From Soldier to Investor: Erin Helle’s Journey to Real Estate Success

John Harcar (00:02.121)
Okay. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m John Harcar, your host, and I’m here with Erin Hella. Did I say that right? Helle Helle Okay. We’re with Erin Helle and what we’re going to talk about today, guys, besides her journey in business and real estate, we’re going to talk about investor psychology and why she feels, women are better investors than men. hot debate topic.

Erin Helle (00:09.912)
Helle.

John Harcar (00:28.205)
Remember guys at investor fuel we help real estate investors service providers Really all real estate entrepreneurs 2 to 5x their business, you know We do that because we provide the tools the community and the resources to level up your business right to grow and scale and in turn helps you live that better lifestyle So Erin, welcome to our show

Erin Helle (00:50.082)
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

John Harcar (00:52.109)
Like I told you before we got on, I’ve been excited to talk about this specific topic. But before we get into all that, why don’t you give our audience a little background on you, kind of your journey in business and real estate and what brought you to today?

Erin Helle (01:00.066)
all.

Erin Helle (01:07.106)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I was in the army about eight years ago, spent eight years on active duty. And after my husband and I had our first daughter, we were both set to deploy the same month. And I abruptly resigned from the military, got out about five months later, which is a very quick turnaround for termination of service. So it was a whirlwind, had a baby at home, a deployed husband. I started looking at project management positions and cause that’s really what I did in the army.

me and I couldn’t really find anything that gave me any type of flexibility really like let me continue to grow my family and spend any time with my kids. So I decided I would create my own projects and got into real estate as an investor. Started pretty small single-family homes, scaled quickly and then realized I was kind of in over my depth a little bit in over my head and ended up scaling back because I knew that this was all about creating the dream life, creating exactly what I wanted for myself and my family.

and I just kind of took it a little bit too far. So I scaled it back a little bit, focused on my strategy now, which is to buy properties that are a little bit distressed, but you can get some favorable financing on the front end, renovate it over time, improve it over time, constantly add value, force some appreciation, and just slowly build your wealth. I call it the get rich slow scheme. So that’s kind of what it’s about for me. It’s taken about eight years to really hone in on that strategy.

We’re constantly tweaking, we’re constantly pursuing new things. And what’s cool is I think I continue to gain confidence as we see our wealth grow, as we navigate different cycles of the market. And it’s just gotten to be a lot more fun. It was really stressful in the beginning. Still a little bit stressful, but a lot more fun now.

John Harcar (02:56.823)
Yeah, first and foremost, thank you for your service. If your husband was in there to thank him as well. And if you’ve watched any of my podcasts, I like to go back. There’s always one question I like to figure out. Growing up, maybe some time in your past, was there any influence, any exposure, anybody in real estate, a realtor, a flipper, a buy and hold landlord type of guy, anybody who planted that seed back then?

Erin Helle (03:22.655)
No, know, interestingly, no. But I did, I wasn’t around construction my whole life. And that’s kind of what I thought real estate was gonna be, like construction projects. And that’s kind of how it started. I did some flips in the beginning. But I think for me, the bigger thing was the…

The household I grew up in was very feast or famine. My dad ran businesses, his dad ran businesses, and when things were good, things were good. When things were bad, they were really, really bad. And I just wanted some stability for myself, for my family. And so that really kind of drove me to real estate as well.

John Harcar (03:56.557)
Well, and I think that’s important too, is that you learn some of those things back in the day of that, of those struggles of, of what a business owner goes through. So, you know, cause when some people get in, they think it’s going to be roses and it’s not, it’s, it’s the ups and downs and you saw that. So as you started getting into the flipping part, right? You started doing stuff. what were some of the biggest struggles, maybe some of the biggest hurdles that you had to overcome.

Erin Helle (04:22.033)
without a doubt, managing contractors. And that’s why I don’t do it anymore. They are just a full-time rigmarole of energy and emotion and everything. And it’s not a place I ever want to be again, where I’m so reliant on somebody or so invested in somebody or company. they have the power to ruin everything for you.

John Harcar (04:27.021)
Ha

John Harcar (04:46.231)
Give me an example of how that went, how that worked.

