Flipping Houses with Your Spouse

Flipping Houses with Your Spouse

Show Summary

Today, I’m here with my friends Allen and Vicki Moore from Oklahoma City. We’ve been working together and they’ve been part of our mastermind and some of our other programs. They are a husband and wife team, much like my wife and I. It’s not all pros and it’s not all cons, it’s some pros and cons. Today, we are going to talk about working with your spouse.

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    [00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today I’m here with my friends, Alan and Vickie Moore out of Oklahoma city. Uh, we’ve been working together. They’ve been a part of our mastermind and some of our programs for. Gosh, probably a year and a half now. And, uh, they’re a husband and wife team, much like my wife and I worked together.

    And, uh, it’s not all, there’s not all pros and there’s not all cons. It’s, it’s some pros and cons. We’re good. Today we’re going to talk about working with your spouse.

    Professional real estate investors know that it’s not really about the real estate backed. Real estate is just a vehicle for freedom. A group of over a hundred of a nation’s leading real estate investors from across the country meets several times a year at the investor fuel real estate mastermind to share ideas on how to strengthen each other’s businesses, but also to come together as friends and build more.

    Fulfilling lives for all of those around us. On today’s show, we’re going to continue our conversation of fueling our [00:01:00] businesses and our lives. I’m glad you’re here.

    Hey guys, welcome to the show. Good to see you guys. So, um, so it’s interesting cause my, my wife is usually behind the scenes cause she likes to be behind the scenes. And you know, I’ve made this joke before. She used to say she’s the woman behind the curtain. And then at one point she said, well, I’m the puppet master.

    And I was like, Whoa, Whoa, hold on. What does that make me? But, uh, but she’s been, um. The brains of our, of most of our operations, you know, and it’s always great work in our talking to other, a husband and wife teams, because I kinda know, I kinda know how it works for the most part. So I think there’s a lot of real estate investors out there that are husband and wife teams.

    And you know. Two brothers or a father, son, stuff like that. Right? Father, daughter, all sorts of stuff. So it’s interesting. [00:02:00] It’s an interesting business to work with your family and, and so it’s going to be exciting to, uh, talk about, you know, some of your pros and cons. I think folks will kind of relate to that.

    Yeah. So tell us a little about your, your background, how you got into, I know your story, but share it with everybody else. Like how you got to where you are today. Okay.

    Allen: [00:02:18] Um, well, I was, uh. Vicky and I met in the air force, got married, and then I got out of the air force, started doing real estate and okay.

    Really know much about what I was doing, but I finally got to one of those first paychecks and I was like, this is pretty nice. Okay. You know, I was wholesaling, I was driving for dollars, literally, and, and uh. Realize that, you know, when you stopped doing that, that he’ll stop coming in. And so that was a long time ago.

    Just buy and hold properties. Uh, you know, we wholesaled a little bit and we’ve done some flips along the way. And, um, so I did [00:03:00] that for 15 years. Um. A big team was active duty air force, and then she just retired. Um, now she’s, uh, working with me during the business together and we went through a, I flipped in our training together.

    So basically we just want to start it all over. Um, I needed a system in place to be able to. Scale and do an actual, have an actual business. Um, rather than it working me into the ground. I’ve managed everything and I, I went to eviction court and all that fun stuff, but, you know, now I don’t have to do that.

    We’ve got a property manager and Vicky is running the office. Um, and I go out on appointments and, uh.

    Mike: [00:03:47] So you’re able to focus on what she does.

    Allen: [00:03:50] She has taken over, um, the lead management that, you know, those types of things changed a little bit of how we do that now. But [00:04:00] Mmm. But, uh,

    Vicki: [00:04:02] I

    Mike: [00:04:02] remember, I remember UK.

    So Vicki, you came on like, was it, well, I don’t remember if we first met you in salt Lake city. Right? So that was, uh, that was, Oh, you got salt Lake city shirt on even. Yeah, that was, uh, February of last year, so 15 months ago. And I knew right when I met you, I was like, Oh, this whole game is about to change for Alex.

