EP 119: Paying Off Half a Million in Debt by House Hacking & Using the BRRR Strategy w/ Megan Lamke

Welcome ladies to the Real Estate Investor Show, providing inspiration, strategies, and insight to empower women investors to live balanced and financially free lives.

Now here are your co-hosts, Liz and Andresa Guidelli. So on today's episode, we have Megan Lamke. She's from Minnesota and one of our great meetup leaders out there. But, you know, beyond the fact that she is a millennial and she started reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, like, what, in high school?

Yes, high school.

She goes into some great insight around how her and her husband, very young in age, were able to pay down $500,000 in debt. So I'm I'm just gonna leave it at that. We go into a lot of specifics around that phenomenal insight she gives around that.

Yeah, fast forward. Now she syndicates deals and she analyzes about 10 properties per day and sends out 2 LOIs per day. So she's very specific about where, how she does things. You cannot miss this. And if Megan could do it at, you know, young age with everything that is going on around, you can do it as well. This is a must for you.

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Welcome back, ladies.

This is Liz and this is Andresa Guidelli.

Welcome back to the Real Estate InvestHer Show, where we have a weekly podcast where we are interviewing some amazing women up to some amazing things in their lives, you know, in real estate investing, and all those good things. So Megan Lamke is with us this week. So welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, she's from Minnesota. And we're gonna get into her really neat story. There's a lot of different aspects we're gonna go here. And Megan is one of our amazing. I'm using the word amazing a lot, but that's just— I just use one word and I'll just say it like 19 times this podcast. But Megan's one of our wonderful meetup leaders in Minnesota. So if you're local to the Minnesota area, you have to check out her meetup. We'll put it in the show notes. She's amazing and just what she's up to. So you have to go out and connect with her there. Great. Yeah, before we go to you and you're, you know, just what you're up to and how you have created the financial, you know, independence in your life. We always like to connect with our audience and, you know, see what's up. So Miss Andresa, what is going on before we launch in today's interview?

What's happening, right?

Yeah, what's going on?

So I listened to, you know, several audiobooks at the same time and podcasts and all that. So sometimes I don't know where I get that information that I am talking about. So it's clearly somewhere else source, but I want to talk about mistakes. So sometimes on our community we have questions about like, okay, how can I avoid mistakes? Or how can I, you know, I don't feel good when I make a mistake. And I saw this conversation around embracing the mistake. I'm not saying go waste a million dollars over and over again on the same mistake.

It's not what I'm saying.

But what I'm saying is that mistake is very connected with experience. And if you think about our, you know, really the biggest lessons, it, it was related to a mistake or something very deep that really connect us and made an impact. So when getting into a new venture, looking to flip a house for the first time, or syndication, Absolutely talk to people that already did what you're looking to do so you can jump. But don't mistake that you're not going to make any mistake just because of that. You're going to make mistakes throughout your journey. They're just going to be different mistakes, different things that you're going to learn from it. So instead of fearing it or worrying about not making one, So have the support around you, but embrace when it happens. Because if you're not making any mistake, if you feel that everything, oh, I got this 100% of the time, you're really not growing as an investor. You're really not growing as, you know, a company in general. So I just wanted to share with you guys this perspective about looking at a mistake as actually an opportunity to grow.

Yeah, I love it. You know, and it's, you're right though, as you grow in this business, I mean, I've been doing this for 15 years, you just make new mistakes. Right. You know, and it's like, you don't get to the point where you just don't make any. Hopefully not the same ones. And if you are, then you haven't learned the lesson. But yeah. True. Great insight.

Yeah.

Great insight.

So I think it was from Daymond from Shark Tank that he said that he closed FUBU 5 or 6 times. The first time was a logistic mistake. And then the second time was marketing. But then when you close the third time, you're not making a logistic nor marketing mistake, it's something else. And then by the sixth or seventh time that he tried something different, all those mistakes that he made prior helped him to really launch.

Get it right.

