IRA, you will get UBIT, and you will have some implications associated with levered money within your self-directed IRA. But you don’t get that when you do private money lending.

Mindy:
Oh, that’s good to know. Okay. And I don’t have a self-directorate.

Beth:
Yeah. So you can’t flip a property in there. I mean you can, but you’re going to pay taxes on it within your self-directed IRA. Private money lending does not have that sort of tax implication in there.

Mindy:
Oh, that’s good to know. Okay. I’m glad I brought that up.

Beth:
Yeah. I’m going to say that I’m not a CPA, so I’m not providing financial or legal advice here, that people should consult a self-directed IRA custodian or a CPA for further information. But yes, that’s to my knowledge, and that’s how we’ve handled our retirement accounts. And that’s where my first loan was through, was from my solo 401(k), lending out 65 grand out of there.

Mindy:
Let’s see, let’s look at a typical loan, a common loan. What is the length of time that you’re going to be in, what are you lending to? Yeah, let’s just start with that because I’ll ask you 50 questions on that. Beth, what is a common type of private money loan that somebody who is just getting started might do?

Scott:
I think you call them the Noah of loans in your book?

Beth:
Well, yeah. We try to describe a practical scenario where we feel that new private lenders should get involved with first. And the standard scenario is lending your money out to a real estate investor, typically for a fix and flip, on a single family residence, because most of us live in single family homes. We have experience with it. We may understand our neighborhood or a market and where the real estate market’s going. And so, it’s kind of a canned in the box kind of loan. But the reality is, and why Alex and I wrote this book, is that there is no prescribed path for private lending.
You can do within legal parameters just about anything you want. So while I tend to lend out around 10 months, because I think that’s just a nice sweet spot for a fix and flip, I’m not going to shortchange them on time in case maybe their windows are delayed by a month or so, but it’s not too long so that a borrower can hang themselves just dragging out a project. But Alex and some other private lenders that we know within our network, they tend to have shorter terms. And so I’ll pun it over to Alex to tell you a little about how she frames her loans.

Alex:
So normally, I’m in about the six month timeframe, and obviously they have an extension that they can add to it that’s already written in the loan documents. I call it the COVID kicker, if we want some fun names. But if they run into a situation where it takes them four months to round up windows, they would have an open line of communication and they could say, “Hey, look, I ordered these today. We closed on this. I knew it was going to be a problem. I’m still waiting on windows.” And we did.
We waited that poor guy waited four months for windows to come in. But because he was so communicative, gave me updates, it wasn’t any big deal when we got to the end of that loan term and he is like, “Hey, the windows still haven’t come in,” because it was a problem I knew from the very get go. So we didn’t have to necessarily hit what I call the nuclear option, where we have to do the foreclosure, because the deal was working fine, it was just powers that be above us could not get him windows in the appropriate amount of time.

Mindy:
Okay. Beth, you just said that you lend for 10 months. What happens if I have borrowed for 10 months, but I finish in eight? That never happens, but what happens?

Beth:
Well, they can pay it off early. I love that. My investors love that too, when they lend out their own capital and I place them in a loan that pays off early or on time. And so we don’t have any prepayment penalties, which is what it’s called. But plenty of private lenders can. And some of my private lenders that lend out the retirement plan, for example, they don’t want to keep pulling their money in and out, and so they may have some sort of prepayment penalty of a couple of months. That’s really not uncommon. But in my world, if we do 10 months and they pay off early, that’s just great for us because I can redeploy my capital.

Scott:
What would the points in interest look like on these typical loans that you guys just described for each of you? Maybe Beth, we could start with you.

Beth:
Sure. We like to have our points and our interest rates commensurate with the level of risk involved. So I think I had mentioned a little bit before, we’re a little bit unique in our market in Washington State where we do first lien positions, but we also do junior lien positions as well. And that means that we can place a second lien behind, typically a conventional loan, 30 year loan, which reduces some risk. And since not a lot of other people do second lien positions, I can command a little bit of a higher interest rate with the associated risk involved with that junior lien.
And so, I would say points at range anywhere from one and a half to three points. I’ve seen other private lenders command more. And then, I say that interest rate is typically around nine and a half percent for really those stupid low loan to value deals that you just can’t walk away from, and the risk is really just not that prevalent, up to around 12%, up to 14% in some cases. But it really needs to be dependent on usury law and other legal parameters defined by your state and at the federal level too.

Mindy:
You just threw out two things that I understand and I want to make sure everybody listening understands. You said second lien position or junior position, and you said usury laws. Can you just give a quick definition of both of these?

Beth:
Sure. A second lien position is a loan that would be in order of priority on title behind a first lien position loan. That can be a deed of trust in certain states. In Washington, it’s a deed of trust. And in other states it’s considered a mortgage. They’re both basically the same thing. One will require a trustee for deeds, and mortgages do not. But essentially, when you get a mortgage, like let’s say with a bank, and when you buy your house, that’s a first lien mortgage.
And when you place a HELOC on it, for example, because I think that’s probably more common, behind that mortgage, then that’s what’s called second lien position or junior lien. And when a property is sold, the liens are what… the lien position is what dictates who gets paid off first from the proceeds of that sale, if that makes sense. So the bank gets paid off first because they’re the first lien mortgage. And then the HELOC or us would be in second position and we get paid off second, and any sort of surplus of funds then would go to the seller.

Mindy:
Okay. And then can you define usury laws?

Beth:
I’m going to pass that one over to Alex because she’s good with that.

Alex:
That one’s fun. So something that most people don’t realize is private lending, we are talking about lending only on investment property, has to be non-owner occupied property. And the reason that is such a big deal, is because owner occupied property is actually regulated at the federal level. There’s licensing at the federal level. There’s consumer laws that have to be abided by. Disclosures, all these other things. So when we’re talking about non-owner occupied property, we’re actually talking about it on a state level.
So that’s a big reason why when so many people will ask, “Hey, does anybody have a template for a promissory note or a mortgage?” And it’s like, “Please don’t do that,” because what’s legal in one state may not be legal at all in another state. So those groups of laws by state are usury laws. They will outline if you need to be licensed to even do the loan, under what conditions can you do the loan, who can your borrower be, and what are those rates and terms, what if there is a ceiling, what is that ceiling, and does that ceiling include all of the fees or just origination points or…

Alex:
… Does that ceiling include all of the fees, or just origination points, or just interest rate? It gets very complicated and often to the weeds very quickly, especially when you’re talking about 50 different states, have 50 different versions of these things.

Scott:
So, it sounds like investment properties are a nice respite from those types of issues. That was a very bad pun that very few people will get.

Mindy:
I got it, Scott.

Scott:
Moving… But, on that note, with usury, you’ve talked about how you lend to, in your book, businesses almost exclusively, and not individuals, as just one of those little tips that will help you avoid some of those problems of where that can get commingled with personal things and be subjected to these usury laws. Is that right?

Alex:
It’s more along the lines of, if you think about usury laws, more like a bucket, so if I am an individual lending money to another individual, that is one bucket of usury laws. Versus, being an LLC that lends to another LLC, that is a business purpose loan, so that is a different bucket of laws. So really, the clarification about being a business lending to another business, that could be actually a reflection of licensing, that could be a reflection of the usury laws they’re trying to stay in, and it could be a reflection of the type of property they’re trying to lend on. In some states, the usury, you might not need a license to lend on single family homes, but you do on anything that would be commercial or vice versa.

Beth:
Yeah, and I think it’s important to say that even if you lend to a business specifically, it doesn’t exclude you from usury law, which is in essence, a consumer protection. But, it is an added precaution, to be able to lend to an entity, so that it further substantiates it as business or commercial purpose and use.

Mindy:
I think now would be a really awesome time to give a disclaimer that says you are entering into a legal contract with borrowers, and there are lending laws that apply to you, so you need to know the laws of the state in which you are lending. Is that true, Alex and Beth? It needs to be the state that you’re lending in, not the state that you live in?

Alex:
That’s where it gets a little tricky. So, if the borrower, the property and the lender are all in the same state, then yes. But, if the borrower and lender and property are in different states, some states will not accept the usury laws of other states. So, if you’re in a situation where it’s potentially multiple states, you really unfortunately have to research both states to see which one will use the other’s laws.

Mindy:
Well, and that’s fair. This is a great return and great returns don’t come with no work at all. We’ve called this passive income, I believe it very close to as passive as you can get, but there’s some work upfront that you have to do in order to make this successful. I mean, you could technically just throw money at people and hope for the best, but that’s not going to see the best returns.

Beth:
It isn’t. You would be surprised how many people do that, especially because private money tends to come from within your own network, and so you think that when you have this personal relationships with somebody, I trust them implicitly, I’ve known them since I was a child, and so inherently, there’s some level of trust where you tend to relax, maybe treating it like a business transaction. So, I get phone calls, unfortunately monthly, from people who have lent money with either bad promissory notes, without a legal advisor to draft them up for them, or maybe they’ve just exchanged money without anything in writing.
And so, that is where that the term scam can come into play, because people will unknowingly get into these circumstances without the legal protection and the legal advice and support from an attorney, who’s well versed in private lending and their particular market, and then so they get caught in a really bad situation and probably lose some capital, as a part of that.

Scott:
How many hours, Alex, would you think that you put in, before really mastering the subject and how much self education needs to go into this before getting in? And for reference, I always talk about that there’s probably 250 to 500 hours that you really need to put in before buying your first property, to get all these mental models associated with real estate investing. What’d you kind of guess is the similar investment for a private lender, here?

Alex:
I think it really matters on where you’re starting, because if you’ve done a couple rental properties, for example, you’ve kind of already learned how to underwrite a property. So, from the perspective of private lending, a big portion of that heavy lift is being able to underwrite it and do your due diligence on, if they said the ARV is 300,000, do I agree with that? And then, being able to use your tools and your sense of the market and say, “Okay, I agree with that aspect,” or, if you’ve even tried to go get a loan yourself in the conventional world, you kind of have an idea as a real estate investor what they’re looking for. They’re looking for credit worthiness, they’re looking for a certain amount of capital, they’re looking at the property itself, and making sure the loan to values are all there.
So, if you’re someone who’s already an active investor, it’s actually relatively small, because you’ve been teaching yourself how to underwrite a deal, and that’s what you’re doing in private lending. And, the portion that you don’t know in private lending, guess what? You can hire it out because you’re going to be hiring a title company, the hazard insurance. You can have your hazard insurance broker look over any of the hazard insurance documents a potential borrower provides. A lot of these little places where there’s a gap in knowledge in private lending, it’s very collaborative and you can bring those people onto your virtual team and fill in that gap for knowledge.

Mindy:
Who do you need to have on your virtual team? You’ve mentioned attorneys, you’ve mentioned title people, you’ve mentioned the insurance broker, who else should be on your team?

Beth:
A good escrow closing agent’s a really good one to have. Right? Good escrow closer, somebody that can assist with property valuations, I think a lot of maybe lay people that don’t have as much experience in real estate, might feel troubled trying to figure out how to properly place a value on a piece of property. And so, maybe having a real estate broker friend or a real estate investor friend, that you can lien on and get a second opinion on, or a third opinion on, is always valuable too.
A third party contract servicer is an excellent way to really make sure that your private money loan after it’s originated and funds are transferred, is seamless. Month to month, that third party servicer basically will do an automatic payment, usually in the form of an ACH and debit that directly from the borrower’s account, and directly deposit it into your account. So, it not only helps manage the monthly payments, if you were to have that on your loan, it’ll also, typically, the contract service here provides you with a 1099 INT, at the end of the year, as well.

Scott:
Awesome. And then, attorney, of course, right?

Beth:
Always an attorney. Actually in our book, we created a resource guide that has some access to some private money lending law firms nationwide, that can provide some additional support and some legal counsel, and also help draft up loan docs too. They’re a great resource.

Scott:
Where can people find that resource?

Beth:
The resource guide is online, after you buy the book, there is a lend to live supplemental materials section, and the resource guide, I believe, is in the supplemental materials, right Alex?

Alex:
It is.

Scott:
Let me go back a minute here to returns, so we just talked about, Beth, your returns of one and a half to 3% on the points, one and a half to three points when you originate the loan, and then nine to 12% interest rates over a 10 month period. And Alex, what do you get? What would be your equivalent on the loans that you do?

Alex:
So, I do it a little bit differently, which is why we work so well together. I actually, I’ve really laughing inside that you asked this question, because so many active investors, that’s their two buttons. They want to know the interest rate and they want to know the origination points, nothing else. So, when you hear how I do it, you’ll understand how this potentially could be problematic. So, what I do since my loans are so short, usually about four to five months, they pay a flat interest rate, so if they have the money for three, four, or five months, they pay the same amount and I give them two options. If they want to make monthly interest only payments, it’s going to be one interest rate. We’ll just say 10%. But, if they don’t want to make that monthly interest payment and roll it all in to the very end, when they go to sell the property, it’s 12%.
I have yet to have a borrower turn down, paying two extra percentage points to not make interest only payments, while the property’s being renovated, because for anybody who’s done a fix and flip, you are hemorrhaging money for the first three or four months. So, anywhere you can put even a little bandaid over that hemorrhage, they’re going to take. So again, it’s just a different way of looking at it and I’m not advocating this is the best way out of all, but just merely trying to point out to active investors, that if you start the conversation about the interest rate and the origination points, you’re missing so many other opportunities, where you could maybe change around the fee structure, change around some other terms alone, that actually will make it better for you, and you’re just wasting your time renegotiating to lower the interest rate annualized down one point.

Scott:
I love it. And, that answers my next question, or begins answering part of my next question, which is, to get to these 8 to 14% returns that we’re talking about, to get on the high end of that, with the structure that Beth outlined, it’s really the fast people pay off the first note and the faster you can, as quickly as you can redeploy the second. Now, you’re getting points multiple times per year, in addition to your rate. Whenever that money’s sitting idle, you’re obviously getting 0%, so that you’re losing against that, to a certain extent. And, in your case, Alex, it’s really just about how much of the year can you keep that money deployed, with flippers, because you’re not making money on points. You’re just making 10 or 12%. Essentially, always 12%, as you just said on the interest only, or the no interest only payments. What’s the term for accruing the interest, until the very end?

Alex:
It just becomes part of the balloon payment at the end, so if I… Because I fund fix and flips, so basically it’s ultimately their retail buyer, is the one paying their interest payment for them, when we go sell at the closing company.

Beth:
It’s called deferred interest.

Mindy:
You’ve mentioned Alex you’ve mentioned flips multiple times. Do you only lend on flipping?

Alex:
That is what I would prefer to do, at least during COVID, because anybody who was paying attention to lending during COVID, the underwriting guidelines for investment property would go up as the cases went up, and then come down as the cases went down, and then we’d go through another thing and the underwriting guidelines would go up. So, we as private lenders, are basically we get our capital back when either the property sells or the property refinances, and at least here, in my market, because I’m in Hampton Roads, we have a very transient population due to the military… Housing was very, very short. They had a very minimal supply.
So, in my eyes, if we have owner occupied underwriting guidelines that weren’t changing as much as non-owner occupied underwriting guidelines and we had a massive housing shortage, I’m going to fund a fix and flip under those conditions because I know basically, as soon as they put that thing on the market, it’s going to be the crazy zaniness that many investors are familiar with over the last two years, versus potentially having to work with a borrower who’s trying to do a DSCR loan to refinance or trying to get their local community bank to agree to refinance when the viral count’s way up through the ceiling. So, that was a little bit more a reflection of what was going on in the market, at the time.

