The Everyday Millionaire Show
The Everyday Millionaire Show
Mastering the Dance of Real Estate with Shae Spitz (Full Podcast)
Navigating the complexities of real estate is akin to mastering a dance with shifting rhythms and beats, a sentiment echoed by our latest podcast guest, Shae Spitz, a seasoned realtor from Columbus, Nebraska and the remarkable host of the R.E.A.L. Moms Podcast. Shae gracefully shares her journey of guiding families to their dream homes. Her experiences are a blueprint for those with an eye for investment and a passion for transformation.
So if you're ready to absorb the wisdom of someone who's not just selling houses but building a legacy, join us for an episode that's as much about finding a place to call home as it is about constructing a life well-lived.
When somebody decides to work with somebody else, you have to realize and remember that they are doing what is best for them and their lives. It is a business decision and not a personal decision. When our emotions are very high, we tend to make irrational, impulsive decisions.
Speaker 2:I think it is really hard to have to manage that emotion because you feel like they're like attacking you personally, like people stop paying. You can't let that one person affect like your week because they didn't pay you your $1,500 rent. Even if you don't make money and if you don't like lose your ass on it, then you win because you've learned so much of the process. Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalkas. All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Everyday Millionaire Show. We are here with Shay Spitz, is that correct? Have I said that?
Speaker 1:Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:All right, shay, where are you coming from today?
Speaker 1:I am actually out of Columbus, Nebraska.
Speaker 2:Columbus Nebraska. I've heard of Columbus Ohio, but never Columbus Nebraska. Yeah, yeah, so is that like a small?
Speaker 1:town, city, what, what? So to me it's a big town. Um, it's about 24,000 people. I'm from a town of 600. So 24,000 people is a lot for me. But um, the more involved in the community you get, the smaller it feels. So, um, I don't know, it might be a big community or it might be a small one to people I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, the building that we're sitting in right now probably has 600 people in it, so I think that we're probably uh, yeah, probably pretty small for from where we're coming from. So awesome. I know you have a podcast, I know you're a realtor. Um, what came first? I'm assuming the realtor part came first, right, Yep, yep, it sure did. What exactly have you been selling? Do you focus on residential, like you know, retail people, or are you focusing on investors? What's kind of your scope of work over there?
Speaker 1:So my scope of work and my, I guess, audience would be typically families. You know, I have three little kids and that's just kind of what I gear towards is families with children, especially younger children. But yeah, it's just the residential. I do a little bit of real estate or investing, but not as much as I have. In the past I have just geared more towards helping people find their dream home or helping them get into growing into a bigger home. So that's kind of what I specialize in for sure.
Speaker 3:How long have you been a realtor?
Speaker 1:Since 2018. So come up on six years.
Speaker 2:So 2018 was not bad and it got really crazy during COVID. Did it get crazy for you guys over there as well during COVID with pricing and all that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1:Yes, it absolutely did. Had families, parents, grandparents, basically taking out of their 401k or just paying cash for the property and then selling it back to their kids or grandkids. I mean, I had several clients who we had made multiple offers and by the end of it I'm like you guys should just be your own real estate agent, because you know what to do. You know, at this point in time we'd submit many offers. So, yeah, it was an interesting time, but I swear it gets even more interesting as we go.
Speaker 2:So since then, what kind of changes have you made? Do you have a team under you? Are you just a solo realtor, Like what's your? You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I transitioned to eXp about a year ago a little over a year ago, um I. There's four agents with me. We're not a true team, but we definitely all help one another. I have my own transaction coordinator, I have my own marketing um gal and then a showing agent who definitely helps me out here and there. So that has made a big difference. Hiring your own transaction coordinator and having somebody else do all of your marketing for you. Because I'm not a fan of social media. I mean you have to be on there when you're running a business, but if you can have somebody else do the actual marketing for you, doing the posting. I know I still need to go on there and do the lives and things along those lines, but for her to be able to get out there and post my listings, posts, whatever it is, it makes life so much easier for me.
Speaker 3:Is that. Is that why you switched to XP? Is that what they offer? Is that someone that you have working underneath of you who posts all that for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they didn't offer it. Exp is just kind of like a if you're an independent agent or if you have a team. That's just structured a little bit differently. You had a capping model versus, you know, paying a flat like 80-20 for the term or for all of every transaction plus royalty fees. Exp doesn't have that. Exp has stock and then rev share and things along those lines.
Speaker 1:So for a 33-year-old, I and then rev share and things along those lines. So for a 33 year old, I stress a lot about my future. I'm not as concerned about my earned income as I am about my future and what that looks like. I'm not going to rely on social security, I'm not going to rely on the government to help me out, and so I wanted to look at an opportunity where I'm not only being able to retain most of my commissions but that's also going to be setting me up for my future. So between eXp stock and doing rev share, I mean you can really build up that future planning when it comes to real estate, where most of the time people are focused on what you make now versus what's in the future, cause I constantly stress about that.
Speaker 3:So okay, which brokers did you come from?
Speaker 1:Keller Williams.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:We've talked to a lot of people that have made the switch from KW to EXP for that same reason, so that's interesting. Yeah, I haven't yet though. Yeah Well, nick and I have been podcast partners for two and a half years and I own a brokerage in some house. He's still at KW, so okay. So, anyway, what, um, what makes you bring the agents with you but not start an official team? Wouldn't that be more beneficial to have them working underneath you instead of around you?
