BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 105: From Minimum Wage to Full Time Flipper with Ophelia Nicholson

Episode Date: January 15, 2015

Prepare to be inspired and motivated after listening to today’s episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast! In this program we sit down with Ophelia Nicholson, a house flipper from the Maryland area who got started with real estate while working a minimum wage job. You’ll learn how she broke out of that life and was able to quit her job to become a full time, successful house flipper, working on multiple properties at once! Listen for insightful tips on applying for a loan, learning to be a landlord, partnering with family members and quitting your job for real estate. If you’re wondering whether it’s possible to make your investing dreams come true, don’t miss out on this episode — it’ll give you great insight into how you CAN make it happen! In This Show We Cover: How Ophelia got started investing The story of her “first small house“ How to buy a house on a minimum wage salary Tips on applying for a loan The experience of becoming an accidental landlord What to do if you’re sued by your renter Lessons about starting out as a landlord Ophelia’s on and off relationship with real estate The pros and cons of partnering with family How to put 15 properties under contract in 30 days Quitting your job for real estate Thoughts on women getting into real estate investing Plus MUCH more! Links From the Show: BiggerPockets’ Trivia (email) BP Podcast Show 104 BiggerPocket’s Real Estate Analysis Software BiggerPockets’ List of Hard Money Lenders BiggerPocket’s Flipping Book Books Mentioned in the Show The Book on Flipping Houses: How to Buy, Rehab, and Resell Residential Properties by J. Scott Brandon Turner’s The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone The Trick to Money Is Having Some by Stuart Wilde Connect with Ophelia Ophelia’s BiggerPockets Profile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 105. 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 Pocket. It's podcast here with my co-host, Brandon Turner.

What's up, Brandon? Hey, Josh. How you doing? Hey, how the heck are you? I'm sick again still. I know. You're like, yeah, you need to stop eating organic and start eating just a whole load of crap, man, because it's not helping. I know.

I know. I know I'm like the healthiest eater on planet Earth and I'm like always got a cold. That's okay. I'm going on vacation in a week from now. I'll be in beautiful, sunny Hawaii. Wow. Must be nice. It's going to be amazing.

Yeah. I'm not going to talk to you for a week. You're going to be on what? I don't know what that word is. I don't quite understand it. Yeah, you need to do that sometime. Yeah, I know, I know. All right.

Well, listen, today we've got a really, really cool show. I'm super excited for it. Before we go there, let's do today's quick tip. All right, quick tip. All right. Being that at 2015, Josh and I are actually going to start doing some new ideas with the podcast here at Bigger Pockets. And one of those is a weekly trivia contest. So our quick tip today is try to listen to the podcast.

When it comes out, don't wait weeks and weeks and get behind because you won't be able to get into the trivia stuff. So every week we're to a new contest. So each week we're going to ask all listeners out there to answer a simple question about last week's show and email in your answers to trivia at biggerpockets.com. And you might win the digital and audio version of the book on investing in real estate with no and low money down. Wait a second. Wait a second. Did you pick the prize out? I did pick the prize out. Wow. Yeah. What a shocker. It's a good prize. All right, people love that.

Oh, man. It is a great prize, a great book. People are going to love it. Yes, yes. So if you want to win a copy of that, just answer this trivia question. Just email it into, again, trivia at biggerpockets.com. Here's a question. On last week's show, we interviewed Todd Whitten about scaling up your business

so you can lead a really incredible life. Awesome episode. And on that show, Todd mentioned that he taught business skills to aspiring entrepreneurs in what European country. If you know the answer to that or you want to go back and listen, just send it into trivia at biggerpockets.com and you might win that PDF and audio version of the book on Invest in Real Estate with no and low money down. Awesome. Nice, nice, nice. Good job, man. Nice, nice promo. That was awesome. Thank you. Yeah. All right. With that, why don't we get to the

show? This is show 105. You can find the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 105. And also, if you're one of our listeners and have yet to leave us a rating or review on iTunes, you can do that also via the link on the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 105. And we definitely, definitely appreciate all those ratings and reviews. They help us get the word out. So with that, today's guest is Ophelia Nicholson. Ophelia is an amazing woman. She's funny. She's bold. She is making things happen. And you know what? This is somebody who bought their first house while making minimum wage. I mean, this is somebody who never said, I can't do it.

It's somebody who's been inspirational and inspiring to me. You know, I mean, her story is amazing. It's great. And she's running a successful business currently doing, I believe, six projects, flips right now simultaneously. You got to hear this. Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy,

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show. So Ophelia, welcome to the show. It is very, very good to have you. Thanks, Brandon and Josh. I'm so happy to be here. See, she started with you. Nobody likes. Nobody likes Josh. Waw-wah-w-w-w-w-w. No, we had a good time during the sound check today with Ophelia. This is going to be a fun show. I'm looking forward to this. You have a fascinating story. I mean, like, we have a fascinating story from what I know about. I don't know a ton, but you got started with almost, you weren't making a lot of money. You moved here from out of the country. And 2014 was a great year for you for you from what I've heard.

So, yeah, let's hit all that stuff today, Josh. You want to start us off? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, affiliate. So let's talk about what Brandon just mentioned. So where did you come from and why did you come? And when was it? Let's start there.

It's not going to be a very long story. And start and finish, done. Nice. That was great. Actually, I came from Jamaica in 99. Nice. And I had 400 bucks in my pocket and an eight-month-old baby. Wow.

And I thought I was rich. So I came to the U.S. stayed with my family for a couple years, probably two years. And in 2001, I bought my first house. Okay, so where did you move to? Like, what part of the country was your family? I'm in Maryland. Okay, gotcha.

