BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 331: 10 Deals on a $20K Waitress Salary With Ashley Hamilton

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

Ten doors free and clear on a blue-collar salary—today’s guest shares exactly how she did just that! Brandon and David sit down with Ashley Hamilton, who shares the incredible story of how she went from poverty to success through real estate investing with very little help or guidance. Ashley shares her remarkable strategies for investing in a market where very few others could, how she used BiggerPockets to develop a system, and how she got the city of Detroit to offer her a deal to buy a property at $500! Ashley also shares how she buys cheap houses at auctions, how she finds banks to finance her rehabs, and how she uses keyword alerts in the BiggerPockets forums to snag deals before anyone else! And be sure to listen for Ashley’s “no milk for her cereal” strategy to overcome and succeed! If you’re looking for an incredibly inspirational story that highlights how creativity and resiliency can pay off, you want to download this today.  In This Episode We Cover: How Ashley found a way to invest in a market when very few others could How she got the city of Detroit to call her and offer her a deal to buy for $500 Getting to nearly a half a million dollars in equity in a few short years How she got started investing with nothing but BiggerPockets as a guide Finding the best part of the city to invest in Why she fix her rentals up to suburb quality even in low-income neighborhoods Building a portfolio of 10 doors free and clear The way she uses the BiggerPockets forums to help her make money Landlording like a boss Giving back to your tenants And SO much more! Links from the Show: BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Webinar Tarl Yarber's BiggerPockets Profile Dave Van Horn's BiggerPockets Profile Brie Schmidt's BiggerPockets Profile Joe Fairless' BiggerPockets Profile BiggerPockets Instagram Brandon's Instagram David's Instagram Rentometer Rich Dad Poor Dad Seminar GoBundance BiggerPockets Podcast 260: The Ultimate Guide to Negotiating (for the Negotiation-Averse) With Former FBI Hostage Negotiator Chris Voss Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 331. All of my properties are in Detroit, in the Detroit City limits. And some of mine bad neighborhoods, well, you would think it's bad neighborhoods, but how is it bad when I paid $2,000 for the house and I get $900 in rent? 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 up, everybody? This is Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my friend, my co-partner and crime, my conference attendee partner, David Green. What's up, dude? What is up, Brandon? You and I just got back from the Pacific Northwest Real Estate Expo hosted by I Tarle Yarber, a bigger pockets fan and contributor. And we had a blast.

We were just hanging around 900 or 950 or so dedicated real estate investors, wanting to learn as much as they could. And of course, you were the bell of the ball. Everywhere we went, can't take five steps without somebody being like, oh my gosh, it's Brandon Turner laying out a red carpet for you, flashing lights and massages, you know, getting my feet rubbed. It was really great. No, none of that happened.

I didn't know you're one of those guys. It's like take all the brown M&Ms out of my bowl and my dressing. I don't want brown M&Ms around me. That's exactly how it went. They call me Brandon Diva Turner for a reason. All right, no, it was awesome. And here's a quick tip for everybody. Actually, it's a quick tip for everybody.

I think actually Kevin had a quick tip, but I'm going to throw this one out there instead. You should go to real estate conferences. Like, I'm not talking about like the, necessarily like the boot camps or like the paid like, you know, a three-day raw, right, let's sell you on a $100,000 course kind of thing. or like the free hour-long seminar. I'm talking about like actual legit real estate conferences

where real estate investors get together and talk real estate. Like Tarle has one. I know Dave Anhorn has one over on the East Coast. I think it's a mid-Atlantic. There's one in Chicago, Bree Schmidt's hosting. Joe Farrell has one in Denver every year. Bigger Pockets may end up having one this year or early next. Like these things are so good for like getting around other people

who are actually excited and doing work, getting in the real world. walk away from those things inspired, motivated. I'm talking to this guy in the gym. And like this totally unassuming, nice guy in the gym. We ran into each other there during the conference. And I'm like, so what do you do? He's like, oh, well, you know, I listened to the podcast a couple of years ago. I decided to get into real estate. I've done 75 deals. And I'm just like, what? Like, this is so cool. Like just hearing people who are like, yeah, I just got started a few years ago and now I'm crushing it. And anyway, your quick tip, not so quick tip today is, man, go find a real estate event to go to in the next few months, find a real estate conference, book it out,

go to the hotel, stay at the hotel, go hang out at the lobby bar. Just surround yourself for a couple of days with people. It'll inspire you, educate you, motivate you, and make you a better investor. There's your quick tip. I did a class on how you can work as an agent to help build your business and your wealth

by learning investing, right? But when I said how many people here have done at least one deal, probably 90% of the room raised their hand. Yep. And I was like, man, this is where you want to be if you want to be around people that are actually like making progress and doing stuff. Just the guy that you're talking to when you're standing in line,

to get your coffee has probably done deals and you can learn from that person. Yep. So, yeah, very, very cool experience. But anyway, we got to get on today's show because today's show is a fantastic episode from somebody who is a few steps ahead of where you are, but not like a million steps ahead. And that's why I love these types of shows, right?

Today's guest is Ashley Hamilton. And Ashley is awesome because she owns 10 properties and she bought them in an area that many people would be afraid of, including the former host of the Bigger Pockets podcast. We used to make a lot of jokes about Detroit. She talks about how she was able to use her market knowledge to, like, figure out a way to make it work there. And in fact, she started while making $20,000 a year as a waitress, two kids, single mother in, like, Eminem's backyard.

I mean, essentially, like, she has an inspiring, incredible story. And if you've ever said the words, I don't have the money, or you've ever said, I can't find any deals, or I've got no time, you have no excuse after listening to today's show. she walks through exactly how she was able to do it. Have you ever lost a DSCR deal because the financing just took too long? Red flags popped up late. The lender needed more time. The deal fell apart. Well, our friends at Dominion Financial just launched a program to help prevent that.

With their new Express rental loan, you can close in 10 days or less. And they still offer their price beat guarantee. So you can get great pricing and a timeline you can count on. Fast, simple, reliable. That's Dominion Finale. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. That's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle,

active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value in the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job? That's exactly what rent-to-retirement does. They're a full-service, turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 to 75% of our down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with BiggerPockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter.

If you want to do the same, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement to learn more. Here's the thing about traveling. If you buy food at the airport, a burrito, salad, bag of peanuts, you start wondering if you should have opened a savings account for snacks. So wouldn't it be great if you could actually earn money while you're traveling? Well, you can. Airbnb has something called the co-host network. While you're away, you can hire a vetted local co-host with hosting experience to help take care of things. Communicating with guests, preparing your space, managing reservations, everything runs smoothly while you're off making memories. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. That's permission. Let's get to the interview with Ashley. But the last thing I will say is if you enjoy this episode today, if you enjoy the Bigger Pockets podcast, will you do us a favor? I know we asked for this a lot.

lot, but it really helps. And I know that most of you haven't done it, go over to iTunes or Google Play or Stitcher, wherever you listen to this, and leave us a rating and review. Just let people know that you like this show. Again, we've got like five or six or 10,000 reviews or something like that. But there's like a quarter million people listen to the show every week. So that means you ain't done it yet, right? And if you do, let us know over on Instagram at BiggerPockets that you left us to review or at David Green 24 at Beardie Brandon. And we'll give you a virtual high five. So thank you so much. And with that, let's get to today's show with

Ashley Hamilton. All right, Ashley, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Good to have you here. Thank you. It's definitely good to be here. I'm super excited for today. Yeah, this is going to be awesome. So before we started recording today,

Ashley told me a story about how she had this plan to someday come on the Bigger Pockets podcast and to meet David and I. And here you are today on. So dreams come true. Absolutely. It's awesome. Very cool. Well, we totally do.

deserve it. I know a little bit about your story and it's awesome. And so I'm excited to kind of dig in deeper and learn more about what you've done, how you've been able to do it. So Ashley was born a multi, multi-millionaire. Actually came out with millions in her hand just clutching dollars and was able to build a massive portfolio. Okay, maybe not. So let's hear your story from beginning. How did you get started with real estate? Like we'll talk about before real estate and then getting into that very first deal. Yep. So basically I got started in real estate. When I was younger, I always liked to watch HGTV, the flip this house, things, all of that. So I always had interested in really early. So I didn't start for much. I grew up kind of in poverty. You know, my mother, she, she didn't

work. She was unemployed. My father was as well. We were on government assistance and we were on Section 8, you know, and we lived in Detroit our whole life. But to me, I had a perfect childhood. I didn't realize that I didn't experience or get the luxuries that most people did. I just, it was normal to me. But growing up, I realized, that we were living in poverty. Nobody was in business. Nobody even owned a home. My mother, she didn't own a home or anybody.

