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Amy Terry - Starting Real Estate at 16 To Becoming Managing Broker · REL Freedom Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I bought a little short sale condo that my dad helped me fix up and a girlfriend of mine from college moved in and she was paying more a month in rent than I was to own it and from there on I was hooked of how powerful real estate could be.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Real Freedom Show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, mike Swenson.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Let's get some real freedom together.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Real Freedom Real Estate Leverage Freedom where we talk about people pursuing time and financial freedom through different opportunities in real estate.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: And I'm your host, mike Swenson.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: If you want to get started on your path within real estate, go check out our website, freedom through realestatecom.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: You can read articles, learn more, educate yourself on what opportunities exist in the wonderful space of real estate.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: And today's guest I'm'm super excited is Amy Terry.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: And when we talk about real estate and different paths and different opportunities and multiple streams of income, amy really has done it all.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: So she is the managing broker of 8Z Real Estate and in her time she's bought, sold, rented, flipped, developed you name it, we'll talk about it and started your career at just 16 years old.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: So a lot of experience, a lot of different topics and I'm excited to get into it with you, amy.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: So welcome to the show.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you, I'm excited to be here, why don't you just start a little bit and kind of talk about the early days or the beginning of your journey, and we'll take it from there Sure?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So, as you said, I started at 16, which is a little, it's true, but also a little deceiving.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: My best friend's mom growing up was in real estate and so our first jobs she got us jobs answering phones at the front desk of her office.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So that was back when you had to call to schedule showings.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: You couldn't do it online back then.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So you know, we kind of collected faxes and called in things that had come into the office and set showing, so kind of got an idea of what the industry was about.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Then I left for college, worked at a real estate office through college as well, getting my undergrad and actually was pre-law.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: The plan was to head to law school and as I was getting ready to graduate I'd been accepted to law school.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I sort of had to started having second thoughts, if that's for sure what I wanted to do, and one of the agents that I worked for at the time I really respected and kind of went to him and he said well, if you're not sure, it's a huge commitment, so why don't you do a one-year deferment?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: He's like I could use your help as a licensed agent.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So go ahead and get your license.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: So I graduated May of 2005,.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Got my license July of 2005, and kind of never looked back, it just snowballed from there.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: You kind of underplayed your experience in high school and in college, but that stuff really matters because it exposes you to it.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: You get to learn the lingo, you get a sense of how things work, and so you didn't have to go through that same learning curve as maybe other people did.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: So talk about those early days getting started and how things grew and changed.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I started primarily with internet leads and this was pre-Zillow, pre-the listing Hello, pre, like the listing.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Mls had just come online.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: It was no longer an MLS book, so it feels archaic.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, no e-contracts, things like that.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I was 22, fresh out of college, decided to buy my first property because I kind of felt like a fraud if I was selling real estate and didn't own any, and Colorado was actually a little bit ahead in the crash of 2008.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So we started seeing short sales and foreclosures years before.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So I bought a little short sale condo that my dad helped me fix up and a girlfriend of mine from college moved in and she was paying more a month in rent than I was to own it.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And from there on I was like hooked of, like how powerful real estate could be and, I think, getting over that hurdle of having a fear of being a homeowner, you know, especially purchasing a condo.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a whole lot different than paying rent, but I was generating income and my payments stayed the same every year, and so that's how I started investing, was just buying and buying my first property, and I grew up with parents who my dad flipped houses.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: When I was growing up.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: He didn't do it as a full-time job, it was kind of a side thing that he would do whenever a couple of years.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: But they were really encouraging to buy as soon as I could and also keep as much as I could.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, they were like God, if we'd kept one house from our 20s, what it would be worth now.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So I was really fortunate that I just was surrounded by people that kind of gave me that bravery and good information to kind of keep building and moving forward.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: When people ask me about advice, you know I kind of come back to a couple of things.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Number one is buy early.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And if your life situation gives you the opportunity to have a tenant early on, that's great.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: I remember I had a friend in college who he bought a house and three or four of our friends all lived with him and paid rent to him for a couple of years before he got married.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: That's just such a great opportunity.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: And then for us we actually bought right as the crash happened and so we got stuck being our townhouse that we first bought was worth half of what we bought it for within a year after owning it or two years after owning it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: But, like you said, buy early because it is going to help over time.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And, yeah, we held on to our property for quite a few years.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: But those are the two things and so it's good to see like you kind of check those boxes early on and that really not to underplay that, but that really helps set up a good future for you when you take those couple of key steps, versus being in your 40s and figuring out like, okay, tell me more about this real estate thing, how do I get started.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Just those couple of small steps really can pave the way for a better future.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it put me a huge step ahead and it also helped me.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I'm fortunate in Colorado we've seen home prices increase so dramatically over the last 20 years the amount of equity I've been able to build in my properties and then leveraging that equity to buy more properties.