EP 70: Recession Proof Investing & Why Women Should Invest with Annie Dickerson

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.

I am super excited about today's interview with Annie Dickerson. She is co-founder of Good Egg Investments. Just love that name of that company. But we get into so much with Annie. We really talk through her path of how she got started, which is always a fascinating topic. Most importantly, we talked a lot about her path around out-of-state investing, right, Andresa, and how How she really, you know, across the country invested out of state, which a lot of people are considering or getting into because of, you know, the numbers may not be working in your local community. So, we really get into that topic. I also love we get into self-storage. It's been an area that I've always been very fascinated by and we really get into some, you know, ideas around that. So, we really get some great content around, you know, investing and taking your business to another level.

I love that, investors. And one thing that you guys did not see it that I'm gonna share with you guys is in his office. Office, which is full of sticky notes, quotes, affirmations, and declarations that help her to get creative and inspired and focused to get things done. So think about it when you're in your office space or where you're surrounding yourself, that needs to be an environment that inspires you to get things done. And most important, it fulfills your soul. So you are always looking for things that you feel comfortable with. So I want you to keep that in mind when you are creating an environment for you to work. Keep that in mind and get things done. Enjoy the episode.

Welcome back, InvestHers.

This is Liz and this is Andresa Guidelli.

Welcome back to the Real Estate InvestHer Show where we're on a big mission to support women in this, in this real estate investing business and living financially free lives, building wealth, building legacy, and doing it all in a happy, peaceful, balanced way, which, you know, which for many of us, we have moments of that, and then we have other moments that we just literally wanna bang our head against the wall. Right? So—

Multiple times a day, back and forth.

Multiple times a day, you know? Yeah. So Annie, thank you so much for being on our show. We're really excited to jump into your story. Welcome.

Thank you so much, and I definitely hear you on the banging the head on the wall moments. Just had a few this morning.

Already?

Already. It's early in the day, but you know, kids start early.

And before we go there, you know, as we like to do, just kind of share maybe some awarenesses or things that Andresa and I are kind of learning as we're going in our journeys, right? So something I—

What's happening.

Yeah. So I've really been, I've talked about meditating every day and then I do it and then I don't do it and I go back and forth. Probably the last 2 weeks I've been really consistent. And I've been getting up. You've inspired me, Andresa, to write down what I'm grateful for. I'm going to do it for 30 days. I'm on day 3. I've done it and then I stopped, but I'm really— so you can hold me accountable. I'm putting it out there. Any ladies listening could hold me accountable. But one of the things on part of my gratitude time and meditating, they talked about on this particular meditation was the impact of our communication. I said, this is not applicable to me. I'm a pretty good communicator, you know, in my little head, right? And then she kept talking. And I'm like, no, this is very applicable to me. And she said, these are 3 things you want to ask yourself before you say something. She said, make sure it is true, it is necessary, and it is kind. I said, wow, that's really powerful. I mean, I could just think about all the times, I mean, I'm a pretty, I speak in a nice way to people, but I don't know if I spoke to my husband that way earlier today, you know? True, well, necessary, check that off, but the kind and true, I don't know. So the point being, I said like, that's very powerful. I was like, wow, like, I think of myself as someone who could communicate and, all that good stuff, but I'm like, you know what? I need to be really mindful before I say things, especially for the people closest to us, right? The people that we take the masks off, right? For, you know, is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? And that's a really powerful little strategy before we open our mouths, right? So I just wanted to share that. I didn't think it was something I needed to worry about. And I'm like, no, no, that's helpful for me. 'Cause I'm not always— You know, so I don't know if that—

a couple of conversations are coming to the top of my head. I was like, yeah, no, should be, you know, mouth closed.

Yeah, my kids, you know, like just kindness out of our mouths.

I love about it though that you're saying like you inspire me, but I think that the most important thing that you took action. So I always, you know, joke when people come to me and say, oh, you inspire me. Like, if I am only inspiring you I'm not doing my job. I want you to take an action. Then we are good.

Then we are good.

Not because I want to force anybody to do anything, because I really care. I really do. I really care. And I cannot go on this journey by myself, nor I want to. And I think that I want to bring, like, I see the image that I have in my head is like, all go together, like really like tying our arms and going forward together. So our next generations are going to look back and say, oh, look at my grandma, crazy lady.

My grandkids will definitely think I'm crazy, but—

So I love it. I love that you took action and you're just like sharing it. So I'm going to keep those 3 questions in my mind too.

Yeah.

And you know what I love is that you said that the 2 that resonated most with you were true and kind. And the one that actually resonated most with me was necessary. So I love that, 'cause, you know, for me, I, you know, I, especially when I get in these networking situations and talk with people I don't know, there's just all this fluff that comes out. You know, I'm trying to please the other person. It's true and it's kind, but sometimes it's not necessary.

