Steph:
I just saw. You typed in the chat, "Hello? LOL. What's happening?" That's funny. You're like listening to me talk on the phone.

Kristina:
I was like, "Is this a recording of a conversation we've had already? Are we grandmas?"

Steph:
I know.

Kristina:
If I say, "Are we grandmas?" is that ageism?

Steph:
Oh, I don't know.

Kristina:
Welcome to the Open House Podcast where women talk real estate. I'm Kristina Modares.

Steph:
And I'm Steph Douglass. We ... Oh, sorry. How's it going?

Kristina:
It's good. I just have a client closing today on a new construction home so they're very excited. They're
first time home buyers and I had to go back to the house. You know how usually you do a final walk
through like a couple days before closing?

Steph:
Yeah.

Kristina:
So we went there the other day and all the repairs that they said they would do, they're little because it's new construction, but like none of it was done.

Steph:
Oh my god.

Kristina:
It was so annoying because now I had to reschedule and go back right before they signed. I went at 9:00 today, 9:00 AM, and they were supposed to sign at 9:00. And I had to be like, "Okay. None of the things
were done. But you go sign and then we'll hold the funds until all those things are done and [inaudible
00:01:30] and then you're good to go." So then they just let me know. Thank god it's like a good builder,
but they just let me know that, "We rekeyed the house, we cleaned the house, we did all these things.
We're good to go." So we're going to release the funds now and they will officially be homeowners.

Steph:
Yay. There's nothing like a real estate transaction to make you lose hope in humanity because you just
want to trust that they're going to do what they said they're going to do, but they never do ever. Always
have to hold them accountable, which I guess is just life.

Kristina:
Yeah, yeah. It's crazy because sometimes everything goes so smoothly when you buy a house and
sometimes a lot of our clients are kind of like, "Oh my gosh. This was so easy. I thought this was going to
be so much harder." And then sometimes little things happen here and there and it's a lot more
stressful. Hopefully, with more education it's a little less stressful but little things always pop up.

Steph:
Always.

Kristina:
It's a transaction run by humans so there's always room for error.

Steph:
That's so true. And there's so much conversation between ... Or there's just so many dots to connect. There's so many dots to connect and different people involved. And yeah, yes, it can be-

Kristina:
And what are people not taught in school? How to communicate and how to be organized. And that's
like what you really need to have, those skills in these transactions.

Steph:
Communication. Just like talk to me. Well, good. This is episode ... No, this is episode two and I'm excited for you guys to hear my conversation. I talked to-

Kristina:
[crosstalk 00:03:07] Sorry.

Steph:
What?

Kristina:
Tell us a little bit about Nancy.

Steph:
Yes. So Nancy Lopez is one of my childhood best friends. We met when we were 10 years old and now
she is an investor and she works in the tech field. So it was just really nice to get that perspective from
someone who works a full time job. She has a day job and she's also an investor.

Kristina:
Yeah. I'm excited to hear how she started out. Yeah. So should we get started with the interview?

Steph:
Let's jump into it.

Kristina:
Okay.

Steph:
Here we are. I'm with Nancy Lopez, who is my best friend from ... What year did we meet?

Nancy Lopez:
I think it was fifth grade.

Steph:
Fifth grade.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
Yeah. Fifth grade, we were 10 years old. What year was that though? It was 21 years ago because we're
31.

Nancy Lopez:
Oh wow, yeah.

Steph:
So yeah, 1999 or '98.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, '98, '99.

Steph:
Oh my god.

Nancy Lopez:
I feel old now.

Steph:
I know. We met 21 years ago. I feel like we're 21 years old.

Nancy Lopez:
I wish. I mean, I don't wish [crosstalk 00:04:14].

Steph:
And we separated for college and Nancy went to-

Nancy Lopez:
OU.

Steph:
... OU.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. Go Sooner.

Steph:
And I went to University of Texas in Austin. And then you moved here in what year?

Nancy Lopez:
It was 2011, actually very beginning of 2012. Yeah, New Year's.

Steph:
And where did you move into?

Nancy Lopez:
You guys were living in that four bedroom house. Was it four bedrooms? Yeah.

Steph:
Yeah, it was four because there was three upstairs.

Nancy Lopez:
Exactly. And it was on Ninth Street. And it was you, Michelle, Eleanor, and Liz. Y'all were the people I
wanted to be with and I didn't really have any other place to go so I ended up living in a closet under the
stairs much like Harry Potter. It was literally wide enough for a twin size mattress and I made it look
good. I decorated it, I put some shelves in there.

Steph:
You were not the first one or the last one. No, no, you were the first one to live in that closet.

Nancy Lopez:
I was the first one to actually lease it out.

Steph:
What was your rent, like $120?

Nancy Lopez:
I think, yeah, it was $120 for the month.

Steph:
Man, that was great. And you did make it look the best.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I mean it was all that I needed at the time and it was like the best way for me to get on my feet
here in Austin because I was trying to figure out what my career was. And I had been bartending and
cocktailing at restaurants and didn't really have anywhere to start here in Austin.

Steph:
And your major was what?

Nancy Lopez:
Journalism.

Steph:
Journalism.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
Oh man.

Nancy Lopez:
I graduated with a journalism degree with a focus in advertising and marketing. So I had no idea what
my career was going to look like. And moving to Austin was supposed to be my springboard for me to
figure that out.

Steph:
And it was.

Nancy Lopez:
It definitely was. And kind of coming from humble beginnings.

Steph:
Closet beginnings.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, closet beginnings.

Steph:
Man, it's really exciting that you started from the closet. And then, we're going to talk about where you
are now, which is you are a real estate investor and you have like your day job, which is what?

