Investing in Real Estate as a Single Mom – Interview With Lauren Hardy | 426

Lauren Hardy Joins Chris MIles today.

Lauren started flipping houses. Southern California became a tough market and she looked out-if-state for more opportunities.

Lauren Hardy is a real estate investor with a “People First” approach to business.

Investing in hundreds of properties in her career, including developing spec houses in Nashville Tennessee and hundreds of flips in her other out of state markets, Lauren has the unique reputation of being a successful “virtual investor” having not lived in many of the states she’s invested in.

She has only ever worked in real estate so launching her own real estate investment company made sense.

Lauren has developed a reputation in the industry for persevering in extremely competitive markets by constantly following the market changes and being flexible and willing to move market territories when needed. Lauren currently lives with her two daughters in Southern California and travels to her market territories several times a year.

Chris Miles (00:07):
Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles, your Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor. Welcome you out for a wonderful show. Show that’s for you and about you. Those of you that worked so freaking hard for your money, you’re ready for your money start working harder for you. Now. You want that freedom. You want that Cash Flow. That prosperity. So you work because you want to not because you have to. So you can be able to be with those that you love doing what you love, whenever the heck you feel like it. But on top of that, it’s more than just your own comfort and convenience, right? It’s not just about getting rich. It’s about creating a life of meaning and purpose about being a Rippler by creating that ripple effect in the lives of others. Blessing more lives because you are free. And as a result, you can spread that as well.

Chris Miles (00:49):
Guys, I appreciate you being on here. I appreciate all the bingeing you guys have done. Some of you guys are trying to tackle all 400 plus episodes and that’s awesome. More power to you. I can’t stand, listening to my voice that long, but I appreciate you guys do that. And Hey reminder, check out our website, www.MoneyRipples.com There’s great blogs on there. And there’s the book Beyond Rice and Beans, 7 secrets free up cash today. If you want to find more money to invest now. So today I’m bringing on a special guest here, Lauren Hardy. So now again, like I get different people that come to me, but you know, when I see someone that I can tell is the real deal, right? They’re not the posers. They’re not fake, they’re actually doing it. They’re, It’s kind of that been there, done that and still doing it today.

Chris Miles (01:32):
And that’s a key. And Lauren actually is a real estate coach and investor, and a wholesaler herself a little bit about her. First and foremost, she’s a real estate investor with a people first approach the business, right? She’s invested in hundreds of properties over her career. She has a unique reputation of being a successful virtual investor. Having not lived in many of the States that she invested, which a lot of times we talk about in this show, she’s also been able to persevere an extremely competitive markets by constantly following the market changes and being flexible and willing to move market territories when needed. She currently lives in South Southern California and with her two daughters. And he, by the way, the one reason I’m bringing her on the show is that she’s actually like a single mom doing this stuff. Like actually making this stuff happen, wholesaling an active business, not passively investing, actively investing and rocking it right now. So Lauren, welcome to our show!

Lauren Hardy (02:25):
Hey! Thank you for having me.

Chris Miles (02:28):
Absolutely! So tell us what even got you down that path of real estate in the first place?

Lauren Hardy (02:33):
Well, I actually have been in real estate for a very long time. Since I graduated college, it was, I, it was always what I wanted to do. My dad had a rental property rental portfolio growing up, we lived in, we still live in Southern California. And my dad had a portfolio in Ohio and I just grew up around, you know, the rental business. So I always assumed that I would get into estate. I graduated college in 2008 and it was right during the recession, right when it started. And I got into commercial real estate as my first, you know, venture into real estate. And it was a terrible time to get into it. I failed miserably did not have a great time. It tried to become, I was trying to be like a real commercial real estate broker. And it was very, yeah, that was like the worst time.

Chris Miles (03:27):
The worst time for essential was bad, but commercial is worse.

Lauren Hardy (03:31):
Commercial was just, yeah, terrible.But I was very lucky. I got a job more on the corporate side of real estate working in franchise development for subway restaurants at the time subway was doing amazing because subway does very well in recessions because of the $5 foot long and.

Chris Miles (03:53):
Yeah.

Lauren Hardy (03:53):
Right.

Chris Miles (03:54):
about that thing a whole day, you know, for five minutes.

