Father Daughter Real Estate Investing

Mike Hambright (00:04.59)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today I’m here with an old friend, Shelby Smith, right here in my marker. We’ve known each other for a long time and she works with her father. We’re going to talk about kind of running a father daughter business. There’s, you know, I can think of a ton of people that I know that are father, son, brothers, family members working together. I can’t think of anybody else’s father daughter. I’m sure there’s more.

out there. if you’re looking to work with your daughter or if you’re a daughter looking to work with your father, this would be a good show to watch. So Shelby, welcome to the show. Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Yeah, glad to have you here. So I don’t know how long we’ve known each other for, but for a long time. We’ve been running in the same circles for as long as I can remember, I guess. I know. Same here. I know back we officially started, I think, knowing each other more when we met at Investor Fuel for the first time. Yeah. That was.

I don’t know, even that was probably about eight years ago. Yeah, it’s been a while. tell us a little bit. I want to start and kind of dive into this. And I know your dad as well. And we should have had him here today, maybe. should have. That would have been good conversation. But anyway, he’s just going to have to watch us. So I guess you have to be careful what you say, because he might watch it, right? But hey, before we start, why don’t you just tell us a about your background and kind how you got into real estate investing.

I never intended to get into real estate investing, actually. I wanted to be a chef. So I went to culinary school. I got my degree. I worked in the industry for a while. And then it took a small break. And my dad had just started in real estate investing. And so I was sitting with him and was like, OK, I have some ideas. I can do some things for you. And started doing probate letters and re-boarding them.

drafting them for him just to help on the technology side and a little bit of labor. And somehow I just never left. That happened, and goodness, I think I started in end of 2011, beginning of 2012, and then I just never went back. So what was your dream for culinary school? What did you want to do? I went in wanting to be in pastry, not cakes and decorating, but actual pastry desserts and.

Mike Hambright (02:17.454)
Um, maybe having a bakery myself one day and then throughout school, fell in love with international cuisine and so started to kind of branching out and learning different cultures and foods and, um, different styles and cooking. And I love it. I have still loved cooking to this day. I still have a passion for it, but I think doing it for a career just was not ideal for me. ended up having my daughter in 2012 and realized.

I can’t live that crazy fast paced lifestyle where you’re just, you’re gone for 13 to 16 hours a day. You’re living, you you have to always work your way up in kitchens, no matter where you’re at. And even opening a restaurant that the time and maintenance that that would take, it just wasn’t a good place for me then. So now we have a running joke of, you know, he paid to put me through culinary school and now I do real estate. So I just cook occasional meals on holiday for the family. Well, you just, you come up with a

different kind of concoctions. I do, I get really creative sometimes. Especially when you rehab, you gotta work with what you have, maybe you don’t have all the materials you need, you’re like, well this is what we’ve got, so here’s what we’re gonna do. I do, and I still have very expensive taste apparently, so not only when comes to food, but picking out all the things for rehabs. Well honestly, there’s more people that went to college for something, or went to school for something, that are doing something different than those that are…

doing what they went to school for, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. We talked about it, even with my 17-year-old son, who’s about to go, most likely, to music school. like, I don’t know if that’s going to work out or what he’s going to do, but that’s where his passion is. So let’s let him chase it for a while. And if he does something else, he does something else. At the end of the day, think we all pivot a lot, and it just is what it is, right? It’s still keeping those passions in some way in your life. You brought up music. I played cello for 10 years. Oh, nice. So still have that.

that I need to, I’m probably a little rusty, but I need to pick that back up again too. You should have brought your dad and your cello here. We could have a little jam session. Put a whole concert on. My son plays the electric guitar, and Lindsay plays the ukulele. we could have had We really could have a band going on. It’d be a like a folk band or something. don’t know what it would be. Weird combo there. So let’s talk a little bit about, so right out of the gate, I guess, the whole time you’ve been doing this, you’ve been working with your dad the entire time.

