{"id":3097,"date":"2022-07-04T23:41:31","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T23:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/?p=3097"},"modified":"2022-07-04T23:41:31","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T23:41:31","slug":"from-400-credit-score-to-making-17000-month-in-passive-income","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/04\/from-400-credit-score-to-making-17000-month-in-passive-income\/","title":{"rendered":"From 400 Credit Score to Making $17,000\/Month in Passive Income"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Passive income<\/strong> and credit scores<\/strong><\/a>. While they don\u2019t entirely rely on each other, having good credit does allow you to build passive income streams far faster<\/strong>. Andrew Brazell learned this the hard way, but thankfully profited big time by making some needed changes. Less than a decade or so ago, Andrew was living in a rat-infested apartment<\/strong>, riddled with credit card <\/strong>and student loan debt, spending all of his money<\/strong> every month. He felt financially hopeless until he struck up a conversation with his Rugby teammate, and BiggerPockets CEO, Scott Trench.<\/p>\n

Scott personally helped Andrew dig himself out of a debt hole<\/strong>, start house hacking<\/strong><\/a>, and get well on his way to financial freedom. From there, Andrew understood the formula\u2014save your money, buy income-producing assets, and repeat until financially free. Andrew took this lesson to heart, and shortly after paying off his debt, began rental arbitraging<\/strong><\/a> his apartment<\/strong>, helping him eliminate his cost of living. That\u2019s when he met Haley Ferguson<\/strong>, his future wife, and a soon-to-be top short-term rental host.<\/p>\n

The duo saved their money and bought their first house hack<\/strong> property. And, because of smart landlording, they were able to bring in more than double their mortgage payment<\/strong> in rent alone, allowing them to live at a profit. Now, they\u2019re well on their way to buying even more properties, helping them go from financial fiasco to <\/strong>financial freedom<\/strong><\/a>, and finally financial abundance.<\/p>\n

\n

Andrew:
The opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of the Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or the United States government.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, Show Number 315, where we interview Andrew and Haley and talk about their journey from his financial messes to their real estate successes.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
When we saw the potential, though, we realized we are not compromising. Again, we\u2019re just loving future us. You know? We\u2019re living in \u2026 and it was an upgrade for us because we\u2019re coming from Denver where square footage here is not cheap. So we moved into the mother-in-law suite and it was an upgrade. So we still \u2026 That\u2019s how we looked at it. Yeah, we could be in the big two bedroom house, and have a nice guest room and all that other stuff. Or we can live in the small mother-in-law suite and just pay to have our friends stay at a hotel whenever they come visit. That was the options that we had and I don\u2019t regret it at all. I love that little place.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Hello. Hello. Hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and joining me today is my hard-hitting co-host, Scott Trench.<\/p>\n

Scott:
That\u2019s a rocking good intro, Mindy.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Scott and I make big 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 where or when you\u2019re starting.<\/p>\n

Scott:
That\u2019s right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments and assets like real estate, start your own business, or simply get out of a hole where your credit score is 412. We\u2019ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way, so you can launch yourself towards those dreams.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Scott, you just mentioned a magic number of 412, which, spoiler alert, is the lowest that our guest Andrew\u2019s credit score was at, at one time in his life. Which is \u2026 I feel super judgemental, but that is really, really low. But why was it low? Because he didn\u2019t know what he was doing with his finances. He was never taught about financial literacy. He was never taught about how to do his thing. What I want to make sure that we celebrate is the fact that he took charge of his financial situation. He recognized it was a problem.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
He saw that somebody else was having success and reached out to that person and said, hey, how are you doing it so that I can do it too? And that takes a lot of guts. You could very easily be like, well I guess I just have credit card debt for the rest of my life. I guess I just have a 400 credit score for the rest of my life. And he didn\u2019t stay there. He wanted better. So he sought out the information to do better and then took action in order to get better. And I think that\u2019s really important to note.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Yeah. Andrew is a long-time friend of mine. We played rugby together. And I worked with him through his financial difficulties. Was that now five, six, seven years ago at this point. And it\u2019s just been amazing to see what he\u2019s been able to do, how he\u2019s been able to get current on all his student, all his debts, build a financial success story, and now owns a number of rental properties that are cash flowing tremendously well. So it\u2019s been a phenomenal privilege to watch his journey and start learning from him on this. And I couldn\u2019t be more thrilled to invite him on the show today.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
He has a great story. And he\u2019s joined by his wife, Haley, who didn\u2019t have the struggles that he had, but joined him on his real estate journey. And I really like where they are in their real estate investment space. They\u2019re making money in this market. They\u2019re continuing to buy in this market. They\u2019re not letting the market define what they\u2019re doing. They have decided what they want to go after. And they\u2019re still buying properties. They\u2019re still making it work. So people who say, oh well, the market\u2019s changed so I can\u2019t make money anymore. Well, sorry, Andrew and Haley are doing it so you could do it too, if you wanted to, but you have to do the work. I think it\u2019s a fun, fun story today.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Awesome. Let\u2019s get to it.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Andrew was your typical 20-something. He didn\u2019t know anything about finances, so he just spent his money without any thought. He racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debts. Many of which were delinquent. In 2017, he made a hard pivot and changed his financial situation dramatically. Now he\u2019s in a great financial position, owns six rental units across two properties, which would not have been possible if he had not taken notice of some young kid buying beer for the rugby team so many years ago. Haley, on the other hand, is perfect in every way. Andrew and Haley, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Hey guys, how\u2019s it going?<\/p>\n

Haley:
Thank you so much for having us.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Thanks for coming on. We\u2019re excited to have you.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
I\u2019m super excited to talk to you guys. And since Haley is perfect, Haley, I\u2019m sorry. We\u2019re going to have to that.<\/p>\n

Haley:
That intro.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Push you to the side and focus on Andrew. Andrew, tell me all your faults.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Oh man. All right.<\/p>\n

Haley:
True confessions.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Where do we start? I guess-<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Let\u2019s start in high school.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
High school? Okay. My dad was a fighter pilot instructor in the military and that had set up my family\u2019s expectation of once we, once my dad gets out of the military, we will have the opportunity to \u2026 He\u2019ll go to a major airline. We\u2019ll have a bit of a nicer lifestyle. And so we moved to Colorado. We experienced 911 shortly after. And my dad basically lost everything. He lost his high paying salary, his pension, his security, his seniority, all this other stuff. And from then on, financially, my family, they struggled. My dad had to refinance the house a number of times to pull out equity to pay off credit card debt. And then also, he went back to the military part-time and started working weekends and days off as a reservist out in Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I just didn\u2019t have a ton of great financial education growing up. So I joined the military myself in order to pay for school. I wasn\u2019t aware of all these amazing scholarship opportunities for lower income people. And I thought, I had to work or have somebody pay for college. So I decided to do the work route. I joined the military, went off to Air Force basic training and was in the process of becoming trained to be a load master in the Air Force, out of Colorado Springs. When President Obama scaled back military funding and I wasn\u2019t an essential personnel, so my job basically got cut during the sequestration. But I had kept up my end of the deal. So I had full benefits and went off to college. And this is where things took a turn south. Instead of using my GI bill, I just, I didn\u2019t-<\/p>\n

Scott:
What year is this? Where you went off to college?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
This was 2010. So \u2026<\/p>\n

Scott:
Okay.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I had already done about three semesters before I joined the military. My dad did have enough to help me go through the first three semesters and that gave me enough college credits to get a really good job in the Air Force at his unit, which he set up. He was amazing doing that. So I had a little bit of experience. But in 2010, I cut ties with the Air Force officially, and went up to Colorado State, up in Fort Collins. And my thought process was, I\u2019m not going to use the full GI bill benefits and waste them on a state school, which doesn\u2019t really cost that much. I\u2019ll save that for medical school. Because that was my plan at the time. I\u2019ll use the GI bill to the maximum potential and use it for medical school.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So what ended up happening was I pulled out all the subsidized and some unsubsidized loans as I could. And then I was working part-time and then my last little bit of financial runway, I guess, was provided by a credit card. And I ran the credit card up. Pre-med studies were a lot harder than I thought. I couldn\u2019t end up working as much as I wanted to. So maxed the credit card out and then couldn\u2019t make the payments. Had to eat, so \u2026 Chase Bank took a hit for a while. I had maxed it out and then they closed the account, sent it to collections, all that stuff. And I graduated, like many graduates at the time. Had a difficult time finding a job. So I moved back in with my parents for a little while. I was working, waiting tables, doing all that stuff. Finally, got a job at a local hospital doing oropharyngeal cancer research.<\/p>\n

Scott:
And can you give us a couple of your timestamps in some of these two. You graduated what year? How long did you wait tables? When did you start this new job?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep. I graduated in 2013. Left Fort Collins and came back to Denver. And then I worked at a blood bank for about six months doing blood draws for plasma donations. I waited tables for a couple months. And then at the tail end of 2014 is when I got a job over at Porter Hospital in Denver doing some cancer research, which is what I wanted to do. That was my dream of doing medical school and all that stuff and getting into Oncology. So I was in the environment I wanted to be, but definitely not making the money that I would\u2019ve hoped for.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So I was living paycheck to paycheck. Living, I finally moved out of my parents house to a rat-infested apartment down in Denver and had a roommate, a good friend of mine, but he was on hard times at the same time as I was. So I was not in a good place. But the one good thing about it was, it was very close to the rugby pitch and I could walk there. So my outlet was going and practicing rugby. And it was a new sport for me and I absolutely fell in love and met some of my, to this day, some of my best friends, so. It was definitely a trend upwards starting there. So \u2026<\/p>\n

Scott:
Well, we got to pitch the club. What was the club called?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Queen City. Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Go Rams.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep. It was Queen City Rams. So I was a Colorado State Ram and then I came to Denver and I was still a Ram. So it was great.<\/p>\n

Scott:
So what\u2019s your position? This is up to 2014 we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes.<\/p>\n

