Melissa

The tenant is paying down my mortgage, they're buying me a free house. The property's going up in value.

Speaker

So the big question is this, how do real estate investors who don't have a ton of free time, don't have access to off market deals and didn't start life on third base? How do we conservatively grow our real estate business to support our families? Finally, leave the corporate rat race and build a legacy? That is the question. This podcast will give you the answers. I'm Ed Mathews, and this is Real Estate Underground.

Ed Mathews

Greetings and salutations real estate under grounders. It is Ed Mathews again with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for listening to us and making us a part of your day. The comments that we get are really helpful and it's actually one of the ways we found our guests. Today is one of her students had suggested that that we talk with our guests and I'm really excited to do that. Before I get into that though, what I'd like to do is just ask you to one of the things that's interesting is that. 60 some odd percent of the folks that listen to our show actually don't subscribe or follow. And so while you're sitting here listening and if you're getting value out of it I would love for you to hit that follow button so that helps us grow. And also send comments in'cause it helps us. Reach out to new people and also to understand what you folks are working on and how we might be able to support that with bringing in some really smart guests. So with that, I have I'm happy to introduce Melissa Nash of Lucky Lady Investments and a whole bunch of other stuff, which we're gonna talk about. But Melissa, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming in.

Melissa

Absolutely. Thanks for having me here.

Ed Mathews

So for those folks who haven't discovered you yet why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Melissa

Yeah, definitely. So I'm a real estate investor, long term and short term single family buy and hold. So I'm all about just holding onto those bad boys, cash flowing when we can, and just long term. Financial freedom, long-term wealth. It, it's really about building that financial security for the future. So that's what I do for my own portfolio. I'm also a real estate investment coach because of course, when I first started investing, I live in California and I'm investing in states that are not California. You know. 2000 miles away. And so of course everybody's like, how are you doing that? You know, I'm not flying out to these markets. I'm not hiring contractors. I mean, I, I have, and I've, I've done that. And I've learned my lessons with that. And so it's more people are like, how are you doing it? We wanna do it too. And so I started helping people and now I've helped over 2000 investors actually buy passive rental properties.

Ed Mathews

Wow. Excellent, and congratulations and thank you.

Melissa

You are welcome.

Ed Mathews

this this space can always need, can always use and very much needs of highly qualified people to, to join the ranks. And it's interesting. I also mentor a whole bunch of people and pe I get the question every once in a while. Why are you doing this? Why are you telling us all the stuff that you tell us? And, I tell'em two things. I'm curious what your take is on this. I tell'em really two things. One it's a big world out there. And there's plenty of deals for everybody, right? There's plenty of people that own property that need help and need a, need, a solution. And, I'm a value add guy. There's plenty of those out there. Second thing is I'm 15 years ahead of you. You're not catching me, what you're working on. I was working on, 15 years ago, and my job as a coach or mentor is to I always tell people we're all reading the same book. I'm on chapter, I'm learning from somebody who's on chapter 27. I'm on chapter 19, and you, my friend, are on chapter five. I'm happy to help you, right? If I can help you not do some of the dumb stuff that I did all the better, right?

Melissa

Well, exactly, and, and that, that's kind of the same approach that I take is like I look at Melissa, you know, when I first started. In investing. It's been, you know, about 11 years or so now, and I look at where I was and like what I needed or what I wish I had coupled with absolutely the mistakes that I've made. And honestly, my biggest mistake is not getting started sooner. I didn't start investing until I was in my forties after a failed business. And so my goal is, I, I mean, I want to help younger people, but unfortunately it's, I, most of my clientele are, you know. Thirties, forties, fifties, they're like, okay, I've done the W2 thing. I want my time back. I want my freedom back. Help me do it. And, which I love. I, I, I, I want to help those people. But gosh, I would love to help the 20 year olds because can you imagine, like, I wasn't investing back then, but if I had that head start where I would be now, I just can't even, it just blows my mind. I try not to think about it. But so I would, gosh, I would love to help even younger people, you know.

Ed Mathews

Control what you can control, right? And time travel is still not possible. They haven't figured out how to break the relativity. Here we are.

Melissa

Yep, exactly.

