YFP REI 85: Pharmacist House Hacking in a HCOL State

Dr. Corrie Sanders, founder and CEO of Hawaii’s only pharmacogenomic consulting company, Huna Health and President of the Hawai’i Pharmacists Association, discusses mindset, investing, and how she manages her pharmacy career and real estate investing by house hacking in a HCOL state.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Corrie Sanders is founder and CEO of Hawaii’s only pharmacogenomic consulting company, Huna Health, and currently serves as President of the Hawai’i Pharmacists Association. She is passionate about advocating for access to care and the ability of pharmacists to practice at the top of their licenses across various care settings.

She and her husband have lived on the island of Oahu for three years following her husband’s Navy orders. They purchased a single family home in 2020 utilizing a VA Home Loan and split the house into two units. They offset the mortgage by house hacking with both tenants and a roommate.

Episode Summary

YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast hosts, Nate Hedrick, PharmD, and David Bright, PharmD, MBA, BCACP, FAPhA, FCCP, welcome to the show, Dr. Corrie Sanders, the founder and CEO of Hawaii’s only pharmacogenomic consulting company, Huna Health and President of the Hawaii Pharmacists Association. Dr. Sanders discusses mindset, her approach to real estate investing, and how she has been able to pursue her pharmacy and financial goals through real estate investing in one of the most expensive markets in the country.

Corrie and her husband have lived on the island of Oahu for three years following her husband’s Navy orders. Their start in real estate investing came organically when their lease was up, and a home purchase made more sense than continuing to rent. With several connections and friends familiar with the VA Home Loan and real estate investing, Corrie and her husband felt comfortable purchasing a single-family home in 2020 utilizing a VA Home Loan. Immediately after purchasing, they split the house into two units. Today, they offset the mortgage by about 90% through house hacking with tenants and a roommate. Corrie tells us that her strong position financially, which came from real estate investing in this way, enabled her to make her career change to entrepreneurship in pharmacogenomics. 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• BiggerPockets
• I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi
• Connect with Corrie Sanders on LinkedIn
• Huna Health
• YFP Real Estate Investing
• Join the YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook Group
• Your Financial Pharmacist Disclaimer and Disclosures

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: Good. It is cold and wintry here in Cleveland, Ohio. I mean, we saw a little dusting of snow for the first time, which I hate to say, and we talked to Corrie, a wonderful pharmacist, Corrie Sanders, and from Hawaii. So it’s kind of a – I don’t know. I’m feeling the cold here extra much.

[00:01:03] DB: Yeah. That was – It’s a super fun story because I think that all of us up here in the Midwest in the winter are thinking, “Man, it would be amazing to live in Hawaii, right,” and that’s what she’s been able to do with her real estate investing.

[00:01:16] NH: Yeah. Again, we really were lucky to have Corrie Sanders come on the show. She is Founder and CEO of Hawaii’s only pharmacogenomic consulting company, Huna Health. She’s got a great pharmacy background. She serves as the President of the Hawaii Pharmacists Association. I mean, she’s passionate about pharmacy and trying to live in one of the most expensive areas of the country. So just it was an awesome conversation talking about mindset and investing and what that looks like for them. 

[00:01:43] DB: Yeah. I love this story about buying this fully renovated seven-figure house in Hawaii. That was just amazing. But doing it with enough strategy that it can be done with a relatively low down payment and a relatively achievable monthly payment, where the house was set up to have tenants in it. It was a house hack situation where tenants living in part of the house would pay, in this case, almost all of the mortgage payments so that Corrie can live there on a very low price point for such a pricey market.

[00:02:15] NH: Yeah. I think it’s one that we always look at as like paying the priciest. So here is someone with a strategy that works there. I just – I love that, and I also love how she talks about how the pharmacy career and her background in pharmacy empowered her to take that entrepreneurial leap that she did and what that has looked like for her and how that’s just changed her life. It’s inspiring.

[00:02:35] DB: Yeah. Definitely a lot of encouraging notes in there about how real estate investing for her allowed her to achieve that financial freedom to help live the life that she wanted and have the career that she wanted and help to make that jump. So super fun episode.

