Anne Curry is a real estate investor with over 30 years of experience in buying, flipping, developing, and owning rental properties across Washington State and Arizona. Previously, Anne was a preschool teacher earning $5 an hour and has since scaled her real estate portfolio, currently owning over 300 units through 12 apartment buildings.

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Transcript:

Charles:
Welcome to another episode of the Global Investors Podcast; I’m your host, Charles Carillo. Today, we have Anne Curry. She is a real estate investor with over 30 years of experience in buying, flipping, developing, and owning rental properties across Washington State and Arizona. Previously, Anne was a preschool teacher earning $5 an hour and has since scaled her real estate portfolio, currently owning over 300 units through 12 apartment buildings. Thank you so much for being on the show!

Anne:
Well, thank you for having me, Charles. I’m excited to be with you.

Charles:
So before catching the real estate bug, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, both personally and professionally? Yeah,

Anne:
Well, like your intro said, I was a preschool teacher. I was making a whopping $5 an hour, and things started to change. When my son was born, he was my firstborn. And I remember the day Charles, I remember exactly where I was sitting and I was holding him. He was eight weeks old, and I looked at this little guy and I thought, I’m never gonna get this kid through college on five bucks an hour, so I better think of something else. And you know, I was at that moment there was just something inside of me that was just like real estate. I know every, you know, maybe two or three times in your lifetime, you kind of have just this haha moment. And that was that for me. When I was 15 years old, I was babysitting for a, a family and next door to this couple that I was babysitting for, there was a house being demoed, and this was way back in the 19, early 1980s.

Anne:
So flipping that whole that, like that didn’t exist and there was no podcasts or anybody talking about real estate strategy really. And, but there’s a, a house being demoed next door to this family I was babysitting for. And I remember asking the gal that you know, her the the mom and said, what, what’s going on with that house next door to you? And she said, well, this, you know, doctor’s wife bought it and she’s remodeling it and then she’s gonna sell it. And there was something inside of me at 15 and I was just like, that is the coolest thing I ever heard of. And, you know, little seeds that get planted early on and they come back and I thought to myself, real estate. So that was kind of my inspiration. And, and it kind of developed over the next several years after that.

Charles:
Nice. Awesome. So how did you get what was kinda your first start in real estate? What was your first real estate investment project? Yeah,

Anne:
So going back to having that inspiration, maybe a year later I was at a women’s group and I sat next to a lady and I just, you know, introduced myself and said, hi, my name’s Ann. What’s your name? I’m Val. I said, oh, you know, what do you do Val? And she said, well, my husband and I own 50 single family rentals. And I was like, what? Going back again to that inspiration that I had, that it was real estate. And I said, would you introduce me to your husband and can we sit down and have coffee? And that question right there led me to who became just an amazing mentor of mine. He owned 50 single family homes. And I, I was willing to do whatever I had to do to be around them and have them show me what you know they did and how I could do it too.

Anne:
So that question led to an amazing mentor ment mentee relationship that lasted for about seven years. And he helped me buy my first rental. And it was a little $60,000 house in Tacoma, Washington where I live. And it was beat up and he, you know, just said, Hey, buy this house and you’re gonna fix it up and then you’re going to rent it out and then you’re gonna refinance it and then you’re gonna get your money back out and you’re gonna do that again. And I was like, what? What? And I said, but you’re gonna help me. So he literally helped me with every single step I was this, you know, 20 something year old woman, I’d never remodeled a house. There was no YouTube videos, there was no how to. He bought me my first toolbox and away I went. And all I really knew how to do was put a little coat of paint on the walls.

Anne:
But Home Depot became my best resource. ’cause I would drive over to Home Depot. I would look for people that looked like they knew what they were doing, usually older men, and they’d be in the, if I had a plumbing problem, I’d find them in the plumbing aisle and I would just tap ’em on the shoulder and I’d say, excuse me, sir, this is what’s going on with my toilet. How do I fix this? Oh yes. Come over here. I’ll show you this. You know, you buy this little kit, you just follow the directions on the back of the box and you’re gonna be fine. And that’s how I, between my mentor and Home Depot people at Home Depot, that’s how I got through my first remodel. I did most of the work, almost all the work myself. Took me about eight months. We got a once the remodel was done, I got a an appraisal on my refinance.