Yeah. Right.

Very cool. Good lesson. Not always easy, but good, good point.

Yeah.

So without further ado, Megan, let's jump into you and your story. And we always like to ask the ladies that we interview, What propelled you to get involved in real estate investing?

Yeah, great question. So I am a millennial, and I had the pleasure of reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cashflow Quadrant when I was in high school. So that really planted the seed of how do we create a lifestyle that's our own and have that time and financial freedom. Another thing that happened when I was younger is my parents actually went through bankruptcy. And so that kind of gave me a mindset of, okay, I want to avoid that. How do I make sure that I'm financially free and how do I build a lifestyle around that? Um, yeah. And so fast forward, just kept learning and found some other great resources like the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University program and just hustled.

That's awesome. Quick question for you though. So You say you read Rich Dad, Poor Dad in high school and Cashflow Quadrant as well. I think it should be mandatory.

I agree. I think it should be a part of every high school curriculum that you should—

Was that your teacher or your parents? Who introduced you to it?

Yeah.

So in high school, I was involved in two groups. One of them was DECA for marketing and sales, and the other one was called Business Professionals of America. Boosted business-level competitions. And so part of the encouraged reading were those books along with some others.

Wow, that's very neat.

Yeah, very neat.

And, and for Renzi, I also same thing, and I highly recommend for all of you guys that really want to understand finance, go through his one-on-one You know, training, it's online, you can easily do it. It is really, really impactful. So moving forward from that high school time, talk to us about your first real estate deal. How did that look like?

Yeah, so my first real estate deal was actually my primary residence. So my husband and I played semi-professional rugby, we bought a 6-bedroom, 2-bathroom house and decided to have all of our teammates live with us. So it was like me and 6 guys. And we convinced them to help us renovate the house while living there. So these are really great friends that can get through a couple of renos. So we did house hacking and the BRRRR strategy before we knew what it was called at the same time. So we renovated the the kitchen, both bathrooms, made a master suite, did a whole bunch of cosmetic updates and painting, landscaping. Basically, there was no surface that wasn't touched in this house. And then had roommates via house hacking for 8 years. So all the way through getting married, starting a family, we just kept having roommates. And it was used as a way to help us pay down debt and get debt-free. So because of that, we were able to pay off all $535,000 in debt because I had almost $200,000 of student loan debt. And then we were able to take the profits from the sale of that house and roll it into passive investing in multifamily syndications. So that's, that was my first deal. So I'm this anomaly that went from one single-family house hack investment to scaling really big in multifamily syndication.

So there's like so many things I want to— I know, I want to go there. So okay, so, so you have half of that— 5— let's, let's— you said $535,000, right? Yep.

$535,000. Yep.

So half of that, About half, give or take, is in student loans. What was the remaining? Was it in the property, the single family? Yep.

So it was the single family home, the home equity line of credit. We paid off all of our cars, credit cards. Yeah, all of it.

So you had this list, we want to go, you want to go debt free, or not list, you had this goal. And then you do your first house hack. You have the team, the professional rugby team helping you do the renovations, which is which is brilliant. You know, did you have anything in writing with them? Or do you just like, hey, to live here, this is what you're going to do?

We exchanged 4 beers.

Yeah, I'm curious. Like, that's a really interesting strategy. How did you navigate that lease agreement?

Because we wanted to just make sure that there was that level of commitment and expectation. Rent was really cheap. So that was their incentive to stay, right, and help out and Yeah.

Okay, so you have this debt, you, you go after it by— so how did you get— so the $535,000 came where, just by selling that first house hack?

So the $535,000 was all of our debt combined.

Yep.

And so we made about $274,000 when we sold the house.

Got it. And that went to further deals or went into that 535 debt?

That went into further multifamily syndications because we had already paid off all of the debt.

How'd you pay off the debt? That's what I'm— yeah.

So from collecting all of the income, I worked 4, sometimes 5 jobs at a time.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

So this house, it wasn't just the house hack, it was multiple pieces.

