Epic Real Estate Investing - Lives in Japan, Invests in America | 447

Episode Date: August 18, 2018

On our very first episode of Turnkey Saturday, Mercedes Torres is joined by Jennifer Ohmari, a resident of Japan and investor of America. Learn how she put a property under contract from overseas, her two biggest challenges throughout the process, her two pieces of advice for new investors, and much more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio 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 Torres. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's welcome Ms. Jennifer Omari to the show directly from Japan. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us at these three hours of the morning for you. Welcome to the epic real estate investing podcast. Our turnkey portion, how are you today? I'm good. Thank you so

much, Mercedes, for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Awesome, awesome. So we're going to cut right to it, Jennifer. Introduce yourself. Tell me a little bit about you. Tell me a little bit about Jennifer. and how did you end up living in Japan and investing in America? Let's start from the beginning. Okay, well, I'm from the States. I'm kind of all over, so I lived in Ohio and moved to Virginia, and then most recently I spent 10 years in Hawaii, and that's where I met my husband, who's Japanese,

and then we decided together to move back to Japan, or for him back to Japan, for me the first time. And we live now in Nara, Japan, which I love. I love the people. I love the culture. I love the food. I love the onsen or hot springs that they have. It's just a really good place to live. And so I was in marketing for many, many years, a long time. And then when I moved to Japan, I became an English teacher. Awesome. So do you teach English to adults, to children? Who do you teach English to? I'm an English high school teacher. I teach in a public high school here. Oh, that's so awesome. Okay. So how did we go? from living in the States to living in Hawaii, now living in Japan teaching English, to passive income on real estate investing.

Like, tie that all in for me. Well, it's not a recent thing for me. I've always wanted to do it. I've been a Robert Kiyosaki, rich dad, poor dad follower for many, many years. In fact, I'm still on his newsletter. And he's always talking about passive income, passive income. And so I knew I wanted to do it. I knew it.

I just didn't know how. I didn't know how to start it. And I knew also that when I'm older, there's not going to be any social security that's going to take care of me. There's not going to end with the volatility of the stock market. I don't know that my 401 will still be there when I'm ready to take it out. So I was like, what am I going to do? Like, how am I going to survive when I retire? There's no pension anymore.

I just started asking myself, from my generation, what are we supposed to do? We don't have the same securities that our parents had. So I have to make a different choice. Yeah. So there's lots of ways of creating passive income. Why specifically real estate? I just, I'm fascinated by real estate. I love it.

I love looking at homes. I've always loved looking at homes. I love the whole. And of course, being in Hawaii, there's a lot of gorgeous homes. But I just, I thought, you know, I've looked at different avenues before,

and I just felt the most comfortable with real estate. Awesome, awesome. So I know you acquired your first property and we will certainly dive into the first property that you acquired, which is about a year ago that's doing really well. We'll dive into those numbers because our listeners always want to know about the numbers. But you were a little bit different because although you are an American, you live in another country. So tell me about the pre-qualification process that you had to go through in order to jump into a, you your first passive income property. Well, thankfully, you actually introduced me to the mortgage lender that you connected me with.

And she really helped me walk me through that process. So being as I am in Japan, it was a little bit of an extra challenge because how we do things here in Japan is a bit different. We don't have pay stubs. Our banking system is a little bit different. Our W-2s are also a little bit different. So I have the extra step of having to not only find a workaround for those, because there's a order required for the pre-qualification process,

but also having been translated from Japanese to English. But it worked out. And, I mean, it was good. They helped me very, very much. Chaley is the one who helped me. And she really took the time to answer my questions. And there's a lot of terminology, too. I didn't know.

Yeah. I had no idea. Yeah. So how did she communicate with you? Was it a phone call? Did you guys do Skype phone? Like, how did you guys connect? Well, I would call her through Skype, basically, is what I would have to do.

And so, and many, many times at that, and through email. We communicate a lot through email as well. Awesome, awesome. That, you know, you're an exception to the rule just because, I mean, you, in addition to just getting over the fear of investing in real estate, you have to then go through an extra process because you're out of the country just to pre-qualify. So that speaks volumes of how determined you were in terms of this happened. Awesome. So you decided to work with us.

You found your first property. Tell us about your property in itself. Well, I have a three-bedroom, one-bath property in Birmingham, Alabama, which I never would have believed I'd buy a property in Birmingham, Alabama. But it is there, and I love it. It's a really cute house. It's about a quarter of an acre of land. And I'm cash flowing about 300 to 350 per month.