Anne:
And it came in at 120,000. And I think, I bet spent about 15,000 on the remodel. ’cause I did all the work myself. And this is back in the early nineties, so prices were a little bit different then. I got a renter, I rented it out, I learned how to lease up little house, and that was my first burr before Burr was even a thing. We didn’t talk about Burr, but that’s how my mentor had built his 50 single family house portfolio. And that’s how he showed me how to do it. And I did it once, and then I did it again, and I did it again. And then I started to run outta money. ’cause All the money that I had was hard money, a combination of hard money and borrowed money. I borrowed the down payment for the first little house from my aunt. And and that was the beginning. Oh,

Charles:
That’s, that’s great. That’s a great story. And it’s nice that you got so much encouragement from mentors along the way to really assist you in in executing that. Yeah.

Anne:
Yeah. Mentors have been, you know, I, I know people wanna know like, what’s the key to success in this business? And I would say that mentors have been one of the keys that have unlocked big doors for me. And it ha and men mentors come in all shapes and sizes. That mentor, I happened to meet because I went to a women’s group. I sat down, I introduced myself, and then I just said these magic words, which are, would you introduce me and would you help me? Those two magic words have been the beginning of all of my mentor mentee relationships. But they don’t come from, you know, really it’s not this formal thing. It’s for all of my mentors. It’s been very informal. I’ve happened to meet them or happened to run into ’em, ask them what they did, and then just ask for help.

Charles:
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That, that was gonna be one of my questions of how did you find them? But it seems like just out in your normal networking, you I mean, you told a story about your first one, but like just you ran into them by doing your normal business and meeting people along the way that were there to assist you through the next step, I guess, in your journey.

Anne:
Yeah, that’s right. So when I had a big goal, so, you know, I started with a single family and I accumulated maybe eight single family rentals. And, and none of this happened fast, Charles, this is, I’m telling you a story that, you know, I have a 30 year history now in real estate. And, and things happened slow, you know, it took me eight months to remodel my first house. It took me another four or five months to find the second house. It took another eight months to remodel that house. So, I mean, it’s very, we have a slogan for our company, and we say, get rich slow because <laugh>, there’s this, you know, misunderstanding out there that you decide to become a real estate investor, and the next day you’re driving a Ferrari. And albeit that happens for people, they get to a level of, you know, success in their income where they can buy that fancy car.

Anne:
But in my experience and the people that I work with, my clients and the people that I mentor, it’s one step at a time. It’s not quitting. But I accumulated a few single family rentals. And then, you know, I’m a, I’m a goal setter, char setter Charles. So, you know, every October, really before, way before the new year, I’m setting my goals for the next year. I’ve always been that way. And I took the, the brave step of writing down, I will own a 20 unit apartment building. And I only had a few single family rentals. So that was a big leap for me to write that down. But everything that I’ve always wrote down was always a declaration. Like, I will do this, I will do that. So I wrote down, I will own a 20 unit apartment building. And it was maybe two or three months later, I was at a charity dinner.

Anne:
I sat at a table, I sat next to a gentleman I had never met before, and I did the same thing. I said, hi, my name’s Ann, what’s your name? He said, my name’s John. I said, what do you do, John? He said, I bo I build multi-family apartment buildings. And I was like, what? What? So through the two and a half hour dinner, I think we ignored everyone else. And he and I talked and talked and talked the whole entire time. And at the end of it, I said, would you show me how to do that? I have a goal of owning a 20 unit apartment building. He said, show up at my office tomorrow and I’ll help you. And that became mentor number two. And I didn’t buy a 20 unit apartment building. I bought a 60 unit apartment building, and that was my first apartment building purchase.