Okay.

So 4 or 5 jobs.

Yeah.

8 years?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I think it's so funny that, that you're being raw and experience that because, um, sometimes the, the little story, oh, you have good grades and then you got a great job and then you get married and then you get that house with the white fence and you have kids and you buy a car and you buy a second car because you have a second kid and then, right? What you're saying is that what it really took for you guys to pay the half a million dollar debt, it's really a lot of sacrifice and determination, creativity, all combined. And it takes really time to get there. So I'm curious to know, did you guys have a processing place, or during those 8 years, what came first in terms of paying the debt that you guys had?

Yeah, so like I alluded to earlier, we followed the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University program. So it teaches you to snowball your debt. So starting at the smallest debt possible, and then working sequentially up from there as you get larger and larger. So my student loans were obviously larger than our mortgage payment or larger than the mortgage that we had on the house. So they came very last, but working through and getting those quick wins by paying off credit cards and then a house and then the home equity line of credit and then paying off the mortgage all the way and then my student loans.

You know, paying debt is, you know, because I've been there and it's, it's not easy, right? Because money comes in and you have lots of choices.

Right?

You can, you can, and there's different schools of thought, you know, various schools of thought where you're paying it down. People might say, well, what's, you know, was that, was that good debt, bad debt? Where could you have gotten more money there? You can leverage, like there's so many different philosophies. You took it from the approach of coming in. I don't know the philosophy of this, of Peace University, but what you're saying in terms of the details, but what you're saying makes a lot of sense. What gave you the discipline? To do it? Because, yeah, you had a goal. And that was important to you and your husband. You had a greater goal of getting into larger real estate projects. Your goal, it sounds like, to leave your corporate job.

Yeah.

So I'm just curious. I mean, you know, because that takes a not just like one-day discipline, like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna get the latte today, or, you know, like, we're not gonna go on the vacation. That's like easy decisions. Like what you're saying is, is this a consistent consistent decision you had to make every time money came in and to follow that and then get to a half a million dollars, right? That's not like chump change. It's like, ah, do that in a whim. What drove you to give you both that discipline? And you're younger, so it's like, you could have said, oh, we got all the time we want, but you didn't.

Right.

So I'm curious to understand that.

Yeah, so a big part of it was growing up and watching my parents lose their home through bankruptcy and knowing that I never wanted that to happen when I got married and started a family. I love my parents very much. They are doing very well financially now, but it leaves an impact on you when you are, you know, 12 years old. So, that drive and then when my husband and I went through our marriage prep class, one of the things that we did was visualize what we wanted our life to look like together. And what that meant was we wanted to get out of debt and never have to have personal debt again. So business debt is fine, but personal debt, we have— there's so many more options that are available to you. And I personally feel like I was made to do something more than just sit in a cube for 40 hours a day making someone else— or 40 hours a week making someone else rich. And so just that bigger calling or sense of vocation on my life kind of kept me going.

What is this, this prep course that you guys took?

Yeah, so we went through a marriage prep course.

I love, I'm loving Minnesota for different reasons.

So our, as a part of getting engaged, our church offered a marriage preparation course course where we went through Financial Peace University. We did a couple of tests like Strength Finders and Myers-Briggs.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

And dove into our communication styles and talked about how we wanted our life to look like when we got married and being really intentional about that plan and then walked away with it, with a dream board. The cool part is looking back, I mean, we've been married for almost 5 years now. When we look at that dream board, we're like, everything on there we've accomplished. Like, we need to sit down and do it again.

Like, this has been so amazing though. And your church did that?

Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. That is so amazing. And I think that, you know, when Liz and I talk to some folks that are starting different types of partnerships, we always kind of like, okay, what's your personality? You know, test. Did you do StrengthFinders or any other, other your personality? Where, where are you financially? What do you see? It's exactly what they did. And do you think that that contributed to, like, having the support also, right?

Yeah.

