From Challenges to Triumphs: Carole Ellis on Real Estate Investing

Dylan Silver (00:00.719)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show, have Carole Ellis, the editor of REI Ink., a monthly print digital real estate magazine for full-time real estate investors and real estate related service providers. Carole, welcome to the show.

Carole Ellis (00:19.032)
Thank you, thank you for having me.

Dylan Silver (00:20.887)
Absolutely. Before we hopped on here, I mentioned I am grateful that I’m in Texas because it’s very cold in other parts of the country. And you mentioned to me that you’re currently in Atlanta, Georgia, if I have that correct.

Carole Ellis (00:35.416)
That’s right, the magazine is actually based in Missouri. I live in Atlanta most of the year though, where it’s nice and warm right now.

Dylan Silver (00:41.869)
Okay, I am definitely not missing the freezing cold, that’s for sure. But Carole, how did you get into this space of being a real estate entrepreneur?

Carole Ellis (00:48.142)
you

Carole Ellis (00:54.478)
I have been working in real estate and with and for real estate investors since about 2006. Shortly before the housing crash, I started working with some people who were creating a short sale product. And it really just took off from there. I mean, I have such admiration for real estate investors. My husband and I have done a fair amount of it ourselves as well. And it’s just a space that demands

ongoing actionable education that is valuable and timely. And so I just never left.

Dylan Silver (01:31.043)
It’s hard to be a real estate investor and have the same exact strategy, you know, for decades. don’t think it’s it may not be possible. I’ve seen everybody who’s been on the show. They’ve really grown or scaled or shifted. And I say that there’s this term entrepreneurial neuroplasticity. Like you have to be able to think one way to have one lifestyle. You’re a fix and flipper for these three to four years. And then the next thing you’re you’re note buying or you go into hard money lending. And so.

Carole Ellis (01:38.382)
Bye.

Dylan Silver (01:58.971)
It sounds like in your journey, you started on your own with your husband, taking a look at different properties. Do I have that right or am I off there?

Carole Ellis (02:10.51)
Actually, I have been creating content for real estate investors since 2006. It was around 2006 that I started working with them more directly. I did some coaching. We have done everything over the years. I mean, we’ve done fix and flips, we’ve done syndications, we did a lot of buy and hold at different income levels. But I mean, my personal primary focus has always been on the…

Dylan Silver (02:16.389)
Okay.

Carole Ellis (02:38.092)
the content and the educational side. I’m a technical reporter and a medical reporter by trade. Sometimes some of this stuff is hard to explain and having someone, with real estate investors your audience is so diverse because there’s so many creative and innovative people that are drawn to real estate that…

Dylan Silver (02:45.509)
Okay.

Carole Ellis (03:01.354)
It’s a real advantage if there’s someone who can kind of say, okay, you’re extremely educated, but maybe you don’t know that much about real estate. Here is the stuff that is relevant right now. And that’s where I fit into the equation.

Dylan Silver (03:13.241)
And so if I heard you correctly, technical and medical reporter. Okay, so this is totally new to me. I haven’t had anybody in kind of the news media on the show or even related, right? I haven’t had a fellow podcaster that I’m aware of on the show. And so when you are in these fields, is it a lifelong passion that you knew from a young age that I wanted to be in reporting?

Carole Ellis (03:17.728)
Yeah.

Carole Ellis (03:31.765)
You

Carole Ellis (03:42.67)
I knew I’ve been planning to be a writer since I was eight, so I knew that I was going to write something. And it’s a really wonderful area to be in because I think I mentioned to you, like if I ask you two my questions, you have to tell me stop, because it’s not my interview, I’m not running it. I’m really nosy and I really like learning things and this is the perfect thing.

Dylan Silver (03:50.275)
Okay.

Carole Ellis (04:07.074)
to be able to do. mean, every month at REI Ink Magazine, we do an economic analysis, we do a regional spotlight. I’m constantly interviewing people who are doing the most groundbreaking things in our industry. And my entire job is to monopolize them for some extended period of time until I’m done wondering things about what they do. So it’s perfect for me.

Dylan Silver (04:30.031)
I can imagine that with the background that you have, technical and medical, and you get exposure to real estate investors and you realize, wow, this isn’t something that I previously thought about, but I actually am really interested in this just on a personal level. How can I make this accessible for more people and how can I have a space for these people to shine? Was that, am I on there?

