From Financial Struggles to $5.2M Success: Suzanne’s Real Estate Journey

So when I was in college, I really wanted passive income because I wanted time, freedom for my family. But I knew I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I knew I wanted to be my kids.

So today we have a very special guest. In fact, not a guest. She is family. She has been with us for a long time in our Mastermind, but we have spent a lot of vacations and a lot of time together. But she runs a large dental practice, but she recently just closed her first major rental property apartment complex. And so we're going to break that down, but you are going to really enjoy hearing the story of this woman, this amazing woman. So, Suzanne Bowles, thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Excited to have you. All right, well, yeah, let's jump in. I mean, let's go back to where it started. So you run a pretty large dental practice with your husband. And I'd like to capitalize on this deal that just transpired because it was a big win and big things in the future. But let's go back before you started the dental practice. How did all of that come about? And maybe even how did you get the itch for real estate? Like, what did all that, how did that happen?

So when I was in college, I really wanted passive income because I wanted time, freedom for my family, my future family. I didn't have a family, but I knew I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I knew I wanted to be with my kids. So I decided to go to the international department of my university, get anything they had for jobs overseas. And I found out what paid the best and it was the trip to the job in Japan teaching English overseas. So I applied, I got the job, and then four years later, I saved 10,000 a year and brought home 40 grand. Bought my first three family, and that kind of started it. Rent control was released in downtown Boston, where that was. And then I bought a two family, lived in that house, hacked, opened up my photography studio and worked in photography for 10 years with my rentals and was making really good money.

Wow.

More money in the real estate world than I was in the photography world.

Wow.

But I wasn't a struggling artist, so wanted to have a family. Met my husband online and then he moved me to New Hampshire where his.

Dad for a dating site.

Yeah, online.

Oh, okay, cool.

We met on December 6 and got married on October 6, exactly 10 months from the day we met. We decided to get married on our third date, but that's another story.

That's cool.

So we moved to New Hampshire. He had his one doctor practice, he had just opened up about six months before we met. So I bought our family home, which was a lake house. And so this was in 06 and then 09. The economy had kind of crashed from the real estate market crashing. People had lost a lot of money, so they weren't coming to the dentist as often. And then he had easy pay, payment plan, plan company that went belly up. And we lost a lot of money with that. So the combination of not having as many patients and that loss, we ended up having to short sell the house that I bought. And my credit, my 800 credit score was ruined. But I did that because he was making the money and I was stay at home mom. And then when my youngest of the three daughters was nine months old, we had four office managers steal money from, from us. So we talked about it and decided that I'd go in and clean up the mess because he knew I was good financially. And that was about a year and a half before we got the opportunity to buy a five doctor practice in Vermont. And that was seven years ago. So we bought the five doctor. We sold our practice in New Hampshire, and we bought the building Darren had rented, my husband had rented a space, and I wanted to be owner of real estate for the dental practice. So we bought this nine, like 8,500 square foot rectory building the dentist office was in. So we got, you know, we've been getting appreciation for that. And then we bought the practice and we could have time for our family because he's not the only dentist. And then we had got that from 2017 to 2020 where we wanted it to be, and it was making good money. And then Covid hit and then we almost lost everything. We had to sell my second dental investment property in Boston. And because I was so committed to passive income, now I was at the point where I needed. I was searching for something like you because I wanted apartment buildings because they were the fast track to getting back what I had. And I'm 55, my husband's almost 58, so we just needed help with getting apartment buildings. And then two weeks ago, we closed on a 13 unit.

Wow.

So that kind of redeemed what I had lost. And I'm looking forward to getting a lot more from there.

That is so amazing. So just really quickly back up to the dental practice. You bought the dental practice?

We bought the dental practice. Bought the real estate, yeah.

And where was the dental practice at when you bought it?

St. John's very Vermont. The same place. Well, we moved from New Hampshire. We sold that one and we moved to Vermont.

Yeah. Where was it at? Like in terms of growth? Like was.