Yeah. That's a really powerful, you know, way to think of it too. It's like, you know, does it meet all three, right? 'Cause that's the hardest part. But yeah, no, that's great. And I, you know, as we jump into your story, Julie, you know, really excited to hear what you and your partner are up to. I really love that both of you are women running this syndication business. Okay, first off, that's amazing. 'Cause I'm, you know, we're in a similar business, we do apartment building, but the fact that there's two ladies at the helm is cool. So, I mean, that's awesome. As you think about your story, your kind of your path, you know, what inspired you to get involved in real estate investing? Because I know you're obviously involved now in terms of apartment building work and buying of those types of buildings, but you have other assets, you have other buy-and-holds. What prompted you? When and how? And how did it all kind of put together to start this journey of real estate?

Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And it's, it's, Something that I never intentionally did. I never in a million years thought I would find myself here as a real estate investor, never mind helping other real estate investors to get into all of this. And it really just started by accident, really. My husband and I got married right out of college and we set out to buy our first place. And we were young and naive. We had saved up some money. We were living in Washington, DC at the time. And we thought, ooh, we could buy a condo or a loft in Adams Morgan or some other trendy area of DC. And we started looking at these places. And our realtor at the time, he was a real clever guy. And he had been house hacking. And he said, you know what, guys, these condos are nice. But they come with an HOA fee. And, you know, there's all these other fees that you might not have considered. And he said, you know what, though, DC has a lot of these row homes. And a lot of these row homes have a basement in-law suite. And if you played your cards right, you could then rent out that basement in-law suite, and eventually get your investment to be cash flow positive. And, you know, I had, when I was growing up, my parents never even bought their own house, we were renters the whole time. And so I didn't even have any concept beyond just playing the game Monopoly of anything related to real estate. So when he said the words cash flow positive, I said, wow, I have never heard those words put together like that before. But I love it. I want to know what that means. And I want to try it.

I want more.

Yes, yes. And so we bought our first duplex. It was a foreclosure. The basement had previously been a brothel. So, you know, being young and having no kids at the time, you know, we rolled up our sleeves and that was our nights and weekend project. And so we cleaned up the basement, we rented it out. We're still good friends with our first tenants from that in-law suite. And so we had just a fantastic time. And that first property was a real home run. We still hold it today. And yeah, we got really lucky with that one. And then after that one, we thought, let's do it again. So we bought another duplex. And now we live in Oakland, California. We bought another few duplexes here. And in fact, I'm still— we're still house hacking. I'm still living in a duplex. We've got tenants downstairs. It just, it always makes sense. And then what happened was, I mentioned now we're in the San Francisco Bay Area, which as you know, is very expensive.

It is. So that was like, how you're making it work there?

Yeah.

Yeah. And especially now with kids, you know, we thought, man, it's really going to take another few years at least to save up enough money to buy another duplex. And who knows what the market will do by then. And then we got to drag our kids around and, you know, they're in school now and they've got all this stuff. You know, you guys know kids have tons of stuff and toys and clothes and things they don't even use. Yes, I'm just so over it. So I was like, okay, maybe the house hacking phase of our life has sort of come to a close. But we still wanted to invest in real estate. So then we ventured out of state. And we did everything that BiggerPockets and podcasts and blogs tell you to do, you know, we found a market. And for us, it was Huntsville, Alabama. We identified it as an emerging market, it fit a lot of our criteria. And we started investing there in developing areas, sort of the path of progress. And so we thought, how hard could it be? We've been doing this house hacking thing for all these years. Now we're just going to these rental properties out of state, but we've dealt with property managers before, we know how to handle it.

Yeah.

And boy, were we wrong. Really? So, so what happened?

Let's tell us what happened.

We started with a sixplex. And I'll tell you what people, people ask, you know, how did you get the guts to actually get that first property out of state?

Yeah.

And here's what it was, was we're looking at Huntsville, I had basically Google Street Mapped every single street in Huntsville, Alabama. And I looked up all the news about it. I knew about the local government. I knew about the job growth numbers, the job diversity, the population growth. So, I had looked at all of that data. And I found this one property actually was on LoopNet, where deals go to die, right? Wow.

Yeah, you get lucky sometimes.

