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You can read about why we started buying real estate here. How we saved up the money to purchase our first property here.
And how we actually got started here:
I was already deep into the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement when I started considering real estate. Real estate investing just kept coming up in the books and podcasts I was devouring, and lots of stories I listened to were people who had retired sooner than expected thanks to the income they received from their rental properties. Plus, my oldest brother was a seasoned landlord and had tried to talk me into it for years.
Working in an ICU during COVID, I experienced a lot of awful things, and carried so much fear and anxiety and anger home with me. Understandably, I didn’t want to work in an ICU, or even as a nurse, anymore.
But the money…
I never had to chase COVID money, it just fell in my lap. I never went for one of those crisis jobs where a nurse could make $10k/week, because seeing freezer trucks housing dead bodies made me want to peel my own skin off, starting at my scalp. I just wanted to be at home with my unemployed airline husband and our one year old daughter. But… my highest hourly job paid $137/hr, and that was
We continued to save and invest like we had been: maxing out my 401k, both our traditional IRAs, and Greg’s HSA, and splitting what was leftover between a taxable brokerage account and a high yield savings account. By sticking to the plan, and making a lot more money than we were used to, we watched our net worth double from $350k in December 2019, to over $700k by December 2021. Money makes money makes money. It was time to diversify.
We never owned a house until we bought our first rental
Greg and I met as seasonal employees working for a hotel outside of Denali National Park in Alaska. I saw his red beard and the Qantas lanyard hanging out of his pocket, and was like
As “real” adults, we’ve been able to continue our seasonal lives, even having our two children while seasonal and travel nursing. We get itchy. We always feared a house would tie us down. Greg’s dad says we’re like a military family, only without the military. We like to see new places, we don’t do well in real life with real jobs, and we’re like, *really good* at not working. Punch that @thehardlywarckens Insta button in the teeth to check out our adventures .
I can’t remember the exact path to BiggerPockets
But I got there as quick as I could. Maybe it was Scott Trench’s Set for Life, maybe it was Paula Pant’s ‘Afford Anything’ podcast, but real estate investing started crawling into my brain. I borrowed Brandon Turner’s and Josh Dorkin’s How to Invest in Real Estate from the library to delve deeper. That naturally led me to biggerpockets.com, and BiggerPockets podcasts, my favorites being BiggerPockets Real Estate, BiggerPockets Money, and BiggerPockets Real Estate Rookie.
As a human with a family and a full (some) time job, I didn’t have the luxury of sitting and reading a book uninterrupted. Podcasts became, and still are, my main jam. I listen while I exercise, while I shower, while I work in the yard, while I build a trail through my in-law’s shelter belt, while I bathe my patients, while I clean house, and of course while I drive. If I’m alone in the car, it’s a safe bet I’ll be listening to a financial or real estate podcast, or the Queen.
I took a few free training courses through BiggerPockets
After listening to podcast after podcast, and reading multiple real estate books, I signed up for a free BiggerPockets account, and started taking their free courses. Don’t know where to start? Go to their home page and click ‘get started’ in the top left corner. Here, I did it for you: Click Here
You can stick with a free account, or you can sign up for a Pro account to access more features and content, including unlimited rental analysis calculators (clutch). I started with a free account, but signed up for Pro after about eighteen months, before we bought our first house.
I used *the hell* out of their rental property calculator, analyzing dozens of properties to see if they’d actually make us money. IMO, this feature alone is worth the cost of a Pro membership, and I write it off as a business expense, since it’s education and resources used to manage our rental properties. BiggerPockets does offer a free 7-day trial for Pro, so you can try out the rental property calculator before you buy.
If you don’t want to sign up for a free account, you can still access their free content on youtube. Watch or listen and learn! There are lots of motivational videos too, which are my favorite to digest. Obviously it’s important to learn about investing, but boy it’s fun to listen to someone else’s success story.
Initially I tried to figure out everything on my own
Pride kept my nose to the grindstone, trying to learn everything by myself: where I wanted to buy, what type of house I wanted to buy, where I would get the money to buy. Not to mention who I would get to manage, or maintain any house I might buy.
We were living in Salt Lake City, UT, so I started analyzing deals there, and in/around Tulsa, OK, where I’m from. But also Columbus and Cincinnati, OH. And Knoxville, TN. And Tucson, AZ. And Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. And Bozeman/Belgrade, MT. And Indianapolis, IN, and Tampa, FL. And… and… and… omg. I ran so many numbers.
I asked my aforementioned oldest brother questions along the way, and kept notes on his advice. But I was stubborn and I wanted to figure it out myself. While working full time and caring for a toddler and nursing my newborn and running all of us to different doctor’s appointments, then myself to therapy because I was caring for people literally all day every day, then all night because baby wasn’t getting enough to eat and she woke me up woke me up woke me up all night to nurse and I about lost my gd mind.
At her four month checkup, our pediatrician told me baby J had dropped her weight % in half, so I would need to start supplementing. And that was like, the best day of my life. She gave me some formula samples, I dropped them and the baby off with Greg, and I took myself snowshoeing in the woods, alone, while it dumped freshies on my head. I felt like *my* human for the first time in months.
