Lorraine Beato: Flipping The Switch From Agent To Investor
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON:
Lorraine Beato started trading mortgage-backed securities on Wall Street and doing appraisals in one of New York's most affluent counties. Eventually, she got her real estate license and now works in the Atlanta area of Georgia. In addition to being an agent, she's an experienced real estate investor. Encouraging agents to invest in the thing you sell every day, she has a passion for helping agents build their wealth through investing, which inspired her to write the book "Flip The Switch: From Real Estate Agent to Real Estate Investor." She shares her story of growing her investment portfolio, tips for how agents can become investors, and for how she provided unparalleled customer service to her clients by genuinely listening to them and solving their problems.
In this episode hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- How Lorraine was able to start as an investor and grow her portfolio while still helping clients as an agent
- How she was able to get paid $5,000 to take over a property that is now worth $150,000+
- Why is Lorraine's business is 100% word of mouth
- How important it is to listen to your clients' needs and problems to help solve them
- How Lorraine helps a client going difficult situations to get to the next chapter in their life
- The one conversation that launched the idea for her book "Flip The Switch" and how she was able to write it in about a week
- How you're able to get paid in multiple ways as an investor vs just earning a commission as an agent
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro To Lorraine's Career
1:52 - Working A Full-Time Job While Doing Appraisals
11:17 - Staying In Touch With Clients
16:10 - Serving People > Commission Check
23:03 - Importance Of Conversation With Your Clients
26:49 - Flip The Switch: From Idea To A Book
32:52 - How One Relationship Lead To A $5 Million Deal
38:10 - How To Find Lorraine
FOLLOW LORRAINE:
https://lorrainebeato.com/
https://www.facebook.com/lorraine.beato
https://www.instagram.com/LorraineBeato
https://www.linkedin.com/in/LorraineBeato
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome everybody to another episode of The REL Freedom Podcast where we talk about building wealth and gaining time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. And one of the things that I've been extremely passionate about and today's guest is extremely passionate about is agents becoming investors. And we've highlighted people who have, you know, had successful agent businesses, people who have been investors, some people, investors who have never been agents, but at the same time, you are living in a playground that has a tonne of opportunity for you to build wealth. And so today's guest we have as Lorraine Beato, and she's going to talk about her passion, which is agents becoming real estate investors. And actually, she's written the book on it, flip the switch from real estate agent to real estate investor, it talks a lot about what's going to be a lot of what we chat about today, just a little bit of a background about her in the Atlanta area has had a background trading mortgage-backed securities on Wall Street, she's been an appraiser in New York enjoys breathing new life into historic properties fix and flip is really kind of your niche of what you like doing and you are under contract, I should mention on a $5 million self-storage unit. So we'll talk about that a little bit as well. You've also led the Atlanta chapter of Ren women in real estate, and really your passion is helping others in terms of investing in real estate. And that's been evident, just through our conversations already. So welcome, Lorraine to the show. We're so excited to have you.
Lorraine Beato
Oh, thank you so much. It's my pleasure.
Mike Swenson
Why don't you just start by sharing a little bit of your background and what you did previous to real estate and how that led to you getting into real estate?
Lorraine Beato
Yeah, no, absolutely. So as you touched on it, I started in corporate America, I worked on what is now ground zero. And we're a financial center in New York for Merrill Lynch and I was on the mortgage-backed securities trading floor. I started as an intern, and then I worked for them full-time when I graduated college. And when I graduated college, my best friend at the time said, Oh, well, why don't we give a real estate less? License just for like, can I say this for shits and giggles? Was what she said? And I said, Okay, fine, you know, let's, let's go do that. But I never, I never actually sold in New York, I worked full time. But um, you know, reading the art of the deal is kind of was kind of like my push into real estate. And I decided to actually become an appraiser because it was something I could do on the weekends. So I was in, I worked full time, did appraisals on the weekends, and absolutely loved it.
