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Rochanne Douglas - The Cracks Didn't Break Me · REL Freedom Podcast

0:00
Rochanne Douglas: To be honest, I sacrificed a lot of time.
0:02
Rochanne Douglas: A lot of time with my children.
0:04
Rochanne Douglas: You know, they they to this day, my daughter hates Home Depot and Lowe's.
0:07
Rochanne Douglas: She will not go there because it's like, okay, I picked you up from school.
0:10
Rochanne Douglas: We got to go to Home Depot.
0:12
Rochanne Douglas: We have to go to Lowe's.
0:12
Rochanne Douglas: We have to do this.
0:13
Rochanne Douglas: Um, it was just, it was really just a push to get it done.
0:17
Rochanne Douglas: Um, I can't even say how I juggled it.
0:20
Rochanne Douglas: I just made it happen.
0:22
Mike Swenson: Welcome to the Real Freedom Show.
0:24
Mike Swenson: We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.
0:29
Mike Swenson: I'm your host, Mike Swenson.
0:30
Mike Swenson: Let's get some real freedom together.
0:33
Mike Swenson: Hello, everybody.
0:42
Mike Swenson: Welcome to another episode of Real Freedom, Real Estate Leverage Freedom, where we talk about different ways that people are building a career inside of real estate.
0:51
Mike Swenson: I'm your host, Mike Swenson.
0:52
Mike Swenson: If you want to get started on your real estate journey, check out our website, freedom throughrealestate.com.
0:58
Mike Swenson: It's where we put all of our content for you to listen to other people's stories, see the path that they've taken, and hopefully be inspired or connected to other people that are doing some cool things in real estate.
1:09
Mike Swenson: And I'm super excited to share today.
1:11
Mike Swenson: We've got a great guest, Roshan Douglas.
1:13
Mike Swenson: Roshan is an entrepreneur, uh seasoned real estate professional investor, author, and founder of Loving to Learn Childcare Center.
1:21
Mike Swenson: Lots of different experiences, lots of background in real estate, which we'll talk about.
1:24
Mike Swenson: Also, have a book, Cracked, a Memoir of Survival, Faith, and Becoming.
1:28
Mike Swenson: We'll talk about the process of that and everything in between.
1:31
Mike Swenson: So, Roshan, we're so excited to have you on the show.
1:33
Mike Swenson: Welcome.
1:34
Rochanne Douglas: Thank you for having me.
1:34
Rochanne Douglas: I'm happy to be here.
1:35
Mike Swenson: Take us back to the beginning.
1:37
Mike Swenson: Talk to us a little bit about your background and uh we'll go from there.
1:41
Rochanne Douglas: I am a, as I as you um announced, I'm a founder of a child care center, which is kind of how my real estate career began.
1:48
Rochanne Douglas: I had a small daycare and I needed somewhere to go.
1:51
Rochanne Douglas: And so I bought my first house at 19 years old.
1:54
Rochanne Douglas: And so, yeah, buying that house, I established um a love of real estate because I amassed a lot of equity during the first few years of that property.
2:04
Rochanne Douglas: And I became a landlord very young.
2:05
Rochanne Douglas: I bought a second property.
2:07
Rochanne Douglas: I realized that, oh my gosh, my neighbor's house sold for $200,000 more than what I paid.
2:13
Rochanne Douglas: And the light bulb kind of went off at that time.
2:15
Rochanne Douglas: Like, oh, this is a thing.
2:17
Rochanne Douglas: I just bought the house really to have a place for my business.
2:20
Rochanne Douglas: But when I realized the power of real estate, I thought, well, wow, if I had three or four of these, you know, I'd be in, you know, good shape.
2:27
Rochanne Douglas: And so that's how it kind of got started.
2:29
Rochanne Douglas: I flipped my first house at 28 and my career continued on.
2:35
Rochanne Douglas: I got my real estate license in Maryland.
2:38
Rochanne Douglas: Um maybe 15 years ago now.
2:40
Rochanne Douglas: I began my journey with um helping other people buy real estate, flipping houses, um, buying and holding um short-term rentals and everything in between.
