House Hacking Part 4: in Austin & Bastrop - While House Sitting! Featuring Our Experienced Realtor, Mandy
CREDITS
Hosted by: Kristina Modares and Steph Douglass
Produced and Edited by: Megan Pue
Music by: Lemonmusicstudio
Photo by: Chelsea Francis
SEASON 6, EPISODE 9 SUMMARY
Our incredible Realtor Mandy is back for another interview! 😍
Her real estate journey began when she bought a fixer-upper in 2017 in the McKinney neighborhood in Southeast Austin. She DIYed all renovations and house hacked by renting out a room, mostly short-term. She continues to mindfully invest, rehab, and rent out properties - most recently, in Bastrop. As of late, she's added house- and dog-sitting into the mix! Listen in for more details on her evolving journey.
Get in Touch
Comments, suggestions or feedback? Email us at podcast@openhouseaustin.co
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Please stay tuned for more episodes every Tuesday, and subscribe so you don’t miss them! You can find us on Spotify, Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Related Resources
Blog post: "House Hacking: 3 Strategies Every Homebuyer Should Consider"
Follow Mandy on Instagram: @mandymendoza_atx
Connect with a Realtor - Austin-area experts with experience house hacking, buying with friends, tiny home construction, and renovations
Join our Creative Home-Buying and Wealth-Building For Women Group - it's free, and we meet up regularly; you're welcome to pitch yourself to other members via the Facebook Group or at an in-person meetup
Sign up for our next "How to Buy a House in Austin" Workshop
Take our "Are You Ready to Buy a House?" Quiz
Transcript (Auto-Generated)
0:00
Welcome to the Open House podcast where Women Talk real estate.
0:03
If you're enjoying the season of our show, we'd be super grateful if you could leave us a Google review.
0:07
It helps others discover our content and support our small business.
0:10
Just search open house Austin and share your thoughts.
0:13
Thanks in advance.
0:14
Now on to today's topic.
0:20
Welcome to the Open House podcast for women talk real estate.
0:22
I'm Steph Douglas and I am here with our lovely realtor Mandy.
0:27
You can say hi, hi, Paul Christina is on maternity leave, which is so exciting and literally as we speak today, she had her baby yesterday.
0:35
Oh my God.
0:36
And she was in the office on Tuesday.
0:38
So like we saw her the day before, which was just so special.
0:42
I'm going to cry today maybe regarding that and just everything.
0:48
Our first, our first open house baby.
0:50
So exciting.
0:51
She's perfect.
0:52
Her name is, oh, actually, I, I maybe that's not.
0:55
Yeah, I don't, I don't know who's this whole, the whole like sharing situation is like, it's like, it's like a tenuous like you don't want to share before they get to share.
1:04
Obviously, this will come out later.
1:05
Yes.
1:06
But yeah, and it's like the baby is unable to give his opinion that actually there's another layer.
1:14
Yeah, like there's no consent given.
1:17
That's a tough one.
1:18
And you know, there's like the celebrities that cover their baby's faces and like, yeah, man, we're in a weird world.
1:24
Congratulations.
1:25
Christina and Eric, literally Eric, we're supposed to play in a pickup ball tournament in a couple of weeks and Christina texted me like she came of all and I was like, oh my God, oh my God.
1:36
And then Eric, the first thing he said was she came early enough so we can still go win our to Oh my God.
1:41
I love it.
1:42
I was like, yes, Eric.
1:43
He's probably going to be playing with the baby in a oh my God, what are they called?
1:49
I know they're called harnesses, baby.
1:51
You can tell we're dog moms.
1:53
Yeah, baby.
1:55
Yorn a little sack.
1:57
Oh, so cute.
1:59
Anyway, we, we were gonna talk with Mandy anyway, even if Christina wasn't here because Mandy has really cool experience in house hacking and she's done it really uniquely and kind of in phases as well.
2:12
So as, as you know, if you've been listening long, we have been talking about house hacking.
2:16
We have three prior episodes to this all about house hacking.
2:20
Why?
2:21
To house hack the mindset behind it.
2:23
And that's a huge part of all of our open houses portfolios really.
2:27
And like strategies for our lifestyles totally.
2:31
And essentially, like, we want to talk to you because we want to hear from more people who are doing this.
2:37
But like, everybody has their own reasoning.
2:39
So what, what started this for you?
2:41
And why was this interesting house hacking for me started when I was a renter actually, because rent was so at the time, really expensive, the most I'd ever paid for a place to live in Austin in Austin.
2:54
And I was like in South central Austin and we started house hacking me and my roommate started house hacking our spare bedroom and it started covering almost all of our rent, which was great.
3:05
And then that started like the ability and also, you know, I was probably spending my money really in silly places, but now I didn't have an excuse to not like stash away money.
