How Short-Term Rentals Let Her Quit HR and Take Back Family Time

0:00You know, we were just talking when you when you grow up in Alaska, it's a small island. You don't get out much. And in my mind, I'm like, I need to get the farthest away from this place possible, experience the world, like you know, get to see more than just this this small place. And fortunately, my brother actually did go to the academy. He was a firsty when I was a pleb. And so that was how I even knew about the place.

0:31And while he was a midshipman and I just got to see all of these amazing things that he was doing and places he was going, I was like, that's it. Like, I've I've got to be a part of this. And in the military and especially the servicemies, I think a lot of times people will go for like they'll get in accepted and go to a service academy for one reason and then you get there and you're like, wait, whoa, whoa, this is way different than what I really thought I was here for.

1:04And so I certainly had that shift of like I was going to go I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted, you know, potentially in the medical field at the time, see the world. And then you're like, "Oh, I actually have a service to my country aspect of this." And so just all of that, all those things that they're teaching you and gearing you up for service to your country, obviously that's why you stay. And so that just had meant a lot to me. Getting accepted, getting to see the world was obviously wonderful, but being able to serve the country and you know just just get to do that as a very young 20-year-old, you know, we're driving warships around operating nuclear reactors.

1:51Which I just I it's a it's a lifetime ago for me. But I really wasn't that long ago when you really think about it. So I I mean just those are just life experiences and it just they they say it sets you up for success after you leave a service academy and that has certainly held true for both Andrew and I and very grateful for that opportunity for sure. — yeah, — that's that's awesome. Did did you actually so did you get a nuclear engineering degree while you were there or was that just your job in the the Navy?

2:26I was a chemistry major. So, I guess technically a, bachelor's of science in chemistry. And then, being a woman and a chemistry major, I didn't exactly think I was going to go nuke. But near in your first year, the numbers can be low. So, you kind of get drafted into that community oftentimes. But, truthfully, blessing in disguise for me because I really thrived in that area. I didn't I didn't even know at the time that those were the type of people that I w like I really enjoyed working with a very very smart and talented workforce in reactor department as a whole and so that was that was an amazing experience.

3:10So after after you graduate the academy you do a tour as a surface nuke just a straight stick is what we oftentimes call them. Then you go to nuclear power school. So the power school prototype now you're doing a tour on a carrier or a sub at that point. And then you have to pass like the nuclear engineering officer school. So that's kind of where that title comes from. — Yeah, that's incredible.

3:43A lot of training obviously goes goes into that. And then how does that how do you go from that to doing HR? Like I I don't where's the crossover there? — Yeah, not a lot. Not a lot to be honest. I did my last short tour at the academy. So Andrew and I had both decided like this was going to be our last tour together. Or not tour together, but last tours in the Navy. So he had gotten out a couple years prior to me. I still had a shore — shore duty left.

4:16So, we picked Annapolis. We were East Coast sailors, both of us, and we said, "Hey, let's let's head back up to Annapolis, obviously a beautiful area." and Andrew being from Philly, it was close to family as well. Go Birds and Philly. Thanks. — so it was a great spot for us. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I I connected actually through the Navy softball program, with the human resources director at the academy. And he was he's an amazing amazing guy, amazing office, a small core group of 10 folks working in HR.

4:54And I said, I have a lot of ski like I don't know a whole lot about HR, but I have a lot of, you know, people management skills and I've ran a training program before. And so I I got that government job. It was that was also a blessing in disguise because I worked with a great group of people for gosh almost eight years, I think. Maybe maybe six years. So just those skills that you learn in the Navy, as much as they don't say HR, they do translate well into human resources.

5:26So that was how that that was how that happened. And we just at the end of the day, we really wanted to stay in this area because at that point in time, we had two of our three kids. So moving didn't seem super enticing. — Yeah. With — marketing. So — yeah. Yeah. And I think you know pretty much anyone in the military can say or attest to the fact that whatever you start and think your career is going to look like it's like twists and turns and wines and I think one of the best things that I've noticed is just that you become really well-rounded if you want to be.