Nancy Lopez:
So I work for a software company. They make project management software for developers and really
any sort of team. It started off as being developer tools and then they've kind of pivoted to just being
used with any sort of team.

Steph:
And you're like a Google-esque company.

Nancy Lopez:
Yes. Yeah. I would say it's kind of like much smaller than Google but still pretty big and maybe not as
well known as Google. It's kind of like a hipster Google I guess.

Steph:
Well, and you have like snacks and things.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. We've got all the typical software amenity, like whatever you see in Silicon Valley, that type of
stuff.

Steph:
You're playing ping pong every day.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I'm not as good as some of the people but I play.

Steph:
Well, it really matters. And what about like the demographics at your job?

Nancy Lopez:
It's predominantly male. Most of my coworkers are guys. I'm probably one of five females globally on my
team.

Steph:
Globally?

Nancy Lopez:
Globally, yeah. And there's about 300 engineers on my global team, and there's about five of us.

Steph:
Oh my god.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. It's a pretty small ratio. I think the ratio is better on developer teams, like there's more female
developers than there are what I do, which is kind of like, it's not development. I don't write software
applications or anything like that. I do like support for them.

Steph:
That is so wild that you're one of five females out of 300.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, it's pretty wild.

Steph:
Because developers, maybe they just spend more attention on developers so they're trying to hire more
women in that field. But that is wild. So you are now ... I mean, I identify you as a real estate investor.
But how did you go from journalism to tech?

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. So when I moved to Austin I got a marketing job and I was basically managing their website,
writing copy, doing creative posts on social media, just doing a whole mix of marketing things. We would
throw events, et cetera. It was a really great entry level job. I learned a lot about just, I don't know, professionalism and how to transition from being a college student-

Steph:
Into the workplace.

Nancy Lopez:
Into the workplace. And the company wasn't doing so well. So about two and a half years in they ended
up letting me go. They laid me off.

Steph:
So you survived a lay off.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, I survived a lay off. I was unemployed for, it was like two months I think. And luckily, our buddy
Isaiah at the time was a headhunter. He was working in HR and placing people. And I talked to him and
he was like, "Hey, I know this is not really your wheelhouse, but there's this support job with this
software company. They make software for fundraisers." So you know when people do the bike rides or
the runs they have a page, you can go and you can donate, that was the software I supported. So I went
and I accepted the job and not knowing what was going to happen at all. And it was totally not related
to what I had been doing. But they really did an awesome job of training me and shoring me up on some
of the things. And as soon as I got in the door I just kind of really excelled at it.

Steph:
But you're going to excel in anything. Like I was not worried. I remember when you got laid off I was like,
"This is fine." I would worry about some people, but I wasn't worried about you.

Nancy Lopez:
That's nice. That is, it's nice.

Steph:
And that makes sense as to why you've been able to be successful in real estate too, because you
pivoted very seamlessly and then excelled in that new field. Like you were excelling already, not happy
in your job, but then you got a new job in a completely boring field, right?

Nancy Lopez:
Yes.

Steph:
Did you take classes?

Nancy Lopez:
No. I didn't take any classes. They taught me how to troubleshoot things. I had a lot of really smart
people, but I also worked my ass off when I was there because it felt like I had finally figured out what I
was good at. In that first like six to nine months I was like, "Holy shit, I'm really actually good at this."

Steph:
Okay. So you've had this job the whole time. What about your first home purchase? What year was
that?

Nancy Lopez:
So 2015.

Steph:
So we're going to break down that deal. Nancy has two houses. But your first one, you bought that while
you had a full time job.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I was actually still working at Blackbaud when I bought that house, that first house.

Steph:
Okay. And how much was it?

Nancy Lopez:
190.

Steph:
How many bedrooms?

Nancy Lopez:
Three bedroom, one bath, 865 square feet.

Steph:
So to a lot of people, small. To us in Austin that's like very normal. But you had a pretty good sized lot.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. It's .13 I think.

Steph:
Perfect, which we'll go into later. But .13 is the minimum acreage to build a back house, so that's also
really smart because now in Austin people are buying lots and breaking them apart. And so the fact that
Nancy got a $190000 house in 2015 and now people are selling those lots for $300000 with nothing on
them, breaking them apart and putting two units on them, so it's going to become less and less common
for people to have a full lot. So you basically have a gold mine just [crosstalk 00:11:46] and now you
have two.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
Okay. So how old were you when you bought that house?

Nancy Lopez:
I guess I was 26.

Steph:
26.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, about to be 27. I remember because my housewarming party was also my 27th birthday.

Steph:
Oh yeah, that was fun.

Nancy Lopez:
That was a great night. Got the neighbors called on us.

Steph:
The neighbors called. Was that when we had like random people show up, or maybe [inaudible
00:12:11] friends, or was that a different one?

Nancy Lopez:
It was the night that we set up karaoke outside. And as soon as we started singing Bon Jovi, that's when
the cops got called. And this was like 3:00 in the morning.

Steph:
The neighbors were like, "We do not-"

Nancy Lopez:
"We draw the line at Bon Jovi."

Steph:
That was fun. Okay. So 27 years old and you have a house. Did you think you would buy more houses?

Nancy Lopez:
God no, no. It's funny because you were really kind of the catalyst for me even thinking in that realm at
all because you had just bought your first house and we had lived there together for like a year maybe.

Steph:
Two years.

Nancy Lopez:
Was it two?

Steph:
Yeah.

Nancy Lopez:
Oh my gosh.

Steph:
Yeah.