Speaker 1:Um, so for me it wasn't. For me it's not about and I don't want this to come off as rude but a lot of people are somewhat lazy, um, and they put a lot of their success or failures on their lead, on their leader, like, okay, you're taking this kind of money from me, I expect this in return. I don't want to be responsible for somebody else's failures or successes. So the way I viewed it is, I can still benefit a little bit as I bring people on, but ultimately it is up to them to have that success. And so I didn't want to have a team where I'm taking 20%, 30%, whatever the case is. I want to bring you on, I can lead you, I can empower you, I can motivate you, do all those things, but ultimately that your success comes down to what you're willing to do.
Speaker 1:Um, because I talked to a lot of team leads and it is a pain, you know. It's a pain because, like they say that you know, agents and people in general say they want these certain things, but they're not actually showing up to actually doing them, like making phone calls, doing the door knocking, whatever open houses, and so I would rather show people what I do and if you're going to be successful, I see that there's going to be a return in the long run, and maybe that's a bad way of looking at it, but the amount of money that I get is not enough for them to say, well, hey, you know, start paying for leads for me and things along those lines.
Speaker 2:So you do get some sort of money for bringing them on. Like what, what would make you motivated to bring anybody on if you're not, um, you know, taking a piece of their commission?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So, um, so EXP you pay in $16,000 as an agent per year and then you can actually get all of that back in EXP stock. So, um, uh, so my, my little bit of portion. If they're capping, if they're capping at that $16,000, $2,800 of that $16,000 that they pay into eXp would actually come to me. And if they only half cap, then I would get the $1,400 for that year.
Speaker 1:But what's really cool, so it's not anything on top of what they're paying into eXp, because if you cap and you become an icon agent, you can actually get that $16,000 back in eXp stock. So you could almost essentially pay nothing into eXp. Now there's a little other fees in there too, so I don't want to say zero, but that's why. So you're taking a little bit, but they're paying that money into eXp anyway and they're still getting all the other benefits and could still, as long as they're working hard and they get the icon, you can get all of that commission back into eXp stock. So within a year I have over $30,000. It doesn't sound like a ton, but in my eXp stock. So that's just extra money that I have put away for, I guess, my retirement, where, if you're working a job, you're typically getting some sort of retirement Now. I have other investments outside of that, but this was just another piece of the pie that can be added to my future, because I stress too much about it.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. So um you said you're 33, we're both 33.
Speaker 1:All right, so two days ago or whatever day.
Speaker 3:Almost 33,.
Speaker 2:November. Oh yeah, and I just turned. I'm May 2nd. I just turned 33 as well. Oh wow, so you've been in real estate for a couple of years now. What did you do before that?
Speaker 1:I was a case manager for mentally ill adults so I helped people who had schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, bipolar things along those lines. Just basically helped them live independently, getting to and from their appointments, making sure that they're taking their meds. So kind of like a general contractor for somebody's life and a sponsor, all the things.
Speaker 2:What made you leave that transition into real estate? It seems like very opposite. You leave that transition into real estate. It seems like very opposite. I came from. I was a public school teacher too, for nine years, and then I fully transitioned into real estate after dabbling with both you know, for a period of time. But what made you switch into real estate from, you know, helping those people?
Speaker 1:That world was a very rewarding but not. I had one of my very favorite we called consumers um dead on her floor. I had to do a welfare check and that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. Not necessarily that, but what it's a whole, it's a whole story. But that was very tough, um, because she was the prime example of what mental health can do for people If you're doing the things that you need to do. She went from extremely schizophrenic, thinking that the poke was going to fly in and kill all the babies at the hospitals um to living independently and thriving, honestly. Um, she died of a heart attack, not suicide or anything like that, but that was kind of my breaking point.
Speaker 1:But in the meantime we had been renovating properties um, just a handful of them, and I really loved it. I didn't like managing men, no offense, but I loved being able to find properties, renovate them and then resell them and we didn't do a ton. But at that point in time I was already in the process of getting my real estate license and then, when that happened, that was just kind of like, okay, my real estate license. And then when that happened, that was just kind of like, okay, this is, this is it. And it was actually July 9th 2018. I remember sitting in a cubicle back before lots of social media and back before they fed you leads, and just think you're sitting there thinking, okay, now what? Like I don't know, but I passed my test the first time and I gave my three week notice and I started full time.
Speaker 3:So you had essentially a little financial backing from the flips to leave your full time secure job to take that step as a real estate agent.
Speaker 1:Financially? Probably not. I wouldn't say like we didn't make a ton off of those necessarily. Cause, again, keep in mind like it was in a town of 600 people where we did our first flip, so the market is very low, Um, but what? My husband had a pretty decent job. We had two kids. It was probably the most stressful. No, when we got into like flipping, that was probably the most stressful, Um, but he had a good enough job where it was still sustained sustainable for us and our two kids at the time.
Speaker 1:Um, and our mortgage. And then I was able to have, actually, I closed on my very first transaction within 30 days of getting my license. So I went out there, I hit it hard and I really didn't go long without a paycheck, because once I got that first paycheck which was only, I think it was about 40 days from the time I started full-time, which was only, I think it was about 40 days from the time I started full-time that was more than I had made in like six months. So from then on, I closed on 14 transactions in my first four or five months and it just went from there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty good Cause I see a lot of people getting into real estate and they may not see the first transaction for six months, you know, to a year potentially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, what. What made you? Yeah, so then? So I'm just like in my head, I'm doing some some math, Like you have 15 transactions in the first year with only 600 people to choose from. How did you make that happen?
Speaker 1:Well, so I was actually in a different. I was in the town that I'm in now um doing real estate, so 24,000, but really what I did at that time because that wasn't when that there was they didn't feed you leads, you know. You didn't have any of those. You, you people actually did phone calls um to the office or actually walked in um which at the time the broker just took all of those leads. So it was irrelevant.