[00:02:50] NH: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s jump right to it then. 

[INTERVIEW]

[00:02:53] NH: Hey, Corrie, welcome to the show.

[00:02:55] CS: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I love this podcast, so I’m excited to be here.

[00:02:59] NH: That’s great. We appreciate that very much, and we’re jealous, David and I calling from the chilly Midwest and talking to you all the way over in Hawaii. So we’re excited to have you on, but we’re also a little spiteful.

[00:03:11] CS: Yeah. This is the time of year where that happens because our temperatures are still like 70s and 80s. So no winter jackets for us.

[00:03:18] NH: I love it. I love it. Well, I will jealously ask you some questions, and we’ll go through it from there. Why don’t we jump right in? Tell us a little bit about your pharmacy story, and we’ll take it from there.

[00:03:27] CS: That sounds good. My name is Corrie Sanders. I’m born and raised all across the state of Virginia. So from Virginia Beach, I went to undergrad at Virginia Tech, and then I jumped right into pharmacy school at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. So after that, I did a general PGY1 back at home with a system called Sentara Healthcare, and I focused a little bit more in medication safety and critical care. 

Then from there, my husband is active duty Navy, and we moved 5,000 miles away to Hawaii, where I am in an ambulatory care clinic as a medication safety pharmacist. Gosh, like talking about this now, I feel like I’m on my third career at the moment because I just left that job with VA Pacific Islands Healthcare System, and I’ve now started my own pharmacogenomic consulting company called Huna Health. 

[00:04:19] NH: That’s awesome. 

[00:04:20] CS: Yeah, a little all over the place. So you can go anywhere with pharmacy but –

[00:04:23] NH: Exactly. 

[00:04:24] DB: So can you tell us a little bit about your real estate investing journey as well?

[00:04:29] CS: Sure. So our real estate investing journey kind of happened organically, once we moved to the state of Hawaii, and we were really lucky when we moved here that I had had some connections from home and from undergrad. We kind of got involved in this community of military people who had all been really familiar with the VA loan and use the VA loan. We were just kind of surveying our friend group like, “Oh, my gosh. There’s people that are way younger than us that are jumping into real estate.” 

So that’s how the conversation really got started is that we lived on Oahu for a year, and we rented when we first got here. Then by nature of the expense of Hawaii, when it came time to renew our lease, part of the conversation was like, “Well, should we be buying? Should we be transitioning from renting to buying? And how should we use this VA loan?” So it was just very organic that towards the end of our one year lease, we jumped into purchasing a property.

[00:05:24] NH: That’s awesome. 

[00:05:24] DB: I know that there may be folks listening that aren’t as familiar with the VA loan, and they’re probably thinking, “Well, like there’s conventional mortgages, and I’ve heard of FHA. What would a loan be so special about? How would that differentiate?” So can you tell us a little bit about the VA loan and how that separates itself out and makes it much easier to purchase a property?

[00:05:44] CS: Sure. So the VA loan is different from a conventional loan in the fact that, one, you can put zero money down, which is beautiful. But they offset that by what’s called a funding fee. So normally, that’s two to three percent of the total cost of the loan. As a buyer, you can either roll that funding fee into your overall cost of the loan, or you can pay that funding fee upfront. 

But the VA loan has some really strict stipulations because it’s a government-backed loan. So you’ve got to be either active duty military, retired military, beneficiary of someone who’s in the military, but that’s generally how the loan looks. It’s a little different from a conventional loan.

[00:06:22] DB: Yeah. I mean, zero down is a huge factor. I know we talk a lot about how when you buy an investment property for somebody else to live in, oftentimes, you’re putting 20% or more down to do that. The zero down for the mortgage, that’s for a property that you would live in then personally.

[00:06:40] CS: Yeah. So I believe the stipulation is that you’ve got to live in the property for one year. So that makes it a little different than a conventional loan as well is that they’re not just going to use the VA loan, or the government’s not going to back up the VA loan for a rental property specifically. But it’s got to be used by the active duty member for one year, which is also huge in Hawaii because our cost of living is so high, and the average cost of housing here is absolutely insane. 