Lorraine Beato
So I have always been tied to real estate. I feel like from day one. And when we relocated to Atlanta back in '96, January '96. So okay, this is great. I get to be a stay-at-home mom. And you know, I want to raise my daughter who was not quite to yet when we moved. And after 90 days, I was going bananas, because I went from working a full corporate job doing appraisals on the weekends, to being in a new city with no family. Really no friends because it was a corporate relocation. They're like General Motors, like okay, you're in Atlanta, in 90 days. So we came in a weekend, you know, we drove around for three days, we picked a lot, built a house and cross our fingers. Um, and so then I had my license transfer, there was reciprocity. And I had my license transferred to work for a company, I don't think they exist anymore in Atlanta, and then dabbled here and there, because, what was most important to me was raising my daughter at that point in time, but I needed to get out of the house. So a couple of sales didn't do a whole lot.
Lorraine Beato
And then we started buying investment properties. My next-door neighbor had, you know, done a weekend course here in Atlanta. And with he's still around, John Adams has been around for eons. And we're like, okay, you know, maybe we should do this. So we bought a couple of rentals and didn't really do much else. And then I jumped back in and Oh, three, I had my other daughter at that point. And so I worked around their schedules. And 2010 I think it was I was bought buying foreclosures at the courthouse steps with a friend of mine, I was helping them facilitate purchasing at the steps. They were doing, fix and flip. And then we did a boot camp, one of the big guru boot camps out in Texas in 2013. And that was kind of my foray into the fix and flip space, the hard money space. Cash Flow Properties that was 2013 was kind of what really catapulted us to, you know, to where we are now, but yeah, technically I've been a licensed agent for a very long time.
Mike Swenson
So what is it that really attracted you to the idea of investing in real estate? What was kind of that focus for you? What did you want to do with it?
Lorraine Beato
So in 2013, after we did that boot camp, you know, we were on this big Facebook group. And a couple of months later, probably four or five months later, I started having people reach out to me saying, hey, you know, we want to invest in the Atlanta market. And I was just posting because of my background, I started posting information as to why people's deals didn't make sense, right? Like your deal doesn't make sense. Because you're not taking into account carrying costs. Your deal doesn't make sense, because you're not taking into account the realtor commission that you're going to have to pay or the on the other end. Okay, your private lending, you need to make sure your position is secure. So I built an organic following, without even realizing what I was doing. Because someone called me and like, this is awesome. You know, all of your content is organic. And I said, What does that mean?
Mike Swenson
It's different than today in terms of organic.
Lorraine Beato
But even back then I'm like, Well, what are you talking about, right? And so I kind of became the point person, and I had investors at one point, it was 2014 or 2015, I don't remember at this point. But I was managing five projects I had out-of-state investors, and I helped them acquire the property, I manage the renovation I did, the design finishes, and then I put the property on the market for them. They never saw the property other than pictures. And so when I was coming out of the closings, and I'm looking at, like what they made compared to what I made, I'm like, shoot, I should be doing this because I helped them. I found the property for them, it got to where I had built the trust that I was selling deals off-market deals via text message. Here's the purchase price, his ARV the after-repair value, and here's your budget. Um, you know, and they were buying that, I mean, I got deals done in 20 minutes, because I had built that trust, and that integrity, and the good part of it being an agent, I created my listing inventory. So I had an extra two and a half million dollars in listing inventory, you know, that year, and but I said, that's what got me to flip the switch. And I'm going, okay, like I'm making, you know, 10-12 grand, which is good money, but they're making like 75, 100, or 125 shoots, you know, we need to be doing this. So that was kind of my, my real push into the investing space.
Mike Swenson
And I think a lot of agents are short-sighted in their thinking, like they, you know, they treat it like a sales job. I've talked about this previously, where it's like, they just think, Well, I do sales in this other industry, or I do sales in real estate. And so if I can't cut it in real estate, I'm gonna go back to my other sales job. And it's like, no, you're sitting on a goldmine here of opportunity. And you have to figure out how to turn that those sales techniques into building wealth. And as you said, it's just as simple as you look at what the commission is, which people outside of real estate would say, oh, my gosh, realtors get paid a tonne of money. What did they do for that? And you're looking at saying, Man, I'm not making nearly as much as what I could be making if I was on the investor side. And so it's been smart enough and logical enough to turn that sales mindset into a wealth-building mindset.
