Women Invest in Real Estate

Welcome back to episode seven of the Women Invest In Real Estate podcast! This week on the podcast we are diving into what changes we anticipate experiencing in the mid-term rental market and also how you can plan for and protect your real estate portfolio for those potential changes. Amelia’s TakeObviously, we know that the COVID pandemic is subsiding (fingers crossed). Some of the questions I’ve been asked are:Are we seeing a reduction in requests from traveling nurses because of this?Do we think that the market is slowing down?Do we think it's changing?Personally, my answer is yes, I think it's changing. But is that going to stop me from continuing the midterm rental strategy? No. There are certain steps that I'm taking to mitigate some of this risk but I don't plan on converting any of my units, or dropping the mid-term rental units, anytime soon.  Grace’s Opinion:My short answer would actually be, no. I have not seen a change in requests and I’m still being bombarded with mid-term rental requests, especially my one-bedroom units because a lot of people are solo travelers. However, as you said, am I going to go buy another 10-unit mid-term rentals to turn over right now? Probably not. (If it was the right deal I would, especially if it was one bedroom.) But I still see a huge demand because I’m in a market where there really isn’t much competition for mid-term rentals. They are more scarce and there are a few big hospitals in the area. As I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, I have clients who drive 20-30 minutes to their hospital because there just isn’t anything nearby to their destination. I’m in a smaller, more rural area. However, I don’t see the market ramping up.  The Short AnswerWe really don’t know. If we did, if anyone knew exactly what was going to happen with the economy, they would be able to make bank on that information. But in reality, no one really knows for certain.  Mitigating the RiskThe way we structure our lease terms to protect ourselves against cancellations is the specific terms we are including in the lease. This is to: Protect us as landlordsAssist travelers if their contracts are canceled (it happens!)Grace requires that if her tenant cancels, they are only ‘on-the-hook’ for rent until she finds a new tenant to put into that unit. In the fine print, it also explains that I will work really quick to try to find another tenant. This is very fair because she already has more risk by offering 3-month leases, whereas most landlords lock you into a 6 or 12-month lease. This protects Grace because it ensures she has no vacancy and the only two times she has experienced this she has found new tenants to take over the lease in under two weeks.Additionally, we collect a deposit from every tenant to ensure that we aren’t holding a unit for someone to not show up. This way, if they cancel their reservation without the required notice (or simply don’t show up) we aren’t completely out of pocket.Both Grace and Amelia also invest in multi-family properties. Their units are diversified so if the mid-term rental market does slow down (or tank completely) they can convert some of the units back to long-term rentals.Another unique place to look when looking to fill units is with insurance agencies. There are a lot of insurance agencies out there who are looking to house people for a medium term. Maybe a few months, six months to a year, who might need furnished housing because they have a client whose house burned down, the basement flooded, etc. By contacting the third-party company (who also furnishes the property - bonus for you!) they get you lined up to house those people who need emergency housing, and they take care of furnishing it. This is a bit less risky because the insurance company is the one responsible for the security deposit, the rent, etc., on the property. You are also helping out a family with very few options who would otherwise be stuck living in a hotel. Final ThoughtsTraveling nurses have been around for way longer than the COVID-19 pandemic. The concept and practice is absolutely not going away. But one thing that has truly shifted with the pandemic and we are still experiencing this massive shift is working remotely, vs being tied to a physical location. More and more businesses are emptying their physical office spaces, or downsizing to smaller locations, in favor of allowing their employees to work from where they are. So if those workers are looking for 3-month accommodations where they can experience different cities for short periods of time while working, they are likely going to be looking for furnished mid-term rental units. While of course, we don't know for sure, that is where we think the mid-term rental market is headed. But if you're nervous about diving into mid-term rentals, just know that there are many ways to protect yourself and diversify your portfolio so that if there is a shift in the market, you will still feel good about your investments and be safe.Thanks for tuning in, friends! We'll catch you next week! Resources:Grab our MTR Starter GuideJoin the MTR Profit Academy

