Creating $3,000/Month Cash Flow Just by Pivoting to THIS Investing Strategy

Ashley:
Diversifying your assets is a good way to hedge against the difficult housing market, but knowing which strategy to use for each of your properties can have a major impact on your cashflow and success.

Tony:
Our guest today learned some invaluable lessons about the key differences between flipping houses and operating multifamily properties. And in this episode we’ll unpack how picking the right strategy for the right property is key to cash flowing in this market.

Ashley:
This is the Real Estate Rookie podcast and I am Ashley Kehr.

Tony:
And I’m Tony j Robinson.

Ashley:
Aleea, welcome to the show. Let’s start off with a little bit about your background on buying your first house and exactly why it was so important to you.

Aleea:
Of course. So I am from Buffalo, New York, born and raised. I was adopted by my grandparents. My mom, she had me at the age of 16, and my grandpa, her dad was like, you know what? You go finish school. I’ll raise Aaliyah. And so growing up with grandparents, it was really different because throughout middle school and high school, my parents on average were about in their late sixties, seventies. And my peers, their parents were in their forties and their fifties. So my grandparents couldn’t really move around comparable to my parents of my peers. And so outside of that, though, my childhood, my upbringing was fantastic. I grew up in the same house my entire life until I was 19 years old. There’s even little drawings of how tall I got every single birthday. And so it was really near and dear to me. I went to the same schools.
I knew everybody. By the time I got to high school for about 10, 12 years. When I was 19 years old, my grandparents had to give up their house to help put me through college. And that was really devastating. They lost their house. And so I had always made it my mission to one day buy them a house. And so I remember when I was in undergrad, I was just Googling when top 20 paying careers, and I landed on law. It’s not my passion, but I was like, okay, I don’t absolutely hate it. And I was like, you know what? I’m going to go to law school. And I applied and I got in. And now I’ve been working in New York City as a lawyer at a law firm for eight years. And I was able to save up enough money and during Covid when interest rates were very low at 3%, I jumped the gun and I purchased them a house.
That was my first property, my biggest purchase ever in life. I was super nervous, but I did it happy that I did it. Now I refer to it as the gift that keeps on giving, and I remember that there was a bath tub that was huge and they had to really climb over to get inside. I wanted to knock that down and create a walk-in shower for them. So I found a contractor. Reviews were good. We worked on a bathroom. It was a complete gut, made a huge, massive, beautiful walk-in shower for them. And I was like, you know what? I like this. My grandma also likes to cook. And the kitchen at the time was very outdated. And so I was like, you know what? I have some extra money. Let’s gut out this kitchen, give her some new countertops, cabinets, and the like.
And we did that too. And ever since then I was like, oh my God, I actually really enjoy remodeling. I really like making houses more functional and than what they currently are. And so I started watching Flip or Flop on HDTV. I watched every single episode and I was like, you know what? I could flip houses. Buffalo is one of those markets where you can still buy a house for 60, 70, 80 k, put some money into it and then make a good profit. And I was like, you know what? It looks like I just need the right team and I could do this. And so that’s kind of how I got into flipping.

Ashley:
There is a lot to unpack here, and I love this story of how you got started in real estate. So let’s start with that first house though with your grandparents. What was the process for you? Because living in New York City at the time when you bought them this house, correct?

Aleea:
Correct.

Ashley:
Okay. So how did you find contractors? How did you manage the rehab of these projects from afar?