Lorraine Beato
Yeah, 100%. And I updated the stats in my book, but I think it was 2020 stats, this was for Atlanta, the average real estate agent made it was 44,000 or 47,000. And the average real estate investor in Atlanta made 123,000 Which is triple the amount of money. And that's crazy. And I'm not saying you have to go be a full-time investor. But if you could do you know, and I never did, like 100 deals a year, but if you can do two or three a year, shoot, you know, a that's great money. If you keep it for cash flow, then you're building wealth and you have passive income. There's just so much more, there's just so much more.
Mike Swenson
Because you look at it, you know, fixing and flipping is, you know, one strategy that people use, sometimes people that do fix and flips, you know, view it as in some ways, it's a sales job, it's a higher price point, which is nice, but in some ways, you don't have any trailing, you know, the residual income coming from that because if I don't do a flip, I don't make money. And so that's where you have to be smart enough to think through okay, you know, sometimes when I talk with investors, it's like you have to let the property speak to you of what's the strategy here. It could be a fix and flip it could be a, you know, a buy and hold. It could be you flip it and decide to hold it. But you do want to have your mindset on some sort of holdings long term where you're building cashflow because you can flip but if the flip doesn't happen, or if you go on vacation and the flip, stop. Now you've got to figure out how to keep that income coming in. And so some sort of buy and hold strategy to build cashflow is the long-term wealth. And so it's having that mindset of going from sales to potentially larger sales with a flip to hold to build that residual income.
Lorraine Beato
Yeah, and the one thing I want real estate especially now, right? Well, for the most part, we're all in shifting markets. Atlanta is still in my opinion, we have so many people moving here, we have two months of inventory, and there's like nothing for sale, especially in the suburbs. It's identifying opportunities. And, you know, most real estate agents are conditioned to the point that the only way they're going to make money is by putting a sign in the yard. And nothing frustrates me more than, you know, real estate agents like, Well, yeah, let's go put it on the market and not listening to their clients. Because I'm in a Facebook group, where, you know, there's a couple of us that we find our job is to find solutions for our clients. And putting a sign in the yard is not always, you know, what best serves the client. And I've seen people say, Well, you know, there's one person I'm thinking of empathy, you're like, Well, you just screwed the seller. And I'm like, if the seller told you what they want it, and you gave the seller what they wanted. Why are you arguing? It's not, it's not up to you to tell the seller what's in their best interest.
Lorraine Beato
And I'll give you an example. Um, right before the pandemic hit, then I have the case study in my book, cuz that's the other thing people like, nobody ever tells you how to do it. I had met with somebody at this point. So it was 2020. So I've met so we're in 23. Now. So it's fine. In five or six years, I had had a conversation with this woman. I met her at a party. She called me up, we're friends on Facebook. And she had a property that she wanted to sell. Went out there. I looked at the property. I went through it with her and she's like, you know, what, what do you think? I said, Well, let me run comps, and she was $20,000, upside down. Okay, she owed 90, it was worth 70. And I said, Look, is your tenant a pain? She says no, and I said, Chevrolet. She said, No, she's a great tenant. She's been here for years. I just don't know that I want to be a landlord. And I said, Look, even if I listed it for free, you're coming to the table with 20 grand. If she's not a pain, then leave your tenant alone.
Lorraine Beato
And just keep Are you cash flowing? She said yes. This isn't keeping a cash flow. All right. She called me in January 2020. And she said, Hey, Lorraine, do you remember that property that I had? And I said I do. And she said the guy next door? Just put lipstick on a pig and sold for 220? For Yeah, for 221. And I said to her, Okay, well, let me come back out. Let me go look at it. Let me run some comps. And I'll get back to you. I hadn't talked to this woman in two or three years, like, oh, she'd been following me on Facebook. And I said, Alright, I he didn't want to put lipstick on a pig. But I think Alright, maybe we can get you 110 If not 210, rather, as opposed to 21.