2:52
Mike Swenson: Good to see.
2:52
Mike Swenson: I mean, I I worked for a nonprofit for 10 years.
2:55
Mike Swenson: And for me, yeah, kind of the the real estate piece was a big side component because you know, we didn't have a ton of money.
3:02
Mike Swenson: My wife had just graduated college too.
3:04
Mike Swenson: And so it was an opportunity to be able to earn some equity just by paying the mortgage, you know, and continuing to do updates and things like that.
3:11
Mike Swenson: So certainly helpful for people on the side.
3:14
Mike Swenson: So for you, then it kind of sounds like seeing the equity gain, seeing the neighbors' houses, kind of what that sold for.
3:21
Mike Swenson: That was maybe what what inspired you to get on the path in real estate?
3:25
Rochanne Douglas: That's what inspired me.
3:27
Rochanne Douglas: As I said, I was a child care provider.
3:29
Rochanne Douglas: Um, that was a good, stable living, but I knew it wasn't something that could elevate my life or, you know, really get me the financial freedom that I was looking for.
3:37
Rochanne Douglas: Um, and I when I saw those gains in real estate, I just was I was drawn to it.
3:42
Rochanne Douglas: I was like, I've got to get into this game.
3:44
Rochanne Douglas: And funny enough, the first house that I bought at 19, I bought from a flipper.
3:48
Rochanne Douglas: But at the time, I didn't realize he was the flipper.
3:51
Rochanne Douglas: I just knew that I bought a renovated house.
3:54
Rochanne Douglas: Um, but when we were at the settlement table, he got a check for 90,000.
3:58
Rochanne Douglas: And I was like, oh wow, what did he get that for?
4:00
Rochanne Douglas: Mind you, I'm 19, so I have no clue about anything.
4:03
Rochanne Douglas: I'm just kind of there.
4:04
Rochanne Douglas: And he was like, I said, How much did you pay for the house?
4:06
Rochanne Douglas: And he said, 30,000.
4:08
Rochanne Douglas: And I'm like, so you get a $90,000 check, you paid $30,000 and I'm paying you $90,000 for the house or one $150,000 for the house, you know, and it was just like, ta-da, you need to get into this.
4:19
Mike Swenson: Yeah, it's interesting.
4:19
Mike Swenson: And and what I love hearing from people too is you know, a lot of times when they're starting, it is uncalculated, it's just on a whim.
4:26
Mike Swenson: Because I think so many times people feel like, oh, if I want in a good real estate, I have to watch a bunch of podcasts and go read a bunch of books and study up.
4:34
Mike Swenson: And a lot of those people end up just getting into analysis paralysis and don't do anything.
4:38
Mike Swenson: And and you took action without realizing what you were taking action on, saw the results and and kind of figured out a way to spin it to uh what is going to be a beneficial career for you.
4:51
Rochanne Douglas: Yes, absolutely.
4:52
Rochanne Douglas: And that's when I became an agent, I advocated for that.
4:54
Rochanne Douglas: Even if you can get in something small, just buy something.
4:58
Rochanne Douglas: Because even if you can't live in it, buy it and rent it out so that you can become a player in the game.
5:04
Rochanne Douglas: Because if you don't, you're kind of pricing yourself out of any kind of advantage because every time you move, your landlord is gonna want more rent, more rent, more rent, and you get nothing for it.
5:14
Rochanne Douglas: So when I saw that, I always advocated start small, get a first-time homebuyer program.
5:19
Rochanne Douglas: Um, a lot of places have um grants and you know programs that they're trying to promote.
5:25
Rochanne Douglas: Get into the program, just get into a property.
5:27
Rochanne Douglas: It doesn't have to be a dream property.
5:29
Rochanne Douglas: The my first house didn't have a garbage disposal, it didn't have a dishwasher, it you know, was teen.
5:35
Rochanne Douglas: We outgrew it like in one year, but I owned it and it was mine, you know, as opposed to paying a landlord for rent.
5:41
Rochanne Douglas: So I I encourage people just get into however you have to get into it, just to start.
