Bonny Wayman - Turning Smart Asset Management Into Wealth
Bonny Wayman is a real estate investor, asset manager, and multifamily strategist passionate about helping others achieve financial freedom through real estate. With an MBA from the University of Denver and a background in marketing, analytics, and project management, she combines data-driven strategy with hands-on experience to drive strong investment performance.
As the multifamily asset manager for Wild Oak Capital and Aligned Asset Management, Bonny oversees operations across a growing portfolio for others while managing her own portfolio for herself. Serving as both a General Partner (GP) and Limited Partner (LP) in syndications, she’s known for turning big-picture ideas into actionable strategies that maximize returns and build long-term wealth through multifamily investing and real estate syndications.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Discover how to kickstart your real estate investing journey with confidence and avoid common beginner mistakes.
- Uncover the powerful benefits of investing in multifamily properties that can boost your cash flow and portfolio growth.
- Learn how effective asset management can maximize the value and returns of your real estate investments.
- Build a winning real estate investment team that supports your goals and accelerates your success.
- Master the smart strategies for transitioning from single-family homes to multifamily investments to scale your portfolio faster.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 - Bonnie Wayman’s Accidental Start in Real Estate and Early Success
00:03:31 - Building Real Estate Wealth Through Patience and Strategic Stacking
00:07:09 - Practical Advice on Scaling Your Real Estate Portfolio Gradually
00:11:54 - Transitioning to Multifamily Investing and Financing Insights
00:15:07 - Transitioning to Syndication with Wild Oak Capital
00:17:01 - Managing Out-of-State Properties and Building Trust with Property Managers
00:22:26 - Team Roles, Capital Raising, and the Importance of Trust in Syndication
00:27:28 - The Role of Asset Management in Executing Business Plans
00:31:19 - Cost Efficiency and Accountability in Property Renovations
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Full Transcript:
Bonny Wayman
I held that property for seven years and when I went to sell it, I was making, I will not forget, $40,000 a year at my entry level corporate America job. And I sold the house and I made $100,000 and I was completely blown away. Like I'm working so hard in my job, slaving in this corporate office to make 40,000 a year and I just made 100,000 then that was easy. And so that's sort of when the light bulb went off for me.
Mike Swenson
Welcome to the Real Freedom show where we inspire pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Real Freedom. We're helping people build time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host Mike Swenson. If you want to get started on your real estate investing journey, make sure you check out our website, free freedom through realestate.com that's where we post all of our content, blogs, information for you to be able to help decide what path you want to take inside of real estate. For those of you watching at home, this is a possibly a first time event that's happening. We are not out of my office and thank you so much to our guest, Bonny. Today, Internet had routine maintenance that was happening and it was going to be out for the next hour and a half so I hopped in the car. We are doing it live from one of my short term rentals and the guests are coming to check in here in about two hours. So we're gonna get everything in and recorded and wrapped up. And so that's the beauty of being an entrepreneur, right? We can be flexible, jump in on the fly and do things like this and still be mobile. So that being said, awesome episode today. I'm so excited. I had the pleasure of meeting Bonny a couple weeks ago and I would say quite similar to where I'm at in my journey she is as well. So Bonny Wayman, she is with Wild Oak Capital and Aligned Asset Management and you are based out of Colorado and excited to hear more about your story and your journey in real estate. So welcome to the show.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, thanks Mike. Excited to be here.
Mike Swenson
So just getting started, talk a little bit about your journey into real estate. The early days, just to be able to share kind of why or what is it that's exciting about real estate for you?
