Epic Real Estate Investing - Busy Mom & Professional is Addicted to Turnkey Rentals | 489

Episode Date: October 6, 2018

Meet Jackie Danielson, a mom of 4, a wife, and a real estate investor addicted to turnkey rentals! Discover her turnkey portfolio, her learning curve with the first investment in Indianapolis, and why she and her husband decided to cancel the property in Carlton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terio Media. So you want to be a real estate investor, but you don't want to do the work. If there were only a way where someone else could do it for you, now there is. Tune in here each and every Saturday on the Epic Real Estate Investing show for Turnkey Saturdays. With your host, Mercedes-Torges. Jackie, thank you so much for joining the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast, our Turnkey portion, Saturday edition. ladies and gentlemen, on our show, we have Miss Jackie Danielson. Powerhouse woman.

She is a mom. She runs her business. And she is killing it in real estate. Jackie has, I think, purchased maybe four or five properties from cash flow savvy. So Jackie was gracious enough to come and join us in our podcast and kind of just share her experience, the good, the bad, and the ugly because we've had a little of everything. So ladies and gentlemen, me welcome to the show, Ms. Jackie. Jackie, welcome. Hi, thank you. Awesome. I see that you got

all dolled up for the occasion, as did I, so thank you so much. So Jackie, tell us a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself and tell me about Jackie. Well, I am Jackie Danielson, and I'm 33 years old, and I have four kids. I'm a mom, obviously, I'm a wife, I'm a business owner, I am an investor, a little bit of everything. Whenever I say I'm a mother, I have four little ones. Our oldest is five and our youngest is five months. And so it is definitely crazy. I think my husband calls it like a daycare at our house.

And so it literally is eventful every day. We do own a company that's here in Fort Worth. We're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And I'm not too involved with that much anymore. however he mostly deals with that I've now kind of dealt more with the real estate in the last several years I'm a previous engineer I used to work at Lockheed and you know that was great and all I just couldn't stand sitting in a queue for all that long and so we have you know started doing some different investing to try to get some passive income and we are massive massive massive

rumors. And so that's, I think, the biggest thing that kind of keeps pushing us on is we're definitely wanting to work towards our goals and dreams. And that kind of keeps us on the move. Whenever we jump in, we kind of jump in with both feet, hence four kids and five years, right? Well said. Yeah, it's crazy. But my husband and I, we're a really great team. We work really well together. He's a very good visionary, and I tend to be more of the integrator. I kind of pick up all the pieces of where everything falls. And so he'll kind of make the decisions of, hey, let's do this or, hey, let's move forward with this.

And then I kind of put all the pieces together of saying, okay, we need to do this, this, this, this and this. to actually get that accomplished. And so it's fun. We love what we do. And we're always looking for ways to move forward. I love it. You guys indeed are the perfect team. I've got to witness it throughout the years. And I will have to say that for every partnership, there has to be both sides to the equation to make it happen. And you're very lucky that you actually have that. So kudos to you for finding that other half.

I would have to argue that you're the better half. But we'll leave that up for other people to decide. And, you know, just five kids. Like, when do you find time for Jackie? And more so, when do you find time for real estate with a business and five kids? Well, sorry, we only have four currently. Okay. Sorry, but within five years, yes. So we missed one in there, right?

We, you know, honestly, I guess what we've created in the last few years is having the ability to choose our time. and choose when we need to work or when we want to spend time with family. There are a lot of benefits of what we've done. However, I guess the biggest thing is we put together, we have these visions of what we want in our life. And every day, my husband and I talk about how and what we need to do to move forward to actually have those. So we'll have conversations of, you know, what's good for the kids,

what's good for us, what's good for our marriage, what's good for our company, what's good for real estate. I think we had a meeting this morning from six to seven. And thank God we have someone who comes and helps out with kids at that time. But, you know, we'll get together and we'll just kind of talk about different ways to move forward and which ways are the best for us because everyone's different. Like everyone figures out ways to create their cash flow differently. Absolutely, absolutely.

You know, something that you say about that, Jackie, is about, you know, you guys are a massive dreamers. and your visionaries. I can't tell you how important that is to have that dream and to have that vision, but you guys take it a step further. You actually take steps to make that dream come true. I have witnessed it. I remember when you and I started talking, you had a couple properties. Now I've lost track, and we'll jump into that.

But I love the fact that you have created passive income that allows you to choose what you want to do, when you want to do it, and how much time you get to spend with the kids. So, kudos to you. How did you discover epic real estate and cash flow savvy? That's a good question. So my husband's the one who actually found it. We were, I think, on our second kid or starting. I was pregnant with my second kid, I think, when we found cash flow savvy.