So I just kind of grew up that way. So I knew that early on that I wanted to be independent and that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. But I kind of did not have anybody to look up to or anybody to ask for help. I have a question for you. So I'm wondering about like growing up in that mentality, that poverty mentality. I'm curious and I'm sure you'll get to it like how you started thinking otherwise. But like, I'm wondering if you can, I guess, talk to people for a minute if you could. Just, I mean, any advice, somebody comes up to you and they're in that same spot.

You know, they're raised in poverty. They're raised not knowing people who are out there, you know, hustling and entrepreneurial and real estate investing in all. It's entrepreneurial, a word. I just invented that. Yeah. I'm wondering, like, I mean, do you have any advice for those people who are in that spot? Before we get into your story, just like how to break out of that mentality, that mindset?

Absolutely. So basically, I'm just optimistic about everything. So the biggest thing that I've learned or I feel like I took on early on is being a problem solver. So or never crying over spilled milk. If ever I had a problem, if we didn't have, we had cereal, but we didn't have any milk at home. You know, instead of crying and going about out, just make a different meal, maybe peanut butter and jelly. So, you know, it's like knowing that you have a problem, addressing it head on and then being a problem solver, you know, being optimistic. So I would say don't be afraid of things if you think they're unattainable.

You know, just stay focused on your goals and they can happen. Just work hard on them. You know, you may have to do some sacrificing, but it definitely will work out for you. You know, I often say David Green here is the king of analogies. But I'm going to say that was one of the best analogies I've heard about, like, you know, you don't have milk for the cereal. Okay, you know, it'll make something else. That's exactly what a perfect definition of what an entrepreneur is.

like because throughout your entire entrepreneurial career, whether you're doing real estate investing, it's like, oh, I don't have the money for this deal. Well, but I sat on the couch and watch TV instead, right? That's what most people do. So, okay, I love that mindset, that difference. So, all right, so walk us through. How did you get your very first deal? Where did that come from? Well, early on, I knew that I, what my goal was to retire at 30, to buy 10 properties and sell them all for $100,000 at $30, and then I'll be a millionaire. And then life, you know, life is going to be great, I'll have a million dollars. I'll never have to work again. Well, that definitely was not the case. But that was the plan at 22 years old. So how was I going to do that? Well, I had to

eliminate my biggest expense, which was my rent. I was paying $700 a month in rent. At 22, I had two kids, single parent. I was making $20,000 a year as a waitress. So I wanted to eliminate that expense. Well, a lot of people say that I can't get started because I don't have money, right? That's everybody's biggest thing. Well, I didn't have a mother who I can borrow $10,000 from. I didn't have a 401k. I didn't have a line of credit I can get. So I had to find some way.

Well, the good thing about it is not having money kind of worked in my benefit because I got a tax return at the end of the year. And by me only making $20,000 and I had two kids, I was able to get a $5,000 to $6,000 tax return. So I went to a rich debt, rich debt, poor debt seminar, and I got the book. You know, I was super excited. So when I got my tax return that year called a local real estate agent and our properties in Detroit, this was in 2009, we're selling for 5,000, 4,000, 3,000, 6,000. So I found the perfect house. It was $6,300.

Three bedroom brick with a basement ranch. Okay, great. So how am I going to get that, right? Well, I got my tax return. So when I got the tax return for $6,000, I was able to slowly save up the rest of the money for the clothes. And I didn't need much, but probably like another $1,000 to add with it. So I went ahead and bought the property. It was $6,300. The clothes and made it an extra $1,000. Once I got the property, it needed about $3,000 to $4,000 for work.

So I saved up for that. And it took me about five months to get that to do the work. But basically, I just wanted the house to be livable. It was for me and my kids, but I didn't have to have granted countertops or anything like that. So basically I went on Craigslist, hired a contractor to paint the house. Of course, he ripped me off and only painted it halfway, painted over wallpaper, whatever. We didn't have any plumbing. So I hired a local plumber to do the plumbing repairs.

And that was it. Actually, I moved in a house and didn't even have a furnace in it. It was August in Detroit. So it wasn't necessarily, but I just didn't have the money. I got into the property off of pure savings and my tax return, honestly. And once I got in, it solved my number one problem. was my biggest expense was my rent. So I didn't have to pay rent.

So the biggest takeaway I can tell people in this situation is, like, what I learned from that, even though I didn't have to make that $700 rent payment every month, I still made that rent payment into a savings account. So instead of paying the rent for $700, I would take $600 and put it in a savings account because I was living fine. I wasn't, you know, bawling out of control, but I was living fine paying the $700 in rent. So I just continued to live the same way I did. frugally and just save that $600 because I knew once I got one house, I wanted to keep doing it.

I had a goal of getting 10 properties. So that's the biggest takeaway. So once you, you eliminate a debt or if you pay off student loan debt, for example, if you're paying $400 a month in student loan debt and you pay it off, well, that $400 is going to magically disappear if you just don't budget for it or don't park it anywhere. And you were living fine. You were, you know, you were maybe living below your means, but you were living fine paying it. So continue to make it. Maybe just put $3.50 in a savings account, and you'll be surprised how far that money grows within a year. That is such a good point.

I mean, that actually works two different ways, I guess. I mean, I call it often the income creep. And it says, like, hey, when you get a raise at work, you get a raise at $500 a month. You automatically, like, naturally without trying, everybody does it. They start spending that extra $500. And your life doesn't really improve any differently, right? It's just like subtle little things. When I was in college, you know, I would sleep in my car and,

of getting a hotel and then I started getting hotels and then I started getting nicer hotels and then I started, you know, like if I was like traveling, you know, on a road trip. So like, we all kind of do this income creep, but you're saying it works the other way as well. And I love that. I haven't really thought about it, but it's totally true. When you start paying off things, when you start saving money on different things, that money will also disappear. So make sure that doesn't happen. I think that's fantastic tip. I think everyone should like think about in their life. Like when have they done that? And what's going to be paid off next? What can they reduce the rent. It's not so we can just sit on the couch and do nothing. Hey, I'm making now,

you know, I'm living on five grand a year total because I don't have any expenses. Like, like keep making that money. Put it somewhere because we're naturally going to. Okay. So, so you bought that first house super cool. I'm wondering about neighborhood stuff, right? When I think, you know, back in the day with Josh Dorkin when he was on the show here, that was like the running joke, right? Was I'm going to go buy a house for $6,300 in Detroit. How did you feel about that? How did you overcome the difficulties of that? What was the neighborhood like? Was Josh Wright in assuming that there was all war zones or was this just misunderstood? Absolutely not. So my thing was I always wanted to be closer just to eight mile because eight mile is the bridge point between Detroit and the

suburbs. You know, the police respond quicker on eight miles. So I bought the property. It was about 10 houses off eight miles. There wasn't a vacant property in sight. I had great neighbors, great schools. It was actually a park three doors down for my house with a basketball court. and life was good. You know, I grew up in Detroit. And honestly, I grew up in a really bad neighborhood, but in Detroit, and I'm sure in any neighborhood is more so, if you're not hanging out with the wrong people

and you're not doing the wrong things, you know, things typically don't happen to you. You know, I was a single mother with two small kids. I was a target. I would come in from work sometimes at 11, 12 o'clock at night. And I've never, to this day, no one's ever broken into my house. I've never been robbed. You know, I go to the gas station.

