BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 103: Building a Long Distance Real Estate Empire One House at a Time with Elizabeth Colegrove

Episode Date: January 1, 2015

Is it possible to invest in real estate at a distance — successfully? While many might say “no,” today on the BiggerPockets Podcast we bring you Elizabeth Colegrove, who is working on securing her and her husband’s retirement by investing in one home at a time, largely from a distance. Learn the ins and outs of long distance property management and what to look for when deciding on properties to invest in. From “house hacking” to 1031 exchanges to long distance investing and more, this show is packed with wisdom (and debates) that are bound to inspire you to move your business forward, no matter where you live and where you invest. In This Show We Cover: How Elizabeth got started in real estate How she was introduced to real estate when she was young Discussions about 1031 deals Some tips on getting VA loans Tips for new investors in looking for a property How to successfully use short sales Self managing from a distance What type of properties she buys How she handles costs and how she calculates them Her future real estate goals A perspective on appreciation Plus MUCH more! Links From the Show: BiggerPockets’ Plus and Pro  BiggerPocket’s Short Sale Definitive Guide The Short Sale Process Elizabeth’s post on Short Sales Books Mentioned in the Show NOLO Legal Books Connect with Elizabeth Elizabeth’s BiggerPockets Profile Elizabeth’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 103. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Josh Dorkin. host to the Bigger Pockets podcast watching my co-host have some kind of seizure in the background. Hey, Brandon.

I was dancing to the music. Come on. Oh, the music in your mind. I'm a dancer. For anybody listening now, wait till this comes out on YouTube and watch and enjoy. This is a true thing. I was in a swing dance group in high school. And, you know, I was pretty awesome.

I could flip people and, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're awesome. I am awesome. I am awesome. Keep thinking that, Captain Awesome.

Well, guys, what's going on? This is Josh. We've got another show for you today. Show 103 with our guest, Elizabeth Colgrove, and we'll get to that in a few minutes. Things are good, Brandon. How are you doing? Holidays, you know, all is pretty well, huh? All is pretty well.

Yeah, we are. At this point, I know we're recording this before the New Year, but I think this comes out right after the New Year. So happy new year. Somewhere in around Christmas, New Year, Hanukkah, you know, the whole thing. Yeah, happy holidays. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, happy.

Today is January 1st. Happy New Year, everyone. Happy New Year, everybody. Whoa. We recorded this a few weeks early. But anyway, happy New Year, everyone. Yeah, 2015, right? What's your big plans for the year, Josh?

Wow. What are your goals? Now that it's 2015, I was thinking, actually, it's not yet. But my plan, I like everybody else, I want to, you know, live a better life, but I'm hoping that at some point in the coming weeks, I get a Fitbit or some other type of exercise type electronic restraining device like a felon. But I want one because it will tell me that I am, you know, fat and lazy. And I want to know every day that I'm fat and lazy and I need to get off my butt and do more. And that's why I want one of those. I have a cheaper way for that to happen.

Every day. Hey, Josh. Yeah, what's up? fat and lazy. You tell me that anyway. I know. Okay. Well, I'm going to keep that up then. Good. It doesn't help.

I'm going to keep. I'll just intensify it. All right. Show, quick tip. We should probably do our. Quote. All right. Today's quick tip is.

Let's see how quick you are coming up with one. I do have one. 2015. Today is day one. And if you're listening this later, write down your goals for the year. Do not create them in your head. Write them down on a piece of paper. Stick them to your wife's forehead.

And okay, maybe not. Yeah. Okay. Or if you're the wife, stick them to your husband's forehead. And, you know, just follow up with them throughout the year. Don't just stick them in a drawer like I did last year. Bad idea. My wife reminded me that like two weeks ago.

She's like, yeah. Hey, remember this goal thing we worked on? Oh, yeah. We did actually pretty good on a lot of them. Did you? Yeah, but I should have had it like on my wall. So anyway, this year I'm putting it on my wall. And that's our quick tip for the day.

Yeah. If you've got goals, write them down, make sure that they are reasonable, attainable, but, you know, potentially. push you a little bit based upon what you're looking to do. So that's great. And with that, I'm going to give today's pro tip of the day. And today's pro tip of the day is this. As a Bigger Pockets Pro member, you have the ability to see who looked at your profile. If you're checking that statistic, if you're looking at that information to see who looked at your profile, you should be reaching out to those people who are looking at your profile. Send them a private message.

Hey, John, thanks for looking at my profile. Is there anything that interested you in my profile. That is a phenomenal technique that some of our most active and successful users, by successful, I mean, those people who get the most value out of bigger pockets are using, and it works phenomenally. So with a pro account, again, you can see who's looking at that profile. I definitely recommend and no, you're not soliciting or selling to them, but literally just ask him, hey, what interested you in checking me out? So that is today's tip. All right, cool. Otherwise, let's start kind of moving forward, man. All right, cool. Before we do the sponsor for today, I do just want to give one more shout

out and request if you've not yet left us a rating or review. Please do so. We did reach a thousand reviews and ratings on the Bigger Pockets podcast. My fingers are crossed. Okay, it hasn't happened yet, but it's going to happen. We're very, very close. We're getting close. But we did, I'm just going to say right now, we did it. That's a bet, man. That's a gamble. It's a gamble. I think it's going to work out. I will have all my family and friends on January or December 31st doing this if not. But yeah, please continue. I want to get $2,000 by next year. That's one of our goals I'm going to write down.

And if you don't know how to do that, we'll have a link to leave us a rating and review. And with that, why don't you, Josh, introduce Elizabeth. All right, today's guest is a active real estate investor who spouses in the military. She's done a bit of moving around the country as her husband has to move for work for his active duty. and, you know, she's got a unique strategy for what she's looking for in properties and, you know, check it out. There's definitely some decent tidbits in here. Josh and her get into a nice little. We get into a little debate brawl.

You know, I stand by everything I say. But I still think, you know, well worth listening to because, you know what? I think it's a strategy that may work for some folks. So pay attention, listen up. I have an uncomfortable question for you. If your rent collection drop to 80% next month, how long would your cash flow hold up? What about 70% for the next three months?

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And Elizabeth, welcome to the show. It's good to have you here. Thank you. It's good to be here. Cool. Well, today we're going to talk about your story, how you got started. And you have a sort of military background, correct? My husband is active duty Navy.