    I know your background. I know you just talked about, you just. Figuring it out and making it happen here and there. But

    I really wasn’t. You were telling us about your wife, like coming on on Vicki, we’re like, Oh, she’s, she’s gonna be a rockstar. So, so Vicki, you tell us about your, your, your kind of story, and then when you joined, uh, the day to day operations.

    Vicki: [00:04:43] Well, when he says that we did all this stuff, he did that stuff and I showed up and signed a few papers every now and then. And that’s about the extent of what I was doing because it’s kind of difficult to do all that stuff while you’re. Serving in the air force on active duty. So [00:05:00] I retired, um, February 1st of 2019 and I was in salt Lake city like a week later, or two weeks later or something like that.

    I had no idea what I was walking into. Alan put me on a plane and said, here, go, go to this conference. And I’m like, what is this? Oh, it’s just a bunch of real estate masters. Don’t go learn something. Right. That’s what I, he told me and I drank from a fire hose and it. I know I knew how to be a real estate investor had lived with one for 1516 years.

    But, um, I needed to find other people who had that bit of information that I needed, that Alan can provide me. So he’s. He’s very good. He’s a great people person. Um, but when it comes to technology, then, you know, that’s, that’s a challenge for him where I’m one of those people who give it to me [00:06:00] step by step on how to do it, and I will run with it and systematize it and make it all a great and pretty, right.

    I’m not quite one of those people, no. The, you know, talking to people and networking and that type of thing. So, um, so I decided. I had a choice that I could either go and work for somebody else. I’ve been working in the air force for 23 years and go work for somebody else for another 27 years. Or I can take control of my life and make my life what I wanted it to be.

    And so. I took a chance and we decided to start this thing over and make it work for us instead of it working us.

    Mike: [00:06:44] That’s great. And I know you guys are modest and, uh, I, but I know your skill sets. I know they compliment each other really well. Much like my wife, I’m more of the sales and marketing guy. I love being around people and you know, she would rather, you know, uh, just kind of duck out and disappear and [00:07:00] go.

    Go make the magic happen somewhere. And so, um, I think those are great skillsets that have, I mean, the truth is, is most real estate investors, um, that have a decent level of success, have an operations person that’s alongside them. They’re somewhere because you can only go so far with hustling right?

    Allen: [00:07:19] Yeah, yeah.

    One of the first things she made me do was fire the property or find me as a property manager. She ended up taking some of those calls and she’s like, I’m not doing this. We were able to finally find a good one, and right now we’re at a hundred percent occupancy, so

    Mike: [00:07:38] that’s great. That’s great. Yeah. So, so talk a little about some of the pros and cons of, maybe we’ll start with it.

    We’ll start with you, Alan. What are some of the pros and cons we talked about some of them is she has some operating strengths, but maybe kind of pros and cons of, of having your spouse in the business.

    Allen: [00:07:55] Mmm.

    Mike: [00:07:56] Well, pros, I mean,

    [00:08:00] Allen: [00:08:01] the pros obviously, I mean, you’re working with somebody you trust, you get things done. Um, they got your back.

    Mike: [00:08:08] They’re

    Allen: [00:08:08] not gonna let things fall through or let the sky fall. And you know, when you need something done, you can get it done. You’re still to ask. Nice. But, uh, you know, it’s, uh, it’s one of those things you, you, and you know, you’ve got to learn to do that.

    Because I was the boss for 16 years of my job and I’ve been have to answer to anybody. I didn’t have to share information about what was going on and now it’s, that was a learning curve for me. That was honestly my biggest problem was, uh, making sure that she knew what. I knew what was going on. And sometimes I can’t always share that with her fast enough.

    So it’s, you know, we’ve got to delegate those responsibilities and make sure that things get, you know, systematized so that everybody knows what’s going on. Cause now we’ve got an office person to, [00:09:00] uh, and that was a loop. But, um, and you know, so it’s definitely. Uh, something that took a little getting used to, but it’s, it’s been well worth it, obviously, and it’s been a tremendous, um.

