Investing in Apartment Buildings
Savannah Arroyo, “The Networth Nurse,” discusses real estate syndication and shares advice on overcoming common investing obstacles.
About Today’s Guest
Savannah Arroyo, “The Networth Nurse,” is a full-time Registered Nurse in Los Angeles, California. She uses her skills as a leader in healthcare operations to manage multi-family syndications. She also helps busy medical professionals create passive income through real estate investing. Savannah uses mindset tools and goal setting to elevate herself within the healthcare system, as well as the real estate business.
Summary
“The Networth Nurse,” Savannah Arroyo, joins Nate and David to share her advice for getting past common real estate hurdles. She discusses her motivations for getting started in real estate, how her portfolio has evolved from single-family homes to apartment buildings, and how syndications can offer a lower barrier for entry into real estate for those who may be more risk-averse.
As busy working parents, Savannah and her husband realized that they wanted more time with their children and to be able to be highly involved in their lives. They began looking for ways to both offset their W-2 income as well as offer them more flexibility. Real estate seemed to be the answer. As she got more involved in real estate, Savannah was surprised to learn that she could own apartment buildings! She dove into the world of syndication, starting her business with her husband and building a massive portfolio.
One of Savannah’s best pieces of advice for pharmacists who are considering getting started in real estate is to connect with people who are doing the things you want to be doing and learn from their experience. You can overcome limiting beliefs like not having money, resources, or time, as barriers to investing in real estate with some research, networking, and listening to stories of successful investors.
Mentioned on the Show
- Join the YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook Group
- Connect with Savannah Arroyo on LinkedIn
- YFP Real Estate Investing 21: Setting Your Mindset for Success with Ketan Patel
- My First Year Investing In Real Estate – Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
- Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down by Brandon Turner
- Connect with The Networth Nurse on YouTube
- The Networth Nurse Blogs
- Connect with The Networth Nurse Community on Facebook
- Follow The Networth Nurse on Instagram: @thenetworthnurse
- Connect with The Networth Nurse on Facebook
- The Networth Nurse
- YFP Real Estate Investing
Episode Transcript
Nate Hedrick: Hey, Savannah, welcome to the show.
Savannah Arroyo: Hi. Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m stoked to be here.
Nate Hedrick: Yeah, we’re excited to have our very first nurse on the podcast. This is a milestone moment, and you’re part of it.
Savannah Arroyo: Yes. Love it.
Nate Hedrick: So we wanted to make sure we had you on, talk all things real estate investing, and really expand from our usual role of pharmacists only to healthcare professionals. So can you dive in, give us a little bit of background on your nursing story to kind of get us to learn a little bit more about you.
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, definitely. So I have known really kind of from high school age that I wanted to go into nursing. I just really loved the profession for a lot of different reasons. So right out of high school, I went into college pursuing my bachelor’s degree in nursing and went to Sacramento State. I grew up in northern California. Went there, graduated with my bachelor’s, and then I worked in a couple different specialties at a couple different hospitals. And I was just naturally taking on leadership positions. I was doing different process improvement initiatives and projects for the hospitals I was working at. And so I ended up going back to school, and I got my Master’s in nursing leadership and administration. And since then, I’ve held a couple different leadership-type roles and I’ve transitioned down to Los Angeles, California. Right now, I’m overseeing multiple departments at a hospital here in LA.
Nate Hedrick: Love it. That’s awesome. What a story.
Savannah Arroyo: Yes.
David Bright: Very cool. And could you tell us a little bit about your real estate journey so far and your why behind real estate investing?
