"Inspired to Invest" Podcast

Business Tips You NEED As A Real Estate Investor

• Serena Holmes • Episode 63

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Business Tips You NEED As A Real Estate Investor

What happens when a successful medical sales professional pivots to real estate investment?

Welcome back to the 63rd episode of "Inspired To Invest". To watch rather than listen, click here

This week, discover the transformative journey of Meghan Hubner, an independent consultant from Whistler, British Columbia, who left the corporate world in 2019 to pursue entrepreneurship. 

Meghan experimented with affiliate marketing before uncovering her true calling in real estate. She candidly shares how she built a robust real estate business by integrating essential functions like accounting, finance, marketing, and operations, and how a strategic conversation during the COVID-19 pandemic led her to private lending.

Managing short-term rental properties isn't always a breeze, and Meghan Hubner has lived through its ups and downs. In this episode, she pulls back the curtain on the variability in tenant experiences and the relentless cycle of property maintenance. 

Meghan emphasizes the need for solid financial practices, including the use of simple tools like Excel trackers to avoid cash flow mishaps. Her personal anecdotes vividly illustrate the trials and triumphs of short-term rental management, offering listeners practical solutions to common financial hurdles.

Finally, Meghan shares the wisdom she's gained about achieving financial freedom and growing a real estate business. Listeners will find motivation in her advice on setting manageable, short-term goals while balancing long-term aspirations. 

Meghan highlights the importance of aligning investments with personal lifestyles and offers inspiring tips for getting finances in order. Wrapping up with a powerful takeaway, she reminds us that mindset is everything: "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."

To connect with Meghan, go to @meghanhuber on social & meghanhubner.com online

Thank you to Wealth Share REIT for bringing us this months episodes. For more, go to @wealthsharereit on social and to learn about their amazing investment opportunities, https://wealthshare.ca online.

Need support underwriting potential property investments? Check out PropertyCast.io - https://propertycast.io?via=serena

“Inspired to Invest” is proud to support the Beyond Success Program, a not-for-profit financial literacy program for students, launched by More To Give & MAK Investments. Find out more at @more2give.ca.

Join us again on Sept. 11 to hear from an investor who has leveraged real estate to retire his wife and completely change his life!

Thanks again for tuning in & remember, "when you invest in yourself, the sky's the limit!"

Sign up so you never miss an episode! https://serenaholmes.exprealty.com/ask/896312e0f685fdd06401c1e53ca6fd17

And, for everything related to real estate and real estate investing, please make sure you've subscribed to @serenaholmesrealtor on YouTube & other platforms. We also have a page dedicated to this podcast on Instagram and Facebook @inspiredtoinvestpodcast where we preview guests each week, highlight their episodes, top takeaways, tips, quotes and more.

 


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Inspire to Invest podcast, where we're sharing stories from real estate investors and how investing has changed their lives. This episode of the Inspire to Invest podcast has been brought to you by Wealthshare. Hey everybody, welcome to Inspire to Invest.

Speaker 1:

I have Megan Hubner here with me today. From Whistler, british Columbia, she's an independent consultant with more than a decade of experience running multi-million territories in the medical sales industry. But in 2019, she decided to walk away from corporate life and launch Hubner Consulting. So she is primarily working with small business owners and also real estate investors to help them understand that their business is in fact, a business, and she likes to focus on and create order for the four main areas of their business so accounting, business. And she likes to focus on and create order for the four main areas of their business so accounting, finance, sales, marketing, human resources, as well as operations. So we look forward to your wisdom today. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Thanks for having me today. Great, so I know in the bio we kind of talked about you know where you were at before, but maybe you can shed a little bit of light on how life used to be like before you started your own business.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. So, yeah, I spent over 12 years in the medical field, loved my career, absolutely loved it, until I fell out of love with it and I all of a sudden started losing the passion for the numbers on the sales sheet and I thought, okay, there's got to be something else going on out there, there's got to be entrepreneurship. What does this look like? And so I just I started affiliate marketing, actually, and I just took an opportunity, and that opportunity taught me that there was opportunity out there and it was the biggest leap of faith that I could have done.

Speaker 2:

And so I actually ended up manifesting, like, this goal of leaving corporate world at a specific date. And what would that look like? And how does it? How do you work online? And what does it look like to work online? And five years ago, these were all new skills that I was learning because I was so caught up in the corporate channel of the next promotion and the next raise and I got to my dream job and then I thought, okay, what's next? And so, yeah, that really just, you know, pushed me, pushed me into looking to further field to see what was out there.