Nancy Lopez:
Two years. And then I don't remember. I think at that point, that's when I started figuring out that my
money situation had improved with my job at Blackbaud. I had gotten promoted. I got moved onto the
premier team and I was, yeah, which was like the special team, right? And I had seen you purchase your
house. And at that point with the success I was finding in my career I was like, "I think I want to stay in
Austin." Because I think at some points I had considered moving back to Houston. I'm really glad I didn't
do that.

Steph:
Oh my god. I would have been so mad.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I mean my life is here and I think at that point I finally kind of reached the point where I knew that
for sure.

Steph:
Yeah. There's just so many jobs in Houston.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. And when I hit the tech world and I was doing well I was like, "Well, this could really be something
for me so maybe I should start putting some roots down."

Steph:
Yeah. That's so good. So did you feel intimidated by it. Like at 27 were you like, "This is too early?"

Nancy Lopez:
It's funny because I would say about six months after I had kind of that latent wall of just, "Oh my god,
what did I do?" Because it was such a big decision. And I think I just kind of like looked at you and was
like, "She did it, why can't I do it?"

Steph:
You have to see examples. You have to see someone ... Not that I'm like a shining example. But you have
to see someone that's similar to you. Like we both were working and I probably made less money than
you as a teacher. And so you were like, "Oh, well, if you can do it, I can do it."

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
And I think a lot of our friends had that mentality after we both did it because you and I were the first
two. And then now, almost all of our friends live within a mile and a half of each other in their own
home, which is like so cute. So you lived in that house for how long?

Nancy Lopez:
Up until December of this past year, of 2019.

Steph:
2019.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
So four years.

Nancy Lopez:
Four years.

Steph:
Oh my god. And you bought the house but it was livable.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I mean it needed some work for sure and it's an old house. It was built in '63. The windows need
replacing. It needs a lot of love, but I did do some work to it. But it was very livable when I bought it. It
was just a matter of painting and fixing some of the weird spots on the walls and just cosmetic things to
make it feel like home.

Steph:
190 is like insane, a livable house on a good size lot. It's safe to say that you got a really good deal, but it
was pretty common in that time. It wasn't unheard of.

Nancy Lopez:
I got outbid several times over even as they were taking offers. And I wrote a letter to the owners of the
house because it was the owners that were selling it and they had lived in that house for 10 years or
something, 11 years. And I wrote them a letter and I was like, "Look, I'm female, I'm from Houston, I've
lived in Austin for X amount of years. I'm Hispanic, I'm the youngest of seven kids. This is my first house.
I'm going to live in this house. I'm not going to tear it down like they are the rest of the neighborhood.
I'm going to live in the house as it is so I hope you'll consider my offer even though there's probably
more financial benefit for you. I hope you consider what difference I'll make by actually living and
contributing to the neighborhood rather than coming in and changing it."

Steph:
Oh, I would [crosstalk 00:16:27].

Nancy Lopez:
And I think that really resonated with them. And it wasn't a bullshit, I really meant what I said to them
because I've lived in east Austin the entire time that I've been in Austin and it's been hard to watch all
the changes that have happened because it just feels like the fabric that makes it great is just kind of
changing. And I don't know if it's necessarily for the better.

Steph:
Yeah. That's such a real topic that we want to talk more about at Open House in general, is the
gentrification that has happened on the east side. And it's really cool that the owners recognized that
you were genuinely going to live there. And that to me seems really important. I know as a seller I've
never sold a house that I lived in, but if I were to it would be really important to me what happened to it
after. So I love that. I think that's so smart.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I'm not a developer. I'm not going to come in and bulldoze the house. I want to live here. So I think
I got lucky in that case.

Steph:
Absolutely. I got outbid too. Do you remember that process? It was so crazy. It was like eight bids that I
made that didn't get accepted.

Nancy Lopez:
For [Mansell 00:17:33]?

Steph:
For Mansell, yeah, before I got Mansell. Because we were both in that developer price range. We were
both trying to buy at like 175. Yeah, because my house was 180. So yeah, in that range people were
buying houses cash and that's really hard to compete against.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I think Henry, your first real estate agent, he handled that transaction. And I think he said that
they had offered like 20 or 30 grand over what was asking. It kind of is a miracle that I got that house.

Steph:
It was meant to be yours. That's very cool. Okay. So you still own that house.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, still own it. I just moved out of it in December of 2019, was really kind of sad. I really loved that
house. It was weird to pack up everything and leave. But I ended up with a second property, and that's
kind of a crazy story.

Steph:
So crazy. Okay, wait. Before we go there we're going to ... What did you do to your house, like your
bathroom renovation? Tell us about that.

Nancy Lopez:
So I didn't do a whole lot to the house. I did a bathroom reno. I gutted the entire inside of the bathroom
because it was just not in a great state. It was the worst part of the house by far, and it was the only bathroom so it definitely needed-

Steph:
A homey one.

Nancy Lopez:
... yeah, it needed a homey one. So I spent about eight grand I would say-

Steph:
That's so good.

Nancy Lopez:
... top to bottom, a complete reno, new walls, new plumbing.

Steph:
And you did all the demo.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I was desperate to save some money so I ended up kind of piecemealing parts of the job. I had
gotten bids for contractors to do something turnkey and they were just outrageously expensive.

Steph:
Like what? Do you remember?

Nancy Lopez:
I think ... I don't remember exact figures.

Steph:
20?

Nancy Lopez:
But I remember it was well over like 15 grand with some of the people that I talked to.

Steph:
It's so wild the difference between ... Because you kind of GCed or general contracted it yourself. So you
hired the people for the tile and hired the people for the plumbing, which is, it's crazy how much money
you can save doing that.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. It was kind of a logistical challenge more than anything. And I definitely ... like a time constraint as
well. You can put a dollar amount to how much time it would also take you to do that.

Steph:
That's a good point.