Ed Mathews

More. I, it's, it, I think one of the things that I'm always trying to think about is, okay, what would, so I started in my forties as well. So you and I are in similar boats, although I've I'm pretty sure I'm older than you. But the the, the fact is that what would. 30, 30 2-year-old ed or Melissa what would we wanna know so that I, either A, didn't do the dumb deal that I did, or, b once I bought a, a good property, here are the 14 ways I screwed it up. And how do you know, how would I avoid those mistakes? And yeah, I couldn't agree more. So let's talk about your investing business first. It's interesting you have a wide variety of assets within your portfolio and so walk me through your thesis. How do you how do you figure out, if a property, whatever type of property that is, how do you figure out a property is something that's a good fit for you?

Melissa

Yeah, definitely. Well, first of all, I'll kind of summarize and, and let you guys know that my, my goal is to be as lazy as possible. The least amount of work that I have to do on a. Deal. I've done the whole flipping thing, hiring contractors, managing rehabs. I've lost money. I've made money. I've done it all, mostly out of state and, it's a second job, you know, it, it really is a second job. So, so my goal is how can I buy properties where I'm doing the least amount of work? And then within my portfolio, I have different strategies because I, I believe in diversification. Some of my properties will have more cash flow than others, and some of my properties have more appreciation than others. And so I, I, that's probably the biggest thing is. I didn't do this all at once. I didn't just all of a sudden do this. I, I, I bought my first property. For cash flow. I bought my second property for cash flow, you know, my first properties. I wanted to make sure that the cash flow was there, not only to put money in my pocket, but also to help sustain the properties. And then I've, I've bought properties that are, are absolutely not, not cash flowing, but they have long-term appreciation. So, you know, so, so, so my buy box is different because I have built in this diversity at this point. So. Sometimes I will analyze a property and I'm like, okay you know, market appreciation. Where is this market going? Where are the jobs? What is the rental demand? And, and I may not look at the cash flow. So for example. I also look at a good deal, like how much is my down payment? I recently bought a property in Little Rock and I, I'm all in on that property, like$10,000 because I, I, I knew a person because this is what happens when you get in, in real estate. You meet people and you make connections and deals land on your lap. I only have$10,000 into the deal. It's$190,000 property, fully renovated with a tenant. And my cash flow's like, I don't even know if it's 200 bucks a month. Now, if you look at that, a cash on cash return, I'm only in it$10,000. So actually that's a really high return. But when I look at my bank account, I'm not getting super excited about Whoopi$200 a month. However, you know, this is a long-term thing. The tenant is paying down my mortgage, they're buying me a free house. The property's going up in value. So for me, that was the right decision for that property. That was a no-brainer. But normally on an average deal, I wanna see at least year one 10% cash on cash return. At least if I can hit right around there, it's a deal worth looking further into.

Ed Mathews

Yeah I agree. The one thing and folks, what Melissa's talking about is PhD level investing, right? So this isn't where you start mainly because, one of the key mistakes that I made. One of the key mistakes that I see a lot of new new players make is they want access to all the deals I want all the multi-families. All the single families. Yeah. I'll figure out if I'm gonna flip it or rent it, I just want a deal. And that's a really hard conversation to have. For a realtor or a wholesaler or someone that you're working with, because that's a big, that's a big buy box, right? What Melissa's talking about is and we're gonna get into geographically in a minute, geographics in a minute, but is taking what the market gives you, and that's a. Different level of play. So anyway, Melissa, let's get back to you. So in terms of geography, you mentioned Arkansas Little Rock is a great market. Do you, where is your portfolio is? Do you tend to concentrate geographically or is that not an issue for you? Okay.

Melissa

I mean, I wasn't intending to buy in Little Rock. You know, I am, I'm already in five other markets and I, I, I think five markets are, are, are enough for me. I wasn't necessarily intending to do that, but the deal came to me and I was like, Hey, I, I can't pass this up. And it, and, and also my strategy is I have local property managers that I've vetted out that do everything for me, and they're good quality property managers. And if they're, if they. If they're not good, I'm gonna switch. I'm gonna go find another one pretty quickly. So that doesn't scare me. Probably in the beginning it was a little bit nerve wracking, like trusting somebody else. But at this point, they're my partner. You know this, they're, they're doing all the work. I'm, I'm doing nothing. So what does it matter if I go to Little Rock or, or Memphis or Kansas City? The property manager does everything. I don't. So at the end of the day I was like, yeah, it's a great deal. Let's go to Little Rock.

Ed Mathews

Okay, cool. So let's talk about vetting property managers then. What are the things that you need to know about a manager before you consider hiring them?