Scott:
How would you summarize your position at that point in time?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Oh, I was living paycheck to paycheck. I had no savings. The money that I had, I spent on either food and what little I had left, I tried to spend on fun just to stay sane. I had no dating prospects whatsoever. My car was a piece of junk. It was pretty abysmal there for a little while.<\/p>\n

Scott:
What was your income at that point in time?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I think I was making around 32,000 a year, which, if I had the financial literacy, I could have done good things with that. I just didn\u2019t know what I was doing, so. I made the money. I spent the money. That\u2019s how it worked.<\/p>\n

Scott:
And how much total debt did you have and what was your credit?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
My credit at the time was in the low 400s. So I think the lowest it ever got was a 412, if that\u2019s even possible. Yeah. I look at it now and I\u2019m just astounded that it ever got that bad. But having that card go to collections and not having done anything with it, I didn\u2019t know I could call and settle, and try to close the account. That knowledge came a little bit later, so. My financial savings were nonexistent. I couldn\u2019t qualify for any new credit cards to rebuild my credit at the time until I settled with this defaulted account. Yeah. It was pretty bad.<\/p>\n

Scott:
And how much total debt do you estimate you had?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So with student loans and that credit card debt, I was in the mid to upper 40s. I think 47 was the highest it ever got.<\/p>\n

Scott:
So what happens next?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So at a rugby social for the start of the new season, I hear this player who I\u2019d watch play, I was the second string, it being a new sport for me, but I really admired him and some of the other guys in the backfield. Toast the team and say, hey, \u201cThis is celebrating me closing on my second property.\u201d And I\u2019m looking at him going, I\u2019m like, this guy is definitely younger than me. How is it possible that he owns property at all, let alone has closed on a second property in Denver?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I literally had a rat crawl across my bed last night, I kicked against the wall. How is this? How is there so much disparity? Like, he plays rugby. He can\u2019t be that much smarter than me. It\u2019s like, yeah. And that\u2019s when I pulled this guy aside and I was like, hey man, \u201cYou got to help me. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing. You clearly have some knowledge that I don\u2019t. Point me in the right direction.\u201d And that was Scott Trench. So yeah, I\u2019ve known you as Trench, basically, our entire friendship; but yeah, professionally, I should say CEO of BiggerPockets, I just happened to bump into, there at a dive bar. I<\/p>\n

Scott:
I have very few personal friends who refer to me as \u201cScott.\u201d So yeah. It\u2019s always Trench with my personal friends, so. But yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, that was, I remember meeting with you after that and talking through some of those things. So do you want to walk us through some of the situation, how things maybe changed or what that was like, thinking through that and how things progressed from there?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. I remember you came into my apartment, sat down, and said, all right, let\u2019s see the damage. What\u2019s going on? Pull it up. And I didn\u2019t even know where to find that stuff, because it had been delinquent for so long. I didn\u2019t know the logins. So I remember sitting there for an hour trying to just get into the actual results and the statements and stuff. But when we finally found it, you said, \u201cAll right, what you need to do is carve out some time and you\u2019re going to make some really long phone calls.\u201d And I got a little discouraged and I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do this.\u201d But you framed it in a way that made a lot of sense to me and motivated me to do it. And that was like, \u201cThink of it as, this phone call could save you thousands of dollars.\u201d So even if it takes 10 hours-<\/p>\n

Scott:
This was because there was a lot of debts in your position that, if I remember correctly, were old debts that were long-time delinquent, had likely been sold from the original creditor to other loan collections agencies and such. And so they already discounted that debt. And so the reason you do that is you call the debt and you say, hey, can I pay off a fraction of this somehow?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Would you be willing to take a percentage of it?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep. Yeah. So you had explained it as you can get rid of this debt for pennies on the dollar possibly. So you\u2019re not going to know until you make that call. It could take 10 hours. But I specifically remember you saying, \u201cIf it saves you a thousand dollars and it takes 10 hours, you just got paid a hundred dollars an hour.\u201d And that really set off a light bulb in my head. I was like, oh, \u201cThat totally makes sense.\u201d So \u2026<\/p>\n

Haley:
Says that to this day, when we have to make phone calls.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
So that\u2019s like a household phrase now, Trench.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
That\u2019s logic that I use to this day. I\u2019ve passed it on to other friends. Do your due diligence, do your comps. If you\u2019re looking at property, don\u2019t overpay $10,000 if it\u2019s going to take two hours for you to realize, hey, that\u2019s not where the market is right now. And so that\u2019s wisdom that I\u2019ve been able to pass on. But that\u2019s, that\u2019s really where it clicked. And I was like, okay, I can dig myself out of this hole. It\u2019s going to take some elbow grease, but it\u2019s not impossible. And so we went through all of my accounts and set a plan. But you set a hard deadline for me. And you said, \u201cI also want you to do some homework.\u201d And you gave me your copy of The Richest Man in Babylon. You said, \u201cYou need to finish this before we speak again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew:
And that really lit a fire under me and said, not all information is free. I\u2019m going to have to put some work in. I\u2019m going to have to make these calls. I\u2019m going to have to do a little bit of homework. And I devoured that book. I think that\u2019s one, it\u2019s not a huge book, but I think I finished it in two or three days. And just total mind \u2026 What\u2019s the word I\u2019m looking for? Mindset.<\/p>\n

Haley:
I actually know what you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Total mindset shift. And I realized, oh, I don\u2019t have to be the one putting in all the work. If I put my money to work for me. I assign a job to every dollar that I make. I pay myself first and then I pay the rent or whatever. And that just completely, it blew my mind. And one of the biggest things I learned from that book wasn\u2019t even what I gleaned from the book itself. But it was just, wow, knowledge and education is power. You don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know until you meet people sometimes. But then after that, I just started devouring all these financial literacy books and financial planning and investments and all this other stuff. And that transitioned me into, I guess, the next stage of my financial journey. So I go into that now.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Well, let me ask you a couple quick questions here. Were you able to get any of those loans reduced? And do you have any anecdotes about those calls?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. So the one I remember was that Chase card and it went over. 3000 was my limit. But somehow, I got it up to 3300 or something. And I think I ended up settling for, I think it was just under 2000. So it was 1920, 1950 or something. And to be honest, had I known that a closed account and a charge-off, how it was handled by the credit bureaus, I\u2019m not sure I would advise people doing that again. Because that literally just fell off my credit report last month. So a charge-off somehow stayed on my credit history for seven years. And it was because it was 2015 when I finally paid it off.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
And knowing that, I think I would \u2026 I\u2019m not sure. It probably was too late to go to Chase and pay the full amount and not have it hurt me anymore. And I still would\u2019ve had the delinquent payments and all that other stuff. But yeah, that one stung for a long time. But after I paid it off, I saw, I want to say it was a 150 or 200 point bump the next month. After it registered with the credit bureaus and all that stuff, my score went up big time. And then I was able to actually-<\/p>\n

Scott:
So you\u2019re saying, because it was a credit card debt and I negotiated it down, that credit, that negotiating it down, resulted in a charge-off, which hit my credit score and stuck with me, but I didn\u2019t have to pay it.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes. I did have to pay the 1900 or whatever. But once it was, paid off, the way it was reported was finicky. It was reported as something different than just paying off the original debt. And that was weighed heavier, I guess, in the way they score it than just being delinquent on an account, if that makes sense.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Okay. So within six months of our conversation and you\u2019re reading Richest Man in Babylon, what are some milestones or what are some things that maybe changed? You said your credit score bumped up.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Were you able to pay off this debt?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
My credit score bumped up and we had, after I finished the book, you came and sat down with me and helped me come up with a rough budget, ballpark budget. And you said, \u201cThe next thing you need to do is you need to save up an emergency fund.\u201d You can\u2019t have a blown tire wreck your finances. You can\u2019t just be waiting for a disaster to wipe you out. So I saved up. I think $1000 was my first emergency fund. And for me, at the time, that was three months rent. At the time where I was living. So that was plenty of runway for me and that saved me.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I remember, I got into an accident, and I had to pay for some repairs on my vehicle and I was able to do that without tapping into credit and paying interest and possibly defaulting again. So that\u2019s what set me up. And then after I had the emergency fund, I started, I had read a few books on investing and I wish I had read some different ones before, trying to invest myself and getting into the stock market and all that stuff. But I actually had enough funds to where I could start making some future money decisions instead of just living in the moment.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Awesome. So you built up the emergency fund and then you began investing or did you begin paying off debt? What did you decide to do from there?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So I got current on my student loan debt and I was basically paying the minimum. I had very low interest rates on those. And my strategy at the time was I want to get into a better financial position and then I can pass up on good returns in the market and pay off the student loan. So I still have student loan debt, especially since it\u2019s been in forbearance forever, at this point now with COVID. But that has been \u2026 If I can make eight to 9% in the market, before this month started, it doesn\u2019t make sense to pay off a student loan that\u2019s at 3%, so. I paid the minimum. And that had gotten me current. And then the rest of my money was going towards saving and investing.<\/p>\n

Scott:
A at the beginning of 2014, you were negative. You\u2019re spending more than you\u2019re bringing in for the most part or treading water with that. By the end of 2014, how much of a monthly surplus do you think you\u2019re generating if you had to guess?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep. So this was mid 2015. So it\u2019s . little later than that, but I was coming out ahead, maybe 150, 200 bucks a paycheck. So it didn\u2019t seem that substantial. But I reigned in the \u2026 I got a little smarter with Happy Hours. For me, a big expense is food and socializing. So it always has been. To this day, it still is. But that is where my biggest expenditures were. And so reigning that in, I said, you\u2019ve got X amount of dollars to spend. I think it was $30 a week, I got to spend on fun. And that was movies and extraneous meals and stuff like that. So I really had to plan.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
And once I had that emergency fund up, I had just finished a book on negotiating. And so I was able to negotiate a new position at a different hospital that almost doubled my salary. So having understood how lifestyle creep works and all that stuff, that really just catapulted my savings and all that stuff, because I basically continued living on what I was living on, and all the extra income just went straight to savings and paying off debts.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Did you feel like you were giving up things? Did you feel like you were being punished or that you weren\u2019t able to enjoy your life while you were going through this period? Because a lot of people feel or a lot pf people, when you talk about this financial independence movement or oh, you have to pay down your debts. Ugh. Now I have to give up everything and live like a popper and everything\u2019s going to be horrible.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
No, I just, I was more intentional. I would make plans to go see a movie with friends later in the week. And that would be the carrot that I\u2019d dangle in front of me and say like, okay, don\u2019t go throwing on extra beers tonight at dinner because we\u2019re saving it for the movie with our friends. And so having that as a goal in the future, I basically fell in love with future me. I was just like, future me is more important. Let\u2019s set it up for future me to enjoy. And that worked. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Yeah. That\u2019s a really great framework. I\u2019m falling in love with future me and I\u2019m going to make sure that they\u2019re taken care of.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
That was before I met Haley and fell in love.<\/p>\n