5:45
Rochanne Douglas: And then you can always build up and go from there.
5:48
Mike Swenson: Yeah.
5:48
Mike Swenson: And out of curiosity, then was it uh like a uh like a FHA low down payment, or kind of what did you have to do at 19 to be able to save, or was it zero percent down at the time?
6:00
Mike Swenson: Kind of curious how you were able to get into it.
6:02
Rochanne Douglas: It was a low um FHA program, adjustable rate because at the time rates were high.
6:07
Rochanne Douglas: My rate was seven and a half percent back then, and that was at on an arm.
6:10
Rochanne Douglas: So a standard rate was around 10.
6:12
Rochanne Douglas: Um, so I just got in my rental payment, I'll never forget, was six hundred and eighty-five dollars.
6:18
Rochanne Douglas: My mortgage was gonna be seven hundred and fifteen dollars.
6:21
Rochanne Douglas: And that at that time, that was in 1994.
6:25
Rochanne Douglas: That was a big, big jump for me.
6:28
Rochanne Douglas: But I was like, I'm gonna make the sacrifice and I'm gonna do it.
6:30
Rochanne Douglas: So it was a uh uh FHA program that I got in with three and a half percent.
6:34
Mike Swenson: That's great.
6:35
Mike Swenson: I know you had mentioned about the the adjustable rate.
6:37
Mike Swenson: Um, you know, when we bought our first house, I was talking with my lender who was was my cousin, and he was like, Hey, do you plan on we had a townhouse?
6:45
Mike Swenson: And he said, Hey, do you plan on living here for more than five years?
6:47
Mike Swenson: I said, Nope.
6:48
Mike Swenson: He said, Okay, great.
6:49
Mike Swenson: Well, we have this adjustable rate program.
6:51
Mike Swenson: Didn't think anything of it, right?
6:53
Mike Swenson: And it was a a ticking time bomb that um took a lot of people down with them.
6:57
Mike Swenson: And fortunately, we were able to kind of work and finagle our way around that.
7:01
Mike Swenson: But um, you know, sometimes, yeah, you do have to figure out how to adjust, and it turned into us um owning that townhouse for probably 15 years because we did buy right before the crash, and then to be able to come back, but we were able to hold and have a good story long term.
7:16
Mike Swenson: It wasn't a good story in the short term, right?
7:18
Mike Swenson: And so I think that speaks to real estate does have its challenges, it's not perfect, it does have its struggles, and yet the longer you hold, the longer time is on your side, the more beneficial that happens is as your mortgage gets paid down, the principal goes down.
7:31
Mike Swenson: You do have the the equity depending on the time of of uh your life when you you buy it and how much that equity goes up.
7:37
Mike Swenson: And so, yeah, there's a lot of different levers that work out, and so good that you guys got in at a good time.
7:42
Rochanne Douglas: You always make sure we have a plan B.
7:44
Rochanne Douglas: That even when, as an investor or as a first-time home buyer, if this doesn't work out, can I rent a room out?
7:50
Rochanne Douglas: You know, what can I do to make sure that I can sustain if things don't go as planned?
7:54
Rochanne Douglas: Because you do want to be able to hold on to the property.
7:56
Rochanne Douglas: So you always have to have some kind of plan B.
7:58
Rochanne Douglas: When I got into um short-term rental, I had a daycare, it was a daycare, and I closed it um as I was expanding.
8:05
Rochanne Douglas: And I'm sitting with the house that has all these bedrooms and bathrooms and things like that.
8:09
Rochanne Douglas: And I'm like, what am I gonna do with this house?
8:11
Rochanne Douglas: It's it's chopped up, you know, kind of thing.
8:13
Rochanne Douglas: And I had a friend that was doing um Airbnb, and I said, Well, I'll try that out.
8:18
Rochanne Douglas: So that was a plan B.
8:19
Rochanne Douglas: And I figured I'm also by the University of Maryland, so I figured if that didn't work, then I could do rooms for college students.
8:26
Rochanne Douglas: But I did it and I loved it, and it, you know, ended up being a great, a great thing to do.
