GI286: Investing in Student Housing with Beth Underhill

GI286: Investing in Student Housing with Beth Underhill

Beth Underhill has been active in construction and real estate for over 20 years. Beth has redeveloped over $5 million in single-family homes and assisted in constructing over $35 million of outdoor living spaces while being a co-GP on over 500 multifamily units and 486 student housing beds.

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Transcript:

Charles:
Welcome to another episode of the Global Investors Podcast. I’M your host, Charles Carillo. Today, we have Beth Underhill. She has been active in construction and real estate for over 20 years. Beth has redeveloped over $5 million in single-family homes and assisted in constructing over $35 million of outdoor living spaces while being a co-GP on over 500 multifamily units and 486 student housing beds. Thank you so much for being on the show!

Beth:
Absolutely. I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Charles:
So, before investing in real estate, if you can tell us a little bit about yourself, both personally and professionally. I read somewhere that you’d been an entrepreneur for over 25 years, is that correct? That

Beth:
Is correct, yes. I I, I, I wanna say that my start really came from actually having a, a W2 job. I was the in my early twenties, I was hired on as the director of catering for a small boutique COFA hotel in Finley, Ohio. And the general manager really gave me free reign to run the department as I saw fit. It was operating in the red prior to my arrival, so I was tasked with turning the department around which came with you know, obviously a number of issues including firing people that were older than me. So that was <laugh>, that was an interesting experience, to say the least. But the fact that he left me alone to run the department really gave me a taste of, oh, this is what it’s like to run my own business and to be in charge and to just, you know, make all the decisions and be responsible for the outcomes associated with those decisions.

Beth:
And so you know, shortly well, I was there for about five years, and then the boutique hotel was sold to Marriott. So I knew that with Marriott coming in, obviously things were gonna be run a bit different, and I would not be able to operate in the same capacity. So I elected to leave the hotel and I moved to Cincinnati, of which then I found a W2 job at a catering facility and quickly realized that I just did not work well underneath people <laugh>. And so I needed to go out and kind of paved my own way. So the first thing I did was actually I became an insurance agent and really with an insurance agent. I was working for a general agency, but essentially you are also your own, your own boss. You’re creating your own business, your own book of business.

Beth:
And so that was my first kind of endeavor into the world of entrepreneurship. And then I met my husband, and shortly after I met my husband, we started what is now the current business that we have, which is an outdoor construction company. We built outdoor living spaces here in Cincinnati, Ohio. It originally started as a landscaping business, but it morphed into this outdoor construction business as a result of the demand for you know, for our clients wanting these beautiful spaces where they can hang out outside with pools and patios and fireplaces with flat screen TVs and outdoor kitchens and, and so forth. Which of course, they became hugely popular during Covid. So yeah, and that, that I’ll get to a little bit later. But but yes, during that time of us having this business, which we still have it today I also had a catering business which, you know, my love for cooking comes from my Italian background.

Beth:
And then my daughter was born, and I thought to myself, you know, that catering is so heavily dependent on weekends and, and nights and so forth. And so I wanted to, you know, really just put more effort into my family. And so then I started an internet based business out of our, out of our home, and it was for women’s golf apparel and accessories, which of course, another love of mine, which is golf <laugh>. So, and then actually that was an interesting journey. You know, just like CVS and Walgreens are on, you know, corners competing I had competition online and one one particular competitor thought that I was too much competition for her. So she attempted to go to mutual vendors to try and get them to stop doing business with my company. And we hadn’t been in business quite as long as, as what she had been, but we were definitely taking a piece of the pie from her.

Beth:
And so as a result, I ended up in a lawsuit against her for ous interference with business relations, won a small settlement. And I, I kind of thought to myself, you know what? I think this is God’s way of saying I’m not supposed to be doing this anymore <laugh>. So then I, I went onto a fitness studio which I had for seven years until I was diagnosed with cancer. And that prompted me to to end the brick and mortar business. And I pivoted then into real estate. So that’s my husband and I, we started fixing and flipping single family homes. But once Covid hit of course our outdoor living space construction company went crazy. And as a result, we had to make a choice. Do we continue to try and do both or do we give up the flipping and I pivot within the real estate space to something else, which is when I pivoted into commercial real estate and syndications.