To the listeners too, keep that in mind, as we move through this podcast, and we talk about some of these numbers. I live in the most expensive state in the US. It’s just a completely different ballgame out here. So 20% versus 0% is an incredible difference when it comes to buying a home.

[00:07:25] NH: It’s a super important clarifier because we cite Hawaii, San Francisco, and like New York City as like the three bad places when it comes to cost of living, right? So like you’re living breathing proof of that. All of a sudden, you’re in this space where you’ve not been before. You’re used to have maybe Virginia prices, which are reasonable. Then all of a sudden, whoa, okay, how are we going to afford this? What are we going to do? 

That’s when you turn to house hacking, right? So you bought that property as a property that you’re going to live in. Before we dive too deep, tell us like at a 10,000 foot level, like what is house hacking? What does that look like?

[00:08:00] CS: Sure. So house hacking is when you buy a home, and then you have supplemental income based on that property. So that can either be in a unit that you live in, with a roommate, or it can be a separate unit that’s either attached to the house or an additional dwelling unit that’s maybe not necessarily attached to the house but on the same property. So you become, essentially, a landlord and a homeowner all at once simultaneously through house hacking.

[00:08:25] DB: Okay. I know certainly there’s people that do that by the bedroom, by different units, and all those different rules. But part of your story is taking a property that would be viewed as a single-family property and turning that into a duplex, which is very different because that brings up a host of potential complexities there. So I’d love for you to tell a little bit of that story.

[00:08:48] CS: Sure. I can talk about how we even found this house because that in and of itself is kind of comical. So like I said, around that one-year mark, where we were looking at potentially buying a home and not renting anymore, my husband and I got really proactive because we were surrounded by a lot of people that had done this before, and we found a loan officer. We started talking to a real estate agent. We just really started educating ourselves on the home buying process and being proactive so that when something did happen or when opportunity found us, we would be able to make some moves pretty quickly because another unique thing about the area that we live in is that housing goes so incredibly fast. 

We knew we would have to be ready, and we know we would have to be proactive. So we’re doing all these things in the background. Then I am scrolling through Facebook Marketplace one day, and I see the sketchiest advertisement I’ve ever seen for a house, right? You see, there’s no pictures on the inside. There’s no true pictures of the outside either. It’s just that like 5,000-foot view of a house that shows how close you are to the water, how close you are to the town. It’s just like that little red box outline around the property. It was like house for sale, and it was eight houses down from where we were renting. 

I was like, “Oh, my gosh. Is this real? This can’t be real. This looks so sketchy.” So I literally close my laptop, walked down the street, and I can see that they’re flipping this house. They’re just in the middle of completely flipping the house, and it was a horrible house on our street. I mean, this house, I’m pretty confident, had squatters in it before we were living in it. But they were in the middle of flipping it. So then I run back to my laptop, I call the number that’s on the Facebook Marketplace listing, and the guy who was flipping the house was like, “Yeah, I’ll actually be over there in an hour, if you guys want to come over and see the house.” 

An hour later, we’re walking down the street. We walk into this house, and it’s a beautiful single-family home, which is really hard to find in Hawaii. So it was a four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath house. My husband and I looked at each other, and we’re like, “Okay. First of all, one of the rule of thumbs with buying a house in Hawaii is that we’re going to have to house hack. So how are we going to do that?” So we talked about how we would split it into two units, and that’s what it looked like. We had this vision in mind, and then we were really aggressive with the company who was flipping it, and we said, “Please don’t put this on the market. Don’t stage the house. Don’t list the house. You don’t need to do any of that. We can move through this like privately and get you the cost that you want.” 

Another thing that worked in our favor is that my mom is a real estate agent. So we were able to come to the table without an agent because she helped us from a distance. Then we hired a local real estate attorney to really comb over the paperwork for state-specific stuff that she wasn’t comfortable touching. But that is how we found the house. We walked into it from Facebook Marketplace. Then after closing, we worked on splitting it really quickly into two to four units so that we could rent.