Lorraine Beato
And I said or maybe all buy it. And so I went out there and I looked at it and I had explained to her my favorite strategy is buying subject to so subject to the existing mortgage. And we went out there and we talked and we went through the property and she's like, What are you thinking? And I explained to her what the subject was, and she said, I think I want to do the thing you talked about. And I said, Alright, fine. But long story short, we talked, and I went through it. She goes, I was thinking five. And I said, Well, let me see in my mind thinking she wanted five brands. And she turned around, she looked at me she's like, which reminds me of Willis from different trips, when you're talking about the rain, like that kind of deep voice. And I said she goes, No, I want to pay you five grand to take over the property. Mike, I was floored, as I had heard of people paying people to take over a property. But I always thought it was total BS.
Lorraine Beato
And that's when I stopped and I looked at her and I asked her what is going on because like, look, I can put it on the market like we can get you some money. She said I just want to walk away. She said God told me it's time to sell. I don't want to displace my tenant. That was her main thing her tenant had been such a good tenant, and she didn't want to displace her tenant. And she just wanted to walk away. She didn't care. And so I acquired a cash-flowing property where the site and I told her I said I can't take five grand, I'll do 2500 I acquired a cash-flowing property, um, got $2,500 in the process. And now that property is worth about $100,000. More, more than that price about $150,000 more than what I took it over for the mortgage. So no, you don't always have to have a lot of money and I solved her. She was as happy as could be to the point that she called me every month and said Do you want my other property? And I kept saying no, it's too far. No, it needs 20 grand and rehab. No, it's too far. And I did finally buy it a year later in which she offered to pay the mortgage for six months while I rehabbed it, and she replaced the stolen plumbing. And she replaced the HVAC that was stolen. And what else did she do? She upgraded the electricals, you never know what motivates or drives people.
Mike Swenson
One thing that I'm thinking about as you're sharing that story is because I hear a lot of people, you know, talk about, you can get into real estate investing with little to no money down, which is true. And in some ways to like you, you earned that opportunity, because of the conversations you have and the experience you have. And so you know, somebody that wants to get into investing in real estate brand new that that gal is not going to come to them and be like, Hey, you take this over, it's because you're seen as a professional in the industry, you've consulted with her, helped her. So for people listening, that are looking to get into real estate investing for little or no money down. You have to earn, you have to earn some of those breaks, and it takes time to get those things. Yes, you can have that opportunity you might have, you know, that gal relative might have been able to help out. But it's because you've positioned yourself as somebody that helps investors, a go-to resource for people that they trust you. And you've built that relational capital where you can get those opportunities. And so it can happen early in your career. It can happen later in your career, but those types of things do come along.
Lorraine Beato
Yeah, they do. Absolutely. And that was the other thing. Like when I sat down, I actually stopped and I asked her, I said, what's going on? I said I know you have a son in the military. I said I know your grandson is probably what, seven or eight by now. And she said yeah, my son's in the Army, Air Force, my grandsons seven turning eight. How do you remember all of this stuff? And I think that the other key thing is real estate agents. At the end of the day, we're there to help people. Sometimes we just need to shut up and listen to people's pain points. What drives them? Right? What motivates them? And I think that's the other CAMI My business is 100% Word of mouth, all of it. I've never bought leads, I don't pay for leads. I don't believe in them. I don't do it. Um, so yeah, you're right.
Lorraine Beato
But even as new agents, if you have relationships with people that you have started to build, you know, it's served them. I came from a place of service. I told her what I thought was in her best interest all those years ago, and wasn't worried about what were listed as lessons. That wasn't the right thing to do. And I think so often real estate agents get caught up in that desperation of I need a sale, that they think more about a unit the commission check than they do about serving people.
Mike Swenson
And another thing to think about because I have a similar story, well, not not a story where somebody paid us to take on a property, but help to help them think through their solution. We had a residential client that came to us looking to sell a townhouse. And she wanted to move up into a larger property. And the agent on our team said, Hey, instead of selling it, have you thought about renting it out? And could you afford you know, the new mortgage on your new property and still rent this property out? So she went through the process, and we were able to figure it out. And so she ended up not selling and holding it? Well, fast forward a couple of years, this was just after COVID. Fast forward a couple of years, and she's cash flowing about $1,000 a month because she had a mortgage, she bought the property like 20 years ago. So she had a low mortgage, she had a great rate, and she's able to rent it out for now, like I said, she's making about $1,000 a month, and she now has her new property. And so she reached back out to us within the last month or two and said, Hey, this is a pretty good thing. What's the next thing I can do now?
