Making $13,000/Month Cash Flow from ONE Rental and ONE Business in ONE Year
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What's up, rookies? Today, we're diving into a simple blueprint for how to get that first cash-flowing property. Now, our guest went from having zero real estate experience to becoming a full-time real estate entrepreneur in record time, proving that smart investing and authentic networking can accelerate your path to financial freedom. From corporate financial analyst to full-time real estate investor, Alison Kraft used real estate to completely

So she'll share her playbook on getting her first property, how she identified markets, built her team, and constructed her buy box to find the right cash flowing property to kickstart her business.

This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm Tony J. Robinson. And today, Garrett Brown from Bigger Stays is filling in for Ashley. Garrett, what's up, brother? How are you doing, man? Great, man. Glad to be back on. And we're always ready to talk about some real estate investing and short-term rentals. Well, there you go, man. Well, today we've got Allison. And Allison, we're super excited to have you. Welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Garrett, for having me. I'm super excited.

Super excited to be on here. Now, Allison, you were working as a corporate financial analyst and just kind of getting started in your real estate journey when I guess something kind of significant happened that changed your life. So can you share how your brother's sudden passing and your kind of personal circumstances accelerated your real estate journey? Yeah, and I'll take it back to the very beginning for you too. Yes, I was in corporate finance. I worked in corporate finance for about 10 years.

And then, but prior to that, I got married, started a family. And, you know, after having my first son, I did the whole, you know, I did what you're supposed to do. You know, you go on maternity leave for three months.

and that's done and over, and I put my son into daycare, and I went back to work. And then just a year and a half, yeah, about a year and a half later, I get pregnant again with baby number two, and the second time around was a little different. I was more confident mom, per se, and after I had my second little boy, my maternity leave was so much easier, and it was so nice being off and just connecting with him that when I had to go back to work,

It was a little bit more of a struggle, let's just say, of going back to work for him or going back to the cubicle and putting my little boy into daycare. So

That kind of changed something in me of like, okay, let's kind of get into real estate. So from there, I discovered BiggerPockets. I just remember sitting down at the dinner table with my husband and I asked him like, hey, have you heard of BiggerPockets? And he asked me, he's like, do you live under a rock? Like how have you not heard of BiggerPockets? But from there, like him and I were just kind of on the same page. Like, okay, you know what? Let's get into this whole real estate and you found your new

niche of short-term rentals and that's what you kind of want to get into. So that's when I really just started deep diving into things and just

Learning as much content as I possibly could on YouTube and things like that and continuing listening to all the podcasts So then June comes around and I discovered his name is John Bianchi. He's the Airbnb dating guy I found his content and I just deep dived into his stuff and I just had you know the guts to reach out to him because I was analyzing properties I was analyzing I using markets because if we had a lump sum of money that we had

had in savings that we wanted to use that to put into another investment vehicle. And that's why we chose short-term rentals. We felt that was a lucrative business to get into. I had no idea what I was getting into, by the way. I was very naive, very naive. And I just thought it looked

you know kind of cool to have a vacation rental i live in florida so i kind of just went down you know down that route and i even posted on like a forum like in bigger pockets asking questions and and i would get answers and and i got recommended to a realtor who lives you know in my area and who is like a bigger pockets

investor-friendly realtor in town. So anyway, so I actually connected with him and he was a pivotal person in my journey in my real estate and in my co-hosting business. Kind of fast forward when I was working and talking with John and that's when he was like,

got on the phone with me, we started talking, and he was kind of like just pointing me in the right direction, like, hey, look over here kind of thing. And so he kind of pointed me in the market that would better suit my financial, you know, criteria of what I could afford at the time. So yeah, so then in October of 23, I'm in the right market that I need to be in, I get the realtor, I get the lending, I get everything in place. And then November of 23, I found a house in

And I put in an offer and then I close on that house in December of 23. And then from December of 23 to February is when I was like renovating the home, added some capital improvements to the home and then working with a designer and, you know, and getting the installation team in there.

