Middle-School Teacher Makes $100K in 6 Weeks on Her FIRST Deal
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Hey, rookies. Sometimes finding a good deal hinges on being a good neighbor, and it can net you $100,000 or 4K per month.

Today's guest is Laura Sides, a teacher turned real estate investor out of Pennsylvania. She picked up two game-changing properties by fostering positive relationships in her community. And today she's going to walk through how she got started and all of the important lessons that she learned along the way. So we'll talk about buying her first deal, then stumbling into an Airbnb rental to perfecting how to find and rehab properties within 30 days.

This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, and I'm Ashley Kerr. And I'm Tony J. Robinson, and welcome to the Rookie Podcast, where every week, three times a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. So welcome to the show, Laura. Super excited to have you with us today. Thanks so much, Tony and Ashley. I'm so excited to be on the BiggerPockets Rookie Podcast. I'm so excited to be on the BiggerPockets Rookie Podcast.

Well, we are excited to have you, Laura. So let's start off with what were your life circumstances and motivations that made you want to start investing in real estate? So I didn't even know that I was going to be a real estate investor. I didn't know investors. I have absolutely no entrepreneurial background. So this is still kind of new and exciting to me even three years in. We

went down to Florida with our kids mid-pandemic after being a stay-at-home mom, and we brought Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I was sitting on the couch reading quotes out to my husband, and I was like, oh my God, babe, there's a whole nother world out here. And it honestly was a light bulb moment because we didn't have any investing history. And we came back from there and we're like,

And everything changed. That's awesome to have that epiphany on a beach too. So once you decided that you want to start investing, what were some of the things you did to kind of start your research and navigate the world of real estate investing? It was more, I didn't even think of it still as an investor. I was just thinking, how can we use the money that we have and put it to work?

because I was like, hey, we don't actually have to work for every dollar. Like we were raised to believe in school and all that. We can take the equity that we have in our primary house and put it to work. So I'm like, let's come back from Florida. We'll take a HELOC out on our house. We'll use that as a down payment on a condo in Florida. And he's like,

Okay. So I started just making connections with people who knew more than I did. And at that time, that was our mortgage broker friend. And he helped do a pre-approval. And then he hooked me up with a small local bank to do a HELOC. And they put $100,000 HELOC on our house. And we were talking to property managers about condos in Florida. When I ended up

pulling my trash cans in one day and my neighbor across the street told me she needed to move. Well, that worked out pretty convenient. Yeah, no, what a connection of fate there for you guys to be chatting at that time. But before we get into like the neighbor and how that kind of played into your first year, Laura, you said something that I think is super important for our rookie audience to remember. But you said you started working with people

who knew more than we did. And then, you know, you said you had one friend that was a mortgage broker. And I think that is such a, such an important first step for rookies because you can listen to the podcast, you can watch the YouTube videos and obviously you'll, you'll get a certain sense of what the roadmap is. But when you have like an actual conversation with someone who's done the thing that you're trying to do, it makes it feel more real. It makes it feel a little bit more achievable and it doesn't feel as this, uh, you

you know, this big of a scary leap that you initially think that it is. So just what an important first step to take. I want to make sure I highlighted that for the rookie audience as well. So we didn't talk about this yet, Tony, but you were actually a huge inspiration to me, you and your wife, because you guys looked like normal people. And this was three years ago. And I had from my personal, I didn't have a business Instagram at that point. So I wasn't talking about my investing journey that didn't exist, but I was watching you.

And you sharing your journey was truly such an incredible inspiration to me and how real you guys were. And that, hey, if you can do it, like, why can't I do it? I very much, very, very much appreciate that. But I think you hit the nail on the head, Laura, that we're just normal people. And all of the real estate investors that we look up to are just normal people who've just figured out the process that you need to follow. So as long as you have the courage to jump in there and try, that's like the most important thing.

And you just seem, even from this brief conversation, I can tell that you're a person with a bias for action. So let's get back to the story with the neighbor. So you're out there taking out your trash. How does that lead into you potentially getting one of your first real estate deals? It was like a life-changing, pivotal moment.