Speaker 1:

Now for someone that is unfamiliar with it, can you explain a little bit more about what affiliate marketing is?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, affiliate marketing is similar is, you know, bringing people into your world that have similar beliefs, values, etc. And it's kind of it's a little bit sometimes you could. You could say like you're promoting. You're promoting a product, you're promoting a lifestyle, you're promoting a concept more than just a specific product. So the product and the vehicle was Enagic or, you know, Kangen Water, and the actual tool was online learn how to become an online marketer, learn how to chase your dreams and your goals and things. Yeah, Awesome.

Speaker 1:

So then, where did real estate come into all this?

Speaker 2:

And just how could real estate?

Speaker 1:

investors.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've always been interested in real estate and I think I probably did the exact same thing that most investors do. They get to four properties and they're like, okay, what's next? How do I grow? I don't understand, how are these people doing it? But I was so focused in my corporate career that I didn't even think to sit down and Google how to become a real estate investor. It wasn't even a concept for me because I was just so focused in and so I'd done the traditional like.

Speaker 2:

I bought my first property at 29,. A year later, bought a place with my husband. A couple of years later, I sat there crunching numbers for so long, bought a short-term rental in Whistler, and then it was like, okay, how do we go bigger? How are these people doing it? And it literally wasn't until, like, I didn't actually leave my corporate job for real estate. I left it for the opportunity of entrepreneurship. Yeah, and when I was sitting around my table in my bubble during COVID and one of our friends, nanny, said, oh, my dad's a real estate investor, and I was like my ears lit up and I was like what, tell me more, tell me more.

Speaker 2:

Tell me more, like so instantly. Like I was on the phone with him within 24 hours. Like you know, I was placing money with him because he was doing private lending. Like, yeah, I was all in right away, cause I was like I know this is exactly where I want to go, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so, yeah, as soon as I kind of like my eyes opened up to what was actually out there, then my whole world changed, and so I did consult with multiple different industries everything from period underwear to high end golf apparel to, you know, cosmetics and aesthetics, and lots of different companies to start with, and then I saw what was happening in the real estate world is that people were just starting a business, growing incredibly quickly, but had no idea how to run a business or put business foundations in to build a sustainable business. And so that's when I thought, okay, I love real estate, I want to learn how to become an investor. I'm a business consultant. How can I marry these two? And so I started focusing in specifically on real estate investors to help them turn their businesses around or position them for growth.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that's actually one thing that I found with a lot of the real estate investors that I've connected with in the last little while is that the ones that have had struggles in a lot of cases are lacking those foundational skills, so that as they grow it's almost like too late by that time. And you know, a lot of them have experienced some pretty significant issues or gone out of business and things like that, and in other instances they're just scaling too fast Again. They don't necessarily. They may have some systems in place, but they're just not lining things up appropriately and taking off a little bit more than they can choose. So I do think that that's extremely important, especially when they do start involving other people's capital, because then you could be devastating other people it's not just like your own chaos.

Speaker 2:

This is the thing, right. This is what I've seen. I've seen people go bankrupt. In the last number of years I've seen businesses grow too fast, like I. My motto is kind of like come to me when you have three or five properties, don't come to me when you have 35 properties. But by then it's often pretty deep. Like I want to get you started early so that you can actually grow sustainably. And it happens fast, right. You buy one property, all of a sudden you're managing 10 tenants and then it just scales from there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but I think you don't know what you don't know. I mean, I had my own business for 18 years and I didn't get any coaching and mentorship until maybe eight years in and I was like, oh, I'm sure there's so much that I actually don't know, and you know, I was just kind of winging it, but it was probably taking me a lot harder, like a lot more time and a lot more struggle than if I just gotten some feedback and input from someone that's been there, right, so I can definitely appreciate the value in all of that. Now, when you look at your own portfolio, what would you say have been some of the challenges and obstacles that you've faced as you have started?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, as far as the systems and stuff go, like I can see how it quickly gets off the rails, like I can definitely see that. So, you know, I'm in a position with one of our corporations where I'm like, no, we're going to pause right now, we're just going to make sure that everything is dialed the exact way that I want it Right, and then we'll continue to move on. So that is definitely, you know, a warning sign and it reminds me of how easily it happens for people. Easily it happens for people, so that you know that's been a definite thing, that's jumped out as well. And of course, then you have tenants right. We've been doing short-term rentals for 10 years now. We've got the tenants are really easy most of the times and really not that easy sometimes. So they're all the wild cards.