Erin Helle (04:50.253)
Yeah, so I had, you know, I don’t have a lot of examples. Most of my relationships went pretty well, but the one that went south was this really high end flip in Nashville that I really probably shouldn’t have never purchased. I bought it for about $550 and I think I sold it for about $600, but I was into it for a lot more than that. And my contractors over promised, under delivered. I think they ended up getting another job toward the end and basically

just never finished my project. And I didn’t know that I had moved to California in the meantime following my husband’s military career and found out during a showing that none of the plumbing was installed. So like the person viewing the house opened up the cabinet under the kitchen sink and the plumbing was just sitting on the floor. The cabinets weren’t even secured to the wall. They were just sitting there.

John Harcar (05:22.536)
jeez.

Erin Helle (05:44.046)
So I found all that stuff out during due diligence from my buyer. Of course that buyer walked away. I ended up having to pay a new contractor to finish the job. Was pretty in the hole and then COVID hit. I did end up going after that contractor’s insurance because I paid for a bunch of stuff that they first of all stole. They took a bunch of my materials that I paid for and then of course didn’t finish the job. So I ended up…

kind of whole in the end, it was like a zero sum game, but it was a very emotional, stressful time, especially with COVID. And I listed the property a couple of days before COVID hit and not a soul set foot in that house for 10 days. And then somebody came in, made an offer, it was a low offer. I took it and I ran and I would do it again in a heartbeat just because of Exactly.

John Harcar (06:13.165)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (06:29.874)
You were just ready to get that off of your back. I can get it. I get it. Yeah.

Erin Helle (06:34.621)
Exactly, yeah. So super high stress, lots of energy. I learned a lot about myself. Mostly, you know, that I’m always gonna live to fight another day. I’m always gonna figure it out. But I won’t be doing that again anytime soon.

John Harcar (06:40.396)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (06:48.393)
Yeah, no, I get it. And you said something else that kind of resonated with me and I think is really important is that, you know, when you started, I think you said you started doing more flips, but it got too much for you or something that affect. you mentioned about the lifestyle, right? About about building that business for your life. Tell me a little bit about that. Like what, how did you start doing too much or more than you really want to do? And how did it affect or change things?

Erin Helle (07:12.961)
Yeah, yeah, so when I was flipping, flipping is really a full-time job. Even if you hire a general contractor or sub it out, either way, you’ve gotta be available to your contractors, you’ve gotta be responding to things, you’re constantly relooking the budget, sourcing materials, stuff like that. So it’s busy. And that’s kinda why I got away from it. Now the way that I do it, my properties are…

John Harcar (07:29.229)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Helle (07:37.702)
Single-family homes up to 10 and 12 units so nothing bigger than that so I can just hire a property manager They don’t have to be on site and they quite literally handle everything for five to seven percent of my you know monthly rental fee And I do almost nothing. I do hear from

I would say hear from my property managers two to three times a week, but it’s usually just a quick like, hey, this happened, you want us to repair or replace or hey, this happened, this is your option. And they always spell it out for me. It’s a quick response and it’s given me my time back and my phone isn’t ringing off the hook.

John Harcar (08:16.759)
Did that too much situation kind of transition your mind into the who, not how part?

Erin Helle (08:24.809)
I ha- so I also considered the who and I hired a project manager. That didn’t work out well. I hired an assistant. That didn’t work out either. You know, people are fickle. People are…

And not, you know, I can’t expect anyone to be committed to my business the way that I am committed to my business. So I don’t hire any, any employees anymore. I hire exclusively contractors and if they do the job, they get paid, they do well, they get the next job. And I don’t, I’m not in the position where I want to manage someone’s life. I don’t want to deal with personnel issues. I have a six and a nine year old. I get plenty of that here at home. So I just think, you know, adults are adults and you should work should be separate from your

John Harcar (09:05.612)
Yeah.

Erin Helle (09:12.043)
life, but most people do not think that way and I kind of had to learn that the hard way. So I’ve had to really tweak my business to align with that.

John Harcar (09:23.341)
I think that comes down to the systems and processes, right? You really had to kind of put all that stuff together to manage. So what does your business look like today? Where are you buying property? What are you doing?

Erin Helle (09:29.837)
Absolutely.

Erin Helle (09:36.93)
Yep. Yeah. So still buying in outside of Nashville, Tennessee, Clarksville, Tennessee is probably always going to be our main market. That’s where my best property manager is. That’s where my real estate team is. I’m constantly going to invest there. We do a lot of passive investing now. We’re investing with a company in Texas who’s doing, they’re like repurposing old office spaces into medical facilities. So that’s pretty cool.

John Harcar (10:02.881)
nice okay

Erin Helle (10:07.425)
We also invest with a team out of Jacksonville who’s building beachfront homes and they put them, they use them as short-term rentals so that’s kind of a long-term game. So it’s fun to be able to give money to those things but not be actively involved. And then sort of my day-to-day is a lot of consulting.