Charles:
Interesting. Very interesting. Why obviously you were already involved with real estate on one level as being a contractor and in construction. Why did you choose real estate as an investment vehicle? ’cause Those are, you’ll usually find people that are one or the other. I don’t, you know, there’s some people that are both right. But when you talk to some contractors, they don’t own any real estate, and you talk to real estate investors and they’re not contractors. So why would you, you know, why did you choose that as your investment vehicle when you’re making that decision to get outta that previous business?

Beth:
Yeah, absolutely. For us, you know, it was really just about building generational wealth. So when, you know, in thinking long term knowing that and, you know, we went through some tough times with the construction business, especially with the labor force. You know, there electricians, plumbers, carpenters, good ones are hard to come by. We’re starting to see however that you know, there has been more of a push, especially for the younger generation realizing that AI might take tech jobs away from them. So they’re, they’re opting to look at trade schools and, and the trades as an option realizing that they can build, you know, a nice business being in the trades. So, you know, for us, you know, it’s, it’s when we started to see that trend of struggling to find just good solid you know, contractors, subcontractors, and so forth, you know, that’s when we really took a, a hard look at, you know, what does our future look like and how are we going to paint the picture for ourselves in terms of, you know, five years, 10 years from now still be able to earn income but do so just in a different manner.

Beth:
And so that’s where you know, syndications became part of it. And then, you know, just some other things that I’ve now branched out to beyond syndications within the real estate space.

Charles:
Nice, nice. So can you explain what your current company is, kind of an investment strategy and criteria, what you guys are looking for for properties in your syndication business?

Beth:
Sure. So we actually are focused on the student housing niche, which, you know, is one of those niches that not a lot of people want to travel down that path, but we love that path. And one reason being is that we have a partner who worked for Landmark and Dovetail, which are two of the largest student housing, property management and development co companies in the country. And so he brings a wealth of knowledge a a wealth of resources, you know, broker relationships and so forth. As we call it, he knows where all the bodies are buried in a lot of the markets, right? So he can tell us like, what’s happening in these markets and what we can expect and which markets we should go after and whatnot. But we love the student housing space and, and for a multitude of reasons.

Beth:
I mean, number one you know, the students sign 12 month leases, and most people are under the impression that it’s just for nine months or the academic year that they’re signing leases. But that’s really not the case. And mom and dad are backing those leases or some guarantor. So if something happens with those leases, we know that somehow some way they are going to get paid. Unlike with traditional multifamily, you know, you might be chasing after you know, people who are not paying their leases, maybe they lose their jobs and they don’t have any sort of backup system and and whatnot. And you know, the other thing too, our leases are all, they all start right around the same time and they end around the same time. So what does that mean? It means that somewhere around, I’m gonna say middle of August to end of August, we know exactly how much revenue is coming our way you know, in terms of on a monthly basis. So it’s, it’s a very, you know, nice thing to know like, Hey, here’s our income and we don’t have to worry about you know, the fluctuation that may occur with respect to if, you know, 10 leases come due in, in November, and, and now we need to replace those 10 leases and we can only replace them with five, that means that our revenue is gonna be lower than expected. We know exactly how much every single month that we’re looking at.

Charles:
So a couple different things on that. As I found out when renting to student or college students in a very, very small level when I started decades back as a multifamily investor, I found out that, you know, they usually are staying for one year, sometimes two years. Is that correct in like your, so when you’re doing the make ready, if someone’s August to August, if they’re looking to rent that they’re signing leases in June for someone, ’cause you already know that someone’s moving out or maybe they’re signing it in July, whatever it might be for moving in in August, how is that make ready between the, you know, your tenants? Do you have, so there’s a window there, you know what I mean? Because like with multifamily, it takes a couple weeks, it’s prepared, depending on what kind of work it’s done maybe one week, and then we put it back out on the market. How does that work with the turnover on, you know, with student housing?