Mike Hambright (04:40.142)
And he started a little bit before you, right? Because I remember, I do remember, I remember at some point, I knew your dad, and then I think you came on the scene. So I stayed in the background for quite a while, but he came in in 2011. And I was just goofing around when I was helping originally. was just licking envelopes and putting stamps on stuff. And then I started getting creative afterwards with letter structures.

figuring out what he was doing, because I didn’t understand any of it at first. I really didn’t pay that much attention. So I think mid-2012 is really when I got into it and started just kind of being his background and learning how things went. I can’t even honestly remember when I went on my first appointment with him, but I know he had started wholesaling at that point in time. And he had a connection with David Phelps, who

told him, learn from the best wholesaler you know, the best boots on the ground person in the industry. He can tell the story much better than I can. And that’s how he met Tim Harridge. And he learned from Tim Harridge and George Roddy at the time as to what the business was about. Yeah, David was here a few weeks back too. Oh, that’s awesome. David’s a good guy. I haven’t seen him in a while. Yeah.

Well, we joke. I see him at events that are not here. So we both live here. And same thing with Eddie Speed. We live in the same area. Same thing with Tim Harriage, honestly, is we see each other more across the country at some event than we do here in our own market. Right. Yeah. It’s interesting how that works. So I’ve told people for years, just when I’m consulting or advising people in our mastermind or whatever, they’ve got to use, if they have any sort of thing that’s unique about them from a marketing standpoint, they should use it. So for example, being a firefighter.

or things like that, like just lean into firefighters buying houses or whatever, right? Because I think people ultimately want to work with people. They don’t really care about. that they feel more connected to in some way. And I get that a lot. So we utilize the father-daughter. Yeah, you guys tag team acquisitions. mean, that’s one of the most interesting things that I want to make sure we cover today is you could just go on appointments yourself. There’s plenty of female acquisitions.

Mike Hambright (06:56.778)
know, agents or managers out there. And I still do. Like, I, you know, I have a few that I went on when him and my mom were out of town. I like to joke that I buy houses better by myself, but it’s, we get, we have a really good dynamic when we do it together though. think people like, you know, a lot of people are nervous when they meet with buyer home buyers, right? Because they’re just like, it’s a big deal for them and you got to make people feel at ease. And I can’t imagine thing. I think one thing that makes you feel at ease as a female acquisitions person.

Probably the next best thing is a father-daughter. I can’t imagine like people being offended or offensive or saying You know not wanting to open up a little bit more. That’s just something about that that just feels like natural I don’t know I get yeah, that that’s the the kind of vibe that we get a lot from sellers is they They’re very tense when they call me at first and then I just I ease into it and when I let them know you know my dad is he’s also my business partner is is gonna be coming with me and

A lot of them have heard me before or looked up our website, depending on how they came to me. And they’re like, so you actually are the ones who come out. Like, yeah, it’s just us. So they’re always expecting, I guess, some salesperson to come out and meet with them. So once we get there, they usually just open up and talk. And I follow along with their life updates. And I still have sellers to this day that I call and check on just to see how they’re doing, because we build such good rapport and relationships with

Yeah. And I know you do, let’s not talk about radio yet, but you guys do radio. So I want to talk about it. I mean, I don’t want to get into the details of it. And I you also do mailers. So are you marketing that on your mailers? No. No? You should. Yeah, I probably should. You definitely should. There’s people like we know, because we send millions of pieces of mail through Investor Machine. So we know if you show a picture of your team or a picture of your family with a dog, things like that, they just work better than just one person or if you even put a.

You should put a person on it. It humanizes you, right? When we were doing postcards, we actually, funny enough, utilized a picture that we took at Investor Fuel in San Diego and put that on our cards. And we got a lot of really good feedback for that one. So we didn’t bother about our Where are those royalty fees at? Yeah. So let’s talk about what it’s like to work with your dad or some people that are listening to this work with a family member.

Mike Hambright (09:17.42)
I joke with my son, he’s just not old enough yet, like he needs to go out and work for some other people first before anything like that ever happens. But just talk about that, like what it’s like to work with your dad. You know, I’d like to say that we distinguish between family and business really well, but we don’t. It kind of just, it literally meshes together for us. So I mean, we can have, be having a conversation about something personal and then two seconds later I’m like, and this property, so and so. And it just, it’s our life now.