    Increase in business or us working together and

    Mike: [00:09:22] it forces you to be held accountable, right? I mean, on some level, when you’re a lone Wolf there, there’s, there’s almost zero accountability if you don’t want there to be. Right. But now I know, I know. I know she’s whipping into place a little bit.

    Allen: [00:09:38] You know, I don’t have to be a property manager anymore. Um, that’s a load off my plate, so I’m able to do more and get. More productive and do better things for our business. Yeah. Like acquire more property. Yep.

    Mike: [00:09:52] Yeah. And it allows you to focus on, you know, what you’re good at and not have to spend as much time on the stuff that you’re not good at it you don’t enjoy doing.

    [00:10:00] Right.

    Allen: [00:10:01] Yeah.

    Mike: [00:10:02] So how about you? What are some of the, uh, maybe what are some of the cons of working together?

    Vicki: [00:10:09] Well, okay, so

    Mike: [00:10:11] putting you on the spot too.

    Vicki: [00:10:13] Definitely. There’s the trust thing. And

    the thing is, both of us were used to being a boss. Yeah. And so both of us for a time really were, we’re trying to exact dominance over the other one. Cause that’s just what we knew. We knew he was black Ali. We knew what we were needed to do. And you have to learn to trust that you know, the other person, you know, they have their, their role, their, their strengths.

    And I’ve got a, I got a nut try to take over his role and. He needs to not take over my role. We can meld very well together. I think the biggest con though is that, um, you know, work is always in session [00:11:00] sometimes and we have to remind each other that. Now we’re, we’re here at the ball game. We’re not talking about work.

    We can work. We’re having dinner. Let’s stop talking about work. We have to remind ourselves that every time

    Allen: [00:11:16] that I get that email, Oh look, somebody got a deal.

    Vicki: [00:11:21] I’m trying to go to sleep. Stop it.

    Mike: [00:11:24] It’s hard. I’m very familiar with all that. It’s just like, you know. Yeah. Get away from me. You’re in the shower and they’re like, do you remember to do that thing?

    It’s like, what can I just look at it?

    Allen: [00:11:37] It’s hard to shut it off sometimes. Right?

    Vicki: [00:11:40] But that’s a big thing is when you, when you have, when you have a partner who is just as bought in as you are. So long as you’re both headed towards the same goal in the same direction. I mean, we, we’ve now gotten our goals to where they’re very much [00:12:00] aligned with each other and we’re, we recognize that what he’s doing right now.

    Is getting us towards that goal. Just like what I’m doing over here is getting us to that goal just in a different way. It makes all the difference, and if I were to recommend something, it’s don’t work against you’re your spouse. Work with them. Find a way to work with them to get where you want to go.

    Mike: [00:12:26] Yeah. One thing that I think, you know, certainly happens when spouses work together is, um, it’s weird like we’re do as real estate investors, we were willing to work hard. We’re willing to kind of jump in and make things happen to. Provide financial freedom and freedom of time. And then I think what happens sometimes is it’s easy to be at odds with each other and like, Hey, we’re w there should be a good thing that we’re working together.

    But it’s sometimes it’s easy to be like fighting each other for, you know what I mean? It’s, yeah. I mean, I’m sure you guys know what I mean. It’s just like, wait a minute, are we aligned here? Like why are we, [00:13:00] what are we doing all this all for, I think sometimes people, it ends up. It ends up damaging some relationships, right?

    I mean, I know some people that their relationship didn’t work out because they worked together and it kind of tore him apart. And so that’s like, that’s the exact opposite of why you do that in the first place. Right?

    Vicki: [00:13:15] Right. You just can’t remember why you went into business right there. Why? What was your original plan?

    What, what drove you to do that? Yeah, yeah.

    Mike: [00:13:26] Yeah. How do you, any, any kind of tips on how you guys, uh, if you have like quarterly meetings or some way to kind of just compare, like where are we against our goals are, what our goals are. How do you kind of go plan together and make sure that you’re on the same page?

    Is there anything specific that you guys do.

