BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 320: Hands-On BRRRR Investing and DIY Secrets with Instagram Star Brittany Arnason

Episode Date: March 7, 2019

Imagine building a business around work you’d do for free. Sound pretty great? Today’s guest has done just that, and her story may change the way you think about investing. Brittany Arnason is a 26-year-old who’s converted her talent for hands-on work into a cash-flowing, 10-unit rental portfolio. In this episode, Brittany shares how she learned the business of real estate and construction as a small child, bought her first property for $25,000, and worked on it herself to save money and learn the business. She goes on to reveal her DIY secrets for adding value at minimal cost, how she applied skills she learned at her 9 to 5 to make her a more successful investor, and how she operates as a woman in a male-dominated industry. Brittany has an incredible energy, spark, and passion for real estate, and it is infectious. Don’t miss how she uses creative strategies to finance her deals and the BRRRR method to fund unlimited projects. This is an episode that will leave you pumped up and ready to go get your next (or first) deal. Download it today! In This Episode We Cover: How Britt got her first rental property at the age of 18! Quitting her job as a power engineer Pros and cons of doing your own work The Lifeonaire Strategy Things that make a huge impact in a property Using personal line of credit to fund deals What is a Step Up mortgage Doing BRRRR strategy with her boyfriend Finding deals through realtors and MLS How she learned DIY skills from the internet And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Webinar Brandon’s Instagram David’s Instagram Chip Gaines Joanna Gaines #HumboldtHouse Realtor.ca Pinterest BiggerPockets Calculator Rehab Estimator Calculator BiggerPockets Podcast 254: Tim Ferriss on Real Estate, Becoming a Top Performer and His Tribe of Mentors Gary Vaynerchuk on Finding Deals Through Social Media & Crushing It as an Entrepreneur Books Mentioned in this Show The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner Lifeonaire by Steve Cook Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins BRRRR Book by David Greene (coming soon!) J. Scott’s Book on Estimating Rehab Cost Long-Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene 90 Days Journal by Brandon Turner (coming soon!) Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crushing It! The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss Fire Round Questions I wonder what your 3 favorite tools are How many calls, showings, and applications you see before having a signed lease? Tweetable Topics: “New builds can be easier and more straightforward than rehabs!” (Tweet This!) “If it keeps you motivated and it keeps it fun for you, it probably will help your business.” (Tweet This!) “You have to do whatever it takes to make it work.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Britt Britt’s Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 320. Left it overnight, cooked them all the way through the next day, gave everyone extremely bad salmonella food poisoning. Like really, really bad. Like the craziest thing. So I ended up getting insurance payout and everyone who got really sick did. And so I saved that money until I was 18 and it paid for a portion of that house. 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 Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here in Denver, Colorado today, of all places. I'm actually flew into the Bigger Pockets HQ.

talking to my buddy David Green here, who is not here at the Denver office. But anyway, what's up, David? Dude, I'm doing great. I just got back from New Orleans where I was at the big Keller Williams training event for the year called Family Reunion, and they actually brought me into speak. And I got to talk about how to take investing knowledge and apply it to servicing your real estate clients, which was a blast. We had a packed house.

Tons of bigger pockets fans within Keller Williams. That was very exciting to hear. And I have some news. I am hiring for someone who has experience building and running a real estate team. So I'm taking the David Green team and I'm looking to hire someone who can help recruit and train agents to help get them into production so that I can focus more on the stuff that you and I are doing, a little bit less on actually helping the agents to join my team. So if anybody knows of anyone or has experienced themselves doing that, I'd love to hear from you.

Cool. All right. Well, very cool. Yeah, I saw that video you posted, I think I was on your Instagram of like the million people watching you on stage. You're pretty awesome. Yeah, it was cool. But the downside was everybody just wanted to get to you through me.

They were like, oh my gosh, it's David Green. Can you introduce me to Brandon Turner? I'm sure. That's it. All right. So on that note, you see how David does that? Turns around a compliment, throws it right back on my face. Yeah.

You have such a nice face. I can't help it. Look at that thing. See, there he is again. All right. Let's get to today's quick tip. All right, today's quick tip is very simple and David Green's got it. Go, David.

Go. Okay. Today's quick tip is you should be posting. what you are doing on social media for everybody to see because it will help you raise private money. Today's guest investor girl Brit has a very good Instagram. In fact, that's how we met because she had such a good Instagram. She reached out to me. I looked at him like, oh, she looks legit.

We started talking. She got on the Bigger Pockets podcast. Now, she mentioned she does not like to worry about the details of a deal. She likes to focus on the rehab and actually like making it look pretty, which means she needs other people to worry about the details and the money. Now, I can tell you, if you were considering partnering with someone and you saw her Instagram and how good she is. I mean, she's got live action video showing her working on the house herself. You can see all the deal she did. She puts together like hashtags for every house. You know this

person's really good. So you feel very comfortable investing money with that person. If you want to get started and you want to be partnering with people, put your knowledge out there for the world to see so that you look like the expert. It's very similar to what I taught at the Keller Williams event where I showed people, look, I know how to invest in real estate. Therefore, you should let me sell your house or help you buy one because I know real my business blew up. Same thing goes for her. If you know something, let people know that you know it and you should see your business start to scale.

Yeah, that's a good quick tip. I threw you on the spot there. I don't know if you all knew that, but I did not have one planned, so I just threw it on David, and he on the top of his head right there, got that taken care of it. So nicely done.

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All right. And now it is time to introduce you to a friend of David and mine. This is investor girl Brit. Her name is Brittany. Let's say I can get her last name correctly. Have you ever got a last name right in all 320 shows? Arneson. Look at that.

So today, funny other story. I got Kevin, our podcast, senior producer of the Bigger Pockets podcast, super. awesome guy. He's actually here in the studio with me. He is actually normally not in Denver. He's normally actually in Washington, D.C., right? But both of us converged on Denver today because there is a big meetup happening here tomorrow, which when you listen to this, it'll already have happened. But we're in town for that and to hang out at the office and do some podcasting and videos and all that stuff. So anyway, say hi to Kevin sometime over on social. What's your Instagram? At Kevin D-L-E-A-H-Y. All right. Say hi to Kevin over there. He's our producer.

I love that you couldn't get his last name right either. You had to literally just spell it because you gave up on attempting to pronounce it. That's why you brought him up. You were trying to talk about how you can't pronounce last names. Yeah, probably. There we go. All right. With that, let's get to today's show with Brittany Arnison.

What's going on? Britt, Welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Really good to have you. Hey, you guys. I'm so excited to be here. Good. Good.

So, all right. So let's jump into this. Get your story. By the way, I've been following you on Instagram forever. You have an amazing Instagram. What's your handle on Instagram? I'm going to tell people right away. Go follow you.

It's at. Investor Girl Britt. Investor Girl Brit. All right. Yeah. So go follow investor girl. One of the best follows you're going to find in the real estate space. One of the best.

Yeah. You do a good job. So let's talk about your journey though because I've always been curious because I've been following you and I see doing work. You're like at your like tool belt on. You're like nailing things from the ceiling. I don't know. You're like very hands on.

