Tiny Investments, Killer Cash Flow, and Starting with Just $12K

“Tiny” investmentsAre you looking for out of the box ideas and strategies to find killer cashflow?Our guest today used a seller financing strategy and a super small investment of money to begin his real estate business that’s now generating crazy cashflow.I’m Ashley Kehr.And I’m Tony j Robinson and welcome to the Real Estate Rookie podcast and I’m super excited to welcome to the show, Manny. Manny, what’s up brother? How you doing man?Hi Tony. Hi Ashley. Thank you for having me. It feels very surreal to be here, so happy to be on the show and I appreciate the invite.Yeah, well, we’re excited to dig into your story, Manny. So can you give us a snapshot of your life before real estate investing and what motivated you to actually want to start investing?I didn’t really know anything about finance and real estate until after I got out of the army. Before then I didn’t really have, I guess a pathway, if you will. A lot of people around me were just skating by almost and didn’t really feel like they had a plan and I was kind of the same to be honest. So I joined the army a little bit later when I was 24, and that’s kind of what catapulted me into this real estate career pretty much by complete accident too.How did that accident occur? What was the thing that kind of made that light bulb click like I need to do this?So I was in the army from 2018 to 2022. While I was in the army I would, so I was a medic, right? So I would be out a lot on mission and stuff and a lot of the time as medics, we don’t really do much unless somebody gets hurt. So I would have a lot of downtime for what it’s worth. And in that downtime I would read as many books I could about business, about real estate, about finance. Obviously I’d listen to BiggerPockets podcasts too to try to get my business acumen up, if you will. I got hurt in 2021 pretty badly to the point where I couldn’t walk for a year and a half. So yeah, I got discharged and when I got discharged I was like, wow, I have nothing lined up because my plan was to stay in the army for at least a little bit longer and I had a 1-year-old son and I was married to, my wife didn’t have a job, so I thought what do I do?What do I do? I had maybe around 12 K to my name and I scraped that together as I was getting out. I went and bought my first home. It was a starter home, single family home built in 2021. I used that 12 grand to cover the closing costs. Luckily I got to use the VA loan so I didn’t have to pay anything down upfront. And that’s kind of what got me into the real estate game once I got that house. So I stayed in there for a year. There’s a clause within the VA loan where you have to live there for a year before you can do any rental activities. Stayed there for a year, got back on my feet, started to be more forward-looking, and then I bought my second house with that same VA loan, so you can actually use it more than once. There’s an allotment to it. It kind of depends on where you live. I think that being said, after I bought that second house, I was like, okay, I’m going to rent this first one out now,First meeting I think for Ash, and I both just like, thank you for your service, right? I mean for you to go in and you said you couldn’t walk for a year and a half. It had to be something big had man. So thank you for your service there. But you took what you did in the military and used that as a foundation to start building your real estate portfolio. So the first property, did you buy it with the intention of it eventually becoming a rental? Or was it like, Hey, I just want to get my family situated somewhere?So when I was still in the military, I started reading about investing and I saw an overwhelming trend how wealthy real estate can make you. So to your point, yes, I wanted to buy it with the intent to rent it out, but again, I had no experience, so I wasn’t really too sure what I was doing yet. And I kind of just took it as like, okay, I have this short timeline to figure things out, so I’m just going to try to do this as quickly as I can and try to be as efficient as I can with it. So to your point, yes, I did have the intent to rent it out and it ended up working out pretty well. That house I bought for the first one I bought for 2 19 4 99, the interest rate was, I think it was 3.125%. So my payment was really cheap, it was like a thousand bucks.And when I was renting it out, I rented it out for 1695, so it was cash flowing like 6 95 for the first probably I would say the first maybe 18 months after that the renters left. So I had a really tough time trying to find other renters, and it sat vacant from I think May to, I want to say the end of the year, December. I lost a good amount of money on that close to almost 10,000 trying to rent it out. The downside was that neighborhood has an HOA and you can’t do ST or anything like that. And I didn’t know that at the time. Again, I’m still kind of trying to figure things out, so I didn’t really have too many strategies other than trying to find a long-term renter. And looking back, I probably should have lowered the rent, but I didn’t really think too much of it at the time. I have somebody in there now, so I got them in there this past December. But it was definitely a learning experience to have to eat those costs for as long as I did.Manny, when