You get lucky sometimes. So, I found this one deal. And it was a 6-unit. And there's nothing special about it really. It had been listed for maybe 30 days at that point. And I happened to look at it on a map, and this little Sixplex is right across the street from a place called Campus 805, which is an old middle school that they had renovated, and now it's full of local breweries, and they've got the paint and sips, they've got the axe throwing, you know, all the hipster places, you know, and I thought Wow, this place looks like it could be right out of downtown San Francisco. You know, what's it doing in Huntsville, Alabama? And I saw that, you know, there was something happening in this neighborhood, that there were these trendy places popping up. And I thought, I want to be here. I want to invest here. And so that's what led us to invest in that first property. We actually bought it with our home equity line of credit, our HELOC. And it was not a home run by any stretch. And in fact, we're still having, actually right now we're fixing the roof on it. So, it was, we inherited some tenants, some problematic tenants, you know, we went through all these issues with it. But at the end of the day, I'm really happy that we made that investment because it got us into that market.

Yeah. And curious with regards, I know we've talked about this a little bit on our podcast, but I think out-of-state investing, has become even more like critical in this market we're in because things are so competitive and prices are getting driven up in some of our own like kind of like home markets that is causing women, men, whomever to go outside of their kind of local market to invest. It's just not as convenient to just do it down the block anymore. So, I'm curious for you, knowing what you know, and I know you do a lot more out-of-state investing now with your apartment buildings, I'm sure, What are the things that off the top of your bat, off the top, you know, would be the things you cannot miss doing if you're going to successfully add a— like knowing what you know now, what are like the top 3 things that women listening be like, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, and I gotta do this. I'm sure the list is a lot longer than that, but after experiencing the challenges you've had, I'm sure there's been some learning. So I'm just curious, what would be like the necessities if a woman is considering out-of-state investing?

That's a really great, great question. And if I had it to do over, I would do some things differently. So I would have, you know, I would have built a strong team going in. You know, we have a strong team now, but, you know, I really didn't take the time upfront to really vet the people on our team. And I think that's something that's super important because when you're investing out of state, you can't go and drive by the property. And, you know, you really have to put your trust into the people who are going to be managing that asset day to day. And so I would say even more important than the market is the team. You want to find the right people who are on the same page 'same page' with you and who you can really trust to manage the asset on your behalf. And then beyond that, then, you know, it's, it's the market. Finding the right market that fits your criteria. And that's really important is, you know, everybody says, 'Oh, here are the top 10, here's the top 10 markets to invest in,' and 'This market is hot, this market is hot.' Well, you know what, that the market that's really hot might not meet my investing goals.

Right.

And so it's really important to figure out—

It's probably expensive.

Yeah, yeah, it's probably really expensive. It's overnighted because everybody has that experience.

Everybody wants to be there.

Everybody wants to be there. It's going to be really competitive, which is one of the reasons we chose Huntsville because at the time it wasn't really on anybody's radar. And it was this sleepy little town that was sort of emerging. A lot of things were happening there, but only people who lived there or knew of it really knew of those things.

Wow.

And then another thing I would say is, you know, I mentioned I Google Street Mapped a lot of it. Well, there's no replacement for actually going there. My husband went there actually before we invested in that first property. And, you know, he conveyed some things, but then a few months later when I actually got the chance to go, man, I could really tell the difference between the neighborhoods. And there's just no substitution for being on the ground there.

Well, you're bringing such a good point. First, I want to dissect a little bit. So when you talked about building a team, I want to make sure that we explain to the ladies that are listening to us, what does that really mean? You're referring to a realtor, a property manager, a contractor, anybody else that you You were referring to?

A lender is also really important.

Local lender. Okay, great.

I would say out of all those, the property manager is perhaps the most understated. When you're— a lot of people, when they're first looking at their— looking at a first investment property, they're thinking, oh, I need a broker, a broker. But you got to think, what's the broker's job, right? The broker's job is to sell you a property. After they sell you the property, they're not going to be in it for the long haul. But you know who is, is the property manager. And so we've actually found—

he is on the hook, basically.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to manage something that he knows that, huh?

Yes, love that.

Exactly, exactly. And so you want to find that property manager. And really, before you invest in a property, you get their take on it. You listen to them, and they will know exactly— they know things about that property or that that market that you would never know. And so they can tell you, is it renting for the right prices? What do they think it could rent for? What do they think that you should do to it? Any renovations, any landscaping, things like that. Because they're going to be the ones who are actually doing the work. So you definitely want to get a strong property manager.