And I knew how much we were pre-approved for. And guys, I knew nothing about how to finance anything. I knew I had a $100,000 HELOC and I knew we were pre-approved for whatever. I don't even remember what the amount was for this condo in Florida, what I thought. And she is the owner of the house that's walking down the street. And we had been friends for years. We had owned our house for 10 years at that point. So I knew she kept up with her house, but I also knew she had owned it for 40 years.

And she was having health struggles and it was mid pandemic. And she's like, I need to move. And I don't know what to do. And I'm like, well, Ms. Sherry, you meet with a real estate agent. She's like, I did, but they want me to clean up my house and repaint it. And I can't do that. And she said, I want $300,000 for it. And I just want to move. And I'm like, I'll buy it. And she said, do you want to ask Glenn, my husband? And I was like, no, no, no, he'll be good with it.

I go, just to be clear, though, you could get more if we put it on the market. And she said, I really don't want to do that. And I'm like, I'm here for you, girl. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think it highlights something important. Actually, we talk about this a lot on the Rookie Podcast that for a lot of off-market transactions, the motivation is just not the purchase price. It's not just the financial component, but part of it is the convenience of selling. And for her, she's been there for 40 years. The idea of having to go through, get this place cleaned up, repainting stuff, and it's more than what she was willing to do. And she would be willing to take a haircut on her purchase price, but she's not willing to do that.

in order to get the convenience that she's looking for. So for all of our rookies that are listening, when you're searching for those off-market deals, you want to listen in the way that Laura was for like, hey, what is the actual motivation? What's the pain point? And can we solve this so it's a win-win situation? I mean, just look at society today. DoorDash, the convenience of paying $20 for a cup of coffee just to have it delivered. There's lots of things people will

pay more for for the convenience, but also give up money in a sense of not selling it as much for the convenience of getting rid of it too. At the time, I was talking terms with her before I even knew what terms were.

I said, you know, we can be flexible about when you want to move. If you need help moving, I can help you. You're downsizing. Miss Sherry, take what you want and leave the rest. And I think coming at it with that level of compassion and meeting her where she was at was just really what she needed in that time. Like you said, Tony, she didn't need top dollar for her house. She needed loving compassion.

compassionate, you know, perspective. After this conversation, what were kind of the steps that you took besides talking with her that kind of led you to getting the deal under contract? So maybe a rookie investor has the same situation, but they have no idea what to do next. How do you get the contract? Do you need to get a real estate agent and kind of walk us through behind the scenes of what that process looks like? This is a first deal, guys. So everyone keep in mind, I had no

real estate knowledge whatsoever. So I don't know if this is the steps, but this is how it went. So I ran back in the house and I called my mortgage broker and I'm like, you are not going to believe this. And he's like, Laura, you get that house under contract. And I was like, Google, what does it mean to get a house under contract? And then it was like Pennsylvania state contract. And I printed that off and I was like, sign here, Ms. Sherry, you know, and was it legit? We thought it was. So it was almost like a napkin contract.

No escrow, but it was more of just people meeting each other where they were at. And so our mortgage broker knew exactly what my plan was, and he was okay with funding it. And then we were going to use our HELOC as the down payment. He was going to take care of the rest. And then the HELOC made the HELOC payments and the mortgage payments, and it covered our renovation. So it was really, it was incredible. So we got under contract. We helped sign up, set her up with movers. We helped...

her figure out where she was going to go, like a 55 and older community. And then we got to work. Yeah. So now to the exciting part. So you got the deal under contract, you close on it, and now you're going in. Did you do any kind of rehab estimates before you actually closed on it? Do any kind of due diligence with this property?

We knew that it was in pretty good shape and it was, it's, we live on a street where the houses are all the same model. So I knew what I was working with because we live in one of them. I had just started making contacts with subcontractors. I'm like, I can play the general contractor on this.

So once she moved, we did all the demo. We had a dumpster pulled in, did the demo, and then we had subs come back and put most of the things back to work. We'd put our kids to bed across the street, bring the Wi-Fi monitors over and like scrape floor up. You have to do those things to know what you don't want to do in the future. Yeah.