All right, so you came to Maryland with $400 in your pocket from Jamaica with a baby, $400 bucks in the other hand. It's like $399 more than Josh has in his pocket. I don't have a lot in my pockets at the current, yes. That's right. That's right. All right. Cool. So you came here and you bought your first house and you said 2001? 2001. So two years later. Wow. Two years later. Unbelievable. Okay. And before we even go there, what were you doing at that time? You know, two years later, because this is what's, I think, pretty fascinating. You were working in the real estate business, right? Right. I became a mortgage processor right after I came here. So my very first job, I learned about credit, assets, pretty much every.

and then bought my first house. So what does a mortgage processor do? You send in your application to apply for a mortgage, and we pretty much do everything the loan officer doesn't do. Gotcha. Okay. And so you pretty much handle most of the work to the bulk of the heavy lifting, and the loan officer, I don't know, does the selling

and maybe kind of try the rest of it and gets all the riches. while you guys as a loan processor, I mean, you were making what, like, you know, 150,000, 50,000. What were you making? At the time, I was making 14,000. You were making $14,000 a year as a mortgage processor. Okay. My very first year, I was making 14,000. Okay. And I bought my first house. First off, we're going to get to the house. To anybody in the lending business listening, this is crap.

Absolute crap. The fact that somebody is here processing loans and making 14,000. $13,000 a year is a travesty. It's a complete travesty. It's crazy. That blows my mind that that's even possible. I don't know. I'm just, I'm stuck. I can't say anything. But you have to also look at it. It was my very first year, my very first job. I didn't know much about the business. Right. So I was making minimum wage. Oh, boy. So you, you were making minimum wage. All right. Enough of my rant, rant over. You're making minimum wage. and you bought a house. I thought that wasn't possible. Well, it was possible for me, so it's possible for other people.

All right. So why don't we talk about that? How on earth was that possible? My house was really small. Awesome. Awesome. All right. So you bought a small house, obviously. But, I mean, tell us about this first house. Tell us about kind of how that went down. And if you would be willing to go into some detail, that'd be great. I don't know that I remember a ton of details now. It's been like 14 years, 13, 14 years. But I had great credit at the time because that's all we did every day was credit.

So I had great credit. 14 grand and don't think I had a lot of reserves. First time homebuyer. So I just got a mortgage. Was it like an FHA? Yeah. No, I think back in 2001, I think it was a conventional. My very first mortgage was conventional with PMI.

Okay. Back then, they used to just give mortgage a little more freely than they do today. Right, definitely. So it wasn't as tight as it is now. Right, right. Awesome. Can I ask you this question about that? Do you recommend people today? I mean, like, looking back at your life and your story, do you recommend people going that route?

Like, if you don't make a lot of money, should they buy their first house or why not and when and when not? I think you should. I mean, I think it was definitely education to buy my first house to figure out how I'm going to make that work off of that small. income. And I think if you're responsible, you definitely should buy your first house, even if you don't make a lot of money. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. And, you know, is there a line? As somebody, you know, you bring a unique perspective as a as a loan processor or somebody, I mean, you're not the one who's approving the loans, but you're the one who kind of is looking them over, right? Correct. I'm assuming as that person, you probably

saw somewhat through the funnel, like which ones are better, which ones are worse. I'm sure you've talked to the loan officers and they yelled at you. Stop giving me. these and give me these, that kind of thing. Is that right? Well, I yelled at them. Okay. Yeah. Don't yell at me. No, I yelled at them. I can't believe you would send this stuff, but that was usually, it wasn't necessarily people who had low income, but it was mainly people who had low credit, stuff like that that came through that you're like, I can't believe you would send this to me. Okay. Okay. So for for those people, whether they're investors or just, you know, regular homeowners, I mean, can you, and this wasn't the intents at the show, but since we got you, I figure it would be worth asking. You know,

what does somebody need to have, you know, before they go and apply for that loan? I mean, particularly the need of first-time homebuyers. And let's kind of take a step further and say, regardless of, you know, whether they're, you know, making minimum wage. I think first thing you need to do is make sure you've got decent credit or great credit. And then, you know, And one of the things I find even with flips that I do now is a lot of people don't have money saved. So I would say save some money. And then there are so many first-time home briar programs. There's NACA.

There is, they have a triple play that just came out where you get $20,000 in Maryland. There's so many things to facilitate you buying a home. I don't see why anybody wouldn't. Yeah. Well, and I think you bring up an interesting point. Like those programs, they sound like they're probably Maryland-specific, right? really some of them. I think some of them are Maryland-specific,

but I think some of them are over the country. Sure. So, I mean, I think the interesting thing is like, I don't know, there's so many different loan programs and things that can help you, especially first-town homebuyers, in every state, every city, some specific cities have their own programs as well.

So just something to check into, if you're looking to get in your first house, there's probably a program or two out there that does apply to you. Do you have any good recommendations on how people can find those? I do not at this moment. but I will look it out.

They can ask you. It's all good. Yeah, you're going to start getting lots of questions. Now you get to do research. Now you get another job helping other people find those programs. Good job, Brandon. No, I think that's the truth, though, is they ask you if they're in Maryland. They can send you a private message on bigger pockets and say, hey, I'm looking to buy my first deal.

I know you were in Maryland and you did it. How can I do it? And if they're in Washington, they could private message me and ask me, hey, do you know any good current loan programs in Washington? And it really can be as simple as that. Yeah, for sure. for sure. Well, so this property was intended as your personal residence, correct? Correct. Okay. So how did you transition from that to, hey, you know what, I want to be a real estate investor. I want to start buying some properties, flipping houses, doing whatever it is we're about to learn about you.

And how did all that go down? Now my story gets interesting. Oh. So it wasn't interesting before, by the way. No. Totally boring. So I bought my first house in 2001. And then in 2000, 2002, I was buying my second house. So the very next year, I decided I was going to buy another house, but this time I was going to live in it.

And ended up being an accidental landlord. So some people came to look at my house. They thought my small house was too small. The saw house needed repairs. So I bought it with the intention of renting it to them. And then they sued me for $15,000. Really? Hold on.

I'm confused. So, hold on, let's zip it back a little bit. All right. You're in this little tiny box of the house that you bought in 2001, right? How big was it? How big was that? You know, I still live here. So it is probably about 800 square feet.

It's like a two-bedroom, one bath, and then downstairs is like a living room, kitchen, living room, dining room, and one, and then a kitchen. Okay. So it's not, I've heard of smaller. It's not teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny. I lived in a 450-foot house. Yeah, exactly. Oh, no, you're just showing.

And he's like nine foot two. Yeah, I could lay across the entire house. There you go. All right. So you're in this little house. Again, so the second house, you met somebody who wanted to rent out your house from you? I guess I'm a little confused. Clarify for me a little bit here.