I would also just add to— I think that's an awesome list. I would add one other team member, and I'm sure you've seen this. Is someone who doesn't work for the property management company, like a local realtor who you can pay a weekly fee to just go by the property and literally drive past the property, walk around the property, make sure, like, just, you know, they're not gonna get into units, but just to kind of have another eye out, kind of. Yeah, exactly. And we found that we didn't think it was necessary at the beginning when we bought out of state, one of our first, you know, buildings out of state. And then We're like, we need this. So now we have a realtor who literally goes by every week. We pay them a weekly fee. They live in the community and they really just keep an eye out. They're not really like checking like, is this happening or that happening? But they're just an eye. And I think that's a value because they're actually getting paid by us, not the property manager. Because remember the property manager, you know, and I, but maybe that's just because we've had certain challenges at this particular location. And I think certain property managers may not need that, but we've found that to be helpful for our situation, you know. But no, no, go ahead. No, I was just saying that's a— but just to add on to the great team you just named.

I think that's a great point that you're mentioning though, because when we were at the conference She Is Unstoppable this past month, we there were 500+ agents, realtors there. And when we started talking about investing, it was very surprising how the realtor, quote unquote, realtor world don't communicate much with the investor world. I'm not saying that all the ladies had no idea what I was talking about. I'm saying that minority did. And that was surprising to us to see Like, I don't understand, you are in this business and why you're not investing in it as well. So there's this lack of confidence. And you talked about women investing in real estate, why women should be investing on a couple of your articles that you wrote, why women should be investing in it, and most important, why they're not investing in it. And what we have found is that although the realtors are already in the business, real estate business arena, they don't feel confident about moving forward on their own. And we were like, wow, what's happening here? So how can we fulfill that gap? So I want to tie to what you wrote on your, one of your articles, like why, why women should be investing, first of all.

Yeah, that's a really great point that you bring up about the realtors. And, you know, a large percentage of real estate agents are women. Yeah. But when you look at the investing side, it's mostly men. Actually, my, my husband is a real estate agent, and I've talked to realtors in his office about this. And, you know, I think they're just so focused on serving their buyers and their sellers that they don't stop to think about the properties that they're actually selling. And it's actually, you know, they don't teach anything about investing in real estate school. And so when they get their broker's licenses, they don't have anything on there about how to invest or what to look for in an investment property. And so it's, you know, we think of it as very closely related, but for agents and brokers, they actually think of it as an entirely separate thing because it is, you know, when you look at a property from an investment side of things versus I'm going to live here, it's actually quite different. And so for women, you know, when you think about the buying decisions for homes, most of the time it's the woman who makes that decision. Oh, I want to buy this house. And we're going to live here, we're going to raise our kids and they're going to play in the backyard. You know, it's usually the woman who makes that decision.

It's like 91% or something crazy high, right? Yeah. In terms of consumer decisions and real estate decisions. Yeah.

Right, right. But then, you know, in that same vein, you know, just like the realtors, you know, the women don't think of the investing as the same thing, you know, and it is, it's very different. And I think for women, you know, we're so focused oftentimes on our families, raising our families and protecting our families and saving for the future. And a lot of us are not taught from a young age about things like investing and financial health, planning for the future and growing wealth. Oh, money is such a dirty word, right?

Right. I prefer to be happy. Yeah.

Yeah. And women are so supportive of the community and working together that I think a lot of women just over the years get intimidated by the financial world and investing. And in fact, only 1 in 4 women feel confident in their investing knowledge. And so, it's no surprise, as women grow their families and they've got, I've got my kids here and I've got laundry to do, I've got dishes to do, where on earth am I gonna find time to learn about investing. And then even if I found the time, let's say I put aside 1 hour, how do I get started? This whole investing thing seems huge. It's daunting. There's a lot of terms and what kind of investing? Do I do stock market, mutual funds, real estate, crypto? There's so many things. And I think women just get daunted by that and they think, "Okay, well, you know what? My savings account is safe.

I'll stay there for now." And how can we not break the cycle, but how can we transition to a better place? Because clearly we have the potential, but sometimes it's the mindset that is setting us back. But how would you say— you probably described the life of so many investors that are listening to us right now— how they can just look at it, acknowledge, respect it, but say, okay, this is not serving me. So let's move forward.

Yeah. Yeah.

What would you recommend them?