Anne:
And my mentor helped me. He introduced me to a great commercial broker. I didn’t have the money. I didn’t have the money, Charles, I was still great scraping together, little down payments for these little single family houses. But I had enough remodel experience, I guess by then, by doing these single family that I, the building that I bought was a you know, rehab opportunity. It was like a burr for multifamily. So we bought it for 1.5 million for 60 unit 59 units, which was a steal back then, but it needed a million and a half dollars worth of remodel. So it, you know, it’s just kind of at the end of its useful life. And it just needed a, it needed a good, a good overhaul. So I, my mentor showed me all the numbers and brought me the project and just said, you need to buy this.

Anne:
And I said, I don’t know how, but I’m sure you’re gonna show me. And he just walked through all my, all the numbers with me. I went home to my husband and I said, we gotta buy this. You know, John says, I gotta buy it, so we gotta buy it. Who do we know that would have a down payment? And my husband thought of a name, and I called a meeting with this person, and I was driving to this meeting shaking, I was sweating. I was like, oh my goodness, what am I doing? But my mentor went over the numbers with me. I sat down with who became a business partner, and I went through all the numbers and he’s a businessman, so he knows how to look for opportunity. And he said, after the 45 minutes of me just talking, he said, I’d love to do it.

Anne:
And so we got, he did my partner put up the down payment. We got a loan for the rest of it. My $1.5 million remodel only cost 900,000 because I oversaw the whole project came under budget. So when we bat, went back to refinance it, my partner got all of his down payment back. So it was like the perfect burr. And so that was a, a great opportunity and we still own that building today. So it, it was again, mentor number two. So mentor number one helped me in the single family mentor number two helped me in the multifamily.

Charles:
Yeah. So let, let’s not gloss over a 900,000 or maybe retail $1.5 million rehab. I mean, that is not a value add, that is a heavy value add for a $1.5 million property. Yeah. Can you kind of go over like, what, what was wrong with it and what did you guys do? I mean, that’s, that’s a lot of work. That’s a lot of contractors. That’s a full-time job of managing that property. Project

Anne:
Managing. Yeah, that was, yeah, that was great. Yeah, I learned a lot. It was a, it was owned by a local housing authority, so it was affordable housing, and it was in 2013. So, I mean, my timing couldn’t have been better because we were just a couple years out of the great, you know, real estate downturn. And so I know that there, you know, there wasn’t an appetite for multifamily back then, like there has been in recent years. So a my timing was perfect. B it was affordable housing with a, it was a $1.5 million purchase, but it also had a forgivable second. So the, the housing authority had purchased a building, they had done a remodel maybe 15 years earlier on the interiors. They had gotten a grant for a million dollars. And that grant basically put it in the affordable housing category in that, with the acceptance of the grant, now you have to run the building as affordable for 30 years.

Anne:
So when I bought it, they had about 17 years left on the affordability covenant. So I had to, when I bought it, I was accepting that I would be running it as affordable, but the grant is fully forgiven after 30 years. So in 2031, that grant will completely go away. So there was a, we call, we would call that in our world, Charles, the building had a little hair on it in that not every multifamily buyer, especially after the downturn when they were a little shaken up and some of them got beat up, were they willing to take on something with hair? So I think that’s the only reason a newbie like me got to walk into a deal like that because I was fresh. I was like, I’m gonna take it on, just show me what to do and I’ll do it. And I had a great mentor that said, you can do this.