Beth:
Sure. So we’ve got a window of about three to four weeks, so somewhere between mid-July and Midgut. And we call this, and it’s called actually in the student housing space. It’s not, it’s not a name or a word that we coined, but it’s called Turn. And so during that period of time it’s a very stressful time for property management companies you know, truth be told, but you know, they have prepped in order to be ready and prepared for it. So they have walked all the units, they have made their lists of, okay, here’s all the furniture we’re gonna need to replace, here’s, you know, where we’re gonna need to paint. And, and so they have everything lined up so that within that you know, four week window, you know, everything’s taken care of. Now, the beautiful thing is that a lot of times you have renewals, right?

Beth:
So as you mentioned, students generally are going to be living off campus, their junior and senior year. You know, sometimes it’ll be sophomore year and even as of late with some universities, it’s actually freshman year. And we can talk more on that, but but at least they’re there for a couple of years. And as a result you know, you don’t have to turn as many units as you might think. So for instance, if you had a hundred bed asset and you’ve got a 50% renewal rate, well, guess what? You’re only worrying about those 50 beds, which could ultimately mean 25 units that, you know, might need paint or furniture or, you know, anything, you know, whatever. So it’s not as it’s not as overwhelming as one might think. Now, when you get into those larger properties where you might have 500 to a thousand beds, that can be a little bit more daunting. But we typically stay away from properties of that size. So

Charles:
What is like the val, what is the, the strategy, the value add strategy with this? Are you, how do you do new deals? Are you, are we building these properties? Are you you’re taking a apartment complex and turning it into student housing? Like some sort of conversion? I say it’s because my brother-in-law is a works for a large contractor and they just finished a project Gainesville, university of Florida, and they were building student housing. And what they were saying is that every unit was made perfectly for student, you know, they made it specifically for this as apartments with like three or four bedrooms, you know, common kitchens, but like in suite bathrooms, the whole nine yards of how they do it and like, how that’s done, you know, makes perfect sense. And then they sell it off to like a syndicator, or the owner does, the developer sells it off. So how, how does your value add work on that of like, is it only new development or are you also doing conversions?

Beth:
So we aren’t doing any conversions because generally speaking the conversions are, are not purpose built, right? They’re, they’re more apartments. So they could be a one bedroom, one bath, they could be a two bedroom, one bath. You can charge of course with the two bedroom, one bath, you know, something you can charge per bed with that in that particular scenario. But no, like, what we are seeing, especially with the purpose-built student housing properties is exactly what you just described. 2, 3, 4, 5 units all the way up to six units. We have a property actually where they are at, they’re cottage homes. So each cottage home two story, and each each there, there’s a bedroom with an en suite and then you know, main floor that has a kitchen, living room, washer and dryer and so forth. And then up top there’s, you know, however many bedrooms or there could be if it’s a if it’s a six bedroom unit, you know, there could be two bedrooms on the first floor.

Beth:
But, you know, that’s what we’re seeing. And, and these purpose-built student housing properties what we love is, is we go after the Class A properties or a developer who maybe is held onto the property for a year or two and then wants to sell it. Reason being a developer doesn’t want to be in the student housing space. They don’t wanna be managing student housing properties. So what they do typically is they will lease it up, but they’re not gonna push the leases to market rent. Why? Because they need to lease it up to look good for the bank, you know, so the bank wants to see it completely leased up, cash flowing, like, Hey, you’ve done your job and so forth. And, and we can still be supporting this loan. And that’s where we come in in ’cause we want to then come in, take it over, know that there’s still meat on the bone, and be able to push those rents and create the operational efficiencies in a particular market if we can scale and get two or three properties in that area.

Beth:
So, so that’s what we look for. So out of all our properties currently one was purchased directly from no, two directly from a developer one. We were kind of the middleman between, there was a developer, then an owner, and then we purchased it but still a class A property. And then we just purchased another one smaller, but it’s in the same market as one of our others. And we like this particular opportunity because it offers a lower price point relative to our other property in that area. So we can kind of go back and forth with, you know, students that are looking and we can offer them, you know, two different options based off of their budget.