Okay. So I got a real estate agent and he was showing me houses because, of course, at the time I was making more money, thought I'd move to a bigger house. Okay. He had some clients who were looking for a house to rent. Yes. So he thought it would be great idea to show them my house since I was going to be vacating it. The one that you're in right now.

Right. Okay. So they came and saw the small house and they thought it was just too small for them. Okay. So while we were looking for properties for me to live in, I came upon a property. It was 87,000. And they pretty much came over, saw it. I don't know.

Brilliant idea came in my head. hey, what if they came over and they rented it for me for $1,100. So they came over, saw it, liked it. I needed to rehab on it. And that's how it started. Got them under contract to rent it, bought the house, did rehab. And they came and spent one night in the house and sued me for $15,000. So how did they say?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't understand. How is this part? Did it like the paint colors or something? It's very defensive. I'm cutting the story probably a little. bit short. But rehab went on for probably about two and a half months because at the time it was my very first any kind of rehab. So rehab went on for about two and a half months. And they kept

coming to see the rehab. So they were abreast about what was going on, how the property was getting fixed off. And the night before everything was done, the carpets were being put in. And they just called out of the blow, said they had nowhere to stay if I could let them come and stay in the living room. They knew the rest of the house wasn't carpeted, be carpeted next day. And I think there was just, I was just kind. And I was like, okay, sure. Come and stay the night because you have nowhere to stay. And then in the morning we'll get the carpet finished.

And that's just how it happened. Okay. So what was, I mean, what was kind of the lot? What was the grounds for the suit? They took pictures of the house. So that night that they came in with that one room carpeted, they came in, they took pictures of the house. And then tried to play it off that I was a sloth.

Lomelandlord. Interesting. So they're just trying to take advantage of you. So they took you into the house when it wasn't finished, took pictures. And then claim that you were slumlord, putting them in a property that was under terrible conditions. Correct. So the next day I came and finished the carpeting. And then I had another tenant who came and stayed two years.

Didn't do anything else to the property. And she stayed two years. So did you lose that 15th? thousand dollar lawsuit? I lost 3500. The judge awarded them 3500 and it ruined my credit for many, many years. Dang. So what did we learn here?

I mean, obviously this is a show we got lots of people listening. Don't get scared. There's, I think, like enough people to fill a stadium. That's okay. The story gets better in the end. Well, we want to hear that part too. But let's, so, I mean, like, what kind of lesson? If I'm, I'm a brand new landlord and, you know, I come to you and I say, I say, Ophelia, oh my goodness, I heard you got sued by this guy, and it sounds horrible. Like, how do I make sure that doesn't happen to me? I think, first of all, you shouldn't be letting people in your house if it's not completely finished.

That's, you know, that's number one. And then second, you just have to really do your background and make sure the people that are coming to you really aren't just scam artists who just want to take advantage of somebody. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you went through that. And that sounds,

sir. And listen, I mean, let's call a spade of spade. I'm not sorry. You made a mistake. It happened. You didn't know any better.

But now you've learned from it. And now, guess what? You know, 40 plus thousand people are going to learn from your lesson as well. And hopefully, you know, less of those mistakes happen.

And there's, you know, guys who are out there trying to take advantage of new landlords. Hopefully can't get away with it as easily. So, right. I'm not sorry. I think it was great.

Yeah, I would have enjoyed that. Hey, you're going to court tomorrow. Awesome. I can't wait. No, not in that sense. But looking back, I think it was just one of those lessons that I needed to learn. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think every one of those things just kind of makes you a better investor later on. Right. Kind of helps to know. So, okay, so you said that story became better, I guess, like it has a good ending. So what happened with that deal? Oh, not with that deal. I just mean my story.

Your story. Okay. Okay. Well, let's go on to that then. Let's keep talking about how her life went downhill and downhill and downhill. And then we're going to go. Awesome. That was great. Thank you so much. All right, cool. So you became an accident on a landlord. You ended up with that property. You kept the next tenants for two years. You know, you shook it off, it sounds like, and said, hey, I'm going to keep going. What did you end up doing next after that? So the next year, I bought another house. Okay. So by this time, three houses. So by the time we end up going to court for the 15,000, I had three houses. But that court case messed up.

as far as my credit for probably about seven years. And I did dumb stuff. At one point, I was losing all three houses. So right around 2005, 2006, I ended up selling the other two houses and just moving back to my small house. So I was out of real estate for probably about four years. And why did you lose those houses? What happened? I did dumb stuff. You're on with Josh and Brandon, man. We've admitted to countless dumb things. It's time for you to open up. What dumb things, you know, if anyone in real estate can say that they haven't made a stupid mistake, they're lying to you.

So what dumb stuff did you do here? Hopefully you want to talk about it. I'm going to pressure you until you do. No, that's fine. I quit my job and I was pregnant and quit my job. That was dumb. Yes, I know. All right, so you quit your job because you wanted to become a full-time real estate person?

No, I quit my job because I thought, hey, I can process mortgages by myself. I can open a processing company. Oh. Yeah, that didn't work out so well. Okay, okay. Gotcha. Okay, so I'm sure the market collapsing didn't help too in there. Was that involved in that?

Actually, no. I missed the market collapse. Okay. I was out of real estate before the market collapse. So by 2005, 2006, I had seen. sold. One property made 86,000. Sold another property made 87,000. So I was totally out.

Was the next one 88,000? No, the next one, the really small house, I'm still in it. Okay. All right. I'm just messing with it. All right. So, you know, you kind of sat out the decline, which is great probably that you, you know, missed out on that. And then you got back into real estate at some point. Can you kind of tell us that story of how did you get back into the real estate investing game? Okay. So right around 2010.

I thought, okay, I've been out for long enough. And I started to think, you know, what has made me money in my life? So it was real estate. So I thought, okay, well, you know, maybe it's time for me to start and buy another rental property. So in 2010, I was looking for a rental property. And while I was looking, I noticed that there were people buying houses for 40, 50,000, fixing them up. And they were reselling them for 100, 150. And I thought, oh, my God, that's awesome.

Why didn't I think of that? So I bought my first rental property, and then my uncle was a general contractor. Okay. So I thought, hey, I have the mortgage background, and I know how to do FHA, VAs, and all this loans. And he has the construction background. So it would be really great if we teamed up and did flips. Okay. Okay.