Hi everyone! Welcome to episode six of the Women Invest In Real Estate Podcast. Today we are welcoming guest Ashley Gallacher to the podcast. Ashley is a full-time real estate investor in the Seattle, Washington area. Ashley left her W-2 in corporate finance at the end of 2020 and now has both short and mid-term rental properties throughout Tacoma, near Mount Rainier National Park, and also in Milwaukee.Ashley got her start in mid-term rentals after learning about Kendra and also Sarah Weaver on Instagram. They both have amazing resources on their Instagram pages and she came across them when she was looking for inspiration on how to pivot and switch her long-term rental to something different. Right now, Ashley only has one mid-term rental but it is on her list to turn more of her existing rentals into mid-term rentals and also find new properties to turn into mid-term rentals to add to her portfolios as well.Ashley purchased her now mid-term rental in early 2020 (pre-pandemic) for $270,000. When they closed in March 2020 things quickly began to shut down and were lucky enough to find a long-term tenant very quickly for $1,700 per month, a bit lower than initially planned but she was also happy to have it occupied going into the COVID pandemic. Despite her initial fear that her market was oversaturated with mid-term rentals Ashley made the leap and has had great success with her mid-term rental. When Ashley made the switch to mid-term rentals, she increased the rent from $1,700 to $2,500 per month (now up to $2,700 per month) and gauged interest on a local Facebook group. With a lot of inquiries, she quickly locked in tenants before she had even finished furnishing the unit!Being in real estate is all about being creative. Just getting started, taking action, and learning as you go; making necessary adjustments along the way. For the rookies tuning in, none of us knew 100% what we were doing when we first started, but we started anyway. We’re continuously changing our processes to make them better. Ashley is in agreement that the mid-term rental market is strong and will continue to grow and has plans to continue growing her real estate portfolio basing whether they are long or mid-term on the demand in the market. For the most part, Ashley finds her tenants on FurnishedFinder and local Facebook groups but would be open to using sites like Airbnb to keep her units rented.If you want to connect with Ashley, head on over and follow her on Instagram.Thanks for tuning in friends to another WIIRE episode, catch you in the next episode! Resources:Follow Ashley on InstagramList your MTR’s on FurnishedFinder or Airbnb

Welcome back! Today we're going to talk about our very first mid-term rentals. We will be covering how we set up our first mid-term rentals and how we started managing our first mid-term rentals. Amelia’s first ever mid-term rental was in an 11-unit apartment building located about five minutes outside of downtown Des Moines, Iowa. She had seen a few people on Instagram doing the mid-term rental thing and was looking for ways to increase the cash flow on a brand new property that they were going to be purchasing. Before they she and her partners even purchased the property, they decided they were going to try the mid-term rentals strategy out and would start by converting one of the studio units into a mid-term rental to test the waters and see how it went.With this property being all studio-style apartments, it would make a perfect mid-term rental layout. They could keep their furniture expenses low and as a bonus, it was close to all of the downtown hospitals. This particular property Amelia furnished mostly using Facebook Marketplace purchases for right around $3,000. Once it was furnished and ready for tenants she listed it on FurnishedFinder. Within about 24 hours she had her first inquiry; he signed the lease and the rest is history. But when this particular tenant moved out, he gave no notice, so he obviously did not get his deposit back. However, it only sat vacant for about one week before it was occupied again. One thing we want to add is that we do a few key things to protect ourselves in the event that someone were to cancel at the last minute because let’s face it, plans change. In these instances we simply state that the tenant is ‘on the hook’ for the rent until we find a new tenant - and we will do our very, very best to fill the unit as quickly as possible (which is rarely more than two weeks). We also like to use referrals for our regular traveling nurses - especially if they can find someone to split the unit with them.We like to look at mid-term rentals like a puzzle: how can you line up all of your mid-term rentals so there's a minimal vacancy.Grace prefers to look for those wanting a minimum of a 3-month stay because it is not her goal to be a short-term rental host. The exception here is if the has only a few days or weeks between tenants and she will offer the unit as a short-term rental at a higher nightly rate (think Airbnb), or someone who is willing to take over the remaining time on a canceled rental. For Grace’s goal is minimum vacancy and has had really good luck with people who have stayed and continued to extend their stay. The reason for that is that she makes sure that her units are nice, but not necessarily over the top. They don't have a bunch of extra amenities, but they have what you need, they're cute, and they're clean.Investing in real estate provides so many opportunities to be creative with the properties that you already have, or new properties that you're purchasing. But we just love the mid-term rental strategy for that reason.If you are interested in learning more about mid-term rentals, we have a couple of options for you. The first is our free MTR Starter Guide which covers the three most frequently asked questions that we get about midterm rentals. The second option is our Mid-Term Rental Profit Academy course. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Catch you in the next episode! Resources:Grab our free WIIRE  MTR Starter GuideEnroll in our Mid-Term Rental Profit Academy courseList your mid-term rental on FurnishedFinderList your rental on Airbnb