So we just were constantly flowing with living away properties and personal life. We don’t have too many issues. I think he’s fired me about three times over the last several years. Just depends on the day. And I try to fire him, but it doesn’t work that way. That’s how we dispute things. We seem to get along really well in our dynamics with business.

I don’t know why. I wish I had an easy answer for that. I’m the baby of the family. funny enough, when I was a teenager, I had butt heads with him more than my brother and sister did, I think, because I didn’t think that we would be in this place. But we flow really well together. He’s got, you know, he’s more of the old school, doesn’t like to…

get into the technology side of things. And so my nerdy side comes out. And I like to dive into our systems and processes. And it just works together for us. Would you say, how do you divide and conquer? Obviously, you’re doing acquisitions together. But there’s the back office side of the business. There’s lead generation. There’s obviously make-readies or rehabs, all those things. Do you guys divide and conquer those things or try to? We do.

I handle most of the in-office side of things. I handle the lead generation, any marketing that we have. I handle scheduling the appointments and then the follow-ups. When we have projects going or for our rentals, he handles any general contracting or scope of works. He handles getting our contractors in place. And the moment a tenant even calls me with something, I send it to him. I’m like, I don’t know what to do.

Mike Hambright (11:34.158)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you said he started in 2011, I think, like about a year before you came on. So what did he? I don’t remember his background. What is his background? Was it something that was? He actually, I do know he built custom homes with his stepdad for a long time. So he’s got lot of experience. He’s got the building experience. And then I know he worked for a wholesale gutter supply company for years as their national manager. And that was, I think, that was the corporate job before he decided he was done working for other people. Yeah.

So he’s got the he’s got the he’s got some he knows how to use his hands and he’s got the skill to know like how the Legos are put together and stuff like that. does. And that’s kind of a hope of transitioning for me in the next few years is having when we have any projects that I start learning the what twos and how fours of everything because I’ve honestly stayed out of it. I can go into a house and estimate what a house is going to need. But when it comes down to the details, that’s not something that I’ve picked up on yet because I haven’t.

paid attention to it. So I’m going to start kind of being even closer father and daughter and having him take me through the rehab process. talk about when you’re doing acquisitions, because I’m curious about this. How do you guys interplay? Do you kind of go in and say, it’s like bad cop, good cop? is it just based on where the conversation is at, you just kind of let it flow? Or does one of you go in saying, hey, I’m going to be the lead on this one? I am always the one that goes in and I

and the friendly one. I come in and I speak to the sellers. I am the good cop. But he’s more the quiet, observing one. So while I’m talking to them, he will introduce it for him to go walk through the property so he can do evaluating. And I just kind of brush it off, like, let him do his thing, me and you will talk. And that’s how we do it. And I sit there and I get them to tell me what their situation is, if they haven’t, or will expand on it if I already know a little bit about it.

And we’ll talk and he, know he’s listening as he’s walking through so that when he comes back and we can sit down at the, we’ll usually sit down at the table or in the living room and talk to them and try and get kind of a better feel for what their needs are. And as he’s got a scope of the house and knows what he’s looking for, he can come in with his questions in the background at the end of it and we’ll sit there and go over things with them. Usually we can lock them down right there on the spot, but. Yeah, that’s interesting.

Mike Hambright (13:57.43)
We don’t like to pressure people. know there’s a lot of people that do. I will give them kind of a verbal situation. I’m not trying to pressure them into signing right then and there. And I get a lot of compliments for that too, that they appreciate how we approach it. Yeah. But you’re able to, I guess a little more, if you’re not comfortable with the analyzing repairs side, what the repair cost would be, feel he’s comfortable doing that.