Melissa

Yeah, so this is a great question because most people focus on what is your property management fee? What is your, you know, lease up fee? And actually those are the wrong questions to ask. I mean, you need to know that information'cause you're gonna plug it into your proforma. But that's actually, that, that does nothing. Because I'm, I'm vetting them out as a business partner. I wanna know, okay, your entire portfolio, you know, that you're managing for investors, you know, the. Property managers work for investors, so they've got the data, they've got the, they've got the good stuff that we can ask them about that. Zillow will never tell you, you know, all these sites will never tell you this. Inside this insider information, ask'em how, what is your, your vacancy percentage for your portfolio? Like, how many houses do you have sitting empty right now? That's a pretty big deal. That's gonna tell you, you know, a if the property manager's doing a good job. And, and that doesn't mean that it's a bad market. It could be the property manager because you can ask two different property managers the same question. One of'em might say, Hey, we have 95% occupied houses, and the other one might say, we have 50%. Well, if they're in the same market, you know, one's a bad property manager. So that right there can help you filter things out. You can, you can use the property manager for so much information that people don't like, like people assume, oh, I need a three bedroom, two bath. Like, that's the go-to. Well, I have a two bedroom, one bath that's never been vacant. Because there isn't a lot of'em and there's a need for every type of housing. And so ask the property managers that, like, how quickly does a two bedroom, one bath rent? Or you know, like, what is your most what, what properties rent the fastest? Or, you know, how many applications do you get on a property? Things like that. Get creative with your questions'cause they actually have the data.

Ed Mathews

Agree more. The other thing that I've, that I just thought of as you were going through your, your criteria they're property managers are an excellent resource for acquisitions. One of the first things when I create a relationship with a property manager, one of the first questions I ask is, who is your most stressed out owner? And can I meet them? Because invariably, there is still a, an a level of management, right? You're not managing the property, but you're absolutely managing the manager. And there are people that do that well, and there are people that struggle with it, in all honesty. And since I'm in the business of buying. Properties from landlords who aren't really good at their jobs. I wanna meet those people, right? And if only to give them relief and buy their property off of them. But in some cases, they become friends. In some cases I mentor'em. In a lot of cases I buy the property, right? And that is another way you can work with property managers and, you pay them a referral fee and take good care of'em. And like you said, they're a business partner, so you want them to win too. because it becomes a, a rising tide that floats all boats.

Melissa

Yeah. Well, and another thing that made me think of another example that I had is I hadn't even thought about this before. Ask your property managers and listen, don't drill a property manager when you haven't even worked with them yet. That is the worst that you can do to them, just. Like pound'em with like a list of like a hundred things. I actually think that's a little bit rude because they're not making money from you yet. And so you gotta build a relationship first, like kind of nurture it and kind of slowly pull out this kind of information. But one, one thing that my property manager, one of my property managers in Birmingham did is I have a house that had been renovated. It, it was getting older. It had been renovated a while back and there's some things that it needed and they said, you know, you should get a home warranty. On this house'cause there's gonna be some things that are gonna start breaking down and that way you don't have to pay for it. We'll work with the warranty company if anything comes up. And I was like, you know what, that's a really amazing thing because as you build your portfolio, you just get busy and busy and you forget how long I've owned a property or how old things are. And having a property manager know that for you was really cool. And so randomly enough I bought a home warranty. And there were some plumbing stuff and I had added septic stuff to the home warranty.'cause you can buy a home warranty at any time. It doesn't just have to be right when you buy it. And that was one thing that I've never done before. And so guess what? I got all that work done for free. Thank you to my property manager. So, you know, it, it. You can ask private managers questions like that. Like, Hey, what are you doing to help me as an investor save as much money as possible? Like, have you ever done anything for other, you know what I mean? Like, just kind of get the conversation going and things like that might come up or you can make recommendations to them'cause they're learning too. It's definitely a team effort.

Ed Mathews

Without a doubt. Without a doubt. And when you have, now, are you buying houses that are turnkey or are you, do you consider buying houses that need a little love too? Or properties? Not house necessarily. Houses, yes.