Carole Ellis (04:52.62)
Yeah, I mean, you’re inviting me to get on a soapbox. I won’t take over your podcast, but the real estate investing population, I feel like really needs to hear because it is so diverse. mean, they are. It’s the best group of people. They are so creative. They are so smart and they are so brave because, you know, the more specialists you get, you get some really specialized people who have been incredibly successful in the medical field or, you know, in engineering or something like that. And then they’re like, OK, now I’m going to learn this thing.

Dylan Silver (04:56.783)
Ha ha ha.

Carole Ellis (05:22.99)
and I’m start at ground zero, that’s a very brave and creative and dynamic thing to do. And I don’t know very many other populations that are like that. So yeah, I mean, it’s just, it is a privilege to write for that population and for the people who serve them because the people who provide services in real estate investing and the things associated with that specifically.

are of a similar nature because they are constantly changing right along with the real estate investing population.

Dylan Silver (05:53.851)
To your point, Carol, I’ve seen it takes a fair degree of ability to network. I call it guerrilla networking or being a networking junkie. You have to be able to analyze deals and you also have to be comfortable with risk. There’s a lot of risk everywhere in our society, but it’s amplified in real estate, right? There’s a reason why people will take their money out of the stock market and put it into real estate. But of course, that comes with risk.

Carole Ellis (06:01.646)
You

Dylan Silver (06:23.131)
And so I this was most exemplified recently. I had a skydiving instructor turned real estate entrepreneur on the show and I asked him well What’s the similarities that you see and he’s like honestly skydiving told me everything that I needed to know about real estate And I said you’re kidding me and he’s like who can afford to go skydiving. It’s already people who are fairly successful So you would see a lot of the same people regularly you would see

Carole Ellis (06:41.196)
I love that.

Dylan Silver (06:51.513)
real estate entrepreneurs, would see attorneys, you would see these types of people. And so I would just have conversations with them. And, you know, they’re strapped to my back. So they quite literally are depending on me for their lives. You know, we’re jumping out of a perfectly good plane. And when I when I started to see, you know, maybe I can do this, he transitioned into real estate and he saw the risk there. And he said, I get a similar thrill. Nothing’s going to, you know, match jumping out of a plane.

Carole Ellis (07:01.463)
Yeah

Dylan Silver (07:18.895)
But I can relate to that. mean, it is definitely a thrilling process. And I think people that stay away from real estate and do other forms of investing are adverse to that risk. And so that’s what makes real estate appealing to so many people is it’s just a I would say, unique way, but it’s also part of the American story.

Carole Ellis (07:41.474)
Well, and I think, I mean, first of all, I don’t know that I have any real estate investments that I would place on a level of skydiving in the interest of full disclosure. I don’t have that risk appetite. But I think the other thing too is that, you know, it’s not just an appetite for risk, but there’s a strong pervasive appetite for active and productive problem solving. Which again, is just like a thing that I really admire because

Dylan Silver (07:49.531)
Ha ha.

Carole Ellis (08:08.524)
Of course, part of it is your business. Like if you are going to successfully invest in real estate, you need to be thinking not just of solving your own problems, but of somebody else’s, because otherwise, your target market isn’t gonna care. But there’s also like a real joy in it, and it really manifests when you talk to, I can’t think of an investor I’ve talked to that it hasn’t been evident. Just like, not only do I like making money, or do I like doing all these other things that they’re doing, but.

I found a house for a person or I got, you know, I got this person on this horrible situation and they’re really proud of that. And I think that every opportunity that they, you know, that the real estate investing population can be told they should be proud. Like they should be, cause it’s, it’s just a really unique space. I love it.

Dylan Silver (08:51.995)
The problem solving is, I forgot to mention that, between networking, problem solving, being able to underwrite these deals, it is truly, it’s truly a unique skill set. Like you really have to be able to do a lot of things well. You really, really do. If you think you’re just gonna come in and it’s gonna be passive, usually it’s not, right? So when people have rental properties and they think, oh, well this is gonna be passive income, I was just speaking to a woman out of Houston, Texas, who was an insurance, is an insurance broker.

Decided that she wanted to have more passive income got into having single-family rentals and realized this isn’t passive at all This is a whole other job. I gave myself and so it does take that appetite to Increase your burden if you will at the same point in time a lot of people love that right so I see I have people on who are heavily involved in Airbnb short-term rentals and I’ve routinely seen that the best Airbnb hosts are the ones that literally like hosting people

You know?

Carole Ellis (09:54.818)
Yeah. I mean, as a former turnkey provider, I will say if you find a good one, don’t worry folks, you can be passive. But it does still require like additional brain space regardless. And absolutely. Like I think it’s the people that you meet that are like, listen to this. This is what I did. Or this is what I came up with. And that are really generous with that information that turned out to be like the most successful investors because they’re just

excited about doing it.