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Or, like you mentioned, I did a couple development projects.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I built the house I live in now and I was able to do that with equity from the other properties that I owned.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I have done well in my career and you know income from commission, but really what's, you know, kind of rocketed me is the equity and then leveraging that and rolling that into more property.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: It cannot be understated how much of a difference that can make and your long-term wealth.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and yeah, fortunate for you, you got in at a good time.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that we can't always predict the life cycle of housing, but it just works out in some way and, yeah, that's awesome for you.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: So talk about what happened after that finding that early success on the agent side.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: I think just again it was a different time.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I was bombarded with more internet leads than I knew what to do with.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: But I did a good job with all those people.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I kept them in my database and then that became my sphere of influence and then continued to build business off of that and then also continued to buy properties that needed work, live in them, fix them up, move on to the next one, rent that one out, especially, you know, when you're young and you don't mind moving every couple of years, there's so many benefits to that.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: You know you get an owner occupant interest rate.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: You can do a minimal down payment.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: You only have to be there for a year before you rent it out if you decide to do that.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So kind of took advantage of that, did a whirlwind of that for a handful of years and again just kind of set me up to then do other projects.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I dabbled in some flips.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I think they're fun.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I really enjoy the design aspect.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I love being on a construction side.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I love seeing the changes.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: But for me personally, I realized my time per hour was more valuable in selling real estate and as far as an investment strategy strategy, for me the buying and holding was a better option.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And I do want to just kind of touch on you were saying you know you guys lost value and buying at the right time, and you know I bought my first place in 2006, thought I was getting a great deal Again.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Values then continue to go down but they rebound and that's what I think so many people are need to remember.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And someone else used this quote and I love it.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I stole it.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: But you know, real estate isn't a get rich quick scheme, but it's a get rich for sure, but it takes time.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I mean you have to know that you're going to hang on to it for the longterm or with.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I mean flipping is also great.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that make fantastic money, but the numbers have to be so dialed in, so it's a different.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: It's a different ball game.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: I personally really in, so it's a different ballgame.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I personally really am an advocate for the buying and holding and meeting with sellers.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I talk myself out of a lot of listings, especially right now people have 3% interest rates.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: We really dig into how do we leverage the equity that you have so that you can turn this into a rental, buy a new property, or why is it that you want to move?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's about buying a vacation home and keeping this one?
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: There's just so many avenues and I think it's unfortunate that there's not more agents having those conversations, and I think that's what kind of distinguishes someone who's in it for the long game, and really my goal is to help clients build long-term wealth versus just getting a deal.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So counseling people through making great decisions and sometimes people don't want to do that at all they're like I want to take all this equity, put it down on a new property, I don't want two mortgages, but I never want someone to come back later and be like why didn't we do that or why didn't we have that conversation?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's really important as agents to make sure that you're laying out all of the options and then letting the seller choose what makes most sense for them and their family.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: I absolutely love that.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And to your point, yeah, not everybody's going to want to own dozens and dozens of rentals and all that.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: But even if it's just buy and hold your first one and then, if it makes sense, you could hire a property manager in the future, use that equity to go buy your next residence.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Now you have an asset that's helping you get another asset.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: If the money makes sense and you can hire a property manager, well then you're not the one taking the tenants' toilets phone calls that people don't want when associated with rental property.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: But those little seeds can really add up.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: And yeah, going back to my situation, we ended up holding it for 15 years and we bought a short sale as our next house turned the first one into a rental, while the value came back while we were paying down the mortgage.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And so, like you said, get rich for sure it happens.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: It just took longer and we changed paths, but we still had that within our control versus renting and not having those opportunities.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: It's not the path we thought we'd take, but it still ended up working out just later on.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think for some people too, they're nervous to take on the debt.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Like my best friend, we had a conversation and she was like the money coming and going every month is so stressful for me to consider.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And so I sat down with her and I went through my spreadsheet of everything and I mean I have millions of dollars worth of mortgages which she was like I could not sleep at night.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: But I was like but here's what I'm actually.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, at the end of the day, I'm responsible for all of it, but here's what I'm actually paying.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And really it's nothing.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I'm making money.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I'm basically living in my current house for free because the cashflow from my property is paying my current mortgage.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: So I get that some people are not comfortable with that debt, but there's a difference between good debt and bad debt.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: And how are you leveraging that and who is paying that debt?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: And yeah, at the end of the day, some people do not have the risk tolerance, but I think there's a way to be.