Melissa

So I started out buying turnkey. So the number one thing was who to trust, what markets, what the properties are, you know, so that, that was my first step. And, and honestly, it, it was like investing with training wheels because, you know, being 2000 miles away, I would've never, ever had the courage to do it. Unless everything was already done for me and there was, obviously there has to be checks and balances along the way. There's proper ways to do, you can't just fall asleep on a turnkey deal'cause there are shady people out there. But there's really awesome people out there and really awesome teams that really do wanna help you. And so that's what I've curated the last 10 years is building out really amazing teams that I can trust. And so yeah, I started out with turnkey and then I started kind of getting involved in short-term rentals. And then we did some renovations on short-term rentals. Kind of did the bur thing which was phenomenal, a lot of work. And then I started doing like flips and burrs out of state. I did about 50 of those and. Yeah, I, I lost money on a lot of those deals, trusting the wrong contractor. I mean, I was just like, this is a second job. I just created this whole other stress for myself and I had to go back and go. Why did I start real estate? What is the point of all this? And for me, the time, the, it was the time factor. It was, it was, I want my time back, but also I wanna build this long-term financial freedom. I, I want to be able to retire in peace and not be stressed out and, you know, and so I was like, okay, what is gonna get me to there? What is, what is gonna get me to that point? And for me, it came back around to. What I said earlier is being lazy as possible, which mostly is turnkey now. So I'm back on buying really good turnkey deals and just trusting the right people and making the right connections like that deal in, in Little Rock. I mean, I, I wouldn't have gotten that opportunity had I not already been building those relationships.

Ed Mathews

Right on. Right on. Know, the thing, I'm always, so I'm a I try really hard to trust people. And I'm not always a hundred percent good at that. But how do you tell the difference? Between someone. You're talking about buying properties 2000 miles away, right? There just in that exchange, there's an inherent risk. So how do you figure out, okay, do I have a good one or do I have somebody that's good at telling me what I want to hear? Like, how do you navigate that?'cause it, it's not

Melissa

Yeah. It's not. And so I've kind of developed a, a, a pretty good checklist and, and I keep on file data information on all these teams that I've worked with or that people have recommended to me. They'll come to me and be like, Hey, Melissa, you know, I've been buying properties from this team. They're, they're really amazing. You know, and so I haven't bought from all the teams that I've worked from, but I bought from a lot of them. And I keep a pretty good system of questionnaires. Like, who are you? How long have you been in business? What is a standard renovation? How much do you spend on a standard res on, on a re, on a renovation? And what are your re renovation standards? You know, how well does the water ha water heater have to be before you replace it? Are you pulling permits? You know, all these types of questions I have that built out and I keep it on file. And if I'm, if I'm vetting somebody out to work with them, they have to fill that out. And if they can't fill it out, then well, why, why don't you wanna fill it out? Like, what do you, what do you not wanna tell me? Like, you know what I mean? So I've got that, and then it's honestly just. Relationship, long-term relationship building. I have seen inspection reports from some of these teams that I've worked with for 10 years, from not only my own properties, but from my clients who I'm working with.'cause I'm helping them and introducing them to these same teams and they're like, and I go, I tell'em all the time. I go, Hey, send me the inspection report if you want a second pair of eyes on it. Like I'm not an inspector, but I've seen a lot. I can definitely kind of. Yeah, I, I can look for those red flags and kind of see, you know,'cause sometimes you see something and you think it's a huge deal and it's actually not. It just sounds like it is. And because I've done so many renovations, I, I know what the costs are, you know? And so. So that's a big one, is I see those, I see those inspection reports all the time, and so I know exactly what they're skipping or what they're missing or what they're doing extra. So that's probably the biggest thing is getting your eyes on previous inspection reports. And then obvi, obviously ordering your own inspection report. Always, always, always order your own.

Ed Mathews

Right. Even if you're buying it as is, where is you should inspect that property if only to inform your construction. When you take over and you onboard the property,

Melissa

Exactly.

Ed Mathews

Couldn't agree

Melissa

Exactly.

Ed Mathews

Couldn't

Melissa

Yep.

Ed Mathews

So where are you right now and where's your business going?

