Kristine's Journey: Overcoming Self-Doubt While Building a 20k/Month Real Estate Portfolio

Speaker 1: 0:01

You're listening to the Flip Houses Like a Girl podcast, where we educate, empower and celebrate everyday women who are facing their fears, juggling family and business, embracing their awesomeness and wholeheartedly chasing their dream of flipping houses. Each episode delivers honest to goodness tools, tips and strategies you can implement today to get closer to your first or next successful house flip. Here's your spiky-haired breakfast taco-loving host. House flipping coach Debbie DeViery.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Hey there, I hope that you're having an easy day and I'm excited to introduce you to Christine, who is one of our Flip sisters in California and since we recorded this episode, she's actually joined our coaching staff, so we're super excited about that. Anyway, I'm happy to share this conversation with you. She takes us on her journey to 20K in positive cash flow per month on rental properties. So she's going to take us through some of her properties and, most importantly, she opens up about the mindset shifts she had to have and her biggest challenges, which all came from inside her head, which they do for all of us. So I'm excited to share this conversation. It's a really powerful conversation and she shares some great tips and is just super real with us. So let's get into it. Let's meet Christine. You want to start with introducing yourself and letting us know who you are, where you are and what you're up to in the world? Sure, my name is Christine. I live in Southern California with my family. I have two kids, 17 and almost 13. And my husband is self-employed. I have been, my background is engineering, and I've been working in my field for a long time, almost 30 years. It's been a great career, but I'm a little burnt out, so that was definitely one of the reasons why I started looking at real estate. Yeah, what do you do? What kind of engineering do you do? So my focus is lighting and controls for buildings. Oh, I do remember that. Okay, so I worked as a consultant for several years and then I went onto the sales side, but in the same field. Okay, got it. So I've been there for almost 20 years. And have you? Where are you? In Southern California, Torrance, so Los Angeles area. How long have you been there? 27 years since college. Were you in Ohio before? No, I went to school at the University of Colorado. Okay, so I was in Boulder which is an amazing place. That campus, beautiful campus. Oh, what a cool place to grow into being an adult. That's awesome. Okay. So, southern Cal been there a really long time, I've been in engineering a really long time and my guess is you see real estate investing as kind of like your next step, Like it's the end goal, is cash flow. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Yeah, I'm going to replace my salary, got it? When did you get into investing? When did you buy your first property? So, my, the first deal I ever did was in 2019 and that was a flip. Okay, it was a tiny little house and it was cosmetic for the most part. I did most of the work myself and it was the most fun I've ever had in my life. Yeah, oh, wow, I've been in it for seven weeks and I just loved every second. It was just, I felt so accomplished. You know, it was one of those things where I got to the end of it and I was so proud I couldn't wait. My realtor drove up and was coming up the front steps and I just remember thinking this is my proud, you know. Besides, like having my children, this is my proudest moment. Yes, yes, I could totally relate Absolutely. Gosh, how did you end up knowing on that flip? I did okay, I did make a little bit of money, but you know I didn't. I didn't really have the education to really really know how to do it, but I did well enough to know that this, it works Right and you enjoy it. I loved it. Yeah, sometimes people do their first slip and they're like, no thanks, not for me, I'll be a private money lender instead. And it's like, yeah, that is a good role for you. Yeah, were there any big surprises in that, or was it a pretty smooth process? A lot of the my subfloor had to be replaced. Pretty much A lot of it had water damage, so that I wasn't counting on. But other than that, everything was not necessarily included in my budget, just because there are so many things you don't think about, but it was not surprising. Yeah, nice, how did you find that deal, mls? Yes, okay, so you did your first slip, made a little profit, and then what happened? And then I decided that I really wanted to start to build the cash flow and rentals was how I wanted to do it. So I started kind of looking into you know how do you do that, and there were so many options. It was a little overwhelming at first, but I decided that I definitely wanted to do value add and my properties. That was important to me and I looked at a bunch of different markets and settled on a couple which I'll talk about. But I had a lot of self-doubt. There was definitely, you know, the voice inside of your head, the bully. I do, I do, yeah, I know her well. She's pretty mean, she's so mean, she's the worst, the worst, yeah, the worst. She was like you can't do this Interesting. She wasn't saying that about the flip no, okay, very interesting, no, but you know, I think if I took long enough to think about it, she probably would have. But for sure, for sure, with the rentals. She was like you cannot build a portfolio, like, no, who do you think you are? Wow, yeah, that is really interesting. Golly, so, yeah, how did you handle it? How'd you handle her? I actually I hired a. I call her a coach. She was therapist. That was my first move. There's a very fine line, the difference and she was amazing. But she really helped me to retrain the voice, so that helped a lot. And that was a process that was probably a two year, two, two and a half year process. I also educated myself and it was interesting because I actually found your podcast while I was working on that flip. It was summer of 2019. Oh my, you were on your second episode. Oh my gosh, that is bananas. Holy cow, wow, that gives me chills. That's great. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I love Debbie. Oh my gosh. But in my head I wasn't flipping Right, right Back then, I mean. So I was like, okay, I'm, I'm gonna. I you know, I kept following you, but I wanted to. I ended up taking a burr class, basically. So I took that class and it was good in that I learned the mechanics of a burr, I understood hard money, that sort of thing, but the mindset was not addressed. It is the biggest thing, oh my gosh. So I started to. I did start to buy properties, but still I was just paralyzed at some points. I was like I don't know what I'm doing. I still didn't think I could do it, wow. So I started by. The first property I bought was in May of 2021. And I was petrified, terrified, but it did end up going well, I think that eventually I decided what I was doing was flipping. It was just to a different set of comps, if you will, yeah. So it took me a little while to be like yep, this is the place I want to be, yes, so it's so hard to talk about. You get it, you understand the terminology, value add, I can say that, and most people don't get that. And so it's like okay, we'll call it flipping. Even though we're not always selling the F-Lib, it's improving. I don't know how else to talk about it to make people realize that we're buying a property, we're improving it and then we're either selling it or holding on to it. Right, yeah, yeah, that's interesting, okay. So when you were going to buy your first rental in 2021, you said you were petrified. What were some of your biggest fears? Like, what were your worries? So that one is a short-term rental actually, okay, my biggest worry always is always economic cycles. So I think that is basically my brain's way of sort of masking the self-doubt. You know I would be like, oh, but the economy might crash right after I buy this property. Oh, and what would happen if the economy crashed? Oh, I could just the property. I might not be able to pay the mortgage, it will lose value. You know, I saw myself like going into this place of like something catastrophic is gonna happen, oh my gosh. Yes, very normal. Yeah, and you did it. Anyway, I did. I did, you know, and thankfully, with that one, my husband has his own thing. He's supportive, very supportive of me, but it's real estate's not his jam. However, with this one, because we were using a second home loan, a vacation loan, and it was a place that we went to often. It was in Arizona, in Phoenix, oh nice, he was on the mortgage, you know, he was. It helped, I have to say, helped a lot, because I was like all right, you know, if I end up losing all this money, like it's both of us Right, right, and at the moment, that's what I needed, you know, at the moment, and I mean so it was great to have his support. He actually didn't go to the house for probably about I don't know 10 months, maybe, until after I had rehabbed it, furnished it. It had been rented as a short-term rental for a while, but when he did, it was a very proud moment for me. Yeah, yeah, I mean, all of a sudden you're different, yeah, and you created this awesome space and you did this awesome stuff and big scary things I did. Yeah, that's so cool. Okay, that's your first rental and that's an STR. Do you still have it? I do, okay, so let's talk about how you're managing that. Or if you hired a property manager, how are you doing that? Since you're in Southern California Marpeze and Phoenix how are you doing that? So, for the construction, it was COVID, so my kids were out of school, so I just picked them up and we drove to Phoenix and we did a rehab. That was fantastic, and what I loved was they both have a sense of ownership of that property. That is really cool. My daughter helped me a lot with the overall scheme, the colors she loves, a good trip to home goods, and my son helped build every piece of furniture. Like it was great. It was a family affair. My husband was here running his business, but I loved that they were a part of it. I know it is the best. Yeah, so once I got it up and running, I do self-manage. I feel like the online travel agencies make it so easy to self-manage. Yeah, you need a cleaner and a repair person. That's what you need and then you need to be responsive. You have to be responsive. If you're not a responsive person, you need to hand that off, because it's all about your rating. It is Like how well your property does entirely falls on your rating and that falls on. Is this person responsive? How quickly are they responding? Yeah, all of that. Yeah, you have a good team and you use technology and you use tech. Yeah, which? Everything you can. Yeah, I'm a little older probably than the average first time investor, so it doesn't come quite as naturally to me, but now that I use it on a daily, maybe weekly, basis, it's fine. Like I figured it out, it's fine. Yeah, I think you're right, in line with everyone in our group. Ok, good, we're all a bunch of middle-aged women Doing this thing.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Which is great.