But I didn't know like how you got into real estate. So I told Kevin our producer, I'm like, Kevin, you got to get Brit. And so this is how we made this happen. So anyway. Let's start the beginning. How did you get started with real estate investing? Well, I was always involved in real estate investing since I was really, really young. So I would work with my brother on my mom's rental properties. So she'd get us to do everything from painting to sanding to flooring to really whatever she wanted us to do. So it was fun growing up doing that kind of stuff. And she also paid us a wage of $1 every Friday.

Pretty big deal. I need to get on that train. Oh, yeah. It was great. Yeah, I should get Rosie out there working right now. I mean, two and a half. You should be able to hold a hammer. I know, right?

Get them started young. Exactly, much cheaper than my other contractors. Anyway, okay, so you started off doing slave labor and then. That's right. And then when I was 18, and I always really was interested in owning my own rental property. So I was always really excited about it. So when I was 18, I bought my first rental property.

for $25,000, which is pretty crazy. That's crazy. Okay, we're going to walk through that 18 first rental property for 25K. Well, first off, let's clarify, how long ago were you 18? Was this like two years ago? No, I'm 26 now. Okay. Yeah.

It was a few years ago. Two years. Now, you live in like Detroit, Michigan, clearly to buy a house for 25,000. Of course. Okay. Where are you located? Well, the middle of nowhere. in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Canada. Like, I didn't even know that, like, I thought, like, every property in Canada was, like, $4 billion. Like, I didn't know that Canada had cheap properties. Is that just because I only know, like, Vancouver? Yeah, probably. Don't go to Vancouver. It's too expensive.

Yeah, it's interesting. Come to the prairies. Okay. It's where the cheap houses are. Interesting. Good to know. So people... Was this a little house on the prairie?

It was. And you know, it's hilarious. My first Instagram name, I started a blog kind of playing around with it a long time ago. And I called it Little Investments on the Prairie. That's funny. And then I made my Instagram handle that. And I'm like, this is way too long. Switched up to Investor Girl Britt. That's funny. Okay. So 25K back eight years ago, if I'm doing my math correctly, roughly. Yeah. All right. What kind of property was this? So single family house. And actually the story of how I got the money to get that first rental property is

pretty crazy too. Yeah, please. So when I was six years old, I was at an office Christmas party and the restaurant we were at cooked the turkeys halfway through the night before and they thought they wouldn't have enough time till the next day to cook them all the way through. So I left it overnight, cooked them all the way through the next day, gave everyone extremely bad salmonella food poisoning. Like really, really bad. Like the craziest thing. So I ended up getting insurance payout and everyone who got really sick did. And so I saved that money till I was 18 and it paid for a portion of that house. Along with just being extremely frugal, like I did not spend a penny on anything.

That's funny. So I was just saving everything, working tons of jobs and really wanting to get into real estate. Why at such a young age do you think you were like that? We're most 18 year olds or 17 year old, 16 year olds are thinking like how do I? I don't know, get invited to the Friday night party and how do I impress that girl or guy? Like why were you different, do you think? Well, I think, yeah, just with my parents, like I saw my mom have rental properties and we worked for her a little bit and I kind of just understood that I didn't really grasp it fully

at that age, but I just knew that I wanted to put my money into something that would make me a return. So that's kind of what I was prioritizing that and traveling. So I just save all my money and put it into real estate and travel. Okay. So that first property, did you pay cash for it then or did you have to get a loan at 18? Yeah, cash. Nice.

Okay. Yeah. And it was this in good condition, bad condition? It was decent condition. Like, not bad, really. And we were lucky because our tenant we got at that time. He stayed for six years and he was super. handy. So if anything happened to break, he would just fix it. And we'd take some money off his

rent. So that was really nice to have. And he was great. Like sometimes he'd be slow on payment, but he paid every month. And I never had a problem. I was like, landlording is so easy. I think I was pretty lucky with that first house, honestly. Yeah. Well, you know what's funny. Actually, you break up a good point. Like sometimes like that first deal, you know, oftentimes on the BP podcast and other places, we'll say like, you just got to get into real estate, whatever you got to do. But at the same time, there's another part of it that if you start and have a really, really hard experience, your first time is a landlord and it just sucks. Like, you might never do anything. So it's great when that happens that, like, you had a really good experience because then you didn't know that sometimes it does suck.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. So let's move on. What happened after that? So after that, I think my early 20s, I was kind of confused because I always had this idea in the back of my mind that I wanted to get into real estate, but I wasn't sure how to do it. So in my mind, I was like, all right, I'm going to have to work really hard, get a high-paying job, and then I'll get into real estate, like, full-time. I mean, part-time, but, you know, I could buy more houses with that income.

So I spent a lot of time. I worked as a server, so I had like four serving jobs at once. And then eventually I got my ticket as a power engineer. So I ended up getting a job doing that. And that was when I really just thought the nine to five life is not for me. What does a power engineer do? Well, it deals a steam generation. So I was working in a plant and I'd just fix these like big machines.

Wow. Yeah, so that was fun. So I just do service calls. And honestly, I didn't mind the work. It was just that feeling of being so bored. Like it would be hours and then just sitting around until you get a call to go fix something. And so fixing. stuff was fun and kind of working with my hands.

That part was fun and I enjoyed that. But sitting around and I didn't like the feeling of the hourly wage. Like I always really like serving because I could work for that kind of commission and the tips and everything. But with the 9 to 5, I kind of just felt like not very motivated and kind of just not fulfilled really. Sure. Sure.

I think I love what you're saying so far because you're painting a picture for exactly how you became what you ended up becoming. right? Like I can already see it all forming together where you took what you learned working on machines because you were obviously very handy and you could operate in that arena and you applied it to real estate. You took what you saw your mom doing in a young age. That's why Brandon and I always say that that quote, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with is so important because you were under mom a lot, obviously, right? So you got an exposure into real estate that other people didn't get. And then you use the Trident True Salmonella formula formula for building wealth, which I I mean, I've never heard anyone who did that and didn't succeed, right? Like, I don't know why more people don't do that. It's got like 100% success rate. Yeah, in Brandon's the second edition for How to Invest in Real Estate, I think that they're going to include that as one of the best methods for getting started,

the Salmonella method. Yeah, I'm going to write a book on that. It's going to be really good. Hey, that's my book. Number one. Yeah, there you go on. Well, we'll co-write it. All right.

Okay. Thanks, Brandon. Let's compromise. Yeah. Appreciate that. All right. All right. So let's let's go into kind of how you then, did you quit your job right away? Did you, do you still have the job? But what, you know, how did you build your portfolio? And then lead us to where you're at today with your portfolio. Yeah. Well, I worked in that job for six months. So it didn't take long. Yeah. But I had a principal residence. And I was always house hacking. So with that principal residence, I was renting out all the rooms and stuff like that. So we were close to the airport, close to downtown. And we furnished it. My brother and I own this place. together. And so we furnished it and rented it out per week. So we're making 700 bucks a week, way paying all the expenses. Like we were making quite a bit of money on that. So I felt, and working

a bunch of jobs as well, I was just saving everything. And then I'd go on these like three month travel experiences, just kind of traveling the world and kind of figuring out what I really wanted to do. But then when I got back and got that nine to five, I was like, this is definitely not what I want to do. Even if it is going to make me money and like allow me to buy those houses, I still don't want to put myself through that to like I just wanted to start. And I knew if I just worked hard enough, I would be able to do it. It took a lot of guts, I think. And I gained a lot of confidence though, like after the first kind of property really getting my hands on and felt comfortable. So one thing that I noticed this a lot that people tend to make rules.

in their head, like, these are like beliefs, right? Of like, in order to get in real estate, I have to have a job and then I can do real estate investing once I make good money, right? Yeah, there's these rules. And like, well, yeah, a job can be really helpful. Sure, you have more money, but it doesn't mean it's the only way, right? Like, I think one of the most powerful questions in the world is like, how? Like, how do I do I do it without a job?