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, definitely. So the whole real estate journey started the beginning of 2020. I was on maternity leave with my second daughter, and my husband and I were just thinking about kind of our — what we wanted for our family and our future and what our current schedules looked like and how feasible that really was. I mean, we really wanted to be very involved in our daughters’ lives and be able to pick them up from school and do soccer practice, swim lessons, all that sort of fun stuff, but we were working Monday through Friday 8-5 jobs, and it just really didn’t seem realistic with what we wanted to kind of have for our family. And so we started looking for different ways that we could offset some of our W2 income by earning some passive income. We wanted to generate some multiple streams of income, and so we stumbled upon real estate, for obvious reasons. It’s one of the best, best strategies out there to do this. And we got started investing in single-family homes to generate a couple hundred bucks of cash flow a month. And then shortly after, we really just wanted to scale and create a business, and we moved over into multi-family syndications, and that is what we’re doing right now.
Nate Hedrick: That’s awesome. I think that why is — I think it resonates with a lot of our audience. A lot of people have that same feeling of man, if this is the only thing I’m doing, I’m very stuck, right? This is my only option. So is there a way to offset that. It’s not that I want to leave pharmacy or leave nursing, but I want to have another option, another out. And that’s exactly what you did, which I think is great. So as a nurse, a real estate investor, a mom, someone that works with other medical professionals, what do you think makes medicine and real estate, our two fields, such a good fit together?
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah. It’s so crazy the amount of similarities that I’ve seen when working in operations and administration within the healthcare system and now running a multi-family syndication business. I mean, there’s so much organization, communication skills, leadership, project management, just relationship-building. It’s a lot of — I use my nursing skills a lot more than I ever thought I would. And it ended up being a huge motivation and reason behind why I launched my brand the Net Worth Nurse was the ability to then connect with so many of my colleagues at work and other nurses that I was talking to and just kind of explaining what I was doing in real estate. And there was just so much interest there and I realized that there’s such a need for healthcare professionals, nurses, of like really wanting to do more with their finances. I mean, even me before I got into real estate investing, I was putting like 15-20% of my paychecks towards my retirement account. And it was like something that I was very much congratulated on, like people are like, ‘You’re doing the right thing, that’s awesome. What a feat. You’re doing it.’ And it was just so discouraging to see one, that huge chunk of money leave my paycheck every couple weeks, but also it was like, OK, but I can’t touch that money until I’m 65. Like it just felt so defeating to be putting that much money away every month and still not being able to touch it until I was 65. Like it just didn’t seem feasible with what we wanted to do with our money now. And real estate really provides that opportunity to have a lot more control with your money.
Nate Hedrick: Love it. Makes a lot of sense.
David Bright: That getting started piece that you describe I think is a major jumping-off point for a lot of people and especially if you’re putting away a big chunk of your income into retirement accounts, you’re doing a lot of things, you’re spread in a lot of different directions. You went pretty quickly past that, like, oh yeah, we bought a couple single families. And I’m thinking to myself, there are a bunch of people that like pulled over the car right there listening to this and they’re like, how did you just do that? Like how did you just jump in that quickly? So can you give some more background on how you got started and advice for others on getting started particularly with finding that capital for starting out with a first real estate investment?