Speaker 2: 15:39

That's maybe why I feel so comfortable. Yeah, yeah, ok, so that's property one. Tell me about property two. Property two was a burr, like. I bought it to rehab it, rent it and refinance it and rent it as a long-term rental. That one's a long-term, correct. How did that process go for you? It went OK. It was a little harder because it was further away. So this is. I've moved to Ohio since then for my long terms. I got it, so it's across the country. It's a little bit harder to find good contractors. I found an excellent realtor out of the gate, so that's not an issue, nice. But the contractors were a little bit harder. I had to stay on top of them, which was from a distance, like I didn't really know what the condition was. I had to rely on pictures and videos to see where they were in the process. Yeah, and so that was tough, but it got done eventually. It took longer, cost more than I anticipated, but in the end it was fine. Okay, do you think it took longer and cost more because you weren't there or who knows why? I don't think it would have. I think the cost was just things that I missed. Got it. But I do think it took longer because I wasn't able to check in on the property. I think I've since done a little more thorough job of vetting my contractors, so that definitely makes a difference. Yeah, I think we get better at that every time. Yeah, what made you choose Ohio and what city? Or is it different cities that you're focusing on? Yeah, they're all in the Cleveland area, either in the city or in a suburb. I looked at several different cash flowing cities throughout the country and, to be honest, it was all about the realtor Interesting. Yep, it was that great of an experience it was. I made contact with her. She took me seriously. He was incredibly responsive and knew what I needed as an out-of-state investor. Not all realtors do, and that's okay, but she got it. She understood what I needed. Nice, were you able to pull out as much cash as you thought you were going to? Not quite. A couple of things happened. So I bought that house in March of 2022. Mm-hmm. And by the time I went to refinance it, which was in September there's a six-month wait period, right? Yeah, we got a season and by the time I went to refinance the property, the comps had gone down a little bit. So and actually I mentioned this in the group. I had an experience. So the first time I had the property appraised the first lender that I started working with they appraised the property and it came in so low it was just over what I bought it for. Oh my gosh, like they didn't even try. It was devastating. It was like I looked at the comps and I was like these are the comps that aren't, are barely livable. Yeah, these are like the before they were, they were the before comps and that. But you know what it was? It was super hard and eventually, after a little while, I realized that I was tying my own self-worth to the value that that appraiser had given to them. That random appraiser. Oh my gosh, what an awesome, awesome self-awareness. Kudos to you. To even like get that. It was actually someone else who pointed it out, but once, once I heard it, I was like that's exactly what's happening. That resonates. Oh my gosh, yeah, it is. It's like how dare you? Yeah, and I was, from then, able to unwind that, you know, and it took a while, I would say for four weeks. I didn't want to look at real estate, I just let that, you know. I canceled the application. I was like I need to just take a beat. And finally, and it was fine because I bought the property in cash, so it was, I wasn't paying an interest on my payment or anything Gotcha, but I wanted my money back. I mean, do something else, yeah? So about a month later I started the process again with a different lender they, you know, obviously it was a different appraiser and this time I did a packet, so found my own comps, you know, put together this nice packet with pictures and what I had done to improve the property and the comps that I was looking at. And the second time it came in, I would say within about $3,000 of my idea of what it should be, and I was like, yes, good for you. So you got the pretty much. You got the value you were trying to get. I did, I did. I left a little more money in the property than I had planned, but that was okay with me. It was, you know, it was my learning experience and the silver lining. So with a rental, your cash flow is going to depend on your mortgage payment, right, there's the income coming in and there's your expenses Right. And if you have a lower loan amount, your mortgage is less Right, so your cash flow is more Right. It's, like you know, makes perfect sense. But it wasn't until, like, I got that first check after I had refied and I'm like, oh my gosh, rent is $1250. My mortgage is $550. Oh my gosh, that's crazy. So in the end it ended up like the property performs like crazy. That's ridiculous. Two and a quarter X or something like that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I do pay property management on that one. So long-term rental, you're paying property management. What are they charging? 10, 15%, they charge 10. Yeah, that's pretty standard for the long-term stuff. Yeah, nice, and, as it turns out, worth every penny. Yeah, okay. So that was project, that was property two, rental property two, yeah, okay. And then, so that was March of last year, so then you joined around, then I joined in. I want to say it was about Memorial Day weekend, so end of May, okay. So then what was property number three? So, property number three, and I took a beat between the second property, mostly because I was still working with that self-doubt. I was still kind of going through that process. The thing that started to really change it was the mindset work that I was doing. I mean, your program stresses that, before you even look at a number, you address mindset. Yeah, and it was like ah, you know right, it all comes back to it. It just does like everything comes back to what's going on in here. What are you telling yourself? What story are you believing? Yeah, yeah. Are you listening to your inner voice? Yeah, or are you saying you know what? There's data here? Yeah, I don't have to have a crystal ball because I can look at the data, which is really fantastic. It takes the pressure off right.