8:31
Mike Swenson: So, did you do Airbnb kind of rent by the room, or did you rent out the entire unit as like one one room?
8:38
Rochanne Douglas: Renting by room, which was um not a good thing for I think that's okay if you live on site because you're able to kind of monitor people, but I did that very like fifth long, and then you know, I did the whole house because I think somebody needed a monitor because you just don't know who's coming in and out and stuff like that, and you can't control it.
8:55
Mike Swenson: Interesting that you talk about your story of being at the closing table and have your eyes open to something different because our first flip property that we did, we held on to it, actually rented it out to my brother-in-law because we kind of ran the math and determined hey, if he paid rent to us, it would be less than what he's currently paying his landlord.
9:12
Mike Swenson: And we know who he is, and he's trustworthy, and we know he's gonna pay.
9:16
Mike Swenson: And so that was kind of what helped us to make that leap.
9:19
Mike Swenson: But long story short, we fixed it up eventually when he he went to buy his house.
9:23
Mike Swenson: The person that we sold the house to did rent by the room, and he had multiple properties near the University of Minnesota campuses.
9:31
Mike Swenson: And our agent said, Yeah, he does this rent by the room.
9:34
Mike Swenson: And then I started to do the math, and I'm like, wait a second, he's renting out four or five of these, and and kind of like what people do turn some of the common areas into additional bedrooms and things like that.
9:44
Mike Swenson: And I was like, Holy cow, he's living there and renting out four other rooms.
9:49
Mike Swenson: He's looking pretty sharp.
9:50
Mike Swenson: And and now, you know, rent by the room is much more popular today than it was, man, it was 15 years ago, I think, when we sold that property to him.
9:58
Rochanne Douglas: Because rents have increased so much if people almost can't afford to live on their own.
10:02
Rochanne Douglas: You know, here in um Maryland, I'm right outside of Washington, DC.
10:06
Rochanne Douglas: Room rentals are starting at a thousand dollars for a teeny bedroom.
10:09
Rochanne Douglas: And if you get one with an en suite or something like that, it can be fifteen hundred dollars for just a room.
10:15
Rochanne Douglas: So um the shared living is really becoming popular because it's becoming so expensive, which is why I advocate for people to buy.
10:22
Rochanne Douglas: Because even though right now it may seem like, you know, it's a higher payment or the interest rate is high.
10:28
Rochanne Douglas: But if you hold, like you said, and time gets on your side, then you become in a much better um financial situation.
10:33
Rochanne Douglas: So I still encourage uh home ownership and rent real estate investing.
10:38
Mike Swenson: Now you mentioned, okay, so owned your own home, flipped a home.
10:40
Mike Swenson: You mentioned a short-term rental.
10:42
Mike Swenson: What was the next step for you?
10:44
Mike Swenson: And how are you able to handle balancing that with running your childcare business?
10:51
Rochanne Douglas: The next step was that I was successful with the flipping of the houses, but then I wanted to hold.
10:56
Rochanne Douglas: I didn't want to just keep flipping and flipping, and you know, I wanted to be able to hold on to some of the assets.
11:01
Rochanne Douglas: So I got into landlord, uh, being a landlord for a short time.
11:04
Rochanne Douglas: But then I was finding that every time the tenant would move, the house needed to be almost renovated.
11:09
Rochanne Douglas: They wouldn't tell you about the leak in the bathtub and the ceiling fell in, or they I had one person install a stripper pole in the bath in the bedroom and painted this dark blue.
11:19
Rochanne Douglas: It took like eight gallons of eighty gallons of paint to get it back.
11:22
Rochanne Douglas: Like, so they just have a horror story, or you get the calls every week.
11:26
Rochanne Douglas: I don't have this, my I lost my job.
11:29
Rochanne Douglas: This so I was just like so tired of that.
11:32
Rochanne Douglas: Um, and that compiled with running my other business.
11:35
Rochanne Douglas: Luckily, I had staff and I grew that business so that I could take a little bit of a step away and really invest in the real estate.
11:42
Rochanne Douglas: Um, I wanted the real estate to be a long-term play for me and my family so that we could have, you know, a legacy, uh, generational wealth.