Okay, good. So we're going to talk about kind of from that, a little bit of that perspective. And we're going to talk about just in general getting started, buying your first few properties, managing those properties, all that good stuff. So were you in the military as well or just your husband? Just a spouse. Okay. Gotcha. Fair enough. That's just as important, I'd say. Well, and we started from the beginning. So we got married a year after. So we kind of got the whole fun of starting out poor and then getting to where we are. So yeah, it's just him, but kind of got the whole experience. That's awesome. That's awesome. Cool. Well, tell us about it. I mean, who are you? How did you guys

get into this game of real estate? So I've always loved it. I think from I and many other podcasters prior to me have said that they've loved this since they were young. I remember at 13, my parents did 1031 and I got the MLS code from our realtor and I was helpful. And I'm sure we all know how helpful a 13 or 11 year, you know, young person was. But I mean, there's pictures of my parents having their unit and us painting for years. So, you know, they just, the one. and it was good for us. And so you were slave labor.

Yes. If that's what we're calling it, you know, mom, please, please don't take offense. But yes. Okay. I'm just checking, just making sure. And really quickly, you mentioned 1031. Since I've interrupted you already, explain that for folks, if you don't mind, really quick. Sure.

The 1031 is this amazing thing. I love it. We've done it a couple of times. And it's actually an integral part of our strategy. And so a 1031 lets you exchange. change one like property for another like property in real estate. So, you know, obviously the caveat before I begin this discussion is if you're going to do it, please speak to a coordinator. This is just me. It's not a lawyer, not an attorney. Exactly. Just disclaimer. But that being said,

what's awesome is you can sell one house and turn it into one house, two houses or up to three houses. There is more, but it's a lot more complicated. So we've done a couple of them. And for us, our goal is to turn one house into multiple houses without paying tax. So you get to carry the tax burden over from house to house. And if you continue to use that money to put 20% down to the next one, your basis actually grows. And your basis, again, not an accountant, but your basis is that tax liability that you have. So when you reduce it from it, so say your basis is 20,000 from your first house and you buy a $100,000 house, now you have $80,000 to depreciate. You're trading up and you're deferring the taxes on it. Yeah, no, it's a great strategy. And I know you're not an expert and anyone who's interested, you know, should not turn to Elizabeth as an expert, but do your research on bigger pockets or elsewhere. We've got tons of content on what a 1031 is, how it works. And frankly, you know, you should talk to your professionals that you work with to help you out with those because they are a good strategy. But let's get back to your story. Thank you for filling us in, though.

No worries. So always loved it. I know when we were looking at universities, my mom wasn't sure if I was looking at the university more for the potential to rent out rooms to fellow students or because I actually liked the university. Nice. So, you know, I've always loved it. Ended up being an RA on campus, so didn't do anything. We continued to like it, but we got married and I'm sure everybody totally agrees with tip number one. you're all poor when you graduate and get married at 22. So we rented for a while. I know there's this thing called house hacking that everyone's discussed. We did that as a rental.

So we rented a property, rented out to another couple, and our monthly payments were $500, right out of college. So you're saying like you live in one bedroom and you rented in another, like the other bedroom out. Yeah, so we rented an 1,800 square feet for two couples. Okay. Cool.

So yeah, you're rent hacked. We're going to make that a new phrase now. You have labeled it right here. Right here on the Bigger Pockets podcast. You heard it here first, folks. On show 103 with Elizabeth Calgrove at Biggerpockets.com slash show 103. All right. So you rent hacked and then what?

So we rent hacked and then that allowed us to come up with our first down payment. So tip number one, VA loans go zero percent in but have a side amount of cash and that's what we did. So then I'm sure everybody knows VA loans. There's this huge discussion on how damage. they can be. Well, let me just tell you, ours was exceedingly cosmetically damaged. So you can buy a fixer-upper with a VA loan. That's key number one. The key, though, is to find someone that will tell you what you can and can't buy with a fixer-upper with a VA loan. So what we did was we bought one that inside looked like the druggie home, I called it, but it just needed paint, carpet, all the stuff that

my husband and I could do new bathrooms, so forth. But it had a brand new roof, brand new siding. Everything else was new, but the AC system. So it was ugly, but great exterior. And honestly, that is the tip for our entire house buying strategy, number one, is you want a ugly but sound home. I like it. I like it. Ugly but sound. I kind of follow that same strategy, right? Like, everything I buy is pretty dilapidated, pretty rundown. So, yeah, that's smart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know, you shouldn't call me names. But let me go back to the VA thing and I talk a little bit more about the, what is the VA loan? Who can get that?

What does it mean? So a VA loan is a veteran's, I honestly don't know what it stands. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is the VA. There you go. Okay, so what does that mean? What's special about a VA loan? It just means it's a zero percent down loan for people that are affiliated to the military. So if you were prior in, don't quote me because I think it's three years, but I really don't know.

All I know is my husband coming out of an ROTC program was eligible. So great program. If you were ever prior military, see if you're eligible, I guess is the comment. Cool. And you guys managed to get 0% down. Is it always 0% down? So a VA is always 0% down, but there is a funding fee. Interesting.

How much is it funny of you? Do you know off the top of your head? approximately so it depends and i found this out the hard way so the first time you buy it it's about 2.2 again don't quote me because it keeps changing and then the second one is 3.3 approximately percent you're talking right mm-hmm percent so the other thing that we found out is make sure you look into your type of loans because conventional at 5 percent has no funding fee so depending on your means you should see if the VA loan is the best loan for you just because you're eligible doesn't mean you should use it.

I like that. In my opinion. That makes sense. Yeah, for sure. One thing I like about that VA loan, again, I'm not military, so I can't get it. But, I mean, there are a lot, a lot of active, you know, active past, whatever military members in the U.S. that can take advantage of that. And the VA does, you know, and I believe, again, maybe you don't want to quote me on it

because I'm not the guy. But I think you can do one, two, three, or four units as long as you're living in one with a VA loan. Do you know if that's true? Yes. So a VA loan, same rules as, it's similar to. FHA minus the funding fee I've been told. So the thing with the VA is you

must live in it, absolutely must. And there's a one-year residency requirement. Again, there is always ways to get out of it, but take this as the rule, and you can always look into loopholes later. But that being said, you're supposed to live there for a year

because it's supposed to pay for you, or it's supposed to allow you to buy at your duty station. So for us, you buy at every duty station, which is what we do. And when you're transferred, if you're transferred in less than a year, that is one of the big loopholes they let you out of it. Ah, very interesting. Yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's kind of cool. So, I mean, you can use that as a, as somebody or a spouse of, or an active or vet or a spouse of active or vet to house hack and, you know,

kind of get out of the residency requirement, you know, of course, if you petition for transfer or if you are transferred for whatever purpose, which, which makes sense. I mean, you know, you can't force people to live somewhere if they're forced to move. Right. Right. Just as an FYI, they do check orders. So as part of this thing is you have to provide your orders a week and a half ahead of time to them.