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, well, I got into real estate on accident. I became a little bit of an accidental landlord. I was in college. And the college required you to live on campus. And I was miserable and paying a ton of money to live on campus. And my parents, who are much smarter than me, were like, why don't we buy a house right off of campus and you can rent it out to your college friends and you can all save money. And I thought that was a good idea. So it happened to be 2008 when you could afford to buy houses in Denver. And we bought a house in Denver and I rented it out to my roommates, which easily covered the mortgage. And I went to Barnes and Noble at that time and got Real Estate for Dummies and like made a lease and sent it out to my roommates. And I held that property for seven years. And when I went to sell it, I was making, I will not forget, $40,000 a year at my entry level Corporate America job. And I sold the house and I made $100,000. And I was completely blown away. Like, I'm working so hard in my job, slaving in this corporate office to make 40,000 a year, and I just made 100,000, then that was easy. And so that's sort of when the light bulb went off for me. But it took me a while to execute. I think I'm a reasonably risk adverse person. So my husband and I moved out to the country and I kept working for Corporate America. But it was just kind of in the back of my mind there, like there's something there. And so in about 2016, I started listening to Biggerpockets like I'm sure a lot of your listeners did, and had Brandon Turner in my ear all the time and all my drives and bought my first single family house in 2017. And then I just sort of did, as Brandon calls, like the stack, right? I bought a single family and another single family, and then I went to buy a duplex, but ended up buying a six plex. And then I partnered with some people about a couple other kind of in that small multifamily side. And I hope my journey is relatable to other people because I really didn't do anything special. I just listened to the podcast and then just did exactly what they said, right? So I bought the single family and then I scaled and there's a local meetup and I went to all the local meetups year after year. And about four years into attending the local meetups, there was the guys from Wild Oak Capital at my meetup and I went up to them one day and said, hey, like I'd really Like to work with some bigger investors, you know, do you know anybody who might need some operations help? And they said, us. And then I worked my way in and proved myself. And now I'm on the syndication side, and I'm an asset manager for larger multifamily properties, and I have about 500 doors under management.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, congratulations on that journey. I think, to your point. Yeah, there's a lot of little decisions that can be made that when all sudden you look back, you can see you've come a really far away. I know. For me, similarly, my eyes were open to entrepreneurship in college. Oddly enough, I was an entrepreneurship major, but I wasn't willing to take the risk after I graduated. And so a lot of my friends and classmates were either taking over the family company or they already knew what they were doing. And I was like, I need to get a real job, because nobody's going to hire an entrepreneurship major at that point. However, I will say the funny thing is, is I had a friend in college, and they had a friend who, who. Who did what you did. Purchased a property. And funny enough, if I remember it right, the dad's name was Kent Jefferson, and they bought a property near the intersection of Kent and Jefferson by my school. And so I thought that was the coolest thing. And so they were living at their house, and it never registered to me because I just thought, oh, I've got to live on campus. And then I start to see what those bills are on campus. It's like, dang, I can live off campus for way less. But because I had financial aid, it was like monopol in some way. So it's kind of like, well, that's just a number that I'll have to take care of later. And then my first flip, we took the proceeds and paid off my college loan. So real estate did help me, But I would have loved to be able to be at that spot where I had the foresight to do something like you did.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, I mean, I was paying. I think it was $900 a month for my dorm room, and that included a meal plan. But I had some, like, allergies to the food, so I was hardly eating anything on the meal plan. And when we moved off, I remember we rented each bedroom for $500 per bedroom. And my groceries were like $100. You know, like, was so much saving. And I didn't even at that point understand equity and appreciation and all of that. Like, I was just like, oh, it's cheaper per month. But it was a great decision.
Mike Swenson
So on the early side, you had mentioned about slowly stacking up for people that can't figure out how to do that or can't figure out the finances of that or the money situation. Can you talk a little bit deeper about how you were able to execute on that?
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, two things. First of all, I'll say we were double income, no kids at that point, and we lived well below our means. So we had two, you know, not huge corporate incomes, but we had two good incomes and we saved a lot. We just lived below our means. And then the other thing is I didn't take a single dollar from real estate for seven years. Like I just one property would make a little money and that would just go into the next property. And so I didn't start pulling from any of my real estate investments for seven years.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, it's definitely a delayed gratification and the longer you're able to delay that, the better off that it gets.
Bonny Wayman
Yes, yes, absolutely. And I mean the house hack we had paid off a good portion of the mortgage and then we were able to take that profit. And so we had very low living expenses in our personal residence, which allowed us to grow our cash more because our expenses were so low because of that initial house hack.