[00:11:58] DB: So I want to get to that, how you split it into different units. But I don’t want to gloss over the value of doing it privately. So I’ll ask this question because I know Nate’s a realtor, and I don’t want to make realtors mad here. But when you don’t involve realtors in a transaction – Because I know in the buyer side, you always hear that like realtor doesn’t cost the buyer anything because the seller pays. So on the buyer side, I’m sure someone’s out there scratching their head like, “Why wouldn’t you want a realtor? It’s free to you.” What’s the value in having a transaction without a realtor?

[00:12:31] CS: We knew that it would make us look more appealing because we were saving the seller money. That is a substantial amount of money when you’re talking about – I think it’s 5%. Is that right, Nate, in the state?

[00:12:42] NH: It varies but probably closer like 3% I’d have to pay a buyer’s agent. Yeah. But even so.

[00:12:46] CS: So really substantial amount of money at this price point, and we knew that that would make it more appealing, especially keeping this off market. Do not list the house. We will come without an agent, which I know is counterintuitive. But that was one of the things that pushed us in the door, I think.

[00:13:01] NH: I think it makes sense, and I just – I know David’s bought a couple of houses off Facebook Marketplace himself, and I think that’s such a cool way of taking what is a difficult market and navigating in a way and knowing what you knew about where you were looking. Then once you found something, you just pounced on it. I think there’s a lot of value in that. It’s awesome.

[00:13:19] DB: Yeah. Even making it a little juicer for the seller by like, “Don’t stage it. Don’t list it.” All those kind of final parts of the flipping process that can just be annoying to a seller that just wants to move on and sell it and start the next project. Yeah. I definitely think that there’s some value in making your offer extra attractive in a competitive market, in a competitive geography to try to get that house. 

So, yeah, it sounds like this was a house that had a lot of potential. Part of that potential was being able to split it. I don’t know that we’ve talked much about splitting a property. So tell us about that process and what that took.

[00:13:56] CS: I will say that I was just like the coordinator. I am not handy in any way, shape, or form. Nor do I trust myself to do those kinds of renovations. But we had spoken to the sellers probably two months before the house was actually done. So there was still a lot of work that needed to be done, specifically to the kitchen with the appliances and then like some of the more, I don’t know, pretty frilly stuff that needed to be done to the house and to the yard.

So we had caught them at a good time, and they were really just waiting for permits. But that gave us a lot of time to plan. So they had contracted a team to come and flip the house, and we were able to keep that team so that the day after we closed, we use that team to then split the house in half, which was beautiful because they know where all the lines are. They know what the electric looks like. They put in all the plumbing from scratch. I mean, they really rebuilt everything on our house from the ground up aside from the infrastructure itself. So they were able to flip a lot quicker. Or not to flip but to split the house into two units a lot quicker than someone who’s coming in brand new, sight unseen, and having to figure all that stuff out. 

But what we did was we put a soundproof wall between two rooms of the house. If it helps people to visualize, our house is basically shaped like a sea, and we just cut it straight down the middle. So a soundproof wall, and then we made the half bathroom and the front unit a full bathroom. Then we added a kitchen and appliances and all that stuff to the back unit. So something that becomes important here is that my husband and I decided to put the funding fee of the loan into the loan and not pay it up front. Instead, we used those cost to renovate and split the house in half. So essentially buying out two sets of appliances, we increase the amps to the house so that the house was able to run sustainably without any electrical issues. But we just flipped immediately into splitting the house and then listing it for rent.

[00:15:58] NH: I love that. One of my questions was going to be like, “How do you find a contractor to say, ‘Hey, cut this house in half and make it two houses.’” [inaudible 00:16:03] basically because they’d already been working on it. I think that’s an incredible way to do that. Were there any zoning restrictions? I know you said earlier that in Hawaii, you’re basically like house hacking because everybody has to, right? But are there zoning restrictions? Did it not matter? Like how does that part of it work?