Speaker 1: 24:30

It really does it takes the pressure off.

Speaker 2: 24:32

It's just the data. Yes, thank you. I'm glad you know most people, not most. There are definitely some people who are like, oh, I don't need mindset stuff and I'm like that's usually a sign that you might need a little bit, because it all comes back to it the thing we're avoiding doing, the hard thing that we're avoiding doing, whatever it is firing a contractor. We're not doing it because the data doesn't tell us that we shouldn't fire that contractor. We're not doing it because of all the stuff we're saying in our heads about it and how it's going to be harder and it's all going to. You know, it's going to be this and that and it's always the answer. If you're questioning whether you need to fire the person, you probably need to fire the person. It's probably not a good fit, whoever that team member is. But then we get all up in our heads, second guess ourselves oh, it's, my favorite part is figuring that out and trying to understand me, yep, and then you learn and grow and do, and then all of a sudden you got something else that's popping up. It's like this constant thing. So I'm glad you, I'm glad you get it. I did and I got a lot out of it, and I think you know I'm a numbers person, right, I love numbers. You're an engineer, yeah, exactly so that that part really spoke to me how to not just gather the data but how to use it, how to interpret it in a way that's going to help your project be successful yeah, huge yeah. And help you reach your goals, because your goals might be different than the next person's. And so how do we apply that to you and your track that you're on? Oh, I love it. So you refinanced that one in October-ish, yeah, november. I called close in November, yeah, ok. And then you had to purchase something. Before then, though, during that time, yeah, I went under contract within a week of getting that check I was, by that time, I mean, I could not believe the difference in my mindset. I was so ready and you know a little bit I was chomping at the bit, but also I had been analyzing properties. I had been just looking at the market so intently that it was much easier at that point to find a good deal. You know, to know a deal was a good deal, yes, and to jump on it immediately, yes, yes, but wait, was Property 3 in California? No, are they all in Ohio. They're all, except for the first one, which is in Arizona. That's right, ok, yeah, for some reason I thought you bought that. I thought that two-story house is maybe a duplex. I thought that was a California property. I don't know why I assumed that that's weird. It's not. I probably didn't mention it, but it is. It is in Ohio. Yeah, ok, and that was Property 3. That was Property 3. Yeah, that one came, tenant occupied, ok, and I will probably in June have one of the units come vacant. So I will have to do a turn in or rehab in that one, yeah, but the second one, the second tenant, we raised the rent. He's staying. You know it's stabilized so I'm not going to touch it. Nice, so basically, you just bought that one and it's kind of turned key. For now it is. Yeah, are all of these close to each other? Like, are there certain pockets that you like the most? The second and the third one are very close to each other. So the single family bar and then the duplex are very close to each other. They're in the same zip code. I like the zip code. However, what I've realized is I wanted to go to neighborhoods with a little higher value, because and this is something that I learned from your podcast before I even joined the program because the spread is more Right. Right, it's all about percentages, it is yeah, yeah, and so there's a little more wiggle room. Yes, in a property that has a higher value, yes, yes. So that's what I've been doing now. So the last property that I closed on, which was about two weeks ago that one is in a suburb OK, ok, and that is a burr OK. And the property number three, the duplex did you get financing for that or is that OK? I did Conventional financing, since it's Conventional financing Because you weren't doing any repairs or anything initially, so Correct. Then, what about for this property? Did you finance this or are you using cash, or what are you doing? This one, I'm using hard money. Okay, how has that process been? Great, actually, I had this needs a garage. That's a requirement by the city, so I it's the first time I'm adding square footage to a property, so it was like oh, okay, I wonder if the hard money lender is going to cover that. You just need to ask, you just need to ask. They do Not all of them would, but I found one that would, yeah, and they're like yep, absolutely, we'll cover it. You know, it's all based on the percentage of the ARV. Absolutely, they just want to make sure they're not in. They're in it up to a certain percent. They want to make sure their investment is less than 70%, or whatever, of the. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Now, what do you mean? It requires a garage. If it requires a garage, why isn't there a garage? Well, the city has this requirement that every house needs to have a garage. I've never heard this. This is crazy. I know it is something that is enforced at the time of a sale, so and I don't know how long it's been a part of the city agreements, but I did notice when I was there that every house has a garage. They're all in the backyard, you know. So you have this long driveway and that's one of the most interesting things I've ever heard. Real estate is so weird. I love it. Is there a way to? Can you make a garage apartment? So that is definitely something that's that I'm thinking about. I did talk to the city, I've talked to them several times and I'm, you know, building a relationship with them, trying to definitely use honey. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:07

