BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 277: Building a Six-Figure Family Real Estate Business with Ashley Wilson

Episode Date: May 3, 2018

Many families can’t even enjoy a holiday meal together — but today’s guest has built a real estate empire with hers! Today we sit down with Ashley Wilson, a house flipper who got started investing in real estate while living overseas in Europe. Today, Ashley shares how she has been able to generate six-figures in profit — almost from the beginning — using a highly systematic approach to building wealth. She also drops some huge knowledge bombs with advice on finding and funding deals — and even some never-before-heard advice on knowing what features to put into your next rehab! In This Episode We Cover: How Ashley and her family got involved in real estate House hacking their way in the beginning The dynamics of the family business Ashley’s specialty How they split the profit What it’s like working with a family Finding what is “light work” for you Long-distance investing and the core people on your team How she finds deals Close-to-close houses through “stacking” How she designs homes How they finance their deals Her plans for the future And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Webinar BiggerPockets Calculators Brandon’s Instagram Profile BiggerPockets Podcast 119: From Pro Athlete to Pro Real Estate Entrepreneur with Graham Mink BiggerPockets Youtube Channel Books Mentioned in this Show Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki Drive by Daniel Pink E-Myth by Michael Gerber Long Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner Fire Round Questions What are the best ways you’ve found to estimate rehab costs? The rehab calculator on BP is fine but, how do you estimate the $$$ to put into each category? Should I buy a Home Warranty for my flip or not? Should I hire an inspector or just go with an experienced project manager/contractor on a walkthrough? Buyer coming back after months demand for repair cost Tweetable Topics: “Every house already has a limited market.” (Tweet This!) “You really have to love what you do.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Ashley Ashley’s BiggerPockets Profile Ashley’s Company Website Facebook Page Instagram Page Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 277. I actually always say that when you increase complexity and decrease frequency, you increase errors. So what we're trying to do is that when any task is complex, the same person should be doing that because they become a master and that minimizes errors and vice versa. So we're trying to decrease errors every which way we can. 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 is going on, everyone? This is your host of the day, Brandon Turner. Coming at you here with my co-host, Mr. David Green.

How you doing, DG? Oh, boy, Brandon. It's how am I doing right now? Oh boy. That doesn't sound good. Yeah. It's been a challenging week so far. We have about five houses in my real estate agent business that we had an escrow and

all of them might be falling apart. There's kind of a domino system where you have a listing and then if you lose the buyer for your listing, then you lose the house that your seller was going to go buy. And we have that happening on a couple different fronts. And it's been very frustrating. But the silver lining is that I'm realizing this does not happen in real estate investing because my rent checks come in every month, regardless of what happens. And this is just a really powerful lesson in the fact that your job, your W-2 job, where you get your money, that can always go away.

It's not a guarantee. A lot of it's dependent on your performance or things outside of your control. But when you're buying rental properties, they're usually profitable if you buy them right from day one and only gets me more profitable. And it is such a good feeling to know that it doesn't really matter what happens in my job. That's really icing on the cake as crazy as that sounds. The cake itself is my investment portfolio, it produces. So it's just that much more motivating to focus on building my portfolio, building my passive income and focusing on that and not getting sucked into the allure of cheap, easy money that comes through a sale or a commission. Yeah. Well, that's just good advice all around, right? Like, I mean, again, we get sucked

into this idea of making good money from a job. Right now, the economy is amazing. We can make money in business. But let's not forget that that's not always going to be like that. There's ups and downs all the time. And so continually putting money into passive income is great. So, So, sorry you're going through that agent crap, but I know you got a ton of rentals and you're continuing to buy them all the time. So I'm sure you're going to do well. But speaking of motivating, you said the word motivating. I actually just finished a book on motivation. Have you read Drive by Daniel Pink?

No, I haven't heard of that one. Unbelievable book. I'm going to highlight. I know this is not the famous four at the end of the show, but I'm going to say like, unbelievably good book. If you've got a team that you need to motivate or you got people around you need to motivate, drive by Daniel Pink. It's like everything I learned, like everything I thought I knew about how to motivate people is like all right. And it's like a total like counterintuitive book. Anyway, I definitely recommend it.

I just got it on Audible and it's fantastic. So check it out. So very, very interesting about motivation. Yeah, if I'm going to listen to anyone about what book to read, it's definitely going to be you. You read more books than anybody. I know. You're like, you're going to be a librarian when you retire probably.

I might become a librarian. And also speaking of motivating, today's guest has an incredibly motivating story. Yeah, she does. This is one of the coolest stories that I've heard in a very long time. you guys are going to love this. Her business is set up to where they're only flipping a couple houses a month, but they're making more than six figures. Sorry, yeah, a couple houses a year making six figures each.

Each partner is making that much money. I mean, it's just incredible. And when you hear her speak about how she does it, it makes so much sense. She's very systematic. Really, it's a process that anybody can follow. I'm super excited about talking to her. And I know that you probably are too. Yeah, it's super cool.

So, but before we get to interview with Ashley Wilson, let's hear today's quick tip. All right. You want to take it? Yeah, I'll take it. Today's quick tip is actually also, it's real estate related, not just business related. So we are coming into the time of year now, probably around May, where it's the home selling season is really kicking in gear. So you've got a ton of home buyers that are out there looking for homes. And if you understand how real estate works, it's a supply and demand thing. There's a lot more people looking for homes. So demand is really high. And in most areas of the country, supply is still really low. That's going to push prices higher. So if you've got an investment property with the tenant on a

month to month lease and you're not sure what you want to do with it or a vacancy coming up, consider selling your house, getting your equity out and reinvesting it somewhere else or doing something else with it, right? Sometimes we own properties that are not very, they're not performing very well, but we just have them out of habit, right? We don't want to deal with it. Oftentimes, when you look at your portfolio, we realize you have a lot of equity, okay? So I always tell people to consider the return on your investment versus the return on your equity. And if you can get more investing that money somewhere else, then the equity is providing you right now. sell it, do a 1031 exchange, buy something else, upgrade into multi-unit, whatever you got to do.

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Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment like an investment. Now, I'm ready to bring in Ashley. Ashley Wilson is our guest today. She is a house flipper who actually got started by investing or by flipping while living in Europe, investing in U.S. house flips alongside her family.

Got an amazing family business. Her husband is actually a, was a professional hockey player, hence the traveling around the world. But despite that, she was able to build up a very profitable flipping business. We're going to hear from Ashley today on how she did that.

You guys are going to love this show. Make sure you get some, like a paper, pen, whatever, you're going to take some notes because she has a ton to say. So without further ado, let's get to the interview with Ashley Wilson.

All right, Ashley, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. How you doing? Good. How are you? Man, I am good. I just woke up. So, you know, I'm a little less chipper than normal today. So we're going to have to have you carry the show. So I'm going to have to just, like, sit back and Ashley's going to watch this or cover this. That's not good? I guess so. I think I can do it.