[00:16:20] CS: Because we were able to jump in with the buyers and they could get them to agree to sell with us, so far in advance, we got a huge jump on getting permits for the electric and the construction. So, yeah, we did need permits to be able to do the construction, and then we filed additionally for having a unit. We went fast. We were lucky because my mom’s in real estate. So she was able to kind of point us to the right direction. 

[00:16:40] NH: She knew. 

[00:16:42] CS: Yeah. But we really did lucked out with the timing of finding the house and moving forward so quickly.

[00:16:47] DB: Yeah. I think it’s very important to consider all the permits and zoning issues that can go into something like that because, yeah, there’s certainly – I would imagine that in most places, you don’t need a permit to paint a wall. But you likely need a permit if you’re going to do things like upgrade the electrical to the house. That sounds like a heavy duty thing. Again, every jurisdiction is going to be different. But that’s definitely something to look into, if you’re thinking about doing this out in different parts of the country. 

I think another consideration when trying to identify is a property a good property to house hack or to split are even just things that often get overlooked like parking. Is that an issue? Or were you able to have enough parking? Or were there other kinds of issues about the yard, the lot, anything else like that that fell in for this one?

[00:17:33] CS: I think we were just so content on staying with this area that that took the priority. Hawaii is so strange about just like rules of the road because everybody is house hacking. I mean, because the properties are so expensive here, everybody is living in a multi-generational household. I mean, Hawaii is the number one multi-generational household state in the US. Kids graduate from college, and they come home, and they live with their parents. That’s truly just the norm. 

Everything is a little bit of a mess in terms of parking. But we’re very lucky because we live on a corner lot, and one of the other things we did not specifically when we purchased but a little later down the line, we had some gravel in front of our house. So we ended up paving to give more parking specifically to this house and to the back unit. So, no, I guess to answer your question. There wasn’t anything that was a super red flag in this house. 

I will say we did look at another property prior to this one, where there was like a grotto in the middle of the house, and we were like, “Oh, we can get really creative. We can fill this grotto in with concrete and make this somewhere to live.” We realized pretty quickly. I was like, “That is out of our comfort zone. We’re not living in an old converted grotto.” So I think just reflecting on what’s important to the buyer too and what conditions you’re willing to live in if you’re going to house hack. 

It’s not necessarily as seamless as ours was, where it’s a new property, and we’re walking into a team that’s going to be able to do it. Look at the living conditions of both the units. Is it something you’re comfortable living in? Is it something that you want to take on yourself to upgrade or to split? Or are you going to have to outsource those resources? So just really taking inventory of your specific area, and then what conditions that you’re willing to live in to make the house hack work would be a general takeaway I have.

[00:19:24] NH: Yeah. I think that’s a super important point to really focus on what’s specific to your area. David, when you asked about parking, I thought about the single-family home that you and I looked at that we talked about splitting into a triplex. I remember David and I sitting there, looking at like the site map, and we’re trying to map out. We were going to fit eight parking spots to make this house work because the city required to have like one parking spot per bedroom or something crazy. We’re like, “Okay. If we take up the entire yard, we can just fit it.” I mean, it was a joke. It never worked out. So I totally get it. But it is important. Like look at your specific things that your area needs to have to be a normal functioning house and make sure you’re following those rules, and then you’ll be in good shape. So that’s a really good clarifier. 

I want to switch to you’ve taken this house hack concept, right? You’ve turned it into two houses. You’re getting a tenant for the other side. You’re also getting a roommate for your own side as well. Tell us about the process of getting people to now live in your split house.

[00:20:19] CS: Yeah. So we listed on Craigslist because Hawaii is 10 years behind the mainland. So Craigslist is still like number one out here but Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Then we really took this opportunity to learn how to be property managers our self. So we have screened all of our tenants. I think that’s especially unique when you’re living on the property with someone else, is I would say, one, know your rights as a landlord because I would assume that probably differs in every area as well. But just know the different laws and the different rights to back you as a landlord with – Not that you’re ever going to intentionally discriminate, but discrimination laws and what you can say yes or no to. If someone accuses you of something along those lines, like making sure that you have your story straight. 