you decided to rent this property out, what were the steps you took to actually get it rent ready? As a rookie investor, having your first tenant come in? Kind of explain that transition of this is your primary home and now getting it ready for tenants and actually finding tenants and then leasing it out.Yeah, yeah, definitely. So when I bought my second house, I met a realtor that was a longtime friend of my dad’s. So that realtor that sold me the second house was also a property manager and he was like, Hey, you have this other house. Let me help you get it rent ready. He’s like, and I’ll manage it for you too so you can be completely hands off. I was like, I’ll do it. I was like, but I want you to give me a really good deal to be my property manager and I’ll keep buying houses from you exclusively within San Antonio. And he took that deal. So he helped me get everything ready for the first house. He has the Texas Real Estate lease, excuse me, the Texas Realtors Real Estate Lease. So he got all that set up. He screened the tenants for me. He also did the background checks, all of that stuff, and then found them. So it made everything pretty seamless.Rookie investors listening. Do you recommend that they take the same route that they find somebody to manage their first rental property?I guess I think it kind of depends. With me, I don’t know how much, to be honest, I would’ve trusted him right away if he wasn’t friends with my dad just because I’ve gotten burned in the past with other business deals. But that being said, I think maybe trust your gut, I think is a good way to look at it when you’re meeting people and doing business with them. If you know completely nothing, it definitely helps. I’ll say that much because again, I didn’t really know too much of what I was doing, and he got me set up with, Hey, you need renter’s insurance. Hey, this tenant has to have a history of employment. This tenant needs to have a decent credit check or credit score. And he would tell me, for example, if somebody didn’t have a very high credit score, he would say, well, then I look at do they have, what kind of debt do they have?Do they have broken leases or is it just medical debt? Because then people don’t intentionally not pay their medical bills if they can’t, if they’re not able to. So kind of things like that, little nuances, it helps really open my eyes to see, okay, this is a very people based business and there’s more to it than just like, okay, this house is open, pay me rent for it, and so on and so forth. So to your point, I do recommend it if they’re to swing it, but I also recommend being very selective on who you work with.Alright, guys, we’re going to take a quick break, but first, if you are a rookie investor and you’re craving some accountability, then make sure you check out the Momentum Virtual Summit. You’ll get to attend eight virtual sessions that cover different real estate investing topics that are super relevant to investing in today’s market. Now, the most important part though is that you’ll get to be involved in an accountability group with like-minded rookie investors just like yourself. Now when we come back, we’re going to talk too Manny about his seller finance deal that created hyper cashflow form. With that, we’ll be right back.All right, let’s get back into the show with Manny, guys. So Manny, I want to get into this kind of coolest seller finance deal that you did, but before I do, just one last question. Could you mention before the break that you probably lost close to $10,000 on that first rental deal, and I can feel your pain brother, because the second real estate deal that I did, I think we ended up losing close to $30,000 between lost rental revenue, having to cover the mortgage, and then we also had to do some repairs, things that came up. So I know you mentioned that potentially dropping the rent price was one thing, but I guess how did you land on that rim price? And I guess what stopped you from dropping if you felt maybe that was the solution?I got really used to getting that rental amount because it covered my cost for my property manager. It covered my cost for the maintenance, and then I was able to keep some for myself too. I did end up dropping that rent. I dropped it a hundred dollars for what it’s worth. And once I did that, I was able to find tenants. So it sat vacant for so long, like I said, right from May to December.I know you knocked out a couple of house acts, right, and that’s kind of how you got your feet wet as a real estate investor. But I know you also kind of fell into a bit of a glamping business as well. So maybe walk us through how was that transition, I guess just what was the initial story behind this idea to get into the world of glamping?Yeah, so I got into it by complete accident after I bought that second house, that same guy that is friends with my dad and that’s my property manager. And he said, Hey, he said, what do you think about tiny houses? And I was like, I think they’re super cool. I was like, I would love to maybe get into them one day. And he was like, well, I have one for you here right now. And he like, do you want it? And I was like, can I go see it? And he was like, yeah. So I went over there to go look at it, and it is an awesome tiny house that he built. Basically one of those shell homes, like a modular almost, but