Speaker 1:So I had to kind of find my own way to generate income and generate leads and stuff like that. So I was out there door knocking Um I was hanging flyers, leads and stuff like that. So I was out there door knocking, I was hanging flyers. I prayed that people would not answer the phone and I could just leave something on their door. But that's where my first few transactions. And then I had some transactions through the networking and the relationships that I built when we were flipping homes. So one of the contractors ended up buying a house, another one ended up selling something along those lines, but I had a referral from a family. So that's kind of where the first 14 came from.
Speaker 3:How did you learn how to do your first flip and what did that look like?
Speaker 1:Um a nightmare, a mess. Uh, so we actually got involved with, uh, San Meryl Does that sound familiar? Um CT homesmes, anything like that? Uh, I had a television well, they had a tv show. Yes, but he also. They also like ran. They run a program and still do due to this day.
Speaker 1:Fortune builder, that's oh, yes, yeah, sean magnus, uh, the speaker there, yep, yes, so we were in um involved with fortune builders, and it was interesting because when we bought into the program it was actually more than I had made in a year from us buying. It was awful, it was the best decision of our life, but the hardest decision, the hardest thing that we actually ever went through. I feel like that's a risk that most people would never take. You find, you see, a program out there that's very expensive and it's more than I was making in a year at the time. Sickening, that first year was very tough, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So the way I found my very first flip was it was actually a couple blocks from where we lived in this in the town of 600. And I noticed that people were not going in and out of the. It was winter, we have snow on the ground. People were not going in and out of the driveway. I noticed that there weren't tracks anymore, and so I looked up where these people lived and they had actually moved about three hours away. I sent them a letter. They received the letter on Thursday, we looked at it on Saturday and we had it under contract to buy on Monday. So anyway, so anyway, long story short, it was. It was a success, but slightly a failure. Uh, we may still made money, but it was definitely a huge learning curve.
Speaker 2:Um, I think if you can do a flip and I we I've done a lot of flips, a lot of renovations If you could get through your first one and make money, and not even if you don't make money and if you don't like lose your ass on it, then you win, because you've learned so much of the process how to manage contractors, how to buy the place right, how to sell it Right so I think that's in itself is a win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so is it very interesting because the very first, that first property that we did how we financed it, was a construction loan, private money lending and a HELOC from our own property. So I did three ways of financing a property under one time on our very first one. So I feel like go big or go home, I guess.
Speaker 3:So the next step how did you find the contractors to do the renovations?
Speaker 1:I just started making phone calls, googling and making phone calls. I had a couple of people come out and bid. A lot of people were TNM, because it was a very big project and I kind of just went with the one that I felt the most comfortable with at the time. There's definitely a lot of things I would have done differently and still to this day should holding people accountable because they want you to sign a contract, but really you need to have them sign a contract too. Holding people accountable because they want you to sign a contract, but really you need to have them sign a contract too. But, um, yeah, I just did a lot of networking and figuring out, okay, well, who does a good job? Um, and that's just kind of the way I went with that.
Speaker 2:I guess that would be an advantage in a small town too, because if there was some you know idiot guy out there robbing people for their deposits or something, you'd probably figure it out pretty quickly, because the word would get around pretty fast, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and did you have them give you quotes before you purchased it or after you had already closed on it?
Speaker 1:So fortune builders had like a estimated repair sheet kind of thing. So we had a general idea, which, again, take it for what it's worth, cause every area is going to be a little bit different. When it comes to financially, we weren't completely way off, um, cause I think with every renovation you're always going to be over in some way, cause something happens, um, even though even if you think that you've got it dialed in, something else is going to happen. You're going to go over. So I think we only only went over about 25,000, which for our first project, I don't think was too bad. Um, we still made money, so it was fine. But so we actually started with that. And then, when we had it under contract, that's when we were having contractors come in to try and get as close to what we had estimated it to be Um, and I think the hardest part was convincing my grandparents to lend us the money, even though we were paying them a good amount of money for the interest.
Speaker 1:That was very hard, um, because it was that's not something that they had ever done. They're putting their faith in me, who's never flipped a property, um, and so convincing them, especially my grandpa, he was pretty hard. But we sat down at their kitchen table, we showed them what we're buying it for, what we expect the renovations to be, what the after repair value is and how long it's going to take, what we would pay them. We would pay them interest only every month, um, over the next six months. And uh, so it took some convincing because they they were old, old style farmers very safe, secure. You know, our money's sitting here. We get a steady two, three, 4% return, um, but it's safe. So we didn't. We're able to still pay them every month. We paid them off at the end, everything worked out and then they became our private money, private lenders, moving forward.
Speaker 3:What was the ARV at that time, and have the ARVs increased today?
Speaker 1:So our ARV? Well, we ended up closing at 225 is what we ended up selling it for. I think it recently sold, not like at 250 maybe, so not a ton.
Speaker 2:Not crazy.
Speaker 1:No, no, if we were in Columbus, as we've had some properties in Columbus, so that was that town of 600, small, small town properties in Columbus, so that was that town of 600, small, small town. But in Columbus we've had. We sold one several years ago for 125. And two years later they sold it for 195 and didn't do a thing to it. So like that, like I'm just like, oh, if we would have just rented it for a year or two, but you never know, at that time that was the going rate was 125.
Speaker 3:So what's the distance between that small town and a little bit bigger town that you're talking about?
Speaker 1:Um, probably about 20 minutes. So we're right now we live pretty much in between that smaller town and um, where I primarily live, like right now. My closest neighbor is like two miles away.
Speaker 2:I neighbors, I so that's still a small town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yep. So we have like three people who drive by our road every single day and those are farmers. So Nice.
