YFP REI 30: Short-Term Rental House Hacking

Short-Term Rental House Hacking

Managed care pharmacist Mariah Pierce shares her real estate story detailing her house-hacking experience and how she gets paid to live in her home with short-term room rentals.

About Today’s Guest

Mariah is a managed care pharmacist and works at a health plan in central Illinois. She is the co-founder of MeRiah Transportation and hopes to start many other ventures in the future. She enjoys all things business, audiobooks, and has a love for entrepreneurship. Mariah is an out-of-the-box thinker finding ways to make money and make a difference.

Episode Summary

Growing up in foster care, Mariah Pierce always dreamed of one day being the owner of a place that she could truly call home. Mariah is now 30 years old, and her dream has come true; not only is she the owner of a three-bedroom, three-bathroom house but, through the house hacking approach she has adopted, she is getting paid to live there! Although she didn’t always like the idea of having roommates, Mariah’s ultimate goal has always been to build a better financial future for herself and her family and when she worked out the numbers, she realized that renting out her extra rooms in her home would help her to achieve this. In fact, she has been pleasantly surprised by the guests she has hosted, finding they treat things even move nicely when they are living with the owner. Mariah even connected with a guest who even gave her the idea for the niche market that she is tapping into in the rental world. Contrary to the risk-averse nature of many pharmacists, Mariah is not afraid of taking risks, and we hope that hearing her story today inspires you to take the leap towards your own version of extraordinary!

Key Points From This Episode

• Mariah’s educational background and the work she is currently doing.
• The lifelong dream Mariah had of owning her own home.
• What has driven Mariah’s interest in personal finance.
• Money that Mariah saved while subleasing a property for seven months in college.
• The property Mariah bought with her savings and her experience of house-hacking it.
• How much she put down on the house and how much her rooms cost to rent out on Airbnb.
• Mariah’s monthly payment on her mortgage.
• The benefits of short term rentals.
• What Mariah learned from her first travel nurse guest.
• How she made her rooms stand out from the other Airbnb listings available in the area.
• Where she found a lot of the furniture for her house.
• Hear about Mariah’s approach to risk.
• The future plans that she has for her real estate investment career.
• Two books that have influenced Mariah’s life choices: Mindset and Brave Not Perfect.
• Mariah’s advice for anyone thinking of taking the leap into real estate.

Highlights

“I’ve always been interested in real estate. I grew up in foster care, so nothing really felt like home. I always had a dream to buy my own someday.” — Mariah Pierce [0:06:45]

“Anybody who knows me knows that I do not like roommates. I like my house. My house is my sanctuary. But once I ran the numbers, it became my favorite thing.” — Mariah Pierce [0:14:45]

“Any ordinary person will tell you the risks. But I think to be extraordinary is to really focus on the outcome and the possible reward of a thing.” — Mariah Pierce [0:25:45]

“There’s always going to be a reason not to. Just challenge yourself to find the reasons to do it, and just take a chance on yourself.” — Mariah Pierce [0:34:02]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• YFP Real Estate Investing 10: Getting Started Through House Hacking
• YFP Real Estate Concierge Service
• The Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast
• Learn More About IBERIABANK/First Horizon’s Pharmacist Home Loan and Start the Pre-Approval Process
• Facebook Marketplace
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
• Brave, Not Perfect: How Celebrating Imperfection Helps You Live Your Best, Most Joyful Life by Reshma Saujani
• Connect with Mariah Pierce on LinkedIn
• YFP Real Estate Investing
• Join the YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook Group

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:08] NH: Hello, and welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist, Real Estate Investing Podcast, a show all about empowering pharmacists to achieve financial freedom through real estate investing. I’m Nate Hedrick, and each week, my co-host, David Bright, and I explore stories from pharmacists all over the country who are achieving their real estate goals while maintaining a meaningful career in pharmacy. Whether you’re a first-time investor, or a seasoned pro, we’re here to provide education and inspiration about the world of real estate.

Please note, this podcast is intended for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial or investment advice.

[EPISODE]

[00:00:42] NH: Hey, David. How’s it going?

[00:00:43] DB: Hey, good. Thanks. How you doing, man?

