How Gina Shumway Finds Chattanooga Investment Properties for Out-of-State Investors

Gina Shumway (00:00)
⁓ So we do find a lot of properties on the MLS. I think the MLS is actually overlooked because everybody thinks they want to off market. I promise you, if I want somebody to open an email, if I type the words off market, it will be opened every time. ⁓ So we do find a lot on the MLS, but then also, once you create a name for yourself and people know you as an investor and investor real estate agent,

At this point people just I get deals sent to me like every single day somebody sends me something because they know That nine times out of ten I’m gonna have a buyer for it

Dylan Silver (02:05)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Gina Shumway, a real estate team owner with Titan Group in Chattanooga who brings a true investor first perspective to the business. Gina got her start as an investor focusing on BRRRR strategies and flips and later obtained her real estate license to better serve investors and gain more control over deals. Since then, she’s grown into a team leader combining hands-on investing experience with real estate sales to help clients and investors identify opportunities, scale and avoid costly mistakes.

Welcome to the show, Gina.

Gina Shumway (02:36)
Thank you, I’m so excited.

Dylan Silver (02:38)
Great to meet you. And I’d like to start off at the top asking you about your first deals as an investor. I know that’s how you got started. What were those first deals like?

Gina Shumway (02:48)
So I got started with the BRRRR method. Originally, I was a nurse practitioner and during COVID, my hours got cut. So I actually started working with my hands and

Remodeling my home. I actually built this entire bookshelf bookcase and everything that’s behind me for people who can see ⁓ And while I was doing that I was listening to podcasts because I had every intention of flipping with my own hands and then I realized via different podcasts such as this one that that was not the best way to go about it, so ⁓ I learned everything I could about the burr method. I read David Green’s book the

the burr method and a few others. And so I found a really good real estate agent in the area who actually ended up becoming my team partner and is now an agent on my team. ⁓ And I bought multiple burrs. I successfully was able to get my entire capital back and redo it. So I was able to kind of scale a little bit faster. And then I went into flips because I,

had a bird that went south for the best way to put it. And so I decided to flip it in order to get my money back and kind of got, I ended up getting my real estate license and that kind of took over for a little while. So then I started buying multifamily. And most recently I actually, for lack of better words, I bird a quadruplex. That was my most recent.

Dylan Silver (04:26)
Wow, so big fan

of burr and flipping as well. And I know certainly what it’s like to have a difficult deal and just kind of throw your hands up in the air and say, I’m gonna pivot. Walk us through if you can, know, what that deal was like, the one that made you look at the first flip.

Gina Shumway (04:44)
So it became a flip that went wrong. But what happened was, ⁓ I really and truly, I got overly confident. ⁓ had, you know, when you’re able to identify a property, purchase the property, and then get your money back. ⁓ I had finished one successfully and I was like, man, this is great. And I…

Wanted my next one and I basically grabbed the first opportunity that came to me and I forced it, which is why I always tell people like all of my clients and we all know this. You make your money when you buy, not when you sell.

And so I bought a property. I got the inspection report, but there were some things on there that I didn’t realize were as extensive as they really were. I didn’t do proper due diligence. And so

⁓ And I also use a contractor that I hadn’t used before. And so it was a series of unfortunate events where there ended up being a lot of unknown hidden costs where I realized I was going to leave a lot of money in the deal. So I decided to flip it and try to get my money back.

and ended up finding out that there were other issues that the contractor had not addressed and in order to fix them, the entire flooring would have had to be pulled up and just a whole bunch of stuff. And so I actually lost money in that deal. That was my first time. That was my only time.

Dylan Silver (07:02)
Now, when we’re doing flips, one of the things that I think a lot of people are concerned about is, if they don’t come from a background of swinging a hammer, if they’re not a carpenter or a handyman themselves, and they haven’t grown up around the business, then it’s a little tough to know exactly what the scope of work is. Can you trust the estimates and so forth, right?

Gina Shumway (07:23)
Yeah. Yeah. Are you you asking like, what did I do?

Dylan Silver (07:28)
Yeah, I mean, in these situations, ⁓ how are you able to identify what the rehab cost is going to be? And then when you’re working with contractors, how do you handle that relationship?