Aleea:
So at that point, COVID had hit, and so we were working remotely. So I was able eventually to come back to Buffalo. And I remember posting, I joined a Facebook group on Buffalo, Buffalo real estate investors. And I remember posting, does anyone have a contractor that they recommend? And I got 20, 30 comments. And so I just started googling them and I started looking at reviews. I’m definitely a review girly before I go out to eat anywhere or do anything. I look at the reviews and I found a contractor who had decent reviews, who was available also immediately. And so I went with him and it was a good process. I was definitely very new to everything I remember at that if I could just go back in time and do some things over again, I would. But I remember I picked out three different finishes for the bathroom at one point, so it was a little bit of a hot mess, but this contractor was very patient.
He kind of walked me through the entire process and the handholding that I very much needed and we got the job done, so we had to work under pressure. It was a very quick turnaround. We were closing, my grandparents needed to move in right away. There was someone who wanted to rent out the current home that they were living in. So we were on a time crunch, but we got through it and I remember I would just bring my laptop and I was working remotely and I would just be there at the house as they were working all day long. I sat there for seven hours, eight hours a day, one to learn and also just to make sure that was my biggest investment. I wanted to make sure my guys were working nine to five or whatever, just putting in reasonable hours at the time. So yeah, I set up shop and I was there on location, on site.

Ashley:
That’s incredible to actually do that, to take the time to go and sit there. And I’m assuming it probably wasn’t the most comfortable place to sit in work while rehabbing a property.

Tony:
Leah, we want to get into the nitty gritty of you transitioning from this kind of passion project of a rehab into actually flipping from an intentional perspective. But I guess just give us the 30,000 foot view. How many flips have you done and just I guess have they been successful for you financially? Just give us the quick 30,000 foot picture of that.

Aleea:
Yeah, so I’ve done eight flips on average. In the beginning I was making around 40 K per flip, which in my mind was great. This again was like a side hustle. It was very passive income. My contractor really is just so trustworthy and he gets in and out and he does such a great job that that’s the reason why I was able to be so hands off and focus on my career in New York City being a lawyer. And so I made good money in all of my flips and I would say with the exception of one Flip, all of my flips had offers, multiple offers over asking within one week of us listing. And so it was great. I was like, this is some of the easiest money I’ve ever made. But I would say my key to success there again, is the contractor. And I learned that from the books that I read.
I really did my research and my homework before I purchased my first flip, the books I read, the TV shows that I watched, I knew that your contractor can make or break this whole thing. And so how I found my contractors an interesting story too, because I started just looking on Zillow at houses that were remodeled, and I saw one that just looked absolutely fantastic. The craftsmanship was really there, and I called that agent, and I’m sure as you guys know, agents love to talk. And so this agent went on talking about the property, about the flipping process, and then I was like, well, who did you work with? And he was like, oh, his name is so-and-so, and he gave me his name and the guy’s phone number. And so I’ve been working with the same contractor now since 2023 on every single project, and it’s been great. My last flip that I sold, I made 200 K in profit, so my average now 40 K in profit is higher.

Tony:
That’s amazing. And I think you hit on a very important point here, Lee, is that sometimes the best way to find a good contractor is going to the best agents in that town and seeing who their Rolodex of people are because they’ve been in this space, they’ve been buying and selling or in those transactions for a long time, they tend to know who’s good and maybe who isn’t all that great. So I love that strategy. We’re going to hear a little bit more about how Aaliyah is managing this flipping business and some of the pivots she’s made throughout her journey as well. But first, we’re going to take a quick break and then we’ll be right back with Aaliyah.

Ashley:
Okay, now let’s get back into the show. So Aaliyah, one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned was when moving from a flipping mindset to a long-term rental mindset, can you kind of share the story of your multifamily investment when you made this transition?