6:06I mean, you could probably pigeon hole yourself, too, but you learn just such a huge amount of skills and you're exposed to so much that you you are, you know, kind of you can do a lot of different things. — Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. — Yeah. — You know, a little bit about a lot of things and, you know, a lot of those leadership skills that they teach you, they start teaching you at the academy and then you actually put them into practice when you're in the fleet. I don't think I you I don't think we really understand how valuable some of those skills are until you are out in the real world and applying them in day-to-day business.

6:45— Yeah. And realizing that not a lot of other people have those skills. — Right. Right. So so that kind of ties into my next question around you know how this led into real estate because it's again kind of another — twist in in your career progression. So when did you and Andrew start first getting interested in in investing in real estate? — Yeah, that it's a great question and I was working at the academy and Andrew was working at a water treatment company.

7:20Actually, this was back right in CO. We had two kids and we were just feeling it. We were really feeling like that that time value of money. You know, your your time means so much to you. That's when we really started feeling it was co was, you know, we're we're in this rat race a little bit and how do I get out? Like I need to open up my aperture to real to to something else because what I want to do and want to be here for my kids.

7:54And same with Andrew. I mean, he was out the door 5:00 a.m. Sometimes not coming home till 6:00 7:00 p.m. And daycare was raising our kids. Honestly, it was it was right during COVID where we really started to feel that pressure. And as the kids got older, it just got even harder. And fortunately, one of Andrew's I think it was actually his boss at the time, he introduced us to the White Feather Group, which I know you're very familiar with, and that's actually how you and I got connected.

8:25And at the time, Andrew, Andrew just didn't have the time to take that course. So, we said, "Hey, why don't I take this course and be the lead of our family?" We both knew we wanted to do it, but having two of us, you know, take lead on that, it was just too much with the kids. And so we said, "Hey, Carton, why don't you take lead on this? Take this course." Like, I would backfill Andrew after every every week and the assignments that we were doing. And so we took that leap of faith.

8:56We invested in ourselves probably for the first time in a long time. And that was the like that was it once once I took that course and I started to learn the things that I know now like like I knew too much. I knew too much. I instantly started goal setting. Instantly started realizing that there is a way out from this and just the things I had been taught really about money even as a kid.

9:29It's so different and it's different. I mean, how I'm teaching my kids is different today. And so, — shout out to Buddy Rushing because he certainly changed our lives, in a very positive way because, that it lit the fire under us and truthfully, we it's been about two and a half years, three years, and we have been full throttle ever since. But I just I like I can't unknow the information that I know now.

10:00And I'm still learning. Oh my gosh. Still learning daily. And then, you know, as you're as you're in that real estate investing course, you're just learning so much about all the different types. That's really what led us to getting connected with you because we felt, hey, this short-term rental market really is speaking to where we are in our lives right now. And that's not to say that we haven't you know tried out other different types of investing and I I 100% can tell you we will try out other types of investing in the future.

10:35But just where we were with Andrew's W2 at the time I was a W2 earner. Like you know some of those tax implications that we learned about about getting into the short-term rental world. We said hey this is really speaking to us right now. So once again, we invested in ourselves. We signed up for your course, Kirby, and that has once again changed our lives for the better. And you know, we're getting our fourth short-term rental now in just about what is it, a year and a half, two years.

11:09And like we're all in. We're we we are all in. I I even left my W2 job this past February to do this full-time. And I don't know if I just answered your question or not, but that was kind of how we got to where we are. — No, that's that's great. Yeah. No, I appreciate that overview and that's that's so awesome. So many parts of that. I Yeah, I'm a huge fan of Buddy U Rushing who is a guest on this show a couple times. And everything that they're doing in White Feather.

11:41And so and I love Yeah. I was I was just looking back actually and I saw that we started working together September 2023. So that's when you guys enrolled in the the program and so it's — Yeah. Yeah. Exactly two years ago. So — since then you've done like you said about to close on your fourth deal. I'd love to kind of just if you could explain what those deals look like real quick. You don't have to go into like deep detail on the numbers. We we can maybe zoom in on on one of them that that I wanted to talk a little bit further about, but yeah, if you could kind of share how you you kind of said what your goals were, you know, initially to create more capacity and time in your life and time with your kids and and so I guess how did you decide on deals based on your goals?