And do you mind sharing how much you paid for that property? I paid about just under $100,000. Yeah, awesome. You purchased that property at a great time. You got amazing rates. And so that really, really helped just with your cash on cash return. Tell me about the performer that I provided for you when you were in the process of selecting the process. How is that compared to how it's performing in real life?

It's so funny because I was actually thinking about it. this when I started receiving some of the cash flow after the property has gone through and I'm actually receiving cash flow month after month and I went back and I looked and it was pretty close the pro forma and what was in reality was very very very close I mean everything from closing costs to cash flow to taxes to home insurance everything was very very close yeah I work really really hard to ensure that those pro formas are as accurate as possible. I mean, we actually use taxes that were just paid on the property. We use the insurance that's being paid. I try as much as possible. The only thing I have no control over is

the rate and just the closing fees, but I try to, you know, exaggerate that number a little bit just so that the numbers can be super real and conservative and then make you happy if it outperforms the pro forma. Awesome. So when you found us, did you interview other turnkey operations? Well, this is funny because I didn't even know what turnkey operation was. So I researched what that was. I researched what turnkey operations were and I researched by going to the website, but I didn't research other companies. I think from the moment we had our first conversation, I knew this was going to be a game changer for me. And I knew that you were going to help me get my first property. So I didn't see any need to go anywhere else. I do remember our conversation and your list of about 25 questions.

I remember that. And I remember, you know, I usually allow 25 minutes per call. And I think we well into an hour after answering all your questions. But did I answer your questions? Yes. Again and again and again and again. And I think, like I said, I think I even, asked you the same question multiple times. I had so many, it was a new process for me. It was a new start and I didn't know anything. So I just, I had a lot of fear. And so you walked me through every single one of them several times,

through several conversations. And why fear? Where was the fear coming from? From everything, from just dipping your toe in. I think not knowing the market, not knowing, the process, not knowing if I'm going to buy the right property or if it's going to cash flow, am I making the right choice? Am I picking the right person?

You just, everything is so new. It just causes fear. Yeah, yeah. And so what helped you overcome that fear? What was it that said, okay, this is it. I'm doing it. How did you overcome that fear? I think that was our conversation, our very first conversation.

When you took that time to lead me through the, those questions that I had. And I could tell you were very patient, and you made everything very understandable for me. So that really helped a lot. Because, again, there's a lot of terms and stuff I wasn't familiar with, but you really made it, you simplified it for me, and that helped. And then, like I said, you would lead me to the next person.

You helped me find the mortgage lender, and then, you know, helped me anytime I had a question about a property. And then after that, you helped me find a home inspector, and then an appraiser, and then just goes, on and on and on from there. So I always knew I was in good hands. Yeah. So that's interesting.

You said, I helped you find a home inspector. And I think I remember you sending me an email about this 40-page inspection report that you had just received. And I think it was a little traumatizing for you. Tell me about that experience. I will never forget it, ever. I've never bought my own home property yet. So this is my first purchase ever.

Any home is a real estate investment property. So I've never received a home inspection report. And so just the tiny things, it's overwhelming how much information it was. But even the home inspector that you helped me find was really helpful. He took my calls. He walked me through the whole report. And I learned a lot in that process. So I learned what I'm comfortable with and what I'm not, like what age home I'm looking for.

So it was, it was good. It was a good learning. I enjoyed it. It was overwhelming and kind of a challenge to push through that, but I enjoyed learning about it as well. That's awesome. You know, if there's one thing that I pride myself, and it's just really the people that we consider our team members. I mean, we have our list of inspectors, and we have our list of property management and rehab teams and construction teams. And one of the things that is very important to me is that I give you a list of trusted professionals in whatever field, whether it's our inspector or our insurance guy. And then I make you kind of choose the one that's going to be a better fit for you because there's a professional for everybody. So I love that you did the research on the inspectors that we gave you. And then in addition to that, you personally connected with them about the report that they prepared for you.

I mean, that's what you pay an inspector for. And inspectors are notorious for giving you a 75-page report on one property. So you did great with that. Awesome. So what would you say, Jennifer, has been the biggest challenge during this process? So there's two. One is the mental part of it, getting over that fear of making a wrong choice. That was my big thing.