How do I get, if I hate my job, how can I get in a real estate? And that's where we tell people, if you have a job you don't like, yeah, you could quit that job. Even if it means get in another job, if you have to pay the bills, get a job. get a job serving or doing something you actually kind of enjoy and that's maybe more flexible. So all right. So what came next? I mean, did you start just buying rental properties and then I'm assuming what types?

Yeah. So mostly single family homes at this point. We have a few duplexes. Right now there's six single family homes and two duplexes. Okay. So and all managed by me. I'm doing it full time now. So it's like just kind of transitioning at this point now.

Like, I feel like I've learned a lot of the background and I've done everything hands on so far. So now I'm starting to be in that phase of wanting to hire a bit more out. I think I've realized now that I'm a little bit more of a control freak than I ever thought. I just kind of want control of everything. But I know that the best thing to grow is going to be hiring out a bit more of the work. Sure. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that for a little bit because this is something that we debate quite a bit in the real estate world.

Like I think most of us know if you want to grow really big, you want to scale, you should hire things out. Yet most people I know, including myself, got started doing the work. In fact, I think David, even didn't you do a lot of the work on your very first property? Yeah, but I was so bad at it. And it just wore me out that I quickly leveraged it. But yeah, I tried. Okay. So let's talk about the pros and cons a little bit of doing your own work, right?

I mean, obviously when you're doing your own work, you're slower, right? But like, what are some of the things that you, the benefits to doing your own work? well yeah like the DIY stuff and the renovation is my favorite like i was thinking hiring out more of like the paperwork side because that's what i hate doing but yeah like i think i'll always be doing a lot of the renovation work like it's my favorite thing to do it's kind of what gets me up in the morning and gets me excited about real estate so and huge pros like just that sweat equity created from working on your own stuff it's insane so i think we save probably like half the cost of hiring it all out.

Brandon, can you talk about your life and air strategy here where, you know, like, she's doing this because this is the part she likes and that's the goal? Yeah, yeah. So I'll say, so there's a book called Life and Air. It's like Millionaire with the word life in front of it. It's one of my favorite books. And it basically makes the point that life isn't about getting the highest ROI, right? We oftentimes will be like, well, no, you should do this because it'll make you more money.

Well, that only, that phrase only makes sense if the goal of life is to make as much money. It's like, well, no, you should not pay off your house ever because you get a higher return. If you do this, well, they're like, well, maybe the goal of life isn't to have the highest return. It's to have the most security, in which case, maybe paying off your house is a good idea, right? So like, for your case, maybe the highest ROI, if you were up there, like, you know, telling all the contracts of what to do every step of the day, you could do a few more flips every year, a few more rentals. But that's the goal of your life isn't to be as efficient as possible in every single moment, right? Like, you love doing the work. And I can see that.

Like, when I watch your Instagram videos of you doing work, it's like, you enjoy that stuff. And for a decade, I enjoyed that stuff too, until I put like one too many nails through my hands. Then I didn't enjoy it quite as much. But no, I still enjoy it. I mean, like, I was out drywalling and putting insulation up just a couple days ago in my new little office shed. And yeah, I could have hired the whole thing out. Like, I'm sure it would have been probably done better. But I just really enjoy.

There's something about working with your hands that like humans are like designed to do. Yeah. So I love that idea of still working a little bit. Again, I don't do everything anymore, but I still try to get. some stuff done. If it keeps you motivated and it keeps it fun for you, it probably will help your business. It's doing the stuff that you hate doing that will really slow you down. Yeah.

So what are your favorite things that do on a project? Well, pretty much everything. I love start to finish. Like, doing the whole thing myself, like, I just feel so excited and I feel so accomplishing just to be able to see the work that you've done. So really, like a lot of these projects, I've done everything. And not to say that it's been easy. Like, it's really frustrating learning the new skills at the beginning.

But the more I tried and practiced and had some patience, like, the easier it got. So I really love, like, pretty much everything, honestly. But, like, the cosmetic stuff I really like, because you can really transform a space. Like, I love to do back splashes. And I did a cool project with, like, Shiplap. But instead of buying each individual piece, I just ripped it down into, five inch pieces out of a big sheet of MDF. So it ended up costing only $3 per piece instead of $11 per piece.

So it's like, saves a lot of money. And I love being creative with it too. Like I just find it so fun to go in and think up this design and then like bringing it to life myself. Yeah. Do you have any tips on people like who want to do some of their own work? Like what are some things that were maybe overwhelming to think about doing like

at the beginning where it's just like, wow, that's a huge project. And then once you did it, you're like, oh, that's way easier than I thought. Why am I hired? Like, why do people spend so much money to hire that out? Yeah, exactly. I think that's the problem. Like, a lot of people get overwhelmed.

Because when you look at a whole renovation, you're like, this is a lot of work. So you kind of have to just break it down. And I think like getting good at something like painting, there's a lot you could do with paint. Like, if you have a living room, all the walls are white, but you decide to paint a really dark, like nice navy blue, something like that. Like, that makes a big difference in a space. So I like doing things like that And kind of just

I learn a lot through Instagram Even and through YouTube And asking a ton of questions So you gain that confidence And then just keep going back to it At every step And keep doing that research And asking a lot of questions

There's a lot of helpful people online too Like you'd be surprised People answer any question you have Just search up a hashtag And find a professional And a lot of the times They will help you out with jobs that you want to do.

Yeah, that's really, really good point. You mentioned back splashes earlier. You love to do back splashes. That's one thing. Like, there's like these little things that are actually really, really easy to do that makes such a dramatic impact on a property, especially like rentals. Like nobody, like most landlords don't think I'm going to do a nice back splash because it's just a rental.

Who cares, right? But when I do like, do that extra little bit like painting an accent wall, it takes no extra work. You got to paint it anyway, paint an accent wall and add the back splash up there. And like little things like that makes such an impact and drive higher rent, you get better quality tenants and you get all that things just for the same amount of work you're going to do anyway. It just takes a little bit of foresight. I totally agree.

There's so many things I see if I'm looking at comparable rentals or properties online. I'm like, wow, they really could have just like done a little bit extra work or spend a little bit more money and a little bit more time and make the biggest difference. That's my favorite part. Since both of you two are like creative minds, which I kind of want to say designers, but that's mean. Just because I don't do that stuff. Why don't you share some of the things you found that, like, for the smallest amount of money, will make the biggest difference when you're doing a remodel? Well, I think, yeah, like I was saying with paint.

I think there's so much you could do. And even, like, a kitchen with the cabinets, you could paint the cabinets and change to a really cool hardware, like a really cool handle. And I think that little details like that make a really, really big difference. And I really do like the feature wall idea. and even just doing some board and batten, something like that. Like that doesn't take a lot of effort, but it just makes it feel so much more homey

and really like a place you want to move into. Yeah. Yeah. I would say on my side, I mean, I've said this before, but anytime I can take a two-bedroom house or apartment and turn it into a three-bedroom is like the best return I will ever get on any money spent ever. Like almost entirely, like I can take a, yeah, two-bedroom house. I'd rent for $550 in my area.