I do things sometimes that I think that I shouldn't do. I go to the ATM late at night, but I just never experienced these things. And all of my properties are in Detroit, in the Detroit city limits. And some of mine bad neighborhoods, well, you would think it's bad neighborhoods, but how is it bad when I paid $2,000 for the house and I get $900 in rent? You know, in order to pay $900 in rent, you're going to have to make at least three times in rent. So you have an individual making $3,000 to $4,000 a month and they want to stay in these neighborhoods. So I think the stigma of Detroit is their bad neighborhoods. because the properties are values so low.

And that's definitely not the case. And just really quick, not to get off track, but I was thinking about moving to California a couple of years ago. So we were going to Disney Room, me and the kids, and I said, oh, I'll arrange some places to see in Anaheim. So I was going to rent a place. It was $3,600 a month for a three-bedroom apartment. Oh, great, that's fine.

You know, I'll make it. I'll be an agent. I'll go work with David Green or whatever. We went, and when I went to the apartment, there was gang signs on the front gate. And I was like, I don't want to pay three times the rent to live in California just to say I'm doing it, but I have to worry about my kids. I don't want them exposed to get.

I've never seen a gang graffiti gate in front of a apartment building, you know. It seemed like they would just paint it off. So, I mean, that's the stigma about Detroit, but it's really everywhere. I just guess Detroit gets the biggest spotlight because the properties are so cheap. Yeah, that's so true. And I think, you know, to Josh's credit, he was, he, I always think he was making fun of the people who are like, where's the cheapest place to buy real estate in the country? Oh, it's Detroit. I've never been there. I don't know anything about it. Let's go buy the cheapest properties there. And I think what you had this competitive advantage is that you understood the market, right? You understood what, like, why, you know, you chose a neighborhood that didn't have a ton of vacant houses. You weren't buying like the one occupied house on the entire street of like a bunch of rundown things. So, you know, there's nothing wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong with. But. mine in a rough or necessarily area. I mean, my best performing property out of my entire portfolio, my best performing property

is in the worst neighborhood. But I understood it. And I knew that that one block was different than all the other blocks around it. And I understood why that was different. I understood the house that I bought, understood what I was doing. So because I had that insider knowledge, I was able to make that investment work and work really, really well. And sounds like you were doing the same thing.

You had that insider knowledge. Yeah. So my biggest thing is that low-income people, poor people, people that live in poverty, they need places too. There's not a shortage of places of tenants. There's a shortage of good landlords because when people

find a property so cheap, they're like, oh, it's just a rental. Oh, I'm not going to replace this. I'll just throw this together because it's just a rental. Well, I definitely don't do that. Any one of my properties I will live in myself. Because I'm able to remove myself from the situation. I never want to be

bigger than I am. Like even out out of all the success, I feel like I've accomplished, I feel like I'm nowhere near, you know, where I need to be or in a place where I can look above people. That's where I met with it. Like if you're not, you don't discriminate against people, you know, just be open-minded and don't feel like just because it's a low-income area or a lower property purchase, don't treat it any differently, you know, don't try to cut corners, I would say. Yeah, such good advice. Actually, I think Branden made a really good point that Josh was getting at, don't go there just because it's cheap, right? Oh, the house

or $1,000, I should go buy some, right? Because there was a time where you could buy a house. We're giving them away for free in Detroit. You could have it if you'll just pay the property taxes. Then you would have still lost money because there was no way to rent it out, right? So that was something you had to understand is, well, what neighborhoods are the few tenants that are here actually willing to live in? And you did what very few people have done. In fact, I don't know if I've really talked to any other investors from Detroit. You made it work because you had local market knowledge. You wear that boots on the ground person that I look for with my long-distance strategy. I'm like, well, I can invest in Detroit if I have an Ashley, because Ashley knows what

that block is that Brandon was talking about. And Ashley knows the area that has gang graffiti on the gate of the apartment complex versus the area that is an apartment complex full of gang members that's completely different where there's going to be like, you know, fires from meth labs and stuff like that. So I believe you're a property manager and agent now as well, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I just wanted to point out that like you're the person that I'm looking for when I'm saying, well, David, I want to get started buying in this neighborhood, what should I do? Well, you got to find it Ashley. You find the person who's doing it there, who's successful themselves, who has a strategy, and then you pay that person in some way, whether it's through the commission or a bonus

as a property manager or whatever to help you find deals. And I just want to kind of commend you for not letting that stop you from doing it, but instead you said, well, I may be in an area where it's tough to make money. I'm only making $22,000 as a waitress, but I can buy houses here where no one else can because I know what no one else does. Right, absolutely. And an Honestly, that was the case. I probably didn't see that early on. Because even now, I'm interested in investing, you know, out of state or in other areas, other markets. So my biggest thing in Detroit, there's not one zip code that I would not invest in.

Now, basically, how I determined that, I'll do a drive pass. But if you can't drive past it, you can do a Google Maps. So basically what I'm looking for is maybe the closest three to six houses and make sure they're not vacant or completely burned. down. So you can do that with Google Maps. You can hire local people and or you can look like rentometer. I believe it's called and just see or call a local property manager for a vacant property just to see how long are these properties staying on the market. Detroit is bringing in so many good programs now. So even like I bought a multifamily by accident, we're just helping out trying to help somebody to, there was an older lady that was getting screwed around on the tenants.

So I offered to come in for free, give her some advice on how to fix it up. And she just really wanted to get rid of it. She didn't want to put any more money in it. And I end up purchasing it from her for $14,000. And it was next door to a vacant two-family flat. So everybody said, well, why would you buy that? Well, actually, the city of Detroit contacted me by me being the owner next door. And they offered me to buy the two-family flat for $500. Really? Yeah. You can buy in Detroit. They have opportunities where you can buy the property next door or the vacant lot next door to you if it is for $500 and you just go into an agreement to fix it up and things like that. What's that saying? People say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Is that what it is?

Yeah. So that's exactly like what happened with Ashley. You were out there in the game making things happen and something came your way. And everyone say, well, that must be nice. The city just happened to call you and say, here's a great deal. They're not calling me, right? But that's because you were out there making it happen. And I know this is true because it works this way in other things in life. Like when you're playing basketball, if you're an aggressive player, you get more loose balls, rebounds come to you because you're out there making things happen. Like good things come your way when you're making moves and you're aggressive and you're out there in the game. And the same is true for a lot of other jobs. If you're a salesperson and you're really friendly and you talk

to everybody in the office and not just your own stuff, well, opportunity will come your way through that job because other people knew you and liked you. And that's what you're doing, actually, is you're out there mixing it up, figuring stuff out, running a lot of of deals, analyzing a lot of stuff, looking at opportunity. You buy one. You're trying to do your best job that you can making it happen. And people see that and then they're drawn to you, right? They're not, the bank or the city of Detroit is not going to go browsing through the bigger pockets forums and try to find somebody asking questions and like, can you buy this house from us, right? They're going to do the easiest thing they can, which is, oh, look, somebody

bought that house. Maybe they're likely to buy this one. And that's what they're going to go out and do. So that's another principle that we can pull out of this is like by being aggressive and putting yourself out there, you can make things happen. Absolutely. So early on when I went to that rich debt, poor debt seminar, like at that point I didn't know anything about real estate or anything like that. But I learned two important quotes. So one quote was from Warren Buffett,

be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy. So in that time, in Detroit, everybody was fearful. And even though I didn't have the means or the income to be as greedy as I wanted to, I definitely feel like that's what I was doing at that time. In situations where everybody was backing out of and being scared of, I was just buying and offering on everything I possibly could. And in another quote that I typically live my life by, and I could say will be a good example for anybody that doesn't have the money,

the knowledge, or the family support would be, be willing to live a few years how most people won't so that you can live the rest of your life, how most people can't or don't. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Brandon says it all the time, but it's like a Dave Ramsey quote. What is it, Brandon? Well, I say like Dave Ramsey says something like, yeah, live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later.