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: You know she looks at that debt and it's overwhelming, but I'm like I, you know I still have like 60% equity there, so the market would have to, like you know, I think, for me to talking through exit strategies like, okay, worst case scenario?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Um, it's actually kind of funny.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I have a financial advisor I work with and I am all about leverage and he makes me keep six months of reserves for every mortgage payment.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: And there's a part of me it crushes me to just see that money sit in a checking account every month.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: But I will tell you, when COVID hit, he was one of the first phone calls I made and I said thank you for making me do that and I you know, honestly, I was really blessed.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I everyone made their payments.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I was willing to work with people if need be, but everybody was in a good situation and it didn't become an issue.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: But that peace of mind was huge, that, okay, I have six months to figure this out, whether it be sell properties or whatever.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: So I do appreciate that safety net and I think that's important as well.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, worst case scenario, I lose my job, I can't make these mortgage payments.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: What's my exit strategy?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And I think, talking through those.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, well then, we put it on the market, or you refinance, or you know, there's a lot of options there.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: So that takes a lot of the fear out of it for me when I have you know, I think about my smallest property.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: The mortgage is like 400 a month.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: You know worst case scenario sell everything, move into that property and I'm good no debt.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: So I think, for people that are fearful about jumping into it, I think, as long as you walk through what your options are, worst case, which most likely doesn't happen that they'll still be okay.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: And I think, if you think about it, so for people that haven't owned in the past, it would be similar to a major car expense happen, right Like I've got to put a transmission in my car.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Well, what happens?
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It sucks in the short term, I've got to pay some money out of pocket, or it might hinder my growth for the year or what I had budgeted, but I pay for that.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: It gets fixed and you move on.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: The same thing for real estate.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: There's going to be some stuff that comes up, a tenant leaves, or maybe there's more damages than you anticipated.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Maybe you've got to pay for new carpeting.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: That might set you back a little bit, but we're in this for the long haul.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Like you said earlier, your strategy is buy and hold, so you're not playing the six-month game, you're playing the 10, 20-year game and those little blips happen, but it's no different than the unexpected car expense, just in the housing industry, having those little blips, but you're still moving forward, as real estate is a major way that you're going to build wealth long-term.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's also.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I'm all about obviously being responsible and not getting in over your head.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: But sometimes when people are nervous about the extra mortgage or upgrading their monthly bills, I also compare that a lot of times to like, hey, can you think of a time where you got a car payment for the first time or you did upgrade to a more expensive car?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Eventually you do absorb that expense and it doesn't feel so scary.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I do think you need to be realistic, obviously, of what's doable for you.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's kind of the old adage it takes money to make money.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Like you got to absorb some risk there for the reward.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: There are calculated risks and you're going to be more apt to make more calculated risks once you get some experience taking calculated risks.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent or and if you you know, surround yourself with people that know what they're doing.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest piece too.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Especially, flippers make me so nervous when I have people who watched HGTV and they want to go flip a house and they have no clue what they're getting into.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I actually have a buddy that that's his full-time business and he does training academies and if I have any of my database that really wants to get into flipping I connect them with him.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Where he has a mentor he'll do a couple partner flips.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Flipping is a really quick way to lose money if you don't surround yourself with good people and make really educated decisions.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I do think I see it.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I see the value and how fun it is and exciting it is and making that quick buck, but you really have to know what you're doing, I think, to be successful in that field.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: There's an element of you have to time the market well too, because buying and selling and if anything happens in that meantime, and then if you can't sell right away now you're holding it.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: So that's where I think flipping with a more buy and hold strategy like if I can flip it, great, If not, it still makes sense to hold is another way Like we talk about calculated risks way to kind of hedge your bets.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: If it's not I have to flip this house, but it's I could flip or I could hold it, and either way the numbers could make sense.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Then if there is a market change or there's unexpected expenses which does happen on flips then at least you can absorb that versus.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Hey, now I'm stuck, I thought I was going to make X amount and now I'm not going to make that, and so, yeah, that's the tough thing about that.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think too, people underestimate the carrying costs and if, yeah, you are watching an HDV they don't show.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: We're paying 12% interest in hard money for this property and every day it sits on the market cost us X amount of dollars.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: So that's you know, I and I don't want to be negative about flipping, but there is.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: You can be very successful, but you really have to be dialed in and be accounting for all of those things or rely on people around you that know.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I know too you are a managing broker and we don't always have a ton of managing brokers.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: I'd love to kind of hear your story about why, moving down that path, how that happened and kind of where you're at with being a managing broker.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: So I was sort of forced into it I shouldn't say forced, it was a nice thing.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: The founder of our brokerage, I think he saw that in me and about I guess how long had I been an agent.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: It was well, I think I'd been an agent about six, seven years full time.