Scott:
I\u2019m sure, future you.<\/p>\n

Scott:
With Haley. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Well great. So you get this new job. You double your income. What\u2019s next? What are some other milestones on this journey?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So at that point, you and I were talking about just lowering the cost of living. And you had talked to me about your house hack over here in Denver and all this other stuff. So I was cognizant of that and I wanted to do something similar at my next living situation. So I found a friend of mine, an old hockey buddy, who wanted to live downtown Denver. Worked for Deloitte. Made very good money. But traveled for work so often. He told me, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really make sense for me to have an apartment all to myself. I\u2019m basically just spending money to have it sit there empty half the year.\u201d And so I told him, I was like hey, \u201cLet\u2019s join forces. I\u2019m looking to upgrade my lifestyle a little bit.\u201d That apartment that you met me \u2026<\/p>\n

Andrew:
\u2026 Upgrade my lifestyle a little bit. That apartment that you met me in actually got condemned because of the rats. I\u2019m not kidding. I was looking to upgrade my lifestyle a little bit and we found a great apartment really close to Coors Field and everything, and I told him, I was like, I\u2019m happy to split the rent with you, but let\u2019s do something to where cost of living is even lower for us. When you\u2019re out of town, let me Airbnb your room. I\u2019ll manage it. I\u2019ll be here and we\u2019ll split the profits. I\u2019ll manage it. Basically you\u2019ll pay less. He basically lived out of a suitcase anyway, so cleaning his room wasn\u2019t super difficult, but I did everything and that was my intro into house hacking and that\u2019s what we did. There were a few months, especially during peak season, where we both lived for free because that one room in downtown Denver across the street from the baseball stadium was prime real estate at the time.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
In 2015, Airbnb was getting up off the ground and there weren\u2019t a ton of units in Denver at the time, so that was really where I noticed the potential of Airbnb. Then I met Haley shortly after. The first night I met Haley, I had guests in my apartment. I was planning on being out of town for that weekend, so I had the entire apartment rented out, both rooms, and met Haley and decided, hey, I\u2019m actually going to stay in town. This girl is awesome, and we wanted to go down to the swimming pool. It\u2019s in an amenity at the unit, but I didn\u2019t have my bathing suit, so I had Haley go over and be like, hey, my\u2026 I was like, just tell them your boyfriend forgot her suit, and I was like, we\u2019ll see how this goes over, and she did it. She went over and knocked on the door. The guest came to the door and she\u2019s like, my boyfriend forgot his bathing suit. She went in and got it, and that was the first night we met. Yeah. I forget that.<\/p>\n

Haley:
It\u2019s kind of fun.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
That\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n

Haley:
I flew to Denver to check it out, and this will come in later in my story, but I flew to Denver to check it out to see if I wanted to live here. Two hours later, I was sitting at a table at The Nickel downtown in Denver with my friend who was going to host me and her apartment next door neighbor was this guy. That was pretty cool. Decided on Denver pretty quickly. Let\u2019s just say that. It\u2019s pretty fun.<\/p>\n

Scott:
That\u2019s a wonderful meet\u2026 what is that?<\/p>\n

Haley:
Meet-cute, right?<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Meet-cute.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. It was interesting for sure. Came straight from the airport to the restaurant and we met and the rest is history. Pretty quickly. Denver gripped her, I\u2019ll say. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Well, you did too.<\/p>\n

Scott:
We\u2019re 2015. You\u2019re doing this really ingenious house hacking solution that I think is awesome. You\u2019ve got your new job. I presume you\u2019re saving quite a bit and you\u2019re generally being very methodical about what you do spend on or intentional about what you spend on. What is your savings rate at this point and what\u2019s happening to your overall wealth position, your credit score, the other types of things?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Around this time, I had devoted most of, I guess, my extra income to investing. I had a decent run with Redfin when they went public. I had a great run with Tesla there a couple times, but I was really seeing some great gains with my personal investing. Looking back on it now, I realized I was getting lucky because I don\u2019t know why to be quite honest. There were just a few of those where I got really excited, put all my extra money into it and it worked or I broke even, so I wasn\u2019t too heartbroken about that, but I was also putting more of it towards student loans at the time, because yes, market gains will come and go, but I\u2019ll still have these student loans looming over me, so I wanted to just be out from underneath those. I\u2019d say at that point I was saving about 20 to 25% of my monthly income and putting it towards investment or towards paying off debt.<\/p>\n

Scott:
What is that? Is that like a $2000 a month kind of thing or $1000, $2000 a month?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
At that time, no. It would\u2019ve probably been about $700, $800. Yeah. I still wasn\u2019t making that much.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Okay, but the snowball\u2019s turning.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
We\u2019ve gone from $150 to $700 bucks at this point and it\u2019s starting to pick up.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep. It\u2019s rolling now, and about\u2026<\/p>\n

Scott:
You meet a wonderful lady. Life\u2019s getting better throughout this period. Is that right?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. It\u2019s taken time and it\u2019s taken conscious decisions, but I don\u2019t regret any of them. I\u2019m starting to devour more books. Around this time is when you sent me Set For Life, when it was still in the editing phase, and that book was so heavy. It took me forever to get through. I think by the time I finished it you\u2019d already published it, so I wasn\u2019t able to help at all, but there were so many concepts in there that just blew my mind. I couldn\u2019t get through it very quickly, but you had mentioned just setting your investments on auto pay, which is something [inaudible] loved. I will teach you to be rich for that point. He just gives you a play by play of do it this way. You\u2019ll never see it, it\u2019ll never hurt type thing, and that\u2019s kind of where my next steps were at that point. We\u2019re in like the middle of 2017, tail end of 2017 at this point, so it\u2019s been a couple years at this point, and there were bumps in the road where I made a stupid purchase of a toy or something I felt like I deserved and I can\u2019t even tell you what that is at this point. That\u2019s how important it was to me. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Okay. I want to make a comment. You said that Scott really set you on this path, but we are overlooking the fact that it\u2019s so impressive that you actually did the work. I have had these conversations with people in similar situations that you are. Hey, this is the stuff you have to do, and then I never hear from them again. There are so many people who want to be in your current position, but they don\u2019t want to do the work necessary to get into your position, so we need to celebrate the fact that you actually took this information and did something with it. That is the hardest part.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Scott had the knowledge. Great for him. You did the work and it sucks to do this work and you did it anyway, and that is the thing that we need to celebrate. Hooray for Andrew for doing it right and doing the work and taking the time to do, because it takes a while. It\u2019s not like you picked up the phone and you\u2019re like, hey, Chase, I want to pay this off and they\u2019re like, great. Now you\u2019re amazing. You had to do this a bunch and you had to slog through this. Where did we start? 2013, 2014, and now we\u2019re in 2017. This was not just an instant, wow, I had a 420 credit score and now it\u2019s 800 five minutes later. It\u2019s four years later or three years later you have a good financial position. When did you buy your first property?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We didn\u2019t buy our first property until October of 2020, so seven years later.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
It just jumped way ahead. Okay. No, but still.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
You had a terrible financial position, and you articulated that. There\u2019s a rat crawling across your bed in the middle of the night, but you\u2019re willing to come in and confront the reality of a situation head on, say, here\u2019s what I\u2019m up against, here\u2019s what I need to do, and begin attacking it; piece by piece, one call at a time, 100 bucks at a time and grind. Then start the snowball and the grind that takes a few years to get going. Then the magic that begins to happen when you commit to that, it\u2019s much harder month to month than you think it will be, and then you look back and you\u2019re like, wow, I made a lot more progress in the last two years than I thought I could have possibly done. That\u2019s the\u2026 go ahead.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I was going to say, there\u2019s a little story I\u2019d like to tell just to emphasize that. In those people\u2019s defense, Mindy, and the people you talk to who just say it\u2019s too much work, I was one of those people. I feel like most of those people, they don\u2019t have a good example to look at. I saw Scott and I was like, this guy\u2019s done it. I don\u2019t have an excuse. I can\u2019t say that some pie in the sky, like that only happens to one in a million people. There\u2019s this regular Joe, if you will, that I play rugby with who has done this. I can\u2019t attribute it to him being a trust fund baby or all this other stuff. He worked.<\/p>\n

Scott:
That\u2019s nice of you to say, but I will say that a lot of people would\u2019ve that had that excuse in your situation. I didn\u2019t have student loans. I had a higher paying job coming out of college than what you had with that, so there were advantages I had that you didn\u2019t have and you chose, no, I\u2019m going to ignore that and I\u2019m going to go after it and begin attacking what I can control and what I can influence there.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Absolutely.<\/p>\n