And then when the house went live in February, my phone was blowing up, you know, ping, ping, you know, like the congratulations, somebody booked, you know, Airbnb. It was just nonstop. And then so I was on such this high. So what you're alluding to of what really changed everything was in March. So just being live for about a month, maybe a month and a half, tragedy struck my family, my little brother,

got in a bad accident, sorry, and he died suddenly. And it really woke me up in terms of that life is very short and do what you want to do. You know, he was only 26 years old

And he was so young. He had a young family. He was barely married. Had an eight-month-old baby. And so this whole thing just put a wrench into everything. And so I went home for two weeks and was with my family. And then from there, asking work to take off. So again, because I'm a W-2 employee at this time, me being a full-time real estate investor wasn't really in W-2.

my, you know, site, not with one rental. I couldn't do that. So I had to ask time off and it was, it wasn't difficult asking for time off given the circumstances, but nonetheless, I, you know, I had to go back. And then you just try to find solutions to be there for your family and that's given me

you know, I guess the inspiration in me to live a better life, per se. Because, I mean, I got to tell you, like, my brother was the most kind, the most generous. Just seeing, like, going, you know, obviously going through the whole funeral and everything like that. My brother had two, three miles of people lined up. He impacted so many lives. And so just seeing that,

I mean, something so devastating and something so negative, you can take something positive out of it somehow. And that's what I'm trying to do. And so, you know, obviously I took a lot of time just, you know, trying to figure things out and all while still operating and managing my own rental. And out of state, by the way, I was managing out of state. And so, yeah.

I had a great team, by the way, that was helping me. My boots on the ground were where my rental is. And so they were a godsend. And so, you know, a couple months do go by and.

I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to do co-hosting. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. That's something that my brother and I had always talked about was businesses and kind of doing your own thing and just having that passion and finding something that kind of lights you up. I first just want to thank you for being transparent and I think sharing the story of your brother and how it's impacted you because I think there are a lot of people listening who have gone through

similar experiences, whether to the same degree or even further. But I think what you said that's really important is that there are lessons to be learned oftentimes in those hard moments in life. And it sounds like the lesson that you took away from this

not only the impact that your brother had on other people, but like, hey, what does it mean for me and what kind of life do I want to live? And that it gave you some perspective. And I do think there's something to be said about having these moments to kind of wake us up to say, well, what kind of life do I really want to be living?

And I just give you kudos for not letting that message fall on deaf ears and actually doing something with it. So, you know, just thank you for sharing that and kudos you for actually taking action because there's a lot of people who hear it, who see it, who think it, but they don't actually do the work to make it happen. And you did that. So just, you know, I want to give you some credit there. Now, it sounds like you move pretty quickly, though.

You know, you said, hey, I've got this idea. You start talking to John Bianchi, Airbnb data guy on Instagram. Great guy. You find the property, you get it launched. And I was like, OK, well, what's what's kind of the next move for me? So you kind of built the side hustle and you talked about it a little bit, but you started co-hosting. So for for our rookies that maybe aren't familiar with what co-hosting is, can you just break that strategy down? Like, what does it mean to be a co-host?

So co-hosting is more so like property management where you kind of take the less risk route, meaning that the homeowner will find somebody, meaning like you as the co-host, to do all the operations, the pricing,

and working with cleaners, maintenance, doing your inventory management, guest messaging, really doing everything and managing the listing on Airbnb or whatever other platforms that you want to list your vacation rental on. And so

That is more so the route, the light bulb that went off in my head when I was getting five-star reviews on my own rental and where I kind of just did everything myself.

on my own where I figured it out through trial and error in terms of how I message guests, how I coordinate with my cleaners, how I send supplies or troubleshoot any issues, you know, standard operation procedures if something goes wrong.

And things like that, like I was building so much confidence. So that's when the light bulb went off of, maybe I can do this with other people. And I live in a vacation market. Maybe I should just do it here and start my own little business. And that's kind of where the idea sparked in my head. Allison, I know this is going to be profound for a lot of people just because of the story of your perseverance with different tragedies that came in. And I can definitely...

I feel for you in that too, as somebody that has used tragedy to help get to triumph the best we can in those types of situations. But I want to take it back slightly to your first property, the one that really launched this and was able to help you leave your W-2 job.

How did you find, I know you mentioned John, who is an awesome, awesome resource. And we've talked before with him multiple times. What was it about the market you were finding that was able to work within your buy box? And how did you know exactly what you were going to be comfortable with spending and putting into this initial investment and know that that market was going to be the one for you? So yeah, so John did lead me to this market. It was more so for

the purchase price, like the price to entry to get in, because I only had so much capital. So I'll throw out numbers right now. I had $100,000 cash to use to put towards a property. Now that 100,000, now I was pretty naive with this. It was going to go towards the down payment and the renovations and the furniture. And so I actually was short because of the furniture and things like that. As you know, starting an Airbnb is, it costs to...

start everything. I had limited funds, even though I thought I had enough. So going to that market, I knew it was a driving distance from a major city, actually multiple major cities, about 90 minutes, two hour drive where people can go out and into a peaceful area and have a nice vacation and get away from the busyness of the city. And so that was one aspect that I was looking at.