Aleea:
Absolutely. So again, I chuckle because I’m just like, only if I can just rewind the clock. I applied my flipping mentality to my rental portfolio and I lost money. I lost money because of that. And so to break this down, I purchased my first four unit long-term hold late 2024. I was working in New York City. I did not have time to come back to Buffalo to see the house in person. So I just sent my agent, I think lesson number one for my first four unit, my first multifamily, my first long-term hold, it was good for me to lay eyes on it. I should have laid eyes on it. So that’s lesson number one. Lesson number two is that we waived inspection. And so again, flipping single family homes, we usually waive inspection because it’s just so competitive in Buffalo to get a deal, you almost have to these days, but we have an idea, worst case scenario, if we waive inspection, we’ll have to update some electrical, update some plumbing, here’s our worst case scenario number, and we’re fully ready to go in and do that full job.
Whereas on a long-term hold, I should not have done that because one of the issues that came up later, and this was two months after I closed, I remember getting text messages from my tenants literally every other week that the power had went out. So the electricity was really outdated. This house was built in 19, I think oh eight. It was very old and they had fuses. So every time someone turned on a microwave or plugged in a vacuum cleaner, the power would go out and this kept happening. And so I had to update one of the panels for one of the units. Come to find out, in order to update one, you have to bring all of them up to code. And so I ended up having to update four service panels and there was no house panel, so I had to add a house panel.
So that was $18,000 right off the gate that I had an inspection an inspector would’ve flagged for me. And so that was a huge, huge lesson that I learned, and I wish I can go back in time and redo that. Another mistake that I made too was so one of the units was vacant when I closed on it. And so I remember walking through the unit, I was like, oh, this is so outdated. Mind you, it was move-in ready. It was move-in ready. They had granite countertops, but they were in great condition. They had nice cabinets, a little outdated, great condition. The floors were nice, but I was just like, you know what? I could use some quartz countertops here, some white shaker cabinets, we can do some new tile backsplash. And so we gutted the kitchen and we gutted the bathroom, and I ended up spending $16,000 rehabbing this place that really did not need to be rehabbed. And in the end, that only allowed me to increase rent by a hundred dollars. So it wasn’t a value add. And again, that’s just an example of me applying my flipping mindset to this rental portfolio. I should not have done that. I could have made some small cosmetic changes like paint, but to say, I don’t like granite countertops. Let me put in courts, that’s just like Ricky mistake.

Tony:
Aaliyah, your story of waving the inspections that totally get it right. Because like you said, as you invest in a market that’s a little bit more competitive sometimes that’s what you need to do to get that offer approved. I can share what I’ve done and Ashley, I want to get your opinion because you just happen to be in the same market. But there are some times when I buy from a wholesaler for example, they’re typically not going to give you an inspection contingency. But what I’ve done is I’ll still do an inspection that way. At least I get the report and I know what I’m stepping into. And my worst case scenario is that I lose whatever EMDI put down, and I have used that one time just like a bargaining chip, like, Hey, I’m just going to walk away. Who cares if you keep my 5K EMD? And we’ve been able to kind renegotiate. So that’s kind of been my approach is still do the inspection even if I waive it and then just say, okay, I got to walk away because of X, Y, and Z. Actually, for you, since you’re in that same market, how are you handling the inspections and due diligence while still remaining competitive?

Ashley:
So basically if it’s really dilapidated and I’m doing a huge remodel, I’m not getting an inspection because I’m ripping apart walls anyways, my scope of work is so big that I’m kind of accounting to replace most items anyways to update.

Aleea:
We’re throwing in very high EMDs to get these offers done. We’re throwing in 30, 40 at one point I threw in a 60 KEMD. It’s just so competitive, but I completely, I like that strategy and I will definitely use it if for whatever reason I am making an offer on a property and I can use a lower EMD and then I’ll just weigh the cost benefit analysis from there.

Tony:
Just one last point on that, and I know an investor now you got to be very, I think careful using this strategy. You can definitely burn some bridges, especially if you’re working with wholesalers in specific markets. But his thing was, dude, I’ll get my offer out, but the contract doesn’t become binding until my EMD is submitted. And he’s like, so I’ll just make sure that if I get a yes today at 12 o’clock by three o’clock today, my crew is out there walking the property and if I find anything wrong, then I just won’t submit my EMD and we’ll let the contract cancel out. So that’s another strategy, but obviously if you keep doing that to the same contractor or to the same wholesaler, eventually they’re going to be like, Hey dude, we’re not going to a contractor anything anymore. So you got to use that I think sparingly probably. So Aaliyah, you go through this process with the four unit, you learned some good lessons it sounds like. What’s your next move after that? Do you double down on that new strategy given that you kind of paid the cost to learn some new lessons or do you continue to pivot into different tactics?