Was doing pretty well, but they didn't have systems in place.

What do you think the main thing was in scaling the business? Getting it where it is. Dental practice. Like getting it from where it was 2.4.

Yeah. From post Covid numbers. Really looking at the key performance indicators and measuring them and optimizing the schedule. And then we became a teaching facility at uni, which is a dental school in Maine.

Yeah.

And we get one or two students every three months. So that helped us with our bottom line. And then I also advocated at the Capitol to get our Medicaid fees increased. So before last year the Medicaid fees were only 50% of Delta Dental fees and we got them to be 75% Delta dental fees. And I was in petitioning for that.

Well, that's awesome. Yeah.

That increased our revenue and that was my whole goal. As long as if I can get my rev. Our revenue up and actually have more cash flow, then I could play with real estate again.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Which is. Which is amazing. So you were able to really put systems in place, focus on metrics. That was huge. But the model you're going with now, I mean how did you. I mean you said you were looking for mastermind program to really help you scale into apartments. And what we teach is really syndications. Right. Helping people utilize other people's money. What made you want to use do that way?

I had been in other programs where they focused on single families, but it was. The whole plan took too long. It was good for people that had very little money and they were able to get out of their hole long term. If you started young. But I like to jump and I wanted to jump fast.

Okay. Yeah. So you're doing well on the business side. But realize no matter where you're at in terms of capital, you need to scale using investors, using other people, partnering other partners, Syndications. Right.

Is outside of my comfortable zone. So yeah, I needed somebody else to help me with that. And that's what I'm. That's my goal for 2025 is a syndication and a 50 plus unit apartment building.

Love it.

Because we don't have savings for our kids education or our retirement. We put that all into the dental practice. So now it's time to. To get the positive cash flow. I don't care about savings in the bank. If I have enough positive cash flow coming in monthly, that's all I need for retirement.

Yeah. So the goal is retirement.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

And having. Having fun with our. Our grandkids. Like, taking love, being able to teach them what I'm doing and have them do that for themselves. And then all of us can have fun like traveling.

Okay. So.

And we're trying to help found a classical Christian school. And we want to give back. We give a lot of dental work for free to the community. We give a lot of dental work to our church.

Love it.

You know, you can't do that if you don't have positive cash flow. You can't be giving and generous, and I love doing that.

Well, talk to us about this deal, the. The 13 unit you just closed. So that was just recent.

That was just December 2nd.

All right. Congratulations.

Yeah, we're excited.

And then how did you find that? How'd you come about that?

I was actually on Zillow looking for building for our church.

Zillow?

Yeah.

All right. Yeah. So.

And it was just listed for one day, and we put an accepted offer on the second day.

Yeah. Okay. So I just like Zillow of all places. I saw finding apartment complexes on Zillow.

I thought I saw the price tag and I knew it was a good deal.

Yeah.

And I saw, I, you know, somebody put it on Zillow, you know, so it's not supposed to be on Zillow if it's an apartment complex. So somebody didn't know what they were doing. And I wanted to capitalize on that. And, you know, we put an offer. It was accepted.

That's a key. That's. That's a big key. So a lot, you know, we just didn't invent. And everyone wants to know, how do you find deals? Right. And we. It's got to be off market. It's not predictable if it's not off market, if it's not. If it's not. When you're thinking about, I gotta find deals, you know, you have to be making a certain amount of offers every single week to really be more predictable in terms of streams. And so that is one method of finding deals. Technically, I guess that's on market, but those are the kind of places you want to look for really good deals. Because like, the MLS is for single family. Zillows for single family. You know, it's really primarily residential. So if somebody's posting on there, they probably don't know what they're doing. It's probably a newer broker. It's probably like somebody have to open.

Yourself up to all.

Yeah, you gotta. You gotta get out there. I Mean, it's just funny that you found it on Zillow of all places, right? So typically it was it. Was it a newer real estate agent.