Speaker 2:So one thing that I will point out is that. So in the beginning of my journey in real estate, we started buying properties first, before I started building businesses around it, and I had a private money lender but not my family and my family was, like, very conservative and they were against it. They said you know, you need to be a teacher, it's stable, you don't. You know you won't lose your job, whatever. And they were completely against it. So there was no possible way I could have convinced my parents to be lenders. And now, eight years later, maybe I can probably convince them to loan us money. Um, now that they see a proof of concept, were you scared that you were going to fail and you were going to lose all your grandpa's money? Because that's what I would have thought of the whole time. It was like I shouldn't do this to my grandfather. Maybe I should try it on somebody else's grandfather first.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was.
Speaker 1:But at the same time I'm a very honest person and I knew that if it did fail if it meant like us working extra hard to pay them back or selling our house and getting the equity out of it, I knew I wasn't going to lose the $100,000, but I knew that there was a risk of losing some of it and I have a very close relationship with my family and we're I'm a very just, honest person that I'm going to do whatever it takes.
Speaker 1:If I were to lose somebody else's money, I would do whatever it takes to me, being more of a financial hardship than them. I'm not going to put that on them and I feel like even though at the time we weren't making very much money at all and $100,000 is a lot, but I felt like $100,000 wasn't like a life-changing event, that the risk was greater than the reward or the reward was greater than the risk, you know. So I was willing to take on that risk and I had a lot of, I guess, risk to myself between the HELOC on our own property and the construction loan. So I think that's where that they were a little bit more at ease. But technically they would be a third lane, so probably wasn't the smartest thing on their end, but it's fine, it all worked out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as long as it worked out right, that's all that matters. So okay, so you're an investor first, then you became a realtor. You killed it your first year. What happens after that Is that when you're like oh, I sold 15 house, I need to start a podcast now. How did? The podcast come out of the woodwork.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've had a couple of podcasts. I had another one back when I was at the other brokerage because they had like a studio and everything. Things kind of went haywire in a sense, like I was still there as an agent, um, and I had about 36 episodes, paid a lot of money to do all of that, and then all of a sudden they're like no, we're not doing this anymore. I'm like, can I at least get like my login and two so I can access all of those? Because I just they just had the producer and everything and they wouldn't even give me that. So I had I still to this day, it's still out there, but I have absolutely no access to it because I wanted to just continue keeping that going but they wouldn't give me the login information, login for anything for me to even do it on my own. So I kind of had to shut that one down and that was called Business Unscripted and that was me interviewing other entrepreneurs in our area to kind of help promote their business as well. So unfortunately, that one didn't continue moving forward because I never got that login information. So it was like several thousands of dollars just wasted because I had no access to it anymore and I couldn't keep it growing.
Speaker 1:So this new podcast that I recently started it's called Real Moms, so it's resilient entrepreneurs striving for abundant living, so really mompreneurs and just started this one, probably three, four months ago. It's been something that I've wanted to do for quite a while, but I didn't want to kind of give up those rights to somebody else and have what happened to me before in the past. Um, but it's going really well. I have my own producers who kind of take care of all of that. They do all the editing, they do all of the promoting, they get the guests to come on, they send out all the information once the episode is released. So it's going much better this time around than the first time and I don't foresee it stopping or somebody taking my login information and not giving me access to it.
Speaker 3:So can you explain a little bit about how that happened? So on the first podcast, you explain a little bit about how that happened. So on the first podcast you had a producer, that was pretty much. They controlled it and they just had you do the episodes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they would help me find the people that I was going to interview, get all that set up. They had the podcast studio and I paid them for podcasts to do the recordings. Technically, if I remember right, I think I still. I mean, I still owned the rights to the episodes, but they wouldn't give me the login information for, like Spotify and Apple and I don't. I didn't know anything about it. So maybe there's another way to kind of go around and get all that information. But it's already been like three years ago, but I wanted to continue doing the podcast on my own, whether I was using their studio or not, but I didn't have the login information to do the Spotify to do I don't even remember what app that they were utilizing, but they wouldn't give me the login information so I can continue to keep that going rather than starting over. I couldn't even log in to start uploading my own or doing anything like that. They just wouldn't give it to me uploading my own or doing anything like that.
Speaker 2:They just wouldn't give it to me and it was yeah, you definitely still would own the rights to the videos themselves, the hard videos, essentially, I think that it wouldn't be maybe just not their logins to those platforms, but definitely still get those videos, I'd imagine legally anyway. Yeah, so what has been your biggest win and your biggest loss? I'm going to ask you this about business and then about your podcast.
Speaker 1:My biggest win. Honestly, what I have recently found is like viewing everybody and everything through a lens of love and trying to truly love what you do and enjoy the things that you do and surrounding your people with the, surrounding yourself with the right people, because when you get caught up in a hostile, hostile environment, everybody kind of becomes poisoned to one another. And you know they always say in the real estate world that it can be a very cutthroat industry. But I think if you treat others the way you want to be treated and you, you are there to support other people and you want to empower them and you want to cheer them on, whether they're with a different brokerage or not, I think that's really what the purpose of life is. So I think that would be my biggest takeaway, in addition to just kind of the health side of things. It's not just about business Like you want to have the lifestyle of for your family, for your friends, for your health, your mental health, your physical health um, reading, having a morning routine, doing all those things is so important to set your day up for success and for your business for success. So that's kind of what I would go with when it comes to what has worked in my business is just being a good person, like be a good person and truly want the best for other people, like I love seeing people succeed.