[00:00:45] NH: I am great, thanks. We’ve got a great interview this week. I’m really excited about it. We found Mariah Pierce. She actually reached out to us, had been listening to the podcast for a while and said, “Hey, I got a story to share.” We thought she was a great fit. I think what I really like about Mariah is that she is a pharmacist, she is a first-time homebuyer and she decided that couple real estate investing with that endeavor. It’s a really awesome fit with how she put those things in tandem.

[00:01:11] DB: Yeah. There’s been a lot of discussion about house hacking in ways that people can try to buy a small multifamily property, live in one unit and rent out the others. We’ve had folks like that on the podcast, looking back, like Bryce on Episode 10. Like we’ve had a lot of people talk about that strategy. But one of the things that’s kind of scary about that in an environment of rising house costs is just the cost of buying a multi-unit property. Mariah was able to figure out a way to do this with a single-family property, a three bed, two bath condo, or a three bed, three bath condo, and same kind of way that a lot of folks start out with a three-bedroom property.

[00:01:53] NH: Yeah. Bryce is a great example of just someone that took and looked at that house hack idea a little bit differently. I was actually just emailing back and forth yesterday with a concierge client who’s kind of doing the same thing. They want that house hack for that first house, and so they’re looking at that new home purchase in a very unique way. I really liked that and that comes really forward in this episode with Mariah.

[00:02:15] DB: Yeah. I also really liked the intentionality that she had, that she was looking at open houses and doing a lot of investigation before jumping into buy, so that when the right thing came along, she was ready to jump right away. Which I’m sure that you’re seeing on the realtor end, that like that’s the only way to operate in today’s market.

[00:02:34] NH: Yeah. It’s so important because if you see the right house, if you see a fit, you have to be able to make that jump and that’s exactly what she did. She had done the math, she’d done all the research in advance, so that when that property came along, she knew what to do. Again, like you said, as an agent, that’s my favorite type of client, so I could really appreciate working with Mariah.

[00:02:53] DB: Yeah. That sounds risky too, I think to a lot of people, to be able to jump in right away. But she had some really interesting perspectives about managing risk and leveraging bravery, so that she could go in and jump on this and find a great house where she got paid to live there, which was just amazing.

[00:03:11] NH: I love the flexibility that she’s built into this too. Make sure you listen for that, because I think a lot of people think, “Oh, man! Real estate investing is so risky. Once I do it, I’m stuck.” She gives some really awesome tips about how she’s made it flexible and I wish I would have been in her shoes. I wish I’d been able to do what she did back when I first bought my first house.

[00:03:31] DB: Yeah. It’s a great story with all kinds of exit strategies, all kinds of things that I think make a safety oriented, risk-averse pharmacist really comfortable. Hopefully that comes through as this is a very achievable way to get started in real estate investing through the purchase of your own first house.

[00:03:48] NH: Yeah, and for those of you who are number oriented, also keep in mind, she’s got a great breakdown of the actual numbers of what she’s dealing with. She is totally killing it for a first investment property, basically living for free and getting paid to do it. On top of that, she didn’t need that much down. Definitely listen to that again. Overall amazing story. Really hope you guys enjoy this one.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:04:09] NH: Hey, Mariah. Welcome to the show.

[00:04:10] MP: Hey, Nate. It’s great to be here. Thank you.

[00:04:13] NH: Yeah. We’re so happy to have you tonight, and I just appreciate your time and I’m glad that you reached out to be a guest. Because I think you’re going to be a great fit for our audience. We’re really excited to have this conversation.

[00:04:22] MP: Thank you.

[00:04:24] NH: Why don’t we go ahead and dive right in. Why don’t we start with your pharmacy story? Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you’re up to and how you got here.

[00:04:30] MP: Yeah. I graduated pharmacy school in 2018 from Rosalind Franklin in North Chicago, which is not actually Chicago. I did my residency and managed care in Madison, Wisconsin. Now I work as a managed care pharmacist at a small health plan in Champaign, Illinois, where I live now. I am in charge of the commercial line of business as well as P&T duties. As far as my real estate journey, I just bought my first home here in July of this year, with this crazy market. I’ve always been interested in real estate. Just growing up, I grew up in foster care, so nothing really felt like home. I always wanted to, had a dream to buy my own someday. I also am a first-generation college graduate as well. I just knew like going through college like I knew that once I graduated from pharmacy school, this has been the most money I’ve ever had, as well as the most money that my family’s ever had. I thought it would be a good idea to just be a good steward of that money and that salary once I graduated.