Mike Swenson
And I think for people listening, the thing to remember is you don't have to know what to do for the third, fourth or fifth property. You just need to know what to do for the next property. And, and some of it I totally get. You want to plan ahead, you want to put yourself in a spot to be able to know what you want to do then. But a lot of it is figure it out as you go. Just get to the next level and then after that, then worry about the level after that.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, I agree with that completely. And I know there's some gurus out there who tell you you should buy a 70 unit apartment complex on your first deal. And I disagree because that first deal is probably not going to be great. Right. My first deal I would never buy now. It didn't really cash flow. I didn't really know how to run my numbers despite listening to 200 episodes of Bigger Pockets. And so. But it was a small deal. Right. And so I was able to learn on it without risking my entire family's financial future by having purchased a bad 70 unit property. You know, and so I love the stack model. It's not going to get you to quit your job tomorrow, but it is a much less risk averse or yeah way in order to grow and you build the Skills as you build the types of properties you're buying.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, we had our first flip. We bought it for. This is like the bottom of the barrel. We bought it $36,000. Yeah, yeah, that, that's, that's the inner city. Low, low price. And they were going to tear down the house. We found out later that if we didn't buy it, the city was going to tear it down. And so we put in it was like 20 or 25,000 and then we sold it for 80. So because it was still on the way up and, and obviously it sold for a lot more than that now. But I just think back to those days, like to your point, right. The, the lessons you learn, it was a much larger margin for error in those regards. And I still have the pictures of our son because we had just started having kids at that point and we rented out a paint spare because we're going to paint the exterior of the home in one day. And so we've still got the little picture of him standing by the, the big paint sprayer as we were, you know, painting the whole house. And so it's those fun memories that like, I can't even imagine doing that now after having three kids. But it's those, those fun memories and it planted those seeds to then be comfortable and too from a risk perspective. Right. When you take a risk at that, then you're willing to take a little bit bigger risk. A little bit bigger risk because you have the experience and the knowledge to be able to know how to adjust.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah. One of my business partners and I are always like, does this feel a little bit scary? Good then that's about right. Like this shouldn't keep us up. So we're never sleeping at night because we both have young kids and we want to, you know, protect that. But if we're not feeling a little bit scared as we go to the closing table, it probably means we didn't take a big enough step. Next.
Mike Swenson
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Bonny Wayman
Yeah, you're talking about the like six unit apartment complex. Yeah, it was great. Honestly, it's a lot easier and I know people say this that like multifamily is easier than single family, but it really is. Like the financing was simple. The property, it was a, it was in 2020, started 2020 when I bought that one. So the market wasn't super hot yet. So it was really, really simple. It is based on noi and not necessarily the value of the property or what Betty's house next door sold to. And so it makes it less emotional in purchasing, it makes it less emotional in financing. Like the numbers are what they are and so it's easier to calculate the appraisal. The property closed. I love multifamily. I still love small multifamily even though I'm on the syndication side as well. Because you can own it by yourself. You don't have investors that you're dealing with. It doesn't allow you to scale the same way, but you are just in control more. But you have enough tenants to balance each other out. So if one tenant leaves or is crazy and you have to evict them, you still have like on that property, five other tenants paying your rent. And that's really why I moved from the single family rentals into the small multifamily is that consistency in income. And if you have a water heater that goes out and it's $5,000, you know you still have rent coming in from five or six tenants to help you cover those expenses though I also have a capex budget saved but just to it it makes it less risky, less up and down, more consistent if you have more tenants in one building.
Mike Swenson
And I know, you know I started with helping people buy a lot of duplexes and triplexes and fourplexes. So moving from that to five plus where you get into the commercial loan. It's the best of both worlds because from a lending side to your point, it is easier. It's a matter of just finding the right properties that fit. And then two, usually. Yeah. With a five plex, it's. It's still one roof, it's still one exterior. It's still one set of stairs, probably one water heater, probably one, you know, furnace, depending on how it's set up. And so you do have that economy of scale and you don't have to worry about, like, with a duplex. You know, some of my clients, it's like, well, we've got, you know, one person moved out. It's going to take a month or two or three before somebody else comes in. Now I'm only getting half of my income. Five units. You can. You can weather the storm much better. You know, four. Four people out of five coming in and paying. You're still getting 80% versus 50%. So just that small shift can make a huge difference. And then growing into the larger apartments, it's that to another level.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, but it's easier. And again, it's a great stepping stone for the comfort level. Right. That was really scary buying that six unit that first time because I went from one to six. But now I feel comfortable with that. And I know that I can operate that. So it helps me feel more com. It helped me feel more comfortable as I went up into the larger apartment complexes.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Now, talk about Wild Oak Capital and moving to the syndication. So you'd already mentioned you met him at a meetup and eventually joined up with them. So share more about that.