Melissa

Great question. So my goal right now with my own personal portfolio is there, there's a, there's kind of a strategy where. I've, I've been in this buy, buy, buy phase, right? It's like, where's my next money coming from for my next deal? What house has equity in it? Can I pull equity outta that house to buy more properties? Maybe I have a lazy property that I need to do a 10 31 exchange, and I need to move that into better performing properties. So I'm, I've always been kind of like, I've been like. Just CR creative, buy, buy bye phase is kind of what I call it. And then, and then you kind of get to the point where I'm like, okay, now what is my end game here? What is my strategy? And I'm just now maybe coming up to realize that, you know, it would be nice to kind of settle my. Retirement a little bit more, although now I'm saying this, but I love real estate so much. I dunno if I'll ever stop buying. But the Strat, the strategy is once you kind of have your properties, if you have, like, let's just say you had 10 properties. You do the whole snowball payoff thing where you know, you take all of your cash flow and you dump it into mortgage number one, and then you own that one free and clear. Then it snowballs into the next one and the next one and the next one. So, you know, I could do that. And that's what a lot of my, my clients actually wanna do. That is their strategy. So I keep on saying I'm gonna do that soon. I'm gonna start snowballing and paying them all off.'cause I have loans on all of'em, which I love loans, by the way. I think it is the best, this is why I struggle with it, because I think that loans are the, the best, best friend to a real estate investor because. I get right off the interest and you know, all, all the things, you know. But at some point I am gonna start that snowball payoff. I just haven't quite decided when.

Ed Mathews

That's okay. It's not a race. Yeah. A friend of mine once

Melissa

Nope.

Ed Mathews

me, not that long ago he was asking, we were having dinner, and he's like, when are you gonna. Retire. And I'm like, what do you mean? I,

Melissa

Yep.

Ed Mathews

intention of, if I'm 85 and I'm buying one house a year or one, one multifamily a year, that's fine, right? But I, if I see a deal I every fiber of my being. Is I need to figure this out, right? How can we afford,

Melissa

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

we figure out how to buy this property? So

Melissa

Yep.

Ed Mathews

there with you, my friend okay, so why don't we get into the final five and I'm always interested in people, successful leaders like yourself how their brains work. And so I really wanna know, you have built an impressive coaching business. You've helped thousands of people on that side of your business. You've built a portfolio that most people would love to have. And, so you're very successful and yet every Monday, and we, I think we were just talking about it a little bit, but I'm curious, what's driving you? What gets you outta bed on Monday morning? What's that purpose thing that kind of get, what's the juice that gets you outta bed?

Melissa

Question. So first of all, I have a DHD like, I mean, I, I think most entrepreneurs, we are entrepreneurs. I think most entrepreneurs have a DHD. In fact, I'm sitting in, I got this, I got this new A DHD chair and it actually allows me to sit cross-legged because I can't, like, I have to like, move positions like so many times. So my, my brain.

Ed Mathews

Right. Yeah. Same.

Melissa

Yeah, so, so my brain can't say stagnant for very long, so I'm always like moving to like new ideas or a new way of doing something or a new system. Oh my gosh, I love systems more than anything. And in fact, I'm always like, how? How is this gonna be a better system, not just for me, but how is it gonna be a better system that I can help and give to my clients? Because whatever I create, they probably need it too.

Ed Mathews

Yeah

Melissa

so I, yeah, so I think honestly it's, it's the, it's still exciting to me. It's still, there's always something new, whether it's again, a property for myself or I'm helping a another client buy properties. It's new and, and I just love that new, fresh excitement. But at the end of the day, for me, it's financial freedom. I have this fear of, retirement. It's things are just so expensive now. I don't know what, what, where my kids are gonna be, how are they gonna afford to live, you know? I, I want to set up myself and my kids for so they don't have to stress and worry about you know, whatever it is, losing their job and being a paycheck away from living on the street. You know what I mean? Like for me, it's all about that financial freedom.

Ed Mathews

Right on. Right on. Yeah. And you mentioned systems. One thing I'm curious about, and especially with a an operator like yourself who has a lot of moving parts in her business, i'm curious about those systems and, when you talk about systems, I think about process checklists, which you've mentioned. But I also think about technology. I'm a. Recovering technology geek. I'm curious, how do you use systems and I assume, and it's some form of enabling technology to, to run your business. I.

