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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
00:16:46
In this episode, Michelle Byers-Robson, President at SCORAH, joins Scott Becker to share her journey from healthcare events to real estate investing, offering practical insights on building businesses, flipping homes,
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to have recently passed 7 million downloads and to have been ranked this past week number one in the Apple Business News rankings. So just a terrific month for the podcast. So thank you all for listening. Far more important than that, we have a chance today to visit with an incredible entrepreneur and professional. We're visiting today with Michelle Byers Robson. Michelle's going to talk to us about a couple different things. She runs a business, she manages events, she's also a real estate investor and she's an incredible professional that we have the chance to work with and to utilize her company's services. So we're not just fans, we're customers as well. Michelle, can you take a moment and tell the audience a little bit about what you do and about yourself?
- [00:57]
B
Oh, that's awesome, Scott, and thanks so much for having me on today. And yeah, I mean, I, I guess I would call myself a little bit of a serial entrepreneur and really started finding areas and places where there was a need. Right. You just, it's some of the stuff that you've spoken about on some of the webinars you've done in the past, which is finding that niche and then filling that and filling it really well. So, you know, throughout the years I've just kind of kept my eyes open and my ears open and looked for opportunities and places where we can fill a need. And that's, it's really fun to me to have the opportunity to be able to see visions and then bring them to light. So I have a lot of fun doing that.
- [01:48]
A
And you do an incredible job. Like it cannot be understated in the world that we live in. When you find people to work with that are tremendous at what they do and so user friendly and so service oriented, how much we prefer and appreciate working with people like that. Take a moment on how you got into the business and how you got into real estate investing.
- [02:08]
B
Awesome. So I, well, I got into the business that I'm currently in a little bit. I like to tell people I tripped and fell over backwards into it. I actually was working in industry in the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical devices industry and was an doing that and actually found myself at a position where my job was being outsourced and had an option to take the job as a contractor versus staying on with a kind of a revised structure to the company. And so when I took that job as an outsourced employee, I started to realize that there was again this need out there to create Medical conferences, put on by physicians, put on by clinicians, for clinicians, and so said, hey, you know, I guess what, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. So I jumped in. I had a few friends of mine who needed some help putting together their conferences and learned, I like to say, by drinking from the fire hose. There were a lot of things I didn't know that I didn't know. And. But when I survived it, I went, hey, that was a lot of fun. And I think there's something here. I think there's something that I can grow. And that was about 20 years ago. So also during that time, I, I was living in California, and one of the things that I learned as a very young child was that one of that real estate is a tangible asset and that while we can't always, you know, understand what's going on in the markets and, and you say it yourself, Scott, you can't time the market. I didn't really feel comfortable in the stocks and bonds and, and that sort of investing, but my family had done a lot in real estate. So I actually did my first real estate transaction at the grand old age of 24 years old and, and started getting into it in California, thankfully for me, at a great time for flipping properties. And so I learned a tremendous amount about what to do, what not to do. And again, like I said before, I survived it and learned from that and found some pretty incredible professionals to work with. That taught me a lot that I now feel the need to share with others and, you know, just some things that you can learn by not stepping, stepping on the landmines if someone tells you where they are.
- [04:52]
A
Fantastic. And what are some of the things you've learned about real estate investing? Because it seems so scary to us as price have gone up, interest rates are high, and it seems so scary right now to be a heavy investor in real estate. How do you sort of think about and look at it?
- [05:06]
B
Awesome question. And yes, real estate is just like any major investment, it's scary. And one of the biggest differences, Scott, about real estate investing versus stocks and bonds is that usually in stocks and bonds, you aren't going in all in at 500,000 in one stock. Right. Whereas in a real estate investment, you are going in 4, 5, $600,000 in one thing, and you're putting all your eggs in one basket. One of the things that I learned very early on was, especially in real estate investing, two things. One, run it like a business. Don't get emotional. Run it like a business. Be smart. Number Two, know you're out before you go in. Do your homework, make your projections, come up with your plan for managing your business or your investment and then work that plan. Don't get greedy, don't get ahead of yourself and know you're out before you go in. And that is really important, especially today when you start looking at interest rates that are going up for the market that's fluctuating is that if you keep your eyes on that original projection, was your original projection to be in to do a flip and to be in in less than five years? Well, that's a very different projection than if my goal is, is to hold onto this property as a short term or long term rental for 30 years. Very different emotional on that. But you have to know you're out before you go in. That and it's. And then I think number three is continuously do your homework, read the market, know sometimes, hey, this isn't going the way I thought it was going to go. What do I need to change and do I need to get out? It's really important to keep your eye on it the whole time and not just assume that just because it worked yesterday it's going to work today.
- [07:08]
A
And take a moment and what kinds of properties do you prefer to invest in? Are you investing in residential, individual homes, three flats? Are you investing in commercial properties? What do you prefer to invest in?