I took a really big interest in personal finance, and so, realized real estate can be used as an investment as well through that. Just building a better future for my nieces, nephews and future kids, so I got really excited about it.

[00:05:58] DB: I love that. That’s an awesome story. Yeah, I’d love to hear about this property that you found and how that came about, why that property specifically? Because I love the intentionality that you have behind that.

[00:06:11] MP: Yeah. The property I have now is a two-bedroom townhouse. It’s going to sound a lot bigger than what it actually is. It has two master bedrooms; each has its own bathroom. Then I also have a finished basement, which I converted into a bedroom as well and it also has its own bathroom. So, kind of how this happened, it wasn’t supposed to happen, because I listened to all the gurus and real estate podcasts. You’re supposed to buy the duplex first, right? And house-hack it out. With this crazy market, I’ve been waiting, and I’ve been waiting and none of them came up. The ones that were on the market were just really rundown, needed a lot of work and for my first property, I didn’t want to put in a lot of time and effort into it, kind of wanted to just be move-in ready.

What happened was – a little bit before I even get to the house, I did a sublease. One of the things I really like about college towns is there are sub leases all the time. There are people going abroad. There are students who just don’t get along with their roommates or just have to go back home for something. There’s always subleases year-round. But during COVID, it was plentiful. A lot of the landlords weren’t letting them out the leases so a lot of them just needed help to get out of the lease. What I did was kind of scoured the student groups, and found a sublease. It was a two bedroom.

At the time, my sister was staying with me, so it was great to have a two bedroom. I think it originally went for $1,500, but he was giving the sublease for 600. I was like, “Okay. I’ll take it.” My plan was to be very aggressive with savings so that I’d have a really aggressive down payment once I left. That was for seven months. Again, with college towns, it was free Wi-Fi. There was a lot of utilities included. I think the only one I had to pay was electricity. By the time I left, I think I had about $13,000 saved up just from that seven months. My plan was to actually sublease again, so I could do a duplex. But because none of them were coming on market, and then my current house came on market, I believe, right at the beginning of July, like right before my lease ended. I had been going to open houses already, even though I didn’t have money to buy in the past, but I would go just for fun. I had been looking at this neighborhood and I told my real estate agent like, “Hey! Let’s just hit the market. We have to see this tomorrow.” I’ve seen it. We put an offer in the same day and it was accepted and everything just worked out perfectly.

By the time my lease was over, I was already moved in. Because I have all this extra space that I’m not using, I figured that I would just house hack it out. Even though I didn’t have the duplex that I wanted, I’m like, “Well, I can house hack this anyway.” Took a few pictures, posted it on Airbnb and it’s been rolling since then. I have a lot of traffic from the university. It’s a Big Ten University, so it’s over 40,000 students. I have friends coming to visit friends, parents coming to visit their kids, alumni. Then there’s football season coming up, so I got some bookings for that. It’s all over the place.

[00:09:43] NH: That’s awesome.

[00:09:42] DB: That’s it. There’s so much in there that’s good. Like, what? Gosh! I’ve got notes going all down the page here. So many things are good about that. The first thing that I love is the learning that you’ve done, is that you focused on your personal finance goals, and you got ready, and you were learning and you were listening to podcasts, and going to open houses and you were just seeing what’s out there, getting ready. All of that prep work puts you in a position that when something came around, you were able to jump on it and you didn’t have the analysis paralysis that so many people have, because you were getting ready. Then also, not just listening to the guru’s who say you need a duplex, you need a fourplex, you need something like that. But you were a little more open minded, because you’d been studying and looking around and trying to find out what your options are. I just love all of that right there.

One of the things you mentioned, I just want to make sure that we have our terms set for everyone listening. Can you talk about what a house hack is for a minute?