So getting the confidence to actually, you know, find the contractors, talk to contractors, hire them. Like, how did you figure out who to even call and like who you need to get in first and then to get in second? Things like that. I don't know that the order went as smoothly as I mean, we got it done really fast. It was in six weeks because we just hit the ground running. So I don't know if I could consult on order at that point.

point of my career, because I remember my father-in-law being like, why'd you do the floors before you paint it? I'm like, let's go, let's go everybody. But it was just kind of like this delusional confidence that, hey, if we can do this,

then I know we're going to make money on the back end. Let's just figure it out. And the way we found contractors is just leaning on other experienced agents that work with contractors in our community or next door or Facebook community apps and just asking like, hey, who's reasonably priced, want to work with small businesses, stuff like that.

keeping a close eye on them. And that's how a lot of our contractor relationships started. So Laura, did you know going into this deal that your plan was to kind of rehab and flip it? Or when you got it under contract, were you still trying to determine what the best exit strategy was for the deal? We definitely considered the long-term rent and it probably would have been a good idea, but we knew nothing about births at that time. And since we had kind of conventionally financed it, had a

finance out of it and all that kind of stuff was not even on my horizon. Today, should we have kept it? 100% we should have. But I think it all worked out. We knew like our plan was to flip it. And in the six week renovation, we bought it for 300 and we sold it for 465. Insane.

Six weeks? It was a $35,000 reno. It was incredible. Six weeks, $35,000. I mean, what did you budget for your renovation? Was it more or less than the $35,000? I didn't know much about budgeting for anything. I just knew that when we bought it, there was going to be enough room and we're going to just get our feet wet type of thing. I'm like, we're going to make money. I don't know how much money, but we're not going to lose here. Let's figure it out as we go.

The delusional confidence is really what got me through. But that is great, right? I mean, you know, quick back-of-napkin math. You bought it for $300,000, put $35,000 into the renovation, you know, tack on some closing costs. I mean, you guys probably netted close to $100,000 maybe on the deal, somewhere in that ballpark. You're right. Absolutely.

Absolutely right. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, you are you are like a shining example of just like jumping in and taking action. So I love that, Laura. Thank you. Well, we're going to take a short ad break. But when we come back, we're going to ask Laura about her next deal in the conversation and how she made that happen. So we'll be right back after this.

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Okay, we're back with Laura. And real quick, if you haven't already, make sure you check out our YouTube channel at Real Estate Rookie. We are trying to hit 100,000 subscribers.

Okay. So Laura, you already told us about your home run first deal. How did you find your next deal? It came as unexpectedly as the first deal. So because this flip was directly across the, like catty corner across the street from our house and we had lined up the moving company for her, um, and helped her box up her things, uh,

I was really surprised one day when I saw that she had a friend over loading boxes into his van. And he was an older gentleman. He had a cane and he was carrying these big boxes out to his car. And I said to my husband, I'm like, let me just go over and help him. Like maybe they need a little help here, you know, and we were friendly. So it wasn't intrusive and it was well intentioned.

And I get over, I'm carrying like the third box out and he stops me and he goes, are you the one buying this house? And I was like, I am, you know? And he goes, well, I have a house for you. And I remember thinking, oh my goodness, is this how this works? Like people just come to you. And I remember, and then I also thought like, actually,

act like you know what you're talking about. I didn't, right? I was like, oh, you do? Tell me about it. And he goes, it's three bedrooms, two bathrooms, right outside of Bethany Beach, Delaware, which is a very popular beach town on an acre.

And I'm thinking in my head, there is no way I can afford whatever he's about to say. But let's ask. I'm like, how much do you think you want for it? And he said $200,000. And I was like, oh, my gosh. We hadn't even bought our first flip yet. I ran back to our house. My husband and my father-in-law were in there. And I was like, guys, we're buying a beach house. Yeah.