Welcome back to episode four of the WIIRE podcast. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the first three steps to getting started in mid-term rentals. We are super excited to dive into this topic because we both got started not too long ago in mid-term rentals ourselves so it’s pretty fresh. The steps we are going to cover can also be found in our free downloadable MTR Starter Guide. We’ve compiled these three steps because they are the most common questions we get about getting started with mid-term rentals. At least once a week we get questions coming into our inbox with questions such as:How to get startedHow to identify a marketWhere to list your property…plus so many more. So we’ve taken all of these great questions and created this free guide.  Step 1: Identify Your MarketHow do you know if your market is good for a mid-term rental?One of the biggest indicators about midterm rentals is that most of the tenants are traveling nurses. The first indicator is if it has hospitals, nursing homes, or some sort of medical facility in the local area. Also, if it has a medium to large population size is a good indicator as well. While mid-term rentals can work anywhere if you're looking to have more of a steady income with a mid-term rental you're going to want to look in a medium to big-sized city. The exception to this is if you are the only mid-term rental in your area. The other thing about choosing the right market is that it's really going to help in the way that you might be able to turn your midterm rental into a short-term rental, if the opportunity is there, or maybe if mid-term rentals slowing down. And of course, the bigger the city, the more amenities in that city, the easier that's going to be to keep it occupied. One other identifier is, if the city has a major airport for travelers, including airline employees. Simply doing your research ahead of time to see if there's a need for mid-term rentals in your area will help you decide if it is a good move for you.  Step 2: Identifying A Location In this step, you need to look within the city you’ve chosen and see where within the city makes sense. One thing that's going to be different than a long-term rental is you need to have A and B-class neighborhoods because these people are coming from out of town and are trusting you to place them in a safe location. They're not going to be there for that long and are not okay with staying in D and C class areas or buildings that are loud, unsafe, and noisy. It needs to be in a good location, safe, cozy, and comfortable. Many of these travelers are traveling alone and in our experience, over 50% of them have been females, and they want a safe and quiet neighborhood.Another indicator of a good location is within 15 to 20 minutes of driving distance of the facility that they're going to be working at, specifically if they are a traveling nurse or medical professional. Many of them work on call and if they are called in they need to be within 15-20 minutes of that facility or hospital. Another perk is if it is close to public transportation if it is in a larger city.  Step 3: List your mid-term rentalThe most common question we get: ‘where do you list your midterm rental?’If we could only list our properties in one place, it would be FurnishedFinder. FurnishedFinder is specifically for mid-term rentals and is a platform that targets traveling nurses as well as a lot of other traveling professionals. On FurnishedFinder, bookings tend to come in around three weeks ahead of time.The other two websites we have also used are AirBNB and also in city-specific Facebook groups for traveling nurses or even city-specific FurnishedFinder groups. If you’re interested in learning more, check out our course called MTR Profit Academy, designed to start using midterm rentals as a way to start doubling your cash flow. Thanks for tuning in, see you next week! Resources:Grab our free downloadable MTR Starter GuideEnroll in our MTR Profit AcademyList your mid-term rental on FurnishedFinderList on AirBNBUse Tenant Cloud in your biz

Welcome to episode three of the Women Invest In Real Estate podcast! Today's episode is a behind-the-scenes look into each of our businesses and what we're currently up to.  Amelia’s Current ProjectsI recently bought a duplex in West Des Moines, but I didn't have to do a single thing to it so I never really think about it as a purchase. But prior to that, I hadn't bought a property since August of 2021. I'm currently in the works of purchasing a dilapidated triplex in my small hometown. It needs a full gut and a lot of exterior work. The way that I found this triplex was I had someone apply for one of my other rental units, and the reason that he put for moving from his current residence was that his current landlord was selling the property. So I figured out who that landlord was and I reached out to him asking if he had any other properties that he was looking to sell.Despite it being a small town I hadn’t heard of this seller. I found his phone number and it turns out he was interested in selling another property. I met him, took a look at the property, waited about a week, and sent him a seller-financed offer. The offer was for $48,000 on a 5-year term; with five equal payments of around $9,600 each. Obviously, we would have no early repayment penalty, because the plan with the property would be to fix it up and then BRRRR it out. At that point, we would refinance into a conventional mortgage after all of the rehab was done. This property landed on a purchase price of $50,000 and will likely need between $50-60K to rehab it before I go for the refinance. Right now I think it will appraise for between $115-120K and then the rent roll will be around $1,875. This particular property will be operated as a long-term rental. While I love mid-term rentals it is a really big property and I don’t want to have to furnish it. There's also something to be said for the stability of still having long-term rentals, which makes me feel good at night. The other thing with this property is that two of the three units are vacant. With this being my hometown experiencing a major housing shortage it feels good to be able to provide quality housing to the community.  