From RN to using VAs to run a rental business

0:00So for for me and my partner we decided okay if we're going to manage this ourselves which was Our intention what is the easiest place to self-manage that was kind of like part of our criteria so I I am I'm one where I don't like to complicate things so I simply was like let me go find some other investors and ask where are they investing yeah and just copy them I mean there's a book copy your way to success and it's like okay well if it's good for you why why can't it be good for us so that was we ended up in Tennessee it's it's the Smokies but I'm like it's it's funny because a lot of people in the s space know it's like the the OG area everyone's there but there's a reason why everybody's there it's a tried and true market so I simply just wanted a place that I could self-manage very easily that was important to me from being from California

0:50So that was how I chose that market and I because I I personally really love vacations I was like okay I could pick between City or could do vacation markets the the Arbitrage property was more in a city hybrid Market it's not exactly the most vacation area but I like the idea of going to visit these properties and having it as essentially a tax write off so I was looking for vacation destinations it fit my criteria so that's how I ended up over there and then my Texas place I was actually going to go back to Tennessee and I I we couldn't find anything that worked out so I just caught went I was like you know what let me I I had the this like I would love something in the city the beach the mountain like the oan like all of those the trifecta of climates yeah

1:38So I was looking at all the beach markets around the US and I came across okay best priced area is towards the gulf so let me look over there and that's how I ended up in the Texas gulf side after looking at different golf markets got got it wow interesting cool yeah and that's the the side benefit of this business right is that you can visit the properties yourself and it can be an awesome getaway for you as well so so you talked about getting to four of these then between Arbitrage and owning properties to to be in a place to leave your full-time job so I want to kind of dive into that or or discuss what that was like for you because that's where a lot of my listeners want to get to when

2:27You decided to pull the trigger after you got to four of them what did you do from there like what was that next day like for you when you didn't have to show up to work and then what steps did you take from there how have you grown from that point I love that you ask this question because I really don't feel like people talk about that transition enough and how it it's such a mental shift especially if you've been from somewhere with a lot of structure W2 jobs typically are this this way to complete it's all you you have have to boss yourself around and I struggled a lot and I think I still could say I struggle now but it's gone 10 times better just CU I've I have U become more disciplined with what I need to do but it's funny because it doesn't feel forced like it is when you have a W2 job

3:16But at first it felt like an extended vacation like PTO yeah that's what it felt like you kind of get this first month High I should say of like freedom and you know and then eventually the reality does hit that well how are you know you're not getting a paycheck necessarily every two weeks the traditional way if you do of a W2 it's it's more in this sense commission based or it's just more based on your your at least in the s space you got to work a little bit harder than you do in a long-term rental to get bookings and or get you know fill the the gaps so for me it was I had to really outline like what like what would I want my day to look like and I would mix it up between

4:04Morning routines night routines and then figuring out in between like how do I do it so I I come to the conclusion that I Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays are income producing days so I focus on income producing activities versus Tuesdays and Thursdays are like my maintenance days so to speak so I work on my back end as you scale you realize you got way more backend stuff you got to figure out and systems to refine so I would Reserve those for Tuesdays and Thursdays and I've kind of kept that same thing where I try to push most of my meetings a certain day of the week or twice a week and keep certain days just like flexible days I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to restructure what my weekends

4:53Look like and then I realized because the world runs on a Monday through Friday scheme yeah and anybody you know family if you have kids and just even just working hours it made a little bit harder for me to to kind of be flexible and when my off days were so I just pick a flexible day out of the week and not book anything and let that day be a it could be a work day it could not be a work day but try to take my weekends off though I do find myself working more like six days a week and then I have one day off yeah but but it it's funny because I I it doesn't feel like that so but it has taken a lot of just discipline it's like a muscle because in the beginning you don't you realize you have to be a little bit

5:41More you can't be risk Avers once it's you don't have a job anymore you do have to take bets on you and just boss yourself around so I think that's like a little bit of what that transition like but it had highs and lows there's actually this entrepreneurial chart where you go off this high and then you go to the the they call it the depths of Despair it's like a real thing it's temporary but it's I think that's when the reality sits in that you can't depend on anybody other than you to run your business and so you start to gain that hope and traction again and then you kind of go into this nice like Plateau or you keep scaling depending on on what stage you're in so I think that helped a mindset books helped me a lot through that to be honest

6:29I started doing more Tech instead of technical books which I did very at the very beginning I switched over to more mindset and personal development and that's made all the difference these past few years just doing entrepreneurship on a full-time basis yeah I I couldn't agree more I I'm I'm there's so much overlap in our stories and and how I've felt going through that same transition and it's it's weird because you're so wired and programmed to work 9 to5 Monday through Friday that like you you you almost feel guilty not you know or adjusting your schedule I have people in my like we have a babysitter that'll come over and watch her kids a couple times a week and I think she thinks that I'm like this like drug dealer

7:18Or something that because I'm like around I'm like working out in the middle of the day like she doesn't see me go to an office ever but she's like guy is somehow has income coming in and you know and then your like family too like you know you're around so you should be available and you know it's you know you're not really at work so why aren't you like hanging out or you know you could go do this project with me or whatever so so it's a weird like kind of in between stage or or lifestyle I guess that that you live that that's been my experience that you really have to get used to and like you said be create your own structure because you're Your Own Boss but but it can be really awesome at the same time like you could you

8:06Know really live a life on your own terms which is which is cool so so where I guess how did you continue to grow your business a lot of people like two things I hear a lot are like once I leave my full-time job I'm not going to qualify for financing anymore so I don't know how I'm going to get financing and then also Healthcare is a big reason why people stay at their job longer than than they want to because they feel like well this health insurance is like so expensive so how did you handle both of those situations once you left yeah so I mean with the insurance side of things fortunately for me I I did get my my realtor's license I thought it was like the logical thing to do but I didn't use it like as a full-time residential realtor I did it just for my own deals

