We Sold Our Home and Lived in an RV to Invest (It Worked!)

Summary

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Real Estate Rookie Podcast — Episode Summary

Episode Title:
We Sold Our Home and Lived in an RV to Invest (It Worked!)

Hosts:
Ashley Kehr & Tony J Robinson

Guests:
AJ & Nicole Fran Denisa

Air Date:
August 25, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode tells the inspiring story of AJ and Nicole, a real estate investing couple who sold their home and lived in an RV—during a snowy winter and with a newborn—to supercharge their investing journey. From house hacking to flipping, and from relational struggles to community building, AJ and Nicole detail how creative strategies and bold sacrifices launched them into multifamily investing, with their partnership and local connections as their secret weapons.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Living in an RV to Jumpstart Investing

• The couple sold their first home to find a property they could transform, aiming to build their dream home, but also to lay foundations for future investing.
• Living in the RV—with a baby—parked in the driveway was born of necessity and “ignorance.”
• Notable Quote:

  “We look at our RV as our little guy’s first nursery…AJ was basically never in the RV because he was remodeling our very first live‑in flip.”
  — Nicole (00:52)

2. Getting On Board as a Couple

• AJ was the initial visionary, influenced by the BiggerPockets podcast.
• Nicole got “on board” when AJ introduced her to a podcast episode focused on leadership, not real estate—an approach that helped her connect with the bigger picture.
• Notable Quote:

  “My roof and my home is probably my launch pad for wealth-building and the future of our whole family’s vision.”
  — Nicole (04:40)

3. Defining Roles & ‘Staying in Your Lane’

• The couple defines their strengths: AJ manages construction and numbers, while Nicole focuses on relationships, negotiations, and property management.
• “Staying in their lanes” as a couple is cited as foundational to their success.
• Notable Quote:

  “Investing as a husband and wife, we recognize as a rare adventure…staying in our lanes as a couple has been the thing that took us from where it started to where it is now.”
  — Nicole (05:55)

4. The First Live-In Flip: The Numbers

• Purchased for $395,000 in Dec 2018; lived on-site ~2 years.
• Invested approx. $120,000 in renovations.
• Sold for $695,000 in late 2020.
• “Fatigued” by living situation but used the two-year live-in rule to avoid capital gains taxes.
• Funded rehab using proceeds from their previous home’s sale and savings.
• Notable Quote:

  “We lived in an RV for several months. I think we were in the driveway for like three, four months. And we had a newborn at the time, obviously…”
  — AJ (08:02)

5. Transitioning to Multifamily: Duplex House Hack

• Chose a duplex for deliberate “house hacking” to reduce living expenses, inspired by their family values (“we do hard things”).
• Used creative financing: seller concessions, escrow holdbacks, and even had the seller pay an invoice directly to their contractor at closing—a technique with no hard cap, but requiring real trust.
• Notable Quote:

  “There is no limit on [seller paying an invoice], but there are limits on escrow holdbacks. …the risk is, you’re paying your contractor up-front.”
  — Nicole (17:44)

• Renovations brought units up from $1200/month to higher rents; their effective living cost was ~$1200/month including utilities.

6. Negotiating and Relationship-Based Investing

• Found the duplex because others passed it by—owing to its “giant fish” mural and powerful pet odors.
• Direct, empathetic conversations with sellers and creative problem-solving won them the deal; they offer to handle clients’ unwanted belongings to remove a big barrier.
• Notable Quote:

  “If I can smell the house through the photos, I want to go see it.”
  — Nicole (19:12) “You get paid in proportion to the problems you solve.”
  — AJ (21:46)

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7. Funding Strategies

• All rehabs to date were funded through personal savings and proceeds, not hard/private money—though they are now “dabbling” with those options.
• During heavy rehabs, bank accounts “rarely had over $10k”—everything went back in.

8. Portfolio Growth and Division of Labor

• Their current portfolio: Two live-in flips (single family), two duplexes, and a traditional flip.
• Property management: Nicole builds relationships with tenants (now “wants to know them”).
• AJ focuses on systems, due diligence, managing rehabs, and vendor relationships (including contractors and hard money partners).

9. Building Contractor & Vendor Relationships

• Key advice: Find an investor community to access referrals for trustworthy contractors—it’s more reliable than online reviews.
• Notable Quote:

  “If I can have a relationship with somebody, that then opens up their Rolodex to me. That’s going to change the game.”
  — AJ (28:50)

10. Favorite Rookie Systems and Processes

• Critical: Track your rehab budget, keep expenses in one portal, organize leases, and use landlord management tools (like RentRedi).