Grace’s Current ProjectsI have my eight-unit rental property that we purchased back in December and have been fixing it up DIY style. As each unit turned over we rehabbed them and we now have three out of eight units left. We are working on all three at once and they will all be mid-term rentals because their location is so close to the hospital. They're each one and two bedrooms and my one-bedroom requests on mid-term rentals on Furnished Finder right now are insane. This time around we did decide to hire out the painting, which has been absolutely amazing. We also are hiring out the window and siding replacements for this property. With this property being mid-term rentals we pay the utilities on these and we have decided to remove some of the windows since there was such a large quantity of them.I’m hoping to wrap up this property and have it appraised in the next four to six weeks so we can lock in our rate. We will make sure that all of our numbers and income are together, and that the property looks top-notch for the appraisal so I can get top-dollar on that property.With no ‘next’ projects in Grace’s pipeline, she is excited to enjoy some R&R over the summer and really focus on what she wants to do next! Thank you so much for joining us on this behind-the-scenes look at our real estate investing businesses. Catch you next time! Resources:Get the scoop on Mid-term Rentals

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another episode of the Women Invest In Real Estate podcast. Today we're going to talk about the 10 Steps to Get Started In Real Estate Investing.  Step 1: This first step is super important and it's also a step that a lot of investors forget to take when they're first starting out. It is to define your why. This is important because your why sets the standard for your journey and what it’s going to look like. Consider what it is that you actually want. Do you want to do this passively? Are you trying to do this full-time to get out of your W-2? Do you want cash flow? Do you want appreciation? Do you want to be passive, or fill every waking minute you have with real estate so that you can leave your job ASAP? There are so many different ways to invest in real estate and without knowing what you're doing it for, it's impossible to decide on the best strategy.I don't think I ever sat down and necessarily like wrote out what my WHY is, but I would highly encourage you to sit down and define your WHY. One great resource to get started with is our free WIIRE download: 10 Steps to Get Started In Real Estate.  Step 2:The next step would be to determine your competitive advantage. A lot of people want an answer on where they should invest and really it comes down to where you have a competitive advantage. Where is your network? Where do you know the market really well? Wherever that is, go to that market. Really think about where can you make the biggest bang for your buck and where you have a competitive advantage. Step 3:We are so passionate about number three: analyzing your personal financial situation. This is such a basic necessity when you are deciding how to get started in real estate investing. It's very important to have a solid personal financial base because real estate investing is running a business. So if you can't manage your own finances, you are not going to be able to manage a business's finances, especially on the scale of hundreds of thousands of dollars. You don’t have to be great at math, but you do have to know how to run the numbers, punch those numbers into a spreadsheet, and know what those numbers are telling you. Step 4:Choose a strategy. There are a million different strategies in real estate investing and within those strategies, there are a million more. More often than not, you will come across one of these strategies:Buy-and-holdFlippingWholesalingShort-term rentalsMid-term rentals (get the deets inside our course, here!)BRRRR Step 5:Your crystal clear deal criteria - this can also be called your ‘Buy Box’. This is where you set standards and a vision for your perfect deal and start looking for properties that fall within that ‘Buy Box’. This is a really important step because a lot of investors get analysis paralysis. But if you have specific criteria in mind and find a property that falls within the criteria, this is a way to hold yourself accountable when you find a property that falls within your search criteria. Step 6:Ask yourself: are you going to invest locally or out of state? There are pros and cons to renting in your own state as well as out of state. We like to say that local investing is easier to get started, but harder to systemize, because you get caught up in doing the day-to-day things. Whereas out-of-state investing can be really hard to get up and running and get under control, however, once you do it can run like a well-oiled machine because you are not doing anything but managing the people you have in place. Step 7:Hire out! This is a huge decision for your real estate