the whole inside is outfitted. It has a kitchen bathroom and a one bedroom and then a living room. It’s around 384 square feet I think off the top of my head.So does it sit on a trailer that you can move it orIts on top of cinder blocks. Its on top of cinder blocks. So when I went there and looked at it, I was like, wow, I really want this. And then the plumber was like, okay, well it’s going to be like 50 grand. And I was like, well, that’s great, but I don’t have 50 grand. So he ended up saying, if you really want it, I, I’ll sell it to you, seller finance. And I was like, that’s great. I was like, but I don’t even have land to put this thing on. So I made a deal with him and I said, Hey, I’ll do the seller finance deal, but let me lease the land so I can at least get this thing going and get on my feet.That’s awesome. What a creative.Yeah, I got lucky. So first of all, San Antonio, there’s a lot of land outside of that city. They call it the Texas Hill country. So that plumber lived out in that area and he had a good amount of land himself. He had his own house that sat on the land and then the tiny house down the way from his house and the utilities were connected to his house, so it fed off of his house and it had its own little plot and it was separated by a fence. So it was really nice, I think very Instagramable. I ended up doing a seller finance deal with him.I got it for 50,000. He did me a 5% interest rate, and I think I gave him, gave him 20,000 down that I had saved, and then the rest he had financed to me after that, I put it on Airbnb and it took off pretty well. But the downside was he didn’t like the guests that were coming and the guests weren’t really bothering him. I think he was just maybe an old school guy and he wanted his piece. So he was like, Hey, you have six months for this land lease. He’s like, and then after that you got to get out and find somewhere else. And during that time, so it was still kind of the beginning of when I got out of the army. So I had just had surgery on one of my hips. I had surgery on both of my hips, but I had surgery on one side during this time, so I was pretty immobile, if you will. So on top of trying to run this business and trying to find land, I was also dealing with my health too. So I was working with my dad’s friend again and I was like, Hey, I need some land now, help me out. So he found me land around 30 minutes outside of San Antonio in this area called Medina Lake. The good thing is that this land has no HOA and it has no deed restrictions, so the people there kind of just do whatever they want until they land, if you will.And I was able to buy that land with a veteran land board loan. So there’s a company, I think it’s only in Texas, I might be wrong, but that veteran land board gave me a loan to buy the land.We have never heard of this before, have we, Tony?No, I’ve never heard of that. And this is separate from the VA loan to purchase an actual property. It’s federally just for land purchase?Yes, exactly, exactly.It’s a veteran land board, like B-O-A-R-D?Yeah, I think they go by VLB.Okay. I just Googled it and it does look like it’s very specific to Texas.I was talking with my other friends that are veterans, and they’re the ones that told me about this. It’s not like the VA loan, so it’s not zero down. The land itself was around 65,000. I think that interest rate at the time was around 5%, and I don’t remember exactly the percentage that I paid down, but it was around, I think it was around five to six grand that I paid down to get the land. It’s like three minute walk from Medina Lake. The only downside is the lake is really dry right now, so I’m not going to lie. I was a little nervous to do that. I was like, wow, nobody’s going to want to come out here no lake. But that hasn’t really been the case.And Manny, so what was it about that specific piece of land that made you feel like it would be a good location? Did you do research on other Airbnbs? Were there other tiny homes? I know you said there’s a lake, but was there anything else that kind of drew you into itTo your point? I looked on Air DNA and I looked at a lot of counties around San Antonio, and the place that I picked was number two out of five. I think number one at the time was Canyon Lake, which I hear, I think that lake is drying up as well. And then Medina Lake, which is where I was at, and I think it was Bandera, the town,A few other lakes and maybe were in the same area.Right. But those, so Air DNAs data showed me that the location I picked was number two. So I was like, okay, maybe I can do something with this. When I brought the home over there, it only had a water meter, so it didn’t have electricity utilities. So it got dropped off there on cinder blocks, and then I’m like, okay, I need to start figuring out what do I need to do. So I called the electrical company. They said, Hey, we’ll come install this pole. And they said, we can do underground electric or above ground. We chose, I believe, underground.What was the basis for that reasoning? Why did you choose that one compared to the other one?My dad and his realtor friend, they know a bunch of tradesmen and they have a really good friend that they’ve known for 30 years as an electrician. So it was his recommendation, I think, because he said it would be less maintenance for having the wire into the ground. I