Is that what you did? And that's what we did. In 2000, well, it took me about six months to convince him. So we did our first flip in 2011. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you decided against the buying hold and now you're going straight into flips, yeah? Right.

Okay, cool. So 2011, what does that first flip look like? That first flip is down to studs. Okay. And replace everything on that house except the roof. Wow. And what did you pay for it? How much did it cost you? What'd you walk away for? And how long did it take? All right. So the very first flip, at the time, I didn't know anything about hard money. I didn't know anything about private money. So we put together the cash. We bought it for $62.9. We paid $70,000 in rehab and we sold it for $191.50. $140. It's not bad.

We made some good money. Yeah. Yeah, we made decent money for that first year. And where is this located? This is in Maryland. I didn't know they had cheaper prices like that there. I mean, I have no way to the market there, but I would assume that was like, you know, New York or something with, you know, 500,000 for a 800 square foot house. not like that. No. In D.C.

it is, but I'm in Prince Rogers County, Maryland. Okay. Is that a little more rural than the rest? I wouldn't say it's rural. It's probably about 10 minutes outside of D.C. Okay. So 10 minutes outside of the capital of the greatest country on planet Earth, you could find a house for $50,000,

which proves that there's pretty much no location on planet earth where you can't live and find a reasonably priced property to fix, flip, buy and hold, you name it, within an hour or two. I mean, it just proves it again. Right. Well, what are the neighborhoods? I mean, what is this? Is this like, I don't know, how bad is this? I mean, is this a bad neighborhood, a good neighborhood? Is it, I don't know, ghetto, is that the right? Like, I don't know. I don't know that area at all.

Actually, it was a very decent neighborhood. And we already had, that was the neighborhood that I had had a primary residence in. I'd had a couple rentals in. My uncle had a couple rentals in. So it was somewhere we were familiar with. That's great. Which is another great tip, by the way. Like, make sure, invest where you're now, right? Right. Flipping in my own backyard. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's a good, that's a good title. It's a title for a lot. Maybe I'll do that. Yeah. Anyway. So how long did it take that, that actual flip? What was, you know, open to close? That flip took a very long time. We started it. When do we start it? We started it January. I think we didn't have it on the market

until August. Okay. It sold right away. We had multiple offers in the first three days, and it sold within a month. It was sold probably by September. Okay. And when you gave those, that 70,000 or so in rehab, is that also your holding costs and cost of money and everything else? Or was that just the materials and labor? Well, we didn't have any holding costs because we had bought a cash. Oh, you guys pay a cash. Okay. Yeah. So what happened was my uncle came up with 20,000. I came up with 20,000. And I was engaged at the time. And he came up with 20,000. And we kind of put it together. And then we funded the rehab. Everybody should not do this. We funded the rehab with credit cards and just getting paid and using that money. But you should not do that. Why not? That's actually one of the questions I had in the fire round question, the section below. So let's hit that now. Yeah, credit cards. Let's talk about them. I don't, I mean, if you have the money that you're getting continual income to be able to pay for it, it's one thing. But if you're just doing it on the whim that, okay, it's going to sell and I'm going to be able to pay it off. I don't think that's a great idea.

Yeah, I did that once. It wasn't. It was that house. Yeah. It's the house. I've told that story a bunch of times, but it's the house that I bought and I took me two years, like from beginning to end, took two years to buy, fix up, sell. And in that process, I used a lot of the repairs. I used a credit card for.

So, yeah, that was a... How did that work out for you? I broke even at the end of two solid years, including a year of actual physical labor on that house. I lost out on a whole year of my life. I mean, I learned a lot of cool stuff. I learned how to build a staircase. That was cool.

Nice. How many people can say they can build a staircase? How many people have fallen through those stairs since the construction of said staircase? That was the best looking staircase. I'm going to find a picture. I'm going to put it in this show notes at BiggerPockets.com slash show 105. I think you're right. I think it probably was the best looking staircase. It was the best looking staircase.

Wow. When I dropped my price, $50,000 to unload that house, I'm sure I felt pretty good about it then too. All right. Anyway. All right, affiliate. So you closed your first flip successfully. You blew everybody away with it, right? That's awesome. Then things really started to heat up. And I know last year you just kicked backside. So why do you think 2014 was so great for you? And tell us about it. Tell us what happened in 14.

How many deals did you do? In 2014, I sold seven, but I carried over six to the new year. Okay. The new year 15 or New Year 14? It doesn't really matter. New Year 15. Okay. Okay.

So I still had six in my inventory coming into the new year. Sure. Okay. But the last couple of years have been super powerful for you. from what it sounds like. Well, what happened it was in 2013, I kind of ended the partnership with my uncle and went off on my own. Okay.

We were doing flips, but we were doing one here. You didn't put like a cow's head in your bed or anything, did he? No. Godfather's style. Yeah. I think that's Italian. We're Jamaican. What do you guys do?

We probably put some food in. I woke up in a bed of plantains. What? Exactly. Oh, man, you pissed somebody off. Some curry chicken. Jamirkin patties and things like that. All right.

Probably some curry or jerk chicken on the bed. Nice. Exactly. Oh, man. Scary stuff. All right, so you separated from you? Okay. Why did you separate from him really quick?

I'm just curious on that. We were doing one flip a year. And I thought we had a really great product. Every flip we put on the market. The very last one we did, it was on the market five days. and we had five offers. So for every day it was on the market, we had an offer. So I thought we had a really great product.

But our timelines were just too long. We were holding houses for eight months at the time. We were taking six months just to do the rehab. He had quit his job, and the company was now paying for him to be self-employed, but the rehabs weren't getting any faster. And it was just overall, I just felt like it was a bad partnership. Okay. Okay.

Was that, let me, can I ask you like, I mean, I don't know if he's going to ever listen to this. I don't want to make awkward anything about it. But like, what's that awkward? Okay. What did she say? I miss it. He knows the truth.

I wonder, like, is it awkward now? I mean, like, because working with family and friends, it's one of the downsides of doing it, is that after the deal is done, if things don't go right, family and working with family and friends can be awkward. Like, is that awkward for you guys now? No, no, he still calls me and be like, oh, I'm doing one flip a year. Can you come and buy my lights or. pick out this or pick out that and I go do it. But when it first happened, it was really horrible. Okay.