Scott:
I definitely want to give you lots of credit with that.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Well, thanks. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
You are an example for other folks that have all of those headwinds that have piled against them to begin overcoming.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
There are people who see Scott buying the beer and saying, trust fund baby, not even looking at how he could have done this. They just automatically make an excuse for him because there\u2019s no way he could have done this by himself. Clearly he had help. I\u2019m going to make my own narrative for him so I don\u2019t have to dive further. You asked him how he did it, and maybe his answer was going to be, I\u2019m a trust fund baby, and you\u2019re like, okay, fine. This isn\u2019t what\u2019s for me then. I\u2019ll just move on, but you had the initiative to even ask the question. Let me celebrate you, Andrew. Take it.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Fair enough.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Well, let\u2019s jump back ahead to 2017, where the snowball is turning. What are the next milestones there and how do we get to Florida and that first property?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. At this point, the journey kind of takes a pause. I originally had joined the Air Force and wanted to get my college degree and all that stuff so I could follow in my dad\u2019s footsteps of being an aviator in the military. When I was basically pushed out of the Air Force, I thought that dream died, but I went into a Navy recruiter just wanting to know what the chances are of me doing the military part-time like my dad did so I could have an additional stream of income. As I\u2019m walking out, I had a Marine Corps recruiter call at me and was like, why are you talking to them? You know they don\u2019t do anything cool.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We just struck up a conversation and unbeknownst to me, I was still eligible to be a pilot. I didn\u2019t know that. There were a lot of hoops I had to jump through. I guess kind of to your previous point, Mindy and Scott, these things take time. I called my dad and I asked him, I was like, should I do this? I\u2019ll be old by the time I get done and everyone I\u2019ll be going through training with will be younger than me. He\u2019s like, well, what\u2019s going to happen in four years anyway? You\u2019ll be four years older regardless, so just do it if you want to do it type of thing. You\u2019ll get there whether you want to or not. You might as well come out ahead type of thing. That was my mentality, but I started pursuing a pilot slot through the Marine Corps and I eventually got it.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
In 2017, I was notified that I had gotten a slot, pending I could pass their physical fitness standards. After about a year and a half of training, the run was what killed me. I qualified for it and then went off to training in 2018, very shortly after meeting Haley. My whole financial progress and journey and all that stuff was kind of put on hold for a little while because I didn\u2019t make it through training the first time. I made it to the very last week and then got hurt and had to get sent home. They said you can try again if you want to or you can just quit.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I went back to my job at the hospital while I was waiting for another slot to open up so I could attempt it again. I had that job for six months. That\u2019s all it was protected for through USERRA laws and all that stuff. They have to give you your job back for a minimum of six months, but after that six months, I was unemployed, so I ended up Airbnb\u2019ing my current apartment. I would stay with friends or my parents or something like that whenever people would come in. That was my sole income.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Or me.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Or Haley.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Sorry, mom and dad.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Sorry, mom and dad. Yeah. Basically I realized the earning potential of Airbnb once again. Then I did an arbitrage. I guess it wasn\u2019t officially an arbitrage because the landlord didn\u2019t know it was solely being used for an Airbnb, but I was like, well, I\u2019ll just find a property without a state owner. They\u2019ll probably never check in on it. It\u2019ll be fine. There\u2019s nothing in the lease that says I can\u2019t do it. I had another downtown apartment that I had set up strictly for Airbnb and managing those two, doing the cleanings, doing the messaging, all that other stuff, maintaining those was my full-time job until I got another chance to go back. In January 2020, I went back to Virginia to try the officer candidate school a second time. My first awareness of COVID was when they told us that our graduation was canceled because of COVID, so I graduated 10 weeks later, which was right in the middle of March, and that\u2019s when everything hit the fan with COVID. My family wasn\u2019t able to travel out to my graduation, but Haley, come hell or high water, she made it. That was kind of my first indicator, like, hey, I\u2019ve got to hold onto this one.<\/p>\n

Haley:
That was your first indicator?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
That was the final indicator, I should say.<\/p>\n

Haley:
That was a week after Denver public schools closed. Yeah. That was hard because those 10 weeks are grueling.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Especially the first time around and we couldn\u2019t talk to each other for\u2026<\/p>\n

Andrew:
You\u2019re radio silent.<\/p>\n

Haley:
\u2026 a number of weeks for that. Now I guess I can speak as a military spouse, but as someone who has a loved one in the military, that was pretty bitter. There were times when you can\u2019t be there for their graduations. Celebrating is a big part of it. After two 10-week experiences of not being able to actually be there, our first kind of hoo-rah for your military career, that sucked. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
It was a hard time for the entire world.<\/p>\n

Haley:
It was.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Shortly after that, I went to the basic school, which is a requirement for Marine Corps officers. Every Marine Corps officer becomes an infantry platoon commander, so you learn infantry tactics and how to lead a platoon and all this other stuff. That school is six months long.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Same area, Quantico.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
That was in Quantico, Virginia. At this time, I bumped into one of my superiors Dozier, Captain Dearth. He is a pilot, and he was the liaison for all the pilot contracts who were there at the basic school. He mentioned, you\u2019re going to get down to Pensacola. Be sure to grab property immediately. You\u2019ve got to start your financial journey and all this other stuff. I kind of picked up that he had done this, and talking to him, he said, oh yeah, I do this kind of part-time. I have 14 properties in the area and I\u2019m going, okay, whoa. We\u2019ve got to talk type of thing.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
He basically turned me on to you buy a property with a VA loan. You live in it while you can, and then you rent it out once you PCS, permanent change of station, when you get orders to another duty station. Talked to him extensively. Asked him how he did it. He had a whole bunch of JVs that he had done. He had some short term rentals. He had some long term. Most of them are long-term, but I told him, I\u2019m getting ready to go down to Pensacola. Can you give me any advice? He said, yeah. Buy as big as you can and get it as an investment, so we were looking for\u2026<\/p>\n

Haley:
He said buy as many units on one property as you can.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. When he said big, he meant as many units. The VA loan allows you to get up to a quad, up to four units, and it\u2019s all dependent on the local area and what cost of living is and all that stuff. I think we qualified for 493 is what I qualified for max, so we set that as our search. We found a realtor who was highly recommended down here. Shout out to Michelle over there. She did a number of virtual walkthroughs with us via FaceTime while I\u2019m sitting there in full camo gear with a 90 pound ruck coming back from a 12 hour hike and all this stuff and I\u2019m trying to stay awake while she\u2019s doing a walkthrough of her property. There was one property specifically that it was the first one that I saw on Redfin actually.<\/p>\n

Haley:
It was the first MLS email she sent us.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
The first.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Had a quad right near downtown. Andrew was like, oh my gosh, this is a great property. I was like, no, wait. We have to analyze many properties.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We have to look at 30 or 40.<\/p>\n

Haley:
That\u2019s what [inaudible] Turner said. We have to go through many of them, build that analysis muscle, and then we\u2019ll be good. This can\u2019t be it.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
It was it.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. That was the one.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Since then, we keep an eye on the property and on the market. We have not found the same deal since then.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Now that we\u2019re into the expansion mode, we\u2019ll never find a deal like that one. I pray we will, but it will be unlikely. The way the house was set up was it was a two bedroom, one bedroom bath that they added an office and a laundry room onto in the 50s or 60s. Then in the 90s they added on to the back of that, they added a law office. There\u2019s law offices everywhere in Florida, if you didn\u2019t know that.<\/p>\n

Haley:
This is a 1920s home. It was very small.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Built the 1920. Very small. What\u2026 1100 square feet maybe. I don\u2019t even know officially. In sections, it\u2019s hard to\u2026<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah, because they added on twice.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
They added on twice. They closed in the porch and made it\u2026 they call it a Florida room, but they have done basically all the work that a lot of people are doing now and adding ADUs, walling off certain sections, adding kitchens, all this stuff, so we saw the photos and we\u2019re like, this has a lot of potential.<\/p>\n

Haley:
As well as the carriage house.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep. The law office could also be like a mother-in-law suite. It had its own kitchen and bathroom. Then they had a carriage house out back, a separate building that was converted in the 60s to an upstairs and downstairs one bedroom apartment each. It was built as a triplex, but if you consider the mother-in-law suite, it really was a quad. We bought it as a triplex\u2026 well, I should say.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We bought it as a triplex, but once you close the door, you have four units, and it was a two sided security door and we sound proofed it.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
They were asking 489 for it, which was just under what we qualified for. At the time, that was overpriced. I spoke to my mentor and he\u2019s like yeah, that\u2019s a little steep.<\/p>\n

Haley:
The comps didn\u2019t the support it as well.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
The comps didn\u2019t support it, and also it had been on the market at that point like\u2026<\/p>\n

Haley:
We caught it when it was on the market about 30\u2026 20 days or so. We made an offer I think at about 30 days, our first offer.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I talked to my mentor and he said, make an offer. The worst they can say is no. They will most likely counter. The worst they can say is no. They will most likely counter. We undercut the you know what out of it.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We made a very low offer.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We offered them 400 and they came back and just flat out said no. Didn\u2019t counter. Nothing. We\u2019re like okay, they seem to be pretty set on their 489. With all the closing costs and all this other stuff, I\u2019m not sure\u2026 even with the VA loan, there\u2019s extra expenses, so I\u2019m not sure we can do this. I don\u2019t want to have to liquefy my stocks in order to pay for this, which now in hindsight, that\u2019s a no brainer, but I\u2019m glad it worked out that way because about a week and a half later\u2026<\/p>\n

Haley:
First, me being the analysis paralysis guru was like, oh great. No problem. We\u2019ll walk away.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. We\u2019ll find something else.<\/p>\n

Haley:
No, we\u2019ll find something else.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We did. We looked. We sent our realtor\u2026 poor thing. She went through probably six or seven more houses before they came back, but she\u2019s talking to their agent the whole time saying like, hey, you know this is overpriced. You\u2019ve got to come down a little bit and all this other stuff. We didn\u2019t know that until later.<\/p>\n

Haley:
She was amazing.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. She was incredible.<\/p>\n

Haley:
She really advocated for us.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Michelle Barre with the American Value Realty is a rockstar, but she came back and said, hey, they actually countered. This is a week, week and a half later, 10 days later. They came back and they countered and they said, we\u2019ll sell it to you for 440. We were like, whoa, okay. We just saved\u2026 what did we just saved?<\/p>\n

Haley:
We just moved the dial so much.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So much just by making a bold offer. We talked about it and came back and said, we\u2019ll do you one better. We\u2019ll do 450 if you cover all the closing costs.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We had no money at that time.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. We did not. I did not want to\u2026<\/p>\n