don’t know too much about electrical outlets and electrical setup, to be honest, but I just took his word for it.Yeah, pretty much anyone who does a new build here does Underground Electric too. Yeah.What was the cost for that, Manny? What did it cost to have that electrical run?So electrical company itself charged me like 1500, and then the electrician that we hired charged me another 1500. So it was around three grand out the door, and he set everything up himself, and that included the materials too, for whatever else was needed.It’s actually not too bad because a lot of times this utility runs that are somewhat the most expensive part. We had Garrett Brown, who’s one of the short-term rental contributors for BiggerPockets. He had a glamping unit that he built out as well, and if I recall his costs in saw his utilities was significantly more expensive. So it sounds like you kind of caught a break with the water and with the electrical. So what was your next step then, man, after getting the electrical installed?Yeah, so once the electrical was, excuse me, installed, I was like, okay, I have a water meter, I have electricity. Oh wait, I need plumbing. So I was like, okay, let me figure this part out. So I called around some STIC companies and they were all telling me, this is going to cost a lot because the land that you bought has a lot of rock, which I didn’t know about. I mean, I guess hindsight is 2020, right? So to answer your question, the next step was to get an aerobic septic tank, and my property manager gave me really good advice. He was like, don’t skimp on the septic tank. He’s like, get the top of the line that you can. He’s like, because if you want to build more tiny houses out here, they can all be connected over to it. So the aerobic septus tank was 18,000.I didn’t have that money upfront, so I used a 0% interest credit card to fund it, which I guess in hindsight probably wasn’t the best idea. I had to get more creative with that as well. Once I got it installed, it came with the service agreements. So they service it every six months. They’ll go out there and look at the tank and do all that stuff. I started to think maybe I’m too in over my head and I don’t know what I’m doing. And I started questioning myself and all these things. It was just slowly but surely that it happened. I would say it took around three to four months for it to be off of Airbnb. I used the same Airbnb listing from the first location I reached out to Airbnb. I don’t know if things have changed since then, but I reached out to them at the time and I said, Hey, can I still use this same listing? I already had reviews for it,But because the property address was changing, you probably had to have them go in the backend and change it then,Right? That’s exactly what they did.Yeah.I had to show them proof, different things that I bought this land, and I explained to them the agreement that I had, and I was like, I still want to keep this listing, but I need time to do the construction. I need time to get everything set up. So yeah, it was tough. It wasn’t, wasn’t anything but easy. My wife kind of tells me that. She’s like, you just look at the end of how you want to get to things and not everything in between. So it was really tough to get there, but once I got it set up, it seemed like things have worked out soWell. Tell us about some of the amenities or different features you added that kind of make your glamping site stand out from other ones.Like I was saying before, when the lake dried up, I was like, wow, now the lake’s dry. I’m done with this, and now I don’t know how to get people out here. So if you go and look on the sites, Instagram, like I said, everything, it looks like a shell, right? There wasn’t anything. So I started looking around at other glamping sites just to see what they were doing. So I added an eight foot privacy fence around the tiny house. I call it a Casita in Texas, a lot of people call it. So I added an eight foot private fence around it. I added a stock tank pool that doubles as a hot tub too, so it’s got a little propane tank attachment, and it’s attached to the tiny house. So in the summer it’s really cool. It’s got a, I don’t know the exact material, but it’s not metal inside.It’s some sort of plastic maybe. So when it gets really hot outside, the metal doesn’t heat up, it just the plastic coating keeps it separate. And then in the winter, it doubles as a hot tub. So you can flick the propane tank on and the system shoots out kind of like a heater, and then we’ll heat the water up for you, and it’s got a little motor attached to it. I didn’t build it. I hired a company to, and if you’ve ever seen a stock tank pool, it’s kind of like a makeshift pool. It’s not the biggest thing, but man, I think it’s so tough to clean.Ours are more just kind of soaking tubs, and we actually had to drill a hole in them about a foot and a half above the base. Otherwise the permitting got a lot more complicated and became like a whirl pool and then made it shrimp through all these other hoops. So ours is really just like, Hey, you can lay in it, kind of soak it in a little bit, but then we empty it and the guests refill if they want to use it. So we have some guests who don’t even use it, and that way we don’t have to worry about cleaning it for every single guest once it’s done.That’s really