11. The Power of Community and Contribution

• Real estate, they argue, is ultimately a relationships business—not a property business.
• Hosting local investor meetups (WARI: Washington Real Estate Investing) has been their “biggest launcher”; they both give and get value from the group.
• Notable Quote:

  “Everything we do in real estate almost has nothing to do with the property itself, but the relationships that surround the property.”
  — Nicole (35:04)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Seller Problem Solving:
  “Try and understand what the biggest pain point is of the seller… The more intel you have…the easier it becomes for you to craft a deal that actually makes sense.”
  — Tony (20:52)

• On Risk and Trust:
  “We trust but verify…even if we’re working with the seller and they’ve said they’re going to go do something, we show up and go look.”
  — Nicole (40:43)

• On Neighbor Relations:
  “Meet the neighbors. ...they become your biggest resource in my opinion.”
  — Nicole (41:19)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:42: Living in RV with newborn—how and why
• 03:01: Getting on board as a couple; vision and persuasion
• 05:55: Division of duties and “staying in your lane”
• 07:42: Numbers and logistics behind their first live-in flip
• 12:41: Transition from flip to duplex and house hacking
• 16:39: What is an escrow holdback? Creative closing techniques
• 19:12: Acquiring the “fish house”: Dealing with difficult sellers and properties
• 21:46: “You get paid in proportion to the problems you solve.”
• 22:30: Funding rehabs as rookies (cash vs. leverage)
• 24:43: Roles and responsibilities (Nicole: PM, negotiation, AJ: systems, contractors)
• 28:50: How to find contractors in a new city
• 29:52: First systems to set up as a rookie investor
• 35:04: Why finding and adding value to your community (WARI) accelerates growth
• 39:57: Dealing with problems during flips as you gain experience
• 41:19: Importance of meeting and maintaining good relationships with neighbors

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Final Takeaways & Advice to Rookies

• Couples or partnerships should define roles, stick to their “lanes,” and develop trust, both in each other and in their teams.
• Community and relationships are more important in real estate than the properties themselves—seek out and contribute to local investor groups.
• Address seller pain points creatively for the best deals.
• Don’t be afraid to “do hard things” for big rewards, but always keep risk mitigation (trust but verify, get everything in writing) in mind.
• Use your network for referrals, systematize your paperwork and management, and be proactive about building reliable vendor/contractor relationships.
• Don’t sweat the small hiccups—most “disasters” are just new problems to solve as you gain experience.

Where to Find AJ & Nicole:
Instagram:

• @nicolefrandenisa
• @anthonyfran

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This episode is packed with actionable advice and relatable rookie challenges, wrapped up in a story of grit, partnership, and the value of community. If you’re just starting out or feeling isolated in your investment journey, AJ and Nicole’s story will remind you: real estate is about people, problem-solving, and being willing to do the hard things.

Transcript

[A]

Today's guests are A.J. and Nicole, mortgage lender agent, live in flippers house hackers and community builders. Their journey started in a snow covered RV with a newborn. And now they're flipping full guts and scaling into multifamily.

[B]

And today we'll talk about living in a driveway with a baby, getting robbed during a flip, and why their secret weapon isn't a tool, it's community.

[A]

This is the real estate rookie podcast. And I'm out Ashley Kerr.

[B]

And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And today we've got AJ And Nicole Fran Denisa joining us today. Aj, Nicole, super excited to have you both here with us today. Thank you for joining us on the podcast.

[C]

Thanks for having us.

[D]

Thanks for having us.

[B]

Now for me, as a father of three and having two under two, I have to ask right off the bat, how did you manage living in an RV with a newborn to make your real estate dreams come true?

[C]

Oh my goodness. I think that's such a great question. We look back on that season and I go, how in the heck did we accomplish that? But really, we look at our RV as our little guy's first nurs. It was his house that everything from the front to the back was full of baby stuff. But it probably helped that it wasn't all three of us living in the rv. I was in there with the baby. His name's Wes. We like him a whole bunch. But AJ was basically never in the RV because he was remodeling our very first live in flip. It wasn't live in and that we lived in the RV in the driveway, but he, we barely saw him. He came in to do a quick shower and he was right back out remodeling that house. That's how we managed.

[A]

What a creative idea though, to remodel a house and instead of renting or living somewhere else while it's being remodeled and it's not livable yet to park an RV in there. Actually, the live and flip I'm doing right now, it actually in the driveway. There is a hookup for an RV that like the previous owners must have had an RV here at some point or whatever. So this tells you could definitely do it. But tell us how you got to that point where what decisions were made, what was going on in life that you decided to buy this property and live in the rv.

[D]

Yeah, we had bought our first home a couple years prior and then ended up selling that home when we got pregnant with Wes and realized that maybe that house wasn't what we wanted for this next Season of our life. So we sold that house and quickly had realized that we wanted to buy something that maybe we could make our own. We had investing in mind, but we really. The idea of this house was we want to make our dream home, if you will. And so we had shopped and looked at homes for a while, end up finding this one on the market with our agent, and ended up getting that house ultimately and. And really getting to kind of make it our own at that point, like you said, for the purpose of really kind of making it our dream home to raise our son.

[B]

Now, let me ask, guys. I mean, why go with such a. An extreme version of, like, of a project for your first one with the baby on the way? Like, what. What was it that made you say, like, hey, this is the right move for us at this time of life?