Haley:
We needed any liquid cash we had.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes. They agreed. They accepted and our agent wrote it in that they would pay closing costs or up to what was it, 3.2% of the purchase price?<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah. She wrote the initial contract, and closing costs were 3.2% of the price of the house or the sale price of the house, which turned out to be more than we needed for closing costs, but that was the initial contract where she expected the realtor to come back and say\u2026<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We also had $5,000 of repairs written in, which any real estate agent would go like yeah, you\u2019re joking. Give me a break.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We expected a little back and forth.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We expected a little pushback, and they just accepted.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Did you move into this property?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We did. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
This is a house hack. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. They accepted, and long story short, we ended up walking away with cash in hand at closing. Like I said, probably won\u2019t be able to do that one again, but we moved into the mother-in-law suite. The upstairs and downstairs apartments had existing leases that we inherited that were like maybe 60% of\u2026<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Pieces that we inherited that were maybe 60% of the market rate. So we knew we had room to increase the rents there.<\/p>\n

Haley:
But something safe to move into.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
But something for sure. Something to move into. And our goal was to work on the main house, the 2:1, and make it livable for long-term tenants. Our goal was to get military people in there, because there\u2019s students coming in and out of Pensacola. There\u2019s probably a thousand students a year go through there, and they\u2019re only there temporarily before they go from pilot training to other places. So-<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah, our initial goal was long-term tenants. So we fell into STR.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. We knew Airbnb was a potential, though, just from previous experience. And so we put the two bedrooms there up on Airbnb, and it just took off.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah, we were initially looking at, we talked to a bunch of his pilot school training friends and said, \u201cHey, you guys interested in living on our property?\u201d We imagined that them all studying together, all of us being nearby could be fun. And everybody was just finding other places farther away from downtown-<\/p>\n

Andrew:
For cheaper.<\/p>\n

Haley:
\u2026 for a little cheaper. And so we started to get a little nervous.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We also looked at the main house, which again, its core is 1920 and then added onto. And the couple before were kind of retirement.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So the original plan was to put long-term tenants in there. In the process of us repairing one of the bedrooms, we had put it up on Airbnb, and the Airbnb just took off. We did not realize what a huge market the Panhandle is for short-term rentals until we put that first unit up. So then when the next lease expired, we didn\u2019t even think about putting a long-term tenant in there. We just went out, furnished it, opened it up as our second Airbnb. And then we wanted a little bit of insurance, just in case for whatever reason, this was just a quick blip of business for Airbnb. And in case it crashed, we kept one of the long-term tenants and renewed her, increased her rent. Not nearly enough. She was very happy to keep the lease at that rate, but pretty much regretted it almost instantly when we started seeing the second unit income. So-<\/p>\n

Haley:
The second unit was making about 2000 a month on Airbnb?<\/p>\n

Scott:
What was the total income from the property from the rent? From the short-term rent and the long-term rent once you completed this?<\/p>\n

Haley:
Long-term rental was 700 a month last year. So quick math, what would that be?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
700 a month would be, what would that?<\/p>\n

Scott:
Yeah, 700. So yeah, 700 a month from the one, the long-term rental. What are we getting per month from the second unit?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So for Airbnb, I mean, it\u2019s seasonal. So we were doing between, I want to say 1500 to 3000 per month, just with one Airbnb, which was covering the mortgage. So that-<\/p>\n

Scott:
So double to quadruple.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Double to quintuple.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yes.<\/p>\n

Scott:
The revenue of the long-term rental.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes.<\/p>\n

Scott:
And what was the main house getting?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
The main house was getting about the same. So a little more.<\/p>\n

Haley:
I\u2019d say the main house was a little higher.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
2 to 45. I\u2019d say 2000 to 4,500.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah. We had some really good months in the summer.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. I mean, obviously-<\/p>\n

Scott:
So on the low end, you\u2019re getting 4,200 a month. And on the high end, you\u2019re getting six, seven, 8,000.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes. Correct. Yeah. So this is-<\/p>\n

Scott:
And what\u2019s your mortgage payment on this property?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Our mortgage payment at the time was 2820.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
2,800.<\/p>\n

Scott:
This is a killer house hack.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes. Yeah, it did.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We were living for free.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I get a housing allowance from the Marine Corps. And my housing allowance was half of what the mortgage was. So I was willing to eat it if everything went to hell, then I would be paying out of pocket to live, which is what everyone does. So worst case scenario, we saw this as a win. I\u2019m at least buying equity, or the Marine Corps is buying me equity. So, but I mean, we have yet to pay to live in Pensacola. So-<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah. We\u2019ve never paid a mortgage.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Not a dime.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
I have a couple of things I want to highlight really quick. First of all, the VA loan is not for investment properties. You have to live there, but that doesn\u2019t mean that it can\u2019t be used for a fourplex. I mean, the VA is not going to approve a loan that doesn\u2019t qualify for. They\u2019re not going to approve a property that doesn\u2019t qualify for the loan. But I just wanted to clarify that you can\u2019t use a VA loan for a strictly investment property. So you\u2019ve done a VA house hack, a VA hack where you\u2019re using this no money down, truly no money down. You walked away from closing with a check in your pocket. You had a property that was mis-categorized on the MLS. There was a mistake. It\u2019s a fourplex, but they\u2019d listed it as a three-plex, and you changed it to make it into a fourplex. Or actually, you lived in the one unit, and you were still collecting rent from three other units. I have a little acronym called the MLS Is Not Dead Yet. And if you go by the initials, it\u2019s MINDY.<\/p>\n

Haley:
That\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
You knew it was a great deal because you could see, you could do math. I think that all investors have an opportunity to get that one rockstar deal, and not everybody takes advantage of it. This is, again, an opportunity to celebrate, you guys, because you could have been like, \u201cIt\u2019s the first property. I don\u2019t know.\u201d And yeah, most of the time, your first property, the first property you look at isn\u2019t going to be the best thing ever. But that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not going to happen. So know what a good deal is. And keep an eye on the market right now, because things are changing, and maybe there will be another really great deal coming up on the market. I love what you said.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Yeah. I just want to agree with everything Mindy said and say, this was a perfect house hack with this. I don\u2019t think it was listed incorrectly. It was a triplex, and there\u2019s a mother-in-law suite, right? So you just moved into the mother-in-law suite, which is perfect for you guys from that. And in the context of a house hack, and that allows you to Airbnb out the other units with that. Your only quote, unquote mistake is that you could have done all three units from a short-term rental perspective with this.<\/p>\n

Scott:
You also were willing to do work on the property. I remember you telling me about this property a year and a half ago. I guess, was that almost two years now. And yeah, it just seems like that\u2019s all the stars aligning with that. The VA loan, 0% down, this triplex, quadraplex, whatever you want to call it on there. And then being willing to, obviously, there\u2019s a lifestyle sacrifice. You could have qualified for a $440,000 house that was all to yourself with that. So there\u2019s a big sacrifice you\u2019re making in order to exchange for that income.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Absolutely. Yeah. When we saw the potential, though, we realized, \u201cWe are not compromising. Again, we\u2019re just loving future us.\u201d And it was an upgrade for us, because I mean, we\u2019re coming from Denver where square footage here is not cheap. So we move into the mother-in-law suite, and it was an upgrade. So that\u2019s how we looked at it. Yeah. We could be in the big, two-bedroom house and have a nice guest room and all that other stuff. Or we can live in the small mother-in-law suite, and just pay to have our friends stay at a hotel whenever they come visit. That was the options that we had, and I don\u2019t regret it at all. I love that little place.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We really do.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
A lot of good memories.<\/p>\n

Scott:
So what happens next? Now that you have this place, how does that affect your cash position, your investing? What do you do? How do we get to the present here?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So this entire time, we haven\u2019t touched our stock. I mean, we\u2019ve been continuing to maximize our IRA contributions every year. All this other stuff, we have our retirement funds, and we continue to contribute to that. But we realized Airbnb has some serious potential in this town. Let\u2019s try to just-<\/p>\n

Haley:
Lean into that.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
What\u2019s the word I\u2019m looking for? Scale. Thank you. Let\u2019s try to scale with Airbnb. And so I started looking for another property. And we wanted to get as many units as possible. We looked at a number of duplexes in the area, but by this time, this is late 2021. And the market is just insane, and properties are selling literally within minutes, people have offers on properties. There were two properties specifically that I told my agent, I was like, \u201cI want to make an offer. Draft it up.\u201d And she calls me back and she said, \u201cThey just accepted an offer.\u201d And I\u2019m not kidding. It shows on the MLS, listed 49 minutes ago. And you\u2019re just going, \u201cThis is insane.\u201d So we looked at a couple of properties in this specific area in Pensacola that we were wanting to move. Because we had just hit our year mark in the home with the VA loan. So we are allowed to get out free and clear at this point.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We also crunched the numbers and realized that it was costing us to stay.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes.<\/p>\n

Haley:
That we could make more money if we moved to the big old apartment complex downtown, we would cash flow a thousand dollars a month if we moved out.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
If we started paying rent. Yeah. We would\u2019ve made money. So we said, \u201cWhy pay rent? Let\u2019s just-\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott:
Because the spread between your Airbnb and the mother-in-law and your rent would\u2019ve been so large?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes. Yep. So whenever we traveled, I mean, we\u2019re doing it now. Whenever we travel, we list our home as an Airbnb to subsidize the cost of traveling. And every time we traveled, we would make more money on, because we furnished our home in the way we want to live. And so I had smart lights, and I had my splurge of a big screen TV for watching hockey, and all this other stuff. So whenever it rented out on Airbnb, it was getting more than the house. And so we realized, if we can make this standard, then we\u2019re losing money by staying here. And so we decided, \u201cHey, we\u2019ll start looking for a property. If we don\u2019t find one, then we\u2019ll move downtown to a very cute downtown area in Pensacola.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew:
But we were pretty certain, we\u2019d be able to find a house. And if we could find one wit a mother-in-law suite or an ADU or something like that, then we could-<\/p>\n