[00:10:39] MP: Oh, yes. House hacking is just basically renting portions of your primary residence to help offset the cost. It can be with a multi-unit, so you live in one and another person rents the other, or somewhat like how I’m doing that I have my primary house, but I rent out my rooms so that it can offset the cost of my mortgage.

[00:11:05] NH: Perfect. Yes. Like you said, traditionally done with multi family homes where you’re getting multiple units that are separated. But I love that you took it and said, “I know what I want to do. I know this is my strategy, but I’m going to pivot. I’m going to do it in my own way.” I think that’s just incredible. I actually want to walk through those numbers, because I think that’s what really matters, right? You said you had some savings. Talk to me a little bit about the property itself, what you purchased it for, maybe a little bit of how you financed it. Because those are the kind of the meat of what people often ask and want to know more about.

[00:11:36] MP: Awesome. I’ve been listening to you guys since you started and The Tims ever since they started. I heard about IberiaBank, got in touch with Tony Umholtz and his team. I went through that pharmacist’s loan, got the conventional loan, and I put down 5,000. I offered 150 for this townhouse. That’s the purchase price that I bought it for. As far as like the house hacking goes, I rent out the basement, I think the base price is 60. Airbnb has a smart pricing, where it will go up and down based on the demand. I think I have it set between 60 and 70 per night. Then the upstairs room is like probably $5 less so $55, $65 a night.

[00:12:29] NH: That’s awesome. You were literally able to take only $5,000 in savings, basically 3% down if you hash out those numbers, plus closing costs. And had a property, you could live there full time, no rent all of a sudden, and you’ve got income coming in to offset some of those costs. That’s amazing.

[00:12:46] MP: Absolutely. Yes.

[00:12:47] NH: That’s absolutely amazing.

[00:12:49] DB: So with $150,000 on the purchase price and $5,000 down, what’s your monthly payment on that mortgage look like?

[00:12:57] MP: My mortgage payment is just over $1,000 and that includes like principal interest taxes.

[00:13:05] DB: Yeah. You’re looking then – gosh, just rough math, if you have one of those rooms rented out for half of the month, you’ve paid your home mortgage, right?

[00:13:16] MP: Exactly. I was very – like when I ran the numbers, I was like, “Wait! This actually makes better sense than actually doing the multi-unit.” Because then, I think I would probably cash flow just a few $100 if I did that. Not even a few, maybe a couple. But I actually make more with the room rentals.

[00:13:38] NH: What I love about that too is that, it’s not the traditional form of investing where you’re running all the numbers, you’ve gotta have it rented out full time for it to work and if it’s not the perfect peak season, then you’re not going to make anything. Like you looked at this like, “I gotta have a place to live anyway. I’m really making this mortgage payment no matter what. But hey, on a good month, I can have everybody come in and it pays for itself and actually puts dollars in my pocket.” I just think that’s so cool. This is why every time I talk to somebody who has hacks, I’m like, “Oh! If only I would have done that when I was going through my first two years of being a pharmacist.” Anyway, missed opportunity for me, but I’m glad you keyed in. That’s awesome.

[00:14:16] DB: Yeah. One of the concerns that people have about house hacking like that is, “What’s the roommate situation going to be when I’m sharing space?” How did that go for you? And how did you kind of get through that mental hurdle of sharing your living environment as a way to offset that mortgage payment or even get paid to live in this house?

[00:14:34] MP: Yeah. I’ve heard this a lot, people – “Oh! It might be dangerous. Oh! Why are you living – like you buy a house to live with people? Like this makes no sense.” Anybody who knows me knows that I do not like roommates. I like my house. My house is my sanctuary. But once I ran the numbers, it became my favorite thing. You can move in. I will set it up for you. It will look very nice.

[00:14:59] DB: I love it.

[00:15:01] MP: Because having my why in mind, you know, just wanting to have a better financial future. I know that this can get me there quicker. When I set it up, like it’s not ideal to have roommates. One thing I like about short term rentals is that you can pull that at any time. Once, if you are just having – you’re in a bad mood for a month, you don’t have to have anybody living with you. It works so much better than the long-term rentals, because it feels like it’s forever. Just having somebody for a weekend or somebody for a month, and I’ve noticed that people kind of, they tend to take care of your things better than you would, because they’re just so scared, especially having you around too makes them more nervous, about breaking and like touching things.