12:27— Yeah, it's it's it's funny. We actually did we we we did two deals at the same time and we had a one-year-old at the time, a one, three, and 5-year-old. So, I can't 100% say I would recommend doing that time frame. But we did and obviously it's paid dividends but so while we started taking your course like and really the catalyst of hey we need to take this course was we had purchased a lot of land in beautiful West Virginia a couple years ago and it had been a dream of ours right we we'd set those goals and we were like we would love to have a place where we can take our family that's off the grid that

13:16Has that cabiny feel and you know spend core family memories with our with our family. So we had bought this piece of land and we we never really thought that we would do anything for maybe 5 to 10 years. It was you know peak of COVID interest rates were really high. And we learned through the course and through your course that, hey, there's actually a way that we could make this work and have somebody else pay our mortgage and have us still be able to enjoy this beautiful space.

13:51And so, and again, I I don't even think I knew this at the time, but we had equity in our land, that we were able to use towards the down payment of the house. We had actually very little — money of our own outside of furnishing the house and a couple change orders of course getting that short-term rental that Airbnb up and running in West Virginia. It was it was very little cash out of pocket for ourselves utilizing the equity that we already had in the land.

14:24And I knew a little bit more about the appraisal process. So, I kind of have to kind of fight the ask for like a second opinion on the appraisal that came in. But got that house up and built and you know, while it was being built, we changed the design plan a because I was in the middle of your course and you had some suggestions of things that you would do to set an Airbnb up for success. So, everything from lighting, you know, exterior lighting to how many bathrooms we would put in.

14:58hardwiring cameras, some things that like without having like going through your course in real time while we were building that house, I'm sure I would be knocking my head against a wall because it's three and a half hours away and I can't just pop over there every weekend. You know, — it's those things you think about afterwards once it's done, right? — Exactly. Exactly. And Kirby, I'm sure you remember you were giving us some advice because I think you guys were building down in Florida maybe a similar time. Exactly. — and then just other other folks in the program gave us some really good advice, too.

15:34And and truthfully, we're we're now we've been operating that for I think we got that one live in April of 24. Mortgage 100% paid for. It's it it's it's not one of those making us $2,000 a month type of a place yet. But it's paying for itself and and some right so — without having this without knowing what we know h having gone through the course I don't think that would have even been an option for us and so you know we go there maybe once a quarter that's kind of our family goal visit go to head to West Virginia once a quarter and it's awesome it's like our little sanctuary it's it's a really cool place — that's

16:22Awesome that's great so and you started that before you joined the program, right? And then you bought the others since then. — Yeah, we had been in discussion with the builder while we were actually going through that the white feather course and then you know I had been kind of following all the different things that you had been doing and we said hey if we want to make this happen Airbnb is the way to go. Let's not figure this out on our own. There's people who have done this before that have the experience like let's not reinvent the wheel here and so while we were like in the middle of building that's when we signed up for for your course and then you know once you get into a course you're like get that itch to take action and so of course

17:10I'm just looking you know scrolling Zillow one night and a house came up that had a main house and a detached guest house which is absolutely that model that we have wholeheartedly embraced multiple streams of income into one place. And and it what it ended up working out really awesome because we again didn't have we had almost no no none of our own money into that place because we took out a heliloc on our primary home. We assumed a mortgage at a 3 and a half% rate.

17:45And I mean that place is killing it, let me tell you. I mean, it cash flows at least 1,500 a month for us. And it's down the street — with 100% financing basically, right? — Yes. Yes. I really I had to furnish it, which because we were local, I totally tapped into some creative brain that I did not know I had with thrifting and designing the place and whatnot. Which was a lot of fun for me.

18:16So yeah, both both of those places I mean we went live in for that house in March and the West Virginia house in April. So I was furnishing them at the same — of 2024. Yep. — Yeah. — and we had started your course in September. So — we went we went for it. We really did. But you know, we just said to ourselves like we're all in on this like this like once you know you can't go back, right? Like I I can't keep doing this W2 lifestyle for too much longer.

18:52And you know, I'm never one to shy away from hard work, you know, doesn't — Yeah. — doesn't scare me, let me tell you. So with a one and three and fiveyear-old, why not?