3:17
Was this, was this airbnb?
3:19
What was it?
3:19
How are you?
3:20
Oh, I'm sorry.
3:21
Yeah, thanks.
3:22
I was house hacking on airbnb, an extra bedroom.
3:25
This was very early on airbnb stages where people were actually almost couch surfers, but it was really cool.
3:34
We met some really cool people through that experience and I came into your house and shared your kitchen and our bathroom.
3:39
And I remember one of our times we had a house party, a huge house party while our airbnb guests were there and they loved it.
3:48
They loved it.
3:49
Exactly.
3:50
That's how it felt.
3:51
And I think, I mean, as we go into that, Airbnb has always been because of that experience, Airbnb became such a really integral part of my house hacking strategy.
4:05
Because of that house hacking, I was able to save money with my partner at the time to buy a house.
4:12
Our first house, which we also then once bought it and kind of, you know, rehabbed it a bit to be cute than it was when we bought it, forced equity, forced equity through sweat and time and tears and blood probably.
4:28
And then we did the same thing, rinsed repeat house hacked a bedroom there and lived there for a few years because I personally don't like to move a lot, which is funny because we're going to talk about more later.
4:40
But anyways, so that house hacking catapulted the next move where after five years of house hacking a bedroom in our house, we were able to save up a down payment to buy another house.
4:51
And I love how you're saying, like you're explaining how this happened because you were renting probably covering a lot of your rent.
4:58
And if you're covering your rent or your housing expenses, it's so much easier to save.
5:02
That's the simple part of it.
5:05
It is a sacrifice.
5:07
It's not always, I've always had for the most part, great guests and I've had one or two in nine years of doing it like kind of weird experiences and that's part of it.
5:18
And it's kind of vulnerable to open your home up and not everyone wants to do it and I certainly don't want to do it forever.
5:23
And because I've done that though, now I am able to explore different ways of house hacking, but still within the same concept.
5:31
Yes.
5:32
Ok.
5:32
Tell me if you don't mind your age when you started when you were renting.
5:37
And then, and then, like, I guess, I guess, like, how your willingness to share your space has changed over the years.
5:45
Totally.
5:45
I started when I already had roommates house hacking as a renter at 24 years old, bought my first house at 26 was house hacking.
5:53
Then did that for five years.
5:56
Then because of that house hacking strategy, moved to another house in Bash, Texas downtown BSP.
6:03
Love it there, a smaller house.
6:06
And that's when I started feeling that implications of sharing a room and shared space.
6:11
And I'm also in my thirties and I'm going through a bunch of life changes.
6:15
So it's like, do I want to share space with someone?
6:19
An immediate shared space?
6:21
It's so relatable.
6:23
It's like the thing that we hear the most of people's resistance for people who are listening.
6:27
Maybe not in the Austin area.
6:28
Fast rap is the fastest growing small town in Texas, right?
6:32
It's definitely up there.
6:34
I feel that way.
6:35
You have to know, it feels that way in just the year that I've lived there.
6:38
Full time.
6:39
I can see, I can see the buzz happening.
6:42
It's about 40 minutes away from Austin.
6:44
It's cute.
6:46
Main square downtown and cool nature.
6:50
There's water, great hiking, great hiking.
6:52
There's water, there's a paddle place to rent paddle boards.
6:56
There's a little trail.
6:57
It's not Ladybird Lake, but it is its own trail and it's not overly saturated.
7:02
Hopefully not for a while.
7:04
But yeah, it's just, it's sweet.
7:06
It's quaint for me.
7:07
Moving to Bash Trp was the first time I had had a quality of life like that where I could walk to a coffee shop, walk to the river walk to see a show downtown.
7:17
I have never had that.
7:18
And that has been a really sweet experience and I really loved it there.
7:22
That's so cool.
7:23
And I think it's not like uncommon for people to want to think about this.
7:28
I have to be a possibility like, oh I could go and like the prices are a lot lower and quality of life could be a lot higher.
7:35
And you think about places like San Francisco and then you think about Oakland, Oakland was a tiny suburb that was outside of a city.
7:43
And now it's just like booming and it has been like basically incorporated when you say I live in the Bay area now, you know, it's a part of it.
7:51
It feels like Bastrop is going to be that like Bastrop Lockhart Kyle Beta, totally round rock girl.
7:57
You know, like there are those small towns outside of Austin that you just know since Austin is growing so quickly.
8:03
So what went into your choice for Bastrop specifically?
8:06
And then what are you doing now at that house?
8:09
What went into that choice?
8:10
So at the time that I bought both my houses, by the way, with a romantic partner who is no longer a romantic partner, but we're working it out and maybe that's a podcast episode for the future of how to remedy and regroup after big life changes.
8:27
But so he and I after our house in Austin and being able to buy the house in Bastrop, the reason we like br a lot is one because we could afford it.