For the most part, it’s worked out okay. Just like – because it really helps to have like their own bathroom, because if they want it to be secluded, they can, and don’t really have to come out. For the most part, they usually just stay in there. Then the common areas too, they don’t use it as much unless they need to. They’ll probably come down to cook a little bit, or eat at the dining table. But for the most part, they’re really respectable.

[00:16:17] DB: Yeah. It sounds like there’s just this theme going on with the sublease, where you’re willing to sacrifice a little bit, move into something temporary, to save a lot of money and make a big gain towards your financial plan. This sounds like the same kind of thing, as far as short-term sharing of your space in order to make a huge gain on your financial plan. I’m guessing that you just seemed very goal oriented in how you’re doing this so what’s the next step or what’s the next thing you’re thinking about as far as financial goals, particularly with real estate?

[00:16:51] MP: Yeah. So right now, it was really geared towards the college students and the college. And right now I’m thinking of even, you know, focusing in more on my niche of house hacking. Because through Airbnb, I actually ran into a travel nurse through Airbnb. This was her first go round, her assignment was for 13 weeks at the health system here. I’ve never done one for that long. She never like did a travel assignment. We were both just kind of trying it out, so we just did it for a month to see how it is. If we didn’t like each other, it was no hard feelings, we’d just kind of move on. But talking to her a little bit more, I learned that these travel nurses, they actually get stipends for their stay, pretty hefty ones too.

If they are in charge of their own housing, I think I can kind of throw the numbers out here, but I might be inaccurate, depending on what the location is. But I think in Illinois, I think they get about $4,000 a month, maybe $3,000, but definitely more than they need. If they do their own housing, they get to pocket the rest. Of course they’re trying to find something that’s nice and affordable but also that’s not too expensive. My monthly rate for the rooms are $900. When I told her, she didn’t even blink an eyelash, she just paid it and was like, “Okay, great. That’s fine. I’ll see you next week.” It was just like, “What? Just like that?”

I really like them because they work in the healthcare system, so they’re really conscious of like with COVID going around, making sure they wash before they come in, kind of keeping things to a minimum. Then also, the turnaround times, with people only staying for a day or two, you constantly have to go in, and clean, and sanitize and everything. But if they’re staying for a month, like I only have to clean once, and that works well for me, especially working from home and also working full-time. I am looking more into travel nursing, for sure. Because I’ve looked at different sites and talked to different nurses and realized it’s not a problem of paying, it’s a problem of finding places to stay. Because I think some of the hotels out here don’t even give like weekly or monthly discounts. They’re just looking for something that’s away from home.

[00:19:23] NH: What I love about that is that you found, like you took an idea, right, the simple idea of, “I want to house hack,” and you just started doing it and started figuring it out along the way. Through that, pretty easily, you kind of found a niche that actually has been a good fit for you, right? And it may be even something you want to take off with and say, “Look, I’m going to actually provide more housing for travel nurses.” Even if that’s not the direction you go, it’s probably something you didn’t know about at all when you got started. I think that’s so cool and it’s a great example of how you get the education that you need to get rolling, but then you just have to get started. Because if you do that, you’re going to find things that you didn’t even expect and then things that you would never would have Googled, “How do I handle travel nurses for a month in my townhouse?” Like, I think that’s so cool that you just kind of figured that out along the way. I love that.

[00:20:10] DB: Yeah. From a marketing standpoint, how did you set things up to attract tenants? Did you have to furnish things or how did you set up your unit and the associated marketing to make sure that it was a fit for this kind of, by the night, by the room strategy?

[00:20:27] MP: Yeah. Kind of the first thing I did, I knew I wanted to do Airbnb before I moved into my townhouse. Because I did it once with a rental that I had. The landlord allowed me to Airbnb on the weekends that I wasn’t there, so that was nice. But I went to Airbnb and looked at pretty much the competition, “What are the other people doing out here?” It was very bare, and very minimal. I wanted something a little bit more homey, especially since I wanted to charge a little bit more than they were charging, because the numbers had to be worthwhile for me to do it.