Savannah Arroyo: Yes, great question. I love this question. And I actually just created a YouTube video where I talked about the three limiting beliefs that most people face when they get started investing in real estate. One, not having enough money to get started. Two, not having enough time to get started. And three, not having enough resources. And I think these are three hurdles that the majority of people face when they’re like, hey, I want to get started investing in real estate, but I have no money to get started. And that’s exactly where I was at in all three of these cases, not having enough time and resources as well. So for me, in terms of like getting started with no money, my husband and I were in a position where we’re like, OK, real estate, we want to buy some single family homes. We were originally going to start out with the BRRRR method. Like where do we get money to start? And we were working with a really good lender to refinance our home. And when we were going through the paperwork and the process, he told us, “Hey, do you know you have over $100,000 worth of equity in your home?” And we’re like, OK, what’s that? Like we literally didn’t even know what home equity was at that point. And he was kind of explaining it to us, telling us we could take it out in a loan, use it to buy these investment properties that we were telling him about, and we’re like, oh, amazing. Super cool. I’d kind of heard about this technique on a podcast and different YouTube videos I watched. But this is where it really comes into play, like doing your best to educate yourself and talking to a lot of people who are using these strategies because they’ll give you firsthand knowledge of it. And like so for maybe half the people we would ask or suggest that we were doing this to, they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s way too risky. Why are you taking out a second mortgage on your home? Like the goal is to pay off your home.’ And then, you know, other people that you’ll talk to will say, ‘Yes, definitely. Leverage all the debt you can to buy more assets. That’s the way to go.’ So for us at that point, we were gung-ho on that. We were going to take it out. And so we took out the second mortgage and we used it to buy two single family homes over in Atlanta, Georgia. And then even after we did those two, they were new built townhomes, super easy to get started. We didn’t end up going for the BRRRR method. But once we bought those properties, we were like, OK, we still want to do more. What’s next? And then so we just began researching like, what are different ways that people are tapping into capital or leveraging debt and we learned that during 2020, you could pull from your retirement account under the CARES Act that was in place due to COVID-19, and you could pull from your retirement account penalty-free. And this was a huge, huge opportunity that we were hearing people were doing. So my husband pulled a good chunk of money from his retirement account so that we could invest it in more real estate properties in the multi-family deals that we were going to be doing. And so you didn’t pay penalties on it, but you do have to pay the taxes over a three-year period. So not bad. And then by the time I decided I wanted to do this, it was 2021. It was January, and I didn’t realize that this kind of expired at the end of 2020. And so I missed that boat, but it was still worth it for us after we were running the numbers for me to pull from my retirement under a loan. So I have my retirement set up with Fidelity and they have it so you can take out a loan, like I think it was 4.2% interest rate, and did that and now investing it in these multi-family deals that are giving us like 15-20% AAR, Average Annualized Return. And so when you look at it mathematically just to make the numbers work, you realize different ways that you can kind of create capital and tap into different sources of equity.
David Bright: Yeah, there’s definitely some creativity there. I’m thinking there’s a lot of people that have also probably unfortunately missed the CARES Act window but probably a lot of people that as real estate values have gone up over the last year, particularly this past summer, it just seems like everywhere in the country is kind of on fire with real estate values, this either second mortgage or cash-out mortgage process of getting capital there could make some sense. Any other advice there for people that are considering that where it feels really risky, like I’m taking on more debt but also may unlock some potential for getting started in real estate.
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah. I would say like listen to stories. Like talk to people. If there’s a strategy out there that you’re thinking about that you want to do, talk to someone who’s done it or I mean, for me and us, it was really like listening to people’s stories on podcasts over and over and just hearing about all of the different strategies that people were using. And if you get yourself submerged in a real estate community, even on Facebook groups or different meetups that are around, you can connect with people and talk to people about how they’re getting creative of getting started in real estate with no money because there’s tons of people doing it. So if that’s what’s stopping you from getting started investing in real estate is that I don’t have enough money to get started, I would encourage you to Google “How to get started in real estate with no money,” and you will learn about all sorts of ways that you can make it work.
Nate Hedrick: Yeah, that’s great. There’s definitely strategies out there. Brandon Turner’s got that excellent book through Bigger Pockets that talks about strategies. And I liked something that you said there, that it wasn’t just do it and this is like a one-and-done, I’m going to see what happens and who cares. Like you run the numbers and it actually made a lot more sense for us to go this direction. So I really like that. Talk to me a little bit about how you switched from — because I think this is another thing that I think overwhelms a lot of people, which is you bought two single-family homes, that was going great, you said they were townhouses, easy to convert, easy to run, and then immediately jumped over to the multi-family space and the value-add multi-family space. So talk to us a little bit about like what that means and why that was a pivot for you.
