Mariah is a graduate student in English and part-time rehab assistant at Bulldog Renovations who grew up in Ohio and owns a horse named Flash. She's renovated a 1970s family house, shows livestock at county fairs, and believes you get what you pay for.
Hi, guys. Welcome back to another Freedom Vlog episode. This might look like a bit of a different setting. I'm actually at one of our properties with Mariah. She works for Bulldog Renovations. She is our self giving field secretary, but also our rehab assistant. And today we are going to get to know her a little more. And then next week on the podcast, we are going to be walking through this property in Dayton. And that way you guys can learn a little bit more about what we do on the rehab side of things, especially this one in particular. This is a home that is in a historic district, so that's why some of it is left how it is. But you'll have to wait to hear more about that next week. So we'll go ahead and get started. Usually this is always the hardest question, but who is Mo or Mariah?
So Frag Bulldog is my part time job. I'm a full time student and I'm getting a combined bachelor's and master's in English with a concentration in teaching English to students of other languages. I was born in San Antonio, Texas.
I did not know that.
And. But we moved up to Ohio when I was little and so I've lived in Ohio most of my life. Graduated back in 2015 from high school, so just living my best life right now.
I get that. Finally, I think we're on the verge of getting out of COVID On the verge of it. I think we're out of it completely, but it's nice to be back to.
Normal, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good year to go back to school because all of my classes are finally, like, in person or like dynamic. So I could be in person or online if I need to. That was pretty helpful this past couple semesters.
Yeah. That is awesome. I'm assuming especially because with your partner job, I'm sure it was very nice having that kind of flexibility.
Definitely. Although Fred is really flexible with ours, so works out really well.
Perfect. So now, how did you wind up here?
So I actually used to work with someone who works with Independence Property Management.
Okay.
Erica Marcolini.
Oh, yes.
We worked together a few years ago, and when I moved up to Dayton, I told her that I needed a new job and she was like, well, I think Bulldog is hiring. And so she got me an interview with Jennifer and Steve and. Yeah. Awesome.
Did you have like any kind of background knowledge in renovations or anything like that? I was just kind of like, we'll try something new.
So my family bought a house that was built in the 1970s.
Okay.
And we've done our own renovations on it. So, on, like, the side of renovations. Yes. I do know some things. Mostly demo work. Like, anybody can rip something out of a wall or rip a wall off, but drywalling and painting, flooring, that's all things that I.
Okay. So if you have to give one piece of advice to the entire world and they were listening to what you had to say, what would you say?
No pressure. You get what you pay for.
Yes.
So it depends on what you want in your life. That's something that I found that's applicable to anything, whether it's my physical health or my home. If I want something to last or if I want to take care of something, the best. The best way to do it is to invest in it. But if I hold back what I'm investing and I go for, like, a cheaper option or something that's not the best quality, then I know that I'm going to get what I paid for.
Yes.
Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised.
Yeah.
But generally I'm not. Generally, I realize, like, oh, I probably could have gone with this other option, and it would have, like, saved me this headache, but I didn't.
Yeah. So I was gonna say it's a really ironic piece of advice because, you.
Know, we are in renovations, and one.
Of the things we're going to talk about in the podcast is why we use the materials that we use. So that's very ironic. And that's cool how things connect.
Yeah.
Okay, so now we're gonna have one final question. Okay. On. What is one random fact about you.
One random fact. Well, my family, after we moved up to Ohio, my mother grew up on a farm in Kentucky. She's always had, like, farm animals and horses and stuff. So when I was, I want to say, 12 or 13, I actually got my first horse. When my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I said, pony. And I go, aww. And I've had the same horse for the past 10 years.
Awesome.
And I just. I don't know. I was gonna go into equestrian before I realized.
Okay.
That I should do something else.
Now. What's his or her name?
His name is Flash. He is about this tall. Like, if I'm standing here, he comes up to about my nose. Oh, my goodness. Like, his back comes up to my nose, and then he's ginger, so he's like red in the sunlight. He shines like copper. Beautiful horse.
Growing up, I wanted to do. I wanted to do horses, like, show horse. At our county fair, my parents shut that down Very quick. So they're like, we won't take care of them, blah, blah, blah. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna prove you guys wrong. So my siblings and I started to build a very poor makeshift fence, or a pen, if you will, for a just set horse. They pulled in the driveway and they were like, what are you guys doing to our front yard? Because we did it there. And we're like, oh, I'm proving to you guys we can do this. We sat down on a talk that night and came to a common, common ground on getting pigs. We went from horse to dairy feeders. I think they were trying to get us to do goats. And then we agreed on pigs. So we kind of went through, like, all the. Not all the options, but a lot of options. So I had pigs for four years.
And showed up daycare. Yeah, I used to show at county fairs. We showed.
I think, one year at State here, too. Oh, nice.
I qualified for state, so that was really fun. I never went to state. Yeah, and you managed a place, too, so I was really happy. Awesome. A number of years of hard work paid off with that Australia. I was so happy. It was definitely a lot of hard work. Yes.
All right, well, that's all that we have for you guys today. Like I said. Come back next week to our podcast on Real Talk, which is R E I A L Talk, which is real talk for real estate investors. And we're going to be showing you guys around this home and property and so you guys can see what our renovations does. We always like to end this with.
Invest smart, live happy.
Bye, guys.
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