8:38
And two, we were pre approved at the time for not too much.
8:42
This is also at the peak of the market, right when interest rates were still low, but people were starting to get shaky because they were starting to climb and we were shaky.
8:51
We got to make a move.
8:53
Now, we were kind of focused on the Bastrop and Lockhart area in general and that's how we ended up in Bastrop.
8:59
We at the time, even places like Luger and Round Rock and Georgetown Kyle were a little out of our budget and Bash Trop felt every time we had gone and looked at houses out there, it just felt there was something about it.
9:11
It was very cozy near the water traffic has not been too crazy for me coming back and forth and I think maybe some of that has to do with the type of work we do.
9:23
Right.
9:23
I don't have to drive at high traffic times.
9:27
Baby.
9:28
I love the schedule.
9:28
Freedom House hacking.
9:29
Made it possible.
9:31
But yeah, so another reason for liking bash while the prices were a little lower than Austin, I realized your money gets you a lot more.
9:42
So we have a downtown lot that's a quarter acre with a house on it with a cement slab with everything that can potentially add an AD U or a little garage apartment or a separate building structure with a driveway to drive it in no issue and no ho a so that was another drawing factor, especially because we are compromising this house only has one bathroom we had talked about, I don't want to share one bathroom with guests, my other house, the guests had their own bathroom.
10:13
That makes a huge difference to me.
10:16
In this case, I didn't want to share if I didn't have to.
10:19
And something about, you know, we thought about adding a bathroom.
10:23
God, that's a lot of work.
10:24
So my initial thought was just like, why not just wheel on a tiny home to the lot?
10:29
There's our second bathroom that guests use and also they can just use that house and never use the main house.
10:37
And that's for people.
10:38
I think that's amazing.
10:39
No shared walls and that's like a quality of life thing that I haven't experienced yet.
10:43
And to be clear, I haven't put a tiny home on the lot yet, but that was a motivating factor for that house specifically.
10:50
Ok.
10:51
Correct me if I'm wrong.
10:52
Were you under contracts on a new build?
10:54
Thank you.
10:54
I almost forget about that detail.
10:56
I was under contract on a new build in Bash Trp as well, also close to the river and that was kind of made in a hasty decision of going need to get something under contract before these interest rates go up.
11:09
I want as a buyer want to build my portfolio and it just so happens that I hit my two year mark as a self employed person, right?
11:17
As this time is starting to change.
11:19
So I was under contract on a new build because that's all I could.
11:23
That was all that was in my budget on the market at the time.
11:26
But the new build, thankfully, we are under contract on that for months and as interest rates started rising, my borrowing power started changing.
11:35
So we had to adjust our search and it was like, hey, you're not going to qualify for this new build price anymore, but we're not changing the price.
11:44
So you had to had to back out.
11:46
But I mean it it ended up working out better because because the resale market at the time was starting to adjust to and people were getting scared because they had been selling houses like super easily and now they're going, you could feel like a big gasp of air taken where people were like, oh my gosh, my house didn't sell in, in two days and like drop the price and then the interest rates are rising.
12:14
So we started seeing a lot of price cuts.
12:15
I remember talking about it in our team meeting.
12:17
We were like the market's adjusting for the interest rates.
12:20
And at that time, also with having the experience of working with my own clients at the time and seeing the challenges they were facing, I was able to kind of coach us into going let's move by a house that is lower priced.
12:33
No, a better location.
12:35
Does it need work?
12:36
Yes.
12:37
Is it small?
12:39
Yes, but I kind of, I like the small house strategy too.
12:43
For me, it's great for me.
12:45
I like it too.
12:46
I mean, the smaller the house, the lower the price and that's a rental unit.
12:52
And in that specific property, you're going to eventually have two rental units.
12:56
I agree more houses.
12:58
This is more headache.
12:59
In some cases, maybe when I'm living in my dream house, square footage will matter.
13:05
But as long as I'm doing the strategy of house hacking my space in some way, now we'll see how it goes with the tiny home, but your strategy is hack to save money, move in and then eventually you knew when you bought this house, it was not going to be your forever home.
13:23
And you knew when you bought your first house, it was not going to be a forever home as did I same situation.
13:28
And I think that's a really important thing to like to reiterate because a lot of people think when I buy my house it's the one I'm settling down.
13:36
I'm here for 30 years.
13:37
I'm getting a 30 year mortgage.
13:39
That's not it.
13:41
Yeah.
13:42
And if you do buy your dream house on your first round killer, I'm glad for you.
13:47
But, and if I wanted to buy my dream house on the first round, I wouldn't have been able to.
13:51
And that's not enough excuse for me to not become invested in the market because I do know that one day there now, just even if two houses is all I ever buy, I have options now.
14:03
Exactly.