All right. No. Well, I'm going to start with the question that I always start with. Well, I don't always start with this question. But I want to know, like, we know you get into real estate. We're obviously it's a real estate show. We're talking about how you and your family have built this awesome. amazing business that I'm really fascinated to hear more about. But before that, tell us about

why did real estate even come on the radar? Why real estate investing? Walk us through that journey. Absolutely. So back in about 2009, my husband, who is now a retired hockey player, who was playing at the time, we were just trying to figure out what was the best way to invest our money. And we kept coming back to real estate and specifically bigger pockets. So we were reading through the content, listening to the podcast, and we decided this was a perfect fit for us. So what we decided to do at the same time, it was during the Obama first-time home buyer tax credit. And there was a short sale across the street, which was perfect because, you know, we were actually looking for a property for ourselves during the season where he was playing. And so we made,

I think, a pretty decent but lowball offer on the property. Ended up getting it a few months later because, of course, you know how short sales go. And we ended up house hacking. And we ended up house hacking that property. And what we would do is we would live in the property during the season, rent out other rooms to other guys on the team. And then in the off season, pre-air Airbnb, we would BRBO it. And it was a destination town. So it made really good money in the summer for us. And then eventually when he signed with another team, we just rented it out to hockey players during the season. And then fast forward to 2014, he was playing in Europe. Actually, we were in Riga Latvia at the time, and we decided that we wanted to get into flipping.

My dad is a general contractor. He's had his business for over 45 years. He was a perfect partner. So we wanted to be able to have someone boots on the ground, and that was perfect fit for my dad. He was looking to get out of doing the day to day. And we were looking to get into flipping, so it was a perfect partnership. We leverage technology. And now we're in our fourth year.

We just hired my brother, who also is a GC on our houses. My husband just retired. So he is now our realtor. My sister-in-law is involved. My mother's involved. I mean, it's a whole family affair. Wow. That's pretty cool.

So you get the whole family involved. Let's take it back a little bit to where you mentioned you were house hacking. Can you share some of the details of, well, like how you structured the house hacking and what kind of money you were making from that? Absolutely. So during the season, we actually would just make ends meet, so to speak. We just wanted to cover our costs. We wanted to basically live for free, but we didn't need to turn a huge profit on it because we considered our bread and butter during the summertime. So in the summertime, the first summer, we rented it out over the course of three months. We made $20,000. The second summer we rented out. And we did some home improvements. And also I advertised it earlier on and gave incentives to people who had previously rented from us that if they booked by December of the previous year that they would get some money off on their rent. So we made $30,000 the second year over three months. And then we made $40,000 over three months the third year. So we actually did quite well with that property. And it really turned us on to real estate investing, like, as you can imagine. That's awesome. Was that was that

profit 20,030 and 40 or was that your gross? That was profit. Oh my goodness. So you had a house that you could live in. Just for the summer. Wow. What town was that in? Hershey, Pennsylvania. Hershey, that's a tourist town? I don't even, I never even know of it.

I mean, other than candy bar. Is that where they make the candy bar? That's where they make the candy bar. Wow. Hershey Chocolate Factory. Did they name the candy bar after the town or the town after the candy? I should probably know this, but I don't know me answer this question. I have a better question.

Did you decorate your Airbnb to look like Willy Wonka's chocolate? factory. How does that better question? Like sold it. Actually, you know what's really funny is that most people are obsessed with the hockey team there. They have a long history of being a very good team. They've won a lot of championships.

My husband was part of two back-to-back championships with that team. So people are actually more interested in running it with pictures of hockey players and knowing that the Hershey Bears stay in that place during the off sea or during the regular season, you know, so it wasn't hard to. rent because we just pitched that and people still contact me about that place, even though we actually sold it to someone who is renting from us because it was just a perfect deal and we were looking to move on. So that's what we ended up doing with that property.

Yeah. You know, one of my, my very first like duplex I ever bought was, I've told this story many times, I'm sure, but like was Kirk Cobain's like baby home, you know, like Nirvana's frontman's baby home. Yeah. Whenever, like I still own it today, but I always think I should turn that into an Airbnb because for the same reason. Like, people would want to stay in Kirk Cobain's baby home.

And the problem is people who want to stay in, like, the hockey players home, they're probably like cool people. People who want to stay in Kirkobain's home. Like, they might not come out of Kirkobain's home, like, if you know what I mean. So like, I don't know if I want to go that route. But, uh, I don't know. I think there's some, uh, there's some validity in what you're doing there. I mean, like that's a cool little, what do they call them unique selling proposition?

Like USP, every company's got to have like a unique angle. You know, we call it an unfair advantage. Like, you, you, you, you, find what those are and you exploit those. You can say, hey, this is what I'm good. This is what can make us money. So I'm going to do it. So that's super cool. It actually is an interesting strategy about where people could potentially, I'm not saying that you guys did this instead of it. You could like buy houses in different areas of the country or the world, right? And then you can live in certain areas for a time and then

Airbnb when you're not there or VRBO when you're not there. And that's something I've been looking into possibly doing in Hawaii is buying something here and then just owning it the rest of the time. That way you're still paying the mortgage down. You're hopefully building wealth their appreciation and your vacation rental is hopefully paying the cost. Did you ever run into any issues when you were doing the Airbnb or the, you know, VRBO? Did you run into any kind of legal issues there? Because I know nowadays people are having a lot more problems with vacation rentals. Did you struggle with that at all?

We struggled initially because it was in an HOA community. And part of the bylaws had some verbiage in it that made it a little bit difficult to understand whether it was clear that you could do short-term rentals. So we were just very transparent. with the property manager of the HOA, and we went and spoke with them, and they presented it to the board. And they granted us approval.

But I know that people, when teammates of his found out what we were doing and they looked into doing it, I don't think they wanted their community to turn into that. So they didn't give approval to other people, but maybe because we were one of the first and they had already given us approval before anyone had asked and realized,

oh, maybe this isn't such. a good idea. So I think if we were to go back and do it now, I don't know if we would have gotten approval. But fortunately, we just fell into a very lucky time to ask because no one had asked yet. Well, that certainly worked out. I mean, what a way to get started in real estate. That's awesome. So I'm sure that wet your appetite. You're like, okay, well, let's look into this little more. Can you tell us what your next step was? I know you're in flipping now and your family is kind of like you're working with them. Can you tell us about the dynamics of your family, how you have that structured and whose role is what? Absolutely. So it started with my father and myself. And what we do

is, as I said before, my dad is the boots on the ground. He is construction knowledge experience over 45 years. He has so much experience that when inspectors walk through, he actually educates the inspectors and not in a condescending way or anything. My dad's a big teddy bear. Everyone loves him. But it's more so in a way of, oh, well, in, you know, 1950, the code was this. You know, like my dad is just very knowledgeable about the history of codes more so than any inspector we've met, you know, so that's been very advantageous for us. My brother grew up working for my dad. I know a lot of people grow up, you know, working for McDonald's or something. My brother never did that. He always grew, He always worked for my dad in the summers and on school breaks.