Melissa

I am a big spreadsheet geek. Like I, I love Excel. The first time I learned it, like I was like, this is amazing'cause I hate doing math. I'm tear. Terrible about math, but I'm like, I can do a formula for that, you know? And, and I love, maybe it's my A DHD brain too, but I've always loved, I can change the column and the color and the width and like, you know, like I've always been obsessed. And so I, honestly, that is it. I use Google, Google Sheets, Excel. Literally, I mean, I, I am such a visual person. Again, not to keep talking about A DHD, but I think like the way that my brain works, I have like all like my personal properties. I've diff many, a couple different spreadsheets, but my properties are literally laid out at the top of the spreadsheet, and then I've got all my columns and I'm like, property manager lender, how much is the rent? Who is the renter? You know, the key information that I might need at any given time. Is right there. And of course when my loans get sold,'cause they get sold all the time, you have to go up there and update the, the loan on there. And then I've got, you know, with my short term rentals, it's like, who, who are my people and what am I paying for? Honestly, I just do that and then I'll have links that track to a folder, so it's right on the spreadsheet. So I'll have a link that goes to a property folder for that property. So if I need like insurance information quickly or whatever. There's the link right there. It has to be simple for me. And I've never seen a system more simple than an Excel sheet to me. I just haven't. So that's what I do.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So it's, and it's something that everyone should take to heart. I am known to, to make things more complex than they need to be. And it's a, it's not a character asset, right? So keeping it simple is something that a will. stress levels way lower than mine have been in the past. And then also keeping it simple allows you to scale because it's a lot harder to, it's a lot easier to scale when you have all those moving parts as we were talking about, figured out and managed on, one, one band of spreadsheets across the top of your desktop. That is, so thank you for sharing that. So I'm

Melissa

Of course.

Ed Mathews

mentors and the folks that have helped you along the way. And I know that it was a mentor of yours who actually introduced you to turnkey investing back in the day. And so I, not necessarily that person, but I'm curious about the best advice you ever got and who gave it to you.

Melissa

I'll tell you the best advice that I never got was by watching what somebody else did. So my husband's grandmother, who I, I didn't know her very well. Because by the time I even started thinking, well, let me, let me, let me go back and, and say it like this. She was a real estate investor in Los Angeles in the sixties and seventies. She was a real estate agent, very rare, and she would take a commission from a real estate deal and she would buy a rental property. She would put her 20% down and buy a property, and she didn't. She wasn't an investor. Like if she was alive still today, she would never call herself an investor. In fact, most of my clients do not call themselves investors because they think of an investor as like this, like multifamily, giant skyscrapers. And you know, most people kind of think of that. But anyways, she, she bought these rental properties and, you know, she bought a couple duplexes here and there and different things. Well her husband passed away in the eighties. Actually no, the, yeah, late seventies, early eighties, somewhere in there. And she was able to live off of her rental income on her properties. I mean, she had a wonderful retirement. She, she had a fantastic retirement. She traveled the world and went on cruises and trips and, you know, and so when I met her, she was rich Grandma, and, and I didn't, she never really wanted to talk about it. She didn't see it as like something like amazing. It was just something she did. And so I knew, okay, that's someday I'm gonna own rental properties. Because she held them, she held them long term.

Ed Mathews

right.

Melissa

She held them for 20 years before they really started paying off for her. And so I knew that rental properties can create long-term wealth. And so even though we didn't, I didn't learn from her, I absolutely learned from her because of what I watched her do.

Ed Mathews

It's such a, such an important story for you and for everybody to hear in that. It's, first off time is your friend, but also having the foresight, you don't need to go out and buy that 50 unit building, right? A duplex right down the street or across the country. If that's better, a better fit for you. Over the course of. two decades will a get paid off and b will continue to appreciate.'cause last time I checked, LA property was doing pretty well on terms of the appreciation thing, and.

Melissa

Just a little bit.

Ed Mathews

little and California in general, right?

Melissa

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

but it, but also, from a cashflow perspective if you stay in line, even just stay in line with inflation, two, 3% increases every year over 20 years is good for your residents because that gives you the capital to continue to invest in the house and keep it nice and clean and safe. also it puts. Pretty good money in your pocket over the course of time as well. And then if you ever decide to sell in exchange or cash out refinance or whatever your, or, if you sell if your heirs sell and they get stepped up basis, it it's it works out very nicely. Let's just put it that way. okay. So that's a success, right? You had a very good person, a role model to model what you were doing. I'm curious about a decision that you've made, a mistake that you look back on and you go, man, and I, we all have them. And I fundamentally believe that you learned way more from your mistakes than you do from your successes. So I'm curious about a professional decision that you made that you're like, oh boy I would love to have that one back. And what would you do different?