I’m usually get it pretty right, but I’m I’m the hesitant you’re the more detail-oriented So you naturally are more conservative so you’re like that looks like it probably needs to be replaced and maybe yeah, You know both those things happen on an appointment. You’re trying to build rapport with the seller You’re trying to like build that relationship up build that trust and then you also have to look at the house because you need to able to make an offer so you’re just kind of tag teaming we are we are and then when we bring it in and we

You we’re sincere. None of it, none of it’s fake. It’s always, you we understand your situation and we, you know, family dynamics. We understand all that. We deal with a lot of, know, airship situations where somebody’s passed. So we have a lot of that, that we can, you know, a lot of sympathy and understanding because we have been through it. Everybody has, everybody’s human, but we’re not, we’re not robots when it comes to, I think it just comes off too, is like a father daughter is like,

It just, there’s a lot of males in the business and a lot of them, especially if they’re newer, are less apathetic, personable. They’re just kind of like, let me see what I’m going to offer you for this place. It’s just very kind of robotic, right? It is. It is. I get that a lot. more like a family. We’re going to have a family meeting here. I get a lot of feedback from sellers telling me that they feel pressured from sellers. Like you have 24 hour, or from other buyers. Like you have 24 hours to answer this and then they’ll harass them and call them multiple times.

And they feel more at ease with people that are more down on their level of, we understand this is big decision. We’re here for you. Even if you don’t go, it’s something I pitch to people, is even if you don’t choose me, feel free to call and let me, if you feel uncomfortable with where you’re going but you like their price, let me help you make sure that it’s the right decision for you. Yeah, that’s good. keeps me a lot busier than I probably should allow, but that’s my passion. I want to make sure that sellers are not being.

Mike Hambright (16:23.0)
taken advantage of. Yeah, yeah. Well, and it shows you care and people, know, if they trust you. Sometimes what happens is, we’ve had people certainly over the years like, I like you guys better, but somebody offered me more money. But they’ll come back to you. Like if they don’t like you and they don’t like your offer, they’re not going to come back and ask for advice. So if you kind of be that trusted consultant or that advisor and you’re like,

really want to sell to you what they offered me 5,000 more. I’ve had a few come back even though I’ve offered less because they liked me more and took my offer anyway. Yeah, yeah, we have too. Yeah, it’s an amazing. Isn’t it amazing when that happens? It is. Yeah, because they know they can trust you. So yeah, that’s great. talk a little about, so with the work-life balance part, I know we’ll kind of get into this a little bit. mean, I know you’re homeschooling your kids. You’ve got a million things going on. But with your dad specifically. And you know, I worked with my wife, Lindsay, for.

from day one, so she’s been involved. And we would go on dates and say, hey, we’re not going to talk about business tonight. within 15 seconds, we’re talking about business. That’s part of your life, though. I used to fight it, but then it’s like, this is just what we do. That’s what I’ve learned, too, is that is part of who you are. If you’re out with friends, you’re going to talk about certain things that you do anyway. So just let the conversation flow naturally. I do have points where my dad will

We’ll go, you know what, no, no more. Friday, shut your phone You need a break, you’re stressed, you need to quit, and don’t answer the phones until Monday. But, and he goes, no, just cut it off. That’s really hard for me, and then I’m sneaking my computer on the side somewhere, looking things up. It’s just, it’s part of what I do and who I am, and why I do this too is that…

I have that freedom and flexibility. If I want to get on my computer at 10 o’clock at night and follow up on some things in the background so that I don’t have to do it at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, that’s what I can do. If I want to go to my kid’s baseball game or baseball practice and sit there and answer calls, I can and still be involved because he’s not paying attention to me. I’m just watching him. Right. It’s just.

Mike Hambright (18:31.07)
it flows in. Now there is a point where you have to cut it off. Like every Saturday I have a standing movie and game night with my kids. And so I don’t, there’s no business on Saturday nights. We play board games and we watch movies. This past weekend we did Jenga and I did choose Monopoly. my son beat me. So I think I know who’s got the most interest in coming into real estate next would be my son.

And watch Princess Bride because I am determined that they’re going to have horrible movie quotes for the rest of their lives to repeat. Yeah, yeah. That’s funny. So let’s talk about what you do on the marketing side of your business. I know you have been using radio for quite some time. And I know, I I run an advertising company for real estate investors.