Nancy Lopez:
But you still come out ahead no matter what.

Steph:
But it's still impressive that you did it while you had your day job.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. That was interesting. Because it was going to take a whole week basically to do the
reconstruction, and so I was working from home trying to monitor what was going on with the whole
remodel. And then also I didn't have a bathroom. So I was like literally going down the street to our
friend Danielle's house when I was there. Otherwise, I was staying with my partner at the time.

Steph:
Oh yeah.

Nancy Lopez:
Honestly, that week was pretty rough. I'm not going to lie. But the outcome of it was great. The guy that
I got for the tiles, he was great and fantastic.

Steph:
I mean, a bathroom renovation is not a small task and it also raises the value so much, especially when
you have one bathroom. So I love that you did that. And now you're in a different house but you still
own that house. What's happening with that house?

Nancy Lopez:
So we got a second property. Wasn't really planning on that so we had to pivot pretty quickly.

Steph:
You're the queen of pivot.

Nancy Lopez:
I mean, it's one of those things where if you think too much about it, it's like when you stand on the
edge of a diving board and you just look at the pool instead of just jumping off. I really feel like that's
kind of where the strength is in taking risks sometimes. You've got to think ... I mean obviously you've
got to make sure it makes sense. You're not going to go and do something crazy just for the sake of
taking a risk. A calculated risk is fine. And I think a lot of people just become paralyzed by the idea of
something going wrong so they don't make any decisions.

Steph:
That's so wise. Re-listen to what she just said. That was so good because it's so true. People get
paralyzed by the research phase of things like, "Oh, what if this happens, what if it goes wrong?"

Nancy Lopez:
And what I was saying about the first purchase, that six month latent, "Oh my god, what did I do?" I'm
really glad that it hit already after that point because it was a good decision. I made the right decision
for myself. It was just like that scariness of, "Oh my god, what am I doing? This is really serious." Adult
shit when you hit that first moment of, "Wow, I'm actually an adult and this is my name on the deed.
And if shit goes wrong, it's going to be me." So that whole thing came later. And I'm glad, because I think
a lot of people use that as a crutch to not take a risk.

Steph:
Yes. And I feel like inaction can sometimes be a greater risk than actual action. So I love that for you it
was a six month delay, which was perfect because you had already made the choice, no going back.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, I was living with it. There was no going back. But I'm sorry, I keep meandering from your question.

Steph:
What was it?

Nancy Lopez:
So I wasn't planning on getting a second property, ended up pivoting really quickly and leasing out the
first property that I bought. So now I have a renter living in that first property.

Steph:
Yay, you're a landlord, a land lady.

Nancy Lopez:
I'm a land lady, yeah.

Steph:
Okay. So I was lucky enough to be Nancy's realtor on the second property because I didn't have my
license on the first property. But she called me and she said ... Or no, you sent me a screenshot and just said-

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. Well, remember, how it started was me and my partner were looking for commercial properties.

Steph:
Oh, yes.

Nancy Lopez:
And I said, "Let's put a search on the MLS and let's just check out all the commercial properties that are
coming online." And I remember waking up that morning and seeing this house on there. And it just
looked out of place because it's a commercial listing search. And it was a cute house. I was like, "This is
so cute." And I remember screenshotting it and sending it to you that morning. And I said, "What's going
on with this place?"

Steph:
And I had already been in it.

Nancy Lopez:
You had already been in it, that was so funny.

Steph:
I showed it to someone else and they were like, "It's too old." And I was like, "Oh my god." It was such a
good property. But there's no reason I would have sent it to Nancy because she wasn't looking.

Nancy Lopez:
No. I was not actively looking. I mean, I was looking for properties potentially for a business. But then
this opportunity came up and I saw it and I kind of just went for it.

Steph:
So cool. And so we went to see it. We went to see it that day or maybe the day after. And it's such a cool
house.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I mean it's an old house and that's kind of right up my alley. I've never been somebody that likes
the new builds. I like the character of older houses. I find that they have better bones. It's just got more
of a story to tell and so I loved it from the get go and we saw it that night I think, the morning I had sent
you the screenshot. And it was crazy. I felt crazy in that moment after seeing it because I really had to
ask myself like, "Am I really even considering going for this?"

Steph:
And you were like, "I think I'm going to do it. Am I doing this?"

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. And I remember standing in that house with you talking about it and just thinking like, "What is
happening right now?" Because it just kind of landed on my lap. And now with my current role, my
current job, I have capital, different types of capital that I hadn't had in other jobs. So I have stocks in
the company and the company's doing really well. So it's like one of those things where I have these
resources and I can't just let it sit there either.

Steph:
Yeah. So let's go numbers on this house. This house is also, it's in the same zip code.

Nancy Lopez:
Yep, -21 (78721).

Steph:
And how much did it cost?

Nancy Lopez:
So three bedroom, two bath, 360.

Steph:
360.

Nancy Lopez:
360.

Steph:
Did we go over? We went over a little bit on it-

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
... because there were multiple offers.

Nancy Lopez:
Yes.

Steph:
And this one, I mean, I'm so surprised that we got it because that's pretty cheap for the area for how big
the house is.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. And also the mixed use, that's a huge-

Steph:
Yeah. So the reason it came up on commercial is because it's mixed use, which means it's so versatile.
You could live in it or you can make it a shop or you can make it a whatever, which is really cool. It's the
same with this one that we're sitting in right now because that, yeah, it's so valuable. So a great deal in a
great area. And then you had to move really fast.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. We had to move super fast. The way that I saw it was that I could take some of my resources and
diversify into something different.

Steph:
So how much did you put down, what percentage did you put down?

Nancy Lopez:
I actually don't know.

Steph:
Was it five?