25 minutes from our house too. And that's where my girls go to their home school. You know, I knew the area really well and I like.

Yeah, yeah. So low hanging fruit right there. Look on the mls, I look on places that they really shouldn't be. So was it like a newer real estate agent or like a. I don't think so.

It was commercial broker, but he was two hours away. I don't think he knew the local area.

He'd just give it a shot too, put it all over.

I don't know.

Yeah, well, that's exciting. So, okay, found it on Zillow. Then what happened? What, what was the process like? What were you thinking? How did you identify that it was a good deal? Like what, what was the.

Well, we ran it through Jack the Analyzer here at rei, our underwriting team. He was a little like, maybe, but he's very conservative, which we appreciate about Jack. And he, you know, I said, well, I'm not so worried about having extra tons of extra cash reserves because we could get that out of the dental practice. And he said, well, in that case, you know, at cash flows, it's not negative. And in spring of 2026, we're planning a complete restoration because it's a value, a massive value add. It's way under market. You know, the rents are 500 to 800 and they should be significantly more or more than, more than double, you know, so the fact that I'm going to plan on making two of the units Airbnbs and then massively with architect and general contractors, commercial contractors that are going to overhaul everything, we'll be able to increase the value of the apartment building greatly.

So you bought it for how much?

895.

895,000. What is the projected value?

At least 1.5 to 2 million.

Okay, in how long?

And it might be more. It just depends on how much I'm actually, actually getting for the Airbnbs. But yeah, we should have it stabilized after the renovation, like with. Within a year and a half.

Okay, a year and a half after.

It'S rerented and all the rents are increased.

All right.

Yeah.

And so you bought it for 895. What are you expecting to have to put into it?

I'm not quite sure. I need, I need. I'm expecting probably at least 500,000.

All right, so. So you feel like you're going to put 500,000. You bought it for 895. And then after the 500,000 year thing, it'll be worth.

I'm not looking at reselling it. I'm looking at 20,000 to 25,000 positive cash flow.

Okay. It's just a cash flow play.

I want that cash flow coming in.

Love it. Yeah.

Because I need that cash flow from my girls, college and our, you know, our, you know, and then that's going to. With the positive cash flow from the dental practice and the positive cash flow from the real estate. That 13 unit is just going to help us grow into more and bigger properties.

I love it. Yeah.

This is the beginning of the, the, the Tumbleweed.

There you go.

In the right direction.

Exactly. Yeah. The, the flywheel. Get it going. That's so exciting. Congratulations.

I feel like I'm in the game again.

And now, I mean, we just, we just had this event. What do you feel like the biggest thing that you're walking away with is for this event?

Well, REI has grown significantly and the players are really advanced. So I, I, I phone numbers for everybody and I'm really excited about connecting with them and doing deals.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. So 50 unit. What does your life look like after you do that deal? Like, what is the next year to two years?

Any kind of financial stress will go away, which is going to be huge for me. I just want peace and the ability to help. We want to grow the church, we want to grow the classical Christian school, wherever that goes. But just knowing that we have no financial worries is priceless to our family.

I love it. Yeah. Yeah. So more vacations. More, more fun, More fun with the family, with the kids.

More teaching the kids through example so that they see us recover when we've been down and we've been hit. So they know when they have tough times not to crumble. That's important to me. You can't just lay down and not try again.

That's really good. And you've got amazing kids.

Amazing kids.

My girls are already. Your girls are already just confident, good, sweet, respectful kids. You raise them well. What do you think the key to that is? What do you think has been so pivotal there?

You talk to them all the time, lots of hugs and kisses, and you hold them accountable for things they do wrong.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's good.

And they pray, you know, God's in their life.

Amen. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I'm so excited for you and I'm looking forward to going on this journey. Yeah.

Looking forward to 2025.

Let's go. 20, 25. All right, well, thanks so much, Suzanne, for being on, and I know a lot of people got value out of this, so, yeah, thanks so much.