Savannah Arroyo: Yes. So again, a different strategy that we’re learning about on podcasts. I was listening to podcasts and the questions that were asked all the time is something like, what’s something you wish you would have done sooner? And a lot of people said like, scale through multi-family. I felt like that was a constant answer that I was hearing on podcasts. And so when we started learning about multi-family syndications and how to invest in these apartment deals, it was so eye-opening to us that people like us could own apartment buildings. And originally, we were thinking we wanted to invest in these deals as a passive investor because even as a passive investor, after learning more about it, looking at deals that were out there, we could generate more money than we were getting from our single-family homes. And that’s with doing zero work. Like the scalability through multi-family is just, it’s really unmatched. The returns that you get with way less risk, it’s — comparing it to our single-family homes, we’re like, oh, OK, we should just invest passively in a syndication deal and get even better returns than we’re getting from our single-family. And so for anyone who doesn’t know what a syndication is, a syndication is really a group of people that are pooling together their resources, capital, and experience with real estate, and taking down these deals and pooling together all these resources so that multiple people are coming in and buying these apartment complexes, which when you kind of learn about it, that’s how the majority of the apartment complexes are owned is through syndications. And so we wanted to come in as a passive investor on these deals, but we were unaccredited. To join in on a lot of these deals, you have to be an accredited investor, so you have to make over $200,000 a year or there’s other some requirements. So then we started learning about it and then we wanted to do them ourselves. Like we were like learning about how we could kind of operate some of these syndications on our own. We felt that we had skill sets that were very applicable to it and we wanted to create more of a business out of it. And so we went through a coaching mentorship program to learn how to do it and then started acquiring some apartment complexes through the syndication strategy.
Nate Hedrick: That’s great.
David Bright: And so I know that there’s many differences in that pivot from single family to multi family. And you’re right, that concept of — although I mean, you theoretically could do a syndication for a single-family house, I think the price point is where it probably doesn’t make sense. And so the syndication, like the pooling money is definitely one difference. I know financing and appraisals, like valuation, is also very different. Can you explain some of those differences with how financing works in the multi-family space, the five and more units, and why that is different than the 1-4 unit space?
Savannah Arroyo: I could go on and on about the financing. There’s so many different ways that you can do it. So for us, we used local credit unions on our last three syndication deals. And those have different requirements than agency debt, which is like Fannie/Freddie loans, more conventional loan programs that are out there. And then there’s people that are doing it with like all cash and hard money. And so that’s a big hurdle in terms of educating yourself on the different financing options out there. You do have to be very knowledgeable on really just kind of different financing options before you kind of start making offers. And the thing with the multi-family syndications is you kind of have to have everything in gear at once. You have to have the capital raised, the property management team in place, there’s a lot of moving pieces. So it’s super important that you’re doing a lot of research on that, which is honestly why we invested in a coaching mentorship program because we felt that if at this point, we were going to be dealing with family and friends’ money and the other investors’ money, and we wanted to really go through the motion with a coach and make sure there was nothing that we were missing in every aspect of these deals because that education piece is so huge.
Nate Hedrick: Yeah, that’s the part that overwhelms me when I think about the syndication deals, especially like if I was to ever run my own, it’s that you have to have all those ducks in a row first before you ever jump in. You can’t just show up and say, “Cool, that property is $1 million. I love it. Can you give me a month and a half to raise all the capital I need and talk to all the people I need?” Like no. That’s not how these work. It makes a lot of sense and shows that your prep work really, really matters there. One of the things that I think — again, I also find interesting when I start looking into this space is that as a realtor, like it’s really easy for me to do an appraisal or at least to determine a value for a single-family home or even a multi-family property that is smaller. You can look at comparable sales, you can look at nearby properties that are selling, but what about appraisals in this space? When you’re talking about a huge apartment building and it’s the only one around for miles, how does that work? Are these based on the income that they generate? Or are they based on comparable sales nearby?