Mindy:
Okay. Beth, do you do mainly flipping loans, or is that-

Beth:
No. I’m completely the opposite of Alex, which is so great to have a good trading point of view. Right? I think I mentioned before, I have scaled my private lending into a full active business, so I consider myself a private money matchmaker. I have capital partners that I lend their money out to borrowers, who are active investors. I do flips, I do buy and hold investors. I’ve seen, particularly with my crowd, that the borrowers have grown up and transitioned from flips, over into buy and hold investing. Some of them maybe have gone from single family fix and flips, over to small multi-family value add, and so we want to grow with them in that process. And, while underwriting has changed significantly in the last couple of years, we were able to navigate that well, with some of our investors, so that maybe you were looking for a DSCR loan, or maybe you were looking to refinance conventionally.
We would pitch it over the fence to some of our hard money lender friends that offer those DSCR loans and have them prequalify the borrower, because I wanted to make sure that they had a solid exit strategy. And really, the second exit strategy for any of those people would just be to put it back on the market and sell it, so that was always a secondary plan B exit strategy for them. And so, we weren’t overly concerned about it, but we might have put a larger equity buffer in place, especially when COVID hit.
If somebody was going to buy a value add buy and hold, I may only lend up to 65% loan to value or combine loan to value, because I needed that extra 5% equity buffer, so that if they needed a refinance out at 70% loan to value, for example, on a cash out refi, or even a rate and term refinance, that 5% slush there could be used by some lenders as capital reserves required to refinance that loan. And so, capital reserves were something that were required much more significantly now, since COVID, that wasn’t really a standard requirement for refinancing prior.

Mindy:
Oh, I wasn’t aware that wasn’t a standard requirement, prior to COVID. You should certainly have reserves.

Beth:
Yeah, it wasn’t as great. Right after COVID, for the remainder of 2020, I was seeing across the board, at least six months cash reserves, in many cases with some other lenders, they were requiring up to 12 months cash reserves, which kind of defeats the purpose. I’m trying to do a cash out refi, you’re asking me to show 12 months of reserves, I don’t have it, I’m asking for a cash out refi. But, when us, as the private lender, are creating that extra 5% equity buffer and they’re working with the right lender that would utilize that as their cash reserves, then I still had a proper exit strategy for them, in place.

Mindy:
Well, let’s move to our hypothetical deal. The vanilla deal. I have somebody that I think I want to lend money to. How do I vet that borrower? How do I vet the deal? Which one do I vet first?

Alex:
Oh, you just stepped into it now, maybe.

Mindy:
Okay, Alex. Please tell me, which would I vet first, the borrower or the deal?

Alex:
You’re going to get two different answers out of us.

Mindy:
Good.

Alex:
We have this debate of the jockey versus the horse, and I am on team jockey. I’m fully looking at the individual, because my general investing philosophy is that I’m betting on that person can act ethically, can make decisions that are good and timely, and then the property, as long as they can deal with the property and make those good decisions and the numbers check out for the property, then I’m okay putting more of my faith in an individual. Whereas, Beth goes the other way, but also has a reasonable explanation for why she looks at it the other way.

Scott:
Before Beth goes, Alex, do you require recourse loans, in that case?

Alex:
Yes. And, the other kind of quirky thing I do is, I-

Scott:
Can you explain what a recourse loan is, and then-

Alex:
Sure. So, the recourse loan means that they are going to be personally guaranteeing the loan, so even though we are lending to an LLC, we are requiring that the personal assets of the equity members of that LLC are basically signing on the dotted line, that if something goes wrong and the loan isn’t able to be fully repaid by the collateral, which is the property, that we have the ability to legally go after the assets to be made whole. And then, I would say the quirky thing that I do, since I have so much faith in people or lack of faith in people, depending on how you look at it, is I will actually ask for three professional references. I want to know three people in the market that you have done business with. I don’t care if it’s a broker you bought a property from, listed a property from, I’m going to call those people and I’m going to talk to those people, and then I’m going to call, and then when I’m talking to those people, I’m actually going to ask them for another professional reference.
I’m going to say, “Hey, do you know about anybody else that’s done deals with borrower, Bob?” And they’re go, “Yeah. You know what? Sam did a deal with him two years ago,” and then I’m going to call Sam. And what I call that secondary ring, that secondary ring is where you get the real information, because that’s not the borrower supplied references, if you get what I’m saying. So, I’m going to dive in that way, more than I’m going to dive in towards a property. It’s not to say I’m ignoring the property, but most of my focus is going to be on the individual, and do I have faith that they’re going to take accountability and do everything they can in their power to make me whole.

Scott:
Sounds like very similar to good tenant screening.

Alex:
Absolutely. Very similar.

Mindy:
Yeah. I am going to say anytime somebody gives you references, call all the references. I was hiring somebody, a contractor and I called the reference and they’re like, “They’re great,” and they call the next reference. They’re like, “I have no idea why they put my name on the list. I am currently in a lawsuit against them, because they did such a bad job,” and I was like, “Oh, well, I’m sure glad they put you on the reference list.” Call all the references. You’re probably not ever going to find the guy I talked to, but you might.

Scott:
Alex, last question before we hear Beth’s typical deal. What is the typical volume that you do for a load? How big are these projects?

Alex:
Most of them, what I do is going to be in the second lien position, so they’re anywhere between about 20,000 and about 50,000, and it gets turned over two to three times a year, just depending on what projects are going on and what investors that I choose to work with are. Some of them have actually moved out of the market, because they’re in the military, as well, so they have moved on to other markets that I do not want to lend in.

Scott:
Beth, can we hear about vanilla deal for Beth, and your philosophy? It sounds like you’re a horse better. You bet on horses.

Beth:
I bet on the horse, because people disappoint me, properties don’t. I said that on just about every call and podcast, but the reality is equity buffer in my world protects all, and when you have equity and a property, no matter how trustworthy that borrower is, sometimes there’s circumstances and variables that are outside of their control. I don’t think anybody real holding a property or a project, in the middle of March 2020, really expected a shelter in place. I certainly didn’t. And so, when you bet on the horse and not necessarily always on the jockey, you have that level of protection in the value of the property, to protect you in case things go sideways, even when you’re not working with a bad player. That’s the approach that I take.
Again, I do this on scale, so the average loan size in my market is about 350 to 375 in my world, and that’s a blended mix of first and second liens. And so, if you want to scale your private lending business beyond just your own capital, you have to streamline your underwriting and choose where you’re going to place a heavier emphasis, and that’s not to say that we don’t underwrite the borrower we absolutely do. But, when you are dealing with multiple loans and inquiries a day and I have a team now, I really need to streamline it to be a little bit more focused on a hard asset, as opposed to the borrower, themselves.

Mindy:
Okay. You have both said that you lend in second position, as well as first position. I’ve never done a second position lien. I like first position. You mentioned high equity when you were talking about a particular instance where it made sense, what sort of equity are we talking about… I want our listeners to know that the second position is a bit more risky, so you need more of a buffer. If there’s no equity in there or there’s barely any equity, you should not be in the second position. In my opinion, I’m not a risk taker.

Beth:
Well, absolutely. I think second position’s got a really bad rap in 2008, because there was a lot of mortgage fraud going on. And so, second lien holders weren’t necessarily being notified when there was modifications of first lien positions, but the reality is that second lien positions, if done carefully and within the confines of what is allowable in your state, they can be an effective private money loan. And so, for us, we typically like, no matter what loan position we’re in, we like to be around 65 to 70% loan to value. That means 30% of the value of that property is an equity buffer to protect me, in case things go sideways, so if it goes into default and I get default interest, or if they’re late fees, or if I have to in engage a legal attorney to help get them to perform, that 30% will help cover those expenses or those costs.
But, I think that sometimes people assume that second lien positions are the same thing as gap funding. Or, in other words, I need a down payment and rehab money, so I’m going to go into a second lien position, behind a hard money loan that the investor got from a local hard money lender. If it’s done behind a conventional loan like we do, because we don’t want some borrowers to have to rewrite their conventional 30 year fixed first position loan at 2%, two and a half percent, I don’t blame him. As an investor, I wouldn’t want to do that either.
And so, there is some safeguards that you can put in place in terms of lower loan to value, putting it behind a conventional loan that is 30 years and doesn’t have quite the default penalties associated with a hard money loan, that’s a short term loan, then you can manage the risk a little bit better. But, not all second lien positions are created equally, so there is a way to do it effectively and safely, but just not do gap funding at a hundred percent loan to purchase price, or a hundred percent loan of value.

Scott:
I love that. You’re saying, I’m going to be second position, and the reason why that’s such a good move in today’s market, is because I don’t want to refinance my first position, just like you said, and everyone has all this equity, because property values have shot up so high in the last couple of years. So, this is a great source of capital, this is solving a number of problems.

Beth:
Oh, it’s created a great amount of deal flow for us, because I’ve got a lot of buy and hold investors who are sitting on a ton of equity, but maybe they’re a self-employed investor and they can’t obtain a HELOC. And so, what’s the next best option? Well, I’m going to be a private money loan for them in second position, they’ve got several hundred thousand dollars in equity in there, and I’ll cross collateralize it with a new purchase, so that they can use that equity, essentially, as a down payment replacement or supplement.
And then, all of a sudden, I’ve got the ability to fund up to a hundred percent loan to purchase price for this new property that they want to bur or that they want to turn into a rental, and then when they go to do their takeout financing, now all of a sudden they have a higher loan amount, and so they can actually do a rate and term refinance at 75% loan to value, or maybe even 80, depending on the lender, and their fees are lower because they’re not actually pulling cash out.
So, for us, it’s been an extremely effective strategy as a lender, but it’s also a great opportunity for a borrower to get what they need across the finish line, with less money out of pocket and to reduce their refinancing costs afterwards, when they go to put it into a permanent financing.

Scott:
Okay. We’ve just created it, we just solved a trillion dollar problem here. That’s fantastic. I love that. That’s it, right? I mean, right now it is 2022, and traditional investment property lines of credit have just dried up. You ain’t getting a line of credit at 2, 3, 4 or 5% anymore on your investment properties. There’s nobody who offers it, I put the call out several times on this podcast. Anybody has an investment property, HELOC company, let me know.
This is the solution, is private money lenders for this type of stuff, and there’s a good solution on both sides of that. If you’re an investor and you actually have a good use for those proceeds, there are private lenders out there who maybe willing to lend to you at a 60, 70% LTV, depending on probably their risk profile, add an 8% interest, with a point or two in there, so this is not going to be free money, but you have a chance to use that money and put it to work on that next project, if that’s something that you’re interested in doing. So, there’s a huge solution here, that’s been a missing link for me, for a long time, in this space. I honestly don’t know which side of that I’d rather be on. The…

Scott:
I honestly don’t know which side of that I’d rather be on, the lending or getting that line of credit on my properties.

Beth:
Well, it doesn’t have to be a choice. We do both. My husband and I do the same thing. Sometimes we’ll cross collateralize our investment properties to take down new rentals. And it’s very strategic in nature. There’s a balancing act between borrowing and levered capital, and paying costs on that, but also keeping some capital reserves and some cash reserves in hand too.
But at the same time, if I’m going to refinance out after I have done my value add, then it’s going to be less expensive for me, and I can actually refinance it at a higher loan to value. Well, that’s kind of worth it right there. And then I also don’t have to get an appraisal the first time around with my private money loan. I can defer that and do my appraisal when I’m doing my takeout financing. And so that’s really meant for conventional commercial, doesn’t really have those kind of stipulations. But there is a big, significant difference when you’re doing a rate and term refinance conventionally versus a cash out refinance. Investors appreciate the ability of not having to rewrite their low interest first lien position, which is what hard money lenders are going to require you to do.

Scott:
Okay. So before we get into… The next thing we have to get into is how do I go about doing this in a practical way. But before I do that, I want to ask one more question structurally about liquidity. So I put this money out, but I lend it out and I now have a project or a use for that. Is there a secondary market for these notes that I can sell to? Is there some place, is there someone, can I have this mortgage out on this second lien position and I need the money quickly. Can I sell it to Beth, and get out of that mortgage, and get my money back in some way?

Alex:
So in that case, it’s going to be the perpetual, it depends. Because this is very popular in real estate. There are note buyers. There’s even people in bigger pockets that talk about note buying and they potentially would be someone interested in buying the note. But what you’re going to run into is they’re probably not going to want to pay a hundred percent of the unpaid principle balance. So you may end up taking a little bit of a haircut.
There are actual companies out there, loan aggregators, that basically are purchasing these loans in their own secondary market. But the downside of those is they are going to want something that’s traditionally very conforming. They’re going to want a full appraisal. They’re going to want a credit check. They’re going to want to see the entire underwriting file. So if you are someone that you think like, “Oh, I can lend this out for six months, but I’m going to actually need it back in two or three. And I can just sell the loan and get recapitalized.” That is true, but you might not get the entire principle amount back.

Scott:
Okay. I lied. I have one more question on this then. And this is kind of separate. States. I imagine that, Alex, you’re in Virginia, is that correct?

Alex:
Yes.

Scott:
And Beth you’re in Washington state, right? I’d imagine that there’s a significant difference in foreclosure potential between those two states and that there’s going to be even more dramatic differences between a state like Texas and California. How does that factor into interest points, risk tolerance, those types of things for a lender like yourselves? Maybe we can start with Alex.

Alex:
It really depends on the usury laws because in some states default interest might not be possible. They might have a very low ceiling for what that upper interest rate and fees can be. So that part, as long as you’re trying to price in, “Hey, if this goes to foreclosure, it’s going to be about $2,400 in legal fees. It’s going to be maybe six months of waiting until I can get through the court system.” And again, everybody kind of goes for that default nuclear option first, when in actuality, there’s lots of little stages you can potentially help along, modify a loan, open communication. So it’s rare for it to get to that point, that nuclear option, where we must foreclose.
It does happen, but to Beth, when Beth mentioned earlier, if you have that equity buffer built in, if it takes a year to foreclose on something but you have 30% equity buffer and the property has been appreciating just with the whole market as a whole, that’s just building in your favor. But yeah, you have to build in and at least have some sort of knowledge on what the timeline is, what those upper limits are for usury for interest rate, any sorts of fees, anything like that. You can work your way into it backwards and go, what LTV am I comfortable with, knowing I have potentially X amount of default interest and X amount in legal fees coming my way?

Mindy:
Okay, Alex, let’s get out of the hypothetical and jump into reality. How are you finding these deals? How is somebody listening to the show going to be able to find deals?