Aleea:
I started off this real estate investing only doing flips, and that four unit, of course is my first rental. And then I really just started treating this as a business and I started doing my research and I learned and read up all about cost segregation. I am still working in my W2, and so I am getting killed with taxes. And so my plan is to slowly but surely acquire rental properties to help offset the capital gains tax that I’m getting hit with. And so yeah, that’s my plan going forward. I’m going to take those lessons that I learned and apply them on all my properties. I also realized too that in the beginning stages I was really just focused on design, the pretty stuff. I knew barely anything about electrical, plumbing, the condition of a roof. And so now what I’m doing is I’m just digging deeper and really doing my homework and I’m watching YouTube videos just where they follow an inspector who’s doing a home inspection for two hours, and I’m really just trying to learn the dirty stuff as they call it, so that I know when I’m considering a house and it only has four panels and it’s a four unit, I know that there has to be a fifth one for a house panel.
To me now looking back, I’m like, okay, that’s obvious. And I can count them as I’m at the house. I will of course not skip out on seeing it. So yeah, definitely I’m taking those lessons and I’m acquiring more rental properties and continuing to flip

Ashley:
Aliyah, can you share the numbers on this multifamily too, what the purchase price was, what your rents are, and then what your cashflow is on the property?

Aleea:
Yes. So I purchased the property for $580,000, much well over asking price, and we got the third unit that was vacant that I remodeled fully. We just got that rented. And so my cashflow now is around 600, 700 bucks. It’s not a lot. And I’ve had a lot of repairs. I’ve already put in so much money into this house. I’m not too upset though because it is in an area called Elmwood Village where I’m from, and it’s a fantastic area that attracts a lot of people. There’s lots of bars, there’s really good restaurants. It’s really one of the highlights of our town. And so I am really banking on appreciation here. So this is an appreciation and a cashflow play for me.

Ashley:
That definitely is a great area for appreciation to be there. So with this property, you have the four unit multifamily. Well, I definitely want to get into the piece where you’re going to be talking about how you’re finding these deals, but first we have to take a quick ad break and we’ll be right back after this.

Tony:
Alright, so we’re back with Aaliyah and Aaliyah. I think the million dollar question here is what are you doing to source your deals? I think for a lot of Ricky’s that are here, they understand the process of I’ve got to work with the contractor, I’ve got to make sure I’ve got a good scope of work, I’ve got to make sure I’m doing those things. But as you said before, the ad break, the money’s made when you buy. So what strategies, what tactics are you using right now to find good deals today?

Aleea:
So mostly I am relying on the MLS on what’s on Zillow. I am calling agents, I’m telling agents around town, if you bring a deal to me and we work together, I’ll also sell the deal with you. So they’re incentivized to also keep me on their radar as of right now, again, because it’s just so competitive here, I’m not getting the number of deals that I would like to per year. My team is ready to scale. And so what we just started doing is off market marketing. And so hopefully within the next month or two we should see some results from that and I should be able to acquire more deals. But so far it’s just been relying on what’s on EMLS and I play very close attention to that too.

Tony:
Lee, let’s break that strategy down just a little bit more because I think for a lot of rookies when they think about, Hey, finding a great deal, they don’t necessarily think MLS. So what is your specific strategy for sourcing these properties? Are you just going every day onto Zillow and just seeing what’s there and offering it list price or do you have a strategy where, hey, whatever it is, I’m going to offer 70% of that? What is your specific process for sourcing and offering on these on market deals?