I can bump that to a three-bedroom if it's got a large living or whatever and add like $300 a month to the cash flow. I mean, like it's just, it's crazy because like three bedrooms in my area just rent way more. And that's not true everywhere, but in my area, three bedrooms went way more than two bedrooms. So that little tweak, I do a lot. I'll add a wall in, add a bet, you know, take a closet, move something around. I totally agree with that. Yeah. And even doing basement suites.

Do you guys do that? A lot of that. I do not do it myself much. We don't have it in where I, like, it is. in California, there's not a lot of buildings built with basements. Yeah, I figured. Yeah, you do that up in Canada, eh? Yeah, that's right, eh? Yeah, so even the place we just recently bought. So my boyfriend and I, this is in Saskatoon. So it's kind of like the hub, but most of our investment properties are outside of this city. So we bought this place for 160,000,

and we're putting a basement suite in and then going to probably do Airbnb be upstairs. I'm going to make it a really cool, like, industrial farmhouse feel. Like, I can't wait for it. And I even just went antique shopping and I found the coolest stuff. Like, I can't wait to just design it and have people come in and really, like, want to visit Saskatoon and want to stay in this house. So I can't wait. And then there's going to be a suite downstairs, or they could rent out the whole five bedroom altogether. So, and the comparables are crazy around here. It's kind of like an up-and-coming area. It's really close. to downtown.

And so I think, yeah, like, it's going to be a really good one in the long term because it's just starting to turn around right now. Like, they're just replacing all the sewers and everything. And I think it was a perfect property. That's awesome. So you're clearly good with rehabbing. You have a very strong eye for design. I can tell you've got to enter Joanna Gaines that's just busting out.

That's probably why you and Brandon get along so well, so to see. Yeah, exactly. But tell us a little bit about how you've applied this to your overall business. model. I still don't really have a great idea of what you're doing. So are you flipping houses? Are you buying rentals? How many do you have? Let us know how you've taken these skills and applied it to your business. Well, they're all rental properties. So right now it's six rentals to do, or six single families, two duplexes. And my boyfriend and I have renovated completely start to finish. And he's still working a full-time job right now. So these properties, some of them are up to four hours away from

where we live. So we're buying these. The first few, I actually bought on a personal line of credit, which is kind of a different way to do it, I think. So unsecured, interest rate was higher, but because these properties are so cheap, like, that was the best way to do it because we couldn't get financing otherwise. The banks just weren't really interested in lending on these lower cost properties. So I had to get that personal line of credit. And this was back when I was still working. So I got $75,000.

And that allowed me to buy three properties. which is pretty crazy. So we've refinanced a few now, did a few burs, but mostly haven't sold any, haven't done any flips. They're all rental properties. Let's dig in a little bit here on this personal line of credit thing. You know, I actually think this is a great strategy that we don't talk about enough. Right. So can you explain what that is? And obviously, rules might be slightly different between Canada and the U.S. and that's fine. But give us a general idea. What was this loan like? What did you, what was your, you know, what was your kind of interest payment, things like? that. Yeah. So interest at the time was 6.7%, but it was variable. So I mean, it's gone up since then a little bit. So I mean, it's good. But, you know, sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to make it work. Like a lot of the time, if I would have just got rejected by those banks for getting a mortgage, it just would have been the end of the road. But I'm like, all right, what else can I do? Like, could it be credit cards, but I still be making enough rental income to cover all those expenses? or, and then eventually I just found someone at the bank who said they'll give me this $75,000

personal line of credit. So obviously higher interest, but the rental income still covered all of the expenses. So it just made sense to me. And so. Really, really cool. Yeah. And so I still have that. That saved me so many times.

Yeah. So you basically are buying properties with this and then occasionally just refinancing those properties. Exactly. Once they're fixed up. Yeah. So you can pay that back. I mean, it's the birth strategy.

Like, I mean, like, it's just, you know, when we talk about the birth strategy, for those who don't know, we're talking about buying like fixer-upper nasty properties and then rehabbing them, renting them out, and then refinancing them to get your money back because you typically can't buy a nasty, cheap little property with a bank loan. Banks don't like to lend on nasty properties, right? So you're using a short-term funding source, like a personal line of credit, a home-equity line of credit, a credit card. I don't necessarily recommend that, but people have done it.

cash, a partner's money, a parent's money, whatever. Like, whatever, hard money, private money, whatever. Whatever you need to do, you buy that. And then you go and take that and you refinance it and pay that back. So you can go do it again, repeat. That's the buy rehab rent refinance repeat. It's very, very cool strategy. And again, a personal line of credit.

I actually did a project a couple years ago where I bought a fourplex for my daughter, Rosie. I talk a lot about that one because I love that property. But I bought a fourplex. And I got a private lender who was willing to fund a hundred grand of it. But the whole project was going to cost me around 100. So we bought it for like rough 45,000. So he was going to fund like the purchase price and a good chunk of the rehab.

But I still needed to come up with like $50,000. So I went to my local, a U.S. bank and I went there. And I just got a line of credit for $45,000 that covered almost the entire thing. So at the end of the day, I think I maybe put in five or 10 grand of that project entirely. And then I went and refinanced it and paid everything off. And so it's, I love that. The personal line of credit, if you can get that, go to a bank, go to several banks, talk to them, see what you can get.

All right, moving on. What else are you doing for financing? Now we're talking about financing. Do you typically get bank loans on most of these things then? Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much been the strategy, just buying it with the personal line of credit and whatever cash that I had saved up. And since my boyfriend Scott is still working, he is able to personally guarantee. So we do have a holding company now because it is a lot better for tax purposes.

So we have all our properties there. And then Scott was able to personally guarantee the, the refinance. So that's mostly what we've been doing. All right, good deal. So where do you see yourself going in the future with all this stuff? Like, do you want to keep buying these singles and duplexes? Do you want to buy larger things? Well, yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot because I love

like the single family houses. I love doing the renovations and all that. But I am starting to think about the multifamily investing. And so I am really excited about that. I've been looking into apartment complexes. Just because I think it makes sense. Like it's going to be hard after a while having all these single families kind of spread out all over the place. So I am looking to get a little bit more centralized. So it's a little bit easier to manage and things like that. So I think eventually I'm looking for a partner, if anyone out there listening, someone who maybe has the money and the financing side of it covered, but looking for someone who's willing to

put in all that hard work and sweat equity and finding the deals, negotiating a good deal. Like, that's what my that's what I'm good at my strengths so kind of looking now for the financial side of things to partner up with cool yeah that's great that's great so what about are you doing anything with with with new builds or with i mean i do some Airbnb any other strategies you're working on besides just straight rentals well we have done two new builds as well okay so yeah how those are we've never done one yeah like this was so we did two those were the duplexes So I guess this was hard money. And so we had that hard money lender.

And then after the build was complete, and we did almost all of the work ourselves through that as well. So that's how I gained a ton of my skills. So yeah. And then after we refinanced and we got a home equity line of credit. So as we pay that down, we're able to take that money out again as well, which is pretty cool. It's a step down mortgage or step up mortgage. Have you guys? Do you guys have those?