And I, you know, I was super hesitant on it because my father, he's in real estate and, well, you know, rentals. And he's always done his local. He's never had a property manager. He's also, it's just with more of a headache. And so I always thought that's what had to happen if you got rental properties. And so I was not very open-minded about all of this. I trusted him. And we've gotten a lot of arguments during that time because he is a visionary and he sees things further than I can.

And especially, you know, when you're pregnant, you are very emotional. And so you kind of become like a mother hen. And so you don't want to, you don't want to take risk. And so I was very hesitant when we first jumped in. And he just kind of, I just said, okay, we're just going to do it. We're going to see how it goes. And it went great. Everything's been great.

Don't get me wrong. Lots of learning. I will say that. But that was also, we only had at that time, I think, one rental property. And so, and it wasn't even a real. We weren't investors by any means. I mean, it was a house that we had previously lived in that we moved out and we turned them into a round.

So, you know, we didn't know anything about real estate at that point. And the house, you know, was in great condition and all that kind of stuff. So we didn't know about rehabbing properties, having a property manager. We didn't know about fixing up property. We had nothing. And so it was a big risk to just jump in. But we knew that we wanted to create more passive income. And we did, I will say that.

So whenever, as soon as we got married, my husband, a switch just turned in him. Like literally, we both worked jobs. And then literally we got married in October. And in January, we had already, we did the Kinsaki classes, real estate classes. And so, which is a good chunk of money. I mean, it's surprisingly for what we, you know, we both worked. We were, I think, 24. 25 when we first did that.

And so to me, it was very scary. But we went into the classes on wholesaling. And it's because we're like, okay, we want to get good deals. The challenge was, is I didn't want to have another job. And to be a good wholesaler, you have to create it. It's treated like a job. And so we learned a lot. We learned about how to find great properties, how to run numbers.

So we'll say that. But our issue was is that we did not want to work that much. And so we started looking more for like turnkey opportunities because we could create the income. We just didn't necessarily want to invest the time that it took to be able to go out and find the properties. I get it. I remember. I mean, I don't know that helps to answer that question. Totally helps.

I remember Jackie speaking to you. I don't know how long you've been to get, we've been working together. I think you guys have acquired maybe four or five properties. I do remember that there have been some bumps in the road and we've had a couple of cancellation of contracts. We'll go into that so that our listeners could see, you know, your learning curve because I do remember that you were very standoffish the first time that you and I spoke. I remember speaking to your husband. And I remember him telling me, my wife is not on board because she's a mechanical thinker. And so, and that's typical, you know, an engineer.

And I just kind of said, you know, she's got to be on the same page. And he said, oh, no, no, she supports what I'm doing. I just have to show it to her. So I remember the first transaction I was working mostly with him. And then all of a sudden, you just took over. But the questions that you asked during the process were just phenomenal questions because I felt like you had your investment property. Well, what is it?

Your own home that became an investment. But you weren't an investor. and you had great questions. And although the questions were just based on your experience, you living in that home, they weren't really relevant questions for an investment property. And I remember walking you through that process, and you just caught it really quick.

So I love that you guys just jumped in full force, and now you guys have like a little portfolio. So let's talk about your portfolio. How many properties have you acquired with cash flow savvy? we've only acquired um we only own two right now we've had several under contract but a lot of them have fallen through which is just part of it like we've had properties down here that have fallen through that's just kind of the the way things are but we are still interested in obviously working more I mean we're looking at finishing up um one more property in Indianapolis that's where most that's where

our rentals with you guys are and um because we are looking to diversify throughout the US and And so anyways, that's kind of where we are right now. So we have Indianapolis in Texas. Indianapolis and Texas. Awesome. So two properties that you acquired from us were from Indianapolis. So tell us a little bit about the property. Okay.

So we had one back, I believe in like 2015 that we purchased. And it was a little bit more of a riskier one. So we were really looking at our cash on cash return. And at that time, it was fantastic. I think it was like around 15 or 16%. And so we, kind of just jumped on it. We didn't know anything of what we were doing, right? We looked at the money and we're like, oh, this sounds great. Because on our rentals here, we were only getting, you know,

more of like a nine, eight or nine percent return. And so we were like, wow, this is crazy great. And so anyways, that was our first experience with it. Everything has been great. I will say that that property started off fantastic. And it's still good. It's just I've had a few hiccups and learning curves that I've had to deal with since then. Let's talk about the hiccups and the learning curve. So you said it's a great property. You know, the numbers that you're talking, when you first jumped in, 15% cash on cash for you.