Dylan Silver (10:26.607)
Pivoting a bit here, Carol, how would you describe the process of growing and scaling a monthly digital real estate magazine, right? So this is something that you created and how did that process work?

Carole Ellis (10:43.086)
So, in the interest of full disclosure, I am the editor for REI Inc. It is actually, it is a magazine that is co-owned by Suzanne Andreessen and Robert Rakowski. They hired me, I have been in this space as a writer for quite a long time and I’ve served it as editor. I also worked for Think Realty magazine for a while. I worked for UGA Research Magazine. And so, they hired me. I am not…

Dylan Silver (10:52.837)
Okay.

Carole Ellis (11:13.122)
I’m not the power behind the scale. Although I do feel like content, without good content, there is no scale, because nobody will pay attention. But as far as the scaling strategy, Bob and Suzanne have really dedicated a massive amount of brain power and financial resources to really trying to think creatively about how to support the real estate industry.

Dylan Silver (11:21.079)
Yeah.

Carole Ellis (11:40.43)
Not only with the magazine but with the things that they do when they go to events you were talking about guerrilla marketing and stuff like that They’ve come up with some really Smart ways to bring people in our industry together. They do this thing I think it’s a diamond where they do a cooking class with all of these different service providers and really, you know high volume investors and they all get together and they cook stuff and when they told me about I thought well, that’s Not I’ve never seen that before

And people love it and it gives people a chance to actually relate and I think that if you want to scale especially in this industry where we all place such a premium on our networking ability and our ability to solve each other’s problems You have got to constantly figure out how to relate to people other people and other investors and their problems at the same time but but I’m not the

personal brains behind the scale of Aria, Inc. So I don’t want to take credit for that. Just the awesome content.

Dylan Silver (12:42.587)
That’s right, you’re the creative. As far as networking and being able to learn yourself, I’m imagining, just as I’ve experienced in a short time doing this podcast, that you’re able to almost bootstrap your own education in the real estate space. Because as you’re scaling with your personal portfolio in real estate and doing more deals,

you’re also able to interact with so many incredible people and hear their stories that it goes hand in hand. Did you find that to be true?

Carole Ellis (13:20.898)
Just to make sure I understand the question, that by, in the process of networking and educating others, you’re also educating yourself? sure. I mean, I think that’s probably universal for teaching. know, people will always say like, I learn more from my students than I ever knew myself. And on one hand, I’m not gonna write about things that I don’t understand.

until I have spoken to enough experts in the industry to make sure I understand them because that’s a responsibility that you have when you have tens of thousands, I mean, I’m gonna write tens of thousands of people reading. Like they’ve got a big distribution list. they’re one of the only, they may be the only now, monthly print real estate related magazine. Not talking about like listings, but for real estate investors. So you do have a responsibility, if you need to learn something, you need to learn it before you write it so that,

Dylan Silver (14:08.827)
Hmm.

Carole Ellis (14:18.956)
you can make sure that you’re not telling lots unless people are wrong thing. But that being said, that is part of the job. If you don’t understand it, you better go learn it before you write it so that you know what you’re doing. So absolutely, I can’t even think of all the amazing things that I wouldn’t know or wouldn’t have encountered if it wasn’t for this job.

Dylan Silver (14:42.415)
I would say that’s actually the biggest benefit for me personally, selfishly. So I get to talk to these amazing people. And I know you can relate to this. I would never have gotten to meet you and these real estate entrepreneurs any other way. There’s just no way. So I could go to a meetup, and I can meet a couple people. I could do that regularly. But then to have your own show, or participate, be a co-host in your own show.

Carole Ellis (14:49.282)
Yeah

Dylan Silver (15:10.915)
to be an editor for real estate syndication is just another level. I’ve even said this to everybody who’s involved in real estate. I’ve said, if you’re promoting yourself out there anyhow, if you’re already going to these networking events and if you are trying to get people to invest in your deals, it just makes sense that you would have some type of newsletter, podcast, something like, it’s just an incredible way to meet people and to network.

Carole Ellis (15:39.982)
Absolutely. So what have I want to know? Like how has, how has podcasting affected your portfolio? I’m sorry. I just did it. I just asked you a question.

Dylan Silver (15:47.451)
So personally, no, no, yeah, no, no, that’s great. So personally, I’m a real estate agent in Dallas, Texas, newly licensed, and also a real estate wholesaler. So I’m still trying to get some deeds in my name or an LLC that I own. So I’m in the beginning phases. But I’ll tell you, this podcast has been incredible for me personally. I’ve actually launched my own podcast outside of here that I’m the owner of that podcast.