Haley:
Get out ahead.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
\u2026 get out ahead. Yeah. And so we put offers on a couple, none of them got accepted and a friend of mine, this goes into who you know, and networking and all that stuff. I told my friend what my plan was. And driving through the neighborhood, he saw the realtor, hammering the sign out in front and was like, \u201cCall him right now.\u201d And within, I mean, I think by the time we made an offer, it had been on the MLS for less than an hour. So they actually didn\u2019t go with our offer, though. Originally they were asking 360 for this house. And the reason we went with it was they converted the garage into the master bedroom, put a bathroom in it.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
And it had an external door where you could walk straight from the driveway. Didn\u2019t have to go through the main front door. And we saw it and we\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, there\u2019s one door from the garage into the house. We\u2019ll just wall that off. And that\u2019ll be another Airbnb.\u201d It\u2019s just like a suite. It doesn\u2019t have a kitchen or anything like that, but it\u2019s like a hotel room. And so that\u2019s what we called it. We called it the suite. And originally we offered 360, which was their asking price. But we asked for $10,000 to go towards closing costs. So really, we underbid them, which was bold. But we thought that getting in there as fast as we could, maybe they would just take it. And they didn\u2019t, they went with somebody else. And so we were in Colorado, actually, for-<\/p>\n

Haley:
Christmas.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
No, that was for Thanksgiving. Yeah. We were in Colorado for Thanksgiving. And our realtor called us back and said, \u201cThe people that they went with went with another property, and lost their earnest money and all this other stuff. But they were willing to do that because they wanted this other property, and now they want to go with you.\u201d And so we ended up getting it after all. So this is now twice where we have bought property and had the seller give us money towards closing, which I mean, is ideal. And I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll be able to do it again, three times in a row.<\/p>\n

Scott:
So walk us through this property. Where did you live? How much income were you able to produce, and what was the mortgage payment on it?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So the mortgage on this one is 20-<\/p>\n

Haley:
2300.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
2300. Yes.<\/p>\n

Haley:
This property is my property.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Unofficially. And this Airbnb is-<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah, it\u2019s her baby. And she\u2019s-<\/p>\n

Haley:
It\u2019s my baby.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
\u2026 crushing. We went with a conventional loan. We were thinking of doing an FHA, but they offer a conventional at 5% if it\u2019s your primary home. So we are thinking, \u201cOkay, one and a half percent extra is not a ton, but it gets us out from under lifetime PMI.\u201d So at some point we\u2019ll get to the 20% down, if we decide to pay that extra, but that\u2019s going to save us. The PMI, I think, is $187 or something a month right now.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
And so over the course of, once we get past 20%, which I looked at. It\u2019ll be in the next three or four years at the rate we\u2019re paying. Then we\u2019ll get out from under that lifetime of PMI. And we saw the writing on the wall, rates are changing. We most likely won\u2019t be able to refi into a better rate to get out from under the PMI. So we just went ahead, and just did the conventional 5% down. Did finally have to liquidate some of my stock holdings, but it was absolutely worth it. So-<\/p>\n

Haley:
Put money down. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We furnished it and-<\/p>\n

Haley:
It was turnkey. And we furnished it. We put it on Airbnb two weeks after we closed. We didn\u2019t have our place set up just yet. But that Airbnb was flawless. The first full month, we made $4,700 on a one-bedroom, one-bath hotel-<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Suite.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Suite. Dial thing.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
She has the number-<\/p>\n

Haley:
I knocked all of our units out of the water.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
She has the number one Airbnb for two people in Pensacola right now.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah. I\u2019m top of the algorithm at this point. So, you did say perfection, I\u2019ll just throw that in there. So that has been my baby, and was super fun to see that.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
I do believe I said perfect in every way.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Yep.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Except for that third unit.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
At the old place. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
We blame Andrew for that one.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Almost. Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Yeah. That-<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
No, that was actually probably a security thing of mine. I\u2019ll take that.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Maybe. I don\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Let\u2019s look back at that. That was, they had just opened up Airbnb again after closing all of Airbnbs and returning all the money to the tenants, or the renters or whatever.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Guests.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
So to the guests, yeah. Airbnb closed it. You didn\u2019t have the option to close it. And Airbnb gave all of the refunds to the guests. You didn\u2019t have that option. So to keep one unit as a long-term rental for the security a year and a half ago is not a bad choice.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. That\u2019s fair.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah. With all the waves of COVID, we didn\u2019t know what was going to happen.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Scott:
So we\u2019re now, and so you have the suite and you have the main house. Is that there just one unit or are there multiple more units? I\u2019m sorry if I missed that on this property.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. So the property\u2019s a single-family home with the suite as a Airbnb. So that was our fifth Airbnb. We have the four on the quad, and now the one on the new property. And we live in the house. And we have a guest room, finally. So-<\/p>\n

Scott:
And this is your current situation. You own these two properties with these six units, the ones that include the one you live in.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes. And shortly after that, we set up the deal for our next closing, which is in July. I had just listened to the podcast-<\/p>\n

Haley:
Pace Morby.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. With Pace Morby about doing Sub2 and seller financing and all that stuff. And actually, we were driving to look at a property that we got turned down on. I was going to show my neighbor. And drove past a \u201cFor sale by owner,\u201d sign and just pulled into the driveway and called the number. And the owner was actually there in the garage. And she walked out to me and talked to me. And she told me what she wanted for it, which was so expensive, so far out of my price range. But I had literally just listened to this podcast about, \u201cJust talk to the sellers, see if they\u2019re willing to accept terms or anything like that.\u201d And I just pitched it and she said, \u201cOh, absolutely not.\u201d And I was like, \u201cOh, well, we tried.\u201d And about three weeks later, she called me and she\u2019s like, \u201cAre you the one who was talking to me about seller financing?\u201d And I was like, \u201cYeah, I am.\u201d And she goes-<\/p>\n

Haley:
There\u2019s a trend here of getting turned down.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. It\u2019s so true.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Came back.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep. She came back and was like, \u201cI think we might be able to set something up. We talked to some lawyer friends of ours, and I think this could be beneficial for everybody.\u201d And so we went and sat down with them. They were asking, this is a duplex in the same neighborhood, which is, it\u2019s like the Wash Park of Pensacola, basically. They\u2019re all-<\/p>\n

Haley:
Very sought-after neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Very nice neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
What\u2019s that?<\/p>\n

Scott:
Nice neighborhood. For folks that don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. It\u2019s coming up. It used to be a rough neighborhood, and now people take a lot of pride in their homes. They\u2019re no copies of\u2026 Oh, sorry. Yeah. We\u2019re short on time. Okay. Nice neighborhood. Yes. But they were asking, it\u2019s a duplex on the main street through there with all these cute breweries and restaurants and all this other stuff. And they were asking 750 for this duplex, which I looked it up, going through the county assessor and they paid about 340 for it a year and a half before. So they went through, and they\u2019re both-<\/p>\n

Haley:
We have to caveat that it\u2019s a 3:2 on each side.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
On each side. Yes. So they\u2019re large.<\/p>\n

Haley:
It\u2019s 3:2 condo on each side.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. But they\u2019re both general contractors. So they gutted this house. Completely redid it. And I walked through it and it is, I mean, they spared no expense. It looks very, very good. Still, though, our realtor ran comps for us, and she said, \u201cIt\u2019s about $60,000 overpriced.\u201d So even with that, we looked at the potential. We paid for a survey and a report on Pensacola Airbnbs through AirDNA or one of those, I can\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Match Advisor.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Match Advisor. One of those, just to see what our competition was like. And the number one Airbnb in Pensacola is one property with two homes. And I went through all the reviews and everyone was saying, \u201cIt\u2019s so nice to be able to come here with my family. My brother had his own house with his kids. I had my house with my kids.\u201d And every single review is like that.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
And there, this property is not anywhere close to as nice a location as this one. So we went in there, and we\u2019re like, \u201cWe can do some damage with this.\u201d So even at their asking price of 750, which we agreed to, we are looking to come out ahead considerably. And a house about four houses down from them sold, same building, same style of duplex, not identical, but it sold for $350 a square foot. So at that rate, the house is already worth over a million. So we haven\u2019t even closed. We have it under contract. We\u2019re closing on it in July.<\/p>\n

Scott:
So let\u2019s sum up your position right now. You have five Airbnb units currently with two more on the way, or one more. If you\u2019re going to rent this out as one big Airbnb with two units on it. What is your current Airbnb income that you project on average for a month? Or what\u2019s the range that you expect from the current Airbnb income across all of your units?<\/p>\n

Haley:
Last month we made 17 grand.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Wow.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Last year we made $75,000 on one and a half units.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. Two, one and a half, two units.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Slowly brought them up. We are projecting in this coming year, and it might be conservative, to make 150 just on the first property, I think.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. On the first property.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah. And then we\u2019re house hacking the one we live in. And at the rate we\u2019re going, we can cash flow on that property about $20,000. So that\u2019s 170-<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Our primary home. And then this duplex that we have, we did seller financing with $60,000 down total in three chunks. So 20,000 at closing, 20,000 6 months later and 20,000 at a year with-<\/p>\n

Haley:
We locked in a great interest rate.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We locked them in. We have them under contract for 3% with, it\u2019s a two-and-a-half year balloon. So that\u2019s a big chunk of change that\u2019s coming due here soon, but we have no worries about it whatsoever. We have-<\/p>\n

Haley:
There\u2019s the option to sell at two and a half years if everything goes bust.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes.<\/p>\n

Scott:
What do you expect the income for that property to generate?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We\u2019re expecting between 450 and $600 a night. So that\u2019ll be about it. It\u2019ll do the same as the quad. We\u2019re expecting about 15 to 20 a month through that.<\/p>\n

