How Mandy Konecki Left Corporate America to Build Real Estate Freedom Through Investing

Mandy Konecki (00:00)
As I got older, I— I actually did land an amazing job, followed suit with all of that, super happy. I was traveling the world, wining and dining myself, had great customers. I actually did feel like I hit the lottery with my American dream. And then after I had children, it kind of put life into perspective on how that wasn’t actually the life I wanted—

Cody Crabb (01:53)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Cody Crabb, and today I’ve got Mandy Konecki with me. Mandy is a real estate investor and founder of REI Lifestyle, where she’s on a mission to help people use real estate as a vehicle to build more freedom, not just a bigger portfolio. Mandy, thanks so much for joining me today.

Mandy Konecki (02:12)
Thank you, Cody. I’m excited to be here and share some stories.

Cody Crabb (02:15)
Yeah, love it. I thank you so much for— for giving us some time today. So for those that aren’t familiar with your story, can you take us back a few years? You— you decided to leave corporate America and bet on yourself. I wanna— I would love to hear that story, how that happened.

Mandy Konecki (02:31)
Absolutely. So I am one of millions that fell— I don’t want to say victim, but really kind of fell like to the American dream of retirement, working till you’re sixty-five and then hoping one day you have enough freedom to live the life that you want to.

Cody Crabb (02:48)
Yeah, dre— the fre— freedom in air quotes there with being sixty-five and all. But yeah.

Mandy Konecki (02:52)
Exactly. As I got older, I— I actually did land an amazing job, followed suit with all of that, super happy. I was traveling the world, wining and dining myself, had great customers. I actually did feel like I hit the lottery with my American dream. And then after I had children, it kind of put life into perspective on how that wasn’t actually the life I wanted— dining with strangers, where it was great. I loved the food, I loved the frequent flyer miles, sitting first class, climbing the corporate ladder. It was super exciting, especially as a female, and a male-dominant industry. That was a big victory also, but leaving behind the people I really wanted to spend time with, and not working the nine-to-five, which didn’t end up turning out to be nine-to-five, it was much more than that. But that wasn’t the dream, yeah.

Cody Crabb (03:38)
Yeah, people seen an—

Mandy Konecki (03:41)
Yeah, that wasn’t the dream I wanted to live. So we got into real estate. I bought a house sight unseen because my husband was pretty handy and he wanted to stay in Florida. The pay in Florida was not nearly what it was in Ohio where he was from, so he was looking for another option. So we dove in blind, bought a fix and flip sight unseen. Obviously that went well— there was a lot of challenges, a lot of lessons. But that was our introduction to, “While there is another option out here, that we could be doing this together and building a life that we want to live.”

Cody Crabb (04:18)
Hmm. Yeah, I— was there a specific moment that you were like, “I don’t want this anymore?” Or what did— do you remember like, was there a something that happened that made you think that?

Mandy Konecki (04:26)
I don’t think it— it was something specific because there was a lot of building blocks that kept adding— adding on to each other. A lot of it was having to ask permission, yes, when a kid got sick, or missing a field trip and hearing about other moms that were going on this field trip. Or every single year I had a conference, which was an amazing conference, but it had my daughter’s birthday every single year. They’re not gonna want to spend birthdays with me in a couple of years— I need to take advantage of every single one, yeah, and provide those memories. So it was— it was a compound effect of missing several different things and getting stuck in airports and getting home late, and then my attitude started to really slip and I was becoming a parent that I didn’t want to be. I wasn’t the ideal mom, and being as supportive and there for them when I wanted to be. So that was really probably the moment that I was like, “I can’t— I can’t do this anymore. There has to be another way.”

Cody Crabb (06:12)
Yeah, do you think that would have happened if you didn’t have kids, or was it the kids that specifically made that happen?