Charles:
Interesting. Yeah, no, that’s a great great explanation. Thank you. One thing that I like to ask in real estate investors, because all asset classes are similar, especially like student housing, multifamily, it’s very similar. When a new deal or a potential deal crosses your desk, I mean, what does like the first 10 to 15 minutes of that deal consist of for deal review for you? I mean, what are you looking for? What are things that move it to the next level and what are things that kind of get it Xed right there?

Beth:
Sure. So couple things. I mean, number one, you know, what’s happening with the university is it, is the enrollment growth, you know, trending so that it’s going up? Have there been, you know, any sort of dips in enrollment? And if so, why what’s the academic program look like? What does the athletic program look like? You’d be surprised at how much an athletic program plays into where students want to go. Like, I’m in Ohio, right? So kids go to Ohio State because they want to be a Buckeye <laugh>, they wanna be part of the experience that comes along with Ohio State Football. We have a property at the University of Georgia, and Georgia is doing, of course, for the last four or five years, Georgia’s been doing fantastic with respect to football. So you have a lot of kids that are in within, you know, Georgia itself that are going to UGA specifically because of that.

Beth:
So of course we want to see all of those things. In addition, we, we want to know that the market’s not saturated, that there’s, you know, this absorption and, and that we can maintain, you know, something close to a hundred percent occupancy in several of the markets that we’re in. There’s a moratorium on any additional student housing off campus being built. So that’s a plus for us, right? That just means that, hey, we’re pretty much guaranteed that, you know, our property is gonna be anywhere from 98 to a hundred percent leased out. And and that’s what, you know, that’s what we wanna see. That’s what our investors wanna see. Obviously we have you know, fiduciary responsibility to them. So it’s, it’s important you know, for those sort of things. So, so yeah, a multitude of, of, of, of things that we look at. But those are, are some of the ones like right off the bat. And typically too, I mean, we want to be in places that the weather you know, I don’t, I don’t wanna be in Minnesota, nothing against Minnesota, but you know what snow and, and so forth, you know, it’s, it’s not gonna be as big of a driving factor as, you know, something that’s in the southeast, for instance.

Charles:
Right, right. So you mentioned prior that I mean, you have a great partner that you’ve been working with and syndications are really all about partnering, you know, the general partners partner with each other to operate deals and, you know, past investors, partner with those same operators to invest in those general partners. So how do you, it really comes down to vetting partners and, you know, how do you vet an operator to find one that you can trust that’s gonna get the deal done and all these different factors that you’re kind of, because you’re leaving everything really in their hands in their lab?

Beth:
Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. You know, people have obviously investors have vetted, you know, our us as operators. I mean, I’m on a team of, of six, there’s six of us that, that operate these student housing properties. So, so people are vetting us, you know, through social media, for instance checking us out online you know, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and, and so forth. I, I think, you know, track record is, is one of the things that I know I stress with investors when they are looking at us or if they’re looking at other operators, you know, what has been the track record? What, what have these operators, you know, gone full cycle on? And can you talk to any of those investors that have been part of those full cycle deals? You know, are they willing to share, you know, refer you to someone that you can speak to, to get a sense of, you know, what were their communication styles?

Beth:
Like, you know, how often they did they communicate? Were they you know, transparent, if there was anything with the property that was going awry. So I think those are all very important. You know, sometimes people even have suggested, you know, do background checks. I’ve never had a background check done on me but I do know of people that have done background checks on operators. You know, it’s real important. I mean, integrity your name, it’s everything in this business. We’ve seen, and I know you’ve probably seen operators that have, you know, started off, you know, really strong in 2020 21, and now they’re out of business. And primarily because, you know, they were too aggressive in their underwriting maybe just didn’t know how to manage the asset. That’s what we feel very blessed about.

Beth:
You know, asset management really can make or break an investment opportunity. And I think asset management is one of those areas that is, is really not looked at as hard as it should be, or, you know, even in you know, when you do or take a masterclass or, or you are getting educated, you know, asset management isn’t, isn’t what most people educate on. You know, it’s, it’s typically, you know, developing broker relationships, finding the deals, underwriting, raising capital. But asset management to me is like, if this property, if you can’t execute the business plan that you’ve laid out for your investors, then guess what? They’re not gonna get the returns that, that they were anticipating and that, you know, can really make or break whether investors come back to you or not.