8:55But it had a health insurance that was optional that you could take so I used that but I did research a lot like oh should I do Cobra should I all that stuff I recently just switched to Covered California instead just because I needed a little bit more than what my realtor's healthcare insurance was providing but they have health care like policies for entrepreneurs I feel like that shouldn't be the hold back from you to do this because plenty of people work as a 109 ner which is essentially kind of you can almost if you think of it that way then or look up 1099 things you that will fit what you are not being employed by an official Corporation so but that's what I did for health insurance for the past few

9:43Years and it worked out that way for me and then the tell me the second one that you asked me so financing to continue to grow your business like how how many I guess how many properties have you purchased since then and and what type of financing have you used yeah so the cool thing is that there's actually a lot of loan products that are based on the asset not the borrower so for us we started doing more fixers and doing hard money loans because it's all based on the deal and not you as the borrower when we first bought with having a job we focused more on just nicer TurnKey properties that didn't need work especially because they were out of state and that was perfect for us because we we've backed out out of a few deals when we found out it was just more fixing than

10:32What we wanted to put our attention to when we had full-time jobs but when we so my partners it I I quit first and then about less than a year later he joined me wow so I I was the one that started it us started us off so but then we started doing more value ad opportunities because we had more time we didn't have the the jobs and the loans we could we could acquire those so that's kind of how we did it afterwards but yeah there's always a ton of options in terms of financing you it's just you just have to know you have to come up with a usually bigger down payment and the interest rates are slightly higher when they're more investment style u but I've learned to I've learned that there's a solution for every problem

11:21There's truly no excuse for like anything but it's a good thing because that means nothing should be holding you back from going after what you want got it yeah yeah yeah yeah I agree I agree there's there's always if if you find a great deal I've always said the funding will be there there's always funding yes for a great oh and we borrowed money too like private money lenders that's another way that we we with without having to go through banks so that was another thing that we've done to acquire real estate in scale got it okay and at what point did you start to incorporate virtual assistance for me I decided when when I really wanted to do other Ventures I that's when I decided to get vas just because it wasn't it's not once you get the hang of it it's

12:10Like rinse and repeat like I could do I could do the rentals myself I don't have a huge portfolio and I like to keep it that way but I simply just wanted to leverage like my time better and not have to put my attention where it doesn't have to be so that I think I it's been about a little over it's like two and a half years since I had vas with me so and it's been lifechanging because they don't just help me with the real estate they help me with my personal life too yeah so yeah that's what I was goingon to ask you like it sounds like you have a lot going on with the the rental properties the flipping the the virtual assistant company so can you kind of share how how it's all structured like what do you use vas for like

12:58What what is your I guess yeah what's your overall business structure look like yeah so for me I don't think I have a very big team but they're that's but I mean it's relative I suppose right so I have three full-timers and two part-timers so two of my full-timers will run the the Str strs they are the they basically to be honest they're like my co internal co-hosts they they're the point of contact First line of communication for All Guest vendors they they I've taught them how to get bids if things have to get fixed they do the resupply orders for me they'll handle i' I've kind of taught them how to do some like light bookkeeping for the

13:46Rentals remitting taxes to the city for certain properties some marketing I let them go through my own socials to kind of do that for me to some of the cabin groups to to do just like light marketing some listing optimization too so they kind of the two full-timers handle that I have one executive assistant who's my jack of all trades so I hired her initially to help me just on with any personal project I have and also on the realtor side and I trained her on short-term rentals more so just so that she speaks the same language as the rest of us and I don't I I told her you know you're not your primary role isn't to cover the rentals but if you have to step in you know how to in in a pinch so

14:35She kind of helps me on on everything else and she kind of helps do a little bit of of training she's like my catch all and then my two part-timers are they're flexible shifts so they primarily cover the rentals and but they'll also kind of be like the assistants of my executive assistant too so they're more just on call by the hour whenever we need to plug them into fill in gaps so that's on my personal side I'm actually acquiring it's going to it's exciting two residential Assistant Living businesses wow so I'm G to actually figure out I have to create this I I know that you can do a lot of HR stuff remotely so I'm GNA somehow trade an HR Manager in house and I

15:23Might either depends on my Vaas I don't force them to do rules that I did not have them initially sign them up for I'm either going to have a dedicated VA for this that I'll just hire from inhouse within my agency or if they're open to it you know I'll just have one or two of them kind of learn the ropes as I learn the rops of how to do the the backend stuff for this so I'm like on on the fence of that but that's like my personal how I utilize virtual assistants but like I mean one my executive assistant helped me plan a vacation out of the country for me she she helps organize my calendars my emails if I have to have her call people or ask questions to like

16:13Sometimes I have to ask oh can you call this person to see ask their this question and they'll go ahead and and do it for me so I don't know I'm trying to think of all the things but there's a plenty of things that you can a virtual assistant can can easily do if it's on a computer it can be taught that's awesome that's amazing so so for someone listening to this then where would be the best place for them to start for most people that you work with that are real estate investors who who which role I guess would do you recommend someone starting with probably an executive assistant I didn't start this way but if if I were to kind of like big all scheme of things an EA is a good idea just because most people they always say I don't have enough work to give and I'm like you do you just don't know it yet

17:02The the thing is you want to make sure that you don't just create like a miniu that's also chaotic because before you know it your assistant needs an assistant and that's normal so I'd say an executive assistant that def like has a primary focus with a secondary Focus until you can until they're at the point where maybe you can start giving them something else so it's the easiest one because you start with the more redundant tasks until you start to get more complicated with whatever projects you're working on and then you can grow your VA that way until you realize you need to have a separate person for a certain skill skill set yeah