I stopped trying to reinvent the wheel
I decided to stop stressing myself out, and focus on investing where I know: in and around Tulsa, OK. I leaned hard onto my brother for all the real estate help I could get.
Now he is not only my real estate mentor, but also my property manager, and at times… my therapist. I mean, can you call *your* property manager crying when you’ve had a bad day? Do you tell them you love them before you hang up?
Best of all, he’s never once made me feel like a jerk for ignoring his advice for years. Thank you, Barry. I could not have done any of this without you.
I found my niche
I chose the BRRRR method. For those unfamiliar, I highly recommend David Greene’s book on the topic. BRRRR stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat. I wanted something that needed cosmetic updates, that would be relatively simple and inexpensive to fix up, so we could build “sweat equity” in a property.
One day Barry called to tell me about a deal in my hometown of Sand Springs, OK, and said if we didn’t buy it, he was going to. I went to the realtor he had been using for years to start the process. When I called to tell him I was interested in that particular property, the first thing out of his mouth was “Have you talked to Barry about this?” I should’ve known then the good ol’ boys club wasn’t ready to take me seriously.
My first (almost) deal
The aforementioned house was a 2 bed/1 bath with a walkout basement, listed for $79,900. My offer of $80k was accepted, and we all flew to OK to see it, and my family who still lives there.
Side note
My husband works seasonally for a major airline. He currently works five months a year, and we get flight benefits all year. We fly standby, meaning we don’t get a seat unless there’s room on the plane. It’s free on his airline, and very inexpensive (but still standby) on almost every other airline out there. So it’s easy for us to just hop on a flight.
Back to the deal
The walkout basement was finished, but in total disrepair. It appeared to have been a store at one time? The layout was weird, but with a bit of drywall, it could’ve been an extension to the house upstairs, or made into a separate apartment. I had lived in a basement and didn’t like it, so I wanted it to be a big single family.
We met with a contractor, and walked him through all my big dreams of turning this 2 bed/1 bath into a 5 bed/2 bath with two living areas. His quote was $125k to do everything we wanted. Oof.
Another contractor was stunned by everything I wanted to do, and asked “Did you get this house for free?” Well, no. He said he wouldn’t even bother quoting it, because there was no way he was coming in lower than $125k.
Discouraged and deflated, I ended up backing out of the deal. A month later it sold for $75k. G effing D it. Three days after they closed, it was listed for $900/mo rent. So clearly the new owner did nothing to update its current condition. Most recently it was listed for $950/mo. I’m still annoyed every time I drive past it. Which is often when I’m in Oklahoma, as it’s just down the street from my brother’s house, and just up the street from another of our rentals. But… every time I feel annoyed, I just remember the nauseating reek of cats coming from the shithole next door. So there.
In hindsight
I should’ve kept the house and just rehabbed the upstairs and worried about the downstairs later. But I was inexperienced, and wanted to make the property a place I would want to live. I felt discouraged that I couldn’t do exactly what I wanted to the property, so I let it go.
But also, the entire time I was going through the house with my brother’s realtor, he would only speak to my brother, not me. When I asked him direct questions, he would turn to answer my brother, not me. Since he’s dealt with him for years, my brother didn’t even notice, but Greg did, and he encouraged me to find a realtor who would answer my questions, respect my opinions, and accept the fact I have a vagina.
I found her (heavy emphasis on the her) through BiggerPockets Agent Finder and we went from our first phone call, to closing on our first deal within six weeks (I’ll get into that in another post). Her name is Dahlia Khalif, and she’s with ASN Realty Group. She’s an investor herself, so she knows what to look for and is never pushy.
She and my brother have looked at numerous houses, with and without me, and I absolutely trust her opinion. She is always ready to put in an offer, loves to lowball, and is happy to walk away from a sale if she thinks it isn’t in my best interest. She is beautiful and smart and loves to laugh. 10/10, highly recommend. Please tell her Jamie Warcken sent you.
Look at us now!
Between February 2022 and February 2023, we bought five rental houses on three properties in and around Tulsa, as well as our primary home in Tucson. Six houses in a year.
I’m not saying it wasn’t stressful; sometimes it still is. But other people are paying the mortgages on those five houses. When they’re paid off, we can use the income to pay our primary mortgage. And when that’s paid off, we’ll be financially independent. No housing expenses, plus all the rental income coming in every month.
I am writing a separate post on each of our real estate deals, with numbers and all the details of how we got them. Stay tuned for those! In the meantime, why don’t you delve into some education yourself?
Recommendations:
biggerpockets.com (obviously)(no, I’m not endorsed by them)
Set for Life: An All-Out Approach to Early Financial Freedom by Scott Trench
BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast
BiggerPockets Real Estate Rookie podcast
BiggerPockets Money podcast
Real Estate Investing with Coach Carson podcast
But my number one recommendation would be to find a mentor. Look around for an investor you may already know. Start telling people you want to start buying houses and see who shows up.
You can always come to your buddy Jamie! I’ll load you up with the knowledge I have. I don’t know everything, but I am very resourceful! You can message me from here, slide into my Insta DM, or text or call if you’ve got my number. I’m here for you!