So my brother had this construction knowledge experience. And then after he graduated from university, he went into a project manager role. So it's a perfect combination because he had the construction knowledge experience with project management training. And he did that for a few years. And then our business grew too large. So we asked if he would come on as a project manager. And that's what he's doing currently.

So those are the two major. My husband obviously, you know, is looking for something to do after hockey that is interesting and he's always wanted to be in real estate. He actually came up with the idea for us to get into flipping. So he wants to exploit the realtor component of it because obviously that's an extra commission that we could be, you know, making instead of giving it to someone else. Okay. And then you play a pretty big role in this whole thing too. So what's your specialty? So my specialty is basically anything you can do remote.

That's how our relationship started. So for example, I order the materials. We leverage technology to its fullest. We utilize FaceTime. So when my dad was going to look at houses, we would be FaceTiming through the houses and going over the project. What walls were taking out? What walls were leaving? What specs we want to end up with?

I can schedule the contractors for him. anything to help him out so he can just focus on the job. I do all of the accounting. I run our social media. I find the houses. I do the analysis. Literally anything you can think of where you don't physically have to be at the house, that is my responsibility because that takes away a lot of pressure and, you know, administrative tasks that slow my dad and my brother down. So even paying the contractors, That's what I do. They don't take care of that. So we just work very systematically to help each other out as much as possible.

That's awesome. So what it sounds like, I'm rereading right now the book, the E myth revisited, which is Michael Gerber book. And he talks in there about the tactician. It's like the person who's in there like doing the work. And that sounds like your dad is a tactician, but you are the entrepreneur. You're like overseeing the whole thing, making sure everything's the machine is flowing and working correctly.

And that is such a valuable role to have. And what a lot of people lack. People are like, well, I can swing a hammer. I can flip houses, right? But they lack everything that you just said that you do. They lack. And so I think people need to understand if you want to get into house flipping, like, that's great.

Just know that it's not about being able to swing a hammer. In fact, that's probably the least valuable skill of the entire organization is being able to actually swing a hammer because a lot of people can swing a hammer. Now, very few can do it honestly. And that's super awesome. You have a dad that can do it, you know, honestly and work with them. So I'm curious about that, though, the dynamic between you and your father and your, your brother. How do you guys work out things like, do you guys split the profits at the end? Do you pay

them a salary to do it? How does that function work? This is actually a question we get asked a lot. And initially when it was just my father, myself, we split the profits 50-50. And I know a lot of people will argue why split 50-50, you know, with just take out, remove the fact that he's my father. Just say, why would you split the profits 50-50 with a GC? First of all, my dad brings over 45 years of experience, as I said. So not only does he have the knowledge, but he has connections. So that's invaluable. Another thing, another component is we both want to work for ourselves.

And this way, we each own 50% of the company. So we're, there's no boss, you know, it's not you have to answer for this person. There's no resentment. We make decisions together. We operate together. We win together. we lose together. The icing on the cake is that he's my dad. But when you look at all the specs of what we bring to the table, it's only fair that it's 50-50. And a lot of people too,

especially in this area, want to give a contractor, you know, 20, 30, maybe 35 percent. But in our area, I don't know for everyone else, but in our area, there's normally a 20 to 35 percent upcharge on GC work in general. So what makes it more exciting and gets the GC more committed to work on your project when they're guaranteed 20 to 35 percent doing the exact same job for, you know, Joe Schmoe down the street? And there's no risk. And they're not being told every single day, when's this going to be done? You know, time is important. Blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, so in that sense, it's really fair. And it's turned out to work exceptionally well. And honestly, I think. think it's the way that it should be conducted because then we both have something to win and we both

have something to lose. I love that. I think that's fantastic. And I'm always a huge proponent for 50-50 partnerships when you can make them work. Because, yeah, I mean, people have asked me on both sides, like, why would you give somebody 50% for doing that? Or why would they give you 50% for doing that? But I just, I really like the, it's hard to argue with 50-50 when you're talking with a partner, whether it's a partner or a GC or whatever. Yeah, my best flips have ever done have been when I 50-50 partnered with the guy running the show. Like, and again, like people were saying, well, you can get that way cheaper by doing whatever, but it just made it so easy and fair.

And we were both perfectly equally aligned in making results happen. So I love that you said that. So what about like just family dynamics in terms of like, there's been very few projects where I haven't hated my contractor at the end of the project, right? Like, how do you guys, how do you and your entire family work together without hating each other at the end of the project? Do you have any tips for people who are thinking about working with their family? You have to know when to turn it on and turn it off. People who sit next to me when I talk to my dad about the house, especially like my husband, he's like, I cannot believe you and your dad are yelling at each other and then are like, love you, bye, and hang up the phone. So it's a little bit comical, but you have to be able to draw the line between work and family. And if you're not able to do that, I don't recommend working with family. Fortunately, for our family,

we're all able to do that. We have another complexity component. We are also house hacking right now with my brother and his wife living with us. So there's another added component. Not only do I work with my brother, but he also lives with us too, which is a whole other dynamic. So we never stop talking about work. And whenever my dad calls, it's always about work.

So it's turned into this is something we all love to do. And at the end of the day, we just know that we're. We all want the same thing. We all want us to be successful because we all win when everyone's successful. So supporting each other in any way possible is only advantageous for ourselves, too. You know, it's not only helpful for my brother if I pick up the phone and take his call and do whatever he asked me, but it's also in the long run beneficial for me too. Yeah. That's fantastic.

So you've got so many aspects to your story that I really, really like, Ashley. We've talked about house hacking. We've talked about like a USP, your unique selling proposition now. You're unfair advantage and having family members that you took advantage of because they're really good. Your dad sounds like a rock star contractor, right? Like you're just really looking at it with a business mind and putting all the pieces together.

But I know for a while while your husband's playing hockey, you guys were living in Russia and Latvia. You were all over Europe and you were still flipping houses here in the state. So can you tell us a little bit more about how you did that, how it was structured, why it didn't scare you? I mean, this is obviously a topic that's near. and dear to my heart. And I just love meeting other people who did the same thing. Well, first of all, I knew the area. But even if you don't know the area and your remote, if you have someone who does

know the area, so for example, even if I didn't know the area, my dad knows the area, my partner knows the area. So first of all, you have to have someone who knows the area really well. And then you look at houses in good areas. Normally they have the best returns. I think we can all agree to that and you just leverage technology, as I was saying before. If you would walk through a house and look at all the potential problems, you just use FaceTime to walk through the house. And if you need supplies ordered instead of going home and ordering supplies, my dad just shoots me a text and order so I can order supplies. All payments, as much as I could set them up electronically, I would set up every payment electronically. Negotiation.

instead of having my dad make that call and waste his time when he can physically be at a project, I would be on the phone making that call because you can call from Europe. I mean, really what we were trying to do is leverage each other's skill sets. And my dad is really, really good at the construction component. There is nothing I can do from Europe to replace that component of the rehab. My dad, I don't want to even touch that. My dad is really good at what he does. So there's no need for me to try to replace it.