It was one of those where, you know, everybody starts thinking they're getting robbed. Everybody wants you to now pull out the books and show where all the money went. So it was really bad when it first happened. Well, I'm glad it worked out. And, you know, that's, you know, I don't know. I'm always of the family and friends first and then, you know, worry about business later. I try not to get into business with, with, with my relatives because of out of fear of that.

I mean, I, you know, it's scary, but I'm glad, I'm glad things have improved for you guys. So, so things picked up. I mean, did you get a new partner? Did you continue at it on your own? Or you've just been just kind of plugging away now? What's, what's the deal? Okay. So now it comes where I quit my job the second time.

So like I said, in 2013, I separated from my uncle. and then I made a goal. So my goal was I was going to quit my job in three months and be a full-time investor. So a month passed, nothing was happening. I wasn't getting anything done. Nothing had changed. And then I said, okay, well, I need a new goal. So my new goal was, in 30 days, I'm going to quit my job and be a full-time investor.

So what I needed to do to get that done was get 15 houses under contract. So probably about two weeks later, I'd gotten 15 houses under contract. and my job was making me sick and gave my resignation and went out on my own. And then once there, I was like, okay, I'm on my own. I need to really make things happen now. So you've got to explain this to me. Up until this point, how many real estate deals had you done? Up until this point, I had done my three that were, you know, me buying them my two rentals.

Then my uncle and I, we did three. And then I had done my one rental property. So up until this point, I had done seven total. You've done seven deals. Seven at that time. You're now saying to yourself, hey, I need 15 under contract. Right, which is really scary. And in which, what time period did you do that?

That was 30 days. In 30 days, you put 15, I'm not judging you. I'm just trying to understand this. You put 15 properties under contract to purchase. In 30 days, yeah. And 30 days. Now, you got to tell me, A, you know, you got a big set of brass ones, by the way. Holy Moses. I don't know if that works with a female, but, you know, wow. I mean, that's, that's bold. That's really, I mean, that's bold. Go big or go home, right? Yeah, you went big.

What did you do with those 15 properties and over what period of, you know, let's, we got to hear what What's happened? I mean, did you wholesale or did you flip them all? Are you holding them? How did you know, knock a man? Okay. I did not buy all 15. Okay. So that, I have to clarify, I didn't buy all 15. I did get them under contract, but I didn't buy all 15. Okay. Because of course, once you're out on your own, then you start wondering, okay, do I have enough money to buy all of this stuff? Yeah. So some of them I bought by myself. And then one of them, I eventually was like, okay, I want to buy

this. I don't have enough cash and I eventually went back to my uncle and said, hey, what are you doing? Do you want to come and enjoy adventure with me on this one particular property? So that's how we got back talking. Okay. Okay. And so did he end up coming in? He did. He did end up coming in. Oh, see, don't ever destroy a relationship, right? Yeah. So he did end up coming in and we did do that one together. Gotcha. Which was still a bad idea. Oh, man. Come on. This poor uncle is just getting dragged. No, he's not. I mean, yeah. Don't listen to this. Yeah, yeah. Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy, and one of these smartest ways to protect and even improve your property's cash flow. As the

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And so you went back to work again. And then you quit your job a second time. Do you, I'm assuming the second time worked out a lot better, I would assume. I guess can you kind of talk about that? Like when should somebody who's listening to this show, when should they quit their job? Like, I mean, at what point? Like, why do you think the second time was successful the first time wasn't?

What differentiated those two? Well, the second time I had money. Okay. That's a good answer. That's a really good answer. So I had money to be able to buy my deals, but I also had money to be able to live. You know, I could live for a year if things didn't work out.

Yep. So I think that was the difference. The first time I was just quitting because I can do this by myself and I really hadn't given it much thought. But the second time I was more prepared. I knew, okay, I'm going to need X amount of money. The first house is probably not going to sell for the first three or four months. So I'm going to be able to – I need to be able to survive. I need to be able to fund the flip.

I need to be able to buy other stuff. So I had – I had money. Okay. And I think that's smart. I think – yeah, I think too many people quit their job too early. I mean, I'm all four quitting your job. Like, I love that idea. But, you know, obviously you have to have a plan behind that.

And, you know, usually money is a good part of that. I quit my job, like, what, three times in my life now, like where I've said, I'm never having one again. And each time I went back for some reason, like flipping didn't work out or whatever. And I don't know. Yeah, I just think that's cool that you. I think that's cool that you did that. And I think it's cool. You had both the first experience on the second to kind of compare and contrast that.

So, very cool. Okay. Quit your job, flipping houses. How many have you done now in the last couple years since then? Since leaving my uncle, like I said, I came into the new year with six. So right now I'm doing six rehabs. At the same time. Right, at the same time.

And then I sold seven last year. And then my plan through the end of the year, I know this is crazy, but my plan through the end of the year is to do 30. That's great. And I love that you're setting big goals, right? Like we've talked about that before. And there's a book I read called 10x by Grant Cardone. It's all about that, right? You set big, huge goals for yourself.

I want to do one flip next year. Right. You know, you set big goals. So, I mean, that's awesome. She's not only setting big goals, but she's taking big steps to do it, which is the key to setting big goals. Yeah. Big goals are useless if you don't take the steps to do that.

So how are you having six properties at once? I mean, you know, you've experienced, you know, you're like... On your tool belt. Well, I was going to say, you're like a baby who decides she's going to run a marathon. Like, hey, I just started walking. I'm going to run a marathon. marathon tomorrow. Cool. You do it, baby. I mean, how are you rehabbing six properties at once? I am actually, I don't know, I guess it's called a one-woman shop. So I am the realtor,

the stager, the designer, and the project manager. Wow. Do you have six crews? Are you using one crew? How are you doing the rehab? No. There are three different sets of crews running right now. and one of them's even rehabbing a friend of mine Derek's property. And then we go in and out. There's one property that there's an addition being put on on the back. So there will be a drywall crew that comes in, plumbers, like different, different subs that come in. And two questions for you. How are you finding the contractors you're dealing with?