Speaker 1:

But at least they're short-term. So at least if they're not easy, like they continue to move along, yeah, you replace the door and they move on. Yeah, so I belong because, yeah, you replace the door and they move on and yeah, yeah, so I mean there's pros and cons to both. Like you have that ongoing cycle of like constantly getting a place filled and stuff like that and just the ongoing, you know structure that kind of goes along with that.

Speaker 2:

But at least again you aren't stuck in like LTV things and can't get someone out yes, of course, because I mean I have been a long-term tenant or a landlord in BC as well and yeah, I mean I've had golden've had golden tenants. But it's difficult when it gets difficult.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Now, in terms of lessons and it doesn't necessarily need to be from your own experience, but even just in dealing with different clients and stuff like that what would you say maybe is a common thread through all of them? That you think, like these are lessons that people could learn a lot sooner or maybe could benefit from.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean the number. When we go through those four main business buckets, the number one place we always start is accounting finance practices and I cannot stress enough, if you guys don't know, like the three things that I kind of focus, that like what is each of your properties costing you? Where are the ones that are red flags? What is your overall net worth versus your debt to equity position? Like how much do you actually owe? Do you, you know, do you have equity to actually pay those things off?

Speaker 2:

And the third one is what are your fixed and your variable costs? And those are just to run your business. Those are not property management or you know, water problems and things like that. That is literally all of your subscriptions that you have every single month. If you have a VA that is managing multiple properties, like all of the fixed costs of running your actual business. Those are the three areas that people really run into problems and those, I think is a place that most people can actually start and say you know what, even if they're pretty good at financial practices, let's go back and make sure the flow of money is consistent, it's recorded, there's a standard operating procedure tied to it, so that you really have consistency across your whole portfolio.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I, I mean, I can, I can understand that. I think that, um, I mean, I had different bookkeepers over the years of my business and I think one thing that none of them seem to be able to solve. And maybe you have that answer. But you know a lot of the times when you're working in an accounting software you're recognizing things after it's passed right and even for us, like you're adding your invoices in so you could know even what money is coming in, but it's still not necessarily capturing what will eventually go out.

Speaker 1:

So we almost developed to something that was like outside of the software for a couple of different reasons, cause we had to communicate to our bookkeeper how to add things. But essentially like if we knew that we booked an event that was worth 10,000, we had $5,000 in expenses owing a month from now, we would kind of just like add that in. So we called it like our checks, payable files, so you could literally look at what's in the bank account, what are receivables, what's coming out, and I could be like I know I have six months of operating costs and it's not a perfect system because it doesn't consider, like exactly when money's coming in and out, but you know as a whole within the next few months, this is what things look like and I think maybe that you know. It can feel like you have a lot of money coming in, but then if you're not capturing those expenses appropriately, you can find yourself in a situation where you're cashflow negative or you're insolvent or something like that.

Speaker 2:

Right, so yeah, and a lot of times like it goes just back to a simple Excel spreadsheet where you can actually create that tracker. It can be very easy for you. I find a lot of midterm rental and short-term rentals fall into that category where they've got a booming summer season and they've got four months of max revenue. It looks so good, but then they haven't factored out a forecast in the next eight months of slow time. And you know, sometimes in some markets there's decent shoulder seasons and then there's decent winter season stuff, but some markets it's absolutely dead, like here in Whistler. It is very unlikely that I will get a booking in March sometimes, and October, october is always dead, you know, and November is really really low too.

Speaker 2:

So I mean you get spring break bookings and stuff. They're not the high level nightly rates that you would get in January, february.

Speaker 1:

I'm short for rental in Florida, so I get kind of like you know, far more vacancies than I expected. Like when we bought our, our rental, our property managers were old time family friends and they're like, oh, this will be a book doll. But you know, eight or nine weeks of the year and it was the total opposite, like January to March, if you're lucky, april or May, and then literally it was crickets and I really thought like October, november, december, we'd get some people and it was extremely rare and that was even trying to promote it and you know, I had it on the all the main kind of areas where you'd get that, but it was vacant a lot. So we were pretty much cashflow negative or even break even most years just because of that. So it still did well because it was bought for par and, you know, paid it off during the time that we had it and stuff like that. But if you're relying on that to cover the operating costs, then it could have been far more challenging.