I’ve had many people come to me and see that I have, I’m a co-host of this show, I have my own show, people requesting to come on and it’s also really opened my eyes as far as what people can do in the real estate space. That’s probably been the biggest advantage is I’ve seen, I’ve spoken with people who build hospitals. I’ve spoken with people who transform areas of cities, right?

and getting their perspective and i realize you know that doesn’t seem unattainable now right i am talking with the guy who built a major trauma center in you know tampa florida in city in minnesota like if he can do this and i’m talking to him now what are the dots that i need to connect to get there and it’s it’s an incredible conversation

Carole Ellis (17:06.574)
love that you can see the dots as a result. That’s perfect. That’s a really good illustration.

Dylan Silver (17:12.397)
Yeah, I mean, just… It does seem unattainable if you’re talking to someone for a one-minute conversation. What do do for work? you know, I build subdivisions. I build hospitals, trauma centers. yeah, I revitalize cities, you know? I’ve spoken with people who do this, and I’m like, how? Right? How did you… And even they, when they talk about it, and they talk about their journey, it’s shocking to them.

They’re like, yeah, that is pretty remarkable that this happened. I was talking with one guy who I want to say he ended up getting laid off during COVID and from there went from tech to now he’s revitalizing cities in the East Coast. And I would just think like, of course he didn’t see that. No one saw that coming. And so to turn these negatives or potential, you know,

Carole Ellis (17:41.848)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (18:08.953)
difficult times into something overwhelmingly positive is just typical real estate entrepreneur impressive stuff.

Carole Ellis (18:16.92)
I love it. I agree.

Dylan Silver (18:18.201)
Yeah. So in your journey, as you’ve grown with REI Inc., what have been some of the biggest lessons for you personally and professionally that you’ve learned from talking with so many real estate entrepreneurs?

Carole Ellis (18:35.532)
Well, I think that it gives you a real appreciation, not just for the successful real estate entrepreneur, but also for the new real estate entrepreneur. Because you do get to kind of, if you talk to most successful real estate investors, fortunately, are incredibly confident. And so they will tell you, if you say, what’s the biggest mistake you ever made, they’ll actually tell you.

which is not true in all professions. But it does, you know, it kind of gives you a new feeling for like, you know, you’re, you’re out driving down the street and you see the, you know, somebody’s bandit sign and you’re like, oh my gosh, like that’s so bad. Like it’s rude or it’s obnoxious or whatever. Or like the person in the car with you is like, oh my gosh, those are so ugly. And then you’re like, well, no, actually it’s incredibly impressive because somebody was brave enough to take the time on the weekend to go bang that thing into the ground and

start trying to change things. yeah, maybe it is ugly or maybe they did it wrong or whatever, but I think it gives you a real, I mean, I think that’s something that has informed the way I try to do my interviews and the way that I want to write about, you know, that I want to write our cover features or that I want to deal with our, especially our regional spotlights, but also our investor spotlights is there’s, there’s a lot of humanity out there and there are a lot of people trying things a lot of different ways from a lot of

different places in their lives. because so much of real estate investing involves dealing with people who are probably not having a very good time in their life right now, I think it just kind of gives you a broader perspective overall of the whole thing about everybody’s going through something and you don’t know what it is, but it helps you kind of look at it from a metric point of view.

Dylan Silver (20:06.64)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (20:25.486)
Usually so.

Dylan Silver (20:31.397)
Yeah.

Carole Ellis (20:31.458)
this is a real thing and here’s how I could help or how somebody else I know could help or whatever.

Dylan Silver (20:36.613)
Yeah, I mean, it’s really remarkable how I’m able to see people pivot. And when I talk about that, it’s like, you know, your day-to-day life as a fix-and-flipper or as someone who is working on distressed properties and transitioning that to being the lender, it’s two totally different lifestyles, like completely different. Like one, you’re managing crews. The other one, you’re networking with people who need money. And so it’s just…

Carole Ellis (21:05.326)
You

Dylan Silver (21:05.955)
drastically different like one year potentially getting dirty yourself and having to deal with people showing up on time and so on and so forth the other one you’re dealing with just collecting money it’s it’s it’s totally different and the fact that they’re able to pivot like this and it’s not just one or two or five but hundreds of people and they’re all over the country who are experiencing the same thing it really has given me a profound appreciation for what real estate operators do