It was amazing. Oh, yeah. This is doable back at the time. Yeah. Today you're lucky if that property maybe even produces a 9% return, which is not bad, but that's the quality of what the market is doing right now. Let's talk about the grid portion. What did you learn through that first investment in Indianapolis?

I believe it was on Carlton. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Well, the good stuff that happened, we, first of all, we invested, which was probably one of the best things. We had a great return for years and years and years and years. We've had great return.

So it's been very, it's cash flow great for us. Awesome. we had tenants that stayed for quite some time, which has been great. The, you know, it's an, I mean, I guess you would call it the mailbox money. Like, it's just kind of produced the income. And because the time that we bought it, everything, it was, you know, newly rehabbed that we haven't had to put any money into it. And so, which is great. That's the whole point of the turnkey is being able to buy something and let it kind of make the money for you for a while.

So overall, I mean, I think it's been a really great product. It introduced us to investing out of state and opened up the scariness that we had to be more open and welcoming to the idea of it. And so I think that's probably the biggest thing was just doing it, you know? Yeah. I'm so nice. I can't tell you, Jackie. I can't tell you how many people I talk to. They're ready. They're like, I get it.

I'm pumped. and they just can't do it. So the fact that, you know, you and the husband are the dreamers, but you actually did it, that's a big deal. You know, I always talk about that. Kudos to you. So it's worked out really great. What was the down?

What was a learning curve with this property? So one of the learning curves is just more so, I guess, the property managers. So property managers have been very interesting dealing, at least with Indianapolis, for us. So I think there's a few things that moving forward we should have done. First of all, I think we should have interviewed and spent more time making sure

that one of them is a better fit than the other. Say, for example, one of the companies that had this house, it went out of business. And so we lost money during that process because they went bankrupt and they never ended up paying us the rents. So that was a bummer.

Learning that process was one of them. So having properties here versus having properties there, I guess the biggest thing that I would say, the biggest difference is that when they're here, I can actually see what's going on to a team. And I know what my standards are. And I know, hey, I don't want to deal with in some five years or 10 years or 15 years. I want, because we're more in the buy and hold. So at least in this phase of our life, we are. And so if I get something fixed, I want it fixed. So I don't have to fix it again. And so at least that's the way that I

look at it. And so here in Texas, I can see it and I can go to them. and be a stickler and say, this is not up to crow. This isn't up to my standards of what I'm paying you for. While it was in Indianapolis, that was again another learning curve is I wasn't much of a stickler. I was very passive because it was my first time doing it. I didn't feel comfortable saying things like, I don't agree with that. Or, hey, you need to fix this better because this is not, this is half-ax. You know, like, I should have been more of a stickler about specific things because now I'm

paying for it in the backhand. and if I would have just been straightforward and upfront and made sure that everything met my expectations, I wouldn't be dealing with it now. Yeah. You know, it's a great point that you bring up, Jackie, because that property you bought about five years ago and, you know, stuff happens. But what it's properties like yours and situations like yours have made companies like us realize we need to put things in place so that if that is to ever happen again,

how are we going to help our investors mitigate those risks? So, you know, this is one of the reasons why today we have multiple property management teams on the ground. So if one goes out of business, boom, we have somebody there as a, you know, a backup. We are definitely fantastic about that. In fact, I wish that I would have asked specifically that way back when because I thought as soon as I bought the property, you guys were kind of hands off. I didn't know that you guys were kind of,

would be willing to help through the process. That makes sense to make sure that it was a very smooth transition. And so I never tried to reach out to let you know of any of the hiccups. I just figured there were all my issues. And only recently did I come to you about a few things? And you're like, why didn't you tell me sooner? And I'm like, I didn't think it was, you know, I didn't think you would need to deal with it, right?

And so I'm. You're right. I don't need to deal with it, but I love to deal with it. And so the beauty of working with, you know, our turnkey is that we're kind of, you know, we operate in volume. So to a team, whether it's a management team or an inspection team or a rehab team, they don't want to lose, you know, our clientele. And they want to be good to Ms. Jackie because guess what? Miss Jackie's going to probably buy another property in Indianapolis, you know, as you've done. So I'm so glad that you know that even when you close your property, you know, we're still here.

We're not going anywhere. Matt and I still own properties in Indianapolis. And we use the same property management teams that we refer our clients to. In many cases, our teams on the ground don't know the difference between, you know, Jackie and Epic. They're like, oh, that's an epic property. We're going to take care of that Epic property. And when you operate in volume, it helps quite a bit. So because of, you know, your experiences, Jackie, now we have multiple teams on the ground.