Melissa

Well, first of all, I would get started sooner. So, you know, that's, that's the biggest mistake. My, actually, my very, very first property was after my husband and I were married. I mean, this was. I mean, we're talking 25 years ago. Because again, I had this rich grandma in my brain going, buy a rental property, you'll be fine. But I didn't actually know anything. Literally, I, I bought this property we were living in, in Atlanta at the time in Georgia, and, I was like, I can go down and get a loan. They gave me a hundred percent financing. In fact, I think they even paid for closing costs. It was like back in the wild, wild west where you could just do anything.

Ed Mathews

Good times.

Melissa

And, yeah, and I, I'm like, that's a no brainer. I didn't know anything about property management. I didn't know I could hire a property manager. I didn't know how to run numbers. I didn't know how much the rents were. Like I literally did nothing. I thought that alls I had to do was buy the property. The renters would just come flocking and they'd be amazing. I could just make up a rental number. I didn't run the numbers. I didn't count for taxes, insurance, I mean, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I was, I just thought you buy it and that's enough. Obviously I failed, I failed big time. And I think I, I honestly, I think I ended up, I don't even, I think that, I think I had a renter that ended up. Buying, taking the property off my hands. We bought it. She bought it from me anyways. I lost money on it. Like a terrible, terrible, terrible situation. I didn't start investing again for, you know, 18 years, 17 years later, like, you know what I mean? It scared me. But the problem.

Ed Mathews

it.

Melissa

Yeah, the, the problem is, is that it's my own fault. I didn't, the mistakes were a hundred percent me. I had zero education. I sh I had no business doing that with, with, I mean, good for me for attempting, right? Because I keep saying that,

Ed Mathews

your shot.

Melissa

but

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Melissa

you, you gotta kind of know a little bit, like, you gotta kind of know how to run numbers, like what makes a deal good or or bad. Like you have to have some education. And I had zero and I thought that was enough.

Ed Mathews

Yeah I was a ready, fire, aim kind of guy myself. I hear you on that one. It's hey, I admire you for taking that shot. I also, I fundamentally believe that you. always admire the people, everybody falls down. I have a friend of mine that's in investing the venture capitalists in the, in Silicon Valley, and, he always says, I don't wanna deal with an entrepreneur until they've cycled is his term. And cycling means you, you drove your company into a brick wall and it was a disaster. And then you got up, you dusted yourself off, and you went back to work. That cycle, that getting up part is the part that 99% of the people don't do. They go, they go do something else. And so kudos to you for getting back up on the horse proverb'cause most people don't. All right. There's a bunch of lessons in there if you were listening and if you didn't, if you didn't hear'em. rewind and listen to that three minutes one more time.'cause that was gold. all right. I'm speaking of gold. I'm curious about how you take in information, like what's the book on your, proverbial nightstand. Is it, whether you're a audio person or a, a hard copy person or you go to conferences or what, how do you take in information and specifically who are you paying attention to these days from an author or creator type?

Melissa

Yeah. For me, it's all about mindset at this point. That that's what it's all about. I mean, I've, I've kind of, you know, we've kind of hinted on this a little bit, but I've picked my strategy. I know what my goals are at this point. You know, I'm a long-term buy and hold investor, mostly single family. In fact, right now, that's all, maybe, maybe I'll do multifamily, but right now I just love the single family asset. I've, you know, changed within that and gone to different markets and diversified, but I, I know what I'm doing at this point. I've done enough, I've, I've put in the reps, I feel confident in what I'm doing. So now it's just mindset. So, you know, obviously I have to say Rich dad, poor dad, because. Even though I'm not reading it anymore, it is still a go-to book because I'm always telling people about it. I'm like, you have to read it if you're thinking about it because it's, it changes your mindset. It's, you are learning how money works. So first of all, when we learn how money works in this country. There's another book that I read, it's called the Creature from Jekyll Island. Phenomenal book. I, my, I was, I mean, my mind was blown when I read that book. I was like, wait a minute. The Federal Reserve isn't ran by the federal government. You know what I mean? It was just like, all like, just like so mind blown how the richest families in this country started and, and how it works. And so you, you, your mind is, is blown open when you start to learn about, you know. Robert Kiyosaki's four quad quadrants of, you know, how, how to make money. Then you start going into like, okay, like what is our money system? That was fascinating to me. And then after that it was building my own personal strategy and doing then now it's, it's honestly, it's the four hour work week. It's Napoleon Hill, think and Grow Rich. It's, it's all positivity and in fact, I have deleted. Anything from my social media that is not positive. I mean, I've deleted all politics. I've deleted everything. I've even deleted family and friends who I love. It's not, I don't them, it's. I need to have positivity. Right. You know, I, I have to, I can't, I can't allow any fear mongering to go into what I am doing, what I'm building for myself and my clients. And I think my clients need that as well.