So just getting over that. and the second one was being in a foreign country, having those additional hoops that you have to kind of jump through. And it's not that it's, I mean, it is a challenge, but it's just an extra step. It's an extra step as an out-of-country investor we have to go through. We don't have the same, like I said, banking system, the same pay stubs or W-2.

So we just have to make that little bit of extra step and go through it. But again, people will lead us through that. So even though it's an extra step, there's always somebody there holding your hand, giving us through it. Yeah, well, it must have not been so bad, Jennifer, because I know you're already working on property number two, despite the fact that there were several hoops.

And like you said, I love your outlook on it. It's an extra step that has to be done. But at the end of the day, you're acquiring a cash flowing asset. I mean, that's a big deal. And all you had to do is go through an extra step. So talking about the closing process. You're in another country, so I remember we had to send you the docs. Normally we send a traveling notary to you.

In this case, we weren't going to fly a traveling notary to Ukraine. So what did we do to accommodate you? Walk us through that closing process. Well, actually, once you've chosen a property, the closing process is pretty quick. And I had to find, I had to go and get a power of attorney. So I was actually able to find a power of attorney in the state, somebody that I trust. And then they were actually able to file the documents with them. And they could sign the documents on my behalf.

So that was a workaround for that. And it just, it went pretty smoothly. I mean, everything was, I went from, okay, I found my house and now I'm homeowner investor. And like, it just happened. And I was completely blown away. Like how quickly it happened once you've made that choice. And everybody really, like I said, the whole handholding, I just can't, I keep saying it

because that's how it is. Everybody just takes your hand and walks you through this step to this step to this step to this step. So it's just, it really worked really well. It was good. The whole idea and concept of our business is we walk you through the process. We do everything for you. And after several properties, you're not going to need me anymore. Now, you might need my properties, but you sure as heck aren't going to need me.

And the idea is that I've taught you so well that you're not going to need me. So I love that you actually are experiencing that through the process, through your learning process. So now that you've gone through your first property, you're working on property number two. I think I saw you going through the pre-qualification again. What would you do different from this point on acquiring your next property? I don't know if I would do anything different. It's just I'm more prepared. I've been through the whole thing now, so I know what to expect.

I know that extra step. So now it's not such a surprise for me anymore. So I can relax and not have to worry or be anxious. Words of wisdom or words of advice would you give to that new investor that's considering their first buy and hold or even using a term key operation? I have two pieces of advice. The first would be take the first step. It sounds so easy, but it's the hardest part.

You just have to take the first step. Don't think about the end result. Think about taking the first step. And then as I said previously, you will lead us. Then you'll help us take the second step and the third and the fourth and so on and so on. But you just have to take the first step. The end result will come. Just start.

Yeah. As Matt Terrio always says, travel as far as you can see. And when you get there, you'll see you further. Right. Right. And then the second part advice I would say is just trust the process. It's going to happen. Don't worry.

The property will come. The right property for you. So just the right people will come to just trust the whole thing. Yeah. Those are amazing words of wisdom. And it's so hard to believe, Jennifer, that just one year ago, you and I were talking and you just wanted one little property. And look at you, superstar.

You're now. We're looking for property number two. I love that. Absolutely love that. Jennifer, I know it is crazy hours in Japan. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for really waking up and taking the time to take my call and just really sharing, sharing candidly your fear and your wisdom. You know, you said you're a newbie investor.

Oh, no, Jennifer, you're not moving. You're doing that's fine. You're working on number two. And I know that in several years from now, you're going to be working with a portfolio of property. So thank you so, so much for your time. Thanks for having me. It was fun.

I enjoyed it. So for our audience, thank you so much for tuning. in, I truly hope that Jennifer Story was insightful for you and really helped you take the next step to creating passive income. Whenever you're ready, I am here to help you. So just go to www. CashflowSavvy.com. That's 2B's and savvy.

Download the frustrated investor guide to passive income. Book a call with me and I will be more than happy to answer your questions and to see how I can help you get out of the rat race. This is Mercedes Torres from Cashflow Savvy, brought to you by Epic Real Estate, Ontario Media. See you next week. Your portfolio has seen better days. But this two shall pass. And the best for you is yet to come.

Together, we'll get you there faster. We're Cashflow Savvy. And we'd like to share some information with you that will show you how you can take control of your financial future and accelerate its arrival. Go to Cashflow Savvy.com. More building, less waiting. Cashflowsavvy.com. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.