I went to Facebook Marketplace, because once I moved in, I realized I was living like a student for like 20 years. I literally moved in with my clothes, and I think like a queen bed frame. Everything else I had to furnish, and my mindset when I moved in was like, “Everything is going to be new. This is my new house. I’ve been waiting for this.” Then I realized very quickly that that wasn’t going to happen. Furnishing is really expensive. But I knew the longer I took to furnish, the more delayed I could do Airbnb or these short-term rentals. I kind of went to Facebook Marketplace and the best part about it is that, being in a college town, there’s a lot of turnover with stuff that are still in really good shape.

I got a lot of my things from Facebook Marketplace, especially like the little accessory things, like lamps were like $5. I got like little mini fridges, especially for the longer-term stays, they really appreciated that. Like those little dorm fridges, I think they cost like $170 retail, but they were selling for $20 to $40. I’m like, “I will take that off your hands, ma’am, sir. Thank you very much.” All my TVs came from Facebook, Rokus. The best example I love to give is like those little trash cans that go into bathrooms. I have three and a half bathrooms. Again, it sounds bigger than what it is. It’s not a very big house, but it’s just a lot of bathrooms. I went to Target and Walmart to get these trash cans. I think they go for like $10 or $20 apiece. I’m like, “There’s no way I’m paying $40 to $80 on these little trash cans literally to hold trash, like no.”

I went to Facebook, and I kid you not, there was a guy selling it out of his garage, like just stacked to the ceiling $2 a piece, brand new tags on them. I was like, “Yeah, I’ll take four of them. Thank you.” Then I got to choose the colors, and the shape and everything. I’m like, “You have a better variety than Walmart does.” So yeah, that worked out very well. Facebook definitely saved me in a lot of places. Of course, because of COVID, a lot of the furniture places didn’t have furniture like readily available. Because I think you have to wait like two to six months because of shipping delays and whatnot. Facebook really came in hand with it.

[00:23:35] NH: David, you’ve used Facebook Marketplace for stuff like that too. I think I got a text from you once, you bought a stove you didn’t need and just threw it in a storage unit for a while. Is that right?

[00:23:45] DB: Oh, for sure. Yeah, like we find appliances, like one of my favorite things to get on Facebook Marketplace are over the range microwaves, because those are like super expensive in stores. As people are going for the trendy just hoods instead and taking those out. Yeah, I’ve seen these for $20 to $50 instead of $300. And then you’re right, all the weights on things. So yeah, sometimes gently used appliances are a great fit for a rental where, the day someone moves in, that’s now a gently used appliance anyway. Some of that can be a great fit there for rehab materials and all kinds of things like that.

[00:24:24] NH: I love it. That’s a good tip. I appreciate that a lot because that’s something that I don’t think a lot of people think of. They immediately go to, “Okay. What’s it going to cost to furnish this place?” So they jump on Best Buy and look at the appliance costs and go, “Oh, geez.” That’s a really good tip. Appreciate that. Talk to me a little bit too, I think a lot of pharmacists are pretty risk averse, right? When people hear real estate investing for the first time, they think risk, they think scary, they think bad tenants. How did you manage that risk? What made you get over the hump of, “I’m ready to do this”? How did you dive from risk-averse pharmacist to, “Yeah. I’ll have strangers come stay with me. I love this idea”?

[00:25:03] MP: Yeah. I was renting. That was trash. I didn’t like that at all. I was like, “Okay. I have to make this jump sooner or later.” The opportunity came, I was ready. Of course, it wasn’t as much savings as I wanted it to be. But I was like, “You know, I’ll just have to get creative and be more aggressive in my savings once I get in there.” I also didn’t let that stop me. But trying to do short term rentals on Airbnb, yes, there’s risk involved. People tell me about the risks all the time. There’s always going to be a reason not to do something. If you can’t think of anything, ask anyone around you, they’ll give you three or more reasons why not to do something.

Like any ordinary person will tell you the risks. But I think to be extraordinary is to really focus in on the outcome and the possible reward of a thing. It’s not to ignore the risk. We want to acknowledge that it’s there, but also mitigate the risks associated with it. For my short-term rentals, like I said, like at any time, I can pull the plug and be like, “Okay. I’m done with this. Let’s try something else.” But for right now, it’s working. I think if there’s an opportunity, I will definitely try it just to say that I did, and if I don’t like it, I have to try something else. If I like it, I kind of stick with it.