11:52
Rochanne Douglas: And so that's how I got into short-term rental.
11:54
Rochanne Douglas: When I closed that one daycare and use that as a short-term rental, I really liked that platform because you're in the property constantly, you're able to see what's going on, even with a bad tenant.
12:05
Rochanne Douglas: They're only there for four days, or you know, so you really can't, you can do damage.
12:09
Rochanne Douglas: So I have stories about that.
12:11
Rochanne Douglas: But, you know, most people won't tear up a house in four days.
12:14
Rochanne Douglas: So it was a little bit of a um better play for me um at the time.
12:19
Rochanne Douglas: Um, so I just continue to grow in in the real estate um business and like I said, doing the short-term rentals.
12:26
Mike Swenson: How much time did that take?
12:28
Mike Swenson: You know, you mentioned you were able to take some time away from your other business.
12:31
Mike Swenson: I'm just kind of curious how you're able to juggle your schedules and juggle your responsibilities and your sanity um at the same time, trying to do multiple things because there's so many people that are entrepreneurs or have a W-2 job and are doing real estate in some way, shape, or form on the side.
12:46
Mike Swenson: And it is a challenge.
12:48
Mike Swenson: Um, and some may want to get into it full time, some may just want to still continue to keep things separate.
12:53
Mike Swenson: So just kind of curious how you're able to handle, you know, your quote unquote day job with you know, being able to do some of this real estate stuff and continue to build that.
13:03
Rochanne Douglas: A lot of weekends and holidays and evenings.
13:06
Rochanne Douglas: So you just it was like a juggling.
13:08
Rochanne Douglas: And to be honest, I sacrificed a lot of time, a lot of time with my children.
13:12
Rochanne Douglas: You know, they they to this day, my daughter hates Home Depot and Lowe's.
13:15
Rochanne Douglas: She will not go there because it's like, okay, I picked you up from school.
13:19
Rochanne Douglas: We got to go to Home Depot.
13:20
Rochanne Douglas: We have to go to Lowe's, we have to do this.
13:22
Rochanne Douglas: Um, it was just, it was really just a push to get it done.
13:26
Rochanne Douglas: Um, I can't even say how I juggled it.
13:28
Rochanne Douglas: I just made it happen.
13:29
Rochanne Douglas: It was I had a fierce determination to do it.
13:32
Rochanne Douglas: Um, I I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
13:34
Rochanne Douglas: I had great contractors as well.
13:36
Rochanne Douglas: Um, that really plays a huge part because when you don't have to manage your contractor or make sure that they're doing everything correctly, that really gives you a lot of freedom too.
13:45
Rochanne Douglas: So a great contractor is like golden.
13:48
Rochanne Douglas: So if you get one, make sure you treat them well and and and keep them on board because I we've had the same contractor for the last 15 years.
13:55
Rochanne Douglas: Um, and he can build a house from the ground up.
13:58
Rochanne Douglas: And we've used other people because at one time we had flip multiple flips and things like that.
14:02
Rochanne Douglas: But really, it's just pushing and you you have to sacrifice.
14:06
Rochanne Douglas: You have to sacrifice sometimes those evenings, those Saturday mornings, you know, and and to push till you get to a place where then you can choose a little bit um of what you want to do.
14:16
Mike Swenson: How many flips have you done in total?
14:19
Rochanne Douglas: I do not have an answer for that.
14:20
Mike Swenson: Uh too many to count.
14:22
Rochanne Douglas: It would be challenging.
14:23
Rochanne Douglas: There was a point in time I didn't even know how many houses I had at one time.
14:27
Rochanne Douglas: Somebody asked me, and I was like, one, two, three, four, five.
14:30
Rochanne Douglas: I'm not really sure how many I had.
14:32
Rochanne Douglas: Um I wouldn't say substantial.
14:35
Rochanne Douglas: It wasn't a huge undertaking, but it it's probably at least around 20 or so.
14:40
Rochanne Douglas: Um probably at one time we were doing two or three um at a time, which was a lot uh to take on.