Speaker 1:I had somebody call me yesterday. He had me run some comps on some commercial properties in a location that I'm not real familiar with. He's like you just can't tell anybody. You know we gotta keep this on the down low, totally fine, and I knew I wasn't going to get compensated financially at this time for it. And then he called me yesterday letting me know what happened with all of that and it didn't go the direction that they were intentionally wanting to buy those properties for, but it ended up going a completely different direction, and probably for the better, uh, in the long run anyway.
Speaker 1:But he called to tell me that he's like I know you didn't get any financial gain, but I truly believe that that'll come back to me tenfold in the future and he's a very successful businessman, um, but I thought it was really cool that he called me to let me know what had happened. So just do things for others and expect nothing in return, um, and I really think that things will come back to you in the long run. You may not see that immediately, but you really need to enjoy helping others however you can. And I understand it's about business and you obviously deserve to be paid and all of those things. But I don't know things like that I wasn't going to make a big deal out of because, again, like I said, very successful business owner and I know it'll come back tenfold.
Speaker 2:That is such a nice Midwestern thing to say right there. That's exactly what I think about when I think about somebody from Nebraska just generally nice people. That's that's uh. That's funny, because here I feel like if we were to ask 10 people here in Baltimore that same question, they would have very, very different answers for us. Um. So I appreciate that insight. That's that's uh, that's nice, um. But I do think that's true, though, because you go around and like even a lot of the stuff that we do with this podcast, like we don't make any money, like we, we lose money. Basically, every time we do a podcast that we have to pay the editors pay the whatever, and, uh, it does add value in other people's lives. And then they come back and they use my companies for something and they use Nick for something, or we have an event and they come to our events, and so it's like we, you know we're not really gaining anything directly from that, but in the long run it does pay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly right and that's what people don't realize. Like you, you do things. It's Randy Garn. I don't know if you know who he is. I've met him a handful of times but that's one of the things that stuck with me. He said his dad has always told him do things for others and expect nothing in return. Like, truly expect nothing in return, because ultimately I do believe, like you put that on the universe, it will come back to you. But yeah, same with mine. Like I lose money directly on my podcast, indirectly, I believe it'll pay off in the long run. Now, because I'm kind of just getting started again, I'm not maybe seeing that right now, but I know I have the faith that it will happen and I'm sure you guys see that you don't see a direct profit from your, from your podcast, but you do indirectly in other resources, honestly just getting your name out there too.
Speaker 2:So I do wish that was one thing that I didn't, that we haven't done, and I think it's really hard to do is quantify those, like those wins that come from the podcast, or like the conversations that it started, or the jobs like I'm a general contractor as well, so like I've gotten calls, people that have listened to the show and then they've hired me to do like a hundred thousand dollar job, that's a win from the podcast, podcast. But I don't have like a way of quantifying that. I guess, um, it would be interesting to see how many relationships that we have now that we wouldn't have had, um, in the past. Like we go to bigger pockets conference and the last two years we've come back with clients that have either bought houses from us or invested with us, whatever, um. So yeah, it would be interesting to try to figure out a way to quantify that, uh, that income indirect income, I guess you can call it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's some that you're probably going to miss, because, even though they saw you at bigger pockets, but they initially heard your podcast long time ago, but they didn't realize it. You know, it's just, it's kind of like any sort of marketing you want to be a little bit of everywhere but there's not a direct reason why they contacted you. It just might've been like that one Facebook post that they heard or that one podcast that they heard from you that sparked the idea.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, absolutely we have. Um, we were in. Where were we when we met Aisle Aisle? I think that was in Florida. So we were yeah, it was in Florida. We were at a conference and we were just recording content in like the lobby of this hotel and this lady came up to us and just recognized us from the show. She's from New Zealand and now in June she's flying here. She has, like, um, a bunch of rental properties and stuff, boutique hotels that she does there. She's coming here to invest because it's quite better to invest here, and now she's coming to Baltimore in June to buy a bunch of houses with me. So, like that was like somebody that just randomly saw us in a hotel in Orlando, florida, now is flying across the world to come buy houses with us.
Speaker 1:So and I think that's what I love about real estate, honestly, and just business in general is the connections that you can make, and there's some amazing people out there that you would never meet if you weren't doing the extra things Cause I know podcasts are a big thing right now, but the amount of connections that you make on top of everything else that you do just through the podcast when you're interviewing people, I think is a game changer. I mean, you may not have a direct relationship with that one person, but you know out of a hundred if you, if you convert two to do something, that's that's a huge win, that's a 2% return, I don't know, I think. I think it's just real estate and business in general. You can get connected with so many people amazing people too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we just we just got off a podcast before this one with a guy that builds oil fields and like does oil drilling and invest hundreds of millions of dollars into building out these fields and sold a business and it was cool Like I've never even talked to anybody in the oil industry before. And both of us are sitting here like we went to lunch, like talking about the oil industry, like we had no idea about it, which is cool. That's amazing, sitting here like we went to lunch, like talking about the oil industry.
Speaker 3:Like we had no idea about it, which is cool. Um, so, other than, uh, flipping houses and being a realtor, do you invest in real estate in any other ways, such as you know, buy and hold?
Speaker 1:Yep, so we have. I mean, we like, we've bought, we did like the burst strategy. Um, I've read bigger pockets and I've met Brandon Turner and all of those things. Um, 2021 went to BP con. It was fantastic, but, um, it was so, yeah, we've done those properties. We have an eight plex right now. We also have an Airbnb.