Gina Shumway (07:41)
So I interviewed a lot. I also look for references. I really think doing your due diligence upfront will save you so much money. ⁓ I found somebody who I asked to basically be like a mentor, like a real estate mentor to me and ⁓ asked for some of her contacts. And then I also interviewed multiple.

contractors and then I asked for references and I called those references. I didn’t just get the references and keep moving forward. I actually called and asked people about their experience working with that contractor. Timelines were very important. And then, ⁓ you know, I would take the inspection report and this is where I failed is I actually took the inspection report and brought it to people who’d been doing it for a long time and just said, will you look at this with me? ⁓ What do you see?

My real estate agent also would go through things with me. ⁓ But my real estate agent was not an investor. And even though she like, I just wanted like an extra set of eyes. And so I brought that to somebody else and just said, you know, what do you think about this? ⁓ And kind of got the green light until I felt comfortable doing it myself. At this point, I’ve done, I’ve seen and done and helped people transact with over 200, I mean, deals. So I can tell you, I can spit out rehab numbers off top of my head. But now,

But back then, I couldn’t. So I had to rely on the expertise of others. And I also say, I tried to add value. I didn’t just ask everybody, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, can you help me, can you help me, can you help me. ⁓ Usually, this life is very much ⁓ about.

I don’t want to say give and take, if you provide value or try to help others succeed in whatever their goals are, then they’re more than willing to help you succeed in your life.

Dylan Silver (09:27)
Yeah,

you know, give first and then you know, you might receive in return right be a go giver. Now with your your team in Chattanooga, how much of your business is working with investors versus working with folks looking for their homestead?

Gina Shumway (09:44)
So ⁓ my team specializes in real estate investments. I would say of actually I know the ratio of primary home versus investors, we do about 70 % of our business are actually real estate investors. And of that 70%, probably 75 are out of state investors. So the majority of my business actually comes from California, New York, New Jersey, and believe it or not, Florida.

ton of clients from Florida.

Dylan Silver (10:52)
Now, without giving away all the gold, when you or your team are looking for properties for out of state investors, where are you sourcing these properties from? you on the MLS? And then also too, what’s that communication like when you’re presenting a potential deal to an investor?

Gina Shumway (11:12)
We’ve created all of that very seamless, is what I love and what I think really where I offer value to my clients.

⁓ So we do find a lot of properties on the MLS. I think the MLS is actually overlooked because everybody thinks they want to off market. I promise you, if I want somebody to open an email, if I type the words off market, it will be opened every time. ⁓ So we do find a lot on the MLS, but then also, once you create a name for yourself and people know you as an investor and investor real estate agent,

At this point people just I get deals sent to me like every single day somebody sends me something because they know That nine times out of ten I’m gonna have a buyer for it

if it’s price appropriately I will have a buyer for it like hands down so I get a lot of off-market deals before they even hit the MLS because agents don’t want to have to go through the work of having to do the Listing and do all that so if they get something and they just immediately send it to me They know that you know they’re gonna make a commission off of literally

talking to me. And so, you know, I get wholesales. I’ve done some creative financing. I don’t like to highlight that a lot because I think there’s pros and cons to creative financing and that’s still also not super well known and popular here. And then

Dylan Silver (12:14)
Yeah.

Gina Shumway (12:34)
⁓ as far as that goes, when I present something to a client, ⁓ most of our clients, like I said, are, you know, out of state and they don’t fly here until some of them don’t, some of them, I don’t even know. like to joke that I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup because I have no idea. Some of them I don’t even do. They don’t even do to Google me. It’s literally just phone call based and texting. ⁓ I do require an actual phone call though, before I’ll work with them because spams are real, but, ⁓

So literally we go see the property, ⁓ myself and my agents. train all of my agents in the same way. So whether you’re working with me or working with one of my agents, it’s the same because I hold a standard and expectation, but we go there. We take videos and pictures of the property. We take a full circle and video of the neighboring homes because I think that’s one thing that a lot of people forget is that eyesores affect resale. affect, you know,

they affect, you know, flip all of that stuff. And then we go in and we look at real estate through a different lens, right? So whereas somebody walks through the door of a home and primary and they want to say, this granite countertop is so beautiful. look at the color of the paint. This is wonderful. I love this little detail. Instead, I’m going through and I’m opening up the cabinet doors underneath the sink to look and see if there’s leaks or I’m looking at the HVAC. I’m looking at the main components, you know, the ones that are your large, you know, capital expenditures.