    Vicki: [00:13:42] We do our 90 day goals with investor fuel and buckets, and it’s a matter of. Okay. When we start finding ourselves squirreling over here, it’s more of an, it’s usually me that says, okay, how was that going to get us here? And [00:14:00] this is where we said that we wanted to be, how is that showing us how we’re going to get here?

    And then it’s like, Oh yeah, that’s, that’s right. So it, it’s, I think it is great to have, you’ve got to have somebody who’s wanting to do that. Yes. Squirrel

    Allen: [00:14:22] objects are everywhere.

    Mike: [00:14:24] You guys do anything like, Oh, you have a quarterly meeting at our core, what you just said there was that at the quarterly investor fuel meetings, you do your 90 day goal planning, which is typically part of like the EOS process.

    So something that we do in our office, we file a follow kind of the traction model of having a quarterly meeting. You know. Planning out for, they say 10 years. We never really take it out past two years, cause sometimes I don’t know what’s going to happen next week, let alone, you know, five years from now is like, seems like a lifetime away.

    But um, and then you kind of back into monthly goals and stuff like that. Do you guys do any other weekly or monthly meetings?

    [00:15:00] Vicki: [00:15:01] Because it’s the two of us and our office manager. Um, I wouldn’t say that we have scheduled meetings at this particular point. That’s for the future. But the other thing is like everything that we’re doing, we bounce it off those goals.

    Does this fit with what our vision is? And if it doesn’t. Then that’s not working. We’re going to focus on during this next 90 days. I mean, that could be that particular house. Yeah. It’d be great for someone who wanted to do this, but that’s not what we wanted to do to this goal, this particular quarter.

    So we’ll find a different thing to be with that particular.

    Mike: [00:15:46] Yeah. So, so talk a little bit about delegation. So I know, you know, Allen, you’re doing everything. And then Vicky comes on, and then I know, you know, one of the things that I think happens sometimes, and this is kind of what my wife Lindsay [00:16:00] has said to me before, is like, she’s really good at some stuff.

    And I kind of, sometimes I just take that for granted. Like, Hey, you’re good at that, so do it. But she was like, well, just because I’m good at it, it doesn’t mean I want to do it. Right. It’s real easy to say, cut off. Right? So there’s stuff that you’re, you mean Vicky, you’re operationally inclined, but it doesn’t mean you.

    Want to do everything that’s requires a detail oriented person. Right.

    Allen: [00:16:25] Well, you know, delegate what you don’t like to do, even though you might be good at it, you can train somebody else to do it. And, uh, you know, we learned that pretty quick.

    Mike: [00:16:37] Yeah.

    Vicki: [00:16:39] Yeah. In the beginning it was a lot of, um. No. I saw Alan struggling with doing a couple of things, so I would say, okay, I’ll take this one.

    I’ll take this and I’ll take this one, because I was trying to. Get him into, you know, kind of his zone. But then I realized that I was taking on so much stuff that was just sucking the life out of me. And so I [00:17:00] had to do the same thing with myself, identify all those things. It was sucking the life out of me, and then finding.

    It’s the key was really to find that person, um, that first person to hire that would enjoy doing all the life sucking things that I didn’t want to do anymore. And, uh, it took me a couple of months of, at the interviews. It’s an end finding that person, but I, I did, I found that person who absolutely thrives on making, taking a box of chaos and filing it nice and pretty and neat and scanning it and it’s all electronic now.

    I could find everything. And it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s, everything is always a work in progress and you know, and, and morphing to become better. But that, finding those things that even. Yeah. Yeah, I’m good at filing. I could file filed forever. I can do that. Um, but I’m going to be an angry person. If I have to [00:18:00] file for weeks on end, it will, it will just turn my whole personality into, you know, grumpy person.

    Right? Nobody wants an angry mom

    Mike: [00:18:10] and sometimes it’s good. It’s good to do it. So you know how it gets done, right? So you can train somebody, even if you’re like, man, I got to get out as soon as I can, but I need to know exactly how it’s done. Cause at the end of the day, like one of the things that happens is you delegate it to somebody.