Aleea:
That’s a great question. So I’ve been looking at properties that have been listed for a while. I usually won’t make an offer on a property that’s only been listed for a couple of days or a week because I just know likely they’re not going to accept my offer. It’s very rare that I give them an asking at asking offer anyways because there has to be enough margin for me to make money and then also for me to have a contingency in case anything goes wrong. So I usually target properties that have been sitting for a while. My best flip where I made the highest profit was a property that went under contract, but then it fell out of contract for whatever reason, and I was able to call that agent right when it went back up on the market. And so it was showing on EMLS that it had been listed for about 30 days.
And I contacted that agent and I said, Hey, what’s going on with this house? I’d like to really make an offer. How desperate are the owners right now to sell it? If you get this deal done for me, I will let you represent me on the sell side as well once my team is out of it. And so we were able to work together and I got the deal done. That’s a very interesting story in and of itself though. So to fast forward, I ended up working with a different agent when I sold that house.
The issue with incentivizing an agent and telling them that, Hey, we can work together once this house is flipped, is that now that agent, what he did was that he started pitching the house to his current clients. And so he had came to me about two, three weeks into the flip when we had closed and said that he had other clients who wanted to put an offer before we went to market and wanted me to design the house according to their taste and that we would get essentially what I would be listing the house for, which at that time I purchased the house for 500, we were going to list it for eight 30, and he was like, they’ll give you an offer for eight 30, but right now if you take it and then just work with them on the design. And so I can go more into that if that’s,

Ashley:
Yeah. Okay. So I’m thinking off the top of my head, pros are you already have an end buyer. Cons are they back out of the deal and they don’t have a good design taste. So what kind of happened in this situation? What did you decide on?

Tony:
Or the other piece is now you’re just almost like general contracting for this person and you’ve got to take their taste and their demands and their desires into account. So was it a happy ending for you? Did it turn out how you wanted it to?

Aleea:
It was so rocky and I lost so much sleep over this because the issue was was that this agent was really trying to get me to agree to this deal. He also said there was a contingency that he would have to sell his client’s current home in order for them to be able to purchase my home. And so he also said that he would be the only agent on the deal. So he was essentially getting triple quadruple commission on this whole thing. And I started to just question again, me being the lawyer and me being very risk averse, is this in my best interest? I know I’m going to do a great job on this property. It’s in a very highly desirable neighborhood. The design is going to be 10 out of 10. Is it in my best interest to just make a deal before it goes onto market or to show the house to the world and just see what happens?
And so I really went back and forth on that, and I remember it got to the point where I was just so confused and a little frustrated that I couldn’t come to a decision that I booked a last minute trip to Aruba, and I went to Aruba and I booked a last minute trip to Aruba and I flew out a couple hours later and I was at the hotel pool and I started just chatting to a lady and she was a real estate agent from upstate New York in Westchester. And I told her this story and she was like, oh, wow. She was like, no, you need to show this house to the world. It’s a beautiful house. You’re doing a great job. Those buyers, if they really want this house, they’re going to be around. You can kind of talk to the agent and get a sense of what their design style is and somehow try to incorporate that a little bit, but they will be around if they really want this house and if this neighborhood is that desirable as you sit.
So I was like, you know what? I’m like, that’s true. That makes sense. And so I remember I flew home and I told this agent, I was like, you know what? I’ve decided I don’t want to go through with the deal also because I’m working a full-time job. I don’t have time to handhold decision-making when it comes to the design process. And I was just having nightmares about waiting for a response on paint color cabinet styles handles, there’s tile backsplash, there’s so many decisions that you have to make along the way. And my team, we get in and out, right? It’s very seamless. And so I explained this all to the agent and he was like, you know what Leah? He was like, that’s right. I think that is the best decision here. We should list it a market. And then that gave me a real red flag because the way that he just flipped.
So all of a sudden I was like, wow, you have been trying to convince me for so long that I should just make this deal and now you just flip script. And so I started talking to another agent who sold a house in that neighborhood, a couple bucks down that blew all the other comps out the water. And so this agent put on a full presentation, was like, look, I’m the best person to do the job. I have the buyer’s list from that house, the comp for people who didn’t get the deal, who would be interested, and also just to let you know, do you know that that agent was part owner of that house? And I was like, what? I was like, no, he never told me. She was like, what? He never disclosed that to you? I said, absolutely. He did not. So I remember calling him back, I was like, Hey, are you part owner of this house?
You never said that. He was like, oh, well, it’s any MLS. It’s on the MLS, you should have known. And I’m like, I’m a lawyer. I’m not an agent. I don’t have access to the MLS. So I would not have known that unless you had told me. And he was like, oh, I just thought because you’re a sophisticated client that you would’ve known. And I’m like, how would I have known? And so I was like, you know what? I’m so sorry, but I’m not going to work with you. I’m going to go a different direction. At that point, I just really couldn’t trust anything he said. And even that decision alone was really, really hard for me to do because Buffalo is a very small town and reputation matters. And so I kind of had given him my word that I would sell this house with him. But it was just so many things that had happened along the way that I was just like, this is not in my best interest. And at the end of the day, this is a business here. And so I let that agent go and I worked with a different agent and I got an offer for nine 90 that I accepted. So we were going to list it for eight 30, and I ended up selling the house for nine 90.