I like the way that you put that Ashley better or that person did. Yeah. So that's where I first heard it at. I probably feel like people probably change it a little bit and called their quote or something like that. That's what Brandon does. He bites quotes. That's exactly right. I don't think I, no, I don't ever claim quotes for myself.

I just quote other people all the time. I have like a thousand quotes up here that I just like to throw out there. Changes one word and then calls it. Most of them are Jim Rohn. That's what I was going to say. Maybe I should get changed one. He's like, no, no, no. I said live like nobody else later.

He's to live like no one else later. This is different. This is my love. Brandon's quotes. Yeah. You go look at my Instagram. I don't have quotes of my own on there, all right? Calm down, David, Dave Green.

Email Josh Dorcan and ask him. He'll tell you guys. It was one time. One time. All right. All right. No, Ashley. Yeah, this is awesome. Okay. So I want to know, first of all, let me go to the end of your story real quick. Like where you're at today. How many properties do you have today? Okay. Right now I own 10 properties. I'm sorry, nine properties, but 10 donors because one is

a multi-family. Yeah, that's right. Okay. So you started with that very first one. Now you got 10, which is awesome. Can you walk us through like, I mean, we don't have to go through each one individually, but how did you get from that first to the 10th? I mean, what did you do for the first rental then? the second and the third. How did you pull those off? So my second rental, like I said, I was able to put the money that I was paying and rent into on a savings account. And then I waited until I got my tax return the next year. So my second, or my first rental, but my second property was I paid $4,000 for. And it needed about $6,000 worth of work. So I had the money because I was saving. I had saved about $5,000 for the year and I got another tax return for about $5,000. But my mom was

55 years old at the time and had never owned a property. She was getting ready to have to move out of her house. So I decided to do a land contract with my mom. She was only paying $700 a month in rent. And I told her she can move here and pay me $600 in rent. And then in three years, she can own it. Well, I wish I could have gave my mom a property or bought my mother a property. But at that time, I was still only making $22,000 a year. And I just wasn't in a situation. So I had to come in as a business decision, but also trying to help my mom out. Because if it wasn't for me, she would have still been renting. So that was really smart to me or a really good situation for me because it eliminated the rehab cost because she did the work herself and it eliminated the expenses,

the taxes, the property insurance and stuff like that. So that's how I got the second property. I went ahead and land contracted for my mom with zero down than just $600 a month for three years. Because I only paid $4,000 for the property. So yeah, and basically after I, I, I just kept repeating the process. So all the rent from the property that I was collecting, the rent that I was saving from my own house into my income, just basically saved that and then waited so I got my tax return the following year and then bought another property.

So I repeated that step and eventually I was able to buy two properties or more in a year. I know I kind of started a little bit on it, but I really just wanted to hone in on that repeat process and how I was just being saving and being frugal because I could have seen. said, oh, I own a property, you're on two properties. I can go have every new iPhone that comes out. And I didn't. I still had a go. And, you know, it is repeatable, but I did have to live below

my means. You know, I had to see all of my friends. I was only 23 at the time. All of my friends were going to concerts, taking trips, buying new clothes. And I couldn't go. I couldn't have those things. But it was more so me living how most people won't, because I knew later on I wanted to be able to be financially free and live how most can't or don't. And that's actually the situation. right now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's such an inspiring story because I mean, I know people who are making 50, 75, 100, 150,000 a year who are telling me they don't have any money to invest in real estate. They can't do it. So I go, I only make 150,000 a year. I can't. I don't, you know, I'm living on paycheck to paycheck. And you're like, look, if there's a will, there's a way. That's a

quote I invented. And so there's a will. Always let your conscience be your guide. my brain interred. Michael Scott. This reminds me of there was somebody in M1. He might be in Go Bun and son. I think his name was Austin. And he told us all he wanted to learn wholesaling. And he literally moved to Georgia to work for a big wholesaler out there.

And was like, I don't know where I'm going to live. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I'm going to learn this business from this guy. And somebody told me the other day he just gross like $2.2 million at assignment fees after like three years. Right. So from nothing to that. And I was just thinking as you were talking, actually, like the things that

brand and I hear all the time is, well, there's no deals out there. And then, well, I don't have any money. How do I do this without any money? Right? And, well, there's no one to teach me. I can't find a mentor. And you had none of those things. And yet you made it happen in one of the toughest markets ever. And I was thinking if someone had done what you did, if they just said, you know what, I'm going to move to Detroit. There's a lot of cheap houses. I'm going to figure out how to make this happen. I'm going to get a job and learn how to give value to employer so I can make money. I'm going to get to know these neighborhoods and know where I can buy and where I can't buy and what I can rent for and how to find deals. Other people could have done the same thing you did,

but they're not willing to do what you did. They weren't willing to forego the concerts and the new shoes and the new clothes like your friends were. And so you earn the right to have that. And I just think that like you had this confidence about you in spite of the fact that you're very humble because you know like I put in work other people didn't put in so I deserve this. Yeah, absolutely. That's definitely the case. It really was hard and it really, and by me being so young, I really felt like I was missing out, but I just didn't want, I knew early on I could not depend on anybody. You know, unfortunately, that just wasn't my life. I wish I had a mother or, you know, or a father that I can ask to borrow money.

But if I failed and my car went down and I didn't have $100 to fix it or whatever the price, then my kids were going to be on the bus. And every day I wake up, every day I go to sleep, my biggest thing is to give my kids to life that I didn't have. You know, that's the only thing that keeps me going. And I don't care if I, I'm not doing this so I can have a $50,000 car or, you know, or jag in my driveway or a $2 million house. I'm doing it strictly to give my kids a better life and to give them what I didn't have. Yeah, it's such a powerful why.

It just shows the reason of having like a more powerful why than I want to, you know, swim in a gold vault with like Scrooge McDuck, right? Like it's not about the money. It's not about the number of coins in our bank account that we can swim in. Like this is about, you know, for every person, it's probably a little different. but for most of us has something to do with our legacy, our children, what we're passing on. You know, like that that is what drives you. When you're at that hard point in your life where you just don't know what to do

and you don't know how you're going to get that next deal done or things are falling apart around you. It's when you're in that part of your life, you remember, oh yeah, I'm not doing this for the Scrooge McDougall. Scrooge McDoug vault. I'm doing this for my kid, my kids, my generation. Yeah, I love that. So it looks like you made some other moves to help build your wealth. I'm very interested in that because I made that same move. So you became a real estate agent.

Can you tell us a little bit about why you did that, what your business looks like and maybe how it helps you with your investing? Yeah, absolutely. So to be honest, well, when I bought my first property, the real estate agent who sold me that property, she talked me into doing it. And I was able to become a real estate agent. And things were going good.