[00:26:27] NH: I absolutely love that. I think the thing that people often overlook when they talk about the risk of doing something is the risk of not doing something, right? There’s a different risk that you’re ignoring, if you say, “Uh, real estate is too risky, I can’t do it.” But what about the risk of not getting ahead financially? What about the risk of not following your dreams? I mean, there’s a lot there that you’re giving up to potential risk. I think the way you’ve built it is just so, so smart, because you’ve got flexibility in the way that it’s designed. Like you said, you could turn it off for a month if you wanted to. And simultaneously, you’ve got a single-family home or a townhouse that you can pretty easily put back on the market if everything went south, and you’re like, “I just need to sell this. I’m done, you have that chance to do that pretty simply and easily.

I think you’ve mitigated the risk extraordinarily well. And more important than that is that you’ve looked at it and said, “This is actually the least risky option because it gets me to where I want to be.” I think that’s awesome.

[00:27:23] MP: Absolutely, yeah. You put that very well. Yeah. I figured out with real estate, there’s a lot of exit strategies. If you decide it isn’t for you, at least you tried it, and somebody will be happy to take it off your hands.

[00:27:37] DB: Yeah. I think that’s so good too. You’ve clearly done a lot of learning about real estate in getting into this, which I think really helps to make those risks not feel as scary. Because I’ll bet that there’s people that would look at what we do in the pharmacy and think, “Oh my gosh! That’s super risky.” Like you could dispense the wrong med to the wrong patient. It could interact with someone and people are panicking over that. But like, we do it all day long, we’re used to all the systems that are in place to manage those risks in the pharmacy space. So like, it doesn’t give us heartburn, because we understand it, we’ve learned about it, right? You’ve kind of done the same thing in this space, like yeah, there’s all these things that feel scary about it, but you learned about it. Then you bought a very, like typical, everybody-wants-it kind of townhouse that’s two, now three bedrooms. Like, who wouldn’t want a place like that if you ever needed to sell? I think that that creates a lot of safety there as well.

As far as the numbers too, just because you mentioned exit strategies. I know one exit strategy that people like is, if you ever move out and you want to get out of the short-term game, one of the things that’s sometimes difficult about short-term rentals is they don’t often work with long-term rental math. But I would imagine on this one that if you were to move out and rent it out long term, what would those numbers look like?

[00:28:52] MP: Yeah. When I bought the house for 150, and looking at comps in the area, it can go for $1,400, $1,500 so it meets that 1% rule. That’s actually my plan for like the next couple of years or so to kind of get my savings back up. Then the duplex is still an option and I had to tell myself like, “Even though you didn’t get it now, it doesn’t mean you can’t get it later.” Just going to hang out here for a couple years and then move over to that duplex whenever they’re ready for me.

[00:29:25] NH: I love that. I love the – I can see the plans working in your head. I feel like we’re going to have you back here before too long. So this is cool.

[00:29:30] MP: I hope so.

[00:29:32] NH: Mariah, one of the other really neat things that you mentioned that I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring it up, this came up in your application, was that you were talking about potentially buying a wedding venue and trying to focus on affordability for people. Like talk to me about it. I love this idea and I kind of – like I’m obsessed. I want to hear more about it.

[00:29:47] MP: Yeah. I should have talked to you earlier about that before we started recording, because I absolutely have no details on this yet.

[00:29:54] NH: I don’t even care. I love it. I want to hear about it anyway.

[00:29:56] MP: I just went through this like breakdown a couple months ago. Because I’m 30, so I’m at the age of like, “All my friends are getting married, I’m going to like their wedding party having a lot of fun.” Then it just dawned on me a couple months ago, like, “Dude, you might have to pay for this too.” Like, because I had just sat down in my house, trying to figure out the next real estate venture and trying to figure out other things that I have to pay for. Then like, the wedding just came up, I was just like, “Wait a minute! I don’t have savings for this wedding.”