    They’re not the right person, or you fire them or they. Leave or get hit by a truck or whatever, but you always need to, if it comes, it’s going to, which means it’s gonna boomerang boomerang back to you for some period of time. Right. And so what happens, what I found sometimes is if I don’t know how to do something or we don’t know how to do something and we give it to somebody else and they’re not the right person.

    Sometimes we keep, we keep them around longer than we should because they’re like, I don’t want to come back to me. You know, it’s like, it’s the lesser of the evils, but that’s not really the good, that’s not the right way to look at it.

    Allen: [00:18:56] And you know, they’ve been able to find ways we [00:19:00] were good at addressing things that we’re having a problem with.

    We try to help all of us try to help each other out with that. Um, you know, finding stuff. Certain CRM for me was a challenge when it came to an appointment or something I had to go to. And you know, they found a way to make it very easy for me to just click on it and find it. Yeah. So I mean, little things like that that make all the difference when I’m going out in between appointments and being able to track everything and put it together so that they.

    Don’t miss anything. And, um, you know, uh, sauna has helped us with those tasks as well to delegate who’s doing what and when. And so we’ve done everything very systematized in there. So that’s been a great help to keep things.

    Vicki: [00:19:51] Yeah. You call it scary sometimes.

    Allen: [00:19:55] I know what I have to take out the garbage. I mean,

    [00:20:00] Mike: [00:20:02] it’s a six Sigma black belt. She’s going to, like,

    I just saw you finished brushing your teeth, but that wasn’t two minutes, you know?

    Vicki: [00:20:17] With so many things going on, a guy, it’s easy to forget things like, aye. Aye. I use a up for my personal life, like taking out the car. I have to have that showing up on the night before so that I can make sure that I am not running out in mind or at six o’clock in the morning trying to put the trash out on the curb.

    That’s no babies to do that either. So yeah, the less that I have to think about things, the better off that I am. If I automate things and I don’t have to use brain power to remember something, then I can use those, those neurons to. Make money.

    Mike: [00:20:53] Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. So a big part of, I think, you know, everybody’s success is, you know, obviously having the right team would, you guys [00:21:00] have made some amazing changes there.

    And then just making sure you’re around the right people. So you guys have been a part of the investor fuel mastermind for, uh, about a year and a half right now. And it was a fall of 2018, I guess.

    Allen: [00:21:14] Yep.

    Mike: [00:21:17] Yeah. Any, would you mind sharing any thoughts on, you know, investor fuel and how it’s helped help improve your business or how it’s impacted your, I guess, maybe your business or your life?

    Allen: [00:21:28] Well, I mean, we’ve been able to, um, get a better understanding of how to, uh, get systems in place, um, to. You know, do pretty much everything.

    Um, and there’s, um, you know, you have a lot of great people in the group that share knowledge with everybody else. They don’t just keep telling themselves, and that’s key to helping others grow as well, obviously. I mean, we’ve been [00:22:00] able to do like the round tables and things like that with the group and we’ve been able to learn a lot.

    From other members in the group as well. And, um, no, of course she has been able to figure out how to do systemize things for real estate, um, to, uh, basically help our business grow to where it is. So, I mean, it’s been a, it’s been a tremendous asset for us. And, uh, we’re. Yeah. It’s been wonderful.

    Vicki: [00:22:34] I was able to take, you know, cause it’s real estate investing is not rocket science.

    You’ve got a handful of different ways to do things, right. Um, and then you just rinse and repeat on on many different things. But it’s, it’s a matter of no one in that room knows everything, but they need to know. But you have a bunch of people in the [00:23:00] room that have little bits and pieces of the information that you need.

    And I wasn’t, I didn’t feel intimidated. I could ask any question that I needed to ask, and I had five or six people that were like, Hey, I had that problem too. Here’s how I solved it. And. Some of them, I mean, they, it would be more than just, Hey, here’s how I solved it. Here’s that assaulted, and here’s the document that I used here.

