Buying Her First Rental (on a Teacher’s Wage) by Looking Beyond Her Backyard

Ashley:
Today we’re diving into the world of real estate with someone who’s just getting started. But don’t let that fool you with only one property under her belt. She’s a true rookie, yet she’s already picking up invaluable lessons that all of us can learn from whether you’re new to investing or looking for that push to finally get started, this episode is packed with takeaways for everyone. This is the Real Estate Rookie podcast. I’m Ashley Kehr, and sadly not joined by my wonderful co-host, Tony j Robinson. But he’s busy being a real estate investor this week, and we will have him back soon. But anyways, welcome to the podcast where every week, three times a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to kickstart your investing journey. So let’s give a big welcome to Lauren Mattina.

Lauren:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Ashley:
Lauren, I should have asked, is that how you say your last name?

Lauren:
Yes. Nailed it.

Ashley:
Okay. Okay. I am always so nervous that I usually always ask or have Tony just say someone’s last name. Okay. Okay. So welcome Lauren. Today we’re going to be discussing how to select an out of state market and how to analyze your first deal as a rookie. So let’s get right into it. Lauren, before you bought your first investment property, kind of give us an idea of what your life looked like. Were you working a W2 job? Give us that overview.

Lauren:
Yeah, so I was an MA science teacher here in New York City. I live in Staten Island, New York, which is, if you don’t know, one of the five boroughs of New York City. So very high cost of living area. And before that I was a zookeeper, so I was never in a job where I was making tons of money and had tons of disposable income, but made it work. We made it, we figured it out. So I’m excited to share kind of how we did that.

Ashley:
Yeah, awesome. And then why did you decide on real estate as that path that was going to give you more income and build wealth for you?

Lauren:
Yeah, so I think my big why for this kind of went back a couple years ago, my dad was a lawyer, he had his own law firm and he did a lot of landlord tenant work. So I was really scarred from that actually. I knew I never wanted to be a landlord in New York City because oh, it was awful. So that scared me from starting. So I didn’t start until my thirties really. But then he had a big health scare and I just thought to myself, this is someone who worked like a dog their whole life. He worked so much and I felt like he should have had more to show for it at that point in his life and should have had more cushion when he did get sick. So I was like, you know what? I don’t want to be in that position and I want to be able to retire early if I choose to. So this way I’m not forced to retire maybe in my mid sixties and now I don’t have my health. So I really started thinking about, okay, what can I do to get some more passive income, just build up my wealth? And I started looking at stocks and I did a lot of work there, read a lot of books there. But then naturally I just feel like real estate kind of follows when you start digging into that stuff.

Ashley:
So what did you decide on for your first strategy when getting into real estate?

Lauren:
I decide on when I think a lot of people go. So I did a single family rental, buy and hold. It seems like the safest to do. That’s where most people start. So that’s where I started and definitely may not stay there, but that’s okay. So went out state, totally out of state. I ended up in Oklahoma City, a three bed, two bath home and bought it conventionally. I’m pretty risk adverse. I was like, this seems pretty safe, let’s go this route. And it was fine. It was definitely a base hit, not that home run, but it’s what got me started and I’m really happy I did it.

Ashley:
So you mentioned you did conventional for this first property, how did you save? Was it 20% and what are some tips so that somebody else could save 20% down for an investment property?

Lauren:
So I actually ended up doing 25%, which I will probably never do that again, but I’ve always lived below my means. I’ve always been a saver from the beginning. So if you’re going to get into real estate, you really have to make sure that you are good with your finances first, you have an understanding of what money’s coming in, where your money’s going. And so have a strict budget and you need to start exploring options. So instead of money sitting in a savings account, a regular savings account, you should be in a high yield, you should have money in maybe like a Roth or something else long term, but just growing somewhere. And so even as a zookeeper, I was literally making $1,100 a month in my early twenties. I was still able to save up $20,000 just by living below my means. I still have an iPhone seven with a home button. I get made fun of all the time, but you know what, it’s paid off. So

Ashley:
I have to ask, was this in New York City that you were living still on $1,100 salary and living for cheap?