[C]

I think, honestly, Tony, it was probably a whole bunch of ignorance and not knowing what we were going to get ourselves into. AJ had been listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast for a few years by this point, and he. His vision for our family was to. To invest. And so he saw an opportunity to buy something that needed some love, fix it up, maybe live in it for us, but maybe sell it in the future. And for some of that equity, I had no clue to what he was doing in the background. I thought we were coming in like Chip and Joanna Gaines, and we were just going to make something pretty and love it forever. But AJ definitely had a larger vision for our family that went even beyond that one house. That one house set us up for the rest of our investing since then.

[B]

Nicole, I appreciate you sharing that, but I guess let me ask a question specifically to you. You said it was initially AJ's vision, and obviously there's two of you, right? How did you quote, unquote, get on board with this vision that AJ had kind of built for the family?

[C]

Yeah. This is one of our favorite topics to talk about, because investing as a husband and wife, we recognize as a rare adventure. We know a lot of investors that invest on their own, and their spouse is just kind of along for the ride or maybe operates, you know, in lieu of. Or is like, you do your thing and I'll be over here. It was really important to AJ that I was on board. So we talked. We talked about the Bigger Pockets podcast, and he said, hey, I think you'll like this one episode. It's mostly about leadership and not about real estate. And I was really into leadership at the time. And so really, he just hacked my brain by, you know, infusing some media into my life. So I turned on that one episode of BiggerPockets, and we never turned it off. And that is what changed my whole perspective from, hey, my roof and my home is my safe place. To my roof in my home is probably my launch pad for wealth building and the future of our whole family's vision.

[A]

We're gonna have to charge the bigger pockets podcast ad revenue. It was my rookie podcast.

[C]

It was pre.

[A]

The rookie podcast, and.

[B]

But, Nicole, I think you just, like, answered a question that a lot of rookies who are listening right now probably have of how can I get my spouse on board? Like, I've been the one that's been watching the. The podcast on YouTube and listening to the books and doing all these different things, but my spouse isn't there yet. But what you said was, AJ Found a path that wasn't even necessarily about real estate, but was related to something that was of more interest to you. And I think that's maybe a bridge that a lot of us can try and cross to get our spouses on board where maybe we're not necessarily talking about, hey, do you mind if we move us and our newborn baby into an RV and park in front of this house that we can't live in and try and turn this into some sort of investment? Maybe not the best way to do it, but, like, hey, let's start with the podcast about leadership that I know my wife might be interested in and let it build from there. So I just. I just love that you guys were able to come together and find a path to do it in a way that made sense for both of you.

[C]

Yeah, it's our superpower now. Right? We both have what we bring to the table in our investing, and we call it our lanes. AJ Stays in his lane. What he's really, really good at, that's contractors, you know, looking at the property, determining comps, and arv. Those are his superpowers. My superpower has always been relationship. Spending time with the homeowner of the proper, getting to know people in the investing community and building our connections and staying in our lanes as a couple now. And investing has been the thing that took us from where it started to where it is now.

[A]

And that advice goes to not even just if you're a couple or in a relationship and you're working on a deal or the business. It also goes to having partners in the business. To James Danard, he has always talked about that in his business. He is, you know, the brokerage side. The flip side Doing all that. And then his partner is the property management side and a couple other things. And they each have their lane. Like, this is what they have, you know, basically control over. And what they do is when one, you know, doesn't know what to do or whatever, then they go and they discuss it with the other person. But, like, ultimately, the one that's kind of in charge of that kind of has the final say, because that's the one who's in the day to day of that part of the business and things like that. And I really do think that is great advice, is to figure out what your roles are, your responsibilities, and really take ownership of it. But you still have each other to lean on, and you become the expert in that part of the business or whatever that role is. And so I guess what I want to know next is how did you end up with this flip, with this live and flip? What did the numbers look like at the end of it? And was it two years that you stayed there or longer?

[D]

Yeah, yeah, we were there two years. We bought it December of 2018. Our son was born January of 2019. And then we ended up selling it in 2020, towards the end of the year. So we were there, like, almost exactly two years from when we sold the house once we bought that one for like 395. And then what do we end up selling that at?

[C]

6, 6 95.

[D]

6 95, yeah. And we ended up putting around 120 grand or so into it from kind of beginning to end. And the initial brunt of that was most of it. We kind of got fatigued towards the end, and we just ended. I mean, we lived in an RV for several months. Like, we were. I think we were in the driveway for like three, four months. And we had a newborn at the time, obviously, so we wanted to get our newborn into his own room. And as he kind of progressed in his growing. And so we ended up moving into the house when it was about 95% done and still needed a little bit of work. And I remember just kind of being fatigued from working all day, you know, working all night on the house, working on the weekends, you know, trying to get time together as a family. And I remember kind of being fatigued, and then we kind of like slowed down for a minute and just kind of enjoyed what we had. And so we kind of picked back up. It probably took us about nine months to really get back into the flow of kind of finishing everything. So it felt like we kind of finished it and then sold it. Like probably four or five months later. But at the end we were about 120ish thousand dollars into it.