Charles:
Yeah. And one other thing to add to that list of what new syndicators made mistakes was, was buying poor locations or less than ideal locations. Let’s just leave it like that. And that’s the ones, the syndicators that I speak to that had issues that are having workouts done with banks. They had better prop, they had better locations. The ones that I real, you know, you read about on these you know, different publications that we all check out that went right under those, if you, if you pull up the location of ’em, you’re like, okay, now I see, you know, investor, you know, somebody came back and they’re like, this thing’s not, this is, you know, decades we’re gonna be holding this thing for, so we just gotta like cut it now. Whereas another one, you’re like, we’re gonna start getting rent grow from the next 24 months, you know what I mean? We can hold on and not lose money or whatever, or lose less or whatever it might be. Right?

Beth:
And, and that’s one of the reasons why, honestly, like for student housing, you know, location is a bit easier to determine. You know, if, if a university is a strong university consistently year over year, you know, it’s easy to decide, okay, hey, we should be looking and if we happen to come across something that’s, you know, off market, then then great, we should go for it. Whereas you know, location for multifamily, you know, can vary and, you know, and a market might be emerging, but it could stall out for a variety of reasons. So yeah, location, location, location, that’s what they say. Mm-Hmm

Charles:
<Affirmative>. And it’s true. One of the questions that I had because you know, adding on to what we were talking about with sitting Harris was going through tough areas is sometimes to avoid a property going under you know, you’ll find some of the investors that might do like a capital call. And you know, can you explain a little bit about, ’cause I think this is not something that’s really discussed with syndicators. We’re talk, you know, it’s sold as the passive income and there’s no issues and stuff like this, but once in a while, and I’ve been we’ve never put out a capital call ourselves, but like I’ve received capital calls and I’ve paid ’em as a passive investor in deals. Can you explain a little bit of what a capital call is and kind of how it works to inform a, a possible passive investor of what could happen? Sure.

Beth:
I mean, to be honest with you, I’ve not been involved in a capital call, so I may not be the best person to explain it, but my understanding is that, you know, it’s a situation in which, you know, the property is not performing as it should be, and as a result, there needs to be a capital infusion by the partners, essentially, both on the GP and the LP side. I mean, a lot of times, you know, you’ll see the GP come, come forth first, you know, if there’s more capital that needs to be infused. But if that doesn’t solve the issue, then, you know, LPs or the limited partner investors who are, you know, assuming that this is all passive and they don’t have to worry about, you know, all of the headaches that come along with managing a property, then they will have to then you know put money into the deal.

Beth:
If they choose not to then their, their shares are essentially diluted. As a result. If they put money into it, then their shares either remain or however, you know, it all works out based off of, you know, how many investors put money into it. I think, you know, for capital calls, what I, I know of and, and what I have heard is, you know, you’re more likely to get your investor to put more money into it as long as you’ve been transparent about what’s been going on with the property. I think when it comes as a surprise which I have heard, you know, some investors have been like, I was totally blindsided. We knew nothing about it. When they’re more blindsided, you know, they feel like they’ve been duped, you know and, and so the trust is not there anymore.

Beth:
Versus, you know, maybe you have a situation where you hire a property management company, you think that this is the right property management company, they end up not being the right property management company, so you have to bring somebody else in, and as a result, maybe there’s more capital that needs to be infused into it. You know, and I’m just, you know, creating a scenario here, but, you know, sometimes there’s situations that are beyond, you know, control. And I think when the operators are forthright about what’s going on with the property, there is a higher likelihood of investors than putting money into that deal. Because ultimately what, they don’t wanna lose money. They don’t wanna see the property go back to the bank. They know that they are lower on the totem pole. The debt is always gonna get taken care of, first, equity will get taken care of last. So if investors expect to see their money come back to them, then they’re more apt to put that money into it. But I think transparency is key.