Contribute to you guys getting to where you guys are right now?

Oh, for sure. And it helped build a community of like-minded people, which I feel like we couldn't have gone on this journey without people who were surrounding us saying, hey, it's okay to have different types of communication, or it's okay to come to a relationship with different views of money. The important part is working through that conflict resolution and coming up with a plan together.

That's very powerful. The more people need to do that. I think that would— people always ask us, how do you invest with your spouse? And I'm like, invest with your spouse? How do you communicate with your spouse? Right. Let's talk about that first. How do you manage the household? It's like people can't communicate, they shouldn't be buying a lot of property.

Together.

That doesn't seem like a good idea to me. But anyway, another, another story. When you look at what you went through in those 8 years, what do you think are the biggest, like, challenges, mistakes, things to avoid? You know, the women listening may have personal debt, they might have good debt, bad debt. I mean, you make the whole list, you kind of tackled it all, which is super neat, right? But the women listening, they're managing and working through some sort of debt. What are the mistakes? What are the things that they want to avoid so they can move through that in the most mindful way, most intentional way?

I think one of the biggest things that I struggled with early on, one of the mistakes that I made was the, oh, I paid off some debt and got some easy wins, like paid off the car, paid off the credit card, but then I fell into this, well, I deserve this kind of mentality. I worked so hard. I deserve this. And so for me, I really had to wrestle with the idea of contentment and being okay living beneath my means so that I could live and give like nobody else. And so that was one of the hardest lessons that I had to learn was contentment throughout the whole process. Another hard lesson that I had to learn was don't renovate both bathrooms or the only bathrooms in the house at the same time. Ridiculous. We were showering outside for like 2 months because we didn't, you know, we thought it would just be a weekend project and we're doing it all ourselves. So don't renovate both bathrooms at the same time. You'll be showering outside.

So that's really fascinating. And that's a really good point.

The—

yeah, to know where you are with contentment and know where you are with your own style. Have you ever taken any sort of like assessment, like from a money perspective? Are you a spender? Are you a saver? Have you ever?

Oh yeah, I'm totally a spender. And my husband—

I was going to say that because you said, I wrestle with, I deserve this. I'm like, oh, that's a spender. I would think, okay.

And my husband on the flip side is very much a saver. Like he will save money and he's just a super saver.

Just put it aside, right?

Yeah, just put it aside.

Yeah, my husband always jokes with me. He's like, do you have money underneath our mattresses? I just always— he's just like, what's in the account? Because he doesn't— he's just, you know, it's just funny because he's just, you know, I'm more the saver, the packrat. But so now we transition. So you pay off a half a million, which is, for any age, remarkable. You house hack, you're getting into the single-family reno, which is an intense process, right? Andresa knows very well, it's not the easy thing to do, especially if you're living in the property. And then you kind of pivot, right, to multifamily. So, so walk us through that, because I think it's a common theme with women who have experience in one area of investing. And now they, they are like, hold on, there's got to be some simpler way. So walk us through that. How did you make that transition? What worked for you to get into? I know we were talking, right, on one of the calls, right? And brokers, right? Just dealing with brokers, because you had an 18-unit that you guys got under contract that you own now. So yeah, walk us through that a little bit.

So just, there's a lot of questions right there.

So I'm going to unpack. I know, I just totally asked you like, that's a great— I'm a great interviewer, aren't I? I asked you like 25 questions, pick one, and we'll go with it.