Lauren Hardy (03:57):
I know. Right? Yeah. So I got really lucky because that was like a company that was expanding over a recession. So I got that job at that time, hung out, hung in there for a bit. And I eventually wanted to get into investment real estate myself because I wanted to have a job where I could work from home and I could be there for my children. You know, so, you know, corporate world corporate life was not fitting that in the bill for me. So that’s how it all started. And I started out as a house flipper just in my backyard when I finally like really got started into house flipping, it was 2012. So there was still quite a bit of seller distress. It was pretty easy to find property in my backyard where there was a significant discount where you could still put money into it and make a really decent return. I was doing that, you know, having a great time for the first couple of years, but it got really hard. And in my market in Southern California, as the market started, you know, doing better heating up.

Chris Miles (05:06):
Yep.

Lauren Hardy (05:07):
Got really tough to find those deals. So it forced me to look at out-of-state properties to get the margins that I needed to get, to be able to sustain this business.

Chris Miles (05:17):
And that’s not easy, like I’m going to match my group of ton of wholesalers and it’s, it’s not an easy way to just go virtual. Right? Just to go into a place like that. So how did you get through that learning curve? Like what was it you were able to figure out to make that work for you?

Lauren Hardy (05:31):
You know, it’s funny, it’s so much trial and error at the time. There was no educators. There were no like virtual wasn’t really like that common of a term. So I really had to like figure it out myself. I had to go, okay, what do I do in California? And now, you know, what people can I hire to do the stuff that like you would need me there. Right? So like, do I, need what boots on the ground? You know one thing that I will say is I started virtual actually when I was in California because California has terrible traffic. If anybody knows my markets where I had some of my flip properties, it would sometimes take me two hours in traffic to get to them. So I would often try to get the contracts and get these houses under contract without even seeing them, because I didn’t want to waste my time in a set with a seller that wasn’t, that motivated, that ends up, you know, I drive two hours and the seller never even ended up signing the contract.

Lauren Hardy (06:34):
So, I taught, you know, I kind of learned how to get really good at convincing sellers to sign contracts over the phone without having to meet me. So I got good at estimating repairs you know, without having, you know, sight unseen. And I would estimate repairs based on the description of the property that the seller was giving me with the understanding that, you know, I do have an inspection contingency and if I do get the property under contract and I do go there and I see that there is something that the seller, you know, didn’t tell me about that. I renegotiate my contract at that point. So that was really how I started virtual. And then I thought, well, gosh! I mean, what, how is this any different than if the house was in Tennessee?

Chris Miles (07:21):
Yeah.

Lauren Hardy (07:23):
And so I made it work.

Chris Miles (07:25):
Yeah. And you just still do over the phone or you start doing more like with zoom and things like that now, or?

Lauren Hardy (07:30):
I do it, we do everything over the phone. So I have a team now. I don’t do our acquisitions. I more manage the company and I have staff that runs my business. I mean, like 100%, I just kind of check in about once a week for an hour to make sure we’re still closing deals. I do handle all the marketing. I do a lot of seller marketing. We market direct to seller. That’s how we get our deals. I don’t buy anything on the MLS or off the MLS. So I manage the marketing campaign still. But yeah, I, we do everything over the phone. Acquisitions is all in-house. And if we do have to have someone meet the seller to drop off a contract, because some sellers are not as savvy with computers, we have runners. That’ll do that for us. So I, yeah, we’ve, we’ve basically, you know, figured out a system and it works then now that we’ve been doing it for so long, I don’t really know any different. So I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s that hard.

Chris Miles (08:29):
Yeah. It’s a matter of pattern because as I know some people and I’ve heard wholesalers say this, they’re like, well, I don’t know how to not do this business where I’m not belly to belly. Right? Like they feel like they have to be face to face to earn trust and you figure out a way to do it just with not even seeing you, like, it’s just, just hearing your voice. Right?

Lauren Hardy (08:49):
Yeah. That’s a misconception. It always makes me cringe. When I have, like, when I hear like other educators say, get the appointment, get the appointment, you have to get belly to belly with them and all that. You have to sit on their couch and pet their cat and don’t leave their house until they sign that contract. And, and honestly, I just laugh. I’m like, you know, the amount of time you just took like it to do that all like that probably took you two hours to drive to the seller’s house. Sit there, drink tea, you know, talks to them about stuff, pet their cat. Like by the time you’re done doing that and they, but yeah. Get ringworm. I mean, by the time you left and what if this other didn’t even sign the contract? You know how many times that happened to me, where the seller does assign the contract, then I just want to like kill myself at the end of it.