Yeah. You know, I think the first thing, because investing can be so intimidating, you know, let's just set that aside. Don't even think about that yet. Just think about, you know, when you look down the road 20, 30 years from now, You know, what do you want that ideal lifestyle to look like? And if you could wave a magic wand for today, what would you want your ideal lifestyle to look like? You know, and focus on that. What's the gap between where you are now and where you want to be? And then work backwards from there. If you look at your portfolio or your savings vehicles or whatever you've got and you say, you know what, I can make a few changes and I can get there, then great. Then you're probably almost there. But if you then look at that gap and you say, you know what, I'm really far from making that happen, then that's the first step is that awareness of knowing, you know, okay, I need to make some changes, but you might not know what those changes are and that's okay. And that's where your resources and tools like the ones that you're building and the ones that we're building really come into play. Play is a lot of the educational materials out there around investments are full of jargon and they're hard to understand and they're intimidating. I totally get it. I was looking for great resources and I couldn't find any back when I was starting. And that's why similar to you guys, we started building our own. And They're out there and you just have to look for those resources, those podcasts, those books, those blogs that are written in a way that you can understand. And it's not gonna be easy. It's not gonna be fast. It's gonna take time. It took me months of research, little by little, but I was so hooked into that vision of what I wanted my life to look like. I wanted to be able to work from home. I wanted to be able to quit my job. I wanted to have the flexibility to go with my kids on their field trips, which I'm actually doing one tomorrow. And I wanted to be able to travel with my family for months at a time. So I had all that in my field of vision. And I thought, okay, well, this is what I'm doing this for. And that's what led me to do all that research. And eventually, it led me to grow my passion in real estate investing.

I love that. You know, I think that's so important. It's funny, I had the same conversation yesterday with a friend. Talking about different things and they said, we wanted to talk about multifamily investing, you know, small, large, whatever. And that was the point of the conversation. We didn't even talk about that because the whole conversation— Yeah. The whole conversation really is about the bigger vision. And I think, you know, for people who have done a lot of visioning, like, yep, I'm good. Got the vision. I've done that. That, it takes continuous review. You know, my husband and I are at this point in our business and figuring a lot of different things out. And I say, We need to have a visioning session again because what we wanted has shifted and what we're getting has shifted. And that's a continual conversation. It's not a one and done, just like to the gym. I mean, you know, it'd be great if you can go to the gym once, but it just doesn't work that way. You know, so really, I wish it was great, just check that off, done. But I mean, so I love what you're saying. I think it, but I think it actually, it's a continuous process. It should almost be like a quarterly review, you know, and really get that in your calendars. If you've done it, great. Revisit it because you're gonna wake up one day like kind of, you know, a little bit of what I'm working through is, is what we have what we want? And do we want to continue to do this? Because there's certain things not working and there's certain things that are working and you just keep tweaking that vision, right?

Yeah. And make it fun, you know, it doesn't have to be a daunting, you know, meeting with your spouse. You know, my husband and I will, you know, get a glass of wine or we'll get some fancy chocolate.

Alcohol definitely helps.

Absolutely. Yeah, or my favorite, we'll get a pint of ice cream and we'll sit there and we'll just talk about where we are and where we want to go. Because it's so, it's so rare, especially when you have kids, to have those moments.

Those conversations. Yeah.

And so, you know, we plan date nights and then we, you know, we watch a movie or whatever. But I think more important than that is to plan these intentional visioning sessions, just like you're talking about, to have those conversations so that you can stay aligned.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

That we're guys saying. And one thing that I want to like, did you envision any where you guys are right now? I know you and Julie are doing amazing things, indicating deals. But was that on your vision board?

That part, that's a great question. That part happened very organically. So yeah, so we left off in my story about where I had invested in that first rental in Huntsville, Alabama. And then we quickly amassed 25 units in that market, which we still hold now. And during that process of really scaling, we started talking to friends and family. And they said, oh, I love what you're doing. I would love to do that too. And I said, sure. Yeah, it's no problem. You know, here's what you do. You research markets, you find a broker, you find a property manager, you talk to the property manager, you look at the— you run the numbers and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. They're like, no, okay, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do that. And you know, it just— I had a few of these conversations and then I thought, surely there's a way for me to help these people get into real estate if they have the money and they want to do it. But they just don't have the time. And at the time I didn't know anything about passive investing or real estate syndications, but I thought there has to be a way, you know, the deals that I was doing were, were too small to really bring people in, but I thought maybe I could do a larger deal. And I thought naively, I thought, well, I've done a 4-unit, I could do a 40-unit. It's pretty much the same thing. And so I went down that path and I started, I invested in, um, some training programs, listened to a ton of podcasts, and I really, I learned about syndication and went down the path of leading my own apartment syndication.

Wow.

And along the way, I had an opportunity. I met somebody at a real estate investing event and they said, you know, I know you're just starting out, but You know, how about you come in on our deal with us and you help us to raise some money for our deal? I didn't know anything about raising money and I said, no, I don't want to raise money for your deal. That's the worst part of the whole process. Why would I want to raise money for you?

And they said, well, I'll take 100% of it.