Speaker 2:

So definitely, yeah, absolutely, especially if you're buying in a slow season and you have eight months to wait, eight months of carrying costs to wait until high season comes up. It's a long time to recoup those costs.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Now, when you look at your successes, is there anything in particular that stands out as something that you're most proud of?

Speaker 2:

Uh, you know what I'm probably most proud of? My very first short-term rental that I bought, which was my third property at the time. And the reason I'm most proud of it is because I did not have a guiding light. I did not have anyone telling me what to do. I was just going out on a limb. I was like I'm going to do this Airbnb thing. I don't know how it's going to work. And my husband was like, do whatever you want, as long as we don't have an increase in bills. I was like, okay, I can do that. And so that was probably like just me going blind. But but knowing cause I had run so many numbers by that point, yeah, like I mean I can't even tell you how many how many hours my husband would watch TV at night for years and I would crunch numbers on oh, this looks good, or this looks good, or this looks good, or we looked into Washington, or like. So, yeah, I think that making that first big leap of faith was, yeah, the thing that I think is most exciting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's the big thing, Like you're going to learn along the way, but the key is also just getting started, because you can otherwise have you know analysis, paralysis and you may never get started. So I think it's having that balance. Do you still have that property today?

Speaker 2:

Do you still have that property today? I just sold it. We did really well on that property. We did sell it about 18 months too early, but of course we then moved that money into other projects.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, that's all good. Well, on that note, we're just going to take a really brief break for a word from our sponsors and we'll be right back. Have you always wanted to invest in real estate to build long-term wealth? Start today with just $10,000. Thousand dollars introducing honey tree real estate investment trust. Welcome to the temple building, a mixed-use 0.48 acre site with 25 residential tenants and five retail spaces in the heart of branford, ontario. This property was purchased for 5.8 million and was recently created for 6.470 million and an instant investor upside of 670 000. Honey tree is taking on a light, value-add strategy, adding AC, laundry and energy star efficient appliances Coming soon to Honeytree Real Investment Trust. For more information, go to honeytreegrowca.

Speaker 1:

Thanks again for following along with this episode of Inspired to Invest. In addition to real estate investing and running my own brand experience agency for 18 years, I also published a book called the Accidental Entrepreneur in October of 2021. This is my story and it chronicles how I turned tragedy into triumph to embrace my destiny in entrepreneurship. If you're interested in picking up a copy, you can find the link at serenahomesrealtorcom and you can also find my link tree with all of the retailers in the details below. Thanks again for your support.

Speaker 1:

Inspired to Invest is proud to support the Beyond Success program. In today's complex world, it's absolutely crucial for our youth to learn how to take charge of their financial future. We believe that every young person deserves access to accurate, practical financial information. Designed to bridge the gap, the Beyond Success program leverages a comprehensive educational boot camp to equip young minds with essential financial literacy skills. But beyond success, it's not just about teaching financial literacy. It's also about fostering a foundation for a prosperous and empowered future. Join us Together, we can build a brighter financial future for the next generations. Join us Together, we can build a brighter financial future for the next generations.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome back to Inspire to Invest. I've got Megan Hubner here with me today. She is sharing her experience as a business consultant specifically supporting real estate investors and entrepreneurs. So before the break we were talking about her short-term rental that she sold not too long ago and some of the challenges and lessons that a lot of her clients and investors in general tend to face when they're starting out. One thing that I always like to ask guests that's kind of a fun question is what's the craziest thing that you've ever experienced as a real estate investor?

Speaker 2:

The craziest thing is always going to go back to the tenants is that you know, like the door getting kicked in because they I think were probably had had too much to drink and couldn't remember the code, like just you get these random calls.

Speaker 2:

You get random calls at random times, yeah, and I'm thinking like, okay, and now we need a door. A door repair guy Like this is bigger than a locksmith, right, and so those I think those are the things like the biggest wild cards, just what the tenant throws at you. They're like, okay, I wasn't prepared for this, you know, or this year we had that massive cold snap, right. Well, all of a sudden, the water hot water tank was leaking, there was frozen pipes and, like we were in Mexico, we had a property manager, but you know like running around, like how many bottles of wine or chips are going to make this better for this guest?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. Like things just happen people, and it really kind of shines an interesting light on people in general, because there's things that come up and you're just like I never expected that.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, I didn't see that moment.