Lauren:
That was in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is also pretty costly.

Ashley:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. And I just want to highlight that is it is possible to save money and invest in real estate. You may have to make some lifestyle changes if you don’t think it’s possible for you right now to live below your means. And that may be moving to another house to decrease your living expenses or house hacking, renting out a bedroom. But continuously, there’s stories that are coming out and we actually just had somebody that I interviewed yesterday that literally said, I did it the boring way. I saved up money for a down payment and I bought it with a loan. There was no creative strategy of how I got in there, but that is literally the easiest way to get into it is to going path. But it is hard. It is hard to change your spending habits for sure. And definitely tracking. So do you track your expenses now? And what do you use to do that?

Lauren:
So I really just use, there’s so many great resources out there from Rachel Richards has some really good spreadsheets. So a lot of people offer these for free on Instagram and just online. Allie and Josh Lupo, the PHI couple have a great one, tracks net worth and everything, but every week, so I started doing every month with my husband and I. We would sit down and I was like, too much time goes by. If you made a mistake, you don’t catch something in a month has gone by. So we upped it to every week, every Sunday morning, we have a fun breakfast and then we sit down and we do that. And I learned that from reading Atomic Habits because they’re like, if it’s something you don’t love doing, which he doesn’t, my husband does not love doing the budget. We try to make it more fun by having an nice pancake breakfast beforehand. And so he tends to look forward to it more.

Ashley:
Yeah, yeah, that’s such a great idea. Okay, so let’s move into your deal. So you decided to invest out of state. Let’s do a little rapid fire here to kind of get a background on the deal, but what was the market again?

Lauren:
Oklahoma City.

Ashley:
Okay. And what was the purchase price?

Lauren:
1 65

Ashley:
And then it was a two bed, one bath, single family,

Lauren:
Three bed, two bath.

Ashley:
Three bed. Two bath. Okay. And did you do any rehab or renovation on this property?

Lauren:
Of course. And of course it was more than we thought, but ended up putting about 15,000 into it.

Ashley:
And then what did you end up renting the property out for?

Lauren:
So I rented it for 1500 and then they just renewed my tenants for 1550 after a year.

Ashley:
And what was your all in cost with the down payment, closing costs and the renovation, that 15,000,

Lauren:
It was about 62,000.

Ashley:
Okay. And what is your cashflow on that property?

Lauren:
This is why I call it a base hit and not really like a home run. For rookies out there listening, please make sure your cashflow is after you pay your property manager, after you take out your reserves, then what’s left is your cashflow all said and done. It’s probably like a hundred a 50 left, not huge. And I don’t touch that money at all, so I’m just really shoving it all into reserves for right now. But everything’s covered. Yeah,

Ashley:
That’s exactly what I did. Starting out, it was just a little bit of cashflow on the property and then after a little bit, I literally just used it to pay down my student loan debt and that was it. I didn’t touch it for so long, even now I reinvest it. But that’s such a great mindset to have as in you’re not going to increase your lifestyle by that 150 and just spend it. It’s like, Ooh, we got one extra dinner this month. How much a dinner for two costs about these days. But having that mindset of this is wealth building that you are not trying to use that cashflow right now or get into a property where you can quit your W2 job after buying two houses or something like that. This is where I think there’s a big misconception that you can go and buy coupled duplexes and yeah, there are people that have gotten these amazing deals and properties where they cashflow a thousand dollars with no money into the deal and they hit that home run. But you want to go into real estate, you got to have that expectation of you’re going to need money to have reserves and there will be unexpected costs where it’s nice to save that little bit of cashflow and not depend on it and rely on it too.

Lauren:
Absolutely. Yeah. I’m not leaving teaching anytime soon with this cashflow.

Ashley:
Stay tuned after a break from more with Lauren. If you’re hoping to invest remotely, you’ll need a team to help manage your properties. Go to biggerpockets.com/teams to learn more. Okay, welcome back to the show. We’re joined by Lauren. What is the value of the property now once you went in and rehabbed it?