Anne:
It’s a little different. Yes. But I’m gonna put you in the right hands with a property management company that’s gonna help you understand the affordability part, part of it, and you’re gonna do great. So yeah, if I look back at that, I’m like, yeah, that was a probably a big interesting project to take on as a first time, you know, multifamily buyer. But it, but I had the right people behind me and it gave me the confidence to do it. The remodel was all exterior, so the units with the grant had been remodeled maybe 15 years earlier. So they were fine. A little tired, but they were fine. So we did roofs, we did all the sidings, we took the siding completely off new windows, new landscaping. We took a part of the building had just been unused. It was part of a garage. And we permitted that and turned it into this beautiful manager’s office. And so we did a complete facelift, and it looked like a brand new building, you know, after the fact. So it was a $900,000 project, but it was only maybe 10 line items. So it was, it was palatable for a new person like me, siding, roof gutters, paint, landscaping, permitting, the office and that. So I felt very comfortable doing it. Oh

Charles:
Yeah, that’s, yeah, that’s quite a deal. That’s a quite a deal. And especially when you are able to kind of take rents maybe to market in a few years, you’re gonna really realize that true, the true value of it.

Anne:
So, and that really is the true value of the building. I mean, as you know multifamily is, you know, the value is based on the income that it receives. And so we’re, we’re here right now, but in 2031, we can pop it another $700 a month per unit. So that’s gonna just, you know, take that building, you know, skyrocket it as far as value. And so it’s I’ve told my children, I’m like, do not sell that building. Do not sell that building. If I get hit by a bus, do not sell that building. So you just wait it out, wait till we can raise those rents. But it’s been a beautiful project. We were able to refinance right away. So it was a burr, a true perfect burr. Got our, got our down payment back out. That partner of mine, we just split 50 50.

Anne:
So all the rents were 50 50, but he was in, you know, it was an infinite return now for us because we had no money in it. And then we were able to refinance another two times, Charles, and we pulled out, I think 500 grand on the second refinance, and another 800 grand on the second, on the third refinance. So it’s been a stellar deal. I know we can’t, you know, all of us have had deals where we’re just kind of like, oh, we just have to get through it. And they haven’t been awesome <laugh>. But that is one of my two absolute home runs since I’ve just been so blessed to be able to c take that building. The second home run was, I mentioned to you when I met my mentor that he owned 50 single family houses. I went home that day, I had nothing. But I went home that day and I wrote down on a piece of paper, I will own 50 single family homes. I will own 50 single family homes. And I kept that little piece of paper in my purse and I kept another version of it on my nightstand, and I would look at it every day, and it went with me everywhere I went. And do you know that 16 years later, I was able to buy 50 single family rentals in one purchase. Wow.

Anne:
They were owned by the seller of that apartment building that I just mentioned. And I knew they owned the houses. And when the apartment building sale went through, you know, everybody’s happy and everybody did what they said that they were gonna do. And it was a really difficult purchase in that it took about 18 months to pull, put the deal together because they were in a HUD loan. And I think this paperwork that I had to put together was probably eight inches high by the time we got to closing. But it was a long drawn out. And I knew they owned the houses, and I just said, Hey, by the way, if you ever wanna sell the houses, would you call me? And about four and a half later, years later, they called me and said, we don’t wanna put ’em on the market.

Anne:
We loved working with you. You were great to work with during the sale of the apartment building. Do you wanna buy ’em? And without even hesitating, I said, yes. I had no idea how I was gonna finance it. I had no idea. But I went back to the same partner and I said, I’m in. And that was really home run number two. We ended up it was after the downturn still, and financing was really tough to get long-term financing for rentals. It kind of not, didn’t exist. You remember those days? Yeah. It was very difficult. Now you can get, you know, DSCR loans and it’s way easier, but there just wasn’t a product. In fact, I talked to 40 banks before I got one bank to step up and say, yes, we’ll do it. So that ended up being a fix, fix and flip project. We remodeled and sold all 50 houses in 21 months. I had five general contractors going. I was the listing agent. I was the I put all the design plans together, I oversaw all the contractors. I mean, it was crazy, but it was so much fun. It was probably the best project I ever did. So no, I did not hold them as 50 single family rentals, but I did get to hold them for about 20, 21 months. And it was great.