14:03
That is such a good one.
14:04
I have options.
14:05
I have equity.
14:06
I can sell and start over.
14:09
I can transfer into another property.
14:13
Like there's options now and I mean, one first generation wealth builder to another.
14:21
It is, it's like almost making you want to cry.
14:23
I'm crying right now.
14:24
I'm gonna start crying like it's incredible.
14:27
Can you like, can you, I just never would have expected myself to like, have this power and like you're talking about it too.
14:33
It's just like, it's so incredible to have this, this optionality, you know, this freedom 100%.
14:41
I tell people this all the time that I meet because I think a lot of people think real estate and being a realtor is very selling sunset.
14:49
They were just like living this lavish life, making one phone call and selling $5 million houses off one phone call.
14:57
It's definitely not like that.
14:59
But I tell people this all the time because it's true for me, real estate investing in real estate has provided me with time freedom and schedule freedom that I would have otherwise not had earning money is important and I want to earn money.
15:16
But having time as a resource that I can have a complete autonomy over no price can be put on that.
15:26
Absolutely.
15:27
I 100% agree and we both kind of built our lives around that.
15:31
Like there's not, I, I would rather pare down all of my belongings and like make a lot less than, than be, you know, change to something that I don't believe in or that someone else has, has, has a say in what I do.
15:46
So I totally agree.
15:47
And I think the strategy of buying your, like, it's basically like stair stepping to your dream house.
15:52
And I think if people want to buy their dream house first, yes, but it does become a lot harder to, to build a portfolio.
15:59
That way, we're basically like over time building our portfolios we, we and you and I have done really similar things where you buy something, you live in it for a while and you buy something else and transition that previous house into a rental and you can put 5% down each time.
16:14
Hopefully, none of those regulations change and they do change sometimes day to day.
16:20
So it's really important to talk with a lender every time I bought a house.
16:23
Both times I bought a house.
16:25
The first time, I don't even, I remember talking to my lender and not even realizing what it meant when he told me I was pre approved.
16:33
I was like, cool and I was just like, cool.
16:36
He's like, this is great news.
16:37
You can buy a house and I was like, ok, I'm doing it.
16:41
And then the second time, guess what I got told, no, you already have a house that's bringing your debt down.
16:48
You're pumping your debt up and it doesn't work.
16:51
Exactly.
16:51
But guess what I was, I took the tips that I needed.
16:55
I figured out what made sense for me.
16:58
No, was a temporary no.
17:00
And pivoted and that's an option everyone has.
17:04
But like you said to your point, it becomes increasingly more challenging when your first home is taking up your huge housing budget and down payment amount, especially if it's like you bought your dream home and that's great happy for people who can.
17:21
But if you do want to build a real estate portfolio.
17:23
Unless you move out of your dream home, you're automatically tied to a really high down payment 20 to 30% for an investment property.
17:33
I'm not that disciplined.
17:35
Oh, my God, I've never saved that much.
17:37
I'm gonna have to ask someone to exactly the case if I ever do that.
17:42
We just bought our, you know, dream house, I guess everyone, everyone was always like, yeah.
17:46
Right.
17:47
You, you're gonna buy something else.
17:48
But, but we put 20% down because we pulled equity from a previous house that we bought that we knew wasn't going to be our dream house.
17:56
So it's tools options and, and that is why we exist.
18:01
And I think that's why you really resonated with our mission in the first place because you're all about education and making sure people know their options because knowing your options equals power.
18:11
I remember, I felt like because before I joined open house, I was kind of a lone ranger, a lone wolf agent, but I was already having these ideas of like, wait, I'm doing this and I felt like I was on an island and I started somehow doing research and figuring out who open house was.
18:32
And I feel that and seeing all the content that open house put out and listening to the podcast before I joined you, mentored me in a way, you know, because I was like, oh, I'm not crazy.
18:43
People can do this or maybe I am crazy the way I kind of love it and I welcome the craziness, but I know it's like a scrappiness that you think might be like, oh, well, is this legal, you know, like we figured this out, why isn't everyone else figuring this out?
19:02
But that's, yeah, that's why we exist.
19:04
And that's why house hacking has really like propped us up to be able to do this.
19:08
And I should have said this.
19:10
Christine is going to be mad at me.
19:11
I should have said this at the beginning.
19:12
House hacking is supplementing your mortgage in the house that you live in, whether it be short term rental, long term rental, just to roommate who having an ad U tiny hole in your backyard and supplementing or even covering your entire mortgage.
19:28
You know what I just talked to a client about that just went under contract on a house that had an ad U but the ad U didn't have running water or bath and yet there's an option to connect it if they wanted to.
19:41
But the point being is that this client was kind of like, well,, how could I use this space?