And to your point earlier, it’s about problem solving. That is really what it comes down to. Problem solving for themselves, problem solving for the community that they’re in, problem solving for people who are in difficult spots, right? And so that’s where you get all these creative deals from. And these strategies is people coming together and saying, we have a problem here. How do I solve it? You know, it’s even to a point, Carol, where there’s been times where I’ve had guests come in or,

there’s been confusion with bookings and they’re a real estate entrepreneur. I consider myself a budding real estate entrepreneur and I’m like, hey, we’re real estate guys. Let’s figure this out. know, how do we, do, you know, okay, the Google calendar got confused here or it was an error on my end or on yours, but let’s make this work. And every single time they’re like, yeah, let’s do it. And so that’s really to me, the biggest takeaway right there with just being absolutely

Carole Ellis (22:15.638)
I’m

Dylan Silver (22:35.676)
relentless with your your networking is is you have to be a problem solver like that’s your greatest skill set as a real estate operator

Dylan Silver (22:47.097)
But go ahead.

Carole Ellis (22:47.224)
I think it’s nice too because it’s such a personal industry. Even like the really, if you go to the CEO at the top of the really big guys, there’s still, all of them have like this really personal tie to real estate. I mean, I can only think of one or two people that I’ve ever interviewed that were like, well, yeah, this is a really big company and I’m good at big companies. So they hired me. And then it was always like, you know, two years ago, but like the ones that are really, you know.

Dylan Silver (23:08.731)
Yeah.

Carole Ellis (23:14.478)
Again, even the biggest, even some of those really big institutional rental companies that spend a lot of time getting vilified, not always entirely reasonably in the press, the people that are working in them are real people and they are real problem solvers. Sometimes some of that gets lost maybe in the size, I don’t know. But I think that just makes it a really, you have to be willing to also be a real person, I think, if you want to really.

be successful in real estate.

Dylan Silver (23:44.975)
Yeah, it’s a contact sport. I had a mentor, a previous boss of mine, Frankie, who told me that and it’s so accurate. It is literally a contact sport. You are not going to be successful in real estate unless you are meeting as many people as you can. Or you have lots of money and you want to utilize real estate as a way to see returns on it. But even then, probably, you’re still meeting tons of people.

Carole Ellis (23:48.27)
Hahaha

Dylan Silver (24:11.629)
I’ve never I’m yet to find someone who’s a real estate investor who’s stayed at home all the time and is doing everything from their laptop. And that’s how they got started. I’ve never seen that. And when people talk about that that passive income, we didn’t get a chance to talk about this today. But when people talk about that passive income, it is a lot of it that that you’re having to go out and get your hands dirty, so to speak. You really have to go and meet all these people.

You have to learn about the contracts. have to find out how to acquire these properties. You have to figure out how to get funding for these properties. You’re then dealing with tenants, with collecting rents, with maintenance, with then selling the property when you go to sell it. Well, now the market’s down. What are you going to do? Well, let me Airbnb it out. There’s so much that goes into it that it’s really not something you can just sit up and rest and say, OK, now I’m a real estate investor. It’s going to be peachy from here.

Carole Ellis (25:04.75)
you

Carole Ellis (25:09.43)
It would be nice, but it doesn’t work quite that way.

Dylan Silver (25:11.291)
you

Carol, are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Carole Ellis (25:20.066)
Well, probably the easiest way is to email me. It’s carole at reiink.com. That is the easiest way to reach me directly. Of course, you can also go to reiink.com. Or please, seriously, I would appreciate this. Find us on LinkedIn because that is where I go when I, or on Facebook, because that’s where I go when.

when I need source material. So, and again, the wonderful thing about real estate investors is that they’re legitimately all experts in something. And I need that personally. So, you know, find the magazine on LinkedIn and Facebook and then find me on LinkedIn and Facebook because it is really important for me to constantly talk to people who are doing, you know, doing all of the things. And I cannot personally do all of the things in all of the markets in all of the country.

And I will never steal your stuff. I will always cite you name, business, title, all that. And it would be a service to me that I would really appreciate. And also we’ve got really good content and it’s timely and breaking and know, just it’s a good place to go for information about what’s going on in the industry today and who is doing it.

Dylan Silver (26:40.187)
Carole, thank you so much for coming on the show today, for giving me some insight into the media space of real estate. Haven’t had any guests who’s in that space yet, especially print media. And keep holding strong. We gotta get print media to grow and not just survive, but to stick around for as long as it possibly can. Carole, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Carole Ellis (26:41.518)
You

Carole Ellis (26:53.806)
you

Carole Ellis (27:05.368)
Thank you for having me.