The other cool thing about that, again, you know, our tip number two and the biggest thing that we've done very well are we as an I is I know the, I've learned the rules. I can't tell, like, don't quote me on any of them. The biggest thing that's done really well for us is to figure out the rules and all of this. So if you're a new investor and you're trying to make sure that you get your footing, make sure you look at all the rules. And by reading all of the rules and going in and sitting in with my broker, my broker will tell you that usually when I walk in, I know the answer. So if we don't agree, she goes and triples checks because I'm usually right. Not always, but make sure you know the rules.

So the other big thing with a VA loan, and we found this out when we were beginning. So again, my husband is a pilot, so we move a lot. and when we were in our beginning stages, we knew we were moving, but we didn't have orders. So we wanted to buy a house. We didn't want to get stock without a home or we want to be forced to rent. And, you know, we're all planners. If not, we wouldn't be real estate investors. So we put an offer on a house without ever knowing we had orders.

And so the VA loan is amazing in the fact that if you don't have orders a week and a half before you closed, your financing falls through. If your financing falls through, you get everything. everything back minus your inspections and your appraisal. So you can go through the whole part of this loan without having orders so you can guarantee you have a house. But if you don't get orders and it falls through, you get your earnest money and everything back. So it's awful for a seller, but as a buyer, it's amazing. All right. So you're saying that if I sold a house right now to a person in the military who was moving to my area and then their plans changed, they get their

earnest money back no matter what because their plans changed. And your SOL. Yes. That's good No, I did not know that. Look at that. You learn something new every day. Fascinating. Wow. So for us, it never happened. I mean, like we got orders, but it was that amazing protection to allow us to begin the process.

Okay. So maybe can you tell me kind of what your, your, let's step back a minute. What is your big picture strategy? I mean, you kind of mentioned it a couple times that you have kind of a strategy. What are you, what are you hoping to do with all your investments? I mean, is it buy one move, buy one move, buy one move forever. And what are you doing? Our end goal is that.

when we are done with the military, we are done working. So our end goal is to retire when my husband decides that blowing stuff up is no longer for him. So that may never happen because, you know, blowing stuff up is a lot of fun for guys. So yeah. Right. So who knows. But as the, you know, you know what the saying? See the world, join the Navy. Well, join the flight corps, see small town America. So I would say the biggest thing that started all of this is we moved to a really small town in Texas. That was not my favorite location. So while now five years later being married, it wouldn't be so bad. Coming from D.C., it was pretty bad. So the goal is that when we're done this lifestyle, we can choose where we want to live. And we want to have the funding to do so.

Yeah. Okay. So the goal is to aim towards retirement. You're getting there by using, you know, buying these properties, basically living in them and then renting them out at the next point. Are you always buying to live in? Or are you also buying rentals above and beyond that? We buy rentals too. So we got, so the biggest thing that I say and I hope that they take this as tip number three is your plans change. The only thing that our end goal that stays the same is we want cash flow when we retire. Beyond that, you know, when we were in Virginia Beach, we're like, we want everything within six hours of driving distance. We want to hire a property manager. We had sky is the limit. And now I self-manage across the country, across the country. We can't drive to anything and we buy like all kinds of different stuff. So the only thing that stayed the same is that cash flow long term.

Gotcha. So for us, this is a lifestyle. We live off one salary. We save the other salary. So, yes, we got started using our VA loans, but we all know buying personnel as quickly is used up. I mean, it's supposed to be for your final residence, and they really don't like you using it as an investor. So it's really not a long-term strategy. I mean, yes, military, you might collect five to seven, but I have five in three years, and I really want 10 and five more and 18 months.

So that's not a strategy. Yeah. So our second strategy has been using short sales to buy undermarket properties. using that second income as the down payment source. So what do you mean using? You're buying short sales is what you're saying. Yeah, we're buying short sales. But we like short sales.

Short sales is my favorite mode because you can put an offer on the house eight to 10 months out. It's a very slow process, but you also do not have a buyer that typically isn't emotionally involved. I mean, yes, they do care about the price at least where we are. You're talking about the seller. Did I say buyer? You said buyer. I'm so sorry. No, that's okay.

Yeah, you're the buyer, right? We're the buyer. I'm listening. No, sorry. The seller doesn't care as much. They just want to walk away. So we've built a reputation in our areas. We have a fantastic relator who has an even better reputation.

And so they will tend to go with us because the thing with short sales is they need continuity. Because they don't want to go through this process and then have you walk. Yeah. Well, so let's talk about short sales a little bit, dive into that. Okay. First of all, very, very basic question. What is a short sale? So it's not short.

I'll tell you that. Drum roll, please. Exactly. So the thing about a short sale is technically they're shorting the loan. So say they owe $300,000 and you pay $180,000. That's shorting the loan. So they are houses that are worth way more than they can ever sell for. So they're trying to get the bank to take a discount on them.

They're worth less than they can sell for. Yes, I'm sorry. I'm very... I know it's okay. It's okay. I just want to make sure to clarify, don't be nervous. It's fine. Not a big deal. Yeah, so a short sale is a house that's underwater, right? I mean, it's the ability to sell a house that's worth less than the value of the mortgage on the property. There's no equity left in the property. So they have to go to the bank and basically the bank has to what? They have to approve... They have to approve it, which is selling for less than the mortgage is worth. And then they absorb the difference. Yep. Sort of. So when we started this, people really didn't care the price because there was some awesome tax favors involved. That they forgave the tax forgiveness.

So say the bank forgave $40,000, it was not considered income. Right. Those have now expired. So that is now all income. So you find a lot more people negotiating on that price because they don't want to pay the 33, don't quote me, percent on that income. That's a really good point. I didn't realize that it expired.

I knew that the government had that forgiveness. But yeah, you're the first one to ever tell me that that expired. So that's interesting. So just to clarify, make sure I'm getting this exactly what you mean. So let's just say that I was going to short sale in my house because I owed 200,000. It's only worth 150. So I sell it to Josh for 150 instead of the 200 that I owed on it. So the bank was like, okay, fine.