Alex:
This is probably the easiest part. And it’s probably one of the reasons why I love lending. It’s everybody’s first question is, “How am I going to find potential borrowers?” And I’m like, “All you got to do is stand in the middle of a REA meeting and say, you have capital.” That’s literally all it takes. You will become the most popular person in a room within seconds.
But the real problem is how do we kind funnel down to the person or people that are going to be our ideal borrower? So normally the first thing I tell people, before you stand up on your chair in the middle of a REA meeting and say you have capital, get very, very clear on what you are willing to lend on. And just a good rough guideline of what you’re willing to lend under what conditions. So, for example, if you stand up in the middle of this REA meeting, it’s a local REA, they might pitch anything from a horse farm, to apartment development, to trailer park to three-two that needs to be updated from the 1990s.
That, especially as a beginning real estate investor, that’s very hard to fit and parcel out, which one’s the best deal for me to fund because they’re all so different. Versus if you stand up and say, “Hey, I’m going to lend on single family fix and flips, three bedrooms, two bathrooms. They’re going to be within about 10% of the median home price for my area. I want them roughly between this age and this age.” And it sounds kind of weird to kind of narrow it down that much, because they’re going to be like, “Nobody’s going to bring me a deal.” I guarantee you as long as it’s appropriate for the area, somebody’s going to bring that deal to you. So as long as you have a pretty good picture, and that’s even something for the active investors. If you find a private lender in your network, don’t ask them about the rate and terms, please don’t do that. Ask them what are they willing to lend on?
Because saying something like that, you can start procuring your own private lenders instead of the general question, “Hey, do you want to invest in real estate with me?” Well, that could be an elephant farm in Texas or that could be a condominium complex in Florida. Versus the conversation of, “Hey, I’m buying three-twos in this particular city in this particular state, and I’m going to turn around, fix them up and then sell them to families. Is that something you’d be interested in lending on?” And that’s two completely, totally different conversations. So that’s what I would say. Finding is the easy part, kind of chiseling it down to the appropriate person is going to come from establishing what your loan criteria and standards are going to be.

Scott:
But let’s pretend that we’re a complete novice in this. And I hear you. I go to the REA meeting and say, “I have capital.” And then I’m flooded with people who I can’t, I cannot… Are there other tips or tactics from a literal sourcing of that? Cause I’m sure it is as easy as you say there, but other things I can do to prepare myself mentally to go out and find these potential offerings?

Alex:
I would say, realistically, it’s going to sound kind of strange, figure out what the lending criteria are for maybe some hard money lenders in your area. And there’s a reason they have those criteria. And there’s a reason it’s pretty uniform across the entire country, X up to 60, 65% loan to value. They’re going to do a hundred percent of purchase price or 90% of purchase price plus some renovations. If you can see what your lending market as a whole is doing, then you could either position yourself competitively and say, “Look, I will go a little bit above that, but under this guideline. I will do a second in a very specific box.” Those types of things. The other thing I normally recommend for brand new lenders, is do not start with a brand new real estate investor, because then you end up with the blind leading the blind.
So if you have someone in your market that is a very avid fix and flipper, they’re very well known or they’re a landlord that has lots and lots of units. Even if you’re a brand new lender, they will at least should be partaking some of their knowledge and experience and saying, “Look, I’ve done a hundred of these properties.” They can have some sort of sleep at night saying their borrower’s very, very well connected in the real estate community, their borrower’s borrowed money before successfully and repaid it because they still own property. And their borrower has a ton of experience doing that particular business model. So I would almost kind of say, if you’re a brand new lender, look for a more experienced borrower. Yeah, you might get lower rates, but you’re not going to be two new people doing this transaction together, and nobody knows what’s going on.

Mindy:
I’m so glad you said that. Because that was going to be a question of mine. And yeah, I would love to be able to take a chance on somebody but not when it’s your money and you have the opportunity to lose all of it. I mean don’t lend money to somebody that you are not willing to completely lose in the first transaction. But you can mitigate a lot of your issues by just doing your homework.

Scott:
You mentioned a great point here, hard money lending and private money lending. These terms are used interchangeably. In your book you have a great breakdown between the two of those, but could you provide that at a high level here for folks who maybe don’t really understand the distinctions?

Alex:
So what we are calling private money lending is we are lending capital that is secured against real estate, and that capital is capital we somehow directly control. So it’s our capital from our actual bank accounts, retirement account, whatever it happens to be. Hard money lenders are going to fall more into that sort of what an institutional lender would feel like. They’re going to have normally very formalized application process, rate and terms. You have to make sure you check all the boxes. You have to have above a 680 credit score. You have to have six months of PITI in the bank, or else they won’t talk to you because their capital that they’re lending out actually comes with strings attached. They have a business warehouse line of credit from a bank. Maybe they have a fund. And so they have passive investors that they’re obligated to. All those things come with strings attached. Like we will give you this money for you to lend out, but you have to stick within this lending criteria.
Whereas when you’re talking to a private lender, like I mentioned earlier, we have the ability to just throw the criteria out the window if we really wanted to. We can make it within the confines of the usury laws. We can make it pretty much anything we want, as long as it works for, us as the lender works for them as the borrower. Because we are trying to set up a situation where it’s a win-win. Because we are pretty much, we’re reliant on each other. The reason I didn’t go out and buy this three-two ranch is because I don’t want to go out and buy this three-two ranch. I would rather remain passive. So it’s in my best interest to make sure that my borrower performs and it’s in their best interest to perform because they want keep their property.
So you’re forming this kind of symbiotic relationship, whereas anybody who’s tried to get a hard money loan. I’m not trying to be besmirch them. They have a place in the market, but it’s just a very different experience from a borrower’s perspective where it’s very transactional in the hard money loan sense. And it’s very relationship based in the private lending sense.

Scott:
So could I put it simply that Alex, you are a private money lender, and Beth, you are more of a hard money lender at this point. Is that one way to think about this?

Beth:
I liken myself as a private money matchmaker. In the true sense of the word, I guess you could consider me a broker, a private money broker, because I’m placing capital directly into private money loans. Again, we don’t, to what Alex said, I don’t have any institutional capital requirements. And so we have a lot of leeway and some flexibility that a lot of hard money lenders don’t. But yes, I place some of my own capital, but a fair amount of my business is placing other people’s capital.
But beyond being just a broker, we take care of our clients beyond the loan just originating. Which most brokers, they’ll put a fee on there, and then the loan closes, and then they disappear and try to go to originate more deals. For me, I need to take care of every single capital partner that’s within my circle because it’s all been strictly word of mouth for them coming into our group. So I don’t just lose professional reputation if something goes sideways, I lose the seat at the [inaudible 01:05:15] table and I don’t want that to happen. So yes, I’m considered a broker, but really for all intents and purposes, I’d like to call myself a private money matchmaker because we provide full concierge service to both sides of the house, to our borrower and to our lender.

Mindy:
So Beth, I have found somebody that I think I want to lend to. How am I going to take this information and actually put it into practice?

Beth:
Well, for starters, you’re going to have to start doing some conversations with the borrower. You want to make sure that you have a full understanding of the scope of work, what their intentions are, what their experience is. And you’re going to capture a lot of this information through phone calls, emails, in person conversations if you can. I often like to try and meet some of our borrowers at the prospective project or property that they’re trying to acquire. And that way I get a better sense of what they’re trying to accomplish. And more over, I also get a sense of maybe some of their nonverbal cues too. So a lot of things can be masked in an email to you, or filling out a or presenting like a presentation, a lot of investors to provide a overview of themselves in the project.
And then you’re going to go to the point of coming to some sort of agreement in rates and terms with the borrower, like what will work for them, what will work for you. And then when you have some consensus on that, then you’re going to go and vet out a lot of the information that you guys talked about previously. So I’d want to look at documentation like a purchase and sale agreement. I’d want to look at maybe a bank statement showing their proof of funds for their down payment. I might want to look at a schedule of real estate if they hold real estate, or some of their project experience if they’re an experienced flipper. And maybe I’ll take those addresses, and I’ll punch them into a web search, and just validate that they’re actually the vested owner of that property, or that they were the vested owner and the seller of a property they flipped.
So there’s going to be a lot of validation of some of these conversations that you have in place. And so there’s a fair amount of legwork that’s done before the loan gets funded. So it’s not a hundred percent passive at the onset, but once you’re able to get to funding, that’s when it becomes mailbox money for you.

Mindy:
How long would you say typically is elapsing before, between the first time you meet somebody and the time you fund their deal? Cause it sounds like you’re taking time to get to know them, which I’m advocating for. I’m not trying to say rush through that part, but if somebody comes up to you and they’re like, “Hey, I need money tomorrow.” When you’re a landlord and somebody’s like, “I need to move in tomorrow.” That’s a super red flag. Why do you need to move in tomorrow? Why didn’t you make plans ahead of time? When somebody needs funding right away, I would think that’s a red flag. Why? What happened to their other funding?

Scott:
I had a tenant come in and say, “I’m being evicted. And so I to will need to move in immediately.” In one of the applications.

Beth:
Oh, we get those too, Scott. It’s like, “My loan is in default. I need to refinance immediately.” And you’re like, “Okay, thanks for telling me that.” But to answer your question, Mindy, there’s really a balancing act, right? Because people need to use private capital or hard money because they want to be able to create a favorable offer. So oftentimes the pitch is I’m going to pay extra an interest because I want to be able to offer a quick close to the seller.
And so there needs to be some sense of urgency to act quickly, but I also can’t necessarily fund a deal tomorrow because I’m still required to go… Well in my world I’m required. Some lenders may not. But I prescribe getting a title commitment to make sure title is clear, ordering a lender policy to protect your loan from a title insurance perspective. And that takes time. And that requires resources from outside of my control. So there’s a fair amount of time involved, maybe a couple of days. Sometimes I get title turned around in 24 hours in metropolitan markets, but sometimes it can take up to a week or longer. And so there has to be some sort of balance between speed and being able to do your due diligence on the loan too.

Scott:
Does your book contain a checklist for these items, these policies that protect title insurance, and hazard insurance, and those types of things that protect you as a lender?

Beth:
It does. We have a whole section on underwriting. In the conventional lending world, we call it loan processing and loan underwriting. When you’re a private lender, you basically do everything yourself with the help of a virtual team. So we created it in a step that’s called, I think it’s collecting condition. So that you’re collecting all of the documents that you need, both some from the borrower, some from the title company. Maybe you’re collecting some forms that you want them to fill out, like Alex wants the letters of reference and things of that nature, a project performa. In that section in our book, we create a list of a number of documents you can collect, but with the caveat that you really need to be able to collect and review documents quickly. And you need to be able to have the acumen to inspect what it is that you’re collecting.
So I’m not necessarily going to order a full on credit report unless I really know how to evaluate that and understand what that credit risk might mean to me. So I don’t necessarily prescribe getting a credit report, but other lenders may choose to collect that. And they understand what they’re evaluating because they’re maybe a landlord and they’re used to doing those kind of credit and background checks. So we do list out a number of different documents that you’d want to collect, to substantiate the borrower, to substantiate the project, to substantiate the property itself and the valuation of it. But we want to make sure that there’s really some critical thinking around what it is that you’re collecting, and how you’re actually going to evaluate that, and how that might impact your overall approval or denial of a loan.

Scott:
So significant time and money goes into getting these documents, in some cases purchasing policies, like title insurance and those types of things. Is that all, I assume that that is all charged to the borrower in some capacity as part of this. Is that right?

Beth:
I think for Alex, for both of us, it is. Yes.

Alex:
Yes. I mean, it’s really funny that people that are wanting to lend, it seems like their big hangup is I don’t want to pay a thousand dollars to an attorney to drop documents. And I’m like, but you’re willing to give someone a hundred thousand dollars, and the only thing you’re getting back from that transaction is legal documents, and you’re okay with a free template you found online. That’s where your line is? When they don’t even realize that is a cost that you can very easily pass on to the borrower. So you’re not even paying for it.
Private lending’s one of the few ways that I’ve ever found where someone else pays for my protection of my capital. I mean, where else are you going to find that the borrower pays for a lender’s title policy, the borrower’s paying for hazard insurance, the borrower’s paying for flood insurance if required, and the borrowers paying for my legal docs to be prepared. I don’t, it just really boggles my mind, whenever new lenders come to it, and they’re like, “Why can’t I just use a template online and get it free and get it done?” I’m like, “Well, here’s why.” You don’t want to do that. And it’s not a cost to you as a lender.

Scott:
Okay. So this is awesome. So the process seems, you go in the middle of the REA, and you say, “I’ve got money.” And then people come back to you. They then pay for all of the fees associated with underwriting that mortgage. Pay you a boatload of interest. And you’ve got first or second position notes there. That’s all great. What happens if things go south and they stop making payments? How does that work?

Alex:
That can depend on, yeah, I was going to say, Beth’s got a ton of experience in this. You got to tell them about the story where the default actually ended up making more money, because I think that story is very poignant for active investors to hear. And for people that want to get into lending to hear like default, oh my God, the loan is defaulting. This is a huge problem. When in actuality is a lender, it could be a more money making opportunity for you.

Beth:
It absolutely is. I mean, to Alex’s point, I mean the nuclear option really is the last resort. So when a loan goes into default, there’s so many different ways to cure it. And of course it depends on each individual state. So I can only use mine as an example. In Washington state, if a alone goes into default… By nonpayment, I should say, right, because there’s other ways for a loan to go into default. But if they were to go into default for nonpayment, on day 31 is the official day that I could file what is called a notice of default. And it doesn’t get publicly recorded, but it basically puts the borrower on notice that they have 30 days to cure that loan and bring it current, or you will move forward with the next step. If they cure it within that 30 days, your loan is current and it’s all fine.
If they don’t cure it, then you can move on to the next stage, which is called filing a notice of trustee sale. That’s a fancy way of saying a foreclosure. And in my world, in Washington, you have to set an auction date no less than 120 days out. So really from end to end, you’re looking, at best, about a five month process. Things never go smoothly, as you know. And so I’ve had some of these things drag out, probably close to 18 months in certain circumstances. And fortunately I have less than a 4% default rate, which is fantastic. I can count how many times on one hand that I’ve actually had to take a loan all the way to auction. But to Alex’s point, even if it does go to auction, if you do have a healthy equity buffer, it can work out favorably for the lender.
So I actually just wrote a blog for Bigger Pockets, entitled Loans Gone Wild, What Happens When a Borrower Defaults. And we really felt it was important to highlight a real case where a borrower did default. I had to work with my lender to start the foreclosure process, but in the end it really worked out well in his favor. And it just took a little bit of time and effort. So what really happened was that the borrower defaulted within a couple of months. So we started with the notice of default. We had to move on for a notice of trustee sale. She tried to stifle our progress in moving forward with this trustee sale by filing a bankruptcy. She’s required by law, after she files, to follow up with some specific documentation. And each time she filed once under her own soc, and the second time under a false soc, she never followed up with the appropriate documentation. And so that BK was dismissed.
So that put a few speed bumps in there. But then it finally went to auction. And at that point, my lender placed a bid for the minimum amount that he would be willing to take the property for. And that amount effectively is his principle capital investment, any interest and default interest still owed to him, including late fees, and then of course the legal fees that he had collected and paid for upfront as well. So he put a minimum bid in, and he didn’t have to be at the actual auction steps to be able to put in a bid. And then for some random reason, no other person bid on that property, which is a great single family property. Actually had two buildings on it, was right on the river. No flood issues with it. And it was stabilized too.
So he ended up taking the property in his name. Now that doesn’t, that’s the first time that’s ever happened with us. But he was able to take the property. And because we have a wide network of borrowers, we found a couple investors that were willing to pay an assignment fee just to take that property off his hands right away. So he had a lot of options. Because at this point he could have made a five figure assignment fee and still walked away with his full principal interest and legal fees recouped from that as well.
And so, because he was a seasoned investor, he is a passive buy and hold investor with some small multi-families around the Seattle area. And he’s retired. He achieved fire quite early. He’s in mid fifties. He was bored. He’s like, “I could only play so much tennis. So I’m actually going to flip this property myself and I’m going to make some money, more money on it.” And so he did, and this was right in the middle of COVID. He hired his general contractor. He flipped it. He put it on the market. It went pending within, this is.