    Here’s a great resource. Here’s, um, here’s this guy that I worked with. Oh, and you, you need some illegal review. Here’s a, here’s the, my legal guy. Um. Here’s how everything, here’s the checklist that I use for these things, and here’s this other thing. Here’s the app that I use. This is how it integrates with this other app.

    I mean, all of those things allowed me to do research and get the best, the best solution for us and for who we are, how he works, how I [00:24:00] work, and how the systems should function and work together to where. Every time we do something now is everybody knows what their role is and what their job is, and it’s boom, boom, boom, alright next.

    And you don’t have to think about those things. So it was, it was very eye opening to me to be in a room of a bunch of people that are so willing to help. After being in, um, an environment that just wasn’t quite so willing to help every everyone else to succeed. And you would think that, I mean, these are all real estate investors.

    These might end up being my competition and I just, it blew my mind that everyone was so willing to help out. And in that regard, and it’s a big family. It’s, it’s, it’s a big family that you can just say, Hey, anybody heard about this, this thing I got, I’m [00:25:00] experiencing this thing, and you’ve got 10 different people who will come out and say, Hey, Hey.

    Yeah. Tell me about that is I’m experiencing that same thing right now.

    Mike: [00:25:08] Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And Vicki, one thing I’ll say about about you for sure is I’ve seen you go from absorbing the first, you know, half year, and now you’re like this huge giver. You’re constantly sharing stuff back, which is amazing.

    That’s kind of how our community works, is I think most people, you know, we don’t try to make anybody feel bad and we don’t want anybody to feel bad. But usually when people start, they’re like, well, I don’t really know what I can give. And it’s like, okay, well just. Just receive for awhile. But eventually people usually get to a point where like they feel like, gosh, I’ve gotten so much that I feel some obligation to give back because you got that.

    I mean, I think that’s, that’s kind of the foundation of our, of our investor fuel community is, is giving and receiving. So awesome. Appreciate you guys.

    Vicki: [00:25:47] Yeah. Meaning one was drinking from a fire hose and being too, I was kind of swapped, swallowing a little bit out of it.

    Alright,

    Mike: [00:25:57] I got this. Yeah. [00:26:00] Awesome. Well guys, I appreciate you spending some time with us today. If folks wanted to connect with you guys, um, up in Oklahoma city, I know you do some wholesaling stuff obviously as well. Where can they go to learn more about you guys or connect with

    Vicki: [00:26:12] you. Well, we have our website.

    It’s mom and pop home buyers.com. Um, you can also email Allen. It’s a L L E [email protected]. And for me, it’s V I C K. I. At mom and pop home buyers.com and we’re both on Facebook. Just reach out. Okay,

    Mike: [00:26:32] cool. Well, that’s the one exam below, so appreciate you guys with Tom. Thanks for joining us.

    Thanks for sharing your story. A lot. A lot of similarity with, you know, my wife and I have just, uh, sometimes, you know, at the same time we’re building something together. Sometimes you butt heads a little bit, but we all agree that it’s better than going back to what we used to do.

    Vicki: [00:26:51] Well, you know, if it was all sunshine and roses, you would never grow.

    And that’s true. We’ve done growing in the last year,

    [00:27:00] Mike: [00:27:01] which is a good thing right.

    Vicki: [00:27:03] Absolutely.

    Mike: [00:27:04] Yeah. Awesome. Well appreciate you guys sharing your time with us and everybody, thanks for joining us for today’s episode episode. Hope you got some value there. If you haven’t yet subscribed to the investor fuel show, we’d love it.

    If you just go to or fuel.com and you can see all of our shows or you can access us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google, play, YouTube, wherever you’re watching or listening right now would be great. So appreciate you guys a ton. We’ll see you on the next show.

    Allen: [00:27:27] Thanks.

    Mike: [00:27:31] Are you an active real estate investor? If so, and you want to latch onto the power of surrounding yourself with over a hundred of the nation’s leading real estate investors, all committed to building stronger businesses and living richer, fuller

    Allen: [00:27:45] lives,

    Mike: [00:27:46] you should jump on a call with us to learn more about Bester fuel.

    Simply visit investor fuel. Dot com to get started. [00:28:00]