Obviously the purchase price was the next thing. It was the timing that I bought the house. The interest rates were through the roof. My interest rate that I got was 8.625 at that time. So I knew my mortgage was going to be a little bit higher. And it was going to be higher too because I only put 10% down. Because I didn't want to put 20% down because I, again, I needed to leverage as much cash as I could because I didn't have...

crazy amount like I'm not a big investor investor I don't have unlimited resources or funds so I had to be very strategic with this and to be honest with you I in my head I wanted to hit a home run and my husband was like no just hit a base hit like just

Just hit a base hit, don't stress yourself out. And so that's why working with John, he gave me that confidence, like this is going to work out. Don't stress about it because I was stressing over every little dollar. I didn't know I was going to have enough, but I had the whatever it takes mentality. Like I burned the boats, like I did. And I got credit cards and I knew that I needed a hot tub to compete.

And so I got business line of credit. I did what I needed to do to get past that finish line. And so, and I had all the confidence in the world in that market based on the data. And again, coming from a corporate finance background, I needed those numbers and I needed the proven history that it would work out so I can sleep at night. And because I was like, as anybody, as any investor knows, like when cash is tight,

That is the one thing on your mind and you do stress, like, am I going to make it this month? And I see that with the clients that I work with in my coaching business.

because some of them are unsure if they're going to make the mortgage payment. It just really depends on where you buy and the research that you do and the interest rates and everything with that. So it really comes down to the research and just having the confidence and the data. And that's kind of where I found myself. And Allison, where did you land after you launched this property? Just like Ballpark,

what's like your usual monthly cashflow? Oh, so for my monthly cashflow, now this is going to be spread because like, you know, during PC seasons and things like that. So spread about $3,000 a month for my first year. So again, like I launched in February of 24. So I just completed a full year just last month. And so I'll just lay out the numbers. I purchased the home for 370, which by the way, the home was listed for 389.

four bedroom, three bath, about 2,700 square feet. It was actually a bigger home and it was just, I hate to say the word, it was just ugly in terms of cosmetics. Like the color, it had orange walls. The kitchen was dated. You know, it just needed an uplift more so just cosmetically. Like everything, like the roof was good. Climbing was good. Like everything was good on that front.

And so it just needed some help. So I put about $40,000 worth of capital improvements. And that $40,000, that includes the backyard. So I redid the backyard. I even somewhat kind of leveled the backyard a little bit because it was like, again, I'm in the mountain market. So it was very hilly. So I needed to kind of flatten it out a little bit.

and added a fire pit, hot tub, corn hole, had a nice deck and everything. And so anyway, so yeah, so when I put in the offer, I offered it at listing, so $389,000. The appraisal, oh my gosh, this is where it got kind of scary for me. The appraisal came in at $360,000, which was a huge difference. And as you know, like I'm, you know, I'm getting lending,

and I only have so much cash so I really wanted this house because the numbers panned out the numbers were fantastic so I really really wanted it and so but I I didn't want to bring in that gap that appraisal gap and so so anyway I pulled my husband I was like okay what can we do so we offered

Again, because I really wanted to be aggressive and get this house. So I offered at $370,000 and they accepted it. So we just had to bring an extra $10,000 to the closing table. And so it was kind of like woosah kind of thing. So we got the house. And so anyway, so the summer months are my peak months. So like July and August, I was almost 100% occupied. And those two months, I cash flowed $8,000, $9,000 for each month.

And then, you know, my slow months, you know, September kind of slowed down. And even December slowed down, you know, during the holiday. And I thought I was going to get a little bit more, but I mean, it...