Beth:
He put it on the market, it went pending within… This is this last spring, so it stayed on the market a little bit longer just because he had some GC delays, but he ended up having a six figure return on there. His cash on cash was stellar, and so this is the perfect example of when we think default is the nasty D word, but at the end of the day he really ended up looking real solid on paper with this investment. And it took about, I would say about 16 months of his time from the time that he originated the loan until he was paid back through the proceeds of his sale.

Scott:
Betting on the horse.

Beth:
Betting on a horse, always.

Scott:
All right. So I think that’s super helpful, and I think that example is super powerful because Washington State is clearly one of these states that it’s going to be harder to foreclose in a property and slower than many other states in the South and Southeast, for example you’d imagine. Is that right? I’m guessing, I’m making an assumption there.

Beth:
Well, I would say that we’re probably better than California, but we’re not as good as Texas and some of the states in the South, yes. It is very, very state by state. Of course, the coastal states are probably going to be a little bit more lengthier transactions up in the Northeast too, I believe, and that’s why it’s important to consult with the real estate attorney that deals both in private money as well as foreclosure. You’re probably going to have to hit up a couple of different attorneys for that because most of the time they don’t practice in both.

Mindy:
Okay. So we talked about red flags… Alex, since you’re lending to the person as much as the deal, “I need money right away,” as a red flag. What are some other red flags to watch out for? I mean, besides the, “Oh, I’m in default,” the obvious.

Scott:
Things didn’t work out with my last lender so-

Mindy:
Yeah [inaudible 01:19:49].

Beth:
Well, even in default they said, “I’m in the middle of negotiating a reduction of principle with my second HELOC. So it’s actually going to be this kind of payoff when we go to fund my loan,” and you’re just laughing and you’re like, “Okay, so you short changed your creditor, but you want me to fund a deal for you?”

Mindy:
Yeah. So there’s one red flag when they don’t have enough money to pay their current creditors. What are some others we could talk about?

Alex:
I would say for me, I’m very much about accountability, so if I’m listening to some of the conversations, I’ll ask very open ended questions, “So tell me about the last couple of deals you’ve done. How did they go? What happened?” And if I constantly hear, “The contractor ran off with half the deposit, my partner wouldn’t answer my email, so duh, duh.” Everything is someone else’s fault, to me that is not my borrower. I wanted a borrower that’s going to come, instead of saying, “The contractor ran half off with half my deposit,” they’re going to say, “I hired the wrong contractor,” or “My partner and I could not agree on this particular aspect of the deal and that’s why we are not moving forward with another property. We just learned we don’t work well together in that capacity.”
I want to hear some self accountability because ultimately that’s what in my mind is very important with executing a business plan for a property because it’s very easy to just stand on the front lawn and point that all the contractor’s doing everything wrong, when the person that made the contractors be there is standing in the front lawn, yelling at the contractors. So I’m very much about self-accountability, so if I see a high degree of that, I’m good, but if I hear a lot of blaming, not so good. Being from Louisiana, there’s a thing called the Cajun underground, and it might feel like everybody’s involved in real estate, but the circle is actually really small. So one of the reasons I do those professional phone calls is because real estate is a small circle, so if somebody has burned someone else in the circle in your market because most private lenders are hyper local, they lend in their immediate area.
Somebody in there is going to know that in the Cajun underground, and somebody’s going to tell what actually happened, so that’s why I say if you’re a private lender and you’re worried about a borrower, go find one of the more popular people in the room because if you stand up as a squeaky wheel and say, “Hey. Mr. Dude has not been paying me for the last six months,” in the middle of a REIA meeting, I guarantee you, he’s going to find a way to get you paid off real quick because you need to be quiet.

Scott:
… another good tip there is probably go on to the BiggerPockets forums and find the most active power users. The people who have posted thousands of times in your local area because they’re out there hundreds of thousands of times, and those people will potentially be at least entry points into that Cajun underground if you’re having trouble finding that in a physical world, the digital BiggerPockets world might be helpful as a starting point there. What about you, Beth, any red flags?

Beth:
Yeah. I mean, aside from some of the common, “Oops, I said this too much or whatever,” I would say that there’s a lot of context that’s provided that’s unspoken. For example, one of the things that I was just talking with my team about is that we often have borrowers that are really engaged up front and they approve terms, and then as soon as you need to get documents back, they go dark. And then they come back and they say, “Okay, we’re sorry about that and this and that,” and they send you maybe a couple of documents and then they go dark again for another week. And you’re trying to understand if they’re really interested, if they’re really engaged. If it’s that difficult to get them to meet you halfway so you can give them money, only imagine how harder it is to collect on that after it’s funded.
So the ones that come in and out of your frame of consciousness are the ones that we tend to not want to work with, and then on the flip side, if they’re lightening up my phone and my email at 10 o’clock at night and calling the next day and asking, there’s a certain level of responsiveness that almost reeks of desperation, meaning they may be in some really turbulent times or they’re desperate for that money because they’re in hot water. And so that’s another sign that we typically tend to look for. You want someone that’s really communicative, but you don’t want them dipping out all the time and just excusing it because they’re too busy, and you don’t want them lighting your phone up all the time in the middle of the night because you have a life, and I already have kids, I don’t want to take care of them too. So trying to figure out these issues upfront before you fund is very important because you don’t want to deal with it after it closes.

Scott:
So these are very qualitative things that you guys are highlighting here. I presume that’s because you’re quantitative the hard, yes, check the boxes are just defined in a policy upfront outside of that, so really much of your time is spent looking for these qualitative things or as much of the skill or the art that goes into this is going to be the qualitative side.

Beth:
Well, absolutely. I mean, to the point that a borrower can actually articulate their project, and then they’re talking about it in terms that are extremely conservative that show that they have an acumen and a level of experience in these types of projects or that they’ve done their due diligence is great. I’m going to have had some borrowers where I’ve asked them for a project performer or a rehab budget, and it’s literally written now on the back of a napkin. I mean, it’s happened. I got a business strategy letter scribbled out on a piece of paper and it wasn’t even aligned piece of paper, but they just wrote it out on a post-it note or something of that nature, and then they scanned it in or took a picture of it.
And so it shows a level of effort and a level of organization in just coming through for the very minimal requirements we have as a private lender. That’s going to showcase how they treat their project, in my opinion. Is it going to be Lucy goosey? Are they really going to be on it and buttoned up and really thorough, really organized? Or are they going to scribble it out on a post-it note and think that we’re good and we can move on from there? I don’t really prefer that.

Mindy:
They’re going to forget stuff. They’re going to go over their little napkin budget. It sounds like dating almost when you’re vetting people. If you wouldn’t date them, don’t lend them money.

Alex:
I’m laughing so hard because I’ve had the opposite happen where they might not be getting enough information to Beth. I’ve had borrowers, I was on vacation with very low cell signal and they sent me 74 photos and 16 videos to my cell phone. My cell phone spent the entire weekend trying to download crap, and I was so mad. I was like, “Why would you do this to me?”

Beth:
And it’s like a sign of trying too hard, right?

Alex:
Right.

Beth:
You don’t want a boyfriend that tries too hard and smothers you. You want him to be just right.

Mindy:
Exactly. Okay, let’s say that I’m interested in being a private money lender, but I am so busy with all the things that life is throwing at me. I don’t have time to do this myself. Beth, you have mentioned a couple of times that you invest other people’s money for them. How do I vet a broker? How do I find a broker? How do I make sure that they’re well respected and they’re going to be the best option for my money? And give me the overview, how I find somebody and what I’m expecting from that relationship.

Scott:
Mindy, it’s not a broker. It’s a private money matchmaker.

Mindy:
Private money matchmaker. I’m sorry.

Beth:
Thank you, Scott.

Mindy:
Everybody’s a broker. Private money matchmaker, where do I find one?

Beth:
Well, you can find them in every market. Fortunately for me, we’ve really grown organically. I mean, just a little backed up on our stories. My husband and I, he was my boyfriend at the time we really started lending out our own-

Scott:
He didn’t smother you?

Beth:
… Oh, my boyfriend didn’t smother me. We started lending out our own money, and that from two of our investors. One was a golf buddy of my husband’s and the other was a school dad, and it just grew from there because once people hear that you’re passively investing and it’s easy and it’s relatively low risk, and somebody else is doing a lot of the legwork for you but you get to choose which deal that you like, it kind of grows. And so word of mouth is one way. Ask around at those REIA meetings like Alex was saying. You’ll find other private money lenders that are experienced in this and might want to actually lend your money. You can Google. I’ve had people locate us through Google and web searches, private money lenders and seeing if they do whole trustees or private mortgages. There’s two schools of thought here.
Some do private individual home notes, that’s what I do where I individually place the lender in a loan. They’re individually named on the promissory note. They’re individually named on the deed of trust, so everything goes in their name and no money is passed through us. It goes strictly through a third party escrow, and they don’t transfer any money until they’ve had a chance to review and approve the legal documents that have been drafted on their behalf. And then the other part would be a pooled mortgage fund which some private lenders do that too, and in essence it’s like a syndication, but it’s not private equity, it’s private debt.
And so you’re taking people’s money and you’re pooling it into this private debt fund, and then you’re originating loans that way. So you can search for them, trust deed investments or private money lender in my area, and then you can call down on them or search for them on their website and ask for references. But really, we’ve grown our circle strictly through word of mouth, so chances are somebody within your network is doing it and might be able to refer somebody or a business to you that is doing the exact same thing that I’m doing in my state.

Scott:
I was just going to ask, just to be clear. Your business, for example, makes money from points on the origination essentially?

Beth:
So my business makes money both on origination points as well as we do take a small spread on the interest, so if I lend it out at 12%, for example, I might take a quarter percent up to a whole percent from the top and pass through the rest to the investor. And this really helps me cover some of my overhead because I do have a large team that helps provide, like I said, that full white glove service from the time that the loan inquiry comes in through the time that the loan is paid off. My team is there to help out every step of the way, so we do take a small interest spread on there as well that’s called a management fee.

Alex:
The one thing I would add to that which is something Beth does is, she sends out copies of the loan documents. Obviously, they’re redacted so you can’t identify people or properties. So a potential new investor can actually see the legal documentation that’s going to be safeguarding their capital, and they should be able to call up that person and have a conversation say, “Hey, I don’t know what this paragraph means. Why is this in the document?” And if they can’t spend the time or accurately explain that, that might be a red flag too if you’re looking for someone to broker your capital.

Beth:
We have a pretty prescribed onboarding process for investors, so once they come to us, of course, they’ve had some sort of referral to us in many cases, but the full onboarding process really starts with the conversation either through email or on the phone and then we’ll get on a Zoom call. We want to make sure that we’re a right fit for them. As I mentioned, since we’re in the Seattle market, the average deal size for us is around 350 to 400, so unfortunately since the market has appreciated so much over the last five to 10 years, we really can’t take smaller amounts of capital otherwise you’ll be sitting on the sidelines waiting for us to find a small loan for you. And really loans under a hundred thousand dollars even in second position really don’t help a Washington based investor in the Seattle market get across the finish line.
And so we’ll make sure that we’re a right fit culturally for the investor and that they have enough capital and have enough understanding of how we operate before we move forward, and as Alex mentioned, we give them a prospective investor package with a redacted set of loan docs, but we also give them a two to three page investor overview that we give them for loans to show them how we package it up because it has a borrower overview. It has a business purpose strategy and an extra strategy defined in there. It also gives some specifications on the property itself, so we’ll give links out to an online valuation report. We use a company called HouseCanary to do that for us, and it helps us do pull comps without having to have access to the MLS. We’ll do links out to Zillow and to Redfin just so they can go online and sniff and smell the property and check it out online and do a little due diligence on it.
And so we give them a sample of that so they can see how we present it, and then we get them back on a phone call or a Zoom call or meet them for coffee again, and we talk through any additional questions because invariably it comes back with the what ifs, what happens when my loan goes into default? We talk about that because it’s really important for our investors to understand what the risks and rewards are before they move forward with the deal because the last thing I want is for them to not be able to sleep well at night. They come to us to be able to passively invest, and if they’re really concerned about their deal after it funds then I’ve got some problems, and that takes me away from revenue generating activities. So we go through a really prescribed process, and that even includes afterwards sending them some previously funded deals so that they can evaluate them from a wide swath of investors.
I have some that have really high risk tolerance, and they want double digit returns. I have some that want really lower risk, and so they’ll concede on interest rate a little bit. We want to give them some sample loans that we funded and see where they fall into, so it’s fun because they get to come back and say, “Well, I like this deal and I would take this one and here’s why, but I don’t like this one that you gave me because I don’t like the location of the property or I don’t like a commercial mixed use building used as collateral,” something of that nature.
Or, “I like this deal, but I think the terms are too long or the loan amount was too high. Maybe I would’ve wanted it a little lower,” or something like that. And so that’s a really iterative process for us to go through so that they can vet us, and that we can vet them as well at the same time and make sure that we’re really submitting deals to them that are going to be a right fit because we don’t cattle call our loans. That’s a pretty poor customer experience, so we really want to earmark the right kind of loan for that particular individual.

Scott:
I love this. I think a clear picture is [inaudible 01:34:19] in my head here. If you’re trying to lend 2050, a hundred thousand dollars in that ballpark then really I really like Alex’s approach here, and going into these areas maybe with lower property values where you can really get to network and be gritty in the area, get to know these people and find, what was the Cajun underground?

Beth:
Underground.

Scott:
The Cajun underground.

Beth:
The Cajun underground.

Scott:
In these local markets, and if you have a lot more capital, perhaps, sitting around your 401(k) and you don’t want to invest all this time trying to find a private money matchmaker or broker or a debt fund like this, it might be a really good alternative. And then either way you have a really good shot at earning eight to 14%. There is risk, if property values do decline we will see some risk in this market but, perhaps, less than what you’d see as an equity investor in real estate in a lot of cases. But I think it’s a really interesting asset class that we have not touched on here in the BiggerPockets Money Podcast before, and this was absolutely fascinating, so we really appreciate it guys. Thank you. This was a fantastic show. We’re at two hours, but it was all super valuable, and we’re very grateful.