So how I get started, the— I started with the end in mind. So knowing that I wanted to leave my corporate marketing executive salary, the fastest way I could get there was passively investing in multifamily real estate. So I knew at the end of the day, if I left my corporate job, we needed to have money for daycare, like, plain and simple, we just needed money, a check coming in every month to pay for daycare, and I could go do whatever. And so I went to Menria events when I was super pregnant, working all of these jobs, and I stood out like a sore thumb, and ran into other men who were syndicating, and they're like, Yeah, you should syndicate. Like, what are you doing? And so got on all of these distribution lists and rode along for a lot of deals, got to see kind of behind the scenes of what was happening as a general partner, and really built some great relationships with some local syndicators. And then they introduced me to other bigger players in the market and just picked one of the opportunities to invest with them. So we're invested in 360 units in Florida. And so that pays for daycare now. And that was enough for me to leave my corporate job. And then fast forward, kept networking and got an 18-unit under contract in an opportunity zone in Duluth. And we just closed on that in December of this year. So from leaving my corporate job in April to December, I mean, it's been a wild ride.

To say the least, right?

To say the least, yeah. I don't do anything slow.

Well, and that's what I was gonna ask you. So some people might be in this business. I remember very, very vividly when I started investing on my education first. I went to Rich Dad Poor Dad. Courses, and there was this gentleman that he stood up. We went around and just saying the experiences just to know each other. And this gentleman stood up and he said, well, I've been, you know, getting ready and studying and getting all the information that I need. It's been 2 years, and then I'm almost ready to pull the trigger. And then I was like, I will shoot myself in my head if I had to stand up and say, yeah, being just, you know, getting ready to get ready for 2 years. On the flip side, we also know like growing too fast, too quick is also a risk. So I'm curious to know, what did you put in place, systems and teams that you put in place to really get you and your investors to a place where it's comfortable for everybody?

Yeah, great question. So the systems and teams that I put in place were finding people that were more experienced and smarter than myself in this space. So finding a really, really great property manager that has a lot of automation put into place so that we're not, you know, collecting cash for rent or hounding people to pay rent on time, it's just automatically debited or automatically put on a credit card for them. Working with really, really great lenders who are some of the smaller banks and credit unions in Minnesota because they have more flexibility on, on terms. Working with a really great legal team to help make all of the purchase and sale agreements and mitigate risk and handle things that way. So knowing that I'm not the subject matter expert and I'm going to do a lot better job by surrounding myself with really educated people. Yeah.

And then the 18-unit, you have— you're the GP, you and your husband, you have partners? Is it just the two of you?

Just me. So the other—

just you—

is he doesn't invest in real estate. He's super supportive, but he loves being an engineer. So we're not one of those couples that do this together.

You did the debt, get the debt away, get free, get debt-free together. But then you transition into real estate investing. That's just you.

Yep.

Awesome. So you're the GP solely on this 18-unit. That's pretty remarkable for your first deal. You didn't have to give a lot of that away. That's pretty, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. Yeah. How about, did you, did you pull money together? Did you syndicate it? Or did you finance it yourself?

Yep. Great question. So we partnered with some of our friends who done really well and are accredited investors. And so there's actually just 3 of us. So me and 2 of my girlfriends who are accredited investors. So technically, it's a syndication, but we could have gotten away with a partnership. Got it.

I like that. 3, 3 women just bought an 18-unit. That's, that's great. That's awesome. And it's simple. Yeah, that's that. Now, do they have a role in the company in terms of like, Nope, they just collect their check.

Look at that. I'm liking this.

Is this 18-unit close to you?

It's in Duluth. So it's about 2 hours away from where I'm at in Minneapolis.

Okay.

Awesome.

Did you, what were some things that you did to create like a local team? Did the property manager give you folks to turn units? And who does like your construction management? How did you set that up remotely? Because that's a, you know, fear here for people. When they buy in 2 hours is not 5 minutes away, right? You got to have some local feet, boots on the ground.

Yep. And so we have a property manager that's in Duluth that handles all of the construction management. They have really great resources for something from a maintenance standpoint happens. Obviously, they're collecting rent and doing all of the accounting and things of that nature. But that was one of my biggest criteria is they needed to be well established in the Duluth market. So we just rely on them. That's great.

Wow.

So talk to me about what comes next to you, what you're working on right now for your, your business.