Lauren:
So I never got it. It’s like I’m not going to do anything with it in the near future, but I see things here and there on stream and Zillow about the value, and so it ranges from 180 5 to 200,000, so it’s okay, but like I said, I’m not really doing anything with it. I might eventually pull something out of it or rent to own it. We’ll see. But it’s definitely in a neighborhood in the path to progress. So I only imagine that’s going to go up

Ashley:
And you’re getting mortgage pay down by your tenant, paying down the debt and some appreciation.

Lauren:
Yeah, I love watching that net worth grow every week. It’s amazing.

Ashley:
And tracking your net worth is also something everyone should be doing. Okay, so let’s talk about the rehab on this property. So what was that like doing it out of state? Kind of walk us through that whole process.

Lauren:
So I did end up flying out there for the closing. I knew I wanted to just get eyes on the market myself once at least.

Ashley:
Did you see the property beforehand at all or that was your first time?

Lauren:
Just through video. Video and pictures. So I literally fell out there for closing. I was like, well, I’m past my due diligence period. It’s not like I can really back out for any small reason now. So I really just, this is it. And I brought my husband out there and so we closed on a Thursday night and then went back to the property and slept there for a few days while we did some work on it. We literally flew out with one suitcase. We had an air mattress in it, so we were really rough in it for a few days, but it was really fun. So it was like noon morning to night. We were working on that property. So everything we could do ourselves, we did. But beforehand I had vetted some contractors and I ultimately ended up going with one that my realtor had recommended. So right from the beginning, she had sent me a list when she first reached out to me about all these people she works with from lenders to property managers. So I had a nice list to work off of, but I spoke to at least three of every type of person just to make sure I also felt comfortable with them.

Ashley:
I think that’s really great that your agent gave you several options instead of just like, this is the guy I use, you have to use him and kind of push him on you, giving you the selection to choose.

Lauren:
It was a little scary because when I met my property manager, she did not like that contractor. She’s like, oh my God, you’re going with him? And I was like, oh no, please, I already sent him a first amount. Don’t scare me. But it ended up being fine. The work was great. I didn’t love the lack of communication, which I know I hear a lot of people have that issue. And so I think next time I have to set up a little bit more expectation on my end. How often are we communicating? What pictures are you sending? How am I not verifying that work is being done? But yeah, ultimately it did get done. I did have to replace the plumbing, which I was not expecting, but it was okay.

Ashley:
And that’s why it’s important to have reserves of before you’ve even purchased the property and close on it, making sure you have that money in place instead of relying on just the cashflow to build up your reserves. Because at that point when you’re doing the rehab and that cost comes up, you don’t even have a tenant yet that’s paying rent that you could take some of that money from the investing out of state. So you talked, there’s a little bit of miscommunication between, or not miscommunication, but lack of communication between you and your contractor. But how did you even decide on doing out of state and why did you select your market?

Lauren:
Yeah, so definitely out of state, because I had mentioned earlier I was just scarred about being a landlord in New York City. I knew that was not going to happen. So since I was young, I knew that was just not even an option. So I always knew I was going to go out of state. And then I started, my big thing was I liked to bounce ideas off of people, so I knew that I needed to get a mentor. And so probably February, 2023, I was in the BiggerPockets Rookie Bootcamp. And so I was learning, it was actually you and Tyler Madden doing that one. So I loved it. And then right when that ended, I hired a coach. And so it was one-on-one, which was amazing.

Lauren:
She helped me a lot with the market research where I was really getting that analysis paralysis. We made it into chunk size bites week by week, what I was doing. But we really started with like, okay, what are the red states? They pretty landlord friendly. BiggerPockets also puts out a lot of articles about top 10 landlord friendly states and stuff. So just take all that stuff in and all that information and then you’re looking at population growth was big for me. Make sure people are moving to the area and not leaving in droves year over year price to rent ratio, big things like that. Top four job markets in the area. If it’s just one and that company leaves, it can become the next Flint, Michigan, Detroit. So you want to make sure that you have enough jobs and people in the area. We did that and I kept narrowing down and I had a short list of five, then three, and eventually I was just like, you know what? Everyone’s in Ohio, I want to try something different. Let’s go Oklahoma City.