Right? Right. And they said, well, you know, your investors would still be your investors. They would only communicate with you. You're just connecting them with this great investment opportunity. And I thought, oh, that sounds pretty good, actually. Yeah, I'll try that. And so I said, yeah, you know what, I'll raise a little bit for your deal, but I'm going to save my good investors for my deal. Thank you very much. So that's what I did. I raised I brought a couple of investors into that first deal. And through that process, I realized I love raising capital, because it's all about investor education, talking to people and helping them to understand what these passive real estate investing opportunities are all about. And so because I took that leap and tried raising capital, it allowed me to to see that in fact, I'm not the best asset manager and I would not be the best underwriter. And it led me to be able to let go of that piece and say, you know what, actually, I think I can just focus on the capital raising piece and build a business out of that. Wow. And from that, because I then focused in on raising capital and focused on helping women and moms especially, that's when I met Julie. And we really struck up a conversation about how to get more moms into real estate investing and in particular passive investing because it fits the mom lifestyle so well. It's sort of a set it and forget it type of investment. And so that's then what led to our partnership and what led to Goodegg and all the deals that we've done to date.

Very cool.

That's a neat progression too. And I think there's a lot of things to dissect from that. But one you said, I think in particular that really resonates, I think for so many of us is like, and we say it all the time on our show, but I honestly, I think we do need to say it all the time because we all need to hear, we all have a genius. Like we're all like a genius at something. And I almost want to say that genius, and you're not a genius at probably more than one thing. Quite honestly, no one is. I mean, maybe you, Andresa, but certainly not me. And but, but yet, so much of our time is, well, these are the things need to get done, who's going to do them. And I love that you're saying, you know, you stopped and said, okay, especially raising money, because I mean, listen, we do that as well for our deals. And, you know, like you said, you don't want to take that lightly and get investors into things that well, that wasn't a good, good opportunity for them. That's the worst, you know, you just— the last thing you want to do is get, you know, have your investors not into deals that they feel comfortable and that are the right vetted deals. So I love that you took a step back and really evaluated that for yourself. And really said, okay, what, what am I really good at? What do I really enjoy? And what is needed? And then what are the other pieces? And you found this partnership. Just to shift, I know you invest in a lot of different things, apartment buildings and what have you, but you also talk, you also invest, you know, or have experience in self-storage. I'm curious, obviously, I can see how that goes hand in hand with apartment buildings, because we've, we've actually looked at some of the buildings we have and putting self-storage, especially if we have extra land. There's a whole process to that. And we haven't ever pulled the trigger. But I'm curious for women listening that have considered self-storage, it's a very interesting line of investments because you know, there's no tenants. Yeah. You know, no offense to tenants, of course, we love them. But you know, there's no people involved. I mean, there are people involved renting the storage unit. But yeah, I just think it's an interesting niche. So I'm curious to learn a little bit about, and the women listening to this, we haven't really talked about self-storage. Where do you do it? How do you vet, how do you vet that opportunity? Is it something that's a standalone? Or do you do it really on the other assets that you have? I'm just curious to learn a little more about that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, self-storage, like you said, it's a really interesting asset class. And it tends to be a little more recession resistant. Because in the good times, you know, people will buy lots of stuff. You know, they buy the skis and the snowboards and the, and the summer gear, and they have to have somewhere to store it. And so in the good times, it's good. And then in the bad times, in the recessions, in the downturns, you know why people have to downsize, but they don't want to get rid of their stuff. They think, you know, oh, this is just temporary. So I'm just going to find a temporary spot for my stuff while I move to a smaller place. And then once I get back on my feet, I'll be able to move into a bigger place and get all that stuff out of storage. So self-storage is an area that does well in the good times and the bad times. And you're, you're absolutely right, Liz, in that, you know, it's— there's a lot less stuff involved. You know, you don't have kitchens, you don't have toilets. I mean, there's like, there's really a lot less maintenance that goes into it. You're literally renting somebody an empty box with a door, you know. And what's really—

that came—

yeah.

Break. Yeah.

Yeah. And then what's really interesting about the self-storage model is that most self-storage leases are on a month-to-month. And you think, okay, well, that doesn't sound so good. You know, in the apartment space, we always try to get, you know, 12-month leases or 18-month, right? But what's unique about self-storage is that, you know, it's on a month-to-month. And that means that you can make some improvements to, to the storage facility. And then the next month you can say, you know what, your rent is going to go up from $100 to now $106. And that's 6%, you know, and that $6 might not sound like a lot going from $100 to $106. But if you think about the fact that most of these standalone self-storage facilities are hundreds or thousands of units, that really, really adds up. And for the tenants who are renting these storage units, that $6, you know, who is going to drive across town, rent a U-Haul and say, I'm not paying that $6, I'm going to move to another storage facility across town, because they're going to run across the same thing. So most tenants will stay, you know, they'll stay even with those increases. And so I think for those reasons, I think self-storage is, can be a really great asset class. I think a lot of newer investors don't get into it, at least to start, because it's a little bit harder to understand. You know, everybody has lived in an apartment building, but not everybody has rented out a self-storage space.