smart. I might actually take that idea.Lessons learned as we started to scale up. What other amenities have you added to the property?It has lightning, fast wifi as well, so there’s a TV in there with streaming services. I have a little game device in there too as well. The insides furnished with a futon. My wife decorated it, so I told her, go wild. I don’t know anything about decorating. I’m going to be honest. So she went and got all these different things from different places and has a stove in as well. The shower too. Oh, it has a washer and dryer in it as well, so I added a washer and dryer into where the bedroom is.Yeah, that’s a good amount for 380 some odd square feet. I like that, man. So let me ask you put a lot of time and effort, energy into getting the listing up and running. I guess two questions. How long did it take from the moment that you moved it from the original location to the new location? How much time did it take to get it live? And then once you’ve launched it, what kind of revenues have you seen from this investment?Yeah, so construction and everything like that took around three months. So it was three months of no revenue and still having to pay the carrying costs, if you will. The first year that it was live, it did almost 8,000. That was between Airbnb, a Glamp hub and a hip camp. And I think I had one or two bookings on VRBO maybe. So I did okay. Since then, I actually put it on Furnish Finder just to see what would happen, and I had a solar company reach out to me that, I guess they have students in that area that are training for whatever it is they do, and they said, Hey, we need a midterm rental. Your place is the closest for what we need, and it has everything that we need. So I did a deal with them. They just moved in January 11th and they move out. Date is May 11th, and they’re paying 1195 a month. Really, the only costs to me are the land, the insurance, and then the utilities, because I’m carrying those too. They pay for the trash themselves. So I would say maybe four to 500 for my costs. So it’s pretty close to almost 700 cashflow I think around there when I first put it on Airbnb, somebody actually trashed it.Okay. We’re going to take a short break. If you haven’t already, make sure you are subscribed to our YouTube channel at Real Estate Rookie, and we’ll be right back with Manny. Okay. Welcome back from our break. We are here with Manny, who has been giving us insight on how to run a glamping business along with all of his experiences with having tenants and managing. So Manny, you mentioned that you might’ve had a tenant that trashed your property, but actually it was a guest because it was a short-term rental, right?Yeah, that’s right. They were actually, I think our first guest at the Casita, right, in the new location. So I went as much all out as I could to try to make it really nice and pretty and everything. And these people came in and it was only supposed to be two guests. I have a ring camera on the front door, but I think they snuck extra people in maybe through the side or something like that, or maybe even under the camera. The reason how I know is my cleaners went out there at 7:00 AM They were supposed to be out there at 11, but they got the time wrong, and when they went out there, there was I think four or five cars there. I’m like, wait a minute, why are all these cars here? It’s not supposed to be two people. So they went there and saw, and I messaged them and they were like, oh, they made up some excuse or something, but after they left the place was completely trashed. They had some sort of party there or something, andThis is, what did you say? 396 square feet andYeah, yeah, something like that, because they had all these people in there. There was all kinds of stuff they threw up in there. All my dishes were everywhere, food everywhere. And there was even some alleged blood in there too. I don’t know what, from all kinds of weird stuff. And I had to get with Airbnb and show them pictures, and they tampered with my locks on, my keypad locks. So they pulled the batteries out and they did all kinds of crazy stuff. I’m just like, why? I worked so hard to do this.Yeah. Manny, how did this get resolved with Airbnb? What was the outcome from it?Yeah, so I ended up charging them I think four or $500 for everything because I had to replace so many things. There were stains, there’s all kinds of stuff. It was a huge mess. It took my cleaners a long time. And the funny thing is, so my cleaners live in the neighborhood, so my guy texted me and he was like, buddy, he’s like, you’re going to want to see this. And he sent me all these pictures and I’m like, oh my God. Another problem with this,It’s unfortunate, rather that happens from time to time. But Manny, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen this in your portfolio, but for us on the short term side, it’s like there is going to be those guests that make a mess that don’t clean up themselves that caused the headache. But I would say vast, vast majority of people who stay at our Airbnbs are usually pretty respectful. Nice. And they leave the place the same way that they found it. Would you say you’ve seen the same for yours as well?Yes, 100%. I haven’t had any issues since them.There you go. There you go. That’s usually how it goes, man. That’s how it’s supposed to be, man. Well, dude, it