Ashley:
And it’s working out for you so far.

Lauren:
So far so good. Yeah,

Ashley:
I think that’s a great way to select a market is to look at something that’s important to you, like you started out with what’s an investor friendly state. Narrowing down from there, you can also go and look at where other people are investing or go to biggerpockets.com/resources and there’s market selection data there and see, okay, what’s the recommended here? But always verify because what someone else is doing or what the data says, it may not actually work for what your strategy is. So one market may be great for cashflow, but it may be very heavy intensive as to managing tenants and dilapidated properties and things like that. Or it’s more better for flipping than actually having a rental. So paying attention to what is actually important to you in not just following what someone else did because it worked for them too. So once you selected your market, how did you find your deal and how did you find your real estate agent too?

Lauren:
So I found my real estate agent actually on BiggerPockets. I did a lot. I found my original CPA there. So yeah, I reached out to a few on BiggerPockets and talked to a few of them as well. So my mentor and I was working with her for about five months. She, she pretty much bought all her properties on the MLS for 10 years. And then looking back, that’s definitely a big thing I learned, lesson learned is you really want to vet your mentors as well. And when you’re first getting into it, you may not know how to vet a mentor, which is what I knew I needed to. But then I realized after the fact I didn’t really know how to vet a real estate mentor. So I would definitely talk to someone who has done mentorships and ask them, how did you vet the mentor? What did you wish you knew beforehand? And things like that because she bought all her properties on the MLS, which was fine. It ended up working okay for me, but long-term, that’s not going to be the strategy I want to use. So I probably should have looked for someone who does off-market deals, maybe doesn’t buy with 20, 25% down conventionally lessons learned right first time in it. But yeah. So we brought on the MLS.

Ashley:
Why do you want to make that transition from MLS to off market and talk about why you wouldn’t want to do 20 to 25% down again?

Lauren:
So yeah, when you’re buying on market, have a lot of people to pay including those real estate agents. So that’s just another cost you have to keep in mind and write, underwrite basically with the property you find a lot better deals off market. It is harder to find them, it takes more work to find them, but they typically end up being a better return on investment. So whether you do it creatively or just whatnot, it’s just usually better numbers altogether. And I do talk to a lot of sellers now who have listings on market and they are the most difficult people to talk to. Even if they have had it listed for five months and not a single offer, a lot of them aren’t budging. I often hear, I know what my house is worth, and I’m like, well, it’s worth what someone’s willing to pay for it, but okay, so it’s going to be a lot tougher conversations with people listed on market too.

Ashley:
And what was the offering for you with this property that you did purchase on the MLS? Were you competing with other people and did you have to negotiate at all?

Lauren:
Yes, it was very, I don’t know if it still is because I haven’t bought there in this last year, but summer, spring of 2023, it was a very competitive market there and I had put in about five offers. This was my fifth property. I put an offer on and we’re like, you know what? Let’s try a different approach with this offer. My realtor and I sat down, even my lender, we talked altogether, what is going to make this the most competitive offer? So we just straight up offer what they’re asking. No contingencies, no nothing. We had put a lot of that in the previous offers and it just sometimes the more complicated the offer just scares sellers off. So she’s like, you always have your due diligence period to go ahead and put that stuff in and come back and ask for these things. So come in with a clean straight offer. And despite all the other offers on the table, they chose ours.

Ashley:
Wow, that’s awesome. What was the emotion like when that happened?

Lauren:
Absolute terror. Totally terrifying. I was like, oh my god, it’s actually happening now.

Ashley:
That’s it. When you get that first property under contract, it is that mix of excitement but also terror at the same time. Oh my god, this is real now.