Nancy Lopez:
I think it was five.

Steph:
I think you put minimum. So since you were going to-

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, it's five.

Steph:
... live in the house, the minimum you can put down is five percent, which makes sense. Like you don't
want to have to put all your cash into the property if you don't have to. So how did you make that work?
Like you did this all on your own, right?

Nancy Lopez:
Yes, yeah. So like I said, I had stocks and I had sold some of that stock just to have money to invest if the
right opportunity came around and this was it. So I put down the down payment using my stock money and that's-

Steph:
You're diversifying your portfolio because you have stock in your company. Did you have savings in
addition to that?

Nancy Lopez:
I did. I had some savings, but most of it came from my stock.

Steph:
Yeah. And then where else are you invested? So you've got real estate, you've got your stocks at your
company. Do you have 401K?

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, I've got a 401K. Honestly, I don't have anything really beyond that.

Steph:
That's a lot.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I mean two houses is definitely keeping me plenty occupied. But it's definitely something that I
never really thought of. It's like what we were saying earlier. It's like you need examples around you and
my family didn't ever really teach me that growing up like, "You should target to buy a house at some
point." I guess when you're young you don't really think about those things and you don't think to ask
them either.

Steph:
Right. There's no education, there's no, "Here's what you should do with your money."

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, it's crazy. If you have a lot of willpower you can do something. And if you want something bad
enough, you will try and figure out a way to make it work.

Steph:
Yeah. So what is it you want, financial freedom? What is driving you?

Nancy Lopez:
I want to retire to the beach. So I definitely don't want to be working a 9:00 to 6:00 for the rest of my
life.

Steph:
Oh, 9:00 to 6:00, is that it? No?

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, 9:00 to 6:00.

Steph:
Oh man.

Nancy Lopez:
Well, I have an hour long lunch break.

Steph:
Okay.

Nancy Lopez:
So for me, I have to think about, I want to have passive money being made and you have to get smart,
you have to play the game. And I think a lot of us are playing catch up trying to figure out what that
game is. And a lot of people are already ahead of us, but you have to start somewhere.

Steph:
Totally, and I feel like right after college, and not even right after, but a while after college you're like
figuring your shit out. You're figuring out, "Okay. I have to find a job that I really like," because after
college you're just like, "I just have to find a job, period." Like we didn't realize, especially for me as a
teacher I was like, "This is natural. My mom is a teacher. I'm going to get a job as a teacher." And then in
my mind it was my destiny. I was like, "This is what I'm meant to do, this is what I'm good at." And
making a pivot is not easy, like quitting a job. Or even getting laid off from a job and pivoting to a
different field is really hard.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I really had no idea what was going to happen. But at that point I didn't have much to lose.

Steph:
It's true.

Nancy Lopez:
So it's just one of those leap of faith type of thing, and know that you've got a support system like
friends and family. That's also a privilege I have, is that even if I were to fail, I have family or friends that
would probably take me in.

Steph:
Oh yeah, you can live in our closet.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I can live in a closet like Harry Potter.

Steph:
So do you think you'll buy more houses?

Nancy Lopez:
It's been six months of having a tenant. So we've had a couple of little hiccups but everything's been
okay so far and my tenant is great, I love her, she's very communicative with me. She'll message me with
something if she sees something and that's kind of the tenant I'm looking for, is somebody who's really
going to take care of the house and not just destroy it or let things run too long before raising the flag.

Steph:
How did you find her?

Nancy Lopez:
I had put up a couple of listings, one on Craigslist and then one on ... What is that other popular one? Is
it Zillow?

Steph:
Yeah. They have Zillow, yeah.

Nancy Lopez:
And I got a lot of bites.

Steph:
Oh yeah, because it's a very reasonable price.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I think for me I was really keen to make sure that the numbers made sense for me, but also I
wasn't inflating the price too much because I don't want to push people out, you know what I mean?

Steph:
Totally.

Nancy Lopez:
And I think I listed it at a very fair price for the condition that the house is in.

Steph:
Okay. So numbers, let's go overview of the numbers. So what's your mortgage, principal interest, taxes,
and insurance on your first house?

Nancy Lopez:
I think right now it's at 1250 for everything.

Steph:
1250.

Nancy Lopez:
1250.

Steph:
That's so amazing.

Nancy Lopez:
I pay over every month.

Steph:
Really?

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
Why?

Nancy Lopez:
Because all that goes to the principal.

Steph:
So good. So have you looked at when your loan is maturing after you've done that?

Nancy Lopez:
To be frank, no.

Steph:
Probably like ... Have you paid a whole payment every year extra?

Nancy Lopez:
Yes.

Steph:
So you're probably like seven years or eight years off of your 30 years.

Nancy Lopez:
Oh yeah, yeah. I should look at that. I should look at that. I haven't done ... I'm not great with managing
all of the percentages and all that. I need to find a software or something where I can look at that stuff.

Steph:
Yeah, plug it in.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. Plug it in and just tell me. But I think for me, my dad is very old school in the way that he taught
me how to manage money. And he's just like, "Mija, never spend more than you make, golden rule." So
I've always kind of baked in that extra buffer to be like, even if shit got really bad I still have a rainy day
fund or I'm able to pay up to this point already.

Steph:
So good. So you kind of make yourself get used to a higher payment.

Nancy Lopez:
Yes.

Steph:
And then when maybe there's something that happens, you don't have to pay that much.

Nancy Lopez:
Yes.

Steph:
That's so good. Okay. So if your mortgage payment for everything is 1250, how much is your tenant
paying?

Nancy Lopez:
1650.

Steph:
1650. So you're cashflowing, what is that, 400 a month?

Nancy Lopez:
$400 a month, yeah.