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And he said you know, I think it's time for you to build out your own office.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: And I kind of did it kicking and screaming, but it was also very validating.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: It was cool when I started getting those phone calls and I was like, oh, I do know the answers to these things and, honestly, my business exploded.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I think there was something really really interesting about mentoring and coaching and then I had to kind of do as I was saying.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: You know, it was a lot of accountability for me.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: If I'm telling these people they need to do these things, then I need a handful of people on my team that were teachers and the income is just it's tough.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: My mom was a teacher and it's unfortunate they don't make better money.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: But you know it's funny, that translates really well.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I've got one that was a wedding planner.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: That translates really well, and so it's really fun to help them build sort of the life of their dreams.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Real estate is not for the faint of heart and it's not for everybody, but it can be a really amazing career.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I've been a managing broker now almost 14 years and I think if I hadn't made that step I would have been bored in the career.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's the most challenging part of my career, but I do.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I really love it and I love I love also, I guess kind of in a selfish way.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I think part of the reason we started our brokerage was we wanted to raise the level of professionalism in our industry.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: We feel like the bar is way too low.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: We only employ full-time agents.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: We have a minimum of at least 10 transactions a year.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: We have much higher accountability and training.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: So I get excited about that too, that I think we're helping transform the industry one by one.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: You know kind of molding these agents to put clients first and be transparent and all of those things.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: So that also gets me really excited about being part of a bigger change in the industry.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like that shepherd mentality of you're really helping people build careers, when it's not just about like this next leader, this next deal, but really growing your business and so it's kind of taking that long-term approach.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: So I love that you love doing it, because it's not a role for the faint of heart.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I definitely have some days where I'm like I just want to deal with my own, my own deals and my own issues, not everybody else's, but that the problem solving part of it's fun too of you kind of hear everything.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: The thing that people don't realize is, like you don't ever I mean maybe you do, but like you don't always get the calls of things are going really well right now.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: I've got everything that came in on time.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Everything was signed correctly, filled out correctly, and I don't have any issues or complaints from the buyers or the sellers.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you, I just wanted to let you know everything's going okay.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: You don't get those calls.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: It's always the worst of the worst or the challenges, and so it's definitely a challenging piece.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: It is yeah, once in a while you get the good calls, but usually it's things have gone very wrong.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Have you ever heard the phrase?
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: You're the average of the top five people that you hang around.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Well, real estate agents, I'm excited to increase your five with you.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: We're launching the Real Freedom Investor Agent Tribe to help you get educated and connect with others to build your real estate investing journey and also to help you along the way as you're working with real estate investors.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: So come, check it out on our website, realfreedomcom.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Go to the store.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: We have a membership.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: We have a mastermind group and private coaching to help you stay accountable to your real estate investing goals and to make sure that you connect with like-minded people to accelerate your progress and to cheer you on along the way.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Check it out realfreedomcom.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Click on the store.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Talk a little bit, going back to some of the other stuff that maybe we haven't touched on yet, that you've done in the real estate space.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: So as far as rentals, I've done short-term and long-term.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: My long-term I always use a property manager.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: I think that is something for everyone to evaluate their skill set and their personality and what their time per hour is worth.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: For some people, I think managing your own properties is great.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I think for some people it's a no brainer to do a property manager.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Short-term rental I am managing currently because the percentage is so high for short-term property management.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I just can't, and honestly it's been.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: You know, I think when you get a good cleaner, have a good handyman, a good pool guy, a good landscaper, those things, it's a little bit easier.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Definitely need cash flow more to prevent a headache.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So again, kind of a job there.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: You know, the other thing I haven't really touched on is I've done a couple infill development projects.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So buying lots in established neighborhoods and either scraping and building or subdividing and building.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: That is probably my favorite, but it is so risky.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: You know I've done where we've made a lot of money and I have one where, luckily, we only lost.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I think we lost about 20,000 on that project.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: But you're like, oh my God, I worked my butt off, was super stressed for, you know, 12 months and lost money.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: So development is something I still kind of.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: It's so fun.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I really love the design, I love the interior design, I love the improving a neighborhood, all of those things, but it takes so long to get a paycheck and it's very stressful, so I haven't.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: My last project was in 2019.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So we'll see my most recent.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I bought 18 acres in a suburb of Denver that I'm kind of working with the county now Like what are my options?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Do I want to subdivide this and develop?