Then, so I started asking my friends like, “How much did you pay for this? Do you mind sharing with me how you did it?” They were telling me, “$30,000, $40,000.” I’m looking like, “Whoa! What? Are these real numbers?” It kind of just broke my heart, because I’m just like having to choose between paying for a wedding or paying for real estate. For me, like it’s hands down real estate, but you know – and of course, I won’t be paying for it on my own, like my husband will help out. But like, now, it’s our money that we have to put towards a wedding for one day. But I know there’s some people out there who really want to remember that day and they should be able to. I thought like, why not have both? Why not buy a wedding venue, then use it as an affordable one? Because I know, for a lot of people, the venue itself is the most expensive thing.

Just having a cheaper option for people who are like me who don’t have a really hefty wedding fund, but still want something nice for their friends and families to come to. But yeah, no details. I don’t know where it would be, how much it would cost. But there has to be a better way to do weddings and I’m going to figure it out.

[00:31:43] NH: I was going to say, if there’s somebody that I’ve talked to that could figure it out, I’m talking to her right now.

[00:31:48] MP: Okay. Thank you.

[00:31:49] NH: I think that’s awesome. That’s really cool. Well, again, Mariah, you’ve been incredible. I appreciate you coming on tonight. I want to make sure we get to our final infusion questions. Three questions we ask every guest that comes on the show. Question one is, what is one tangible strategy that you use to make sure that investing works hand in hand with your career as a pharmacist?

[00:32:07] MP: Yeah. I think with this travel nurse niche, so the nurse I have now living with me, she works at the hospital that I am currently in, like going to part-time. She’s a fresh set of eyes, she’s from the outside and she just gives me all her feedback. Then just like all these things that I’d never even knew like nurses have to go through, so I think it’s just making me a better like healthcare professional overall, just knowing like what she’s going through when she goes to the hospital.

[00:32:39] DB: I loved that you focused so much time on learning, so I’m excited about this next question. What’s one resource that’s been most helpful to you in your real estate journey, whether that’s a book, podcast, person, author, website, whatever that would be?

[00:32:51] MP: Yeah, I am podcast queen, but I will have to go with like books, though. The one I listened to recently is called Mindset by Carol Dweck. This one talks about having a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset.

[00:33:07] NH: I’m looking around, I swear I have it here somewhere. It’s a great book.

[00:33:11] MP: Yeah, it’s really good. Just pretty much getting ourselves out of our own way. Because we always have this thing about your – if it’s not innate or we’re not good at it, that we shouldn’t be doing it. She completely debunked that myth. Can I give another one? Because I really liked this next one, too.

[00:33:27] NH: Sure.

[00:33:27] MP: The next one is called Brave Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani. She talks about, in this one, that men are raised to be brave, and women are raised to be perfect and like how that kind of robs us of opportunity sometimes, so taking more risks. So you can see kind of the pattern here of the things I like to listen to.

[00:33:52] NH: All right. Then question three, what’s one piece of advice that you’d give to a pharmacist that is contemplating to start in real estate investing?

[00:33:59] MP: Just do it. I think, just be extraordinary. There’s always going to be a reason not to. Just challenge yourself to find the reasons to do it, and just take a chance on yourself. Because, you know, you always ask yourself, “Why not do it? Like what if it doesn’t happen? What if it doesn’t work out?” But what if it does? You will never know until you try it.

[00:34:22] NH: Really great advice.

[00:34:23] DB: I love it. That’s so good. Where can people find you if they want to connect or if they need a room to stay in?

[00:34:28] MP: Yeah. I would love it. So yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, Mariah Pierce. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram as well under the same name.

[00:34:40] NH: Perfect. We’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. Mariah, thank you so much for coming on tonight. I really, truly, truly appreciate it. I think your story is awesome. I fully expect we’ll have you back on the show in a short, short order with a whole new, exciting opportunity that you pursued because I could feel it. I think you’re going to be incredible with this.

[00:34:59] MP: Absolutely. This show has been great. Thank you both.

[00:35:02] DB: Thank you.

[OUTRO]

[00:35:06] ANNOUNCER: Thanks so much for joining us for the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. If you liked what you heard on today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe to the show, so you never miss an episode. If you have a question, know someone who would make a good guest for the show, or want to connect with Nate and David, head over to yfprealestate.com or join the growing YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook group. See you next time.

[END]

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