Mindy:
And if you found this episode valuable, we’ve got more. Alex and Beth were on the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast discussing a different aspect of this book, How to Vet a Private Money Lender. So I think it’s a really good exercise to listen to episode 642 of the Real Estate Podcast if you’re considering doing this just from a different standpoint, from the investor standpoint so you know what people are looking for when they’re looking for a private money lender. Also, they’re on the Real Estate Rookie Podcast which airs tomorrow if you’re listening to this episode the day that it comes out. That’s episode 210 of the Real Estate Rookie Podcast.

Scott:
[inaudible 01:36:18] podcasts.

Mindy:
We’ve got a lot of podcasts. They’re all amazing, and on that show, they talk about the five things every borrower should do to expedite their loan closing. This is ways that you can send your lenders or your borrowers to that episode as well to help them help you make money off of them.

Scott:
But before we get out of here, Alex, Beth, can you one more time tell us about the book and where we can find each, find or learn more about each of you?

Alex:
Beth is going to have to tell you the title of the book because it’s 15 words long, but we have an email address that we give out to people. It’s [email protected], the number two, live.com. That comes to both of us, so you can reach us. We are both on BiggerPockets, so just search for our name. We’re happy to chat with people on BiggerPockets as well, and then our website is lend2live.com. And then Beth, I’ll let Beth do her website and her stuff.

Beth:
Our book is called Lend to Live: Earn Hassle-Free Passive Income in Real Estate with Private Money Lending. Of course, you can get it on BiggerPockets.com. We were just released at the beginning of August on Audible, and it comes out on amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and a handful of other retailers as well in mid-August. And you can find me on BiggerPockets. You can also find me on Instagram @lend2live.beth, and I’m also on Facebook as well. My company is Flynn Family Lending.

Scott:
Awesome. We will link to all of this stuff, and I highly encourage you to go there on the show notes at biggerpockets.com/moneyshow328. There’s a wealth of information, and this show should be the tip of the iceberg in the private lending space for you. The next stop obviously is Lend to Live the book by Alex and Beth here, and then I think there’s a whole wrap. That’s the beginning of the rabbit hole, there’s hundreds of hours of more learning there, but also a large amount of wealth to be harvested and made in this space.

Mindy:
Alex and Beth, thank you so much for your time today. I’m so excited for this episode. I think that people are going to be inundating you, so clear out your inbox.

Alex:
Thank you.

Beth:
Thanks for having us.

Mindy:
We will talk to you soon. Okay. That was Alex and Beth. That was one of my favorite episodes that I think we’ve ever done. This information is so fantastic. I do want to circle back to the very beginning where I said, this is going to sound like a scam, but it’s not. I have made a lot of private money loads in my life. I tend to side with Alex who lends more to the person than the deal, and I will say that I have never had somebody default on my loan. I have never had any negative consequences from making my loans, and I have made 10 and 12% interest when I’m making these loans. It is absolutely a legitimate way to do business. It is absolutely a legitimate way to make money, and if you are at all interested pick up a copy of this book because you are going to learn so much. It is like a masterclass on paper.

Scott:
Yeah. This is, I think, a special set of information. It’s a perspective changer for me. There’s no way that private money investing is not a part of my future unless interest rates drop back down to zero and the market’s flood again with ridiculous amounts of capital in this space, but that’s not going to happen. This is an opportunity area. This is a way to generate serious passive cash flow and income in the form of interest in a way that is hard to get in real estate like rental property investments today without going to short term space, for example. And we also heard Beth say how she can cash flow or short term rental without having to have any guests by doing private money lending in this space, so I think it’s a great opportunity and something to seriously consider, and I hope my excitement came through because I’m thrilled.
And I think these two were perfect potential perspectives to do that, the jockey and the horse perspective. If you’re like Mindy or Alex, you have to bet on the jockey, and if you’re like Beth, who is managing larger pools of capital and doing many more loans, she can’t bet on the jockey. She can’t get to know all these people. She has to bet on the horse for that. It makes perfect sense, different strokes, different approaches, so I thought I was blown away, and I will be definitely trying to learn as much as I can from Alex and Beth over the next couple of years.

Mindy:
I could not have said it better myself, and we ran super long, so Scott, we should get out of here.

Scott:
Let’s do it.

Mindy:
From episode 328 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, he is Scott Trench and I am Mindy Jensen saying, let’s make lots of money.

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show 651.

Craig:
If your friend is asking about what you’re doing and how much you’re paying for the mortgage and how much he’s paying for the mortgage and all that, I always recommend being 100% honest because if you can empower somebody to do the same thing as you and to empower someone to house hack, then you’re going to completely change the trajectory of their lives, and that’s worth so much more than a couple hundred dollars a month or being a little bit sketchy about how much you’re getting paid or how much you’re paying and all that. So I highly recommend if you’ve got the opportunity to help somebody see the light and they’re asking to 100% just tell the truth. It’s way easier than lying.

David:
What’s going on, everyone? This is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. Here today with a Seeing Greene episode, where I have called for backup. On this show, we’re going to be taking your questions as always, but with a little bit of a twist. We’ve got several other BiggerPockets personalities that have come in to help me by answering your questions. So you guys are in for a treat. You’re going to get my perspective and a lot of other people’s.
First, today’s quick tip. Do you need a group to help support you on your journey to your first or next property and a place to get your specific questions answered beyond this podcast? Well, check out biggerpockets.com/enroll if you want more info or to participate in one of our five different bootcamps. Thank you for being a loyal listener. We’re offering a 10% discount off your enrollment by using the code BOOTCAMP10. Almost 50 bucks off and a free year of pro membership can be yours. Already pro? You get a screaming price on this already great value opportunity. Invest in yourself and check out the BiggerPockets Bootcamp.
All right. Let’s go to our first question.

Ashley:
Hi, everyone. My name is Ashley Kehr, and I’m excited to be here today on Seeing Greene. I am the host of the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, along with Tony Robinson, and I’m also hosting two bootcamps coming this fall. So let’s get to today’s question.
Today’s question is from Juan Murano. His question is, “I’m getting into the thought of investment properties and I want a mentor. I do have a friend that does it, but she buys single-family in multifamily homes out of state, which scare me. I don’t know where to start my research for rental properties and areas to purchase in. How do I figure that out? I feel like little things like landlord states and tenant states leases for rental properties and finding people scare me. I don’t want to find videos on it. I want to be able to do my own research. Where do I start?”
Well, this is a great question, Juan, and there’s a couple things in here. So let’s start with your first one is that you want to find a mentor. So right in your question to me, you said that you do have a friend that buys single-family and multifamily homes, which I think right there is someone that could possibly be a mentor to you. Even if that ends up not being the real estate investing strategy that you want to go into, I think that they have invested in real estate there’s going to be a ton of value for you.
So just starting those conversations with that person, and even if you don’t feel like they’re adding a lot of value to what you want to do, it is going to motivate you and inspire you to be able to talk to somebody who is investing and also give you maybe that courage to get past analysis paralysis too. So I would say, start there with your friends. Start opening the conversation and talk to them as much as you can. Maybe offer to buy them some coffee or take them out to lunch I think is a great start.
Then you talked about where to start with the research or the areas to purchase them. So if you’re going to do out-of-state investing, one thing that I really like to look at is where are other people investing. I know you said you don’t want to watch a video on it. You want to be able to do your own research, but you have to start somewhere with finding markets and think about how many markets there are across the whole US. There are a ton.
When you look at the map, then you can bounce around from city to city. So if you were to pull up Zillow or realtor.com, you can hone in on one city, but you start zooming out and you start looking and, “Wow, there’s properties here that maybe in my budget.” Then you head over to Ohio, and then you’re bouncing down to Florida and going all over.
So what I recommend is go online. Go on the BiggerPockets forums. Go on social media. Start following other real estate investors, and look where they are investing. Then maybe pick three to five cities that interest you, and then do your research from there. So start your own market analysis and go through and look at the things that you want to evaluate in a market.
So for example, first of all, are properties within your budget? Maybe you have loan approval for up to 150,000 or that’s your cash to purchase a property, you’re not going to go into markets where you’re buying $500,000 houses and that’s maybe the average home sales. You’re going to look for markets that have houses that are available for $150,000. So that’s a big thing there.
The second thing is is you want to be a landlord, and you are 100% correct that there are different laws and regulations in different states. So there’s landlord states that are favorable to the landlord, and then there’s states that are also favorable to the tenants. So that also could be a great starting point for you is looking at states that have landlord-friendly laws, meaning that the laws there are beneficial to the landlord, and that is most likely going to give you a better investment than if you are going into states where the tenant has the benefit.
So I invest personally in New York. That’s where I’m from, and it is definitely a tenant-friendly state. So when an eviction comes up on a property, it is a lot harder to get that tenant out of the property than it would be, per se, if you were in Texas or a state that is a landlord-friendly state. So if you are going out-of-state anyways, that is definitely something to look at.
Other things to look at are possibly what is the median income in that market? Can people there afford the type of property or the type of rent that you want to charge? What are the rental rates there? So there’s a lot of things. Also, the industry, what kind of jobs are in this community, in this market? So if you’re looking at a market that only has one big business there, and that’s where a lot of employees, a lot of the people in the town, what happens if that business shuts down? All those people move to a different market because there’s no longer jobs there. So that’s why I always like to find at least three prominent places of employment that bring people in for those jobs.
So for example, in Houston, Texas, there’s healthcare, there’s a lot of oil jobs there. So looking at these markets, what’s bringing people into them? Then also look at the trends too of people moving into those markets. So those are just a couple of the many things that you can look at when you’re doing market analysis, but I would say start building a list of things that you want to look at in a market.
In my bootcamp, we go over this too, in the rookie bootcamp, as to all these things we list down to things you can analyze when you’re finding your market, but I think watching BiggerPockets YouTube videos and videos of other investors can definitely help you, but you still want to verify and do your own research.
So my recommendation for your question would be to go to your friend for a mentor, post it in the BiggerPockets forums to see if anybody out there is looking for help with anything. Do you have a special skill or something that you can do to add value to another investor so that they do mentor you?
Then second, look where other people are investing and then verify the data that you see in those markets to see if it suits what your goals and what your real estate investing strategy is, and then go from there, and make sure you do not get stuck in analysis paralysis. So make sure you take action. Every deal is not going to be a home run, and your first deal does not have to be a home run deal. So make sure you remember that and you don’t get too stuck in over analyzing.
Well, thank you, David, so much for having me on Seeing Greene. If you guys want to learn more about what I do, you can follow me on Instagram, @wealthfromrentals, and back to you, David.

David:
All right. Well, thank you, Ashley. That was a fantastic answer, and what a way to start this show. There’s enough information in that reply for an entire podcast. I love the points that you made. The looking for the employment is really big. I think a lot of investors look at the cashflow they’re going to get. They want to find the ROI, but they don’t dig in and say why is it doing that, why are people moving here, what are the driving forces and fundamentals behind the number that pops up on your spreadsheet. That’s what a real good investor does is they understand at a pretty high level what makes a market drive, why the supply is what it is, why the demand is what it is, what the benefits of that market are, and what the drawbacks are as well because every market’s going to have drawbacks.
You just have to understand, “Why are they drawbacks? What are they? Is that something I can live with?” You’re never going to find a perfect market. That’s a mistake a lot of people make because they keep looking forever because every market they find has something wrong with it, but there’s always going to be something wrong with every single market. That’s just the way that life works because if there wasn’t, somebody else would’ve already bought all of those houses and there wouldn’t be an opportunity. So thanks for that, Ashley. That was fantastic advice.
Our next question comes from Tony Spencer about short-term rentals, and we have none other than BiggerPockets published author Avery Carl here to answer on this topic.

Avery:
Hey, guys. It’s Avery Carl, BiggerPockets author of Short-Term Rental, Long-Term Wealth, and the BiggerPockets short-term rental bootcamp instructor. Today’s question comes from Tony Spencer in the Seattle area. Tony currently owns his home with a basement apartment and is about to go live with his first Airbrrrrnb and will have 300,000 to put down on a second Airbnb suit. He says he’s a member of several Airbnb social media groups and, “I’m looking to buy my second short-term rental very soon.” He also says he sees that everyone is panicking about their lack of bookings compared to the last few years. Sounds like it could be due to maybe the new algorithm with Airbnb and/or inflation in general.
His question is, “Do you see the STR market trending in any certain direction with fears about the economy or do you think that there might be an upcoming opportunity in this asset class cooling off in the near future? Finally, I’m basing this question off anecdotal evidence from social media posts, but I’ve yet to see any current data about STR bookings being down across the board. Do you know where I can find such current data to support or deny this information? Thanks as always. Love the show.”
Okay. So Tony, this is a really, really good question, and I’m going to try to not be too long-winded in my answer. So I have seen a lot of people panicking about bookings over the past few months, I would say, especially back in April and May when Airbnb rolled out their new algorithm. It did affect some things. That has since been corrected. Airbnb has walked that back a little bit. So we’re not seeing as much of an issue with that.
I also think that a lot of the panic that we see in social media posts is from people who bought in the last 18 months, especially people who bought at the end of 2020 or during 2021 who have not been through normal seasonality yet. So May is typically a slow month because it’s right between everyone having been on vacation in April and for spring break, and then also everyone about to be going on vacation for the summer. So May is a pretty quiet month in terms of STR. So I think it’s a combination of owners who bought in a really high year who haven’t been through normal seasonality yet, and then the Airbnb algorithm messing with everyone’s bookings on top of that.
In terms of the market trends, I think with my real estate agent business, I’ve seen that now really is the best time in the past two years to get under contract on a short-term rental. In 2020 and 2021, every single property that hit the market, even if it was just a completely astronomical number that made no sense at all, was getting a hundred offers. Now with the uncertainty with the economy and also interest prices, I mean, interest rates going up, there’s some uncertainty in the market, which has created an opportunity for buyers.
So the weaker-handed buyers have been shaken out of the market, and also, there’s a lot of sellers who I call them FOMO sellers. They’ve seen that their neighbors have sold six months to a year ago for just crazy prices, and they see the market changing and they’re like, “Oh, no. I missed the boat. I guess I better list now.” So it’s creating more supply in the market.
So last year, you had to make these crazy aggressive offers on every single property. Now, you can actually negotiate with sellers. You can offer under asking. You can ask for sellers to contribute to closing costs again. You can actually get better deals than you’ve been able to in the past two years. Now, interest rates are certainly a factor, so you want to make sure that you account for that line item, but in terms of actually being able to get deals, it’s a really good opportunity right now for buyers.
In terms of finding current data on booking, so I’ve seen people answer that question both ways of some people have less bookings than last year, some people are doing better. My personal ones are actually doing a little bit better than last year. So I think that’s due to a number of factors. I think that time in the market, so people who have more reviews are typically seeing a little bit more traction in the current market.
So I don’t necessarily think that bookings are down across the board just like the real estate market in terms of sales is not national but regional. I think that with short-term rental and bookings and things like that, everything is really very market-specific as well. So what’s happening in one market with bookings is not necessarily happening in every market with bookings. So there might be some that are up or down, but it’s not necessarily an across the board thing.
A really good place to find current data on what bookings are looking like, there’s a few different places where you can find short-term rental data. AirDNA is one. It’s paid. Rabbu is another one. It’s free. Then also, if you already are a short-term rental owner and you have PriceLabs, which is a pricing tool that is used to dynamically price your property, there’s a function within PriceLabs called the Market Dashboards, and it’s a 30-day snapshot of how the entire market in that area has been performing. So I would check out all of those places and use data from several different sources because no one dataset is necessarily perfect. So take a look at all of that data from all three of those sources and draw your own conclusions from there.