Anyway, so 370 purchase price. And then I ended the year with just shy of 120K. And that 120,000 revenue included, it was my nightly rate revenue and my cleaning revenue. So it was all top line revenue was. But I mean, 120,000 on a $370,000 purchase, that is really solid revenue.

ratio there. And if you're 3K average net cashflow per month, what is that? 36 grand a year on just over, it sounds like $100,000 investment. I mean, you're getting close to a 30% return at an 8.6, right? Yeah. I was going to say with an 8.6 interest rate, I want to highlight that. That's wild. So you refinance that bad boy back down to like a six or something and now you're doing even better. Well, Allison, I want to hear more

about how you kind of scaled up your side hustle, the co-hosting. Because I think for a lot of rookies that are listening, they can figure out how to get the first deal, but it's getting the second deal that seems to be a little bit more challenging. And it seems like you found a good way to do that. So I want to hear more about how you scaled the co-hosting. But first, we're going to take a quick break so we can hear a word from today's show sponsors.

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All right, we're back with Allison. And Allison, I want to dig just a little bit deeper because you built this co-hosting business rapidly. And I believe now you're managing 15 properties in a relatively short period of time. So I think the question I...

have is how did you scale so fast? But I guess maybe before we can get to the scaling, just how did you find your first client? It was actually an organic lead. And this is kind of a funny story. In July of 24, I created an LLC. I went on Fiverr. I had somebody help me create a Wix website, created a website.

Once my website went out there, I actually got an inquiry to come through. Somebody found my website through Google and they reached out to me. Immediately when I saw that inquiry and that form submission that came in, I called that person right away. It was this lady from Ohio. It's just like a small condo in St. Pete that they had. And she saw the name of my co-hosting company and she's like, I really liked your name.

And I was like, because I asked her, I was like, how did you find me? Because I literally was like, I probably had my website up for maybe a couple of weeks. And I did not expect this. I didn't expect it to happen so soon. Which, by the way, this is not normal. Like, I don't get a lot of inquiries through my website. So this was really a one-off situation. And so anyway, she's like, I really liked Crafty Co-host. I thought that was a cute name. I was like, okay. So that's kind of how I got my first client. And it really...

it really was building confidence. I guess when you just connect with these people, like, okay, I think I'm meant for this. Like, this is kind of cool. So I get, I kind of onboard that client and I knew that client was gonna use her condo. You know, I wasn't gonna make any money. I knew I wasn't gonna make any money on this. Obviously I'm still working my W-2. And then my next client that I got

Again, this is something where a light bulb kind of went off in my head where I used Thumbtack at times to find vendors and handymen and things like that for my actual business or my actual rental. And I was like, what if I can I search for property managers on Thumbtack? And I did. I searched in my area for property management. And so and that's where I realized the light bulb went off. I'll just create a profile on Thumbtack.

not knowing that I needed to pay for leads. Again, I was very naive. I just did it. I didn't even think, I just did it. And so I created a profile and then I was like kind of going through like a weekly budget. What does that even mean? So I just did like the lowest amount, which the lowest amount was like a $90 weekly budget for marketing leads.

And so, and I remember I would get like a lead to come through and then that's when I realized like, oh, what's this charge on my credit card? It's like thumbtack. It was like for that marketing lead. And so, but right when I got that lead though, I immediately, because they gave me the phone number. So I immediately called that person and they,

like this next person that I got was actually a really good lead. And it, again, it just built confidence. And so I called this person immediately. Their house was in Pinellas Park, you know, in like the St. Pete area.

And, you know, it was a three bed, two bath. It was a pool home and it was a legit investment property. Like it wasn't being used by the owners. Like this was like the real deal for me anyway to co-host. So so anyway, I I had multiple phone calls with these people or I shouldn't say these people like this homeowner. And again, it was that connection and kind of.

whenever I got them on the phone, I somehow closed the deal. And so, um, so yeah, so then from there, uh, I got, I, I closed them. Uh, now I only for, for, I'll just tell the numbers here because I really wanted that. Um, I really wanted that client. So I said, I'll, uh, I'll co-host for 10%. Um, because that's, he had a current property manager that, that was handling his house and this guy lived out of state. And so he's like, I don't, uh,

I don't really like what he's doing for me. So that's why I'm looking. And so I was like, okay, I'll match. I'll match what he's charging to, you know, I kind of did what I needed to do to get the sale. So that's how I got the second one. Now I did.