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, so the biggest difference is that multi-family apartment buildings are really thought of as like a small little business as opposed to like a real estate. So they’re getting appraised and selling it at a price that’s determined based on how much income they’re producing. So the net operating income, so how much income is coming in, then taking away the expenses. And then although there are cap rates, that’s a big difference when switching into single-family home to multi-family, and that kind of takes into a lot of different things in the market. But they’re not as heavily reliant on sales comps as the single-family world is.
Nate Hedrick: That makes a lot of sense.
David Bright: OK, so you’ve talked about how the financing is different, how the appraisal piece is different, but I know that there’s other similarities and differences between some of the small single-family or small multi-family houses versus larger apartment complexes that are five units or more. So what were some of the other big things that you maybe weren’t expecting or were just very different when you transitioned from those properties in Georgia to some of these larger multi-family properties?
Savannah Arroyo: The biggest thing is definitely relationships. So my husband and I, when we were doing the single-family homes, like very similar to owning our primary residence, like it’s very straightforward in acquiring single-family homes if you’re kind of going a traditional route. You can kind of do it on your own. When you move into the multi-family space, it very much becomes a team sport. And you’re networking and your relationships are so critical and instrumental to taking down these deals. And so for us, we have been the sole operators on our deals, and that’s been going well for us. But we’ve made it a huge point to create really great relationships with people in the space. So we know a bunch of other multi-family operators, just different people in financing, property management, insurance, appraisals, even a notary. Just knowing a lot of people in the space and connecting, even with other operators to ask them, “Hey, what kind of investor portal software are you using?” or “What are you using to underwrite your deals?” or “What markets are you looking at and why?” And so having those relationships has been so, so instrumental in really growing our business and having a huge amount of resources now that have provided so much value in our ability to take down these deals.
Nate Hedrick: You mentioned this earlier, and I think it’s — you know, you’re talking about the network and things like that — what about the property management? How does that change? Because obviously getting a property manager for my duplex down the road is a lot easier than getting a property manager for a 25-unit apartment building. What does that look like?
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, huge, huge difference. And the property management, they are such a key player in this. They are really our boots on the ground, at the day-to-day property, so for us, we invest out of state. We live in Los Angeles, California, and it just doesn’t really make sense for us to invest here right now, although there are tons of people that are making investing work here in LA. So it can be done. But we just love other markets, and we’re investing primarily up in Oregon. And we — our property management team, so when we’re looking at a property deal — and we’ve done pretty heavy value-add deals, so that’s needing a lot of different maintenance like replacing roofs and windows and turning units and increasing rents. And so for us, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done on these buildings, which one, adds so much value to the deal. But the other side of it is that a lot of people turn away from these because it’s too much work. So then it’s kind of an opportunity for us to come in there and pick up these deals and do the work, and we get amazing returns by putting in that sweat equity. And so coordinating with our property management ahead of time is so key. So we loop them in when we’re looking at properties of like, “Hey, we’re looking at this one. We need to replace the roof, we would need to renovate three units,” making sure that they have their resources so like do they have contractors? Do they have maintenance items like a landscaping company that they use? Pest control? Making sure that they have everything in place for them to do the best they can with your business plan. So we’re very transparent — so my husband, he does all the underwriting, so when he’s looking at like how much we’re planning to raise rents every year over the next five years, he’s telling the property management team like, “How realistic is this? What are your rent comps? How competitive is the market?” Like they’re cross-checking almost all of our underwriting. Like they’re cross-checking the vacancy rate, the water, electricity. Pretty much a good property management company could really verify and solidify all of your underwriting that you’re using to even make offers on these deals. And then once you take over, like we have our property management then come and do the due diligence inspection with us. So when we have a property under contract and we’re touring all the units, making sure everything vets out, like we have our property management team come with us and take a look at it and see like, OK, are they willing to take it on? And then yeah, immediately once we close, it’s almost daily conversations with our property management team for the first few weeks while we get it kind of going, and then my husband kind of touches base with them maybe like once or twice a week, depending on what’s going on in these buildings. But that is really one of the biggest relationships in our business.