We're going to write off that $50,000. dollars. Now, the bank writes it off. I don't have to pay the $50,000, but I have to pay taxes on that $50,000 because they count it as income. That's right, right? Okay. Just making sure that. And that's a chunk of change for a lot of people. I mean, we'll go at 25% because with your numbers, it's easy, but I mean, that's a lot of money. Yep. Yep. So now you got 12 tax debt for 12. How are you going to pay that? Right. And that's at the end of the year. So thankfully, as a buyer, not my problem, but you get people really negotiating now because they care. So how do you work that out then? I mean, if I, let's take that example, right? We've got the

property. I forget Brandon sold it to me. Brandon's trying to dump it. I buy it from him. So he's now got this tax burden on this hypothetical for $12,500. How would you make it better for him? I don't understand. It's not better. It's that. So let me. me give you an example. When we started out, we bought tiny little houses in Charleston. They were HOA townhouses. It was in a planned community and the community didn't happen. And investors after four years, they, they were done. Well, as incoming investors were like, dude, this place is just starting. Like it was 2012. Boeing had just started coming back. It was coming. I mean, we were on the upside. They were on the downside, you know? Well, we just started throwing offers out, 90,000.

was in $89,000 because it was all forgave. There was, they didn't care because if the bank approved, they were done. Right. Yeah. Now let's fast forward to 2014, almost 2015. They care because they will fight you for every $2,000 because that's, you know, $300.000 is $330 that they don't have to pay. So they care about every penny. So as investor, you've got to be like, do I really want to lose this house for $2,000?

because they're doing open markets. They're making sure they get what they can get for it. Fascinating. What on the swinging is the market has also come up. So short sales, banks are no longer allowing the lowest price. So short sales aren't as friendly for the average person because they're waiting 10 months only to have the bank come up and raise the price $10,000.

So the consumer aren't fighting over these short sales as much. So people are also dealing with there's not as much demand for their supply. Do you feel like the short sale game is over? I mean, if it's getting more difficult with the banks, why is it more, you know, why is it still okay to do a short sales? Yeah. Because you're still dealing with a unattached third party. Good. So as an investor, I don't care.

I mean, honestly, I'm totally guilty of not even walking houses until my short sale approval from the bank comes. because they're all cookie cutter. They're brand new houses. I don't care. I have a house I'm living in. Sweet. So because they are turning off the average homeowner, all that's left is investors.

So now you're just competing with yourselves. And they're still easier because they can buy them off the MLS. I'm an MLS buyer. I use a real estate agent. I don't work with wholesalers or anybody else. in my area, all these houses are underwater. There's no equity in them. So I do short sales because it's the only way to not pay market. Sure. That makes sense. I mean, I like the idea of a short sale. I've never actually done my own short sale, like I actually purchased one yet.

But I like the idea that it's kind of a cross between a foreclosure and the, you know, the everyday retail buyer. So you don't have to deal with the glut of people that are going with the, you know, the typical retail and you're not dealing with the you know the flippers that are trying to capitalize or all the investors that look at the foreclosures it's kind of that nice middle range that has a lot less competition therefore you can sometimes get a better deal as long as you know your numbers so yeah short sales definitely people can check them out and there's a lot of content on bigger pockets about short sales too so people want to know more there's a ton of articles and stuff on short sales and i'll try to dig some up and put them in the show notes which we've got

a really good one on the short sale process and things like that i even wrote one for you guys a couple weeks ago. Oh, nice. About everything that I look at, the positives, the negatives, what I do, why I like, probably in better words than I could ever talk about since I thought about it for a couple of hours. Perfect. Well, I will link to that in the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 103. But let's shift gears a little bit here and talk about something you mentioned earlier.

Did you just move your hand? I did. I shifted gears. Come on. That was really funny. I think forward F-150. I'm shifting gears. All right.

I want to talk about self-managing. at a distance because you've got you're managing yourself I mean like how many different locations do you have properties at today is just we own in three states right now okay okay so three different areas you've got properties at a distance three different states oh three states so not only areas we got states yeah one in four different areas okay all right so most people would say don't do that I mean I hear that advice all the time on the forums don't do that start in your backyard Josh is one of them he said it last week start in your backyard do you advise you advise you that do you have you found that different i mean kind of what what's your recommendation to people

listening about investing at a distance and trying to manage it yourself so let me let me go back to the very beginning don't not start so you know those are double negative i'm trying to add that up don't not start to start no but you see so many and and i'm an active forum and i'm also very quote unquote abrasive so sorry apologize ahead of time on the forums but I see so many people say, how do you start? I can't start. Well, you can always start. We got into self-managing, not because we wanted to, because we had no options. We bought our primary in Virginia Beach. We had money because we, you know, rent hacked and saved up this money. And then I got an amazing job out of grad school. And we were ready to buy. And I spent weekends looking in Virginia Beach. And we couldn't find anything that made sense. So we went to Charleston for a wedding instead of going to bed early, we started talking with a good friend of ours. And before you knew it, the next weekend, we were up trampsing around Somerville, and we had two offers on houses. So for us, we got started in self-managing because there was no option close. And we wanted to get started, and we wanted to

have options, and we wanted to start growing. And at 23, we were too stupid to not know better. So sometimes too much knowledge is not good. And then I tried, you know, I was working 60 plus hours and I was like, yes, I totally work for a property management who manages over 1,600 units and I know how to read a lease, but I don't want to deal with these people. I'll hire a manager. And then I remember spending all weekend, figuring out four that I like doing my research. This was all before I found bigger pockets. And finally getting a copy of one of their contracts sitting at my desk after a long day reading it and throwing the contract across the room of my floor going, are you serious? I can do this for this amount of money. So I mean, I totally agree with you,

Josh. If you can find something local and you can do it local, go for it. But don't not get involved because local doesn't work. That being said, you know, for any military members or anybody that's transient or anything that you move a lot, guess what? Local is all relative. And we've been local in four different states. So that's been kind of our thing. You know, we got started in Charleston where my husband went to school but never left campus. But since then, we've established our network and then we've left. So, and Google is a fantastic thing as we're having this podcast in three different states, you know? So I just Google. I need a vendor. I Google. Yes, I've totally paid $250 an hour for a handyman because I got stuck. But that was still cheaper

than hiring someone to do it for me. Like my mistake so far have not added up to needing someone to go. And we have a huge, we do have an Oshute account. And that account, you know, the most we've used from it was $650 for a lawyer, which I probably could have done, but didn't want to do it. We used a lawyer. Oh, you lose. Oh, okay.