Mandy Konecki (06:17)
It was definitely the kids that made that happen, yeah. It changed— it changed—

Cody Crabb (06:21)
Little guys, and I for sure am like, yeah. I could see— I can definitely see that for sure. It changes everything, yeah. Like you said, the whole— the whole perspective on how you see everything changes. And— and I think some people just look at their life and go, “Yeah, well, we need to maybe change some stuff if I wanna keep doing things how I’m doing.” So you got into real estate. So tell us a little bit about— about exactly how that happened, what kinds of real estate did you get into, and kind of how did that start growing?

Mandy Konecki (06:48)
So I mentioned that we did our first flip sight unseen. So we started with that, which provided active income. And it was also great— we went over budget, as— as is very common, but we were at a good time when the market was also appreciating. So we went over budget, but the value of the house when we went to sell it was still higher than we expected. So we got a fairly decent check, I think, when we sold that property. This was eight or nine years ago. I think we made forty or forty to sixty thousand dollars on that, and that was a light bulb. It was like, “Wow, that’s an entire year’s worth of salary for some people that we just made on one,” and got to learn, and the tools and everything that we— we picked up al— along with that. So after doing a few of those, we got into the Airbnb realm. That was also ironic because we had moved to Ohio to be closer to family, and my job was still in Jacksonville, Florida. So we bought that one as a short-term rental just so we could use it as personal use and keep— keep our things there so we weren’t couch surfing every time we came back here for my— my W-2. So that was when Airbnb was really kicking off and it was still new. That was doing awesome. We went back to a couple flips, but then we started building a real estor— state portfolio. So we did some long-term holds, more Airbnbs, active income on that, got into a little bit of lending. When I learned about OPM, or other people’s money, it really changed the world. I— we used to both think that we had to do everything ourselves. So I found the deal, my husband fixed up the deal, I listed for sale by owner, we did everything on our own. We don’t ask for help, we don’t need to— we don’t want to sound weak or desperate or this or that. And when I was introduced to other people’s money, and real estate agents, and wholesalers, contractors, etc., the scalability was unmatchable. And not only the scalability, but being able to provide for other people’s family, because we use two agents or a wholesaler and a lender and— and all of that, which we pay all of those people, and then that puts food on their table too. So it’s really fulfilling to bring in a community of people that can venture together for a shared mission. And then we can also do more than one project at a time.

Cody Crabb (09:06)
Yeah. Well, and one— one thing I noticed is you— you mentioned a few different strategies now, that you’re— you’re not like the— the “something” investor. Like, y— you do— it’s flips and Airbnbs and long-term rentals, and I— I feel like it— you’re not married to one specific strategy. And I feel like maybe that might have to do with your philosophy, which— which is: real estate is the vehicle and not the destination. What do you mean by that?

Mandy Konecki (09:31)
That there is not just one— one path. So there is not the— the golden pathway. This is— this is how you do XYZ— step one, two, three, four, which a lot of people think real estate and they think trust-fund baby, or they think hedge fund or slumlord, or “I could never get into that,” but they don’t realize that they could be— they could provide money from their self-directed IRA and they can own real estate passively without doing any heavy lifting. Or they can be a contractor, and they don’t have money, but they can partner with someone who has the money and they can do the work and they can be equity owners in that. They can be a wholesale— there’s so many different ways to get involved that I wasn’t aware of either. And people always say, “Well, I don’t have a lot of money to get it started.” Creative finance is one of my favorite tools in the belt, also. When I first started learning about that, I was like, “No one’s gonna go for this.” But the more I dove into it, it’s again bringing the power back to the people— like, the people get to be the bank. They get to choose what they want to do. You don’t have to go to a bank and say, “This is— this is what you can do, that’s it.” Some people have a lot of equity and they need to save on their taxes; some people don’t have any equity and they can’t afford to bring money to the closing table, otherwise they’re gonna go into foreclosure. There’s just— there’s so many options that people aren’t aware of. And now I— now that I’m aware of them, I feel responsible to share them with other people.

Cody Crabb (11:29)
Yeah. Yeah, to share the good news. Yeah, so I feel like— I— is— is there a particular creative financing strategy or thing that you didn’t know about before that completely blew your mind that it— pr— in particular?