Mike Swenson
You know, and I think that's the thing too, that people when, when I talked about agents being short-sighted is they think about that one sale, this time, we still got the buy side, we didn't help with the listing side, because they held it. But now she's coming back saying, hey, what do I do next? And that's the cool thing about investors they might want to buy once every year, or two or three, or if you get somebody great, they might want to buy 10 properties in a year. And so the more you help them build wealth, the more how you help them earn income on their properties, the more opportunities you have to help them as a client
Lorraine Beato
100%! That you're exactly right. And because they will come back, they'll remember what you did for them. And they will come back and exactly to your point, you know, some of those investors that I had, you know, back in, like, 2014 2015, they didn't do one deal with me. They did 5678 deals with me. And they kept coming back and she has since come back, you know, she's she now has another property. And I'm like, Okay, I think I'm you know, I think I'm good for now because it's just too far. And for me, it doesn't work. I like to be able to drive to myself where I'm not driving for two and a half hours. Um, but you know, I refer to someone else. And, you know, that's what it's all about. And then she sent other people to me. And it's building that relationship capital 100%
Mike Swenson
The worst thing that happens in the future is you have to refer that out to somebody else, but you're in control of your business. And you can make those decisions. If you want to drive for two hours, great. If you don't want to drive two hours, that's fine, but helping Keep ultimately is what builds and grows your business in that way, you know, you've earned that trust, and they still come back to you. And yeah, you get a referral commission out of it if you want to, and you don't do any, any new work for that property, but it's because of the trust you earn. They came to you.
Lorraine Beato
That's a big piece of it. And that's a way it's it real estate agents can identify opportunities, you know, where it's a win-win for both sides, right, it was a win for her because she got to walk away and move to Florida. And it was a win for me, because not only did I get one cash-flowing property, I got to cash-flow properties. And, um, you know, she's still reaching out to me, as I said, she has the other one. And I'm like, No, it's just too far. But I've, I've had a couple of those scenarios. And, um, you know, even another one, I had gone on a listing appointment, and I told the guy, I said, Look, you know, I can put it on the market, he's like, I just want a cash offer. Like, if I can get you 30, grand more, he's like, I don't care, whatever, whatever, whatever you can get above X number, you can put in your pocket. That's a little that's not how it works. You know, we can't we can't do that here in Georgia, I think somebody said it's called a net listing.
Lorraine Beato
I wound up getting a hedge fund to buy it because that's the other thing. Once you get into the investment space, just connect with as many people as you can. Got him what he wanted, gave him more than what he wanted. At the end of the day. I still got paid, I still got paid, because the hedge fund paid me. So it was still a win-win. It's just understanding there are more ways to do things, you know, than just putting a sign in the yard.
Mike Swenson
And the other thing that I've learned being in the investing space, too, is not everybody, you know, I had spent six years in residential real estate, and it was always and we were focused on listings, and it's always top dollar and realizing that, yeah, not everybody's motivated by top dollar. Would people like to have a lot of money? Yes. But a lot of these investors, it is solving problems like your previous example, she wanted to be able to walk away the mental strain of managing a property, even if it's a tenant, that's pain, there's still mental strain there. There's still stress there, that they don't want to deal with. And so they're okay, giving up some money, you know, we would all think top dollar. But that's not always the case. It's about problem-solving, and finding solutions to help people. And as you said, in this case, yeah, maybe not everybody wants to list a property. And get it all spick and span and ready to go to show. They just want to be able to take an easier offer for less. And so that's sometimes it takes a while the, you know, having been so ingrained in residential real estate about a top dollar that yeah, people aren't always motivated by that they're motivated by ease, simplicity. Not having to go public with listings. And that's where you can find good deals as well. But they're just as happy because you're providing them with solutions to their problems.