[A]

I think that's some of the value of doing a live and flip is you really have the two years to do the projects. So like you can create your own timeline. You could do it super fast and so you get to enjoy it for the full two years. You could literally finish the day before you list it. You know you have lots of options and I, I think that's one of the best reasons to do a live and flip is because you're on your own timeline within those two years or even longer. Worst case scenario, you live in the house a little bit longer, you're still not going to pay capital gains on the taxes if you know you stay there longer. So yeah, I think that's one of the values of doing a live and flip.

[E]

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[F]

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[A]

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[B]

With Nicole and AJ so AJ after you guys sold the live in flip, how did your strategy differ as you moved on to your next deal?

[D]

Yeah, so it was really Nicole that kind of drove the selling portion of it. I had kind of grown to love this home and we saw the value of the equity in it. But it was kind of the first place obviously that I got to bring my son home to and he's took his first steps there. And there was a lot of like emotional kind of attach to this house as a result of some of those pieces of our life that had changed. But Nicole had helped kind of me see the value of selling, you know, for the ultimate purpose of wanting to continue our investing. And so, you know, she kind of did this like, hey, let's just do the next right thing. And at the time she wasn't an agent and the agent who helped us purchase the house, he came and he helped us value the house so that way we could kind of see what we could get in proceeds. And seeing the numbers on the page at that point it was like, okay, obviously this is the more logical, this is the wise choice to sell it so we can take that capital and reinvest it and kind of set the emotional side of it to the side a little bit, you know, as a house that we loved. But doing the hard thing of selling that really helped us launch into what our ultimate goal was, which was to get into multifamily. And then that next purchase, we had the funds to be able to purchase another primary residence, this time a duplex that needed a lot of love. And so we were able to purchase it low money down as a primary residence and then take a chunk of that capital and remodel it to add value and still have some money left over.

[B]

Why did you guys opt for a small multifamily versus doing another single family home?

[D]

Yeah, we wanted to house hack. So the goal was to drive our expenses down. We kind of at the time had started to kind of form some family values. And, you know, one of those family values was that we do hard things. You know, we did the hard thing of living in the driveway. We did the hard thing of bringing a newborn home to an rv. We did the hard thing of live in flip and having a partially finished home. We did all those hard things, and we didn't want to compromise what we wanted most for what we want now. And so we decided to go with a duplex so that we could house hack because we want to drive our expenses down so we could continue to invest. So by doing the house hack, obviously part of our mortgage is now going to be covered by the other side, but we also saw the value and value add, so we wanted to be able to find something that needed work so that we could increase the value of the property over time, kind of like what we did with the farmhouse.

[A]

So then you get to keep the property for two years and then you can sell it. So basically, you're doing a house hack and a live and flip on the property. Being able to add that value into it, you're really combining strategies and maximizing the value of real estate investing. So with this property, what was it that you were paying a month to actually live there? Were you cash flowing on it? Were they covering the whole amount of the mortgage? What did the numbers look like on this deal?

[D]

Yeah. So on that particular property, we bought it for 440. It had some things that needed to get repaired, and we used kind of a combination of getting some seller concessions as well as having some funds paid out to our contractor for some work. So we got a jump start on some of the work that actually needed to happen through an escrow holdback. So that way we didn't have to come out of pocket entirely for the rehab cost. So we bought it for 440. That one we put about 40 ish thousand dollars per unit into it. So we were in around $80,000 on the interior. And then we put a little bit of money about a year and a half later into the exterior. Oh, sorry, I'll go back. I saw you point. I thought you're in the right. Yeah, we put about $40,000 per unit into us for about $80,000 on the interior and then a little bit of money on the exterior about a year and a half later. And then on the rental side it had room to go up. It was under market rents. I think at the time they were renting for about 1200 per side. And we were able to bring those up pretty significantly after we remodeled the units. And so I think our all in for what we were paying to live there when we were there was right around like $1200 including utilities and something.

[B]

You mentioned, AJ that I want rookies to maybe get a better understanding of is escrow holdback. What is that and why was it helpful for you guys as you look to rehab this deal?

[D]

Yeah, so an escrow holdback is essentially proceeds from the seller if they're going to give you something. So you have your seller concessions, maybe that's them contributing to your closing costs or things like that. And, and an escrow holdback is something that's getting paid out to like a third party. So in this case we had our contractor that was going to be getting paid and it was about $15,000 that he was getting paid in addition to what we were getting in some closing costs from the seller. And so essentially escrow is going to take a portion of those funds and then disperse it off to our contractor at the time for that work. And the same time that they're kind of dispersing other funds like to agents for commissions and the seller for their proceeds, they just have another bucket. Then they, they give money to whoever that person is.