Ed Mathews

Percent.

Melissa

am the person that is gonna create a. Bubble of positivity and you can do this and, and you know, I am my own, you know, best cheerleader and you know, so for me it's anything that is positive and keeping my mind excited and moving forward.

Ed Mathews

So I love that. Yeah, it's so somebody had given me advice a way, way back, and I'm, depends on the time span, but what he said was, be a be a. of social media, not a consumer. And he goes, you'll be a lot

Melissa

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

And he's right. And I use social media to learn like the ai, this whole AI wave. I'm absolutely fascinated by it. And, I was joking about the fact that just when I thought I was out of technology, this stuff sucks me back in, in fact, I'm attending.

Melissa

you ai? Am I, am I talking to an AI right now? Your AI twin, or is it actually you?

Ed Mathews

But I was actually writing code for an AI before we started this interview, and as soon as we're done, I'm gonna hop on the Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi AI Summit that's happening in

Melissa

Cool.

Ed Mathews

30 minutes. 2030 minutes.

Melissa

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

it's yeah, no, I'm absolutely fascinated by it. And it's,

Melissa

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

One of the reasons that I'm joining that is a friend of mine is actually speaking I'm pretty fired up for her. But but the,

Melissa

Cool.

Ed Mathews

part of

Melissa

Yep.

Ed Mathews

It's a whole bunch of smart people that know more than I do about this stuff. Yeah, so I couldn't agree with you more. Melissa, I've really enjoyed this conversation. Congratulations on the business that you've created businesses that you've created. When you're not talking about real estate, what do you like to do for fun?

Melissa

Well, right now we're knee deep in a remodel. We just, we just moved into a new house. We're empty nesters. Our youngest just went to college and we're like, what do we wanna do? And so we moved up to Central California on the coast and we bought a cute little beach house. And you can see the paneling behind me that will be going, but yeah, so it's been fun to kind of get into the whole you know, remodel stuff, design stuff. But honestly, real estate is, is my hobby. I, I'm embarrassed to admit it, my, I, we were watching an old home movie not that long ago. We transferred everything into digital. That was, you know, the old stuff. And my son had the camera and he was like, mom, what do you like to do for fun? And I, my answer, and I'm kind of embarrassed about it, but I said, work. I love to work whether I'm helping a client or whether it's my own portfolio, like it brings me so much joy and passion, so I'm always like so embarrassed to admit it, but there it is. I love to work.

Ed Mathews

I actually think it's a blessing, right? The fact that it's one of those things that helps you get outta bed on Monday mornings that, the fact that you love what you do a probably is certainly better for you, but it's also a lot better for your clients too, right? Because they, I can see it the passion that you have for this business is it can't be faked. So Melissa, if people wanna learn more about your coaching business or your investing business what's the best way to reach you?

Melissa

Yeah, I'm, so, thank you for asking that. I'm so excited. So I started a new community. It's over on school. You can find it if you go to hello melissa nash.com and you'll see join Community up at the top. I have a, a bunch of other links on there for. Freebies, but honestly, you're gonna get way more freebies inside that community. My goal, I, I don't, I will admit, I don't know what I'm doing in there yet, but my goal is to bring so much value and knowledge and just excitement. Like, I want people to be like, Hey, I just closed on a deal. Awesome. Tell us about the deal. You know, I want it to be a space where people can learn, they can lurk. I have a lot of free stuff in there. I have a whole, you know, free course in there, like. How, how, how to look at the numbers on a proforma, you know what I mean? Just stuff like that. It's just basic stuff. But I also have like really cool stuff on markets and different things. So anyways, join the community. It is free at some point. Who knows? I might make it a, a paid thing. I haven't decided yet, but for now, all are welcome and it's free.

Ed Mathews

Awesome. Congratulations on that too. Melissa Nash, thank you so much for joining us. It was really a pleasure to speak with you.

Melissa

Awesome. Thanks for having me and I'll, I'll come back anytime. It was wonderful speaking with you as well.

Ed Mathews

Love that. Thanks.