Scott:
All right. Last question here. What\u2019s next after this, what\u2019s on the future for the next couple of years for you guys?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Well, we\u2019re actually looking at a property here in Denver tomorrow. We want a place to come stay at. We are here quite often. So my sister\u2019s moving out of her apartment, and her landlord called me and said, \u201cHey, seem like you might be the type of person who\u2019d want to buy this.\u201d So we\u2019re going to have some drinks and discuss it. But I would love to help other people in the way that you helped me in just helping educate and just basically showing people, not to be arrogant, but through the example that what we\u2019ve been able to do. Showing other people in the military specifically what potential is, regarding real estate and investments and stuff. I\u2019ve had a number of friends who\u2019ve taken me up on the offer of opening their own Airbnbs. And they\u2019re doing quite well right now as well. So for those who are willing to listen, I mean, they\u2019ve seen some benefit.<\/p>\n

Scott:
All right, Haley, let\u2019s hear a quick background about your journey with money here. Could you walk us through how things start for you? Maybe starting in high school, college and up until the point you met Andrew?<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in a very money-conscious family, mainly surrounding debt. My parents have always touted that they just have not ever had debt. We didn\u2019t grow up super-wealthy. We always had enough, but we were aware that we made certain financial choices to stay within certain margins. I loved growing up that they emphasized spending less than you earned, staying within your means, which was a principal that I lived by for quite a while until I expanded my financial literacy. Went to college, did an undergrad in psychology, graduated in 2012. Up to that point, I had had jobs here and there, but mostly for fun money. Then after that, I didn\u2019t quite know what I wanted to do post-college. My parents had always dreamt of just paying for my college for me, because their parents were able to do that for them.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Instead, we were just in a spot where that wasn\u2019t totally feasible. So they shouldered half of the debt. I shouldered the other half. I graduated with about $24,000 of unsubsidized student loans at that point. I moved home in my parent. I didn\u2019t have a direction I wanted to do go. I considered graduate school. Didn\u2019t quite have the answer. And so I took my mom\u2019s advice, and just moved home. And started working at a hospital, paying off that debt and living for free. I would throw a thousand dollars each paycheck at 12-something an hour towards my debt. And I managed to pay off the $24,000 in two years. And along that journey, I did the Dave Ramsey, Financial University bit. And I credit a lot of just doing that debt snowball and paying that off so quickly to that program, and my parents\u2019 diligence about debt. And I remember my mom-<\/p>\n

Haley:
\u2026 program and my parents\u2019 diligence about debt, and I remember my mom saying, \u201cWhatever direction you go, at least you can start here and you don\u2019t have something you\u2019re dragging behind you and bringing along,\u201d and I thank them for that. I did decide to go on and do a counseling master\u2019s degree after that, and having just paid off debt, I was not interested in getting into more debt. So I stayed at home for the next four years, worked full time. It was often 60, 70-hour weeks on top of that. You have to do internships and practicums. So it was a hard-fought four years there, this getting into now the end of 2017 where I was wrapping up my degree, and I graduated with my master\u2019s in counseling with about $8,000 of debt, where I could have just kind of sloughed it off, and those were subsidized student loans.<\/p>\n

Haley:
So I graduated with $9,000 of subsidized student loans that had been accruing interest pretty quickly, where I could have graduated with $40,000. So I appreciate that at-home time to kind of get through that. But right after I graduated was when I decided I wanted to leave the Midwest, and the cold, and check out Denver, and Andrew and I met early in 2018, and I was very interested in the house hacking. He was doing Airbnb around that time on and off, and kind of shutting it down, heading into the Marine Corps. It\u2019s just been really cool since then to allow him to be the acceleration, where I\u2019m the brake, learn from him with risks. I think he\u2019s learned from me on planning, and being more proactive about things, and strategic, and I think we make a great team on this.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I\u2019d be inclined to agree.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We\u2019re working it out. It\u2019s interesting. In our relationship \u2026 I think one thing when you\u2019re doing something with the spouse, as well, if I can extrapolate, is we\u2019ve had to figure out when we\u2019re in husband-and-wife mode and when we\u2019re in business mode. To balance that all out, we have to call it out in moments of like, \u201cHey, this is not business time. This is our time,\u201d and we love it so much. We\u2019ve noticed ourselves on date nights and stuff like that starting to talk about the business, and as much as that\u2019s good, we really had to start balancing out how much we put into our relationship and keep nourishing that, because it can creep up on you. Because it\u2019s fun, but there\u2019s some distinction there that\u2019s really helpful. But it\u2019s been a wild ride, and totally loved it. Totally loved it.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
It\u2019s been a good time.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Well, that\u2019s awesome. Are you both working full time right now, or is the business taking up a lot of that time? What does that look like for you guys?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Recently we finally got a chance to go on our honeymoon, and when we did that, we had to basically establish a team because we were going to be unreachable for eight days. So we set up a team and took a breath for the first time in 18, 20 months-ish and realized, \u201cOh my gosh, this-\u201d<\/p>\n

Haley:
We should have been doing this way earlier.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We should have been doing this way earlier. So in the last month our focus has been: We need to set up a team, because all the time we\u2019re spending on managing is time that we could be spending on expanding. So we have realized that 15%, maybe even 20% is a small expense when it comes at the cost of us being able to spend more time with each other, us being able to think of bigger-picture goals, that type of stuff. So that is our current focus, is just kind of handing off management and instead of managing units and Airbnbs, we\u2019re going to start managing people. Which, that\u2019s what I\u2019m paid to do by the military. So I\u2019m hoping it\u2019ll be an easy port over into our little side hustle.<\/p>\n

Haley:
And yes, to answer your question.<\/p>\n

Scott:
It sounds like a great honeymoon.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Oh, it was phenomenal. Yeah, yes.<\/p>\n

Haley:
We went to the Galapagos, and did a dive trip. Represent.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah, it was incredible. But that\u2019s what it took for us to kind of step back, and I wish we would\u2019ve done it sooner.<\/p>\n

Haley:
I work at a mental health agency job and just started a private practice, small, and then did this on the side, and we haven\u2019t even mentioned that we own a Tesla only by putting it on Turo. That\u2019s another side hustle. So we were getting warning signs before the honeymoon to slow down, to hire help. But it\u2019s a total mind shift to go \u2026 When you move up socioeconomically, it is an adjustment. Because we are in the mindset still of thinking we have to do everything ourselves, we have to work super hard, we have to be hands-in, and bringing other people on is the next level of doing that. So, it\u2019s an adjustment.<\/p>\n

Scott:
It\u2019s a function of profit and cash flow, too. You have so much profit and cash flow that you can begin thinking in those terms, and guess what? Because you can do it all yourself, if there is a problem in the market or something like that, you can always go back to doing it yourself and continue to just walk those things through.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Exactly, yeah.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Yes, it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Scott:
So you\u2019ve got a large number of exit options with these properties, with the first two properties in particular, where you could just long-term rent them and they\u2019ll probably produce a reasonable cash flow, or sell them. But with this next property you\u2019re taking a big risk with the two and a half-year balloon, but this is after you\u2019ve built your systems and have those things in place. So, I\u2019m optimistic. I think it\u2019ll be great.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Going back to doing everything yourself, if you know how to do it, then you can hire somebody who will do it well. If you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, it\u2019s really easy to hire somebody who also doesn\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing. But when you already know how to do it, you interview somebody and you\u2019re like, \u201cOh, you\u2019re full of garbage. You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing. I\u2019m not going to hire you.\u201d But if you don\u2019t know how to do it, then it\u2019s easy to fall for a really, really slick talker.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Absolutely.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
And we\u2019re still learning. Unfortunately we\u2019re about to fire our first person. They\u2019re not doing-<\/p>\n

Mindy:
[inaudible].<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah, it\u2019s not enjoyable, but unfortunately it\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

Haley:
You have to have the right people on the bus, and yeah, doing it from the ground-up really helps you know what you need. I think the lesson is to just not get caught in the scarcity of like, \u201cI have to do everything, because who knows if this is going to keep working?\u201d Really, we have a year of data on Airbnb and what we\u2019ve been able to do, but there are still parts of us that are like, \u201cIf everything goes down \u2026 \u201d And you have to fall back on those plans of like, yeah, there are long-term rentals. Overall, our properties have appreciated already \u2026<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Significantly.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Wildly.<\/p>\n

Scott:
What do you guys think is a good cash position for someone doing the type of investing you\u2019re doing?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
We agreed early on that our comfort level is six months of runway with no income whatsoever. So that was initially what we wanted to save up, and it got to the point where we were actually losing opportunity by having that much. So we\u2019ve scaled it back. We have about three months of runway for each property to pay the mortgage, no questions asked, and we\u2019re very confident that we could find a monetary solution to whatever ailments we may encounter had we needed to tap into that. So, 90 days is I think more than enough for us to kind of fix whatever goes wrong. It\u2019s a little risky, I guess, but something cataclysmic would have to happen for both of those to go bust at the same time. So, that\u2019s where we\u2019re comfortable.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Should we go ahead and do the Famous Four here?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Absolutely.<\/p>\n

Announcer:
Famous Four!<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Haley, what is your favorite finance book?<\/p>\n

Haley:
I would have to say, I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi. I know that\u2019s an intro book into the field of investment, but his straightforward instructions, along with the relationship he\u2019s noticed between psychology and finance just really spoke to me, especially being in the mental health field.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah, I love that one. That\u2019s definitely my number two, but my first one would have to be Richest Man in Babylon just because it started this whole journey. That one is super easy to digest, it\u2019s super short, and if you\u2019re a former contact sport player like me and have a little bit of head trauma, it\u2019s really easy to understand.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
That one\u2019s also my favorite, Richest Man in Babylon.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Oh, awesome.<\/p>\n

Haley:
The fables are awesome.<\/p>\n

Scott:
What was your biggest money mistake?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Do you know?<\/p>\n