Lauren Hardy (09:35):
Like cool. That’s two and a half hours. I’m never going to get back out of my day.

Chris Miles (09:39):
Yeah.

Lauren Hardy (09:39):
You know? So I realized I was like, I could’ve made five offers over the phone of five sellers. And one of that, one out of the five might say yes to that offer versus not one out of one that you’re going for for that day.

Chris Miles (09:53):
Right.

Lauren Hardy (09:53):
I mean, seller meetings are exhausting. If anybody’s ever gone on them, they are exhausting. But you know what? Calling sellers on the phone is not that exhausting. And you can make five to seven offers a day pretty, easily. And out of those, you’re likely to get a deal. So that’s my approach on it. And I would argue, you know, any seller, like I’ve never heard a seller say, Oh, well, I’m not going to listen to your offer because you won’t come to my house and tell it to me, to my face belly to belly. Like no seller will say that every seller is going to say like, well, yeah, I’ll listen to what you’d offer me. Like sure! Of course. You know?

Chris Miles (10:37):
Yeah. That’s cool. That’s really cool. I think that now the timing is better than ever to where people are already realizing they have to go virtual. Whether they like it or not.

Lauren Hardy (10:46):
I know. Yeah. Like, I mean with COVID there’s no excuse like you guys have to go for a trouble. It’s like, it’s been amazing to be like, well, I can’t meet you with lady. Sorry.

Chris Miles (10:58):
Now you have the perfect reason. Right? There’s.

Lauren Hardy (11:01):
Right. Totally.

Chris Miles (11:02):
Well, that’s cool. And how do you balance this? I mean, how old are your daughters right now? I have a six year old and a nine year old. Oh my goodness! That’s a fun age right there. How do you make all that work together? I mean, run a successful wholesaling business and raise a family by yourself. I mean, how do you manage that?

Lauren Hardy (11:19):
Yeah. You know, I mean, yeah, so I’m a single mom. I have a wonderful co-parent. Their dad is very much, you know, how he helps me out and we definitely co-parent very well. But yeah, I do juggle a lot. I pick up my kids every day from school when they were in school. And you know, I do the car pools and everything. I time block I’m very Monday through Friday, I’m on a very strict schedule. I wake up in the morning. I work out at eight in the morning after I dropped them off from school. My Workday starts at about nine. I skip a lot. Okay. I don’t do my makeup every day. I don’t do my hair every day. I stayed my, I said, yeah, you look great. You’re natural beauty.

Lauren Hardy (12:06):
I mean, not so much, but that’s okay. I have to be okay with looking ugly. I, you know, I sometimes will stay in my gym clothes, you know, all day, like until I pick them up from school. So I do skip some steps in my grooming process. But I have to stick to my schedule. I also have a lot of help. So I recommend to anybody as you make more money, you need to start putting money aside to pay for support staff. What is support staff? I hired a wife. I call her she’s my personal assistant. She helps me around the house. She comes on Fridays and she just kind of picks up the girls rooms kind of helps me organize a little bit. She picks a little section. She does, what what a wife would do? Well, you know, for me.

Lauren Hardy (12:53):
So I, it’s fantastic. You know, I, and she helps me with the laundry. I have house cleaners, they come and they clean the house. I, as I, you know, as my income allowed, you know, and it wasn’t all at once. It was step by step. It was like, Oh, you know, I can afford a house cleaner now. I can afford daycare. I can afford a nanny. I can afford this. So you’ve got to invest in that because the amount that you’re going to pay them, you know, say you pay them 15 or whatever an hour, you know, depending on kind of going rates in your area, but like 15 to $20 an hour, you have to think, well, if I’m making a hundred dollars an hour or more, you know, it’s worth it. What I mean, it’s, no brainer that it makes sense to hire someone. Your time is better spent doing what makes you more money period of time is better spent doing that for $20 an hour.