No, no, no. But you said you could have done it myself, but I didn't want to deal with it. So I hired a lawyer to send out a letter. I got you. I was trying to understand what. No, I don't have a law degree. Just an MBA, which means I'm too knowledgeable in all subjects and get myself in trouble and everything.

Let me ask you about the property types, because this makes a big difference in managing at a difference at a distance, right? Because if you've got a house in Detroit or in, you know, wherever other state that Josh wants to pick on today, Josh. First off, Detroit is not a start. Okay, city, fine, whatever, you know. Okay, we're going to leave it at Detroit. So if you got a house in Detroit that you bought for $12,000 and you're trying to manage that at a distance,

that's probably different than managing a million-dollar house in Beverly Hills. So, I mean, what kind of properties do you have and how does that play into your managing at a distance? We buy the ugliest house, the nicest neighborhood. Okay. Okay. So A-class neighborhoods and D-class property in the A-class neighborhood. Pretty much. I like to call them B.

for my tenants who are listening. So the key that you need to go from buying, and I'm sorry if I'm all over here, is you need to know what it's going to rent and what your purchase prices. So there are so many homes that there's no way in a Class A neighborhood they would ever rent, but it's just looking.

So we tend to buy three-bedroom, two-bath homes because they're the lower end of the neighborhood, about 1,600 square feet, but they rent the most. So you maximize your rent per cost. Cookie cutter, cookie cutter properties. They're new. Oh, so you're looking for new?

I mean, how old? They're usually less than 10. Okay, okay. But that's also our neighborhood. So you need to, like, to everybody out listening, and the biggest thing is real estate is all local. You need to understand your area. So we, living in small town America, which I told you has become our quote unquote specialty, this area they migrate.

So instead of renovating the home or building over or whatever, they leave. So people migrate. The older area, I would not want to walk into at night. So that's the thing to understand. That's why short sales for us work because people have no equity in these houses because these neighborhoods were built in 2006 and 2007. So that's why you have to look at your market to what you do. If we go back to D.C. or my parents, you better believe we'll be buying a 1910 home.

So it's just, it's local. Yeah, makes sense. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. People love to call real estate passive income, which is interesting because most of the investors I know are very busy. Busy finding deals, busy managing teams, busy worrying they pick the wrong market. Rent to retirement flips that model.

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But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you. These co-hosts are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details like messaging guests, creating your host space, and managing reservations. So everything runs smoothly. It's a practical way to earn a little extra money,

maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. All right, so maybe we can dig in the numbers a little bit, Josh. Yeah, no, no, no, I think that's great. Yeah, so, I mean, what, give us,

you know, kind of the typical, you're talking to typical is a three, two, 10 year old house, you know, purchase price, rent price. What are we looking at? Okay. So again, we own in four different areas, three different states. Generic, yeah. Well, so Charleston, South Carolina, I can't do generic. Sorry. Charles and South Carolina. Work with me a little bit. Come on, come on. You're talking to a finance numbers girl. Like, I'm trying. All right, all right. So Charleston was 90K. California is 200K. That's why I can't go general. Okay, so Charleston, you're paying 90K for a property that rents out for $12.50. But my property tax and my insurance are about 4% of that.

California, I'm paying about 160 to $2.15 depending on when it was bought, but I pay 1.3%. So you also have to look at your escrow costs. You're talking about your taxes. What are the rents on those $200,000 houses in California? About 16. 100. Okay. And they're new with no expenses.

Okay. So you're under 1% on those. Are those like, where are those in California? Southern California. Central. Central. Okay. Like Fresno mid mid.

Hanford Lamore. N.S. Lamar. Yeah. So is that like Podunk Washington? Is that kind of what we're talking? So Bremerton, it's that equivalent. Okay.

I got you. Yeah. It's a working class maybe area a little bit. Gotcha. Gotcha. So what about, go ahead. Class A is $200,000. I mean, if you go to D.C., Class A is not $200,000.

Not even close. So that's, I mean, we're able to buy Class A because of the price of Class A. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. So, you don't, I would guess you probably don't get a ton of cash flow to those California properties at least. Am I right there? Or do you guys feel like you still get pretty good cash flow?

So here's the thing that I, that our entire business model is on. And as an MBA, anybody else who has a background in finance accounting understands where I'm coming from, and probably everybody understands what I'm coming from, is we control our cost. So we don't have our property manager, so we don't add that cost in. Because these are in very nice neighborhoods in high transient areas, because we're either military government or other groups that are constantly moving in, there's a lot of demand for these houses and these neighborhoods and people don't buy a lot. So we have no vacancy costs. So now we're just coming down to repair costs. Again, these are 10-year-old homes. There's no.

huge repairs yet and a lot of if there are older homes again great systems ugly home so we've already done the reno so our repairs um per house less than a thousand dollars a year yeah okay so yes we only clear 350 to 400 dollars on the average house but that's all going into the oh shoot account yeah so and you know and i i get that that works for you and and i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm think that's great. That said, let me be the voice of Josh, who I am, and warn anybody listening that this is a very risky way to go about doing things, not counting for management fees, 8 to 10%, 12%, you know, and some of these other costs, which you guys are, you know, having a 10-year-old property absolutely is going to reduce your, your capex and other maintenance expenses. But, you

know, when looking for properties, and I'm talking particularly to new people, I mean, you know, all folks who've been doing this for a while know what they're talking about here. You know, don't ever look at a property and say, hey, because Brandon, we've talked about this many times on the show. You've bought properties consider, you know, that have been so tight with no management. You're, and you've been self-managing and now it's time to get a manager. And now you get the manager on board. And, you know, Whoops, I'm now upside down every month. So it's, and I'm not lecturing you.

No, no, no. There's one piece that I didn't mention in this, and I do apologize. We also heavily leverage, which means we're not, yes, that's bad before you say anything. But that also means. I'm not here to pick on you. What I'm here to do is make sure that anybody listening is, you know, this is a strategy. It works for you. And that's awesome.

And I'm not here to critique it. what I'm here to say is, you know, I want people listening to keep in mind what you're doing and understand that, you know, there is absolutely risk involved in it. Oh, tons of risk. And that particularly for new people, I highly recommend keeping all the other costs that you're saying, you know, we're not going to count this because we don't do it. You got to, you got to consider those in your evaluation of a property. And I know you're doing it.