And then secondly, how are you financing all this stuff? Well, financing hard money at the moment. Okay. And contractors just through referrals. and I just basically have to sit on everybody. Nice. Let's talk about that. I mean, what do you mean by sit on everybody?

Sit on everyone? Yeah, what do you mean about that? Well, like I said, one of the problems that I had with my uncle, I don't mean physically sit on them. Yeah, yeah, I got you. She's coming. Hold her down. One of the problems that I had with my uncle was the fact that the rehabs were just taking so long.

So I thought, okay, I'm looking on the MLS and there are people who are doing rehabs in 30 days. Why can't I do rehabs in 30 days? So that was the first mark, you know, getting rehabs done in that 30-day timeline. So sitting on them basically just means I know usually by the day that I buy, I have dumpsters delivered. I have plumbers getting ready to come in. I've got electrician ready to come in. Demos getting started. So just making sure everything's ordered in the timeline.

You're not messing around. Okay. And again, I'm going to go back to the six really quick on this. How you've got six going. You said you have three crews in, which means three of your properties aren't being touched, which is, you know, money out of your pocket, money in the pocket of the hard money lender, right? So time is money. In retrospect, are you scaled well enough to be doing six properties at this point? Or, you know, do you still, and I'm not trying to, you know, make you look. look or feel or anything bad. I'm just wondering like, hey, seeing that there's three properties that are sitting there, I bet you're like, you know, just clenching your teeth and saying, ah, I want this done. I want it done. You know, so. Well, I am and I'm not all in the same breath because when I made those, that goal for 30 properties, I thought to myself, you know, when I'm doing, you know, seven, it's easy to do one rehab and not have anything sit. But in order to do a 30, you're going to have stuff that's going to sit

and you're just going to have to be okay with that. But if the rehab is in, you know, 30 days, then one house is not going to be sitting more than, you know, 30 days. Yeah. I mean, you could get more. You could get more crews, but I guess then there's that now you're managing, you know, additional crews, managing all these extra people

and it gets a lot more complicated, I'm assuming. Definitely. Yeah. You know, right now it's kind of hard to go, okay, I need three different sets of windows. I need three different sets of cab. It's any, you know, just juggling everything. Yeah.

So you mentioned hard money. For those people who don't know what that is can kind of explain that and maybe share how you found the hard money lender. I actually found my hard money lender through Derek, who I met on Bigger Pockets. Oh, nice. Nice. So see, bigger pockets has been awesome. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And what does that mean?

What is a hard money lender do? He pretty much lends me the money at very expensive costs. to buy the house. Nice. Yeah. And how does that, I mean, what kind of rate? Do you mind me? I don't know if you can even share this like.

No, that's fine. But what kind of rates and fees do you pay for hard money? Right now my hard money lender is giving me 70% ARV. And he's doing four and a half percent up front and 14.5% interest only every month. Okay. Yeah. And people who don't know what hard money is are probably like shocked right now and probably just picked their job off the floor.

But those are fairly normal. rates for hard money, which people can learn more about if they pick up my book. So, really? Now you know I brought the hard money question. Ouch. I'm not even going to give the link. That way it's not a shameless plug, right? Well, you can shamelessly plug.

That's okay. No, go ahead. Go ahead. So the hard money. It's really hard. Like, come February 1st, I think, like I have a $13,000 payment due February 1st. Yeah. So what are the dangers of using hard money?

Just basically not having enough money. So if you don't have enough money to do rehabs, if you don't have enough money to make the payments, to pay for the electricity, just to keep everything going. Yeah. And the rates are high. But here's the reason people do hard money, right? I mean, hard money lenders understand the business, right? Right. They can look at a property.

They can evaluate it. Presumably you're doing that work and you're showing to them. And they're saying, oh, yeah, this makes sense. You know, they know the cost to fix it up. And, you know, they're applying their money and they're taking a big gamble on somebody that they're going to actually be able to get their money back out, right? Definitely. Definitely. I think one thing that I have used to try to make hard money feel a little bit less expensive is my rehabs are quick and I'm in and out of the property really quick. And that's key. That is key. Yeah, that is definitely key. So like now I'm on, I think I'm probably around a four-month timeline to be in and have it sold.

Yeah. Nice. Yeah, the property. I mentioned earlier, the one I held for two years. That was hard money the entire time. Oh, wow. Imagine, yeah, hard money. We were paying 12% at the time, 12% for two years on a $90,000 loan. That is a lot of interest here. So, I mean, that's why I didn't make money on that deal. Had I had all cash, it would have been fine. But, okay, so, you know, we talked about hard money, like why, you know, it can be dangerous and all that. But obviously, the good side of hard money, of course, is that it's quick, it's easy. And you can just factor those numbers into your math when you do the,

when you do the math. And if it works, it works. It works. It works. Yeah, yeah. So I will take this moment to plug something else, not for me, but for Josh here. We have a BiggerPockets House flipping calculator that a lot of people use already, but for those people who are not already using it, check it out at biggerpockets.com slash analysis. Biggerpockets.com slash analysis. And we actually have in there, you can actually type in the hard money rate, the fee and all that and plug it into your calculation. And if you can come up with a good deal, including those costs in there, you know, it's a good way to feel confident about your flipping by including those numbers in there. And I have used that calculator and it's really awesome. Nice. Nice.

Thank you. Yeah. I mean, listen, I mean, for this calculator aside, you know, and this goes with everything. I think one of the most important things when it comes to a real estate deal is understanding the costs up front. I think where novices get it wrong is they always, always, always underestimate their costs. And even pros, even guys have been doing this a long time underestimate costs. It's really easy for rehab to go over schedule, to, you know, budget to go much bigger. And I have a story about that.

And I want to hear it. But really quick, and if you're doing this stuff, guys, like, definitely, like, don't ever, you know, say you're doing a buy and hold property and you're trying to evaluate a buy and hold property. And you're like, I'm going to manage it. So I'm going to just not include the management costs so it looks better. Like, don't do that. Put the management cost in because, you know, in the end, if that deal works, it's going

to be a much better deal than a deal that had you left out a couple of costs just to kind of make it work because you really are emotionally attached to that thing. I think that was a very good point. Thank you. Because you do have a lot of people who they just try to cut everything like, oh, I'm not going to have a ton of holding cost. Oh, I'm only going to hold it for four months. And then seven months later, they're still holding the property. Well, that was my one good point for the week.