Lauren:
Yeah, I basically told everyone I knew. I was like, don’t talk to me for the next 10 days. I have due diligence. I need to figure this out.

Ashley:
Speaking of due diligence, I just did a rookie YouTube video. We’re doing a new series on the real estate rookie YouTube channel called Rookie Resources where we’re giving stuff out like a due diligence checklist, a closing checklist and things like that too. So if anyone is getting ready to close on their first property and make sure that you go and check out those new YouTube videos. We’re going to take one more final ad break and then we’ll jump back in with Lauren. Okay. Welcome back. Okay, so building your team. You’ve mentioned several people that you have found. What would be your advice for someone that is also looking to build a team, whether it’s in their area or out of state?

Lauren:
So I definitely got a lot of interview questions from people who were already in real estate and some of it was from my coach, some of it was from just people passing things along. You definitely want to get questions to ask these team members from people who have been in real estate because there are just some things you don’t even know about that you should be asking about. The saying goes, you don’t know what you don’t know, so try to pull on your network as much as you can. So go to meetups and go to things beforehand. Before you’re buying. You should be going to meetups and meeting people, doing what you’re doing and even beyond. So talk to at least three to five of every type of person. And it’s scary. I don’t like talking on the phone, I really don’t. So I literally have to pump myself up before making these phone calls. But afterwards, you feel so good. You’re like, I did that and now I have this information, and you just feel more confident moving forward.

Ashley:
And then property management, you mentioned having a property manager, so I’m assuming you’re not self-managing. Walk us through that process of what it was hiring and kind of what the agreement is for them, what they take care of.

Lauren:
So their agreement is really simple, which was almost very scary. It was like something I’m missing here, but I spoke to a few people. Some people took my phone calls in the middle of the day checking out at the grocery store, and so immediately I was checking them off my list. It’s just not professional. That’s important to me. So I was like, okay, nope. So the people who actually took the time to talk to me were shot to the top of my list. I also liked that they really didn’t have any hidden fees at all. I kept asking, well what about this? What if this happens? Because so many property managers will have these little hidden fees that’s not just a 10% a month that you’re paying them, but so many other things. And so my property manager only charges half the first month’s rent when they find a tenant.

Ashley:
So they’re leasing fee?

Lauren:
Yeah, many charge a full month’s rent. They also, if you have two or more properties with them, they drop from 10% a month to 8% a month.

Ashley:
Oh wow. That’s a significant,

Lauren:
Yeah, I want to get that second property now. So there was a lot of good things. And also if we feel like it’s not working out between the two of us, we just have a 30 day notice we can get out of the contract. And that was also important for me too. It was like I don’t want to be stuck in something a year, two years long if I’m not happy with it.

Ashley:
And then what about the maintenance side of things? Are they taking care of the maintenance? Do they have their own maintenance crew? Do they have a spending limit where they have to get approval for you over a certain amount?

Lauren:
And these are all questions I ask them too, so definitely make sure you guys are asking them this. They always email me before really any work is done unless it’s an emergency, no heat in the winter, which has not happened thankfully, but they’ll always get approval for me beforehand, no matter how small or large it may seem, which I do appreciate that even though every time I see an email come from them, I’m like, oh no, it’s like a gut punch. But no, I really do appreciate the communication with that. And they do have their own handyman and maintenance team, but like I mentioned earlier, I had replaced all the plumbing when I did my renovations. So when the tenant just came back a couple of weeks ago saying there was a little issue with the plumbing, the flow was really low. So you know what, let me call my plumber instead who did the work because it’s probably still under warranty. And I did and they fixed it. And so instead of having to pay for their plumber to go out, I was able to save a little money doing it that way.

Ashley:
And then so they take care of the whole leasing process for you. Did they actually have you review applications?

Lauren:
I did tell them a couple of deal breakers I had beforehand the credit score, how long they’ve been in their W2 job or whatever is at least three months of pay stubs, a six 50 or higher credit scores, what I wanted. And then they’re like, yep, that pretty much lines up with what we already do. I made sure I liked their process and then I just let them handle it.