sounds like your hard work has paid off, man. I mean, you did the work to secure the property itself, seller finance, and you went out and got the land and you did all the work to make it stand out. I guess what’s next for you in your glamping business? Are you looking at any ways to increase revenue? Yeah, just what’s on the horizon for you.Yeah, definitely. So one thing I found out with having the land in the tiny house, I learned that if I build more that the first tiny house, the casita will absorb the cost of most things, like the electricity and the water and then the land payment, insurance, all that stuff. So after that, it’s almost pretty much profit except for maybe some of the utilities will go up and then the cleaners. So to your point, I went to Phoenix, Arizona in October before I left here in Tokyo, and I met this team of people. It was an older man and a lady. They had two tiny houses, and you can see them on our Instagram, so they’re very, very flashy. It’s an orange one and a blue one. I ended up buying the orange one, but then I had to figure out, okay, now I have to ship it from Phoenix to Texas. That was a whole other thing.The guy that shipped it ended up breaking it. So I got this one seller finance as well. By the way, this one was a lot less down. I think maybe like a couple thousand if that price for that one was only 23, 20 3000. The size is maybe right under 200 square feet, but it’s very nicely decorated, and they’re painted, so they have an Arizona desert skyline on it. The lady that I met commissioned a local artist to paint the entire unit. It’s like a container home kind of, but it’s super flashy. If you look at it, there’s a blue one and a red one, and they just stand out. So I went and bought that one. I had it shipped from Phoenix, Texas. The guy that shipped it broke the floor. I guess he didn’t know what he was doing. So that’s something I’m dealing with right now.I haven’t had that one listed yet. I have to get the utilities connected for that, which I’m going to use the same electrician. Luckily I already have the septic, so I can connect that one as well and then connect it to the water. But I want to do the same thing, get the spirit of glamping going there and have it set up and have it rented out. I will say one thing that I think that’s really saved us is there’s a store down the street from there that sells deer, corn. So every time I would go out there, I would buy deer, corn, and I would throw it out, throw it out, throw it out. So now every time people go, I think the deer conditioned, and it’s not just one or two, it’s 20. There’s a ton of ’em. They go out there and people want to take videos of them and pictures of them, and then to the left of that is a really nice scenic view. So I think people are starting to get the experience of like, okay, wake up in the morning, have coffee, see the scenic view, and then see all the deer out there as well. It’s pretty peaceful, that orange one. I expect construction to probably be done sometime next month. There’s been a lot of freezes going on in the area, so it’s kind of delayed a little bitWith these properties that you’ve been able to put together. You’re managing them from Tokyo. So I guess kind of my last question here as we wrap up is how many hours a week are you actually spending now that you’ve built your team on these properties, overseeing them, doing the asset management? How many hours per week?That’s a good question. So I think it kind of varies depending on what’s needed to be done. Before I left, I built the team out. So I have one property manager for the tiny houses, and then I have my other property manager for the single family homes. And it’s funny, I got the times mixed up yesterday, and I showed up to this meeting at 5:00 AM yesterday, and I was like, wait, today’s not the day. But the funny thing is that right after that happened, I got a hit on Airbnb for my other single family home, the second one that I bought, and somebody rented it out for midterm for 33 days, and it took me maybe 30 minutes to an hour of work to get the messages sent, the short term or the midterm lease sign, things like that.That is really awesome to think that you were able to move across the world to manage your properties. Well, Manny, where can other people reach out to you, find more information about you and talk more real estate with you?Yeah, of course, of course. I usually spend time on Instagram mostly for my personal account. It’s going to be built by, and then my last name, R-E-Y-N-A, so built by Reyna, and then my glamping Instagram is just kaita. That one is one that I’m probably more active on, but happy to chat with anybody that wants to talk. Maybe they can learn lessons that I had to learn the hard way so they don’t have to go through them.Well, Manny, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Thank you again for your service, and we really appreciate the value you’ve been able to bring to our rookie investors. And again, so awesome that you’re living in Tokyo, living out your dream life. Just went to Disneyland last week with your son all while managing your properties in the States. So congratulations on your success.Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.I’m Ashley. And he’s Tony. And we’ll see you guys on the next episode of the Real Estate Rookie Podcast.