[B]

Yeah, let me, let me ask one follow up question because I know that there, there are limits on like seller credits, but are there limits on this escrow holdback? Like you know, if I wanted the seller to hold back, you know, 10% of the purchase price, if they wanted to, could they do that or are there also limits on how much can go into that, that hold back account?

[C]

It's a great question. Can I speak to.

[D]

Yeah, I was going to say, I was just going to say. I'll let Nicole defer To that side, she's an agent, so she gets to deal with that a lot more.

[C]

Yeah, so it's my favorite tool when negotiating with sellers to use both of those, both seller credits and this hold back or this seller invoice. There's two ways to do it. The escrow holdback is where escrow holds those funds after close until the work's been done, and then they pay the contractor any remaining funds technically defaults back to the seller as their proceeds. So that's how that one works. But what we really love to do, in addition to this, we've done it several times with other projects, too, is where the seller actually pays an invoice to our contractor at the time of closing. There is no limits on that amount. There is limits on escrow holdbacks. There's limits on seller concessions, but there's not limits on the seller paying an invoice. So the way this works is my contractor comes in and says, gosh, the kitchen's going to be, you know, $40,000 to complete. And we've negotiated that the seller is going to pay that contractor and that invoice. So the contractor gets paid at closing. They get paid up front. This is where the risk is. Any rookies that are listening to this technique, the risk is you're paying your contractor up front. So you have to have a really great relationship, rapport and trust with that vendor. We are paying them upfront for the work right at the time of closing, and there's no limits on that. It's a really great workaround to leverage negotiations, but still fit within the limits of concessions and escrow holdbacks.

[B]

That's. That's. I've never heard of that before. That's like something new that I just learned in this podcast today, Nicole, So thank you for sharing that with us.

[C]

Of course. Yeah. And this particular duplex, too. I think one thing that's powerful about that particular property, if I can unpack it real quick, is we found this property on market. It was on market during a really hot spell in our local market. And we saw it, and we saw the potential of it because of two reasons. One, the seller lived in the house. The seller had lived in one side of the duplex for 25 years, and it looked like they had lived in it for 25 years. The second was there was a giant fish painted on the front of this home. Like a mural of a muskie or something like that was painted across this house. That's our heartbeat behind our investing is if I can smell the house through the photos. I want to go see it. That is, this is when everybody was wearing masks, but you wanted a mask on in this house. And so we went, we met. You know, we got to meet the seller as a part of the. That process. One, they had a really, really old agent. I'm talking, like, we were faxing documents back and forth, and she was difficult to get a hold of. And at some point, she just said, how about you just go there and talk to the sellers? I said, no problem. That would be my preferred. But we got to sit down with the seller and figure out what they really needed. And they were stressed about downsizing out of this duplex into their rv. They were about to go into their rv, Season of Life, and they just didn't know what to do with all their stuff. And so we got to come in really quickly and go, how about we solve that problem for you? One of the other things that we love to leverage when purchasing is we go, hey, seller, leave everything you don't want. Take only the stuff you love and leave everything else. Let me take a giant barrier off of your plate on this idea of you moving out of here, and let's solve a really big problem right up front.

[B]

Nicole, it's so interesting that you share that story, because we've heard a version of I got a really good deal because I helped the seller figure out what to do with all of their stuff. We've heard a version of that so many times on the podcast, from new investors to experienced investors. But I think the lesson for all of the Rickies that are listening is try and understand what the biggest pain point is of the seller. And obviously, this is so much easier when, as Nicole said, you can go and have a conversation with them, but sometimes even, you know, you can get that information through your agent and their agent. But the more intel you have about why they're moving, what their challenges are, what their biggest goal is, what's most important to them, and the easier it becomes for you to craft a deal that actually makes sense. So, like, my mind is blown. I feel like this is like deja vu because you've heard this so many times before.

[C]

AJ Always says, I'll steal your quote.

[A]

Can I?

[D]

Yeah, go for it.

[C]

You saw this one coming. I always steal his good stuff. AJ always says you get paid in proportion to the problems you solve. And I think that is absolutely true. When negotiating a positive contract for yourself and for the seller, the more problems you can solve, what a win for them. And the more problems you can Solve the better deal you're probably going to get.

[B]

One thing I want to go back to with the actual rehabs you guys are doing because you're moving in. You're, you know, you said 80k on the duplex, 120k on, on the first live and flip. How are you guys funding those rehabs? And maybe if we start with the living flip, because we didn't touch on that piece before the break, 120k, were you just cash flowing that out of your, your day jobs? Where did you guys get the funds to actually complete the rehab?