Charles:
Yeah. 50 single family rentals does not sound like the most fun for a rental portfolio. I just I know one person partner of mine that has 50 or a hundred single family homes, and he, he says it’s, it’s easy to manage. He has like a full-time people that do it. A couple people, but it’s a lot of work. I mean, that’s, oh yeah, that’s a, that’s a, that’s staggered. I mean, that’s, that’s not much different ballgame when you’re buying 50 units or 59 units in one place versus 50 all over 50 insurance contracts, 50 tax bills, 50 this, 50 that. So

Anne:
Yeah. Yeah. And that, yes, exactly. I mean, it is you have 50 roofs, you have 50, you have 50 of everything. So <laugh> yeah, it’s, it is a lot more work. We love our apartment buildings. Yeah, for sure.

Charles:
Before we go, kind of go into what you guys are doing now, the 59 year building, and you mentioned something in there, which I think some investors new investors kind of gloss over. And one thing when I started investing into multifamily and getting into commercial multifamily, like small multifamily commercial multifamily, like 5, 10, 12 unit, it was something where you had to go. And now we had to do like commercial loans. And it was one thing that was a little scary, I think for me was that you didn’t have the 30 year fixed products, right? Yeah. I think some of my banks, after a while, they’d gimme like a 25 year kind of fixed one, but most of the time it’s five, 10 years is the normal product that they give. And I see that as a benefit because it forces like you, it forces in your example, it forces you to refinance and really realize some of those tax in their, it’s tax free, some of the equity that you’ve built into the property and you can now deploy that into other places. Or you can just refinance it and just pay down a, you know what I mean? And then you can just just refinance it at a lower loan to value if you wanted to. But the reason it gives you that ability to take some money out tax free and put it to work somewhere else. How are you financing it? Was it all bank loans? Community banks?

Anne:
Yeah, so mostly community banks. I hired a loan officer that, you know, obviously she’s a broker so she can broker it out. And she’s been in the business for 30 years and has wonderful relationships with all the local banks. So when it came time to refinance, I just called her and said, who’s got an appetite for this kind of product? And she, you know, kind of knows who had the best rate, who has money to lend, because banks go through, you know, expansion and contraction all the time. And, you know, we, we didn’t necessarily go back to the same bank because they weren’t lending at the time. So I really relied on her and her relationships with all of these local banks. And if she brought on the a deal and said, Hey, you know, this is a great borrower and this is a great project, then most of the time, you know, we had an open door there. So it wasn’t always about interest rate, it wasn’t always about loan term. It wasn’t always, it was a lot about relationship and who had the appetite for it at the time.

Charles:
No, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, I find that local banks and local credit unions, why I ask e the most they have the appetite mostly for that multifamily, less than $5 million. But you know what I mean, where you don’t have larger lenders, especially if it’s un sub $1 million. But in that area that’s, those, those are the people that really wanna invest in the community and you know, they will work with you, especially if the deal has a little bit of hair on it to kind of get it across this finish line. ’cause They wanna reinvest into the community where they’re, where they’re based.

Anne:
Yeah. And absolutely, I mean, every bank that we’ve gone to has been local. I mean, it just worked out that way. But, you know, they have branches or their, or the credit unions that are local. They were always the ones that stepped up. Now I am going through my first Freddie Mac loan for that save apartment building. We are maybe a month away from closing. That’s been interesting ’cause I’ve never done a commercial Freddie Mac loan. Definitely more hoops to jump through. I mean, they’re very thorough. But I’ll let you know how that goes. They have a great interest rate and a little bit longer term, so I’m hoping that we won’t, my strategy would be not to refinance again until this you know, the affordability covenant burns off in 2031. Because when I do that, I just need a little bit of time to get my rents to market and then we’ll have that equity jump. And so I’m hoping not have to refinance again till after that’s

Charles:
Over. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. And that’ll probably take you a couple years after that happens. Yes. It’ll for you to do it as I learned. Yeah. There’s a rate, yes, there’s a rate cap increase of 7% is in Washington state. Is that correct?