We just listed the property, and we’ve always been really involved with interviewing our tenants and being very clear and talking about how we’ve tried to make the different unit completely separate from our unit so that they feel like they’ve got their own space. But we just really walked through that process step by step ourselves to kind of act as property managers and be more selective with who we’re living so close to. 

Then we also take a roommate, which is a little unique. But my husband is deployed for six to seven months out of the year. So I mean, at this point, we have no kids. I don’t mind living with a roommate, if it’s going to offset my mortgage by a significant amount. To be able to put money towards my student loans is really nice. But that’s just a decision that we made ourselves that this is going to work best for our financial return in the long game.

[00:21:59] NH: I love that. Two super important things you said there, the last one being that doing what’s best for you guys in your financial situation. That’s exactly what everybody should take away from this, right? Look at your financial situation and attack it that way. I think that’s number one super important. 

Two is just the whole checking the rules about your own screenings, right? There are different rules, whether you’re a property manager or if you are the landlord that’s going to be living there. They differ by state. They differ by municipality. For me, that was actually one of the most overwhelming parts of being my own property manager was making sure I had all my ducks in a row, and I was following every single rule exactly the right way so that I’m not discriminating. So again, super important points that you just made that I want to make sure our listeners don’t gloss over because they’re big keys.

[00:22:41] DB: I like too that you said that right now, this makes sense to have a roommate. I think that there can be seasons of life where different housing arrangements make sense. It sounds like you’ve found this to offset the mortgage and work on student loans and some of those financial priorities. I’d love it if you could break down those numbers for us a little bit because, again, you’re in one of the most expensive places to live in the country. How much of your mortgage then are you able to offset? Or what does that look like by having roommates and then someone in the other half of the house?

[00:23:12] CS: Sure. We really lucked out because we also bought right at the beginning of COVID, when interest rates were still extremely low. So I think now, what, they’re over like 7% or something. I think we’re somewhere around 2.3%.

[00:23:27] DB: Wow. 

[00:23:29] CS: I know. We jumped in.

[00:23:31] NH: Never sell that house.

[00:23:32] CS: Yeah. Don’t worry. We will never sell this house. But we jumped at the right time. Okay. So again, remember, I live in the most expensive state in the US. Our house is – We bought it for $1.28 million. The funding fee was somewhere between 29,000 and 30,000 dollars. So total cost of our loan somewhere around 1.31. We offset the mortgage when we have both tenants and a roommate by over 90% and then our utilities. 

One thing that I might do a little differently next time, if we have the funds to do this again is split the electric panel into separate units. So right now, we just got one panel for the two units. So the way that we have our units listed is that they’re all utilities included. So that definitely plays a part in people’s desire to live in the house, being all utilities included, versus something else. We think that that’s advantageous when you’re renting because we loved that when we were looking to rent. But we offset by over 90%, and then our utilities run between 600 and 800 dollars a month. So we were living in this house for just about $1,000 a month. 

[00:24:46] NH: That’s awesome. That’s great.

[00:24:47] DB: Yeah. To have a $1.3 million house with essentially zero down, and it costs you about $1,000 a month to live there is a fantastic pitch for the value of house hacking, for sure.

[00:25:01] CS: Yeah. It’s also terrifying. You should have heard our parents when we were like, “Hey, this is how much [inaudible 00:25:05] cost.” And surface level, I mean, anyone would be scared. There was a – I don’t know if imposter syndrome is the thing in real estate, but my husband and I looked at each other, and we were like, “Who do we think we are buying this house? Who’s letting us buy this house?” This is our first home. For spending this much money on it, this is a horrible idea.” 

But then, when you really sit down and we ran the numbers over and over and over again, like this is worst-case scenario, this is what it looks like. Even our worst-case scenario, we were paying less money living in a house-hacked house than we were renting the year before.

[00:25:37] NH: I love that. I’m still in my mid-30s, and I keep waiting for the adults to show up and telling me to stop doing what I’m doing. But I am the adult now. They’re not coming. There’s no one coming. I love it. 