Yeah, that's great. So what comes next is I'm actively and passively investing in multifamily syndications. So obviously continuing to network with other big players in the industry, and then I'm doing the daily executable task to network and find my own opportunities. So that looks like submitting 2 letters of intent a day and really pushing myself to do that and evaluating 10 opportunities a day. Wow. Grinding it out until something makes sense and it's accepted.

So let's break that down, right? In terms of the— you're saying you analyze 10, you write 2 LOIs. So when you analyze 10, for some of the ladies that are listening to us, say, how the hell do you analyze 10 deals in one day? I am analyzing one, it's been 2 weeks, and I'm still trying to put the deal together here. So do you have specific criteria or filters that you can— okay, this doesn't fit, so I'm not going to analyze the whole thing? Or what is your strategy to be able to analyze that quantity per day and still be able to be a mom, be a wife, take a shower, and all that?

And not just drown in Excel. Yeah. So I use Michael Blank's Syndicated Deal Analyzer because that can help me whip through whether these numbers work or don't work. And then I'm not wasting a ton of time digging into the weeds. So they have this really great tool where it's a 10-minute deal analyzer. And if the numbers make sense, then you can dive deeper. So that's, that's how I get through 10 a day.

Great. That's awesome. Yeah, you start to have that kind of like, simple strategy of, okay, is it going to pass the criteria of where where I'm gonna, you know, deeply dive. I love that when Andresa asked you, I have to say this, I love when Andresa asked you, what's next? You know, you didn't say, I'm gonna send some letters of intent and I'm gonna look at a bunch of properties. You didn't say that. You said, I'm gonna, you said specifically what you're going to do. I write 2 letters of intent a day and, you know, I analyze 10 opportunities a day. I think that's really important. I just want to mention because you're, you know, most people have such generalities and they're so like general about everything in their life. But you didn't go down that path and that's not how you paid off a half a million dollars of debt. So I think that's something to really highlight here for the women listening. And we have women who are experienced ladies who are rocking it out, but they have things in their own business they're working through. We have women who are starting out. It's a good lesson for all of us because we need to be specific and we need to know what we're going after so that we can focus on those things and everything else is just noise. So I just love that. Your answer was so specific and I just love that you had a specific answer. It wasn't like, oh, what am I going to say? Should I just make something up? No, those are your— that's what you're doing right now, clearly.

Yeah.

You know, so I just thought that was a really important thing to to mention. So that's awesome. And I would also mention, yes, Syndication Deal Analyzer by Michael Blank is great. We've used it as well. It's a really, it's a nice program. It's like kind of Excel on steroids.

I was just curious though, in terms of like prior of you getting the numbers, what are your criteria when you're looking into a deal? 2 hours away from me, X amount of doors, cap rate, market, employers? What are those criteria that until before you get to the spreadsheet, what do you— what is important to you in order for that property to qualify to get to your spreadsheet?

Yeah, great question. So I have two different criteria depending on if I'm a passive investor or if I'm the general partner. So if I'm a passive investor, the criteria is needs to be built in the 1960s to the 1980s, Class B or sometimes Class A-. It needs to be in a good school district. So on Google reviews, the school districts are rating 8 out of 10 or better. They need to have a solid diversified job market. So there's not just one major employer. The town needs to have over 80,000 people, which is on the smaller side. Just to make sure that the economy is going to continue to thrive. And those are really the main criteria. I'll still look at deals regardless of cap rate or cash-on-cash return or IRR. I know from a personal passive investing side, there's some flexibility there, but most of the syndicators that I work with are offering double-digit returns. And an exit strategy around 5 or sometimes as long as 10 years. On the GP side, I look at properties that I can drive to within 5 hours. So from Minneapolis, that means I can go to North Dakota, South Dakota, anywhere in Minnesota, Iowa, or Wisconsin. And it still has to meet the same criteria. It's not I'm not as concerned about 100+ units like I am when I'm passive investing. So as you can see with my Duluth deal, I'm willing to go down to 18 to 50 units if the numbers make sense. So again, double-digit returns, the 60 to 80 value add, or built in the 1960s to the 1980s value add, has to be in a good school district. In the population size of the city. Yeah.