Lorraine Beato
The house needed some work, he had gone through a nasty divorce. His words to me were, I'm embarrassed, I'll never forget this, his worst me where I am embarrassed to have people come through my house. That was his biggest concern. And when we got done, and we got out of the closing, he was so happy. And he said, You've helped me start a new chapter in my life that I wouldn't have had otherwise, I've left some bad memories behind. And I'm glad to be out of the house and moving to a new place. So you never know what drives someone. And it's important, it's important to have those conversations and find out what's true, you know, driving them. As I said, he didn't care about the money didn't matter.
Mike Swenson
So for those of you listening, just to think through these opportunities, like Yeah, take your normal mindset about being a residential agent and just ask some other questions here of what would happen if I started to help people in this way and think with a long term mentality, versus just thinking about somebody called me up, they want to list their house and I want to make a sale. But how can you have this long-term mindset and you'll be able to accumulate some of these assets over time, find these good deals, and it doesn't have to be, Hey, I was a residential agent. And now I only work with investors that can happen over time, you're just kind of picking up little pieces along the way. And soon your journey looks a lot different because you've become an investor, maybe you've made larger returns, or you have some cash-flowing properties, and you have some residual income coming in. And one of the things that I've always been passionate about too is I talked to my agents about running into the wind versus running and having the wind at your back as you start to pick up some of these assets. Now the winds are at your back so in an in an economic challenging time where sales go down, you have something else to stand on, instead of just your sales and it's not going to necessarily happen overnight. But uh Little by little 234 years from now, your financial situation will look a lot different than it does today. If you pick up some of these assets and start building wealth by investing in real estate and finding these deals versus just being only focused on sales.
Lorraine Beato
I'm having more and more of those conversations. You know, as we're in a shifting market, I have these conversations when buyers can get under contract, I had an agent who begged me for my clients to take her client's VA offer because it's worth 06 houses and no one would accept the VA offer. And she was sharing with me that her husband wanted her to retire. And she couldn't. And I said, Well, why not? And she said because this is my income. I have nothing else. So I asked her the question because we had become friendly. And I said, Well, do you own any other assets to she goes, I own my house? This will do you have anything else? And she said no. So she here's a woman who was 65? Because I asked her, I have no problem asking you questions. And I tell people all the time, you don't have to answer it. If you feel I'm being insensitive. I'm sorry. But because I think people understand I'm coming from a place of trying to help them. She said, I'm 65 years old, her husband I think was 68 or 70. And she said I can't I have no retirement. So here's someone who's 65 years old who's staring at you know, maybe Social Security, which isn't much. And her words were I can't retire. And that's just heartbreaking. That's just heartbreaking for me.
Mike Swenson
So talk a little bit about turning your passion into writing a book. You know, there are a lot of people in real estate that have books or have written books, and people are probably curious. So talk about kind of turning Hey, I've got this, this excitement, I've got this passion and idea that I want to share, how does that turn into your book, flip the switch? Oh,
Lorraine Beato
It was another conversation with a colleague of mine, I don't mention her by name. I told her that she was in my book, but I don't think she believes me. And I was having a conversation with a colleague, and it was July and remember, it was July of 2019. And, you know, we had just been I had just spoken at an event, I had a law firm actually say, Hey, can you come to present your flip the switch? And I said, Yeah, sure. Flip the switch wasn't a book yet flip. The switch was just an idea. And I did the presentation, and it went really, really well. And at the time, kW was having their bowl training in the room next door, because I remember walking out I'm like, what are all these Keller Williams agents doing here? And I was at KW for 10 years, and saw my old team leader and, you know, did the presentation. And so at one point, I stopped and I said, okay, they're in there learning how to prospect during here learning how to build wealth and passive income. So a couple of days later, I spoke to my friend who same thing. She said, Girl, I'm going to have to sell houses until I'm 70. And it kind of blew my mind. And I said, why your multi? This is one as a 10-plus million-dollar producer. Right? So great income and I'm like, What are you talking about? She was complaining about these buyers, and she had been out for a while and she said, You know, I have back problems and my back hurts, but I'm gonna have to sell houses home. 70 She said, You know, I'll be 60 soon because her birthday was the following month. Um, the same thing, I have no retirement. And I sat there and I stopped and I said, What do you mean? And she said, I don't have anything and that's when I stopped and I said to myself, Okay, I'm not a $10 million producer never happen. Don't think I ever will be that's just not my passion. And that's when I realized I at least have passive income coming in. That can help supplement if I'm not selling real estate.