Mandy Konecki (11:43)
The one that blew my mind, that it took me the longest to get my head wrapped around, ironically, was a wrap mortgage. And it’s as simple as literally wrapping a mortgage around another mortgage. So if you own your house and you wanna sell it, you can be my bank and I pay you, and you— you think and you get— it’s really just a— a mortgage around a mortgage, which gives you more power. So if you have a three percent interest rate, you can sell it to me at a five percent interest rate and you make that spread for yourself on that. And I was like, “Wow, that is incredible. The opportunities there are unlimited.”

Cody Crabb (12:20)
It’s, yeah, it really is just down to: if you can imagine it being a thing, it probably is a thing because there i— or there’s a law against it being a thing. Because it’s true, there’s— it’s just there’s so much opportunity in real estate.

Mandy Konecki (12:33)
And none of this is new. I mean, this— this is how deals were done, not just for real estate but cattle. It was— it was a trading system and a bantering system and a bargaining system and everybody just making deals with each other instead of going through and asking for permission from institutions.

Cody Crabb (12:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So when you started to think about financing differently, what kinds of things changed in terms of h— what you went for?

Mandy Konecki (13:03)
So you had mentioned I go for a couple different— a couple of different things. When I am— I like to talk to the sellers because d— depending on what the sellers need is how I’m able to customize my offer that it works for everyone. I have a handful of different stitch condo that we bought on a hybrid. So a hybrid is a mix between a subject-to and a seller finance and a private money lender. So they were— they had a three hundred thousand dollar mortgage at three percent, which I was able to— able to take with your responsibility for that subject-to, and then they seller financed me the balance of that because they were able to save tons of money on their taxes and their capital gains by doing so. And then he was able to retire ten— ten years earlier because my monthly payments were suppl— supplementing his monthly income. So that was super cool— cool to— to give him the opportunity to retire and have monthly—

Cody Crabb (13:58)
Well, one thing— one other thing I wanted to ask you. So if someone is working a W-2 right now or they’re maybe just not quite living the life they want to live, this is— this is your whole deal. This is your philosophy. Once you discovered this idea of like, you design your work life around what you want f— first and then— then fill in the gaps afterward, you know, l— tell us more about that. How did— how did you— once you discovered that, wh— why did you feel compelled to then go, “Hey everybody, you do this too?”

Mandy Konecki (15:11)
So we created REI Lifestyle so we could share— share our story and our mission. I think I get asked almost every single day, ask for comments of, “I wish I could do that,” or “That looks so great.” And my— my comment back is, “You can. It’s— it’s not as hard as it looks. Like, take the leap. You just have to believe in yourself.” But then I have to reflect back on how I thought in those— that position too, before I was surrounded by other people that were doing that. Yeah, creating the REI lifestyle is the community. So we have like-minded people with the same mission that can share stories and support systems, partnerships, opportunities, resources— because that’s huge. There’s a lot of wins and there’s a lot of losses, there’s a lot of stress that people can’t relate to that aren’t in the industry. So you can’t go to your neighbor or your family cookout with your cousins and say, “My gosh, you’re never gonna believe it. I just made a hundred thousand dollars on this flip.” They’re gonna look at you cross-eyed. And alternatively, you can’t go to that same cookout and say, “My gosh, I had a really— I had a really bad week. I just lost thirty thousand dollars,” because they’re also gonna look at you sideways and think— think that you’re crazy. But when you get into a community that’s uplifting and supportive, that’s relatable, inspiring, it really opens your eyes to other things and it— it lights you up. It puts belief in that you can do that. So they say the people that you surround your— you— you are the five people that you surround yourself with. So we need to surround ourselves with people that are gonna encourage and walk the life together.

Cody Crabb (16:41)
If somebody feels stuck right now, taking the leap through real estate or for— through whatever means feels like an impossible jump. Like, that seems like massive. What can someone start doing to start to lay the foundation now to be able to build that runway for later?