I mean, it's great for me to learn how to do some of those things. But it would be better for me to do the paperwork side of things, which I'm sure everyone would agree that most really good contractors are normally not good at paperwork. So that's something that I am good at. So why have my dad have to do that skill set when I'm already good at paperwork? So that's what we try to do is try to exploit each other's strengths and downplay each other's weaknesses with the other person carrying that weight. You nailed it.

that's the secret to being successful in real estate investing is you figure out what you're good at and you find people to do this stuff you're not good at because that's what they're good at. You bring everybody's strengths together and then not only are you successful, but usually you enjoy it more because you're not trying to do this stuff that you hate. I mean, I just everyone listening, if you're finding that you're struggling with real estate investing, you're probably doing a lot of stuff that is not in your wheelhouse and you're not good at. Ashley should not be at the house swinging the hammer. Dad should not be trying to run the books or analyze the property. You know, like husband, shouldn't be doing anything but selling it. It sounds like, you guys got it down.

That's awesome. Yeah, recently I had a guy tell me this idea of like if something in your life, he said use the word light and heavy. Does it feel light to do this task or does it feel heavy to do this task? Right. And he's like the things that feel light are things you should probably be doing. So like, you know, does it feel light to be negotiating with contractors? For me, it does not. It feels like the heaviest thing in the world for me. You have to call a contractor and deal with them. right like that's it just feels heavy so i shouldn't be doing that like i i i what feels like like man finding deals analyzing deals running numbers sending direct mail marketing oh i love that like i do that all day it's fun it's not work right but yeah that's because it feels light so yeah

ask yourself what feels light what feels heavy and then focus on the light things and find somebody else who's the opposite because there is somebody else who's the opposite i love that yeah i i i actually always say that when you increase complexity and decrease frequency you increase errors. So what we're trying to do is that when any task is complex, the same person should be doing that because they become a master and that minimizes errors and vice versa. So we're trying to decrease errors every which way we can. That's smart. I like that a lot. Well, cool. All right. So yeah, so definitely like this idea. Do you recommend flipping at a distance? Like, do you think it works in this way? Do you think you like, you like, perfect. Because you don't have like 50 years of experience.

I mean, how many years have been doing this now? Like four you said? This is our fourth year. Okay. Yeah. And like you started flipping houses. What was that? When was that? Or was it right away?

In 2000. In 2014. So we started with the house hacking in 2009 and then in 2014 is when we started flipping. Yeah. That's perfect. Like I just, it just shows that like it is possible to do this stuff. I mean, when you hear people say, oh, yeah, you can't do that because of this,

you know, X, Y, Z. Like you were just like, well, yes, I can. And you like, did it. I know. I think that's super cool. And it's not just flipping. Like if people want to, like, I was. always kind of opposed the idea of investing in a, not opposed, but like I'm not done investing in a

distance and it felt weird to me. And it wasn't really until I became good friends with this guy, David Green. Then all of a sudden I realized like, oh, people do this. Like there's, there's ways to do it. Now, I still like the idea of getting started locally if you can. But if you can't or like you're in a weird market, consider going in a distance. I mean, David Green here wrote an entire book called Long Distance Real Estate Investing. Guess what's it about? It's about long distance real estate investing. So like, yeah, definitely guys check that out. He talks a lot about there about the core four, but having like four people on your team that you can just really trust. And what's funny about your stories, you got like one of those is your contractor. So core four there, right?

Another one is your lender. I want to get that there in a minute. We'll talk about that. Another one's your agent and now your husband's an agent. And then property manager, but you're, are you guys doing rental properties at all or just flipping? Nope, just flipping now. Okay. So you don't really need a property manager, but you have a project manager, which is kind of the same thing for flippers. So you have your core four. essentially all set up, I mean, in the same way. So yeah, super cool. Anyway, if you got, David, what's the URL for Longdistance book? Is that, that's what it is? Biggerpockets.com slash long distance book. Okay, or slash store. We'll get you there as well.

And you can look at all the books. Cool. All right. So I want to move on and talk about finding deals. You know, how did you find deals in the beginning and how are you doing it today? And how is that changed? We have found deals every which way you can imagine. We've found them on the MLS. We've found them through an estate attorney. We've found them off of Craigslist. And we've gotten leads through off market properties where people know that we offer a referral bonus for any off market leads. So we're open to anything, any which way, just put it out into the universe to keep looking and we're still finding them. Obviously, it's gotten a little bit harder on the MLS, but I think you have to be a little bit more creative in your search. So for example,

looking at rentals, you can typically see whether or not those properties are put up for rent because they couldn't sell them. And then you can contact the owner if you see that they were previously for sale, even if they weren't for sale, you can contact the seller, the person renting the property and see if they're willing to sell the house. So that's one way we've done it. You can also look for areas and see this area seems to be. a really strong area. Why is this house not priced accordingly? In fact, that was actually one house that we got, I don't know if you want me to go into the numbers about it, but it was a great deal that we, okay, so we found this house and it was in a really great area, but for some reason, all of the numbers on the property were really low. It didn't make sense. So I said, I think we should go

check this house out. So we ended up purchasing it for 235 and we put a little over 150,000 in rehab and we ended up selling it for 544. And that property we did in nine and a half weeks. And the market actually supported a 544 price tag. But everyone else had looked at this property and thought, oh no, you know, it should be around the 300 maybe low. 400 price range. And I didn't see it because if you look at the actual location, it was a great location, very convenient to get in and out of the city near public transit, in a good school district. It just made sense that if you brought the beauty back to this house, it was a 1930s house, that it could command that type of price. And it did. So that's incredible that you guys did that

good on this flip. How many deals are you doing right now? And what's kind of like your average profit on most of your deals? I mean, was that normal that you're doing that good on every house you're flipping? Around that price, around that profit margin. What we like to do, well, sorry, to get to your first question right now, we have one that goes on the market this week, actually, and we have two that go on the market at the end of April that we're doing. We like to have two for reach project manager going on at all times unless they're cosmetic flips, then we could maybe do three or four. But most of the time, as I mentioned before, we do full cosmetic, or excuse me, full rehabs. So we like to, I mean, there's a lot of factors when determining

our profit and how much money we want to make on a house. But typically around 50,000 in profit over a couple months period of time would make it worth it to us. Because obviously you're putting in a lot of money. You're holding it. There's, you know, a risk involved in that as well. And we're doing full got rehabs. I mean, these are not just paint and changing out the light fixtures and updating the kitchen. I mean, we're doing knob and tube wiring. One of the houses we're doing right now has had a full stucco remediation. And it's a 5,400 square foot house. I mean, that is a massive stucco remediation. We have new plumbing, all new plumbing, putting in central air, taking out walls and bringing in, you know, LDLs. And,

and things like that. So it's just, it's really important to factor a lot of components into your analysis when you're determining what you want to make on a house. Okay. So your first year, you flipped two houses, I believe. What was your, like, around what your gross profit was at the end of that first year doing two houses? The first year, actually, we only flipped one house.