But I'm saying new people. But when you're considering a $50,000 house that you buy in. Michigan that's making you three, five times meeting all of the rules, you got to also make sure that you're going to have clients in there, that you're not going to charge yourself a thousand dollars every time they turn over and they turn over every three months. And, you know, for us, we tried to meet the 2% rule without knowing, hold on, about no other way. And I'm not even talking about a 2% rule. No, no, no, no. And I'm not here to debate with this is not a debate at all. And I think you've taken, this is very contentious. I don't know why. You're taking this. This is very contentious. I don't know why.

You're taking this like it's a debate. This is not a debate. I agree. I'm not critiquing you. What I'm saying straight up is, folks, when you evaluate a deal, like, don't assume zero vacancy. That's a bad idea. Even if you get zero vacancy, that's great. But don't assume zero vacancy.

You're going to get yourself in Trump. Not you. You might. But like anyone else listening, don't assume a zero percent vacancy. Bad idea. Don't assume 0% cap-x. Don't assume all this other stuff. That's what I'm talking about.

No, and I think that's where we misspoke. And if I misspoke, I'm chief misspoker over here. I don't assume that this doesn't happen. We have found with this level, it happens less. So we're able to do these margins because of what we buy. Now, do not use anything in podcast 103 on a Class D property. Because guess what? It won't work.

This works because we buy a Class A property. Yes. Everything that we do is so tightly in a box. Do not copy 93% of what I say because you won't work out. It's everything leads to everything and that is why we're successful. Sure. And I would actually love to get more. And I mean, because I've seen firsthand what it's like when I have the lower end

properties, the Class C property. I mean, I'm not like complete ghetto, but I got Class C and B minus neighborhoods and properties. We have a lot of repairs, a lot of vacants, well, a lot of turnover. A lot. I mean, our average tenant stays for at most a year. I think we're probably averaging eight months to a year. We have every time there's a turnover, it's a major project because it's expensive to manage

the lower. And so when I think like, you know, 50% rule or all those rules that we have, right, I know that that's true in my properties because I know that it's going to cost me two grand to fix it up. But then I talked to guys, like, we had Philip Taylor on this one, on the podcast back two, three or four weeks ago, whatever it was. And he was on the newbie podcast we did. And he does kind of, I mean, he kind of has what you do, right?

he's, I looked at his numbers. He showed me his last two years of his financials on that property. And he's making way more cash flow on his property than I am, even though his numbers are terrible. I mean, like, compared to what I have, right? Like, it's like, he just doesn't have any vacancy, doesn't have any maintenance, doesn't have any repairs, right? So I get what you're saying completely.

But just look at that because, you know, we looked. Okay, so small town America, what caught started all of this, we looked at buying back there because the numbers make sense. You can buy an $80,000 property, rented it for $1,600. like fantastic. But when I started looking at my taxes and my insurance and the cost down there and that they're older homes and I did a whole spreadsheet, my houses that are at 0.8 looks so much better when you look at the end.

So just look at all of the costs. Like every cost associated with buying local or out of state. Because honestly, this out-of-state manager would invest only local if she could get away with it because there's so many hidden costs that you don't know about. Can I throw something at you really quick on this? Sure. Okay. So right now, you've got these rental properties that are doing really well at 0.8%.

And it makes sense. I get it. You've also said that your kind of goal here, you've talked about 1031s and rolling over to new properties. But you hold on to your property for 30 years. You're going to have those expenses. You're going to have the maintenance expenses. You're going to have all that other stuff. So, you know, in the short term, it's, it's, it's,

great. But what about the long term? Are you looking out 30 years or are you looking out, hey, we're going to own this for five or seven and move on to the next one? I'm just curious about that. Five or seven. Okay. Ten-ish. I mean, again, 1031. So we don't live off for our homes. And at the different summit, I think Brandon, we had all of these conversations because we don't care about cash flow because we care about long-term growth. So every $350 that goes in my pocket, another 250 goes into paying the house off. And for us, I look at that final number. So when you look at our numbers, we make 25 to 45% on the cash we put into the property. And that's all I care about at the end of the day. That's what I look at. Yeah. And I got one more thing to add to that, just on that note,

what you said, you don't live off the cash flow. You're not. So this is where there's a major difference in your strategy versus what I've done up to this point. Right. So I've lived for my first six years, I lived off my cash flow until I got to the point that I could quit my job, and that worked for me. Because of that, I had to buy properties that would cash flow like crazy because I had no other choice. I had no income in my life. My wife was working at Starbucks, and I was doing nothing. I mean, I was flipping houses that didn't really work out very well. And so, because the market's like crashing, right? So like, I want to get into the game that you're playing because I want to see the potential for appreciation. I don't need the cash flow.

today. I need the appreciation that's going to make me a multi-millionaire more than I need to, you know, quit my job or whatever. So it's just kind of go back to, you know, where you are in life. Can you afford to handle? It's, I mean, really go to go back to that appreciation versus cash flow thing. And there's no one right strategy. And there's no one right strategy. Yep. It's just different. And also, by the way, I am the absolute liberals of this team. My husband is very opposite. So unfortunately, you don't have the two sides of this discussion. So he will tell we only buy for cash flow. So there is that side.

What we both have agreed that we will call it is we buy in areas that appreciation and rents are higher than inflation, so that our cash flow is always preserved. And that is our long-term goal. So even if we are stuck, Josh, in this house for 30 years, that it continues to go up. So we aren't doing a pure appreciation play like Southern California might be. But we have seen significant appreciation in our rents over time. So we're okay getting in at 350 because guess what? It went up to 5002 years because we bought an area that we saw depression and that we knew would go back.

So it's kind of understanding your area too. Yeah. And my last question on this line is you had mentioned appreciation and talking about kind of focusing on that somewhat, how does somebody find an area that's predictably going to appreciate? I mean, is it, you know, is your assumption that because it's an A-type property that you're going to get that appreciation, or is there doing, are you doing something specifically in terms of research to find areas that meet certain criteria and what are those criteria? I'm just curious what that is.