Ashley:
There’s two things I want to mention. First, we have to address the fact that you flew to Aruba to talk to someone that probably lived a couple hours from you in New York City that gave you great advice, just the way the world works, coincidences like that. And then the second thing is how that second agent put together a pitch to you. What a great concept as if you are looking to sell a flip is to, instead of just picking the agent you’ve always worked with or the most convenient option, actually going out and looking who sold properties in that area, if they have a list of potential buyers already. And also I’m curious, how was the experience working with that agent? Do you think that part of the reason you got top dollar was from the agent helping you sell this deal?

Aleea:
Yeah, absolutely. That agent, I mean, that was my first time working with an agent where they put together this whole pitch. And so when she was like, let’s meet on Zoom, I’m like, okay. And then it was a whole slideshow almost, and this agent had really done their homework, and now I can tell that agents who do their homework versus the agent who’s just looking for a quick deal, that agent knew the area extremely well and just had all the information and what buyers are looking for. And that agent was very involved in the whole process when it came to decisions on staining and restoring the hardwood floors, for example. They came in and she was like, buyers really like this type of brown, not this orangey type of brown, the houses in this neighborhood. I know what they have, do this. And every piece of her advice was just spot on.
And I definitely contribute the success and effect that we got this offer for nine 90 because of the team that I was working with. And that is a very valuable lesson. It’s like on one hand, I want to incentivize the agent who I’m trying to get a deal done with to bring my deal to the top of the pile where he can potentially get both sides of the commission, but at the same time, I want to work with the best agent who I know can do the best job at selling my property. And that was the decision I had to make.

Tony:
Aaliyah, I mean, what an incredible story and kudos to you for having the courage to kind stand up for yourself and for your own business. I feel like sometimes as a Ricky investor, we can sometimes get swayed by the people that we feel have more experience than we do. But kudos for you for kind of seeing through that and making the right decision for yourself. I want to talk a little bit about the off market, but just one last thought for me on the deal finding side, how this conversation initially started. But I know two investors who do incredibly well. They invest in South Florida and the first, I don’t know, two years of their business, they only did on market deals, and they had a very kind of regimented process where they hired a va, they trained this VA how to look through Zillow, all these different websites and kind of the criteria what the buy box looked like.
And then they had a templated email that the VAs would send out with a pay if the asking prices x were always going to offer some percentage of that somewhere around Y. And they just had a team of VAs every single day, all day sending out these offers, and that’s how they got all of their deals for the first two years of their business. So just a reminder to all the rookies that are out there that it’s not a bad deal just because it’s on the MLS. I feel like social media is, so many have other people, they just like Poo P on the MLS, but there are good deals to be had if you make the right offer. So just a reminder for all of our rookies that are listening, but going back to the off market thing, the last question from Ilia is you said you’re kind of experimenting a little bit with the off market strategies. What does that look like for you? Are you doing mailers? Are you cold calling? What’s strategy are you leveraging?