And we, our gross profit was around $65,000. The second year, we made. Each of us, my father and myself, made over six figures on the second year flipping only two houses. Wow. So we have grown exponentially each year. So the first year, we did only one house the second year. We flipped two houses. And I like to say close to close.

That means we purchased it. We renovate it. We sold it within that year. So we closed to close on two houses. And we had one in the pipeline, meaning we were rehabbing one at the end of the second year. The third year, we closed to close on four houses and we had two in the pipeline. This year, we're going to close to close on eight houses with four in the pipeline at the end of the year. Are you going 16 next year?

Yes. I should say yes. So what we like to do is we do an analysis every quarter and then we also do an analysis at the end of the year to make sure that we're staying on track and we keep it operating as a business. You know, we are family run, but we want to operate as a business. and that's the only way you'll continue to be successful is if you treat it like a business. So we have quarter, well, we actually have weekly meetings, but then we have quarterly business reviews and then annual business reviews to ensure that we stay on track. That's super cool. So, you know, one thing I talk about a lot.

I do this on Bigger Pockets webinars. I host a live webinar every single week over on Bigger Pockets. And I talk about this concept known as the stack. And what the stack is, it's a way of thinking about getting involved in real estate that's less overwhelming than what most people think. So when people think about getting into real estate, they think, Oh man, I got to flip eight houses in order to make enough profit for me to, you know, survive. That's an overwhelming thing.

So instead I'm going to sit on the couch and watch some TV. That's what most people do. But I always like try to encourage people to think in terms of the stack, which means you exponential growth. So the first year you might do one deal. That could be a flip or rental, right? The next deal you might do two because it's pretty, once you've done the one deal, it shouldn't be that hard to go to two because it's just a small transition. You've already done one.

You can do two. And then the year after that, could you do four? I mean, you've already done two. you've done three total now. What's four more, right? And then once you've done that, now you can go to eight because it's not that much more than the seven you've already done.

And then 16, 32. And if you think about that in terms of like flipping, yeah, within four years, you could be doing 16 houses a year. Or if your rentals, you could have a 16 unit your fourth year in and an eight plus a four plus a duplex maybe.

You know, like you can scale up very, very quickly and more securely than just thinking I got to jump in and do 15 deals this year, right? So that essentially is what you've been doing. right? Absolutely. And I think too that it's actually harder to get started. Once you get started, you're kind of on that train and you're moving forward. And it's a lot easier to keep the momentum

once you're already going. I remember when we first started one of our challenges was finding good contractors. And now it's like we have so many good contractors. And I go to different real estate meetups and everyone's complaining, oh, I can't find good contractors. I can't find good contractors. And it's like, how many deals are you doing? And they're like, you know, I haven't really made a, made an offer yet. And it's like, you know, if you're forced in a situation to find good people, you will find good people. You just have to put yourself in that situation and say to yourself, I need someone good. I need someone I can trust that does quality work and I can rely on that person. And then you'll find the person. Yeah, I think when people are

first getting started, they don't realize it's not going to be that hard the whole time. So when you're new, like we just described all the people you have on your team and to someone who hasn't done this, they're like, how am I going to find all that, right? So that's why you go really slow because it takes you a lot of time to find a contractor, to find a lender, to find someone to get you deals, to get your name out there, to meet these attorneys that are bringing new deals. But then it's kind of like you're wandering through the desert and you found this well where there's water and you don't have to wander for it anymore. You just go right to it every time you need it. And you start growing and growing as you find new wells as you walk through this. And now like, man, I know exactly

where to go when I need this thing or I know where I went last time, how I found it. I'm going to find it quicker this time because I learned something. So every time you become more efficient, and that's why the stack works because you can go from two to four to eight to 16 because you're getting better at what you do as you go through time. And you just articulated that's so good, actually, that that's how it works to be successful. And that's why persistence is so important because if you think you're going to quit if you think it's always going to be that hard. But the longer you stick with it, the easier it becomes. And then the more fun you have and the more profit you make. You guys are doing incredible on these deals you're getting. Can you tell us a little

bit about how you're designing what to do in the flip, how you're picking out the materials, kind of like what your edge is on why you're doing so good on these homes? Absolutely. So this is maybe a controversial way to design homes, but I personally feel that people are very scared to design a home based on the buyer they think is going to buy the home because they think they're limiting their market. But at the end of the day, your house, every house, already has a limited market. So why not design towards the buyer that you believe is going to purchase the home? So for example, the house that we're putting on the market this week is in a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood. Hasidic Jewish people want kosher kitchens. So what does that mean? We are actually putting in a kitchen

with two ovens, two dishwashers, two sinks, and two components in the refrigerator to keep meat and dairy separate. Because in kosher kitchens, you need to have two spaces for each appliance and each prep area. So meat and dairy never touch. Now, is that something that some other buyer might not like? maybe, but in reality, most likely an Hasidic Jewish person is probably going to purchase this home. So why not gear it towards someone who we already know is interested in this area? So I just think if you look at the neighborhood, we oftentimes, what we'll do is in a neighborhood, there's typically another house built by the same builder, the same layout in that exact neighborhood. And most of the time, that house has already been renovated.

So what we like to do when we go into a neighborhood is we go door to door, introduce ourselves. We give all of our contact information in case there's any problem with the property. And also, too, if, you know, if they don't like noise to call us directly, things like that, to really set the stage correctly. But in addition to that, we use it as an opportunity to get into houses that maybe have the same floor plan as our house. and that has already been renovated. So we can see different ideas on how we can renovate the house. And we have taken, we have one house right now where we were going to do something

completely different with a master suite. And we knocked on the door to the neighbor who had the exact same floor plan. And it was a live-in flip from a realtor that they purchased it from. So we walked through the house and we were like, this is genius. So we took the idea of something we liked. And then we saw something that, you know, we thought might work a little bit better if we configured the space differently. So we did something a little bit different to another component. But it was really cool because it gives you other ideas because normally when you come in, you're pretty dead set on this is how I'm going to do this renovation.

But sometimes it's really good to be open minded and see some other ideas because that's what really gets the juices flowing. And that house obviously sold. You know, that attracted a buyer. So knowing what attracts buyers in that area, what a better way to figure it out then see it firsthand in the neighboring houses? That's super cool. You know, I've always heard the tip about, you know, going door to door knocking just so like you build a good relationship with the neighbors. But I never thought about it from that standpoint of getting there and like see what their house looks like.