Lorraine Beato
That one conversation was my push. I literally sat down and I wrote my book. There was no ghostwriter. There was no performance I sat down and I wrote my book. I wrote it in about a week. I shared my the very first subject that I'd done that's how I got my lake house and I just shared my stories. And you know, it's kind of in what are the tools that we as real estate agents already have. And why is it important that real estate agents I understand because the other thing that frustrates me is if I see an MLS listing and it says calling all investors $10,000 Below, you know, appraised price, that doesn't work for an investor? And it was kind of those other conversations as well. Real estate agents don't think on the other side of the investor with paying the closing cost when they're buying, right, maybe paying closing costs or seller concessions at closing realtor commissions holding costs, you know, you've got to pay the contractors, you have to have the water on Yeah, you know, and all of these other expenses, then investors in current specifically on fixing flips. And so I kind of go through that, and I break it down. And I'm like, This is why investors buy it. 65 cents or 70 cents on the dollar and really explain it, it sure I tell people, it's tiny, but mighty, because it's only like 85 pages long. But it's straight.
Lorraine Beato
Here's what I did. Here's what you know, here's what you should do. And as I said, I think I have four or five case studies in there on how I've acquired some of the things that I have acquired. And the other one was when my daughter went to college, I don't like paying other people rent. And my daughter hated being in a dorm room. And what we did was we did a fix and flip in Hilton Head, we took that cash, we bought a townhome moved her out of the dorms, and I took an expense. And I made it an asset to grow out of the dorms, we got a three bedroom rented the other two rooms, and now I'm cash flowing, and I have money coming in instead of money going out.
Mike Swenson
Well, that's another good idea to just about thinking differently. I spoke with an investor, maybe it was like two or three months ago, where she purchased a property when her child went to college. And slowly over time, she accumulated another one one and another one, I think she ended up with seven properties. And so she was not urgent to sell. But she's like she said, in all honesty, this is her words like, I don't really need the money. You know, she was renting out seven, seven houses by the room, they were already booked. So this was early 2023, they are already booked through the school year of 2024 and already had leases in place. And she's like, Yeah, I'm kind of looking for probably about this number because honestly, I don't really need the money. She was just looking to walk away, it wasn't a hassle, and she had created a pretty good system around it. But those are the things where one property leads to two properties leads to three properties. And you have to start to think longer, she probably didn't set out to say, I'm going to own seven units. And it's going to be around this college. And here's how much money I'm going to make. But it was just organically, but it's because she thought differently about something when that opportunity presented itself.
Lorraine Beato
We still have it, she's still there that, you know, now we want to sell it and move it into something else. But it's, it's just really it flipping the switch. I mean, that's why I call it to play. It's really thinking differently. I mentioned to you before we hopped on like, now I'm in the self-storage space. Why? Because I don't like paying as we used to. I used to stage our own fixes and flips. So I have two storage units full of furniture, which I keep saying I'm gonna get rid of it. My kids are like, no, like, I want it when I have my own place. And I don't like paying for a storage unit. It kills me that I'm paying someone else for space. So I got involved in the Self Storage space about a year ago. Because I want to get to the point I'm like, Okay, I'll keep a unit for myself and the facility I have under contract now. I'm not purchasing in it, but it came about because I networked, I joined a mastermind. And so now also because I'm a real estate agent. I get the buy side commission. Plus part of the mastermind is I get a finder's fee and I get ownership, I get equity. So that's a slam dunk. I mean that more than paid for the mastermind. And you know, that's kind of the other thing that I think is very important. I was always against spending a lot of money to join some of these higher-level masterminds.
Lorraine Beato
And I finally tracked some people, this one specific one that I wanted to go to, and I tracked these people for a year because I couldn't go and I'm like, Okay, this one's doing well, this one's doing well, that one's doing well. And I bit the bullet, and I paid several 1000s of dollars and I went and the level of people in the room was completely different. And it was from one conversation, one relationship that I built from there a year, not quite a year and a half ago, that now you know, I mean, it's a $5 million deal. You do the math on the commission, plus a finder's fee plus equity. It's it was a slam dunk.