I got about three more clients from Thumbtack alone. And I invested in terms of like my marketing budget, I invested probably $1,400, $1,500, but I got four clients from there. So and then the other route, how I got other clients was again through referrals where somebody is like,

Here, this is Alison. She's really nice. She can take care of your property. And then again, once I talked to them on the phone, I ended up closing the deal. So yeah, that's kind of how I got those clients. And some of those clients too, when I win their trust,

They give me more properties because a lot of these investors, they don't have just one property. They're continuing to buy and they have multiple. And so actually I want to shout out to one person who is a BiggerPockets realtor investor. He was, again, a pivotal person in my co-hosting business. He literally handed me one client who had three clients.

three properties and she has she is the best client and I love her so much and so anyway her and I connected right away and so and so I know I'm like he just handed me three listings essentially and that was huge so and his name is Josh Green so if you ever need a realtor in the Tampa area reach out to Josh Green he's great

It's an amazing story because I remember when you told me the thumbtack story the first time out of all the coasting people I've talked to, that was one of the more innovative ways I've heard of finding leads. And I'm glad it actually worked out for you because I think we've had similar trajectories with, you know, I, I co-host a lot of properties as well. Um,

And the one thing that I've kind of struggled with is, you know, how do you, you know, what has been the biggest implementation into your business to scale it so quickly, you know, the key hire or keep, you know, system that you implemented and how do you keep all these owners happy? You know, like it's just such a wide range of personalities. What do you do to, you know, kind of mitigate that? So that is such a great question. And I see, and I will say co-hosting is,

Like, well, Airbnb and short-term rentals is not for the week. I just want to say that. It's not for the week. So, but with co-hosting, the difficult part is I, so I have my client who is a homeowner. So I need to,

you know look after them and i also need to look out for the guests so i need to give a great experience for both people so the guest and the homeowner and so that is the hardest part but yes i would say the biggest thing to keep these people or like in terms of uh yeah just like uh holding on to your client is uh building trust i would say um and having that open line of communication

and showing that you care like those are the biggest things because I'll never forget somebody one of my clients told me that they're like I just love working with you Allison because you care I was like is that the bare minimum is that I care like because I know that there's a lot of property management companies that you know they scaled you know really big and um and so you know they may have VAs and things like that and they just don't like I don't know like

It's just it might just be a little bit different. I come from a boutique style approach where I am just again, I'm just a mom and

I'm just a solo entrepreneur. Um, and, and I really do care because like, I, I want to take care of these clients because they take care of me. Like they're, they're paying me. So, um, I want to make sure that I do right by them. I want to make sure that I am a reliable person and I am true to my word. If I say I'm going to do something, I will do it. Uh, and that's just how, how I grew up, how me and my siblings are. Uh, so I don't know. We're, we're,

We're crazy. So and that's another thing, too, like I will say is that I I've grown such a passion for this where this doesn't seem like work. Well, I will be up at like 4 a.m., 430 working on this business. And that's what I was really doing a lot when I was working. My W2 is getting up early, working on this and then going to work.

being with the kids, coming home. And then, well, a lot of times I would pass out early because I would get up so early. But yeah, just like, I just truly went all in on this. And I really do look after the clients. But there is a fine line. And the difficult part is, I would say,

getting a lot of texts from the client and phone calls and then also having to do guest messaging. I would say that is actually a boundary that I'm working on right now in terms of some clients that I have where they're constantly texting me and there's some micromanaging there, just kind of just working through. And it's not with all my clients, by the way, just

You just kind of find those, but just trying to figure out that fine line. So I have two awesome, very valid points of dealing with this type of business because short-term rentals are a great real estate investment, but it's also the hospitality business on the other side that people sometimes forget. So I have two follow-up questions on that. So what is your monthly cashflow right now in your co-hosting business alone, if you had to kind of estimate? Yeah.

This past month was my biggest month yet. I will say that Florida, you know, it is peak season right now with spring break. So right now I've cash flowed just shy of 10,000. And that's, you know, because of software and, you know, those are my expenses. As you know, as like a host, you got a million, million subscriptions, you know, so I got my property management software, pricing tool, chat GPT, use a lot of AI. I don't just random things, just random. And it all

adds up. And the more properties you add to it, the more you pay per month per listing and, you know, direct bookings and, you know, things like that and bookkeeping, all that. So as you're adding more properties, you know, and one thing in the co-hosting business is

the percentages that people charge vary from state to state, person to person. How have you upped your percentage that you're charging to owners now? And how did you make that decision? Because I'm sure it was a little intimidating to, hey, I need more because of all the tech and things that come in place. So how have you kind of handled that? And that comes with confidence too, because in the beginning, I really wasn't sure like,

should I be charging this much because I think I know what I'm doing. And so, again, as time went on and when I realized that I was providing a lot of value, I was like, okay, this is the percentage I'm going to be charging and I'm going to stick to that.