Chris Miles (13:47):
Absolutely. I agree. And that amaze me too, like you know, Barbara Corcoran, Right? From shark tank, right? Like I remember I had a family member saying, yeah, I nannied for this lady in New York. She was, she’s apparently famous. I’m like, well, what’s her name, Barbara Corcoran. I’m like, well, yeah, yeah. I definitely know her, but yeah. I mean, she, she said the same thing, like, yeah. She had to get support in as well. And especially where she’s even an older mom. Right. Like she’s doing that in her fifties and sixties, you know? So yeah, it was, it was kinda cool to see that happen, but obviously that’s not something you just throw right in. Like, that’s gotta be developed over time.

Lauren Hardy (14:24):
Yeah. I’ve been developing this over eight years. So I, and it’s very much for me. It’s, lifestyle by design. I basically outsource everything I hate doing. So it started with eight years ago, me doing everything, and then it was okay. The first thing I need is I need childcare. Like once I quit my full time job, and I started doing investing full time because I did do investing first with the corporate, you know, full time job. I I did both for a year. I started my company and I did both for a year until I had enough money in savings to quit my full time job. And then I thought I could work with my children at home. And I learned very quickly that that’s impossible. So as soon as I need, you know, I felt comfortable enough to put my kids, you know, to afford some daycare.

Lauren Hardy (15:16):
I put them in daycare three days a week and it just built from there. It was like, and now the house cleaners, you know, and then the nanny, you know, I need your personal assistant. And also hiring staff, you know, for your actual business. You know, I did seller calls. We do a lot of direct to seller marketing, so we could get in, you know, five to 12 seller, new seller leads per day, Monday through Friday. I don’t have time for that. So that’s the first thing I hired for my company is, you know, an acquisition manager.

Chris Miles (15:49):
Yeah.

Lauren Hardy (15:50):
Yeah.

Chris Miles (15:51):
Yeah. You gotta have, yeah. You got to keep delegating and keep building that out.

Lauren Hardy (15:54):
For sure. For sure. Yeah.

Chris Miles (15:57):
Yeah. That’s true. I mean, it’s, I keep thinking of what my life would be like if I were more full time. Cause I’m semi-retired. Right? Now, I’ve got eight kids blended with blended family of eight, so it can get chaotic. Some of those days, those are the days I cannot focus at all. Like, just like you say, like, there’s no way you can focus when they’re all in your ears and asking questions, like, okay, I checked a few emails. That was good. You know, that was it. Yup. It’s crazy. But it’s cool that you found that way to make it work and extremely successful. And I didn’t even mention this before, but you’re not only a coach, but your coach with Wholesaling Inc. Correct?

Lauren Hardy (16:33):
Yes.

Chris Miles (16:34):
And a Podcaster with them.

Lauren Hardy (16:36):
Yeah.

Chris Miles (16:37):
I know some of our people follow that. They probably even know you already,

Lauren Hardy (16:40):
Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. If you guys have listened in the last month, some of my episodes just started dropping, but my focus is more is the virtual real estate, virtual real estate investing angle. So I’m their new virtual coach. My program is virtual investing mastery. So it’s great. A lot of my episodes have to do more with the topics of investing virtually.

Chris Miles (17:04):
Yeah. So if people wanted to learn more how to invest virtually, right? Like what would they, what kind of resources would they go to or how would they find you guys to do that?

Lauren Hardy (17:12):
You know, I post so much on my Instagram. I post a lot of free, great content real actionable, you know, items are on there. So follow me on this. Mom Flips, that’s my handle this month flip tons of free stuff. And I have, I’ve got videos on YouTube. My videos are on the Wholesaling Inc. Youtube page. So check that out. I would say, you know, I would argue, I think my program, I mean, there’s not a lot of virtual programs, you know, so I’ve got to say, and I’m totally biased, but I think my program’s the best. So I would say, you know, check out what, you know, I have to say, listen to it. And if you like, you know, my style and you think that, you know, I can help you. I do have the coaching program that people can apply to.

Chris Miles (17:59):
I think one thing you have a huge advantage of too, because this was one thing that caught my eye. Initially, when I, when I first heard about you, right? Was one, it was actually someone doing wholesaling. That’s a woman, which is hard to find. Cause anytime I go to the wholesaling mastermind groups, it’s almost all men like very male dominant. And I know I have women ask me, they’re like, well, okay, it’s cool. But what about someone like me? You know, like someone I can’t even relate to. And it’s so cool to find someone who’s doing it. Like I said, been there, done that and still doing it today. And so it’s so cool to see you doing that right now. And actually like breaking that mold finally, you know, like I think that’s awesome.