That's a neat distinction. I just wanna mention too, because I think in a lot of ways people have these like grandiose dreams of like, I don't know why 100 units always seems to be people's goals. I have no idea, but 100 seems like a magical number that people say, right? I want a 100-unit apartment building, right? And that's what you hear all the time. Or people are like, I want a 10-unit. But I find that the first time we got into a larger multi because we had an 18-unit and our next one was a 49-unit. And what we found was that the 49-unit was too small for the larger, for the larger, you know, syndicators or the larger kind of multifamily investors. And it was too big for the folks that were going after, after like the 8, the 10 units, the 12 units. So, it was almost like a no, you know, and it's also something, do you have a local manager? Are you managing it? It's still like in a, It's like getting a little bit of like a gray, but it's an opportunity. Because not as many people kind of going after that interesting like segue around 50 units. So, I don't know, just wanted to mention that as something that sometimes can be an, it could be an opportunity because people are really going after the smaller stuff. There's just so, so much competition. And the larger stuff, it's competition, but it's different competition.

Right.

You know, because it's just more, it's more zeros.

Yeah, and you can have 5 20 units in the same city and share the same property manager or the same maintenance crew overall.

Absolutely.

That's where getting a little bit creative. Yeah. Has really helped me pull the trigger on, on the 18 unit knowing that, okay, there's this fierce competition for 100+ units. And why not just pick a territory that is a little bit more conducive?

What do you wish you knew? What do you wish you knew before you close on your 18th? Or now I should say, what do you wish you knew now that you've been in it for a few months? What do you wish you knew day one of closing, closing on the deal?

I wish I knew, I mean, this is, you can never get this, but I wish I knew like the temperament of the actual tenants or like gotten to see their actual applications. There's so much, I don't know, like who actually has a written notice for a service animal and who— like little stuff like that. Yeah, just it adds to some unique conversations.

Of course, yeah, the onboarding.

Yeah, and I think that, you know, you can do so much due diligence you know, and trust the seller that the seller, it is indeed providing that Mary is indeed living at unit 1 by herself, not with 3 other people and 5 dogs, 2 cats.

Right.

But I don't know if we will ever find a seller with, you know, all his shit together. And we actually don't want that because then it's like, Why are you actually selling if you have everything under control? Right? So it's kind of like it is in distress. And we know that this is messy. This is all effed up. And, you know, so it's kind of like, how can you ever really find out? Like, not before you close?

I don't know.

Yeah.

You know, even possible.

Yeah, I think that's just part of the learning curve, but it would be nice to know.

It would, it would be super nice.

Well, I think what your awareness, your awareness is really helpful for the women listening that might have a nice portfolio, but they're looking to get into that next level of stage of multis. And just knowing that it can be messy and what you're gonna get from the seller is not necessarily accurate and probably isn't accurate. And there's something, with Susie in apartment A and Johnny, who there's a story that you don't even know yet that's going to be uncovered.

Right.

So yeah, I think that that awareness is really helpful for people to know, because it's, you don't know, you don't know that until you're in it. You're like, what? Hold on. Yeah.

And even if you know things like with this deal specifically, a lot of my mentors or experienced advisors in the space kept telling me, Megan, get the actual financials before you do anything, like before you spend money out of pocket. I was like, It's okay. Like, I trust this person. Let's pay for an appraisal. Let's pay to get the PSA written up. And so then I got the actual deposits and bank statements and like, where's all your money, dude? So we had to go back and adjust the purchase price because what he said was coming in was half of what he actually showed deposits for. And so it turned out being a win for me. I got a really great deal. But knowing that upfront would have saved me, you know, a couple thousand dollars out of pocket on an appraisal and a lawyer before I—

One question for you too on the mentorship. Were these people that literally just gave their time gratis? Did you give them a slice of something, that slice of the deal? I'm curious how you kind of arranged all that to—