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Do I want to turn it into a wedding venue?
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Do I want to?
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: You know, what do I want to do with it?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So that's, that's kind of the thing I have most recently but we'd kind of touched on before we started recording is that so much of it has been an organic journey for me and it's been sort of chasing chasing a passion or chasing something I'm really curious about, and then it turns into something and some turn out financially better than others.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: But I think that's what I love most about real estate is that there's always more to learn.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: There's always a different avenue you can go down and there's usually.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I tend to find there's always people that are willing to help and willing to teach and, like I mentioned, I think I would have been bored in any other career.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: You know, for better or worse, real estate changes constantly and we're experiencing it this week with lawsuits and decisions and commission changes.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean that's what I think I've loved about it.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's a little what I think I've loved about it and also, you know, maybe it's a little naive, but I've always really believed that if you follow your passions, the money will also come.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And that's something I've kind of lived and breathed and turned open to the things that I'm interested in and done my research and connected with people that I need to and kind of pursue whatever new projects I need to meet.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: So I'm curious to know in your path because we talk about goal setting and for agents it's easy to kind of come up with here's my volume goal, here's my unit goal and that sort of thing I'm curious, like some of these other stuff that you've done maybe the investment side or the development stuff how much of it was I set out at the beginning of the year to do this and how much of it was what fell in your lap based on opportunities because of relationships you've built, like how much of it is, like you said, this is what I'm going to do, versus this kind of more popped up as a result of what I'm already doing.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: That's a great, great question.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I think part of it is always being prepared to jump on a good opportunity, because you never know when that's going to come.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I actually two of my rentals are sellers of mine that were in a pinch and they needed to move and they needed to get out, and we were able to come to an agreement that worked for everybody.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: But if I didn't have my financial house in order, I wouldn't have been able to jump on those opportunities.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I did for quite a while.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I had this mission that I was going to buy a house a year until I retired, and so I was doing that pretty consistently.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: And then 2020, I did not and I kind of realized, okay, maybe I need to reevaluate.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I don't want to just be buying, to buying every year.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: What is the overall goal?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And also it gets to a point I mean the whole more money, more problems, the more properties, the more headaches, the more so.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Now I'm more in a place of reevaluating the properties that I have.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: So trusting my gut has served me really well, and sometimes I've passed on things that on paper looked great and I just didn't feel right, and on the flip side, I've grabbed things that maybe on paper didn't make sense, but I just had a feeling that it was going to be a good investment and that's worked out well for me.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so fun to hear a story because the person that hasn't gotten into real estate or is considering getting into real estate they look up and they're like, oh my gosh, amy's done so much, but, to your point, you can't really get to the second step till you take the first step, and you can't get to the third step till you take the second step.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: And so I think that's the thing that when I hear your story, it's just keep moving forward and these other opportunities will come up.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: And then you look back and say, oh my gosh, look at how much I've been able to accomplish because of that.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: And so for people listening to this, it's like just take the next step, get into the game and do something, and then the next opportunity will come up.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: And so it's so fun to hear your story for people that want to reach out to you or learn more.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: How can they do so?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say I'm probably most active on Instagram, so you can find me on Instagram.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: It's amyterry8zrealtor, and then also just old school email, amyterry8zcom.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm pretty easy to find online and happy to chat or help or mentor.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: However, I can Awesome.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story, appreciate it and best of luck to you in the future.