I also want to flip too. Again, I love your story. I think this is awesome, Corrie. Throughout all of this, the thing that we saw – We talked about at the beginning, but I don’t want to gloss over, is the business that you run as well. So tell me a little bit more about that, right? Walk me through this business. It’s all about the pharmacogenomics space. I’d love to learn more.

[00:26:07] CS: Oh, sure. Okay. So pharmacogenomics is essentially how your body reacts based off the speed of your metabolic pathways to different medications. It is not being touched in the state of Hawaii, which is mind-blowing because we have a huge minority population here. We’ve got a lot of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that have notoriously different metabolic pathways. So I was in a job. I was in my government position for three years. Towards that last year, I really was just not happy with the direction of the department, not happy with the progressiveness of practicing at the top of a pharmacy license. I just knew that I wanted to make a change. 

The past year, I’ve really spent a lot of time developing everything I could in the background for my business. So getting the LLC ready, getting the website ready, my business, all bank accounts and all that stuff. It just got to the point where I just needed more time. So I put in for my two weeks two weeks ago, and now I’m here getting it up and running. But I will say that our real estate portfolio, I mean, if you want to call a single house a portfolio, it was a huge reason why we were comfortable going through a career transition right now with how we have our finances leveraged based on real estate. Just our overall cost of living gave us a ton of flexibility with being able to make a career change.

[00:27:31] NH: That’s huge. I think that’s so important because so many pharmacists want to do what you’re doing, right? They want to stay in pharmacy but in a space that they really identify with. But they feel like they can’t make that move because the finances don’t allow it, right? That job is a huge pay cut. I can’t do that. I have this huge mortgage I got to deal with. You took your finances and really just took the reins and took over on that. I just think that’s so huge. I really commend you for that.

[00:27:54] CS: Thank you. It’s terrifying. It’s exciting and terrifying.

[00:27:59] DB: But I think there’s a similar thread there because you mentioned that the real estate was terrifying. The career transition was terrifying. But you had some really positive pieces in there too, where you – With the real estate side. You got a team ready. You learned a lot. You got really ready to jump when the timing was right, and you knew what you were looking for. It sounds like you did the same kind of thing with the business. You got everything ready in the background so that when the time was right, you were comfortable jumping. Even though that’s going to be a terrifying jump, no matter what you do, you got as ready and prepared as you could possibly be to give yourself the greatest chance of success in making that jump. 

I feel like there’s a huge parallel there between the business side and the real estate side. Were there any other things that you learned is similarities in that jump between those two different worlds or any other advice that you have for people that are considering those same kinds of transitions?

[00:28:55] CS: To your point, I think any transition like this is going to be scary. I will start by saying I’m kind of risk-averse. I’m not like necessarily your typical type A pharmacist. Risk doesn’t generally scare me that much. But when you’re looking at finances, it’s a different kind of like gut check and a little bit of a different risk than just changing something in your routine or speaking out against something or being – It’s a different kind of risk when you’ve got numbers involved and student loans and a mortgage. 

But it’s nice when we were in the house for a year. So at that point, I really knew what it would take to run the house, what it looks like with turnover for tenants. I have my team. Are you ready to go? My plumber and my electrician are one phone call away, and we have a really good rapport. So I was comfortable in the house space. The same thing, I was comfortable enough that I trusted in the preparation and everything that I had done that I was ready to make the transition, and all I needed was time. 

I don’t know if that really is any insight to anyone. But just taking control of everything that you can control up to a certain point, knowing it’s going to be different, and that in and of itself is going to be scary. Just as long as you have done everything that you can up until that point to prepare yourself, it’s worth the transition.

[00:30:19] NH: Really good advice. Love that. Hopefully, everybody is paying attention because this is just great life lessons here.

[00:30:25] CS: Yeah. We’ve pivoted to real estate.

[00:30:28] NH: I love it. I want to jump then to our final infusion question. This is three questions we ask every guest on the show. We want to get your take. So the first one is what’s one tangible strategy that you’d use to make sure that you’re investing works hand in hand with your career as a pharmacist?