But in Detroit, the commissions aren't much because the properties aren't selling for much. So I would work 30, 45 days on a deal, and I would probably make a commission of $1,200. and I'll be splitting that with a broker. So basically I learned early on to find a niche. And then the niche was like rental properties because I would make a one month's rent, which is like $700 for commission

if I found a tenant for a property. So I kind of found that rental niche and kind of focused on there. So being a real estate agent, it has definitely helped my business, knowing the process and things like that. But honestly, I don't really practice real estate that much in the city. I would help my investors privately, but I really don't, you know, I don't make a ton of

money on real estate. I probably do two or three deals a year. Okay. And you find that that's just because the commissions are so low, you're not going to make a ton of money. So does it help you help you own investing? Or is it just something you kind of do to give back to help other investors get going? Because there's so few agents that understand how to work with investors. Absolutely. So I use it to give back to help my investors that I work for under my property management company. It just helps me by knowing the market what's out there and seeing things when it first come on the MLS. But it really doesn't help me in my real estate business because I can't represent myself on a deal. So I haven't really used my real estate license to expand my business

that much. Because like right now I have I have multiple streams of income. I still work part time at a major bank here in Detroit. I work 20 hours a week there. I have my own property management company where I manage 35 properties, and I have my personal rental properties. And I'm also a single mother. I'm very active in my kid's life. I want to be there every morning when they wake up, when they go to sleep. I take them to school and pick them up from school, and every track meet, cheerleader practice, I'm there.

So I really can't do too much more. So I would love to be in real estate in Detroit. I know real estate is great everywhere else, but in Detroit, to me, the commissions aren't worth the sacrifice and working 45 days for the commission and the deal doesn't go through and I miss my daughter's cheerleading competition. You see what I'm saying? That's such a good, such a good point. I mean, it's just, it's why it's so important to never like rely on one piece of advice from anybody that says that you should do this or you should not do this. It's all subjective, right? Like being a real estate

agent for Dave here, like David Green is making a lot more commission off of his pay area home sales than you're going to be making off of Detroit home sales. And so like just knowing that and then look at your own life. Like what do you, what do you want to? get out what's the outcome you want it's not working a whole lot of hours and so you know i totally get that and then the property management thing i think that's cool and uh i i love property management quite a bit and so you're 35 properties there are you looking to grow that thing as well is that kind of one of the plans or you're you're happy where it's at yeah i'm happy with that i feel like i can grow it but i would only do it to help other investors that's knowledgeable what i do now so i kind of got

tricked into it so i was self-managing all my properties i didn't know i was going to be a property manager. I had no inspirations or didn't even know what they did, but I was doing it for myself. So a hedge fund out in California, they contacted me and say, hey, actually, I see you list a couple rentals. Hey, this is what I'm doing. Could you do what you're doing for yourself for me? And I'm like, yeah, I guess I'm doing it for myself. And it turned out really great. And now I'm making money off doing what I would be doing anyway. I have to have my phone available 24 hours for my tenant, in case the toilet break. So now I'm getting paid to do it for 25 other people. And another thing is I, my properties are all inside the property management company.

So I manage my properties. Actually, only out of the 10 properties that I own, only two people know that I'm the owner. I kind of tell them that I'm the property manager. So the kind of this to that Chris Boss, I watched an webinar with him and he was like, seem powerless and kind of so that way you're not cornered into making a decision. So even if it's my property and someone say, hey, I want a new fence put up. This fence is all. And I'll say, oh, okay, let me talk to the owner.

about it, but I'm the owner, but they don't know. So that way, if I have to say no, it's not like, oh, she's a B. I'm not, you know, they don't like me or anything like that. I did the exact same thing. It's very simple advice, but it's extremely effective. Yeah. At first, I didn't do that, but once I started doing that about three years ago, things were just, oh, it just went so smoothly. Like, I mean, for our interview now, I've been preparing for two hours. Our interview, you know, will probably go an hour. So my phone is probably not going to ring one time because I have my system so. I have my system so. good in place. I don't defer. First of all, when I first get a property, I try to fix everything. It doesn't matter if I pay $2,000 for it or $20,000. I'm going to do all the work now. I'm not going to say, hey, it's a rental or, hey, this is in Detroit. I'm going to put the same money and time and make things just as nice as it was in the suburbs. So that's going to defer a lot of the repairs. But when somebody do call me about something, I'm not going to say, hey, I'm not going to make an instant return off of that or the tenants are just being petty. I want them to have a good quality of life as just because they're low income or whatever the situation may be doesn't mean they don't deserve a good quality of life.

You know, it doesn't mean that they're bad people. I was poor my whole life and I wasn't a bad person. I wasn't a gay member. My mother and father, they weren't robbers, but we were just in a situation where I lived in a really bad neighborhood. But I still wanted nice things, you know, and I still feel like I deserved that because I wasn't, you know, it wasn't my choice to be there. So like I said, there's not a shortage of renters in Detroit. it's a shortage of good landlords in Detroit and good property managers in Detroit. And that's what scare a lot of people away.

That's so good. That's so good. That's one of those little clips. We like to take little clips from the show and put up on Instagram because they're so good. That was like one of those things. Like just because they're poor, just because they're in poverty, they're born differently than others. Doesn't mean they're bad people. It doesn't mean they don't deserve a great house.

You know, one thing. This is actually a quote. I created David Green. Thank you very much. But right, unless somebody else can tell me I stole this. But even those in poverty like Chip and Joanna Gaines, right? Like in other words, like they like if you can, if you can provide a good quality product to people, just because it's a low income house doesn't mean or it's a low income area or lower income individual doesn't mean that you don't provide good quality stuff.

And good quality stuff doesn't have to be that much more expensive. It's just yeah, it's just thinking like what, you know, and it just helps us as landlords too. I mean good better quality stuff's going to last longer. people tend to take get better care of their properties, less repairs, maintenance, etc. All right, so let's go back to your properties here. You got these 10 units now, these 10 doors. Do you have, I mean, are you still, were you still buying them cash or do you have a bunch of loans on these now? Where are you out on that? Not at all. So that's the second phase because I didn't even know because to be honest with you, the birth strategy, buy repair, rent, refinance, repeat.

Well, I can't buy it because the properties aren't appraising for more than 40 with the banks are lending on. I don't have any credit or equity. I can't. can repair it, but it rent it out. But how am I going to refinance? The banks all have minimum. So it's all cash. But I've been able to be creative lately the last two years. And that's how I've been able to grow more. And I've been using credit cards, honestly, 10% credit cards. But they're one year. So they're all paid off. So right now I have no debt on the properties. Yeah. So a couple of them I use credit cards over one year, but they paid them off now. So there's no debt on them. So, okay, so you got 10 doors, nine properties, 10 doors, all free and clear at this point. I mean, that's amazing.

I mean, we don't have to go into every bit of how much money they make, but on average, like, what are these things renting for? And then what are these properties worth today? It's still worth five grand. Yeah, so being on the bigger pocketings forms recently, I realized that I can do cash our refinances in Detroit. That was never my plan. Remember, my goal was just to get 10 and wait for them to reach $100,000 and make a million dollars, whether it took 10 years, whatever. I never thought about refinancing pulling cash out. So talking to a couple of lenders on the forums and networking through people, I realized that I got a couple appraisals on them.

And right now, the portfolios were $469,000, not including my personal residence, which would boost it up to about $560,000 in equity that I have free and clear. I don't have not one on any of them. So I thought that that's nothing because, honestly, I listen to the bigger podcast, and I hear all these people to have 30 doors and, you know, and I'm like, well, what is a half a million dollars in real estate? You know, how is that going to benefit me? Now I know, and the process that I'm in and the lenders that I work with now about the refinances and buying bigger properties and multi-units, now I believe that next year this time I'm going to own over $2 million in real

estate because I'm planning on do the cash out refies and use those as down payments. So that's good. But on average, just one of my most recent properties for, I paid $2,000 for the property. I know that's weird. I put $17,000 worth of work in the property. So I'm all into it for $19,000. That property rents for $925 a month. And the tenants pay everything. Up and down, I repabbed everything.

So I haven't had to do any repairs on it. And that's basically how it's been my whole, my whole, career. How did you find that deal? It was an auction. So most of my deals, I get them from the MLS, but the Detroit have a tax auction every year. And I believe every city has those. It's a fee of like $2,500 if you want to buy one property in $10,000. If you want to buy multiple, well, that eliminates a lot of people because they don't have the $10,000, but you get the money back if you don't buy. So I found it in an auction. It was $2,000, and that's how I purchased it. And what do you say is probably worth now that it's fixed up.