I have something called. I don't know if it's the exact same thing as we. you're talking about. Explain what that is then. Yeah, describe what you what that is. Yeah. So we got it refinanced. This new build paid our hard money lender back. And then so they gave us a loan for 272,000. And 65% of that can be a home equity line of credit. So as we pay this mortgage down, we will be able to take the money back out again, which is pretty cool. So we've done that. I don't think we have that. No? Yeah. Yeah. we've done that twice now, two different places. So as we start to pay these places down,

we're going to have that money available to us again to take out and buy more property. I've heard they do that in Australia as well. Your mortgage almost becomes like a bank account. And as you pay it down, that equity is available. You could take it right back out again. I know some people in the U.S. will actually buy real estate entirely with a home equity line of credit. Like, I mean, not like they have a home equity on their property and they go out and buy some else, but like the actual house they're buying instead of a mortgage, they just get a line of credit instead. So that way they can, I mean, there's like a strategy.

There's like a mathematical strategy where like, like, it has to do with those days in the month and all this stuff. But basically you can pay off a property like half the time on by using this strategy, by putting all the income in and using it as a checking account. Anyway, kind of crazy stuff. There's a, uh, I'd give them a shout out if I could think of their name, but there's a guy that does this. It's called like, I'll see if I got a link to it.

I'll put a link in the show now. It's at BiggerPockets.com slash 320. but there's a friend of mine that has a website that does this exact thing and teaches how to do that. Brandon, are you like me where every time you try to learn how this thing works, you jump into it, like determined and you just get lost. I just don't understand. I got lost. I can't figure this out.

At a certain point, you're like, well, they just must be smarter than I am and it'll work, right? Like, it's just, it's like having faith. Okay. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's pretty much exactly what it is. Okay, so what happened with the new belt? Did you sell them? Did you turn them in rentals then, the ones that you built?

They're rentals. We planned to sell them, but couldn't sell them for what we wanted. And then we did have a deal and it fell through like kind of last minute. We're like, well, if we rent it, we're going to be making cash flow on it. So we might as well just do that. That was kind of what I wanted anyway because we now have this home or this mortgage where we're going to be able to take out of it again. So it's been really great. And our tenants are awesome.

And, you know, they love it. And, you know, maybe later on in the future, we'll sell some of these. places, but for now, we're just keeping that cash flow going. Cool. I wanted to ask for somebody who is like you, they're more kind of inclined to the design element of stuff. Like, I always know them because when they hear I'm in real estate, they're like, oh, I love real estate.

I've always wanted to be a home stager. There's like way too many people that want to be a home stager than there's actual like a need for home staging in real estate. But what I know is what they're saying is, I love design, right? Or maybe they love construction. They're really comfortable with their hands. That's where they feel good. can go in there and rehab a house, but they want to be an investor. They just don't know how to

bridge that gap and get into it. What advice can you give to that person who knows they're good with their hands, they're good with design, but maybe they're not as good with numbers. They're not as good with details. They don't know how to analyze a property from like the mathematical side where a person like me tends to be a lot more comfortable. Right. I mean, that's the trickiest part to all of it, really. Like, you just have to, I mean, that's great. Like, if you have that skill, that's amazing because you already have something that's going to motivate you to want to keep going and know that you have something that's really going to benefit you. So I think just really taking the time to learn, like, that's all you can really do is just

like do all your research. And the cool thing about it too, when I'm doing these properties or driving out to my properties because they're four hours away or whatever it is, I'm listening to all the books, all the podcasts, like discovering bigger pockets was so awesome for me because it really helped me get through, like learning a lot of that background stuff about the numbers and finding a great deal and all that sort of thing. So I felt like I always kind of felt comfortable because it just made sense. I'm like, well, I could buy this house for $25,000. I could, if I fix it up, get $975 rent. Like everything's covered. It just made sense. So I think just or finding someone who could help you

through it. Like Instagram's so cool with that because you can message the people who have those skills. Yeah. You know, I'm reading this book, one of Tony Robbins, I think this is the very first book. It was called Unlimited Power. And so in there, he talks about, I put this on my Instagram another day, talks about the idea of modeling. Like, if there's somebody you see that you want to be, like, if you just model them, do what they did the actions they did. So I'm a huge believer in this. I like, again, I posted it on my Instagram because I'm just such a big believer. You don't have to make this stuff up from like, if you see somebody out there, you're like, wow, I really like what Investor Girl Britt is doing on Instagram. Like, model what Investor Girl Brit is doing on Instagram. Like, model what Investor Girl Brit is doing on Instagram. Like, what's she doing? What kind of cool, like, backslash is she doing on her properties? I mean, I get almost, like, I steal every idea of every project from somebody else. Like, I am not Joanna Gaines. As much as I want to be Joanna Gaines, I am not. I just, I look at what Joanna Gaines and I just copy the exact same thing. Or what, you know, somebody, you know, Chip Gaines. We'll go with Chip. By the way, if anybody knows Chip or Joanna Gaines, I would just love to get them here on the podcast. So hook a brother up.

That's such a good idea because Brandon and Heather are Chip and Joanna. She, is really, really good with design ideas. She has a really good idea. And Brandon is like a complete handbone. Like, I don't really know what skills he brings to this thing, but he's really fun. And I just like having them around. Like, you guys are them just probably like three feet taller. Well, that's funny. All right. So anyway, model people who look on Instagram, reach out to them, like, or on Pinterest or on whatever, you know, social network you like to follow. And like, you don't have to make all this stuff up. I mean, the same thing is true about investment strategies. Like, hey, you're in Canada. We actually get a.

a fair number of Canadians listen to the show. And the thing I constantly hear is, yeah, I just can't do what you guys are doing in Canada. Like, well, you can't find properties under a million dollars in Canada. Oh, okay. You know, like, I don't, I didn't know differently until today. I'm like, oh, yeah, clearly not in Vancouver. But that's just like somebody in San Francisco saying, yeah, I can't buy property either because I live in San Francisco or the Bay Area. And then David Green's like, well, okay, watch this. Hold my beer. And then like, like, David goes and buys like 30-some properties out of state because like, he's just like, I don't know. It's just, it's all possible.

And you've definitely proven that is true. You know, like you kind of break the mold. Last question, I like to ask this when we have women on the show. Like, have you, like, how do you feel about being a woman in a generally male oriented world of business, right? Like, contractors are usually male. Most real estate investors, I think 70% of our audience is male. Like, do you, I guess, how do you approach business as a female, anything you do differently or advice you want to give the women who are listening? Well, I think, I mean, honestly, I don't give a fuck what people think about me.

Sorry, I'm going to bleep that out. But it's true. It's like, honestly, you just have to go into it and prove that you're a hard worker. Honestly, I was thinking about that because on Instagram, I started doing the time lapses because I'm like, hey, I'm actually doing the work. Because people would comment, like, oh, your boyfriend's doing all the work. You're just like taking a picture with the tools. And I'm like, nope, I'm not. And so I'm like, just going to time lapse everything.

and like, here you go, like, I'm actually doing the work. So maybe you feel like some women probably feel like they have to prove themselves a little bit more so that they're actually like getting in there and getting it done. I don't know. I've never really felt hindered by that at all. Like, I've just always felt pretty confident in it. Just like do what I do. I know I'm a hard worker.