Nate Hedrick: Makes sense.
David Bright: I love the focus on relationship and team because I think we’ve seen that with many other guests, whether they’re in the single-family space, the small multi- space, house flipping, whatever it is, that team and those relationships are really super valuable. And I know that’s also somewhat intimidating for people getting started because they’re thinking, I don’t have all these different people on my team. How do I begin that? One of the things that I think I’m learning from you here is that one way to leverage someone else’s relationships is through that syndication process. So can you speak to that a little bit and what the difference is between what you’re doing in a syndication model versus what a more passive investor is doing in a syndication model?
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, definitely. So as the operator of the deal, there’s a few key components. So acquisitions, so that is finding the deal, acquiring it, doing all the financing, due diligence, up front work that needs to be done. So acquisitions, all the underwriting. Then the asset management, so that’s overseeing the property throughout the lifetime of the investment. Then capital raising, so that’s kind of what I do in the business is raising capital for these deals. So when we get a deal, it’s really creating a presentation, getting all the returns down, holding a webinar, staying in touch with our potential investors that we have waiting for a deal, keeping those communication lines open. And then investor relations, so communicating with the investors throughout the lifetime of the investment is really so key because our investors are so important because they’re putting up the capital for these deals, although we do invest in every single one of our deals so that we can have skin in the game and they’re great deals, so we like to invest in them. So but having that investor relation piece of communicating, making sure they’re getting their quarterly distributions, answering any questions, disseminating information of what’s going on in the property, so it really is more of a business when you’re operating these deals. But for my husband and I, we really like it. We get so much enjoyment out of it. We’ve created the systems and the relationships, and we love growing and building together. And so that’s why we kind of went down the route of creating a syndication business. But I mean, honestly, one of the best parts that I love is connecting with other nurses or healthcare professionals, pharmacists, doctors, who want to get started investing in real estate but like don’t have the time to be doing all the work or they don’t even want to. They don’t want to be dealing with the whole operational aspect. And so being able to provide them the opportunity of like, hey, these are still the amazing returns that you can get in our deals, better than a lot of other investment strategies out there, let us show you how it works, this is what it looks like for you, and then providing them that opportunity is so, so awesome. Like it’s just — like our investors get so excited about it, especially first-time investors who it’s like their first syndication that they’re investing in or they’re like selling off single-family homes to invest more passively in these syndication type deals, it’s just — I see the relief in them by them, you know — I had a couple nurses like selling some Airbnbs up in NorCal, and they’re just like, “I’m so done with it. I don’t want to manage at all. I don’t want to deal with people anymore. I just want to be very passive,” and to be able to provide those opportunities for people is so awesome.
Nate Hedrick: I think you’re spot-on. I’ve talked to many, many pharmacists and other healthcare professionals who have that like, ‘I know real estate is a great investment, I want to diversify my portfolio, but I don’t want to be a landlord. I don’t want to do any of this stuff.’ And so you’re offering basically a solution to that, which I think is a great fit for a lot of people. In fact, we actually spoke with Kheton Patel back on Episode 21, and he touched on syndications as well as an opportunity. I’ll ask you though because I think this is a good question to bring up, you know, what do you perceive and what would you sell me on if you were talking about here’s the win-win for the operator, the general partners, any limited partner investors, like here’s how we all succeed in this?
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, because I mean, it really is just the perfect fit of like, ‘Hey, we don’t have like $2 million to go out and buy this apartment complex, but we’re willing to put in all the work for it.’ Like we want to run it, and then our investors, hey, they don’t want to do all the work, but they want to be a part of something like this, I mean, exactly what you said, be able to jump into these real estate deals without doing a lot of the work. And so that’s really where that perfect fit does come.
Nate Hedrick: That’s great.
David Bright: And from there, what kind of things if a pharmacist is out there looking for a syndication opportunity, what are some of the things they should think about when evaluating different operations of this is a good one, this is a bad one, besides like projected returns or anything else like that?