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But, you know, my dad and brother taught me how to tile. For example, I think everyone should know how to tile. This is why I think you should know how to tile. Tiling is at the end of a job. And tiling is very expensive. So if your job goes, you know, unexpected $5,000, $10,000 over, you can recoup some of those loss by tiling. And tiling is something that you decide at the time.

the very end of the project. So for example, we have had situations where on our first house, let's say, we actually were going to reconstruct a porch and we found out that there was no foundation. It looks like there was a foundation when we purchased it, but when we actually got into it, there was really no foundation. It wasn't, the footers weren't dug deep enough. It was a catastrophe. So we had to rebuild this entire porch. And in doing so, obviously that went way over budget. So what we decided to do is we decided to do the tiling ourselves to make up for that loss that we had had. So there's just little tricks like that that you can do throughout and just, you know, anchoring and adjusting.

This is why it's always really important to know your numbers and stay on track of your accounting because you should know by the day how much each house is costing you. You should also know every single day where you are in the project because that allows me when my dad or brother call and they say, we have a problem. This is going to cost us $3,000 more. I can say, okay, no problem because I know that I can pull it from over here. And, you know, that's something that I think is important when you have the dynamics. If you have the ability to have someone who's tracking the numbers at all times. Yeah, that's super good.

I actually agree with a tile thing. I don't know, for whatever reason. Like tile is like the most like therapeutic thing I can do in a house. I love tiling. Yeah, I don't do hard any work anymore, but I'll occasionally do some tile work because I really enjoy that a lot. So, yeah, that's great tip again. Yeah, and if you go over budget, I've done the same thing.

Go over budget. Tiling is a very good way to recoup some of that because tiling guys make absurd amounts of money. And it's not that hard. Yeah, it's really not that hard. I don't know why that's like the one, I don't know, like dollar per hour. I think Thailand's got to be the most expensive job. you cannot hire for. So speaking of money and stuff, how do you finance all this? How do you,

how are you going to paying for the property? How do you pay for the property? How do you pay for the contractors? What does that look like? Great question. So initially we started financing them ourselves. I mean, we're a lower price point when we first started. So that's how we initially started. I was told and also even, you know, my, my husband's a huge bigger pockets fan. He is also a big, real estate, like he just has his quest for knowledge. Tell him we said what's up. Tell him what's up. You guys are literally twins.

It's kind of scary. You guys both have the beard going and, you know, I guess it's playoff season right now for hockey players. Maybe you're channeling that. I don't know. I am. I'm channeling my inner hockey player right now. I got to tell you, Mighty Ducks was like my favorite movie of all time. Like it still is like Mighty Ducks probably three was like the best movie ever.

So I wanted to be a hockey player. and then I realized I couldn't skate. And so I didn't become a hockey player, sadly. Yeah. If it wasn't for sports movies, Brandon would not know what hockey is. I promise you. He's definitely a sports guy.

I grew up in Minnesota, all right? We know what hockey is in Minnesota. Anyway. All right. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So, okay. So finance.

How are you doing it? Keep going. Yeah. So a year and a half in, even though I was actually discouraged from doing this, because everyone was like, you're never going to get a bank to finance you after a year and a half. I was made aware of a small bank that does construction loans to flippers. So I reached out and I connected with this individual and I invited him to one of our projects.

And when he came to the project, I first walked him through. I told my dad, dad, you are not working today. We need to focus. We need to secure money. So we met him at one of our properties. We walked the property. We talked to him about everything we were doing. And then at the end, I had created a packet of every house we had done to date with not only actual numbers, but our forecasted numbers too.

And an explanation of when any of those numbers were off on whether I was under or over the forecasted number. So I presented that information to him. I presented all the addresses of the properties so he could confirm what I was saying was legit. And within a day or two, he told me that we could finance the next house with him. So from that point forward, we've utilized that resource, which has been incredible. And even though some people say, okay, well, that's a small bank. In terms of a larger bank, one of the biggest banks in the country, I was able to secure

business credit card with them. So we pay all of our expenses through this business credit card. And then I can take those expenses at the end of the month when I get the invoice. I then submit it to the bank. So it delays the interest that I am paying on what we're spending. So we try to leverage that option as well because that way we don't have to pay for the interest until two months or two and a half months out. So it's basically like deferred interest. So almost free money in my opinion. So I don't want to miss this, Ashley, because this is really, really good. You're able to secure financing, which honestly is not easy. I mean, that's one of the toughest parts of real estate investing is finding ways to finance your deals. Not all of us have a million dollars in the bank of

our own money because we saved up our birthday money for 700 years or something and we can go flip houses, right? You need to find it from private lenders, from hard money lenders, from financial institutions. and what you're saying that works so good for you is that you know, know your stuff. You knew exactly what you were doing. You knew your numbers. You knew how to talk the language of real estate, right? So when you met with this lender, he knew, oh, man, this girl is squared away. She's got all her financials.

I know exactly what I'm getting into. I'm not really rolling the dice on this person. And that's what lenders like. These are highly analytical people that want to be able to paint a picture of knowing what they're getting into. They want to value risk and mitigate risk as much as they can. And you made it easier for him to do his job. And that's why they're willing to give you much.

money, right? So for a lot of people that are out there saying, well, how am I going to get money? I guess I can't do it. I'll just sit on the couch and watch TV. No, if you learn real estate and you learn how to do a lender's job and a contractor's job, you don't have to go swing the hammer, but you need to know, like you said earlier, they're probably not very good when it comes to managing books or making payments, right? Lenders are not going to be very good at understanding how to market something. They're not going to understand that you're designing this kitchen to be perfect for someone in a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood. That doesn't make any sense of them. What they understand. is numbers and you can take your whole business and put it into a spreadsheet so it's only numbers.

That's the language they speak. That's what they understand. And that's what you're doing that's making you so successful without having to flip 100 houses a year. In essence, what I'm hearing is that you put together a really good core four without maybe knowing that term. But that's what you've done is you've got people that are really single, really good at every single level of real estate that are crushing it in what they do. And you're just kind of sitting above the whole thing knowing, all right, this is the next move. This is what we need. I need to secure financing. How am I going to give it to the lender in the way he wants. Okay, this is the house we're going to buy. How am I going to design it? Then you give like the marching orders to the person on your core for whose job it is to do it and you let them

run with it. And I have no doubt like four or five years later, we're going to be talking to you and you're going to be just making millions of dollars a year flipping houses because you're just going to take what you're doing now and you're going to ramp it up quite a bit. I mean, you are a perfect blueprint of what to do if you want to get started. And my guess is that you guys are very good at what you do, but you're not running around like chickens with your heads cut off trying to keep up something like it's very measured and systematic and smart with the way that you're scaling this thing and you're learning so much that you're going to be able to scale it bigger in the future Brandon do you have any thoughts on that no I mean that was that was pretty darn good I actually

want to turn this right back around and just ask like Ashley do you have for people who are listening to this who are running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to manage one rehab let's say and like they're just going nutty right or they got one rental or two rentals and they just can't handle it how do you just any advice for the people. I just think that sometimes you have to take a step back and see what is going on and look at it by a step-by-step process as opposed to just trying to stay afloat. And by doing that, you have to look one or two or three steps ahead, maybe even four steps ahead and line those things up to see what follows next and how to make the fourth step smooth. So how do you make the fourth step smooth? The third step smooth, then the second step smooth and the first step smooth. And I think if you don't get overwhelmed by the entire project and you just look at it in a very systematic approach and take the emotion out

of it, which I know is very hard to do on your first project. For us, it was very hard to do as well. So I'm not trying to say that we're robotic and, you know, gone around beep up, beep up, you know, let's get this house done. But if you just very systematically look at this, even if it was someone else's business, how would you approach it instead of just being like, oh, I have all this money coming out from every end and the house is never going to get done? I mean, you're fighting against yourself then at that point. So just take a step back and look at what follows next, take the emotion out of it and go to the next step and nail it. I love it. Beautiful. Oh, that's so good, Ashley.