I know I'm going to make the right decisions and do whatever it takes. And I don't know. Like it's never really made a huge difference for me. Like that's why I think people respect you because you're not out there trying to get people's approval. It's really easy to fall into this this like harmful negative cycle where you're trying to get other people's approval and then you look weak because you're trying to do that and then they don't approve of you and then you feel like you have to try even harder. Whereas if you go the other route, which is like the I don't give a bleep route, I'm just going to do a really good job here. People like, oh, she's good. right. I mean, that's why Brandon and I both started following you on Instagram. I believe that's how

you and I met was because we're both in the real estate space and I saw your stuff and you come across like someone who knows what she's doing. I never once said, oh, she's a woman. How could she knows what she's doing? Because you didn't come across like someone who's like, I'm just a woman. Somebody please tell me that I'm doing a good job. And I think that same attitude will make you successful matter what you're doing, whether you're in stocks or you're a mechanic or you fly airplanes. It doesn't matter. If you just focus on being good at what you do and you don't worry about impressing people, The irony is that will impress people and you'll have what you wanted. Exactly.

Well, and I think that's a reason why I've been working so hard, like learning the background of everything because I like to know what I'm talking about. That's why I spend so much time learning and I just try so hard to learn the background of everything. And I love being able to talk to contractors or if we're hiring a plumber because we hire out electrical and plumbing and that's pretty much it. But I love if a plumber comes by, like I know exactly what I'm talking about. about. I feel like people can't take advantage of me that way. And so I think that attitude as well

came from my mom. Like she just, she does not care. She'll just do anything. And like, she has a lot of confidence, not really a lot of fear around it. Because like, people will judge you, right? A young landlord, too. You survived salmonella poisoning at such a young age, right? Like, you were a fighter right away. Your mom might have even planned that. Like, I'm going to make this girl into a boss, she's going to go through a possible death scenario at a young age and come out of it with confidence. How could she not be confident after that, right? Exactly. All right.

So, we're going to move on to the next segment of our show, which we lovingly call our deep dive. Yay. Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy, and one of these small, modest ways to protect and even improve your property's cash flow. As the months get colder, frozen pipes, icy walkways, and seasonal wear and tear can increase the likelihood of claims. And traditional insurance companies aren't always built to handle these claims quickly or smoothly. That's why more real estate investors are turning to steadily. They focus exclusively on landlords,

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But we'll start with this. What kind of property is it that we're talking about today? So it's a single family house. And this was the property that really got me posting a lot of the process on Instagram. So I think that's really cool because if you look at the hashtag, Humboldt house and then there's a little house emoji afterwards. And if you click on that hashtag, you'll be able to see the whole process start to finish. Okay.

Can you spell that Humboldt? H-U-M-B-O-L-D-T, house and a little house emoji. And once this episode comes out, I'll post something on my feed just so you can be able to click on it and see the whole thing, which was cool. Yeah, I love this place. Cool. Okay. All right. So this house is 100 years old.

Well, 100 years old? Yes. Wow. Okay. Which, it is very solid. I am really impressed with it. So I found this one just searching through realtor.ca.a. So I just made my settings into houses $50,000 and under within like a certain radius of my city, Saskatoon.

And so I found this place and I was like, wow, this is actually such a great deal because it was a bigger city. And I thought, oh, this $50,000 house. like that's pretty impressive. I think I'm going to look into this a little bit more. So I was listed for 499. And I put an offer. I think it was under, it was under 40,000.

I put an offer in it because it needed a lot of work. Like it was disgusting. But I could tell the bones were really good. Like it was really solid. Had a new roof. Like foundation was great. Like there's a lot of bonuses to it. New electrical,

things like that. Okay. And square footage because that's something I look for. So it's a four-bedroom, two-bathouse. And it was about 1,400 square feet. All right. How much? What would you actually end up paying then?

Sorry, what final price would you end up paying? Yeah, $40,000. So I was listed for $4,000, paid $40,000 for it. All right. Cool. Yeah. Okay, next question. Tell me how you negotiated it.

Well, I mean, the funny thing about the negotiating part is, like, I really only have a certain amount of money and I can't really go over it. So I'm like, hey, this is my offer, take it or leave it. Like, it wasn't really hard for me to negotiate because I'm like, this is all I have. So if you don't take this, then I'll go find another place. It's actually a great negotiation strategy. Yeah. I only have this much Yeah. You only have this much. Like when you're when you're serious about that, like you're not emotionally, you know, sucked into pain more. You're like, no, literally this is not a joke. This is all I Okay. How did you fund that deal then? You just paid cash for it? What about repairs?

Well, it was on that personal line of credit. Oh, okay. Perfect. Yeah. So I paid for it on the personal line of credit. And then I moved out there. So I do all the renovations live in, which is super fun. Yeah. And my boyfriend, Scott, would come. He was such a hard worker. And he'd come and work every weekend and drive like just about two hours to the property every weekend. Did you pay him a dollar every Friday as well? Exactly. That was his wage. That's great.

You learned a lot from your mom. This is awesome. Yeah, I know. So I'm so worried. He had to go through the salmonella trials as well. Like, is that how he was initiated into your business? If he hasn't got that yet, you might need to hook him up with that. Just cook some chicken tonight.

Yeah. That's why I don't cook meat. I get halfway. I'm scared. There you go. Okay. What did you do with this deal? So we completely gutted, like we did everything, including the exterior.

So floors, like I did a lot of cool, like feature walls, a lot of like subway tile and it looks inspired by Joanna, of course. Nice, nice, yep. Lots of shipwap, and it was kind of like a farmhouse feel. So I really, really like how the design came out. I was really excited about this place. And so we spent about $30,000 on the rehab. And then we got it appraised for 131,000. Ooh.

Yeah. And so we were able to get a mortgage, which again was that step down. I can't remember if it's called step up or step down. Anyway, we got a mortgage on it. So refinanced that and got 80% out of it. Perfect. That's a perfect burr. Like that's what we talk about.

We're talking about burr. That was a perfect burr. So what lessons did you learn overall? I mean, good or bad on this project? Well, I learned a lot from this place. I think I really started feeling super confident in my DIY skills as well because I was alone at this property just like working super hard every day. And I started to feel very confident in it.

Because when you're first starting these new skills, it's like, and you're not working in it every single day. Like, it takes a while. So it took a lot of patience. I learned definitely a lot of patience and to be persistent with it and ask a ton of questions online. And, you know, it really, really helped me out that way. Also, just by getting that mortgage, I went to three different banks and I think two different mortgage brokers. It took me a lot of time to find someone who would refinance this property.

And then we ended up finding a really great mortgage broker who wanted to work with us. But it took a lot of time. And the first bank I went to, they were going to do. it, but only at 65% loan to value. So just like continuing to push and ask questions and like find the right person who's going to make that like whatever you're looking for come true. No, I'm glad you mentioned that because it's, it kind of amazes me sometimes when people come up to me and say, David, I don't know how to do the birth strategy.

I can only find a bank that will do 65% loan to value. And I'll say, how many banks did you talk to? And they're like, well, the one that my agent said to talk to you. Like, you stopped at one and you're telling me, I don't know how to do this. You know, like, it's okay to have to work a little bit to try to find what you need. But odds are you're going to go to 20, 30 banks. And when you find one, you'll never have to look again, right? Because you can just use that bank.