14:47
Mike Swenson: Yeah, it's funny.
14:48
Mike Swenson: I had uh early on, we had our our townhouse, uh, we had our flip, which we bought for $36,000.
14:55
Mike Swenson: Um, and then we had another single family home because we had turned our townhouse into a rental, and then we had our single family home that was a short sale that we bought at a fire sale discount, too, that I was able to fix up.
15:08
Mike Swenson: And so at that time we had the three properties and we were renting out the other two.
15:12
Mike Swenson: And one of my friends had a had a young daughter, and somehow it got brought up in conversation.
15:17
Mike Swenson: Now, mind you, they lived in a brand new build, amazing home that was just perfect.
15:24
Mike Swenson: And she was talking, and and uh in her perspective, she said something about about the different houses that we had, and she said, Wow, they own three houses, they must have a lot of money.
15:33
Mike Swenson: And I'm thinking, not at all.
15:35
Mike Swenson: Like we have way less than right, way less than you guys do.
15:39
Mike Swenson: We're just working harder to kind of build that and grow that, and the houses that we have, you know, probably are worth what your bedroom is worth.
15:47
Mike Swenson: But uh, yeah, it's it's funny how you know, little kids' perspectives and what they think is cool because yeah, there's a lot of kids out there that think that doing this stuff is cool.
15:55
Mike Swenson: And to your point, my kids have shown zero interest in any of the real stuff state stuff that we've we've done on our side.
16:02
Rochanne Douglas: And you have to see a vision for it.
16:03
Rochanne Douglas: I've always been like a person who can kind of see what's not there.
16:07
Rochanne Douglas: My first house was a flip, but the second one that I bought that I ended up converting into a child care center, um, it was it had 11 stores in the basement.
16:16
Rochanne Douglas: It had water problems, it had, but the reason why I got it is because it had land.
16:21
Rochanne Douglas: It sat on land, it was very convenient to the university, to um the metro station for people that go in and out of DC for work.
16:29
Rochanne Douglas: So at looking at it from a business perspective as well as a real estate purchase, I had to see beyond the water and the snakes and the grass grew up over the house and all of the things and just you know bootstrap it.
16:43
Rochanne Douglas: Um, I didn't come into the business with a business mind.
16:46
Rochanne Douglas: Again, I was growing my childcare center and real estate was just a part of that.
16:51
Rochanne Douglas: Um, so I didn't have traditional financing.
16:55
Rochanne Douglas: I financed my house through a traditional mortgage loan, but then I had to figure out how to convert that into a business.
17:02
Rochanne Douglas: So that was really, you know, um a lot of lessons, a lot of hard lessons.
17:07
Rochanne Douglas: I didn't get into real capital um until long after I had been flipping houses and all that.
17:13
Rochanne Douglas: I was using my own money, reinvesting it, and then the light bulb came on that you need to be doing this a little bit differently than you're doing it.
17:20
Rochanne Douglas: And then I discovered, you know, capital and things like that.
17:23
Rochanne Douglas: But I just used what I had and did the best I could and just said, you're gonna do this one way or the other.
17:28
Rochanne Douglas: So figure it out.
17:29
Mike Swenson: So did you do like the the Burr method and and buy and fix it up and then kind of take those proceeds into your next flip, or was it hard money, or how were you able to kind of keep that moving forward without just putting in more new capital of your own?
17:43
Rochanne Douglas: At first, it was the Burr method.
17:44
Rochanne Douglas: Um then we started working with working capital.
17:48
Rochanne Douglas: Um, and then you know, and then you are able to get business loans and things like that.
17:53
Rochanne Douglas: Once you have a substantial, you know, portfolio, you're able to do things a lot differently.
17:56
Rochanne Douglas: But it started off with just sell the first house, take the money, reinvest it, do it again, do it again.
18:03
Rochanne Douglas: So that's how we started.
18:04
Mike Swenson: So, where do you guys stand today?
18:05
Mike Swenson: How is your time spent today?
18:07
Mike Swenson: On, I guess I don't know if you're still running your your child care business or real estate.