Mandy Konecki (17:01)
Join groups such as REI Lifestyles that— I— I know there— I know there’s several out there and you guys have— have people that are doing that and partnering. I actually do not recommend anybody just cold quitting their job and just trying to figure it out. There is a balance and you do need to have some foundation and a lot of mindset or— or people that you can rely on.

Cody Crabb (17:22)
Yeah.

Mandy Konecki (17:23)
But you— you can start doing this without any money. You can start door knocking, talking to your neighbors, talking to your coworkers, connecting money. And you can just say, “Hey, I have this person who’s looking for this person. Would you guys like to meet and see if there’s a connection here that you guys can work together and make some magic happen?” But it’s really saying it out loud— is it— that is reality also? That’s also empowering.

Cody Crabb (17:51)
Yeah, and I think that that first step is like— it’s like the cliché. The first step is always the hardest. So if you— if you want to get going on a big journey, you have a— you have a lot to— to accomplish, this big mountain of, “I want to become a real estate investor,” or “I want to make maybe make my life a little easier within than my W-2 job even.” Like, you just want to free— have some freedom, ’cause that’s what it seems like your real thing is, is getting some freedom back. You know, there’s— it’s all gotta start with one thing. So what other kinds of freedom do people not think about that they start getting back when they— when they start doing this?

Mandy Konecki (18:28)
Well, I’m glad you said the word freedom because we live in the land of the free and it is one of the absolute best countries that allows us the opportunity to own our homes, own our assets, own businesses, and that is the ultimate freedom. The opportunity is incredible with that. I kind of forget your question.

Cody Crabb (18:44)
No, I was— I was saying like, so obviously there’s— you got like financial freedom because it helps you— you know, helps you free up— f— worry about finances. You got the time freedom because then you don’t have to worry about where you spend your time. Are there un— other other things that you may not think about when you’re— when you’re thinking about getting some of your life back?

Mandy Konecki (19:02)
The ability to work from anywhere. So that kind of goes with the time and the financial freedom. And the generational wealth of not having to rely on a pension, because who knows what’s gonna happen when you retire. If you’re retiring two years, thirty years, or forty years, that might not be there. But learning the skills and the tools and having the people and community to back you is empowering no matter what the situation is on where—

Cody Crabb (19:27)
Okay.

Mandy Konecki (19:28)
Where we go. At least you know you have tools in your tool belt and you can bet on yourself to make that happen.

Cody Crabb (19:33)
So tell me a little bit about if someone joins your community, what does that actually look like? What— what kinds of things do they get? What— what do they— what happens, you know, what— I just wanna get a sense of what that’s like.

Mandy Konecki (19:44)
I know an expert that can answer your legal question, your LLC setup, entity structures, etc. So you’ll have access to all of those. We have tons of resources. So if someone’s looking for a— a money lender or a— answering service, etc., we have the resources that is a one-stop shop that you can come and do that. And then we are also going to be doing some off-site or off-campus different locations of group community meetings. So we ha— we don’t have the location pinned out yet and it’s probably gonna be early twenty-seven that we’ll be doing some insight community family-oriented trips that everybody can come and spend time together, too.

Cody Crabb (20:27)
Love that. And I think what you said about community is so true. I think because you are who— who you surround yourself with, there are so many opportunities that you’ll miss out on if you don’t do things like this and get involved with people. So before we wrap, g— can you tell me about like, the ideal kind of person? Like, what kinds of things is a person thinking or telling themselves or experiencing when they find you? If the— if they’re the perfect person that you can help, what— what kind of person is that?

Mandy Konecki (20:55)
If you have been thinking of, even dreaming about leaving the corporate— corporate world or creating generational wealth, or owning your own time and freedom and just creating your own life story, this is the perfect place for you. You’ll fit right in and you’ll have— you’ll get the motivation and support that you need to make your dreams come true.

Cody Crabb (21:16)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing. I— I definitely feel like I can do anything after this episode, and I hope our audience feels like that, too. If audience, if you liked what you heard today, go ahead and give us a like, subscribe, make sure you listen to the next episode. Mandy, thank you so much for hopping on today, I really appreciate it. We’ll see you next time.