And if you did have to look again, now you know what worked. And you can find the next bank in five to 10 tries instead of 20 to 30. Like, I love what you're saying because it's okay for it to be hard in the beginning. And then as you get better at it, it'll get easier and easier. Yeah, exactly. So I think I learned a lot of lessons through this house. And the really cool thing about this house, too, and I just, just when I was preparing for the podcast,

I realized that the exact amount of equity that we were able to pull out of it was 34,000. So we refinanced it. It was 104,000. And so we got 34,000 out of it. The next property we bought for 28,000. and the rehab ended up being exactly 34,000. So it was like, and that paid for the entire property and the entire rehab. Just with that equity, we were able to pull out.

Yeah, that's awesome. That whole birth strategy that we're talking about. I mean, there are some downsides. There are some things you got to be aware of. And so it's not like you should just go buy any property and fix it up, right? But this is why it's almost like a domino effect. Like one can lead to more equity to go to the next. And that's why the repeat part comes in because you can do things over and over and over.

So like one good deal, you can recycle that money. and make a lot more. I know David Green's got a new book coming out, actually called by Rehab Rent, Refinance, Repeat, coming out this spring at some point. I'm not sure the exact date. But I just got my hands actually. I'm in Denver office right now

and got like to see the actual physical copy of what it looks like and it looks really pretty. So anyway. I can't wait to read that one. Yeah, that's going to be a game changer. So anyway, nice work, David Green. Well, I'm glad the book is just as pretty as I am. That makes me feel good.

All right. Speaking of that, we're going to move on. to the next segment of the show called the world famous. Fire round. It's time for the fire round. All right, let's get to the fire round. These are the questions that come direct out of the Bigger Pockets forums.

We're going to fire them at you right now, Investor Girl, Britt. You ready for this? Yeah, I am. All right. Number one, I love this question. This is fantastic. Okay, so Roger said, I do almost all my own repair work.

I'm just curious, what are your three favorite tools in your tool, arsenal. I love that. I'm going to answer this after you do. Oh, three favorites. Okay. So, I mean, of course, power tools. So I love, I'm going to say grinder. I love using the grinder. I use that all the time. So handy. And the multi tool, that is a new discovery. And it has helped me through so many projects now. It is awesome. and then I guess probably chop saw. Gotta have one of those. I love my, I have a new chop saw as well.

I love it. All right. So I'm going to throw out one of my favorite tools ever. This is like, cost me like $3, but my all-time favorite tool, all right? It is a, this is going to sound really funny. So when I'm doing projects, my most annoying thing in the entire world is losing my carpenter's pencil, like the little pencil that I care of. I lose it all the time so they can't mark on stuff.

So I got this little thing at Home Depot where it clips onto my belt and it literally puts the pencil on a like retractable little string. So that way I can pull it out and I can write on stuff. And then I just let go and it goes snaps back to my pocket. It is my favorite tool. I need one of those. Yeah, it's so good. I don't know. This is my favorite thing ever.

I love that. It's value like this that makes bigger pockets the number one real estate podcast. That's right. Okay, next question. Let's assume this is from Patrick Britton in Washington. Let's assume I have a fixer-upper that needs everything. Which areas could I do the best myself? My personal opinion is I can do a lot of the demo,

and I've heard I can install my own cabinets to save some money. What are some of the best areas to DIY without a ton of experience? I definitely think demo is a huge one, because that does cost a lot, so you could save a lot of money with that. And like I was kind of saying before, with paint. Like you could do so much with paint. Even painting like a cool design on a wall. Like there's so many things. Just look into Pinterest and Instagram as well and, you know, get some cool ideas. But yeah,

I think that's great. Like starting out with demo, I also think flooring is definitely possible. My best friend just did a renovation on her house. And she did all the laminate flooring. And I kind of guided her through a little bit, but she never did it before. And so that made a huge difference and saved a lot of money. Yeah, you can watch a 10 minute video on YouTube on how to install laminate flooring and like do your own flooring and save a ton of money. I mean, it's so, it's really an easy job, but just it's time consuming and that's why people charge a lot because it's kind of boring and time consuming. But I actually kind of enjoy it because you just get in this groove. You just work and you put on music and you just work for like five hours and get a good workout. And you know, yeah, anyway, cool.

All right. Number three, Ben from Sandy Springs, Georgia says, does anybody have a quick method for estimating rehab costs? I know I know I should read Jay Scott's book on the subject. I promise I will. But are there any quick formulas based on like square footage? I got no background in construction. I just need something to make a quick offer, you know, before I go more in depth. I mean, this one's tricky. I actually get asked this all the time on Instagram and I never have a great answer. I actually refer people to that book because I'm like, I don't know. I think because we do all the work ourselves, it's so cheap. Like I know now at this point I just know how much the materials will be, like

how much the flooring is going to cost. And I don't know. I think if that comes with time, I don't really have a good answer for it. Yeah, that's all right. I can tell you what I do. How do you do it, Brandon? Yeah, I was going to say,

what I do, and this isn't always perfect, but I take my phone out and I walk through a property with my phone. When I'm doing any going to plan of rehab, right? And I make a video and I talk out loud. I'm like, all right, now I'm walking in the living room. It looks like the paint, these new paints, the floor is pretty nasty.

This is probably a 12 by 12 room. Now I'm walking to the kitchen. Looks like we're going to new trim in here, new cabinets, new whatever. Anyway, so I walk through the whole house and make a 20-minute-long video usually. And then I go home and I type the whole thing up in like a big list of all the things that have to get done. And then on bigger pockets now, we actually have a rehab estimation calculator. Basically helps you.

It's like fill in the blank on next to all the categories. So I just go through and I just fill in all the categories and do my best guess on what do I think the paint's going to cost. Well, you know, it's probably going to be a few days worth of work. So I kind of group it in terms of like paint and carpet. Anyway, that's how I kind of do it. And I usually get pretty close that way. I usually add 15% on in the end for overages, and I'm usually about right. But again, it just comes from experience and getting out there and asking somebody.

So how long does it take to paint a whole house interior? Well, if you're going to spray it, it's probably going to take about, you know, two days. Okay, well, what's that cost for contractor coming and do that? You know, like, it's just asking those questions. And also expect that you're probably going to end up paying more than you thought. Yeah, it's always more than I think. Almost always. Fixing a house is like budgeting for a trip to Disney.

Disneyland. I was going to pay more than what you thought you were going to pay. Yep. $9. So does that up. Okay. Last question from me of the fire round. It's twofold.

I'm curious how many calls showings and applications you see before having a signed lease. This is for a rental. How many times should they show a property? And then second, do you have any suggestions for showing a home remotely? Yeah. So we have a lockbox outside. If we're ever not around, like we have a lock.

box people can go through. Then we always have neighbors. So our neighbors are really awesome too. So like just to keep an eye and make sure everything's fine. But we kind of do the application a little bit ahead of time. And usually they only view the property once. Like I've had a lot of long term tenants. So it's not a ton of turnaround in these places. But yeah, that's usually what I do. And usually with these smaller cities in towns, like people are just pretty chill. Like I never have had any problems with it so far. So that's, that's what I've done. All righty. I like it. So with that, it's time to move over to the next and last segment of our show called Our Famous Four. The Famous Four. Which are the same four questions we ask every guest every week.