And now we have multiple inspectors. So when there's an inspection done, that's your inspection. And then if there's ever a repair done, you're always able to have that repair verified. Not only by a third party, but you can have it verified just by us taking photos and videos of whatever repair was done. So that was implemented around the time that you purchased your first property and it has worked out really, really good. In fact, to the point, Jackie, the other day I got a call from one of my clients and my client says, you know, I never hear from my property manager. I mean, really upset. And I said, Michael, are you receiving your rents?

Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. He's like, yeah, I get my rents every month. And I said, well, then why do you want to hear from your property manager if you get your rents and there's no. repairs being done. Who cares? Um, so yes, there's a lot more interaction now between our property management teams and our, um, and our investors. But yeah, we're still here, even if you bought the property years ago. I think you've already proven that. Cool. So Carlton is working good. And then we had a property that, uh, we put one under contract. I remember it was a duplex. And I remember your email said, Mercedes, uh, there's lots of red flags. I'm blacking out.

And I said, no problem. I'm going to send you a cancellation. So tell us about that property. Why did you decide to back on on that property? I don't remember exactly what it was, but I'm sorry. I should have looked at it a little bit. But I remember that my husband and I, we got together. We started going through and I said, and of course, I'm a little bit more of the

conservative one. So if something concerns me, I usually have like a list of things and I'll say, what do you think about this? And he'll look at it from more of a bird's eye view and say, yes, I agree with this or, hey, no, I think this is, we can fix this. This is all minor stuff, you know. So it had more, I think, I don't remember, I don't know if it was not the right timing for us or if it was. I'll help you a little bit. The Carleton property, if memory serves me correctly, it was rent ready.

I had already purchased the property. I rehabbed it. You saw beautiful finished pictures. and when you had your inspector go out, property was already done, so there were just a few minor things for us to have to touch up. On the second property, that was the duplex, that you guys were buying cash pre-rehabed.

And remember? And so you were going to buy it in cash, and then we were still going to do the rehab, but when you saw, I believe it was maybe the scope of work, it was a little bit more of a risk. and that's kind of what happens when you buy a property pre-rehab. I mean, you're getting a great discount, and although we're still going to do all of the work,

you're buying the property first, then we rehab it. But when we rehab it, you're already the owner. So that's more something for a little bit more experience investors, and you guys are totally experienced, but you're used to buying turnkey. So there's a difference between a turnkey product and a product that we offer as what we call it the deal of the week, which is not turnkey. It's not rehab, although we'll still do all the work. You got something that wasn't like that.

I think at that time, whenever that one came across, it looked great. We at that time had not done a full rehab. And so to me, it was very scary. We only did our first rehab last year, like the beginning of last year, here in Texas, and I was very involved with it. and so I did a ton of learning but I mean it was foundation

grew I mean it was everything you could possibly think of it was the biggest learning curve and we made great money on it however it was so involved so that's probably why we pulled out

is because being I felt very uncomfortable investing in something that I had never done like that like that's a you have to be very you have to know

you have to know what you're doing and make sure that you're you know dotting your eyes and crossing your teeth at a distance knowing what to do that with, like what to hold people accountable with. Versus if it's a turnkey, you know what to expect. Exactly.

Completely different, although we offer both things, it's not a good fit for everyone. As you guys experienced, you know, you were used to buying the turnkey was easier. Everything was already done. It cash flow beautifully. So, yeah, huge, huge difference. Awesome.

So let me ask you, Jackie, when you guys first came on board, and maybe this is a question for your husband, But did you interview other turnkey operations? Yes. This is a question more so for my husband. But he did. He looked at several.

And there was one that was here in Texas that we were even leaning towards. But he was actually mentored or participated, I believe, in the mentorship from Matt. And so he felt really comfortable going with cash flow savvy at the time. And I was very, stay in my doctor's speaking, again, I, had no idea. I was like, this is your own deal. Like, I'm not going to get involved with the real estate right now. And of course, here I am now, right? And you're killing it, ladies. So awesome, awesome. Cool. Okay. So out of the turnkey, so now that you acquired a couple of turnkey and, you know, you attempted a distance rehab and then versus a rehab that you've done

in your own backyard, what would you say collectively with a turnkey experience has been your biggest lesson? Well, the biggest thing, probably investing in turnkeys, first of all, I would say, let's do it. Because if you're wanting some type of a passive income and you're wanting to learn about real estate, the best way to do is kind of just jump in. That's how you're going to learn the most. And learning to make the tough decisions of, you know, every little detail and making sure that certain things are taking care of and certain things aren't. So I would say definitely just doing it is probably one of the biggest things. Probably the biggest eye opener that I had through this whole process is everyone's looking to make money, you know?