Charles:
Yeah, no, no, that’s a that’s a great explanation, thank you. The one thing you were talking about with transparency I mean, you, you’ve built a investor base of hundreds and hundreds of investors. I mean, how important has transparent communication been in growing and maintaining your investor base? Because every deal’s a little different, and not everything is obviously gonna go to proforma, it’s gonna be above and below. I mean, how has being proactive with just being open and with the communication lines with your investors kind of helped you grow and also maintain your current investor base?

Beth:
Y you know what it is, it has been critical. The communication critical in you know, we went through a bit of a, a, a tough spot just recently, as a matter of fact, with one of our properties and the investors associated with that property. We have a, a JV equity partner that’s, that’s part of one of our deals. And so everything has to pass through the JV equity partner for approval before we can distribute K ones or before we can even make distributions. And so as a result, you know this JV equity partner, they have a process. So we had, you know, K ones that weren’t, you know, being delivered in as timely of a manner primarily because we weren’t really aware of how long this process was going to take with the JV equity partner. So it went on much longer than we anticipated.

Beth:
And as a result, and, and by no fault of theirs, right, I mean, they have a process we need to respect and abide by that. That’s, you know, according to the agreement. And so it was on us to actually you know, be more aware of, Hey, if this is the process, then here is when we need to make sure that we are starting our own process in order to deliver timely K ones. So we did have some, some fired up investors but there was constant communication and we finally got to a point where we said, Hey, investors, we’re holding a zoom call. Like for anybody that wants to know what is going on with these K ones, you know, we will be completely transparent. You can ask whatever questions you need to, and it’s always interesting, right, because investors will reach out and, and sometimes their bark is worse than their bite, right? <Laugh>.

Beth:
And if you just, if you just talk to them, if you just explain what’s going on, you know, nine times outta 10, they’re gonna be fine. But, but we held this Zoom call and we, we didn’t have as many investors as we anticipated based off of the number of investors that were, you know, reaching out to us. But the investors that we did have you know, we’re all very like, Hey, thank you. Like this really helps me, like, you know, what can we expect going forward? You know, so we were able to ease their mind. And, and so I think that that was, that was a bit of a lesson learned for us especially when you have a JV equity partner that’s part of a deal and, and does control, you know, some of the narrative in terms of, you know, how things operate.

Beth:
So, you know, lesson learned for us. But but it, it turned out turned out fine. And we’re already starting to work on K ones now, so we don’t have that same experience next year. And I was the one that had to deal with, you know, the, the, the brunt of it, which was fine. So I had a period of time that I was like, wow I can’t wait to get to the end of this September 15th. Could not come quick enough. But, but we made it through. I made it through. I’m here today, so it’s all good.

Charles:
No, that’s great to hear. We’re working through problems, but yeah, the communication every time, yeah, every time lines stay open for communication and you can kind of put investors at ease until they know exactly what’s happening. It makes everything much easier. It makes everything much easier. And it’s a tough conversation, but usually when you’re doing it, it’s not as tough as you thought. So it’s just easier just to you know allow people to reach out and doing the zoom call is a great way of doing it as well. So we’ve done that before as well, when updates on certain properties as we’re kind of finishing up here, just as being 20 plus years in construction and real estate, I mean, what are common mistakes you see real estate investors make?

Beth:
Common mistakes. I, I think, you know, jumping in without really knowing what it is that they’re after. So for instance, you know, my husband and I, when we started fixing and flipping single family homes in 2018, we did so based off of Chip and Joanna Gaines, HGTV, love it, or list it, you know, we are here, we are at, you know, we’re relaxing in the evening, we’re watching these transformations, and we’re thinking to ourselves, we can do this, you know, but what we didn’t really like take into consideration was how that was going to impact our current book of business for our construction company. And in addition to, you know, what does this look like for our future? You know, does this build equity? Does, you know, yes, it puts cash in our pocket, but if we don’t do something smart with that cash in our pocket, then, you know, was it worth it?