Britt, number one, what's your favorite real estate related book? Oh, I'm going to have to say your book, David, the book on long distance, real estate investing. Look at that. I love that. I'm so proud of you, David. And you know, I recommend it to people all the time, Because even through Instagram, I get messages constantly. Like, I'm in this crazy expensive market and I just can't get into real estate because how am I supposed to afford a rental property for $500,000? And I'm like, well, the best thing to do is go outside. Like, honestly, I didn't grow up in Saskatchewan.

I grew up next province over. And I pretty much moved here for family, but also for real estate. So I kind of went to the extreme moving here to be closer to the cheaper properties. But you don't have to be. do that. And David's book is so great for that and give some really, really solid advice. Did David pay you to say that? He did not. Oh, and Brandon, your journal. I have to mention that. Oh, thank you. Thanks. I love it. Thanks. We're actually coming out with another version this,

I think, July. Another version? Well, like an updated version, version, too. I like some changes, made it a little better. Something I've noticed about you, Brett, I want to mention is you and extreme dedication to what you're doing. Like you mentioned earlier, every flip you do is like a live in flip. That's crazy. A lot of people would just not do that. And that you move to the area where it makes sense to invest in, right? Like there's a reason you're succeeding at this and a lot of people who don't have your level of commitment or not.

And not everyone has to do that. But man, if you want to get started, like upping that level of commitment is a great way to make sure you will. Okay. Next question. What is your favorite business book? Well, I think for people, if they are wanting to kind of bust into this social media world, I'd say Gary V's book, Crushing It, he's just the man when it comes to that kind of stuff. So I would suggest looking into that. And I also really like for mindset-wise, the subtle art of not giving a fuck, which is kind of what I said earlier by Mark Manson. That was a really good book. Yeah, I love that book.

And I think that's a great attitude to have as well. Like I posted recently on Instagram, we had a plumber come in who didn't end up finishing the job and it flooded all of our brand new floors, right? And like a few years ago, I would have been devastated by that, like just so upset. And this time around, I was just like, you know what? I'm going to choose not to give a fuck about this. I'm just going to fix it and move along and just like. You know, things happen. It happens all the time. And you just had to kind of be prepared for it.

All righty. All right. Awesome. Yeah. I took a lot of good gold nuggets from that book. So definitely recommend it. Okay, Brittany, what about some of your hobbies? So I love traveling. That is my number one favorite thing to do. So I've been to over 30 countries now, five continents. Like I spent a lot of time in my early 20s, traveling, trying to figure out what to do. And well, it was cool too because I was house hacking. So renting it out as I was gone and pretty much breaking even because I'm so incredibly frugal. Like I just did not spend money. Even when I was away, it was like peanut butter sandwiches and like just not going out to eat and couch surfing. Like there's a lot of ways you could travel for cheap too.

Do you have a favorite location you? Oh, that's a really tough one. I would say the country that we're. really was kind of life-changing for me. And a huge eye-opener was South Africa. So, and I did that trip solo and, you know, did the five-day safari and did like shark cage diving. So a lot of cool activities. So much fun. But also just like, I gained a lot of independence through that trip as well. And so, yeah. And were you a big four-hour work week fan when that came out? Or have you read Tim Ferriss? I love Tim Ferriss. And it's just mind-blowing to me too, because

all of my favorite people. Like, well, of course, you guys are my favorite. And then also like Tim Ferriss has been on the podcast and Gary Vee and all these people that I've just looked up to for so long. And now I'm on the podcast too. It's wild. I know you're on equal standing with that. I think you're cooler.

You're cooler than Tim Ferriss. Oh, wow. I mean, you win. All right. Last question. What do you believe, last question from me anyway. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail? or never get started? Well, I think there's so many reasons, but I also think having a really

clear understanding of the reason why you're doing it and why you're working so hard, because I've had some really, really bad days and weeks as a real estate investor and just feeling defeated and stressed out. But when I look back to having that nine to five job, like, there's nothing worse than having that unfulfilled and not feeling motivated in what I was doing. So I'll take those bad days as a real estate investor over that anytime. Yeah, that's really good. Awesome. If you guys want to hear the Tim Ferriss episode where we had him on Bigger Pockets,

it is episode 254. Very good one. Tim's a smart guy. You're the smart, dude. All right. All right. Oh, that was cool. Same time.

Jinks. Oh, he got it. All right. Britt, where can people find out more about you? Well, pretty much Instagram is my main thing now. so at Investor Girl Britt, and I try to do a post about all of my properties and give some helpful tips and show what I'm up to. So that's probably the best place. And I am starting to look into getting this YouTube thing up and a few other projects on the go. So, but I'll let you know through

Instagram. All right. All right. Britt, this has been fantastic. Really, really, really, really cool. Just kind of dig in and learn more about you because, again, I see you on Instagram. But it's cool to to actually hear your story of how you got into it. And what I love about your story, too, is that like you, like we've been saying this a lot lately in the show. You don't have like some superpower. You're not super rich. You weren't born like some with some super skill. You just work hard at something you're passionate about and you're finding good success.

And when we have you back on the show in a couple years, you're going to be even further along, I'm sure, right? It's like, it's just like, yeah, anybody can do this stuff. So anyway, I love hearing that. So thank you again so much for being on the show today. Oh, well, thank you guys. You guys are really the best. I appreciate all you do.

Thanks, Britt. All right. And that was our show with Investor Girl, Britt, Brittany Arneson. Man, that was awesome. I knew she was going to bring it. I knew she was going to have good advice

and she did not fail to disappoint. Is that the word? She did not disappoint. Maybe she did not disappoint. Fail to disappoint would be the op. It's like a devil negative, right? She did not disappoint. Anyway, yeah, good advice.

Again, I like when people come on the show and do their own work. I mean, I know a lot of people we talk to her like, you know, I own millions of millions of dollars of real estate. I would never touch anything with a hammer. But I like people are like,

you know what? I like doing work. The reason why is because, like, as Gary Vaynerchuk says a lot, I'm a big, you know, Gary Vanichuk fan, he says things like, you know, self-awareness is like the most important thing. Like, stop listening to what other people say you should do and what do you want to do. What do you want out of life? What do you want to be when you grow up, right? Like, follow that.

Follow who you are. And she knows who she is. She knows what she likes to do, what she doesn't like to do. And so she's working on that stuff. And I just think that's powerful and more people could learn from that. Amen to that. And now you have something to throw in my face when I try to talk. mess to you when you're putting in your own floors or something in your own chairs or doing

your own work. I got self-awareness. Yes. Yes, you do. Yeah, Britt is doing awesome. And she's like such an example of just the average everyday person who's doing well with real estate investing and building wealth without having to scale at massive levels. There's nothing intimidating about her. She's actually having fun doing it. If you guys go check out her Instagram and investor girl, Brett, you'll see a lot of what she does. And when you're there, check out Brannins at Beardie Brandon and I'm David Green 24. But you can learn a lot about real estate. Just I'm looking at people's social media if you find the right people. Yeah, that's true.

All right. Well, David, time to get out of here. I'm going to go have some lunch with the Bigger Pockets crew. And, yeah, you want to take us out? All right. This was great. Thank you very much. This is David Green for Brandon Pencil on a leash Turner.

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