You know innocence right.

Speaker 2: 32:09

Exactly To attract the bees there. So you know, little by little, I'm asking them questions like that. You know, I asked the short term rental. No, that's an absolute. No, I have considered medium term rental and that is a possibility, but every tenant has to be registered with the city. Oh, interesting, yes, so that would mean registering a new tenant, every, you know, free, yeah, yeah. So, and then my next question. You know I'm spacing. My next question is about you know how I use this garage?

Speaker 1: 32:50

Right.

Speaker 2: 32:50

So if it's possible to use it as a you know ADU or you know converted or anything like that, so yeah, that's really interesting. This is the one that's more suburban and so I guess it just has its own, its own rules. That garage thing is super interesting. I wonder what the deal is behind that. That's an interesting rule. It is the. The good thing for me as a buyer was this was on the MLS, ok, and it actually wasn't on my radar, the area wasn't, but my realtor pointed it out to me and she said hey, I think you should look at this one because it's in a decent suburb, but most homeowners are going to shy away from this property because they're not going to want to add the garage because of that. Yes, and I was like OK, so I looked at it and I got a couple of quotes from garage companies and turned out it wasn't really that expensive. Yeah, I was. I was actually floored by how inexpensive it was to add the garage. I only need to add a one car garage. So, and as a rental, that that works just fine, yeah, but when we went to make the offer, the house was listed for 80,000. Ok, and I, you know that was way more than I could pay with my. You know, once I put it through the deal, analyze everything, but my number came out to be 60. I want to say it was about 63. So my realtor was like, ok, I think we should start at 60. I was like, ok, let's do it. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Right? And they did not accept it. They came back at 64. Wow, that's a big jump. I mean it's 20 percent Big jump. Yeah, holy cow, exactly so. I was like, let me sleep on it, let me you know. So I, I looked at my deal analyzer again. I slept on it. The next morning I woke up and I said 60,500. Final off. And they took it. That's awesome, holy cow. Had it been on the market a long time? Oh, not that long, less than a month. They just needed to sell. Yeah, they were. They were out. Oh, got it OK. And so, yeah, they, they were anxious, and I think at that point they had realized that the garage was going to be a challenge for a home buyer. Yeah, what have you learned? I know you've already shared some things you've learned about yourself along the way. Is there anything else that you've learned about yourself along the way Of all these projects? Oh for sure. Wow, that's a really good question. I mean, I've learned a ton about the process, but it's an even question even better question to ask what I've learned about myself. I think what I've learned about myself is that I do need to look at the data, I do need to see the numbers, and it is a little harder with rentals than it is with sold properties, so I have to rely on my realtor and my property manager. But once I am able to look at that and analyze it with real, accurate numbers, yeah, my doubt, my self doubt, goes away. I've realized that I can pretty much tackle whatever comes at me. That's awesome. I mean, that's a level of self-trust right there. That I'll be okay, I'll figure it out. That's huge. Yeah, I'll figure it out. I think that's probably the biggest lesson I've learned was there's nothing that somebody's going to throw at me that I can't work my way through. Somehow, some way, I will figure it out and I will come out on the other side yeah, you'll be okay, you'll be okay. I think that's one of the biggest things that we all learn on this journey. It all comes down to just trusting ourselves. That's huge. What? And maybe you know this and maybe you don't want to share it you don't have to. You are buying for cash flow. What's your monthly cash flow with all your properties? Sure, right now