So the thing that I've noticed is I have an MBA in my undergradness and finance accounting. So my husband will tell you I think in numbers. So I walk into an area and the first thing I do subconsciously is figure out how awesome are you for investing or do I just blow you off and go drink my coffee? So I look at what kind of, because I look at rentals, not flips. So let me just back up. So I look at who is the employer in town? What type of employees are the employees are these? these employers employing, are they transient, which means there's going to be a need for rentals

or are they not transient? Are these employers growing? Is this considered a little not-so-awson town that people aren't going to want to ever buy in so they're only going to rent? Or is this going to be a town where people are going to fall in love and everybody wants to buy? Because you really have to look at so much more than just the town. And the reason I say that is because I invest in Hanford-Lamore.

If you look at a map, you have to go really close in to find the town. Most people know of Fresno. And you see a lot of debates on the form of investing in Fresno. I personally won't step foot there. And I've looked to quote-unquote diversify. And the reason why is because Fresno doesn't employ a transient group. And I'm not just saying to buying a town that only has military. I'm saying to envive in an area that has transient workers.

We have a lot of federal for the prisons around here. People don't want to live out here forever. I don't know why. No, yes, I do. But so there's a lot of movement. So we have as much civilian as we do military, but they don't want to stay here long term, but they want their kids in really nice neighborhoods.

So these areas are growing, but people don't want to put long-term footholds in it. Does that answer your question? Sure. Yeah, I like it. I think it makes sense. Anyway, I want to move on. So you look at a lot of stuff.

Yes, yeah, I got you. I got you. You mentioned the transient thing. So when I think of that, my first thought is, well, I don't want to rent to an area that has transient people. I want stable that. Right, they're going to stay for 30 years. Why do you look at that differently? Maybe you can kind of dive into that a little bit.

Actually, my long-term tenants, okay, tenants don't listen to this, scare me. Because, sorry, it's the truth. Because my one-year tenants, you talk about large costs to turn a house over. A house turnover, I think the most I've spent is like $400. Turnover costs don't cost anything because after a year you shouldn't be ruining my house and this population doesn't ruin homes. They aren't hard on homes. Long term, when you rent it for three years, then you get too comfy and then so there's your issue.

And the second thing is they don't bother me because they're willing to rent higher income homes. They're here for a purpose. They're going to do their purpose and then they're going to move on. And because we own in an area that there's lots of these people filling their shoes, there's no issues with that. But again, you need to know your area because every area has a natural transient population. People get new jobs. They move out. There's a natural.

So if you are trying to be a landlord in a town, you need to have more demand than supply. And so that's the thing with some of these areas. the rent values are very depressed considering the purchase price. For example, I've looked in Fresno and they, to get their $1,600 a month, you're looking at 320 versus my 210 because there's enough people that already have to move to cover their mortgage that they bought 12 years ago that they will rent it for a much lower price. Okay. I mean, that makes perfect sense.

I guess I never thought about it in that way, but I like it. All right. Now officially we are going to move on to. the it's time for the fire round all right the fire round these questions come straight from the bigger pockets forums we're going to fire them at you are you ready are you nervous are you ready all right all right here we go first one when purchasing a buy-and-hold property what should a person look for other than cash flow and purchasing it under market value what should a person look for besides just the cash flow and the purchase price what should they look for

Okay, so I don't even look at those before I look at this. I look at the neighborhood and the schools. I only buying good schools. Okay, that's good. How do you determine what a good school is? I'll add. I'll look at the great school or whatever the numbers. And most people, because again, I appeal to families.

They want a nine or ten. So if you're not a nine or ten or on like the top one or two, I tend to go two because one's too expensive. But if you're not the top one or two, I don't even touch you. because that goes back to neighborhoods. You're talking about ratings on great schools.com. Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Gotcha. I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, there's a website that will rate schools and basically based upon, you know, presumably schools, better schools are going to be more expensive to live near. And then the other thing, though, is, again, we talk transient population, who is what I appeal to and what we are. So the first thing that I look with no kids is what the school is. Because if I know if I move to a great school area, the likelihood that it's an amazing neighborhood is very, very true.

It's very, very positive and possible. So you find a lot of people that will gauge an area based on the elementary school, specifically elementary school because it's a much smaller region. Interesting. Fascinating. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Well, my question, it's not actually not my questions, somebody else's, but is it a bad idea. to use your own money when doing a buy and hold property when you know as for purchasing a buy and and hold property and this goes back to what we've all discussed repeatedly so my husband and i live off of our salaries not these homes so for us we want our tenants to pay off because in 15 years we want them to purchase it so you will see me as a high advocate for highly leveraged property

if you're going to live off of these you might not want to think about using only someone else's money because you need some skin in the game because you have no fallback. Our fallback is our salaries. Okay. Okay. So for us, we only use other people's money if we can get away with it. Gotcha. Okay. It makes sense. All right. Next question. I'm going to read this straight from the forum because it's kind of a cool question. All right. Do you think that giving away my Porsche is an innovative strategy? And so it says they're thinking about giving away a Porsche as a marketing I just saw this, by the way. Yeah, to find investors. Kind of bizarre, but. Yeah, as a way to, like, I don't know, get people to know the business name, like to get out there and get leads. I think

they have like a we, you know, like I buy houses kind of a company. They're thinking about giving away a Porsche. What are your thoughts? You know, I'm not a wholesaler. I'm a buy and hold girl. For me, that would add no value. That would just cost me money because my people come after my houses. So buying in a great area, spending a little bit more money, not having to add that marketing, just having a good house brings people all in its own. So I mean, I have five or six people fighting over my house every time. So having that expense would add no value for me. Yeah. Gotcha. It did an interesting question anyway. It stood out to me on the forums. I was like, you should ask that to a wholesaler because I would say if you're trying to get leads, that could be a

huge lead generator. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. All right. Final question for me. is open houses. Do you hold them and why or why not? I do not. I do schedule people every 15 minutes. Oh, okay. Yeah. So you don't you don't have people overlap. You kind of break it up. Every 15 minutes, no one runs on time. So it kind of does overlap. But it also, you know, I have found that when you are there to answer questions, you give them undivided attention, you tend to rent your house out quicker. We had an open house situation accidentally because three people should. it all at once and I found it just didn't go as well personally. Makes sense.

Okay. Right on. My last question of the fire round. No, my last question. You already asked it. No, what? What? You asked the first one.

Okay, fine. My last question, I'll give you one more. But I like this question a lot. Where would you invest for long-term buy and hold if you could go anywhere in the U.S.? Assuming your total goal is return on investment. The entire U.S., where would you buy? Hold on, Washington. My backyard.