Bonny Wayman
The one thing I missed from my corporate world life was being part of a team. And so I realized that buying rental properties by yourself is great for cash flow, but it's just you. Right. And so you're not part of a team. And I miss that camaraderie piece. And so what I realized is that I wanted to be part of a bigger team doing bigger deals and have that. That relationship piece. I'm a big relationship person, and so I miss that. And so that's what I was looking for when I went up to Eric at the meetup, who's the head of Wild Oak Capital or the founder of Wild Oak Capital. And I have a operations brain. I'm pretty structured. I'm like project management, event management. That's kind of how my brain works. And I went up and I said, you know, do you need someone like that on your team? And he had just been growing. He's a very big visionary. And he was like, yes, oh my God. We need someone to come in and kind of help keep things going on the back end. And what I've seen in the syndication space is that that's really common, right? You have some people with some big visions, big goals. They come in, they raise money, they buy some apartment complexes, and then they're moving on to the next one to buy more apartment complexes. And my role now as the asset manager and then what I do with aligned asset management is I come in and say, okay, it's great we bought these, but you also have to manage them very carefully in order to get these returns that you've promised your investors before you exit. So that's what I do with Wild Oak Capital, though. Now I'm involved on all stages of deals. I help with deal flow and analyzing deals and due diligence, but then also operating that deal to help our investors hit the returns that we promised.
Mike Swenson
So you're in Colorado. Your focus with Wild Oak is not in Colorado. So talk about purchasing property in other states. And in some ways people say, like, I get it, it's just another location, but at the same time, it's a little different when you can't just drive down the street and go touch that property or pop in and see how things are doing and you know, be a surprise shopper and be like, hey, how are things going? How do things look? And so it's, it's that next except extension of risk taking, kind of like we've talked about here in the past. So talk about how to work with people and successfully and confidently report to your investors like, hey, things are going good when you're not eyes on the ground like you are with your six unit.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah. And to be clear, my small multifamily are in Colorado, but they're actually a five hour drive away. So I'm even not boots on the ground there. I live in a small, very expensive mountain town, so investing here is mostly silly. So in terms of managing properties where I am not boots on the ground, for us, our property manager is everything. And we actually have formed relationships with a couple property managers and we will not buy properties where they will not go because it is such a make or break. And like you're saying, I can't pop in and secret shop them whenever I want. And so the trust needs to be there, the relationship needs to be there. We need a sophisticated organization with great people on the ground. And, you know, we do make it a priority to get to our properties. You know, we're probably looking at other deals, maybe we're looking at another deal in the area. So we'll pop by our property while we've already flown out there or if there's a conference nearby, you know, we'll pop over and drive and check our properties. But it's not the same as living in the area where I'm driving by my property every day. So that relationship and that trust with our property managers is everything.
Mike Swenson
And then talk about the uniqueness of your market versus obviously you just mentioned like being in an expensive mountain town. You can't make it work where you're at or the numbers don't pencil in the same way. So what is it about your markets where you're at? Because it's Oklahoma and Arkansas, right?
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, we love Oklahoma and Arkansas and we're in some different patches of those states. But the cost of living is really affordable. There's population growth and we have a great tenant base. You know, most of our properties have good, good working class people. We like the tenant laws in those states. For the times that we end up with a tenant that's not so great. We do have a property in Texas. The property taxes in Texas are pretty tricky. We also like Oklahoma and Arkansas. The insurance premiums aren't as crazy as anything coastal. We also. The other thing that's kind of unique about our buy box or our target markets is that we focus more on a little bit smaller properties. So a lot of the institutional groups, they're looking for two to 500 unit properties or portfolios. And we've really found luck with the, let's say 50 to 150 unit properties where you're, that property is small enough that those large institutional groups aren't looking at it. So we don't have that competition and we can really be the market experts in those areas. For you know, if an 80 unit apartment complex comes up in Tulsa, you know, the brokers know that that's something that we can operate, we can close on. And our property managers are skilled at operating not only properties because normally if you're under 100 units or 80 units, you can't really afford a full time on site maintenance person and property manager. So those are trickier. Right. But you have to choose your hard and so we choose that hard sometimes and balance, you know, a part time manager that we split with somebody else and we're able to get better deals that way.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And you know, to your point, just to dig in a little Bit deeper on property management is like that. That's huge for. For people that. Yeah, as you're scaling to something larger, it is everything. Because they're the boots on the ground, they're the ones collecting the rent, they're the ones taking care of the tenants, making sure that tenants feel comfortable and confident and want to stick around. Otherwise you've got the high turnover. And then as we get into the asset management side, making sure that when you're going to an investor saying, here's what's going to happen with this property, they're actually helping to execute on that too. And you're working with them as the asset manager to make those decisions.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, absolutely. And even I've worked with property managers outside of ours where they'll tell you whatever you want in the underwriting phase when you're under contract because they're trying to get you as the client, and then turns out, oopsie daisy, they can't execute on that, you know. And so that goes back to the relationship piece with the property managers is we trust, you know, we take deals before we put an loi out to them and say, here's our underwriting. How do you feel about our rents? Do you think these are achievable? You know, what do you think about our management expenses? Is that something you feel comfortable with? So that when we. When we close, when we're pitching this to our investors, we feel confident this is actually something we can execute on, not. The property manager was just selling us these numbers so we would choose them, and now we're not going to be able to hit that.