Yeah.

And so we find that apartments are really sort of the gateway investment. And once you invest in apartments and you sort of get to know that space, then you start to get a little curious. And then you say, oh, well, what's this self-storage thing over here? And what's this mobile home park thing over here? So typically we see people start with apartments and then get into these other assets.

Wow, that's super interesting. And I'm just curious to understand how, how is the expected or average cash flow for the properties? Would you count, count like per quote unquote doors? Or, or is a different, you know, methodology?

Yeah, it's, it's similar to apartments. So when we offer a self-storage investment opportunity, it's, it's largely the same as our apartment opportunities, you know, we typically offer, you know, a 7 or 8% preferred return. And then usually, you know, around an 8%, maybe up to a 10% cash flow returns per year. And then usually they're the ones that we've done, we're holding for usually 3 to 5 years. And in that time, you know, just like the value-add apartment deals that we do, we're trying to make improvements to the self-storage facilities. And that means that sometimes we're building new, new storage units if there's room. Sometimes we are increasing the efficiencies. So, you know, adding, adding things like automated machines when you go in and you can check out yourself, you know, if you were to buy like packing tape or boxes or things like that. And putting the right people, the right team into place at each location. So we're doing that during the length of the hold, and then we're getting that asset ready for a sale usually in between years 3 and 5.

3 and 5, okay. That was my next question. Great.

Yeah.

It's fascinating to me. It's just a new arena.

Yeah. It is fascinating because, you know, I think it's always interesting to look look at even the current assets that people own and say, you know, how do I bring more value, you know, to the— it's a great marriage between apartment buildings.

I would—

I'm curious if— I'm sure you have a certain amount of storage unit facilities that are just, sounds like standalone, right? You just pass them on the highway and there's like 1,000 units. But I would imagine it is a great value-add opportunity for multifamily, right? And that's kind of where we are. We have a 50-unit in the Lancaster area. And we bought it with the thought, do we, we could potentially build or self-storage or, you know, just to kind of see. And it's been about 4 years we've had the building and it's just something we've kind of talked through and what that looks like. We've had people give bids and I guess that we haven't pulled the trigger, but it's an interesting viewpoint. Like, you're creating a win-win, adding more value to tenants, right? And potentially adding more value to the land that's not making us any money right now. But it is, you know, it's a new arena, right? Because sometimes you get so, you know, well, we gotta focus, you know, sometimes we end up going back to that and then we just, you know, we're like, okay, well, the building's stabilized. Let's just, we gotta get onto other things that we need to continually grow. But I love the idea of self-storage. I think it's something I need to develop, you know, to do more research myself. I love what you're saying.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. It adds value to the tenants, you know, because everybody has a lot of stuff and, you know, they want to live in a clean space, but they don't always have the room to store all the stuff that's meaningful for them. So that would be an amazing value add to, to be able to give them that storage space in that same location. You know, think about that. They don't have to drive, they don't have to rent a U-Haul to go somewhere. If they needed something out of their storage space, they can walk over and get it. So, I think that's a fantastic idea. And, you know, maybe there's an opportunity there to pre-sell the units, you know, before you build them, you know, really put out a note to your tenants and say, "Hey, we're thinking about doing this. Would you be interested if we were to build this?" You know, and maybe start a waiting list. And that way, you'll be sure that you'll get your money's worth if you were to invest in developing these units. I love that idea.

You know, just the idea of a, a waiting list before you pull the trigger? Because like all these things take a capital investment. I think we refinanced the building recently, so we do have some capital, but it's like, you know, like you, you're putting people's money into things. You want to make sure the next step is going to be, you know, the right return, especially when it's new and it's like, huh, a little less familiar for us, or whatever that is for people. We're always embarking on less familiar, but I love it.

Yeah.

The waiting list or the presale, that's a great, great idea. Well, you've been a wealth of knowledge here, you know, Annie, today. And we know, we just appreciate you so much sharing all your ideas. I think your path, right, where you started and where you are today, had so many great nuggets in it. And we just, you know, appreciate you being on our show today. Where can the investors reach out to you? How can they learn about the things you're up to? And it sounds like you're up to a lot of education, which is which is right up our alley as well. So where can, where can the ladies listening learn more about you?

Absolutely. So the best place to learn about us is to go to our website. It's GoodeggInvestments.com. And if you ever want to reach out to me for any reason, any questions, or just to talk about real estate investing in general, you can reach out to me at Annie@GoodeggInvestments.com.