- [07:22]
B
Really depends on the market. That's an excellent, excellent question. It really depends on the market. For example, in the California market I really enjoyed flipping properties. At the time I also lived in California so I could take advantage of some of the tax advantages of living in the property while I was doing the construction, which is a terrible idea if you really got to do the gut check and you got to really know what you're willing to put up with. But living in the property two out of five years, you can actually offset some capital gains in that scenario. If you're not living where you're flipping the property, that's not possible because it wouldn't be your primary residence. So really know the market you're in. Some other markets are better for short term or long term rentals but may not have that equity gain that you would see in a bigger market. So for example, if I was in the California market, an 8% gain on the California market, let's say the property was valued at 1 million doll is much bigger than a $150,000 condo in I don't know, Ohio. So you have less of an equity gain. But what I've seen in some markets is that you can look at depending on your projections. What I like to aim for is a thousand per $100,000 turn in a rent that actually pays out. If you look again at that $150,000 property, Scott and if I'm making $1,000 per 100,000 in and on rent, so maybe I'm making 50, $100 a month in rent, that adds up really to a nice, a significant amount of money after 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. And then if you sell it, let's say you sell it for a small gain, what you've made over the past five, 10 years really is it's, it's a tremendous benefit. Right? It's a tremendous asset. So really it depends on the market. There are also people that like to go in and do, you know, more commercial property or doing where you're doing apartment complexes? I personally haven't invested in apartment complexes, but I do have friends that go in with groups of people and they. So you offset your risk by going in in a group and buying a investor, buying one big property together and then having someone manage that for you. Again, I just really think it has to do with your market and where.
- [10:05]
A
You'Re at and are you in, are you in multiple different markets at this point? Is it hard to manage the markets from afar?
- [10:12]
B
It. It is. I actually tend to pick two or three and really focus on them so I know what I'm doing and I can really get in again. It's I, I tend to be the likes to walk the neighborhood. Walk the neighborhood, walk the neighborhood, know what's going on, where I'm investing and what I'm doing there. And, and I really want to know where what's going on. Once you get to know an area or neighborhood, you don't need to walk that neighborhood every day, but you might still want to do it once a week. So I like to be in markets where I can actually physically see what's happening there and can kind of keep a good read on it. But there are other quote unquote hot markets and opportunities out there that I really am excited about. And those are kind of some of these markets where maybe it really is expensive to get in, but you could do secondary in quote unquote investments through something called arbitrage. I've seen arbitrage work really well in markets like Arizona where there are beautiful brand new apartment complexes. The real estate price to go in is very expensive. Expensive, but they don't have a whole lot of hotels and all of a sudden all I'm going in on is, I mean, and I need to get a corporate lease and you got to do your things right? But if I go in and do that right and I get a corporate lease, I can rent that apartment out as a short term rental and I can make the money without ever even going in more than my investment of the rent. So there are some interesting things and I think areas like there's, I would say Arizona or Austin is another great one for that. There are some of these other cities that are just really kind of, that would be an opportunity and those are really exciting to me.
- [12:06]
A
Thank you. And if you were to give advice to a novice real estate investor, someone who's trying to invest a million dollars, five hundred thousand, a hundred thousand, a smaller real estate investor, you know, versus the mega funds and so forth, any advice that you would give?
- [12:22]
B
Absolutely. The first is do your homework, read the small print. And what I mean by that, Scott, is check what the HOA rules are, what the city ordinance rules are, what the county rules are. There are a lot of these. If I were a small investor going in, wanting to pick up 1, 2 Airbnb, I would really, really want to make sure I understood the ins and the outs of what the, what, what would be required for me from a permitting and a compliance point of view, what I would need to have for, to protect myself in terms of insurance. And, and what I would need to be doing price wise. And so I would really want to do my homework first. And, and I would want to go in and test the waters and do one before I did 10. So I really make sure that I'm going in. And then the last thing is surround yourself with smart people. That will give you real feedback. And that means a really good attorney if you need some, if you need some advice and some information on reading contracts and, and knowing what the ordinances are, making sure you're in compliance, hiring a really professional real estate agent that gets the market and is representing your interests, making sure you have an insurance advisor who is making sure that you're insured and then making sure you've got a really great investment advisor and CPA who's keeping you on that end safe and making sure that you're paying what you should be paying and that you're keeping your investment strong and safe. That's what I would recommend is surround yourself with smart people. Do it. Start slow. But then again, the most important thing is know you're out when you go in. Don't get Greedy. Make sure you know you're out, you have your eyes on the ball of where you're going and work that plan. And you know, I think then it gets to be really fun, then you start to see success.
- [14:36]
A
But I think this point on knowing your exit just in case is so important so you're not stuck in a property that's illiquid, so different, so unusual that you can't sell it even if your exit means you have to take a look costs. You want to know you're locked up forever. You know, people have gotten locked up forever in high co op cost buildings, high HOA cost buildings, big tax buildings, all kinds of things. And I think your advice are really unique properties where they think it's so cool. But if there's not an exit for it because a lot of people don't want that property, that's a challenge, even if it's profitable. For a moment. Michelle, if you were to look at one property right now, one state, one area, what are you most excited about?
- [15:14]
B
Currently I'm most excited about the tiny house movement and some of those really exciting that were, you know, where you could actually go in a area where you might be able to buy again, check your local ordinances and make sure you have the right permits. But you could buy a lot or two and put several of these tiny homes on and have this tiny home community. I think that's really fun. I think people really enjoy that. From a Airbnb or VRBO short term rental situation, I think management wise it's relatively low impact and I think from a creative point of view it's really fun. I, you know, I, I get really excited about what you can do with one bedroom, one bathroom versus a huge mega mansion, which feels overwhelming to me. So I get really excited about that. I think that's really fun. And then arbitrage. I've really been interested in some of these arbitrage opportunities out there that are really exciting.
- [16:24]
A
Fantastic. Michelle, it's amazing what you've done with your business, with your investing, with your career. You're an inspiration to me and just a pleasure to work with again. Michelle Byers Robson, just a fantastic leader and professional. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private equity and business podcast.
- [16:41]
B
Thanks so much for having me, Scott. Have a great day.