Beth:
You know, anyway so, you know, I, I think with, without just kind of a clear plan of, you know, what it is that you, you know, what are your five, five year goals? What are your 10 year goals? Where do you wanna be? Like, why real estate? What is real estate going to do for you? You know, is it a vehicle to get you from A to B? Is it about generational wealth? You know, what is it about it that you’re getting an into it? And then, you know, really, like, there’s nothing wrong with maybe doing a personality test, a a disc disc test, something along those lines. Figure out what your strengths are because, you know, so many of, of new investors come into this thinking, oh, raising capital is gonna be easy, or, you know, you know, I like talking to people, so I’ll be good with brokers.

Beth:
You know, well, it’s not that easy to talk to brokers, right? I mean, it’s not that easy to raise capital. You know, so figure out what your strengths are and then really find a way to be able to add value to other people you know, especially people who are already doing what it is that you want to be doing. Because when you can add value, and we’ve heard this time and time again, when you can add value to people who are, are doing what you want to be doing, you know, chances are they’re gonna bring you into the fold in some way. And that’s how you can start to get your feet wet, start to build your portfolio and, and, and then grow from there. You know, sometimes, you know, we all I think we all do it right, there’s this mentality, the squirrel, right?

Beth:
Oh, this person’s doing that, they’re having success. Oh, wait a minute, I should be doing this. You know, and I know I am completely guilty of it. And it wasn’t until this past summer, I actually did a I, I was involved in a coaching program and it, it really just taught me a lot about alignment. You know, figure out who you are, Beth as a person, figure out what you align with, and then from there, create your box of, you know, if you want to be a squirrel and maybe dabble in a couple of different areas within the real estate space, you know, at least know that what you’re doing are things that you align with. You know, at one point in time I thought, oh, maybe I could be a wholesaler. And then I started talking to wholesalers, and I’m like, no, I don’t wanna make 50 to a hundred cold calls a day.

Beth:
That’s just not what I want to be doing. Right? So, so you have to know, you know, exactly, you know what it is, you know, you’re getting into. And, and two, you know, there are so many people out there making promises about how you can make money doing this, and you can make money doing that. And, and, you know, I mean, our syndication’s truly passive. I mean, there’s an argument that could go both ways on that, right? So I think it’s important to, to recognize that this is a long play. It’s not a short play, and you have to be in it for the long haul. So my recommendation, if you have a W2 job, maintain that W2 job or, or whatever it is that you’re doing, maybe you have a small business and you’re doing real estate on the side, great. But don’t, you know, don’t give it up completely.

Beth:
And I have seen people do this, totally abandoned what they’re doing. I’m jumping, you know, all into real estate only to find that six months later they’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars and haven’t, you know, moved the needle forward whatsoever, and they’ve had to go back and take take on a job again. So I would say, you know, I, we’re very blessed that we have our construction company, so it allows me to work on building our future while we still have something that is providing, you know, a roof over our head, food on the table and and whatnot. Yeah.

Charles:
Great. Very well explained. Thank you so much, Beth. So how can our listeners learn more about you and your business?

Beth:
Sure. So you can email me, Beth, at investing with beth.com. You can text me 5 1 3 4 7 0 1 0 7 8. You can go to my website, investing with beth.com. Follow me on TikTok Instagram. My handle is at investing with Beth. And happy to connect with anybody that that wants to learn more. And, and I’m an open book. I’ll share my experiences because I always, you know, just wanna make sure the people are doing things for the right reason.

Charles:
Yes. Thank you so much for coming on today, Beth, and looking forward to connecting with you here in the near future.

Beth:
Thanks for having me.

Links and Contact Information Mentioned In The Episode:

About Beth Underhill

Beth is the founder of Lifestyle Equities Group / Investing with Beth and the CMO of MTN Investment Group. Active in construction and real estate for 20+ years, she has redeveloped over $5M in single-family homes and assisted in the construction of over $35M in outdoor living spaces.

Currently, Beth is co-GP on 500+ multifamily units and 486 student housing beds, holds equity in a hotel in Panama, hosts an Airbnb arbitrage, and has more properties and hotels under contract.

As an entrepreneur for over 25 years, Beth has mastered finance, marketing, and client relations. Her extensive background in real estate and construction is the driving force behind her passion for ensuring individuals and families have a safe, functional, and loving place to call home or vacation.

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