[D]

Yeah, so up until recently, everything we've done with been with our own money. We hadn't used hard money for anything. And I mean, ultimately I probably kind of slowed a little bit of what we could have done and kind of seeing that now that we're starting to, to dabble in that. But we had really just used proceeds. So we'd sold our initial primary house, got about 70,000 from that, had about 30ish grand or so in the bank at the time. And then both of us, you know, made decent money at the time too. And so we just kind of bankrolled it ourself out of our own savings. We were talking about this and there was probably about six months where we had less than ten grand in our bank account at any given moment because we were just putting money into the house constantly. And so we just kind of have rolled those proceeds. And so that first live and flip, we took the proceeds from that, rolled that into the duplex and remodeled it, bought it, bought another duplex. And so we've just been kind of bankrolling it ourselves with proceeds and trying to multiply money to get more properties. And ultimately even now, right, we, we've leveraged houses, you know, that we've sold to get money to flip that we then partnered with hard money to try to, you know, magnify what we can do a little bit.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's such an interesting approach, right, because you're, you're getting all this money tax free because you're doing it as a living flip, which then gives you like a bigger chunk of cash to put into the next deal, which then gives you a bigger chunk of cash to put into the next deal. And it just kind of starts to, to snowball from there. So I guess, let me ask guys, like, are you currently doing a live in flip?

[D]

Yeah, we're just wrapping up a live in flip. So we bought it about two years ago and did all the interior, moved in and they're just kind of finishing up the exterior now. We're like a sidewalk away from it being done. So, yeah, we're just wrapping up one now and then working on an actual more traditional flip as well.

[A]

What's the overview of your portfolio and the deals that you've done so far?

[D]

Yeah, so so far we've done two live and flip single families, two duplexes. One of them was much more of a value add. We had to do work to both sides and gut it and, and rebuild it. The other one, we ended up remodeling one unit that was in a little bit more disrepair and doing a little bit of exterior work, but the other unit was in decent shape and then currently working on a single family flip.

[A]

Now for all the, the rehab and stuff, you know, you had mentioned you're doing some work and you guys each have your own lanes that you're working in. And Nicole, we'll start with you. What are your roles and responsibilities in the business? Because you guys have tenants too. Are you guys acting as the, the property manager?

[C]

Yeah, we are. And it's taken some time to figure out what our lanes are. We both did a lot AJ a lot more. I'll be honest, he swung a lot more hammers than I ever did. But your girl can paint some trim dialed. But now what it looks like today is that I support all of our property management. When it comes to the coordination, we use a third party tool. We use rent ready to manage our 10 help to onboard them. And we only have a couple, a handful of tenants. And it used to be that we didn't want to know our tenants at all. I wanted it to be strictly business. And now let the landlord tenant. Temperature has changed in our state in Washington state and so now it's the opposite. I want to know my tenant. I want them to sit next to me at church. I want to know where their mama lives, right? I want to know them and have relationship. So it means that there's a little less veil in that relationship. But we do do Our property management. AJLs still do some of the low level kind of handyman items, but we're quick to call our favorite contractors and vendors now just recognizing that we're buying back our time. So that's what I do on our rental side and then in our acquisition side, I spend time with sellers. One of my favorite things to do is to catch a cup a cup of coffee at the local diner with a sweet old lady that is an absolute hoarder in her house. And we can't meet at her house because it is dangerous to do so. So instead we go get a cup of coffee somewhere else and just to get to know that person and their circumstance, learn about their story, spend time with them, and then start to dig out. As you were saying, Tony, what are those problems that we can help you solve so that you can move on to a new stage and journey in your life, hopefully a better one, and we can support in bringing new legacy to this home. So that's my lane. I do all of our negotiation and contract review and then of course, help resell the properties when it's time as well, because I have my agent's license.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. And my side definitely more of like the systems and processes side. So keeping track of things like paperwork and whatnot and managing the rehab portion. So I did a lot of work on all of our properties that we'd acquired up until recently and have slowly tried to kind of get out of that, you know, finding the things that are my best use of time. You know, I might be able to do that work, but it's going to take me longer and it's probably not going to look as good. So it's better to pay a contractor. So have slowly kind of worked out of most of that. And so, yeah, so I definitely manage the actual rehab portion of things. And then, you know, running all of our numbers, doing our analysis and due diligence, all of that side of things is kind of where I like to stick my time. That's where my brain works best on all the. The numbers, pieces of things.

[C]

Can I brag on. Can I brag on AJ real quick? Because I. He. There's some more here that he does for this. AJ also has this special gift of building vendor and partnerships with contractors. So he builds such rapport. There's such respect. I'm sure it's a combination of the biceps and the beard, but nonetheless, people love to work with AJ and it means that we get really incredible pricing, pricing on our, you know, all of our materials and labor, but also even really great opportunities with our hard money, you know, negotiated based on relationship. Just really great rates that way too. So that's his superpower, even though he didn't mention it.

[A]

And that is a valuable tool to just know of and to work on is building those relationships with different people in the industry. Yeah.

[B]

On that note, I think for a lot of Rickies, finding good contractors is one of the hardest things to do that can understand how to underwrite a deal and, you know, they can put all the numbers together on a spreadsheet, but when it comes to finding the people to actually do the work, that's where a lot of folks get stuck. So AJ what would your recommendation be if I dropped you into a brand new city, you had no contacts, no pre existing relationships, what are you going to do to rebuild that roster of great contract labor?