Speaker 1:It was an old church. Uh, it sits on an acre and a half in our community of 24,000 people. It had been vacant for about two years. I got really bored, and I it's not a good thing when I get bored, Cause then my mind starts wandering and I try to come up with all these creative ideas on things to do. But anyway, so there's this vacant um church and I thought to myself oh, my goodness, I want to go take a look at it. So got it set up with my contractor Husband met me over there and we're walking through. It got done and he's like Shay, no, we're not doing this. And, um, I saw the opportunity and they were asking. They initially started it off, like two years ago, at $200,000. After six months they dropped it to 150. When we went and looked at it, it was at a hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1:Sits on an acre and a half of ground, Um, but it also needed. There was a lot that needed to be done. It also needed to be connected to the city, sewer and water, but anyway. So he told me, no, I ended up making an offer and two days later which was actually April 1st 2021, our offer was accepted and then I told him so that's where that kind of went and we still have that one today. It's kind of my baby in a sense, because it was a lot of work, but it's absolutely beautiful baby in a sense, because it was a lot of work, but it's absolutely beautiful. And there's just a there's a sense of peace and calming when you go into it. That anybody who's ever been in there, because obviously it was an old church and, uh, it's just a very calming atmosphere. So we love it.
Speaker 2:Nice, and so how old are your kids?
Speaker 1:Nine, seven and four.
Speaker 2:Have you at all um introduced them into the world of business or real estate, because that's something I'm excited to do with. I don't have kids yet, but the future kids, like I, want to start them learning this stuff, getting involved in the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we, actually my youngest um, I w, we got home on a Saturday and I was showing homes with her on Monday, so I was bringing I've, I've. She's been around it, I think she's. She's four, but I think she's getting to the point where she's overlooking at homes Cause they go on showings with me, they go on listing appointments with me, they go on appointments to go look at renovations. My husband this was maybe a year ago we went and looked at a property that we were looking at buying to renovate. Now we went and looked at a property that we were looking at buying to renovate now, probably a couple of years ago. But our oldest at the time she was maybe six or seven and she brought her little notepad to you know, as if she was pretending to take notes. She couldn't really write Um, and my husband was walking through the house with our daughter and the owner and our daughter her name's Riley, and she looks up at my husband and says I don't think we should get this one and my husband was like mortified, but it was just you know, things along those lines and they it is fun to get them involved with the property. I we try to talk to them about budgeting and cost and income. Like, hey, if we buy this for the property and we get this for rent, but we have these expenses so subtly and slowly introducing them to that kind of world.
Speaker 1:But they've probably gone on more listing appointments than most people do Because you have to. I mean, you get to the point where my husband's busy and a lot of times you're working evenings and weekends. I'm taking them with me. But that's been a big thing that we've always included our kids and our family, because it's not a work life balance. It's like cohabitating and bringing everybody to in on it together and knowing what everybody's doing in their businesses, um, and getting the kids involved too, because I think it's really important. Otherwise you have this separation in life where this is my business over here and my family doesn't know what's going on.
Speaker 1:No, I, like I've had, like I'm I'm really heavily involved in our Commodore or in our chamber here locally and I've brought my kids to many chamber call or Commodore calls, chamber meetings, um, and I'm very transparent with people like, hey, I want to be there, um, don't, don't have daycare or something happened, and I can either be there with my kids or I'm going to be able to make it and I've never had anybody say no. I the chamber loves my kids. Because we went to the last commoner call and there was probably 50 common no, probably 35 commoners and I texted the president of the chamber. I said hey, I don't have anybody to watch the kids. They don't have school today. Are you okay with me bringing them? Otherwise I'm not going to be able to make it. He's like are you?
Speaker 1:okay with me bringing them, otherwise I'm not going to be able to make it. He's like oh yeah, bring them, not a problem. And our kids are really good. They can sit through appointments, we don't do technology and they'll get TV once in a while. I don't need to bring a phone, I don't need to do bring anything with me aside from maybe colors to keep them entertained. They know how to talk to other people and I think that's the biggest thing. They know how to behave in public. Their social skills are on point. Their creativity, imagination is insane. But I think it's also because we had my husband and I had made a commitment that we're not going to rely on social media and phones and technology to keep them distracted, because that limits their imagination and they don't know how to socialize with other people if you do that. So we sat in this meeting for an hour and a half and they sat at their own table coloring and doing their own thing.
Speaker 2:So that's, and I think you know, being a traditional realtor too like most of the time that you're working is when other people are not working, right so, and they're not in school. It's going to be, like you said, weekends, evenings, when if you're trying to sell a house to somebody and they're at work, you know you got to wait for them to get off work.
Speaker 1:So that timeline is definitely.
Speaker 2:You know, the timing is definitely a struggle for, I think, for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:So you my. The other question you had asked me is what? What's the biggest fail? Yes, okay, I don't know if this is the biggest fail. I've had a lot of failures. When emotions are high, logic is low. So paying attention to that, I think, is very important, because when our emotions are very high we tend to make irrational, impulsive decisions. But I'll let that one go.
Speaker 1:But the other thing, especially as a real estate agent, is not taking things personal. You can't. When somebody decides to work with somebody else, you have to realize and remember that they are doing what is best for them in their lives and, if they feel that, going with this other person, because real estate in general, as you know, is going to be the largest purchase, mostly for most people, in their lives. So it is a business decision and not a personal decision. And if it is personal, then somebody else's problem with me is not my problem. So get over it, move past it. Nobody cares as long as you're not maliciously trying to sabotage somebody else. Just be a good person in general, and then if somebody has a problem with you, it's usually due to them and not you.