David:
Wow. Thank you for that, Avery. Once again, just like with Ashley, you brought a ton of value in the reply there. Couple things stand out to me that I want to capitalize on and highlight for our listeners. First would be very good point, 2021 was probably going to be known as in baseball, that was the juiced ball era when everyone was hitting the home runs or maybe it was the steroid era, but numbers were artificially inflated for that period of time because COVID had shut down a lot of the world and people wanted to travel to get away from the big cities that were closed and go to more areas that had a little more freedom and less restrictions. So they traveled and Airbnb exploded.
Now, we’re still sitting on the momentum of that amazing time and that’s why many listeners here are thinking, “Hey, I want to get into short-term rentals.” I traveled during that same period of time and I enjoyed it. I want to buy the house. You combine that with the fact that it’s becoming very difficult to find cashflowing properties as more demand continues to flood into the asset class that we at BiggerPockets love real estate investing, but supply stays relatively constrained and you’ve got more competition. So in order to make a cash flow now, you’re looking at short-term rentals.
So there’s several factors that have evolved to create this world that we’re getting into, and I do think this is just my two sense, right? I’m planning that over the next three to five years there’s going to be a ramp up period to get the short-term rentals that I’m buying right now going. I don’t think I’m going to buy it and step into 100% occupancy or close to that right off the bat. I think it’s actually going to be slow. I think in the future, the people who manage really good short-term rentals are going to be getting repeat guests. I think that because there’s so much competition for people going on Airbnb and they have tons of homes to choose from. As more and more people start renting out their houses, more and more investors like us buy these houses and put them on VRBO, on Airbnb, everywhere that you can find them.
There’s more supply to choose from. So as supply goes up and demand stays the same or doesn’t keep up with it, you’re going to see prices come down. So to combat that, I’m planning on getting return guests. I want to give every guest such a great stay that instead of going on Airbnb and saying, “Where should I stay in this market?” they go, “I’m going back to that house that I stayed at last time.” I think that many people would be good to do the same.
So think about your reviews. Think about the experience you’re giving your guests. Remember, when you buy a short-term rental, you are not buying passive income. You are actually buying a business and you’re going to have to run it with the same effort that you put into a business or hire a manager that will do that for you. It’s a great asset class to get into, but it is definitely not the same as just buying a fourplex and letting your property manager that you pay 8% rent the units out and collecting that check. There’s more work that goes into it.
Avery, thank you very much for that awesome answer and the level of detail that you put into that. All right. Next up is a question from Daniel Leja about house hacking, and who better than BiggerPockets house hacking extraordinaire Craig Curelop, who wrote the book on house hacking for BiggerPockets publishing to help me answer?

Craig:
Hey, everyone. This is Craig Curelop, house hacking extraordinaire and instructor for the BiggerPockets house hacking bootcamp. Today’s question comes from Daniel Leja from the bay area of Berkeley, California. Here it goes. “On the BiggerPockets Podcast I’ve been listening for years,” and he hears a lot of people talking about house hacking, but doesn’t recall too much about renting to friends and family. He did a 14 plus bedroom house hack for a few years, which is a little bit crazy, and from his experience, there’s a lot of differences between renting to a standard tenant and renting from friends and family. So Daniel’s question is, “How do you differentiate and how do you treat renting to a family member and a friend versus just a standard tenant like a stranger you don’t know?”
So there’s a few different things that I would personally do differently here when renting to friends and family or a stranger. Obviously, when you’re renting to a stranger or just traditional tenant that you’re getting, it’s a little bit more of a transaction. So you need to make sure you do your background check and credit check and all that good stuff.
So I wouldn’t do a background check on a friend or family, but I would do a credit score because you definitely want to make sure their credit score is still good, but if they’re friends and family, then I’ve probably got a pretty good idea of their background. Now, if you are curious about their background, I would definitely recommend doing the background check, right? It doesn’t really matter either way, but, again, I probably would avoid doing that for friends and family.
The second thing is that if you’re renting to a friend or family member, you already know them, you likely already know their tendencies, and so there’s a little bit less of a risk for you. When you’re renting to a friend or family member, there is that obligation to give them the friends and family discount. So I would probably charge them 50 to 100 dollars less in rent so that they can basically live with you, and again, it’s a little bit less of a risk for you because you know that you get along with this person and you know their tendencies.
For a security deposit, I would charge the same amount that I would anybody else, but I would just charge one month’s rent. So if you’re going to give them $100 discount on the rent, give them $100 discount on the security deposit. Then there is that balance when you’re dealing with a tenant-landlord relationship. You would like to be friendly with your tenants, but you don’t really like to be friends with your tenants. However, if your friend is moving in, you have to be friends with them.
So I always like to use the reference of hats, right? So 95% of the time when you’re moving in and out of the house and you’re going out to dinner and all that, you guys are going to be friends, but if something ever comes up where you need to discuss something in the lease, you need to discuss renewing rent, you need to discuss a late payment, then you say, “Hey, man. I know we’re friends, but right now we’re not friends. I am your landlord. You are my tenant, and that’s the relationship we’re going to have for this conversation. You need to pay me this amount on this time,” or whatever the discussion is. You make sure you have that and you make sure the roles are defined in that conversation, and you sit down and you be serious with them, right? I think with friends a lot of times you’re going to be joking around and smiling, but don’t do that if you’re having a serious conversation with them.
You 100% have them sign a lease. I have seen time and time again friends just do verbal leases. I literally witnessed this less than a week ago. They signed a verbal lease, didn’t really sign any lease, and then the guy decided they wanted to move out early, but there was no lease in place. So now one guy is getting screwed and it’s the landlord that’s getting screwed over. So I recommend always signing a lease, whether it’s your sister, your friend or a complete stranger. Always sign a lease.
If your friend is asking about what you’re doing and how much you’re paying for the mortgage and how much he’s paying for the mortgage and all of that, I always recommend being 100% honest because if you can empower somebody to do the same thing as you, and to empower someone to house hack, then you’re going to completely change the trajectory of their lives, and that’s worth so much more than a couple hundred dollars a month or being a little bit sketchy about how much you’re getting paid or how much you are paying and all of that. So I highly recommend if you’ve got the opportunity to help somebody see the light and they’re asking, then 100% just tell the truth. It’s way easier than lying.
Oftentimes too, friends will ask for a little bit of leeway, a little bit of discounts, all of that kind of stuff. I really would not discount it any more than the already agreed upon amount. So if you’re going to do $100 off, stick to the $100 off. Make sure they pay on time, and if they don’t pay on time, charge them the late fees, right? Treat your business like a business even though a friend is moving in.
So that’s my answer on how you treat family and friends differently than tenants. A lot of it is the same. You just maybe give them a little bit of a discount and you have a little bit more leeway.

David:
Also some great advice. This is an amazing episode. I should have done this a long time ago. Just bring in the Avengers to do the heavy lifting for me here. All right. There’s something that I really want to call out about the question as a warning sign. So one of the things that you learn in jujitsu is people will get themselves into a horribly compromising situation. Okay? It’s almost like a checkmate, and then they go to the instructor and they say, “How do you get out of this?” The answer is usually, “You just never let yourself get into that. Okay? You made a mistake three moves ago that led to this.”
If you think about like going down a slide at a waterpark or something, when you’re three quarters of the way down and you’re like, “Okay. How do I stop? How do I go back to the top and start over?” once there’s that much momentum going in a negative direction, probably you’re not getting out of that situation. It’s going to happen. There’s a big word I was trying to think of there, but it’s still too early in the morning and I couldn’t find it.
So when somebody says to you, “Are you making a profit on this property?” that’s letting you see what’s in their mind. They are tipping their hand, if we’re going to use the jujitsu thing here. They’re showing you what they’re about to do. You need to be very careful about that.
So let me give you an example from my personal life. This was when I was young David. I still had hair. I was about 100 pound skinnier almost. My dad was very handy. He was still alive at that time. So there was a house down the street from where we lived and I had a lot of capital and I had already bought maybe one or two investment properties or maybe I hadn’t bought anything yet. I think I’d just been toying around with the idea.
I looked at the numbers and I was like, “Hey, why don’t we buy this house and flip it?” My dad knew how to do the work. I had the money to buy it. So we were sitting there talking about it. My brother Chris said, “Hey, I want to do this too.”
I’m like, “Okay. Well, if you put in part of the down payment, you can have that percentage of the profit.” We were just going to pay my dad to do the work.
He said, “Okay. Well, how much would I have to put in?”
I basically wrote it down, “Well, if you take X amount of the capital we’re putting into the deal, you will get that same number of the profit. So if you’re putting in 20% of the equity, you’ll get 20% of the profit.”
My brother thought for a minute and he’s like, “That’s not fair.”
I was like, “Well, what do you mean?”
He’s like, “You’re asking me to put in 80% of all of my money, but I’m only going to get 20% of the profit.”
He was very young, and I just remember thinking, I got frustrated, “It doesn’t matter what percentage of your money it is. It matters how much we’re putting in the deal,” but he had a different standard of fairness than I did. Eventually, that’s why I didn’t bring him in to doing that deal.
That’s what I want to bring up is there are many different standards of fairness. The entire concept of fair is actually very subjective. There’s an article in BiggerPockets blog if you go look up, Google what is fair in the blog. I can’t remember who wrote it, but I remember it was very well-written that talks about different ways of looking at the world.
So if your friend or your family is going to rent your house, their idea of fair might be, “You’re going to give me a hookup. You’re not going to make me pay like a normal landlord did. We’re friends. You won’t treat me like everyone else because that wouldn’t be fair. Remember when I bought the ice cream when you didn’t have money? Remember on your birthday when I got you a better present and you forgot about my birthday last year?”
Well, now you’re just making that up to me. You see how this can get out of hand very easy. So if someone’s asking the question, “Is that fair that you’re making a profit?” it’s probably just not someone you want to rent to. There was another example that I can think of in my life where I was going to rent out rooms to different people and fair market rent was $500 a room or $600 a room. So I said, “Hey, this is what you would pay.” The question that my friend came back with is, “Well, how much is that of the total rent? Why am I having to pay more than one quarter of what the mortgage would be on this house?”
I was like, “Because we’re not basing your rent off of what my mortgage is. We’re basing the rent off of what you would pay somewhere else,” and that tipped their hat. I realized, “Ooh, I’m not renting to this person. They’re already showing me that we’re going to have problems later,” because if my mortgage was $2,000 and market rent would’ve been $3,000 or maybe $500 a room for a six bedroom, they were wanting to be paying one fourth of what my mortgage was, not what market rent was.
So keep an eye out for that. If you get any kind of an inkling that someone has a completely different standard of fairness, it’s like trying to have a conversation with someone in a different language. You would not ask someone for help. If you went and spoke English and they replied back in French and you didn’t speak French, you would go on and find another person to ask for help. This is the same thing. The standard of fairness is like a language. Everyone needs to speak a common language if you’re going to move forward with your deal. So save yourself some headache by keeping that in mind.

Craig:
Next question is from Austin Weber out of Fort Worth, Texas. “Hey, David. I love the show, especially you’re Seeing Greene episodes. My question is about where the lines are drawn for bill splitting versus claiming house hacking income. My girlfriend and I just bought our first house, which is on a conventional loan, only in my name currently. She isn’t particularly interested in learning about real estate, but she’s happy to help me do it, except she does not want to house hack. However, she will be paying me rent every month. So it isn’t exactly a house hack, but the money is going towards paying down the mortgage. I was curious if that is something I could claim as additional income and pay the taxes on in order to supplement on a W-income to show a history of rental income to help with additional loans in the future.”
So it sounds like Austin here is he’s going to charge his girlfriend a little bit of rent, that rent is going to, hopefully, he’s asking if that rent will count as income and his debt-to-income ratio to help him qualify for a larger mortgage. I would say, oftentimes, if you can get a lease signed, then your lender will take 75% of that lease and use that towards your debt-to-income ratio.
Now, each lender is different and these rules seem to change pretty frequently. I feel like almost every six months these things are changing. I would say, one, try to get your girlfriend to sign a lease and see if the lender would accept that, and then you may not have to really pay taxes on that amount because it is going to be such a small amount you’re going to be leaving there and all that. If you do want to claim that as income, supplemental income, again, it’ll be a pretty nominal amount. It’ll probably get washed out from depreciation anyway. So I would recommend doing both, right? Claim the income. It’ll get washed out on the depreciation on your house more likely than not, and then use that lease to help you boost your income and your debt-to-income ratio. David, I know that you’ve got a mortgage company here. So I’m curious to hear your thoughts on what Austin can do.

David:
Thank you for that, Craig. This is a very good question. Unfortunately, the answer is not a positive one. No. If you own a primary residence and you collect income for that property, you cannot use that income to help qualify for future property. So it will not be included in your debt-to-income ratio. So if your girlfriend’s paying you 800 bucks, you can’t use that $800 and say that that is your income. However, if you claim it, it will still be taxed. So that’s just something to keep in mind that IRS rules are much different than the lending rules when it comes to your DTI.
All right. Our next question comes from Max Wheelhouse in Philly, and who better to answer a question from Philly than my good friend Matt Faircloth? Also a BiggerPockets published author. You wrote the book on raising private capital. Matt, let’s hear what you have to say.