What is the roof? What is the HVAC? What is the water heater? ⁓ What about the foundation? Are the floors wavy? Are they cracked? All of those things ⁓ I look for as an agent because I’m trying to avoid pitfalls that my client may or may not have. We document all of that and then we put it in an email. And then in that email, we also include what we think the rehab costs are going to be. We show them what the property taxes are going to be, what we estimate the rents

Dylan Silver (14:18)
Right.

Gina Shumway (14:32)
are going to be very, that we pull from various platforms. ⁓ and then we kind of send all of that in a, you know, pretty wrapped package with a bow and just send it to the client and let them know, you know, what it is. And then if they’re interested, then that’s when we, you know, go further. ⁓ and then in the due diligence phase after we’re actually under contract, cause if it’s tenant occupied already, ⁓ we can’t see it until it’s under contract. But during that due diligence phase, that’s when we actually get a contractor in during and

and get ⁓ estimates for our clients.

Dylan Silver (15:46)
Now, once someone transacts, they close, they purchase a property, how are they managing it if they’re out of state? I’m assuming some type of property manager. you know, what’s your role in making that connection?

Gina Shumway (15:59)
Correct, so we are, I like to tell everybody that we’re one-stop shop. We don’t have all of these people in-house. I don’t actually employ the property managers, but I have a business relationship with basically any type of service provider that you can think of within the real estate investment world. As I said before, I’m an investor, so I have relationships with property managers. Some of my properties are managed by a third party.

And then so I make the connections for all of those. you need a property manager. You know, this one and this one are really great. You need insurance providers. You know, this one and this one are really great. You know, lenders, if it, whether it be a conventional DSCR loan, hard money loan, ⁓ commercial, all of those, you know, we have those ⁓ connections. So that way, if somebody works with me and my team, ⁓ you know, you don’t have to invent the wheel because it’s already, it’s already there for you.

Dylan Silver (16:50)
Bonus question here for you, Gina. What I like to do when I’m talking with guests in niche markets of the country is ask them if they have any areas in their market that they’re particularly interested in or bullish on or think are up and coming. if someone is looking to invest in the greater Chattanooga market, are there any areas of Chattanooga or even streets that you might have them take a look at?

Gina Shumway (17:16)
Super love that question. So.

⁓ Cleveland Tennessee is in the greater Chattanooga area. It’s northeast. It’s about halfway between Chattanooga and Knoxville. Funny enough, I actually live here. ⁓ I have back, know, years ago, I used to tell people when that when we would do like a console call, I would say, you know, are you open to any of the greater Chattanooga area, specifically Cleveland? And then also I like Saudi, Daisy. ⁓ So Daisy is great. ⁓

is great, which Hickson is still kind of closer to that Chattanooga area. And people would either tell me yes or no. And then if they would, I would look into those areas because they’re not as well sought after. Chattanooga used to be a hidden gem, and it’s very much a discovered gem at this point. It’s still very well positioned for investors comparatively to other markets. But what’s funny is I’d say over the last year or so,

I would say at least one in every five phone calls that I’ve had someone has said, do you know anything about Cleveland? Because people are starting to look in that area. So I’m very bullish in it. I own real estate in it. ⁓ And it rents phenomenally.

Dylan Silver (18:30)
Okay, all right. We are coming up on time here, Gina. Any new projects that you’re working on and then as well, what’s the best way for folks to reach out to your team?

Gina Shumway (18:39)
Um, so new projects, I purchased a flip in February. I finally decided to get my, uh, my foot in the door again. I was just doing multifamily and I actually bought some turnkey. So I bought a flip. Um, people can follow how that’s going. I’m not doing it myself. I am obviously leveraging a contractor who I have a great relationship with.

They can find me on Instagram. My handle is Gina.Shumway. You can also follow my team on Facebook. It’s Titan group at Keller Williams greater Chattanooga. ⁓ And our website is www.Titan group chat with two T’s like Chattanooga, titangroupchatt.com.