Mike Swenson
And that's the other thing too, because as I'm learning new things in the investment space, yeah, I've spent money on masterminds or coaching groups or things like that, and realizing that for me, I want to get further faster. You know, some times people are like, well, you can watch any video on YouTube about that. Well, you could. But it's also the people, right? And those people can help connect the dots for you more quickly, you could go watch some videos on YouTube about buying a self-storage unit. But it's the connections with those people that are going to be able to say, Well, no, here's how you do it, boom, boom, boom, or introduce you to the right people, the right lenders, be able to make that deal go from open to close, quickly, that's the value of being in the room with those people. So I fully agree investing in your education is really important to be able to grow your learning curve so that you can get those opportunities.
Lorraine Beato
You're paying to compress time. I mean, that's what I call it, right? You have the time or you have the money, you're paying to compress time, and you're paying so that you don't make the same mistakes that some of these other folks, you know, made. And I think the other the other key component is for me at the end of the day, yes, it's about going to an event. And it's about learning. But if I come away, I always try to make one or two impactful connections with people, whether the content was good, whether the content was bad. If I made one or two really great connections with people, you never know where those conversations are going to lead me.
Mike Swenson
Absolutely, you're, you know, I believe you're the right person away from completely transforming your life, it's going to take time, that person might come sooner, that person might come later, or it might be multiple people in smaller chunks. But that's the beauty of networking, as you find that right relationship where that person can open up those doors. And yeah, your life can be completely transformed just by that one connection that you made 100%, it might take a lot of people to get there. And you don't know which one is going to be that one. But two, I think I'm purposeful, in trying to stay in touch with people too because you make a connection, you go to a conference, and how many times it's like, oh, great, let's stay in touch and you don't. And so it's probably the onus that is going to be on you to keep chipping away to keep building that connection. Maybe if that person that you've identified and said, Hey, here's, here's the person I know I want to connect with and build a deeper relationship, you're gonna have to reach out multiple times, they're not just going to be like they might for you be like, Oh, Lorraine, that guy was awesome. I have to stay in touch with her. But a lot of times, it's you consistently reaching out over time. And just checking in checking and checking in is how that relationship can strengthen too.
Lorraine Beato
I think checking in and also, like I said, being genuine in your conversations, and coming from a place of, you know, what, what can I do to help you? And that's kind of what I even do in my emails to people. You know, it's like, you know, how can I help you? What can I do to help you because it's a two-way street? And there's nothing that I hate, more than sometimes a lot of people in there, like, I just want to pick your brain, I just want to pick your brain. And sometimes it's like, okay, you can pick my brain for a little bit. But then there needs to be an exchange, you know, at some point in time, and so I was trying to approach people from how can we collaborate? What can I do to help you get further in your business? And I think that that's all so it's not all about me. It's not me, me, me. It's what can we do together so we can grow together.
Mike Swenson
So for people that want to learn more about you learn more about your book, flip the switch. How can they do so?
Lorraine Beato
So my book flipped the switch is on Amazon. And like I said, it was a passion project that I wrote, I'm not going to get rich off my like $4 from Amazon, it was to truly empower real estate agents to see the tools that they've already got. So I'm very easy to find. I'm my web my non-realtor website is lorrainebeato.com. My phone number is out there. My email is [email protected]. All of my handles on social media are Lorraine Beato. So I'm pretty easy to find.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing. And you know, what, what seems simple for agents sometimes is a little bit more complex, it might be you know, natural for some people to think in this direction. For some people, it just takes more time to see those potential doors opening in their life. But absolutely being in real estate is an entrepreneurial playground where there's just a tonne of opportunity. And so I really appreciate you helping people connect the dots for maybe they haven't connected them themselves and really help them out you know, help them build wealth and find financial freedom and, and cover themselves in a market downturn of sales to have a little bit of residual income coming in, or you're still building wealth along the way, even when you might have a tough sales year in real estate. So thank you so much for for helping other people and helping real estate agents become investors.
Lorraine Beato
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
Mike Swenson
Best of luck! If you have any questions, please reach out to Lorraine. You are just a wealth of information. So thank you so much.