18:12
Mike Swenson: What is what does that look like now?
18:14
Rochanne Douglas: The child care center pretty much runs itself.
18:16
Rochanne Douglas: I'm over 30 some years into that, so I'm thankful for that.
18:19
Rochanne Douglas: Um, the real estate business is um it's it's doing good.
18:23
Rochanne Douglas: We still have a lot of houses, but we had a situation, uh squatter case in DC that really kind of took me out um emotionally with the real estate.
18:33
Rochanne Douglas: I went through a lot of stuff over these years with tenants and Airbnb and all kinds of stuff.
18:38
Rochanne Douglas: But this particular situation really put me in a place of really trying to recalibrate and figure out what I want to do.
18:46
Rochanne Douglas: We ended up selling the house that this situation took place in.
18:49
Rochanne Douglas: It was in DC for uh not exactly a loss, but it was less than market value because I just wanted out.
18:57
Rochanne Douglas: Um it took a hit because the house was over there by the new commander stadium.
19:01
Rochanne Douglas: So in a few years it'll be worth a ton of money.
19:04
Rochanne Douglas: So, you know, it was it and just the loss of the money, the lawyers, the all of the things that I had to deal with as it's as it relates to the house.
19:12
Rochanne Douglas: So it has put me in a kind of a holding pattern with real estate as far as where do I want to go next.
19:18
Rochanne Douglas: Um, as far as because that was an Airbnb.
19:21
Rochanne Douglas: So that situation took place and arose out of an Airbnb guest.
19:25
Rochanne Douglas: Um, and I don't want to go back into long-term rental.
19:29
Rochanne Douglas: Um, Airbnb, like I said, it had been good.
19:32
Rochanne Douglas: Uh so it's kind of a holding pattern.
19:34
Rochanne Douglas: I don't know what the next steps are right now.
19:37
Rochanne Douglas: Just probably sit and hold and wait and kind of let the dust settle a bit.
19:43
Mike Swenson: Well, and I love that because I think for people listening, you might feel like you have to have all the answers and have it figured out, and or you've got this grand plan of where you're going.
19:53
Mike Swenson: And most people that I talk to things shift around, right?
19:56
Mike Swenson: Your passions shift.
19:57
Mike Swenson: You run into things of I thought this would be cool and now it's not cool, or I thought this would be easy and it's not as easy.
20:04
Mike Swenson: And maybe I decide I like this over there.
20:06
Mike Swenson: And that's the amazing thing about real estate is you can choose your own path and you can create a different path and still take all the knowledge and experience that you have, and the relationships and the banking relationships and the vendor contract relationships and apply it in different areas.
20:21
Mike Swenson: And so I think that's the cool part of your story is um, yeah, you have all this experience, and now, yeah, you can decide kind of where is that next step for you and and what do you want to do?
20:31
Mike Swenson: But you have all this experience that you've relied on to help you make good educated decisions, and two problem solving skills, like the you know, one of the things that I share a lot on here is to be an expert problem solver, you have to have problems that you're solving, right?
20:45
Mike Swenson: Otherwise, you you can't be a problem solver if you don't have any problems.
20:49
Mike Swenson: So, you know, being able to figure out and navigate those situations now will help you make good decisions in the future, leaning on your problem solving skills in the past.
20:58
Mike Swenson: So that's fantastic.
21:00
Rochanne Douglas: Yes, and I actually am in a stage where I want to give back.
21:02
Rochanne Douglas: So I was looking at I have two empty properties additionally, and I was thinking about as we talked about the rooms, the shared housing, um, doing that and maybe also providing housing for displaced individuals, people who are struggling with maybe domestic violence or temporary homelessness.
21:18
Rochanne Douglas: I there are a lot of programs out there.
21:20
Rochanne Douglas: I'm trying to figure out a use of the homes that I have to give back or to be more of a benefit.
21:25
Rochanne Douglas: So I'm kind of looking at different avenues of what to do with these properties that could be impactful in the world too, not just financially, but you know, also do good for other people.
21:34
Rochanne Douglas: So I'm looking into different things.