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, I would definitely talk to multiple operators out there and ask for access to their deals. So when I talk to potential investors, people that are thinking about investing, wanting to get more information about me and our deals, I have them get on to our investor portal where they have access to look at all of our current deals, they can see what we’ve projected for our investors, what we’re currently getting for our investors, what the updates are on the properties. So we have an investor portal where we regularly update all of our investors with different things that are going on at each of our property. Like we got a new roof started on one of them, so we put up some pictures, and replaced a bunch of toilets in another one and put up some pictures, and replaced all the plumbing and water fixtures to do this huge water conservation measure. And so we update — like I like people to see how we communicate to our investors, so that’s something huge if you’re looking to invest with an operator, seeing how they communicate, what kind of deals they’re doing, what kind of returns they’re projecting. And you’ll see once you start talking to operators, a lot of us are getting really kind of the same returns. So then at that point, kind of like whose personality vibes with you or like what market they’re in, if you have a specific market that you find more favorable. There’s people making deals work in all sorts of markets. There’s different plays for the appreciation. There’s the Class A, which is really more luxury apartments, very, very stable. Then you have the value-add, which kind of maybe generates some bigger returns but not a lot of cash flow up front. So really like when I hop on a call with an investor, I’m really trying to understand what they’re looking for, like what their investing experience has been and kind of like what they’re looking for in terms of cash flow, the hold period, you know, 3-5 years, are they looking for 5-10 years? And then at that point, it’s kind of just showing them our deals and more specifics on like what we’re actually doing with our properties.
Nate Hedrick: That’s great advice. I love that. I feel like now I want to go out and vet a syndication deal.
Savannah Arroyo: Yes. Do it.
Nate Hedrick: And so tell me how this meshes up with the work you’re doing over at The Net Worth Nurse because that’s actually how I found you, right? I was looking through LinkedIn for people doing interesting things in the real estate/medical space and stumbled on The Net Worth Nurse. So talk to us a little bit about that and what you’re combining to kind of make all this work together.
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, definitely. So The Net Worth Nurse, it was we had just raised for our first deal. We raised like $250,000 and kind of depleted our friends and family but wanted to keep growing our real estate business, and so when I was talking to investors, I noticed that I was constantly referring them to other people’s material. I was saying, “Hey, check out so-and-so’s book. Read this blog. Watch this YouTube video.” And I realized if I wanted to earn credibility in the space, I needed to start creating my own content and I needed a foundation and a platform to do that. And so I launched The Net Worth Nurse and through The Net Worth Nurse, I have a YouTube channel, I have blogs, I have a Facebook community, I have all the social media handles where I’m putting out content. I made it a goal to go on a podcast or be on 100 podcasts just because podcasts were the reason I got started investing in real estate. And so I just really wanted to share my story and either encourage or motivate or inspire someone else to kind of make moves because that’s really how I got started. And then The Net Worth Nurse has really allowed me now the opportunity to connect with so many medical professionals. I love it when people will hear me on a podcast or something or reach out and just like even wanting just to say hi or like, you know, maybe get some advice or tips or maybe wanting to invest in one of our deals. So it’s opened up really the ability to now connect with so many more people. And now when I talk to people, I’m like, “Hey, head over to my website and check out these YouTube videos. Check out this blog that I wrote and it can answer some of your questions.” And so it was really a hub for education because I think that’s like the biggest piece, like educating my investor — if someone’s wanting to invest in our deals, like education is first and foremost the main tool that I use to make sure that they understand exactly what’s going to be going on in these deals. And I’ve actually connected with a few other nurses through The Net Worth Nurse, and I’m actually in the process of like creating some courses and a coaching program myself and doing a book, like doing all sorts of crazy stuff now. So The Net Worth Nurse is growing.