So real quickly, before we go to the fire round, can you tell us a little bit about your future? What's next? What are your plans for the future? What are you hoping to do? Well, obviously with the flipping, I think it's going pretty well. We really do like flipping. my husband and I are looking into other components of real estate investing as well. We've made a couple offers on commercial buildings.

Unfortunately, they haven't been accepted, but that doesn't mean we're not going to keep trying. So we're going to keep trying with that. We've looked into a couple of syndication deals. Note investing, we're doing that. We actually just bought gold recently. So that was quite interesting. But we've done a few different things. we obviously, like everyone, should do is diversify their portfolio, try to get multiple

revenue streams coming in, try to put systems in place to not have to work so hard for those systems to operate. And, you know, we're really open to anything. As long as the numbers make sense, we're pretty open. Super cool. All right. Well, let's head over to the World Famous Fire Round. It's time for the fire round. All right, let's get to the fire round. These questions come direct out of the Bigger Pockets forums, which of course you can go and access anytime day or night 24-7

at biggerpockets.com slash forums. And these are some questions that our members have asked. And Ashley, we want to see if you can fire some answers their way. Number one, what is the best way you found to estimate your rehab costs? I mean, I can plug the numbers into the Bigger Pockets rehab calculator, which nice little plug there. But how do I know how much to put into each category? What is it going to cost me for flooring, paint, roof?

When you first get started, if you're going to look at a house, obviously one tip would be to take a GC with you, and that GC will be able to tell you right away what the figures will be. Once you understand the scope of a project a little bit better, you can actually, there's this magical thing called Google, and Google is amazing. Google is a genius and can help you determine the cost. Now, obviously, it's typically a range and you should get estimates. When we first started, we got three estimates on everything. Regardless if it was a person that my dad had worked with before or not, we wanted to gauge what the going rate was. And we did so by getting three estimates on every single component of the rehab. And then once you know those numbers, don't assume that those numbers are going to say, the way they are indefinitely. So for example, in the last year in our area, everything has gone up

at least by 10%. So if you aren't tracking your rehab costs, you would miss that. And if you went to go then look at a house and you bid on a house based on 10% less than what it actually comes in at, that could potentially be a huge difference. That could be a difference between a profit and a loss. So it's really important to stay on track of those numbers too. Okay. Thank you, Ash. That's very good. Can you tell us where or for a flip, should I buy my home warranty or not? And can you tell us a little bit about what a home warranty is? For in terms of if you're purchasing a flip. Yeah. If you're going to flip a house, it's like they're asking not not a house to live in, but should they get a home warranty if they're just going to have it for a couple months and then they're going to sell it? We get insurance on our houses on every single project that we do. We don't get a home warranty on it. But if it's in respect to getting a home warranty as a selling point for a buyer, I think that it's a no-brainer. It's $500 and it translates into thousands of dollars for a prospective buyer. They seem to think that, oh, wow, a home warranty.

Oh, my gosh. That, you know, that's a $1,000 added benefit to this house when in reality it's like $4.99. I've never actually done a home warranty, but I probably should. David, do you do a home warranty as on yours? I don't do them on my rental properties because I found that the home warranty companies just never play fair. They always find some reason to say they shouldn't have to replace it when it's a rental. But for all my clients that I work with, we always get a home warranty in that. One, it just, it's much easier for a primary residence owner to make it work.

And then two, it keeps you if you're selling a house from getting sued because you don't know if your microwave goes on the fritz the next month or your oven stops working. And the buyers, of course, are going to say, you knew it. This was defective. You sold me a lemon. and they're going to try to sue you. When you get a home warranty included, they'll just take care of it for 60 bucks or whatever and you can keep your clients out of court.

So those are the times I use home warranties. But as an investor, I usually don't just because I haven't found one that I can trust that we'll do good. All right. Next question. Should I hire an actual property inspector on the house I'm about to buy? Or can I just go with my experience project manager slash contractor for the walkthrough? It depends on how experienced your project manager slash GC is.

If your GC is very experienced and is seeing everything from foundation issues to stuccker remediation to knob and tube wiring, I mean, major price, you know, problems, cost problems, then you don't need to hire an inspector. But if you don't have a very seasoned GC, I would highly recommend hiring an inspector because obviously an inspector will most likely see things to second. instead of eyes. So it's never a downside. But in terms of at the end of the day, you're trying to save as much money as you can to make as much money as you can, you might not have to if you have a very season, GC. Very nice. Do you stage your flips? Depending on the price point. And also depending on the layout of the house. Right now, we're doing a house that is an open floor plan. So normally with completely open floor plans. I recommend staging because it gives someone the vision. Everyone loves open floor plans until they have to decorate them and, you know, figure out where they're putting

the couch themselves. So staging provides that vision that a lot of buyers can't seem to make themselves. But for lower end homes, lower price point homes in a very competitive area, we actually just to save the cost and we don't stage them. All right. All right. Well, that's the end of the fire round. And now let's get to today's Famous Four.

All right. These are the same four questions. We ask every guest every week. And Ashley, we're going to throw them at you to see what you got to say. Number one, do you have a favorite real estate related book? I think you're going to be very surprised by this one

because I don't think anyone has ever said this book before. Rich dad, poor dad. Oh, I've never heard of it. Is this a good, okay. I know. This is, it has to be rich dad poor dad because if you're talking about a book

that didn't change the way I do a process but actually changed my life and the direction it was heading, it's rich dad, poor dad. No questions. All right. What is your favorite business book?

My favorite business book is for economics. And that is because I like psychology. I like research. I like studies. I like how figuring out how people think and how processes develop. And I like that it was the first mainstream book to show that correlation does not equal causation. And any book by Malcolm Gladwell, too, I really like him too. You know, Ashley, I'm picking up on the fact that you're pretty smart. and I want to ask about your hobbies, but I'm afraid you're going to say that you, like, put Rubik's cubes together. Can you do that thing where you put it behind your back and blindfold yourself after looking at it one time

and you could just, like, put the whole Rubik's cube together in two minutes? Only when I'm standing on my head. Okay. That's what I thought. Thank you. Other than that and, like, solving complex algorithms, can you tell us some of your hobbies, things that you enjoy? Well, we have two girls.