Anne:
Oh, I haven’t, I haven’t heard that.

Charles:
Not, I am pretty much sure I was, I saw my

Anne:
Oh, rent cap. Oh, oh, rent cap, yes. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Yes, there is. Yeah. Yeah. And, and specifically in Tacoma. So I’m a, so the property’s located in Tacoma, Washington, and Tacoma has its own now restrictions. And they are probably some of the most restricted rules probably in, in the whole country, really. I could go into it, it’s really interesting. So not only the Washington rule, but now Tacoma even more restricted. So yes, we cannot raise rents more than 7%. And so that’ll be interesting to kind of navigate that when, I mean, why plan with that building is to just raise rents on turnover. Yeah, I mean, that’s really all I can do. And I mean, we can kind of inch them up a little bit and I, you know, I, but from a human standpoint, my, I, you know, I value my affordable housing building. I value the fact that we’re giving a service, but I also value the fact that I have wonderful people that live there. And I don’t want to disrupt their life either too much. I mean, we, we, it’s gonna be a complete balance of like, I don’t wanna take them up so far that it stresses them or their finances. So I probably will do most of it on turnover and just be very gentle with the tenants, and that’s my plan. And so I think it’ll take me, it’s gonna take me a while. Yeah,

Charles:
That’s not a problem. Yeah, I’d, I’d rather it’s expensive to have vacant unions and you want to keep people in there, especially good tenants. So yes, you work with them. So 7% is pretty, I mean, it’s not, it’s not that low. I mean it’s it’s a, it’s a pretty high mark, but it’s also one, it’s just one more thing. Is that one more thing I have to now follow and be aware of to be able to be an active landlord in that area? That’s, yes. I guess what it comes down to but

Anne:
For sure, for sure. And I also understand it too, you know, because they don’t wanna displace people. So I think it’s a, I think it’s albeit sometimes we get served these laws that are like, wait, that doesn’t make sense. I think that one actually makes sense, you know, because we don’t wanna displace, so we don’t wanna stress people out so much that they lose their housing. So let’s talk

Charles:
About what you’ve guys been doing now. I know you’re involved with affordable housing, as you were saying before. Can you explain a little bit about your affordable housing and kind of section eight investment strategy how it works and what type of properties that you’re really focusing that are already in that realm, under that umbrella? Or are you making it that?

Anne:
Yeah, so the 59 unit was already affordable, so that kind of cut my teeth on that. But even before that, Charles, I always accepted Section eight vouchers. So I was, in fact, my Section eight tenants have been some of my, my best tenants ever. I think there’s a misnomer that just because they have, you know, section eight voucher that they’re any different, they’re not you, you have to just screen like you would anybody else. They just happen to have their rent paid by the government you know, or a portion of it. So my strategy has always been to be a landlord that, you know, willingly and, and openly accepts Section eight vouchers. And the building that we bought was, you know, it’s affordable all the way across the board. So that is a percentage of their income. We can only charge a certain amount of percentage, percentage of their income for rent.

Anne:
I mean, I’m just trying simplifying it, so it’s a little bit different building in that way. But I have, I have been, I have actively looked for properties that would make it so that I can run it as affordable. You know, sometimes you buy these buildings, especially recently with interest rates up, it gets harder and harder and harder to make it pencil if you’re going to try to run it as affordable. Now you have to look at what Section eight is willing to pay in your area. But in most times, and, and this is also a misnomer that Section eight is paying less than what market is, and a lot of ti and a lot of times they’re paying what market is, or maybe even a little bit more. So I think people think that you’re automatically taking a discount and that’s not the case. So in every market that I’ve gone in, I’ve looked at how many units can I carve off as affordable, but to be open with every unit in, in accepting section eight.