Not a lot of people use radio. I mean a lot of people have tried it and they say it doesn’t work or whatever but you’ve been sticking with for a long time so something’s working. going into year four of being on the radio and these are not your big like iHeartRadio style channels. These are smaller listener funded ones and they surprisingly have a very wide range of listeners. So I get some really good lead generation out of that. We’re getting about three to five.

deals a month from it. And what they are called their business impact partners is what we are to them. So we pay to help fund and help advertise and they play our advertisement on there. And I’ve interviewed with a couple other radio stations because I enjoy it so much. Like I get some really good, I meet some great people, amazing sellers. I can’t help every single one, but I try. The price difference on these larger stations are, I mean, it’s.

probably five times the amount of what I pay now. So we’re finding the ones that we can do these smaller marketing budgets with and our turnaround’s been amazing on it. And are you always the voice of those that you are? I am. Yeah. Yeah. My dad’s goal is to have me be the face and voice of the company. So we’re working on transitioning more to what my vision’s going to be for the business in the future. Funny enough, he’s more known in the

Mike Hambright (20:51.724)
I guess in our community. And I’m just Randy’s daughter. that’s the investors. That’s not the seller. That’s what the investors. But for the sellers, it’s me. They don’t know who anybody is. Yeah, for the sellers, it’s definitely me. They hear my voice. And when they call into the phone line, I’m the one who answers. So either way, they’re going to meet with me or they see my face when I send my offer. I’ll send a video with my offers.

So it’s just a quick, hey, my dad and I have been doing this since 2011. And I give them the quick rundown on what we do in our business, and 30 second ad spot, and it’s done. So you kind of represent yourself as a father-daughter outfit. Family owned and operated. And then there’s a lot of regulations with what you can and can’t say on the radio. we market. I don’t think we’re allowed to say no closing.

you don’t have to pay closing costs or there’s no fees. There’s certain things that they make me go in and change every few months because the regulations change constantly. yeah, I I state that we’re family owned and operated and we offer cash for houses. It’s been a pretty good run. think the fee is obviously this is a male dominated industry for the most part. I think.

People that I have known that do TV or radio, it’s usually the male voice, right? Or they might pull their kids in and they do some cute stuff. Which I think makes it more heard the kids quite often on radio. Yeah. But I think that female voice too, like if you listen to, I don’t listen. I can’t even name a radio channel. Like I don’t listen. I listen to streaming stuff. And it’s been like 10 years. So do I. And that’s the ironic part about it. Now my dad, he actually listens to these radio stations. So it’s funny when we’re going to an appointment and I hear myself come on the radio.

I listen to, I’m a Spotify girl. I was Pandora and then transitioned to Spotify. I haven’t listened to the radio in years. But I will say that female voice breaks it up because everything just sounds like a male announcer. And then when you hear a female voice come on, it’s not that you’re like, the record stops, know, like, whoop. But it’s just like, it’s different, right? And there’s a lot of people that can use females and their.

Mike Hambright (23:06.19)
voicemail recordings because people are going to call in and like, take me off of the list and like yell at you. But if it’s a female, they’re just like, hey, can you take me off your list? Like they’re just tend to not want to. Oh, I get yelled at plenty still. But I mean, even when we were doing Bandit Signs as marketing, I did an automatic recording and had to be the female voice. It was a different name then, so I didn’t get in trouble. But it was nicer from city inspectors when they would get that voice.

Yeah, they’re less likely to stick it to you. Here’s your warning. So everybody needs a Shelby in their business. They do. They do. I think I’m pretty awesome. So let’s talk about how do you balance all this stuff? You run a business. You’ve got your homeschooling your kids. You’ve got game night going on. You’ve got a bunch of stuff going on. How do you balance all this as a busy entrepreneur? I still don’t 100 % know the answer to that. I’m working on.