Steph:
That's so good. I mean, that's better than a lot of real estate investors look for in their investments and
you weren't even trying to buy for an investment initially, you were just trying to buy a house to live in.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
Okay. And then what about your principal interest, taxes, and insurance, PITI, P-I-T-I-

Nancy Lopez:
PITI.

Steph:
... on your new house?

Nancy Lopez:
New house, I think it is 2200.

Steph:
2200. And you live there with-

Nancy Lopez:
My partner.

Steph:
Yeah. Shout out to Divy.

Nancy Lopez:
Shout out Divy.

Steph:
And that feels really manageable.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I have a really good job and I've got my capital from my stocks, that's a really big
part of my income. It's not just my salary but what I own of the company is really huge.

Steph:
That's so good. That's also a really good thing, like a good piece of advice too. You're not just negotiating
your salary, that's not the whole picture.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, absolutely. Like understanding that your salary is one part of the whole compensation package. I
don't know what it's like in other industries, but another people refer to it as the golden handcuffs
because I have shares that haven't vested yet. And the longer I stay with the company, the more of
those shares vest. So I have an interest in staying with the company.

Steph:
Right. That's really smart on their part too.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
I love it. Okay.

Nancy Lopez:
And it's great for me too.

Steph:
Yeah. It's so good, especially because you like your job.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
That's very nice. Okay. So what has buying two houses or your investment in real estate and just in
general your success in your career, success in real estate investing, what has it done for your net
worth?

Nancy Lopez:
I hope it's increased it. Again, I need a software to tell me what that is.

Steph:
Yes, I'm going to share my net worth spreadsheet with you, or just what I use. It's not perfect, but I kind
of list my mortgage, how much I owe on a house, how much the house is worth right now, which is also
something I can help you with because I can run comps for you. But we kind of know. I'll send you
houses that pop up on your street.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I'd be super interested to look at that now because I'm pretty sure I'm the only house within that
six house radius of mine that has not been flipped.

Steph:
Oh yeah, every house on your street, it's crazy. It's crazy.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. Me and my neighbor I think are the only two houses within like six houses apart from me.

Steph:
Yeah. I mean and they're going for like mid 300s to-

Nancy Lopez:
Oh yeah. The house across the street, it went for I think 440 or something.

Steph:
That is so crazy.

Nancy Lopez:
And it's a small house. I could not believe that they had purchased it for that much. It's really not big at
all.

Steph:
All the houses in that zip code, they're 600 to 1000 square feet, maybe 1100, maybe. But they're going
for 300 to 500. It's so crazy. And you bought five years ago.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah.

Steph:
So if your house let's just say conservatively is worth 375, that math is really good. Like what do you owe
on your house, do you know?

Nancy Lopez:
On the principal?

Steph:
Yeah.

Nancy Lopez:
I think it's like 110, something like that. It's really not that much. I was actually ... And that's the reason
why when I was interested in purchasing the second property I was really convinced that I wanted to
hold on to the first property. And this was a back and forth. You know I'd had my brothers and my mom
and my dad just talking through trying to hash things out. And it's like in the grand scheme of things it's
not that much. I mean, it's a big number, don't get me wrong. But it's also, it's very manageable. I'm
almost there.

Steph:
You're almost there, I mean truly. And in the grand scheme of like how you'll make in your career, how
much I'll make in my career, 100000 isn't that much. And so if you hold onto it you pay it off, and then
you're bringing in $1600 a month, 1650 a month for no monthly payment. So you have $1600 cash flow,
which is so amazing.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I love the house, like I said it's an old house, needs a lot of work, I know that the value really is in
the lot that the house is sitting on. So I've even thought like pie in the sky, way in the future, what if I decide to build on that lot and I build the house of my dreams on the lot that I own from my first
purchase.

Steph:
Yes, I love it.

Nancy Lopez:
We'll see how it shakes out.

Steph:
And that's similar, I just built ... Nancy bought in 2015, I bought in 2013 for 180. Arguably, Nancy got a
way better deal because yours is three one, mine is two one. But I just went back and added my tiny
home and that has completely ... And I upgraded the house and added a bathroom and all of that.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. You were busy during quarantine.

Steph:
Yes. Quarantine was like, I blocked it out, living in construction. But it was so worth it because now I'm
cashflowing double what I was cashflowing before. And it's kind of like you do your properties in phases.
Your first phase is living in the house with roommates. And you Airbnbed a little bit.

Nancy Lopez:
Oh yeah, I remember that.

Steph:
That was fun.

Nancy Lopez:
Did a couple stints. That was really fun actually. I met some really amazing people doing that. And for
me, it wasn't ... I couldn't keep it up. It was a little hard for me to do that, especially with a cat and
having a partner and relationship and all that. But it was a lot of fun and it actually did make me pretty
good money when I was doing it.

Steph:
And you Airbnbed inside your house.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, just a room. Yeah, I had a guest bedroom that I rented out.

Steph:
Yeah. And you had two extra rooms, which is awesome. And I remember Christoph lived with you for a
while.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. I had kind of a rotating cast of people that would just kind of end up needing a place for a couple
of months. Lots of great memories of that house.

Steph:
And you house hacked in a really cool way because you had ... Divy lived there for a while, for a long
time. And when your partner lives with you, that's like the best roommate. And then your Airbnb, which
brought in money. And so when you're 27 it makes sense for people to kind of come through. Now in
your house, you're not going to Airbnb inside your house.

Nancy Lopez:
No, probably not, no.

Steph:
Because you kind of graduate from that, which is kind of why it was great for us to buy when we were
young.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. It goes back to what we were talking about with the being scrappy and resourceful and just kind of
leveraging what you have at the time to make more.