19:49
And peer space is a new thing that's kind of, you know, got it in my brain where I'm like, that's really cool where she has considered or have thought about making it like a content creation studio that since it's small and it could be really funky and wacky and eye catching or whatever.
20:05
And people, she can rent it out to people or try to, and running water is not required and they could just rent it for an hour, do a photo shoot or do something like that real quick and, or work there or something, whatever it may be.
20:19
And that's a new house hacking model.
20:23
I think that's come out very recently that I'm very intrigued by and it scratches the creative itch in me, which is I think why a lot of people like to do this and why it's also important to have autonomy over your house and why creativity is so important when you're considering being an investor, if you would like, it doesn't have to just be numbers, the numbers matter, but it could be fun and creative too.
20:51
You could just put all your money into the S and P 500 and just sit there and watch it.
20:57
However, that there's no creat creativity involved.
21:00
There's no like ingenuity, but also like real estate has such a low barrier to entry with this 5% down.
21:07
So like even if you put all your money into the S and P 500 you just wanted it to be boring.
21:12
You're still not getting the returns that we're seeing with these house hacking strategies.
21:15
You know, you're in house hacking, you're building equity over the years like your house is appreciating.
21:22
Yes, there will be downturns and there will be, you know, but over the years, historically real estate has gone up.
21:28
and at a, at a steady rate of 4% per year nationally.
21:33
So, like in different cities, it will be different.
21:35
But you're building the equity and you're getting a paycheck every month.
21:39
Yeah, I love the peer space.
21:40
Example.
21:41
If you're listening and you haven't explored that website, I would definitely encourage you to because you could rent out so many cool places like stuff like content creation.
21:50
You can rent out podcast studios, anything and you can do it by the hour.
21:56
It's cool and she could even rent it to an artist who wants to come and use it as their studio, you know, for a couple 100 bucks a month or whatever.
22:05
There's just so many options when you own a space, you might need running water for this.
22:09
But I've had more than, I'm surprised at how many inquiries I've had about personal trainers wondering if anyone has a shared space in their home that can be used to train a couple because so many people do put home gyms that they maybe don't use 24 7 100% that would not kill feed two birds with one stone.
22:32
I love that.
22:34
I didn't know where you were going for a second.
22:36
I was like, where are we going to?
22:39
That kind of brings me to property management.
22:41
Peer space seems like a space like that.
22:44
Seems like it would be a quick turnaround as far as cleaning and maintenance goes.
22:49
But something new that's happening that I've never done before.
22:52
As far as property management, I've always property managed and cleaned my own properties.
22:56
First.
22:56
It was just to a bedroom, a bedroom and a bathroom so easy.
23:00
And my partner definitely helped with all that.
23:02
And at the time, and even when we converted our one room airbnb to a full house, Airbnb in Austin still managed and cleaned it on my own because I personally, this is not something I recommend.
23:17
This is just me.
23:19
I'm very particular about cleaning and I'm very particular, not even my own space as much but a shared space with guests.
23:27
It's very important to me and it was hard for me to relinquish control as far as the cleaning went.
23:34
But to fast forward now in the Bash Strop House, that is now a full house Airbnb.
23:39
And I have, I don't think we said that the Austin Airbnb or the Austin House when you moved to Bash transition to an airbnb.
23:47
Did you say that?
23:48
No, we didn't.
23:48
I'm sorry, I forget what has been said.
23:50
And what hasn't when I moved out to Bash Strop, the Austin House became a full house, Airbnb and cash flow, cash flowed about how much sad I miss it.
24:01
Probably cash flowed about 1800 to 2000 a month.
24:06
And you use that to then supplement your new mortgage.
24:08
Yes or almost pay all of it paid pretty much all of it.
24:12
So one house was paying two different mortgages.
24:14
Yes.
24:14
Amazing, beautiful.
24:15
Ok, so now go on with your new situation where your bath shop house is now a full house airbnb.
24:22
Yes.
24:22
So the bash shop house I mentioned was ugly.
24:25
We spent while our Austin House was thankfully covering pretty much the mortgage at both houses, we were able to renovate and put, make that little cute bungalow and bath shop.
24:38
So darn cute, so cute.
24:40
And so now as there have been recent big life changes, which I guess I'll just segue into, I've converted the br house to a full time full house Airbnb.
24:53
I did try just to reiterate, tried renting out just a room and I did that for a couple of months and it paid about 50 to 60% of my mortgage.
25:02
Love that, love it.
25:04
And I didn't like sharing the space.
25:09
I realized I was over that at that time, which is so fair over it.
25:13
Yes.
25:14
Living by myself.
25:15
Sharing a bathroom.
25:17
Granted it's a nice big bathroom still is one and shared with some people that were actually great to share with.
25:25
It was like having a roommate again.
25:27
But I realize I'm like this isn't it?
25:28
This isn't me.