So, yeah. Good job. Yeah. All right. You had a story. Let's hear that. And then we're actually going to probably move on to our fire round. I have a story that I posted on the forum about going $70,000 or $1,000.

budget? 70,000? That's it. I didn't read that forum thread. Tell me about that. Oh, you didn't? No.

Tell me about this. I mean, we had like 1,700 forum posts on Thursday, so, you know, if you, then to now, yeah, Brandon reads them all. No.

No. Okay, so 70,000 over budget, though. I mean, that's, that's a lot. I mean, that's more than, I was only like 50 over budget on my biggest. How'd you go 70? How'd you go 70 over?

I, got a really bad quote from a contractor. I trusted him and it was a historic house. I didn't realize at the time that historic houses you needed to go do full electric, full HVAC, full plumbing, and just everything that came with historic houses. So, yep, then those numbers just kept racking up. Well, explain really quickly for those people who don't understand what is a historic house? And like what's the difference between that and like a house that, I don't know, I see a house built in the 50s.

Is that a historic house or a house built in the 20? Is it a timeline or is it just, you know, a special property? What makes a difference? I think it's just anything that's, it was in a historic neighborhood. But it's just anything, you know, 1920s, 1900s, 1950s does not come. That's not historic. So 100 years old, over 100 years old, you know, 80, 90 years old. just older houses that have

knob and tube they've just been around knob and tube electric and just galvanized pipes just old houses yeah

yeah and you know just from my experience like work I mean almost every flip I've done has been old house it's been a hundred years old

or so right there are so many things that can go wrong I'm not saying people shouldn't do them I love them but there are a lot of things

that you just never will see until you open up a wall wall or until you pull something. So they're also added risks to doing those. Maybe you can speak to that for a second. Like one of the things that older houses have is they don't have a lot of insulation. Like their outside walls aren't really insulated.

So, you know, once you open those walls, the walls are made of plaster. So once you open those walls, then you've got this heavy plaster, no insulation. And then, you know, once the county comes in for permits, it's just you need permits for everything. I hear Maryland's pretty crazy about that. Yeah, so those calls just kind of start running up. Gotcha. Okay, okay, cool. Well, listen, I think your story's been very interesting and we're cheering for you

and definitely want to hear if you hit the 30 at the end of the year. Yeah, you can come back here on the podcast and tell us about your 30 at the end of the year. I'm going to hit it just so I can come back. Good. You know, do it well. Make sure you do it, but do it well. I got 30 flips. I lost money on everything.

Yeah, we're going to beat you up on that. $200,000 that cost me just to get on a second show. No, because, you know, I'm a woman. We do really nice rehabs. That is true. I let my wife do all the looks part of our rehabs. Let's talk about that really fast. I wanted to go to the fire round, but I want to talk about that.

You know, I don't know. How many female rehabbers have we spoken to, Brandon, in the 100-plus shows? Not that many. Not that many. Why are more women not rehabbing house? I don't know the answer for that. I think it's like a male-dominated field. Yeah. So I really don't know the answer where more females are. But we do really great houses. I mean, lighting is beautiful. We know exactly what the buyers want. And I just think overall, we do really nice houses. Well, who are the buyers on houses? It's women. Guys don't buy. We don't buy houses. I mean, I have no say whatsoever in my next house purchase. You know, yeah, it's great. Honey, what do you think? Right?

Exactly. Yeah. So that's, well, I mean, you know, why don't you, I'm going to give you an opportunity to kind of like plea to the women out there to get in, you know, get out there and do this stuff. Because, you know, I think a lot of women think, hey, this is, I can't do this. That's not true. Right. If you're a woman and you want to flip, I think you should go for it. And if you're local, give me a call.

Nice. Nice. That was very inspiring. That was inspiring. I'm inspired. I'm inspired. And I'm not even a woman. I'm inspired.

All right. All right. Moving on. I hear the sound effects coming in. It's time for the fire round. All right. This is the fire round. These questions all come straight out of the bigger pockets forums, which our listeners can interact on at biggerpockets.com slash forums.

And I know Ophelia is in there. That's how I found Ophelia for the show is you were helping people out in there. So let's let you help out some more people answering their questions. Number one of the fire round. Let's see, what do you do when you're selling your fix and flip on the retail end? Do you sell it on your own or do you use a realtor? And you said earlier you're your own realtor. Does that mean you actually have your license?

I do. I got my license in January of last year. Okay. So you actually sell them yourself. You put them on the MLS. I put them on the MLS. And honestly, that's all I do with my houses. I don't do any kind of advertising anywhere else.

I just put them on MLS and that's where 95% of the buyers are. And you're selling those in days? In days. I get multiple offers. That's great. That's great. All right. So question two, where do you find your deals?

Where do you find great deals to flay a buy and hold back in the day? But, you know, yeah, where are you finding these properties? I am actually finding my properties on MLS. Also on the MLS, okay. For those people who say you can't do it, it can't be done? Well, that's just not true. Okay. That's not true.

Maybe I can expand on that real quick. Do you have any tips for people for finding good deals on the MLS? What are her criteria maybe? I think you just have to keep. scrubbing it. I like stuff that's been sitting for a long time. I don't go after brand new listings. I go after stuff that's been sitting. And sometimes what they're asking for it is not what I'm willing to offer. And I just send out the offer anyway. I think you should just go ahead and send out the offer even if you think they won't accept it. Yeah. That's terrific advice. Yeah.

I mean, there's been a number of times where, yeah, I made an offer like, ah, what the heck, I'll just get the offer anyway. And then they accept it. And I'm always like, I'm going to, yeah, I'm like, I should offer lower. Oh, man. Exactly. It always happens. I just got one where I offered $80,000 lower and I was just amazed that they said yes. Yeah. How much was it listed for? It was listed for 230 and I offered $1.45 and they came back and said, we'll take $150. Wow.

Well done. Nicely done. That's great. And how long had that been on the market? I'm just curious. Probably about 68 days. Okay. Okay.