Speaker 1:But I would say the biggest thing is try not to take things personal. Business is business and you cannot take those things personal and be able to let things go and move on. You make a mistake. You lose thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, maybe $100,000. Move on, don't get so fixated on it, because if you fixate on the things that you lost, then you're going to You're not there to look for opportunity. I think the reason why some people think people get lucky is because they're looking for opportunity versus focusing on the negatives or the things that they don't have. So that's what I would probably say is my biggest failure in life is I used to take things very personally, especially when I first got into it, and it probably cost me tens of thousands of dollars because I was so focused on the one that I missed out on or the two that I missed out on.
Speaker 2:So it's just- yeah, I totally agree with that too. Like in the years, I think the experience points helps you kind of become a little jaded to it or like calloused, where now if somebody doesn't pay me on the contracting side, or people stop paying us rent all the time, or whatever, it's just like okay, we'll send it to the lawyer, she'll do the eviction. And it's like in the beginning I was like, oh my God, I'm going to lose. I'm like I'm mad at this person, like personally for stop paying whatever. Now it's just like okay, the process goes, send it to the lawyer, they'll send it to collections, we'll deal with it later. Like screw it, you know. Um.
Speaker 2:But in the beginning I think it is really hard to have to manage that emotion because you feel like they're like attacking you personally. Like I'll let Nick like weigh in a little bit about his experience when he started doing a bunch of rental properties. Like Nick owns like 90 something rental properties. Like people stop paying and you can't let that one person affect like your week because they didn't pay you your $1,500 rent. Like you have to keep going, keep pushing and let the pieces fall into place. But it's very hard in the beginning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't have your emotions, like you mentioned, in any form of business, but you know, when you own rental properties and you have your tenants tell you their sob story as to why like, everyone has a story as to why, and we necessarily don't want to hear the story it's just you know, business is business as far as you know filing a failure to pay rents and having tenants evicted when, when, when the case comes down to it, because you can't afford, or anyone really. Or even if they can, they shouldn't have to afford to pay the expense of a tenant who can't pay their bills, for whatever reason that may be.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what kind of volume are you, do you? Are you on track to do this year as a real, as a solo realtor? About 20 million 20 million and on your I don't say team, but not team, so you have to operate and do that. 20 million you have yourself, you have your transaction coordinator and a social media manager. Essentially, Yep. And what would you, what would you say that your tasks are? Is that mostly? I should ask this is it a lot of buyers or mix of buyers and sellers?
Speaker 1:Mostly sellers, about 60% sellers. That's kind of how it's been for the last three years, so that's my main focus. For sure, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes. That makes life a whole lot easier. So, with the buyers, what do you? That's why I kind of like having the brokerage and having the know finalizes. But what would you say? Your job is now Like what are you? What are you daily, your daily tasks that you're doing to sell $20 million?
Speaker 1:Probably networking. I would say networking is probably the biggest thing, supporting other people's businesses. So, like I said, I have this real moms podcast, but I also have like a real moms community where we're supporting one another, because being a mom is very tough and then being an entrepreneur so a mompreneur is very hard, and so when you're creating, when you're building that one entrepreneurship can be very lonely and then you throw being a mother on top of it or being a parent on top of it, like you very, it's very, very lonely. So I think, networking and collaborating with other mompreneurs but or just people in the in the community, like I'm very involved with the chamber. I've been a Commodore for two, three years. I'm now on the board of the chamber Um, I'm I help with United way.
Speaker 1:I just I think I think 50% of my time is probably volunteer work. But I do enjoy that, I really do enjoy it. And if I can give back my time, real estate has allowed me to do that. So, instead of me working 24 seven to make a living, I've been able to kind of free up my time to be able to give back and give my time. Now, do I do too much? Yes, absolutely. I 100% think I do. I need to learn. I need to learn to say no. That's probably my biggest failure is learning to say no. I need to learn to say no. That's probably my biggest failure is learning to say no, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think networking is probably the biggest thing and really staying in touch with my past clients. I get a lot of referrals from my clients. I do a really I would say I do a very good job. I set them up on an automatic it's called TPMCO follow-up plan. You pay $25, they get four postcards for five years. That's automatic. I also have another drip campaign thing, um, where they get four postcards over the next year. They get brownies at one, their one year anniversary. I set them up on an email campaign where they're getting like once a month from me. Plus I do four um networking, uh, client appreciation events every year, in addition to like table sponsors and things along those lines.
Speaker 1:So, um, like I said, I probably do too much and some of the stuff may not pay off or see a return, but I think that that's probably where a lot of my information like I just had a listing yesterday. They're like Nope, we're ready to sign, let's do this. I went there I don't even know who they were, I have no idea, um and I asked them like, where did you get my information? Like, oh, we see, we see your stuff on social media. We've had a couple of people refer you. Okay, okay, great, let's sign yeah.
Speaker 3:Is all of your business within the town that you live in.
Speaker 1:Pretty much, I would say. I'm usually within 45 minutes is really. I like to stay in Columbus. Might have a few off ends in those smaller communities around, but primarily in Columbus.
Speaker 3:Is there like a lot of competition, like how many realtors are in that area? Is there a lot of competition?
Speaker 1:Technically there is because right now we only have about 42 properties active on our MLS and we have about 92 agents. So but again, I think in every, in every area, 80% of the agents do 20% of the work and 20% of the agents do 80% of the work and 20% of the agents do 80% of the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I was just saying. That number is very skewed because most of those agents probably aren't doing much.
Speaker 1:Exactly? Yep, there's. Most are probably part time. Especially now with the changes, you're going to see a lot more people either fall off or really find another job that they're going to be working at, which is good. I think every change there's always growing pains, but I also think that there's um huge benefits to it as well, if you're in it for the long haul, which I definitely am. But, um, yeah, I would just say that that's probably where most of mine come from. There's always competition, no matter where you're going to go, but competition is good because it helps me to level up.