it's about 2,500. Nice, that is taking into account property management. That's also taking into account CapEx, OpEx, my operating expenses on the monthly basis, as well as setting aside money for vacancy, for big repairs, water heaters, that sort of thing. Yes, that's something that, honestly, I would say. Before I bought the Duplex, that was something that I finally started to do was set aside that money on a monthly basis. Yes, what's left over after I do that is, it's about 2,500 a month. That's fantastic. That's on three properties, four properties yes, you're right, three, because the last one isn't cash flowing yet. Yeah, okay, that's awesome. Man, that's over 800 bucks per property. That's awesome. That's fantastic. Do you have a goal that you're aiming for? I do. I live in Southern California. It's an expensive place to live. Yes, my goal is $20,000 of cash flow. Do you have a plan of how you're going to get there? I love that. It's so important to have that goal and then back out of it to be like no, you can totally get that. It's just this. It's all just numbers. Everything is just numbers. It's X number of properties producing X amount monthly revenue, and you're there. Do you have any reason to invest anywhere other than Ohio? Yes, you're going to go somewhere else. I'm so glad you asked that question because I think, when I first started in Ohio, I love the market as a cash flowing market. It's wonderful. I love my team that I have there. However, I would like to, once I have a substantial portfolio I'm thinking 10 to 12 doors I'd like to go to a more appreciating market. It's a balance. I feel like I want to diversify. Yeah, yeah, I have the property in Arizona, which is definitely an appreciated market. Yeah, then I have the ones in Ohio. The good thing about Ohio is it's very stable. Yes, even through the housing crisis, their property values did not change that much. I love that. I love that about Ohio, but I would like to go to somewhere where there's a lot more job growth, where there is more population growth, where businesses are moving. That's where I think, yeah, the stability plays well for cash flowing, absolutely. Then, just like you said, the other factors play into a more appreciating situation. Are there certain ones you're eyeballing. Yes, my parents. I've lost them both in the past two years. Oh gosh, I am so sorry. That's awful, thank you. They lived great lives, great, great life. It's bittersweet, but I had them for a long time and they both were happy with how everything played out. But they retired to Charlotte, north Carolina Cool, I'm not sure that Charlotte is the city, but I love North Carolina. The triangle, right, the research triangle yeah, absolutely. There are so many different cities there that have a lot of possibility. Yeah, I do see myself going there. Yeah, it's interesting. I still have a lot of investors. When I was just a real estate broker and just getting into real estate investing, I worked with a lot of investors, mostly from California. A lot of them would just buy houses over the phone with me and I'm like this is so weird. Okay, sure, never been here, but the numbers are fantastic. This was, oh my gosh, so long ago 16 years ago, 15, 16 years ago. But they invested here. Most of them still own their properties. They invested here. They invested in the research triangle, north Carolina. Then they bought cash flowing properties in Ohio. Oh, interesting, yeah, it's super interesting. I'm like that's so funny that you're naming these names Like yeah, you have one short-term rental in there, do you have a desire to have more? See, I like to buy properties where I can go like, hang out for a while and I can go stay in them. Do you have a desire to buy more of those or do you prefer a long-term? I do have a preference for a long-term. I think that I will add a mid-term rental at some point this year, just because I would like to accelerate the cash flow a little bit and also give myself the flexibility. If I have one in Ohio, then I have a place to stay when I'm visiting my properties. So, yeah, short-term, I don't think I want more than one short-term, just because