[00:30:44] CS: I think that my husband and I do a really good job of tackling this question together. So talking about what your long-term goals are with your finances, what your long-term goals are with real estate, and then putting those long-term goals in perspective and setting your shorter term goals, right? So some people aren’t going to want to be involved at all in real estate. Some people are going to want to buy the house and never look at it again and hire a property manager, and that is their comfort level, and that’s fine. Other people are going to want to do what we did and have a roommate and tenants and everything all in one space. It’s a totally different kind of process. But we were okay taking that on, and that’s our comfort level. 

I think the one tangible thing you can do is talk about your career and what you want it to look like and if there’s a transition and how you’re going to leverage your financial portfolio to do that. Talk about when’s your payoff day for your student loans and how much are you putting away and where exactly are your finances going every month. Because once those numbers are quantified and once you have a path and once – Even if it’s not clear, just knowing your long term goals, I think that helps dial down your short-term goals and what actions you want to take.

[00:31:53] DB: I love it. I love it. What’s one resource that’s been most helpful to you in your real estate journey, whether that’s a book, a podcast, a person, author, website, whatever that would be?

[00:32:03] CS: So I have a traditional answer, which is BiggerPockets, and I feel like everybody and their mother says that BiggerPockets is the best resource. But then my nontraditional answer is kind of paralleling off of what I did just previously explained. It’s a book called I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. It just talks step by step about every aspect to your finances and how you can make yourself comfortable with a conscious spending plan, and where’s your money going. 

That’s one of those other things that makes you trust in the preparation, the process of you will be more comfortable, once you have all of those details ironed out. You don’t have any questions when your head hits the pillow at night but just being really aggressive with your own finances and your own goals.

[00:32:44] NH: Great recommendation and one that we’ve not had on the show. So that’s good. 

[00:32:47] CS: Oh, yay. He’s got a podcast too. He’s really great.

[00:32:51] NH: Yeah. I’ve heard some of his stuff, and it’s fantastic. So I got to check out the book now. All right, and then the last one, what’s one piece of advice you’d give to a pharmacist that’s contemplating a start in real estate investing?

[00:33:03] CS: I would say surround yourself with people that also want to do the same thing. Again, that comes with knowing your community and knowing the area that you’re looking to buy in. So joining a real estate group in that area or joining a young professionals group that has a sub sector for real estate or just starting those conversations with some of your colleagues and your coworkers. Maybe there are people that you work with that invest in real estate that just don’t talk about it until it’s asked. 

But a lot of those people I have found are not necessarily pharmacists. So really putting some feelers out into the community, and maybe stepping outside of a pharmacy comfort zone to start talking about real estate from different perspectives.

[00:33:44] NH: Great tip. Love it.

[00:33:45] DB: Very cool. If people want to reach out to you to talk real estate, how would someone find you or how would someone connect with you?

[00:33:52] CS: The best way to connect with me is definitely on LinkedIn. Then you can also reach me via my website, my new website for my new business, so huna-health.com. Either of those ways will work. The second one will shoot straight to my email inbox, so whatever you prefer.

[00:34:07] NH: Perfect. We’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. I encourage everybody to check that out, especially if you’re in the Hawaii area. That’d be awesome. Again, Corrie, just really appreciate your time and your expertise and your journey. Just sharing that all with us has been awesome, so thank you so much for coming on the show today.

[00:34:22] CS: No problem. Thank you guys for having me. It’s been great.

[00:34:24] DB: Thanks so much.

[OUTRO]

[00:34:26] TU: Thanks for listening to the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. If you like what you heard on today’s show, please leave us a review and subscribe to the show, so you never miss an episode. If you have a question, know someone that would make a good guest, or want to connect with Nate or David, head on over to yfprealestate.com and join the growing YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook group. 

As we conclude this week’s episode of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast, an important reminder that the content in this podcast is provided to you for your informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. 

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts, and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on this podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist, unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. 

Thank you for your support of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. Have a great rest of your week. 

[END]

Current Student Loan Refinance Offers

Advertising Disclosure

Recent Posts

[pt_view id=”9480b4871g”]

Spread The Word

[TheChamp-Sharing]