Speaker 3:So so if there's roughly 92 agents in that area, how many agents were at the KW office that you used to be affiliated with?
Speaker 1:Um well, so we had about 14 or 15 there at the time when I left, for other agents came with me and then, um well, no, we probably had 12 at the time, so I left. Four agents followed, and since then two or three have left to another brokerage so that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I guess, compared to the keller williams that I'm affiliated with, I think they have over 100 agents and I know that other kw's around here they gotta this is we're talking, we're in like a, we're in between like three major cities in this country, so there's gonna be a lot, and the keller williams near my house has like 700 agents at it. So it's yeah.
Speaker 3:I just, I was just thinking about like the expenses of the that kw office owner to only have 12.
Speaker 2:That does make a lot of sense, right, because they do have a lot of overhead to have to carry just 12 agents or 15 agents or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we had a capping model over there, so it was good. I mean, literally, it was the hardest decision I ever made. I'll just be very transparent. I think I cried every single day for three months because I loved everybody there. I had just always been a person of get very comfortable, being uncomfortable, and I learned to follow my intuition.
Speaker 1:Uh, I don't know if everybody else has that intuition, but you just have like this gut feeling, or the universe or God, whatever it is telling you it's time for a change. And I'll never forget when I realized that my broker I knew I needed to change for the longest time I knew I did, and when I realized that it was my brokerage that needed to change, I was devastated. It was, it was the weirdest thing. And people are like well then, shay, why did you switch? I don't know, couldn't tell you, I was just pulled to do it and I'm very, very, very glad that I did. Um, what do I? Definitely don't regret it, but it was the hardest decision and it was the probably hardest three to six months, I don't want to say of my life, but probably one of the hardest times in my life.
Speaker 2:But I this is the last thing I'm going to say I know I got one more question and I got another podcast coming up, but they I read recently somewhere that they said somebody that changes jobs more than you know two or three times throughout their career typically makes more money than somebody that stays at the same job for their whole career because they're always going to be, they're trying to leave and upgrade, and leave and upgrade. I'm not saying that you should go work for somewhere for three months and then move on to the next place, but kind of always have to be looking right Like you always have to be trying to find the next best thing. Um, and I think if you do that and you're constantly, you have your eyes open and there's opportunity there. You're more likely to take it and you're more likely to upgrade from there.
Speaker 1:Well, and I that's why I think I left my previous job as a case manager is because where I was at, like, my caseload was like 30 people and the next, my, my co-workers they would have a caseload of like 20. So I was working harder but getting paid the exact same, even though our caseload was only like 22. I was so my, my caseload was so full Cause I was really good at what I did, um, and I was like, okay, well, can I get compensated for the additional clients that I take on? Nope, that's not how it works. You're here for 40 hours. And so I was like, okay, well, that's where my cap was.
Speaker 1:Like I, in order for me to grow in that that industry, I would have had to have gone back to school, got paid $30,000 to get my master's. Just to make an extra 10, 15 a year Wasn't worth it. So then, same with where I was at before, like, I felt, like I was at my cap and I know I needed to make a change in order for me to grow. And I did my due diligence. But I really think that that's I mean I. I want to continuously grow and if it means challenges, that means growth. I don't. Nobody likes to have all the mental stress, but you know that's where growth is at.
Speaker 3:So I know you mentioned you went to the bigger pockets conference in 2021. Are there any other conferences real estate related or personal development related that you've gone to? That you enjoyed?
Speaker 1:All the time, all the time. So GrowthCon is another one. So, grant Cardone, they're very good salespeople. I'll just say that Love the conferences. They're very good salespeople.
Speaker 3:Did you go to the last one? I was at the last one.
Speaker 1:We had the tickets for it diamond tickets and I ended up selling them. I pushed them to next year and I ended up selling them to somebody else. Because love the conferences Again. Emotions are high, Logic is low, you get involved with too much stuff. Long story, we don't need to get into that. Next year is the last one for them, so so they say, they keep saying that, they say they've said that's the market.
Speaker 3:It is. I think it is. It's a lot of work for them. They'll still have the smaller stuff, like the boot camps, but I think that's going to be their last. They're going to say it's the 10th one, but I think it's the ninth really.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, it's, I mean, very good information. I don't regret it, it was very good information, but I do. There's EXP things that I've gone to as well Unstoppable success summit. I just got back from um with Amberlee Lago. She's absolutely amazing. That was more of like a motivational. That wasn't real estate, that was just um self improvement, um mindset. That was with like John Gordon Um can't think of a couple of other but amazing. So, yeah, I probably go to about five a year and it's the best investment that you can have is in yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Was that? Was that the only bigger pockets, the one that you went to in 21?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a group of people went this last year that they wanted me to go to. But I went to. I was supposed to. I went somewhere else instead, so it didn't work out. And then when you got kids, it's not.
Speaker 2:You can't be gone two weekends in a row, or two weekend, two weeks in a row. Well, as we wrap this up, I just want to give people opportunity to reach out to you. So how can people get in touch with you? Social media, email, whatever you want to plug here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so all my handles are Shea J Spitz, so S H AP-I-T-Z. And then my phone number is 402-741-2576. Whether you're a mompreneur or you're looking to buy something or sell something in the Columbus area, I would love to help out. And then, obviously, guys, thank you so much for having me on here. It's been absolutely wonderful and fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, shay, and I'm glad we could finally get this done after a couple of failed attempts.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know what you just got to keep going. That's life right. You just fall flat on your face. You just keep on going.
Speaker 2:Absolutely All right guys, Until next time. Thanks again, Shay.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you.