Matt:
Thanks, David Greene. Hey, guys. Matt Faircloth here. I am the author of the awesome book BiggerPockets bestseller, Raising Private Capital, and also one of the educators in the BiggerPockets multifamily bootcamp. Seats are limited so make sure you join us. Can’t wait to see you guys there. Honored to be here with you guys. Got a question coming in here, which is really interesting, a multifamily question, David. This is coming from Max from Philadelphia. Max lives in Philadelphia. He’s doing some deals all the way up in Redding, Pennsylvania Scranton area. He’s got a smattering of multifamily assets, 30 units, so scattered around. His cousin is running it for him. Max, like a lot of people, wants to trade up and scale into larger multifamily properties, which means selling all those assets and buying something larger. So really exciting stuff. A lot of people that have built a smaller portfolio want to scale into larger portfolios.
Here’s a few tips, Max, a few thoughts that I got for you. Love that you’re keeping into the family. You got your family want to invest with you. You got your cousin that’s running those assets for you. That’s awesome. Just don’t treat family like family when you do business with them. You still got to have written contracts when you’re working with family. So don’t not have the level of paperwork you will with someone else just because it’s family. Because it’s your blood doesn’t give you a discount on paperwork and LLC setups and those kinds of things. So as you scale up and do larger deals, make sure that you and your cousin have a written agreement and that your family members that want to invest with you also have written agreements.
Great attorneys are there to do that for reasonable numbers. Use an attorney to do it to set up yourself for a syndication because what you’re talking about for people investing with you as you scale your business and as you roll up, even though they’re family, it’s still a syndication. So you still need to do those things.
Other things that I want to just point out here for you, Max, is that in your question you talk a little depth about how, “Well, I don’t have this kind of skillset yet to run a larger multifamily, and I don’t want to let my family down.” I get it. Here’s a few consolations for you. Larger multifamily functions just like smaller multifamily in a few facets. Unit turns, well, you’re going to go and turn an apartment the same way you would in a bigger apartment building that you would in a smaller apartment building. It actually gets easier because the units are likely around the same size. If you’ve seen one of them, you’ve likely seen all of them. They look all the same in that.
So the upgrades and turns that you do on a small multifamily are going to be very, very similar to what you’re going to do in a larger multifamily. You’re still going to have common area maintenance, probably grass to mow, and maybe hallways to get swept and things like that. You’re still going to have utilities that are paid by the landlord. Some are paid by the tenant. You’re still going to have real estate taxes you need to monitor. Make sure the town’s treating you fairly with regards to your tax bill. Those are all the same.
Here’s a few things that are different in large multifamily that you need to prepare yourself to get ready for and to start to think about as you scale into larger multifamily. You’re going to start setting aside a little bit of money each month for capital reserves, X amount of dollars per unit. There’s a lot of opinions on that. The older the building, the more you want to set aside for things like roof repairs and window replacements and HVACs going out on you and that kind of stuff.
Additionally, and this is a good thing, for larger multifamily, there is a compounding effect to rent increases. If you have a 100-unit department building and you’re able to raise rents by 50 bucks on every apartment, that is $5,000 per month that you’ve increased the income on that property, and 50 bucks, it’s not that much to do. You might be able to justify 50 bucks from every tenant by doing some common area improvements, by maybe adding a small amenity onsite, one of those kinds of things. So there is a way to force appreciation very quickly in larger multi. So be prepared for the algebra that it takes to raise rents times the amount of units that you have. Over a shorter period of time, you can increase your revenue.
The biggest factor you got here, Max, before I leave you is that payroll is a major factor. The small multifamily portfolio you have likely does not have full dedicated staff. If you go and do what you’re talking about doing and buying a 50, 60, 70-unit apartment building, you may have a dedicated maintenance technician or even a dedicated leasing agent. As you get into larger and larger properties, you may have a dedicated site manager that runs the entire property for you and does all the ins and outs of that property. Be prepared to budget for the payroll for that person. Maybe it’s partially your cousin. Maybe it’s someone that works for or with them in managing that portfolio.
Best of luck, Max. Sounds like you’re well on your way. David Greene, back to you, my friend.

David:
Okay. Thank you, Matt. That was also awesome. You’re in a really tough spot there, Max, and I can understand. I think that you should listen to your feelings in this. When your emotions are telling you, “I don’t want to borrow money to get into an asset class for the first time,” you should listen. You need to be especially careful when you’re borrowing other people’s money. That’s not a position that you should ever be in when you’re new and you’re learning on somebody else’s dime. My personal opinion, you learn on your own dime. Once you’re really good at it, then you can actually start borrowing money from other people.
So I’ll give you another personal anecdotal example from my life. It’s funny that this came up because today is the first day ever that I borrow money from a family member. My mom and her new husband have just let me borrow $200,000, and I’ll be paying them 10% interest on that money, and she was terrified, which is funny, because of everyone in the world that she could trust to give her money, do you think I would be at the top of that list? I probably am, but she was still just so, so nervous.
So she finally signed the documentation today and she’ll be wiring over that money, and she just texted me during this and said, “Man, this is such a relief. I feel so good. I’m finally taking some steps to take control my financial future. I worked for that money and now that money is working for me.” So congratulations, mom and Bruce. Glad that I could help you guys out, but this is a good example of how borrowing money from family becomes complicated. Even though I’m her son and she can trust me, there’s still some nerves when it comes to letting people borrow money. So don’t get into that space until you’re actually experienced in doing it.
You’re already doing the right thing. You’re reading the Multifamily Millionaire by Brandon Turner and Brian Murray, who works at ODC with Brandon. I love that because that book talks about how you make money in small multifamily, which Brandon specialized in and how you make money with big multifamily, which Brian specialized in. So once you understand both sides, there’s a pretty clear connection between the two. So you’re on the right path. Don’t give up. Keep going. Thank you, Matt, for your encouraging advice.
Okay. Let’s keep it moving. Our next question comes from Ethan F. in Utah and will be answered by Ashley.

Ashley:
Hey, you guys. It’s Ashley again, and I have another question. This question comes from Ethan in Utah. “My wife and I have stumbled into real estate and we have a question about it. We call this strategy property waking, leaving a wake of rental properties as we change our personal residence. There are two principles to the strategy. The first principle is to not sell your primary residence, but turn it into a rental property when you move. It’s okay to refinance, but ideally, you will have a cashflowing property. The second principle is the next primary residence has to have a house hack or rental in it. This will ensure you have the ability to save for the next property. Also, when house shopping for your next primary residence, you should be thinking about how you will have rental income while you are in it, for example, short-term rental, duplex, et cetera, and how you will maximize rental income when you leave.
Our question is, is there an opportunity cost to doing this that will hit us later on? Are we missing some critical details in this plan? Do we have an obvious blind spot we just aren’t seeing? Something worth noting, we also have the ability to invest in the stock market and other assets with decent returns and little management fees. So we are thinking not just about cashflow and equity, but what will the cash out look like and how will it be taxed. Would we be better just selling off properties and just invest the profits?
So we do know when you sell your primary residence and have lived in the property for two of the last five years, you can avoid capital gains tax, which is a huge benefit. If we have to sell rental property down the road, we will get hit with capital gains if we don’t do a 1031 exchange, but hopefully, we’ll have more equity in the home at that point, and we will net out with a higher profit. Instead, the goal is to have each home we leave become a rental property that cash flows. Typically, we are buying at nice zip codes because we live there. So we will have to leave more money in the property in order to have it cashflow. Thank you for answering our long-winded question.”
Okay. Ethan, let’s go through this. First of all, this is awesome because I recently last year discovered a wake surfing behind a boat, so I love the name property waking, and I think this is great. Congratulations on your success of doing this thus far of getting these rental properties in place using house hacking for your primary residence and being able to save money that way. That is super awesome, and I’m really excited for you guys.
The best part is is that you’re asking a question where you are having options. Yes, it may seem like a hard decision if you’re doing the right thing or the wrong thing, but I think you’re in a position where no matter what path you choose to go down with your real estate investing strategy, that’s going to be a win for you, but I understand that you’re asking this question because you want to maximize your return and maximize your investing. So let’s break this down.
So the first question you had is, is there an opportunity cost to doing this that will hit you later on? So are there any blind spots, something that you weren’t seeing? The first thing to think of is, are you actually ever going to sell these properties? So as you mentioned, if it is a primary residence, you will not get taxed on the property. You lived in the property for two of the last five years. So one option you could do is to when you get a property, if you lived in it for two years, is that fifth year, go and sell it and you will get the tax-free gains on that.
The next thing is if you do decide to go and sell the investment property and you are getting taxed at capital gains is what is the value of that to you? Why would you want to go and sell the property? Why do you need this lump sum of money? So you did mention that you have the ability to invest in other asset classes that may be more passive to you.
So let’s look at how much time are you putting into managing these properties, how much time are you putting into acquiring these properties, and figure out maybe what … Is it every week you’re putting in five hours towards this? One thing that you can do is you can do a time study. So actually, sit down for two weeks in everything you do, just write it down and how long it took you. So you can do this for your personal life. You could do it just for managing your properties, but take a look at that, and what is your time worth to you. So what are you cashflowing off those properties right now and how much time are you putting into it? Put a dollar amount to each hour that you’re putting into this property. You also have to take into account any cash that you have put into these properties too.
So put a dollar amount to your time and say, “You know what? I’m actually not getting that great of a return because I’m putting so much time into this,” where maybe you’re getting a 15% return on your investment when you’re investing into these rental properties, but if you go and put it into, say, the stock market and you expect to get a 10% return on your money, maybe it’s worth giving up that 5% because you don’t have to do anything except put your money into the account and let the stock market do its thing. So I think time freedom and evaluating your time that you’re putting into it is going to play a big part into helping you figure out which investing strategy is best for you.
As far as blind spots down the road, yes, you could get hit with a huge tax bill, but if you bought this house for $100,000, and 20 years from now, and you’ve cashflowed from it, made money from it every single year, and 20 years from now you go and sell it for a million dollars, okay, what’s the tax going to be on that? It’s going to depend on what the capital gains tax rate is at that time, but say you get hit with 30% on your taxes. So you’re going to take that 30% away, but you still made that huge gain. So it might be worth it to take that lump sum and pay the taxes too on it. So that’s definitely something you have to look at is, are you going to see as much appreciation and value of when you want to sell the property?
If you’re going to hold the property just for a short period of time and then you’re going to sell it and maybe it hasn’t even appreciated that much, you’re going to get hit with a tax bill because of your depreciation on the property that has … So when you are taxed on the property, you’re going to look at the depreciation that has come off the property too to see what profit is actually going to be calculated by the IRS when you’re selling that property. So even though you bought the property for $100,000, if you held it for a while and it’s depreciated down to $50,000 and you’re selling it for 200,000, that tax basis is going to be that 50,000 minus the depreciation, not what you bought the property for.
So all these things are definitely great to tax plan with an accountant or a CPA, especially one that has experience with real estate investing. Every year, sit down with them. It’s great to have a CPA to do your tax return, but even better to actually tax plan and say, “Hey, these are the things I’m looking to do in my business with my real estate investing strategy this coming year. What are some things I need to know?” Having that CPA to help you tax plan can save you so much money.
Another option that you could do too is if you decide, “You know what? This is too much work for me managing these rentals, I don’t want to outsource it. I just want to be done and I want to take the money, invest it into the stock market,” go and do seller financing. So find another investor who wants to take over these rental properties, and then that has your taxes spread out over time because you’re not taking that lump sum from the property, and you’re getting monthly payments from the seller financing, and then you can go in turn and take that and invest it into the stock market or another asset class, and it spreads out how much you are taxed each year onto the income you received from that property sale.
So let’s go on to the next question that you had is that you want to look at investing the profits into something else. So even though we are a real estate investing show here, I think it is great to diversify your portfolio. So maybe if you decide that, yes, you want to invest into the stock market and maybe you’re going for some index funds, which I love to invest into, is that you look at, “Okay. What’s the property we should sell this year, and we’re going to take the profit from that, and we’re going to invest that into the stock market, but we will hold the other properties?”
So in that scenario, I would look at which property right now is going to qualify for the lived in it for two years out of five years, and that’s going to be a tax-free gain. That’s the one I would sell. That’s the one I would get rid of. Then I would invest that lump sum, but you had also said in here that you have saved some money and that you use that because you are house hacking your current property now.
So maybe you just take those savings and keep everything you have in your portfolio now. Take those savings instead of buying your next rental and invest that into the stock market or the other passive income stream that you want to have and then start saving again and then go towards your next rental.
So I think it’s awesome. I think it’s amazing that you have so many options. One thing to note to look at too is when you are house hacking and you want to do them as short-term rentals or long-term rentals, make sure you’re understanding in the market that you’re investing in if those short-term rental laws or regulations can change. So are there really strict short-term rental regulations in place now where it’s a very small chance that they will change because if you have these properties and they’re running as short-term rentals right now and they’re in a market that maybe doesn’t have any rules or regulations so that one day the town or the village can come and say, “You know what? We need to start regulating this. It’s getting out of hand,” and they put a stop at that, is that going to hurt your business too?
So I think looking at your strategy and making sure that it’s foolproof going forward to help you make your decision as to what houses you want to keep and which ones you want to get rid of, but Ethan, congratulations to you and your wife on property waking, and best of luck to you guys. Send me a message on Instagram, @wealthfromrentals. I’d love to talk to you about this more and maybe get you on the Real Estate Rookie episode. So that would be great. Well, David, thanks for having me back to answer this question.

David:
All right. Thank you, Ashley, once again for some very good feedback. I really love seeing you flourish in your role as a BiggerPockets Podcast host. You are clearly stepping up your game. So thank you for that.
All right. What Ethan F. refers to as property walking, I think, is probably one of the most solid strategies that everyone listening to this should be doing. You combine it with house hacking and you’ve got a guaranteed way to become a real estate millionaire without much work. You literally just buy a new primary residence every year using a very low down payment option anywhere between three and a half to five percent. Maybe you could get up to 10 for multifamily properties, and then next year you move out of it and you do it again, and you got yourself a rental property that you put 5% down instead of 20 to 25 percent down. It is a no brainer.
The only thing I would add to this is that in addition to buying one house to live in for yourself, maybe try to buy another house long distance real estate investing using the BRRRR method, flipping a house, some of the other strategies we talk about, but make this your meat and potatoes. This should be the staple of your diet, and then anything that you’re buying on top of that every year can be the fun food that you supplement your regular diet with, but this is a great strategy. Keep it up, keep doing it, and let us know how it goes.
Our next question comes from Steve in Reno and will once again be answered by Avery Carl.

Avery:
Hey, guys. It’s Avery again. This next question comes from Steve in Reno. Steve says, “Reno is a tough cashflow market so I’ve been looking into short-term rentals. I feel like it’s a great market for STRs with lots of conventions and close proximity to Lake Tahoe. Assuming the yield curve inversion does, in fact, lead to a recession in the next year or two, travel and vacationing tend to be one of the first things to go away. How would you suggest I proceed so I don’t get caught with my pants down?”
Okay, Steve. So I have a lot to say about this particular question. I would say the number one thing you want to do before you even do anything else, check the regulations in Reno, and not just the current regulations, call the city and see if there’s anything coming down the pipe, if there’s anything that’s been discussed or brought up in the most recent city council meetings about potential changes because just because the rules are the way they are now does not mean that they’re always going to be that way, especially in a metro market like that.
If we are, in fact, entering into a potential recession, I think the most important thing when choosing where to invest in a short-term rental is choosing the right market. So I don’t know a lot about Reno, specifically, but the first markets to go in a recession are the markets that are really difficult and expensive to get to. So if it’s an area where you pretty much have to fly there if you want to go there, you can’t really drive, the majority of the tourism coming to that area or visitors coming to the area are having to fly and it’s expensive, that is going to be a red flag for me. I try to stick to markets that are more drivable, that most of the visitors and tourism coming in are driving because along with that, it makes it a little bit more affordable to get there. So accessibility and affordability are really important when it comes to what tourists are willing to pay and what they’re willing to do. So keep that in mind.
How would I suggest that you proceed so you don’t get caught with your pants down? So if you’re buying in a metro market like Reno, I would suggest that you are able to convert it to a long term if possible, and I don’t give that advice for every single market. If you’re buying in a vacation market, totally different. That’s a separate strategy, but talking about a market like Reno, I would want to make sure that it is something that you can still cashflow or at least at the very least breakeven on if you do have to convert it to a long term because people just aren’t traveling there.
I really don’t think that we’re going to see a situation where no one will be traveling anywhere like COVID, for example. So you will still probably be able to at least breakeven without having to convert to a long term, but it is nice that you can do that if you want to in a market like that. So I would just say make sure you don’t spend too much to where the numbers don’t work as a long term, and then also of course, always the BRRRR strategy. You’re not necessarily a full BRRRR but a value add, where you’re buying a property that you can add a lot of value to so you’re not spending as much on the property itself, so your expenses will be less when it comes time to start short term running it. So I hope that answers your question, Steve.