Love that name.

So building your, building your nest egg and investing for good. Good.

There we go. So all of that information, ladies, you will find on our show notes. And now we're going to transition to our fabulous 3 questions. And the first one, Annie, is what's the most transformational book you have ever read?

I love this question. And you know, I think books are only transformational if you read them at the right time in your life.

Oh yeah.

Amen. Amen.

Yeah.

Because I've read books that are fantastic books, bestsellers, but I'm like, you know what, that doesn't quite resonate with me right now. But there are a few books that I can think of that really I read at the perfect time. And one that really comes to mind is Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller. And, you know, as my role in Goodegg is really on the investor education and the marketing side of things. And in my professional career before building Goodegg, you know, I was involved in a lot of education. I actually started out as a 4th grade teacher, but I didn't have a whole lot of marketing experience. And this book, Building a StoryBrand, is all about how to position your brand to help your customers. You know, they talk about how, you know, most brands think of themselves as the hero in the story, but in fact, your customer is the hero and you are the guide. So you're like the Yoda in the story, you know. And so you're there to help your customers on their journey. And so that really helped us to, at a pivotal moment in our business, to really shift our brand and our messaging to really focus on our customer and helping them on their journeys.

Well, that's beautiful. And the second question is, what's the most powerful routine you do to create a financially free and balanced life?

I, I've been, I take time for myself and I think that's so important. I get up at 5:00 AM in the morning. And here's the secret, invest hers. Here's the secret is I set my alarm somewhere that I can't reach while I'm lying down. And so then when it goes off, I have to get up out of bed. And then before my mind has a chance to think, maybe I should snooze, maybe I should go back to bed, I don't even let that happen. I just let my body take me out of the room to the bathroom and I start going through my routine. So I get up at 5:00 AM every every morning. And that time in the morning is really for me. I have a whole routine in the morning. I do some meditation, some gratitude, some visualizations. And sometimes I do— I call it my extra credit bonus work, stuff that I don't get to do during the day that I really want to get to that will grow our business and will grow me personally. So I do that stuff in the morning. And then also before I start my, my workday, I do about 10 minutes of just dancing. I close my office door and I put on some dance music and I just, I dance like nobody's watching because nobody is. And it gets me out of my head and into my body and something that I can control, which is a great way to start off my day.

Oh my gosh. Yes, for sure. Amen to that. The last question is, which women, famous or not, has inspired you the most?

Wow, you know, last week Julie and I were in Austin for the Mom 2.0 Summit. It was a meeting of all these moms, 1,000 moms without kids all in the same room. It was unbelievable.

Wow.

I mean, there were cocktail parties, cabana parties. I mean, it was like, you know, without kids, you know, we're like, ah, this is great. And so I loved meeting all the women there. There's so many people there that inspired me. Brené Brown was there. She, you know, she talked about how 20 years ago she talked about, she talked about starting this global conversation about shame and vulnerability. And people said, how are you going to do that? You know, a global conversation? Yeah, yeah, okay. And at the time, nobody even wanted to publish her book. She self-published and she was trying to get her stuff out there and she just kept at it, kept at it. And here we are 20 years later, her Netflix special just came out and she has done it. She has led this global movement and it's people like her and, you know, just the everyday moms. You know, I heard this story about a mom who has single mom of 5 kids. Can you believe it? Single mom of 5 children, 4 boys and 1 girl, and her youngest, her daughter, is severely disabled, deaf and mute, and actually cannot eat. But she didn't let that stop her. She didn't want her 4 boys to grow up without the experience of being boys. So she takes her kids out hiking all the time. They go hiking, they go camping. All the kids have their own backpacks, their own gear, and she carries her daughter, and they just— that, those kinds of things are just so inspirational. And so I love meeting moms wherever, whenever in their journeys and hearing about their stories.

Wow, that's great.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's super. That conference sounds amazing, you know, so I'll look into that a little bit. And yeah, But thank you so much for being on our call, Annie, really on our call and our interview, just our time together. You just add a lot of great insight and value and, you know, what a great path you're on. So excited to see all the great things that come of all the great work you and Julie are doing. So thanks for being on our show.

Of course. Thank you for having me and thank you to all your investors.

Thank you so much, Annie. If you enjoyed this podcast and want to receive updates on our next interviews, go to our website, therealestateinvestor.com. There you can subscribe to our show, become part of our investor community, and get updates on upcoming episodes.

If you like our show, please share with other women who would benefit, and don't forget to leave us a rating on iTunes. We'd really appreciate it. And as always, we encourage you to take one action as a result of today's show and put it into motion so you can live both a financially free and balanced life. Thanks for spending time with us.

Ciao.