25:29
Which is so funny.
25:31
I mean, and fair that even if it was not a problem person or a problem guest, it's still like OK.
25:36
Actually I'm over this.
25:38
Ok.
25:38
So what, where are you living?
25:40
What are you doing now?
25:42
So what am I doing now in these big life transitions?
25:46
I was referred by another friend who was kind of in a similar place as I was at the time, she owned a house in San Marcos and she put it on airbnb and she was doing this thing called Trusted House Sitters, which is I'm a millennial and I love using an app to make things happen.
26:07
Trusted House Sitters is a platform where you pay like a year membership to be chosen to house and pet sit various locations all over the world in exchange for your accommodations being covered completely.
26:24
Right?
26:25
So it's a win, win.
26:26
It's a win, win.
26:26
The person whose house you're sitting doesn't have to pay for a pet sitter or a house sitter and you get a place to live, probably a dope place to live.
26:33
Oh, well, so far so good.
26:36
So while my house in Bash TRP is functioning as a full time airbnb and also cash flowing not as much as my Austin House, but that's also because I'm now paying a cleaner for the first time.
26:51
So that's amazing too.
26:53
So I'm cash flowing some, but I'm happy that the bills are paid worth it.
26:59
That's what I need because guess what?
27:00
My biggest expense is once again, eliminate it and now I'm able to go, ok, I can breathe because there's no pressure to produce, there's pressure to produce as a human but not to be like, I won't, can't survive if I don't have shelter.
27:16
You know, when you remove that stress and pressure to me, at least it feels I like healthy pressure.
27:24
But this is not, I don't want to be stressed about affording anything, which is so, it's so cool when you own a home you can, you can do things like this and this probably isn't what you're going to do forever.
27:37
But it's like it's such a cool option.
27:39
You can totally, you can totally pivot whenever you want.
27:43
Yes.
27:44
But this is like you're able to travel, you're staying in cool houses around, either around the city or in other places soon.
27:53
Hopefully.
27:53
Yay and then, and then you're earning money from your house 100%.
27:57
I would not be able to do this in a rental.
27:59
So it kind of just, it illustrates the power of ownership when you can do whatever you want a 100%.
28:08
And something about like, I don't know what I do have an idea of what my next plan is, but I think I love the bash house and I my goal is to do this trusted house sitters and bounce around and I am staying at some cool places and if they're not like the coolest houses in the world, they're in a really great location that's convenient or walkable, people are really nice.
28:29
I love pets.
28:31
I miss being a pet owner.
28:33
So this is a great way for me to supplement that part of my life.
28:37
I have friends that live all over the country that I want to go visit.
28:42
And then also, well, I will crash with a friend if they have me.
28:48
But also, you know, being at this age of life and being adults and being in our thirties and people have different lifestyles now that they don't always want a guest in their space and I maybe want my own space.
29:00
So having like trusted house sitters as an option of accommodations, wherever I travel, love it and potentially building your international community.
29:10
My gosh, and it's kind of the airbnb original inspiration all over again, just recycled into a new opportunity.
29:19
So cool.
29:20
And I think it also illustrates that buying a house doesn't mean that you're settling down like so many people's dreams is to travel and to full time travel or to have this freedom to be like, ok, I'm going to do whatever I want wherever I want, but you're also building equity and cash flowing a bit.
29:40
So cool.
29:41
It is cool.
29:42
I really, really, I think your story is like all about flexibility and freedom and I think a lot of people will resonate with it.
29:53
Thanks.
29:54
I do love to be adaptable and you know, well, do I love it?
30:00
That's actually probably hard to say.
30:02
I'm good at being adaptable.
30:05
So I know that's not everyone and some things that I hear that a lot of people say, not only sharing a space with someone, but even just like sharing your home, even if you're not there with someone very vulnerable to do.
30:19
Yes, absolutely.
30:20
Which is why this will get us into your future plans, the tiny home idea.
30:25
So the next step is in br adding a tiny home.
30:29
So my plan is I'm going to be doing this trusted house sitters for a while because my BR house is booked for a few months and I'm going to kind of reassess in a few months where I'm at.
30:41
Do I want to move back to the Bastrop House and kind of start reinvesting in the tiny home there or do I want to continue in this cool momentum and floatiness of hopping different houses maybe for a little bit longer while my hopefully house in Bastrop continues to pay for itself.
31:00
But eventually, when I, I will land back there, I'm going to, I'm going to reinvest any earnings from the airbnb or just, you know, from earning in life into the house and really make the tiny home and exterior areas really inviting.
31:18
And then I think I'll be on to my next investment, which is what well could be a couple of things.
31:27
The first one I've been thinking of with a lot talking about with a friend for a very long time.
31:32
For years.
31:32
And this is actually the gal that I used to rent with her where we house hacked and she's been a lifelong friend.