Aleea:
This is actually another interesting story. If I take a step back, my one flip that I did not get an offer on within the first week, it was when we listed it on the market right before Thanksgiving, it’s very cold in this market. I didn’t get any offers that I had liked, and so I decided to rent it instead, and I was renting it or I listed it for rent for $2,700. My mortgage at the time, what I owed to my hard money lender was about 2,400 a month. I was just going to rent it, and then hopefully when that person leaves, it’ll be a better season and I’ll get the offers that I had. I was contacted by an agent who works on behalf of insurance companies, and the insurance company was looking to rehouse a family whose house was destroyed in a fire, and he told me that it would be a midterm rental agreement about a minimum of 10 months, and that the insurance company usually pays higher than asking would I be interested.
And I was like, of course. And I was like, well, how much? He was like, well, how about $4,000 a month? And I was at that point I thought this was a scam. And I was like, yeah, definitely. Of course. He was like, okay, well let me talk to the insurance company. I’ll hang up and I’ll call you back. So I remember I called some of the agents that I worked with. I was like, Hey, have you heard about this? Have you heard of this guy? They were like, oh yeah, these deals come up once in a blue moon. He called me back, he was like, we can get the deal done for $4,000 a month. We’ll move this family in however they want to know if we can keep the furniture. That was a state, it was furniture that I was renting for my stager.
And so I remember I was like, oh yeah, of course. And I was so excited. So I’m calling my stager. I’m like, Hey, is there any way that I can extend the time that this furniture is here? I’ll pay you, blah, blah, blah. She was like, Aliyah, I really have some of my best pieces in your house. I’m booked back to back to back. I really just need this. So I was like, crap. So I called the insurance agent back. I was like, I’m so sorry, but we can’t keep the stage furniture. He was like, well, the insurance company has a vendor that they work with to furnish it, but it would take about two weeks, three weeks for that furniture to arrive. These folks, they want to move in right away. They’ve been cooped up in a hotel room with their dog and their newborn. He was like, would you be willing to furnish the house? If so, we can give you $5,000 a month instead of $4,000 a month. And I was just like, this is absolutely insane. And I did the math. If it’s a minimum of 10 months, that would be an extra thousand dollars a month, $10,000. That’s probably around how much it would take for me to furnish the house. So it would be free furniture, and then I can use that furniture and just list this property as a midterm rental. And so I did that.

Ashley:
Or you could even sell the furniture too on Facebook marketplace too, and recoup some of that cost too. Yeah,

Aleea:
Exactly. And so that agent, he actually also co-owns a lead company, and so they generate a list of leads, they skip trace those leads, and then they sell that list. And so he approached me. He was like, Hey, we got a fantastic deal done. Would you like to talk about other partnerships we could possibly do? And so I purchased some leads for him. We’re targeting pre-probate and missed mortgage payments as well. And so we’re going to use that list. I’m going to hire a cold caller. We’re also going to try to do some text messages and we’re going to test trial and error this thing out and see how many leads we can get with this.

Tony:
Wow. You’ve got some amazing stories.

Ashley:
Yeah. Well, Leo, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Real Estate Rookie. Can you let everyone know where they can reach out to you?

Aleea:
Absolutely. So you can find me on Instagram. It’s Lee, LEES, as in Sam, Sheri, CHER. I am on Instagram. You can DM me there and we can talk. I’d love to share advice or get advice from you if you have any that you’d like to share with me or to work together.

Ashley:
Thank you so much. And if you want to become more involved in the rookie community, you can join the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group or also message in the Real Estate Rookie Instagram account. We now have to, you can send us a DM or comment on one of our posts or reels. I’m Ashley. He’s Tony. And we’ll see you guys on the next episode of Real Estate Rookie.