21:36
Rochanne Douglas: Oh I'm not I'm not done yet.
21:38
Mike Swenson: Yes, absolutely.
21:40
Mike Swenson: And I think that's a good transition to your book.
21:42
Mike Swenson: Talk about the process of being inspired, deciding, you know, yes, I want to do something like this, putting pen to paper and flushing it all out.
21:50
Mike Swenson: Well, tell us, you know, how that came about and how to be for you.
21:53
Rochanne Douglas: It's kind of like other the other things in my life.
21:55
Rochanne Douglas: When I flipped my first house five years before that, I said, I want to flip a house.
22:00
Rochanne Douglas: When I realized the equity position, I didn't know how I was gonna do it.
22:03
Rochanne Douglas: I didn't know anything about real estate.
22:05
Rochanne Douglas: Mind you, I was in my early 20s.
22:06
Rochanne Douglas: I had two kids.
22:07
Rochanne Douglas: I was, you know, I was not in a business mindset at all, but I said I want to do it.
22:11
Rochanne Douglas: And then one day I got a phone call and it was available and I did it.
22:16
Rochanne Douglas: The book is the same way.
22:18
Rochanne Douglas: Several years ago, I would tell people about my story and how I, you know, have done things and the the child care center and the real estate and how things kind of manifested, and they would say, Oh, you should write a book, oh, you should write a book.
22:28
Rochanne Douglas: And one day I did my vision board and the author, I put it on my vision board.
22:32
Rochanne Douglas: This was in 2013.
22:34
Rochanne Douglas: I wrote two chapters and said, Oh, I don't have time for this.
22:37
Rochanne Douglas: I'm flipping houses.
22:39
Rochanne Douglas: I'm a real estate agent, I own a child care center.
22:41
Rochanne Douglas: And then um, last year, the author came back to me and I said, Oh, I should write this book.
22:48
Rochanne Douglas: And I just wrote it.
22:50
Rochanne Douglas: I wrote it.
22:52
Rochanne Douglas: It talks about all of the challenges that I went through as a teenage mom, starting my first business, buying my real estate.
22:59
Rochanne Douglas: It talks about how I flipped my first house from a phone call from my dad in the middle of the night.
23:04
Rochanne Douglas: It talks about how I bootstrapped my way along, you know, and it's written really to give people an inspiration to know no matter where you are, you that's not your final destination.
23:13
Rochanne Douglas: You can do anything you put your mind to it.
23:15
Rochanne Douglas: Just keep going.
23:16
Rochanne Douglas: Don't quit.
23:17
Rochanne Douglas: It talks about the roads, you know.
23:19
Rochanne Douglas: When I bought the house that I turned into a full childcare center, I had gone through six different opportunities to have a standalone childcare center that all fell through.
23:30
Rochanne Douglas: They all fell through.
23:31
Rochanne Douglas: I would put a business plan together and do all the things, and then this happened or that happened, but I just never quit.
23:36
Rochanne Douglas: I never gave up.
23:37
Rochanne Douglas: So the book is really just to give people that that notion.
23:41
Rochanne Douglas: Just don't quit, keep going, and things will work out.
23:45
Mike Swenson: Wonderful.
23:46
Mike Swenson: For people that want to uh, you know, either get the book or reach out to you or learn more about you.
23:51
Mike Swenson: Uh, how can they do so?
23:54
Rochanne Douglas: Um, I'm on Instagram at Forever Miss Roshan, because that's my childcare name, Miss Roshan.
23:58
Rochanne Douglas: Um, you can also connect with me on my email, uh, connect.rsdouglas at gmail.com.
24:04
Rochanne Douglas: Um, I'm pretty easy.
24:06
Rochanne Douglas: If you Google me, I come up.
24:08
Rochanne Douglas: So I'm pretty easy to find.
24:11
Mike Swenson: Wonderful, wonderful.
24:12
Mike Swenson: Well, thank you so much, Roshan, for coming on and sharing your story.
24:15
Mike Swenson: And for people listening, pick up the book and thank you for helping others and for what you do for others and excited to see where your journey is going to take you.