That's not part of your plan. What are you doing? And I'm like, we are pivoting. We are definitely buying this place. And that's how the second deal came about. That was a little bit of a shiny object syndrome there for you. Is that pivot. So during this transition, what were what was kind of your game plan with this property once you figured out like, OK, I can purchase it.

This is what I'm going to do. I said to him, I was like, hey, do you think you can wait until we hadn't even bought our flip yet? But I was like, hey, do you think you can wait until I close this house? Because I didn't know anything about financing or creative finance. And I was like, then we'll use this money to buy your house. And he's like, yeah, sure. No problem. Let me know when you're done.

So that was the plan. And then at the time I was like, all right, we're going to quickly renovate this place. We'll set it up as an Airbnb and we'll put a property manager in place because I knew nothing about running Airbnbs. So we did, we put a, we renovated the house, took the profits from our first flip, use them as a down payment, cost to renovate, cost to furnish, put a property manager in place and then immediately started cash flowing. That's awesome.

And I just want to say what a great strategy to use active income from your like from flipping, you know, you can flip, you can wholesale to generate active income and then using that to go out and buy passive income with a or, you know, semi passive income, I should say, with a with a short term rental. I feel like more people should maybe leverage that strategy to build up the capital that they need to take that to take down those next deals.

I got to just like hang out with you more, Laura, and just like catching these conversations because what a great way to find your deals. They're just like falling into your lap right now. It's been life changing, truly. And what you said about using the capital, because I knew that like we didn't

I really, it turns out that I really enjoy flipping and we've got a great system down now. But at the time when we quickly made that first hundred thousand dollars, and I don't know if you guys can relate to this, but it really didn't feel like our money because all of a sudden I made two and a half years of my teaching salary in six weeks.

And we're like, oh my gosh, what do we do with this? Because you know how quickly you could use it on yourself, cars, a house, right? Like lifestyle creep. You mean you didn't buy a Ferrari? I haven't thought about it. But we're like, how can we put this money to work that will work for us? And then the universe was like, well, how about a short-term rental in Bethany Beach, Delaware?

So Laura, tell us a little bit more about this beachfront property in Delaware. So as someone thinks to buy a short-term rental, a lot of times the recommendation is, hey, do some market research first so you can feel good about the market you're going into. Do a little bit of analysis on the property to make sure you feel good about the underwriting. So there's some layers there. It feels like you just kind of jumped in. So what was it about that deal in that city that made you feel confident to

lock it up before you'd even finished your flip? This is kind of two-tier because if you rewind to like our actual lifestyle at home, the life that we built in our primary residence, our cars, you know, is very affordable. And my husband does a great job keeping it that way, that we're not in any debt. So when we picked up this house, we're thinking, hey, if we can use rental income to just slightly offset the cost of it,

Then we can also use it with our family and our kids and share it with our family members and just have it be a beach house for us. So it was kind of twofold. And I didn't even realize at that time appreciation, tax benefits, or just how well it would do as a rental. And now it pays for itself in a year five times over. It makes me probably five times what it costs me to own that house in a year now.

Because we got it so affordable and because the money that we used as the down payment and the renovations wasn't debt. It was money I quickly made on the flip. We wrapped it in. And now the appreciation on that property plus what it saves us in taxes and the rental income and the enjoyment that it brings my kids and us is just... We never thought we would have a beach house. This was...

crazy. So I don't think that I did all the due diligence that everyone does. It was just a blind faith that this is going to work. And it also works really well with our lifestyle. Was there anything that did come up that you weren't expecting, like maybe permitting or an issue that did happen that you wish you would have done due diligence for kind of going into a new market? The property, thankfully, is great.

the contractors that I worked with down there was different than managing a renovation that I could pop into daily. So that was a little tricky. Thankfully, my husband's handy and we kind of picked up the pieces, but we learned that managing a renovation three hours away is totally different than managing a renovation close to our house. And I think

that has helped form what our flip strategy is now because of that experience. Yeah. So maybe we can talk about that a little bit more as to like, what, what are those, you know, that tips and advice that you give out now for how to successfully manage from a distance? Yeah, no, we don't. We flip within a 30 minute radius of our house now. And that's how we can move so fast because nothing gets,