Yeah. So it's the people that I've met at Menria events. And they're a part of larger syndication organizations, but I'm also a part of the Real Estate Investor Mastermind. And so a lot of the wonderful women in this group have kind of coached me along and given me confidence and best practices. So it's people just being really generous with their time. And then when I can, offering tips and suggestions that can help them scale and grow. So it's more of a symbiotic relationship rather than just me taking, taking, taking. But I went through and I evaluated a lot of those coaching and mentoring programs and masterminds where you're spending $25,000, $50,000. And after talking to some of the people who have done them, they're like, yes, it's great. Those are wonderful. And if you can just get a mentor and you're already doing your daily action steps, Megan, you don't necessarily need to do that right away, take that money and invest it in a syndication.

So, yeah, there's so many different schools of thought on that. But I, you know, I think what you did really well was, you're right, when you, you really do ask someone, hey, I got, I know, I know enough to go to the table. You weren't a newbie. I mean, it wasn't like you're like, I just, I just picked up Rich Dad Poor Dad, you know, you already had done, you had some street credit, you know, street credit, if they, if you will. And you were taking action and you were for real. I mean, you know your numbers, you know what you want, you just paid down a half a million dollars in debt. You're someone who people would want to mentor. You know what I mean? Like, so when I say that, I mean, and the women listening, it's like, you almost, you need to set yourself up for people to want to mentor you. In other words, like, and to be, have that symbiotic relationship and say, hey, I just, you know, I have a question, where can I support someone else? And that is what, you know, kind of like a purist sense of mentorship is, you know? But we've been talking to a lot of women and more and more women want mentorship, you know, want that organized support. And we have a lot of things coming down the pike to give that because it's, you know, it's needed and, you know, no one's providing it right now in a community aspect, which is what, you know, we're up to here. So stay tuned, ladies, little plug there. But, So the women listening, where can they learn more about you and just the great, you know, projects you're up to and the trajectory you're headed?

Yeah, so the easiest place is just go to my website, meganlamke.com. So M-E-G-A-N-L-A-M-K-E.com. And then if you're a mom, feel free to follow me on Instagram. If you're a passive investor, feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn. Uh, and that's basically it.

Awesome.

And all this information you guys can find on our show notes. And we're going to transition to our fabulous 3 questions now. The first one is, what's the most transformational book you have ever read?

There are so many. Um, I think one of the most transformational books that I've read is called The Challenger Salesperson by Matthew Dixon. Person. So it talks about, there's more than different, there's more than one different way to approach the sale of something. And obviously real estate, you're either selling yourself to investors, or you're trying to promote a project. So just knowing what type of person you, you are when you approach sales, and then how to use that to your benefit.

Very cool. What's the most powerful routine, Megan, that you do to create a financially free and balanced life?

Great question. So I am someone that thrives in structure, and I know that I have to fill my cup first before I can ever be a good wife or a good mother or run a business successfully. So the first thing I do in the morning is work out, read, and do a devotional and eat a healthy breakfast. So there's this school of thought called the Miracle Morning. And so I'd encourage anyone listening to go check that out. It's a really great routine.

Awesome. And the last question is, which women, famous or not, has inspired you the most?

Well, both of you.

You're sweet.

Seriously, like your stories that have just like broken through a lot of the glass ceiling that I felt like I kept running into of Wow, are there only men in this industry? Am I completely crazy to be a woman that wants to spend time with my family and, and still invest in real estate? So obviously the two of you. Yeah, but a lot of philanthropic women out there too. But yeah, you're sweet.

We'll pay you later for that. Well, thank you, Megan. No, really, you've been— I think I love your authenticity, really appreciate your time and just Love your journey. And it's super inspiring. It's super inspiring to me, you know, and I'm sure Andresa too. So listening, so thank you for being on.

Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me.

Thank you.

See you soon on our next mastermind.

Okay, sounds great. Bye.

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