31:38
She's one of the people I've known since I was a teenager, like 18, a baby.
31:43
And she lives in Santa Fe right now and she also a single gal and wants to own real estate.
31:50
And I've kind of been coaching her from a distance on what, how it actually might be possible.
31:56
And she's starting to learn that it might be possible that she could buy a place on her own, but she hasn't thought that she could and if she can't, and if we're going to partner and really want to partner on a mountain home somewhere, anywhere between Red River, New Mexico and Angel Fire in New Mexico.
32:12
And she is a home inspector and does Radon testing and she's very handy, which I love because I'm not.
32:20
And she's like, I don't want to talk to people and I'm like, great.
32:22
I'll talk to all the people if you fix things.
32:27
And yeah, so that's kind of our loose plans would be to invest there.
32:32
But I've also recently and I apologize in advance to anyone from San Antonio or who loves San Antonio that I have said bad things about San Antonio because I'm recently intrigued by some neighbors there and the affordability and the constant tourism and the fact that I just kind of, I think for the first time as an adult got to explore more than I have in a while.
32:57
I love it.
32:57
And I was like, this is cool.
32:59
Why wouldn't I, if I could?
33:00
Why wouldn't I?
33:02
So those are kind of my two markets that I'm looking at maybe could do all three of those goals.
33:09
The tiny home, second home in the mountains and a second home in San Antonio.
33:17
You could, you could branch out and be our San Antonio agent.
33:20
I know.
33:20
I don't know if I could live there.
33:22
San Antonio could I live there?
33:23
I can live there.
33:24
Right.
33:24
We'll see if I, yeah, go ahead.
33:27
Well, I just, I think it's, it's, it is still demonstrating so much flexibility.
33:32
Like you having a mountain house is everyone's dream.
33:35
I mean, you know, Mountain Beach, whatever like that is amazing.
33:39
And then, and then just the, I don't know your mindset around like, yeah, I'm just gonna do all these things, you know, like most people think one day when I'm old, I'm gonna buy a vacation home when I'm retired and like can tap into my 401k.
33:54
You know, it's like you've, you've, you're demonstrating to everybody that it's actually possible sooner.
34:00
And that's when we want these experiences, right?
34:03
We want to go with our lifelong friends to like hang out in the mountains.
34:07
I'd love to go there during the summers when it's 100 and 20 degrees in Austin and it's not that far away.
34:14
It's not that far, it's not that far away.
34:16
Yeah.
34:16
The possibilities are endless.
34:18
And I think being able to say like, oh, I'm gonna go to San Antonio, I'm gonna look at these neighborhoods.
34:23
Oh, cool.
34:23
This is interesting to me.
34:25
I can see buying here, like, everyone kind of has that when they're on vacation they're like, I could see, I could see, like, buying a house here but most people don't like take it any further, you know.
34:35
Totally.
34:36
So it's very inspiring.
34:37
Do you have any advice for people who are looking into house hacking or who want to do this one day?
34:44
Yes, I have so much and I have two things I want to touch on so I won't say everything but the two big things is being comfortable with letting go of a little bit of control and perfectionism when it comes to doing it right?
34:57
Or having the perfect airbnb or I say this all the time.
35:02
I don't have the most stylish or best marketed airbnb like I don't, but I really make sure the experience and the care is there.
35:15
That's really important to me.
35:16
Also, it's interesting to note you mentioned your $1800 a month cash flow and this is on a house that's not downtown, it's near nowhere.
35:27
Cool.
35:29
The location is, I mean, it's very convenient things and driving.
35:34
You can get anywhere but you wouldn't look at that neighborhood and be like, oh, yeah, tourism totally.
35:39
However I say that it's near nowhere.
35:41
Cool.
35:41
But since I've owned that house in the last 5 to 6 years, there's now a cool coffee shop nearby.
35:47
There are tons of cool breweries nearby.
35:49
There's some people like the on it Academy.
35:52
That's very close.
35:53
There's another Krav maga.
35:54
There's things now they weren't really prevalent when I first bought, but it was like that being open.
36:01
So that's my, that's my advice for people be open.
36:06
And just because you're not, if you can't get in, in the hot downtown access spots, the 02, the four Hyde Park north of all the places people really want to be.
36:17
There's a market for people everywhere.
36:19
Do you know what else was by my house in Austin AD PS?
36:24
That's not sexy at all.
36:25
But it brought a lot of employees that rented my space and those are also kind of like the people that aren't tearing up your house, not saying that everyone's tearing up your house, but they're literally there to sleep and work, they're not there to party.
36:38
And I kind of like because that keeps maintenance low and I've had other clients that employ the same strategy when they had a house in Luger, you know, so it's not necessarily, I say Luger is an example, a pretty broad example.