The flipping is really cool. So we can flip houses in about three weeks at this point, make usually 50 to $75,000. Um, yeah, that's been great. Yeah. I mean, I definitely want to dig into that, but I guess just give us a quick overview, Laura, of what your kind of real estate resume looks like today. So we already covered the first flip, the one short-term rental 30,000 foot view. What are the flips or the rentals that you guys hold now? So after that, uh,

short-term rental that we started, I started reaching out into my network. I started gaining a little bit more confidence. I still didn't really consider myself a real estate investor, but I started going to investor meetups.

and learning more. And I started my Instagram page as an investor, started sharing and learning from others. And that was really the pivotal point where I learned about financing and all of that. So I went on to, after that first short-term, first flip turned short-term rental, I

I flipped two more properties and I used the profit from those flips to buy my second short-term rental. And that one is a really cool A-frame right on the water in another beach town in Maryland. When we bought that, HGTV wanted to shoot the renovations, but it was such an expensive buy and they couldn't guarantee me that

that they would be done shooting and time for it to launch on Memorial Day. So we had to say, I'm sorry, that's not going to work. But it was like beachfront bargain hunt. We got it for $605. It's another one of those where I knew my family would love it and my in-laws would love it and we could share it with family and friends. So that one isn't 100% cash flowing yet. The tax deductions are great. We had a management company in place on both of those. The first one was a

The first one offsets the second one. So we basically have two vacation homes that we don't have to pay anything for because, but we're also not making a lot of money. So that goes into my future plans though.

How often are you using these properties personally or your family is? Just to kind of like gauge as to you're not paying anything for these properties, but you're getting to use them, how much? Probably about 10 times a year. That will just pop down. It makes for a great change of scenery. It's really enjoyable, you know, and it's fun. And if it's not us using it, it's my in-laws or my sister-in-law and her family. And it's just something that

being from families that didn't have entrepreneurial backgrounds, we never thought could have been a reality for us that not only do we own one, but we own two beach houses and one is on the water. Like it's just incredible. And there's a huge feeling of gratitude and for what we've created. I'm still kind of processing it all.

I'm so happy for you. I can feel how thankful and grateful you are that you have this and you have this for your family. It really is incredible that you've been able to do this for them. So let's go into more of managing the rehab on these projects. What have you done to actually perfect this fix and flip strategy? So when we do fix and flips, from the moment that we go under contract on the property, we get...

in there, you know, in that contract to close period, we ask to have access to the house at least two times. So with those two times, we're bringing in our cabinet people that measure, our contractors to give us a scope of work. I'm making a list of materials so that the day that we close, all of our subs are lined up. They know exactly what they're going to do. All the materials have already been ordered. So we are just going in, pulling it all out,

and putting it back in. Let me ask one follow-up question there, Laura, because this is a question that I know that comes up often, but you said that you're using your due diligence period to have, you know, some of your subs go in, your contractors, your cabin people, whoever it may be, and they're kind of finalizing that scope of work for you. How are you estimating your rehab costs prior to going under contract to make sure that, you know, that it, you know, you're going to estimate it's a $35,000 rehab, but when your subs get in there, it's actually a

$100,000 rehab. So how were you during your offering stage validating your potential repair costs? So one thing with me as a mom and busy in our kids' schools and everything that we're doing, I've really niched down to just being interested right now in condos and townhouses for the most part.

which doesn't leave a lot to question. You don't really have to worry about what's going on behind the walls in a lot of cases, because in our area, they're like 1970s or newer builds. And a lot of the exterior stuff has been well-maintained. And you're just going in and kind of, and you know, you're not changing the footprint that much on a condo or a townhouse. You're just going in, taking out the inside and making it as good as new, but replacing it almost exactly as it is.