Steph:
Yeah. And what I always like to say is being uncomfortable so you can be like hyper comfortable later.
Being "uncomfortable" when you're 25, 26, 27 means you have roommates. Like, you're going to have
roommates anyway. So it's not really that much discomfort. But buying early, I just wish I could look
every single college graduate in the face and say, "Buy a house sooner than later." But you are in that
kind of world of, "What am I doing? What am I doing after college? Where do I want to be? I don't want
to settle down." But look at you. You lived in that house and now you were able to buy a second house.
It doesn't mean you're settling down. And even now, you could move out of the country like you've said
that you wanted to.

Nancy Lopez:
I know, right. I don't know how that's going to happen now.

Steph:
Well, but you could rent your house so easily.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. That's the thing, is that there's some stuff with the second property that I need to get addressed.
But once it is, it's a perfectly livable house and it would be two bathroom, so it really improves the
renting possibility.

Steph:
Yes. Oh my gosh, you have to tell them about the bathroom.

Nancy Lopez:
Oh yeah.

Steph:
This is the weirdest house.

Nancy Lopez:
It's pretty bizarre, and I think that's why we got a good deal and it probably scared away a couple of
other people. But we're not afraid of a challenge and definitely going through the remodel of the first
house gave me kind of that confidence that I could do it again and probably do it better this time. But
yeah, in the master bedroom there's a full bathroom. And then on the side of that there's like a opened
area that is like a half bathroom.

Steph:
With no toilet.

Nancy Lopez:
With no toilet. But on the other side of that wall is the other half of the toilet, which is very bizarre.

Steph:
Other half of the toilet.

Nancy Lopez:
Other half of ... The toilet is there, it's the other half of the bathroom. So it's going to require a remodel.

Steph:
Yeah. But not crazy. That's what we talked about when we went into it was like, "All the plumbing's
here. It's right here. You don't have to move that much."

Nancy Lopez:
No.

Steph:
And your house is pier and beam.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, both of them. Both of them are pier and beam.

Steph:
We love a pier and beam because you can move plumbing, get to the plumbing so easily, repair
plumbing easily and move it.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. That was something I wish I had ... That's probably a mistake I made on my first house was that I
should have done some work on the foundation before I remodeled the bathroom, because once they work on the foundation, things shift and you can break up your work, your tile-

Steph:
Break up your, yeah, especially dry wall, tile.

Nancy Lopez:
... and all that stuff. Yes.

Steph:
Oh, that's a good one. Is that going to be your ... I forgot to ask you your biggest fail.

Nancy Lopez:
I'd say that's probably my biggest fail.

Steph:
Yeah. That's not a bad fail.

Nancy Lopez:
I mean, it's not great. But it's one of those situations where it's not life or death and Austin's a really
great market. So lord forbid that there's any sort of catastrophe, but if there was I have an out and I will
still probably make money on it.

Steph:
No question. I mean, you have about $300000 in equity, $250000 in equity, which is amazing. So like
your net worth is at least $250000 which is really cool. Have you thought about that?

Nancy Lopez:
No. Not at all. I'm probably like too simplistic in the way I think about things, and that's probably a good
thing for me because I think if I get too much in the nitty gritty I stress myself out, I become
overwhelmed. I just, I look at a bottom line I guess and that's helpful I think for me.

Steph:
What do you mean? What is your bottom line? Like how much you have in the bank and stocks and
stuff?

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, pretty much.

Steph:
That's smart, that's smart. I spend a lot of time in spreadsheets and calculating my net worth and all of
that, which is kind of a waste of time but-

Nancy Lopez:
No, that's great. I mean everybody's got their ways of managing it. I think for me it's just more of a stress
block to not get so crazy with the numbers. But it's good to also plan better. I think I could stand to plan
a little bit better on those things because it is important.

Steph:
Do you have debt?

Nancy Lopez:
I have student loans. That's pretty much it.

Steph:
And student loans ... So you bought two houses and you had student loans the whole time.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah. Student loans. I had a car note. I luckily paid that off, which is great.

Steph:
Oh, the 4Runner. 4Runner?

Nancy Lopez:
My 4Runner, yeah.

Steph:
Yeah.

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, it's not a new car. I think a lot of it too goes back to like sacrifices. I don't have the car of my
dreams but that's okay because I have these two awesome houses and I'm making money off of them in the long run. So as much as I'd like to have a new car and drive around in something that I really love-

Steph:
What is your dream car?

Nancy Lopez:
Probably something really sporty and fast.

Steph:
Really?

Nancy Lopez:
Yeah, like a Porsche.

Steph:
Wow. Well, you're going to have a Porsche.

Nancy Lopez:
I hope so.

Steph:
I know it. We're putting into the universe, just imagine yourself driving your Porsche.

Nancy Lopez:
Oh, I have.

Steph:
That's surprising. You've always had like big-

Nancy Lopez:
I know, SUVs, I know. But when you get to a point in your life-

Steph:
Your mid life.

Nancy Lopez:
I'm mid life. Sometimes it feels like that.

Steph:
We're up here just on the grind 9:00 to 6:00.

Nancy Lopez:
Here for a good time, not a long time.

Steph:
Well, then Porsche. Mid life is 31. Well, lifestyle creep is real and the fact that we've prioritized our
investments, prioritized our long term ... You're going to be able to retire to a beach.

Nancy Lopez:
I hope so, yeah. That's the plan ultimately.

Steph:
Because you're not overspending now. And if you're spending, you're buying a second house which is ...
or bags. You really like to spend money on bags.

Nancy Lopez:
Like backpacks?

Steph:
Yeah.

Nancy Lopez:
Oh yeah, yeah. I do love a good backpack.