36:53
That's one thing like be open to trusting that it could work out.
36:58
Yes.
36:59
Yes.
36:59
Yeah.
36:59
And I feel like it also brings up sort of being realistic and like compromising on certain things to like get into the market.
37:08
Like, you know, we have, we have clients sometimes who are like, I want to be in this little tiny area and I want this to be a budget and I have to have a three bed, two bath and we're like, ok, one of those things has to has there always has to be compromised.
37:20
So that's important and it's also important to note that you have done this in phases.
37:25
And so like an $1800 cash flow is not what everyone should expect right away, especially, and you've been extremely scrappy.
37:33
Like there's, we have also people who are like, ok, well, I want to do, you know what Mandy did?
37:38
And it's like, ok, well, she bought it, she lived there for five years.
37:42
I diy s on my own or with my partner, right?
37:46
So like the being, being realistic about your situation and like what you're willing to sacrifice what you're willing to put in.
37:54
The work that you're willing to put in will can be very fruitful.
37:58
$1800 a month is essentially $24,000 a year.
38:02
That's incredible.
38:03
And they're paying your mortgage, your taxes and your insurance on a house that's building equity.
38:08
So just like it's the power is there, but you have to figure out how to fit it into your life and what you're willing to sacrifice and compromise on the other thing.
38:17
Now, you know, and I'm going to reiterate this again, buying the two houses I own.
38:21
It wouldn't have been possible without the romantic partner that I was with, that was a partnership that we got into and we got into before we were traditionally a married couple.
38:31
We were never traditionally married.
38:33
And I think there's something to say about.
38:34
I'm not really a traditional gal and I love and I just mean that in normal societal traditions of buying a house and my motives are different.
38:46
But now I'm exploring partnership in other ways.
38:51
And that's another thing I want to tell people who feel that there's a barrier of entry or I can't buy on my own.
38:57
I know for a fact I cannot buy on my own.
39:01
That's not going to stop me.
39:02
Yes.
39:03
Yes, I have to find another way and it does have to be romantic.
39:06
Yes.
39:07
Exactly.
39:07
Hell, yes.
39:08
I think that's a huge part of who we are as a company and a huge part of who our clients are.
39:13
A lot of single people are listening and follow us.
39:17
And I think a lot of people who aren't following us and are single are like, well, I'll just wait until I get married.
39:22
I'll wait, I have to wait until I have a romantic partner so that then we can go on this together and it makes it a lot easier and that is true.
39:29
However, if you're waiting and then you lose out on those years of equity when you could have done it with a non-romantic partner, it's just, it doesn't make sense.
39:40
And like this, this phased situation is like, ok, even if you're with this non romantic partner on this mountain house and you buy it and you enjoy it for 10 years and then you're like, ok, this is so fun.
39:50
We want to go our separate ways by our own individual Mountain House.
39:54
I want a beach house and I want a city house.
39:56
You take that equity, split it down the middle and go your separate ways.
40:00
It just doesn't have to be a long term, a lifetime thing and communication and kind of getting all that out in the open.
40:09
Initially.
40:10
I was naive early on about all the different reasons why someone would want out or want to sell or whatever.
40:19
All the scary things that could come up because scary things can come up but communicating them up front and being clear and having the vulnerable conversations not to get all Brene Brown, but something I'm learning in life is vulnerability is the way forward in anything.
40:34
And that starts with conversations with potential partners or putting yourself out there and going, hey, I don't have a lot of money.
40:41
But guess what I do have, I have time and talent.
40:43
I know how to push an airbnb through.
40:44
I know how to be so scrappy, but I don't have a lot of cash to put towards a house and it's vulnerable for me to say, but can definitely might pique the right person's interest who's like, I don't want to think about all that other stuff to someone with some cash that I have cash.
41:00
Yeah.
41:01
Yeah.
41:01
Great.
41:02
That's a huge, a huge part of this.
41:05
And we did just record a bunch of podcasts and release a bunch of podcasts about buying with friends.
41:10
So if you're curious, this piques your curiosity, we have so much, so much information online about this and we have a little mini course about buying with friends.
41:20
And we have our blogs and our podcasts and stuff.
41:23
So search it out.
41:24
I'm all like a super inspired right now.
41:27
I know.
41:27
Let's go change the world.
41:30
OK.
41:30
Anything else you want to share with the people?
41:32
Oh, no.
41:36
OK.
41:36
Perfect.
41:37
Amazing.
41:38
Also, Mandy works with clients in Austin and surrounding areas, specifically Bastrop, but also Kyle Beta, all all of the places.
41:46
So if her story resonated with you reach out, we have, you can schedule a call with her on our website if you are in the Austin area and want to buy yourself.
41:54
Yeah, thanks.
41:56
I had so much fun.
41:56
So fun.
41:57
All right, bye bye.