but there are certain clients that I'm working with where they kind of want to hand in it as well and they're investors too so I totally can align on the profit margins and how the margins tend to like squeeze I empathize with them on that so I'm willing to negotiate so I do negotiate my rate so actually every client I have I actually I'm

I'm kind of all over the board and it might just be because I'm just a bad business person because I'm so I'm like, again, I'm such a rookie and I've, I've, I've made some mistakes by the way, um, where, um,

where I have actually one client where I actually am doing a fixed rate per month. And that was, again, a learning thing that I did in the very beginning. And I won't do that again. And yeah, so I find myself working harder when there is a percentage tied to the commission. I shouldn't say that like that. Like, I don't know. I think...

Like I do treat it as, you know, as my own and I do that for all of mine. But when it is a fixed cost, there is something different in terms of your mindset. But but yeah, I I just my pricing has been all over the place. I will say that just to close the deal kind of thing and to get reps.

And sometimes that's more important, you know, of being able to get the reps in and improve your processes and learn what works and learn what doesn't work than really squeezing the most out of every single client. Because I'm sure as you continue to grow and scale this business, maybe one day you start firing some of the clients you don't like as much, you know, and that's just part of, I think, evolving as a business owner. Well, I want to get into, Allison, you know, kind of your advice for folks who want to follow in your footsteps and

maybe one day walk away from their W2 jobs. But first we're going to take our final ad break and Ricky's right. We're gone. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to the real estate, Ricky YouTube channel. We were like just shy of 100,000 subscribers and Ash and I, and all the team would love that, that little plaque that YouTube sends out. So if you're enjoying the content, make sure to subscribe and we'll see you guys right after the break.

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All right, Alison, I've loved your story so far and I love the hustle. And again, congratulations, almost $10,000 per month in cash flow from your quote unquote side hustle, right? The thing that started as a side hustle. But I guess what would your advice be to someone who maybe wants to transition from their corporate job to doing real estate full time? Yeah, I mean, I would say hold on to your W-2 as long as you can, because that is a great vehicle to have.

in terms of getting lending and things like that. Like I didn't, like,

So I actually jumped ship exactly a year after I closed on that first rental property. So I put in my two weeks, December 20th, or I'm sorry, my last day was December 20th, 2024. And I closed on that house December 18th of 2023. So it was exactly a year and two days since when I left my corporate job and I left my

I mean, 10 years. And so I guess my advice is if you're going to go the real estate route, I mean, this is a business and I would definitely treat it as a business. And if you have that entrepreneurial spirit where you have that passion, I would say whatever you bring home, like in terms of your

your cash flow from from your w-2 you know after your insurance 401k and everything like that um because like i'll just use simple numbers here like like let's say that you bring home four thousand dollars a month in in your w-2 uh and if your site hustle is bringing in maybe half or like 50 60 of that um and it and you really want to and you think that you can really

push the envelope there and really go all in on your business I say go for it if you are at that point for me I was just shy of that that dollar amount when I jump ship because I had a lot of confidence that I had things in the pipeline and things that I knew that were going to come in the next coming months and so if you have

you know, sales in the pipeline or things, you know, to look forward to, and your numbers are panning out, then that's when you can kind of have that serious conversation of like, okay, I'm ready to leave this corporate job and go all in on my business. And that means, and again, I'm going to use this term again, just burn the boats, jump, and just go all in and do whatever it takes to, I guess,

survive as a business owner and to thrive. And so, and that's really the approach that I took is I had my side hustle was almost approaching my main hustle. And that's when I jumped. And then it

When I jumped in December and now in March, I am cash flowing close to 10,000. I'm making more money than I ever have made in my entire life. It's crazy of how things can change quickly, very quickly, if you go all in. I think your story is going to resonate with so many people that...