Charles:
No, that’s that’s great. I, I think one of my first properties we had, we, there was a local, in Connecticut, there was a local kind of it was like an office that would work with battered women. And we had one property that we had put battered women in, and they had similar to that and like Section eight, they had vouchers that they would go with. And they were, I mean, great tenants. Only problem we’ve had with Section eight is not the tenants at all. It has been working through the government <laugh>. Yeah. The delay in the government, I don’t know. Usually they pay more than market. So that’s what you’re kind of getting and you know, it’s guaranteed, I, I know all these things, but it’s also one of those things there, you’re having properties usually sit a little longer. You’re having someone come out to inspect it, then they’re coming back, they’re going here. There’s, there’s a little bit of more hoops to jump through. There is, compared to regular market rate tenants, I guess you would say,

Anne:
There is absolutely. And you know, if you have a learning curve, ’cause you’ve never rented a Section eight before, you don’t know what the Section eight inspector’s gonna look for. But once you know what they’re gonna look for, it’s like, well, yeah, you don’t wanna have outlets that aren’t working. You gotta make sure your appliances are working. You gotta make sure that the windows open in the bedrooms. I mean, if you know that, then you can kind of preempt it and usually it can sail through. But I, I agree with you. You know, there could be a delay in receiving your first rent check and and all of that. So there’s kind of a few a few extra steps. But again, when you’re, when you’ve kind of accommodated for it or you know, acclimated to it, then it’s a little bit easier to do.

Charles:
So what other myths do you think that come up when you’re talking to people about affordable housing? You went over a few of ’em about the tenants, about the entities working with and everything goes with it. Is there anything else that kind of that you, that people maybe bring up to you when you say, I am an affordable housing investor?

Anne:
I think they think, I think maybe they think automatically slumlord, like, these properties look different than mm-hmm <affirmative>. Any other property. If you drove by my affordable housing building, you would think, but no way is that affordable housing. ’cause It’s beautiful. I mean, it is, it is. It’s beautiful. It’s gorgeous. And so I think they think, oh, it, it looks different. I think they think maybe the tenants are different. I think they think it’s harder to manage. Now. There are a few extra steps like we just talked about every year at my affordable building, we have to report the tenant’s income because if it’s over, you know, if it’s, if the ratios aren’t right, then, you know, we have to make adjustments. But that’s once a year reporting, you know, it’s just one extra step. So I think people get maybe overwhelmed because they think it’s going to be so difficult, but it’s just a system just like any other system.

Anne:
And once you learn it and then you just, you know, find people, great property managers that know how to you know, work with the system and as an owner, you know, you, you’re, you’re removed from that. Of course, it’s your responsibility to make sure that everybody’s doing the things right. But after you find the right team, then you can kind of step away from that. So I think those are the biggest things, you know, they think they’re gonna drive by and it’s gonna be like, you know, cars that are broken down and trash in the yard and nobody would know any different when they drive by the stuff that I’ve owned that, you know, we’ve had used rent as affordable.

Charles:
Yeah. And for the most part, yeah, those properties that they think it’s gonna be, those would not pass for Section eight <laugh>. So

Anne:
They would never pass. No, no. So the slumlord stuff would never pass. Yeah. Yeah.

Charles:
So as we as we’re kind of wrapping up here, a couple of questions I just had, I know before you got your start years back in doing with Burrs, before they were really a thing can you tell us kind of, we’re, we’re, we’re told it’s a great way of investing, which it is. There’s a lot of pieces that have to line up for it can for it to actually be successful. Which you had a mentor which allowed you and assisted you during that process. Can you tell us of any kind of drawbacks you might see within the Burr method of investing that maybe isn’t talked about as much as all the benefits?

Anne:
Yeah, well, lots of benefits. So you know, going back, my husband and I, were a family of, of four now, and we were, my husband’s in social work. We were living on $14,000 a year when we bought most of our single family rentals. And so we didn’t have a lot of cash. I mean, in fact, we had no cash. We were the, we were the family that was driving the old cars, living in a 900 square foot house. We borrowed the first down payment for our first property from our aunt, as I mentioned. And I think people think A, they have to have a lot of money. B they think that it’s gonna go quickly. C they think that I think there’s a lot of people that question whether they can still do it these days. Yes, it was easier when I got started because the numbers made sense for almost perfect burrs.