business. But the good news is that just because you choose to do DIY to begin with, that doesn't mean that you're stuck with DIY forever! Additionally, if you're not already a handy person, I wouldn't necessarily try to learn DIY on a rehab. It can be tough and time-consuming. Start small with cosmetic fixes (painting, adding some new hardware, etc.), instead of a full-gut project. Step 8:Check out one (or all) of our FAVORITE reads all about investing!Any of these reads by David GreeneThe Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner Step 9:Check out our favorite kind of free resource: podcasts! We were self-taught investors and so much of our knowledge was gained for free or through very minimal investment (books, see above). Real Estate BiggerPockets PodcastBiggerPockets Rookie PodcastThink Like A CEO with Gary Keller and Jay Papasan  Step 10:Join our community for women in real estate called, The Community. It consists of a monthly masterclass from an industry expert, a monthly LIVE Q&A with us, and a Community Dashboard where you can network and ask all of your burning questions. It is a very low-cost way to gain so much knowledge and get to meet other female investors. We hope you got all you need to get started. Catch you next time!  Resources:Grab our free download: 10 Steps to Get Started In Real EstateDouble your income with our Mid-Term Rentals Profit AcademyJoin The CommunityAny of these reads by David GreeneThe Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon TurnerReal Estate BiggerPockets PodcastBiggerPockets Rookie PodcastThink Like A CEO with Gary Keller and Jay Papasan 

Hello friends! Welcome to the very first episode of the Women Invest In Real Estate podcast with Amelia and Grace. We’re so excited you’re here! In this first episode, we’re going to tell you a little bit about our backgrounds and also dive into the lessons we’ve each learned during our investing journey. Amelia’s StoryAmelia is a 30-year-old investor from Des Moines, Iowa whose investing journey started in 2019 when she bought her first property with her parents to flip. In June 2020 they sold that property and she decided she no longer wanted to flip properties but instead wanted to buy rental properties so that she could earn passive income every single month. Her plan was to use a portion of the proceeds from that flip to put down payments on her next rental properties. Prior to that, she had spent about two years researching properties and trying to talk her parents into joining her on the real estate adventure before they finally gave in and none of them have ever looked back. When they finally said ‘yes’ they purchased a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom property for only $28,000, and everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  Amelia firmly believes in just getting started. When they finally finished the flip and sold the property they moved on to purchasing a tri-plex in her hometown. Knowing it already had tenants living in it and being in pretty rough shape Amelia was driven by providing safe and clean housing to residents of her own community. Since then, Amelia has continued to grow her real estate portfolio and now has 30 doors across the state of Iowa. One of Amelia’s biggest lessons learned was how to get creative and just roll with the punches. Another note Amelia leaves us with is failure is not an option. Know how to pivot and problem-solve: if you cannot do those things real estate may not be the best fit for you. Lastly, she learned that if you show other people (friends, family, or close-knit network) what you're doing and that you're making money and having success, they're going to want to get involved. Grace’s StoryPrior to getting into real estate, Grace actually had already established an Instagram following by posting about her love of reading. Once she made the pivot (changing her entire presence on Instagram) she met Amelia. Grace originally went to school for engineering and after only one year Grace made the pivot into real estate. As a New Years’ Resolution with Amelia they started a Meet-Up, and the rest, as they say, is history.Grace began her real estate career by partnering with her sister and her boyfriend and together they purchased their first property in 2021. A few months later they purchased a few more and had a total of three properties (five doors). She felt like this was the right move for her and with the ability to go back to her old job (or find a new job) - and was in a debt-free comfortable position to take this chance. “You can do anything and everyone is an entrepreneur. Just put yourself out there. You just have to decide.”Another piece of advice Grace gives to anyone starting on the real estate journey is to double your timeline and your budget. Don’t start with a full gut (like she did - which thankfully worked out in her favor).Now, Grace has a total of 20 doors in her real estate portfolio, all within about 20 minutes of where she lives, self-managing all of them. But what Grace is really excited about is what is just ahead of her. Nothing. There is nothing in Grace's pipeline and she's pumped to be able to spend time reassessing and figuring out exactly where she wants to put her intention next.  “It’s ok to not know what you want to do or where you want to go. We’re all just figuring it out.”We both struggle with imposter syndrome (who doesn’t), but at the same time, we have learned to work through it, together. Thank you so much for tuning in to the first WIIRE episode, see you next time! Resources:Join The CommunityFind The Community on InstagramConnect with AmeliaConnect with Grace