Nate Hedrick: That’s awesome. Yeah. We know a thing or two about that, two pharmacists starting a podcast, so I think we can totally resonate. I think that’s really awesome. And again, I can’t wait to see where you guys go with this because I think it’s already a great resource and I just, I see it taking off. So congrats on your success so far. It’s awesome.
Savannah Arroyo: I love it. Thank you.
Nate Hedrick: Alright, I think we’re — I’m getting all wrapped up in the syndications and now, again, I want to jump in and do it. Before we do that, I have to take us to the final infusion. These are three questions we ask every guest on our show. Question No. 1 is what is one tangible strategy that you use to make sure that investing works hand-in-hand with your career as a nurse? How do you keep that day job rolling but also do all the great things that you’re accomplishing late at night like this podcast recording?
Savannah Arroyo: Yeah, definitely. I think The Net Worth Nurse has really allowed me the perfect combination of the two of being able to — I mean, especially through my social media platforms, I love real estate. I could talk real estate all day, so me, I can get heavy posting on real estate and then I love it when I have a bunch of connections about real estate and when I post something nursing-related, it’s like, ‘Oh, what?’ Like they kind of forget — it’s like an inside look that people get to see into the healthcare world that is something they don’t normally get to see, and so I love posting kind of what I do at the hospital and like kind of what my day-to-day is at work, so it still goes hand-in-hand with what I’m doing with The Net Worth Nurse.
Nate Hedrick: I love it.
David Bright: Very cool. What’s one resource that’s been the most helpful to you in your real estate journey, whether that’s a book, podcast, person, author, website, whatever that would be?
Savannah Arroyo: Podcasts. Definitely podcasts. And a bunch of different ones for sure. I would consume whatever it is that speaks to you. There’s so many different strategies in real estate. There’s so many different podcasts of different people. I mean like, you guys on here, pharmacists doing it. It’s just so cool how many different people you can hear from and just listen to stories and get motivated and learn new things. Like I don’t listen to podcasts as much as I used to for sure. But I love that when I do, I always learn something and I’m like, ‘Oh, that is super cool,’ or like I reach out to someone new or I learn about a new application or software that people are using to make their lives easier. And I just, I always learn something when I listen to podcasts.
Nate Hedrick: I love it. That got me started as well. I never would have been able to buy my first property without having those podcasts to kind of guide me and give me the motivation. So I resonate with that a lot. And then Question No. 3, what’s one piece of advice that you would give to a healthcare professional contemplating a start in real estate investing? So we’re about to get started, what’s that one piece of advice that you’d give to that newbie?
Savannah Arroyo: Reach out to someone who’s doing what you want to be doing. And this could be in any sort of strategy or anyone that you connect with, I mean, social media, hop on Instagram, look at someone, whether it’s flipping, whether it’s syndications, land, rental properties, Airbnb, like find someone out there who’s doing something that seems super appealing to you or just like kind of like how they’re doing it seems appealing to you and reach out to them. Ask them maybe how they got started or what they like about it or what are the biggest things they don’t like about it and get more information. If you’re kind of at an in-between phase of not being completely sold on this strategy, I highly encourage you to reach out to someone who’s doing it and pick their brain.
David Bright: That’s so good. It’s so important to find those connections and those people that can inspire you and can also help you with those tips along the way to keep you going when you run into roadblocks, so I love that advice. I know it’s come up several times, The Net Worth Nurse, but can you share where can people find you if they want to learn more?
Savannah Arroyo: Yes, definitely. So The Net Worth Nurse on all social media handles, that’s Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. My website is also thenetworthnurse.com, and I love connecting with other people, healthcare professionals, real estate investors. If anything I have said has been remotely interesting, please reach out. I would love to connect.
Nate Hedrick: I definitely think it’s been interesting. I’m already ready to sit on the next investor presentation. So really appreciate you coming on the show, Savannah. It’s been a great conversation, and again, really excited to see where you guys go next.
Savannah Arroyo: Yes, it’s been my pleasure.
David Bright: Thanks so much.
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