$42,000. Okay. So there are people that will say, well, how do you buy a $2,000 house? But when you really look at it, you went through the rigors of an auction. You had enough money to put on deposit to get into that auction. You bought a house with the rehab budget of $19,000, right, when the house was only worth $40. So like 50% of that house's value was in its rehab, right?

So like there's not many. Imagine if you're buying houses or $100,000, but you need to put $50,000 into it to make it livable. You put yourself in a position where a few other people wanted to go. There were a lot of barriers to entry. That's how you got that great deal, right? So good investors, we look for that. That's opportunity.

If there's a lot of barriers to entry, there's less competition. That's where you get that deal. And that's really, really smart. Yeah, actually, when I entered that auction, I didn't even have a, I only had the $2,000, this is, sorry, this is when I only had the $2,500 to do one property. So I didn't even put the $10,000 deposit. I basically had to buy a property for $2,500 or I wasn't going to get in. And then I didn't have the money to fix it up.

So Chase, I opened a bank account to get the $300 bonus that they were going to send me for opening an account at Chase. So I opened the account of Chase for the $300 bonus. And then they offered me a credit card for $16,000, you know, and a year was zero percent interest. Well, that's how I financed the rehab on that. I had no clue of how I thought I was going to have to hold it for years or take a year to fix it up. but I was able to pull the money off the credit card and do the whole refinance and rented it out within two months for the $9.25 a month. And that's how I was able to pay it back within a year.

And plus some of my other income. So there was no milk in the fridge and you opened the cabinet and Chase was your peanut butter jelly sandwich. Absolutely. And I honestly, even though I own multiple properties at the time, I still was working part time. I only went to Chase for the $300 bonus that they were giving me. And I know people say that's petty, Ashley. Come on now. You're making a good thing.

when you own rental properties, why would you open account for $300? Because it's not cost me anything but 30 minutes of my time. If I don't like Chase policies and principles, I can just close the account. But why am I going to leave this $300 on a table? And then also, like you said, it was able to open up doors where I can do the rehab on a property. Because you put yourself, you had that aggressive mindset. You were in the game and the steel came your way, right? Like the other team turned the ball over.

You were right there to jump on that fumble. And that's a big win. Plus downside, let's say nothing else comes out of it. You just made $600 for one hour of work. right? How many people are out there that's going to turn down $600 an hour of work, right? Most of them probably wouldn't be listening to this podcast. So that's awesome. In fact, that's such a good deal. I want to get into our deal deep dive. If you own a large or complex rental property, congrats. And I'm also sorry.

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Cool. So what kind of property is this? Is single family, multifamily? It's a single family property. Okay. David. How did you find this deal? I found this deal on auction as well.

Okay. What did you? The tax auction for $2,300. $2,300. Wow, not bad at all. Okay. Did you get a chance to negotiate or was that just the auction price? That was just the auction price.

We're bidding against people, just regular people like me, you and I. So when they, you know, I kept bidding and they eventually stopped at the $2,300. Okay. All right. So how did you fund this $2,300? Well, I was fortunate enough to have $2,300. in my account. All right.

And I don't want to take that for granted because a lot of people don't. So I was fortunate enough because I had a couple rentals under my belt that I had the money in my account for it. Okay. So I would have funded, but I used a zero percent credit card for a year to do the rehabs. Okay. And the rehab was $11,000, I'm sorry. So after it was rehabbed, what did you do with the property?

I immediately rented it out about two months after I purchased it for $800 a month. The tenant, she was a young girl. She was a single parent and I saw the good in her, the property. I did everything from the beginning to the end. And she stayed there five years. At $800 a month, she paid all her expenses. The property taxes in Detroit are very well or in the area that I'm in. So my property taxes were only $1,100 a year on that property.

And my insurance was $69 a month. So I had very, I had about, it was about $100 a month, give or take an insurance cost, $69. I mean, it's $100 in tax costs, property tax, $69 in insurance, and everything else was covered by the tenant. So for the five years that she was there paying $800 a month, I only put a backlight up in a faucet in five years. I didn't want to sell it or anything like that.

I didn't have any aspirations of selling a property, but the business owner that was on the corner, they really wanted to buy it and they would not leave me along. And coincidentally, the tenant, you know, she was late every month. I'm not going to lie. So she was the one person that was late every month, which actually worked out well for me because I was getting a $50 late fee every month, which added to the profit.

But I was kind of getting tired of her as well. Even though I wasn't fixing anything, she was late every month. So when a business owner, they wanted to buy the property in five years, I went ahead and sold it to them. Okay. I don't typically do that. That's definitely not the plan, but I went ahead and gave in. I was kind of tired of her and I went ahead and sold it.

And he paid $40,000 cash for it. Oh, cool. Five years later. Okay. I was going to ask you what the outcome was. That was the outcome. Good. Yeah.

All right. Last one. Then what did you learn from the deal? What overall lessons can you pull from this deal deep dive? Absolutely. So I learned courage to do it. I learned the financing, the rehab. That was my first time being able to finance for a credit card.

So I learned how to do that. And then I also learned patience, extreme patience, because a lot of people may have put her out because she was late every month, not even exaggerating. but she would always pay. And I knew she was a single mother and I kind of, you know, identify with her. So I was patient with her and she always paid. So I definitely learned patience and the courage. And I would say financing, you know, different ways to finance deals.

Okay. Let me ask you a question. I'm really part of the deal deep dive. But as a landlord, as somebody who you're managing your own properties and you've got 35 of them now, one thing that I struggled with a lot when I was doing a lot of my own, like real hands-on management, even though they didn't know I was the landlord all the time. I struggle with empathy. And that's a weird phrase to say I struggle with empathy, right? But I want to. I'm like, I get them. I bet in their spot. I was never a single mother, but you know, I understand it, right?

How do you separate the business of no, you need to pay rent and there's going to be a late fee from I want to help you because I want to empathize with you and I want to, you know, be your friend? How do you reconcile those two sides as a landlord? Yeah, absolutely. Well, my biggest thing is business is business. So no matter what, even though she was late every month and I knew she paid, she still got an eviction notice on the third every month. I felt like I was wasting stamp and envelope because I knew she would pay. But every month, I spent that dollar, 25 or whatever, to mail her eviction notice. And I would text her sometime. Hey, nothing personal. Business is business. This will never go on your record as long as you pay it within this time frame. And sometimes I actually had to take her to court. There was about three or four times. that I actually had to proceed on the eviction and take her to court. And, you know, like I said, it was nothing personal against her, and I let her know that immediately, but business is business.

And then I also remove myself from the situation again and told her, hey, this is the situation. I have 35 properties that I manage. I'm by myself. There's nothing personal against you, but to make my business run smoother and just to keep the sanity in my life, I just do everybody the same way. So everybody on the third, whoever hasn't paid,

they get eviction notice, whether it's my sister or my friend, no matter who it is, I do the same thing to everybody. And that way, they kind of don't feel like I'm picking on them. They feel like, hey, it's just the business or she's just so busy. She just do it to everybody, you know. So that's how I was able to do that. That is so, so good and so true because probably the biggest mistake I see landlords make across the board is that they start treating their people like friends.

And there's nothing wrong with like being friendly, right? But as soon as you start giving a little bit for a tenant, like it's, and again, not that they're bad people, but they will start taking advantage of that. And they'll start, but as soon as you, as you, as they know, if they know that this is a business, it's not personal, and you do this for all of the people. I mean, essentially, you want them to think like,

this is a machine that I'm inside of, and that way it separates out. Like, oh, I'm just running a machine. The machine is what's doing the eviction on, not me. It's the machine that does the eviction, right? It's like giving this persona of a machine to your business. And that helps you as a landlord because you're like,

it's just machine. It's just business, business is business. Anyway, if you're listening to this right now and you are a landlord and you struggle with that, just rewind that last like two, three minutes again because that is incredible advice, actually, really, really awesome. And then also, I do identify with a lot of people and I am really kind and given. And honestly, I know it's sad to say, but that really is a downfall of mine with dealing with contractors and stuff.