Speaker 1:

Now, in terms of advice, obviously you do mentor and guide people on that side, but what would you say? Some of the best advice that you've ever received?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the best advice I had ever received was to think bigger. And originally, like I, you know, I think one of your questions is around goal setting and I find it difficult in real estate investing to really put a number on what I want to do in my career. Right, Do I want to go to grow a $10 million portfolio? Do I want 500 doors? I don't know, Like I don't know where I'm going, but I know that in Q3, I'm going to start investing in the United States. We're going to buy a property. We might even buy two in Q3. So I think the short term manageable goals are, but that that overall thought of just thinking bigger than what you think you can actually achieve, yeah, hands down, Number one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I was actually just at an event this past weekend and one of the speakers talked about you know, are you buying this to feed your ego or to feed your income? And it was kind of an interesting thing because I find on social especially, a lot of people get caught up. They literally put in their bios, like how many doors they have. And you know, I just always found that to be a little bit strange. But I feel like because of that, you know, a lot of times people can look at that and feel intimidated or, you know, I'm not where I want to be.

Speaker 1:

This person has a thousand doors or 5,000 doors, and there have been people that aspire to these grandiose numbers and then they realize the challenges and the stress that comes with that and then they've kind of like contracted back and then they realize it's not necessarily worth the price of like sleepless nights and the stress. And you know, I think you have to balance all of those things. When it comes to scaling a business or a portfolio, like you know, it doesn't mean you're going to stop yourself, I mean, if that's what you really really want, but you have to ask does it serve, like, all areas of your life at that point Right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, and I think too, like even just from an Airbnb. Right, I love hosting Airbnb, done it for a long time now. It's easy, I enjoy it, I enjoy the guest interactions most of the time. But other people are like, oh, airbnb, forget it. Like I don't want anyone in my home, I don't want anyone there. Like we spent a year in Mexico. We rented our place out the entire time. People are like how do you feel about having people in my home? I'm like I feel great. It's paying for my entire trip, it's paying for itself, it's appreciating this year, like you know. So it's just different personalities and you really need to figure out what works for your personality.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, absolutely. Now I know you kind of said that you weren't a hundred percent sure what's next, but do you have an idea of what financial freedom means to you and again, it doesn't need to necessarily be number of doors, it could be cashflow, or working two days a week compared to five, like. Have you kind of determined what that goal would look like for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my goal actually is to grow our portfolio in the next couple of years for cash flowing properties right now. So the short-term goal is that cash flowing properties cause I actually want to homeschool my kids so I want to work less, like three days a week would be ideal.

Speaker 2:

I love work, but I'd like to get to three days a week, have our lifestyle fully sustained by our real estate portfolio and be have that freedom of flexibility of traveling. We do do a lot of travel as it is, but we're still working in all those locations, so I would like to be working about three days a week.

Speaker 1:

Now, is there anything from the clients that you've worked with that you know you would want to leave the audience with like a pearl of wisdom or just something that you know? You see often that you think people could really benefit from learning?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can't stress enough you guys, get your finances in order. It will make you feel like you have a superpower when you understand your business. You know your numbers, you know where your portfolio is going and things and you're protecting and holding other people's money just like you would your own. Those would be my key takeaways from you today. I don't want people to have the mindset of thinking, oh, I'm going to work with Megan, that means my business is in the tank. No, I'm going to work with Megan because I'm going to build a successful, sustainable, long-term business that's preparing for growth, and that's really what I. You know, if you've got the finance piece fixed out, fantastic, Like that's great. Make sure that your backend is order and you're using, you know, CRMs and PMs and things like that. But really hone in finances, you guys, if you do nothing else. Q3.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I think that's huge. Now, I always like to ask people what motivates or inspires them. Since the podcast is inspired to invest.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Um, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. So, for anyone that does want to get in touch with you to learn more about how to operate their business at the highest level possible, what's the best way for them to reach you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn. It's just Megan Hubner at M-E-G-H-A-N-H-U-B-N-E-R.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, so I'll include that in the show notes below, of course. Thank you for your time today. For anyone that is watching, comment and subscribe. You can also follow along with us on social at Inspired to Invest podcast. And remember, when you invest in yourself, the sky's the limit. Thanks again. Thank you to WellShare for bringing you this episode of Inspired to Invest. The views represented on this podcast are for general information only and does not constitute investment or other professional advice or an offering of securities. The host and guests featured on Inspired to Invest make no representations as to the performance of any particular investment. Should you decide to make an investment, you are responsible for conducting your own review and analysis. It is recommended that you obtain independent legal accounting and tax advice from licensed professionals.