Ashley:
That’s the nicest way is when it’s taken care of, but you’re so informed and they will also listen to what some of your expectations are as long as it’s not overly demanding. I’ve been a owner for a property management company and I will never take on clients now that I have my own property management company just because of how I was. I would never want somebody that needy and want to know that information and want things done their way. Okay, so this property now, what is next? So you’re going to get that decrease to 8% property management. So is Oklahoma the next stop again or do you have somewhere else in mind?

Lauren:
Yeah, I would like to get a second property in Oklahoma. I also would like to just add a second market. I think it’s also good just to have a second market in case one slows down. The market is very city neighborhood specific, so you may look at the news headlines and think one thing’s happening in all the markets in the us but it’s really, really specific down to the local markets. So I think it’s always good to have two. So I’ll probably end up branching out into Cleveland at some point. I know a lot of investors in Cleveland, I’m involved in a lot of group chats with them, so I have a lot of resources there, but I want that 8% drop in my property management fee. So I’ll probably focus on Oklahoma City first and I would like to eventually transition to doing some midterm rentals

Ashley:
And what is the plan financially to purchase that second property and what’s kind of the timeline for that.

Lauren:
So I did something, I was actually inspired by you and Tony when I started listening to this podcast a long time ago when you both, and correct me if I’m wrong, really started getting into real estate. One of the ways you started was you started working for someone and I think you worked for a property management company, right?

Ashley:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So my property manager for my short-term rentals, she’s a physical therapist, but she started working for me just managing the few short-term rentals I have. She kind of built out my systems and my software and everything. And then she ended up getting another job working for a larger short-term rental company, and she’s their lead manager in a resort destination by us for skiing and snowboarding. And so it’s just so cool to see how she actually kind of had a similar path to you. She started out in investing out of state in Indiana. She bought a single family home there conventional, and then since then she’s bought a couple more apartments. But yeah, it’s just awesome and what she’s been able to learn working part-time is just like a side job doing the management of the short-term rentals.

Lauren:
Yeah, it’s amazing what you can learn from other people, so don’t count that out. That’s a huge, huge win.

Ashley:
And I have to say too, when I started out knowing that when I worked as a property manager having that, it just gave me a little bit more confidence. That’s what I was so confident about was I knew I could get a tenant in there. I knew what I could charge for the rent because it was the same market that I was managing in. I knew the leases, I knew exactly what to do to manage it was the thing that scared me was like, oh my god, what if the furnace breaks the day after we close or the roof blows off and now I have a $20,000 expense? So that was the things that I was nervous about, but I was really confident at least in that property management portion, which I think really gave me the momentum to actually get started in real estate or else it probably would’ve been a lot longer before I found that confidence.

Lauren:
You’ll never be confident in every aspect when you’re starting, right? So if you can be confident in one and that’s enough to get you into it, I think that’s amazing.

Ashley:
Before we wrap up here, what would be one last piece of advice that you would give to a rookie investor who’s listening to this thinking, I want to get my first property?

Lauren:
I would say definitely get a mentor. That would be my biggest thing. Get a mentor, vet them, or if not, work for them. But to me that’s been the biggest thing that has propelled me and my understanding of how to buy properties for the next one. So get a mentor, it will kick you out of that analysis paralysis, and you’ll be held accountable so you can’t just sit on the sidelines anymore.

Ashley:
Yeah, I love that advice and just learning from someone, especially if you’re working for them, you’re getting paid while you learn too, so that’s even better. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for joining us and Lauren talks a lot about teams. So if you’re looking for team members, you can go to biggerpockets.com/teams and you can find your property manager, your lender, your agent, everything you need to get your first or next real estate deal. If you want to learn more about Lauren, we’re going to link her information into the show notes and you can also find it in the description on YouTube. Thank you guys so much for joining us. I am Ashley, and we’ll see you on the next episode of Real Estate Rookie.