Currently I’m helping West Point develop outside of their gates. The town outside of the gates has been going downhill for a number of decades and we’re working to really develop that community. And I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never done, I was hired to help with the development piece of it, it’s the real estate development, but it’s more like community development. It’s been really fun. It’s not anything I ever imagined myself doing, but I really enjoy it. And…

John Harcar (10:34.337)
Wow, okay.

Erin Helle (10:54.859)
Yeah, it’s cool. It’s something different. Every day looks different and I love it.

John Harcar (10:58.231)
So you’re redoing the whole town kind of thing.

Erin Helle (11:00.929)
Yeah, I mean, basically what we’re trying to do is we just did a developers conference a couple weeks ago, two weeks ago maybe, and we’re just trying to bring in the money. We’re getting all the politicians involved. We’re trying to find the money, trying to change the zoning, make it more builder friendly, business friendly, and bring in the people that will do it. West Point’s not going to do the building.

John Harcar (11:16.365)
Got it.

Erin Helle (11:22.881)
they have committed some capital, but we want private investment to come in and we want to create an environment that’s favorable to their businesses succeeding, which hadn’t existed before, which is why the village has gone downhill. But moving in the right direction and it’s really cool.

John Harcar (11:40.525)
Well, it sounds like a very cool project. mean, it sounds like it’d be an HGTV show. Kind of like, you know, they have like, Build or Flip This Town or Rebuild This Town, something to kind of that effect, right?

Erin Helle (11:49.185)
Yeah, I think there actually is one right here in the Hudson Valley too. I need to get tapped into that because a lot of people have recommended that.

John Harcar (11:56.247)
I’m just saying, I mean, to me, it sounds like that’d be something that would be, you know, get good ratings, especially in the military community. I mean, come on. All right. Let’s talk about our topic here. Investor psychology and why women are better investors than men. Let’s hear it.

Erin Helle (12:03.362)
Yeah.

Erin Helle (12:14.839)
Yeah, I could talk for days about this. So let me give you… Okay.

John Harcar (12:17.495)
Well, let’s talk about investor. Let’s talk first about investor psychology. And I, you know, I’m big on mindset, right? Things we want to focus on, things we need to learn. So tell me about that investor psychology piece first.

Erin Helle (12:29.259)
Yeah, so, I mean, what I know about it, which I’m not a psychologist, what I learned, how I learned about this was during my dissertation on my doctor of business administration. And my topic, this wasn’t my topic to start, but what happened was I sent out a pilot study and basically asked people how they feel about investing and how their investing results correlated to their confidence in investing. And what I found was men were very confident.

in their ability to invest but didn’t really have a lot of great results to show for it. Whereas the opposite, women were the opposite. Women had low levels of confidence but significantly better results. And if you look at, as I was working on my literature review, every study shows every study of, they usually look at long-term like 30-year portfolios, women are better investors than men across the board in every

category except for maybe an appetite for risk, which is telling. I think that is one of the things that makes women more

get better results as an investor is like they are taking less risk. So yeah, so the data is there. It’s really interesting. And Wall Street is realizing this. It used to be such a male dominant industry. It was all men and masculine and the bull on Wall Street. But it is really changing. You can even see commercials nowadays. They’re showing spouses together. They’re showing women taking on a bigger role.

because that’s what our society has seen.

John Harcar (14:10.637)
Sure. Now, what type of investing is this? this real estate? Is this a stock market? I mean, or is it just overall investing?

Erin Helle (14:20.373)
It depends on what study you look at. There’s a lot of different ones, but the main ones are just going to be stock portfolios.

John Harcar (14:25.741)
stock stock profiles. Okay. Do you think it’s because women are more analytical and men are more just let’s go?

Erin Helle (14:32.845)
I do think there’s an element of that. I think the bigger element, the the underarch, underlying reason is because women create a plan that’s grounded in something pretty deep.

you know, something they’ve spent time thinking about. They’ve talked to their peers, their spouse, their moms, whatever. They’ve really, really thought about it. And then they stick to that plan. I think that’s the difference is that, and there’s a lot of data to show this too, like many more women came out of the 08 housing crisis, millionaires, and they, because they held on to their properties through that market cycle. Whereas most of the men, not most of the men, but a lot of men, a lot more.

bailed. And so because women were able to stay focused on their goals and see it through, they came out the other side in a way better position. And that can be said for any market cycle. If you can hold on, you’re usually going to come out actually, usually might not even be the right word. would say historically, you would always come out better on the other side.