So when you talk about estimating work, because I know that, you know, to change out to PEX and then to put the toilet right back where it was and put the sink right back where it was in the kitchen where it was, right? Getting those estimates, I know where we're going to land. And usually it's like $30 a square foot for that type of cosmetic rehab. So what are some of the systems and processes you have? Like, are you using Google Spreadsheets to track a lot of this?

information and data so that you know going forward like okay I can input this all into the spreadsheet and I'm gonna know it's gonna be $30 per square foot oh man you would think so but most of it right now is like a notebook where we keep our notes really clear and there's not a lot to chance we're getting them we can spot a good deal really fast and I think this is the biggest piece knowing what a good deal looks like and being able to jump on it quickly like

your speed to make a decision. And when there's that much room in the deal, we don't have to work through every single number because we know we're going to come out very ahead. And I think that it really is the hardest part is knowing what is a good deal and how to know that. That's really a struggle when you're getting started as to doubting yourself that maybe this isn't a good deal, but you kind of set it right there as to a safety net

is leaving enough margin in the deal that if you don't estimate correctly or an issue does come up, that it's not going to directly impact you, that you can still make money on the deal too. I typically think in my worst case scenario, can I leave this at 20? Can I at least make $20,000?

And it usually that gets me over the like, yep, we can do that. I've never only made $20,000. I don't think we've made less than 40. But you always just think, all right, what's the worst case scenario? Can we survive it? And that's the same with analyzing long term rentals is when you do the deal analysis, what's the worst case scenario I can get for rent? What's the best case?

What's the rent at now? Things like that. So yeah, that's a great example. Yeah, we talk a lot about the worst case and it's like, as long as you can live with the worst case, then why wouldn't you do the deal, right? Like why wouldn't you move forward with it? Now, Laura, you've got a pretty tight buy box, which is interesting because you said you're really focused on condos and townhouses. And I can't really think of too many people that we've interviewed on the Rookie Podcast that have niched down

that specific way but what a tight buy box she said hey i'm looking within a 30 minute radius of where i live condos and townhomes 1970s builder newer you know you know that i can knock out in this time frame but how are you finding those deals is are you still just like finding neighbors as you're taking the trash out or have you kind of evolved the way of finding deals this is wild answer because i feel like and we're in a really densely populated suburb of philadelphia and

All you're seeing here is like new construction. That's $600,000 or more for a townhouse. We have townhouses right up the street from my primary that just went for 1.2. And they're like, it's a townhouse, you know? So within a half hour from our house, I know that, you know, what is a good buy? And we're finding everything on market, which I know is crazy.

But I think it comes down to terms again, too, because I'll have my agent call their agent and say, hey, because you're looking at these listings right on Zillow or whatever, and it's cell phone pictures usually listed by an agent that no one knows in our area. And the price is lower than what you would expect. So if we can jump on the phone with them in this coming soon period, because again, not that much can be wrong in the house, right?

we can jump on the phone with them in this coming soon period and say, what does your seller need? What can we do for your seller? Do they need to downsize, leave their stuff? Do they need us to take care of use and occupancy guidelines from the HOA community or whatever? What do they need a flexible close date? Do you want to close quickly? And basically just say, we will offer you all those things and give them the price that they listed on market for. We have to take one more break, but we will be right back after this. Our

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Okay. Thanks so much for sticking around. We're here with Laura. And before we wrap things up, Laura, what's the plan for the future? What is your trajectory with your real estate business? We love flipping. It's really enjoyable. It's a really awesome thing to be able to give that back to the community and

and give them someone that's going to live in the house that loves it and appreciates it as a good neighbor because they're living in this quality property. So that's cool. I'm definitely gonna continue flipping, but very much like my first Airbnb that I never saw coming, but thanks to relationships and networking,

another similar opportunity has presented itself that I've never seen coming. And I can't talk too much about yet, but it's really, so we've gone on to, after that second Airbnb, we've gone on to flip like six or so houses this year. So all of that profit's kind of been hanging out in our business bank account. We're like, what are we going to do with this? And a company has come to us that would be a great vertical integration for what we're doing in real estate in our area. And they're offering to sell us their company.