But every year I give my tenants on Christmas a $50 gift card from Walmart. So that's kind of a way to say, hey, it's nothing personal. know, hey, Ashley, you sent me 10 evictions this year. But I'm going to give you a $50 gift card in Christmas because I care, you know, it's nothing personal. But sometimes I realize like when doing that, I don't even get a thank you sometimes from the tenant. You know, they don't even, like three or four people wouldn't even acknowledge that I gave it to them. So the following year, I just give them a $25 gift.

But I still do it because I want, like I said, I want to give back. I love that. I want to give back. And I feel like I'm being blessed by being a good person because there's a lot of not good people in the world. and I've experienced a lot of that. So I feel like I've been able to be so successful because I'm always good at her. And honestly, it does kind of feel like the bad guy when you have to evict somebody or you have to send them eviction out of this every week and you understand that their car broke down, but you still have to call them every day and say, hey, let me pay rent. So I do want to sleep at night.

And I know like, hey, at the end of the day, I did everything possible to help this person out. I, you know, I let him be laid on the rent. I still gave him a Christmas card every year. And unfortunately, it didn't work out. But I'm still going to sleep at night because I know at the end of the day I was a good person. to that you know I was a good person to them as you guys were talking I was actually thinking I wonder if the people who don't give to charities and don't give back and don't have a charitable lifestyle have a harder time evicting their

tenants because they feel like a bad person whereas the people that are giving naturally and I can say no hey you didn't pay you're out right and they don't have that guilty conscience because they know I'm not a bad person I'm giving here here and here there's almost like that like hidden if you do what you should be doing in life it makes this a lot easier yeah interesting I used to actually, there was a number of years, probably two years in a row where we gave out like 50 of our tenants, like a $50 gift card for somewhere. And we got back one thank you. Like one person acknowledged it, right?

And I get, I didn't do it for the acknowledgement, but like, you know, we stopped doing it. Like we just stopped doing it. Because like, and guess what? Nobody thanked us again because we didn't do it. You know, I mean, it made no difference in my business. I'm not saying people should or shouldn't give out Christmas gifts, but I found that it was literally no difference in my business at all. So we finally stopped. But they're actually, I think it was the one lady who said thank you.

I think we actually sent her a Christmas card every year. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, funny. All right. So no, that is funny. And absolutely. And you're right, I can still do the same thing. Whether I give them a gift card or not, they still have to pay their rent.

They still can get even, you know, but it's just personally, I'm not able to give as much as charity because right now I was in such of a built mode. So I do what I can. And I do feel like, like David said, that is the form of giving back. You know, what I would do is I would take every gift card for the people who didn't say thank you and I'd give it to the one person who did the next year. You get all the gift cards. I actually did that last year. So the one tenant, this was their first year with me and they paid every month on time and I gave them the gift card and I didn't say thank you. So this year I sent them

a $25 gift card. And one of my other tenants that's been there, the longest she has twin girls. I sent them the girls to give her for $25 and then I sent the tenant $50. So I did do that, but I still gave them a little something to give them a chance. But next year, I think it will be gone for those people who didn't appreciate it. That's funny. The life lesson, everybody out there. If you show gratitude, the universe will give you more. There you go. Absolutely.

All right. Well, that was a deal deep time. I love that. That was fantastic. But now it's time to head over to the next segment of the show, which we call the fire round. It's time for the fire round. All right. It's time for the fire round. Of course, these questions come direct out of the bigger pockets forums, which everyone here can go visit and should visit because you get to hang out with really cool people. Ashley and David Green and Brandon Turner at biggerpockets.com slash forums. And now let's get

to some of these. Let's do, I like this one because it's very closely related to what we're talking about today. Chris asked, so he said, there's a few houses in my area I'm familiar with. They're under 50K. I'm wondering, do you have any idea on how I can purchase them? I've got great credit and I've got some money, 12 to $15,000, but no bank wants to go under $60,000. Any tips on how I can finance these properties? So if you had to go, actually finance a $50,000 property. You got 10, 15 grand, but the bank won't do it. What would you do? Well, now I know that banks are, well, not banks, but more so credit unions, they are lending. The credit union that I'm hooked up now, they'll lend under up until $14,000. I'm sorry about that.

So if somebody's telling you know, you're probably asking the wrong person. Yep. You know, I would definitely do that. Also, if you have $15,000, if you have good credit, I know it's not the best thing for your credit, but I would consider opening up a credit card, with the line of credit that you can have access to and get a year of money for free, you know, zero percent interest. Perfect. And I want to echo what you just said there

because it's so true. To everyone out there who says, I can't find a bank to finance these low-price houses. I have never in my entire life heard of an area that sold, like, livable, cheap houses that you couldn't find a bank to finance those because I just would, like, it just doesn't, they always exist, always.

Now, maybe in David Green's area here of the Bay Area San Francisco, if he wanted to buy a $50,000 property, yeah, he's not going to probably find a local bank to do it, because that's not what they understand and know. But that's why you will not find a $50,000 house in David's area. They just don't exist. And if they did exist, nice $50,000 properties, then there would be a bank to service it. Like, because, yeah, so anyway, it just means that person's not, they're probably going to chase

or they're going to Bank of America or Wells Fargo and they're saying, oh, well, we have a minimum of 60. Okay, well, I guess it'll go back to, you know, drink or eat my cereal without any milk in it. Right. I work for one of those banks and I can't get a loan from them. Yep. And I'm an employee of them. Yep, exactly, right? They have their requirements.

But just as you said, perfect. Like credit unions, small local community banks, that's where you're going to get those. They understand and talk to a real estate agent, right? Real estate agents who sell that type of property will know exactly who can close a loan. I mean, heck, quick and loans will probably do it. Call up quick and loans and they'll probably close a $40,000, $30,000 property. We should call this like the sandwich method. You got a peanut butter jelly sandwich, you got a bologna.

you got a bologna sandwich, you got a turkey sandwich. You got something. I want my milk, my cereal and milk. All right. David Green. And it's funny you mentioned that Quicken Loans because Dan Gilbert, he invests hundreds of a million dollars in Detroit. He's the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and he owns Quicken Loans.

And he's invested hundreds of million dollars in Detroit. Yeah, he's turning that city around. Absolutely. Yeah. Those stupid investors are ruining everything. I know. Hey, if anybody has a connection to Dan Gilbert, actually, we should totally get him on the podcast.

Yeah, wouldn't that be an amazing podcast? It's like I found a way to get to you. Exactly, right? That's my next goal. That was always a goal. Yeah, we want to get him on that. That would be an amazing show. Like, how do you invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a market that terrifies most people

and like completely turn around an entire portion of the United States single handedly? Like, that's what I want to know. Like, how do you do that? That'd be an amazing show. And you suck and you can't find Dan Gilbert as a consolation prize, we would accept Mark Cuban or Elon Musk or one of a one of the first. of those kind of other guys. I take Eminem. I take Eminem. Or you know what? Branden and I are actually trying to get vanilla ice really badly because he is a real estate investor. So if anybody knows vanilla ice.