Time blocking myself, and I’m not very good at sticking to that exact schedule. Well, your kids don’t stick to your time block schedule. They don’t care. They have their own schedule, too. They’re so independent. That’s the beauty of homeschool children. They’re so independent. You can just hand them their stuff, and they go do it for the day. Wow, I don’t know what that’s like. My son is 17, and that’s not how it works in my house. Yeah, now there’s a couple of topics where I have to jump in and help them with, but they’re pretty good at following along. We mix between online courses and course books.

But they’re done in two hours. So it’s what they fill their time with for the rest of the day that’s the thing. So we try to find some things they’re interested in and keep them busy. And you work out of your house? I do. Yeah. We had an office for a while. It was just a place for me to get away. But when it’s more of a rush for me to get to the office and nobody realizes You probably end up taking your kids to the office with you. Yeah. Right. And then it’s like, well, aren’t we just at home?

more comfortable. Yeah and I’m blessed I have my mom who steps in and she takes care of them too. She’ll take them out, they’ll go run and do stuff. She’ll take them to, we have some homeschool groups that we’re a part of that she’ll take them to go on any field trips or any classes. It’s really just, my phone is glued to me 24-7 and I do have to take notes sometimes and step back and say I need to not be Shelby the business owner and be Shelby the mom.

Mike Hambright (25:27.302)
and just take a break every now and then. But we work pretty well. It’s just a pretty good flow. And my kids are so used to it. They even know how to drive for dollars. Like if we’re out looking, they know that I’ll give them money if we find an empty house and I buy it. So they’re constantly looking for stuff. They do. They do. And they both are working on business plans currently, because that was my role, is that by.

By 13, they had to come up with a business idea. I think I got that from listening to somebody else in this industry. And so I’ve been telling them for years, like, OK, you’ve got to start thinking of some ideas. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, yeah. So any tips on working with a family member? Things to do and things to not do. Don’t take everything so personal. Still learning that lesson myself, because I am being a girl. I’m all in my feels sometimes.

and I get offended or feel like it’s a personal attack, it’s not, it’s just business. So, just really learning how to balance what his strong suits are and what mine are and knowing that I can’t take on everything myself, I have to tell him, hey, this is too much for me, I need you to handle this part. Learning that over the years has been interesting. I think that’s any business dynamic really.

I haven’t found it to be any different with family. I’ve never run a business with somebody else before though, so maybe it’s a little different. know husband-wife dynamic is, you have to be even more careful. I mean, the worst I can get was grounded probably in situation. Yeah, there have been tense times over there. I we’ve worked together since 2008, so was 17 years. So there have definitely been times where it felt like it was going to tear us apart. And we’re just like, what’s the point of?

being in business together, all it does, and to build a better life together, if it just tears you apart. you definitely can’t let it do that. Yeah, and that’s the same with father-daughter situation. We’ve had plenty of times where it’s been rough, but it blows over pretty quickly. Communication is number one thing for us. It’s even one of our core values, and perseverance as well. So it’s something that we both

Mike Hambright (27:48.366)
mesh on and we have to just have to keep going. You know, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows for sure. No, not for anybody. Even if you don’t work with a family member, it’s not that way. It’s not. But I am grateful. My parents are amazing. I’ve loved having, you know, being able to have this kind of relationship and be closer with with my dad and and, you know, being able to see my mom majority of the week because I basically live at my house and their house just 50 50. I’m going back and forth all the time where we’re going. Got to meet up, drop the kids off, go.

Awesome. Well, thanks for spending some time with us today. Of course. for having me. your story. That’s really cool. I’ve known you for a long time and got some new information today. So if folks want to connect with you in any way or learn more about you, where can they go? They can, you can first off go to our website, is livingwayproperties.com. Or you can find me on Facebook’s probably the easiest to find me.

My last name is different on there. So you can look up Shelby McFeely, M-C-F-E-E-L-E-Y on Facebook. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks again for spending some time with us today. Of course. Thanks for having me. It’s been great. Yeah. Everybody, hope you got some good value from the show today. If you are working with a family member, make sure you don’t tear yourselves apart in the process, because it can get tense sometimes. And I think you got some good lessons today. The key is just clear communication and make sure that you kind of divide and conquer.

Hope you guys have got some great insights from today. We’ll see you on the next show.