David:
All right. Thank you, Avery. Great advice. I think, in general, anytime you’re buying a short-term rental, if you can find the angle of you could convert it into a long-term rental so that it would cash flow, I’m a fan of that, in general. Then also just to put in there, if you can figure out a way to add value, adding square footage, buying a property below market value, buying a property that needs some work and fixing it up so that you’re going to make the ARV higher, all of that is a great way to hedge the risk that is inherent in short-term rentals because it is true that we could be seeing a recession, that it’s very likely that travel could go down.
So what I’m doing when I’m telling everyone else is plan that whatever numbers you’re running you’re going to maybe get 70% of that. So whatever the data is telling you, just takes 70% of it and run your numbers that way and make sure that you’re at least breaking even or coming close, and you can weather that storm if it does come because we don’t invest in real estate for one year, we invest in real estate for the long term.
Our next video comes from AJ in Long Island and will be answered once again by Craig Curelop.

Craig:
Next question is AJ from Long Island, New York, who started house hacking back in 2012. He’s got a whole lot of equity in his house. So his question is if he wants to buy another investment property, does it make more sense to just pull equity out of his current home using a HELOC to invest in another or are there are other options that he can do?
So AJ, there are a lot of options you can do. I would like to say you probably have a good amount of equity in your house if you bought it back in 2012. So the HELOC would be my personal favorite. The reason why is that you can get a pretty good amount in your HELOC if it’s appreciated over the last 10 years, and that’ll likely be enough for a 20% down payment somewhere in the US. The great thing about that is that you’re only going to be paying for that HELOC when you draw down upon it. So you’re not really in a rush to find a deal, you’re not really increasing your mortgage right away, and all that kind of stuff.
So another option would be to refinance it. So if you refinance it, then you’re going to get a whole bunch of cash back, probably a little bit more than you would if you just did a traditional HELOC, but you’re going to be required to pay that additional monthly payment no matter what. So you don’t really have that option of acting when the deal comes you’re going to have the money, you’re going to be paying the extra cash flow, and you’re going to feel the pressure to find a deal as soon as you can.
That’s my thoughts. Again, you have the option between a HELOC and a refinance. My personal, what I would recommend is just go with the HELOC so you have a little bit more of that flexibility. David, what would you do?

David:
Thanks, Craig. Love your help with that answer. This is going to make a lot of people a lot of money. I’m glad to see you guys on the Seeing Greene episode helping me out here. We’re going to switch it up for a little bit at this segment of this show. I like to read some of the comments that come out of our YouTube channel. If you didn’t know, if you’re listening to this as a podcast, you can also listen to it on YouTube. I’m not paid or endorsed by YouTube to say this, but one of the things that I did was I switched over to YouTube Premium. I think it’s $15 a month or something. YouTube will play even when the app is closed. Ever been listening to a YouTube video that you were really liking and then a text message came in and you’re like, “Ah, I can only open it up when the banner shows up on my screen and YouTube will keep playing, but if I have to close the app to reopen my text app, then the YouTube video would stop playing?” and you’re stuck like, “Do I keep listening or do I reply to this person?” I know many of you are smiling because you’ve been in that same dilemma.
Well, I solved that by getting YouTube Premium and now, I can listen to it all the time. So YouTube is pretty much always playing. When I combine that with my AirPods that I have, I could always be getting new content, and that’s how I stay ahead of the game. It’s why I don’t get caught off guard by changes in the market or different strategies or problems that could be coming because I’m always staying educated, and I would love for you guys to do the same. I’d love to be in your ears all the time with this soft silky voice warning you about how you can avoid mistakes in real estate and pointing out areas where you can make money.
So with that being said, go to YouTube, listen to us, and then leave some comments. I want to hear what you think about this show. What did you like? What do you wish we would talk about more? What topics do you want us to get into, and where do you think I screwed it up? Yes, you can give me negative feedback as well. I don’t take it personal.
All right. Our first comment comes from Chris Calero and he says, “Absolutely love these kind of videos. I feel like many of my questions were answered.”
Well, thank you, Chris. I believe when you say these kind of videos, you’re referring to the Seeing Greene episodes. I’m really glad to hear you guys like these. You know when Brandon Turner stepped away from the podcast, go do other stuff, we wanted to figure out a way that we could continue to bring you even more value in different ways because we didn’t have that big, beautiful beard right behind me helping give commentaries. So glad that you guys like these. I want to keep them going too.
Next comment comes from SL, “I’ve heard you mentioned basically staying away from Missouri on a few episodes and I’m wondering why. I’ve relocated here and have four flips going on and two BRRRRs going. That’s a lot happening here. I think you underestimate Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City a lot.”
Well, to my knowledge, I don’t think I’ve ever specifically said don’t invest in Missouri. You may be referring to where I talk about the Midwest. I have given some warnings about staying away from those markets, and I appreciate you saying this because it gives me a chance to clarify what I meant when I make those kind of comments. I don’t think that there is a bad market in the country. Every market works if you understand the strategy. I think that there are people who take shortcuts and are prone to making mistakes in certain areas more than others.
So one way I think investors get into trouble is it’s very obvious right now that there’s not a lot of cashflowing properties available. Very hard to find anything that cashflows at all. So when the road becomes steep, you got to climb uphill to find the better deal. Many human beings will stop walking up and they’ll just look for a downhill road. If you’re trying to get cash flow, which most investors are, and if you’re newer and don’t have a ton of capital, which the majority of investors are in that situation, the downhill road leads into the Midwest.
Homes are priced much cheaper. The price-to-rent ratios are much stronger. It becomes very attractive to say, “Oh, I’m just going to go there. I’m going to go buy in Indiana.” I have mentioned Indiana more than Missouri just because I hear so many new investors saying, “I’m buying in Indiana.” 90% of them are all in Indiana. I don’t think that that market is strong enough to warrant having 90% of investors there. So why are they there? Well, they’re there because the prices are very low and it doesn’t feel as scary.
The concern that I would have is that you think that when you buy a property with a low price point and a strong price-to-rent ratio, but you don’t factor in. You’re not going to see growth. Rents don’t go up there. The money that I’ve made in real estate from the cashflow side has not been when I bought it on year one, it’s been five years later, 10 years later. Think about buying in Denver, Colorado five years ago or even 10 years ago. When you first ran the numbers on your duplex, they probably didn’t look all that sexy. Five years later with high growth wages going up inflation, you’re looking really, really good. It’s that idea of delayed gratification that I’m really getting at. I want more people to take a bigger picture of you. I don’t want them looking for a quick fix where they can get a bunch of cashflow and then start spending that money or quit their job or make major life decisions because they bought two properties. You want to be in this for the long haul.
Now, it sounds like you, SL, are doing great in Missouri. If you have four flips going on in a market that’s tough to flip in, you’re finding deals below market value. You should be doing what you’re doing there. If you have two BRRRRs going on, which are very similar to flips, I’m assuming these are deals that you got below market value that also cashflow. If you’re finding stuff below market value, you can make it work anywhere. So you should keep doing this, and other people who are understanding the Kansas City, Missouri market or Kansas City, they can do the same thing, but I don’t want people who are not getting stuff under market value, who are not getting great deals to just go pick something off Zillow and go buy it and say, “Well, everybody else is doing this so I will too.”
Our next one comes from Stephanie Mocris who says, “I’m honored to have my question answered by David Greene.” She got the E at the end of my name right. Way to go, Stephanie. “It was pretty surreal hearing him say my name on the podcast. David, I am saving your words like gold. Thank you again for all that you and your team are doing for other learning real estate investors. You guys are changing people’s lives.”
Well, thank you, Stephanie. Not only did you put yourself out there and asked the question on YouTube, but then you looked and saw that we put your name out on the podcast and went on YouTube again and put another comment, and now you’re getting mentioned again on the BiggerPockets Podcast. You can now officially tell people, “My name is Stephanie Mocris and I have been featured on the biggest real estate podcast in the world.” So way to go. Good for you.
In case you guys are wondering why my background looks different than normal, well, this month, maybe the last 30, 40 days or so, I will be traveling looking at different investment property, checking out properties I’ve already bought, attending a couple different events. So right now, I am in Scottsdale, Arizona looking at new investment property out here. After that, I’ll be headed to Austin for Keller Williams Mega Camp, and then I’ll be heading up to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia to check property out there.
So join me on this journey wherever you are, where you’re looking at properties. Put the podcast on. Listen as you’re going. There’s nothing as fun as looking at houses, analyzing opportunity, and hearing BiggerPockets in the background doing it while you’re there. It’s a perfect combination. It’s like peanut butter and jelly. It’s like Pop Rocks and Coke. You can’t do anything better than this.
So thank you, guys. Please go to the comment section on YouTube. Let me know what you think about the show, and I would love to include you in the commentary on the next Seeing Greene episode.
If you are listening to this podcast on an app, please take a quick second to give us a rating and review. We really like honest feedback on iTunes. I guess they call it now maybe the Apple Podcast app, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you listen to shows. Please give us a review, and keep in mind, we love constructive feedback. So if you give us advice of what you’d like to see different, I will do my best to see that come to fruition.
Ultimately, what I would love is to have a new podcast drop every single day of a different type. So you’ve got Seeing Greene on one day, a traditional episode on another, a coaching call on another, a round table discussion about what’s happening in real estate on another. I’d just love for all of you guys to have as much fun and be as addicted to real estate as I am. So let us know what you would like to see.

Matt:
Hey, Dave. We’ve got a good one here. I’ve got one from Janelle from Bay City, Michigan. Another multifamily question. Janelle faces a problem that a lot of people do when they’re looking for multifamily deals. She’s like, “Hey, guys. I’m looking on LoopNet, and Crexi, C-R-E-X-I, for multifamily deals. First question is, should the price be valued and based on the cap rate of the area and the actual NOI?” Get back to what she means by actual in a second here. “Then if the new owner is able to create an NOI increase in the performance, shouldn’t that be to the benefit of the new owner to then refi and/or sell based on the new NOI?”
In essence, what Janelle’s saying here is that when she’s looking at properties, the broker is pricing the property based on future performance. Let’s break that down. First, let’s talk about how properties are priced. They’re priced based on a cap rate, which is simply a risk factor on a neighborhood. So Detroit, Michigan may have a higher cap rate because Detroit has a perceivable higher risk factor as an investment area than some city based on Raleigh, North Carolina may have, right?
So without drilling into local cap rate specific inside of a market or whatever, it’s just simply a risk factor that folks may want to have, maybe willing to take a higher risk and invest in an area like Detroit versus Raleigh. So the cap rates will be high. The higher the cap rate, the higher the rate of risk that you’re willing to take for an investment in that market. Cap rate’s calculated by looking at the purchase price of a property. So if a property is selling for a million dollars and you look at the cap rate of 5%, that if I take that million, multiply it by the cap rate of 5%, the property should be able to produce a NOI of $50,000.
NOI is simply the rent that a property produces minus all of it expenses except for debt. So all your expenses except for debt service equals NOI. So income minus expense, NOI. There it is. So a million dollar property at a 5% cap rate should be producing 50 grand per year in downside and downline revenue after expenses are paid and you can apply that revenue towards debt service or another way to look at it is the NOI is how much money a property would make if you owned it free and clear. So that’s what all that stuff means.
Now, what Janelle’s facing here is a broker is saying, “Well, we’re going to take a property and we’re going to sell it to you for more, let’s say 1.2, 1.3 million based on that $50,000 NOI because at some point in the future, you should be able to raise rents or build a laundry room or do some common area improvements or … Well, the market has gone up more and the owner hasn’t increased rents.”
That’s not really the way the broker should be doing it. So what Janelle’s saying is that the broker’s pricing, putting today’s price for future performance, which isn’t really a fair way to do it. There’s some kid glove guidance I’ll give you guys here. Okay? You want to talk to the broker. This is always worth a phone conversation, not worth just a, “Oh, it’s overpriced and move on,” or you don’t want to rub the broker’s nose in something where like, “Hey, you’ve included future performance or work that I’m going to do as a buyer. You’ve given credit to the seller for those improvements that haven’t been done yet.”
You don’t really call them out. You want to just say, “Well, I’m going to be making an offer. I make my offers based on current performance, Mr. and Mrs. Broker.” So just tell them this is how you do it. This is how you’ve been taught to do it, and this is how you’re going to be pricing the property. Just say, “Well, here’s what the last 12 months worth of performance says the property did. That’s called a trailing 12, and I’m going to look at the trailing 12 on the property and say it did $20,000. The market cap rate that I understand it to be is this,” and you could even ask the broker what they think the market cap rate for that market is and they’ll tell you. Then you give them a price based on actual performance.
If it doesn’t match what they’re asking on the property, then kindly, politely call out that, “Well, I’m pricing it based on actual performance. You can put your own factors on there, but this is how I’m pricing it,” and be willing to put your offer in writing and put some backup in writing too, but again, you don’t want to go calling names or throwing rocks to the broker here because this is they’re living. You can kindly approach them with some feedback and don’t be afraid to put your offer in writing with some real backup of how you’re coming up with your calculations.
I’ll underscore one more thing I just said. Make sure the broker tells you what they think the market cap rate is because it’s given them some input. If they’re completely off on that, then that’s another factor you could dig into or maybe talk to some other brokers about what they think the cap rate for the market you’re looking at is. It is a bit of an art in this kind of thing. So make sure that you’re willing to do that art and get your conversation skills really, really tight and talking to the broker about these kinds of things. Best of luck, Janelle. Sounds like you’re well on your way. Back to you, David.

David:
All right. Thank you, Matt Faircloth, once again for a great answer. Appreciate you and appreciate all of you listeners as well. This has been a little bit of a longer episode because we brought a ton of value. So I’m going to let you get out of here. Thank you again for checking out this Seeing Greene episode while I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona. Appreciate your guys’ attention, time, and love, and we love you back. Check out another episode and let us know in the comments on YouTube what you think. I will catch you on the next one.