[D]

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I think the, probably the first thing I do is I'd find community. I'd find community of investors and I'd build relationship with them first and I'd find out who they like, who they trust. Because if I can have relationship with somebody that then opens up their Rolodex to me, that's going to change the game for me. I can go through a list of contractors and try to read reviews and maybe get some, you know, testimonials, if you will, from previous clients. But that's, that's something that can be really easily defrauded and somebody could have fake reviews and testimonials, things like that. But if I can sit eye to eye across from another investor who says, hey, you should use my guy, he's great, he has fair prices, here's his number. I'm going to take that with a little bit more weight because those are people that I'm also trying to be like. I'm trying to continue to grow investing and if I can find good trustworthy investors that then trust me to have their contractors information, that would probably be step one for me.

[A]

AJ I want to get your opinion on a rookie just getting started. What is like one of the first systems and processes that they should actually implement when they're investing.

[D]

Yeah, I think that depends a little bit on kind of what the strategy is. You know, for us kind of initially like didn't really have a whole lot of like spreadsheets. Like our first live and flip, it was like, yeah, I think we can probably do it for about X amount of dollars. And so I think having a way to track your budget and then knowing kind of what the total amount you want to spend is and getting a good idea of what that looks like on the front side will help you on the backside so you're not spending more than you actually wanted to. And then for the landlording side, having a good system like a rent ready will make your life a lot easier. Having good, you know, way to track your rent or a good way to track your expenses. Having a good way to keep your documents in one place so you have your leases you have all everything's coming into one portal. I think that's huge too. It's going to take a lot of the brain damage out of things as you're trying to learn.

[A]

Landlording and Biggerpockets Pro members get rent ready for $1 too. So if you're a pro member and it's also really affordable too if you're not a pro member. So check out rent ready. Okay, we have to take a short break and when we come back we're going to discuss some more advice for rookies and what they can do if they want to get started.

[E]

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[E]

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[A]

Okay, we're back and thank you guys so much for taking the time to check out our show sponsors during these ad breaks. Okay, Nicole, so you've surrounded yourself with an investor community to help grow your investing. Throughout the episode, you've given us multiple examples of how that has really helped helped your business. Why should a rookie investor find a community or a group of investors to connect with? Why shouldn't they just go out and do everything on their own?

[C]

Yeah, great question, Ashley. I think A.G. and I were just talking about that this morning. It's actually not about houses at all. Everything we do in real estate almost has nothing to do with the property itself, but the relationships that surround the property. Right. If you're investing and you're going to be a landlord, well, then your tenants are a crucial piece of what you have going on. If you're buying flips, then you have a relationship with the seller and the contractor. And if you want a good reputation, you should probably have a good standing with the future buyer. Right. Relationships through and through are the heartbeat and the thread of real estate investing. And so finding a community and your footing in a real estate investing community can be such a game changer in setting you apart and ensuring that you don't make mistakes that a bunch of other people made before you. So our version of that is we go to investor meetups. There was a long standing meetup in our community that had been meeting already for years. We showed up, figured out how we could pitch in and be helpful. Once again, value add is the name of the game for us. Value add on properties and also value add in relationships. So we became so valuable to that investor community that we actually get to host that space now. So we gather anywhere between 60 to 200 investors every single month, month in the state of Washington. And we host spaces, we bring in great speakers to teach us all the things we don't know how to do. And the plus side of being the host of that is I get to ask all the questions that AJ and I have. So it's like free consulting with top level investors. You bring them in to talk and you get to ask all your great questions.

[A]

What do you think we're doing with you guys right now?

[C]

Yes, exactly. But folks want to share what they know and that has been such a big space. So that's called WARI Washington Real Estate Investing. It's a Facebook group turned into an in person meetup and it has been hands down, probably the largest launcher for us in our investing because you build relationship with people that you can just ask questions to and they're so excited to give you all of their resources. Right. The budget sheet that AJ's referring to, that we use to build out the scope of our projects somebody else made that we didn't build out that spreadsheet. Somebody else gave us that tool, and we get to benefit from it every day.

[B]

Yeah, I think community is such an important, important part for folks who are on the beginning part of their journey, because for. For so many rookie investors, you almost feel like you're doing it by yourself. And you. You don't have maybe that best friend who's right by your side and doing it with you that you. You kind of learn real estate in a vacuum. But I think real estate becomes so much more approachable and tangible and realistic when you can have conversations with people who are actually doing it. And it. It, It. It feels like something you can actually accomplish when you can shake someone's hand who said, oh, yeah, I just did this thing that you've been, you know, afraid to do for the last, you know, however. However long. So love the, Love the value of community. A.J. what about you? What do you. I know you said you guys have a flip that you're, you know, one sidewalk away from. From being done on, but maybe give us a quick update. What's. What's been going on in this last project you guys are working on.