So it's like one of those wild 10X moments that I never saw coming. And I don't know the first thing about buying a business, but I'm confident that we can do it. It's an incredible fit. It's something I believe in. And if I surround myself by people that do know more than I know, I am pretty sure that we're going to be, it's going to be a record year. Now, you don't have to tell us, but my guess is a garbage dumpster removal company. So that's where you got your start and it's coming full circle. Yeah.

That would be amazing. You know, I was actually thinking, guys, like this is like a billion dollar idea. So like right now, a lot of the trash, at least where I live, is handled by the city. But imagine if like a private company came in and say, hey, your trash service will be free, but we get to put advertisements on your trash cans.

Think about that. Think about like if every single trash can on the road had an advertisement, everyone's going to see their trash can as we're pulling it in. People driving down the road to the trash cans. Billion dollar idea. Whoever wants to take it, just give me a give me a quick percentage. We actually have all like private ones around us, like the like where I am right now at this property. You have to hire your own person to come and pick it up.

And then some towns contract with private companies too. You know what I think is a really good idea, Tony? And this is it, you guys. Let's buy a dumpster company. And since you're always doing dumpsters like at Flips or whatever, we can just plaster it. Like we're going to own the dumpsters.

And there's our, we will buy your house. And it's in neighborhoods that need people to buy houses. We just came up with like three different billion dollar business ideas. So somebody, somebody execute and just give us a cut. That's all we're asking. Laura, I want to, I want to go back there because before, before our last break, you talked briefly about your strategy for finding deals. And you said, Hey, I'm getting most of these on market. And you said you did how many flips last year? You said six or seven flips last year.

Yeah. And this is out of time where interest rates are elevated, supply is constrained. There's a lot of competition out there from buyers.

But it sounds like what you've been able to do is that in the same way that you had that conversation with your neighbor about, hey, help me understand why you don't want to go on market. Like, what is your motivation for selling? What are your challenges? It sounds like when you're reaching out to the listing agents, you're asking those same questions. Like, hey, how can I actually help the seller? Right.

Aside from the purchase price and it seems like that's made kind of the the biggest difference So I just want to highlight that because it is a very I think unique stance that we don't hear a lot when people are buying on market like a lot of the negotiations are around purchase price

Right. Concessions when we get to closing. So just what a really unique strategy that you're leveraging with the on market properties. I think it also comes down to working with really, really good investor savvy agents, too. And the agents that I work with locally are on the BiggerPockets website that where you can search for investor friendly agents.

And I think that's a big piece of the puzzle, working with a great agent that understands investors and has those good communication skills where they will pick up the phone immediately, call the other agent and say, what do you guys need? We're going to close this. And then we all work together as a team. It's not really like us against them. We're usually giving them everything they want. And that was actually my final question on your acquisition strategy, Laura, is you're

Like, how are you getting to these deals so quickly? Is it your agent that's like sending a deal to you saying, hey, this just got listed? Do you want to reach out? Do you have some sort of process internally for quickly identifying and kind of comping these deals out? Like, what is your actual strategy for scouring through all the properties that are on market and get into them quickly?

Yep. So between my husband, myself and our agent, if something pops up where you can just clearly see it fits those buy box criteria, right? Like not there's a lot of stuff in the pictures. The house looks like worn down or they are cell phone pictures, right? And it's just looks like they need help. Or you can just sometimes it's only pictures of the outside and the description is such that, you know, pictures might be coming soon or something like that.

So we are just really keeping our eye on the market, what pops up each day. And then usually because we're just always looking at what's out there and we're really familiar within this 30-minute range of our house and these good school districts, when something comes up at $200,000 or $230,000, you know that immediately that has potential. And then you quickly look at the comps in the area and see if it's worth contacting your agent about. And thankfully, my agent is hyper-responsive and really on it. And then we just...

See if we can close it. Well, Laura, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Real Estate Rookie. Where can people reach out to you and find out more information about what you're doing in real estate? I'd love to connect on Instagram at sides underscore investing. Okay. Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. You've just listened to an episode of Real Estate Rookie. I'm Ashley and he's Tony. And we'll see you guys on the next episode.