Haley:
I\u2019m just running through them \u2026<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah, I can\u2019t decide. I would say, early on we decided to do some long-term Airbnbs, and the tenants that we had at the time were a little rough on the house and we looked at it and were like, \u201cWho cares? They\u2019re giving us a great rate. We have this secure \u2026 \u201d and all this other stuff.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Looking back on it now, they ate up our entire busy season, they wrecked the house, we had to replace a furnace. We really regret letting these tenants stay in, and also allowing I guess the claims window for Airbnb to expire before reading up on our protections and all this. Airbnb would\u2019ve completely covered everything, but we ended up eating it just because I didn\u2019t do my homework, and I got scared and thought a sure thing was going to be better than risking it early on. So for the sake of security, we just went with a sure thing that actually ended up hurting us. I would say that was one of our early mistakes.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Me personally, when I started to save my money after paying off all of that student debt and I was in a higher-paying job during my master\u2019s degree, I was contributing pretty heavily to my 401k because I was really excited about actually investing. But I was excited about keeping my money, so I allocated my investments at that time to be very conservative. So for eight years those sat in a 401k that was very conservative and did not earn the money that I could have, that compounding interest over time really could have done me a favor. I missed out on that, but there were opportunities later to earn that back.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
She kept me from buying a timeshare once, which would\u2019ve been the biggest financial mistake ever. Holy cow, oh my Lord.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Good.<\/p>\n

Haley:
I was like, \u201cMan, you\u2019re getting suckered right in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. I think it was the moment when the salesman said, \u201cYou can\u2019t run the numbers. This has to be an emotional decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haley:
\u201cThis is an emotional purchase,\u201d and I was like \u2026<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I was like, wait a second. I got suckered.<\/p>\n

Haley:
My mathematical, logical-minded husband. I was like, \u201cWhere are you? Where did you go? How am I on the other end of the spectrum?\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yep. I was like, \u201cIt\u2019ll be great. We can visit the mountains every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haley:
It\u2019s like, oh buddy.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So that was a close one, but yeah, fortunately dodged that bullet.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Good, yikes. Timeshares should be illegal. I can\u2019t imagine a situation where a timeshare is a good idea for anybody. If you want to change my mind, you can email [email\u00a0protected]<\/a> No, you can email [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>, unless you\u2019re with a timeshare company. In which case, no. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?<\/p>\n

Scott:
Timeshares are a great way to help make the salesman financially free.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
No kidding.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Yes. A timeshare is a great idea for the person selling them. Okay. Haley, what is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?<\/p>\n

Haley:
I would say \u2026 We\u2019re speaking from just our experience. The thing that changed my mindset was if you want to have large assets, have them in a way that they can make you money. You can have large assets, just have a plan for them. We have two properties. They make us money. We have a Tesla, which we wouldn\u2019t be able to afford otherwise, and the only reason we have it is because renting it out on Turo for a number of days during the month, right now it\u2019s like four days pays the bills for it every month. My uncle came to our house and joked and said, \u201cEverything you own is for rent, huh?\u201d and I was like, \u201cYeah.\u201d You just kind of hold things loosely. So, that\u2019s kind of where I see our mindset, how we shifted to making this money and using our assets well.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
I would say don\u2019t look at setbacks as roadblocks, look at them as just bumps in the road. You\u2019ll make an offer on a property and you won\u2019t get selected. I can\u2019t count how many offers we made that got turned down.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Don\u2019t be afraid of, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew:
You have to be resilient. You have to be willing to make lemonades out of lemons, and even a roadblock will eventually be moved once the construction is done. You have to just be persistent and diligent at the same time. So yeah, don\u2019t be easily discouraged.<\/p>\n

Scott:
I think it\u2019s fantastic, and I think when you look at your story, Andrew in particular, where you came from a 412 credit score and all these other problems in your financial position, and now you\u2019re so focused on building this real estate empire and driving cashflow and making these investments and making deals with that. It\u2019s that you\u2019ve done this incredible period of self-sacrifice, self-education, you\u2019ve overcome all these hurdles.<\/p>\n

Scott:
You don\u2019t even think about \u2026 We asked you what your biggest money mistake was, and you\u2019re like, \u201cOh, I rented to some folks in Airbnb suboptimally,\u201d and we just spent the first 20 minutes, 30 minutes of this podcast talking about how you were living in a rat-infested hotel because you couldn\u2019t afford anything else with all this. So, it\u2019s funny how those roadblocks kind of just take the back seat over time.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n

Haley:
They fade away.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Once you\u2019ve really overcome them and gotten this grind going and gotten to a stronger position, you almost for forget those. They recede to the background, it seems like, and you\u2019re focused on the recent things, the challenges you have today as a big-time real estate investor.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yeah. To your point earlier, Mindy, this is not a short trip. This is a long road, and you have to be willing to be in it for the long haul, and I hope that people can see through all of our examples here the potential if you just decide to put in the work.<\/p>\n

Scott:
What is your favorite joke to tell at parties?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Mine is a bit tailored to me. I would have to say my favorite joke is: What is red and bad for your teeth?<\/p>\n

Mindy:
What?<\/p>\n

Scott:
I don\u2019t know. What?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
A brick.<\/p>\n

Scott:
So, why is that one tailored to you, Andrew?<\/p>\n

Andrew:
So, my name on the rugby team was Ruthless Toothless, and that\u2019s because I lost some teeth playing hockey, and I can drop them out at will. So for those of you watching.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Oh.<\/p>\n

Haley:
It\u2019s a great party trick.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
It\u2019s a great party trick. I can photo bomb anybody. It\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n

Scott:
It\u2019s pretty remarkable.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
And then in Navy medicine\u2019s defense, they are fixing these in like a month. We just happened to film at the right time. 10 years coming.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Oh no, that\u2019ll be devastating to have all your teeth set.<\/p>\n

Haley:
It will be memorialized here.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes. These will go onto the mantle piece as a keepsake.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Oh, how charming.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
What\u2019s your favorite joke?<\/p>\n

Haley:
Oh, gosh. I don\u2019t think I have one.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
No?<\/p>\n

Mindy:
How are false teeth like stars? They come out at night.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
That one\u2019s great. Oh, okay. All right, that was funny.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
That could be Haley\u2019s, tailored towards Andrew as well.<\/p>\n

Haley:
There we go.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
That\u2019s amazing. I laughed so hard I almost spit them out. Yeah, that\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

Haley:
I will say part of my guest book in the suite is to ask people for their favorite dad jokes when they sign in. So it\u2019s name, where are you from, what do you like about the area, and your favorite joke. And none of them are coming to my mind right now, but jokes are so essential. I love them.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Well, that\u2019s really good.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
What was the most groundbreaking invention ever? You remember that one?<\/p>\n

Haley:
The shovel.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Yes.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Oh, I got one.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Well, this has been awesome, guys. Thank you so much for coming on. It\u2019s great to see you. Thanks for stopping through Denver, and agreeing to share your stories here, and your incredible real estate journey. We appreciate it. I think this has been a fantastic episode. I hope it helps a lot of people who may be struggling in the way that Andrew was at first, and some folks who are struggling to get into real estate in recent years with prices the way they are. You guys have been really creative, really consistent, and I can\u2019t wait to see what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Thank you so much, guys. We really appreciate it.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Mindy.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
A real honor to be here. It\u2019s such a pleasure to meet you, Mindy, and we look forward to keeping you updated on progress.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
I look forward to those updates, and it was lovely to meet you, too, guys. We will talk to you soon.<\/p>\n

Andrew:
Thanks, bye.<\/p>\n

Haley:
Thanks, guys.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Scott, that was an awesome story. That was a super fun little twist at the end with Andrew\u2019s teeth. What did you think of the show?<\/p>\n

Scott:
Well, like I said, Andrew \u2026 Or Ruthless Toothless, as he self-identified at the end of the show, I wasn\u2019t going to out him, is a long-time friend of mine and it\u2019s just been so fun watching his journey from really a pretty tough financial situation to the success that he\u2019s had. It\u2019s an overnight success story in seven short years, to see what he\u2019s been able to go from and to with this, and it\u2019s really combined every part of his life. His housing, his car, his career, all of those things have been made with financial freedom in mind, and I think he\u2019s got a lot to show for that now. A wonderful wife, a property portfolio, the career of his dreams. It\u2019s just been fantastic to watch.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Yep, and I think the core on all of that is he took action. It is so easy to leave the military \u2026 He was separated from his original Air Force not by choice. It would have been easy to say, \u201cOh, okay. I guess I\u2019m not in the military anymore,\u201d and just go about his life. He could have decided, \u201cOh, well, I guess I just have debt. Whatever. That\u2019s just how it is.\u201d Even with Haley, he could have decided not to take action with her. You have to take action in order to make things happen, and he is kind of the embodiment of what can happen when you do take action, when you are intentional with your actions. That\u2019s such a terrible word, but when you are intentional, you can make things happen. You can change the course of your financial life, your whole life. But you have to do the work.<\/p>\n

Scott:
Yep. You have to do the work, and the work almost always comes with a grind, a several years-long grind to get from point A to point B, or that next milestone. It\u2019s not even a several years-long grind to get from start to finish, it\u2019s a several years-grind to get from start to the next point of optionality in this journey. I think Andrew demonstrated that through the self-education that he put that he has subscribed to, through finding mentors throughout the journey. Which is kind of weird, but I guess I was one of those on that journey, and he has his military advisor or the person from the military who gave him some advice on rental properties in Florida, and he takes action based on that. And then the relentless self-education that is just enveloping in all of that.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
Yep. He\u2019s just a success story. Like you said, overnight success in just seven short years. I love it. Okay, Scott, should we get out of here?<\/p>\n

Scott:
Let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n

Mindy:
From episode 315 of the BiggerPockets Money podcast, he is Scott Trench and I am Mindy Jensen saying: You can change your financial future, and Andrew is proof. But you have to do the work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Help us reach new listeners on iTunes<\/a>\u00a0by leaving us a rating and review! It takes just 30 seconds.\u00a0Thanks! We really appreciate it!<\/p>\n

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Passive income and credit scores. While they don\u2019t entirely rely on each other, having good credit does allow you to build passive income streams far faster. Andrew Brazell learned this the hard way, but thankfully profited big time by making some needed changes. Less than a decade or so ago, Andrew was living in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/MNY_315_WEB.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3099,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions\/3099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}