Interesting. So it wasn't that long. Yeah. That's great. Let's see. Do you have any recommendations for good software programs or? any other way that you manage all of your projects? Because having a lot of stuff going on at once,

seems like it would take some kind of management. Actually, right now I'm just really doing Excel, Microsoft Word, and Excel. There's really no special software that I'm using right now. Okay. Well, there you go. It works. You don't have to get any big fancy software to make it happen. That's great.

That's great. All right. Last question. I am new to rehabbing. Where is the best place for me to find funding for my first deal? I think if you're very new, you have none of your own funds or very little of your own funds. I think you just look it up. Go on Google, search up, hard money in your particular area, and just call them all and see what they have to offer.

Nice. And since you said hard money, we do have a directory on Bigger Pockets. I don't know, we have like 3 or 400 hard money lenders around the country. It's BiggerPockets.com slash hard money lenders. and folks can go there and do exactly what Aphelia said, you know, call up, you know, a bunch of these folks in your area and see who might be willing to work with you and who you would want to work with as well.

Obviously, it's a two-way street. Don't just take the first lender who's willing to work with you and make sure you do your due diligence. Right. And I think I have met a couple of hard money lenders who are actually on bigger pockets. So if you just go through the forums, you can find hard money lenders who are on bigger pockets.

There you go. Cool. Nice. Very cool. Great. Perfect. I love it. All right, moving on. Let's end this thing with our world famous.

Famous for. All right, these questions are the same ones we ask every week, so I'm sure you've heard them before, but I'm going to throw them at you right now. Number one, what is your favorite real estate book? The flipping book by Jay Scott. Okay. Bam. Flipping houses by Jay Scott.

I love it. There you go. You can find that a bigger pockets.com slash flipping book. It is available. And it is a really good book. So, you know, not as good as other people. Okay. If you tell me the name of your book, I'll say that instead.

Oh, my goodness. Admit it, Jay Scott paid you to say his book. Oh, stop. I knew it. I don't even think he knows who I am. He's a Maryland guy. He's a Maryland guy. He'll know who he does.

But I don't think he knows who I am. I'm probably too much of a small fry. No, nobody's too small. Well, that's the cool thing about the real estate investing space. You know, there's nobody that's too small. Like, if you have that attitude that, hey, this person's too small. small, you're not going to be successful because, you know, we all help each other out, which is the greatest thing about this business, you know, and particularly, I will plug

bigger pockets, particularly why bigger pockets is so cool is like, you know, some guy who's done three, four flips can help the guy who's done 50, you know? Right. So, you know, we're all, we're all on an equal footing, I think. Just throw in here, I mean, I feel you, I mean, I like to just thank people publicly on the podcast for you're helping out people. I mean, I see it all the time. You're just offering advice and stuff. So thank you. I mean, people appreciate that. Well, thanks. Yeah.

I appreciate being on bigger pockets. Yay. All right. What's your favorite business book? The trick to money is having some. Is that the name of a book or are you just giving me a quote? No, no, no, no, no, no. That's really the name of the book.

The trick to money is having some. Who wrote that book? Do you know? I think it's Jay Scott Wild. Jay Wild or I don't remember. Was that Jay Scott's like Evil Cousin? It may have been. And why that book?

No, I think it's Jay Stewart Wild. Jay Stewart Wild. What was special about it? Yeah. I think it just talks about really the way you think. I think one of the things that I like about it is says making money is like as easy as cake, chocolate cake. So you just have to have something great that people want. And once they show up, you build them for it.

Nice. And then you eat the chocolate cake. And then you eat the chocolate cake. cake. Nice. All right, Aphelia, you've got a little baby that's not a baby anymore. What do you do for fun besides, you know, hanging out with this child or I'm, or children. Children. Yeah, there you go. I sleep. I sleep for fun. Oh, man. We got, we got to work on that, Ophelia. There's got to be something else out there for you. Actually, I think I'm a little bit of a workaholic. So I'll tell the kids, okay, we are going to go to the movies. So we're going to go to the movies. So we're going to go to the movie. he's in Waldorf maybe. And then one way there, I'll be like, but I have to stop and look at this house. Oh, man. That's awesome.

That's awesome. I will say I was house shopping over the weekend with my family and I brought my kids and we'd never, were like, oh, this is going to be a bad idea. And it was fun. It was kind of a cool, like, family project. I mean, the kids were thrown out their feedback. It was, it was interesting. No, I think my kids know me now.

So they kind of go, are we going straight there? Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad they know you now. Exactly. Not before, just now. Right. All right. My final question of the day, this has been a lot of fun, but my final question for the day is, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? I think it's about focus. I know a lot of people say it, but I think it's really about focused. You can't be, I'm going to be about real estate. And then I'm going to open a car wash. And then I'm going to open a eviction service. And then I'm going to open, you know, 50 million business.

I think it's about people who are just very focused about getting one particular thing done. Yeah, I see that all the time. People are excited about real estate and then they're excited about Internet marketing and then they're excited about, you know, Tupperware selling that door to door or whatever. You know, like, I mean, the truth is there are so many ways to make money in today's world. I mean, just so many ways. Like, making money is not that difficult. Right.

But it is difficult when you can't focus on anything because you just pick a new one because it sounds better. grass is always greener. So I think that's terrific advice. And you don't let one thing work out long enough. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Nice. All right. My last question, Aphelia, besides Bigger Pockets, where can people find out more about you? Well, on Bigger Pockets

is my profile and my phone number and email are in my profile and they can call me. Do you have a website or? I do not. I'm not really much on social media. So you really have to join Bigger Pockets and look up my profile and email or call me.

Awesome. And I will link to that in the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 105. Ophelia, it has been a pleasure. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you for coming on and thanks for being a part of our world. Well, thanks so much for having me. And I don't think there are any plantins in my bed, but thanks. Look out.

The uncle's coming to find you. Exactly. All right. Thanks, I'll see you on the site. All right, bye. All right, guys, that was Ophelia Nicholson. show 105 at the Bigger Pockets podcast and please check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com

slash show 105. Also, if you are listening to the show, it doesn't matter how you're listening to it, but if you have yet to leave us a rating or review on iTunes, we ask that you please do that. And you can do that. There's going to be a link on the show notes at show 105. And you can find that.

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