[D]

Yeah, that was a. That was kind of a long. A long process to get to the closing tip on that one. And I think that's a lot of where Nicole was, really brings their value is, you know, being able to build relationships and build rapport and, you know, help kind of suss out what the problems are. And this particular Property had about 10 to 12 people living there, some of them not so invited. There was an RV that was on the property, and, you know, just some individuals that maybe weren't necessarily treating the people in the property around them with the same levels of respect as maybe what the homeowner had wanted. And then the property had fallen into some. Some disrepair as well. And so that one, you know, we got to the closing table. The. There were some family members that were really involved that really worked hard to also try to help this, you know, sweet older gal move on to the next stage in her life. Well, and that part of that was helping her get some of these people off the property as well. We provided some resources to them, but, you know, they. They definitely stepped in to help take care of the. The folks that were around the property that shouldn't have been there, but they came back to the property and did take some things that after closing was kind of the. We were going to keep. But. But in the end, it wasn't necessarily a huge impact to us. It was just kind of par for the course. It just kind of comes with the territory when you're dealing with, you know, properties that might have a level of distress. You know, distressed properties are typically just a, you know, byproduct of distressed people. And that's why taking care of the people are so important to, at least to us. Because the, those people are really the more important part of the process. That's the most important part for us at least. So yeah, that property, we quickly got dumpsters onto the property before we even closed on it to give the family members a place to put things that they weren't going to take. And then after the fact, we quickly tried to remove everything from the inside of the house so that there would be less incentive for people to come back.

[B]

Let me ask guys. Rick, you're mentioning some issues that I think as a first time investor would have of throwing you off your game. And it feels like, man, the world's coming to an end. But now as a more experienced investor just kind of, you know, rolls off your back. What do you guys know now after having done, you know, multiple of these types of projects, the regular flips, 11 flips, your property managing. What do you know now that you wish you would have known on that first project that you stepped into?

[D]

Yeah, I think what we know now that I kind of wish that we know a little bit more at the beginning was it's really not that serious. I think some of the things that feel like really big problems, once you've dealt with them a time or two, they ended up really not being that big. They're just another problem that you have to solve. And so when you find those problems, then you know at least how to solve them. At least that's for me. I don't know if you have something different.

[C]

Yeah, I think there's this concept of trust but verify. Right. That's something I wish we knew straight out of the gates on our very first project that live in Flip, where we lived in the room, you know, in the RV in the driveway. We had a contractor steal from us then too. And you know, so now as a more, you know, as we've spent more time and we're a little bit more strategic in our investing, we trust but verify. If we have a new contractor or a new company working with us or even if we're working with the seller and they've said they were going to go do something, we show up and go look. So we are local investors. We usually invest within 20 to 30 minutes of our personal home, which means we get to be on site. And then the last thing I love about this is if you're investing anywhere, meet the neighbors. If you're gonna buy a home, even if you're gonna keep it as a long term rental, short term, or you're, you know, gonna flip the house, meet the neighbors. They become your biggest resource in my opinion. And if you build great relationship, I'm talking I send our the neighbors of our flip coffee cards. Every time our contractor, you know, pulls into their driveway accidentally, I'm sending them thank yous, I'm giving them phone calls, checking in on them, but they are end up being your eyes and ears when you're not around. So sure, you might end up with a few extra phone calls of complaints from a neighbor that says the hammer was swinging a little too late, but I'd rather them call me than them call the cops. So that's my other tidbit for a rookie investor is build relationship wherever you go. Have a high level integrity. And if you leverage that and keep that reputation, it's definitely going to serve you in the end.

[D]

Adding on to that just briefly too, part of that trust but verify process is to get everything in writing. If it's not in writing, you have nothing to go back on. If it didn't turn out like you wanted or didn't turn out like you agreed, if you just had a handshake deal on something or you just talked about it when you're at the property with somebody but never got it in writing, ultimately that's on you. If it doesn't turn out like you wanted because you have nothing to go back on and stand on and say, no, we agreed to X. And the contractor or whoever that other person says, well, I remember it this, if you don't have it in writing, it doesn't. It's not real.

[A]

Well, Nicole and aj, thank you so much for sharing your advice with rookie investors. And coming on today. Can you let everyone know where they can reach out to you and find out more information about your journey?

[C]

Absolutely. Instagram's probably the best way to find us. We're on Instagram. I'm at Nicole frandenisa.

[D]

Yeah, and I'm at Anthony Fran and.

[C]

We'D love to connect. Hit us up in the DMs. We'll see you at the conferences out there in the wild. But truly, thank you guys.

[A]

Are you gonna be at bpcon?

[C]

I. We want to go to bpcon. We might be there.

[A]

Okay. Yeah, we'd love to see you guys there, and I'm sure everyone listening would love to connect with you guys at bpcon. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us today. I'm Ashley. He's Tony. And we'll see you guys on the next episode.