Anne:
When I say perfect burr, a perfect burrs where you get all of your money back out every once, you know, every second property. I think I had to leave some money in and then I had to sell some, you know, to recover some. But I think that burr has changed a bit with interest rates being what they are. And in our area, I don’t know about where you live, Charles, but in our area it’s very difficult to find a perfect burr. So let’s, let’s forget the perfect burr. If you can still do a burr, you may have to leave a little bit of money in, but you still should do it because instead of leaving, you know, typically you have to pay 25% down or sometimes now 30% down to buy a rental property that you’re not gonna live in. If you can house hack, that’s awesome.

Anne:
If you can house hack in combination with a burr, that’s amazing. But instead of leaving 25% down, buy your fixer upper with hard money, borrow the down payment. If you have to fix it up, get a renter in there. Hopefully you’ve created enough equity spread that when you refinance, you can pull a chunk of your money out. If you have to leave it in, typically it’s gonna be less than the 25%. Is it still worth doing? Absolutely, because 25% down, it’s hard to accumulate enough. You know, properties fast enough when every time you do that, you have to have 25% down. So burrs are still worth doing just for the fact that you can create that equity spread. I mean, if you buy a house for two, 200 grand, you put 50 grand into it, it’s worth, you know, 3 25. Is that worth doing? Absolutely.

Anne:
‘Cause you just created 75 grand on paper. So even if you don’t get all your money out, still, do the burr still fix up the house? Don’t buy the pretty house next door for retail. Buy the icky one that needs work, put the money into it, gain that equity upfront, rent it out. And then my advice to, you know, newer investors is hold everything you possibly can. You know, I look back and I, my younger, if I could talk to my younger self if I could talk to myself 30 years ago, I’d say, and don’t sell any of the early stuff because if I still own that early stuff, they would be all paid off. I’d have, you know, they, they’ve quadrupled in, in value since I own them. And all of that would be free cash flow. I chose to sell off the earlier stuff later on to scale up and get into apartment buildings.

Anne:
But what I’m telling my daughter who’s in 30 is Lauren, if you don’t wanna do real estate full-time, buy five properties while you’re in your thirties, you only need five in our area. Charles you know, historically we’ve doubled in value about every seven to 10 years. So my advice to her is just get your five and then just hang on and don’t sell them. Because if they’re paid off, you know, by the time you’re 50 or 60, that’s pure cash flow. You know, they’ve five times valued, you know, got you five times the value by then and you’re gonna be set. So don’t sell unless you absolutely have to sell. Just hang on to that stuff, especially if it’s, you know, I’m assuming it’s cash flowing the cash flowing. Just hang on and just let that tenant pay that thing down.

Charles:
Awesome. Well, Anne, thank you so much for coming on today. A lot of great information shared with our listeners. How can they learn more about you and your investment and your mentoring business? Yeah,

Anne:
Follow us on Instagram and Curry Homes. S Anne with an e Curry Homes. We do a lot of content, free content. We do free events four times a year for people who wanna start investing just to expose ’em, you know, to the investing game. And our website’s chock full of stuff, so we’d love to see you on there. Awesome.

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

Anne:
Thanks Charles.

Links and Contact Information Mentioned In The Episode:

• Anne Curry Homes

About Anne Curry

Anne Curry is a real estate investor with over 30 years of experience in buying, flipping, developing, and owning rental properties across Washington State and Arizona. By starting her career making $5 an hour as a preschool teacher with greater dreams to support her family, Anne has since scaled her real estate portfolio, currently owning over 300 units and 12 apartment buildings with a current net worth of over $20 million. As seen in BiggerPockets and Business Insider, Anne’s mission is to educate new and seasoned investors on ways to create passive income and generational wealth through owning and developing rentals. 

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