Steph:
You're a bag queen.

Nancy Lopez:
Thanks. Small pleasures I guess.

Steph:
That's good. It's better than Porsches. Well, this was really fun anything else about real estate that you
want to add?

Nancy Lopez:
I would just say if you have a will, there's a way. Don't be afraid to take risks. Sometimes, not taking a
risk is more of a risk like you said. Yeah, and I'm always open to chat with people about it. I will only tell
you what I know.

Steph:
Yeah. Okay, well, I love you.

Nancy Lopez:
I love you. Thanks for having me. I'm honestly very honored to be here.

Steph:
Oh my god, of course I'm honored. Okay.

Nancy Lopez:
I'm proud of you for your podcast, congrats.

Steph:
Thank you. Yay. That's so fun. We obviously are still really good friends so we talk a lot anyway, but we
just don't get the time to talk about the intricacies of her real estate deals and I could talk about that
forever so it was really fun.

Kristina:
Yeah. A few things, I like really loved what she said about, just what I heard her say is it's really
important who you spend your time with and who you're learning from. Because I think you even
mentioned before that you saw someone similar to you buying a house at an early age and you were
like, "Oh my gosh. That's possible for me." And I think Nancy even said you were the catalyst to her
buying her second home because at first maybe she thought, "Oh, I'm just going to buy one house for me. Maybe it will cheaper than my rent right now, maybe it'll be a good investment long term like I'll get
my money back." But she didn't really consider buying a second home until she saw someone else do
that.

Steph:
Totally, yeah. It's fun to see friends in circles. And we talked about this, how your circles affect so much
of what you get into and what you do with your money. So I'm happy to have been a positive influence,
but it's just like the social circle in general. We have a really good group of people who are interested in
bettering themselves always.

Kristina:
Yeah. I also, I really loved how she talked about not over inflating her rent so she was able to still make money but still give people affordable rent. And I think she said her mortgage was like 16 ... no, no-

Steph:
Her mortgage is 1250.

Kristina:
... 1250 and she's charging 1650. I don't know. That really resonated with me because as I'm starting to
think of renting out my house and the different options, what do you do? You start educating yourself
on different areas you buy in and how to be a better advocate for your community. How to actually
provide housing that isn't like, "Oh, I'm just going to provide this Airbnb that's way too expensive." So I
don't know, I really appreciated that she does that.

Steph:
Right. She really was conscious about it, which I love. Because while we talked a lot about Airbnb in the
past, we're reexamining ourselves. Providing an Airbnb is not providing anything for your community.

Kristina:
Yeah, I know.

Steph:
So I love that.

Kristina:
It's tricky and I'm interested. I'm excited to talk to more people who own Airbnb properties. But I was
talking to someone recently, one of my friends about how to be a more conscious investor. And one
thing, she was like, "Well, if you just buy a property in a gentrifying area and you just renovate it and
then Airbnb it out you are a problem." And I was like, "Oh yeah, for sure. That definitely makes sense.
And how can you buy investment properties in a more conscious way, especially in areas that are more
expensive now? What are your options?"

Kristina:
And then like it's also the conundrum of, "Okay. So if I don't buy this property then I know who is going
to buy it. It's probably going to be some cash buyer who's going to tear it down," which honestly happened in my neighborhood last week. A house was just torn down. I mean, honestly I think it was
condemned. But whoever bought it is going to build two properties there. They're going to sell those
and they're going to make big cash on it. So it's all conversations I have not been having as much in the past and I'm really ready to like ... I'm excited to have more of these conversations and learn how to-

Steph:
Same, it's so nuanced. And to hear from people who are doing it right. Nancy probably could have made
maybe double what she's making now and she chose to rent it to a person from the community at a
reasonable price. Because it's a three bedroom for 1650 in Austin. If you're in Austin, you know that's
hella reasonable. So I love that.

Kristina:
Yeah. And you do kind of have to sacrifice a little bit. But who cares? What is that? What does that really
mean to you? If you can benefit someone else in your community and you're still making money, great.
You can't be greedy about it.

Steph:
She's paying her mortgage, her taxes, her insurance, and she's cashflowing $400-

Kristina:
Oh my god.

Steph:
... which is, that's amazing. And she's able to charge a reasonable rent. That is the goal. So I love what
you said about having more conversations about this because there's so much nuance, especially when
you think about, "Okay. If I just abstain from buying, that's not the answer either because we know who
is going to buy those houses."

Kristina:
Yeah. So we just have to continue to educate ourselves and learn. Like we don't have the answers right
now. Okay. Well, yeah, I think that kind of wraps it up for us. Thank y'all so much for listening and if you
do have any questions, comments, concerns, have suggestions for any guests that could be on our
podcast, please, please, please email us at podcast@openhouseaustin.co, that's C-O.

Steph:
C-O. And then follow us on Instagram for updates, subscribe to this podcast so that you don't miss
anything. Instagram is openhouse_austin, and that's it.

Kristina:
Yeah. Bye. [crosstalk 00:52:29]

Steph:
I'll talk to you next week. Or I'll talk to you tomorrow, but I'll talk to everyone else next week.
Kristina:

[crosstalk 00:52:33]
Steph:
[inaudible 00:52:34]

Steph:
[crosstalk 00:52:41] like an intro and outro.

Nancy Lopez:
Okay.

Steph:
So that's why I wasn't like, "Hello."

Nancy Lopez:
"Support comes from ..."

Steph:
Yeah. Alan's been like clipping stuff like when we do this and it's kind of cute.

Nancy Lopez:
Okay.

Steph:
So you can something cute if you want.

Nancy Lopez:
I'm a cutie.

Steph:
He's going to put that at the very beginning. (silence)