Lauren Hardy (18:39):
Yeah. I do notice that there’s definitely more it’s male dominated for sure. But I don’t know. I wouldn’t say there’s anything special about me. I mean, I think women have a lot to add, you know, or bring to the table when it comes to wholesaling. You know, wholesaling and investment real estate in general is, is the art of finding discounted deals. And the way you find discounted deals is marketing to sellers. So there’s marketing and after your marketing it’s sales and I, I would argue that one of the most important qualities to be coming a really good salesman or sales woman is having a lot of empathy. And I think as a woman, we have a little bit, I don’t know if it would be that we have more empathy or we just show it more.

Chris Miles (19:30):
Probably both.

Lauren Hardy (19:31):
Maybe a little bit of both, you know? And so I think that it makes us very good salespeople.

Chris Miles (19:38):
I agree.

Lauren Hardy (19:39):
So I would say, you know, the, to any female who is standing on the sidelines, because they’re a little afraid I would say that you definitely have the advantage in that department because the empathy thing that we have makes us very good in sales, a lot of women don’t realize that.

Chris Miles (20:00):
Well. And a lot of people don’t realize too, the whole thing isn’t about just making money. It’s a very much a people relationship business, you know, and especially if it’s virtual, that’s gotta be like dialed in. That’s gotta be done. Like it’s, it’s got to happen that way.

Lauren Hardy (20:14):
Absolutely. It is a people business. I always say my business is a people first business and we treat our sellers with respect. So we do what we say we’re gonna do we’re 100% transparent. We do not lie to the sellers. We don’t we’re, you know, we don’t play games and we don’t say we’re gonna do something we’re not going to do. We don’t, you know, over promise under deliver. We always tell the sellers exactly how it is, because I don’t want to have to explain, you know, why something didn’t work out or why it disappointed the seller at the end. So, and I think that, again, that’s empathy, you know, knowing that kind of being able to put yourself in the seller’s shoes, knowing you know, that they’re probably dealing with a situation. So they’re looking at you to solve their problem and help them at a time in need.

Lauren Hardy (21:01):
The last thing they need is, you know, some smooth talker and he was also a really good negotiator to beat them down on price and then lock them under contract and then take advantage of them at that point. So I think as a female, you know, I’m able to you know, portray that, you know that, Hey, I’m an empathetic person. I can see that you’re in a situation. Let me tell you how I’ve helped other people in that situation. This is how we can help you and listen, no matter what, even if we don’t end up working together, I’ll point you to any direction that will help you. You know, I’m happy to help either way. So.

Chris Miles (21:36):
That’s a huge advantage right there.

Lauren Hardy (21:39):
Right. In a lot of our competitors who are males, like I’ve, so I’ve taught, I do have men on my team, but they learned the script is from me.

Lauren Hardy (21:49):
And what they say is from me. So they talk, like I just talked right there. They don’t talk like, you know what they read in a book, like what, you know, the Wolf of wall Street or you know, they talk the way I talk. I taught them, you know, my script and my sales approach. And they always say like, I hear it all the time. Like, Oh yeah, we were talking to these other investors, but they were just so pushy. And you know, they weren’t, you know, they were just like kind of hard nose negotiators where you guys just like, see, like, if you want to just be our friends, you know? So.

Chris Miles (22:22):
I love it. Lauren this is awesome. Like, and I know we’ll definitely make sure we get that, that Instagram handle in there as well as the YouTube link. Cause we gotta have people following you. This is good stuff.

Lauren Hardy (22:33):
Thanks.

Chris Miles (22:34):
So we’ll thank you so much for joining us today. This has been incredible. Everybody you’ll reach out to Lauren like check her stuff out, check out her Instagram, you know, all the education she’s got there and great, just great resources. You can utilize that it’s so essential. Especially if you’re looking to go into an active type role in this business because passive is good. Right? We talk about a lot about passive investing, but active investments were real wealth can be created on a much more amplified basis. You know, passive is great. If you’ve got a lot of money, but using your time and energy with your money, now, you guys can create multimillion dollar type of businesses doing this kind of stuff. So definitely check your stuff out. So everybody thank you so much for joining us today! I hope we make it a wonderful and prosperous week. We’ll see you later,

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Visit us online at MoneyRipples.com for more resources to help you fix money leaks and get your money working harder for you. Now.