Every contractor, every inspector, you know, everyone, you know? And so anyways, they, you just have to realize that and understand that. But it's also your money. And so, you know, making sure that you're making the decisions that are best for you and your family. and making sure that you run the numbers correctly. And obviously, if you're going to do something that produces more money, you're going to be at a riskier level than if you stay something with something, you know, safer that obviously is a little bit less of a cash flow.

So I think that's probably the biggest thing. I think as everyone, everyone hates to be vulnerable. And so, you know, for me, obviously the learning curve of having your list of the right property managers and interviewing them and figuring out which ones that you're going to work the best with, I would definitely suggest doing that first and foremost before just saying, okay, let's just take this one and see how it goes, because that's how I did it. And I would have, I learned a lot, don't get me wrong, but I think I could have saved myself a few little pickups that we've had through the past. Yeah, that is something that we totally changed in our process, Jackie, is now we have a

property manager that we highly recommend, but you're more than welcome to be introduced to our other teams to see if that's going to be a better fit, despite the fact that the one we're recommending probably did all of the rehab and everything to the property. You have your options of interviewing others. So thanks to the Danielsons who contributed to that bettering of our business with cash flow savvy. So Jackie, you are a full-time entrepreneur. You run your own, you know, ship, You're a mom, you're a wife, you're a real estate investor. And when you and I first connected, you were brand spanking new. And it was only a few years ago.

So what's the one words of wisdom or advice that you would give that newbie investor that's considering term key operations? My biggest thing would just be probably just jump in. Just take the risk and just do it because there's only so many ways to create passive income out there. and real estate is great. And depending on what your family's, you know, projected, whatever, however you're going to get to where you need to be in life, your plan is probably going to, in some point, involve real estate.

Just everyone seems to. I don't know why, but that's just because it creates so much passive income. And so turnkeys are fantastic. In fact, we were talking with a friend of ours. And we told them, you know, what we've done in the past and told them about working with you guys. And they said, you know, if I could go back and redo it. They're in real estate. Like, they do a ton of real estate.

They said, if I could go back, I would have just bought turnkeys. And so that was probably an eye opener for us of, okay, this guy has been doing it forever. And, you know, we just kind of learning as we go. So we don't know what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. But to kind of get that sense that, hey, maybe we are doing something right was kind of nice. But I think just jumping in, jump in, learn through the process. All of the questions that you're going to have with anything in real estate are going to be answered through the process. I mean, you're going to have to have an inspection.

You're going to have to go through and see if everything's up to your standards. Make double check the repairs to make sure it's good. You have a tenant in there, which is nice. Make sure you read the contracts. You know, just every little detail of what you need to do, make sure that you feel comfortable with. your property managers because you're going to be dealing with them. Make sure that you're comfortable with their contracts. I mean, that would be just the process. And then make sure that you ran the numbers correctly so that at the end of the day, you knew what you got, you know? And then we keep moving

forward. I love it. You know, you said something that if Matt and I would have to do this all over again, and we run our own turnkey operation, but if we had to do it all over again, when we started, I wish we would have done term key when we started because it is so much work to find the properties, to fix them up, place tenants, have them manage, all of that. And to think that you can come to, you know, a turnkey and say, I'm ready to buy an investment property. When you close your property and it's cash flowing, that's mind-blowing. Yes, you're absolutely right.

You know, we often hear from real estate, you know, models out there. doing this. And I always ask, especially those people that have been doing real estate for 50, 60 years, what would you do different? And I always hear,

I wish I would have bought more, I wish I would have held more. So your comment about your friend saying, I wish I would have done turnkey, I get it. So get it. It's so much work. Yes.

It's a lot of work. And you know why, Jackie, you guys have done phenomenal. The fact that you get to choose the time that you spend with your children is huge. And to know that passive income is contributing to that just makes me smile. It just makes me so happy. So Jackie, thank you so much for giving up time of your busy schedule. I don't even know how you made time for this.

But share your wisdom. I'm sure you have touched a couple people out there. that probably have the same questions, are experiencing the same learning curves, and to know that you're doing amazing and you started just a few years ago, and hopefully they'll see that it's possible and they should do it too.

Just like you said, just do it, right? That's good. That's it. All right, Jackie, thank you so much for your time. I look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you. Bye-bye. Do you have doubts about your current plan

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