Mike Swenson
So you've got a few folks with Wild Oak. So talk about, as you grow and you've got a group of people working to acquire properties, maybe how you guys split up the workload and how that works out based on interest level and skills and abilities.
Bonny Wayman
I'm really blessed to be part of the Wild Oak team. And there's some incredibly. Actually, everybody on the team is incredibly smart. It's taken some work. There's about five of us that are involved in the process. We have someone on our team who's an expert in underwriting. And so he's always the first person. Donovan is his name. He does the first round of underwriting on all our deals and tells us, like, are we even ballpark to do the offering? And then Eric is the best at negotiations and broker relations. And so oftentimes Eric is the person taking that loi and working with the brokers. Shane is on our team. He's maybe one of the smartest people I've ever met in the way that his brain can see numbers and understand properties and understand neighborhoods. And so Shane does a lot of kind of the. The planning for the property and where it can go. And then I'm doing a lot of the numbers in the background and a lot of the coordination with the property managers and renovations and capex and vendors. And then Ben is also great with brokers and contracts. And so it's like every little piece kind of moves between us. And it has taken us a while, I would say, to get our rhythm where we're not stepping on each other's toes, but also putting in where we're, where our skill sets are. And then capital raising, of course, that.
Mike Swenson
Was going to be my next question is capital raising. So talk a little bit about how you have the deal set up and how you're going to investors to have them partner with you.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, so all of our deals we do are 506B, so none of them are marketed. So it's all relationships. And I will say this is not my strong suit. I would say I'm the asset manager. I am not particularly involved on the capital raising side. So Eric, Ben and Shane are the main people who do the capital raising for our group. And I try and stay in my lane and stay focused on the asset management piece. But they have built relationships with people and successfully done deals, which also helps bring more people after you've gone full cycle through a deal. And so, you know, sending the emails and following up with investors, that's all their lane.
Mike Swenson
And it's cool to see all those different pieces work together because there's a lot of work to do, especially as you get to a portfolio of your size. And so to have a great team where everybody's working in unison, it's awesome.
Bonny Wayman
It is amazing. And I also think, you know, from the asset management side, we've gone out and like gotten other clients and it has really helped me appreciate how much I like the people, the guys at Wild Oak, you know, it's. It's a lot and it's stressful when you're talking the last 30 days before closing and lenders are changing their mind and investors are backing out, like, it's a stressful thing. And so to work with people that are good humans is the most important. Right. Because it's going to get sketchy at some point, things are going to get funky and you have to be on the same page as your colleagues and you have to know that they are good humans and that you trust them to do the right thing. And so I'm incredibly grateful for that. I don't think that everybody has that experience in this space. And it's the most important thing for me. Right. Work with people that are smart, that are good people, that are also fun, you know, and you can go have a beer with and relax and enjoy.
Mike Swenson
Let's dig in a little bit to the asset management piece. Kind of your calling card or your specialty here. So talk about what you do on the asset management side, how that looks and why it's so important to what we're feeding our investors.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah. I'm going to use a little analogy that I think is helpful. And it's a football analogy. So. Because a lot of people, a lot of people get asset management and property management confused. And that is. That makes sense. For the most part, asset management is on bigger properties. So let's say 20 to 50 units and above, you probably have an asset manager. If you're talking about a duplex, you do not need an asset manager. You just need a property manager. But on a bigger, more complicated deal, the asset manager on a football team is the coach and the property manager is the quarterback. And so the asset manager or the coach is coming into the game with a big game plan. They did a bunch of research on the competitors. They did a bunch of planning with their team. They have their budget and their uniforms and all of this stuff planned for the game. And then they have the whole game plan laid out and they tell the quarterback to go execute. And then your quarterback is your property manager. They're the boots on the ground. They're throwing, they're blocking, they're tackling. Like, they're in charge of what is happening on the field. And I always say, like, if you have a great quarterback or a great property manager, you might give them a little bit more space to make a play call. But if that's somebody new, if that's your redshirt freshman out there, you're going to hold those strings a little tighter and be a little bit more involved. And so that's the same with asset management. In property management, like, if we're taking over a new property and we have a new property manager, we're going to be talking every week. I'm going to be looking at every single number. And then as we build that relationship and as they get more experienced with our standards, then maybe that goes to every other week. So the asset manager is in charge of executing the business plan. And this is often on the syndication side where we pitched investors at the beginning. Hey, investor, here's your cash on cash. Here's your, you know, here's our plan to renovate the units and increase rents. A hundred dollars per unit. My job is to take that look at the big picture and say, okay, how are we going to execute this day by day to hit that long term goal. So I'm working with the property manager saying, okay, we have three units coming up, which ones are we going to renovate? To which level are we going to renovate? How much are we going to spend on that renovation and what's the roi? How much do we need to make in rent growth to make that renovation worth it? Or should we just paint it and put a new floor and put someone in, you know, what's the better spend? So those are the types of decisions that the asset manager is making and why you need an asset manager and a property manager for a higher level property. The other thing I do a lot of is I on our team, I do investor relations as well.