So obviously, I love spending time with my kids. and doing anything with my family. Obviously, I work with my family, so I love spending time with my family as much as possible. But I also compete horseback riding, and I've done that since I was four. So I really enjoy doing that and traveling all over the country competing. Cool. Super cool. All right. What do you believe Ashley sets apart? By the way, I like I like horses, but when I was like in like fifth grade or something like that,

I was at a camp and like they were like doing the first time ever walk on a horse is my first time ever right and I'm like walking around this little thing and you get spooked by like a deer and it takes off just running as fast as it can. I'm just like hanging on for deer life little fourth or fifth grade or whatever just like crying you know like blubbering as I'm flying around this racetrack or whatever. Anyway eventually of course I get thrown off and the horse steps on my head like just crushes the helmet that I was wearing and that's why I am the way that I am. True story. It took me like three years to get back on a horse And I was at another camp And I'm like on this horse It was like a family camp Fourth of July thing

And I'm a horse And there's a zip line there Like one of those like where you like jump off this high Like 50 foot or 100 foot tower And people go zipline Anyway the horse track goes under the zip line Because that's smart And they usually just yell

Hey you know don't go the zip line But anyway the zipline person didn't hear So I'm right under the zip line As now like an eighth grader And the person jumps And of course scares the horse Takes off running again That time I hung on

So I don't ride horses anymore. I don't blame you. I went in either. Yeah, like two first times, both traumatic horse experiences. If you guys want to see what Brandon looks like when he was in fifth grade, go to his Instagram account and look at his most recent picture. I mean, it was probably post having your head stepped on by the horse. So that might explain.

Yeah, that was around that same time. I had a rat tail like a mullet, but skinnier. It was so good. Yeah. you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? I'm going to steal my husband's answer for this question, which is love it. You've got to love it. And you're putting in so much time and you're dedicating so much of yourself to real estate that if you don't love it, you're going to get burnt out or you're going to give up while you are not even

started. So you really have to love what you do. You know, in like 200 and what, 278 episodes, I don't think anybody's actually ever said that answer, but it's so true. Like, because everything else persistence and dedication and sacrifice and all those things that people say, which are true, like, you're not going to do any of them if you don't love it. You know, at least some degree in your soul, you have to love the pain of like building a real estate empire. Or you just want. And my husband's, my husband's going to die that you said that because he's literally listened to every single podcast. And he said, the only answer people don't say is love it. And it's the most obvious answer. It's, you have to love it. And I was like, oh, that's a really good point. Can I

steal that from you? And he was like, no. So the fact that you just said that to that acknowledgement, he's going to be like, oh, you know. Well, you have to get, we'll have to get him on the show some time to tell his side of the story. And we'll learn all about it. So that's super cool. Well, no, actually, this is fantastic. So I think David's got the final wrap up question. and go ahead, David. Ashley, tell us where can people find out more about you? We are at house it look.com. So h-o-u-s-e-I-T-L-O-O-O-K.com. We're also on Instagram at How's-It-L-O-O-K. We're on Facebook. How's it Look? Bigger pockets, obviously. But we're available pretty much any time on social media. Cool. All right. Good deal. Well, thank you, Ashley, very much. It's been a lot of fun.

I know I grew and learned a ton as well. So thank you and we'll see you around. Great. Thank you both. All right. And that was our show with Ashley Wilson. That was pretty fantastic. That was amazing.

And I'm really, really impressed by Ashley. She is doing everything right. She knows what she's doing. She's going to grow to tremendous levels. I mean, what a cool blueprint for everybody else to follow if they want to get in the house flipping.

Yeah, that was super cool. And she also mentioned that she, we had another guest on the podcast. His name was Graham Mink. He was on episode, So her husband, she just told us this after we stopped recording, her husband played with Graham Mink on a hockey team at the same time they were investing

getting started and neither knew that the other person was doing it. He was on episode 119 of the Bigger Pockets podcast came out back in April of 2015. But anyway, Graham Mink was a real estate investor as well. It has a different sort of story. But if you guys want to check out that, just go to BiggerPockets.com slash show 119. But anyway, I thought that was kind of a funny thing. She said neither of them knew that they were, the other person was doing real estate, despite playing on the same hockey team, until she heard

grand, they heard a gram on the Bigger Pockets podcast. So anyway, but yeah, super cool show. Ashley's doing super cool things. And yeah, I'm excited to see where she and her family and that business kind of goes. Because I'm a business, we didn't talk about this, but I'm a family business guy, like my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my own parents, my brother-in-law is like one of my head contractors. Like, I do a lot of family stuff as well. And it's worked out really well for us. Yeah, I think if you do it right, I mean, if you have a good family, you can trust. The people who usually have bad stories, they trust to their family just because it was easy, not because it was actually smart, right? That is so important right there. Yeah, it's like, I mean,

that's true with like partnerships too, right? Like, oh, I'll partner with this guy because he's there. Well, is he good at what he does? Does he bring value to the table? I don't know. He's there. Right. Yep. And then when it doesn't work out, you're mad about the fact like that, yeah, you can't do this business. Partners are going to screw you over. Well, no, you didn't do very good due diligence and you made a bad decision. So family can be great. Family can be bad just like any other partner. You kind of have to evaluate it all the same way. But it's definitely working out for Ashley. I mean, they're kind of the Brady bunch of real estate right now. They are the Brady bunch of real estate. It's pretty awesome. Well, cool. All right. Well, David Green, I am going to make you feel really

bad right now. And I'm going to leave you so I can go jump out and go surfing. So I'm going to leave you right now. I'll be with you in spirit out there watching you surf. Are you still coming out in a few weeks? Come hang out. Yeah, a few weeks. We're going to get that all set up and I'll be out there. Maybe we'll record a podcast from Hawaii and make everybody else feel bad. We should totally bring out like a microphone and record on the waves.

Okay, we'd get hit by every other surfer boat. Yeah, who wouldn't want to listen to us choking and gas me for air over in the ocean as like other surfers are screaming and cussing at us and we're trying to record? And can we get a guest that would go out there with us on a surfboard and just float. We could find guests that would come out there with us. That would be an amazing show. It's amazing. Terrible. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

All right. Thank you all for listening to the show. Again, if you like this a show, make sure you guys leave us a rating and review in iTunes. That helps us out tremendously. And let somebody else you know, know about this podcast. Like, if you've never shared this on your Facebook, go to YouTube. Find the YouTube version of this show. Just go to YouTube.com slash bigger pockets. And then go share it on your Facebook page and let your family and friends know that this is a cool podcast. So don't, don't be like today's guest husband and Graham and you had a best friend that whole time that you could have been talking about real estate. and you didn't know it because you didn't talk to people about. I know. They weren't sharing our podcast on their Facebook page.

If they would have, they would have known. Find someone, you never know what crazy advice they may give you or motivation they may give you to help you achieve your real estate investing goals or that you could help them. So that's a quick tip number two. Share the show and find other like-minded people

to share your passion with. So that you can love. There you go. That was good. All right. All right. This is David Green for Brandon Rattail Turner. Signing on.

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