feel the same way. And then sometimes they just don't want to take that leap into the fire and, you know, getting those reps in and really kind of getting your processes in line is a lot of work and it's daunting at first, but then as you've kind of seen as things start to matriculate, you're able to put things together. So looking forward though, I'm sure maybe next time we'll talk to you, you might have a hundred clients by then, or I don't even know, but what's next in your real estate journey and

what are some of your goals in the real estate investment side and your co-hosting business in the future? Well, I'm going to try to be like Garrett. No, so honestly, Garrett, when I, you know, I follow your content and I see that, you know, you invested in land, like that is something. And again, and it really kind of goes back to my family and,

just kind of knowing what my brother wanted. He wanted land. He wanted to buy land. And now that's something that's kind of burning inside me. Like, maybe let's go this route. Let's kind of go the unique style route in terms of,

purchasing land, doing some unique stays and testing those waters. And so that's more so in terms of like my real estate and kind of what I'm starting to research some and trying to go down that route and see if it's something that I can do. And so anyway, that's kind of more so the real estate because my husband and I, yes, we are on board with continuing with investing in real estate because it's

it's proven to us. So, and it's proven to me too. So that's for that route. And then in terms of co-hosting,

I love talking about this stuff. So obviously, you know, adding on more properties and really trying to stabilize my business and really just, you know, put the little bow on top in terms of like my systems in place and things like that. Just trying to fine tune certain things that I'm going through right now. And then also too, I actually am...

I've always been wanting to get into content. I just never, like nobody will listen to me. So I don't know, like you always like fantasize, like, oh, you know, I'll do like a YouTube channel or whatever. Because like one thing that I do love doing is I love, you know, recording my kids doing crazy things because I think they're the most hilarious things.

you know, little humans. And so I don't know, and they're so cute. And so I just love recording them and, you know, editing videos and putting that on either TikTok or Instagram or what have you. So I just, I don't know, I kind of want to kind of see if I can go towards the content route, maybe. It's very daunting and I know it's very time consuming. So I don't know exactly how I will go through that, but that's more so kind of like in the back of my mind.

But yeah, that's kind of what I'm envisioning and maybe in the next couple of years and just really just, again, just focusing on the business and to continue to fuel that fire that I have in this business because it's mine and it's really cool to have. Allison, I just want to say congratulations again because I think what you've accomplished

And an incredibly short period of time is, is not only impressive, but I think inspiring for all of the rookies that are listening. But I guess I also just want to remind all of the rookies who were listening that, um,

Allison didn't just like stumble into the success that she's found and that a lot of what she's been able to accomplish is a direct relation of the hard work she put in. And like you said, she was building this while having two young kids at home while still working a full-time job. And I think that's the kind of grind that a lot of people have.

aren't willing to commit to. They want the end result. They want to be like Allison and be on the podcast saying I quit my job and made 10 grand a month for my business, but they don't want to do the grind that's required to get there. So I just want to make sure that we're calling it from both ends. Well, Allison, very much enjoyed and appreciated you sharing your story today. If folks who are listening want to get in touch with you, where's the best place for them to go? My business name is Crafty Co-hosts.

So that's with a C. So craftycohost.com. You can follow me on Instagram. It's Allison Craft 1, I believe. I got to look at that again. But yes, you can follow me on Instagram as well and reach out to me through there. I'm happy to talk to anybody. Like I said, I could talk about this stuff

all day. So, so yeah, reach out. Thank you so much for joining us, Alison and Garrett. Thanks for filling in for Ashley today and for all of our rookies. Thank you for hanging out with us. And again, if you haven't yet be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at real estate rookie. And if you're on Instagram, we are at bigger pockets rookie. Uh, and if you're looking for me and Ashley, I'm at Sony J Robinson. She's at wealth and rentals. Garrett, what's your, what's your Instagram handle? Garrett Brown, R E nothing too complex. Uh,

Garrett Brown, R-E. There you go, man. Well, rookies, we appreciate you guys. We'll see you in the next episode. Best of luck and take care.

knowing your home is protected day and night. That's why I use SimpliSafe. Unlike traditional security systems that only react after a break-in, SimpliSafe helps prevent them before they happen. Their ActiveGuard outdoor protection uses AI-powered cameras and live monitoring agents who can actually see if someone's lurking, talk to them, activate spotlights, and they can even call the police if needed.

It's proactive security that works in real time. And the best part is there's no long-term contracts. There's no hidden fees, just award-winning home security for about a dollar a day. And it's why over 4 million homeowners trust SimpliSafe to protect their property and keep their home secure. Right now, you can actually get 50% off a new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring in your first month free at simplisafe.com slash pockets. That's simplisafe.com slash pockets. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.