Mike Swenson
I mean, hugely important because you know, let's just say quick and dirty numbers. If we tell somebody, you know, we're going to double the value of this asset in five years buying something for let's say $2 million and then we sell it for four. Well, if the property manager doesn't do a good job or if the asset manager doesn't do a good job, you might hit at three and a half million and leave $500,000 on the table. So like those things are really important. So I think a lot of times we focus on getting a good deal, which is really, which is also really important. However, if you can't take the value from where it is to where it needs to go, then yeah, you have to answer to your investors and say, we, we missed the mark here and so how did we miss the mark? And that's the, the value of the property management and asset management. You've got to have the strategy and they've got to execute the strategy right?
Bonny Wayman
And you think about your property manager on site. They're dealing with maintenance orders and angry tenants. And I mean it is a thankless job. Bless the people on site and. But they have a unit coming up and they know their goal is to keep occupancy at 95%. So if there's not an asset manager looking at the bigger picture, that property manager, not because they're not intelligent, but just because they're just in the weeds trying to get things done, they're just going to flip it and rent it out for whatever it rent will get somebody in the door. Right. And again, that's not because they're bad, it's just because they're in the weeds and they're really busy. And so if you can just keep that higher level perspective to help them be like, hold on, I know we need that occupancy, but should we renovate this unit? You know, that's how you keep your business plan on track. Because you can't buy an apartment complex is a business. You can't just buy it, hand it over to the property manager who has thousands of clients like you and expect that in five years it's going to be ready to sell.
Mike Swenson
And in a lot of ways, I mean, no fault of their own, we all do this at times. It's a little bit of the path of least resistance. Right. Like we're going to, let's see, we're going to choose to do something more challenging or just do what we need to do because it's easier at the time. And like I remember as an example, we got a quote on a project that we were working on and, and we got the bid back and it was a little bit higher than what we had thought. And so I went back to the property manager and said, hey, is this truly the best you think we can do? Should we reach out to somebody else? Or like, if this is somebody that you've worked with before, they're very reliable, then maybe this is the path that we move forward with. Well, he's like, I'll see what I can do, come back. It's like a week and a half or two weeks later and we got a quote that was about 30% less than what that quote was. And so now if that person does a bad job, then it might end up costing us more than the original quote. So then I'm coming back to the property manager saying, hey, do you feel comfortable in this quote? Do you feel like these people can execute it at a level that it's going to get the job taken care of? And so it's just that little bit of extra accountability there that's going to make a big difference. But you know, we just saved thousands of dollars on the bottom line, assuming this company can do a good job. But we're still putting our trust in the property manager to vet the, the people that they're working with as well because they've worked with them on other jobs for other properties, for other people.
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, I always say asset management and why I love it is it's a balance of people and numbers. Right. So there's that trust and the relationship and the communication. That's part of the role. And then it's also looking at the numbers, and it's like this whole puzzle of people and numbers together.
Mike Swenson
Absolutely. Anything more that you want to add here that we haven't covered yet?
Bonny Wayman
No, I think this has been a fun conversation.
Mike Swenson
Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing. For people that want to reach out to you, learn more about you and Wild Oak and Aligned Asset Management. How can they do so?
Bonny Wayman
Yeah, I actually have a website which is just Bonny Wayman dot com. It's B O N N Y W A Y m a n.com and there's links to Aligned Asset Management as well as Wild Oak there and a contact form. I'd love to hear from anybody. I can talk real estate all day, so I'd love to hear from anybody.
Mike Swenson
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Bonny, for coming on. We appreciate it. Excited to see what you guys continue to do and how you can continue to grow. It'll be a fun ride.
Bonny Wayman
Thanks, Mike, for having me on. I appreciate it.