it's not what I'm interested in. Yeah, but mid-term seems like the happy medium, obsessed, if I haven't made that clear. I'm obsessed with mid-term rentals. They're just short-term rentals. We were talking at the beginning, before we started recording, that it is very hands-on. You've got to be responsive. At least, I don't think we were recording yet. But with mid-terms, yeah, but it's dialed down a notch because it's a month, two months, three months here, snowbirds here, so it's nice and honestly, they are about the same in terms of Because with short-term rentals. The expenses are so high with cleaning oh my gosh and with people getting really upset at the high cleaning fees, so I've dialed some of those back so that I can compete. And people are going around, they're circumventing the regulations, even though you have to have a short-term permit like in Austin, people don't. They're flooding, flooding the short-term rental market. It's definitely over-saturated. Mid-term is still more of a sleeper. Yeah, the same thing happened in Phoenix too. It got very saturated. That's absolutely true. Yeah, oh my gosh. Well, I love your plan, I love your story. Thank you, for I think it's really cool and interesting to hear your journey. Yeah, I think it's really interesting and I appreciate you sharing the real stuff. Oh, thank you, because that's what most people don't talk about, but it's really like yeah, no, I totally had so much self-doubt Like I for sure thought I was going to screw everything up, but then you did it anyway, you know. So, kudos to you, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Anything else that you wanted to share about your journey or anything we didn't touch on that you wanted to. I think one point that I would like to make about the short-term and term rental and I think I kind of lucked out with my Phoenix property, to be honest, but I've learned since then is to evaluate it as a long-term rental first, yes, and then if it. You know, if you end up, if it's saturated, if the regulations change, right, you've got somewhere to go. You bought that in May of 2021. Okay, so COVID had already. Okay. So what we were seeing was people who had short-term rentals. When COVID hit, it was like done, and they didn't like pivot fast enough into a long-term rental or anything else to get people in, and it was just they were just sitting empty. Oh my gosh, that's an awesome tip. Absolutely, make sure it works. It's just like with a flip we go into Make sure you have other strategies that you can use. You're not just relying on that one thing and if that one thing doesn't work, you're screwed. Exactly, that's super smart. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's an awesome tip. Well, thank you, it's been wonderful. Thank you, thank you for being engaging in the group. Really, it makes it that much better. So, thanks for being you. I appreciate it very much. Thank you, debbie, I appreciate that. Awesome, all right, well, I will see you in the group. Okay, thanks, christine. All right, bye, bye, whether you want to buy, renovate and sell houses or you want to buy, renovate and rent them out. That's what we help you do. We walk women through this very thing all day, every day, and while, of course, we show you the steps, we walk you through the process of it all. But, just like Christine said, the most important piece is our biggest focus and that's your mindset, that's your limiting beliefs, that's the story you've been telling yourself about whatever it is that has kept you stuck. We all have them, we all have these stories, we all have these tapes. But what are you doing to get where you want to go? What are you doing to shine awareness on those thoughts and that way of thinking that isn't serving you? That's what we're here to help with, because that part translates into every area of your life. All right, if you want to see if we may be a good fit to work together, go to herfirstslipcom, fill out the application and book a call with our team. Okay, until next time, go out there, flip houses like a girl, leave people in places better than you find them, and make it a great day. Bye-oh.