All right. Enough about that. Let's get back. Kevin. Kevin Hart is a real estate investor. I just found that the other day. You know Kevin Hart like like awesome dude, actor? Yeah, apparently he like is like a big real estate investor. So I wouldn't mind having him on the show too. Anyway, all right. All right. Somebody out there might know him. By around. David Green. This is actually a really good one here. If you're looking for buy and hold properties out of state, how do you decide if a neighborhood is good or bad? I've tried looking at areas via Google Street View, but I know that's probably not super accurate. Right. So buying and hold properties are rental properties. So the biggest thing I would do is look for properties, rental properties that's on the market currently. You'll be able to tell the quality

of work that's being done in the property, how they're looking, and how long they've been on the market, what are rents going for. And that's, or you can contact a local real estate. agent or property manager just to see my properties typically now when I listed property for rent in Detroit they I have to take it down within eight hours this last property I had 200 inquiries in eight hours so that's a way just to see hey that property was only listed for eight hours that's a good area to invest in to buy a buy and hold in smart smart all right number let's do it well the last one of the fire and we'll move on after this last one I know a lot of people ask whether it's for investors to get their real estate license. My question, though, is like, what kind of investor

should get their license and what kind shouldn't? What do you think? I would say an investor that is trying to find multiple streams of income that's trying to learn the market and to learn the process of the market. And basically, an investor that wants to network and grow their business. Yeah, I think that's smart. And, you know, some people are good at being the agent thing and some people just wouldn't be good at it. So having a little self-awareness to know, like, am I somebody that wants to go out, can self-start a little bit, meet people, pick up the phone and talk to people. Like, is that something I'm good at or not? Don't do it because you think it's going to get you more deals. I think that's one of the big

mistakes people make because your agents already working for you for free. They're going to be hungry than you would be. They want to find you deals. You should really only do that if you're actually trying to like make some money or it will benefit your business as some other way. Like I think you made a really good point. You said, well, I get a handful here and there, and I work them when I do, but you're not out there with your hair on fire trying to crush it, right? Yeah, absolutely. All right.

It was just a way of creating multiple income streams. And just trying to do a little bit of everything just to see what I'm good at was the easiest and more beneficial to me to focus on my goals, which is having more time for my kids. There you go. There you go. All right. Well, that was fantastic. And again, Ashley is in the bigger pockets forums hanging out and they're answering questions all time.

There's a lot of people in there. So people jump into the forums. They're so good and they're really expensive to use. They cost free. Free 99. Let's head over to the next segment of the show. The final section. It's the famous four.

These are the four questions we ask every guest every week. So actually, I know you've heard these before. And so now I'm excited to hear what you got to say. Number one, what is your current favorite real estate related? book. So basically, I don't read a lot. Unfortunately, I have three jobs and plus I spend a lot of time with my kids. So I definitely want to do that. I'm planning on slowing down with the work in five years. So at that point, I'll read more. But my favorites real estate book would be rich dad, poor dad. I love it. Because that's pretty much one of the ones that I read.

Yep. That's all right. Yeah. I mean, that book is so influential and I just fantastic. So cool. All right. All right, Ashley, how about your favorite business book? Okay, well, my favorite business book is the e-myth by Michael Gerber. And that was actually the first book I read, period. As a real estate agent, I learned so much about that and about scaling your business and stuff like that. So I really like that book. I know it's the old one, but I've really learned a lot from it. So good.

So good. Okay, and how about some of your hobbies? Well, my biggest hobby now is just spending time with my family. really the kids in my family, no offense to the adults, but the kids are way cooler. I really take pride in changing kids' lives and giving them a free, innocent childhood, something that I feel like I didn't have, I don't want them to grow up. So as much as I can take them to the movies, have any experience with them, I do that. I like to play poker.

I go to the casino and play poker a lot. And I was learning, learning a lot, whether it's via YouTube or, you know, listen to the podcast. But those are my hobbies. All right. Perfect. And a final question from me, Ashley, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? Okay. So I would say, based upon my experience, the biggest thing would be probably intimidation. You know, growing up watching HGTV and listening to webinars and seminars and you hear how much

these people have obtained and you feel like, well, I don't know anybody like that or I'm not like that. So I can never be that way. So they probably give up because they feel like they'll never amass that success. So I would definitely say intimidation and then also fear, fear of what will happen if they don't succeed in the perception that people will give. Yeah. And then also lastly, the inability to live how most won't to live the rest of your life, how most people don't. You know, they're not willing to give up their iPhones every year for a thousand bucks. Yep. That's solid. Solid. Well, that was, yeah, Really good. Ashley, you are a inspirational and a captivating figure. Tell us, for those who want more, where can they find out more about you?

Right. So like I said, I am pretty busy. I do have a lot of jobs. So I am on the forms every day. Notifications go right to my phone. That's the biggest place. I have a website. I have social media, but I'm not actually active on those things. So if they really want to contact me, they can just contact me directly at bigger pockets or Instagram. I do have an Instagram. page is Ashley Elite investor, but bigger pockets would be the best way. And it actually kind of fits into your, if you're the iPhone comment you made, right? Like most people spend their entire life sitting on social media all day. And you're saying, you know what, right now, I'm not going to do that because that's not, like I'm willing to live right now like no one else. So that later on, I can live, you know, an incredible life. That's my core right there.

Right on social media. That's great. Everything is trying to be knowledge, gain knowledge, take advantage of my time here. Yeah. When I'm retired, when the kids are. off in college in like five years. Actually, by me starting earlier, I know at that time I feel really like,

oh my God, my life is over. I'm 19. I have two kids, but when I'm 38, I'll be an empty nester, you know, and then I'll have all this real estate to look back on, so I look forward to traveling and learning way more, and then watching the Dancing with the Stars.

There you go. And binge watching Game of Thrones. Did you guys watch that last night? Yes, I did. I did. I hope I don't want that on the podcast. I was just saying. That's all right.

I never watched an episode up, but honestly. I'll have plenty of time to binge watch that, I'm sure. You will, you will. And honestly, the first 10 years, I mean, Heather, just crushing real estate. We did a lot of real estate. And we had very little Netflix, very little anything. And we worked hard at it for, what, with 13 years now. And so now we're able to ease off the gas a little more because it gets easier over time,

as I'm sure you're probably noticing, yeah. Yeah, you should live like a Stark now so you can live like a Lannister later. Right? Very good. because I've never watched the show, so I don't even know what that is. It's pretty accurate. Pretty accurate. All right.

With that, we got to get out of here. Ashley, thank you so much again for being part of this show. Really, really fantastic. And make sure everyone goes and connects with Ashley. And everybody else on the Bigger Pockets forums, go connect in there. If you've never used it before, the very, very, very easy way to start is just jump into the new member introduction forum.

Just go say, hey, who are you? What are you looking to do? Make sure your profile has a picture. It's going to be way better. People don't like talking to an avatar. Right? And, you know, see if you can answer one question. Even if you're brand new, there are likely questions you can help people work through or topics. So jump in and answer one question today, which is a good way to get started. Any other tips, Ashley, you have on using the forums. Anything that you found is helpful. I would definitely say just answering as much questions as possible. And then setting up keyword alerts. So I have to Detroit, of course. Anytime anybody says anything about Detroit, I get an alert. 90% of it is bad. And then I'm over there playing devil's out. Look what I'm doing, you know, but at the same time, I'm kind of happy because it gives more opportunities for me.

And what's cool is like when you jump in there, right? Because now you're the person who jumps into all the Detroit conversation. So now I'm, let's say, an out-of-state investor or I'm a local investor and I want some help. I want an agent. I want somebody boots on the ground. Who am I going to go to the guy who's ragging on Detroit or am I going to go to Ashley who understands the market and clearly has market knowledge, clearly has experience, and is in there helping. That's the spirit of bigger pockets. People wonder, well, why would I want to go and participate in a forum? Because it benefits you. It benefits everybody. So anyway, jump in there.

So again, Ashley, thank you so much. This has been awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys. I look forward to being back on the show with the next phase of my career. There you go. Awesome. All right.

David Green, you want to take us out? Yes. Thank you very much, Ashley. This is David Green for Brandon, the quote, Steeler Turner, signing off. I borrow them. 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. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com.

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