John Harcar (15:42.263)
for anybody that is going to get into investing, whether it be stock, whether it be real estate, whatever. mean, in this type of market or this type of environment we’re in today, what’s some advice you would give them that would help them set up for success?

Erin Helle (15:55.596)
Yeah, so I think figure out what it’s all about. Figure out what it’s for. Figure out what the end state is. Spend some time there planning it, visualizing it in your head, and then get that on paper and figure out what that costs. Like what is your end state life or your retirement look like, whatever that is, and then how much does it cost you, and then backwards plan from there. So figure out what you have to do now, whether it’s 50 years out or five years out, and then just commit to it.

and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

John Harcar (16:28.341)
Awesome. And it seems like you’d probably be big on mindset pieces, like mindset practicing. What things do you think over time or that you currently do that help keep your mindset focused, keep going towards your goals?

Erin Helle (16:42.645)
yeah, so many things. Staying grounded, constantly reminding yourself of your goals. My goals are posted all around me. Like what I’m doing this week to get to it, what the end state is, I have my why built out. It’s very clear in my head.

So I’m very grounded in that. And then, yeah, just making sure that you’re doing the activities on a daily basis that will help you get to it. So that helps you stay confident. But in terms of the mindset, you have to, in order to be successful and continue to grow your wealth, you have to have an attitude of abundance. Well, I guess you don’t have to, but it will come quicker and it will come easier and with a lot less stress if you

John Harcar (17:26.957)
Yeah, right. I was about to say it’s get you on the better side quicker. Yeah.

Erin Helle (17:29.823)
Adopt that attitude of abundance. Yeah, and you know that you deserve it You can do it all of that makes a big difference and that was a struggle for me in the beginning like when I got out of the army and went from full-time professional with a career to Basically a stay-at-home mom who didn’t have a clue how to even buy a single-family home I struggled a lot with my confidence and my sense of worth and my sense of self and so it took me a long time to dig myself out of that hole and Really rewired my brain

And unfortunately, the whole world is against you. Now that I’m working for this organization, my main consulting contract, it’s a nonprofit who has, unfortunately, very limiting beliefs, very close-minded idea about money and capacity and abundance of money. And so that’s been a challenge for me to make sure that I don’t let that get the best of me and take root in my head.

John Harcar (18:26.9)
Yeah, no, and that makes sense. And I don’t know if I ever asked you, like when you started flipping and you said you even know how to buy a single fan, how did you learn? Did you have a mentor? Did you learn YouTube U? What was your learning process?

Erin Helle (18:40.237)
Well, the first one I just, no, not really. I didn’t really have a mentor. I didn’t spend too much money on courses or coaching or anything like that. The first one I did on my own, literally my dad and I like installing floors and doing everything on our own. And so I learned a lot through that, what was worth my time and what was worth spending money on. And yeah, just kind of honed it in from there.

John Harcar (18:44.812)
Okay, okay.

John Harcar (18:58.165)
Awesome. Yeah.

John Harcar (19:07.309)
Well, that’s cool. And I appreciate you coming on here and sharing all this stuff, man. You dropped some really good information. Is there any last advice you’d like to give someone who might be listening to us that would just really get them off on the right foot, them down the right path?

Erin Helle (19:22.487)
Yeah, yeah, mean, anyone listening to this can do it. I don’t have anything special. There’s nothing unique about me that gave me some tool to figure this out. I just committed and I got it done. So know that you can do it, know that you deserve it, and just don’t settle for anything less.

John Harcar (19:38.559)
And if they want to get in touch with you, something you said resonated with them, maybe they want to do some business with you. How do, how do our folks get in touch?

Erin Helle (19:46.293)
Yeah, you can find me. I’ve got some social media accounts. I’m not very active on them. My assistant does all that. But you can find me, thearrenhelley on Facebook, Instagram. I’m thearrenhelley underscore investor coach. But honestly, the best way is just to email me. It’s arren, E-R-I-N, dot dot H-E-L-L-E, at gmail.com.

John Harcar (20:08.159)
Awesome. And then we’ll take all that. We’ll put it in the show notes. So guys, if you’re out there listening, you can get in touch. I hope you all enjoyed it. Aaron, thank you again for coming on here and sharing all that information. And guys, we will see you on the next one. Cheers.

Erin Helle (20:22.04)
Thank you.