Return on investment. Yeah, what do you think is the best place you'd like to invest if you could go anywhere in the USA? I won't hold it to it either. Sorry, I'm speechless. That's right. I like Central Cali, but I don't know if that's the best return on investment per se. I will say that whatever answer someone comes up with, make sure you check your escrow costs because we left Somerville, South Carolina, because when we're paying more in our

principal and interest than we are in our mortgage and in our interest in like principal building, it kind of turned me off. So I don't know. Okay. So you don't want to invest anywhere where you're not upside down. Is it good? Yeah. It's a safe bet. It's a good safe bet. You kept an obvious, Josh. apparently. Good.

All right. Fire around last. Do you want to take a last one or you want to move on? It's time for the... Famous Four. All right. Famous Four, these are the questions we ask every guest, every show. You know what's coming, I think.

First question. What is your favorite real estate related book? The Nola series. And I'm probably pronouncing it. The legal series? Yes. I try to read that in every state I go. Fascinating.

Good idea. Good idea. Okay. Josh. Nice, nice, nice. Favorite business book? Same, same term. I use them for both. Fair enough. Fair enough. Nice, nice. Hobbies. What do you do outside of real estate? You left to ski? We actually, the second reason we got into this is you see the question a lot is how do you get a reluctant spouse to participate? And my husband was, I don't want to say bribe because that sounds harsh. But my husband,

got involved because I told him that when he got out of the Navy, we could live on a boat and sail around the world living off the cash flow. So sailing is our second big hobby. I would say it's equal to real estate because mine's real estate, his is sailing. Nice. Nice. Both fun hobbies. I'm glad you actually brought that up.

I had somebody to just today sent me a private message and ask that question. How do you get your spouse on board? And I think that's kind of a cool way to do it is a show like, you know, if we don't do any kind of invest in our life, here's where we're going to be. And if we do this right, here's where we're going to be. you pick you know he's a computer science guy and we actually he actually built a program to prove me wrong and it proves me right but we won't go there um you know the the point was when it reached how much we needed to save per month um by putting it into a 401k or whatever or if we put it into

real estate or whatever you're comfortable with real estate is what i understand and so it's what i can invest in that it would provide that cash flow and honestly to go back to that you know don't pressure people. The big point I hope that you come away from my podcast and even from Josh and our little sparring is that everybody has- I wasn't sparring with anybody. I'm sorry, I'm a redhead. But that we were having our little discussion is that everybody has their own way of doing it. And so for my husband and I, we got started through the baby step. He wasn't comfortable with most of it, but as long as I proved every time that we didn't screw up, he was okay with going forward. And you know, before you know, we went from buying a total fixer-upper to short sales that need no work. And so it makes it

easier on him, who's my fixer-upper guy. So I would just say take a baby steps. Don't tell him you want to buy 30 houses, which I do. Tell him that you want to buy one and then do so well at one that you buy two. And before you know it, he's more of an advocate than you are. And honestly, you know, he is the biggest person in our teamwork, but it didn't start that way. I'm sure people have seen he played Angry Birds the first time we looked at houses. So it's not how it ends up, is not how it starts and be okay with that. It's a transition. I love that advice.

I really like that advice. It's not to overwhelm the spouse with. Here's where we're going to go. We're going to buy 50 houses. Yeah, take it one at a time. I mean, that's a good way to keep it focused in your own head as well. And be okay with them not 100% participating. I mean, my husband still doesn't participate.

I have three POAs that I sign for him because he's gone right now. But the point, though, is don't make it about them, make it about you with their support. I mean, that's the same thing. You asked us our hobby. He's the chief sailor. I just do what I'm told.

And be okay with that. And before you know it, they're going to find out what piece of the puzzle they like to do. My husband loves pulling apart bathrooms and redoing it, and I don't even want to look at plumbing. So be okay with however that works out,

but know that that won't begin that way. Okay. I like it. Great. Just figure out where you, where you kind of fall into place. Cool. All right.

My final question for the day. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who fail, give up, or never get started in the first place? Figure out your business plan. And I know this gets back to businessiness. But like figure out what your goal is. And our goal was early retirement. And from there, we have just plotted towards that goal.

And the second thing is, understand. that life that you will change. So turn lemons into lemonade. We had to hope to spend our entire time investing in the Virginia Beach area. And before you know it, 18 months later, we were transferred. So we have turned every lemonade or every lemon into a lemonade. And California, if we hadn't moved out here, I couldn't tell you to be where we are and we'd be having this discussion on podcasts.

So just keep going and be okay with not being the norm. I mean, we aren't the norm by own any sense of the means and we do okay. So look at what you're given and turn your stuff into that gem. Cool. Cool. That's great advice. Great advice. All right, Elizabeth, where can people find out more about you?

Well, I'm obviously on bigger pockets. And then I started a website to kind of talk about my strategy at reluctant landlord.net. Awesome. Awesome. Cool. All right. Well, listen, thank you so much for being on. We definitely appreciate it.

and lots of luck to you going forward. And thanks for being on the show. Thank you. And I look forward to see everybody on the forums. It's a great area. It's a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you.

Cool. All right. We'll see you there. Bye. Thanks, Elizabeth. All right, guys, that was show 103. I walk away with scratches on my face with a black eye. No, no, it wasn't that bad.

That was fun. It was really fun. I like that a lot. What, do you like me? I like the passion that was in that, right? Like, I love just, I don't know. that's one of my favorite things about real estate is people get so excited and passionate about it. And I love people sharing.

And there's different ways to do things, right? I mean, that's the bottom line here. It's like she's doing something that works absolutely well for her. However, as a outside observer, I sit and I look at it and I say, you know, that's not necessarily something that most people will work for most people. In fact, I think it won't work for a good chunk of people. But because of their circumstance, their situation and their capacity to make, it happen, it's working out. And I applaud her. And I'm really happy that it is working. And I hope it continues to do so. And frankly, if it works for other people, then that's great too. So definitely

thanks to Elizabeth for coming on the show. Cool. Cool. All right. Well, let's take this thing out, I guess. Once again, ratings reviews. If you've not yet left one at iTunes, please do that. And you can check us out, of course, on all the big social networks, Facebook, Twitter, all that good stuff. And jump into BP. I mean, we say it every week, but jump into BP. Ask, ask some questions, answer some questions. Get involved. If you're not yet a pro member, you don't have to be, you know, have done 50 deals or even your first deal. Become a pro member, support Bigger Pockets. And that's it. Josh, want to take us out. Awesome. All right, guys. We'll see you next week. Happy New Year. I'm Josh Dorkin. Signing off.

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